He glanced over his shoulder. “To please you.”
She felt her cheeks color. She rested her hand on his arm.
Turning back to the painting, he went on, “Every time the surface seemed over-glazed, or remained gummy, you know, from the wet-on-wet way he applied the paint, I’d dab here and there with a rag, or go at it with pumice stone. That tended to texture the ground, intensify the silver tones. Here and there you can see where I used the brush handle or even the tip of a meat skewer, the way he did, to outline the figures or remove paint. That’s how you get that distinctive shimmer, reveal the silver glow from underneath.”
He turned back toward her, their mouths close enough for the kiss they’d waited more than two decades to share.
***
Tuck saw in her face the same girl he’d loved, to which the years had added both the softening of maturity and yet a strange, almost hungry luminescence as well.
“I knew you were the one who bought up all these paintings.”
“I didn’t make much of a secret about it.”
“Not even to your husband?”
“I wasn’t aware until last night he realized who the real artist was.”
“Pretty sly on your part,” he said. “I guess.”
“And are those letters inside my safe,” she said with a nod toward her room, “also a bit of your handiwork?”
“You mean did I forge them?”
She nodded.
He said, “Have you read them?”
“A few.” A flinching smile. “Most. Yes.”
“Do you really think, with my education, I could word myself like that?”
The smile flattened as one eyebrow cocked upward. “You may be rough around the edges, Henry Mercer, but you’re nowhere near ignorant.”
“Think I could take on two distinct personas, like some Hollywood actor, create two distinct handwriting styles, age the ink and paper—”
“You did it with these.” She pointed toward the scattered wreckage, the beautiful ruins. “You took on more than just two personas. Dozens just here: Farny, Bierstadt, Dixon—”
“It’s a different kind of talent altogether, trust me.”
She stood up straight, crossed her arms with a whisper of silk from her robe. “So this wasn’t all just some elaborate scheme to get here. Be with me. Like this.”
“I didn’t say that.” He rose to full height as well, tugged her hand gently from under her arm and laced his fingers in hers. “When those letters fell into my lap, I knew enough about Gideon Littmann to understand he’d never be able to resist them. Phony or bona fide, no matter. I’d done my homework. On him.”
“So you were already scoping this out.” Her finger traced an orbit, back and forth, between them. “This thing here. You and me.”
“Been scoping this out a lot longer than that.”
“How flattering. I suppose. Should I be flattered?”
“Yeah. And once those letters were in this house…”
The intensity of the desire to let that thought linger, hang there incomplete, nothing but promise, the thing left unsaid—it surprised him.
She seemed to be waiting for his eyes to return to hers. As though to prompt him, she said, “Once they were in this house—the letters—you intended to…what?”
He shrugged. “Not exactly sure, to be honest. Maybe begin sending letters of my own, quote the originals here and there, like hints, let you know I was behind the whole thing. Let you know I was out there, trying to get in touch. Pretty damn romantic in places, those letters. Never in the world thought it would get this, I dunno, complicated.”
“So this sweet little visit we’re having here,” she said, “wasn’t what you had in mind?”
Squaring himself, like a sophomore asking a senior to dance: “What I had in mind, I guess, was you packing a bag, nothing more than you need for a trip to San Francisco, getting in that car out there and riding away with me. You don’t need that man’s money, I’ve got plenty. Enough, any rate. We can live comfortable. Better than comfortable. We can have back what got stolen from us.”
She offered him a bemused expression—neither yes nor no. Neither now nor never. “I have two children,” she said.
“They’re grown, I heard.”
“Not quite. Away at college.”
“There’s nothing keeping you from them. Not on my end.”
“I’ve made a life for myself here,” she said, “after a fashion.”
“You can make another with me.” He gripped her hand more tightly. “But first thing we gotta do? Get those letters outta that safe, hand them over to these people, and let them leave.”
She worked her hand free of his grip. “But that would mean surrendering my power.” Turning away, she began stepping through the wreckage toward her room. The light from overhead shimmered in her dark tousled hair. “And to tell you the truth, I’ve rather enjoyed having power. It’s been a while.”
She glanced over her shoulder with a mischievous smile.
“But let me think about it. I’m not averse. It’s just, this thing, what’s going on between us right now—I don’t want it to end. It’s so incredibly…”
She looked to the side, as though the words were right there, just out of reach, fluttering across the naked wall.
“…so incredibly like it used to be, you know? Impossible, delicious. Wrong.”
CHAPTER 39
“All rise!”
The Honorable Celestina Numkena made her entrance—a petite woman with an ascetic air, pace steady but brisk, almost birdlike, mounting the bench in her swishing robe, coal-black hair fastened by a silver barrette and pulled back away from her lean, tawny, thickly browed face. Prominent cheeks tapering into a V at the chin, flat nose, prim mouth. A member of the Hopi tribe, per Elan Wingfield, first Native American woman appointed to the federal bench.
She seemed surprisingly young—maybe a decade older than me, Lisa guessed, wondering if that somehow tipped the odds, and if so, which way?
“Good morning, everyone.” A Sunday voice, cheery and flat.
“Good morning, Your Honor.”
“Please take a seat.”
She shuffled through the papers before her as though from ritual, not necessity. “I have defendants’…extensive…answer to plaintiffs’ complaint.”
Lisa detected a whiff of sarcasm—or was that just her own wishful thinking?
“I assume you intend to argue against the ex parte application orally, Mr. —?”
“Rankin.” He stood, smoothing his tie. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“Ms. Balamaro, does plaintiff wish to submit any additional documents?”
“Your Honor, we have an affidavit from an expert, a Hollywood producer that my law partner, Nico Barragan, has worked with on several major film projects. It concerns the intrinsic value of the letters, placing that value at a minimum of one hundred thousand dollars.”
A ripple of whispered interest from the spectators behind. The judge said, “Let’s see it. You can traverse the well, hand it to my clerk if you would.”
Lisa stepped from behind her table, dropped a copy off with Rankin without a glance, then marched forward, handed a second copy to the judge’s clerk. As she returned to her seat, Rankin rose like a Memorial Day flag.
“We’re going to object to this affidavit, Your Honor.”
The judge glanced up. “Grounds?”
“Lack of foundation.” Rankin shrugged as though it were obvious. “Relevance, depending. On what the thing says.”
Old trick, Lisa thought.
“Noted,” the judge said. “For now, though, overruled.” She began to read.
Rankin coughed into his fist. “Your Honor, if I might—”
The judge cut him off with another glance, this one less accommodating. And yet, after only a second, she offered a quizzical smile. “Feeling a need to stretch your legs, Mr. Rankin?”
He winced peevishly. “I was simply hoping—”
“I suggest
you take your seat.”
Savor the little victories, Lisa thought. Rankin did as he was told, then began scanning the affidavit, passing it to Littmann once he was done like it was a handbill from a leper.
The judge, finished with her own review, said almost gaily, “Right. Anything else before we move on?”
Time to spring the trap, Lisa decided. She rose to her feet. “Plaintiff also wishes to reserve the right to file a demurrer to defendants’ Answer to the Complaint.”
Rankin dragged himself up from his chair once more. “Your Honor—”
“On what grounds, Ms. Balamaro?”
“It lists over eighty affirmative defenses, at least forty of which are pure boilerplate and have no relevance whatsoever to the matter at hand.”
‘Slow down,’ an inner voice said. Nico’s voice. Her Philly accent was creeping back. What-so-iveh. Madder-a-hand.
“Rule Eleven,” she continued after a deep breath, “Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, grants us the right not only to file the demurrer but to seek sanctions. The defense has asserted defenses with no basis in relevant law, no facts to support them, and without a credible good faith belief in their basis.”
“Mr. Rankin?”
“First, let me commend Ms. Ballyhoo—”
The judge shot forward. “Mr. Rankin!” Gone was the Sunday voice. “Don’t. Not in my courtroom.”
He nodded an apology. “Your Honor.”
“Proceed.”
“I admire…plaintiff’s counsel’s…presumed ability to read minds, asserting knowledge as to what our beliefs are, or whether they’re in good faith. Perhaps she missed the class in first year law school where they teach—”
“Mr. Rankin, you’ve been warned.”
“Yes. Your Honor.” The words seemed to be getting more difficult to say. “It’s hornbook law. Assert the defense or risk waiving it.”
The judge perched her chin on her thumbs. “There are perhaps fourteen viable affirmative defenses to conversion, Mr. Rankin. Twenty tops. Throw in ten to fifteen for the other causes of action. I’m being generous. That’s thirty-five. Let’s give you forty. You’re still asserting over forty more than make reasonable sense.”
“We’d like to be given the chance to argue their merits, Your Honor.”
“You will. In response to plaintiff’s demurrer. Anything else?”
His color was reddening ever so subtly. “We would like to request a continuance. Mr. Honnicutt could not attend because, given such short notice and being a sole proprietor, he could find no one to mind his hotel. There’s no way he could just abandon his guests.”
Lisa resisted rolling her eyes. Guests? Mr. and Mrs. Tumbleweed, I trust you slept well.
“Also, we have been unable to reach Mr. Giordano, and given the outrageous falsehoods submitted by plaintiff in her affidavit—”
“Objection.” It was Lisa’s turn, once again, to stand. “Mischaracterizes the evidence.”
“Sustained. Get to your point, Mr. Rankin.”
“We particularly find it prejudicial that plaintiff herself is not here to face cross-examination on the fatuous claim she was in any way mistreated, let alone manhandled as her affidavit falsely suggests. This puts us at a distinct disadvantage.”
“Your Honor,” Lisa said, “if I may.”
“I wasn’t finished, Your Honor.”
“Then wrap it up, Mr. Rankin. You want a continuance. And?”
Rankin stood there for a moment, an expression of put-upon disdain. “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
“Ms. Balamaro?”
“I could make the same complaint about Mr. Giordano’s absence that Mr. Rankin is making concerning my client. She’s not here today because she was traumatized by what happened two days ago and wanted no part of once again being in the same room with her assailants.”
“Your Honor—”
“But the truth is, the scope of this hearing is limited. All we request today is that the letters be placed in an escrow account for safekeeping. There’s no need for all the parties to be present for that to be adjudicated.”
“Mr. Rankin—care to respond?”
“As we note in our Answer, Your Honor—I can’t recall the exact cite, but it’s from the American Law Reports.”
“I’m sure we can excavate it, Mr. Rankin, given the time.”
“My point—the cite makes clear there can be no claim of conversion for counterfeit goods.”
“Your Honor, there is no evidence that the letters are anything but genuine.”
“Oh, come on—the Holliday family went on record last night saying the letters couldn’t possibly be legit.”
“On record where—the evening news? The point, Your Honor, is that all of this is irrelevant. The issue at hand—”
“If you don’t have a claim for conversion, you have no case at all, meaning there is no reason to place those letters anywhere but where they sit right now.”
“We have a claim for assault, battery, false imprisonment.”
“Not based in fact. Or anything close. And speaking of irrelevant—”
“Counsel—both of you—quiet.” The judge leaned forward, the better to peer down from on high. She then added, as though to a pair of overactive spaniels, “Sit!”
Lisa and Rankin took their chairs.
“Request for a continuance is denied. What objection does the defense have, Mr. Rankin, to a simple escrow arrangement pending trial?”
“The same objection we have to the whole proceedings, Your Honor. It’s based on pernicious fantasy. There was no ‘theft’ of the letters. We asked if we could have them for the purpose of assessing their real worth. Plaintiff agreed. Simple as that.”
“First, Your Honor, we clearly contend that claim is false.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“Second, again, it’s irrelevant to the issue before us.”
“I agree,” the judge said. “Anything further, Mr. Rankin?”
He’d begun softly jackhammering the tip of his pen against the tabletop. “Plaintiff brought her action in the wrong venue, Your Honor. We shouldn’t even be here. We should be in state court.”
“Which part of her argument do you find lacking, Mr. Rankin? Diversity jurisdiction seems rather clear to me.”
“The value she places on the letters, Your Honor. It’s utter nonsense. The letters are a hoax. They’re valueless. Not worth the paper they’re written on. And absent a credible showing that their value exceeds seventy-five thousand dollars we should all go home. Or to Cochise County Superior Court.”
“I submitted an affidavit from Mr. Mercer—”
“And there you have it!” Rankin, arms outstretched, his voice just shy of a bellow. “Her case relies on the perjurious testimony of a convicted felon, a forger. The man behind this whole scheme to pass off fake letters as genuine.”
“First,” Lisa countered, “character doesn’t prove conduct, speaking of hornbook law. No matter what he’s done in the past, it proves nothing concerning his actions in the present. Second, he owes no apologies on his character. As his affidavit makes clear and I can personally attest, since his release from prison Mr. Mercer has not only led an exemplary life, he has proved invaluable to a number of collectors, galleries, law enforcement agencies—”
“You just contradicted yourself,” Rankin said. “Either his conduct matters or it doesn’t.”
“It’s relevant as to credibility.”
“Exactly.” Rankin laughed sharply. “He’s not credible.”
“Mr. Rankin,” the judge interjected, “you’re dancing in circles. I’m the trier of fact, and Mr. Mercer’s credibility or lack of it is for me to decide. Besides, Ms. Balamaro submitted a second affidavit just now that seems to make Mr. Mercer’s moot, at least for the time being.”
“We again cannot accept it at face value, Your Honor. My client has a right to cross- examine.”
“If that argument fails on matters of fact,” Lisa said, “it
fails even worse as to expert opinion. The affiant is a Hollywood A-list producer offering his best assessment of the intangible commercial value of the letters. Your Honor, if I may, I’d like to walk you through the story of these letters. I think, once you hear it in its entirety, you’ll agree with the affiant that this is something with ‘real legs,’ as they say in show biz.”
“Make it brief, Ms. Balamaro.”
“Oh good God. Your Honor—”
“Mister Rankin!” The judge shot him a glance to snap bone. “I am wearying of your antics.” She paused for that to sink in—four seconds, five seconds—then turned back to Lisa. “Proceed.”
Lisa recounted how the letters came to be, their presumed destruction, their puzzling reappearance in the hands of the Holliday family’s former slave, Sophie Walton Murphy, the chain of custody from Sophie to a safe deposit box at the failed Freedman’s Fidelity Savings & Trust in Brooklyn to the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency in Washington, DC, to Savannah Murphy Royster in Oakland, California, who contacted Tuck for his advice on their worth, who passed them on to Savannah’s granddaughter, the plaintiff, Rayella Vargas.
“When you add the events of the past few days,” Lisa said, shooting an acid glance toward the defense table, “I think you can see that the letters have intrinsic commercial value, above and beyond their historical value.”
“All of which presumes,” Rankin said, no longer bothering to rise from his chair, “the letters are genuine, which they are not.”
“As the affidavit makes clear,” Lisa said, “the fact that the letters might not, in fact, be genuine, in no way diminishes the value of the story. Some of the most intriguing episodes in the history of art concern forgeries—look at Han Van Meegeren, whose fake Vermeers, especially given their role in the Nazi art thefts, make for a far more fascinating story than the originals.” Another deep breath. “Sad as that may seem to lovers of Vermeer. My point: that is the issue here, the intrinsic commercial value of the story behind the letters. That value is what justifies this court as the proper venue for this dispute.”
“Your Honor.” Rankin fluttered his hand beside his head, as though that might help conjure his thought. “The chain of custody for the letters plaintiff just elaborated—it raises another problem. How do we know plaintiff is the proper owner of the letters? We’d like the time to contact the executor of the estate of this grandmother, Savannah Whoever—”
The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday Page 20