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On the drive back to Chicago, Dock was almost giddy. “I guess you’re going to take Delores now with your end of the money and go to Florida, ain’t you?” Dock kidded Karpis, who remained glum.

“You know something, Dock?” Karpis replied. “We’re a long way from spending any of that money.”

St. Paul, Minnesota Thursday, February 8

The last of the well-wishers left the Bremer mansion around midnight. In the darkness Adolph Bremer walked across the street to the brewery to do some work. Agent S. L. Fortenberry was sitting on the side porch when he heard a tapping sound at the outside door. Fortenberry opened it, and Edward Bremer staggered inside, ashen and shaking.

Agent Fortenberry ran across the street and retrieved Adolph Bremer from the brewery. Back at the mansion, there were hugs and smiles and tears. Agent Fortenberry asked “for the privilege” of calling Pop Nathan to break the news. Edward insisted he couldn’t. He had promised the kidnappers nothing would appear in the morning papers. Both Bremers prevailed upon Fortenberry to wait until dawn to notify the Bureau. Reluctantly he agreed. Edward Bremer downed two fast glasses of beer before the words came spilling out. When he finished, Agent Fortenberry asked if he could identify any of his captors. “I know it sounds unreasonable,” Bremer said, “but they kept me for twenty-two days and I never got a look at one of them.”

Bremer repeatedly told his father “they could not have anything to do with prosecution,” as Agent Fortenberry later reported in a memo. The kidnappers had threatened his wife and child. Finally, around three, sleepy and exhausted, Edward Bremer went to bed. The moment he disappeared upstairs, Fortenberry went for the phone.

Friday morning Nathan telephoned Edward Bremer’s doctor, who agreed that Bremer could be interviewed, but only for a half hour, at 2:00. After notifying Washington, Nathan headed to Adolph Bremer’s mansion, where he found a family meeting under way in the kitchen. Adolph Bremer asked Nathan what he thought about Edward’s insistence that he couldn’t identify the kidnappers. Nathan termed it “bunk and worthless from a standpoint of investigative aid.” Adolph urged Nathan to “go easy” on his son. He was fragile. He would be better in a few days. Nathan said he didn’t have a few days. Every day they lost, the evidence was growing colder.

At two Nathan saw Edward Bremer. He found him frightened and deeply ambivalent about cooperating with authorities. “The police are okay,” Bremer said, “but I have no use for federal agents.” Nathan asked what he meant; Bremer waved him off, saying he was just joking. Now it was Nathan’s turn to get irritated. He told Bremer it was obvious he wasn’t telling everything he knew. Bremer bridled. He insisted he couldn’t identify any of his captors, saying he “didn’t see a darned soul.” Afterward Nathan returned downtown, incensed. He was convinced Edward Bremer was hiding something.

That Friday morning, while Pop Nathan grappled with Edward Bremer, Louis Piquett took center stage at Dillinger’s arraignment in Crown Point. It was another packed courtroom, the walls lined with deputies holding submachine guns, reporters scribbling, flashbulbs popping. In the crowd were two of the Arizona cops who arrested Dillinger. Both said they were mulling movie and vaudeville offers, but were holding out for more money.4

The moment Judge Murray quieted the crowd, Piquett was on his feet. “Your Honor!” Piquett thundered. “Are we to have a hearing in accord with the spirit of the laws of this state and of this nation, or are we to witness merely a mockery of the name of justice? Is the state to be permitted to continue inciting an atmosphere of prejudice and hatred? The very air reeks with the bloody rancor of intolerant malice. The clanging of shackles brings to our minds the dungeons of the czars, not the flag-bedecked liberty of an American courtroom. I request the court to direct that those shackles be removed.”

It was vintage Piquett, melodramatic and bellicose. The prosecutor, Robert Estill,