Cold Morning (18 page)

“Sounds like a sad boy.”

“It's very easy to dislike many of the patients—not because of their illnesses, which often are bizarre, but because they come from a life of privilege. Their mental condition sometimes made their demands impossible—but they viewed us as—well, the help. But Anne's marriage to Charles turned Dwight upside down, depressed, sullen, hidden away, explosive. He avoided the wedding.”

“Dangerous?”

A long pause as she bit her lip. “Only to himself.”

“Montclair Manor wasn't the only place he was sent to?” Aleck asked.

Alice nodded. “Problems in Amherst, a mysterious fire in his dorm. He was sent to Stockbridge, the Riggs Foundation for Psychopathic Diseases, another wealthy enclave. A mysterious fire there, and he was moved to Beacon, New York. The Craig House. A sad boy, a lump of clay who still had baby fat—and wore a pince-nez, just like his dead father. Then he ended up here for a year.”

“Diagnosis—schizophrenia?” Aleck asked.

She nodded. “He thought he was a lighthouse that forgot to send out light. He called himself St. Peter, and then said he was
all
the saints. He believed he was himself the very classmates who tortured him.”

“Sad, sad,” I said.

“Hallucinations.”

“But then he got better, right?” I said. “Sent back home?”

“Of course. When he didn't have his spells, when the hallucinations ended, he was a bright, responsive, a pleasure, a good student at Amherst.”

“That's right. He was at Amherst when the Lindbergh baby was taken.”

“He was no longer here, of course. He'd returned to school.” She grinned. “He worked for Al Smith's campaign for president—to spite his Republican family who were Hoover advocates. He refused to return home when news of the kidnapping broke—I heard he stayed in his rooms.” Alice narrowed her eyes. “I think I know where this is going, Miss Ferber. I mean, your interest in Dwight.”

I hedged. “I'm interested in how the family deals with the kidnapping.”

She studied my face. “Of course, his relationship with Colonel Lindbergh.”

Aleck interjected, “Edna does character studies, I'm afraid. Sometimes they have nothing to do with the heinous crime.”

“I can talk for myself, Aleck.” I turned to Alice. “Yes, it's true that I am interested in the dynamic of the Morrow family.”

“Well, yes, Dwight had no liking for his brother-in-law. I can only tell you that he'd mutter and fuss about things the Colonel said, often not even to him. Lindbergh is everything Dwight is not: tall, handsome, famous, charming. And, worse, he swept Dwight's sister away from that insolated household, not too long after the venerable Dwight Sr. died suddenly. Dwight was the man of the house for a moment, but, sadly, he was still a boy. He couldn't protect his beloved sister from the menace of the lone eagle swooping down on Englewood.”

“But they never had words.”

She swung her head back and forth. “Dwight would never have words with anyone. He'd hide in a book in the library rather than tell you to your face what needed to be said.”

“But he must have told you things?”

She waited a second. “Of course. Things that made me sympathetic to him.”

“Like what?”

“He said Lindbergh gave him candy that was really a laxative. He slipped a stink bomb into Dwight's glove.”

“True?”

“I believed it.” Alice squinted. “You know, you can't use lots of what I'm telling you.”

“I assume that. I'm looking for—flavor.”

“Go to a soda fountain,” Aleck quipped.

I looked at Aleck. He wasn't too happy with the tenor of this conversation, but I knew he wouldn't be: my probing encroached onto sacred and patriotic territory, inviolable. The boy aviator had flaws—and egregious ones.

“Have you heard enough, Ferb?” he said bitingly.

I hadn't. “What about Dwight's friends here?”

“Well, patients don't really make friends. Temporary, enforced, begrudgingly. But”—her eyes lit up—”of course there was Blake Somerville. You know the Somervilles of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Political forces. The bankers. Blake had been at Amherst a few years before Dwight, I think, but he was at Montclair Manor when Dwight entered as a patient.”

“Tell me about Somerville.”

She smiled. “A singular creation, that one. The kind of slick confection who preys on the weak. But he already knew Dwight, I guess, or at least their families have estates near each other in Englewood. At first he acted as big brother but his touch was lethal. I don't think I ever disliked a man so much, and my job is to heal. That was impossible.”

A chill ran up my spine. “Tell me.”

“He acted, well, sort of messianic, a man who craves followers, but for no other end than some personal satisfaction. Handsome, suave, glib, a fast talker, he drew you in, attracted you, but then inevitably, after a bit, you saw the devil under the flash of his eye. Mischief, often cruel and vicious.”

“His malady?” I asked.

A crooked smile. “Probably his family just wanted him out of the house.” A dismissive wave of her hands. “He sucked Dwight in, of course, and Dwight listened to everything he said.”

“A close bond?”

“An
evil
bond. Blake has little emotion, so he didn't care for Dwight—or anybody. One of the doctors said he viewed Dwight as an experiment. He'd set him off to do pranks—to foul up the works.”

“Like?” I probed.

“Well, for one, Blake and Dwight would slip into a patient's room, hide things, and watch the patient go bananas. Or he'd tell a patient a family member had died, and he'd watch the hysterics. We caught on to a few of these—someone saw—but I'm sure he did many more.”

“How did Dwight play into this?”

Aleck was fiddling with her napkin, unhappy. He cast a dark eye on me, which I ignored.

“His patsy. His stooge. He directed Dwight to do such and such. Then the two would sit in a lounge and howl and slap their knees and yell out. If Blake got reprimanded by the director, he'd find a way to blame Dwight. ‘You know how he is, sir,' he'd babble. ‘Unstable.'”

“Where was his family?”

“Well, ultimately I heard that they disowned him—wouldn't allow him back at the estate. He terrorized, he stole money, he pawned jewelry, he—he manipulated, turned brother against sister. That sort of thing. Not for any end but the thrill of it.” Her index finger wagged at me. “That's it. A man born to wealth who lives for a vicarious thrill. Nothing else matters.”

“How long was he here?”

“Not long. But twice. He disappeared for a year or so. I heard he tried to become an actor on Broadway, even had some parts. I mean, he had the looks and this radio-announcer kind of voice. But I doubt if the stage could hold him. Before he came back here—before the family disowned him—that is, I heard he had this old Park Avenue lady in his power, milked her savings account. Then her children stepped in. When he was here the second time, a brief time, Dwight was no longer here.”

“Back at home?” I asked.

She nodded. “But Blake had a new acolyte. An absolutely frenzied young man, a few years younger, had been admitted. The son of an editor on the
Chicago Tribune
, I recall. Blake became his hero. In fact, the young man altered his own appearance, shellacking his hair so that it sparkled, dressing the same way, approximating Blake's casual walk—he had a way of sauntering that suggested he was taking his time headed to the Saratoga races at tea time—and even using Blake's expressions. Blake employed a lot of flapper era jargon—like
bee's knees, cat's meow, oh you kid.
Artificial and purposeful. When he used those expressions, he always had a superior tone, as though challenging you to remark on the language being passé. But when this young man used that language, it sounded sad and lonely, echoes of his mentor. Blake would tap him on the shoulder and say things like, ‘There, there. Someday you'll be a shadow of the real me.' Whatever that meant.”

“His name?” I asked.

“Is that important?”

“Probably not, but…”

“Ezra Cilley.”

“That's a real name?” Aleck asked, grinning.

“What finally happened to Blake?” I wondered.

Alice sat back, finished with the interrogation. “He walked away.”

“You mean out of Montclair Manor?” Aleck asked, flummoxed.

She chuckled. “It's not uncommon. These are rich folks. Yes, we have a locked room, places for electric shock, other kinds of therapy, but most wander the halls like ghosts of their former selves. They demand—or their families do—a lot of freedom. One day Blake put on his street clothes and walked off the grounds.”

“Did anyone find him?”

“Well, a few phone calls, but his family wanted no part of it. He was dead to them.”

“And so he's disappeared?”

“As I say, he slipped out the door and kept walking.”

Chapter Eighteen

Willie was impatient to head back to Flemington, but my mind raced with the information Alice provided. The day had turned damp and raw, a pocket of ice fog settling over the roads, so Willie crept along, reassuring us he would return us safely. The more he assured—he did go on and on, nervous weather forecaster—the more I planned my funeral. The fog lulled him, made him melancholic. The car drifted. I repeatedly tapped his shoulder. “Willie.” He hummed laments about long drives he'd taken that ended in—disaster. “Nice touch,” I whispered to Aleck. A long day, this, so I wanted to return to my rooms, soak in a hot bath, call for tea and a cold plate, and drift away.

But first I needed to talk to Aleck. I pointed out a roadside diner. “Coffee,” I breathed. “Coffee.”

“Cake,” Aleck responded, a gleam in his eye.

“That, too.”

Seated in the art deco diner, all polished chrome and country-western jukebox and cracked red leather stools, I began, “Aleck, tell me what you think.”

He shook his head vigorously. “No, no, dear Ferb. This is your out-of-town preview. You're the writer and director, if not the star. Yes, it'll bomb in New Haven, but you have to have your way.”

“Aleck, stop talking.”

His small eyes got wide. “You just asked me what I thought.”

“I didn't really mean it.” I smiled winsomely. “Actually, I plan on telling you what I think.”

“But I can read your mind.”

“I doubt that.” A heartbeat as I scanned the grimy menu and mumbled to the waitress, “Coffee with whipped cream. Or any cream. Banana cream pie.” As she turned away, I said to him, “There's a story here. Dwight Morrow and Blake Somerville—and, lamentably, Violet Sharp. And perhaps even her sister, Emily, now safely hidden away in merry old England.”

Aleck held up his hand. “Before you go on, I want to register my objections to this day.”

“You don't have to, Aleck. I read the expression on your face all day long.” I fiddled with a spoon on the table. “I think we have to take Violet's letters to Annabel seriously.” His eyebrows shot up. He grumbled. I continued, “Indulge me, Aleck. Don't you think there is something about this story…this Blake Somerville? An intriguing player in this drama.”

Aleck frowned. “But you're making a huge and impossible leap from the Morrow household and this vagabond trickster to the kidnapping of Little Lindy.”

“I'm simply suggesting that we think about what Annabel believed—based on letters from her cousin. How else do we place Violet Sharp into this? She had an infatuation with a dangerous man, someone who knew how to manipulate folks, like Dwight and Violet.”

“We don't know that.”

“Yes, we do. Violet was seen with them.”

“So what?”

“So Annabel understood that Dwight harbored a dislike of Lindbergh, documented—a well-placed dislike, if you ask me—and this disowned rich man maneuvered him into some foolish prank. That last letter talks of a prank”—I deliberated, pausing—“maybe to hide the baby, get money, then return the boy.”

“Maybe.”

“A prank that Dwight perhaps thought disruptive and pesky. To get under Lindbergh's skin. Payback for Lindbergh's pranks on him. But I think Blake Somerville thought it great fun.”

“Rather maniacal, no?”

I tapped the table. “That's my point, Aleck. We're dealing with a man who is amoral, who lives for the hunt, the thrill, the sensation.”

“But a real baby died, Edna.” He stabbed a piece of cake. “Not some mental game-playing, some fantasy maybe, they talked of.”

“That's where the plan fell apart. Everything was in place. Perhaps the sister Emily, living nearby…”

“Stop, Edna. All the evidence points to Bruno Hauptmann. The
real
kidnapper. Not some rich boy fantasy as told by a lovestruck maid.”

“Hauptmann? Circumstantial evidence, all of it.”

“True, but…”

“But can you see this stranger approaching the Lindbergh home by himself, carrying a ladder, at eight or nine o'clock at night? Not even midnight, with everyone sleeping. Wouldn't you wait until everyone was asleep? Charles and Anne are downstairs talking. Servants are around. The nurse in and out of the nursery. How did he know they'd be there that night? They were supposed to be at Anne's mother's home. Chance? Really? So this lone man slams a ladder against a wall, climbs up, walks into a dark nursery he's never been in, and pulls the baby out of the cradle. What if a nurse slept in the room? What if she walked in? What if someone glanced out the window and spotted a ladder? Nine o'clock at night. No one sleeping yet. And where would he bring the baby after he tottered down that ladder? A hotel?”

“No.” Aleck's voice rose. “Hauptmann planned on killing the baby in the cradle. Right there. There would be no noise.”

“No.” But I faltered. “So he carried a dead baby down the ladder?”

“And a rung snapped. The sound Lindbergh heard. Maybe the baby was in a bag, soon to be buried nearby in a shadow grave.”

“One man, a stranger to that huge house, doing all this?”

“Are you saying that Dwight and Blake kidnapped the baby that night? Based on Violet's nonsense?”

“I don't know what happened. I doubt if Dwight was part of the event. I can't see
him
climbing a ladder. After all, he was back at college. Remember that he refused to return home the next day. He stayed in his rooms at Amherst. But perhaps Blake executed the kidnapping. Perhaps Dwight knew, and Blake was fed information from Violet, who'd learned the Lindberghs were staying at Hopewell that night.”

“You're forgetting something else. A ransom note left behind, Edna. Obviously written by a German immigrant struggling with the language. German punctuation. The dollar sign
after
the amount. As in Germany. The use of German words like
gute
and
haus
. Misspelling
boat
as
boad
.
Note
for
not.
You've read the ransom notes. Fifteen or so of them. German. Barely literate.”

I deliberated a second. “An act. Someone purporting to be a foreigner. Part of the plan.”

“You're stretching, Edna.”

“I'm looking for a pattern, Aleck.”

“Hauptmann fits the profile. German, German, German.”

“I know.”

“And he had over fourteen thousand hidden in his garage. Documented ransom notes—gold certificates. He'd been passing money left and right.”

“Well, Bruno claimed he didn't know it was ransom money. The serial numbers were published in the press. Would Hauptmann be so foolish to hand out bills he knew were recorded? He bought gas with one, pulling his automobile into the station and not hiding his face. His license plate. The prosecution insists Bruno is cagey, a maniacal killer who planned every detail alone. If Bruno was so careful, why become so—so cavalier later on? ‘Here, take this gold bill I got as ransom money. Remember what my face looks like.'”

Aleck got quiet, then said, “Dr. Condon handed over the ransom money to a German.” A deep intake of breath. “A goddamned German.”

“Maybe.”

His voice rose, harsh. “What are you saying?”

“Keep in mind that Blake Somerville was an actor on Broadway.”

Aleck howled. “Really, Edna. Really?”

I slammed my fist down on the table. “Yes, Aleck. Really.”

He dropped some coins on the table and signaled he was ready to leave.

“We shouldn't try Bruno for the sins of the Great War. You know as well as I do that there's a strong anti-German sentiment in the country, Aleck.”

He settled back in his seat. “And rightly so. The brutality of the Kaiser and his minions is documented. I was
there
, Edna. American solders were slaughtered in that war. And now Hitler—meetings of the German-American Bund in Manhattan.”

“My point, Aleck. We have a dislike of all things German, which is understandable. Lord, you can't say
frankfurter
anymore.”

“
Hot dog
is more American.”

“Yes, I know. Everybody knows that. I said
gesundheit
to a woman in the market and she snapped at me.”

Aleck would have none of it. “Bruno Hauptmann was behind this. Resentment of the American aviator hero.”

“Well, that may be true. But he was not alone. Maybe he's just guilty of greed—extortion, him and that pathetic con man, Isidor Fisch. We may never know.”

Aleck's voice broke. “Enough, Edna.”

“You're getting angry.”

Aleck locked eyes with mine. “I
am
angry. With you. You are headed up the wrong street, my dear.” He hissed his words. “Your monomaniacal obsession with Annabel's murder and her preposterous story has clouded your vision. Schoolgirls with fairy tales they write to each other.”

“No.”

He held up his hand. “Enough.”

“I…”

He snarled. “Are you rehearsing your next diabolic column with me now? Will I find these words echoed in tomorrow's
Times
? Didn't your encomium to the dead beautiful Violet satisfy your lust for notoriety?” A high laugh. “I can see it now. Here's a headline for you—A Violet Wilted.” Then in a tinny singsong voice he warbled, “Roses are red, Violet is dead.”

“You're not funny.”

He stood and was thrusting his arm into the sleeve of his overcoat. “I'm a forthright man, a little bizarre, admittedly. I'm considered the wittiest man in America, Edna.”

I bit my lip. “And often the most unkind.”

He left me sitting in the booth. I sipped my coffee slowly.

Back in the car, I asked Willie why he hadn't come into the restaurant for coffee.

“Got me a bag of the wife's gingersnaps.” He held up a paper bag, wrinkled and folded over. “And besides I seen that you two needed to have a chat about something. You was both all jumpy and twitching.”

Aleck chortled. “Words that have never been used before with the estimable Edna Ferber.”

When we were on the road, Aleck faced away from me, but I could tell by the flushed neck and the red spots on his cheeks that he was boiling. Finally, a half-hour into the ride, he glanced furtively at me, a mischievous glint in his eyes, magnified by the owl-like eyeglasses he wore, as he leaned forward in the seat, addressing Willie.

“Tell me, Willie, my friend, what do you think of Miss Ferber's wide goose chases?”

“Ain't my business. As I was saying to Marcus just yesterday, these excursions pay for food on my table.”

“But let me ask you this—what do you think of Bruno Hauptmann?”

“I already told you.”

“He already told us,” I seethed, “back at the start of the trial. He believes Bruno is guilty.”

“That I do, now more than ever.”

That surprised me. “Why more now?”

“I hear folks talking in the bars at night. I listen good. That ladder, for one.”

“A shoddy construction,” I noted. “Bruno is a seasoned carpenter.”

“And he got them eyes.”

“Tell me,” I prodded him.

He caught my glance in the rearview mirror. “Cold, like steel balls. That man ain't got no emotion.”

“Yes, a severe man, arrogant…”

“No, he got iron his veins. Not blood.”

“Still and all, a man…”

Aleck broke in. “A killer of babies.”

“One, possibly, Aleck. Just one. And the jury is out.”

“The war done it,” Willie snapped.

“What?” From Aleck.

“I read that he was dragged into the Kaiser's army when he was seventeen. A boy. Impressionable. Made him a machine-gunner. A boy. They turned him into a monster, that's what war does to boys.”

“Good point.” I said.

His voice cracked. “My only son—he fought in the war. The American side, of course. He came back someone I don't know. He stares off into space—blubbers. Now he's gone off to California, left a wife and kid behind. The war is a bitter teacher.”

“I agree, Willie,” but I added, “A young man's bones not fully formed yet. Not yet a man. A boy, subjected to the horrors of that war. He was gassed, in fact.”

“But that ain't no excuse,” Willie insisted. “When he got back home, yes, the land was bare and people starved, so he took up crime. He climbed a ladder to break into the mayor's home. He robbed women with baby carriages at gunpoint. He took their loaves of bread. He escaped from jail.” His fingers punctuated the remarks by drumming the steering wheel. “Look at his eyes, Miss Ferber.”

“I have.”

Aleck smirked. “As well as thousands of other women.”

“Hard, as I say. Marbles.”

“So the workings of the trial mean nothing?” I asked him.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he's already convicted?”

“Yes, ma'am. They're going through the motions. The only thing left is to burn him in the chair.”

I shivered. “Hardly American, Willie. We have laws. Innocent until…”

“Guilty. Plain as the nose on your face.”

Aleck was laughing. “The common man has spoken.”

I glared at him.

We arrived back at Flemington as darkness fell, and I wanted to grab a bite, draw a hot bubble bath, and surrender to a good night's sleep. A few stragglers stared at us as we stepped out of the car, but Aleck lagged behind, signaling to another reporter from the
Daily Mirror
that he'd like a few words. They'd shared a space when Aleck wrote drama criticism for
The New Yorker
. I waved good night and left.

But I was drawn to the noise coming from Nellie's Tavern and glanced in. A rowdy crowd of tipsy reporters and hangers-on. But what alarmed me was the laughter. The sequestered jurors on the floor above, two to a room, listening to the chants from outside—that incessant “Kill Bruno” that rarely disappeared—but also the glib pronouncements of the reporters, bored and drunk and happy, on the floor below. Kill Bruno? Was that refrain etched onto their brains and souls? I hoped not.