Murder at the National Gallery Read online

  “Let’s get out of here,” Mac said, his arm around Annabel. As he started to lead her in the direction of the road, Pims said, “You can’t leave now. Dinner hasn’t been served yet.” Mac and Annabel stopped. “Dinner?” they said.

  “Yes. Over there. To celebrate the recovery of Grottesca.”

  “A badly damaged Grottesca,” Steve Jordan said, picking up the one with the bullet hole in it.

  “A badly damaged forgery,” Pims said through the bullhorn. “The original is there.” He pointed to the painting del Brasco had thrown to the ground.

  “What the hell are you saying?” del Brasco snarled. “That’s a phony.”

  “To the contrary,” said Pims, lumbering down from his slate stage, picking up the painting, and returning to his position in front of a camera. He faced it and held up Grottesca.

  “This is the original Grottesca, ladies and gentlemen, now recovered and saved for eternity by none other than me, your benevolent host. The government of the United States has been spared further embarrassment, saving in the process two million dollars of taxpayer money. I hereby return this masterpiece to its rightful owners, the government of Italy.”

  He realized the Vatican’s Joseph Spagnola was standing behind him holding the forgery Luther Mason had sent to Italy following Grottesca’s exhibition at the National Gallery.

  “Ah, yes,” said Pims, “yet another beautiful rendering of the original.”

  He took it from Spagnola and held it up to the camera.

  “I had it,” del Brasco said to the officers who’d handcuffed his hands behind his back. “It was mine all the time. That bastard who called lied. Damn him.”

  “Non capisco,” one of the officers said, shrugging to the other.

  “That concludes this live portion of the program. I will interview the participants at dinner and wrap this up from the studio.”

  Filippo Testa came to Mac and Annabel. “Ah, Mrs. Smith, I am so happy you are safe. Had I known what—”

  Pims now came down off the rock, patted his hair with his hand, approached, and extended his hand. Neither Mac nor Annabel moved to take it. “Exciting, yes?” Pims said.

  They maintained their silence.

  “You will stay for dinner? I’ve arranged for a typical Abruzzian celebratory feast back in Aquila. Le virtù, created of seven pastas and seven different vegetables; diavoletto, the hottest red peppers in Italy; a divine soup called mbusse; and torrone for dessert. Humble—but honey and almond have never reached such heights before.”

  Mac and Annabel continued to stare at him.

  “You must join us. Besides, I want to interview you, Annabel. My report will not be complete without it.”

  It happened so quickly Annabel didn’t realize what occurred until it was over. Mac’s right hand came from low and behind, catching Pims squarely on the jaw and sending the corpulent TV host tumbling to the ground.

  “Oh, Mac,” Annabel said.

  “I shall sue,” Pims said, struggling to get up.

  “You’ll sue from jail,” Mac said. “Come on, Mrs. Smith. Your job is over.”

  41

  TWO MONTHS LATER—THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The dinner was held in the room in which the Caravaggio exhibition continued to be displayed to the public. The artist’s magnificent works looked down upon the two dozen people seated at four closely grouped tables, there at the invitation of Courtney Whitney III and the Gallery’s trustees.

  Because Vice President and Mrs. Aprile were honored guests, security that night was impenetrable. Secret Service agents had spent the afternoon going over every inch of the Gallery in preparation for their arrival. Agents, some with dogs, patrolled access corridors to the room and entrances to the Gallery itself.

  Conversation was spirited.

  “I just commissioned a Virginia Daley landscape for the house,” Carole Aprile told Annabel. Mac and Annabel already owned a landscape by Daley, one of Washington’s preeminent artists.

  “Anything new on Pims?” Mac asked MPD art squad chief Steve Jordan.

  Jordan gave out with a low, dirty laugh. “M. Scott Pims?” he said, mimicking Pims’s speech. “The DA thinks the grand jury might indict on withholding evidence. Conspiracy? Probably not. He’s got his new cable TV deal, and his book, but we’re working with New York on their son-of-Sam law. Hopefully, he won’t be able to profit from this. Unless, of course, he’s acquitted on the evidence charge.”

  Mac speared a cherry tomato from his salad plate. “He’s a madman. Manipulating everyone, creating that scene in Pescara, setting up del Brasco and Julian, dragging Annabel into it through Mrs. Aprile. He’s certifiably insane.”

  “You must admit, Mr. Smith, that his sense of the dramatic is without peer,” a trustee at the table said, chuckling.

  Mac ate another tomato, an excuse not to respond.

  “Lynn Marshall’s due here tomorrow from Seattle to give a statement,” Jordan said to Mac. “I could feel sorry for her if she hadn’t been so ruthlessly ambitious.”

  “The young lady who once worked here?” the trustee asked, adding, without receiving an answer, “Terribly poor judgment on Luther Mason’s part, hiring her, wouldn’t you say? Then again, Luther’s judgment left much to be desired in many quarters.”

  Annabel ignored the comment and talked with Carole.

  A trustee at Court Whitney’s table complimented the gallery director on his appearance on Pims’s TV show the previous week. “Took courage to go on,” he said. “You handled yourself beautifully.”

  “Not difficult,” Whitney said. “As much as I personally abhor the way he did it, we all have to admit that the Grottesca mess was resolved because of Pims.”

  Mac overhead the comment, turned, and said, “And partly engineered by him.” He whispered in Annabel’s ear, “I’m not sure how much longer I can take this.”

  “What?” someone at the table asked.

  “I was just telling my wife how proud I am of her role in recovering Grottesca.”

  “Oh?” the man’s wife said. “Were you there, Mrs. Smith?”

  “I—Yes.”

  “Did Pims really hire an Italian witch doctor to attempt to contact Caravaggio’s spirit?”

  “Ah, here’s the soup,” Mac said.

  “All in all, an amusing little adventure,” said a matronly woman at another table. “Certainly spiced up life at the National Gallery.”

  A succession of the dead people crossed Annabel’s mind: Carlo Giliberti, Luther Mason, Peter Lafroing, Father Pasquale Giocondi. What does she do for entertainment? Annabel wondered.

  “It didn’t take much to get Lynn Marshall to admit she was with Julian the night his father died and saw it happen,” Jordan said to Mac.

  “Do you believe her?” Mac asked, “that it was an accident, that all Julian did was to pull the painting away from him?”

  “Yeah, I do. This is a son I’d just as soon not have to claim as my own, but I believe him. Arrogant as hell. Recovering nicely at his mother’s house in Paris, I hear. I’m told he’s a pretty good artist, in fact … the next Caravaggio?”

  “He has the temperament. And the start of a record. What about del Brasco?”

  “This I love,” Steve Jordan said, breaking off a breadstick. “Based upon the Grottesca case, San Francisco police obtained a warrant. Interesting basement, climate-controlled, state-of-the-art, and filled with stolen art. And, I learned this morning, the Feds have turned one of his people in the Lafroing murder. Mr. del Brasco’s attorneys are about to make a lot of money.”

  Mac and Annabel knew through Jordan that little had taken place in Italy regarding the Grottesca caper. Business as usual there. Grottesca was safely at the Vatican. “Count” Filippo Testa seemed to have vanished, his last sighting in Morocco, where he was trying to sell two silver plates that probably were, according to Jordan, as authentic as his title. Father Pasquale Giocondi’s hanging remained just another Mafia murder: Ask for
more than you deserve, and you get more than you bargained for.

  Court Whitney stood and asked for everyone’s attention. He welcomed the guests, then asked Vice President Aprile to say a few words.

  Aprile said without standing, “All I can say is that relations with Italy are pretty good these days.” He smiled and said to Annabel, “You might consider a job with our State Department.”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Vice President. I’m perfectly content owning an art gallery and playing wife to this gentleman.” She kissed Mac on the cheek.

  “Court is quite right,” said a trustee at Whitney’s table. “Without M. Scott Pims, we’d still be in the mess Luther left us.”

  Mac couldn’t contain himself, despite Annabel’s restraining hand on his arm. “M. Scott Pims,” he said to anyone listening, “could have prevented this from happening in the first place if he hadn’t been so damned full of himself. Not only did he make sure Luther Mason went through with it, he saw his so-called good friend die. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Pims deserves a place alongside Caravaggio himself—wherever he might be.”

  Everyone turned to their soup.

  “You really popped him one,” Jordan said to Mac quietly. “Good thing you did it on Italian soil. They’re not big on personal liability suits over there.”

  “Actually, I was ashamed of myself. On the other hand, it felt good,” Mac said. “What about the Frenchman, Jacques Saison?”

  “He’ll die of cirrhosis before the French government does anything. Everybody copies other people’s pictures, Mac. He just does it better than most.”

  While dessert was being served, Jordan pulled a wrapped package from beneath the table, tapped his glass with a spoon, and said, “May I have your attention, please.” He looked directly at Annabel. “It has been decided by everyone present that a gift for you is in order.”

  “Gift? For me?”

  “Absolutely.” He said to Carole Aprile, “Would you do the honors, Mrs. Aprile?”

  She shook her head. “No, I think I’ll give that pleasure to Court.”

  Whitney stood, buttoned his jacket, looked at Annabel, and said, “We are all grateful for what you did, Mrs. Smith. We’ve had many discussions about what would constitute an appropriate expression of our gratitude, and we all agree that what we are about to present you represents exactly that. Actually, it was Mrs. Aprile’s idea.”

  Jordan unwrapped the flowered gift paper and turned the painting so Annabel could see it.

  “I don’t believe this,” she said.

  “Don’t get too excited,” said Court Whitney. “It’s not the original. But in all my years in the art world, I’ve never seen a better forgery—despite the unsightly bullet hole in the boy’s chest. There is, however, one caveat.”

  “What is that?”

  “That you make it available whenever the Italian government wishes to mount an exhibition of stolen and forged artworks. Other than that, it’s yours to hang in your home as a reminder of your little adventure.”

  Annabel stood and accepted the painting from Jordan. “I’m touched by the sentiment behind this. Thank you, Carole, for putting such faith in me.” She took in faces at the tables. “I would like to propose a toast,” she said, lifting her wine glass. Others did the same. Mac looked up at her quizzically.

  “To Luther Mason, a good and decent man who made one mistake in an otherwise good and decent life.”

  She looked directly at Court Whitney, who didn’t seem quite sure what to do. He reluctantly joined in the toast.

  Later that night, Mac and Annabel sat on the couch in their study. They’d taken down a favorite acrylic by Washington artist Sherry Zvares Sanabria and replaced it with the bullet-riddled Jacques Saison copy of Grottesca.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Annabel said as they looked at the painting.

  Mac grunted.

  “Amazing, the trouble one man can cause.”

  “Luther?”

  “Caravaggio. Oh, I almost forgot.” She handed him that day’s Washington Post, which he hadn’t gotten to, and pointed to a headline: ATLAS BUILDING BURNS—ARSON SUSPECTED. Mac read the short article. The fire had started in the pornography shop downstairs. The few artists left in the building reported extensive damage to their works. Police were investigating. A capsule history of the building ended the piece.

  “Do you know what I’m thinking?” he asked after tossing the paper to the floor.

  Annabel looked into his eyes. “That Rufus has to go out?”

  “That—and—”

  “Do it.”

  He removed Grottesca from the wall and replaced it with the painting it had displaced. Rufus got to his feet from where he’d been sleeping in a corner, went to Grottesca, and sniffed it.

  “Quick, get him out,” Annabel said. “And take Caravaggio with you. Pick an honored space in the garage. This house just isn’t big enough for the three of us.”

  42

  As Mac and Annabel slept peacefully in their home, Gino Bonovolanta broke the lock on the rear door of Rome’s Church of Sant’Agostino, on Piazza Sant’Agostino, went to a pillar in the Cavalletti Chapel, and, using a short crowbar, pried loose Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto. He considered taking another painting, Raphael’s The Prophet Isaiah, but that hadn’t been on Sensi’s list. Why anyone would pay money for such junk was beyond him, he thought as he left the church, the Caravaggio tucked under his arm.

  * * *

  In Hong Kong, a steamer trunk unloaded from a Dutch merchant ship contained four small still lifes by the Dutch master Willem Van Aelst, pieces stolen six months ago from the home of a wealthy Amsterdam collector. Their new owner anxiously awaited their arrival.

  Jacques Saison started work that day on a copy of a Sisley landscape ordered by a well-to-do French banker, whose home was decorated with copies of masterpieces he claimed were authentic to those guests who didn’t know better—which comprised most of them.

  And in Cincinnati, Cindy and Harry Whitlock purchased a print of Gauguin’s Parau na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil) at a flea market. Cindy wasn’t sure whether to buy it. “Is it too risqué?” she asked her husband.

  “Nah. That’s the way artists are. They’re all sex fiends. Besides, it’ll go nice with the new chair.”

  All in all, just another week in the art world.

  Now available from Ballantine Books …

  MURDER IN THE HOUSE

  by MARGARET TRUMAN

  Latham and the president of the United States sat in the Oval Office.

  “Well?” Scott said.

  “I’d be honored to serve as your secretary of state, Mr. President.”

  “Good. I’ll announce it Monday morning. I have a press conference scheduled at ten. This should spice it up. You’ll have a statement ready?”

  “If you wish.”

  “I wish. Run it by Sandy tomorrow night.”

  “All right.”

  “Ruth’s onboard?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ve been friends a long time, Congressman.”

  “That we have.”

  “We know a lot about each other.”

  Latham nodded.

  “But we don’t know everything about each other.”

  “We can’t know everything about anyone, Mr. President.”

  President Scott swiveled in his chair so that he looked out the window.

  “Mr. President, I know what you’re getting at. Is there anything in my life, personal or professional, that might be used against me during the confirmation process?”

  The president again faced his friend. “Is there?” he asked, his face without expression.

  “No.”

  “No pretty little girls coming out of the woodwork to claim you dipped their pigtails in the inkwell?”

  Latham laughed and snapped his fingers. “I forgot about them, Mr. President,” he said, his voice still carrying the laugh. “Ruth and I planned to go back to California on Monday. I s
uppose we’d better cancel.”

  Scott nodded, stood, stretched, and came around the desk to shake Latham’s hand. “Welcome to the cabinet, Mr. Secretary.”

  “A little premature.”

  “Piece a cake. Love to Ruth.”

  “Mac. Paul Latham.”

  “Hello.”

  “Where did you have dinner?”

  “How did you know we did?”

  “Got the machine.”

  “There was no message.”

  “I didn’t want to leave one. My meeting went well.”

  “We ate at Pesce. The rockfish with artichoke and escarole was wonderful.”

  “Glad to hear it. It’s all set?”

  “Looks like it. Ruth’s coming back from the shore first thing in the morning. I’ll be huddled all day with staff. Writing a statement, that sort of thing.”

  “When’s it being announced?”

  “Monday morning at a press conference.”

  “Well, all I can say is congratulations. Deeply felt.”

  “Thank you. What did Annabel have to say?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t mention it.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. But now I will. Feel like stopping over? I pour a mean brandy.”

  “Another time. We’ve canceled the trip home. I’ll stay in touch. Let me know what you decide.”

  “I certainly will. Again, congrats, Paul. It’s much deserved. You’ll make a world-class secretary of state.”

  By Margaret Truman:

  IN THE CAPITAL CRIMES SERIES

  MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE

  MURDER IN THE SUPREME COURT

  MURDER IN THE SMITHSONIAN

  MURDER ON EMBASSY ROW

  MURDER IN GEORGETOWN

  MURDER IN THE CIA

  MURDER AT THE FBI

  MURDER ON CAPITOL HILL

  MURDER AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

  MURDER AT THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

  MURDER AT THE PENTAGON

  MURDER ON THE POTOMAC

  MURDER AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

  MURDER IN THE HOUSE