The Man in the Rockefeller Suit (46 page)

Above and on facing page:
These snapshots were taken by Laura White, who became one of Rockefeller’s best friends in Cornish, showing him at the White family dinner table. Also pictured is a page from White’s diary with references to “Clark.” At Clark’s side is White’s young son, Charlie. “He was the most exciting thing to happen around here in a long time,” said White’s mother.

“He hated to have his picture taken,” recalled Laura White. In nearly every photograph Rockefeller was striking a pose that disguised him.

Although Rockefeller wouldn’t allow photographers to take his picture at most of the Boston social events he attended, he struck a pose here at an event at the Liberty Hotel, in a building that was formerly the venerable Charles Street Jail. It was prophetic that many of the guests, including Rockefeller, sported toy hand cuffs, in keeping with the hotel’s refurbished-jailhouse theme.

By the time of their arrival in Boston, Rockefeller said, his daughter, Reigh “Snooks” Rockefeller, was a proficient reader; she could read aloud from the scientific journal
Nature
when she was three. He said he had once read Tennyson’s poem “The Daisy” to her twenty five times in a single evening. She not only understood the poem, she loved it.

For investigators, the missing persons case had been fraught with witnesses’ dying, district attorneys’ leaving their jobs just as they had begun to make progress, and detectives’ becoming frustrated with the labyrinthine case and moving on, allowing the “person of interest” not just to remain free but to climb the social ladder in the shoes of a Rockefeller.

“Chip Smith,” ship’s captain, became a welcome regular presence in the offices of Obsidian Realty in Baltimore. Sure, he was a bit odd, in his salmon colored pants and his boat shoes, always worn without socks. But he was a client, and at Obsidian the client is king. They let him use their computers. They even gave him his own key to the office. Eventually, they sold him a house at 618 Ploy Street. In the house, pictured at bottom, investigators would find the elements of his latest identity.

In the early days after his arrest, Rockefeller projected a sense of cool control, appearing unruffled in front of the cameras in two media interviews he granted, one to the
Today
show and the other, in this photograph, to the
Boston Globe
.

The lawyer Rockefeller first chose to represent him was the veteran Boston criminal attorney Stephen Hrones, pictured here. As the media storm grew, Hrones encouraged him to keep talking. “Fight fire with fire,” Hrones later said. “We had to get out and tell his side of the story, emphasize the loving father aspect. I pressed that at every point: how can you kidnap your own child?”

“He burst into the room smiling, with the cheerful demeanor of a host welcoming guests to a party,” wrote a
Boston Globe
re porter. “‘Clark Rockefeller,’ he said, fixing his gaze on a visitor and extending a hand. His nails were manicured. He wore tasseled loafers with his jail-issued scrubs. He turned to another visitor and another, bowing slightly to each. ‘Clark Rockefeller, Clark Rockefeller,’ he said in a Brahmin accent. ‘Nice to see you. How are you, everyone?’”

At Rockefeller’s first court hearing in Boston for his arraignment on August 5, 2008, he still wore the preppy clothing he had always worn during his life as a Boston bon vivant. But the pressure of being on the run showed in his face and scruffy appearance.