Conspiracy of Silence (13 page)

“Joseph,” I said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him away to a far corner of the room, “let me ask you something.”

“Yes, sir,” he breathed, looking at me as if I could somehow conjure Lizbeth back with a few passes of my hand.

“Did any member of the household leave the house last night for any reason?”

He looked me deeply in the face, his eyes bulging in fear. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just tell me, Joseph. It could be of immense help.”

Something was preventing him from speaking—terror, apprehension, concern for Lizbeth, concern for his own standing in the family, or something altogether different.

Finally he said: “Yes, someone did go.”

“Who?”

It took Joseph what seemed to be an eternity to say: “Mrs. Crawford, sir.”

“Florence Crawford!” I nearly shouted. “Are you sure?”

“No, sir,” Joseph almost whispered. “Not her. The elder Mrs. Crawford.”

I closed my eyes in wearied disbelief. It was my worst fear.

Lizbeth had been kidnapped by her own grandmother.

The information Joseph provided seemed to make it pretty clear what was going on. Helen Ward Crawford had taken one of the family's fleet of automobiles—she had driven it herself, without the use of the chauffeur, one Perkins—around 8:30 yesterday evening. She was gone for more than an hour. I had little doubt that she did more than mail that little greeting card to me at the nearest mailbox in town; and I had a fairly good idea where she had gone.

For I was under no delusions that Helen had done the job of kidnapping Lizbeth herself—that would be beyond her powers and beneath her dignity. The footprints under the window of Lizbeth's room made it clear that at least two people—at least one of them a man of sizeable bulk—were involved. But to my mind, there was no question that Helen was the one pulling the strings here—for what possible motive, I couldn't even begin to fathom. It was obvious from the beginning that she was hostile to Lizbeth's poking around in this whole matter; but would she have gone to the length of snatching up her own granddaughter just to shut her—and me—up?

What, really, had I discovered? Only that James Allen Crawford had
not
killed his brother Frank, and that Frank was alive and kicking and seemingly content being out of the family. How was that a threat to Helen? What did she stand to gain by this incredibly desperate and foolhardy measure?

The overriding question, therefore, was nothing more than this:
Why did Helen Ward Crawford want to keep her own son James in prison?
It was not as if she had someone else—at least, someone within the Crawford clan—lined up to take over the family business. The idea that Lizbeth could run the show after Helen's passing seemed fantastic—not that Lizbeth wasn't a smart, headstrong, dynamic person, but there wasn't the slightest indication that she was being groomed to take on such a responsibility.

Well, all that was a secondary consideration now. My prime concern was to get Lizbeth back—and get her back alive. Nothing else mattered, and nothing was going to stop me.

I wasn't quite so confident of my own ability—or quite so confident of Helen's sanity—to think that Helen (if indeed she were the mastermind of the kidnapping) wouldn't take drastic action, up to and including killing her own granddaughter, if I pursued my inquiries too boldly. So I made a show of announcing to all and sundry that I was suspending my investigation pending the release of Lizbeth Crawford.

I did so as Helen Ward Crawford, who had drifted into the parlor like a kind of evil spirit, stared stonily at me from a dim corner. Her gorgon face revealed nothing except rage and malevolence. It quickly became clear to me that she was the toughest of tough nuts to crack, so my only option was to do a sort of end run around her.

And for my ally in that undertaking, I chose Joseph the butler.

Pulling him aside, I muttered a few comments and questions to him. Getting a satisfactory reply, I made my exit.

I won't say that I wasn't glad to see the back of Thornleigh—for now.

But I was back on the scene at around midnight.

The most discreet of knocks at the front door brought an immediate response. Joseph opened the door hastily and silently. He was standing in front of me, dressed all in black—and I'm not referring to his usual monkey suit—and topped with a beret that made him look like some kind of cat burglar. I admired his diligence, but couldn't resist cracking a grin.

But this was no time for frivolity. Earlier I had asked him:

“Can you handle a gun?”

He had snapped: “Yes, sir, Mr. Scintilla.”

“I'm not referring to that shotgun you like to carry around”—at this, he'd turned crimson at the recollection of how he'd (perhaps justifiably) tried to blow my head off during my unearthing of Frank Crawford's grave—“I mean an automatic. Know how to use it?”

“I do, sir.”

“Good. That's all I need to know.”

Now, as he closed the door without the faintest hint of sound, we proceed to make our way through the forest to that deserted road where, I suspected, Lizbeth's kidnappers had themselves stashed their vehicle to make off with her. A cold, steady rain had begun about an hour before, and my own Fedora was quickly ruined. The walk through the woods was dismal and cheerless, and we made no small talk to enliven the occasion. Only when we were well beyond the confines of the house did I feel safe enough to light the same kerosene lamp that I'd brought here for a very different purpose only a few days before.

We reached my car in good time, although we were by this time soaked to the skin and shivering with cold. The drive into Pompton Lakes was also short, for I had a very specific goal in mind.

We pulled up a block or so from the home of Myron Franklin, ex-police chief.

It was, I admit, only a conjecture that he was involved, but I thought it a good guess. Who else could Helen Ward Crawford have manipulated to commit such a deed? Over whom did she have any kind of power or influence? Who else would feel pressured to commit an actual crime that could easily send them to jail? Lying about a fake death was one thing; kidnapping a young woman was something else altogether. None of Helen's society friends was remotely ripe for this kind of seedy operation; but it may well have been right up Myron Franklin's alley.

Leaving the car and shielding ourselves from the omnipresent rain as best we could, we trudged in the direction of Franklin's decrepit shack. How likely it was that Lizbeth was actually there, I was by no means certain. From my recollection of the place, it had only a couple of rooms on the one and only floor, and I don't believe there was a basement.

As we approached the house, I made it my task to confirm that last conjecture. I was right: the house consisted of nothing but a living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Peering through the windows, between the small gaps left by the tattered curtains, I could see nothing unusual. Franklin's fancy and well-used Packard was parked crookedly on the street, and I had little doubt he was snoring his head off in his untidy bed.

I'd already given Joseph one of my two automatics. I muttered a few more instructions to him.

On my command, we both kicked in the front door.

It made a thunderous noise as it crashed against the inner wall of the house. At nearly the same time, a hoarse shout emanated from the bedroom. Plunging into the house, Joseph and I took refuge behind what few sticks of furniture there were in the living room as I shouted:

“Franklin! It's Joe Scintilla! I know what you've done with Lizbeth Crawford, so give her up right now!”

Franklin's only response was to fire a gun in my direction. The bullet came surprisingly close, nearly grazing my ear. Franklin may have been out of the force for a decade or more, but he was a good shot.

I had told Joseph that it was essential we take him alive. As I suspected, Lizbeth was not here, so there must be even more people involved in this kidnapping conspiracy. With Franklin dead, we'd have no chance of finding her. But Franklin clearly wasn't going down without a struggle.

In the pitch darkness, it was nearly impossible to make out what was going on in that grimy bedroom of his. It appeared he had flopped behind the bed so that it was between us and him. From my vantage point behind a Morris chair, I could barely make out the top of his head. Joseph was behind a couch, eyes goggling with adrenalin. It was a standoff.

I shouted: “There are two of us, Franklin! You'll never make it!”

“What the hell are you doing, Scintilla!” he screamed. “Are you insane, breaking into my house? Get the fuck out of here! I don't know nothin'!”

“Don't give me that bull!” I shot back. “We know you were put up to kidnap Lizbeth, so if you know what's good for you—”

“You're crazy!” he said, aiming another shot in my direction.

In reply, I shot a hole into the wall near his head. But the last thing I wanted to do was to make a direct hit. So one more time I hissed some instructions to Joseph. Giving him some cover by aiming several shots in Franklin's general direction, I saw him dart out of the house.

In a matter of seconds, the glass of one of the bedroom windows crashed inward, showering Franklin with shards and making him shriek with terror. At that moment I moved rapidly forward so that I was just to the right of the open door leading into the bedroom. With Joseph now pointing his weapon directly at Franklin's back, I shouted:

“Give it up, man! We have you covered! Throw down your weapon—we just want to talk.”

For a few moments Franklin sat cowering on the floor near his bed, irresolute. Then, with something of a whine, he threw his gun on to the bed and raised his arms.

“Get up—slowly,” I said in a quieter voice.

He lumbered to his feet. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. In spite of the cold, his face was covered with sweat, and his large frame shook all over.

“OK, shamus,” he said in wearied defeat. “Go ahead and kill me if you want to. I don't care anymore.”

“Come off it, Franklin,” I said. “Just sit down and let's talk.”

I snapped up his gun from the bed, and he sat down on one corner of it. Not long thereafter, Joseph came back in the house, standing in the doorway of the bedroom with his automatic extended somewhat awkwardly. I told him to put it down, and he did so grudgingly.

“Franklin,” I said, turning back to the ex-cop, “we know what's gone down. Helen Ward Crawford has had her granddaughter kidnapped, for reasons I don't quite understand. We know you were involved. Better spill the beans.”

I was fully aware that all this was a conjecture, but I had to put on a guise of certainty to get Franklin to cough up what he knew—if anything.

Franklin peered at me for a moment as if he were trying to read my mind. After a time, he collapsed within himself and said:

“OK, you win.”

I had to smile a bit to myself, because if I'd been wrong, I suspect I'd have had to look for another line of work.

“But she's not here, Scintilla,” Franklin went on hastily.

“Where is she?”

“I tell you, I didn't even do the job myself. . . . There's a couple nearby . . . they owed me big-time . . . I saved them from the chair after a robbery that went wrong . . . he was an old high school pal of mine . . . he got off with just eight years . . .”

Franklin seemed to be lapsing into some kind of reminiscence of his past life, but I put a quick end to that:

“Enough of that, Franklin. Just tell me where Lizbeth Crawford is.”

Franklin looked at me pleadingly. “I don't know for certain, shamus. . . . I guess she must still be in their house somewhere—but maybe they moved her . . .”

“Well, we're going to find out,” I said with resolution.

He didn't quite understand what that “we” signified, for he sat there on the bed, gaping up at me.

“Get up,” I said, “and get some clothes on. We're going for a ride.”

The address Franklin had given was about half a mile from his house—in a section of town even worse, if possible, than his own. Every other house seemed either boarded up or about to tumble down upon the ears of its sorry denizens; all kinds of paraphernalia—from kids' toys to a kitchen sink to a bicycle without wheels—littered the yards, and the cars on the streets or driveways seemed about as dilapidated as the houses. If there was any area that could pass as the very symbol and image of the Depression, this was it.

Before we left Franklin's own unsavory abode, we tied him up with some twine from his kitchen and bundled him into the car. Joseph looked at me in surprise as I started binding Franklin's arms and legs, but I quickly explained that I wasn't taking any chances on his tipping off his pals—a couple named Jake and Effie Nolan—before we showed up; and if he was lying altogether about Lizbeth's whereabouts, then I wanted him right under our nose so I could use various methods of persuasion to make him cough up the truth.

This whole business of Lizbeth's kidnapping had produced a slow burn in me. I wanted to knock someone's head off, and was rapidly ceasing to care whose it was. I knew I had to get a grip on myself.

We again parked more than a block away from the Nolans' house. The rain had mercifully let up a bit, but the cold still penetrated into our bones, making even the least motion a source of pain. As we approached the house, we saw a rattletrap of a jalopy—an ancient 1925 Nash—in the gravel driveway. I hated the thought of Lizbeth being crammed into that odoriferous vehicle even for a moment. As Joseph and I exited our own vehicle, we had no choice but to leave Franklin tied up in the back seat. Making sure that his bonds were secure, we got out and approached the house.

It was larger than Franklin's, but not by much. However, there was a back door, which Franklin's own house lacked.

There was also a basement, as I could see from two very narrow windows placed at ground level in the back of the house.

The house was pitch dark and dead quiet. If anyone was in there, they weren't publicizing the fact.

Those basement windows were so grimy, on both sides, that it was nearly impossible to look through them. I moistened my hand on the wet grass and tried to clean the central pane of one of the windows. The effect was still like looking through gauze, but I saw enough.

In a tiny clearing amidst a vast and confused mass of clutter, a woman in her nightgown was tied up to a straight-backed wooden chair. She was slumped over, either asleep or unconscious.

Once again I had to get a grip on my emotions. It would be insanity just to burst in there, pistols firing, before I knew exactly where the Nolans were. If one or both of them were in the basement somewhere, standing guard, any sudden hostile act could spell the end of Lizbeth Crawford. The Nolans weren't going to go down easy, and I didn't want to prod them into taking desperate measures.