The Rose Conspiracy

by Craig Parshall

  “Good guy in act one suddenly becomes bad guy in act two?” Julia whispered.

  “Wait for act three,” Blackstone whispered back.

  Then he called Detective Victor Cheski to the stand.

  Detective Cheski, in his dark suit and tie, handsome, athletic, and confident, was smiling when he took the oath.

  Blackstone led him through an initial series of harmless, innocuous questions about his work with the District of Columbia police and his prior warm relationship with Henry Hartz when Hartz was a DC prosecutor and worked closely with Cheski on a number of criminal cases. That was, Cheski thought, the reason why Hartz had named him the lead investigator in the Smithsonian crimes. That—plus, Cheski noted, “the possibility that the crimes could have been an ‘insider’ crime, committed by federal employees or even federal agents. So I think he considered me an outsider to the Feds because I worked for the District of Columbia.”

  Then Blackstone began to bore further down.

  “You were the investigating officer in several of the Hammel Dietz thefts, including the one where he was eventually convicted?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Was there physical evidence from that crime of which Mr. Dietz was convicted?”

  “I’m sure there was.”

  “That theft involved what kind of location?”

  “An art museum. A painting by Matisse was stolen by Mr. Dietz.”

  “Let’s talk about the physical evidence from that case.”

  Henry Hartz bellowed out an objection on relevancy grounds.

  The judge overruled the objection, but warned Blackstone that he had “better tie this up in a hurry and make it good.”

  “Was there a drinking glass obtained from the crime scene at the art museum?”

  “Gee,” Cheski said, “that was a long time ago…”

  “Well, then perhaps I should ask the judge to order you to produce all your records from the Hammel Dietz prosecution. Should I do that?”

  “There was, I think,” Cheski said, “a drinking glass. As well as a rope, I believe, a tool of some kind with no prints on it and, I believe, a footprint from a shoe. May have been some other evidence.”

  “But the thing that convicted Hammel Dietz—the thing that nailed the case shut against him—was the presence of his two fingerprints on the drinking glass, right?”

  Cheski was still managing a smile, but his smile was fading.

  “The fingerprint evidence was important.”

  “Now, let’s talk about this case. You had access to the FBI evidence room during the investigation into the Smithsonian crimes?”

  “Yes, but so did Special Agent Johnson and—”

  “You also had access to the evidence room in the District of Columbia Police Department?”

  “Every detective does, and assuming certain procedures are followed, so does any other officer.”

  “You had access to the Hammel Dietz evidence at the District of Columbia evidence room, including the glass with his fingerprints, and you also had access to the evidence room at the FBI building containing the Smithsonian crime investigation?”

  “I had access to a number of different rooms in various buildings.”

  “Yes or no?” Blackstone bellowed. “Did you have access to both evidence rooms from both investigations—yes or no?”

  Cheski was no longer smiling. His face now bore the steady, determined look of a trained professional who could see the oncoming storm he might have to weather.

  “I did have access to both, yes.”

  “And you were the one to report—no one else, just you—that the ‘missing’ glass that had mysteriously gone missing now had been mysteriously found. You were the one?”

  “I was the one who—”

  “You were also the one,” Blackstone said, steamrolling ahead, “to know that Hammel Dietz could easily be implicated in the Smithsonian crime if the drinking glass with two of his fingerprints could be substituted in the Smithsonian evidence bag for the actual glass from the Langley murder, a glass that had no fingerprints on it.”

  “Objection! Objection! Objection!” Henry Hartz was yelling.

  “Why would I have done something as stupid as that?” Cheski yelled, causing the witness-stand microphone to shriek with feedback.

  “I would suggest,” Blackstone said, “that you did exactly that, in order to make it look like Hammel Dietz, a convicted criminal now silenced by death, was the real murderer of Horace Langley. Isn’t it a fact that you did exactly that to cover up the identity of the real killer?

  “This is crazy, so crazy!” Cheski called out.

  Hartz was resuming his cadence of one-word objections.

  “Objections overruled. Overruled!” the judge proclaimed.

  “Do you deny that you wanted to cover up the identity of the real killer?” Blackstone called out.

  “Absolutely! That is an idiotic lie!” Cheski shouted.

  Blackstone held up the FBI report of the crime-scene investigation.

  “Do you stand by the FBI report into the Smithsonian crimes?” Blackstone asked.

  “Of course—why not?”

  “Your DNA was found at the scene. Right?”

  Cheski gave a sardonic laugh. “Yeah, and so was the DNA of other officers too…it was a boiling-hot night, a heat wave…the air-conditioning in the Castle had gone out…we were sweating…a few drops of sweat fell onto the scene…so what…so what?”

  “The point is,” Blackstone said calmly, “that, according to the FBI report, the other officer arrived at the scene at 1:59 a.m., with the crime-lab team, and his sweat droplet was picked up by his own analysis of the scene thirty minutes later. You do agree with that?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Whereas a sweat droplet containing your DNA was picked up at 2:10 a.m. by the crime-lab team. Right?”

  “What of it?”

  “Well,” Blackstone said, turning to gaze back at FBI Special Agent Ralph Johnson, who was seated motionless in the courtroom, was riveted on the testimony, “I guess it has to do with timing and rats and ships and sailors.”

  “I don’t understand,” Cheski was muttering.

  “How about this?” Blackstone said loudly and slowly. “Do you understand this—the FBI report says you arrived at the scene of the crime in your official capacity at 2:44 a.m., thirty-four minutes after your DNA-verified drop of sweat had been picked up by the crime lab team? Or to put it another way, it would appear you dropped a bead of sweat at the scene of the crime before you ever got there to investigate the scene.”

  Cheski’s face was growing paler, and he was tugging at his upper lip with his lower teeth.

  “Do you have an answer?” the judge asked, bending over toward the detective and staring him in the eye.

  “Sure. Agent Johnson screwed up again,” Cheski muttered. “Put the time down wrong for when I arrived. I must have arrived sooner at the scene of the crime.”

  “Special Agent Johnson is in the courtroom,” Blackstone shot back. “Maybe you’re a gambling man, Detective. Are you willing to gamble on Agent Johnson backing you up—and saying he got it all wrong by more than thirty minutes in his report?”

  Cheski was silent.

  In the back of the courtroom, Special Agent Johnson was trying not to smile.

  “Speaking of gambling,” Blackstone said, “I have a private investigator here in the courtroom with me. He has information on Horace Langley’s gambling habits. Nothing illegal, mind you. Just a little excessive. He also knows whether Secretary Langley traveled with anyone else when he went to Atlantic City to the casinos. How many times, Detective, in the course of your relationship with Horace Langley, did you accompany him on his gambling junkets? And how much did you know about his gambling debts?”

  In a rage Cheski was sputtering something unintelligible from the witness stand.

  “What is it that you’re saying?” the judge asked.

  “Confusion…” C
heski said.

  “Confusion about what?”

  “Confusion, Your Honor.”

  “What kind of confusion?” the judge barked back.

  “Confusion,” Cheski said in a low voice, “of the Fifth Amendment kind.”

  By then, Judge Templeton had heard enough.

  “Counsel,” the judge announced, “I suggest that the government and the defense have a little chat about this case. I think you know what I am referring to. Detective Cheski, you may step down. But please do not leave the courtroom. I would ask that the U.S. marshals assist Detective Cheski here to his seat and stay with him. The government lawyers are probably going to have some further dealings with the detective.”

  Henry Hartz slowly rose to his feet on his cane and took a few steps toward J.D. Blackstone. In turn, Blackstone took several steps to the prosecutor. They were standing, nose to nose, in the midpoint of the courtroom.

  “This is the moment I told you about,” Blackstone began. “Henry, this is the meeting I told you we would have.”

  They spoke for several moments. Blackstone did most of the talking. At one point, Hartz glanced over at Vinnie Archmont, who had a shocked look on her face and was staring straight ahead.

  Then Henry Hartz sat down with his two assistant prosecutors. They talked in hushed tones, in strained voices, for twenty minutes while the judge sat patiently at the bench, waiting.

  At the end of the twenty minutes, Hartz stood up and slowly made his way to the podium.

  “Your Honor,” he announced quietly, “we move for the dismissal without prejudice of the charges against Vinnie Archmont, based on newly discovered evidence.”

  “Any objections, Professor Blackstone?” the judge asked.

  “None,” Blackstone replied.

  “Case dismissed. The defendant is hereby released from custody. Clerk, you can release the jury panel from duty on this case.”

  The courtroom erupted in wild chaos.

  “All members of the media are ordered to conduct any interviews outside of my courtroom!” the judge bellowed. Then he struck his gavel down on the bench, rose quickly, and disappeared through the chambers door.

  Vinnie was crying and laughing. Next to her, Julia had her arm around Vinnie. Julia had a huge, beaming smile on her face, and she was shaking her head back and forth in disbelief.

  “Thank you, oh thank you, for saving me, for rescuing me, oh thank you,” Vinnie was saying to Blackstone when he arrived back at the defense table.

  Blackstone bent down to Vinnie.

  “Okay, you and I have a few details to finalize,” Blackstone said. Then he turned to one of the U.S. marshals and asked, “Can I meet with my client in the conference room inside the courtroom, so we don’t have to deal with the media out in the hallway?”

  The U.S. marshal smiled and nodded and led them to a door inside the courtroom, which he unlocked and then opened for them.

  Blackstone took Vinnie gently by the arm and led her into the conference room and turned on the light switch. Then he ducked back into the courtroom.

  He motioned to Tully Tullinger, who quickly strode over to him. Tully pulled a folder of notes out of his leather case and handed it to Blackstone. Julia was standing just behind Tully.

  Blackstone took the file from Tully, nodding with a smile. Then he looked over at Julia.

  “Please stay close by, okay?” he said.

  Then Blackstone stepped into the conference room with Vinnie and closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 62

  Inside the conference room, Vinnie was still laughing and crying. She spent several minutes just emoting. Then she praised Blackstone’s performance, extolling the brilliance of her defense attorney.

  J.D. Blackstone was taking it so much in stride that it almost appeared he had become strangely dispassionate about the outcome of the whole case.

  “J.D., darling, you are being so solemn!” Vinnie said. “We have to celebrate tonight…but, I’m sorry—you had some details you said we needed to wrap up. Oh, my, wait till dear Magister Dee hears the good news.”

  “Details, yes,” Blackstone said. “Well, let’s start with your adoption.”

  With that he pulled out the file Tully had given him, perused it for a few moments, and then looked up at Vinnie.

  “You gave me the impression you wanted a relationship with me?” Blackstone asked.

  “You know I do,” Vinnie said, and she took both of Blackstone’s hands in hers.

  “Then I think we need to speak the truth—both of us,” Blackstone said and deftly removed his hands from hers.

  “Of course,” Vinnie said passionately. “That’s got to be number one. And now that you no longer have to represent me in this terrible criminal case, we can spend time on our relationship, darling.”

  “You lied to me about being adopted,” Blackstone said.

  Vinnie recoiled for a moment before she replied.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “Don’t do that, Vinnie,” Blackstone said. “I had the best private investigator in North America check the adoption records of your home state and the national adoption registries. You were not listed anywhere. The fact is, you didn’t tell Lord Dee you were adopted until after your parents had been killed in the train wreck—making them conveniently inaccessible to contradict your story.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “So you could create a name that sounded fatefully significant to Lord Dee, the Freemason philosopher and Theosophist.”

  “Significant?” Vinnie asked wide-eyed.

  “Yes,” Blackstone said, “your research must have indicated that the word Arch has great importance to Freemasons,” Blackstone said. “In Masonic lore, the arch is an ancient symbol of strength. In addition, Masonic writing points out that at the very top of the arch there is the keystone, the critical architectural element holding the arch together. Your choice of a name that begins with ‘arch’ was obviously designed to convey the implication to Lord Dee’s occult mind that you, Vinnie, would somehow end up being a keeper of the keystone—the key to the ‘philosopher’s stone.’ That impression would then give you unequaled access to Lord Dee.”

  Vinnie was shaking her head a little and smiling.

  “So, J.D. Blackstone, the great intellect, has got it all figured out,” she said with a slight smirk.

  “Then there’s the ‘mont’ part of ‘Archmont,’ Blackstone explained. “The word mont means ‘mount.’ To the Freemasons, their entire metaphysical myth is built on their interpretation of the building of Solomon’s Temple—a temple built on what is now called the Temple Mount. By taking the name ‘Archmont’ you could not have picked a more clever entrée into Lord Dee’s confidence, Vinnie. Superbly done. So the name was perfectly suited to endear you to Dee. That, plus your obvious flirtatious beauty and your resemblance to Vinnie Ream enabled you to play out Dee’s fantasy that the two of you were some latter-day version of Vinnie Ream and Albert Pike, simply transplanted spiritually into another century.”

  Vinnie was smiling and eyeing Blackstone closely.

  “But then there’s the problem of Detective Victor Cheski,” Blackstone said.

  “Who would have figured him to be such a villain?” Vinnie said, not taking her eyes off Blackstone.

  “Yes,” Blackstone said, “the villain. And now, unless you do some fancy, very quick footwork, that villain, Victor Cheski, is going to start pointing the finger directly at you.”

  “Me?” she scoffed.

  “Come on, Vinnie,” Blackstone said with a chuckle. “He’s been your secret boyfriend. I know that now. Your apartment manager gave me a perfect description of ‘your boyfriend,’ the detective. But I had my suspicions. That was simply the capstone. The ultimate proof. The first overpowering evidence was the mailing label on the back of that crime magazine dealing with the Beltway snipers. As you know, it was addressed to Victor Cheski in care of the DC Police Department. Very sloppy of you,
Vinnie, and your boyfriend to leave his magazine in your closet.”

  “Can’t a woman have more than one lover?” Vinnie said with an enticing smile.

  “Yeah, but then there’s the whole have-your-lover-the-detective-shoot-at-your-lawyer thing. I have a hard time with that.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Vinnie said shaking her head. “You have to believe me. When I told him about you going horseback riding, I didn’t think he was going to try to kill you.”

  “Can I really believe that? At that point, the Court of Appeals had just decided I could tell my experts and cocounsel about the Langley note,” Blackstone said. “Obviously, you both were concerned that the note was getting leaked out and might find its way to Lord Dee and spoil your whole scheme—oh, by the way, interesting technique, having Cheski use a white truck and an AK-47 to try to get rid of me, so the further distribution of the Langley note would be slowed down as you asked the court for more time to retain a new lawyer, giving you and Cheski enough time to complete your scheme.

  “And Cheski’s method in doing the whole Beltway-sniper kind of scare all over again using a white box truck in case there were witnesses, that was good…except, as you know, in the John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo sniper shootings in 2002, even though the initial reports mentioned a white box truck, those two killers actually used a blue Chevy Caprice and a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle. But the effect created by Cheski in my shooting certainly kept the focus off him and was neatly calculated to look like just another random, crazy, publicity-seeking, copycat sniper shooting—all over again.

  “It’s just a good thing for me that Cheski wasn’t more proficient with the AK-47, a notoriously inaccurate weapon for long-distance shooting—and a good thing also that I was riding a good horse. But as I thought about it more, in my hospital room, who else but a DC police detective who was actually working in that department in 2002 and remembered those sniper shootings would be a better candidate to cook up a simulated copycat shooting?”

  “Alright,” she said with a laugh, “let’s see how very clever you really are—why would Victor Cheski, if he is my lover, sabotage the recording of my jail-cell phone call? That would mean I would have no way to counter the testimony of this Shelly Hollsaker, who would testify that she overheard me making self-incriminating statements on the phone.”