Free Stolen Away by Max Allan Collins

“But we don’t need to let Al Capone out of stir to accomplish that.”
    “I hope,” Lindbergh said quietly, “that you will proceed with caution. It’s been my position from the very beginning that there must be no police interference…” He raised his hand and cut the air with it. “…no police activity of any kind that might interfere with my paying the ransom and reclaiming my boy.”
    That ultimately wasn’t—or anyway shouldn’t have been—Lindbergh’s decision, of course, but Irey and Wilson let it go. I knew when it got down to brass tacks, Irey would act like a cop. Wilson, too.
    “I wonder if we might see the kidnap note,” Irey said.
    “Certainly,” Lindbergh said. He pulled open a desk drawer. The note, which ought to have been in an evidence envelope in Trenton, was handed to Irey. I moved in and looked over his shoulder as he read.
    In pencil, in an uneven, shaky, possibly disguised hand, on cheap dimestore bond paper, the letter said the following:
    Dear Sir!
Have 50.000 $ redy 25 000 $ in
20 $ bills 1.5000 $ in 10 $ bills and
10000 $ in 5 $ bills. After 2-4 days
we will inform you were to deliver
the Mony.
We warn you for making
anyding public or for notify the Police
the chld is in gut care.
Indication for all letters are
singnature
and 3 holds.
     
    The “singnature” was the faint impression of two blue quarter-size circles, their left edges the most distinct, creating the impression of two c ’s, with a red nickel-size spot to the right of the second c; also three holes (“holds”) had been punched, one through the red spot, two others at left and right.
    Schwarzkopf said, “Obviously, we haven’t released the content of the note to the press. Only by that signature can we know for sure that subsequent notes really are from the kidnappers.”
    Then why was the fucking thing stuck in Lindbergh’s desk? Every servant in the house had access to it!
    “I would suggest that you put this document under lock and key, immediately,” Irey said. He was speaking to Schwarzkopf, not Lindbergh, although he was in the process of returning the note to the latter. “Who have you shared this with?”
    “No one,” Schwarzkopf said. “The New York Police have requested copies, but we’ve declined. So has J. Edgar Hoover. I feel this is a matter for the New Jersey State Police, and distributing this document frivolously, even to other law enforcement agencies, might have unfortunate results.”
    That sounded halfway reasonable, but it boiled down to Schwarzkopf not wanting to share the spotlight, didn’t it?
    “Of course, we have given a copy of it to Mr. Rosner,” Lindbergh said.
    Irey and Wilson looked at each other. I rubbed my eyes.
    “What?” Irey said.
    Lindbergh shrugged. “Mr. Rosner wanted to show it to certain individuals in the underworld—Owney Madden, among others—who might be able to identify the handwriting or that strange ‘singnature.’”
    Madden was an underworld figure who was to New York, roughly, what Capone was to Chicago.
    “Let me get this straight,” Wilson said tightly. “The New York Police can’t have a copy, J. Edgar Hoover can’t have a copy, and we can’t have a copy. But Mickey Rosner can.”
    Irey, obviously disturbed by this news, and rightly so, said, “I’m afraid the legitimacy of any future notes is endangered. You’ve opened yourselves up to interlopers.”
    “Gentlemen,” Breckinridge said, “a mutual friend of ours, Bob Thayer, a partner in Colonel William Donovan’s office, accompanied Mr. Rosner to see Madden and several others of that ilk. Rosner never left Thayer’s sight, nor did his copy of the note.”
    “I believe we’ll have no difficulty,” Lindbergh said, defensiveness creeping into his tone, “telling communiqués from the real kidnappers apart from those of any pretenders seeking extortion money.” He reached into the still-open desk drawer. “In fact, though it’s not publicly known…we have received a