Cold Morning (23 page)

He stood now, reaching for an overcoat that he'd draped over the seat, glancing toward the kitchen door and tugging at the sleeve of his jacket. “I won't be needing this jacket. The funny thing is this, Miss Ferber. Martha was
not
working that night. She left at seven, like Annabel. She was headed right home. She was supposedly at home. But she knew I slipped out of the café that night because, well, she was in town. She spotted me. The question is, what was she doing that night? Maybe she strangled Annabel.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I've seen her angry. I've seen her jealous. That says it all.”

With that, he half-bowed self-consciously and left the café, though he glanced again toward the kitchen. Just as he walked out, he slipped off the white linen jacket and hurled it onto the floor.

***

I dawdled at the table for an hour, loath to return to my room, asking the waiter for a pencil and paper, scribbling thoughts and observations for my next column—my last column, I'd decided. The waiter periodically refilled my cup, served me a corn muffin slathered in apple butter, poured me a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Each time he approached the table, he hesitated, as though fearful he was interrupting me. But I found his tentative behavior endearing and sweet. His name was Miles, he told me when I asked him. Which, he said, he hated. His mother told him she'd named him after Miles Standish. He thought that a mistake.

My last column. I played with headlines. “The Lone Kidnapper.” “Mob Rule.” But I settled finally on “Reservations at the Union Hotel.”

Jottings: the circumstances of circumstantial evidence. Lynch law. Trial by street mob. The roar of the crowd. Kill Bruno. Witnesses who failed to convince. An old man, admittedly with failing eyesight, recalls Hauptmann driving by Hopewell years back. I was reminded that the
New York Daily News
, walking around Hopewell and showing photographs of Fiorello LaGuardia and Judge Crater, found folks who insisted these men roamed the grounds the night of the kidnapping. A so-called scientist of wood who talked of wood grain with the fervor of someone deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. A telephone number scribbled in a tight closet that only a contortionist could maneuver. Circumstantial—made-up evidence—questionable. Dr. Condon's telephone number written inside Bruno's baby boy's closet—such a small space you'd have to remove a shelf to step in, turn to face outward, have a flashlight to see clearly.

Bruno Hauptmann didn't have a telephone.

Someone in Nellie's Taproom whispered that Tom Cassidy from the
New York Daily News
, allowed to roam the apartment, admitted that he scribbled the number there, then photographed it, incriminating Bruno. The piece of the ladder that was found in Bruno's attic? Detective Lewis Bormann rented the apartment after Anna fled. Although the rooms had been torn apart, including the attic—a difficult space to reach, a hatchway in the ceiling off a small linen closet that required you to lift yourself into the cramped, slant-roofed, dark space—and a dozen cops had inspected it, suddenly Bormann found a missing board, which was found on the ladder. Sawdust no one had seen before in the attic.

Why would Bruno, a carpenter with lumber in his garage and two blocks from a lumber yard, hoist himself into an almost inaccessible attic and cut off a long piece of wood? That was evidence? What to believe?

Reservations from the Union Hotel. Indeed.

Doubt.

An awful word when a man's life is at stake.

Doubt. A deadly sin.

Engrossed in my desultory note-taking, I didn't hear Aleck behind me. “Ferb.” I looked up. “Ferb,” he repeated. I pointed to a chair.

“The
Times
has a sense of humor,” he began, dropping into a chair.

“Who would have believed it?”

“You're not happy.” A statement of fact.

“Aleck,” I said slowly, “I refuse your simplistic image of me.”

He laughed out loud, the high-strained cackle I found so infuriating. “And what is that?”

“I resent your referring to me in your diatribe.”

He signaled to the waiter. “I mentioned no names.”

“Sob sister. I'm one of the sniveling sentimentalists?”

That piercing giggle. “Choice words, no?”

“I have reservations about what is happening in Flemington. You don't.”

“Damned right, Edna. You are a mollycoddler.”

I measured my words. “And you have chosen to make a judgment before the trial is concluded. Do you think that ethical?”

His voice got shrill. “I write opinions.”

“No, no, you condemn with your words, which is the nature of your bombastic rhetoric.”

“Which is equal to your sentimental posturing.”

“Still and all…” I paused. “As friends, I expect you not to join ranks attacking me.”

He ignored that. “Did you hear Winchell on the radio? He mentioned you by name.”

“So I heard. That foolish prostitute.”

He sucked in his lips, angry. “You have taken a dangerous position, Edna.”

“I have taken no position—except doubt. A position any sane man should have. I'm writing articles that describe the people here.” I forced him to look into my face. “And I'm exploring the story of Annabel and her murder and the arrest of Cody Lee Thomas and the mystery of what happened that night in Hopewell. And, I might add, the elusive story of Blake Somerville and Dwight Morrow. Pieces of a puzzle, somehow connected.”

His eyes flashed anger. “There is no story there. Just a lot of foolish speculation. In the face of
all
the evidence—piles of it. You indulge in wild goose chases because of the rambling of a dead girl. Now I've humored you, Ferb, but really now.”

“As I have you—for decades.”

His cheeks flushed crimson. “Let me tell you one thing, Edna, and I'll be done with all this. I see the way you and other women look at Bruno Hauptmann. You and the other ridiculous women. Dorothy Kilgallen telling me that Hauptmann ‘is definitely a hit,' in her words, with his mesmerizing stares at the female jurors. I can tell that the fat one, Rosie Pill, is drunk with him. Adela Rogers St. Johns is talking of his ‘sex appeal,' the ‘weak, handsome man who stirs either some sympathy of sex or of motherhood.'”

“I am not those women.”

“No, but you lead the pack of the saucer-eyed mob. Sorry, Edna, but your…advocacy makes you one of the lonely and itchy women who see Bruno as so physically attractive as to be above all suspicion of doing anything unkind.” He reached inside a breast pocket and withdrew a sheet. “As I will say in tomorrow's column, ‘If he did not have a wife, you would all be flooding his mail with offers of marriage. An old maid's foolish fantasy.'” Steely-eyed, livid. “Why do you embarrass yourself, Edna?”

Livid, I slammed my palm down on the table. “How dare you!”

“A jury of twelve women as yourself would never convict that murderer of
anything
. He's a baby-killer, Edna. Yes, you say the man might be naughty enough to take the ransom money, but—no, no, no—never a kidnapper or a murderer. He's not the knight in shining armor that struts the boards in
Show Boat
or settles Oklahoma with the Sooners. Perhaps you should stick to the claptrap that pays your bills.”

I stood. “Aleck, you're simply a New Jersey Nero who mistakes his pinafore for a toga.”

His mouth dropped open, and he stammered, “Go kneel at the shrine of Bruno.”

Irrationally, I picked up my coffee cup and slammed it down. The pieces flew across the table, a shard into Aleck's lap, the rest onto the floor. From the corner of my eye I spotted young Miles, wide-eyed and delirious, watching and listening. All around us folks stopped to gape. I didn't care.

Aleck carefully picked a piece of pottery off his lap, examined it carefully, and spat out, “You behave like a common scullery maid.”

“And you, dear Aleck, like a horse's ass.”

With that, I spun around and walked out, colliding with Walter Winchell who was strolling in, followed by his worshipful claque of sycophants. He shifted to the side, but I managed to throw him off balance, even as I tottered against a wall.

“Miss Ferber,” he sputtered, “how strange to bump into you like this.”

I stared into his face. “And they say God doesn't have a dark sense of humor.”

Chapter Twenty-three

The hotel clerk called my name and handed me an envelope. He looked nervous, his fingers trembling. Not surprising: the creamy white envelope bore an embossed name in the upper left corner: Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh. Augustus: emperor. Ruler. I flashed stupidly to another surname: Hauptmann. Hauptmann: head man. Ruler. I eyed the desk clerk eyeing me, anxious. But I thanked him—he appeared disappointed I didn't share the contents with him—and I went to my room. I sat on the edge of the bed, the envelope resting on my lap, and then I carefully unsealed it.

An invitation to luncheon the next day—Saturday—at the farm outside of Flemington where the Lindberghs resided during the trial. There was no expectation that I might refuse—rather, the handwritten note ended with a notation that a car would call for me at the hotel at twelve noon, sharp. Signed:
C.A. Lindbergh
. Beneath his parochial-school penmanship a gracious entreaty:
Please
.

My inclination was to refuse, but that
please
charmed me.

But, of course, on reflection—and a chance hallway encounter with a distant and sputtering Aleck Woollcott—I concluded I was going to be eaten alive. I'd heard through the journalistic grapevine, mainly Walter Winchell who raised his voice as I passed by him, that my
New York Times
pieces on the trial had rankled readers, especially my last piece in which I railed about state police malfeasance, the questionable evidence presented, the compulsion to leak every tidbit of information immediately to the press. Winchell, I knew, sat in the cat seat, jotting down notes he then handed to Attorney General Wilentz in the middle of the interrogation. The knee-jerk good boy at summer camp.

Aleck, sneering, started to walk by me but stopped. A sarcastic edge to his voice. “Someone in Nellie's Taproom—where another bitch in town blocks the entrance way—said that you've been invited to an Inquisition. Colonel Schwarzkopf, I've heard, talks too much. I may never see you again.”

“You don't sound unhappy.”

He blew cigarette smoke into my face. “Your absence will be conspicuous.”

I slatted my eyes, menacingly, I hoped. “Thank you.”

“God, that oxymoron cannot be new to you.”

I smiled. “Of course not. All your witticisms are borrowed.”

He bustled by me, huffing, a trace of cigarette ash dropping onto my sleeve.

“Spontaneous combustion,” he said, laughing. ”Ferber in flames. I'd pay to see that opening—and closing.”

“Only if the Methodist women catered it.” I slammed my door behind him.

***

Judge George Lange's farmhouse was nestled in a small dale, surrounded by a grove of towering hemlocks. Overnight, sleet had fallen and now, at midday, the cold sun was melting the ice that blanketed the boughs, creating a shimmering crystal palace. As the car pulled in front of the barn-style doors, a dog raced around the yard, howling, gleeful, until an unseen voice called a name—Ike, it sounded like—and the German shepherd disappeared into the backyard. The front doors swung open, and a uniformed state trooper peered suspiciously as the driver opened my door and I stepped out. “Miss Ferber?” A question.

I nodded.

He stepped aside and pointed me inside where, in a rigid but calculated line, three men stood shoulder-to-shoulder. The dark night of the soul. The three colonels: Colonel Lindbergh, Colonel Breckinridge, and Colonel Schwarzkopf. The Roman tribunal facing the whipping girl Rebecca.

Lindbergh was the first to speak. “Miss Ferber, thank you for visiting me.” A half-bow as he reached for my hand. His grip was soft, though he held onto my fingers too long.

“An unexpected invitation.”

Lindbergh glanced at Schwarzkopf. “It was my wife Anne's idea.”

Colonel Breckinridge threw him a hasty look as he hurriedly added, “She mentioned reading your
Cimarron
. With great pleasure.”

“I haven't had that pleasure yet,” Lindbergh interjected. “Too busy…”

“Of course.”

“But we have read your columns in the
Times
,” said Schwarzkopf, unsmiling.

“Which, I assume, is why I am here.”

The owner of the farm, Judge George Lange, was nowhere to be seen. A local banker and president of the County Bar Association, he'd been added to the state's consul table, sitting next to David Wilentz. His wife, a well-known society dame, hovered in the gallery, watching. She was also missing from the table before us.

A maid walked into the room, nodded, and Lindbergh said, “Please join us.” He waited until I walked near, and he grasped my elbow, very gentlemanly, the escort at the high school cotillion.

As we settled around a long mahogany dining table, set for four, I sensed movement in a hallway and caught the fleeting figure of Lindbergh's wife, Anne, as she began climbing a stairwell. Lindbergh noticed my staring into the hallway.

“I'm afraid Anne is under the weather.”

I smiled. “Yes. I'm sorry.” A pause as I looked into his face. “Of course, Colonel Lindbergh, I would like to extend my sympathies for all you and your family have gone through…these past years…it had to be so hard…so…painful…”

Schwarzkopf grunted, cutting me off. “Yes, yes, we know.” He shot a look at Lindbergh. “Let's get on with this.” Unpleasant, brusque.

I frowned at him. A martinet, this Colonel Norman Schwarzkopf. In his late thirties, thin and wiry like a chained dog, a military crew cut, a sliver of a matinee idol's waxed blond moustache, this man who was head of the newly minted New Jersey State Police, a Great War West Point man, someone whose only policing experience was as a floor detective at Bamberger's Department Store in Newark, a man suddenly thrust into the spotlight of police authority, fumbling, forced to follow the lead of Colonel Lindbergh when the kidnapping first happened. Lindbergh called all the shots, directed, ordered imperially, and Schwarzkopf, intoxicated by the glow of Lindbergh's persuasion, salaamed and obeyed. Of course, once the baby's body was discovered, he assumed control of the investigation. Because then, to be sure, it was a case of murder. A backseat to Lindbergh until those two men found the decomposed body of a child four miles from the estate.

Schwarzkopf drummed a finger on the table, ready to pounce.

Colonel Henry Breckinridge, Lindbergh's lawyer and close friend, leaned in. “Colonel Lindbergh is by nature a shy man.”

A contrast to the bulldog Schwarzkopf, Breckinridge was tall, slender, patrician, dignified with gray hair, the easy countenance of a moneyed attorney. Princeton elite. Assistant Secretary of War under Wilson.

Lindbergh squirmed. “I'm right here, Henry.” A deprecating laugh. “Miss Ferber, my friends treat me like a milk-fed lad from a hayfield.”

Schwarzkopf wasn't happy. “We're here for a reason, Miss Ferber.”

Lindbergh held up his hand. “A moment, Norman. Let Miss Ferber at least enjoy her lunch before you castigate her.”

“Thank you,” I told him. “I prefer my reprimands to be received on a full stomach.”

He smiled at me sweetly. “We're all on the same side, of course.”

Schwarzkopf broke in. “No, we're not.”

“Norman, please.” Lindbergh waved a long finger at me. “Colonel Schwarzkopf wants the world at military attention.”

“That must have been difficult when he was a floor detective nabbing shoplifters in the women's wear aisle at Bamberger's.”

Schwarzkopf let out a bark, but Colonel Lindbergh, tickled, laughed out loud. Breckinridge's head moved back and forth, his eyes wary and uncertain.

Lunch was served, quietly and efficiently, the young woman approaching the table as if in fear of thunder and lightning. No one spoke for a while. A honey-glazed ham, deftly sliced, boiled potatoes slathered in sour cream and butter, and green beans so brilliantly green I feared they'd been dipped in an artist's palate—or, perhaps, arsenic. No one spoke for the longest time, but, peculiarly, no one really ate. Yes, Lindbergh stabbed at a string bean, missed his elusive quarry, and sat back, arms folded, that same beatific smile plastered on his lips. Schwarzkopf cut the ham into one-inch squares, regimented, moved the sections around as though plotting a military campaign, and the lawyer Breckinridge drank two glasses of water and then frowned at the empty glass.

At first, watching the men, I was nervous, my heart racing, but as I contemplated my own dish of food and the silent men, something shifted within me: an overpowering sea change. My nervousness dissipated. One minute I quivered, the sacrificial lamb at the aviator's feast, the next—a perfect wash of serenity.

Because I knew, in that delicious burst of epiphany, that I held control. These three men were boys playing a game, huddled earlier as they strategized and schemed and assembled an agenda. A war plan. Now, perforce, they realized they forgot to bring the ball to the playground. They'd simply assumed their words would flow naturally, the game easily scored. But Edna Ferber faced them, and my few comments had alerted them to the dangers of an unexpected player. Perhaps they understood that I was not a woman to be trifled with.

Schwarzkopf cleared his throat. “I'm afraid you've been a thorn in our side.”

Wide-eyed, thrilled. “Me?”

Lindbergh broke in, still smiling, albeit dumbly. His lips were thin, drawn. “Miss Ferber, I agree with what you said in one of your recent columns. The circus atmosphere, the rich ladies in furs in their limousines, the…”

I finished for him. “The packed crowds outside the jail, yelling ‘Kill Bruno.'”

He winced. “That, too. Yes.” Still smiling. “Mankind at its worst. I don't want a lynch mob.”

“I'll say.”

He closed his eyes for a second. “My fame in the air brought me notice I could have done without. People always at me, demanding. When I built the house in Hopewell, I chose a secluded spot, hoping, but…”

Schwarzkopf was speaking over him. “We
all
agree it's a zoo in Flemington. That can't be helped. But”—a long pause as he caught my eye and held it—“your last column talked of the bungled investigation, the way police and reporters trampled on the evidence, a thousand hands on that ladder, on rumors that Hauptmann was beaten severely by the New York cops, all the rumors that can only enflame.” He stopped because Lindbergh was making a clicking sound, like a small child who was unhappy with his present.

“Colonel Lindbergh,” I started, “I assume you understand that in America—in a democracy—it's crucial to have an intelligent opposition—questioning, vigilant.”

His snarl surprised me. “I know what it means to be an American, Miss Ferber.”

“I wonder about that.”

He caught his breath. “I beg your pardon?”

“It's just that I believe any citizen has the right to probe, question, demand. Just as every citizen deserves a fair, unbiased trial.”

He threw out, “Bruno Hauptmann is an illegal alien.”

“Yet he is being tried in an American courtroom with American jurisprudence.”

The lawyer laughed. “Miss Ferber for the defense.”

I went on, heated. “All we need to do, sir, is look at Germany today.”

Lindbergh sat up. “What?” A quizzical smile.

“Hitler and his band of thugs. Surely you've been paying attention to what's going on there. These days I don't believe Germany, led by that bellowing madman, would grant a soul a fair trial. Bruno Richard Hauptmann would not have his day in court in Germany—he'd be standing before a firing squad.” I added loudly, “I don't want to see the equivalent of a firing squad in the country I love.”

Lindbergh reflected, “You need to be careful of propaganda, Miss Ferber. I think Germany and Italy, for that matter, are the two most virile nations in Europe these days—the decency and morality of the Germans outdistances our values. In Germany I witnessed the efficiency and lovely symmetry of the Luftwaffe, an air command that…”

“And the current treatment of the Jews?” I said. “Certainly you…?”

Lindbergh made a face, unpleasant. “Yes, that is a problem. But you know, a few Jews add strength and character to any country, I buy that, but too many create—chaos.”

“Do we have too many in America?”

He shrugged. “Well, they are, well, other—not really American.”

Enough of this madness.

“There can be no good that comes of Hitler,” I said.

Schwarzkopf frowned. “Germany has nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with America.”

I tapped my foot. “Not yet. Tomorrow.”

Charles Lindbergh grinned. “A pessimist, Miss Ferber?”

“A realist, sir.”

Breckinridge fussed. “But to the matter at hand, Miss Ferber. Your articles suggest”—He struggled for the right words—“suggest a hidden story, a…a conspiracy.”

Lindbergh sucked in his breath. “Violet Sharp.”

Two words: explosive, raw, hanging in the rarefied air like a death sentence.

Breckinridge went on. “‘Violet Sharp: A Cautionary Tale' was an inflammatory piece.”

The reason for this visit, I knew: my column on Violet Sharp—yes, the column had garnered considerable attention—and anger. A storm of irate telephone calls and heated letters to the
Times
office.

And yet I'd said nothing untoward, a simple recapitulation of the questioning, suspicions, and ultimate suicide of the sad British girl. All I'd attempted to do was to remember a life lost in this whole tragedy. No accusations, no summations, no connection with—with her cousin Annabel Biggs and that woman's murder. I'd left all that out. A memorial to a casualty of the drama. Violet Sharp, an exemplum of how a simple life, lived quietly, suddenly exploded in the shrapnel of a wartime blast.

“I made no accusations.”