Murder at the National Gallery

by Margaret Truman

  33

  When Annabel walked through the door of their Foggy Bottom home, Mac was on the phone with a former law student who’d been offered two excellent jobs and was seeking his professor’s advice on which to take. After the conversation, Mac joined her in the kitchen. “You were at the White House?” he said.

  “You got my message. I was with Carole. She had a call from a man claiming to know Grottesca’s whereabouts.”

  “Oh? Who was he?”

  “He didn’t leave his name, said he’d call again. The conversation was taped.”

  “An interesting development.”

  “Mac, I have something to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  Annabel’s phone rang.

  “Tell me,” Mac said.

  She headed for the corner of the kitchen where a phone and her answering machine sat but didn’t pick up. Her outgoing message played. Then, a male voice said, “Good evening, Mrs. Smith. I trust you are well.”

  Annabel and Mac looked at each other. The voice was similar to the one Annabel had heard in Carole Aprile’s office. The difference was this version had an Italian accent.

  “I am calling because of your interest in Caravaggio and Grottesca.”

  “Should I pick up?”

  “Let it record,” Mac said quickly.

  “Grottesca is for sale. If you are interested, I can arrange it. I will call again.”

  Mac came to her side and picked up the receiver. Dead air. “First Carole, now you,” he said gruffly. “Any idea who it might be?”

  “No. Listen, Mac, we have to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let me call Steve Jordan and tell him about this call. Will you dub the message onto another tape so we don’t lose it?”

  “All right.”

  While Mac went to his study to make a copy of the answering machine’s cassette, Annabel called Steve Jordan’s office. “Good,” she said, “you’re still there. I just received a call similar to the one Carole got. What? Sure. Hold on.” She placed her hand over the mouthpiece and yelled, “Mac, can we play the tape for Steve over the phone?”

  He stepped into the kitchen carrying the original tape and a recorder. “I haven’t dubbed it yet,” he said.

  They held the mouthpiece close to the tape machine and played the tape. “What do you think?” Annabel asked Jordan when it was over.

  “Could have been the same person. The Italian accent threw me.”

  “Did it sound authentic to you?”

  “Hard to say. Hang on to that tape.”

  “Mac’s making a copy.”

  “Good. I want to hear it again on good equipment, compare it to Mrs. Aprile’s call. When can we get together? Can you come down to headquarters now?”

  “No. I mean, I will if—”

  “Not necessary. There should be an officer parked outside your house by now. Staying home?”

  “Yes.” She looked at Mac. “We may go out for dinner.” Raised eyebrows asked for her husband’s agreement. “Sure,” he said, returning to the study.

  “Annabel,” Jordan said. “Take this seriously. Something’s boiling here.”

  “Don’t worry, I share your concern. I’ll call tomorrow.”

  “Let’s go to Citronelle,” she said to Mac after he’d finished his dubbing chore. “We haven’t been there yet.”

  “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “Over dinner.”

  By the time they’d arrived at the trendy restaurant and settled in, Mac seemed to have forgotten that Annabel had an announcement to make. He dominated the conversation with his reaction to a Supreme Court decision announced that day with which he fervently disagreed. When he finished, he sipped his wine and said, “You haven’t said much.”

  “You’ve been on a roll,” she said.

  He looked at her quizzically. “Is that a complaint?”

  “Hardly. And I totally agree with you. It was a dumb decision. Speaking of dumb decisions, I have a confession to make.”

  “What am I about to hear?” he asked, his expression serious.

  “Nothing worthy of Oprah,” she said. “I haven’t sold the gallery, nor have I called in someone to paint the shutters on the house.”

  “Thank God,” he said, wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead with the back of his fingers. “I intend to get to the shutters this weekend.”

  “Mac, I did an undercover job for Steve Jordan and his art squad.”

  Mac sat back and lowered his chin almost to his breastbone. “You what? Worked undercover for—? I’m—”

  “I didn’t exactly go undercover …” Annabel recounted her involvement in retrieving the three pre-Columbian artifacts for Dumbarton Oaks.

  Mac maintained his posture throughout her story. Then he sat up. “I’m glad it turned out the way it did,” he said. “But the much larger question, lady, is why you never told me about it.”

  “I know, I know,” she said, touching his hands. “I should have, and fully intended to. I don’t know why I didn’t. Like not returning a phone call and finding it harder every day that passes. Maybe I was afraid you would tell me not to do it. I wanted to do it.”

  “Would it have mattered if I didn’t want you to do it?”

  “Of course it would have.”

  “But would you have gone ahead with it anyway?”

  “I really don’t have an answer for that. I like to think I would. After all, we’ve always operated on the premise that two fulfilled individuals make a better couple.”

  “Yep. And I still agree with that approach,” he said. Espresso was served. He smiled, raised his tiny cup, and said, “To your successful foray into crime.” They touched rims. “But let’s have an understanding from this moment forward. We don’t do things like this without telling each other.” She started to respond, but he held up his index finger. “You have to admit, Annabel, that every time I’ve made the mistake of getting involved in somebody’s murder, I filled you in from the git-go.”

  She nodded.

  He raised his cup again. “To the peaceful life we’ve managed to achieve.”

  Her cup stayed on the table. “Mac,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “That call about the Caravaggio. Carole’s call. If Steve feels I can be of help in recovering the painting, I want to do it.”

  Mac was silent until they were home again. “I don’t think you should get involved.”

  “But if I could be of help—”

  “The Dumbarton Oaks caper—I suppose we can call it that—involved little risk. But four people have already been murdered over Grottesca.”

  “We don’t know how Luther Mason died.”

  “But it undoubtedly had something to do with Grottesca. He had fifty thousand dollars in his pocket. He was accused of having a copy made so he could steal the original. And what about Father Giocondi? And Peter Lafroing?”

  “All the more reason, it seems to me, to be willing to lend a hand. If the painting is successfully recovered, maybe the murders will stop.”

  He said grimly, “Maybe stop with you, Annabel. No. Pardon me if I don’t allow the person I love more than anything in this world to put her life in jeopardy.”

  “That’s sweet, Mac.” She didn’t smile. “It also sounds slightly dictatorial, a tone I’m not used to hearing from you.”

  “I don’t mean to sound that way, but I think you know what I’m getting at. A couple of pre-Columbian pieces is one thing. A Caravaggio worth maybe fifty million bucks is another.”

  She sighed and tucked her bare feet beneath her on the couch. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I’m not being critical of you wanting to do it. I understand the motivation. And helping to recover a stolen masterpiece, maybe identify a murderer or murderers as a bonus. I suppose if I were asked, I might—”

  She placed her feet on the floor and leaned forward. “Yes?”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “I might rise to the chall
enge.”

  “Why is it different with me?” She didn’t allow him to answer. “Because I’m a woman?”

  “Hmmm,” he muttered, biting his lip. “Because you’re my wife. My love.” He paused. “Maybe that is what’s behind my objection. Surprised at how chauvinistic I can be?”

  She laughed. “Frankly, yes. Tell you what. If Steve, or Carole, or whoever asks me to help, I’ll tell you immediately and inform you of every move I make. No exceptions, no secrets. That way, we’ll be doing it together. As a team. We always talk about what a great team we are. Is it a deal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said, leaving the couch and kneeling next to where he sat. She touched her fingertips to his cheek and turned his face to her. “I really want to do this if asked,” she said softly, offering her lips. He kissed her and caved in. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. “But if there’s the slightest hint of anything that puts you in physical danger, we call it off. Right?”

  “Right.” She offered her hand the way a partner would. He shook it, smiling. “By the way,” she said, “Steve has assigned some officers to keep an eye on me. Us. There should be one parked outside right now.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Just a precaution,” she said. “Just until this is resolved.”

  “I have one more request,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “That we agree to stop shaking hands. There are better ways—for us—to make up.”

  34

  “I am M. Scott Pims, your benevolent host of this week’s Art Insider, brought to you through the extreme generosity of viewers like you who support this public station.”

  Mac and Annabel settled back in their study to watch Pims’s weekly television show. The tall, obese critic wore a red-satin smoking jacket over a black T-shirt on which, in white, was a line drawing of himself. He smiled at the camera as it zoomed in for a tight shot of his face.

  “As you know,” he said, “recent events at the National Gallery not only have threatened to close down the splendid exhibition of Caravaggio works now on display, but appear to have rather stunning political implications as well. Naturally, you have kept up with this sordid tale through your conventional channels of disinformation—what a lovely word that is. But unless you join me each week, the true story will never be yours to know and understand.

  “Here is what is at the root of it.”

  Footage previously taken of Grottesca and the crowds ran as Pims talked over it:

  “This is the original masterpiece called Grottesca, painted hundreds of years ago by an Italian madman named Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio. Mad, yes. Talented? Without peer. You know, of course, that this lost gem hung in our National Gallery for a month after having been discovered in Italy by a man who was not only senior curator at the Gallery and an acknowledged Caravaggio expert, but who was my friend. Luther Mason. His untimely death shocked us all. I was especially devastated by it.

  “Before his unfortunate demise, Mason was accused of having stolen the original of Grottesca and of having had a copy made—obviously an excellent one—which he returned to the Italian government in place of the original. Because of my close friendship with him, I find it incomprehensible that he would stoop to such chicanery. But if he did—and let us for the moment assume that he did—the monumental question remains: Where is the original?”

  Mac scratched the groove between Rufus’s eyes and muttered, “I really can’t stomach him.”

  “It’s only a half hour,” Annabel replied. “Part of his charm, the reason people watch. He’s smart and funny along with bizarre and outrageous.” Rufus yawned and sprawled at Mac’s feet.

  “He’s like an extra-large Truman Capote. Your last two adjectives could get him elected to Congress.”

  “Sad to report,” said Pims, “that evidence recently uncovered lends a certain credence to the allegations against my dear deceased friend.”

  “Pims is a friend nobody needs,” said Mac.

  “Sssssh.”

  “Luther had in his apartment an airline ticket to Athens, Greece, and additional travel documents from that city to the idyllic isle of Hydra, off the Greek coast.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Annabel said. “Steve never mentioned it.”

  “Probably because he didn’t want it public,” said Mac. “But Pims obviously knows. It’s public now. If it’s true.”

  “I have also learned exclusively that Luther Mason had arranged for a moving company to empty out his apartment, all of it to go to his first wife, Juliana, in Paris.”

  Another tight shot of Pims, whose eyebrows went up unnaturally high.

  “Hardly the sort of a thing a man does unless—”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “Unless he was planning a swift and unannounced flight, perhaps with a work of art worth many millions of dollars on the open, albeit criminal, art market.”

  “He’s playing judge and jury,” Mac said.

  “But what else does he know?” asked Annabel.

  Pims answered her question:

  “It has come to my attention through my impeccable sources that the original Grottesca has already left the country, Italy its final destination. Furthermore, although our well-meaning local police—particularly what is known as its Art Squad, headed by a charming gentleman named Detective Jordan—refuse to verify it, Luther Mason’s death is being held open as a homicide. Which means, of course, that his assailant is the individual who has taken the original with him to Italy. Find that person and you find Grottesca—which is exactly what I intend to do, in your service.”

  Pims turned to other matters to round out his half hour, including an update on Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s The White Duck, stolen in 1990 from Houghton Hall, the Norfolk house of the seventh marquess of Cholmondeley, England, and valued at more than $6 million. According to Pims, his “unimpeachable sources” were zeroing in on that painting’s whereabouts, too.

  “I am M. Scott Pims, your eyes and ears on the world of art. See you next week. And remember, ‘All passes. Art alone enduring stays to us. The bust outlasts the throne.’ Ciao!”

  As Mac clicked off the TV, Annabel answered the phone. “Did you watch Pims tonight?” Steve Jordan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “Is it true about Greece and the movers?”

  “Yes. It’s looking more every day like Mason really did try to pull this off.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What about our tape?” She’d given him the tape from their answering machine the day after it had been left.

  “Our tech people say it sounds like someone disguising his voice.”

  Annabel laughed. “Like putting a handkerchief over the phone?”

  “Something a little more sophisticated. A favor?”

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Aprile has been very cooperative. But she’s a busy lady, has more on her mind than Caravaggio and stolen paintings. I guess that goes with being the Veep’s wife.”

  “Certainly this Veep’s wife.”

  “The problem is, I need her clout with other art cops. Especially the Italians. With her on the case, they tend to be a little more attentive.”

  “What can I do, Steve?”

  “Step up your involvement with her and the arts commission. Be my daily conduit into her. Not that you don’t have a full plate, too. It’s just that—”

  “No explanation needed. I’ll be as involved as Carole allows me to be.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you think Pims is right about the painting already being in Italy?”

  “It’s a good possibility. Those diplomatic pouches get fatter every day. Like Pims. I intend to talk to him again today. How’s Mac?”

  “He was fine until we watched Scott. Not his favorite television personality.”

  Jordan laughed. “The pompous bastard—pardon me—is out to show us up, solve the case by himself.” />
  “I’m sure you’ll take all the help you can get.”

  “That’s right. But if you think Pims is insufferable now, imagine what he’ll be like if he finds Grottesca on his own. I’ll be in touch, Annabel.”

  Scott Pims watched in his apartment. He was pleased with the show, although he made notes during it about certain production values he wanted changed. Too many crowds, too little art. Too tight on him in the closeups. Lousy lighting.

  His phone rang a half-dozen times after the show, calls from friends congratulating him. “You’re very kind,” he said to them. “But one day, when I’m with a real network with money to back me up, you’ll really see the art of investigative art reporting. Ta-ta.”

  At midnight, he placed a call of his own. It was nine o’clock in San Francisco. The call was answered by a man. “Del Brasco,” Pims said through the voice-altering telephone, enhancing the change by adopting what he considered to be a mobster’s voice, hoarse and guttural, word endings clipped.

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Somebody who can make things right with your boss. Come on. I don’t got all night.”

  “Sorry. He’s not here.”

  “Not there, or don’t want to talk to me?”

  “Hey, look, I told you—”

  Pims hung up.

  He tried again at two o’clock his time. Del Brasco answered.

  “How would you like the original Grottesca to replace the phony you ended up with?” Pims asked.

  “Who the hell is this?” del Brasco snarled.

  “A friend. Sorry about Lafroing. You must a’ been really pissed off.”

  “How do I get Grottesca?”

  “By doing exactly what I say. Interested, del Brasco?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ll hear from me again. Ciao, baby.”

  “Wait. I want to know what—”

  Pims lowered the receiver into its cradle. Everything was proceeding very smoothly, like butt-ah. His smile turned to laughter as he pictured del Brasco looking at the original Grottesca and thinking it was a forgery, fuming at having laid out fifty thousand for it, enraged enough to have had Peter Lafroing killed, a turn of events Pims hadn’t considered a possibility when he placed the call informing del Brasco he’d been taken. All these people dying over one painting, he thought; that rascal Caravaggio must be grinning from his chair in that section of the Forever After reserved for mad geniuses—but not his, M. Scott Pims’s, fault, and certainly not what he’d intended.