Stolen Away

by Collins, Max Allan

  Cayce was nodding. He obviously viewed his wife as his partner in the practice of his gift—or grift, whichever.

  “Why are you making an exception, here?” I asked him. Smelling an approaching con.

  Cayce lowered his head. His hands were still on his knees, but slack, now. “Some years ago, Gertrude and I lost a son. He was a sick little boy, colicky, crying endlessly. My wife was very worried, but I was busy with readings for patients. And I’ve always been…reluctant to use the gift where my own family is concerned….”

  He touched his fingers to his eyes, head still lowered.

  Then he continued: “I was stunned, when the doctor told me Milton was dying. Colitis. They had done all they could, but he was a small boy, and frail. Finally, I gave him a reading, wondering why, dear God, I hadn’t done it before.”

  And now tears were rolling down Cayce’s cheeks.

  I felt very uncomfortable. I was pulled between thinking I was a heel for doubting this guy, and wondering if I was seeing the world’s greatest scam artist at work.

  His wife rose and stood next to him and put her arm around his shoulder; her eyes were moist, but the tears weren’t flowing like Cayce’s were.

  “I awoke,” he said, “and knew the answer without asking. My father, who helped me with my readings, looked pale, looked terrible. My wife was weeping. And in the hour before dawn, my son, died…just as my reading had said he would.”

  His wife squeezed his shoulder. They smiled at each other, as she dabbed his tears away with a hanky.

  Christ, this was embarrassing! I hated being close to this, whether it was legitimate or ill.

  I didn’t know whether Breckinridge bought it or not. But he said to Cayce, “And this is why you are willing to get involved in the Lindbergh matter.”

  Cayce nodded vigorously. “I will do anything I can to reunite that family with its missing boy.”

  Mrs. Cayce left the room, while Cayce began to take off his coat and necktie. He loosened his collar and cuffs and sat on the studio couch and began to untie his shoes. Then a good-looking blonde in her late twenties, in a trim pink-and-white dress, her sheer hosiery flashing, entered the room with Mrs. Cayce trailing behind.

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  “This is Gladys Davis,” Mrs. Cayce said.

  The blonde smiled at me and I smiled right back. She was carrying a steno pad, I noticed. So the clairvoyant had a dishy dame for a secretary. Now I was starting to feel at home.

  “Miss Davis has been our secretary since 1923,” Mrs. Cayce explained. “Her older sister was in our Christian study group.”

  Praise Jesus.

  “What do we need to do?” Breckinridge asked Mrs. Cayce.

  “Nothing, dear,” she said, touching the lawyer’s hand. “You and Mr. Heller just sit quietly and watch. It would help if you would use our initial moments of meditation to turn your own thoughts inward.”

  That was me. I was one reflective son of a bitch.

  Miss Davis settled her sweet frame into the schoolboy desk chair near the couch, where Cayce had stretched out, his hands on his forehead, palms up; what was he going to do, wiggle his fingers and pretend he was a bunny rabbit?

  Gertrude Cayce took the chair near her husband’s head. He looked at her lovingly, and she looked at him the same way, and stroked his cheek lightly. It was a moment between them that seemed very real to me—suddenly the dishy secretary seemed just a secretary.

  He closed his eyes, slowly moved his hands down from his forehead until his palms were flat against his stomach. He began breathing deeply, rhythmically.

  Then the secretary and the wife bowed their heads and began to pray or meditate or something. This was our cue to turn our own thoughts inward, I supposed. Breckinridge looked at me blankly and I shrugged and he shrugged, and we looked toward the now apparently slumbering Cayce.

  He sighed deeply. Then his breathing became light and soft, as if he were taking a quiet nap.

  Mrs. Cayce repeated something, which Breckinridge and I could not hear, but took to be the hypnotic suggestion that would trigger the “reading.”

  I got out my pencil and notebook; what the hell—I was here.

  Cayce began to mumble. He seemed to be repeating his wife’s incantation.

  Then he damn near shouted, and both Breckinridge and I jumped, a little, in our hardwood chairs. Tough on the tailbone.

  “Can you give us the exact location of the missing child,” Mrs. Cayce asked him gently, “at the present hour—and can you describe the surest way to restore the child unharmed to his parents?”

  “There are many channels through which contacting may be done,” he said, in a clear, normal voice. “These are the channels that are acquainted best with the nature of racketeering. These individuals are part new, partly not new to such rackets—see? That is, one who has been in the employ of such—the others, entirely new.”

  In that gibberish, it struck me, was what might be a grain of truth: experienced racketeers working with somebody recruited from the inside at the Lindbergh house.

  Mrs. Cayce tried again. “What means should be used to communicate with the kidnappers?”

  “There are already many in motion. Someone who may make arrangements or agreements, for the release or return without injury to the baby, would be best.”

  That was brilliant.

  “Is it possible to get the names of these people?”

  “The leader of authority of the group is Maglio.”

  Maglio? I knew of a Maglio: Paul Maglio, sometimes known as Paul Ricca, one of Capone’s cronies! I wrote the name down. I underlined it three times.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Cayce,” I said, softly. Worried I might spoil things by interrupting.

  But she only looked back with a gentle, Madonna-like smile. “Yes, Mr. Heller?”

  “Would it be possible for me to ask Mr. Cayce a few questions?”

  Without hesitation, she said, “Certainly,” and rose from the chair and gestured me toward it.

  Hating myself for getting sucked into this swami’s act, I went to the chair and sat.

  “Can you tell me about the kidnapping itself?” I asked. “How did it happen?”

  “The baby was removed from the room, about eight-thirty P.M., carried by a man,” he said. “Another man was waiting below.”

  I didn’t want to prompt him unduly, so I just said, “Below?”

  Cayce nodded; his eyes remained closed. He looked peacefully asleep. “The child was lowered to the ground and taken to a car. Now we find there are changes in the manner of transportation….”

  That did make sense, of course; changing cars made sense, But you didn’t have to be psychic to figure that one out.

  “Another car is used,” he said. “They moved northward, toward Jersey City, through a tunnel and across New York City into Connecticut, into the region of Cordova.”

  I was writing this stuff down; God knew why, but I was.

  “On the east side of New Haven,” he said, “following a route along Adams Street, they took the child to a two-story shingled house, numbered Seventy-Three. Two tenths of a mile from the end of Adams Street is a brown house, formerly painted green, the third house from the corner. There is red dirt on the pavement. The child is in a house on Scharten Street.”

  I felt like a fool, writing this prattle down, but part of me was caught up in it. Cayce, like any good faker, had a certain presence.

  “Is the baby still at this address?”

  “Yes.”

  Breckinridge was standing, next to me, now. He said to Cayce, “Was Red Johnson involved?”

  “Involved, as seen.”

  “Was the nurse, Betty Gow, involved?”

  “Not directly.”

  “Who else?”

  “A woman named Belliance.”

  That name rang no bells with me.

  I took over for Breckinridge. “Who guards the baby now?”

  “The woman and two men who are no
w at home.”

  “Where?”

  “Follow my instructions,” he said testily, “and you will be led to the child.”

  “I know New Haven well,” Breckinridge said. “I’ve never heard of Cordova. Can you tell us through what channels Scharten Street might be located?”

  “By going to the street! If the name’s on it, that’s a right good mark!”

  Breckinridge looked at me with wide eyes and I shrugged.

  “Follow my instructions and you will find the child. We are through.”

  “Where…” Breckinridge began, but Mrs. Cayce gently moved between him and Cayce. She was shaking her head, no, raising a palm to us both, in a stop motion.

  She bent forward over her husband and murmured something, to bring him out of it.

  A few moments later, Cayce drew a long, deep breath and his eyes popped open. He sat up. He yawned, stretching his arms.

  “Did you get everything down?” he asked his secretary.

  Miss Davis bobbled her pretty blonde head.

  He stood. With utter certainty, he said to Breckinridge, “Follow what you heard—whatever it was I said—and you’ll get that child back.”

  Dazed, Breckinridge said, “Well…thank you. We’ll follow up on everything we heard here, today.”

  Cayce beamed, patted Breckinridge on the shoulder. “Splendid. My secretary will send you a carbon of the transcription. Do let me know how it comes out. We like to follow up on these things.”

  He might have been talking about some kid’s cough he prescribed a poultice for.

  “What do we owe you, Mr. Cayce?” Breckinridge said.

  Here it comes, I thought. Here it finally comes.

  “We normally charge twenty dollars for a reading,” he said. “I wish it weren’t necessary to charge at all.”

  Twenty bucks? That was chicken feed for a racket like this.

  “But in this case,” Cayce said somberly, “I will make an exception.”

  Ah! Now comes the sting—he knows he’s dealing with dough—Lindbergh and Breckinridge and Anne Lindbergh’s wealthy family, the Morrows….

  “Pay me nothing,” he said. “And please, as to the press…”

  That was it, then—he wanted the publicity.

  He waggled a finger, like a schoolteacher. “Not a word to them. I don’t want the notoriety. I don’t want to be involved in criminal cases again. Much too unpleasant.”

  I felt like I’d been whacked by a psychic two-by-four. With a mystic nail in it.

  Mrs. Cayce served us supper in her cozy kitchen, before we left; it was pot roast and potatoes and carrots, much like the meal at the Lindberghs—only the meat was tender and the side dishes delicious, in the best country manner.

  “Some day you gentlemen will have to have life readings,” Cayce said, helping himself to a heaping portion of mashed potatoes. “Would you be interested in who and what you were in a former life?”

  “Reincarnation, Mr. Cayce?” Breckinridge smiled. “I thought you were a Christian.”

  “There is nothing in the Bible to refute reincarnation,” he said. “Although I can do a reading on Mr. Heller without going to sleep.”

  “Oh, really?” I said, lifting a fork of food. “What was I in my previous life?”

  “An idealist,” he said, blue-gray eyes sparkling. “All cynics were idealists, once. More pot roast, Mr. Heller?”

  In the Dusenberg, I asked Breckinridge what he’d made of all that.

  “I’ll be damned if I know,” he admitted. “And you?”

  “I’ll be damned if I know, either. I won’t say I’m convinced, but I will say I want to track everything he gave us.”

  “A street map of New Haven would be a start. We might be able to get one of those at a gas station, on the way back.”

  “Good idea. You know, the first of the two Italian names he mentioned—Maglio—is the name of one of Capone’s top lieutenants.”

  Breckinridge gave me a sharp look. “Interesting. And he indicated Red Johnson was involved.”

  Betty Gow’s sailor.

  “Aren’t we supposed to get a shot at questioning that guy?” I asked.

  Breckinridge nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  “Do you think he’s a good suspect?”

  “Colonel Lindbergh doesn’t like to think his servants might be involved, even indirectly…but after what the Hartford police found in Johnson’s car, I’d say he’s an excellent suspect.”

  “What did they find in his car?”

  Breckinridge turned his attention from the road to show me a raised eyebrow.

  “An empty milk bottle,” he said.

  7

  It was almost ten o’clock, the next morning, when I stumbled downstairs. The little fox terrier looked up from its perch on the living room couch and began barking hysterically at me. Next to the mutt was Anne Lindbergh, wearing a prim blue sweater-suit, sitting across from her mother, Mrs. Dwight Morrow; the latter was doing needlepoint, the former reading a small leather-bound book.

  They began to get up and I asked them please not to.

  Mrs. Morrow was a small woman in her late ffties, with her daughter’s delicate features; she wore a blue dress with white lace trim and pearls and a crucifix. Her hair was more brown than gray, though I would imagine it would be getting grayer as the days progressed.

  “Wahgoosh!” Anne said sharply. “Be still.”

  The dog stopped barking, but he continued to growl and give me his best evil eye.

  “I understand you and Henry drove down to Virginia yesterday,” Anne said, smiling, “and back again.” She gestured for me to sit next to her on the couch and I did. Wahgoosh expressed snarling displeasure.

  “That sounds like quite an outing for a single day,” Mrs. Morrow said.

  “We didn’t get back till the middle of the night,” I admitted. “How worthwhile a trip it was, I couldn’t say.”

  “You spoke to a clairvoyant, I understand,” Anne said.

  Mrs. Morrow shook her head, barely, as if thinking, What next?, and returned her attention to her needlepoint.

  “Yes,” I said. “A sincere gentleman, I believe.”

  “Not a faker, like so many of them.”

  “No. But he gave us some specific information, including street names that we tried to check, on various maps, without any success.”

  “I see,” Anne said, with a patient smile.

  “What are you reading?” I asked.

  “Ben Jonson.”

  “Oh.”

  “The poet.”

  “Right.”

  She read aloud: “‘Although it fall and die that night, it was the plant of flower and light. In small proportions we just beauties see; and in short measures, life may perfect be.’” She looked up at me with shimmering blue eyes and a crinkly brave smile. “I like that line…‘It was the plant of flower and light.’”

  Jesus. Had she written off her kid as dead already?

  “That’s a nice poem,” I said. “Tell me something…”

  “Certainly.”

  That fucking dog was still growling at me.

  “Why do you think your dog was quiet that night?”

  “Wahgoosh? He was in the opposite wing of the house. When he’s not on the sofa, here, where we really shouldn’t let him be…or sleeping on the floor in the nursery near Charlie…he has a little bed in the servants’ sitting room. Whately first brought him into the house, you know, and we sort of adopted the little fellow. He couldn’t have heard anything through the howling wind, all that distance.”

  “You know…and excuse me for raising this, Mrs. Lindbergh…but there are those who suspect one of your three servants might be involved.”

  She shook her head. “No. Betty and the others, we trust implicitly.”

  “That’s not always a good way to trust.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Implicitly.” I turned to Anne’s mother. “Mrs. Morrow, how big a staff do you have at your estate?”r />
  The older woman looked up from her needlepoint. “Twenty-nine. But I assure you, Mr. Heller, they’re all trustworthy.”

  “I’m sure they are, Mrs. Morrow. But how many of them knew, or could have known, about the change of plans for Anne and her husband and son, to stay over an extra day or two here?”

  Mrs. Morrow lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug, not missing a stitch. “Most of them. Perhaps all of them.”

  I thought about that.

  “You know, Mr. Heller,” Anne said, reflectively, “there was something else odd about that evening. The evening that Charlie was stolen away, I mean….”

  “What was that, Mrs. Lindbergh?”

  Her eyes tightened. “My husband was supposed to give a speech that night, to the alumni at New York University. But he’s been so overworked lately, he mixed up the dates. He drove home, instead.”

  “You mean, he wasn’t supposed to be here that evening?”

  “No.”

  I leaned forward. “You realize that only someone within this household—or possibly the Morrow household—could have known that.”

  “Yes. But that assumes the kidnappers knew. That this wasn’t all just a matter of…chance. Blind, dumb chance. That’s…that’s what I have so much difficulty accepting.”

  Behind us a voice said, “Everything in life is chance, dear.”

  It was Lindbergh. He was wearing a corduroy jacket over a sweater and open-collar shirt; his pants were tucked into leather boots that rose midcalf. He looked like a college boy—a hung-over college boy, that is. His face was haggard as hell.

  He came up behind his wife, behind the couch, and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. She reached up and touched the hand, but did not look back at him.

  “You can guard against the high percentage of chance,” he said, “but not against chance itself.”

  She nodded wisely. She’d heard him say it before.

  I said, “You’re right, Colonel. But don’t go writing off everything you don’t understand as happenstance. In my business we learn to look at coincidence with a jaundiced eye.”