by David Zeman
The Secret Service was deeply embarrassed by Susan’s disappearance. Its operatives had been keeping loose surveillance on her as a matter of routine, but the central focus of their effort was Michael himself, not his wife. Thus Susan, in her disguise, had easily slipped past the agents responsible for keeping an eye on her.
Susan’s disappearance had been noted by her secretary as early as Friday evening. When Susan did not check in as usual, the secretary called Ingrid Campbell, who immediately became worried. Not wishing to alarm Michael prematurely, Ingrid telephoned all Susan’s friends as well as Michael’s campaign associates. No one had heard from Susan.
It was Ingrid, covering all bases, who telephoned the caretaker at Green Lake in Pennsylvania in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The caretaker drove his Jeep along the muddy lake road to the cabin, where he found Susan’s little MG in the driveway, its engine cold.
The caretaker used his key to enter the cabin and found evidence of Susan’s presence there Friday evening. The furnace was still running. The fire in the fireplace had burned down, but the caretaker knew it had been lit during the past few days because Michael and Susan always left fresh logs and kindling in the fireplace so they could start a fire when they arrived. The blinds over the windows were still closed. Susan’s overnight bag was not found.
Ingrid accompanied the FBI to the Georgetown house, to which Michael had now returned, and made a careful study of Susan’s clothes and cosmetics. She knew them better than Michael did, so she went through the closets and medicine cabinet while a distraught Michael sat in the living room with the agents.
Ingrid was not able to identify the clothes Susan had been wearing when she left, but she did notice some missing cosmetics, and was able to describe the overnight bag Susan had probably taken with her. “That’s the bag she brings when she visits us on the Bay,” Ingrid told the FBI.
Ingrid was not familiar with the wig Susan had worn, so she could not note its absence from the closet. It would fall to Stewart Campbell, days later, to mention to one of the agents that Susan sometimes wore a wig to disguise herself when she visited him in Baltimore.
Stewart could not know that the real reason Susan wore the wig was to visit her Baltimore psychiatrist. Her many lunch visits to Stewart over the years had all taken place on days when she visited her psychiatrist, whose house on North Charles Street was only a few blocks from the Johns Hopkins campus, where Stewart taught history.
Thus the federal agents had no reason to think Susan’s appearance was anything but normal when she left home. The APB they put out described her as millions of Americans knew her: a brown-eyed blonde, five feet six inches tall, weighing 120 pounds.
The Pennsylvania state police were kept out of the investigation from the start. The FBI’s forensic techs went through Susan’s Georgetown bedroom with a fine-tooth comb. They found nothing of use there. In the Green Lake cabin, however, they found prints of a man’s rubber boots on the cabin floor. These were clearly visible because of the muddy conditions Friday night. Unfortunately there were no fingerprints inside the cabin other than those of Susan and Michael and the Campbell family.
Even more unfortunately, a heavy rain late Friday night had eradicated all tire marks in the driveway. The MG was found sitting in a large puddle of rainwater, its own tire marks nowhere in the drive.
The authorities easily reconstructed what had happened on Friday. The producer of the Gail Osborne show told them of her call to Susan to postpone the interview. Susan’s secretary related the call from Susan about her migraine headache and her intention to stay home in bed all day.
Susan must have impulsively decided to get away to Green Lake for some much-needed solitude. Was her abductor waiting for her at the cabin? Had someone noticed her en route and followed her? Had someone who lived near the cabin taken it into his head to abduct her? The agents could only guess.
Photos of Susan were circulated, unnecessary as that seemed in light of her fame. Special emphasis was given to the route she had most likely traveled in her MG from Georgetown to Pennsylvania. A tollgate employee on Interstate 81 thought she remembered the MG from Friday afternoon, but had not recognized the driver as Susan.
Susan’s stops at the McDonald’s for lunch and at the Hagerstown movie theater were not discovered by the agents. Susan had not stopped in the town of Green Lake to buy groceries or gasoline. No one along the route from Georgetown to Pennsylvania had seen her pass. The trail was dry.
The agents approached the investigation with several concerns. In the first place, Susan’s face was easily recognizable. It was highly unlikely that her abductors would have let her be seen. In all likelihood she was transported in the back of a van or the trunk of a car after being taken. She would not be seen anymore—not as herself, anyway.
It was the FBI’s director himself, in a conference with the regional heads, who articulated the theory that would dominate the investigation.
“Look, people,” he said. “Mrs. Campbell hadn’t been to that cabin in two years. No one could have expected her to turn up there. I can’t believe someone had it staked out. That leaves two options. First, someone along her route saw her and started following her. Second, someone followed her all the way from home. I think the second option is the best. Someone was watching her and looking for a chink in the Secret Service’s surveillance. When she left home unexpectedly, that someone followed her. Whoever it was had to be in a vehicle. If we can get a lead on that vehicle, we’ve got a lead on the perpetrator.”
The chances of finding a witness who saw not only Susan’s MG but a car or other vehicle following it were one in a thousand. But the FBI has the manpower and resources to follow up slender leads. A small army of agents was assigned to scour the entire route Susan took to the cabin.
Beyond this there was little to do but wait and hope. All the signs at the cabin pointed to abduction. If Susan had been kidnapped for ransom, a ransom demand would be made in due course. If her abduction had a political basis, those behind it would make some sort of demand, either to Michael, to the administration, or to someone else.
Then, of course, there was the possibility that Susan had run away under her own power. Having driven the MG as far as the cabin, she might have abandoned it there and continued her journey using other means.
It was also possible that she had committed suicide. Whether or not her trip to Green Lake was made on an impulse, she might have suddenly decided to take her own life after arriving at the cabin. It was well known that Susan was a nervous woman, a woman under considerable stress. The FBI brought in specialists to drag Green Lake and to search the surrounding forest areas. Dog teams were also put to work. Agents were assigned to hospitals throughout Pennsylvania and adjacent states to monitor DOAs and patients with self-inflicted injuries.
Finally, of course, there was the possibility of murder to consider. Whoever abducted Susan might have done so with sexual assault and murder as a motive. This was another reason to drag Green Lake. It was also a reason to alert police forces around the country that any and all female Caucasian bodies found in the coming days or weeks must be examined with special emphasis on comparison with Susan’s dental records and other distinguishing characteristics.
Beyond this the intelligence agencies were left with the unenviable task of running down worthless leads and sitting on their hands while they tried to assure the public that everything possible was being done.
Those in charge of the search for Susan took pains to express optimism—for public consumption. In private they were thinking about Kirk Stillman, the victim of a deliberate hit-and-run. There was a grisly logic to Susan’s disappearance, and it did not make the agents hopeful about finding her alive.
It fell to Joe Kraig, because he was a close friend of Michael’s, to visit Michael and ask him the necessary questions about Susan’s personal life as it might affect her disappearance.
Kraig found the Georgetown house ringed with official vehicles. Th
e authorities were advertising their concern to make absolutely sure that nothing untoward happened to Michael Campbell.
After greeting several agents he knew, Kraig rang the bell and was let in by Ingrid Campbell, who had taken on the role of official gatekeeper.
“Joe, how are you?” Ingrid asked, her eyes red from crying. Kraig guessed from the look on her face that she was assuming the worst about Susan.
“I’ve been better,” Kraig said, squeezing her hand.
Ingrid looked heavier to Kraig than the last time he had seen her, more settled in her permanent spinster’s role. She wore heavy shoes and an unbecoming but sensible linen dress.
For her part, Ingrid thought Kraig looked not only older but sadder. His divorce must not have agreed with him, she decided. Underneath his veneer of professionalism and focus on the job at hand, he looked empty and depressed.
“How’s Mike?” Kraig asked. “How’s Judd?”
“Dad is beside himself,” Ingrid said. “He’s raising hell with all the agencies. He’s out of control, Joe. You know how he feels about Susan.”
Kraig knew Judd Campbell well enough to be aware of Judd’s fierce protectiveness toward Susan. Judd’s tenderness toward his daughter-in-law bordered on the incestuous. His long loneliness since the suicide of his wife no doubt had something to do with this.
Predictably, Judd was furious with the federal agents for having allowed Susan to be abducted. He did not trust the intelligence agencies to conduct the search for Susan expeditiously. He had never trusted the government, which he thought of as a collection of civil service ninnies who pushed paper at their desks all day and couldn’t find a Budweiser in a six-pack. He had spent a lifetime battling the IRS for his hard-earned money and watching the justice system fail to enforce laws that would have helped him run his businesses more efficiently. Inertia, apathy, and stupidity defined the federal government as far as he was concerned.
Without telling the FBI, Judd had retained the services of one of the largest private detective agencies in the nation, and was prepared to pay whatever it cost to find Susan.
“How about Mike?” Kraig asked.
“You’ll see for yourself.”
Michael was sitting in his den, an untouched glass of brandy before him on the coffee table. He was staring at a TV screen whose volume was turned down low. He looked up pathetically when Kraig came in.
“What’s up?” he asked, his casual words sounding bizarre when compared to the stricken look on his face.
Kraig was astonished by Michael’s appearance. He looked as though the life had been drained out of him. He seemed to be crumbling from inside.
“How are you doing, Mike?”
Kraig came to Michael’s side and put an arm around his shoulders. For a moment Michael seemed to nestle in his friend’s embrace like a needy child. Then he pulled himself together.
“No news?” he asked.
“Nothing. We’re doing everything we can.” Kraig instantly regretted his choice of words. Those were the words the surgeon had used when Kraig’s father was in the hospital dying.
Michael said nothing. His eyes were back on the TV screen. Apparently he was hoping that an image of Susan, alive and well, would pop up as a special report and put him out of his agony.
“I saw Ingrid,” Kraig said. “She seems to be holding up well.”
“Oh, Ingrid’s the rock,” Michael said with a weak smile. “She won’t . . .” His words trailed off. Anxiety made him incapable of finishing his thought.
“How about your dad?” Kraig asked, hoping to use Michael’s concern for others as a way of breaking through his catatonic condition.
“He’s pretty bad,” Michael said. “You know how he feels about Susan.”
There was a silence. Kraig was a direct man, not good at the bedside manner. There was nothing to do but get down to cases.
“Mike, how has Susan been lately? I mean, with your nomination and everything . . .”
Michael looked up. “What?”
“How has Susan been, mentally? Emotionally. Has she been depressed or worried?”
Michael nodded. “Worried, yes. About me.” He laughed bitterly. “She should have worried about herself.”
Suddenly Michael turned to Kraig, a look of supplication in his eyes.
“Joe, who would do this? Why would anyone do this to Susan? She’s never hurt anybody in her life!”
Kraig touched Michael’s shoulder again. “I don’t know, Mike, but I’m going to find out.”
The look of childlike trust lingered in Michael’s eyes for a moment, then was eclipsed by something darker.
“This could be the end—of everything,” he said. His words sounded ruminative, intended more for himself than for Kraig.
“Mike, I know how you’re feeling. This is a rough time. Try to help me if you can. Did Susan mention anything in the last few months that upset her or frightened her? Other than Dan Everhardt, I mean. And Palleschi, and Stillman,” he added, chagrined by the extent of the chaos that had already occurred this year.
Michael seemed not to have heard. The same hopeless, distracted look was in his eyes.
“I don’t mean the politics, Mike, not per se. I mean something that happened specifically to Susan. Her own problem.”
Michael looked up in perplexity. “What do you mean?”
Kraig was thinking of the crank phone calls Susan had told him about. She had seemed deeply worried by them. Kraig had concentrated on reassuring her, and had not taken the calls seriously. Now, too late, it occurred to him that he should have tapped her phone when she told him about the calls. He might have learned something.
“Something that frightened her,” Kraig probed. “Enough to make her panic and run away.”
Misunderstanding him, Michael said, “I wouldn’t blame her . . . I haven’t been much of a husband. I ask so much of her, and I don’t give . . .”
Kraig sighed. Michael might be hiding something. Many married couples had secrets they would not reveal to an outsider until they had no choice. But Kraig’s questions seemed to be glancing off him like tangents irrelevant to his fears.
“Did she ask you anything that seemed out of the ordinary? Anything that suggested she had something preying on her mind?”
Michael shook his head. “No. Nothing except this damned vice president thing. She was scared. Terribly scared.”
“She didn’t want you to take the job, did she?” Kraig asked.
Michael shook his head ruminatively. “She didn’t say that, but I knew how she felt.”
He turned helplessly to Kraig. “I should have listened, Joe. I should have at least talked to her. I was so wrapped up in my own work . . . I knew she was upset. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Mike, I know she never liked being part of your career,” Kraig said. “But it was a burden she took on gladly, for your sake. I honestly don’t think her ambivalence about it would have made her run away. Not unless . . .”
Michael looked up helplessly. “Unless what?”
Kraig was thinking that perhaps Susan had a sudden emotional breakdown and simply couldn’t stand the pressure any longer. If that was the case, it might be easier to find her.
But then he remembered the man’s boot prints at the cabin. No—it would not be easy to find Susan.
He looked at Michael, who was slowly shaking his head.
“Did she say anything, mention anything unusual that was on her mind recently? Try to remember. Did she bring up anything that seemed odd to you?”
Michael gave him a blank look.
Kraig decided to take a chance. “Did she ask you anything about the past? Your past with her? Anything that seemed weird?”
Michael shook his head.
“About Harvard, maybe?” Kraig probed.
Michael was silent for a moment, staring at the TV screen.
“What?” he asked. “What did you say?”
“Harvard, Mike. Did she ask you anything about H
arvard?” Kraig was watching his friend closely.
Michael looked up at him. “No,” he said. His face was as innocent as that of a child.
There was a silence. Kraig let it stretch for a long moment.
Then he decided it was time to give up.
“Mike, don’t torture yourself. I’ll find her.” He squeezed Michael’s hand. “But if you think of anything—anything at all that might help—call me. Day or night. Will you promise me that?”
Michael nodded. “Okay.”
Kraig took his leave. Michael was watching the TV screen again, for all the world like a patient waiting for his doctor to tell him his illness was not fatal.
45
—————
THE PUBLIC reaction to Susan’s disappearance was extreme. Michael’s residence and Senate office were inundated with cards, letters, telegrams, and e-mails expressing sympathy and hope for Susan’s safe return. Surprisingly, many of these messages came from overseas. No one had quite realized how well known Susan was in Europe and Asia. The Internet having effectively shrunk the world, Susan’s many admirers in foreign countries could get in touch with Michael just as easily as Americans could.
Meanwhile the FBI was besieged with phone calls from people who thought they might have seen Susan since her disappearance. Most of these were cranks, of course, but it seemed that even normal people fell prey to hallucinations of Susan in public places, usually in disguise.
The hysteria went deeper. On websites across the Internet, chat rooms and bulletin boards displayed messages from users who had theories about the cause of Susan’s disappearance. Some blamed the Russians, the Iraqis, the Israelis. Others blamed the Mafia, the CIA, the National Rifle Association, or political enemies of Michael Campbell within his own party. Not a few thought the dreaded enemy behind the Pinocchio Syndrome had taken Susan for occult purposes. Even as the authorities struggled to pick up her trail, Susan was passing into myth.
Dick Livermore conducted daily meetings with his staff to discuss the crisis. From the polls it was clear that Susan’s disappearance had not hurt the president politically. At least not yet. In fact, the Lindbergh-style groundswell of public sympathy for Michael was pushing the poll numbers higher.