the rooming house—which was one of those seething places that
often reeked of sex and moonshine—supported Joe and Rose’s
claims. The investigators noticed, however, that the stories told by
Rose and Joe were almost verbatim, as if they had rehearsed them.
Rose and Joe were released, and afterward Agent Burger sought
the help of an informant—the bootlegger and dope peddler Kelsie
Morrison, who seemed an ideal source of intelligence. He’d once
been married to an Osage woman, and was close to Rose and other
suspects. Before Agent Burger could recruit Morrison, though, he
needed to find him: Morrison had fled Osage County after
assaulting a local Prohibition officer. Burger and other agents
made inquiries and learned that Morrison was in Dallas, Texas,
using the alias Lloyd Miller. The agents sprang a trap. They had a
registered letter sent to the P.O. box listed under Miller’s name,
then they nabbed Morrison when he went to retrieve it. “We
interviewed ‘Lloyd Miller’ who for about an hour denied that he
was Kelsie Morrison but finally admitted that he was,” Agent
Burger reported.
Morrison, whom Agent Burger described as an “unusually
shrewd and reckless and self-confessed criminal,” dressed like a
dance-hall hustler. Tall, bullet scarred, small-eyed, and jittery, he
seemed to be wasting away from within—hence his nickname,
Slim. “Talks and smokes cigarettes a lot,” Agent Burger noted in a
report. “Sniffs nose and works mouth and nose like rabbit almost
continuously, especially when excited.”
The feds cut a deal with Morrison: in return for getting his
arrest warrant for assault quashed, he would work as an informant
on the Osage murder cases. Agent Burger told headquarters, “This
arrangement is strictly confidential and not to be divulged outside
of this Bureau to anyone, under any circumstances.”
There was a risk that Morrison might slip away, and before