Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life (32 page)

Under Irey, the IRS reassembled the ransom money according to the new specifications, and tied it into two bundles. The first contained $50,000, all but $14,000 in gold notes. The second contained $20,000, divided according to John’s requirements, all in gold notes. Condon stuffed the $50,000 into a box built according to John’s instructions, but the bundle containing the $20,000 would not fit and had to be packaged separately.

On Friday, April 1, the same morning the money was tied and bound, Betty Gow and Elsie Whateley strolled the grounds of the Lindbergh estate, returning along the gravel driveway, a path they had walked many times before. On this day they spotted something gleaming among the stone pebbles half a mile from the entrance to the estate. Leaning down, Betty recognized it as one of the baby’s thumb guards and ran back to the house to show Anne.
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To Anne, it was an omen of hope. To the investigators, it was a strange coincidence.

John Curtis continued to demand Lindbergh’s attention. The closer Lindbergh drew to negotiation with the kidnappers, the more desperate Curtis became. The kidnappers, he said, had reduced the ransom by
half. Once again, Lindbergh brushed Curtis away and prepared to drive to the Bronx with Breckinridge.

On Saturday evening, the day the ad appeared in the
Bronx Home News
, Lindbergh, Breckinridge, and Condon waited in Condon’s living room. Afraid that things might get out of hand once the exchange had taken place, Lindbergh carried a small revolver. Condon noticed and grew concerned. There was no way he could anticipate Lindbergh’s reactions once he came face to face with his son’s abductors, so he had to keep Lindbergh under control. When Lindbergh offered to go alone, Condon insisted on carrying things through. Lindbergh deferred to Condon, and they agreed to drive a car belonging to Condon’s friend to the drop-off point.

At 7:45, a messenger wearing a taxi driver’s cap rang the doorbell and left an envelope. Condon tore it open and read aloud the note, signed with the familiar scrawl and insignia, that directed Condon to take the money by car to a designated site in the northeast Bronx within the hour. It was the Bergen Greenhouse at 3225 Tremont Avenue. There, on a table outside the door, he would receive further instructions. On the reverse side of the note were the usual admonitions: no police; bring the money.

Lindbergh drove the small Ford sedan two and a half miles east to the nursery. There, under a rock on a table outside its door, was a note instructing Condon to walk alone across Tremont Avenue to St. Raymond’s Cemetery and then follow an adjacent road south. Lindbergh wanted to go with him, but Condon, eager to keep Lindbergh away from the exchange, reminded him that the kidnappers demanded he come alone. Condon walked off without the money and disappeared down the unlit cemetery road. Standing among the tombstones and statues, Condon surveyed the cemetery and saw no one. Just as he started back to the car, a voice cried out, “Hello, Doctor!” Condon recognized the voice as Cemetery John’s. For the first time, Lindbergh heard it too.

Condon walked back to the cemetery and saw a man crouched behind a bush. When Condon told him to stand up, he recognized the
man as John. Making no attempt to hide his face this time, John asked for the money, which Condon told him was in the car with Lindbergh. John told Condon he could not get the baby for six or eight hours and made Condon promise not to pursue him so that the kidnappers would have time to escape. When pressed further, he told Condon the baby was with his “Father.”
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Condon demanded directions to the place where he could find the baby; then he would release the money. John retreated, saying he would return in ten minutes, and told Condon to get the money.

Hoping to save Lindbergh the extra $20,000 in the second bundle, he told John that Lindbergh had not been able to raise more than $50,000. John agreed to that amount, and Condon went back to the car, where Lindbergh gave him the money.

When Condon returned to the cemetery for the exchange, he once again begged John to let him see the child before he handed over the money. He warned John not to commit a double-cross. “The baby is all right,” said John, so Condon shook his hand and returned to Lindbergh.

Lindbergh, feeling successful, was jubilant. The note in his hand would take him to his baby. They discussed Condon’s promise to John not to open the note for six hours, and Lindbergh considered himself bound by Condon’s promise. Amazed at Lindbergh’s decision, especially in light of his consistent defiance of others, Condon worked hard to persuade him to read the note. Lindbergh agreed to open the note but was determined not to break Condon’s promise to John. The baby, said the note, was on a twenty-eight-foot boat called
Nelly
, cruising the waters between Martha’s Vineyard and Elizabeth Island.

Congratulating each other like old war buddies, Lindbergh and Condon drove to Manhattan to meet Breckinridge and Irey for a debriefing at the Morrow apartment on East Sixty-sixth Street. Irey was less than pleased. If Condon had been surprised by Lindbergh’s conscience, Irey was taken aback by Condon’s lack of judgment. He claimed that Condon had made a crucial error in withholding the second bundle. That was the bundle that contained the gold notes, and when the country
went off the gold standard in the following year, all gold coins and gold certificates would be recalled. The serial numbers on those gold notes might have accelerated the apprehension of the kidnappers. Since Irey thought the baby was dead, he regarded the ransom payment as a gambit in a game of chess. And they seemed to be losing the game.

Condon was crestfallen at the possibility that he had unwittingly obstructed justice. Irey retracted his accusation and blamed Schwarzkopf for relinquishing his authority.

Lindbergh waited the requisite six hours, putting the time to good use. Enlisting the help of President Hoover, Lindbergh requested that navy planes assist in his surveillance, and he arranged to have a Sikorsky amphibious aircraft waiting at the airport on the outskirts of Bridgeport, Connecticut. At two A.M., Lindbergh, Breckinridge, and Condon drove there and at dawn they flew east to the Connecticut shore, and then northeast up Long Island Sound toward Martha’s Vineyard. The three men were in high spirits and had high expectations as they flew up the coast. Later Breckinridge said that Condon had acted strangely, spouting Shakespeare and the Bible above the din of the airplane engine. But for the moment they were comrades on a grand mission.

Lindbergh wove between the islands, flying so low that they could scan the boats beneath them. None, however, matched the description of the
Nelly
. As the morning wore on, the excitement waned and Lindbergh’s desperation grew. How could he have trusted the kidnappers? Why would they risk exposure; why would they remain with the baby on the boat? He flew randomly, inspecting everything that sailed. By noon, he was exhausted. When they stopped for lunch, Lindbergh refused to eat. All day they continued to search the waters off southern Massachusetts. By nightfall, there was nothing to do but go home.

Lindbergh landed at Teterboro airport at six-thirty. Carrying a small suitcase and the baby’s favorite blanket, which he had taken with him, Lindbergh got into his car and drove to Hopewell. It was dark when he pulled into the driveway, but the house was blazing with light. Anne ran downstairs to greet him. His face said everything.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as they embraced. And then it was Anne’s turn to comfort Charles.
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Perhaps it was only a delay. Perhaps the navy planes had scared them off. But Anne knew it was time to prepare herself for the worst. Hope was becoming a delusion.

A month had passed since the baby’s abduction, and the press was at a loss. The Curtis rumors dominated the newspapers. Schwarzkopf denied everything, including speculations about Charles’s mysterious excursions. But the next day, the story broke. After scanning the waters of the Atlantic coastline from Massachusetts to Virginia without success, Charles was ready to talk. The press blasted the story over the open wire: Lindbergh had paid the ransom and had been double-crossed.
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Within two days, the U.S. Treasury Department authorized the distribution of a 57–page pamphlet listing the serial numbers of the 4750 bills that had been given to Cemetery John.

Condon later said that he had been shocked by Charles’s naïveté; he himself thought from the beginning that the kidnappers could not be trusted. How could Charles believe that the people who had kidnapped his baby would keep their word about returning the child?
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Yet Charles continued to hope. Perhaps Curtis’s story was true. Maybe the gang wanted a double payoff. It was not unusual for kidnappers to demand more than one ransom. Charles resolved to become his own investigator, ignoring, even defying, the advice of the police. Buoyed, once again, by Charles’s determination, Anne maintained the semblance of optimism. She had permitted Charles to construct their reality, and she could not bear to let it crumble—if only for his sake.

John Curtis was finally in the spotlight, and for the first time everyone listened to him. There was, he told the press, no doubt about it. “I made contact with the person I went to see regarding the kidnapped son of Colonel Lindbergh and was informed that the child is well.”
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The let-down after the week of high tension gave Charles a chance to rest. Anne closeted herself in her room with her mother; Charles did target practice with the state troopers in his woods. Even the public was beginning to calm down. Letters fell off to about a hundred a day, and
fewer people called. The demands for money, however, were constant. Anne was astonished how many people promised the safe return of the child for payment without assurance or credentials of any kind.
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Anne blamed the press. She wrote to her mother-in-law on April 10 that the baby would be back if it had not been for the incessant publicity. The tabloids, she noted, were unconscionable. But the tone of her letters was changing. For the first time, she raised the possibility that the baby was dead. Although the police still offered her consolation, and Charles continued to encourage her, she was beginning to lose hope.
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While the newspapers rode the wave of the latest gossip, the magazines sought distance and meaning. Most blamed the kidnapping and the double-cross on a laissez-faire government that did not rein in American “individualism.” It was the dark side of the courageous individualism that had made Lindbergh a hero: too much power, too little government. Mirroring public sentiment, the press could not accept that all hope was lost. The
Boston Herald
saw the double-cross as a reason for optimism: “If contact has been established with the kidnapper, it should not be impossible to re-establish it.”
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Condon agreed. He would do his best to set things right. He put another ad in the
Bronx Home News:
“Please, better direction.” As usual, Breckinridge arrived every evening between six and ten o’clock, hoping for a phone call or a message. Meanwhile, the banks were given the serial numbers of the bills.

Schwarzkopf tried to press the newspapers into silence, but they would not be governed. Condon was prime material; he was the closest reporters could get to the Lindbergh case, and they would not let him go. Condon, caught in the Lindbergh glitter, was treated with much the same mixture of deference and abuse. He was praised for his courage and accused of complicity. Most of all, he was hounded, day and night, by the public and the press.

Condon’s standing with the police also changed. Now, even he was a suspect, no different from the servants who worked at the Lindbergh home. Schwarzkopf realized that he could not alienate Condon, the only
one who had seen Cemetery John. So he treated him gently, even as he began a slow, steady, and thorough interrogation. Condon was cooperative but subtly antagonistic, ashamed, and even angry that he who had jeopardized his life was being treated like a criminal.
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Schwarzkopf believed there was more to be learned from the servants as well. The questions he had asked the very first day were still not fully answered. Violet Sharpe had lost her virtue and her reputation; she had nearly given up thoughts of marrying Banks. But was she desperate enough to barter the spoils of Charlie’s abduction for the penniless future of a domestic servant? Had Betty Gow, in her loneliness and desire to marry, been duped by an ingratiating thug? And why had she made the baby a new shirt? Did she know he was going to be exposed to the cold night air? Had Henry Ellerson, a nomad with a thirst for booze, finally succumbed to his wild streak? Had Banks, demoralized by poverty and liquor, sold his honor for a “gentleman’s cut?” And why was Marguerite Jantzen Junge, the American with a taste for money, trusted as a friend of the Morrows? Was she the docile woman she appeared to be? A calculating conspirator with Red Johnson? The scheming wife of a penniless German refugee? The liaison between the two worlds, the servants and the hitmen?

Why, on an ordinary Tuesday night, in the wake of a rainstorm, did the servants exchange a flurry of phone calls to confirm their scheduled meetings and dates? Was Red Johnson in Englewood when he called Betty? Did he go for a ride with the Junges as they had planned? Violet, too, had a date on Tuesday night—who was she with and where did they go? Had the Whateleys conspired with Ellerson, Red, Violet, and the Junges, providing a cover for their tracks?

Now that Lindbergh’s attempts had failed, Schwarzkopf finally took control. Violet Sharpe was first on his list. On April 13, he sent Inspector Harry Walsh, a colleague and friend, to interview her at the Morrows’ home. Violet’s responses, unclear and contradictory, raised more questions than they answered.

The investigation, Anne was certain, had come to a halt. Every clue seemed to lead them nowhere.
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