A look of awe crossed Dryman’s face.
“Rolls?” he asked reverently. “As in Rolls-Royce?”
“Yeah.”
Dryman’s grin broadened to a laugh and then a bellow. He looked around The Rose again and said, “So this is what it looks like.”
“What?” Keegan asked.
“Why, heaven, Boss,” Dryman cried out through tears of joy. “Hea-VEN!”
The file room of the FBI was as spotless as a hospital operating room. There was not a speck of dust on a lamp or table and the floor was polished to a dangerous sheen The rows of file cabinets stretched the entire length of the wing; row after row after row of gray metal drawers.
Kirbo was a tall, soft-spoken man with thinning blond hair and gentle eyes. He wore a white lab coat over a white shirt and striped tie and was as impeccable as the room itself. He got up from his desk and limped across the room to greet Keegan and Dryman.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said pleasantly after the introductions. “You certainly didn’t waste any time getting here.”
“We don’t have any to waste, Mr. Kirbo,” Keegan answered. “I appreciate your help.”
He led them back to a wooden desk, well scarred from years of use but as neat as the rest of the place. He motioned them to chairs.
“What are you looking for?” Kirbo asked. “Perhaps I can help. I’ve been the custodian of these files for five years now.” He tapped his leg. “Car thief ran me down. Can you believe it? Eighteen-year-old kid. Panicked and stomped on the gas. I didn’t jump fast enough.”
“That’s a tough one,” said Keegan. “I’m sorry.”
“I think my wife secretly figures it was a good trade. I’m home every night and all I had to give up was tennis. So.. . what are we looking for?”
“I’m looking for a man who was either a witness—or maybe was just going to be interrogated—in connection with a federal crime. I don’t think he was directly involved in the case although I’m not positive of that.”
“What was the offense?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Description?”
“No idea.”
“What do you have?” Kirbo asked.
“I don’t have anything, Mr. Kirbo. I don’t really know a damn thing about this guy except that he’s a good skier, a master of disguise and he’s German by birth, although I’m sure he has American credentials. I know he came here sometime in 1933 and disappeared in the spring of’34 because he was involved in some way with an FBI investigation and couldn’t stand the heat. He resurfaced a year later, probably with a new identity, and he’s been here ever since.”
Kirbo waited for a minute or so before he said, “That’s it?”
“That and a strong inclination to find him.”
“How are you planning to go about that?”
“We’re only talking about three months here. March, April and May of 1934. I thought H.P. and I would go through the files for those three months and hope to bell something rings a bell.”
The FBI agent laughed. He got up and limped down a row of file cabinets, pulling out drawers and leaving them open as he spoke:
“We have files on stolen government property, extortion, stolen motor vehicles, kidnapping, bank robbery, unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. We have felony crimes committed on government property—except for Indian reservations, national parks and ships at sea—white slavery, interstate transport of stolen property, forgery .
He turned at the end of the row. “Off the top of my head I would say you’re looking at, oh . . . two hundred fifty, three hundred cases—a month.”
“A month!” Dryman gasped.
“That’s my guess. Probably seven hundred cases give or take a few. But look on the bright side, you can forget counterfeiting and moonshining, that’s the Treasury Department.”
“Ah,” Dryman said. “A real break.”
“In ‘34 we would have had about thirty field offices, twenty, twenty-five agents to each office and we stayed busy.”
Keegan whistled softly to himself. Seven hundred cases!
“Mr. Kirbo,” he said. “Given the skimpy information I’ve given you, where would your instincts lead you?”
Kirbo closed the drawers and sat back down.
“First of all, the subject was obviously involved in some other criminal activity or he wouldn’t have run.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t think the FBI knew that. I think his concern was that they would discover that he was using a false identity.”
“Maybe there’s a warrant out on him. Of course, that’s
· . . five years ago. I don’t know. Depends on how bad the bureau wanted to talk to him. It’s worth a try. We’ll see what’s outstanding from that period.” He jotted a note to himself. Then he put down the pencil and shook his head.
“This could be anything,” he said. “He could have worked in a government office that was robbed or something like that
· . . I mean He shrugged hopelessly. “We conceivably would interview seventy-five, one hundred people in a situation like that.”
“I figure this way,” Keegan said. “Whatever it was, he had a little time to make his run before the G-men got there. I mean, this guy disappeared from someplace where he was probably known by the locals. He had to move fast before the feds got there and still not look suspicious. So I’m guessing it was probably a small town, possibly in the Midwest somewhere, a place it would have taken your people an hour or two to get to.”
“Maybe he was just real cautious,” Dryman offered.
“That still doesn’t narrow down the categories,” Kirbo answered. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we start from the beginning. All these files have a cover sheet—the agent in charge always makes a report, kind of a summary of the case, and they are pretty complete. The director doesn’t react well to sloppy work. That cover sheet is backed up by all the testimony gathered in the investigation. If Mr. X was so nervous he took a powder, my guess is that he was either witness to something or knew somebody involved in some kind of criminal activity. I doubt that he would just run like that unless he was sure the bureau would turn up his identity problem. So, first round, let’s narrow it down. We’re looking for a missing witness or person involved in a federal crime in a small Midwest town.”
“I say we start the first week in March and check the cover sheets first.” Kirbo looked back and forth between Keegan and Dryman. “A real fishing expedition, gentlemen.”
They worked long hours, rarely leaving the file room before ten or eleven P.M. In the first week they waded through more than three hundred folders and dozens of old warrants and had set aside two dozen cases involving missing witnesses, suspects or fugitives. Most of those case folders involved known criminals who had “turned rabbit,” as Kirbo put it, because they were either involved in the crimes themselves or were wanted for something else. But they had to be checked out. Keegan pulled every file which, for any reason, involved missing people. The pile to be rechecked grew higher and higher.
The cases were as simple as a stolen car and as complex as a scam to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from a regional office of the Department of the Interior. There were missing husbands, wives, sons and daughters sprinkled among the cases. Most were runaways peripherally involved in another crime and all quickly discarded because of age, sex or because they could easily be traced back ten or fifteen years by friends or family members.
They flew to Akron, Ohio, and Buffalo, both wild goose chases.
As one pile got smaller, the other grew. They started making phone calls, checking out the stories of what they called “maybes.” People couldn’t remember things. The amateur investigators heard a lot of rumors and gossip. Nothing struck a chord.