3

JULY 28, 1972

Ginny doesn’t sleep Thursday night. She can’t make herself lie down in the wet brush, even with the plastic sheets beneath her. Neither she nor the man guarding her has had anything to eat or drink. Though she doesn’t dare look at the man, she is sure he is miserable, too. He shakes and shivers as much as she does—she can hear him and sense his movements—and he bends over and rubs his knees as though they are hurting him.

At some point in the night the man says he is going to leave her for a few minutes. He produces a long chain and runs the chain between her cuffed hands and padlocks the chain to the tree. Then she hears him walk away through the brush behind her. Then she hears nothing. No voices, no car doors, not even footfalls in the brush. It seems as though he is gone for a long time, though for all she knows it has been only a few minutes.

When he returns, he removes the chain, and she works up the nerve to ask him where he’s been.

“Just looking around,” he says.

Once, he tells her they are not far from her home. But at another time, he says there is nothing she would recognize around them. She would never find her way out, he says.

When—then or later—she asks him what time it is, he says it’s five AM.

Today, Friday, the man is more talkative. Maybe her famous charm is winning him over. Or maybe his curiosity about the rich lady in his custody has become too much for him. Or maybe he is just bored in the forest’s silence. He is probably right about their location: encircled by wet trees and soggy underbrush, they are, as best she can tell, in the middle of a great deal of nothing.

She asks him if they really intended to take her husband instead of her.

The man says yes, and he is sorry they had to take her. The “whole thing” was arranged by a guy—“Chino”?—who owns a bar in Minneapolis. The guy told him, he says, that all he and his partner had to do was go out to the house and “snatch the old man.” The wife and the kids would not be involved, the guy said. He says the bar owner provided the guns and the masks. He says he didn’t know the man who accompanied him on the job.

Talking about the bar owner seems to get the man riled up.

“That son of a bitch!” he says suddenly. “I’ll blow his head off!”

Would he really do that, Ginny dares ask, and the man says he would. But when she asks him if he has ever killed anybody, he says no.

Calmer now, he tells her the plan was to take her husband to an apartment that the bar owner had rented on Plymouth Avenue in north Minneapolis—“the toughest part of town.” If they had done that, he says, he and his partner would be at the apartment right now, “watching television and eating spaghetti” while waiting for somebody from her husband’s company to deliver the ransom money.

“Why didn’t you take me to that apartment?” she asks. She believes that it is in her best interest to keep the man talking, but she is curious as well.

He says they figured that a woman would probably be more likely noticed coming and going.

The conversation stops and begins again, meanders around, then switches to an unrelated subject. The man complains about the rain, mutters about arthritis in his knees, and reveals that he owes the aforementioned bar owner $12,000 that the bar owner said he’ll write off in exchange for grabbing Mr. Piper. She doesn’t ask how much the bar owner will think she is worth.

Then he surprises her by pulling a partial loaf of St. John’s bread, some cellophane-wrapped slices of American cheese, and a can of 7-Up out of a paper bag. Has he had that with him the entire time they’ve been out here? she wonders. Or did he retrieve it from a stash somewhere—maybe a car parked down on the road—during one of his excursions into the brush? He gives her a slice of the damp bread and a piece of the cheese, and opens the can of soda. Strangely, he doesn’t seem to take anything for himself. When she asks him if he is going to eat, he says no. He says he hasn’t eaten since yesterday.

The man also produces a partial pack of Kool cigarettes, which excites her as much as the food. She is a loyal Kent smoker, but right now, who knows how many hours without a smoke, she is no more inclined to complain about the brand than she is going to whine about the flavorless cheese. The cigarette he hands her, like the bread and cheese, is wet, and it takes him several attempts before he can get a match lit, but she will be damned if she is going to complain about that, either. The cigarette’s menthol sears her throat and nasal passages, but the rush from the tobacco smoke that surges through her body is heaven.

Afraid of angering the man and maybe turning him violent, she has followed his order and assiduously avoided looking at him. She often sees him, or parts of him, in her peripheral vision, but she has not seen the whole man, straight on. When he finally strikes a match and extends the flame for her cigarette, she sees his hands, now ungloved. She sees that he is a white man or maybe an American Indian, and he wears a watch—white numbers on a black face, with a black band—on his left wrist.

Sometime after that, she turns—so tired she is not thinking—and sees him whole, his left profile anyway, for a second or two.

He is wearing what looks like a woman’s nylon stocking, at least the toe end of it, not the elaborate hooded mask he wore to the house yesterday. The stocking is knotted on top of the man’s head and has a run down the side that reveals part of a thick sideburn, some gray-streaked dark hair, a darkish complexion, and an odd imperfection—a streak just outside the pupil—in the left eye.

She quickly turns away. But she knows he knows she has seen him.

On the orders of First National’s George Dixon, Milton Snyder, the bank’s vice president for audit and security, and a dozen bank employees prepare Ginny Piper’s ransom. They are careful not to diverge from the precise instructions the kidnappers left on Thursday.

But it’s a big job that also follows a protocol developed by the FBI for use in airline hijackings¹ and “other emergencies” involving large amounts of extorted cash. The bulk of the money—fifty thousand used twenty-dollar Federal Reserve notes—has been sent over from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve bank in an armored car. At First National, Snyder and his crew count the money and bundle it in packs of one hundred. The bills are not marked or otherwise “treated.” The serial number of each, however, has been recorded on microfilm, the best technology of the day.

Snyder’s crew divides the bills into four packages containing 125 packs of $2,000 apiece. They wrap each of the four packages in a combination of corrugated fiber and plain brown paper and seal them with heavy tape. They place the four wrapped packages in a brown canvas bag with a stout drawstring that has been manufactured for the occasion by the Bemis Bag Company, another well-established Minneapolis business, and personally delivered by Bemis president Richard Young, yet another friend of Bobby Piper’s. Stretched taut with the four dense packages, the bag measures seventeen by seventeen by thirty-six inches and is roughly the size and shape of a soldier’s duffel bag. Filled with fifty thousand twenty-dollar bills, the bag weighs, according to the bank’s scale, 110½ pounds.

At four thirty, witnessed by Special Agent Louis Van Hagen and supervised by Assistant Special Agent in Charge Robert Kent, Special Agents Michael Misko and Robert Marvin place the heavy bag in the trunk of an unmarked Bureau sedan and drive westward out of downtown through the rush-hour traffic toward Orono.

Friday is Waiting Day on Spring Hill Road.

Nobody in the family had a good night’s sleep, and people are walking around the house like zombies. Meals are ad hoc affairs, taken standing up or eaten off a tray if taken or eaten at all. Friends and neighbors—those allowed through the police lines—come bearing hot dishes, desserts, and sandwich fixings for the ladies to assemble in the kitchen. If you’re hungry, you either rustle up something for yourself or ask one of the women to make you a sandwich. The kitchen floor, you’ll notice, is spotless.

There is a lot of hushed conversation. People talk about anything and everything, avoiding, of course, certain images and eventualities, just to keep themselves and each other occupied. The agents who come and go on their own schedules and with their own agendas continue to ask questions, or for the expansion or clarification of earlier answers, and write the new information in their spiral notebooks.

Most of the civilians in the house (as well as at the Morrison house a mile away) have never dealt with law enforcement of any kind, not counting a traffic violation or a youthful misdemeanor, and don’t know quite what to make of the agents, who are polite and seem competent but are definitely strangers in a strange land. For their part, the agents, though they would never say as much to civilians, understand that they would not likely be house guests in this part of town without a federal crime having been suspected or committed. They don’t seem to take that personally.

Everybody is tense. Tad does his best to follow his father’s example and concentrate on the task of getting his mother back safe and sound. He stays close to his dad and Uncle John, providing support (he chooses to believe) by his presence and speaking up when it seems appropriate. His brother David does not try as hard to hide his emotions. David spends a good part of the long day in his room upstairs, alone or talking quietly to one of his cousins.

Harry Piper III has arrived home from Montana. Returning to an aunt’s ranch late last night, he was stunned to learn about the developments in Minneapolis. He managed to make it home by noon today despite a pilots’ strike that has reduced the number of Northwest flights. He answers the FBI’s questions as best he can, but he’s as flummoxed by his mother’s abduction as everyone else.²

Everybody knows that tonight is the night. Per the kidnappers’ instructions, the ransom will be delivered immediately after they call, whenever, exactly, that might be. Assembled and packaged by George Dixon’s people downtown, the million dollars is, for the moment, in the FBI’s hands, pending the criminals’ next word.

The Pipers will play by the kidnappers’ rules and assume that the kidnappers will as well. The alternatives are too awful to contemplate. Playing by the rules presumes, of course, that the kidnappers are honorable, sane, and smart enough to understand that keeping Ginny safe is in their own best interest.

No one knows if Ginny is still alive, much less where she might be or in what condition, twenty-four-plus hours after her abduction, but no one in the house on Spring Hill Road is going to say that out loud.

The rain continues to fall and it’s cold—not winter cold, but a damp cold, probably in the low fifties, that seems unseasonable for July—and Ginny wonders how far from home she could possibly be. Because of the chill, she is reasonably sure that they’re somewhere up north, in northern Minnesota or northwestern Wisconsin. If they had crossed into Canada, they would have had to pass through a checkpoint, and she’s quite certain they didn’t do that. How could they, with her lying visible in the backseat, handcuffed and hooded?

Her captor did not react to her accidental look at him. He hasn’t been aggressive at all—he hasn’t touched her roughly or in a sexual way or spoken harshly or in a threatening manner. As time has passed, she has relaxed a little, or maybe she is just so physically and emotionally depleted she no longer has the strength to be scared. But the man has at times been reassuring. “I am not going to hurt you, Mrs. Piper. You are going to go home.” She does her best to believe him.

Without looking directly at the man again, she has been able, owing to their proximity, to compose in her mind a portrait of sorts. You can’t spend twenty-four hours a foot or two away from somebody and not have some impressions, even if you’re not looking at him. The man, she reckons, is thirty-five to forty years old, six feet or slightly taller, with dark, graying hair and a husky build. He has large feet and wears rubber-soled workmen’s boots. Judging by his language (the “ain’t”s and the occasional profanity) as well as some of his comments, she believes he was not brought up very well, nor does he have much education. His gentle treatment of her notwithstanding, he strikes her as a tough guy. A thug.

She takes his talkativeness as a positive sign. He seems, at times, genuinely curious about her and her family, his questions often striking her as naive, even amusingly innocent.

He asks her why she and her husband don’t have a maid, a butler, and a chauffeur—“all those things that rich people have.”

“Because we don’t want or need them,” she says.

He asks why rich people live “off by themselves,” and she says, “We just like it that way.”

He asks her, “What’s the price of stock?” as though shares of a company’s stock were a commodity like gold or oil. While he knows that Bobby is involved with the stock market, he obviously has no idea how the stock market functions.

He mentions the Anoka State Hospital, a facility in the northern suburbs that houses the mentally ill, and she wonders if he has been a patient there. The possibility frightens her, because that could mean he is irrational and unpredictable. Of course, he has also mentioned the penitentiary at St. Cloud, which, as far as she knows, incarcerates run-of-the-mill criminals, and complained about the conditions and the lack of educational opportunities up there.

He is, she learns, or so he tells her, a construction worker who has been laid off for two months because of a strike but who expects to go back to work on Monday.

He says he has gotten into trouble in the past with alcohol and drugs.

He says he likes to hunt deer and watch basketball on TV.

He says his friends at the unidentified bar sometimes call him “Alabama.” He has never lived in Alabama, he says when she asks him why, but he frequently criticizes Governor George Wallace, who has been in the news a lot,³ and for the man’s friends that evidently justifies the nickname.

The information comes out piecemeal, more often than not as replies to her questions, with long stretches of silence in between. While she is relieved that he is talking to her at all, she certainly doesn’t believe everything that he tells her.

He says he has neither a wife nor children, and she is reluctant to ask any more about family matters in case that’s a sore spot that will anger him.

When they are not talking, Ginny thinks about Bobby and the boys and wonders if she will see them again. The man has mentioned the FBI, so she assumes that federal agents are looking for her, which is both reassuring and difficult to believe. (When he first mentioned the FBI, she said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s that big a deal.” To which he replied, “Oh, yes—it’s a big deal.”) At the same time, she wonders how anyone, even the FBI, could possibly find her in the middle of this wilderness.

The FBI wants Bobby to consider other options. Virtually from the moment they examined the ransom note and heard him say he intended to pay the ransom as quickly as he could, the agents have asked him to think about alternatives.

The agents’ preferred operating procedure is to deliver the ransom themselves. If Bobby were able to look at the situation at a greater remove, he might logically assume that the agents believe that Ginny is dead, so the objective now is to catch the kidnapper/killers. The agents don’t tell him that, of course, but the plan of action they are advocating puts the premium on the perpetrators’ capture, not the victim’s rescue. Bobby says no. The note stipulates in no uncertain terms that the delivery will be made by someone “closely associated” with the firm.

One of the agents says, “So, all right, a Piper, Jaffray guy drives the car, but we have our man hiding in the trunk.”

Again, Bobby says no. It isn’t difficult to imagine the chaos that will likely ensue when the armed kidnappers open the trunk and find the armed agent inside. And who says the kidnappers won’t be ready for such an eventuality and kill Ginny first?

Then how about carrying a radio transmitter to track the car?

Bobby is less adamantly opposed to this, though a tracking device⁴ still seems to him the kind of trickery that could cost Ginny her life.

Bobby does not for one moment believe that Ginny’s abductors are bluffing. Even if he does, he wouldn’t dare try to cross them as long as she is under their control. Control is the operative word. The kidnappers control the situation; he can only react. It is an unfamiliar feeling, this lack of control, for a man who is almost always in command, who is known within both his family and his company for a steadfast determination to gather the facts, reach a decision, and act on his terms.

In the case of his wife’s abduction, he has few facts on which he can act with any confidence. Ginny was taken from his home at gunpoint, and her whereabouts and situation are unknown. Her abductors have demanded a million dollars, to be delivered according to their explicit instructions on Friday night. Even as the agents lay out alternative courses of action, he is determined to do it his way, which is to say the way Ginny’s captors demanded it be done. The agents concede that it is ultimately up to him (technically speaking, they don’t even have jurisdiction in this case pending proof of interstate transportation), and this is what he has decided. He is willing to discuss installing a tracking device in the car before he leaves.

On Friday evening his decision is firm. He will drive his car to the delivery point the kidnappers specify when they call him. He will go alone, without an agent in the trunk or backseat. To do it any other way would put Ginny at dire risk. He will be putting himself at risk, of course, but the note says it has to be someone associated with the firm, and he doesn’t feel it’s right to put one of his colleagues in jeopardy.

“It’s best,” he tells the agents, “that I do this myself.”

He insists, in addition, that he make the run without a tail. Even in unmarked cars, agents or police officers could be spotted and thus compromise the plan. At last he does agree, however, to let the agents place a radio transmitter in his backseat and a tiny video camera behind the car’s grille. The agents will at least know where he is.

Bobby drives a year-old Oldsmobile 98. He had the car filled with gas and moved to the next-door neighbor’s driveway, where it can’t be seen by the reporters keeping watch on Spring Hill Road. The agents parked their car containing the ransom money in the neighbor’s driveway yesterday evening. They can transfer the cash from their car to Bobby’s without tipping off the press.

Throughout the afternoon and early evening Bobby betrays little emotion. His sons, John Morrison, and the others in the house who know him well can see that he is anxious. His face is drawn and his speech is clipped. He moves with an unnatural tightness. Tad, who works with Bobby every day of the week and has seen him in stressful situations at the office, has never seen him like this—not even close, Tad will recall much later. Tad, for his part, is frozen with fear. In fact, the boys’ terror level has gone up a click. Their mother is gone, and now they don’t know what fate awaits their father.

Everybody keeps glancing at their watches.

There is nothing to do now but wait for the kidnappers’ call.

The note says the call will come about nine thirty, and at nine thirty-six the ringing house phone breaks the tension. Bobby picks it up.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Bobby?”

“Yeah? Hi.”

“They told me—they’re very nice and they’re taking good care of me, and I do hope you’ll do everything you can to follow their instructions.”

“Can you—can you hear what I say, or is this a recording?”

“Tomorrow—”

“Can you hear what I say?”

“Tomorrow to drive—to turn onto 12, the closest place from our house. Go east on Number 12 to Louisiana Avenue. Turn left on Louisiana Avenue and go to the end. And you will see a sign that says Louisiana and Laurel. L-A-U-R-E-L. At the base of that signpost will be something for you to pick up.”

“Is this a recording or are you talking to me?”

“—you can get yourself organized. I’m sorry about tonight and everything, and be sure you explain to the kids. Tell them to stop—don’t panic because everything’s, it’s going to be all right. Okay?”

“Yeah, but are you talking here or is this a recording? Virginia? Ginny?”

“Bobby, once again, the directions. Tomorrow—I don’t know whether it’s morning or afternoon, but you’re to go, ah, to Number 12 until you reach Louisiana Avenue. Then go left on Louisiana Avenue and go to the end. There you will see a sign that says Louisiana and Laurel. L-A-U-R-E-L. At the base of the sign, you will find a package that you are to pick up.”

“Hello? That’s a recording. Hello?”

The agents told Bobby not to hang up, to keep the line open long enough for them to establish a trace, but Bobby, excited and anxious, slams the phone down when the connection goes dead. The call lasted less than two minutes, which was not long enough to complete a trace, but the agents did get Ginny’s words on tape.

There is no way to know when Ginny recorded the message, though, given her reference to “tomorrow,” she likely made it yesterday. There is no doubt that it was her. Even under duress, there is no mistaking Ginny’s voice. Her captors obviously told her what to say, but, as best Bobby could determine, she didn’t sound either injured or scared. She wasn’t crying. She sounded calm, composed, matter of fact.

They listen to the FBI’s recording, and Bobby jots down the directions, just to be sure. Then he walks outside. It is a mild but overcast evening in the Twin Cities, with the threat of rain. Bobby is dressed casually, in an open-necked shirt, slacks, and a light jacket. He looks like a guy who is off to run an errand for his wife.

He cuts through the trees that separate the Pipers’ property from the Hollanders’ house next door and watches in the gathering night as the agents move the heavy canvas bag from the trunk of their car to the trunk of his.

As Bobby departs, an FBI agent, evidently wishing to cushion the blow, tells David that he has to be prepared to never see either one of his parents again.

¹ Assaults on commercial airliners were rampant at the time. When Virginia Piper was kidnapped, the FBI was attempting to solve the hijacking, eight months earlier, of Northwest Orient Flight 305, during which a man in a business suit (mis)identified as “D. B. Cooper” disappeared with $200,000 and a parachute over Washington State. Neither “Cooper” nor the full $200,000 would ever be located.

² Harry was later told that FBI agents posing as ordinary passengers accompanied him on his flight home. Whether as protection or surveillance would remain unclear.

³ Running in the Democratic presidential primaries, Wallace was crippled in an assassination attempt in May.

⁴ This was thirty years before practical GPS navigational technology was available.