Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 02 - Alone

by Loren D. Estleman

  “After the story broke on the arrest in Stockholm, the chief ordered another search of Roger Akers’ apartment. The officers found a bundle of letters under a loose floorboard in the bedroom. They were all addressed to Andrea Rankin in Greta Garbo’s handwriting.”

  Valentino said nothing.

  “You might want to put on a necktie,” the other went on. “I am. Rankins’ counsel demanded the press be present to record a formal apology from the City of Beverly Hills and my resignation.”

  He slept in the theater after all; it was closer to Beverly Hills and his best suit hung in the closet where a succession of projectionists had stored the cans and cans of feature films, cartoons, newsreels, and travelogues they had shown over and over again every evening and during Saturday matinees. When he gave his name to a uniformed officer outside the chief of detective’s office, the anteroom was already filled with people, many of them reporters and technicians reading their notes and doing systems checks on their equipment. The man who’d blacked Valentino’s eye with his microphone looked straight at him and passed his gaze onward without sign of recognition. He was deader than old news; so far as the juggernaut of celebrity and notoriety was concerned, it was as if he’d never been news at all.

  These were the unanointed: journeymen news gatherers who never sat down on camera or never appeared there, condemned to sweep up morsels of commentary from principals in flight from the actual press conference, after colleagues with more cachet had finished recording the breaking story firsthand, whose jumbled images and three-second sound bites were edited to orbit and enhance the footage that would lead the broadcast. They dressed—if they were to appear at all—from the waist up, in blazers and pins displaying their stations’ call-letters, and from there on down in denim and dirty sneakers. Those who would not appear looked like the homeless waiting for the doors of the shelter to open. Valentino had set himself apart from them merely by putting on a matching suit of clothes and tying a scrap of cloth around his neck.

  At long length the officer returned and beckoned him to follow. The crowd parted, eyes now following the man who’d been granted access, and the officer opened a paneled door and held it, neatly inserting himself into the only possible avenue of assault from aggressive media not yet resigned to their place. Valentino swept through the breech and the door shut behind him.

  The office was larger than Valentino’s and Broadhead’s combined, with three times the floor space of his apartment in The Oracle, and corner windows looking out on the wealthiest four square miles in California; but it was standing room only. Cameras, cables, lights, and sound equipment created an obstacle course for the invited people crowding in for a better look at Chief Conroy seated behind a big desk with a bare polished top, Ray Padilla standing behind him, and Matthew Rankin and Clifford Adams sitting next to each other in comfortable-looking chairs arranged at a right angle to the desk. Rankin looked tense and pale inside that tight circle of eager bodies, his attorney as calm as if he were resting in a first-class lounge at the airport. Today he wore a burgundy suit and a yellow tie that complemented his sleek black close-shaven skin, with a pale blue shirt that would photograph crisp white on television. A briefcase, burgundy also, lay in his lap; a prop he had not thought necessary during his visit to Valentino’s office. His long legs were crossed comfortably and cordovans glistened on his feet.

  Conroy adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and cleared his throat, silencing the buzz of voices. “Ladies and gentlemen. As you know, you’ve been invited here at the request of Mr. Rankin and his attorney to set the record straight regarding the tragedy that took place in Matthew Rankin’s home some weeks ago. I’m going to ask you to hold your questions until we open the forum. Lieutenant Padilla has a statement to make.”

  Lenses changed and microphones shifted angles as Padilla stepped forward. He looked almost respectable in a dark blue J.C. Penney suit and a black necktie knotted too evenly to be anything but a clip-on, but his face was as gray as Rankin’s; he would never be a public animal like his burnished chief of detectives. His hands shook slightly as he unfolded a sheet of paper from an inside pocket and began reading in a monotone. Asked to speak up by a man holding an aluminum rod with a microphone dangling from it, he swallowed and started over.

  “Yesterday at approximately six P.M., a forensics crew working with the Beverly Hills Police Department was dispatched to Roger Akers’ apartment in Century City to search for further evidence in the investigation into Mr. Akers’ fatal shooting. During that search, the crew discovered this item.” He reached into another pocket and placed a stack of yellowed and dog-eared envelopes bound with a rubber band on the desk. Some of the envelopes bore red chevrons on their edges, indicating that they’d been sent by overseas air mail. The crowd on Valentino’s side of the desk leaned forward in a body. Cameras tilted to secure close-ups of the bundle. “The item represents a collection of eight personal letters written and mailed over a period of approximately twenty years by Greta Garbo, the late retired motion-picture actress, to Andrea Rankin, the late wife of Matthew Rankin. Some were written in Swedish, and these have been translated. All have been read by department personnel and copies of them made.

  “Mr. Rankin and his attorney, Clifford Adams, have asked me to state that the communications were of a friendly nature, attesting to a long-term relationship that was close, but nonsexual. They are not love letters.”

  Valentino was aware of a general deflation of atmosphere. Outside of a funeral service, there was nothing so bleak as a room full of reporters who have witnessed the destruction of a scandal.

  A blonde female reporter in a red blazer spoke up. “Why weren’t the letters found during the first search?”

  “I asked that you hold all questions until invited to ask them,” Conroy snapped. “You will all have ample opportunity—”

  “I’ll answer it,” Padilla said.

  The chief glared at him through tinted lenses, but said nothing. Valentino knew the two would discuss this departure in private.

  “During the second search,” the lieutenant said, “a crowbar was used to sound the floor, and a hollow was discovered beneath an eight-inch section of floorboard beneath a wall-to-wall carpet in the bedroom. When the carpet was lifted, the board was removed and the letters found in the hollow space. The department is investigating the circumstances behind the failure to find them the first time the room was searched.”

  This satisfied no one. A rumble coursed through the spectators, interrupted by a crackle of paper as Padilla turned the sheet over and read from the other side. “Early in the investigation, Matthew Rankin stated that the deceased had extorted money from him by threatening to make public a letter purporting to show that Ms. Garbo and Mrs. Rankin were involved in a lengthy same-sex affair whose exposure would invade Mr. Rankin’s privacy and cast a shadow on the reputation of his late wife, and that when Mr. Rankin refused to continue paying Akers, Akers advanced upon him holding a heavy marble bust in an aggressive manner, which Mr. Rankin believed to be an attempt upon his life. He stated that he shot Akers dead in an act of self-defense.

  “When the letter Akers was alleged to be using for blackmail was determined to have been forged, and a number of Ms. Garbo’s authentic letters were reported missing from the Swedish Military Archives, this department speculated that Akers had had access to the stolen material and used it to create the forgery, using a computer. At that point the charges against Mr. Rankin were dismissed. However, subsequent events demonstrated that in fact that access did not exist. When the stolen material was recovered by the authorities in Stockholm, no chain of possession could be established to link them to Akers. The two events, Roger Akers’ shooting and the theft of the actual Garbo letters, were unrelated.”

  The press broke its leash. Padilla stood stone-faced, eyes fixed on his prepared statement, while the questions washed over him, an incoherent babble. Chief Conroy showed remarkable restraint, allowing the first wave to recede before ra
pping his knuckles sharply on his desk like a judge with a gavel.

  “I’ve explained the conditions twice,” he said. “One more display and this conference is over. You can all wait for the press release. Go on, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir. It was at Matthew Rankin’s request, submitted through his attorney, that the second search was made of Roger Akers’ apartment. The Beverly Hills Police Department speculates that the letters were found in the Rankin house, overlooked when Mrs. Rankin burned the others as Ms. Garbo requested. We have determined beyond reasonable doubt that they provided the material necessary to forge the spurious love letter.” He refolded the sheet and returned it to his pocket. A sheen of perspiration glistened on his forehead.

  “Mr. Adams?” The chief’s tone was level. Valentino could not tell if he was playing a winning hand or throwing in his cards.

  “Thank you.” The lawyer uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. He left his briefcase buckled and had nothing in his hands. “My client, Matthew Rankin, has asked me to say that this entire episode has been a nightmare for himself and an embarrassment to the City of Beverly Hills. In spite of my advice to the contrary, he wishes not to prolong it with the several legal actions it is his right to pursue. Said actions would expose a campaign driven by vindictiveness and personal ambition, based upon no evidence, to destroy his privacy, assassinate his character, and drag the memory of his beloved wife through the sewer. No judge in this country, once the facts were placed before him, would fail to find for my client and against the Beverly Hills Police Department, and recompense him in the amount of one hundred million dollars.”

  The sum started the room rumbling all over again. This time, Conroy let the noise die down on its own. Adams, whose quietly theatrical tones were as well suited to a theater as a courtroom, had his audience in his pocket. Rankin, pale as ever beneath his tan, stared at the floor.

  “Patently, Mr. Rankin doesn’t need another hundred million dollars, and it would do nothing to erase the memory of the ordeal through which he has passed. His is a simple demand, representing a fair and forgiving heart. He wishes only a formal apology from Chief Conroy for the conduct of his department and the immediate resignation of Lieutenant Ray Padilla, with forfeiture of benefits and pension. It is because of this man’s blind, unreasoning hatred toward my client that this bitter affair did not end weeks ago.”

  The camera swung on Padilla, perspiring heavily now under the lights.

  “Lieutenant, I believe you have another statement to make at this time,” said Conroy.

  “Yes, sir.” He patted first one pocket, then another, and produced a printed card from a third. “Matthew Rankin, you’re under arrest for the murder of Roger Akers. ‘You have the right to an attorney… . ’ ”

  Valentino didn’t hear the rest, and neither did anyone else including Rankin and Adams, gripping the arms of their chairs as they stared at Padilla. The room went up in a roar of questions.

  25

  CONROY WAS TRUE to his word. At a signal from him, a troupe of officers left their station at the back of the room and formed a cordon to drive the jabbering defenders of the First Amendment out the door. There were casualties: A bank of TV lights mounted on a pole slipped more or less accidentally, cutting a policeman’s forehead with a sharp corner, and a lens was smashed when a shoulder-mounted camera struck the door frame on the way out. The chief raised his voice, promising a statement later; a reporter shouted a different sort of promise back, and then Valentino was alone with the Beverly Hills Police Department, Matthew Rankin, and Clifford Adams, who was on his feet now and glaring down at Conroy behind his desk.

  “Consider the lawsuit reinstated,” he said. “Consider the amount doubled. You just earned yourself a place in the unemployment line behind Padilla.”

  The chief was calm. “Please sit down. I’m doing your client the favor of not having him placed in restraint. His age and his standing in the community entitle him to that courtesy, but it doesn’t extend to tampering with the evidence at a police crime scene.”

  Rankin spoke for the first time since Valentino had entered the room. His coloring remained sickly, but his voice was steady. “Come to the point, Chief. Not even your man Padilla found anything in my study to support his suspicions of me.”

  “I wasn’t referring to the room where you shot Roger Akers. How long have you had a key to his apartment?”

  “Don’t answer that,” Adams said.

  Rankin ignored him. “I’ve never had one.”

  Conroy said, “My guess is he kept an extra set in his desk at your house, though I don’t suppose we’ll find it now. You’d have thrown it away after you planted the letters in his bedroom.”

  “You’re burying yourself,” Adams said.

  “Sit down, Clifford. When a man sets out to commit career suicide, it’s a mistake to stand in his way.”

  Adams took his client’s advice. He opened his briefcase and took out a legal pad and a gold pencil. “You don’t mind if I take notes. I wouldn’t want to forget a grievance in the blizzard.”

  “Certainly not. Lieutenant?”

  Padilla had stopped sweating. Valentino half expected him to risk Conroy’s wrath and stick a cigarette between his teeth, but he stood without moving, his hands at his sides. “That space under the floorboard led to a heating duct before the apartment building was renovated. The register was removed and the board cut to fit. Akers may never have known about it. There was nothing but dust in the hole the first time we checked it out.”

  “Can you confirm that?” Adams asked.

  “We took pictures. The camera dated them digitally. I sent a crew back a second time to record every possible place in the apartment where a bundle of letters could be hidden, just before I asked Valentino to tell Rankin we were reopening the investigation.”

  Rankin and Adams looked at Valentino for the first time. They hadn’t seemed to notice he was in the room. He fidgeted.

  “It was the only way I could think of to bring those letters out into the open,” Padilla said. “No judge would issue a search warrant for your house to make a case everyone wanted to go away, and I couldn’t be sure you hadn’t hidden them somewhere else. I knew they existed; you’d needed them to fake the evidence to support your claim of self-defense, and I gambled on the fact you hadn’t destroyed them because of their intrinsic value. No one makes billions by forming a habit of throwing away thousands, and you needed a surefire backup in case the Stockholm angle didn’t pay out.”

  Adams said, “This is all storytelling. You haven’t a shred of proof my client planted those letters.”

  “Sergeant Stimson?”

  A woman in uniform stepped from her corner. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “The shoes.”

  “Yes, sir.” She left the room, drawing the door shut behind her on the pandemonium outside; either the media had successfully thwarted attempts to ban them entirely from the premises or Chief Conroy had considered the effort not worth the expenditure of taxpayers’ time.

  Padilla said, “When those letters surfaced, I took them and the crime-scene photos to a judge and got that search warrant. That’s why it took so long to get this show started. I had to make sure you were out of the house long enough to get what I needed and run tests.”

  “What tests?” Adams lifted his pencil from the pad. “What shoes?”

  No one answered him. Moments later the sergeant returned, carrying a plastic bag stenciled PROPERTY B.H.P.D. She placed it on the desk. Padilla opened it and withdrew a pair of walking shoes, thick-soled and obviously handmade; meticulous stitching showed where the mass-produced product was usually glued.

  “You have a lot of shoes, Mr. Rankin,” Padilla said. “We left the dress pumps for last, on the theory that you’d choose stealth over style. Not that it narrowed things down as much as we’d like; a health nut like you has plenty tied up in athletic footwear.”

  Valentino sneaked a look at Rankin, leaning forward in
his chair with his hands gripping the arms, staring at the shoes as if he’d never seen a pair to compare with them. Padilla placed them to one side, reached back into the bag, and took out a gooseneck lamp with a metal shade. Sergeant Stimson, still close to hand, uncoiled the cord and stooped to plug it into an outlet behind the desk.

  “Lights?”

  The officers at the back of the room stirred. One found the switch to the overhead fixture and manipulated it. Now the only illumination came filtered through smog by way of the windows.

  “Not exactly state of the art,” Padilla said as he switched on the lamp. “You’re a high-tech guy, and I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t spot a surveillance camera. So I fell back on an old wheeze: infrared powder, invisible except when exposed to black light.” He picked up both shoes and turned them soles up under the dim ray from the lamp. They gave back a bluish glow.

  “We scattered the powder on the floor in every room in Roger Akers’ apartment,” Padilla went on. “After we found the letters, we took pictures with an infrared camera. Footprints in the powder matched the soles of these shoes.”

  “Entrapment!” snapped Adams, when the overhead light was back on. “You took the shoes from my client’s house and manufactured this evidence.”

  “No, sir, we did not.” Conroy folded his hands on the desk. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you’ll have a hard time convincing a jury that any member of this department had access to those letters except by removing them from your client’s house; which brings us right back to the incontrovertible fact that they have been in his possession this entire time. With malice aforethought, he set out to murder his assistant, and used the letters to create a computer-generated letter containing scandalous material to suggest that Akers was a blackmailer, and that when his blackmail scheme failed he attacked your client, providing just cause for your client to take Akers’ life. Without the letter there is no blackmail, and without the blackmail, there is no motive for malice on the part of the victim. That leaves a clear-cut case of murder in the first degree.”