Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [159]
While FBI men poured into Indiana that Saturday, Hubert returned to the farm with Dillinger, who had spent several nervous hours inside an itchy haystack. If he was worried the FBI knew he was back in Indiana, Dillinger gave no sign. He lay down on the living room couch to rest his wounded leg, the submachine gun resting beneath his blanket. What he needed was a new car. Around ten he gave Hubert some money and sent him into Indianapolis with Billie to get one. They bought a new Ford for $722 and stored it in a Mooresville garage.
Mooresville, Indiana Sunday, April 8
Dillinger was lying on the living room couch, laughing aloud while reading of his exploits in a pile of newspapers his father had saved, when family members began to arrive that morning after church. His beloved sister Audrey, who had raised him, was the first to arrive, along with her husband, Emmett, their teenage daughters, a plate of fried chicken, and three coconut-cream pies, her brother’s favorite. Dillinger walked outside when they came up the driveway, trading kisses with all the women. A little later two of Audrey’s sons, Norman and Fred Hancock, drove up as well.
Though the Dillingers were not by nature demonstrative, it was a warm reunion, with quick hugs and arms slung across shoulders. There was sadness, too, an unspoken acknowledgment that this might be the last time any of them saw “Johnnie.” To Audrey’s relief, her brother seemed unchanged by life on the run. He had the same easy smile, and was always ready with a quip. Everyone watched Billie closely. She was quiet. Audrey thought she had a hard face. There seemed to be a scar beneath her pancake makeup. Again, Dillinger said they were married.
With children in the room, they didn’t talk about Dillinger’s exploits at first. They clung to mundane details: a cousin’s trip to Texas in search of work, Hubert’s job at the gas station. While the adults caught up, Dillinger’s favorite niece, eighteen-year-old Mary Hancock, gave him a manicure; when she bumped his leg, she saw him wince. At one point Audrey’s husband, Emmett, took Dillinger aside and asked him what had happened at Crown Point.
“Big boy, lemme tell you something,” Dillinger said. “If you don’t know anything, you can’t tell anything, can you?”
“No.”
“Let that be a lesson to you,” Dillinger said. He was more forthcoming when Audrey took him aside. He described the Crown Point escape in detail, sketching her a map, then burning it with a match.
They ate the chicken while sitting on the ground outside the backdoor. It was a gorgeous spring day, with a high sun and few clouds. Afterward everyone walked across the fields into the woods. Dillinger held hands with his niece, Mary. “You believe what’s in the papers if you want to,” Dillinger told her, “but take it from me, I haven’t killed anyone and I never will.” He smiled. “Take about half a grain of salt, believe half of what’s left, and you’ve got it made.”
After a while they walked back up to the house and Dillinger posed for snapshots, clowning around with the submachine gun and the wooden gun from Crown Point. When a plane appeared overhead—the FBI later determined it was a stunt flyer—Dillinger returned inside the house. It was the first time the others saw him worried. The spell, the illusion of a carefree Sunday picnic, was broken.
Back inside, Dillinger seemed on edge. He kept stepping to the window to watch the plane. Hubert and Fred Hancock took the children outside to fly a kite. A little later, around three, Mary Hancock walked into the living room and said, “There’s a car out there with a couple of fellows and it looks suspicious.” With the mysterious plane still flying overhead and the cars streaming by outside, Dillinger announced that it was time to leave. He asked Hubert to take Fred