Chapter 22

I left Graton early Monday morning and drove south through Sebastopol and then to Petaluma. Sadie Espinosa had called late Sunday afternoon to let me know that she’d found the business card for the Petaluma detective who’d looked into Roberta Cook’s death. His name was Kevin Harper and he was in the Investigations Unit. A short time later we exchanged handshakes and business cards as I explained why I was there.

“Roberta Cook,” Detective Harper said. “I looked into it. Especially after the neighbor, Mrs. Espinosa, insisted Mrs. Cook was murdered. But the evidence pointed to an accident. I think Mrs. Espinosa fancies herself as Petaluma’s Miss Marple.”

I smiled. “Miss Marple was always right.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said. “I have to say this movie memorabilia thing sounds interesting. If you do find a connection to that homicide up in Healdsburg, let me know.”

“I will, thanks.”

I got on the freeway, heading south toward the Bay Area. Back in Oakland I made a stop at my house and reassured my cats that, despite my many absences lately, I hadn’t abandoned them. Then I drove downtown to my office. I kept a late-morning appointment, returned phone calls, wrote some reports, and then I surfed the Internet. I was looking for the poster from the 1932 movie, Rain, starring Joan Crawford and Walter Huston. According to Mrs. Espinosa, Roberta Cook had a poster from that movie. It was a three-sheet, a larger poster, measuring forty-one by eighty-one inches, and Mrs. Espinosa said Mrs. Cook’s poster was in mint condition, never folded and without any tears. For that reason, Mrs. Cook told her friend the poster was worth a lot of money, ten thousand dollars, which made me think she’d had it appraised.

After Mrs. Cook’s death last March, Chaz Makellar had purchased her collection. I’d overheard Raina saying he’d made a lowball offer to Mrs. Cook’s son. I wondered how much Chaz had paid, and how much the Makellars were selling the poster for now. I checked the online inventory on the Matinee website, but I didn’t see the poster listed. The movie memorabilia shop was closed on Mondays, so I had to wait until Tuesday to call. However, I did make another call. Lewis Cook, son of the late Roberta Cook, was an insurance broker with an office on El Camino Real in San Mateo. I scheduled an appointment with him on Tuesday afternoon.

As soon as Matinee opened on Tuesday, I called and Raina answered the phone. I went into my spiel. “I collect Crawford memorabilia,” I told her. “I’m particularly interested in pre-Code items from the thirties. If it’s the right item, I’m not concerned about price.”

Raina’s voice perked up at the prospect of reeling in a live one to whom money was no object. “Let me check our inventory,” she said. I turned up my nose at posters for Grand Hotel, which I’d seen, and two movies I’d never heard of: Dance, Fools, Dance and Montana Moon. Then she dangled Rain under my nose. “We have a wonderful three-sheet in mint condition, priced at ten thousand dollars.”

I sniffed. “I’ve already got something from Rain.” I resisted her attempts to get my name and phone number so she could call me with any hot items.

I worked on other matters until noon, when I left to drive to San Mateo for my one o’clock appointment with Lewis Cook, son of Roberta Cook. When the receptionist ushered me into his office, I saw a middle-aged man with thinning hair, a thickening torso, and a florid face. He smiled as he shook my hand. I sat down in the chair in front of his wide desk.

Cook settled into his own chair and tented his hands on the wide, uncluttered surface of his desk, preparing to sell me insurance products I didn’t need. “Now, how can I help you, Ms. Howard?” I took out a business card and handed it to him. His smile disappeared, the corners of his mouth migrating downward to a frown. “You led my assistant to believe that you were here about an insurance matter.”

“I simply made an appointment. Your assistant assumed. My visit concerns your mother, Mrs. Roberta Cook,” I said. “She died recently, at her home in Petaluma.”

“My mother’s death is none of your business,” he snapped. “Private investigator, for God’s sake. I know who sent you. That old biddy next door, Mrs. Espinosa. She told the police some cockamamie story about my mother being murdered. She’s been reading so many mystery books her brain is addled.”

“Mrs. Espinosa did express some concerns about your mother’s death.”

“It was an accident. I’m not surprised she fell down the porch steps. She had osteoporosis and she wasn’t very steady on her feet. And it was raining that day. That house was just too much for her.” Lewis Cook sounded defensive, as though he was trying to convince himself. I wondered if someone else besides the neighbor had raised the issue of the manner of his mother’s death. He had a sister, I recalled from the obituary. But he was his mother’s executor.

“I was after her to sell the house and move into assisted living,” he said. “But no, she didn’t want to leave. Said she wouldn’t have enough room for her collection. Collection! That’s what she called all that movie crap. Clutter is what I call it. The house was crammed full of the stuff, posters, knick-knacks, programs.”

“I’m interested in what happened to the collection, Mr. Cook. Your mother’s collection of movie memorabilia.”

“That junk? It’s gone. I sold it.”

“Can you tell me who bought it?”

“Hell, I don’t remember. That was a couple of months ago. Is that what this is about? You want to buy some of that movie stuff?”

I let him think what he wanted. “I’ve been told your mother had some Joan Crawford posters that were collectible. Perhaps I could locate the dealer who purchased the collection. I’m wondering if you have his name in your files.”

Lewis Cook thought for a moment. Now that he’d decided I wasn’t here to accuse him of negligence concerning Mrs. Cook’s death, he was a bit more accommodating. “I’d have to check. I think it was Charles something, with a funny spelling on the last name.”

“Could it have been Chaz Makellar? He’s a dealer I’ve heard of, in the East Bay. He has an assistant, an elderly man named Henry Calhoun.”

“Maybe. Makellar sounds about right. He did have an old man with him, but I never caught the old guy’s name. The younger man is the one I dealt with.”

“Did he contact you, or vice versa?”

“He called me,” Cook said. “I just wanted to get rid of that junk so I could put the house on the market. I sure as hell wasn’t going to pay to store it. I was ready to toss it into a Dumpster. Then I got a call from this dealer. He told me he’d seen Mother’s obituary, where it said she collected movie stuff. Said he could probably take it off my hands but he needed to have a look at it first. I told him to come on up to Petaluma. Which he did, him and the old guy. The dealer said it was mostly junk, which is what I figured all along. But he said he thought he could move some of it. He did an inventory and made me an offer I thought was reasonable, so I took it. He wrote me a check. Once it cleared the bank, which it did with no problem, I arranged to meet him at the house. He and the old man showed up in a rental truck, packed up the stuff and hauled it off.”

“Do you still have that inventory? I would like to confirm whether your mother had those Joan Crawford posters.”

“She did have a lot of Joan Crawford stuff. She always did like Joan Crawford.” He swiveled his chair around to face the credenza behind his desk, opened a file drawer and removed a folder. He set the folder on the surface and riffled through some papers. “Here it is,” he said. “I was right about the dealer’s name. It’s Charles Mackellar, in Alameda.” He pulled out several sheets stapled together and turned, handing the inventory to me. “The dealer’s name is on the top.”

“Thanks,” I said. I quickly read through the inventory of Roberta Cook’s movie memorabilia collection. Makellar had listed the items in lots, such as assorted movie posters, lobby cards, and programs. A notation read, “Assorted Joan Crawford posters, eight.” Presumably the poster from the 1932 movie Rain was included in that lot. It wasn’t noted anywhere else. Makellar had estimated the value of Roberta Cook’s entire collection at $5000. A copy of a check for that amount was attached to the inventory.

That was the lowball offer, a pittance compared to what the memorabilia was actually worth on the collectibles market. Lewis Cook, ripe for the taking, was convinced his mother’s collection was junk, and happy to get that sum. I wondered how Cook would react if I told him the Makellars were marketing the poster from Rain for $10,000.

Caveat emptor, I thought. Or rather the other way around. In this case the seller had been taken. I was still left with the question of whether Roberta Cook had help falling down her porch steps.