Murder at the National Gallery

by Margaret Truman

  “Cedro. Cedras. Something like that. They were Costa Rican. It shouldn’t be hard to find the file. I had a special drawer for spousal-abuse cases.”

  Annabel’s storage unit was on the ground floor of a two-story prefab metal building painted a garish pink. Mac opened the door with the key she handed him and rolled up the corrugated metal door. Inside, beige metal file cabinets were stacked on top of one another from floor to ceiling. Her desk, chairs, and other furniture were carefully placed on top and against each other to make optimum use of the space. Fluorescent ceiling lights cast a greenish glow over everything.

  Annabel looked at labels on the front of each file cabinet. “This one,” she said, kneeling, opening a bottom drawer, and fingering through the folders it contained. “Here.” She withdrew one and handed it up to him. The label read: MARIA AND JOSEPH CEDRAS.

  They stepped outside to read the folder’s contents.

  “You think it was him?” Mac asked after they’d finished going through it.

  “I can’t be sure. But he was the same size, same general appearance as I remember him from the one time he came to the office. He was furious that his wife was leaving him. I’ve had angry people in my office before, but he was frightening. He was so—irrational. He threatened her. Threatened me.”

  “You should have reported him,” Mac said.

  “I considered it but decided to give him time to calm down, get used to the fact that Maria wanted a divorce. That was the last I heard from him. He’d beaten her on a number of occasions. I got her into a battered-women’s shelter and put through the divorce papers. He didn’t formally contest the action. The last I heard, he’d gone home to Costa Rica.”

  “The wife?”

  “Stayed around here, I think. I really don’t know. I lost touch.”

  “What did he do for a living?” Mac asked.

  “Had his own business. Import-export.”

  “Did Mrs. Cedras ever report being beaten to the police?”

  “Once, I think. The last time it happened. She was scared to death of him.”

  “The police arrest him?”

  “Yes. That was the day before he came to my office. That’s what set him off.”

  “Good,” Mac said.

  “Why good?”

  “Chances are MPD fingerprinted him and took his picture. We’ll call Steve Jordan and go through his mug-shot books.”

  Two hours later they sat in Jordan’s pleasant little art gallery-cum-office. A photograph of Joseph Cedras was already on the desk.

  “Look, Annabel,” said Jordan, “you may be right. You probably are right about this guy. But even if we pick him up, you won’t be able to ID him. You said you never saw his face.”

  “But I saw his hat and coat. And his hammer. My read on him was that he was unstable, capable of violence. People like that sometimes don’t hesitate to take credit for their violent acts.”

  “But violence against an inanimate object. Why?”

  Mac asked his wife, “Did you give him your patented two-heads-are-better-than-one speech? You know, using the Tlatilco?”

  “Not as I recall. Wait a minute. He and Maria ended up in a shouting match. She mentioned it because I’d given my what you call ‘speech’ just before he barged in.”

  “We’ll issue a warrant on him, Annabel. If we pick him up—and if we come up with his favorite hat and coat—we’ll do a lineup best we can.”

  “Thanks, Steve. I appreciate it.”

  “Keeping busy, Mac?”

  “Uh huh, only the lady here these days is making me look like I’m retired. You?”

  “Yeah. Got a bulletin this morning from Norway. They convicted the four guys who stole the Munch painting, The Scream, from the National Gallery in Oslo a couple of years ago. The art-and-antiques unit of the Yard posed as potential buyers and nailed them. Only took them three months. Know what I love?”

  “What’s that?” Mac asked as he helped Annabel on with her coat.

  “They snatched the painting in less than a minute, and left a note that said, ‘Thank you for little security.’ ”

  Mac and Annabel laughed.

  “And what was that little goody by Mr. Munch worth?” Mac asked.

  “Twenty mil. The legitimate art market may be depressed, but the underground is flourishing. How’s the Caravaggio exhibit shaping up, Annabel?”

  “Fine. Although Carlo Giliberti’s murder threw things into a tizzy for a while. Luther Mason wanted to cancel the exhibition because of it.”

  “He did?” Jordan said. “From what I know of Mason, it would take mass genocide for him to call off anything to do with Caravaggio.”

  “He’s changed his mind. Took a week’s vacation in Europe.”

  “He does get around,” Mac said.

  “Seems to have done wonders for him,” said Annabel. “At least according to Court Whitney. Anything on Carlo’s murder, Steve?”

  Jordan decided not to share what he’d learned from the New York City detectives and shook his head. “Thanks for coming in, folks. I’ll be in touch if we come up with Señor Cedras.”

  Annabel was relieved Jordan hadn’t hinted at the arrangement she’d entered into with him to help recover the missing Dumbarton Oaks artifacts. She’d intended to tell Mac about it since making the decision to help out, but the time never seemed right. Besides, she assured herself, nothing would come of it anyway. It was a shot in the dark. Her only obligation was to check the answering machine in the Atlas Building studio once a day, and she could do that by telephone. Her involvement was nothing more than a gesture, one she was glad she’d made. How often were you called upon to help law enforcement, especially when you would be helping recover what had become precious to you, pre-Columbian art? Ask not what your country can do for you …

  Just as long as she didn’t end up like the fools who’d broken into Watergate because they’d been duped into thinking their cause was worthwhile.

  22

  WASHINGTON

  The months flew by quickly for everyone involved in the exhibition. The paintings loaned to the National Gallery began to arrive by Alitalia, each protected in a climate-controlled box designed and built by conservator Don Fechter’s staff. Most conservation work on the paintings had been accomplished at their sites-of-origin, although permission had been granted by some lenders for Fechter’s experts to complete the work in Washington, paid for through a private fund.

  The publicity mill was in full gear. The media were bombarded with press releases, and the Gallery’s Speaker’s Bureau fielded an unprecedented number of requests. As might be expected, most were for Luther Mason. To the surprise of the National Gallery’s staff—Courtney Whitney III no exception—Mason graciously, even enthusiastically agreed to speak to the most important of the groups. He’d been reticent in the past about making public appearances. There were certain public relations efforts expected of curators—scholarly papers presented within the National Gallery and at other leading art centers, curatorial conferences, an occasional presentation to the trustees. Mason had always fulfilled those obligations, but not without his penchant for making dramatic protestations:

  “Must I again stare into a room of vacant faces while I try to explain Caravaggio to them? Do you explain Mozart? Perhaps if I were speaking about a new Nintendo game or gene-splitting technique they would be interested. Why are Americans so comfortable with science but uncomfortable with art?”

  Not this time.

  “I think it’s wonderful,” deputy director Naomi Warren told Court Whitney over coffee in his office one morning. “It’s as though Luther not only discovered Grottesca, he discovered himself in the bargain.”

  Whitney could only agree. Mason’s calendar was chockablock with talks and interviews. The only problem Mason’s leap into the spotlight created was the envy it generated in his senior-curator colleague, Paul Bishop. Bishop complained regularly to Whitney that the exhibition was turning into a circus, hardly befitting the re
putation of the National Gallery of Art. The considerable professional and personal attributes that had qualified Whitney to be director of “America’s Museum” included the art of assuagement, which he found himself having to practice with Bishop nearly full time.

  Since returning from Paris, Mason seemed to find an extra hour in each twenty-four-hour day, causing security guards to question whether the senior curator was sleeping at the Gallery. He was there day and night and insisted upon making the final decision on virtually every aspect of the exhibition, large and small, important and trivial. He challenged the design created by George Kublinski, chief of the Gallery’s Design and Exhibition Department, including the choice of color for the walls. Like all good curators—and the best exhibition specialists—Luther knew the importance of color as a backdrop for works of art. Kublinski’s plans called for the walls to be painted a burgundy thinned with a special white paint.

  Mason disagreed. He’d spent days researching color and its relationship to Caravaggio’s work. The walls would be a pale apricot tint.

  He took the same hands-on approach to the framing of Grottesca. The Matting and Framing Department, which fell under Donald Fechter’s conservation group on the National Gallery’s extensive organizational chart, had chosen an elaborate, bordering on the ornate, cherry frame with thin gold-leaf inlay.

  “Too big, too rococo,” Mason insisted. “It detracts from the work. I want it kept simple, and smaller.” When he announced he would seek outside consultation with Max Mowinkle, a New York framer, the Gallery’s framers complained to Fechter. He dismissed their complaints. “The man is consumed by this show,” he told them. “Let him pick his own goddamn frame and get on with other things. You’d think he was in the frame.”

  A week later, Luther attended a meeting of the Framing and Matting Department accompanied by Mowinkle, a diminutive man in his fifties who had a nervous tic in his left eye and spoke with a matching stammer. Mason presented the frame Mowinkle had created. It was cherry but considerably less bold than the original. There was no gold leaf, no elaborate carvings. It was slender and simple, barely protruding from the painting itself.

  Fechter and his people were unanimous in their belief that Mason had made a bad choice. But again, Fechter declined to argue the point.

  The next morning, Mowinkle dropped off a package at Mason’s apartment. Inside were two identical copies of the Grottesca frame. The doorman accepted them and handed the framer a fat envelope Luther had left with him before going to work that morning.

  The press breakfast set for the day of the Caravaggio opening was a week away.

  So was the dinner.

  All the loaner works were in Washington and ready to be hung.

  The show was sold out.

  The two copies of Grottesca were in the rear of Luther’s living room closet, along with the duplicate frames.

  “Mother?”

  “Hello, Luther.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel all right.”

  “Mother, I want you to come to Washington as my guest at the opening of my—our—Caravaggio exhibition.” He’d sent her some clippings.

  “I read about it. Sounds very nice.”

  “But only if you’re here. This is the greatest moment of my life, Mother. I want to share it with you.”

  She said nothing.

  “Julian will be here. It would be a good chance for the three of us to spend time together. Please say yes. I’ll send a first-class airline ticket to you by Federal Express. I’ve already booked a suite at the Watergate Hotel. You know that hotel. It was where Richard Nixon—”

  “I know it. Why is it still open?”

  “Will you?”

  “Luther, I—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer, Mother. I insist.”

  She agreed, providing him with a profound sense of relief. It would be the last time he would ever see her.

  23

  “This has been a long and challenging undertaking,” Court Whitney said as he wound up a Friday-morning meeting. “I commend each of you for your dedication to seeing this challenging undertaking come to fruition. My suggestion is that we all get an early start on the weekend, rest up, and be ready to hit it hard again on Monday. Unless there are further questions, we’ll meet next at eight sharp Monday morning.”

  Earlier in the day, Mason had stopped by the security office to scan the weekend duty schedule. A veteran member of the Gallery’s police force, Tom Morris, was due to come on duty at six Sunday morning. Good, Mason thought. He and Morris had a cordial relationship.

  He left the Gallery and headed for home. As he looked in the direction of the Gallery’s Constitution Avenue entrance, his heart tripped. A huge red-and-green banner with white lettering was being raised above the doors: GENIUS COMES TO AMERICA: THE WORKS OF MICHELANGELO MERISI CARAVAGGIO.

  “My God,” he said aloud. “It’s almost over.”

  The upcoming week promised to be relatively relaxed. Most loose ends concerning the exhibition had been wrapped up, leaving Mason time to tie up the loose ends in his personal life. Or to clip them off.

  Scott Pims called at five to invite him to dinner at his apartment and to an auction the following day. “I’ve been toiling all day over a coquilles Saint-Jacques au jus de truffe. Morton was to dine with me but he stubbed his toe. I hate to invite you as a substitute, Luther, but better that than eating alone. You will come, of course.”

  Mason sighed. The thought of one of Pims’s meals was attractive; he had little energy to prepare himself a meal, and the contemplation of eating out was equally unappealing. On the other hand, his instincts told him it would be prudent to content himself with something from the freezer and a good night’s sleep. “I’m afraid I’m too tired to go anywhere tonight, Scott. You know the merry-go-round I’ve been on. With only a few days until the opening.”

  “Trash talk, Luther. I know you’re tired. But I assure you, a few hours at my table will not only pick up your spirits but infuse you with renewed energy. Besides, I’m dying to hear the latest.”

  “Maybe I could—”

  “Splendid. Seven. I have an excellent bottle of Chablis—Grand-Cru—which I will open with only slightly less ceremony than your Dago painter’s show. After dinner, we’ll watch my program together.”

  Pims’s television show aired each Friday night at ten, taped earlier in the day. “There’s a brewing scandal in Le Beaubourg. Actually, it’s the Centre Georges Pompidou. But as you know, the French hate naming anything after a dead statesman. I have wonderful contacts in Paris. Come to think of it, I have wonderful contacts all over the world.” His sudden, sharp laugh was a 4.7 on the Richter scale. “You’ll love the show. I’ve managed to top even last week’s production.”

  “All right.”

  “Seven then. Don’t bother dressing. We’ll make it an informal, cozy night.”

  After hanging up, Luther rationalized having dinner with Pims. In a sense, it would serve as a rehearsal for doing things he preferred not to be doing. Lord knew, there were enough of those situations to be faced over the next seven days.

  SATURDAY

  His calendar read: Dinner, Lynn.

  Mason’s affair with Lynn Marshall had commenced six months ago, two months after she’d come to work for him.

  She’d been among more than two hundred candidates submitting résumés for the opening on Mason’s staff. From those, he’d narrowed the field to thirty. And of the thirty bright, ambitious young people he interviewed, Ms. Marshall gave the most favorable impression. Her educational credentials in art history, along with a productive two-year stint as an apprentice curator at Washington’s first museum—the prestigious Corcoran Gallery of Art—provided the background Luther sought. Her knowledge of the Old Masters was broad based. Most important, she’d presented an interesting philosophical view of many of the works they discussed during the hour interview in his office. She viewed Roman art as inferior to that of the
Greeks, with which Luther agreed. An emphasis on learning how to draw, Lynn felt, was to the artistic detriment of Roman artists. It stifled their purely creative output. Score another for her, Mason thought. She considered artists of northern Italy during the Renaissance to have possessed even greater talent than their counterparts in Rome and Florence, although she was careful to pay homage to the Romans and Florentines: “I’m especially fond of Correggio,” she said. “His experiments with movement and emotion created a remarkable bond between artist and viewer.” Mason nodded.

  It was when she began to discuss the Baroque period that she captured Mason’s heart, and the job. She knew a great deal about Caravaggio and waxed poetic about his power and technique. Luther assumed she’d done her homework before the interview, having learned that Caravaggio was his passion. But that was in her favor. If she was energetic and creative enough to delve into the background of the person interviewing her, she would likely bring to the job a similar dedication and ambition.

  Then, too, Lynn Marshall was attractive. Her features were too coarse to be considered classic, lips large and full, her nose broad. But the overall effect was proud sensuality, and the fleshiness of her body enhanced it. Mason was aware that she was subtly flirting with him during the interview, which he found pleasant, even flattering. What he most enjoyed was Lynn Marshall’s easy laughter.

  Her first overt sexual overture happened while they were working late, the merest brush of bodies in close quarters. Mason offered little resistance. He’d been celibate since leaving Cynthia three months ago, with the exception of a weekend fling in New Orleans with a middle-aged Dallas curator who’d latched on to him at a cocktail party and enticed him to her hotel room. Easily and quickly forgotten.

  But sex was not the prime motivating factor in his affair with Lynn. “Torrid” was not the word Mason would apply to their occasional nights together, nor would others observing those episodes. It wasn’t in his nature to let himself go to that extent. But he did revel in her doting on him when they were together, complimenting his sexual performance in a way that caused him to ignore the possibility—no, probability—that she was being disingenuous.