Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [42]
A woman’s voice came on the line.
“National 7-1-1-7,” she said.
“I need to report a kidnapping!” Berenice said.
A few moments later a man’s voice came on the line.
“National 7-1-1-7,” he said.
“This is Mrs. Charles F. Urschel in Oklahoma City. I wish to report a kidnapping.”
“This is J. Edgar Hoover, Mrs. Urschel,” Hoover said. “Give me every detail you can.”16
4
THE BAYING OF THE HOUNDS
July 22 to August 25, 1933
Oklahoma City July 22, 1933
“I couldn’t get a look at their features, but they both seemed dark and had full round faces,” Berenice Urschel was saying. “They appeared to be foreigners.”
It was 1:00 A.M., ninety minutes after her husband’s abduction, and Mrs. Urschel was back at her bridge table, reciting every detail she could remember for the Oklahoma City SAC, Ralph Colvin.
“I want you to be assured,” Colvin intoned, “that our first thought will be your husband’s safe return. Every highway within a hundred miles of Oklahoma City will be watched.” What they needed now, Colvin continued, was for her and Mrs. Jarrett to come to police headquarters to look at mug shots. “I’ll go at once,” Mrs. Urschel said, standing. “Wait until I get my coat.”
The phone rang. She reached for it. Colvin stopped her. “Is there an extension?” he asked.
“Yes, in the hall.”
It was Walter Jarrett, calling from police headquarters. He had been released outside of the city after the kidnappers searched his wallet and found he wasn’t Urschel. “They took Charlie,” he said. “He’s not hurt. They say they’ll get in touch with you. I found a pickup and rushed to police headquarters.”
Downtown, Mrs. Urschel and the Jarretts sorted through mug books; a few photos looked vaguely familiar. Footprints outside the sunporch were inconsequential. There were no fingerprints on the screen door. By daylight Jarrett and a group of FBI agents managed to retrace the kidnappers’ route northeast out of the city about ten miles, but there the trail was lost. “This kidnapping has the look of a job carefully planned by highly trained professionals,” Colvin told Mrs. Urschel. “They are not local men or they would’ve known your husband by sight. It should reassure you to know that they are professionals, because there’s less chance of your husband being harmed.”
After daylight Hoover telephoned Kansas City and ordered Gus Jones to Oklahoma City to take charge of the case. Colvin met him at the airport. On the drive to the mansion, they discussed possible suspects. Colvin was already suspicious of Walter Jarrett and one or two of Urschel’s employees. If it wasn’t an inside job, they agreed, their best suspects were probably Harvey Bailey and the gang of escapees who had fled the Kansas pen that May.
At the mansion, Jones gave Mrs. Urschel a fatherly lecture on what to expect. They would wait for the kidnappers to contact them. They would deliver the ransom. Her husband would be returned. “The moment Mr. Urschel is released,” Jones said, “we go to work.”
It was the FBI’s good fortune that Charles Urschel had been kidnapped by the man who was probably the most inept of Depression-era criminals, the handsome George F. Barnes, better known as Machine Gun Kelly. Seventy years after the crime that made him famous, the most impressive thing about Kelly remains his nickname. He was never the menacing figure his moniker suggests. He was glib, a dreamer and a joker, the kind of man who said things like “Working hard or hardly working?” It’s unlikely he would have risen to prominence if not for his wife, Kathryn, a sly blonde whom J. Edgar Hoover would repeatedly demonize in press accounts.
Though his talents were few, Kelly’s career trajectory