Stolen Away

“Ellis Parker. Don’t tell me you never heard of him.”

I’d heard of him, all right. That fat, bald, rumpled, apparent nonentity was Ellis Parker, a.k.a. the Old Fox, a.k.a. the Cornfield Sherlock, a.k.a. the Small-Town Detective with the Worldwide Reputation. Parker was chief of detectives of some county or other in New Jersey—I didn’t remember where—but he was widely known as one of the nation’s top investigators, and frequently was brought in on cases in East Coast cities larger than his own tiny Mount Holly, wherever the hell that was.

I’d read of many of his cases; he was written up in magazines and in the papers, and there were books about him. How at Fort Dix he discovered who murdered a soldier by investigating the fellow soldier (one of a hundred-plus uniformed suspects) who had the best, most complete alibi; how he discovered that a soaking-wet corpse had been treated at a tannery to fool the medical examiner about time of death; how he tracked a homicidal mulatto with a sweet tooth by alerting every restaurant in his own and neighboring counties to be on the lookout for “a pudding-loving colored boy.”

“I suppose it was natural he’d show up around here,” I said. “This case could use a mind like his.”

“Twenty to one Schwarzkopf won’t agree with you,” Dixon said, sourly. He shook his head, admiringly. “I’ve had an application in over at Burlington County for over two years, now. There’s a hell of a waiting list, though.”

“You ever meet the old boy?”

“Sure! Burlington is the adjacent county.”

“Really. Why don’t you introduce me, then, Willis?”

A few moments later we’d ambled over to Parker, who nodded at Willis.

“Constable Dixon,” Parker said. He seemed to force a smile as he offered a hand, which Willis shook. “How the hell are you, son?” His voice was as rough-hewn as his appearance; his face was stubbled with white, his eyes were sleepy and blue and anything but piercing; his tie was food-stained and floated several inches below the notch of his collar. Sherlock Holmes posing as his own dim-witted Watson.

“Fine, Chief Parker. This is Nate Heller.”

Something in the eyes came to life. “The Chicago feller. The Capone theorist.”

I grinned and shook the hand he thrust forward. “Well, nobody ever accused me of being any kind of theorist before, Chief. Where did you hear my name?”

He sidled up close to me; he smelled like pipe tobacco—foul pipe tobacco. He slipped a fatherly arm around my shoulder. “I have my confidants in that horse’s ass Schwarzkopf’s camp.”

“Do tell.”

“I hear you’re the boy who has stood up to that asshole of creation, Welch.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“I hear you suggested that he kiss your behind.”

“Words to that effect.”

He laughed heartily—he apparently liked subtle humor—and patted me on the back. “Allow me to introduce my deputies.”

He did. I don’t remember their names.

“Maybe one of these days Constable Dixon here will come work for me,” Parker said, finally relinquishing my shoulder.

Dixon lit up like an electric bulb. “I’d like that, sir.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any pull with the Colonel, would you, son?”

“Schwarzkopf?” Dixon asked.

“Hell’s bells, no! Not that asshole. Lindbergh! We’ve been cooling our heels for two hours, waiting to see Lindy. Schwarzkopf’s giving me the goddamn runaround.”

I raised a hand. “Let me see what I can do.”

Parker’s lumpy face broke apart in a smile. “That’s goddamn white of you, son.”

I went inside, through the servants’ sitting room and then the kitchen, where I saw Betty Gow and Elsie and Ollie Whately in passing, as well as Welch and several of Schwarzkopf’s upper echelon lounging having coffee and sandwiches. The living room was empty, but for the little dog Wahgoosh, who barked at me as usual, and I growled back at him. Rosner wasn’t around, either, his chair outside the study empty but for yesterday’s folded-up racing form.

I knocked on the study door. “It’s Heller, Slim.”

“Come in, Nate,” Lindbergh said, and I did.

“I hear you stayed over in Princeton last night,” he said, looking up from some mail he’d been reading, material the troopers had culled from the hundreds of letters that had come in today.

“Yeah, I was able to, uh, get into that room a day early.”

He nodded noncommittally, only half-listening. “Henry went into the city, to his office, early this morning. He said he felt these spiritualist people were probably charlatans.”

“Yeah, probably,” I said, and sat down. “Where’s Rosner?”

“Pursuing some underworld leads in New York City, today.”

Cops and robbers, with the robber playing cop.

“Slim—there’s somebody outside you ought to give a few minutes to.”

“Who would that be?”

“Ellis Parker.”

Lindbergh nodded, blankly. I might have said Santa Claus or Joe Blow.

“Surely you’ve heard of him,” I said.

“Yes. He’s very well known.” He paused. He sighed. “If you think I should see him, I will.”

“Okay. Slim—are you holding up okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You getting any sleep? You took like hell.”