Darkness Rising (The East Salem Trilogy)

by Lis Wiehl

  “Onward,” Dani replied, offering Tommy her elbow.

  The art museum was a brightly lit modern building with straight, clean lines and white surfaces on an ancient campus where the dormitories, halls, administration building, and student commons favored stone or red brick covered with ivy, slate roofs, garrets, balconies, leaded windows, bell towers, sloping dormers, marble cornices, and chimneys capped in wrought iron.

  The occasion was an exhibition marking the first time the major works of Dutch renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch had been shown in America. The show included his mysterious triptych Garden of Earthly Delights, on loan from the Prado in Madrid but owned by St. Adrian’s alumnus Udo Bauer, a German multibillionaire whose family owned Linz Pharmazeutika. Dani’s boss had received an invitation but had a prior commitment and couldn’t attend. Dani had said she’d be happy to go in her stead, though “happy” wasn’t the right word, because she didn’t know how to be happy and scared at the same time.

  Inside, Tommy steered Dani to the coatroom off the entry hall.

  “Quite the turnout,” Dani said. “A Who’s Who of East Salem.”

  The reception was in the atrium. Boys in black pants, white shirts, and black bow ties circulated bearing silver trays of canapés or glasses of wine. Dani accepted a tomato and basil bruschetta as Tommy surveyed the room.

  “Keep an eye out for anything that isn’t human,” he said. “And make allowances for bad plastic surgery.”

  They passed two women in conversation, both of whom looked like their faces had been shrink-wrapped in cellophane. A student string ensemble in the corner provided chamber music. They played well, Dani thought, but mechanically and without much feeling. There was, she noted, a kind of flattened affect to many of the boys in attendance, a palpable stiffness. They were all polite but unsmiling, slightly robotic. Her evaluation of the St. Adrian’s student they’d suspected, Amos Kasden, had been that he’d suffered from a dissociative identity disorder. His mind had become disconnected from his body and nothing seemed real to him, emotions reduced to ideas, and confusing ones at that. Zero empathy. Somewhere in the computer belonging to Dr. Adolf Ghieri, the school psychologist, there had to be a file on Amos. What it would tell them, they could only guess, but that was the computer they were targeting.

  “You’re rocking the room, by the way,” Tommy said. “You’re what women who have plastic surgery wish they looked like.”

  Dani was wearing a sleeveless black Carmen Marc Valvo cocktail dress she’d picked up at a sample sale, with black and tan ribbing at the bodice above a taffeta skirt, accessorized with silver earrings, a silver evening bag, and a pair of Prada knockoff shoes she’d picked up at T.J. Maxx for $25. Tommy wore the black Armani tuxedo he’d purchased the first time he’d accepted the ESPY award as NFL Defensive Player of the Year, tailored to allow extra room for his broad shoulders and less for his tapered waist.

  “Thanks,” Dani said. “I assume you mean that as a compliment.”

  He touched her arm and gestured toward a group of men standing near a statue of a figure Tommy guessed was St. Adrian, the school’s namesake.

  “There’s Wharton,” he said.

  Dr. John Adams Wharton, the headmaster, was shaking hands and greeting guests. He wore a black tux, his position of authority marked only by the boutonniere in the school colors of purple and red pinned to his lapel. His long, thinning white hair was brushed straight back.

  “Where’s Ghieri?” Dani said. The school psychologist had seemed menacing and defensive when they’d questioned Amos Kasden. Something about him exuded evil. Dani couldn’t put her finger on it, but Tommy had told her to trust her feelings, comparing it to the way people instinctively fear snakes.

  Then they saw him, balding and stout, standing between two men they didn’t recognize. One was in his seventies, with unkempt frizzy white hair, a white moustache, and round wire-rimmed eyeglasses. The other man was tall, fair-haired, and too tan for November; in his forties, with a long neck and a narrow head that reminded Tommy of a ferret. His expression was pinched and annoyed, as if he’d just caught a whiff of something foul.

  “I bet the tall one is Bauer,” Dani said. “He looks very German. And very rich.”

  Tommy surveyed the room and noticed that all the exits were guarded by young men in black shirts with walkie-talkies and earpieces.

  “I know these paintings are valuable, but am I the only one who thinks there’s more security than they need?”

  “Should we wait for a better time?” Dani asked.

  “No,” Tommy said. “As long as they’re concentrating on the paintings and not on Ghieri’s office, this could work in our favor. Plus, when are we going to get another invitation? Let’s chat ’em up and see if they recognize us. I’ll take Ghieri. See if you can get a rise out of Wharton.”

  “By doing what?”

  “I don’t know. Flirt with him.”

  “Not in my skill set,” Dani said. “My sister says I must have skipped class the day they covered that in Girl School.”

  “Don’t overthink it. Just pretend you care. Laugh at his jokes. If a guy thinks a pretty woman is interested in him, he’ll change the litter in her cat’s litter box,” Tommy said. “Which reminds me—I changed the litter in Arlo’s litter box.”

  “Thank you,” Dani said.

  “Don’t underestimate yourself. Text me if you need me.” Tommy patted the phone in his breast pocket.

  Dani furrowed her brow. “Be careful,” she said.

  “You know me.”

  “That’s why I said ‘Be careful.’”

  She straightened his bow tie and brushed a bit of lint from his shoulder, then moved left, accepting a glass of chardonnay from one of the waiters. Then she set it down, found her phone, and entered sos in a text message for Tommy’s mobile number, ready to send just in case.

  She paused to chat with two women from her book club. They were reading War and Peace, having recently finished Moby Dick. “We really need to pick thinner books,” one said. Dani nodded and kept moving.

  She had no problem engaging strangers at dinner parties, looking judges or attorneys in the eye, teaching classes at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, or speaking at conferences, but idle chitchat was a challenge for her. Dani knew men found submissive women attractive because it made them feel powerful, but how did one fake “submissive”?

  Dr. Wharton, the German, the man with the moustache, and a fourth man were standing by a framed Albrecht Dürer sketch of a rhinoceros. The older man, the one with the moustache, seemed to be explaining something to the others as Dani approached.

  “Dr. Wharton,” she said. “I’m Dani Harris. Irene Scotto asked me to give you her regrets. She had a conference in Washington, so she sent me here to represent the district attorney’s office.”

  “Yes,” Wharton said, giving no sign that he remembered meeting Dani or cared whom she might be representing. “I’m pleased you could attend.”

  Dani remembered Tommy’s advice, but there was nothing funny in the words I’m pleased you could attend. She thought of how idiotic it would be to laugh, and she must have made a face, because Wharton looked at her as if she were utterly demented. So much for flirting.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” he said with a polite bow and a puzzled expression, moving on to greet another guest.

  “Miss Harris,” the fair-haired man said, without a hint of a German accent. “Are you here by yourself?”

  “I came with someone from my office,” she said, holding up her glass. “He’s probably looking for me—”

  “Udo Bauer,” the man said, extending his hand. She took it, half expecting him to click his heels together. “Let me introduce my friends. Dr. Julian Villanegre. Dr. Peter Guryakin. Dr. Villanegre is here to oversee the installation. Dr. Guryakin works for me.”

  Dani shook hands with the white-haired Villanegre and then with Guryakin, whose name rang a bell.

  “And what do you do, Miss Ha
rris?” Dr. Villanegre said, surprising her with his British accent.

  “I work at Northern Westchester Hospital.” She had visitation privileges there but rarely used them.

  “You’re a nurse?” Bauer said.

  “A doctor.”

  “My apologies,” Bauer said. “My personal physician is a fat old man with liver spots on his liver spots. I can’t picture doctors any other way.”

  “I also consult with the DA’s office as a forensic psychiatrist,” she added, looking for a reaction. Usually when she told people her job title, they asked her what it meant, and she’d explain that she evaluated suspects and witnesses for competency and testified in court as to the emotional or mental state of the accused.

  “I was just explaining to my friends what an astonishing anatomist Dürer was,” Villanegre said, pointing at the drawing mounted on the wall. “He drew his rhinoceros based entirely on a description a friend gave him of an animal being exhibited in Lisbon. The friend said the animal wore armor, so the artist took the liberty of adding rivets. Other than that, I think he got it right.”

  In her peripheral vision, Dani saw Bauer peeking down the bodice of her dress.

  “You’re an art historian?” she said to Villanegre. “Professional or amateur?”

  “I curate for the Ashmolean in Oxford, but Mr. Bauer asked me to supervise the shipping of the works. Have you seen The Garden of Earthly Delights?”

  “Not yet,” Dani said. She turned to the shorter man. “Dr. Guryakin, you work for Herr Bauer—may I ask in what capacity?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding politely. Dani watched as he touched his nose and folded his arms across his chest. When he spoke, his lower lip pulled to the left. She’d been trained to recognize signs that a suspect was lying, and Guryakin had just hit the trifecta. “I work in marketing,” he said. His accent was Russian.

  “You’re a charming young woman, and it’s been a pleasure meeting you,” Villanegre said, “but I’m afraid I have to go prepare for my little talk. If you’ll excuse me . . .”

  Dani smiled and nodded. Then Villanegre stopped and looked her in the eyes as if he recognized something. His face a foot from hers, he studied her, as if unaware that she was looking back, and then he seemed to nod to himself. Dani had no idea what it meant, but she felt as if she’d been caught at something.

  Tommy had trouble moving through the crowd. He’d played in the NFL for eight years, was a six-time Pro Bowler when he walked away from the game after killing an opposing player on the field—a clean hit, it was ruled, but a tragic accident. He didn’t care what the league called it; he only knew it wasn’t going to happen again. His picture still ended up in the tabloids from time to time. He’d learned that men from the highest social circles and men who raked leaves for a living and preferred Budweiser over Chateau Lafite Rothschild often had in common a love of football. This usually served Tommy well, but made it hard to walk through a party without shaking a hundred hands.

  He kept moving, chatting people up. The fact that a teenage girl had been murdered by a St. Adrian’s student less than a month before did little to dampen the party mood on campus tonight. He made small talk but kept Ghieri in his sights, working to get closer. But every time Tommy moved, Ghieri moved too.

  He gave up trying to catch the man alone when the doors to the main gallery swung open and the crowd filtered in. He found Dani by the statue of St. Adrian.

  “Any luck?” she said.

  “Not much. I learned you can’t teach here unless you’re a graduate,” he said.

  “Hence the term ‘Old Boy Network.’”

  “You?”

  “I was right about Bauer. The man with the Albert Einstein hair and the moustache is an art historian. The other guy works for Bauer. Dr. Peter Guryakin. When I asked him what he did, he lied and said he was in marketing. I Googled his name.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Who gets zero hits on Google?”

  “That’s what I thought,” Dani said. “Unless somebody scrubbed the databases. Shall we go in and have a look at the painting?”

  “If I get a chance to slip out—” Tommy began, then stopped, momentarily distracted by the statue. “That’s odd.”

  “What is?”

  “This is St. Adrian,” he said. “The guy they named the school after, right?”

  “And?”

  “He was the abbot of St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury around 700 AD.”

  “So what’s odd?”

  “He’s not wearing a cross,” Tommy said. “You’d think he’d have one. So why doesn’t he?”

  “Good question,” Dani said. She stepped closer and examined the figure’s hands.

  “What?”

  “Look at the marks on his fingers, here and here.” She pointed for Tommy’s sake but tried not to draw attention. “The statue looks like it was weathered everywhere except there. As though he was holding a cross, until someone removed it. Why? Someone stole it because it was valuable?”

  “Maybe it was just something the administration didn’t want the student body exposed to,” Tommy said. “They might get ideas.”

  3.

  There were rows of folding chairs in the main gallery, but not enough for all the guests. Dani and Tommy stood on the side with their backs to the windows, close to the door. Behind a portable podium at the far end of the room they could see a curtain concealing what Dani assumed was the main attraction, the painting known as The Garden of Earthly Delights.

  The headmaster took the podium.

  After a few seconds of polite applause, Wharton glanced briefly at his notes, then removed his reading glasses to speak from memory.

  “We are all here,” he began, “because of a gift. The paintings and drawings you see on the walls around you, or will see when the lights come up, and in particular the special painting behind this curtain”—he gestured over his shoulder—“are of course not gifts. Would that they were . . .”

  “I’ll never understand how Americans like Orson Welles or William F. Buckley or this guy end up with British accents,” Tommy whispered.

  “They have been generously loaned to us,” Wharton continued, “by one of our most esteemed alumni, Herr Udo Bauer. His continued support for St. Adrian’s Academy and its mission has been a precious gift indeed.”

  “Esteemed?” Tommy said to Dani over another round of applause. “He’s forgetting the part where Bauer’s grandfather tested his drugs in Nazi concentration camps.”

  “Allegedly,” Dani said. The research they’d done before the exhibition had turned up a few accusations but nothing conclusive.

  “Right,” Tommy said. “And the sun ‘allegedly’ rose in the east this morning.”

  “I had in mind,” Wharton said, “to ask Udo, class of ’77, to say a few words tonight, but he’s far too modest and asked that I not force him to speak. I will instead announce, on his behalf, that in addition to loaning the paintings from his family’s collection, he has also seen fit to make a contribution to the school’s development fund for a new science facility. It will be, simply, the finest of any preparatory school in the world.”

  “What’s wrong with the one they have?” Dani asked Tommy over the next round of applause. “I thought they just built one ten years ago.”

  “Toward that end,” Wharton continued, “fifteen minutes ago, Udo Bauer handed me a check. This one . . .” He pulled a check from his shirt pocket and held it up. “For the sum of . . .” He paused for effect. “One hundred million dollars.”

  There was a collective gasp, then thunderous applause that didn’t stop until Bauer stood and nodded to the crowd.

  “That’s going to buy a lot of frogs to dissect,” Tommy said.

  “We will, of course, keep our alumni informed as the building progresses,” Wharton said once the applause died away. “Now, to tell you about the paintings you are about to see, I give you the distinguished art historian, antiquities curator a
t the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, don emeritus of Trinity College, University of Oxford, and the world’s leading authority on Heironymus Bosch—ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Julian Villanegre.”

  As the crowd welcomed Dr. Villanegre, a large screen lowered from the ceiling and the lights came down even further, save for a spotlight on the podium. Julian Villanegre smiled broadly, adjusting the microphone and thanking the headmaster. He paused, waiting for the audience’s complete attention. Dani thought again of how he’d looked at her. Something about him defied understanding, something . . . mystical? Was that the word?

  “For the first time,” he began, “one of the world’s most breathtaking— and most misunderstood—paintings has come to America. Heironymus Bosch, born 1450, died 1516 . . .”

  A self-portrait of the artist appeared on the screen. He looked kind, avuncular. He’d grown up in the town of Hertogenbosch, Villanegre said, in the Duchy of Brabant, a region that today would include parts of Holland and Belgium.

  “Hertogenbosch, we note, burned to the ground in 1463. The artist, who would have been about thirteen, was suspected of setting the fires. It’s thought that his famous ‘hellscapes’ may have been his way of imaginatively revisiting the scene of the crime.”

  “Sounds a lot like Amos Kasden,” Tommy whispered.

  The slide of the artist faded to black, and then a slide of The Garden of Earthly Delights faded in.

  Villanegre paused to let the image of the painting register. The room fell silent.

  Dani listened closely as Villanegre briefly reviewed the function of paintings in the Renaissance, before movies, television, or photography. The Garden of Earthly Delights was a triptych, with the two outer rectangular panels hinged to fold over the square center panel like shutters. The Garden of Earthly Delights, or The Millennium, as it was also known, was, like most altarpieces, intended to be a pedagogic tool mounted above the altar in a church to illustrate spiritual texts, usually Bible stories.