Fetch the Devil: The Sierra Diablo Murders and Nazi Espionage in America

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3 Flooding and mudslides in Southern California postponed the departure hourforthewomen’scross-countrymotortriptovisitMada.Theon-again, off-again trip was finally underway shortly before noon on Wednesday, March 23. Perhaps the delay was just as well, since Nancy had been out late the night before, attending the Tri Delta spring dance. Monsoon rains all along the California coast during the first week of March 1938 were blamed for more than two hundred deaths and millions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses, highways, and bridges. The stormsweresoseverethattheAcademyAwardsceremoniesinLosAngeles, originally scheduled for March 3, had been postponed a week. The Frome women were not about to let a little weather interfere with their plans. They had a nearly new car and could choose from several recently built, coast-to-coast highways, which had been constructed to make work for thousands of unemployed men and boys. The most direct route, US Highway 50 from San Francisco to Ocean City,Maryland,crossedtheMidwestwithanetworkofexcellent,multilane roads that would deliver them almost door-to-door from their home in Berkeley to Parris Island, South Carolina. It was one of the most scenic routesinthenewnetworkofhighways,takingthetraveleronmodernroads through the Sierra, Wasatch, and Rocky Mountains of California, Utah, and Colorado, and across the prairie lands of Kansas and Missouri, before veering south to the eastern seaboard. Hazel’s mother and five sisters lived in Missouri, so such a route could have also offered an opportunity for a reunion with Nancy’s grandmother and aunts. An alternative was a less coordinated southern route, roughly following the newly designated and uncompleted US 80, originating in San Diego and terminating at Tybee Island, Georgia. Only the eastern portion of that system, named the Dixie Overland Highway, had been finished, from the east coast to Dallas. To connect to that route from San Francisco, the women would have to drive nearly four hundred miles south in California murder in the desert 17 and then cross Arizona, New Mexico, and hundreds of miles into Texas, before picking up the new highway. With the March rains having caused considerable damage to roads and bridges in Southern California, that alternative seemed problematic. But for some unexplained reason, they chose the longer, southern route that would take them along the Mexico border and through El Paso, Texas, to connect with US 80. Whether it was because of the many high mountain passes on US 50, some of which were still heavily snow packed that time of year, or another unknown reason, Hazel most likely made the final choice of the southern alternative.Popwasnotconsultedinthematter.TheFromewomenseldom bothered him about their extensive travel schedules, conferring only about the financing of their trips. They were undeterred by the reports of recent flooding in the state, having traveled through other deluges, in far worse terrain than modern California. While motoring from Monterrey to Santa Engracia on their Mexico trip the previous summer, Hazel, Nancy, and Mada found themselves stranded on a muddy road, miles from nowhere. A friend who was also vacationing in the area would later attest to their resourcefulness. “It was raining and the Frome car was stuck in a ditch approaching the ranch,” recalled Mrs. T. B. Chattam, about finding them on a desolate stretch of Mexican countryside in the summer of 1937. She described how thewomenhadmanagedthesituationquitewell.Hazelhadhiredadonkey cart for her own transportation and horses for Nancy and Mada to ride bareback to continue their journey. When Mrs. Chattam last saw them they were riding off toward the guest ranch—the girls on horseback and Hazel huddled under a serape in the cart.20 Pop also boasted that, on their motor trip through Europe, the women had never run into a problem they couldn’t handle, be it in the bistros or the backwaters of the Continent. So,despitetheroadconditions,NancyandHazelchosetoheadoutinto the storms on the cross-country drive to visit Mada and her new husband. Sincetheyintendedtobegoneseveralmonths,selectingtheappropriate clothing and accessories took considerable planning. Hazel’s intuition that she should accompany Nancy on the extended visit seemed borne out by the choices her fun-loving daughter had made. Nancy clearly planned to 18 fetch the devil go partying. At the top of her clothing list were three evening gowns: a backless,maroontaffetaformalwithrhinestonestraps;aV-neckdresswith a slit down the back in deep coral crepe; and a turquoise chiffon formal.21 The rest of Nancy’s trip attire included assorted dresses, coats, skirts and blouses, shoes, hats, lingerie, and bathing suits, in addition...