Murder at the National Gallery

by Margaret Truman

  “I wish—”

  “Forget Giocondi, Luther. We must talk.” He led Mason to the center of the Sculpture Gallery, where catering personnel were clearing and breaking down tables, and then paused at the foot of a Milanese sixteenth-century Venus.

  “What is it?” Mason asked.

  Giliberti stretched up to Mason’s ear. “Money,” he said.

  “Money? Giocondi?”

  “Si. And they want more money in Italy.”

  “Who wants more in Italy?”

  “Signor Sensi.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I made my deal with him. You said he was a man of honor.”

  “Yes. But he did not realize the importance of the painting. It is more valuable than you led him to believe.”

  “I led him to believe nothing, Carlo. I was honest with him. I expect honesty in return.”

  “A nice sentiment, Luther. But Sensi is not sentimental. You don’t have the choice. He can do terrible things to you. To us.”

  Giliberti looked past Mason and stiffened, his eyes wide. Mason turned. Standing at the other large statue dominating the center of the hall, the sixteenth-century Bacchus and Fawn, were two heavy men. Luther remembered seeing them during dinner at one of the Italian Embassy tables.

  “What’s the matter, Carlo?”

  “Them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Security from the embassy.”

  “Well—?”

  “But they work for Sensi, too. They will bring the money to him.”

  “I can’t,” Mason said, anger melding with fear. “I can’t.”

  “There is nothing you can do about it, Luther, except to pay. Or, of course, you can always return Grottesca to him.”

  “I don’t have more money, damn it,” Mason said. “I can’t go back to del Brasco and ask for more. He’s already advanced me a half million, and I gave Sensi half of that. He won’t give me more until he has the painting. Make Sensi understand that.”

  Giliberti shook his head. “Go to del Brasco, Luther, and get the money. One-half million, American. Sensi will not take no for an answer.”

  The two men continued to stare at Carlo and Luther.

  “I have to go, Luther. I told them you would have the money in three days.”

  “You told them what?”

  “Call me tomorrow and tell me you have worked things out.” He walked away at a brisk pace and disappeared into the Rotunda.

  Mason stepped into an adjacent gallery and pretended to study Angelico and Lippi’s The Adoration of the Magi. At that moment, he adored nobody. He looked back. The two men slowly passed, paused to look in at him for what seemed an eternity, and proceeded toward the Rotunda.

  He slumped on a bench in the middle of the gallery. The air had gone out of him. He tried to resurrect his earlier thought, that he still had time to call it off. It was a failed second attempt. The reality was he’d stepped into a vortex from which it was getting impossible to extricate himself. As a boy, after seeing a movie where someone was sucked into the ground, his recurring dream had him stepping into quicksand—of university, of scholarship, of the museums and art world, and now, this …

  He could have avoided the situation, he knew, had he stepped back at any number of junctures. He could have declined dinner with Sensi. But knowing the aged mafioso had Grottesca—God, what a powerful motivator—propelled him to that night in Positano.

  He could have decided in Ravello not to drive to the run-down church in search of the smarmy priest, Pasquale Giocondi. But he went. He couldn’t change that. Even if he could, would he have? If he hadn’t he might never have seen the painting, held it in his hands, for even a moment.

  Despite those decisions, he still could have bailed out. But his call to Court Whitney, his boss at the National Gallery, had defined his situation, shaped it, thrust him into the role of a pilot who, upon reaching the point of no return on a flight, develops engine trouble and still must continue pushing forward, hoping to reach the planned destination.

  He did what he seldom did, ordered whiskey, neat, from a bartender finishing up in the West Garden Court.

  “Bravo!” His fleshly friend, M. Scott Pims, placed the fingertips of his right hand to his eyebrow and tossed Mason a salute. “Well done. Having a nightcap, I see. To steady the nerves after your triumph?”

  “Where are you going from here?” Luther asked.

  “Straight home to beddy-bye.”

  “I have to talk to you.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of that, Luther. Your place or mine?”

  “Yours.”

  The murder of Carlo Giliberti, Italy’s cultural attaché to the United States, happened too late to make the morning papers. But radio and television broadcasts had the news.

  Mac and Annabel Smith heard it as they were starting to enjoy a second cup of coffee in their kitchen.

  Luther Mason heard the news reports driving to work at the Gallery.

  The news interrupted an argument between Court Whitney and his wife, Sue, over where to spend an upcoming long weekend.

  And Vice President Joseph Aprile received word of the murder during his early-morning briefing.

  They all reflected upon having been with Carlo Giliberti hours before his demise. Charming fellow. Who could have done such a thing?

  Press reports said that Giliberti had been found in some bushes on the perimeter of Rock Creek Park. The cause of death was a single stab wound. Robbery a possible motive; his wallet was missing. But his rings, Rolex watch, and $485 in his pocket were not.

  Law-enforcement agencies generated their own initial theories. Washington MPD’s chief of detectives, Emil Vigilio, after observing the body and its resting place in the park, and the wound, commented to fellow detectives that it had all the trappings of a mob rubout.

  “Why? Because he’s Italian?” a colleague asked.

  “No, wiseguy. Because it looks like every mob hit I’ve seen. In the movies.” Organized crime of the Mafia variety was less visible in Washington than elsewhere—Vigilio’s experience with Mafia assassinations was limited to dramatized versions.

  Wade Johnson, head of the State Department’s 1,000-person police force, charged with protecting the lives of the District of Columbia’s vast foreign diplomatic community, had a different take on it: “A snow bird looking for cash to snort up his nose.”

  “What was an addict doing in Rock Creek Park that time of night? It’s like asking for it himself. And why not take the rings, the cash …?”

  “In a hurry to get home because his mother might worry. Who knows?” Johnson replied before heading for a meeting of agencies that would inevitably end up arguing more about jurisdiction over the case than clues. “Looking for action. Smelling the roses. Got lost. Come on. This meeting should be a laugh a minute.”

  12

  “Carole? It’s Annabel.”

  “I was going to call you. You’ve heard.”

  “On the radio. My Lord, what a shock.”

  “I know.”

  “To be with him just hours before he’s murdered. But that’s the usual reaction to anyone’s death. The question is why?”

  “And who. Court Whitney called. He’s in a panic.”

  “Why?”

  “He says Luther wants to cancel the exhibition.”

  “But that would be—”

  “I know, I know … an overreaction. Does that sound callous? They were close friends.”

  “No, not at all. Court isn’t canceling, is he?”

  “No. But he said Luther is beside himself. A wreck. Came into his office insisting the show be scrubbed. Almost as if he wanted to cancel. Then left. Court doesn’t know where he’s gone. No answer at his apartment. A favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Try to get hold of Luther. Keep trying him at home.”

  “All right. What do you want me to tell him?”

  “I don’t know—calm him, I suppose. It’s tragic what happened to Mr. Giliberti,
but we need Luther. It’s his exhibition.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Do you think—?”

  “What?”

  “That Carlo Giliberti’s death might have something to do with the Caravaggio exhibition? The Grottesca?”

  “I can’t imagine. Yes I can. In art circles, the unimaginable is too often normal.”

  “I read about the huge sums paintings bring these days. Millions for marginal works. Tens of millions for masterpieces like Grottesca. People have killed for a lot less.”

  “I’ll try to reach Luther,” Annabel said, hunching her shoulders against a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

  “Thanks, Annabel. Call me?”

  “Of course.”

  Annabel tried Mason’s apartment but received a busy signal. Frequent attempts over the next fifteen minutes brought only the increasingly annoying busy buzz. She had an appointment at her gallery with a potential pre-Columbian buyer and was running late. Mac had already left to teach a class at GW. She’d try Luther again from the gallery. It was the best she could do. For the moment.

  Mason went directly home after meeting with Court Whitney. Blinds drawn, door locked, he sat on the edge of his bed and tried to put his jumbled thoughts in order. Could he persuade Whitney and the trustees to cancel? He felt he had to try. It was a way out for him. Carlo Giliberti’s murder had been a terrible blow. At the same time, it offered an excuse to call off the exhibition, or at least to postpone it. Grottesca could be sent back to Italy where it belonged. If his moneyman, Franco del Brasco, wanted back what money he’d advanced, Mason would find a way to reimburse him if it took the rest of his life. How could he have been so foolhardy as to think he could pull this off?

  He went to the living room where he dialed a number. “Mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Luther.”

  “I know. You’re the only person who can call me that.”

  Luther was used to acerbic responses from her, having grown up as an only child in the home of Joseph and Catherine Mason.

  His father had been a professor of agricultural science at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana. He’d retired from that position but didn’t have much time to enjoy his leisure. A massive heart attack killed him three months after his retirement dinner.

  Catherine Mason had been West Lafayette’s head librarian until her retirement, a stern, sturdy, and proper Baptist woman whose efficiency at running the library compensated for any lack of warmth with its patrons.

  “How are you?” Luther asked.

  “I am feeling just fine,” his mother replied.

  He envisioned her sitting in her favorite Queen Anne grandfather chair, next to a small table on which the house’s only telephone rested. Chronic arthritic pain in her shoulders, hips, and hands would cause her to sit crooked in the chair, but nothing would be said. Catherine Mason suffered pain well. “How are you, Luther?” she asked.

  “Not very well, Mother. I had a great shock this morning.”

  Her silence invited him to continue.

  “A very dear friend of mine was murdered here in Washington last night.”

  The silence continued until she said, “It seems every time I pick up the newspaper or watch television, someone is being murdered in Washington. They say it’s worse even than New York.”

  “There are too many murders here,” Luther acknowledged. “But this was a special friend. His name was Carlo Giliberti.”

  “An Italian?”

  “Yes. He was the cultural attaché at the Italian Embassy.”

  “And he was your friend?”

  “Yes. I was with him last night at a formal dinner.”

  “Was he murdered at the dinner?” Catherine Mason asked.

  “No. Later. In a park.”

  “What is this world coming to?”

  Had she closed her eyes and said it to the God she trusted? he wondered.

  “Mother, I thought I might find some time to visit with you.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Luther hadn’t been back to Indiana in more than three years and suffered perpetual guilt about it. But he always managed to rationalize not making the trip, the most persuasive excuse being that his mother was seldom alone. She’d remained active in the community, especially the church, and he received occasional letters from a neighbor who never failed to marvel at Catherine’s busy schedule. There was no physical need for him to be with her, he would remind himself after calling to say the pressures of work precluded him from coming home for yet another Christmas, or Thanksgiving. If she fell ill and needed constant care, he would, of course, be at her side. Like any dutiful son.

  The truth was that Mason did not especially want to see her. He loved his mother, but she represented the pain of what he considered to have been an unhappy childhood.

  “Would you like me to visit?” he asked.

  “Do you have to ask? How is Julian?”

  “Fine. Has he called, or written?”

  “No.”

  The hypocrisy of trying to convince his only son, and his mother’s only grandchild, to maintain a relationship with her wasn’t lost on Mason. Julian seemed even less interested in seeing her than Luther.

  “Young people these days,” he said, forcing a sardonic chuckle. “You can’t tell them anything.”

  “Do you hear from Juliana?”

  The mention of Luther’s first wife pricked him. “We talk occasionally,” he said. “I thought she kept in touch with you.”

  “Not as much as she used to.” His mother’s voice was sad.

  Luther Mason and Juliana Moreau had met while graduate fine-arts students at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum; Luther had spent four unhappy undergraduate years at Purdue, where his father’s employment meant free tuition.

  He lived at home while attending Purdue. Being a “townie” provided him with a rationale for staying isolated and withdrawn, going to classes and then straight home, the way it had been in high school, where his quiet presence, viewed as aloof and snobbish by some, caused them to call him a momma’s boy and even a fag, which wasn’t true. The teenage Luther was obsessed with girls and the profound sexual mysteries they promised, spending hours in the library where his mother worked, ostensibly studying, but in fact sneaking into the recesses of the racks that held art books to ponder the magnificent color plates of voluptuous nudes by Titian, Cranach, Gauguin, and Renoir.

  But as exciting as the grand nudes by old masters were, there was a large coffee-table book to which Luther found himself returning with regularity. It featured the works of an artist he hadn’t heard of earlier, Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio. The scenes and portraits in the vivid color plates affected Luther far more powerfully than the other books he studied. Although there were no nudes, Caravaggio’s paintings exuded a sensuality that physically aroused him. Strange, he thought, because most of the themes were religious. What was it about this artist that was so profoundly affecting? he wondered.

  He studied the Caravaggio book countless times, using a small magnifying glass to get closer. He analyzed every detail of the lovely female face in The Conversion of Mary Magdalene and did the same with the thick-lipped, epicurean young musician at the center of The Musicians.

  But it was the face of the young boy in Caravaggio’s Bacchus that had the strongest impact upon Luther. There were times he stared at it so long that he lost touch with where he was—who he was—as though he and the boy model had become one. The book’s text indicated that this model had been used by Caravaggio before and that Bacchus seemed to have been the last time. But Luther also studied a plate titled Grottesca in which the model, he was certain, was the same. Grottesca was lost, said the book, its fate unknown.

  His mother’s staunch religious faith precluded her ever buying her son an art book in which undraped female figures were represented. But because Caravaggio was considered a major painter of religious subjects, she acquiesced t
o his frequent requests for the Caravaggio book and bought it one year for his birthday. He prized it as another young boy might treasure a baseball glove, a football, or a set of trading cards.

  Luther dated a few times while at Purdue, brief relationships that never progressed beyond an awkward kiss goodnight. He would have graduated a virgin had it not been for West Lafayette’s dozens of brothels, identified with a yellow light and a house number, each one a fraction. It was in such a house that an older woman initiated Luther into sex. It was, at once, exhilarating and terrifying.

  By the time he received his undergraduate degree in literature—further setting him apart from the university’s overwhelming population of engineering students—his surreptitious enjoyment of art had blossomed into an appreciation of art itself, and the artists who created it. Luther himself did not possess artistic talent. His crude attempts at charcoal sketches and an occasional watercolor were dismal failures. But he had developed an eye for the work of others—more important, a deep love for it—that set his course for the future. His departure from Indiana to Harvard was, as he remembered, “the most important and liberating day of my life.”

  Juliana Moreau was a serious painter of the Abstract School—Mondrian, Kandinsky, and their disciples. The Czech Kupka, the turbulent Surrealist Masson, and the German Wols were her idols. She showed Luther a series of Wols paintings soon after they met. “They look like malignant growths,” he said. Not a suitable remark and not an inspiring start to their relationship, but it progressed nonetheless.

  She was a slight young woman with coal-black hair worn long and straight. She was plain in the sense that she did nothing to make herself less so. Luther did not consider her beautiful, even attractive—until she showed a definite interest in him. Once that happened, his visual perception of her changed.

  After dating for two months, they consummated what had become love in a cheap Boston hotel. Which meant, of course, in those years, that they would be married, eloping to Maryland the summer following their second year.

  Luther was almost paralyzed with fear at the thought of bringing a wife home to meet his widowed mother. But it went surprisingly well. Juliana seemed sincerely to like Catherine Mason, developing a comfortable bond with her that sometimes, it seemed to Luther, excluded him. Which was all right. A good relationship between mother- and daughter-in-law took the pressure off.