• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Amazingly, the FBI still had not placed the Dillinger farm under surveillance. The Cincinnati SAC, Earl Connelley, whose territory covered central Indiana, hadn’t joined the hunt for Dillinger until Hoover’s directive earlier that week. One of the Bureau’s best investigators, Connelley was an intense World War I veteran with a pencil mustache who had joined the Bureau in 1920 and worked at Hoover’s side during the 1920 raids. He had been a SAC since 1927, and after running offices in Seattle, St. Louis, and New York, had taken over Cincinnati the previous year. Already Connelley’s men had fanned out across Ohio and Kentucky, checking dozens of leads. But he didn’t have enough agents to maintain stakeouts. He had asked for more.

The first inkling twenty-year-old Hubert Dillinger had of his half-brother’s return came when he walked into his father’s house Friday morning. Dillinger leaped from behind a door, pointed a finger at him, and said, “Stick ’em up!” There were hugs and smiles; both Hubert and his father were happy to see him. Dillinger introduced Billie as his new wife, “Anne,” and seemed at pains to persuade them they were married; he repeated it several times. Dillinger had parked his Hudson in a barn out back, and after breakfast Hubert went out and helped him remove the tires, clean them, and paint them black.10

When darkness fell Dillinger announced that he and Hubert were going on a quick trip. They would be back by daylight, Dillinger assured Billie. Sliding into the Hudson, Hubert drove them east across Indiana into Ohio. On the way Dillinger described in detail his escapes from Crown Point and St. Paul. When Hubert asked if he was surprised at Herbert Youngblood’s behavior at Crown Point, Dillinger sighed and said, “You know how a nigger is.”11

Around midnight they reached the farm of Pete Pierpont’s parents outside the town of Liepsic. Hubert stayed in the car while Dillinger ran in and gave the Pierponts some money to cover legal fees. They stayed barely fifteen minutes. On the drive back to Mooresville, Dillinger fell asleep. About three that morning, as they passed Noblesville, east of Indianapolis, so did Hubert. The Hudson sideswiped a pickup truck carrying a load of horseradish, careened off the highway and smashed through a wire fence, coming to rest in a small woods. The car was a wreck, but neither Dillinger was hurt. The horseradish truck was demolished. Its driver, a man named Joe Manning, limped over to Dillinger’s car in time to see Dillinger remove the front and rear license plates; Hubert waved Manning off, saying they were okay.

Dillinger removed his submachine gun from the car and wrapped it in a blanket, then took Hubert and struck out across the fields. They walked about three miles, until they reached a road. At that point Dillinger told Hubert to hitchhike to Indianapolis, fetch another car, and come back for him. He pointed to a haystack and said he would hide inside it until Hubert’s return.

By the time a state patrol car arrived at the wreck site, both Dillingers were long gone. But a submachine gun clip was found in their car. The officers, their suspicions aroused, phoned Matt Leach when they returned to their posts later that morning. As it happened, two FBI agents were in Leach’s office. They all drove out to inspect the wreckage. The car’s engine number was relayed to Cincinnati, which checked it with St. Paul. To the surprise of almost everyone in the FBI, who assumed Dillinger was still in Minnesota, the number matched that of a car “Carl Hellman” had purchased two weeks before.12 Leach ordered roadblocks thrown up all across Central Indiana.

Suddenly the FBI’s focus swiveled to Indianapolis. Earl Connelley set up his headquarters at the Spink Arms Hotel. He asked Hoover for ten more men, and all that weekend agents arrived at the Indianapolis airport, trickling into Connelley’s headquarters in ones and twos. For the first time FBI agents began studying Dillinger’s family in earnest. By Saturday afternoon