For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago Read Online Free

obtain a rental car. Richard had thrown a package from the Boston train; it had landed near the anticipated spot at 74th Street. And Nathan had taken out a car from the Rent-A-Car Company on Michigan Avenue, establishing himself as a reliable customer.
    They did not yet know the identity of their victim—he might be any one of a dozen boys. But the date of the kidnapping was set: Wednesday, 21 May, in the afternoon, when the pupils at the Harvard School were walking home after the end of classes.
    Nathan spent the weekend before the kidnapping at Wolf Lake, close to the marshlands in the Forest Preserve. On Saturday, 17 May, he spent the afternoon at the lake with a school friend, George Lewis. They noticed some birds resembling sandpipers. Nathan, determined to obtain one for his collection, fired three shots at the birds as they flew across the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks that separated Hyde Lake from its neighbor, Wolf Lake, to the west. He missed and ran across the tracks in pursuit, stumbling in rubber boots that were slightly too large. 27
    The birds had disappeared in the reeds lining the edges of Hyde Lake. The two boys searched for them along the shoreline, spotted them a second time, and fired at them but missed: Nathan’s gun jammed and the birds made good their escape. 28
    He returned the following day, accompanied again by Lewis and a second friend, Sidney Stein. They parked Nathan’s car by the railroad tracks, not far from a drainpipe culvert, and climbed up the incline to look out over Wolf Lake. There was no sign of the birds they had seen the previous day. The sun had already begun to dip low over the lake, casting an intense crimson glow across the horizon; soon it would be dark and time for them to start on the journey back to Chicago. 29

    O N T UESDAY, 20 M AY— the day before the kidnapping—Nathan and Richard purchased the equipment for the murder. Nathan bought writing paper and envelopes for the ransom note at a stationery store at 1054 East 47th Street. Nathan had a sweet tooth; as he waited for the clerk, H. C. Stranberg, to fetch the writing pad, he bought a box of chocolate creams from Stranberg’s assistant. 30
    Later that day, Nathan entered a drugstore at 4558 Cottage Grove Avenue. The owner, Aaron Adler, was curious that the customer—a young man with a dark, sallow complexion, wearing an expensive gray topcoat and a slouch hat—was making such an unusual purchase.
    “Give me a pint of hydrochloric acid,” Nathan requested, “and let me have a half pint of ether, also.”
    Why did he need the acid? Adler asked.
    For experimental work, Nathan replied, in a science laboratory at the university.
    “Yes.” Adler seemed satisfied with the answer. “All right.”
    “I have been to several other stores, and I couldn’t get it.”
    Nathan paused—Adler was checking his inventory list.
    “Do you sell much of it?” Nathan asked.
    “Not a great deal,” Adler replied.
    Three minutes later, the pharmacist returned from the rear of the store with two glass bottles, each not much larger than a Listerine bottle. Nathan was surprised that the acid was so inexpensive—only seventy-five cents for a pint bottle. Adler indicated the glass stopper sealed with a dark-brown wax lining to prevent spillage.

    10. THE RANSOM LETTER. Nathan Leopold typed the ransom letter on a portable Underwood typewriter on the evening of Tuesday, 20 May.
    “Be sure,” he cautioned Nathan, “and keep it upright, because it might leak out and burn your clothes.” 31
    That afternoon, Richard Loeb completed their purchases, stopping at a hardware store on Cottage Grove Avenue north of 43rd Street to buy a length of rope and a sharp-edged chisel with a beveled blade and a wooden handle. 32

    T HERE WAS ONE LAST DETAIL remaining: the ransom letter. They had not yet, of course, chosen their victim, and the letter could not, therefore, be addressed to any specific person. Better, nevertheless, to compose the letter