Stolen Away

“That’s the God’s honest truth,” he said, with no irony, and no sign of recognizing my sarcasm. “Shall we go in and meet him?”

I touched Parker’s arm. “I’m just along as an observer. You can say I’m from Governor Hoffman’s office, but if you mention my name, I’ll put your cigar out where the sun don’t shine.”

He smiled at me, but the smile disappeared when he saw I wasn’t kidding.

At the bungalow, the armed deputy grinned at us, revealing a space between his teeth; he was an apple-cheeked bumpkin.

“Well, Nate Heller,” he said.

“Pardon me?”

The deputy thrust out one hand, jerking the thumb of the other to his chest. “Willis Dixon! Remember me? I used to be on the Hopewell Police Department, such as it was.”

“Well, Willis,” I said, recognizing him finally, shaking his hand, “it’s good to see you.”

“Remember, I said I’d applied to work at Mount Holly with Chief Parker.” He pointed at the badge on his chest. “Finally made the grade.”

“I guess you did.”

Parker said, “Let me go in and prepare Paul for company.”

Dixon unlocked the door and Parker went in.

The deputy beamed, shaking his head. “Is the old boy something, or what?”

“He’s something.”

“Do you believe after all these years, we’re still workin’ the Lindbergh case? And finally cracked it, by God.”

“Think you got the real kidnapper, here, do you?”

“Sure. Ellis Parker is the greatest detective alive. It’s an honor serving him.”

“How’s Wendel being treated?”

“Fine. He’s a guest…except for being held under lock and key.”

Small detail.

Parker stuck his head out the door. “Come on in, Nathan.”

I went to him and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. I held it up. “My name stays out here, Ellis. Remember?”

He scowled, but he nodded, and I tossed the cigar away and followed him in.

Paul Wendel was a big, gray, woeful man in a baggy brown suit and no tie. His eyes were dead. His nose was a lumpy, vein-shot thing that would have given W. C. Fields a start. He was sitting on a couch in the small, sparsely furnished parlor; the walls were painted a pale institutional green. There was a bedroom and a bath; no kitchen.

“This is the officer I was telling you about, Paul,” Parker said, pointing a thumb at me.

“Ellis says the Governor will treat me right,” Wendel said to me. His voice was a baritone, lawyer-rich but soggy with self-pity.

“I’m sure he will,” I said.

Parker sat next to Wendel on the couch; Wendel looked at him with the mournful eyes of a basset hound.

“You know, Paul,” the grizzled chief of detectives said, “you could make a lot of money off a confession. You just write a full and frank statement—without them shadings of truth you did for those mobsters’ benefit—and say you were out of your mind at the time, but that now, having regained your proper senses, you realize you did a terrible thing, and you want to make a clean breast of it.”

“Temporary insanity as a defense,” Wendel said, thinking about it.

“You could make a million dollars off the true story of what happened. You and your family could be on easy street for the rest of your life. And you’d be famous.”

“A kidnapping charge I could abide,” Wendel said. “But not murder.”

Parker placed a hand on Wendel’s shoulder. “Paul, I know what you’ve been through. I’m going to try to protect your family, do everything I can in my power, through friends and contacts, to see that your wife and son and daughter are not involved…even though they’re conspirators in the case.”

“They are? Why?”

“’Cause they helped you tend the baby.”

“I need law books. I need to brush up.”

“Well, all right, Paul. We’ll get you some. But you know time is running short. You don’t want the life of this fellow Hauptmann on your conscience.”

Wendel was looking at me. He was a big, sad man with eyes that stuck to you like gum on your shoe.

“What’s your name?” he asked me.

“That’s not important,” I said.

The eyes widened; then narrowed. “You’re from Chicago.”

The accent.

He turned to Parker. Agitated. “He’s from Chicago!”

I moved closer. “What is it about Chicago that makes you nervous, Mr. Wendel? Al Capone isn’t in Chicago, anymore.”

Wendel raised a palm, as if bestowing a blessing—or saying stop. “I want him to leave, Ellis.”

“Of course, Frank Nitti is still there,” I said. “And Paul Ricca.”

“I want him to leave!”

Parker, confused by this, got up, and escorted me out.

Wendel had never risen off that couch.

In the cool air, Parker said, “You got him riled up. Those names spooked him. Nitti’s a Capone boy, ain’t he?”

“That’s right. Ellis, I’m going to drive you back now. Go get in the car.”

“Who in hell are you ordering around?”

“You. Get in the goddamn car.” He trundled off, muttering. I turned to Deputy Dixon, who was taking this in with wide, confused eyes. “I was never here.”

“Pardon?”

“You didn’t see me today, Willis. Understood?”

“Sure, Nate.” He didn’t really understand, but he knew I meant it.

In the Packard, without turning the engine over, I whirled to Parker. “You blew this one, Ellis. You blew this one big.”