by Ed Ifkovic
Aleck smiled. “See, Edna. People understand me. Do you hear that?”
I ignored him, gazing out at the sidewalks jammed with enthusiastic strollers. Laughter broke through the closed windows of the car, a raucous blurt that seemed profane. In the nearby jail, Bruno Hauptmann could doubtless hear the silly hurrahs, the chanting. “Kill Bruno.” That mantra rarely stopped. Children called it out loud as they hawked grainy photographs of baby Lindbergh, or “authentic” autographs of Lindbergh, or cheesy replicas of the notorious ladder. Even wisps of blond hair supposedly cut from the dead baby’s head. Boys in knickers and winter slicks pounded on car windows. One attacked our car. “Wanna buy a bar of soap from the courthouse bathroom?” he asked. Marcus shooed him away.
“Look there,” Marcus pointed. “Brayer’s Pool House.” We stared at a weathered sign over the storefront, cluttered with sloughing men, a wisp of steam seeping out from a vent. “Every night they throw down blankets on the slate-top tables and rent the space to reporters and visitors for a buck a night.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“That isn’t anything,” Marcus went on. “The floor of the grocery is covered with blankets, people huddled by the rows of aged cheese and packaged dried peas and beans. An old lady sits awake all night, a grandmother, they tell us, watching that the city reporters, boozy from a night at Nellie’s Taproom, don’t slink over and nibble at the groceries.”
We idled, exhaust from the automobiles clouding the air.
Aleck grumbled. “This is madness. A small town like this acting as if it’s Times Square. The nerve.”
“Aleck,” I assured him, “we’ll get there.”
He slipped a pocket watch from inside his vest and tapped Marcus on the shoulder with it. Marcus, concentrating on the street, jumped, slammed on the brakes. His lips moved, a silent curse we were not supposed to hear. I didn’t blame him.
“Marcus,” Aleck went on, “why would you do this for a living?”
Marcus looked into the rearview mirror and smiled. “What else would you have me do?”
I spoke up. “You could become a drama critic for the Times. They pay you for idling and daydreaming in your seat at the Selwyn, third row center.”
I detected a smile from Marcus as he moved his fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. The chauffeur’s cap slipped to the side.
We sat, inched forward.
Aleck was craning his head against the side of the window. “Look there,” he said excitedly.
A half block ahead, standing on the sidewalk, a state trooper had stepped into Main Street and was signaling to a car in the line ahead of us. “Anne Morrow Lindbergh,” Aleck stated.
I peered out the window. Two or three cars ahead of us, stuck in the abysmal traffic jam, was a long black town car, and standing alongside it was another state trooper, impatient that nothing was moving. Standing on the sidewalk, the Morrow party was waiting for it. Anne stood next to an older woman swathed in furs and a monstrous velvet hat with sweeping veils. Mrs. Dwight Morrow, obviously. Her arm cradled her daughter’s waist, with Anne leaning in, saying something. “That young man pointing in our direction…” My words trailed off.
Aleck pushed his face against the window. “Of course. Anne’s younger brother, Dwight Morrow, Jr.”
Dressed in a bulky Chesterfield overcoat open to the wind, an elaborate fuchsia scarf loosely draped around his neck, the small man wearing an incongruous pince-nez looked impatient. I recalled his face from the news photographs. So here was the brother mentioned in Violet Sharp’s letters to her cousin Annabel. So here was the troubled young man, victim of bouts of depression, perhaps even schizophrenia, the young man mentioned in the same breath as the slick operator, Blake Somerville. Dwight Morrow, the prankster. The supposed prankster. The reason Annabel had taken a job in Flemington—supposedly to extort cash from a grieving Colonel Lindbergh in order to protect the illustrious Morrow family. Dwight Morrow, Sr., a few years dead now. Ambassador to Mexico, wealthy partner in J.P. Morgan, on the fast track to becoming President of the United States—until a premature heart attack felled the man. Here, his hand raised against a swirl of snow, was the surviving son, a weak reflection of that mighty man.
I exchanged a glance with Aleck. “So that’s Dwight.”
He nodded. “In the flesh.”
“No one said he was in town.”
Aleck was amused. “I didn’t realize you kept abreast of the comings and goings of the wealthy and privileged in town.”
“True,” I said, “but where is Colonel Lindbergh?”
“Perhaps he’s in the town car guarded by the state police that’s stalled in traffic.”
To my horror I spotted a young man, maybe nineteen or twenty, dressed in a slough boy cap and burlap jacket, moving across the sidewalk, hawking hot dogs in a carnival voice. A haze of snow covered his shoulders—and the hot dogs he offered. He even rapped at the window of the limousine, though the state trooper, standing on the other side, barked something at the lad, who scurried away.
“A circus,” I said. “Despicable.”
We inched along.
Aleck fumed. “Goddamn it to hell.” Dumbly, he jabbed Marcus’ shoulder, a sudden move that didn’t please Marcus. I could see color rise in his neck.
Suddenly there was a break in the opposing traffic, and Marcus flicked off Aleck’s hand, swung the car into the other lane, causing an approaching car to screech, the driver slamming his brakes. “Enough of this,” Marcus yelled. “Mr. Woollcott, I hear you.”
The car roared across the street, slid between two jaywalkers, turned down a side street, and Marcus grinned like a mischievous schoolboy. “There’s more than one way to get out of this town.”
His eyes off the road for a second—another squeal of brakes as a rickety old Ford tried to cut in from a parking spot. Surprised, Marcus leaned on the horn. The man cursed us loudly, unmistakably, through his closed windows, and Marcus, I could see, was tempted to return the favor. But, of course, he didn’t.
Aleck did that for him, a volley of damn you and go to hell tripping happily from his lips. Marcus, back straightened, approved.
But, of course, the roller-coaster ride caused me to slip across the backseat, slam into Aleck’s cushy side and mandarin tummy. He frowned—“Really, Edna, such intimacy in front of a stranger”—as I bounced back against the door, a rag doll in the hands of a madman.
“Thank you, Marcus, but I prefer to arrive at my destinations in one piece.”
He bit his lip and refused to face me. “I’m paid to drive—not sit with you.”
Aleck applauded stupidly, but we found ourselves immediately snarled in another traffic jam. Obviously others had conceived the same useless plan. Eventually, of course, we crept out of town, Aleck sweating and harrumphing, Marcus silent now, and I—I wished I’d remained in my hotel room reading a novel by anyone but Kathleen Norris.
Aleck was reciting poetry to me. “‘I like to see it lap the miles and lick the valleys up.’ Or, in my version, I like to crawl the miles long to pick my spirits up. Much better than dear Emily, the spinster of Amherst you must have known in your childhood, Edna.”
“Yes, dear Aleck, but…” I stopped, gob-smacked. “Aleck!”
He turned, alarmed.
I sputtered, “Emily.”
“Yes, I know who wrote that poem. Emily”—still the sly grin—“Bronte.”
“No,” I hissed, “the waitress at the Peanut Grill yesterday, Aleck. That man mentioned a girl’s name. Emily.”
“I was there, Edna. I have a good memory.”
“Obviously not good enough.”
“And why is that?”
I whispered into his neck. “Violet Sharp’s sister is named Emily. Annabel’s cousin. Another maid, but one who scooted back to England right after the kidnapping.”
He stared into my face, his eyebrows raised. “Edna, Edna, where are you going with this madness? You’re running off into a madman’s wonderland.”
So I ignored him for the remainder of the ride, pouting a bit, which I regretted, but thinking. Aleck paid me no mind, though he kept telling Marcus to step on it. A noisome refrain: I’m late I’m late I’m late. Marcus ignored him. In Princeton, of course, we were gloriously late, the tweedy professor peeved and serving us cold chicken and informing Aleck that he’d reconsidered an appearance on Aleck’s radio program, but perhaps in the future. Aleck fumed, but the professor’s wife, joining us, seemed inordinately interested in me and went on and on about So Big and Show Boat until Aleck, furious, struggled to his feet and announced, “This show has closed out of town.”
And with that he headed to the car where Marcus, dozing over a newspaper, apologized for something he didn’t do.
The ride back to Flemington was icy, Aleck now and then beginning some cruel jibe, fashioning some nastiness but never quite finding it.
When Marcus dropped us off at the Union Hotel, his eyes narrowing at Aleck who was huffing and puffing, I strode on ahead, tired of the childish man. I felt a headache coming on—and probably a colossal feud with the argumentative Aleck. Our skirmishes were the stuff of Broadway legend. But Aleck, primed for an argument—I understood the signs: the flicking of his tongue against the side of his mouth, his index finger twitching against his nose, his walk a pronounced and prim waddle, his cheeks the color of blood—trailed after me.
I skirted by Nellie’s Taproom, already bursting with noisy drinkers, and stepped around the mongrel black-and-white dog—called Nellie—whose presence helped name the makeshift tavern, a dog that, I’d heard, received twenty fan letters a day from the American heartland. I walked into the café where I spotted Horace Tripp slumped in a chair. Aleck, ready for a fight, followed me in. Past the dinner hour, only a few tables occupied, but Horace sat with his head dropped into his lap, a cigarette burning in an ashtray at his elbow. He looked up, and I saw a ravaged face, deep lines around his mouth, bloodshot eyes. He lifted a hand in greeting, but his arm shook as he dropped it back into his lap.
“What?” I demanded, stunned.
He said nothing but looked into my face, vacant-eyed.
Aleck walked up to him and leaned in. “What, Mr. Tripp?”
His head fell to the side like a doll’s head loosened from its strings.
“Tell me.” I softened my voice.
“Peggy Crispen is dead.”
Stunned, I shut my eyes, saw flashes of brilliant light, jagged waves of scarlet and white. My head swam, and I gripped the rail of a chair.
“Tell me.” Louder now.
“They found her body a little while ago. Outside of town on a country lane. She—she froze to death.”
I shivered. “What?”
His voice gained strength. “The sheriff was here a while ago. He didn’t know she no longer worked for us.” His voice hardened. “That the hotel canned her.” But then the droopiness returned, his eyes moist. “He said someone driving by saw her curled into a ball by a bank of snow, coatless. Christ Almighty. She had no overcoat on. Like it was summer. He said they think she was drinking at the place down from her room, somehow wandered out, took the wrong turn, and wandered away from the town. No one saw her.”
“Without her coat?” I asked.
“I know, I know.”
“My Lord,” I said, slipping into a chair.
He looked into my face. “How can that happen? Someone must have seen her, no? People don’t wander without a coat in freezing weather. Someone must have driven by. The sheriff said she was probably drunk. She—he said people knew her at this tavern nearby.”
I looked at Aleck. “Another death.”
“She froze to death, Edna.”
“Like Annabel. Dead.”
Aleck spoke in a clipped voice, close to my ear. “It’s not a murder, Edna. Get that notion out of your head. She was a frightened woman, afraid of her room, probably spending the night in a bar. She wandered away.”
I drew my lips into a thin line. “I can’t believe that, Aleck. It’s just not—possible. Too much has happened in that one room. Annabel’s murder, the burglary, the letters, and now this.”
Aleck spoke through clenched teeth. “Stop this now.”
Horace, watching us, stood and frowned. Slowly, he shuffled through the kitchen door, and I heard a pot clang onto the floor. I stood. “This day is over,” I told him. “And not well.”
As I turned to leave, the kitchen door swung open. I expected to see Horace returning but instead Martha stood there, her arms folded over her chest.
“Martha,” I began, “I heard the horrible news from your husband.”
Fury laced her face. “Poor Horace. Now he’ll have to find a new dalliance to annoy me with.”
“Really, Martha. A woman has died a horrible death.”
She laughed an unfunny laugh. “And there will always be a new one. It’s the nature of the beast.”
“Surely…”
She turned to go back into the kitchen, but she looked back at us, a grotesque smirk on her face. “Two down. Imagine that. Maybe it was something he said to them. Or did to them. Or didn’t do.” A thin high cackle. The door slammed behind her.
Chapter Sixteen
Peggy Crispen. Dead.
Frozen to death. A body lying against a snowbank in the frigid night. Impossible. When I closed my eyes in bed, I saw her scared face as she stood, bundled and shivering, in the doorway of a building near her own boardinghouse. Frightened out of her wits, that woman, afraid of the space she’d rented during her sad sojourn in Flemington. Not only had she discovered the strangled body of her roommate, a numbing horror, but then found her room ransacked, again violated, and finally, cruelly, she lost her job. Dead. Peggy Crispen. A woman who found herself embroiled in a drama she had no part in creating. And now dead. Drunk, wandering away from town. Impossible.
Early morning, unable to stay in bed, I walked to the boardinghouse and knocked on the first-floor apartment door of the landlord. A shuffle of feet from inside, the snarl of a dog, and an old man stood in the doorway. “Yeah?” He was adjusting paint-stained dungarees, bunched at the work boots, tucking in a yellowed undershirt that bore one or two cigarette burns near the collar. Again, the cigarette-smoker’s rasp, “Yeah?” He peered at me through myopic eyes. “You ain’t the plumber.”
“I certainly am not.”
“He’s late.”
“I’m on time.”
That tickled him, a twist of his lips as he grinned and threw back his head. I saw a broken tooth and a blackened one, both of which gave him an oddly jack o’ lantern look, though the long, wrinkled face, pockmarked and splotchy, belied that festive look.
“I’m Edna Ferber, a writer.”
“All booked up. Doubles, triples. I got folks sleeping in the hallway, ma’am.”
“No, no, I’m not looking for a room.” Then I added, unnecessarily, “I have one at the Union Hotel.” His eyebrows shot up at that. A coveted habitation, that hotel. “I have some questions about Annabel Biggs and Peggy Crispen.”
He stepped back, silently nodded me in. “I got some coffee on. I suppose you’ll take a cup.” He motioned me to a dumpy chair, currently occupied by a fat orange-matted mongrel who did not plan on sharing the space. But a flick of a wrist from the old man and the beast toppled to the floor, yawned, eyed me through rheumy eyes, and slunk into a corner.
“I’m Pervis Trumbull,” the old man said, extending his hand. “I figured someone gotta talk to me about them sorry girls.”
“Why?”
“Nobody murders nobody in Flemington, leastwise in my long memory—and I been here seventy-seven years now. Papa fought for the Union against the South. Wounded, he was. A
nd now that hillbilly strangles poor Annabel and people just nod like she died of the flu or something. Not fair, let me tell you.”
“Well, I feel the same say, Mr. Trumbull. All the sensation of the Hauptmann trial lets folks ignore—”
He cut in. “Making a lot of us folks rich, but I can’t wait till everyone goes away.”
“Too many people here?”
“Craziness, all of it.”
“I agree.”
Again, he broke in as he snapped a Lucky Strike from a pack and lit it with a long wooden match. “That trial shoulda been in Trenton. Not here. Lord, they put two airplane landings not one hundred yards back of this house. Buzz over my head when I’m sleeping. We got this young mayor, John Schenk, who thinks it’s good for business. And it is. But I’m not complaining.”
I smiled. “Sounds as if you are.”
The same deferential chuckle. “My wife, now dead these twenty years, used to say if I didn’t complain about things I got nothing to talk about.”
“Mr. Trumbull, could you talk to me about Peggy Crispen?”
That startled him. He got up, stumbled to the kitchen with the cigarette drooping from his lips, and poured two cups of coffee. He placed one in front of me and nodded at a small pitcher of milk. I helped myself. Hot, savory, thick. Perfect.
“Annabel Biggs is the story, no?”
“But Peggy’s death bothers me.”
He scratched his head. “I ain’t following you, ma’am.”
“Two women in the same room, both now dead?”
He bit the inside of his lip, managed to sip coffee while dragging on a cigarette. “But Annabel was killed.” He pronounced the word kilt.
“Yes, but Peggy was afraid to return to her room here. The break-in afterwards.”
He waited a heartbeat. “Yeah, I know. I seen that. I talked to her. Sad, sad girl, didn’t know what to do, what way to turn.”
I watched him over the rim of the cup. “Yes, the police have arrested Cody Lee Thomas for murder. They consider that case over and done, but to me there is so much mystery with Peggy’s death—frozen to death in a bank of snow deep in the night? A horrible death, and strange.”