Cold Morning (20 page)

“No.”

“When I overheard you and Annabel arguing behind the hotel early that morning, I sensed someone in the shadows. Someone watching.”

He squinted. “Yeah, I always felt someone was watching us.”

“But who?”

He shook his head, dropped his shoulders.

“What did you think when you heard that Peggy Crispen died?”

He scratched his head. “Nothing.” A heartbeat. “No, that ain't true. I thought—yeah, she drank a bit, like the rest of us. But Peggy ain't no heavy drinker, leastwise so she gets drunk and wanders without her coat into the fields and freezes to death.”

“Do you think she was murdered?”

My words surprised him, as they did Amos, whose mouth flew open.

“No reason to think that, ma'am.”

“Miss Ferber,” Amos began, “I wonder what you're saying here.”

I held up my hand. “A curiosity, her death. It made me wonder. She was a frightened woman. A break-in at her room. A sense of danger.” I changed direction. “Cody Lee, tell me about Horace Tripp.”

“The guy at the café?” A sliver of a smile. “Romeo in the sticks.”

“You call him that?”

“Annabel called him that—him and the ladies.”

“Peggy, no?”

“For one. Annabel laughed about that.”

“What did she say?”

“That he was this seedy guy, swaggering around and thinking the women, you know, fall at his feet.”

“And did they?”

He looked into my face. “That's surprising. They did. He got this way about him, so Annabel said. I never seen it. He didn't like me coming around. He told me I smelled of cow manure and pig slop.”

“How dreadful.”

He grinned. “Maybe I did.”

“Let me ask you this, Cody Lee. You were seeing Annabel, but did Horace ever go after her?”

A long silence, tense. Finally, biting his lower lip, he said, “Yeah, I knew about that. But Annabel said no, put him in his place, but I seen them together once or twice. We fought about it. ‘I ain't married to you, Cody Lee,' she yelled at me. ‘But he's married,' I yelled back. She don't care. But it don't matter. A fling, maybe. Then Annabel don't like him. Then he and Peggy got tight. I mean, Peggy really liked him a lot. Sad girl. Annabel don't like no one but herself.”

“And yet Horace was married to Martha.”

“I never got that one. Playboy from the big city, Horace was. Annabel says Martha shows up and says they're married. She just met him a short time back in New York, it seems. Martha put up with all that from him. Why? I asked Annabel. Do you know what she said? ‘Martha made the mistake of falling in love with a scoundrel. Such women are doomed.' Imagine that.”

It was time to go, Hovey Low signaled, clearing his throat and leaning on the doorjamb.

Cody Lee rushed his words. “Martha and Peggy had this fight one day. I mean, they came to slapping each other. Martha said Peggy better watch out.”

“And what did Peggy say?”

“Only that Martha better keep Horace locked up in the kitchen.”

I stood. “You cared for Annabel, Cody Lee, didn't you?”

My words startled him. Actually they startled me.

His lips trembled. “I guess so.” Then, throwing his hands into the air, “Don't matter now, does it?”

Outside, standing on the sidewalk, I thanked Amos Blunt, but my words were drowned out by a swell of raised voices behind me. A band of chattering reporters was trailing after Anna Hauptmann and Lloyd Fisher as they headed for the jail door. A state trooper held them back, clearing a path, and Anna, tripping slightly, looked frightened.

As she skirted by me, who admittedly stood there mesmerized, she stopped. That same haunted look we'd shared in the courtroom earlier that morning.

Mindlessly, I reached out my hand. “Hello.”

Her lawyer nudged her along, but she hesitated, stared into my face. In a thick German accent she said, “I saw you inside.” A bland, unlovely face, swollen eyes. Her hand waved back toward the courtroom. One of her Hearst-appointed guardians, a tough-looking woman, sidled near us, put her hand on my shoulder. I stood my ground.

I stared at the beleaguered woman, felt a surge of sympathy as I recalled how that mongrel street crowd had screamed “Kill her! Kill her!” the other day as she passed.

“How are you doing?” I said quickly, my words hollow.

She smiled. “All right.”

I smiled back. “You sure?”

Her eyes got wide. A fatalistic shrug. She pointed to the sky. “
Gott in Himmel.
”

The lawyer said something into her neck, ignored me.

“How is your little boy?” I asked. “Manfred?”

Her eyes got moist. “Bubi. We call him Bubi. He is with my niece. But…
danke
.” Her hand reached out and touched my sleeve.

“You must be strong woman.”

Fiercely, “I am a strong woman.”

We stood there, the two of us, helpless, with nothing more to say, though I wanted the moment to last. Her lawyer, exasperated, snapped at her, and she moved into the jail. Stunned, I waited, but turned to face the motley reporters surrounding me as a photographer snapped a picture. His fedora had a cardboard strip attached:
New York Mirror
. I walked away. My shoes crunched discarded camera bulbs on the sidewalk.

Chapter Twenty

Attorney General David Wilentz approached Bruno Hauptmann. The grilling began, step by step, tearing at Reilly's defense.

“You were never in the Lindbergh house, were you?”

“No, sir.”

“Certainly not?”

“Certainly not.”

“You never went in there and took that child out of that room, did you?”

“No.”

Bruno fidgeted, sat up, slumped down, uncrossed his legs, but his tone betrayed his contempt for Wilentz.

“This is funny to you, isn't it? You are having a lot of…”

“No, absolutely not.”

“You are having a lot of fun with me, aren't you?”

“No.”

“You think you're a big shot, don't you?”

“No. Should I cry?”

“No, certainly you shouldn't. You think you are bigger than anybody, don't you?”

“No, but I know I am innocent.”

“Yes, you are the man that has the willpower, that is what you know, isn't it?”

“No.”

“You wouldn't tell if they murdered you, would you?”

“No.”

“No. Willpower is everything with you, isn't it?”

“No, it is—I feel innocent and I am innocent and that keeps me the power to stand up.”

“Lying when you swear to God that you will tell the truth. Telling lies doesn't mean anything.”

“Stop that!”

“You see you are not smiling anymore, are you?”

“Smiling?”

“It has gotten a little more serious, hasn't it?”

“I guess it isn't any place to smile here.”

Wilentz mimicked Hauptmann's voice. “‘I am a carpenter.'”

“I am.”

“That was funny, wasn't it?”

“No sir, there is nothing funny about it.”

The defense lawyer stood and addressed the judge. “I think this has gone just about far enough. I mean this patent abuse of the witness.”

At quarter to five, Judge Trenchard adjourned for the weekend. Bruno, wiping his face with a handkerchief, looked exhausted, his lips trembling.

The trial would resume on Monday.

Walking out I overheard Jack Benny quip, “What Bruno needs is a second act.”

***

Early that evening, resting on my bed, I switched on the radio in time to hear Gabriel Heatter summarizing the day's proceedings on WOR. Routine, methodical, and embarrassingly partisan, the popular announcer became anecdotal, mentioning an off-hand remark to him by actress Joan Blondell (“Such real drama, Gabriel. Real”), an approving nod from Jack Benny, and a steely glare from Damon Runyon, who sipped coffee by himself at a table at the Union Hotel Café and frowned on folks who approached him. “Including me,” Heatter added. Not surprising, I told myself. Any word with you—an innocent comment about the weather or the size of the portions the Methodist ladies served—well, it was fodder for the insatiable hunger America had for any news from Flemington.

But as I reached to switch off the radio, Heatter added, his voice heavy with wonder, “Everyone is talking about the encounter of Bruno's loyal spouse, Anna, that German
hausfrau
with the pancake face, and Edna Ferber, in town to chronicle events for the
New York Time
s. In court Miss Ferber—you all know her because of
Show Boat
, of course—said a few words to the woman in passing. And then the two spoke on the sidewalk as Anna Hauptmann headed to the jail. Scuttlebutt on the street—that is, the gossip of that Hearst sweetheart Dorothy Kilgallen, who wonders what the acerbic and peripatetic novelist is up to—is that folks are not happy.”

Angry, I twisted the knob of the radio. Unfortunately it broke off in my fingers.

Well, I wasn't happy with Heatter, that bombastic blowhard of the airwaves.

I was unhappy with him, and Dorothy Kilgallen, the mouse-like woman in the schoolgirl pinafores who once confused me with Fannie Hurst.

My withering look at the time attempted to bore into her soul, though, sad to say, she still lived.

Aleck knocked on my door.

“Edna, I can't go to dinner with you this evening.”

“And you're telling me this for what reason?”

“I come with a caveat, but I pray you will not kill the messenger.”

Aleck was dressed in his overcoat, an undersized bowler atop his head, his round eyeglasses perched on the tip of his nose. Vaguely Charlie Chaplin, I considered, though Chaplin never had such round bulbous cheeks and that wealth of cascading chins.

“Tell me.”

“I am your friend, my dear.” But his tone suggested otherwise. A hint of growing anger.

“That remains to be seen.”

“Winchell is down in Nellie's Taproom, and because he is a simple man whose brain cannot employ more than one thought at a time, well…his topic is…you. You, dear Ferb.”

I smiled. “Singing my praises?”

“Well, hardly. We all saw—I was at your elbow, Ferb, witness to your undisguised heresy close up—your brief and gaudy exchange with the Hauptmann woman.”

“Her name is Anna, Aleck. She has a name.”

“The wife of a murderer. A baby killer.”

I was ready to slam the door in his face. “So she must be painted with that same brush?”

“You bed down with killers, you cannot expect mercy from a forgiving world.”

“Really, Aleck. You can't believe that.”

He adjusted the hat on his head. “No matter what I believe, but Winchell is a force, as you know, an arm of the prosecution. You did notice him slip another note to Wilentz today? Vile, that man. He had coffee with the Lindberghs. With Colonel Schwarzkopf. With Colonel Breckinridge. His inventive in the
Mirror
is odious.”

“But,” I interrupted, “you still feel the need to tattle, send on his gossip about me.”

“Only because it will be broadcast on the air waves and in his morning column in that horrendous rag.”

I turned away. “Thank you for the warning, Aleck. I can survive Walter Winchell. I survived a laborious dinner with Herbert Hoover at the White House during which he talked of nothing but his digestive tract. After that life is easy.”

“Make light of it, Edna, but Winchell isn't alone.”

“I know. I heard Gabriel Heatter yammering about Dorothy Kilgallen's little sermon.”

“And Adela Rogers St. Johns, the trumpet for Hearst.”

“We've yet to hear from Kathleen Norris, our fellow correspondent.”

A mischievous smile. “I have. She's sitting at Winchell's round table now, laughing that fake little-girl giggle she thinks is charming, Lady Guinevere to his Sir Galahad. Or his Sir Mordred. Whoever the dark knight was—is.”

“I read her piece on Anna Hauptmann, Aleck.” I reached behind me for the
Times
. “Let me quote a delicious line. ‘How long should a woman stick to a man, anyway?'”

“But you and I have always liked Kathleen—not her
writing
but at parties…”

“Good night, Aleck.”

***

An hour later, famished, I dressed and walked down into the lobby, though I skirted out a side door, intending to dine alone at the Puritan Restaurant down the street. I didn't want company, and bundled up in a thick wool scarf that covered my face from the biting wind and sleet that blew across the dark night street, no one paid me any mind. The usual contingent of reporters and photographers stood outside the hotel, cigarettes tucked into ice-cold mouths.

But I couldn't walk into the restaurant. Gazing through the front plate-glass window, I saw that the tables were filled, with two reporters from Fox Movietone News standing by the front door waiting for a table. Too much conviviality, too much raucous cheer, and I dreaded hearing the street jury condemn Bruno one more time.

I walked back to the hotel. I'd brew myself a cup of tea on the hot plate and munch on a package of soda crackers I had in my purse. A young boy tapped me on the shoulder and offered me a small replica of Bruno's ladder, a shoddy piece of wood tied with a blue ribbon. “A quarter,” he told me. I ignored him but thought of Bruno's defense—the ladder looked like a musical instrument—cross pieces, not rungs, uneven notches, cleats that resulted from a dull plane. Hauptmann: “I am a carpenter.”

A sudden gust of sleet slammed into my face—the forecasters predicted a blizzard that night, two or three feet of snow—and I turned into a doorway, catching my breath. My eyes watered and I regretted venturing out of the hotel.

As I stood there, a young man stepped out of the doorway of a small office building across the street from me. He was hatless, and his long leather overcoat was unbuttoned, though the collar was up, tight around his neck. Self-consciously he adjusted the affected pince-nez on his nose. He paused under a streetlight, gazed up and down the street. I drew in my breath: I was looking at Dwight Morrow, Jr. There was no mistaking his face, spotlighted under that light. He appeared to be anxious, looking left and then right. At one point he withdrew a pair of gloves from a pocket and slowly put them on. He rubbed one cold cheek with his hand.

I watched, transfixed.

A few cars streamed by, none hesitating, but he didn't seem to be readying to cross the street. I expected he was waiting for a ride.

A car idled at a stop sign near me, and I saw Colonel Lindbergh in the driver's seat. The new Franklin, the car he often drove around town. He was having an animated conversation with the man in the passenger seat, Colonel Norman Schwarzkopf, who was pointing something out to Lindbergh. As I watched, a figure in the backseat bent forward, his own hand extended toward the front of the car. Colonel Henry Breckinridge. The three men were having a lively discussion, idling too long at the stop sign. A car pulled behind them, closed in, but then swerved around Lindbergh's car, beeping an irritated horn. Colonel Lindbergh turned away, ducking his head down.

My eyes shot to Dwight Morrow, positioned on a diagonal corner up ahead. He was looking in the opposite direction, searching the next block, waiting.

Colonel Lindbergh's car cruised forward, but slowly, and the sleek automobile pulled alongside Dwight. For a moment the car hovered, all three occupants peering at the young man who suddenly stared at his brother-in-law, a look of astonishment on his face. He started, but immediately turned his body away, hunching his shoulders and dipping his head into his chest.

Colonel Lindbergh gunned the engine and the car flew ahead, spitting back sleet and ice and pebbles, a screech of tires as ice pellets covered Dwight's coat. The car disappeared down the street, its taillights pinpoints of red in the gathering darkness.

When I looked back at the street corner, Dwight Morrow was gone.