The Yellow Packard (23 page)

“That’s why I couldn’t find them when I boxed up her stuff,” Carole replied, her voice now breathy and unsure. “I did that, you know. I put all her things in boxes and took them out to the garage.” Her eyes went from the dogs to the agent. “Do you think I should I have done that?”

“I don’t know.”

Meeker turned away to hide the tears that stung her own eyes. She took a deep breath and closed her fist once more around the toy dogs. From behind her, Carole continued, “I tried that for a while. I tried to go back to before it happened and pretend everything was all right. But that didn’t help me sleep. So by boxing things up I figured I could just erase the fact I ever had a little girl. But that doesn’t work either. The memories don’t go away even when all the tangible things are out of sight.”

She took a deep breath and then continued, “The fact that I boxed Rose’s stuff up might have been the last straw for George. I think having the house completely void of all of her things pushed him over the edge.”

There was no answer Meeker could give, no comfort she could offer. It was a sad truth and one that she silently acknowledged even if she didn’t verbally admit it. She composed herself enough to turn and again open her hand. “Would you like these?”

Carole shook her head. “No. There’s no one left to play with them. Just give them to the first kid you see.”

Those heartbreaking words were still hanging in the air when the agent set her briefcase on the counter, opened it, and pulled out a sketch. She placed it in front of the other woman and asked, “Have you ever seen anyone who looks like this? It doesn’t have to be an exact match, just someone who might look a bit like this drawing.”

The storeowner studied it for a moment before answering, “No.”

“Are you sure? Look close.”

“I’m positive. You don’t forget a face like that. Those hard eyes look right through you.”

Picking up the sketch, Meeker slid it back into her briefcase. As she did, Carole posed a question, “Who is he?”

“The man who sold the car to the salesman from Arkansas.”

“So,” Carole almost choked on her words, “that could be the man who took Rose.”

“We have no proof of that.”

“I hope it’s not,” the mother said in a hushed tone. “I don’t want those cold eyes to be the last thing Rose saw.”

Chapter 44

T
he sheriff was out, so Meeker left the sketch with his secretary. Though it would be a long drive back and the time she’d spent with Carole Hall had left her mentally drained, she still wanted to get back to Chicago rather than stay on the road.

But she wanted to get back because she had an idea that might generate some press. Maybe it would be seen as nothing more than a stunt, but she needed to bring that poor woman in Oakwood some kind of peace.

That peace had eluded her own family, and she didn’t want to see another family live that way. So if a wild stunt had a chance of working, Meeker was going to go for it.

A late-afternoon rain began falling around six thirty, and the wipers on the FBI-issued 1939 Mercury had a tough time keeping up with what the storm was dropping. Rather than continue to attempt to peer between the drops on her windshield, she pulled into the first juke joint she could find. A meal in her belly and a few moments spent with folks more interested in the laughing than crying might be the needed tonic to pull her out of this pit of depression, frustration, and helplessness she found herself in.

To a big-city girl, St. Anne was just another wide spot in the road. Yet the town of a bit more than a thousand people did have The Blue Note. According to the neon sign, it offered the best food in town, so she stopped. After running through the parking lot in the rain, she pushed open the door into a world she had rarely visited. A dozen or so tables sat off to her left, a well-stocked bar stood in front of her, and a bandstand and dance floor filled up a large area to her right. As she shook the moisture from her hair, a heavyset woman with bleached blond hair dropped a wet rag onto the counter and stepped out from behind the bar.

“How you doing?” Her voice was as loud as her orange and purple print dress.

“A little wet,” Meeker answered. “And hungry, too.”

“The band won’t be here for another three hours,” the lady explained as she picked up a menu and led the way to one of several vacant tables.

“I don’t have time to dance.”

The woman proved agile for her size, whirled on her heels, and chuckled. “Everyone should make time to dance, as well as laugh and sing. Those things keep us young.”

“I don’t feel very young today,” Meeker admitted as she sat in a chair and took the menu.

“Too bad, honey, a pretty thing like you should enjoy your youth. It passes you by quicker than a small-town’s Christmas parade.” She grinned before adding, “Got a girl who’ll come out and take your order in a couple of minutes. She’s a college student who’s just working for me for the summer. That’s our busy time anyway.”

A crack of thunder shook the building. “My,” the woman added, “that was a loud one. Hope this lets up before the band gets here. I’m looking for a big crowd tonight. I don’t need the weather to ruin it. Folks around here love to listen to Shaw’s Troopers. They play some swinging tunes.”

“I bet they do.” Meeker smiled and said, “If they have half the jive in their step that you do, then they’re cool cats.”

“Now you’re getting with the program.” The woman chuckled. “My name’s Thornton, Hanna Jean Thornton.”

“I’m Helen.”

“Nice having you here, Helen. Like I said, the little gal will be right out to take your order. And if you need them, the facilities are down the hall just past the jukebox.”

As the woman headed back behind the bar, Meeker studied the menu. The cook must have once served on an ocean cruise line, as there were dishes from all over the world. Though the Hawaiian pork chops sounded good and the italian meatballs over pasta were tempting, Meeker had a desire to play it safe. She was surveying the sandwich choices when an apron-clad waitress set a glass of water on the table and asked, “Do you know what you’d like?”

Without ever looking up, the agent posed a question the girl had probably heard a hundred times, “What kind of sandwich do you suggest?”

“BLT.”

“Then let’s go with that and maybe a side of creamed corn.”

“Sure. And what to drink?”

Looking up for the first time, Meeker answered, “A Coke will be fine.”

The young brunette smiled. It was a funny smile causing the left side of her top lip to rise higher than her right and thus partially closing one dark eye almost like a wink. Yet what really caught the agent’s attention were the woman’s dimples. They were on top of her cheeks, not next to her mouth but just under her eyes.

“You looking at my weird cheeks?” The waitress grinned. “Don’t worry if you are, I’ve gotten use to it. People always make fun of them. My friends call them dents.”

“They’re dimples,” Meeker corrected her. “And I like them. They’re cute.” Extending her hand, she said, “My name’s Helen.”

“I’m Alison.”

“You from here?”

“No,” the young woman replied, “just staying with my roommate and her family this summer. After Labor Day it’ll be back to the University of Chicago. I’ll be a junior this fall.”

“Good for you, the world needs more women with degrees.”

“I guess,” she shyly returned. “I’ll get your order out in a few minutes. Wave if you want anything else.”

As the girl disappeared, a man got up from the bar and walked over to the jukebox. He fiddled with this pocket, pulled out a handful of change, dropped a nickel into the music machine, and made a choice. A few seconds later, the strains of “Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread” was pounding from the Wurlitzer’s speakers and making the jukebox’s bubbling lights flash in time with Glen Miller.

The man who’d picked the number walk-waltzed back to the bar, grabbed the woman who’d first greeted Meeker, and led her out onto the dance floor. As the older couple moved to the big band swing music, the cares of the world disappeared, for at least a few minutes. Helen was glad for the reprieve, even if vicarious.

Chapter 45

I
t was just past 9:00 on Monday morning when Henry Reese strolled into the office. It had been almost two weeks since he’d found the Packard, and he still had no leads on the man who sold the car or on Marge Hooks. The trail was as cold as a butcher shop’s walk-in freezer. A bit amused, he listened as his partner in “The Grand Experiment” assured someone on the phone that she’d take good care of something. What that something was, he had no idea, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

As Meeker set the phone in its cradle, Reese sighed. “I’m tired of striking out.”

“I know what you mean,” Meeker agreed. “That’s why I’m trying a new slant.”

“Your math must be better than mine,” he cracked. “I can’t come up with any new angles. Who were you gabbing with on the phone?”

“Whom,” she corrected him.

“Fine, with whom was you gabbing?”

“I think your verb,” she teased, “should be
were.
”

“Never mind the English lesson, just give me the dope.”

“Eliot Ness,” she proudly announced.

“The guy who broke Capone?”

“None other.”

“He’s not with us anymore,” Reese noted, “so why did he call?”

“Actually,” she explained, “I called him. He’s working for the city of Cleveland now. Trying to clean up the police and fire departments.”

“So,” an impressed Reese asked, “does he have a lead or something on one of our cases?”

Meeker got up from behind her desk and walked toward the door. “Come with me. I’ll explain as we walk.”

“Where we going?”

“The basement.”

As they waited for the elevator, Meeker began to unveil the reason behind her suddenly upbeat mood. “We’ve hit the wall on the Rose Hall kidnapping—with you unable to track down the Hooks woman, and I’ve heard nothing from the sheriff in Oakwood on the sketch. So I wanted to do something wild. I got the idea from studying some of Ness’s case files.”

“When did you do that?” he asked as the elevator doors opened.

“Back when I was in law school,” she explained as they moved inside and the doors shut. “Ness and his men actually drove around in some of the bootleggers’ cars and trucks for a while. They drove by places the hoods haunted showing off that the feds had the vehicles. Essentially they were rubbing their supposed successes in the hoods’ faces, trying to get them angry enough to make a stupid move.”

“I’ve heard something about this,” Reese noted, “but I don’t see what it has to with the Hall case.”

As the doors opened into the basement, Meeker stepped out and continued her lecture.

“The only thing we’ve got that we can really use in this case is the Packard. We know it is tied to the case. We know it was the drop point. We know it was stolen and resold. We know it once had the ransom money in it.”

“I know we know all that stuff,” Reese shot back, “but cars don’t talk.”

“Evidence does,” she corrected him. “And the car is evidence. And there is always emotion connected to evidence. Show a suspected murderer a photo of his victim lying dead at the crime scene and nine times out of ten there will be a reaction. Same thing when a thief is asked to hold something he’s stolen.” She stopped walking through the evidence room and lab and posed a question, “What is often the only way to find answers when you’ve hit dead ends in cases?”

“Luck?”

“Well, maybe sometimes,” she agreed, “like when you found the Packard. But consider this, in most cases the trump card is the press. If we can get every newspaper in the country involved in this case, then maybe we’ll find Marge Hooks or our mystery car salesman.”

Shaking his head, the man grimly announced, “Our case is ancient news. We aren’t going to push the war in Europe off the front pages. Dead cases generate no interest, and they don’t sell any newspapers. Besides, the kidnapping involved a small-town family that has no connections to anyone who is rich or a celebrity. This isn’t Lucky Lindy; this just a poor family who somehow got messed up in something they didn’t deserve.”

“Follow me,” Meeker ordered.

Turning with her, Reese’s wingtips matched the woman’s pumps stride for stride. As they rounded a corner, he spied her trump card. As they approached the far wall he shrugged. “It’s the Packard. I see it’s been painted back to its canary color.”

As they stopped alongside the car, she announced, “It’s just like it was when it was taken. The fender is fixed, and the paint is the factory color. I made sure of that. I got a list from Carole Hall of the things they kept in the glove box. The maps, a fingernail file, a screwdriver, a few sticks of Doublemint, and tin of aspirin are just where they should be.”

“And?”

“And this is now my car,” she proudly explained. “I’m going to drive this everywhere I go. And we are going to put out a nationwide press release trumpeting that the FBI, along with the President’s special crime unit, is putting this car into service to track down the man in the sketch. Within hours his picture will be circulated by wire services all over the country. In truth, probably all over the world, too.”

“And you think the papers will bite?” Reese asked incredulously. “It’s old news!”

“You bet they will bite,” she bragged. “They’ll bite like hungry fish after a live, wiggling worm. Walter Winchell has already written a piece on it. It will run this weekend on the wire. Lowell Thomas is doing a radio program on the way we are using the Packard, and Universal Newsreels is not only featuring the story, but is offering a reward of ten thousand dollars.”

“How did you manage all this?” he demanded.

“After I mapped out the idea,” she said, “I made one call.”

“Who?”

“Eleanor.”

“I keep forgetting about your family connections.”

As they continued to study the car, she dropped her voice. “Do you think it has a chance at working?”

“It just might,” he admitted. “Having the press spreading the word often generates leads. Maybe one of them will be something we need. But have you considered that this stunt might well backfire? If the girl’s still alive and the kidnappers get spooked by this media blitz, they might kill her.”