Valentino Affair: The Jazz Age Murder Scandal That Shocked New York Society and Gripped the World

334 Pages·2014·3.66 MB·English

by  Colin Evans

T V A
HE ALENTINO FFAIR
A C E
LSO BY OLIN VANS
Blood on the Table: The Greatest Cases of New York City’s Office of the Chief
Medical Examiner The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of
the World’s Most Baffling Crimes The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking
Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury and the Beginnings of Modern CSI A Question of
Evidence: The Casebook of Great Forensic Controversies from Napoleon to O.J.
Slaughter on a Snowy Morn: A Tale of Murder, Corruption, and the Death Penalty
Case that Shocked America
T V A
HE ALENTINO FFAIR
The Jazz Age Murder Scandal That Shocked New York
Society and Gripped the World
C E
OLIN VANS
LYONS PRESS
Guilford, Connecticut
An imprint of Globe Pequot Press
Copyright © 2014 by Colin Evans
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should
be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford,
CT 06437.

Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Project Editor: Lauren Brancato Layout: Kirsten Livingston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

eISBN 978-1-4930-1167-4
I’ll never pause again, never stand still,
Till either death hath closed these eyes of mine
Or fortune given me measure of revenge.
—W S , 3 H VI (2.3.31–3)
ILLIAM HAKESPEARE ENRY
C
ONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue

O
NE
The Flower of the Andes
T
WO
An American in Paris
T
HREE
The Wayward Husband
F
OUR
The Man from Italy
F
IVE
When Blanca Met the Signor
S
IX
Enter Ms. Sawyer
S
EVEN
“Revenge Should Have No Bounds”
E
IGHT
“It Had to Be Done”
N
INE
Let the Battle Commence
T
EN
The Funeral
E
LEVEN
Indictment
T
WELVE
Someone’s Lying
T
HIRTEEN
Amnesia
F
OURTEEN
Blanca Takes the Stand
F
IFTEEN
“Flatter Him to Death”
S
IXTEEN
The Medical Evidence
S
EVENTEEN
The Hypothetical Question
E
IGHTEEN
The Verdict
N
INETEEN
A Courtroom Bernhardt

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
P
ROLOGUE
August 3, 1917
The driver squeezed his foot flat to the boards. His boss at the garage had
warned him that the client sounded cranky, the way rich folks always seemed
when they wanted a cab in a hurry. James Donner knew it didn’t pay to keep the
well-heeled waiting. The car’s engine roared as he gunned it through the wooded
outskirts of Roslyn, a sleepy upmarket village on the north shore of Long Island.
High-priced real estate flashed by. It was eight o’clock, but it still felt like a
Turkish bath. When his destination, a cottage called Crossways, finally came
into view, Donner squealed to a halt.
Two women were waiting for him by the main gate. One—small and dark,
youngish, probably early twenties—bore the unmistakable stamp of authority.
Despite the sticky weather, she was wearing some kind of buckled sweater with
big pockets over her white silk dress. Anger pinched her ashen face.
“You seem to be late,”1 the woman said as Donner jumped down from behind
the wheel and threw open the rear door. Donner apologized, explaining that his
boss hadn’t called him till nearly eight o’clock; he’d driven as fast as he could.
The woman brushed his excuses aside impatiently. “Do you know the Ladenburg
estate?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If you get there in time, I’ll give you a dollar tip.”2 She climbed quickly into
the car. Her companion—a maid, he guessed—had her hands full with a clumsy
white English bulldog that she heaved into the passenger compartment before
settling alongside her mistress. Donner closed the rear door, then took his seat
behind the wheel. As he let the clutch in, the woman leaned forward and asked
if he knew the shortcut across the plain to the Ladenburg estate. Yes—but she
still insisted on giving him directions.
The day had broiled into the eighties, and the last remnants of the fiery sun
were just dropping below the horizon as Donner motored south across the
scrubby grassland of Hempstead Plain. Since the declaration of war on Germany
four months earlier, rumors had swirled that the plain would double as a training
ground for whipping doughboys into shape before they were shipped off to the
mayhem of Europe. For now, though, the fields lay open, deserted, desolate.
At age forty-three, Donner was too old for the draft; he fought his battles with
crusty passengers. Although the lady hadn’t specified what “in time” meant, she
kept urging him to go faster. In between spells as navigator, she huddled in deep
conversation with her maid. Not that Donner could catch what they said; the
roar of the overworked engine devoured every syllable.
Five hair-raising minutes brought them to Whaleneck Avenue, the long
arterial road that bisected the island from north to south. Just ahead lay the
Meadow Brook Hunt Club, famed for its yelping hounds that pursued
Hempstead’s dwindling supply of foxes, closely followed by blueblood riders all
decked out in their finest hunting pink: a fragment of old England transplanted
to the New World. Tonight, a different kind of chase was under way. The
woman squinted over Donner’s shoulder at the road ahead.
“There!” she said, pointing to a barely noticeable turnoff. Donner braked hard
and swung the automobile left onto Valentines Road. Thick trees and heavy
shrubbery slowed him to a crawl as he threaded through the shadows, tires
crunching the gravel. A privet hedge rose up before them.
“Stop here,” the woman commanded. In the distance—about two hundred
feet away—lights flickered. The woman let herself out of the vehicle. “Wait
here, and look after the dog,” she told him. “I won’t be long.” She and the maid
hurried off across a well-manicured lawn toward the lights. The murkiness
swallowed them whole within a few strides.
Donner watched them go, then turned the car around and switched off the
engine. The dog lay curled up on the backseat, almost asleep. The cabbie
reached inside his pocket for a pack of cigarettes; he no doubt had time for a
quick smoke before she returned.
A full moon crept across the purple sky as Donner shifted stickily in his seat.
He settled back and sucked in a deep lungful of smoke, keeping one eye on the
meter, which already registered more than two dollars. Then he heard a muffled
bang, almost like a gunshot. Probably some hunter looking to bag a meal for the
dinner table. Four more gunshots broke the silence of that hot August night, and
set the mayhem in motion.