“Thanks, Chris. I’ll let you know what I find. Take care.”
Joe hung up the phone and leaned back in the kitchen chair and slowly stroked his chin. So not only did Anthony live in a multi-million dollar luxury condo in Central Park West, but he was the primary beneficiary of a billion dollar trust that owned hundreds of millions in priceless paintings. Besides that, he had been the beneficiary of the trust for over fifty years, and yet Mackenzie was convinced that he was in his thirties. Maybe Mackenzie was just really bad at estimating ages.
He’d have to find out more. They should know more about the signatures that Mackenzie had provided him in a day or two. He’d sent them off to a friend at police headquarters for analysis. He wasn’t sure what they would turn up, but at this point his sixth sense told him there was definitely something odd going on at the Cloisters. Given that his daughter worked there, he wasn’t going to let this kettle whistle for very long.
Chapter 24
Mackenzie sat in a small diner in midtown Manhattan with a tall glass of iced tea on the table and her cell phone to her ear. On the other end, the line rang several times before someone answered.
“Hello.”
“Signor Frantinelli, this is Mackenzie Ferrara from the Cloisters in New York.” She wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, but after weighing the risks, as well as the crazy per minute charges she would be accruing, she decided that it was worth a try.
“Ah, yes, Ms. Ferrara. I’m glad we could connect,” said the man in flawless English highlighted with a distinct Italian accent.
“Thank you for responding to my email and setting up a time to talk.”
“No problem. What would you like to know about Signor Bataglia?”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Well, from what I know, Signor Bataglia started working here at the Ufizzi in 1973. Like many restorers, he came to help after the flood of 1966. There were so many restorers who volunteered their time to help us with the damage that had been done to so many of our paintings.”
“1973? That’s more than forty years ago. Are you sure we’re talking about the same person? Might there be another Anthony Bataglia who worked at the Ufizzi? Maybe his father?” asked Mackenzie skeptically.
“No,” said the man without hesitation, “there was only one Anthony Bataglia that worked for the Ufizzi. I know him well. He was one of the best, if not the best restorer we ever had. His work is amazing, a true artist.”
“How long did he work at the Ufizzi?” probed Mackenzie, still trying to make sense of the situation.
“Let me see, hmm,” he paused while he thought. “Yes, he worked here until about 2003 when he retired. But after several years he asked for a recommendation to volunteer his time to the Cloisters in New York. I asked him if he still wouldn’t rather work here at the Ufizzi, in fact, I actually begged him to come back. But he preferred to go to New York, so of course I wrote him a wonderful letter of introduction.”
“Just out of curiosity, how old would you say that Mr. Bataglia is?
“Well, I have to admit that Signor Bataglia is blessed with a very young face and the body of a runner. Angelic, we would say here, even though I’m sure that sounds overly feminine to American ears. He looks much younger than his age. I would say that he is in his early sixties, perhaps, maybe older, but that’s only because I know how long he worked with us. Is there a problem with Signor Bataglia, Ms. Ferrara?”
“No, no, none whatsoever,” she stammered, not wanting to set off an alarm. “We’re planning on doing a profile on some of the restorers here at the Cloisters and I wanted to get some more background information on him for the article. Please don’t mention anything to him. I want to surprise him with the information I’ve gathered, sort of a ‘this is your life’ type of thing. I’ll send you a copy of the article if it ever comes out. Thank you very much for your time, Signor Frantinelli. If I can ever be of service to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
“Thank you Ms. Ferrara. It is my pleasure. If you find yourself in Florence, please let me know. Ciao.”
“Ciao,” replied Mackenzie.
She hung up the phone and finished writing a few notes on her yellow legal pad. How could this be? Anthony looked like he was in his early to mid-thirties. From what she’d just heard, Anthony would have to be in his mid to late-sixties. Could it be possible that she was that far off in her estimate of his age? That didn’t seem possible. Mick Jagger might be in good shape for a man in his late sixties, but no one would mistake him for a thirty-year-old. Something didn’t make sense. In fact, a lot of things didn’t make sense.
† † †
Joe returned home from a long walk around the local park. He got bored sitting around the house all day, but wasn’t particularly interested in going to the gym. As far as he was concerned, long walks on warm summer days were pretty much all the exercise anyone needed. As he opened the fridge and grabbed a cold can of Budweiser, his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, although he knew it came from a New York City area code.
“Hi, this is Joe,” he answered.
“Hello, detective Ferrara. This is Tom Lawrence, down at forensics.”
“Yes, Tom, thank you for getting back to me.” He took a seat and got out a pad of paper. Octavius jumped up on the kitchen table and started walking back and forth, rubbing his head and torso against Joe’s arms.
“Detective Llewellyn asked me to run some analyses for you on some signatures you provided in digital files. I was the document examiner assigned to analyze them.”
“Thanks, Tom. I’m sorry to have troubled you with this.”
“No problem at all. Of course, as you know it’s more difficult to compare signatures when we don’t have samples of the ink or the paper they were made on. These were particularly challenging because some of them came from what appear to be old paintings. They were very faded. I had to enhance them as much as possible without distorting them.”
As a detective, Joe found forensic analysts to be indispensable and annoying at the same time. They always felt it necessary to explain in excruciating detail everything they had done as part of their analysis. At the end of the day, all Joe wanted to know was what the results were and how confident they were in their findings. But they were doing him the favor so he didn’t push. He sipped his Bud and let Tom explain his craft.
“I ran comparative analyses on four distinct signatures. The results suggest that it’s very likely that these four signatures were all made by the same person. As you know, we likely wouldn’t be able to prove it in court, but I would feel confident supplying my findings to a prosecutor to use as corroborating evidence.”
Joe nodded. “So what you’re telling me is that you are confident that the same person made all four signatures.”
“Yes, sir. Based on my analysis, the odds that the signatures for Berlinghieri, Lippi, Daddi and Bataglia were made by the same individual are over 95 percent. That would meet the scientific standard in terms of this type of evidence. Would you like me to email you my findings?”
“Yes, absolutely. Thank you again, Tom, I really appreciate it.”
“You’re very welcome, sir. It’s my pleasure.”
After providing Tom with his email address, Joe sipped his beer and absentmindedly stroked Octavius’s side while the cat gently purred and stretched his arms in front of his head, opening and closing his paws, grasping at air, “making biscuits” as Joe’s grandma used to call it. Four signatures all matching the same person suggested to him that the same person had painted or at least signed all of the paintings. Why would someone sign paintings they didn’t paint? That didn’t make sense. The fact that the other three artists had been dead for over five hundred years led him to believe that he was dealing with things he was much more familiar with than pre-Renaissance art, namely forgery and fraud.
Chapter 25
Mackenzie could barely concentrate on her work that day. The image of the backw
ards-dotted i had stuck in her head from the moment she saw it sitting there on the signature page. Fortunately, it was a slow day. She asked Simon if she could leave at noon and he didn’t object. After all, she put in so many extra hours most of the time that he pretty much gave her carte blanche with regard to her schedule. She called her father from the parking lot and headed home for an early weekend. He had actually asked her at breakfast if she thought she might be able to get home early that evening. Perhaps he had something in mind as well.
When she walked into the kitchen, her father called to her from the dining room. It looked like a strategy planning center, a war room. Her father had a large white board on a folding stand set up in front of the table, the chairs pushed against the wall. The table was covered with various documents, including the copies of the paintings Mackenzie had made, pictures of the signatures she had taken and a number of other official looking documents that she wasn’t familiar with. What does he know? She hadn’t even told him about the signature and yet he had all of this pulled together. He must know something that she didn’t. She wasn’t sure whether she was excited or scared. Probably a bit of both.
“Hey, Kenz, glad you could make it home early. Thought we’d go through what we know so far, and believe me, there’s a lot to go through. I just brewed a pot of coffee so if you want some, help yourself.”
She scanned the room. “Dad, where did you get the white board?”
He smiled proudly. “Bought it down at that new office supply store. Always liked having these at work, but never thought I’d need one at home. They come in handy for laying out your thoughts, especially when there are a lot of moving parts and you’re working with someone else.”
She still wasn’t sure what all of this meant, but she was happy to see that she wouldn’t have to work it all out on her own. “Sounds like you’ve learned more since we last talked. I’ve got some news to share as well. It’s kind of strange.” She set down her bag and took out her note pad and put it on the table along with the other bits of information.
“Well, let’s get a cup of coffee and start making our way through this. I have to admit that this is one of the strangest cases I’ve ever worked on, and I’ve worked on a bunch of weird ones.” Her father made his way to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee for both himself and Mackenzie. They both took it black.
She hadn’t seen her father like this in over a year, maybe more than that. He’d been putzing around the house ever since he retired, trying to find ways to stay busy. She’d actually never seen her father in the heat of battle. He usually kept that side of himself at the office. She could see that the admiral was back at the helm and he liked the way that the smooth, worn handle of the ship’s wheel felt in his calloused hands.
“Dad, it’s not really a case. There hasn’t been any crime committed, at least to my knowledge,” Mackenzie protested, somewhat half-heartedly.
“Listen,” her father responded, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and there’s a hell of a lot of smoke billowing out of the place you work, and most of it seems to be coming from this Anthony Bataglia character. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that we’ve got something here that goes way beyond just some strange coincidences.”
Mackenzie sat down in one of the chairs facing the white board and sipped her coffee. Even in the summer, she and her father always drank hot coffee. Never seemed out of place to either one of them. She imagined that he built up his coffee drinking habit working twelve-hour days as a detective.
“I hate to think that Anthony is involved in anything illegal. He just doesn’t seem to be that type of person.”
“Well, let’s not jump to any conclusions one way or another,” her father cautioned. “The way to proceed here is to lay out everything we know and then start putting the pieces together.”
He proceeded to share with her what he had learned about Anthony and the di Bernardi Foundation. He also presented her with the results of the forensic analysis, which he had printed out. For her part, she shared what she had gathered about Anthony’s role at the Ufizzi, specifically the timeframe that would make him at least sixty years old, which seemed impossible.
“I’ve got something else to share with you. I just finished pulling it together this morning.” Her father sat down and sipped his coffee while Mackenzie went to the white board and started making notes while she talked.
“Over the past two weeks I pulled every piece of information I could find on any restoration where Anthony was the lead restorer. He is nothing if not prolific. Now, depending on the severity of the damage to the original work of art, a good restorer can work on maybe four to five restorations a year. Some restorations take six months. Some are completed in less than a month, although those are rare.” She paused, “Over the past seventeen years, Anthony was the lead restorer on 112 works of art. That is an enormous body of work, especially for someone in his mid-thirties. If we assume that he’s thirty-five years old, that would mean that he’s been doing almost seven a year since he was eighteen! That’s unheard of!”
Her father listened intently, scribbling some notes on a pad of paper in front of him.
“Isn’t it unusual for someone to be able to do restorations at such an early age?” he asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” she responded. “At least in the U.S., before anyone would let you work on the restoration of a major work of art, especially as the lead restorer, you would have had to complete a masters in fine arts and have about two years working as an assistant restorer. If you do the math, that means that most people would start working as lead restorers in their mid-to-late twenties, assuming everything went smoothly.” She paused. “Clearly, Anthony was flagged at an early age as an impresario, like a fourteen-year-old chess grand master. But it’s extremely rare. My guess is that there are more teenage chess grand masters in the world than teenage lead art restorers. Maybe it’s different in Italy. Up until very recently the Europeans focused more on apprenticeships than on formal education, but that doesn’t mean they become lead restorers any faster.
“112 restorations over a seventeen year period is a lot. But what’s really strange is that all of them cover only eight artists: Berlinghiero Berlinghieri, Bonaventura Berlinghieri, Marco Berlinghieri, Giotto di Bondone, Bernardo Daddi, Taddeo Gaddi, Fra. Lippi and Filippino Lippi. Now, I know that he specializes in Italian Renaissance artists, but still, it’s a bit odd that you work on almost seven restorations a year for almost twenty years and you’ve only touched the work of eight artists. I casually asked some of the other restorers at the Cloisters how many artists they had worked on and most of them couldn’t even give me a number. Most sort of shrugged and said, ‘a couple dozen or so, maybe more.’
“So, just for giggles, I looked a couple of them up. Here’s what I found: Charles van Arden has been restoring art, mostly reliquary pieces, some manuscripts, etc., for over twenty-five years. During that time he has worked on over ninety-four pieces, or about four a year, and has worked on art from over eighty-three different artists. He’s only worked on the same artists more than once four times, in twenty-five years!
“Ariadne Estrada has been restoring art for fifteen years and has been a senior or lead restorer for just over ten. During that time period, she was lead restorer on thirty-six artworks, or slightly less than four per year. She also does a lot of authentication work so that number might be a bit of an underestimate of her capacity. She has worked with twenty-eight different artists during that time and has worked on artwork by the same artist more than once four times.
“Now that may be strange, but at the same time it may just be that he prefers to specialize in works that range between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in Italy, and mostly in and around Florence. I’m not sure.”
She set down her marker and continued. “The other thing is that I haven’t been able to find out anything about his training. When I asked him about it, he’s been very evasive, or, more appropriately, vague. He usually
says something like, ‘Oh, I picked it up here and there. Learned by watching,’ or something to that effect.”
“Did you ever ask him who he watched?” asked her father.
“Once, during lunch, I asked him that. He shrugged it off with, ‘There were many people who helped me out early on. Too many to name, really.’ Then he redirected the conversation to some aspect of our restoration, like, ‘Let’s take another look at how our paint has set. I’m afraid we may have added more than we needed. More than the artist had intended originally. I’m concerned that we may see some cracking.’” She smiled to herself as she remembered that interaction.
“At first I had been really concerned and looked hard for flaws. I never found them. His technique is flawless. He never used too much or too little of anything. I pretty much realized it was his way of saying that he didn’t want to talk about something. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. After all, we all have things we’d rather not talk about. Now I’m not sure if there might be something more to it.”
“I think there is a lot more to it,” agreed her father. “But it’s probably a good idea not to push him too hard, at least not directly.” He paused, took a sip of coffee, and then stood up and took the marker from Mackenzie and started writing on the white board. Octavius methodically made his way in from the kitchen, paused briefly as he looked up at Mackenzie and gave a “meow” before jumping onto one of the padded chairs against the wall. He proceeded to clean himself, sitting with one back leg straight in the air.
“Okay, let’s summarize the key things that we know so far,” Joe said.
“First, let’s start with the inconsistencies of his real age. From what you’ve said, he looks like he’s in his early to mid-thirties. But we have direct evidence from the guy at the Ufizzi that he, or at least someone named Anthony Bataglia, worked there starting in 1973. That was thirty-six years ago. If you assume that he started working there when he was eighteen, which would be very young, as you said, then he would be about fifty-four. You said that the director thought that he would be about sixty or so now, which would fit with the timeline. So no matter how you slice it, we have a man who looks at least thirty years younger than he should. That should be red flag number one.” He took out a red marker and wrote AGE DOESN’T MATCH in red letters in the top left corner of the white board, and circled it.
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