Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [260]
Ellen Conkle, a widow who worked her fifty-acre farm with the help of in-laws, was cleaning her smokehouse when the stranger knocked on her backdoor. “Lady, I’m lost and I want something to eat,” Floyd said. “Can you help me out with some food? I’ll pay you.”
Mrs. Conkle knew nothing of Pretty Boy Floyd or the manhunt. “I look like a wild man, don’t I?” Floyd said. “I was hunting squirrels with my brother last night and I got lost. The more directions I got, the more confused I became. I don’t know where I am now.”
Mrs. Conkle knew no one hunted squirrels at night, certainly not in a business suit and black oxfords, and said so. A sheepish look crossed Floyd’s face. “To be honest, I’ve been drinking,” he said. “I guess I got lost.” Mrs. Conkle, who for years afterward would be portrayed as a simple woman kindly helping a stranger, was not naive; in fact, she was frightened. As she told an investigating panel several days later, she was afraid what would happen if she denied the stranger food, so she agreed to make him something, hoping it would hurry him on his way. She asked what he would like. “Meat,” said Floyd. “All I’ve been eating is apples, and some ginger cookies. I’m hungry for meat.”
Floyd sat in a rocker on the back porch, reading the Sunday edition of the East Liverpool Review, while Mrs. Conkle walked to her smokehouse to fetch some spareribs, then disappeared into her kitchen. A few minutes later she returned with a plateful of ribs, fresh bread, and pudding. Floyd devoured it all, except for the pudding, then accepted the widow’s offer of coffee and a slice of pumpkin pie. Afterward he pronounced the meal “fit for a king.”
Floyd asked for a ride to Youngstown. Mrs. Conkle said she couldn’t take him, but her brother-in-law Stewart Dyke and his wife were out in her field picking corn. When they returned, maybe they would take him. Floyd climbed into Dyke’s Model A and waited. The keys were in the ignition, but he did not steal the car.
Around four o’clock Dyke and his wife walked up to the house. Floyd asked for a ride to Youngstown. He could pay. Dyke said he was too tired. “I’ll take you to Clarkson, though,” he said, where there was a bus to Youngstown. “Come on get in.” Dyke said.
Floyd climbed back into the car, borrowed Mrs. Dyke’s powder puff and began to apply it to his face, apparently in a feeble attempt to disguise himself. Dyke slid behind the wheel. As the car backed out of the yard, everyone waved good-bye to Mrs. Conkle.
Then Stewart Dyke saw the two cars coming up the road.
4:10 P.M.
The two cars eased around a wide curve and rolled up the rise toward the last farm on the Sprucevale Road, the Conkle place. One of the East Liverpool policemen, Glenn G. “Curly” Montgomery, saw Floyd first. “Stop!” Montgomery hollered. “That’s him!”
Floyd spotted the lawmen a moment before they saw him. He ducked down and drew his pistol. “Drive behind that building!” he ordered Dyke. “They’re looking for me.” Dyke did as he was told, pulling his car behind a corn crib—a fifteen-foot-wide raised wooden shed used to store corn. Dyke reached over and unlocked the car door.
“Get out, you son of a bitch,” he said. Floyd scrambled out of the car and behind the corn crib.
Officer Montgomery was the first man out of the East Liverpool patrol car as it entered the Conkles’ yard. Purvis’s car pulled up behind it, and the four agents scrambled out. “There he is!” one of the cops shouted. “Behind the corn crib!”
Everyone drew their guns. The corn crib was elevated about twelve inches off the ground; they could see Floyd’s feet as he scurried from one side to the other, obviously unsure what to do. “Floyd, come to the road!” Purvis shouted. “If you don’t we will shoot!”
Floyd left the shelter of the corn crib