Murder Among Friends Read online




  ALSO BY CANDACE FLEMING

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  Text copyright © 2022 by Candace Fleming

  Front cover photograph copyright © 2022 by Bettmann/Getty Images

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anne Schwartz Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780593177426 (trade) — ISBN 9780593177433 (lib. bdg.) —

  Ebook ISBN 9780593177440

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Candace Fleming

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One: Where Is Bobby?

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two: The Longest Night

  Part Two: Boys Will Be Boys

  Chapter Three: Nathan and Richard

  Chapter Four: The Superman and the Master Criminal

  Chapter Five: Apart and Together

  Chapter Six: Planning the Perfect Crime

  Part Three: Tracking the Killers

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight: Search for the Killers

  Chapter Nine: A Murderer’s Theories; a Coroner’s Inquest

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven: Interrogation

  Chapter Twelve: Another Day in Custody

  Part Four: Confessions

  Chapter Thirteen: “I Will Tell You the Real Truth”

  Chapter Fourteen: Murderers’ Field Trip

  Chapter Fifteen: “Impaling a Beetle on a Pin”

  Chapter Sixteen: Darrow for the Defense

  Chapter Seventeen: Searching for Insanity

  Part Five: Courtroom Battle

  Chapter Eighteen: Surprise Strategy

  Chapter Nineteen: A Hot Day in Court

  Chapter Twenty: Battles in and Out of Court

  Chapter Twenty-one: New-School Psychiatry Takes the Stand

  Chapter Twenty-two: “The Ageing Lion” vs. “Fighting Bob”

  Chapter Twenty-three: Waiting

  Chapter Twenty-four: “Nothing but the Night”

  Chapter Twenty-five: “Life in Prison Is Just What You Make”

  First Insert

  Second Insert

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography

  Notes

  Image Credits

  Index

  About the Author

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1924

  Nineteen-year-old Nathan Leopold would kill a child today. He didn’t expect to get much pleasure from it. Still, it would be an interesting intellectual experiment, like an entomologist sticking a pin through a beetle. Besides, his friend Richard wanted this murder…badly. And Nathan would do anything for Richard Loeb.

  Nathan lit a cigarette and looked over at Richard. The eighteen-year-old appeared calm as he drove the rental car. But Nathan could see a muscle in Richard’s right cheek twitching. He knew that sign. Richard was ready, eager even, to kill somebody.

  On the floor of the backseat, wrapped in a blanket, lay their gear—rope, chisel, adhesive tape, gags, hydrochloric acid, and hip boots. They had everything they needed. Everything but a victim.

  Nathan looked at his watch.

  Two-thirty.

  School was letting out.

  The pair drove into their Chicago neighborhood of Kenwood, a little pocket of fashionable homes on the city’s South Side. A street away from the Harvard School for Boys, Richard pulled to the curb. He turned off the ignition. They sat there. Who should they grab? They hadn’t settled on a specific victim. Any boy would do.

  Leaving Nathan in the car, Richard walked to the school. Kids poured out onto the playground. He noticed nine-year-old Johnny Levinson, who was in the same fourth-grade class as Richard’s little brother, Tommy. Just days earlier, the boy had played at the Loeb house.

  There couldn’t be a better victim. Stick thin and small for his age, Johnny would be easy to nab.

  Richard turned on his charm. “What are you doing after school?” he asked Johnny in his friendliest voice.

  “I’m going to play baseball,” replied Johnny.

  Where? Richard wanted to know. Who with?

  It was just a pickup game with some friends, Johnny told him. He was headed over to the vacant lot at 49th Street and Drexel.

  Richard wondered how to lure the boy to the car. Should he offer him a ride?

  But before he got the chance, Johnny ran off.

  Frustrated, Richard walked around to the front of the school. He saw Tommy standing on the steps. Maybe he should grab him.

  Just then Nathan whistled for Richard to return to the car. When he did, Nathan said, “There are some children playing on Ingleside Avenue.” Maybe they could catch one of them.

  Richard had a better idea. Why not go over to the vacant lot on 49th Street and watch Johnny’s baseball game? They could snatch the boy afterward as he was walking home.

  Nathan agreed. They drove toward the lot. Yes, the boys were there. But from the moving vehicle, Richard and Nathan couldn’t recognize anybody. They parked again, a block from the lot, and walked down an alley to a spot where they could see the game. Still, they couldn’t make out faces. Could they get closer? Not without being seen. And they couldn’t let that happen. When Johnny vanished, the police would put two and two together. No, they’d have to watch the boy from a distance. To do that, they needed Nathan’s field glasses.

  It was only four blocks to the Leopolds’ house. After dropping Nathan off, Richar
d drove to a nearby drugstore. He bought two packages of gum before heading to the phone booth in the back to look up Johnny’s address in the telephone book. Chewing away, Richard flipped through the pages until he found it. He nodded. He now knew the route Johnny would take to walk home.

  Minutes later, he picked Nathan up. They returned to the alley near the vacant lot. Passing the field glasses back and forth, they watched the children play. Nathan pointed out a few other possible victims. What about the shortstop, or the kid on third base? Richard nixed those ideas. He had his heart set on killing Johnny.

  At four-thirty, Johnny and some others suddenly walked away from the game. Richard grew worried. Was Johnny coming back? He and Nathan waited, but there was no further sign of the boy.

  They drove around and around the neighborhood.

  Who knew it would be so hard to nab a child?

  Nathan looked at his watch again. It was getting late, almost dinnertime. They’d been searching for a victim for more than two hours. He suggested they try again tomorrow.

  Richard refused. They’d been planning this for so long. They couldn’t quit. Not yet. One more time around the neighborhood, he insisted.

  This time, Nathan drove. They passed by the vacant lot again. They went by the Levinson house, too.

  No luck.

  That was when they saw him, walking on the opposite side of the street all by himself. He wore a tan jacket, knickers, wool golf stockings with checkered tops, a necktie, and a tan cap.

  “I know him,” said Richard.

  It was his second cousin, fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks. Bobby lived across the street from Richard. Just yesterday they’d played tennis together on the Loebs’ court.

  The car passed the boy. Richard signaled for Nathan to turn around and drive up behind him. As Nathan did, Richard climbed in back, behind the front passenger seat.

  The car pulled up alongside Bobby.

  “Hey, Bob,” Richard called. He leaned forward and opened the passenger door. “Do you want a ride home?”

  Bobby shook his head. His house was only two blocks away.

  “Come on in,” urged Richard. “I want to talk to you about the tennis racket you had yesterday. I want to get one for my brother.”

  Bobby moved closer to the car. He was so close Richard could have grabbed him and dragged him in. Instead, Richard kept talking, kept smiling.

  Bobby hesitated a moment longer. Then he slid into the front passenger seat. He looked over at Nathan.

  “You know Leopold, don’t you?” said Richard.

  Bobby didn’t. He turned around to the backseat, eager to talk tennis with his older cousin.

  “You don’t mind [us] taking you around the block?” Richard asked.

  “Certainly not,” said Bobby.

  Nathan pulled away from the curb as Richard groped around on the floor for the chisel.

  THE LONGEST NIGHT

  “Baby.”

  That was what Flora Franks called her youngest child, Bobby.

  “Don’t you realize my age?” Bobby would grumble. He’d turned fourteen that year, although he didn’t look it. Small-boned and just eighty pounds, with dark wavy hair, he liked sports and school and joking around with his friends. His big, soulful eyes belied his mischievous streak.

  But Flora found his naughtiness part of his charm. Bobby could be a rascal. But he also possessed a sensitive and generous nature. The school essay he’d written weeks earlier proved that. The topic had been capital punishment, and in it Bobby opined that executing murderers was senseless and immoral. “Most criminals have diseased minds,” he’d argued. It was not just or fair for the state to kill these people. Flora had been proud of his stance. At a time when most people believed executing convicted murderers was the most effective way of deterring crime, Bobby had disagreed. Boldly and articulately, he’d expressed an unpopular position. And afterward, he’d told his family he wanted to become a lawyer to help people. Was it any wonder that of Flora’s three children, he was her favorite? She freely admitted it. And every night, she tiptoed into his room to kiss his cheek while he slept.

  So when Bobby didn’t come home by six-thirty on that drizzling, gray evening, Flora grew frantic. Where was Baby?

  Her husband, Jacob, tried to calm her. The boy had probably just gone to a friend’s house and lost track of time. Had he said anything about being late?

  Bobby had come home at lunchtime, she recalled. He’d reminded her that he was umpiring the freshman baseball game after school that day. But he should have been home long before this.

  “Maybe he’s playing tennis across the street [at the Loebs’ house] and forgot the time,” suggested their fifteen-year-old son, Jack.

  Jacob went to look.

  The court was empty.

  Walking down Ellis Avenue, he peered into backyards and alleys. He, too, was growing worried.

  He returned home to find Flora phoning Bobby’s friends. Was he there? When was the last time they’d seen him? Had they seen him leave?

  Some of the boys remembered spotting Bobby at the baseball game. One of them had even seen him headed toward home. Yes, he’d been alone.

  It was seven o’clock now. The maid came into the living room and asked if she should serve dinner.

  Eat? How could they eat? Flora paced around the room, stopping again and again to pull back the curtains and look out the tall arched windows. Her eyes strained for Bobby’s familiar figure walking along the sidewalk.

  With every passing minute, Jacob grew more alarmed. Still, he tried to stay calm. He suggested they sit down at the table. Bobby, he told them, would surely be back by dessert.

  It was a tense meal. Jack fidgeted nervously in his chair. Seventeen-year-old Josephine pushed food around her plate. And Flora just stared at her untouched dinner. At the sound of every passing car, Jacob jumped. Might one of them be bringing his son home?

  By the time the maid cleared the uneaten meal, Jacob’s mind had become a jumble of fear. He had to do something. Was it too soon to contact the police? Should they telephone Bobby’s friends again? Finally, he called his friend Samuel Ettelson, a prominent lawyer and former state senator. Jacob figured Sam would know what to do.

  Ettelson—who lived next door to the Leopolds—arrived in minutes. Could Bobby have gotten locked in the school? he asked.

  Possibly, conceded Jacob.

  Grabbing their coats, the two men hurried out the door. It took just five minutes to cover the three and a half blocks to school. The men walked around the building, eventually finding an open basement window. They clambered inside and called out Bobby’s name.

  No answer.

  They hunted through every room, opening supply closets and peeking under desks. Over and over, Bobby’s name echoed down the empty corridors.

  They found no sign of him.

  “There must be some explanation,” said Jacob.

  Meanwhile, as the men searched, the telephone in the Frankses’ living room rang.

  Flora snatched it up.

  A man’s voice on the other end asked for Mr. Franks.

  “Mr. Franks isn’t here,” she said.

  “Your son has been kidnapped,” the voice said. “He is all right. There will be further news in the morning.”

  “Who is this?” Flora managed to say.

  “Johnson,” replied the voice.

  “What do you want? What do you want?” Flora screamed.

  But the man on the other end hung up.

  Flora fainted.

  Minutes later, Jacob and Sam found her crumpled on the Persian rug. A whiff of smelling salts brought her around. Then the story came tumbling out, followed by hysterical sobbing.

  Tenderly, Jacob helped her upstairs to bed. It was, he assured her, the best place for her. There was nothing she could do for Bobby rig
ht now. She needed to save her strength for when it was needed. He left her weeping into her pillows.

  Back downstairs, he and Sam weighed their options. Should they notify the police? Doing so was sure to alert the press. After all, Jacob Franks was the millionaire president of the Rockford Watch Company, as well as a member of the city’s library board. His son’s kidnapping would make headlines. Would the publicity force the kidnappers to do something desperate? Jacob was dead set against any action that might put his son in danger.

  After some discussion, the men decided not to report the crime. Instead, they sat next to the telephone, waiting and hoping for another call from the kidnappers.

  NATHAN AND RICHARD

  Nathan Leopold loved birds. They were magical in that manner of all things just a little beyond his understanding. To him, they were creatures of wing and air, and it frustrated him that he could never get to know them as completely as he wanted. With the legs of his trousers tucked into waterproof boots and his field glasses hanging around his neck, Nathan would creep almost daily through the wild bits of unused land around Chicago. When a few notes of unexpected birdsong caught his ear, he’d crouch and raise the field glasses to his eyes.

  There—a flash of red! It was a scarlet tanager on the branch of an oak tree.

  For long minutes, Nathan would focus on the bird, his lips curving into an admiring smile. Then, slowly, he would raise the rifle he always carried when bird-watching, take careful aim, and squeeze the trigger.

  The creature of wing and air now belonged to Nathan. He would add it to his collection.

  Nathan’s bird collection was immense. By 1924, he possessed close to three thousand specimens. Stuffed birds crammed the second-floor study adjoining his bedroom. They stared out from glass-fronted cabinets and lined shelves and mantels. Nathan had killed each one. Most had been sent off to a taxidermist to be mounted in lifelike positions. But he’d held back a few. These he’d gutted himself, pulling out their tiny organs until only their feathered skins remained intact. After tagging each with its scientific name, he tucked the birds away into specially made drawers. None of this bothered Nathan. Killing small creatures had become second nature to him.