Stolen Away

“I sure do. That allowed Means to go to court, and lay everything on Hassel and Greenberg, who were nice and dead and blameable. Meanwhile, Violet Sharpe starts coming unhinged after the little corpse in the woods turns up; however she’s been involved, to whatever extent—and she has two unexplained g’s in her bank account, remember—she certainly never counted on the baby getting killed, and of course she has no way of knowing that the baby they found wasn’t the real Lindy, Jr.”

“So she takes poison,” Wilson said.

“Or she’s murdered. No one actually saw her take poison. She was ill, taking medicine for her nerves; maybe she was poisoned by Whately.”

“He didn’t work at the Englewood estate.”

“He was there frequently. They were a close-knit ‘family’ of servants, those two estates. At any rate, she was another loose end tied off. Whately’s death strikes me as similarly suspicious. I think looking into that—seeing why a guy who was healthy all his life suddenly dies of an ulcer—would be a nice use of the taxpayers’ money. Was there an autopsy?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Even if it was natural causes, what stress exactly caused this bleeding ulcer? Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? And wasn’t Fisch’s death convenient? Speaking of whom, I’m not precisely sure how Fisch and Wendel intersect. Wendel may or may not have been involved in the cemetery extortion; I do know that Wendel’s sister lived in back of St. Raymond’s.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Jot that down, too. At any rate, Fisch wound up with at least part of the money, and either his illness or worry about Capone or Ricca or even the cops catching up with him sent him scurrying off to Germany, leaving some cash stashed with his buddy Hauptmann.”

“So you see Hauptmann as a dupe in this,” Wilson said, with a mocking smile.

“The only thing he may be guilty of is being in on Fisch’s dope smuggling, using furs as a partial front. But I doubt even that.” I cracked my knuckles. “Anyway, that’s what I think happened. As for Charles Lindbergh, Jr., he’s salted away somewhere. I have a good idea where he was kept immediately after the kidnapping—in New Haven, Connecticut. Where he is now, I haven’t a clue. But Capone and Ricca aren’t about to bump him off—there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

Wilson raised an eyebrow, smiled tightly and put down his pencil. “Nate, this is an interesting theory, and you’ve mentioned some things that I admit I didn’t know—but you completely ignore and overlook the overwhelming evidence gathered against Bruno Hauptmann.”

I laughed. “Christ, Frank, I shouldn’t dignify that with a response. I’ve never seen such shameless tampering with, and concoction of, evidence…or so many lying witnesses from Condon to Whited and Hochmuth and even Slim Lindbergh himself.”

“You’re calling Charles Lindbergh a liar?”

“Yes. I think he was prompted into lying by police who assured him that they had the right man. Did you ever give Slim that reassurance, Frank?”

Wilson said nothing.

“I’m not suggesting there was any great police conspiracy to frame Hauptmann, or even that the Outfit sought to frame him. Hauptmann dropped himself into the fall-guy slot by being Fisch’s friend and business partner. And then forces somewhat independently rallied to ‘help’ him fit that role. You know how sloppy cops like Schwarzkopf and Welch think, Frank—they center on their suspect, led there by minimal but fairly convincing evidence, and then they proceed to fudge this, lie about that, suppress one thing, fake the other. Witnesses are made to feel with absolute certainty that they are testifying against a guilty man—the cops have assured them thus. So, to do the ‘right’ thing so that society can have retribution, and/or for the brief moment center stage in the public eye, or, hell, just to share in reward money, an otherwise honest witness tells a little lie. Distorts a piece of evidence just slightly. What harm is a little embroidery, after all, in so large and official a cloth? So a cop fudges ladder evidence, and a teller at a movie theater makes a bogus eyewitness ID, and a prosecutor withholds letters and ledgers that back up Hauptmann’s ‘Fisch story,’ and on, and on, and on.”

He was frowning. “You’re casting doubt on the reputations of a lot of fine public officials, and good citizens.”

“No, I’m not. Because there is no ‘doubt’ about this. Hauptmann was framed; he was a German carpenter who fit the psychological profile and the miniscule evidence on hand. He was perfect. Now, I do think the Outfit may have helped from the sidelines. ‘Death House’ Reilly and Sam Leibowitz, for example, who volunteered their legal services, both had strong Capone ties. So do a lot of New Jersey and New York City cops, whether you like to hear me say it or not.”

“You’re also casting doubt,” he said stiffly, “on the work the IRS Intelligence Unit performed. Jesus, Heller, we’re the people who put Capone away. You can’t dream that the Outfit’s influence extends to…”