White found himself wandering through a wilderness of mirrors
—his work more akin to espionage than to criminal investigation.
There were moles and double agents and possibly triple agents. No
one had aroused more suspicion than the private eye called Pike. A
gentleman in Osage County had once approached Agent Burger
and introduced himself as an intermediary, a go-between, for Pike.
Agents were aware that Pike had been hired by William Hale back
in 1921 to solve the Osage murders but had abandoned the case
after failing to make any progress.
The intermediary, however, said that Pike had actually withheld
a crucial piece of information that he had discovered during his
investigation: he knew the identity of the third man who’d been
spotted with Bryan and Anna around the time that she was killed.
Agent Burger wrote that Pike apparently “has known and talked
with this third man.” But the intermediary made it clear that Pike
would share this information under one condition: that he be paid
a king’s ransom. “It is quite apparent there is some crooked work
afoot,” Agent Burger wrote in a report.
Agents demanded, through the intermediary, that Pike come
forward. But again he didn’t comply, evidently determined to
extort money and obstruct justice. Agents launched a manhunt for
Pike, whose last known address was in Kansas City. “Pike will have
to be located and apprehended,” Agent Burger wrote. “He changed
his Kansas City address soon after it became known that we were
working on him. We feel sure he has been paid to skip.”
Not long after, Pike was caught allegedly committing highway
robbery in Tulsa. Out of angles to play, he gave up a name of a
local gambler. Agents could confirm that the gambler had been at
one of the speakeasies drinking with Bryan and Anna on the night
of May 21. But further investigation proved that the gambler had