Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [259]
Purvis was in Cincinnati with a team of agents hunting the kidnapper of a Kentucky woman. It wasn’t glamorous, but it beat writing memos, which was all Hoover wanted him to do. Their relationship had gone from cool to glacial. In one bizarre letter in mid-September, Hoover had hectored Purvis for refusing to speak clearly over the telephone. “I have had the phone checked here, and found that our phone is technically satisfactory,” Hoover wrote. “It might also be desirable for you to speak in a little louder tone of voice.”14eg
That Sunday morning Purvis was in his hotel room when he received the call about Floyd. He telephoned Hoover in Washington, and the director grudgingly approved Purvis’s plan to charter a plane to Wellsville and supervise the manhunt. By 2:00 Purvis and his men were aboard a plane floating over the brilliant autumn foliage of southern Ohio. Looking down on the trees, Purvis let his mind drift back to the flight that had taken him to Little Bohemia. No one used words like redemption around Purvis, but its scent hung unmistakably in the air.
At the Wellsville jail, Purvis immediately butted heads with Chief Fultz. It was dusk and the posses had dispersed, heading home for warm dinners; there had been no sighting of Floyd for more than twenty-four hours. Purvis said he wanted the entire area cordoned off. Fultz said it couldn’t be done. To make matters worse, Fultz refused to release Richetti to the FBI. He said he had an “open and shut case” against Richetti for assault. Purvis telephoned Hoover and reported the situation was “impossible to control.”15
Leaving the jail, Purvis drove to East Liverpool and set up his command post at the Travelers Hotel. By 3:00 Monday morning, almost twenty agents from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Cincinnati had assembled in his room. Purvis split them into five squads of three and four men apiece. He decided to send two squads to raid the homes of Richetti’s relatives at Dillonvale, an hour’s drive south. The other three squads were to patrol Highway 7 and its spidery network of adjoining roads north of East Liverpool. Floyd was believed to be wounded, and other agents were put to work checking hospitals, doctor’s offices, and taxi companies. More than two hundred police and sheriff’s deputies, arriving from across the state, manned roadblocks at bridges up and down the Ohio River Valley.
1:00 P.M.
Early Monday afternoon, after two days with no news of Floyd, a reliable report came in. Three of Purvis’s men were checking farms north of East Liverpool when they were waved down by a constable, who reported Floyd had just been seen at a farm north of Little Beaver Creek. A farmer’s wife had fed him a sandwich and allowed him to wash up. The news was relayed to Purvis. Hoover telephoned just as he was leaving his room. The director told Purvis to depart at once.16 If Floyd was to be captured, Hoover wanted to make sure it was by the FBI.
Purvis rendezvoused with his men on a dirt road seven miles north of East Liverpool. He was willing to bet Floyd was heading north, making for Youngstown. They split into two groups and began checking farmhouses and outbuildings. In one barn, Purvis was rooting around in the loft when he heard a noise below. Purvis drew his gun. He heard footsteps coming up the ladder and aimed his .45, ready to fire—and felt silly when one of his own men popped up. They were all nervous.
Around three o’clock, as they cruised dirt roads watching the adjoining fields, Purvis and his men met a car driven by the East Liverpool police chief and three of his men. They decided to join forces.
2:50 P.M.
As they did, Floyd emerged from the woods north of Little Beaver Creek. His white shirt was streaked with sweat, his suit sprinkled with thistles and pine needles. He had covered eight miles, due east, since fleeing the sheriff’s