Frames

by Loren D. Estleman

  “Somehow I doubt Sergeant Clifford will be that charitable. How was it in there?”

  “She’s tough. She thought I was trying to make you look good because we’re friends,”

  “We must be, if you were able to make me look good.”

  “I said I tried. Anyway, I only came in on the last act. I guess you’d call it the last reel. Todd would’ve given her the rest.”

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “So are we friends?”

  She kept her perfect profile turned his way. The modeling profession had lost a potential icon when she’d decided to go for an MBA. “Stay away from the Country Home for a while. The people I answer to don’t read murder mysteries.”

  It was an unsatisfactory response, but he didn’t push for more. He had neither the energy nor the moral authority.

  The uniformed officer returned and scowled down at Kym. Valentino sensed in him a philosophical kinship with the stickler in the university parking garage. She rose to leave.

  “The sergeant will see you now,” he told Valentino.

  When Valentino stood and picked up the tweed jacket, Kym leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll send you a box of popcorn with a file in it,” she whispered.

  The interview room was nearly as clean as the lab, the linoleum tiles waxed recently and the walls glistening with fresh beige paint, but that was just cosmetics to cover a miasma of guilt and fear. Sergeant Clifford received him leaning in a corner with arms and ankles crossed. She wore a blue silk blouse and black slacks with an empty holster clipped to her belt. He didn’t know if this was a precaution against attempts at escape or suicide or her own impatience. She looked taller than ever. Her mane of red hair was fiery in the light of a bare bulb in a cage on the ceiling. She told him to sit down.

  “Not there. Face the mirror.”

  He draped the jacket over the back of a plastic scoop chair and sat at a laminated table. A video camera on a tripod regarded him with its unblinking red eye. His face in reflection looked wan and gray. He felt other eyes watching him from the opposite side of the glass.

  “Tell it,” she said.

  He told it straight through, from his first two visits to The Oracle and the discoveries he’d made there all the way through his second conversation with Warren Pegler that afternoon—yesterday afternoon, possibly; his inner clock insisted midnight was close, if not past. He went back a few times to provide details he’d forgotten, and terse questions from the sergeant reminded him of others. This time he didn’t leave out Fanta and Broadhead and their contributions. He was sure they hadn’t, and for once he’d decided that telling the whole truth would spare them further trouble. Then the questioning began in earnest and he told it all two or three more times, out of order. It was like cutting up a reel of film and having to splice it back together several times before he got it right. She was trying to trip him up, and she was good at her job. He found himself second-guessing things he’d been sure of all along and dismissing things he’d questioned earlier out of hand.

  Finally the cross-examination stopped. For the first time in an hour she stirred herself from her corner, walked over to the camera, and pushed a button. The red light went off.

  “I had a warrant all sworn out for your arrest when we got the call from Woodland Hills,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down across from him. She folded her forearms on the table. “Did you think cops are too dumb to read title frames on film?”

  He was still trying to construct an answer that wouldn’t get him in deeper when she spoke again.

  “Your friend Dr. Broadhead confessed to switching movies. He said you had nothing to do with it. I thought he was just protecting you, but I see now you’re not culpable. Just stupid.

  “As for interfering with an official police investigation,” she went on, “you’re guilty as Cain. You need to read something in the paper besides the entertainment section. The century turned a few years ago. These days, Sherlock Holmes would be spending so much time as a guest of Scotland Yard he wouldn’t have any left to trample over footprints and taint evidence. Did you ever have one moment of madness where you thought it might be a good idea to call a professional and tell her what you’d stepped in?”

  “I was pretty sure you’d tell me to butt out.”

  She stuck a red-nailed finger at him. “That’s at the top of the list of One Hundred Reasons Why I’m a Detective and You’re Not. I act on tips, no matter how looney the source. How’d you identify Albert Spinoza as the victim?”

  “It’s in my statement. Several places.”

  “Pretend it isn’t.”

  “Fanta found an old newspaper article on the Internet. Everything about the missing person checked with what we knew about the skeleton.” She was torturing him.

  “What we knew; but that was public record, so I won’t be calling Harriet Johansen up for a disciplinary hearing for spilling it to her gentleman friend. Here’s another juicy piece of inside information: We have computers too. We were gathering more background to spring on Pegler when you and Mickey and Judy decided to put on a show. With it, we’d have gotten everything we needed from Pegler without blowing our case on a charge of entrapment.”

  He sat back as if she’d struck him across the face. “I never realized—I didn’t think—”

  “Bam!” An open hand smacked the table. “You Didn’t Think. That’s reason number two.”

  “Sergeant,” he said, “I’m sorry. It was an old case, not exactly a priority with so many new ones coming across your desk every day. I was concerned with what might happen to Greed while it was simmering on the back burner. Do you really think Pegler will get away with it?”

  “He already has. We haven’t spoken with his physician yet, but based on the statements we took from the two Country Home employees who were present, the DA informs me no psychiatrist in the system will declare him fit to stand trial. At his age and in his condition, he’ll probably never live long enough to be committed to an institution. Anyway, what’s the point? He’s in an institution now.”

  “Why do you think he did it?”

  She sat back and crossed one leg over the other. Her eyes were smoky green. “He told you his fears. Delusional people don’t lie. The motion picture projectionists’ union has no record of an Albert Spinoza ever applying for membership in this state, but he did attend film school briefly at the University of San Diego; the program was brand new then, and they’ve preserved the early records. Pegler didn’t know that, or he wouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion that Spinoza had somehow heard about Greed when he was working at the Roxy in Pittsburgh. If he had known, he probably wouldn’t have hired him, because an ignorance of film history would have helped Pegler keep his secret. Money was already tight—he was probably paying coolie wages for nonunion help. When he caught Spinoza snooping, he saw the gravy train ending for good once the secret got out. He flipped.” She laughed without enjoyment. “The ironic part is he could have pled temporary insanity and probably walked.”

  “He’d still be guilty of extortion.”

  “Who from? You said von Stroheim died soon after. No crime has taken place when there’s no one to press charges.”

  “His wife was his accomplice. She carried the body to the cellar and walled it up. She looked sturdy enough, Spinoza was small, and Pegler said she was handy at repair work. Then she plastered over the room next to the booth to conceal the evidence she’d overlooked.”

  “She was a loyal Old World-style helpmeet. Thank God they’re extinct. She might’ve drawn a suspended sentence. She was dead within three years; of guilt, if you’re poetically inclined. L.A. Medical Examiners office says it was ovarian cancer.”

  “I can’t help feeling sorry for Pegler,” Valentino said.

  “I can. But then I’m trained to see past things like wrinkles and wheelchairs.”

  “The wrinkles were recent. If what he said is true, it was Erich von Stroheim’s careless smoking that robbe
d him of his legs.”

  “Filthy habit.” She looked at her watch. He noticed nicotine stains on her first and second fingers. “Pegler should have sued,” she said. “That’s what civilized people do in these situations. But if you happen to be one of those benighted souls who favor punishment over rehabilitation—as I do—you can take comfort from the knowledge that Pegler’s serving a life sentence at hard labor, reliving his crime over and over, every detail as fresh as the day he committed it. Hell on earth. Or at least in Hollywood.”

  “What about Greed?”

  “If you mean that pile of gumbo in the evidence room, you can pick it up any time. The watch captain will give you a release.”

  “I mean the real thing.”

  “How about a ticket to the premiere? I assume there will be one. You owe me a good seat.”

  “You won’t need it for evidence?”

  “Of what? I said there isn’t going to be a trial. Is it really ten hours long?”

  “Eight or ten. But you said—”

  “We’ve located a Spinoza cousin in Philadelphia; if he agrees to submit to a DNA test and it matches what we got from Mr. Bones, we can snap shut the file on this one. I’m not giving up my day off to appear against you on an interference charge that will probably just get thrown out of court.”

  “I’ll get you as many tickets as you want,” he said. “Bring all your friends.”

  “One’s fine. I’m a cop.” She tilted her head, and he realized what a beautiful woman she was when she wasn’t pulling rank. “I’m curious about the picture. I’ve never seen one anybody was willing to go to jail for. That is, not since I left Vice.”

  “I’m free to go?”

  “If you promise to confine your sleuthing to the area outside my precinct.”

  “I’ll quit cold turkey.”

  “I won’t even try to hold you to that. You and your friends had too much fun. Just keep it out of West Hollywood.” She watched him get up and retrieve his jacket. “Speaking of friends, Harriet Johansen’s finishing up the late shift in the lab. You can just catch her if you don’t take the elevator.”

  **

  CHAPTER

  25

  THE SAD STUMP of The Oracle’s original marquee was dark. If any of the remaining bulbs were still functional, the wires to them had long since corroded or been chewed to pieces by squirrels. So many black snap letters were missing from GONE OUT OF BUSINESS that it had become a game among the neighbors to suggest answers to the puzzle: GO TO SIN was the winner so far. But today, as dusk drifted in under the diurnal stratum of smog, some of those neighbors may have found more entertaining speculation in the presence of lights burning on the ground floor after years of shadow.

  Burning was the optimum word. In the lobby, which had been cleared of dust and rubble, dozens of candles flickered in colored glass bowls, casting a soft glow that fell short of the painters’ and plasterers’ drop cloths in the corners and of paint buckets shunted outside the range of the flames’ heat. They stood on the floor and on stands and bordered a rich red carpet runner unfurled from the entrance to the doors leading into the auditorium. Kyle Broadhead watched Valentino lighting the last of them with a long taper.

  “I hope you remember to blow those out,” he said. “As picturesque as it might be for a film archivist to die in a burning theater.”

  “I’ll remember.” Valentino blew out the taper. In contrast to his friend’s daily uniform of rumpled corduroy over a sweater-vest streaked with pipe ash, the film detective looked positively formal in a midnight blue suit and gray silk necktie. “I wish I’d thought to get scented ones. The place still smells like a tomb.”

  “Throw in a couple of cadavers and Harriet will feel right at home.”

  “One corpse was enough. Did you get the projector set Up?”

  “Almost. How much did you slip the electrician to wire the booth?”

  “Leo Kalishnikov handled that part. I think it appealed to his eccentric aesthetic. We’ll both be in trouble if an inspector happens by.”

  “No more than I, if they miss that projector before I can smuggle it back onto campus. Our department head frowns on borrowing six thousand dollars’ worth of equipment for a private screening. But we’re used to ticking off the authorities, aren’t we?” He lit his pipe. “This ought to clear out some of the musk.”

  Construction was only ten days old, and already the building wore an air of industry. Sheets of blue tarpaulin protected the roof from leaks until it could be replaced, rotten plaster had been pulled down and drywall put up to substitute, winged Pegasus had been removed to a sculptor’s shop for repair and to serve as model for a new mate to be built, and estimates were coming in from various artisans eager to take part in the restoration of woodwork, gold leaf, and custom fixtures. As they spoke, Kalishnikov, the designer, was in Texas, going over the plans for the new marquee with a sign maker who specialized in oversize projects. County and city permits were posted on the boarded-up windows in front. Valentino’s savings and investments had already taken a hit of Peglerian proportions; soon he would have to tap in to the fifty thousand dollars his department head had parted with to obtain Greed for the archives. The check had changed hands with an outward show of reluctance that had failed to disguise the inner delight of both parties: The major find, on top of the solution to a grotesque and therefore sensational mystery connected with it, had brought a barrage of publicity to the film preservation program, and subsequently a large donation from an anonymous party (whose initials, appropriately, were Q.T.).

  “Nice.” Broadhead tested the thickness of the red carpet with a foot. “This should be out on the sidewalk. Haven’t you ever attended a premiere before’?”

  “I was afraid someone would steal it. I have to have it back to the Hollywood Foreign Press before the Golden Globes.”

  The professor took something from his side pocket and held it out. It was wrapped in silver foil and tied with a red bow. “A housewarming gift. Fanta wrapped it. The number’s the same, and it has some features your old one lacked.”

  The package was the size of a deck of cards. Valentino unwrapped it and opened the box. It contained a cell phone, smaller and sleeker than the one Broadhead had thrown out the window on the Santa Monica Freeway. “I’d say you shouldn’t have,” Valentino said, “but of course you should. Thank you.”

  It rang, raising two pairs of eyebrows.

  “Probably the company,” Broadhead said. “Telling you it’s obsolete and offering to sell you a new one.”

  Valentino pulled up the antenna. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Doc, you’re killing me. Why didn’t you tell me you were running a sneak preview?”

  It was Henry Anklemire in Information Services. “How’d you find out about it?”

  “I got sources. Listen, we need the bounce from when the story broke. You can’t live on it forever; people forget. San Diego cops dug up a human femur in the old navy yard this morning. Dem bones of ours are dead as Pharaoh. I can put a photog out front in twenty minutes, get you the front page of the entertainment section.”

  “It’s a private showing, Henry. Just for two.”

  “Romance! Hey, that’s almost as good as murder. She take a good picture? Never mind, this guy can make Janet Reno look like Britney Spears. Tell her to show some leg.”

  “If a photographer shows up, I’ll have him arrested for trespassing.”

  “That’s cold. Here I am trying to help, and you set loose the Cossacks.”

  “Sorry, Henry.”

  Broadhead rolled his eyes and puffed up a head of smoke.

  “How about another one of those protest dealies?” Anklemire asked. “Any injuns in that picture?”

  “None in the picture, and none out front. They packed up and went back to Berkeley when the police arrested Warren Pegler.”

  “That was a bust. He ain’t even going to be tried. A week on Court TV’s as good as thirty seconds in the Super Bowl.”

 
“Good-bye, Henry. I’ll let you know when we open the film to the public.”

  Broadhead watched him flip the phone shut. “Little twerp.”

  “Ten more like him and we could revive the career of Bull Montana.”

  “Are you sure you know how to handle that projector? I’d feel better if I stayed.”

  “I wouldn’t. Three’s a crowd. I can handle a projector.”

  “This isn’t a sixteen-millimeter toy.”

  “I had a good teacher.”

  Broadhead bit down on his pipe. “Don’t noise that around. They might expect me to teach more than two sessions a semester. Try not to touch the film. When you change the reels, don’t forget to put on gloves. I left you a whole package in case you misplace a pair.”

  “If I misplace the package, I can always borrow a pair from Harriet.”

  “Yes, she’s sure to carry one in her date purse. You know you’ll be jumping up every twenty minutes or so to change reels.”

  “That’s why we’re watching from the booth.”

  “You fixed it up nice. Comfortable bachelor apartment. Moving in?”

  “Just for tonight. I don’t have a certificate of occupancy.”

  “For what it’s worth coming from an old widower, you made a fine catch,” Broadhead said. “The shop talk alone should fill the awkward silences.”

  “Thanks, Kyle.” He was moved.

  Broadhead puffed vigorously. He seemed to be trying to build a smoke screen.

  “Speaking of awkward silences,” Valentino prompted.

  The pipe came away; went back for another puff, then came away again. “I’m thinking of asking Fanta to marry me.”

  “Congratulations. She’s as good a catch as Harriet.”

  “I thought you’d be surprised.”

  “I’ve been expecting something of the sort ever since you saw her in Michelle Pfeiffer’s dress. You’re not as inscrutable an old coot as you think.”

  “But I am an old coot. She had no trouble convincing that gorilla at the Country Home I was her grandfather.”

  “She’s a good actress. Dr. Zinnerman owes her an apology.”