Free Frames by Loren D. Estleman Page B

fistful of telephone messages. Three of them were from Sergeant Clifford.
     
    **
     
     
    CHAPTER
    8
     
     
    HE DUMPED THE messages on his desk, slumped into his chair, and stirred the little scraps morosely with the eraser end of a pencil. They were written in Ruth’s spiky hand on peach-colored sticky notes with a sun beaming in the corners; he figured the pad was a gift from someone who didn’t know her very well and she was too thrifty to throw it out. Reporters had called from KLBA, the Times, the Post, and something called the Prong. Evidently the media had traced The Oracle to its new owner. He puzzled over a request for information from someone named Fresca until he realized it was actually Fanta who had called. Three others read simply, “Call Sgt. Clifford,” with her number at the precinct.
     
    He sighed. It wasn’t the first time he’d let a movie get in the way of important business.
     
    Still, he stalled; there seemed no reason not to now. He got Ruth on the intercom. “What on earth is the Prong?”
     
    “He said it was the student organ at Berkeley.” She sounded even flintier over the speaker than she did in person. “I didn’t like the way he said ‘organ.’ He sounded like one of those rappers. They say ‘yo’ a lot, like pirates.”
     
    “I thought the Barb was the student paper there.”
     
    “That’s what I thought. He said it was reactionary, so he started his own. What’s this about the Oracle and a skeleton?”
     
    He filled her in, and closed his eyes awaiting the reaction. This was almost as bad as the chewout he had coming from Clifford. But Ruth surprised him.
     
    “Beautiful theater,” she said. “My first husband proposed to me there while Errol Flynn was wooing Olivia de Havilland in Captain Blood. It was a revival,” she added, “on a double bill with The Sea Hawk. I’m not as old as some people seem to think.”
     
    “Maybe I’ll run them both again in your honor when I reopen. I may need the income to handle the mortgage.”
     
    “I wonder if that skeleton was there that night.”
     
    “I doubt it. If the police expert was right, it was placed there long after the house stopped showing big-ticket films.” He hesitated; an opinion was something one never sought from Ruth. She gave them out like gum. “Was I mistaken to buy it?”
     
    “Someone had to. I’m glad it was you. The last thing this town needs is another gym.”
     
    He thanked her, hung up, drummed his fingers on the desk, lifted the receiver from his telephone, and dialed.
     
    “I was about to send a squad car,” Clifford said when he’d identified himself. “I talked to Anita Sarawak this morning.”
     
    “Anita who?”
     
    “Your realtor. She said there were a lot of film cans in the room by the projection booth when she showed you the place yesterday morning. We found only a few when we went through it. They were empty.”
     
    Valentino said nothing, avoiding a trap. He’d had experience with reluctant informants, old-time film people’s personal servants and the like, and knew the power of silence. Some people would say anything to fill it.
     
    “Our CSI team found steel shavings on that empty shelf in the basement that match the ones I had a couple of uniforms bring back from upstairs. I’m asking you again what you took away from my crime scene.”
     
    “Is it a crime scene?”
     
    “It is until I say it isn’t. If I have to ask the question a third time, it’ll be downtown.”
     
    He took a deep breath and told her about Greed. He’d barely begun to explain the circumstances of its filming when she interrupted. “I’ll send someone to pick it up. You’ll get a receipt, and you can reclaim it when my investigation is finished. You might have to wait longer if there’s anyone alive to bring to trial.”
     
    “It’s a priceless historical artifact. It needs to be stored in a stable environment.” He made his lecture on the fragility of silver nitrate