Murder at the National Gallery

by Margaret Truman

  Del Brasco came on immediately. “Yeah?”

  “Now listen to me, del Brasco,” Pims said. “The original Grottesca is waiting for you in Italy. Wednesday. Bring the forgery with you. The seller wants it. And two million cash, unmarked bills, about a hundred thousand in lire.”

  “Wait a minute. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

  “Be there if you want the original. I don’t have time to argue. Check into the Raphael Hotel in Rome, on the Piazza Navona. Be there by Tuesday night—with the forgery and the money. Check in under your own name. You’ll be contacted.” He hung up.

  Pims sat in a favorite recliner and willed the pounding in his chest to stop. Sufficiently calmed, he sent an E-mail message to Rome: Wednesday party on as scheduled. Will confirm reluctant guest. He checked his watch. Time to go to Union Station. He made one more call, this to the young producer of his television show: “Is all the travel arranged for the crew?” he asked. She confirmed that it was. “Good. Keep your beeper on in case there’s a change. I’ll call later.”

  Driving to Union Station, Lynn Marshall had serious second thoughts about agreeing to meet with M. Scott Pims. She’d been too impetuous, allowed his fame—more important, his offer to help her career—get in the way of making a reasoned decision. She was certain of one thing: Julian would be furious.

  Contact between Lynn and Julian had been sporadic, at best, since he left for Paris. Lynn missed him, although she didn’t have any misconceptions about the true tenor of their relationship. She knew his interest in her had been primarily sexual and that it wouldn’t last. That was okay. What had started to bother her was not knowing to what extent her relationship with his father had prompted Julian to pursue her, sometimes speculating that he’d commenced the affair to hurt Luther by taking from him something important in his life. But that was too Freudian for her to digest in large bites. If that was the case, so be it. The sex had been good, and she’d taken a certain pleasure, as well as felt a modicum of guilt, from having participated in Luther’s betrayal. He certainly had it coming the way he’d let her down.

  She’d also wondered early in their furtive relationship whether Julian was using her to find out about his father’s activities. He constantly asked questions, especially about the Caravaggio exhibition and Grottesca. Then, one day the questions stopped. Truth was, she’d had little to offer, knowing nothing about the switch of paintings until Julian told her.

  “How did you find out?” she’d asked.

  “Better you don’t know,” was his pat reply. “Just keep your eyes and ears open at the Gallery and tell me what’s going on.”

  Knowing that her boss and former lover was about to pull off perhaps the greatest art scam in history was unsettling. At first, she dismissed it because she could not conceive of the usually meek and mild Luther Mason even contemplating such a thing. And then carry it off? Ridiculous.

  But it didn’t take Julian long to convince her that not only was he right, she could participate in his own plan to head it off. “I don’t want to see my father go to jail,” he told her one night after making love. “Do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “He’ll botch it, Lynn,” he said. “He’ll sell it for a song and get caught in the bargain.”

  “We can talk to him,” she said.

  “Forget it. He’ll never listen.”

  That was the night she agreed to go to Luther’s apartment, use her key to get in, and see whether the original Grottesca was there. She wasn’t capable of determining authenticity, but the fact that there were two versions of it gave credence to Julian’s claim. When she reported back to him, he said, “Just go along with me. Don’t ask any questions and do what I say.”

  “I don’t want to get into trouble,” she said.

  “You won’t. You’re not doing anything. He did it. We can get him to share with us. I’ll go to Paris and sell it for a hundred times what he’ll get. Just don’t worry, and keep your mouth shut.”

  Lynn drove Julian to the airport the night he left for Paris. He was unusually cheerful, thinking of the original Grottesca packed in with other worthless canvases he’d sent by Airborne Express.

  “When will I hear from you?” she asked.

  “After I find a buyer. I’ve already got a line on one in Italy. Big bucks, Lynn. As soon as I make the deal, we can hook up again. In Paris.”

  She looked into his cold, black eyes and knew he was lying about “hooking up again.” That didn’t matter. It was the money she’d begun to fantasize about. She’d never had money. With it she could study full time with the best teachers. That was all she lacked, she was sure, solid training to enable her to better execute her artistic visions.

  He’d promised to be in constant touch, but he seldom called. She’d called twice, the first call answered by Julian’s mother, Juliana, who promised to tell her son. When he didn’t respond, Lynn tried again to reach him. He sounded angry, said he was about to leave for Rome and couldn’t talk—not on the phone.

  “I only wanted to hear your voice,” she’d said, disgusted with her weakness.

  “Now you heard it,” he said.

  She stiffened. “Maybe you’re forgetting that you and I are in this together,” she’d said. “Maybe you’re forgetting what you owe me.”

  Her reminder softened him. “Look,” he’d said, “I’m under a lot of pressure. I’ve got this contact in Italy that might pan out. It’s not easy, you know? I’ll call you in a few days.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah. Promise.”

  Pims was at the far end of the bar when Lynn walked into Adirondacks. He stood, greeted her with a great flourish, and pulled out the adjacent barstool. After ordering her a rum and Coke, and concealing his distaste, Pims leaned close. “Luther told me your work was worthy of a gallery showing.”

  “He did? He tried to arrange one for me but it fell through. Some gallery in the boondocks. Maryland.” She sipped her drink through the tiny stirrer, which annoyed Pims. It was for stirring, not slurping.

  Pims laughed. “Showing in a rinky-dink gallery in Maryland will hardly advance the promising career of any talented artist.”

  “I know,” she said, sipping again.

  “I can do wonderful things for you, Ms. Marshall.”

  Was he about to make some silly pitch? Not an unusual occurrence in her experience, but distasteful coming from him. Pims might be a powerful force in art, but he was personally offensive: grossly overweight, foppishly dressed, perspiring in the cool atmosphere of Adirondacks, lips too fleshy, nails manicured and polished, smile crooked, a true George Grosz character sketch.

  “I know that,” she said, adding, “and I would be very appreciative of any help you could give me. I was going to bring some of my work with me but—”

  “Where is Julian?” Pims said abruptly.

  “Julian?” She sipped. “In Paris.”

  “Was in Paris. Not any longer.”

  She turned to face him. “How do you know that?”

  A half-smile. “I have sources everywhere, Lynn. Good sources. I know that he went to Rome for—a meeting.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t come up coy with me, Ms. Marshall.” His silky tone had segued to hard edge. She tried to avoid his eyes, but he directed her attention with a firm grip on her wrist. “We have something extremely important to discuss,” he said.

  “Let go of me.”

  His gentle voice returned as he removed his hand. “Of course. The gravity of the moment overwhelmed me.” He then said, as though voicing an inner thought, “I can keep you and your boyfriend out of jail, Lynn Marshall.”

  It wasn’t a laugh that managed to squeeze its way through her suddenly dry throat, more a feeble expression of incredulity. She finished her drink and looked about the room, which had begun to fill.

  “And I can do wonders for your career. I think you’ll agree that the combination is potent.”

  She sum
moned the courage to look him in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then allow me to enlighten you. Julian, son of my deceased and dear friend, went to Rome from Paris to arrange a transaction of sorts. I know because it was I who put him in touch with a potential business partner.”

  “You did? I don’t understand.”

  “One day, my dear, I shall take the time to explain it to you at length. In the meantime, suffice it to say that your boyfriend’s irrational stubbornness threatens my well-being.”

  “Why? How?” She’d mustered a certain steely calm now. “I’d like another drink.”

  “Of course. Sir, another for the lady.”

  “What do you mean you arranged for Julian to meet someone in Italy?”

  He held up a hammy hand to silence her. “I shall talk, and you shall listen. I, after all, arranged for this pleasant festivity and am the one paying for it. Enjoy your rum and Coca Cola, Carmen Miranda.” He winced. “And please stop using the stirrer as a straw. It offends me. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. You are to contact Sir Julian the moment you leave here. You are to inform him that he is expected to honor the arrangements I have made for him in Italy. Understand?”

  “What arrangements?” Lynn asked, realizing that Pims was talking about someone to whom Julian could sell Grottesca. Why hadn’t Julian told her?

  Pims laughed. “I see many little wheels spinning inside that lovely head of yours, Lynn. Good. You’re concerned that your lover boy might make his score, as they say, and leave you behind. M. Scott Pims to the rescue. Do what I say and I will see to it that your interests are protected.”

  “You want me to call Julian and tell him to do what you said?”

  “Bravo! Very astute. And don’t be reticent in relaying that message. Be firm, because you have a reason to be. Not only do I know the little secret shared by the two of you, the evidence I possess is sufficient to give both of you many years of solitude at taxpayer expense to develop your artistic talents. Or your abilities as a laundress. Do I make myself clear?”

  “I—”

  “No matter. The only thing you must do at this point is to apply your female charms to Julian in the interest of what we might call a greater good for all of us.”

  “I don’t know how to reach him in Rome.”

  Pims handed her a slip of paper. “The number of his hotel. Instruct him to move to the Raphael, on the Piazza Navona, and to wait there for further instructions. Capisce?”

  “What?”

  “Do you comprehend what I have said?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “Once you have talked sense into your mule-headed friend, I want you to forget any of this happened. I want you to go about your usual daily routine, work hard for Paul Bishop, continue to turn out your art which, I assure you, will be of great interest to me after this adventure is concluded, and wait to hear from me.”

  “All right. But I want you to know I had nothing to do with any of this. I didn’t know what Luther was doing. And I wasn’t the one who—”

  He touched his index finger to her lips. “Please. Now, might I suggest you taste my drink, equal amounts of port wine and brandy? My stomach has been upset today; I imagine yours might be, too.” He handed his snifter to her and she tasted. “A much more civilized libation than the national drink of the Banana Republic. Barman, our check, please.” He laid cash on top of it. “Ta-ta, Lynn. This has been an extremely pleasant hour.”

  Lynn reached Julian at his hotel and told him what Pims had said.

  “His contact offered two million. It’s worth ten times that.”

  “Please, Julian. Pims knows everything. It isn’t worth going to jail over greed. Two million dollars! A million for each of us.” He said nothing. “Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

  “He wants you to move to a hotel called the Raphael. On some piazza.”

  “Piazza Navona. This other guy told me to go there, too.”

  “Well, go there for God’s sake and get it over with. Who is this other man?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Name’s Testa. Like testy, you know? Filippo Testa. He’s a middleman for the buyer.”

  “I’m coming to Italy.” She said it despite Pims’s admonition not to change anything about her life.

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I want to be there when you sell it.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” He laughed.

  “Of course I do. It’s just that—”

  “Just sit tight, Lynn. You’re right. I’ll do exactly what Pims told me to do. I’ll call you as soon as the deal is made. You can come then.”

  Small tears ran down her cheeks. “All right,” she said. “When will you call?”

  “The deal goes down Wednesday.”

  “Call me before that. Call me every day.”

  “Yeah, okay. Love you. Have to go.”

  Pims’s final act before beginning to prepare dinner for his friend Wilfred Penny was to use his voice-altering equipment to leave a message on Mac and Annabel’s answering machine: “Written instructions for your jaunt to Italy are to be found with the bartender at The Collector Gallery and Restaurant, on Dupont Circle.”

  Unless, he thought, the homeless person to whom he’d paid ten dollars to deliver it to the restaurant fell down on the job. Maybe I should have paid him more, Pims mused as he prepared smoked trout delivered that afternoon from Cannon Seafood. No, he decided, ten dollars was more than sufficient.

  38

  The moment Carole Aprile returned from Colorado and announced “agreement in principle” with the attempted recovery of Grottesca, Steve Jordan met in his office with the Smiths, Jordan’s assistant, Gloria Watson, and a detective from the Italian polizia art squad, Paul Colarulli, who’d flown to Washington the night before at Jordan’s request, and expense.

  “It has to be that way,” Annabel said in response to a cynical comment Jordan made about the conditions laid down by Carole Aprile, whose absence was conspicuous. “The government wants to take credit for recovering Grottesca in order to satisfy the Italians. But if something goes wrong, including an outright failure to obtain the painting, it’s not to be linked to the effort.”

  “Convenient,” Jordan said.

  Mac said, “Look, let me level with you. As much as I appreciate Detective Colarulli’s assurances that the Italian police will be working closely with you every step of the way, I want more of a guarantee of Annabel’s safety.” Colarulli had outlined commitments made by his people of manpower, surveillance equipment, and vehicles.

  “Hopefully, there won’t be a need for police involvement aside from arresting whoever’s selling it and whoever’s buying. If we get to that stage, Annabel’s function will be over.”

  “Words like ‘hopefully’ and ‘if’ don’t hold up in my court,” Mac said.

  “I’m sure everything will work out just fine,” Annabel offered. “Steve and Detective Colarulli seem to have put together a sensible battle plan.”

  “Look, Mac,” Jordan said, “if you have serious reservations about this, nothing says Annabel has to go through with it.”

  Mac thought for a moment before asking his wife, “You’re comfortable with it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I have to be. What’s next?”

  What was next was to make travel arrangements, with everyone involved taking as many separate flights as possible to avoid being seen together. Mac and two detectives loaned to Jordan’s art squad by another Washington MPD division would be on the same plane. Gloria Watson was on Annabel’s flight, seated two rows behind her in first class. Colarulli took the earliest flight to fine-tune things in Rome.

  On Sunday night, Mac and Annabel packed in silence. Finally, she said, “Mac, I have to admit I’m upset, not about what we’re about to do but about your response to it. You seem—well, you seem angry at me for doing it. If I’d known that would be your reaction, I would have said no.”
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  He stopped trying to fold a light sweater to perfection, sat on the edge of the bed, and said, “Did it ever occur to you that I might be worried about the woman I love?”

  “Of course. But—” She joined him.

  “And did it also occur to you that we are winging off to Rome based upon disguised voices and a note from what is undoubtedly a demented individual, someone who has set off a chain reaction involving police departments on two continents, the government of the United States, and Lord knows who else?”

  “It has crossed my mind.”

  “And?”

  “And it has also crossed my mind that not only will we be instrumental in recovering a masterpiece, and maybe identifying a murderer or two, we’ll settle the mystery of Luther’s death. And …” She smiled. “And, we’ll have a delicious story to dine out on for the rest of our lives.”

  “It’s the murderer part that bothers me. I don’t want anyone dining on you. Four people have lost their lives over Grottesca.”

  “And maybe it will stop once Grottesca is back in its rightful owner’s hands. You know what, Mac?” She kissed his cheek.

  “What?”

  “We’re finally going to Rome together. And at taxpayer expense.”

  “Well, yes—it is cost-effective.” He couldn’t help but grin.

  “And romantic. You know how sexually charged you become when danger lurks.”

  “I what?”

  They fell back across their open suitcases and kissed for a long time. “Let’s get the packing out of the way,” she said. “The handle on my suitcase is breaking my ribs.”

  Mac’s flight got him and the two MPD detectives into Rome Monday night. They went straight to the Raphael Hotel, where Mac was booked into a room next to the one Annabel would be assigned when she arrived the next day. He didn’t like having separate rooms but bowed to Jordan’s wisdom. He’d been instructed to lay low, order room service, and, in general, act as though he wasn’t there. He had trouble sleeping that night.