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.By 7:30 p.m.police had finished their work.Coroner s officialshefted the lifeless body onto a stretcher, wrapped it tightly in asheet, and carried it to the waiting hearse for the twenty-minutetrip to downtown Los Angeles and the basement of the Hall ofJustice building.Sheriff Biscailuz issued an all-points bulletin, warning policethroughout the state to watch out for a beautiful black-hairedwoman driving a dark blue 1930 Buick sedan and believed to be armed and dangerous. 2844 3.Outlaw Womanobert Cuddy lived in a small cabin eighty miles north ofLos Angeles and eleven miles west of the summit of theRRidge Route that carried travelers from Southern Cali-fornia over the Tehachapi Mountains into the San Joaquin Valleyand northern California.Cuddy was a sixty-four-year-old widowerand father of six who had spent his entire life in the mountain val-ley that bore his family name.Like Nellie Madison, he was Irish;his grandfather had emigrated from Ireland in the middle of thenineteenth century.Just after the Civil War he settled in CuddyValley and launched a successful cattle business.1By March 1934 the ranching operation had shrunk consider-ably, but Robert Cuddy still owned several hundred acres on thesouth side of the two-lane highway that led from the Ridge Routeto a half-dozen mountain resorts scattered throughout the region.Several of his children and grandchildren lived on his property aswell, in houses dotting the same narrow dirt road that led from thehighway to Cuddy s cabin.2About 4:00 p.m.on Sunday, March 25, four of his grandchildrenwere playing in their front yards when they spied a dark blue Buickcoming toward them down the road.As it passed they stopped andwaved.Its driver waved back and then disappeared around a curve,heading toward Cuddy s cabin.Minutes later Nellie Madison outlaw womanpulled her car into a ramshackle wooden garage that stood aboutfifty yards from the cabin.She slowly opened the car door, walkedaround to the trunk, opened it, and lifted out a bag of groceries, ajug of red wine, and a package wrapped in newspaper.She closedthe trunk and began a slow walk toward the cabin.3Cuddy s rustic, five-room home resembled a barn.Made of un-finished redwood with a corrugated tin roof, it was almost square.It had a large open kitchen, a living room with a floor-to-ceilingstone fireplace, and three small bedrooms.It had no telephone, butwas the only one in the area with indoor plumbing.Cuddy, a tall,thin man with a ruddy complexion and a lined and weather-beatenface, stood in his kitchen talking with two guests, a husband andwife named Clair and Rose Bush, and he watched through thewindow as Nellie parked and walked toward the house.He didnot expect her, but strode to the front porch and wrapped her in awarm embrace.She handed him the wine.4Cuddy led her into the kitchen and living room, where his visi-tors sat.Then he directed her to the middle bedroom, where shecould drop her belongings.The room held twin beds, a bureau,and a ladder-back chair.At one end of the room a heavy, dark bluepiece of cotton cloth covered the opening to a closet used mostlyfor storing items.Nellie placed her package in the bureau and returned to the liv-ing room.Cuddy offered her a glass of wine. No, thank you, shesaid. Do you have any tea? Cuddy heated water in an ancient tin pot on his stove, madethe tea, and carried it into the living room.Nothing in Nellie sdemeanor that night seemed out of the ordinary to her host orhis guests.She seemed tired, but that could be attributed to thelong drive.She was also quiet and reserved, but no more so thanusual.5If Cuddy thought it odd that she had dropped by without warn-ing, or that she never mentioned Eric Madison, he did not remark46 outlaw womanon it.But then he and Nellie had the kind of relationship that didnot require explanations.Despite the quarter-century difference intheir ages, they were close friends and kindred spirits.She recog-nized that his gregarious nature masked a deep well of lonelinessand melancholy that could only be assuaged by alcohol and a con-stant stream of company.He respected her reticence and her desirefor privacy.And he appreciated her nonjudgmental approach tolife and her ability to keep confidences.6They met in 1925, just after Nellie married her fourth husband,William Brown.The Brown family owned a cabin near Cuddy sproperty and she soon became part of a large group of weekendguests who made the two-hour drive up from Los Angeles forregular weekend gatherings
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