Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (30 page)

Maclain nodded. “I’m
interested as to how this Rosine got him to come along without a fuss, and then
transferred him to another car. That’s not easy in New York City between three
and four in the afternoon.”

“You know as much as we
do, Captain. From what Ronnie says on the records, the kidnapper gave him a
line that Mr. Connatser wanted Ronnie to meet him at the plant. He bought
Ronnie a bottle of Pepsi-Cola on the way. The police found the bottle still in
the car and analyzed what was left. It showed Ronnie must have drunk three or
four grains of Seconal. That would have put him out cold in fifteen minutes to
half-an-hour, and he would have stayed out for eight to ten hours, maybe
longer, according to the Medical Examiner. Of course they could have given him
more on the trip if they were driving far.”

Maclain took a box of
paper-clips from the middle desk drawer and slowly began to chain them
together.

“That’s what I was trying
to figure—how long would they drive Ronnie and how far. Let’s say four hundred
miles—ten hours driving. That would put them where they were going about four
in the early morning. I think Junior lives there and owns a house most likely.
It’s not easy to rent a place to hide a child. It must be fairly large—the
town, I mean, or the city. Far too dangerous to take him to a small town—”

“What about an isolated
farm?” Agent Weeks broke in on the Captain’s audible reverie.

“Not close enough to a
Post Office and an airport.” The Captain put his clips back in the drawer and
closed it with a snap of certainty. “Let’s consider these records: It’s obvious
that nobody is flying around the country with a kidnapped boy. So the boy’s in
one place—probably guarded by Junior’s wife or paramour. Women are better with
children, anyhow. Now, listen to this.” He found the Miami record and put it
on, keeping his hand held up for silence until it was through.

“That record was made by
Ronnie and the man on the machine, and at the same time. The machine may be
old, or defective, for there’s a murmuring drone in the background that records
itself all the way through. Junior didn’t notice it, so it must be a noise that
he’s used to. He noticed the start of ‘Silent Night’ quick enough and shut off
the machine.”

“The record was mailed
from Miami, Captain,” Cameron reminded him.

“That’s my point,
Arnold—nearness to an airport. The woman’s mailing records to him. I believe
that record was made Saturday evening, giving Ronnie time to come around and
get instructions as to what he should say. Then Junior took it with him as soon
as it was finished and caught a flight to Miami. In his suitcase he was
carrying another Audograph machine. He mailed the record from Miami on Sunday.
That would check as to time—ample time for him to stop off and make
arrangements for the pick-up with some Deputy Sheriff, or town constable
confederate, at any point along the way.”

“You’re right there,” Cameron
said glumly. “Deputy Sheriffs and Constables are a dime a dozen, and a police
car is made to order—two way telephone, flasher and all. We can’t police every
point between here and Miami.”

“So again the best bet is
to find the woman and the boy,” Maclain said. “She’ll talk, I believe, if
Junior has told her anything. We can be sure if he’d made arrangements in Miami
the record wouldn’t have been mailed from there, any more than if Ronnie was
there. Anyhow, we know that after the record was mailed, he hopped the first
flight for Kansas City.”

“Typical Commie
technique, that hopping about,” Hank Weeks remarked. “The Boss, in his book ‘Masters
of Deceit’ says they call it ‘dry cleaning’—driving three hundred miles to
cover thirty so no one will know where you’ve been or where you are.”

“Go on, Captain!” Cameron
sounded impatient. “You’ve got this Commie Canuck with his Audograph in K.C.
now. Where do we go from there—outside of Cleveland?”

Without replying, Maclain
put on the second record and played it to the end. “I know that Ronnie made
this record on the same machine that recorded record No. 1. All the time that
Ronnie is speaking you can hear that noise that runs through the first one. As
soon as Junior starts to speak, the noise is gone. We must assume that the woman
mailed this record to Junior in K.C., and he filled his part in on the
Audograph he has with him. The
New York Times
is
available in most cities the same, or the following day. The woman could have
seen the personal and told Ronnie what to say, or Junior could have seen it and
could have called her long-distance.”

“Still more dry cleaning,”
Cameron said, “to help us Special Agents earn our pay, and put us through a
wringer like we’re going through today. Let’s hear No. 3.”

The Cleveland record just
served to clinch the Captain’s beliefs more firmly. A background noise when
Ronnie was speaking, while Junior’s words were clear.

“Could that noise come
from a car or a plane?” Connatser asked. “I’ve used an Audograph in both, but I
haven’t been conscious of anything like that in the playbacks. Still, I might
have overlooked it just like Junior has.”

“It just won’t hold water.”
The Captain’s agile fingers beat a tattoo on the desk top. “I don’t believe
that Ronnie and his captor made that first record while driving in a car. There’s
that ‘Silent Night’ music, for one thing. Can you picture a man with a
kidnapped boy in his car dictating a record and telling the boy what to say?
Then a stop in front of a music store where there’s a blaring P.A. ?”

Hank Weeks said, “Hell
no! Nor can I picture the kid being flown around to make records in a plane.”

Maclain stood up
abruptly. “Let’s get what we can from the horse’s mouth—the Sound Engineer at
Gray Audograph. Let him hear these and see what he has to say.”

In less than an hour they
were in the Gray Audograph offices at 521 Fifth Ave., talking to Carl Schantz,
the company’s Chief Sound Engineer. Schantz, a stocky, phlegmatic, brilliant
German, listened to Cameron, then played the three records through without
comment.

Finished, he sat down in
his desk chair and stared from one to another of his visitors through his
gold-rimmed glasses. “The boy’s voice and the man’s—all of record one—was
dictated to the same machine. The man’s voice on records two and three was
dictated to another machine. I’d say that both machines were old. Probably our
Model Three, but there’s nothing the matter with either of them. I’m certain of
that.”

“How do you know that?”
Cameron asked. “The differences in the machines, I mean.”

Schantz gave a slow smile.
“You know from your work in the F.B.I, that there’s a difference in every
typewriter. Well, there’s a difference in the needles of every dictating
machine. They cut grooves of different depths on the records. The difference in
those grooves is infinitesimal, but it shows up on a tape made by the
electric-micrometer on our testing machine—the one I just played those on.” He
handed the S.A.C. a wide piece of ruled paper marked in purple ink with three
wavy parallel lines. “Look for yourself.”

All of the line made by
record one, and the two lines made by Ronnie’s voice on two and three were
noticeably similar. There was a difference when Junior started to speak on the
Kansas City and Cleveland records, but it still could be seen with the naked
eye that those two lines were similar to each other.

“Does this mean that if
we find those two machines and bring them in you can identify them for us?”
Cameron’s voice was eager.

“You bring them in. We’ll
give it a try!”

“What about that noise in
the background?”

Schantz shrugged his
heavy shoulders. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Frankly, I don’t know.”

“Could it come from a
nearby power plant or high-tension lines, something like that?” the Captain
asked him.

Schantz shook his head. “We
have Audographs running in offices with air-conditioners, calculators, and IBM
sorting machines, sometimes right in the same room, and there’s nothing but
voice on the dictated record. Now and then, if you’re not careful, you can get
a loose connection in the six-hole receptacle where the mike plugs in. That
will cause a nasty roar— but you can’t dictate to the machine.” He thought a
moment. “The nearest thing to that noise I’ve heard was on a record dictated in
an auto running at high speed with the windows open. The machine didn’t pick up
the motor, but it picked up the sound of the wind rushing by. That sound you
have is steady like that, but deeper. It’s almost like the lad was speaking
through some distant hurricane.” He sighed. “I’m really sorry I can’t help you
more.”

“About those few lines of
‘Silent Night’—have you any ideas there?” the Captain asked as Schantz was
showing them out.

“I thought of a radio in
another room, but it’s too muffled. It’s probably from outside the house from a
juiced-up P.A. system. If that’s it, the place is right next door, or at the
most right across the street. Anyhow, it must be very near.”

All afternoon, the
Captain sat in his penthouse office listening to the records that Cameron had
left with him. He had played them back through the Audograph speaker; listened
to them with headphones on and finally using a jackplug, hopped them up to
deafening volume on his hi-fi machine.

That background sound was
all enveloping. The longer he listed to it, the more it took possession of him,
until he almost believed what Schantz had said about a distant hurricane.

He thought of the ocean.
It could keep people awake the first night, and in a day or two the noise would
be gone. But the ocean wouldn’t record like that unless it might be a
wind-lashed sea.

Could they have the boy
on a ship at sea? In a seven day storm? And mailing records air-mail to Junior
in Kansas City? It showed how feeble the mind could get if you worked it on and
on!

He kept coming back to
that power plant. Why, when Schantz had said it wouldn’t record? Could Schantz
be wrong? Or could he, Maclain, whose ears had replaced his eyes, be clutching
at straws and building into roaring volume some tiny wisp of sound? Was that
noise, that should be a thousand jet planes busy ripping the skies, merely the
hum of a washing machine, or an electric dryer? It had to be more.

Power! Overwhelming
power! It had to be. With the life of a six year old boy at stake, he didn’t
dare to be wrong.

He’d stick to his own
obsessions, too: They’d taken the boy, maybe dressed as a girl, on a single
trip of ten hours. Four hundred miles at least. Then why not into Canada? If
Junior was a Canadian, his car could have Canadian tags. It would be easy to
cross the International Bridge in the middle of the night with a sleeping
little girl accompanied by her father and mother...

The Captain jumped from
the red divan, shut off the Audograph, and took his Braille map of New York
State from a flat cabinet drawer. Moving faster than the eye could follow, he
traced a line from New York City to Buffalo. Just three hundred and
seventy-five miles!

Five minutes later he had
Arnold Cameron on the phone. “I’ve got a fix, Arnold. Two points of sound, like
when you’re hunting down a hidden radio. Crosby singing ‘Silent Night’—and the
noise of the biggest power plant in the whole wide world. Now it’s up to you to
go get that boy!” For a minute more he stammered on.

“Don’t tell us how to run
our business,” Cameron cut in. “Get off the line so I can phone the Border Patrol
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It should be twice as easy to get a boy,
since they’re the chaps who always get their man!”

Just outside of the city
limits, running at right angles to the river between Stanley Ave. and the
Parkway, is a short street with eight neat houses on it. Five on one side and
three on the other. On the side with the three houses and not quite forming a
corner with the Parkway stands the Maple Leaf Tavern, boasting ten spotless
bedrooms on the second floor, and downstairs a very good restaurant and a bar.

At seven o’clock, on
Friday, Dec. 20th, Mr. Burns, who had owned and run the Maple Leaf for forty
years, left his wife to superintend the cooking of dinner in the kitchen. He
came into the bar to start his pick-up with Bing Crosby’s “Merry Christmas”
record. The first few chimes introducing “Silent Night” had scarcely pealed
forth from the loud speaker over the Maple Leaf’s front door, when Det. Sgt.
McMurtrie, of the Ontario Provincial Police walked into the bar.

He and Burns were old
friends. McMurtrie, tall and cadaverous with sad black eyes, was a startling
contrast to the sandy-haired Burns, a Scot grown fat with good living through
the years.