Cold Morning by Ed Ifkovic Page A

before?”
    â€œShe hinted at it—in capital letters,” said Martha “She was always hinting about something big coming her way.” A smirk. “Then, if pushed, she’d clam up. ‘What do you mean?’ Said in an exaggerated Cockney grunt. Hey, I’m from England, too. No one talks that way.”
    â€œWhat do you know about her past?”
    Horace spoke. “Not much. Her last job was at the Palmer House in Chicago.”
    â€œOr so she said.” From Martha.
    â€œYou doubted that?” I asked.
    â€œShe had a lot of stories, that one. And a roving eye.” She glanced at her husband. “For weak men with wallets of dollar bills falling out.”
    Horace had the decency to look embarrassed, this oily Lothario. But his severe face told me the conversation was over. “Perhaps you should talk to the cops,” he concluded. “I dunno, Miss Ferber, like pick Cody Lee Thomas out of a lineup or something.”
    â€œOne last thing, though.”
    â€œWhat?” Martha said, impatient.
    â€œWell, I understand that things have to be business as usual in the café. Yes, I get that. But there seems to be so little attention to her murder. That piece in the morning Democrat was so…dismissive. A footnote. A woman stopped for jaywalking. Trivial.”
    â€œWell,” Martha insisted, “she’s not the Lindbergh baby, you know.” Her British accent became more pronounced as her lips twisted into a snarl. “And she’s not exactly Colonel Lindbergh, like an American hero. A big muckamuck.”
    Her husband added, “And they got the murderer, no? Some rube from the boondocks. A shanty boy.”
    â€œNo matter, a woman’s life…”
    â€œBut the matter is over,” Horace summed up. “Enough of this. Please.” With that he bowed and walked out of the office. Left standing near me, fiddling with a button on her uniform, Martha produced a quizzical smile that led me to believe that the loss of the flirtatious waitress was one less problem she had to deal with concerning her gadabout husband.

Chapter Five
    â€œEdna dear,” Aleck called out as he joined me in the hotel lounge. “You missed a riveting opening of the trial. Whatever is the matter with you?”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œWell, David Wilentz thundered that Bruno snatched the child, the rung of the ladder breaking, the child smashing its head. Supposition, true, but galvanizing. Then he called Anne Lindbergh to the stand, and the silence in the room was palpable. Even Bruno Hauptmann flicked his rigid head a half-inch to the right. He even tapped his foot, that Bronx alien. She was grace itself, beautiful, dressed in a peach-colored blouse, a black-and-white dotted suit, a small black satin beret. Very Parisian. A blue fox fur off her shoulders. Discreet. Lindbergh himself watched her carefully, on one side Schwarzkopf, the other Breckinridge. Wilentz had her recite the events of March 1, 1932—deciding to stay another day at Hopewell because the baby had a cold, putting him to bed, dressing him in a flannel nightshirt, taking a bath, sitting with her husband who’d returned from the city, the nurse Betty Gow asking if she had the baby, if her husband had the baby. But the baby was gone. When Wilentz finished, defense attorney Reilly realized he’d better tread lightly. ‘The defense feels that the grief of Mrs. Lindbergh needs no cross-examination.’” Aleck sighed, seemed on the edge of sobbing. “She was magnificent.”
    â€œIt must have been unbearable.”
    â€œAnd you missed it, Edna.”
    â€œI had something to do.”
    â€œMore important?”
    I deliberated. “As important.”
    â€œImpossible, you foolish woman.” He pointed a finger at me. “Do you believe in psychics?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œI don’t believe you. I often picture you sitting alone in