Stolen Away

“No,” he said, shaking his head, coughing some more. “I mean it. I’m taking a big risk, even talking to somebody like you. Mr. Ricca has strict rules.”

That stopped me.

“Mr. Ricca? That’s the landlord’s name?”

“Owns the building,” he said with a somber nod. “And I hear he’s connected.”

I’d heard that, too.

I gave him another five dollars.

I didn’t look at the letter until I was sitting in my car. My hands were trembling as I fished out the single page; I’m not ashamed to say so.

It was from a woman named Madge. No last name, but the envelope had a return address: M. Belliance, Three Oaks, Michigan, a rural route.

Cayce had mentioned a woman named “Belliance” as guarding the child. Son of a bitch, I was a believer. I couldn’t keep my goddamn hand from shaking, but I managed to read the letter.

Dear B.,

The boy is doing fine. He is over his cold. He and Carl are getting along famously. Carl will be a good daddy. No more boats and worry for us. This farm life is going to be a real nice change.

It’s sweet of you to ask about the boy. He is not hard to love. I can see how you got attached to him so quick. If you know what’s best, you ought to tear this up. The picture too, but I couldn’t not send one.

Madge

And there was a photo. A snapshot.

Cayce had been right again, in a roundabout way. I had found the child on “Scharten Street.” At least, this picture of a child.

A child perhaps twenty-one months old, a beautiful toddler in a little playsuit with suspenders over a T-shirt; he had light curly hair and a dimpled chin, and stood between, with his either hand held by, a thin-faced man in a cap and bib overalls, and an apple-cheeked woman in a calico print housedress; behind them seemed to be a farmhouse. The man and woman were smiling, the little boy was frowning, though he might have been squinting in the sun.

He was Charles Lindbergh, Jr.

And I was on my way to Three Oaks, Michigan.

40

I caught Lake Shore Drive and headed to the South Side, cutting through the industrial southeastern side of the city, till the steel mills of Chicago gave way to those of Gary, Indiana. Soon the sooty scent of free enterprise was replaced by the clear, fresh air of the country, and I guided my sporty ’32 Auburn along the shore road that curved around Lake Michigan, and before long sand dunes were rising around me like a mirage of the desert. I drove quickly, but I didn’t speed, pressing forward with the single-mindedness of a hungry animal. The village of New Buffalo, in southwestern Michigan, in the heart of a summer-camp and resort area, was known as the gateway to that state. It was in that village that I stopped at a hardware store and bought a hunting knife, a coil of rope and a wide roll of electrical tape. They also sold ammunition, but I’d brought some from home.

It wasn’t far to Three Oaks, another quaint village, where a gas-station attendant gave me directions to the Belliance farm. I turned right at the traffic light on North Elm Street and at a junction with a macadam road turned left; I passed Warren Woods, a vast acreage of virgin beech and maple, a state bird and game sanctuary. I made a left and a right, on gravel roads, passing through an area of orchards alternating with empty fields, and there it was.

Basking in afternoon sunshine, bucolic as a feed-store lithograph, the Belliance farm rested on a gentle slope, even some green amidst the grass—whether that was because spring was coming, or the lake was relatively close, I was too citified to know. The farmhouse was a small, white, two-story clapboard, with a large red barn behind and to one side. Sarah Sivella had seen such a place, last week, in that trance she’d fallen into at the Temple of Divine Power. I swung into the drive; it was gravel, but the earth that fell to ditches on either side had a reddish cast. Edgar Cayce had said there was “red dirt on the pavement” near the house where the child was kept. I was beginning to wonder if I should trade my nine millimeter in on a crystal ball.

For now, however, I’d stick to the nine millimeter, which I’d already slipped into the pocket of my raincoat. The wide roll of electrical tape was in the other pocket. And I had looped the coil of rope around my belt, and the hunting knife, in a leather sheath, was stuck through my belt as well; neither would show under the bulky, lined raincoat.

I was ready to call on the Belliance family.

Chickens scurrying noisily out of my way, I pulled the Auburn up around the side of the house, where the gravel near a fenced-in area was already accommodating a pickup truck, a late-model Chevy and a green, new-looking tractor. In addition to the recently painted, bright red barn, several other structures huddled, including a toolshed and a windmill.

The sun slid under a cloud and reminded me how cold it still was; but there was no snow on the frozen ground. I walked to the front porch and knocked. There was a swing; the breeze was making it sway, some.