Murder at the National Gallery (26 page)

Before leaving Houston’s, Mason asked Julian for his mother’s address in Paris.

“Why?” Julian asked.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had any contact with her. I thought it might be nice to write a letter, tell her how well you’re doing, and let her know I approve in principle of your move to Paris.”

“I think I have it here.” He pulled a crumpled letter from the pocket of his jeans that bore Juliana’s address. Mason dutifully copied it on a napkin and put it in his jacket pocket.

“Drive you home, Julian?” Mason suddenly felt a flood of warmth for his son.

“No. I’ll walk.”

“As you wish.”

Once on the street, Mason clumsily attempted to hug his son, but Julian stiffened. “Find that notice of your court date, Julian. You don’t want any trouble.”

“Yeah.”

Luther watched his son walk away, so tall and full of swagger.
Yes, he thought, go to Paris to study and be with your mother. Settle there and start to establish yourself in that city with such a rich history of art. Where you can breathe it in. I will help with more money than even you expect from me
.

Without warning, he began to weep. He quickly walked, embarrassed, to his car.

“Annabel? Steve Jordan. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, but close. Mac and I are just getting ready for bed.”

It was almost midnight. They’d been up talking about many things, including the dispatch to Carole Aprile from the Rome Embassy.

Annabel wondered whether Jordan had called to discuss some aspect of the sting in which she’d agreed to participate. She didn’t want to have that conversation with Mac in the room.

But that wasn’t on the art-squad chief’s mind. “We found your Mr. Cedras,” he said.

Annabel sat up straight on the couch. “You did? How?”

“Not a very pretty story, Annabel. Looks like the guy is more deranged than we figured. He used his hammer again, but this time it wasn’t on a clay head. It was the real thing.”

Annabel gasped.

“He found his ex-wife living in Adams Morgan. Beat her to death with that hammer. Neighbors called the police. When they got there he was sitting next to her body crying, the hammer in his hands.”

“Oh, my God,” Annabel said.

“What’s wrong?” Mac asked, leaving his chair.

“Hold on, Steve.” She whispered to Mac what Jordan had just told her.

“What a horrible ending to the story,” Annabel said into the phone.

“Yeah,” said Jordan. “Unfortunately, they end up that way too many times. When I get to see him tomorrow I’ll ask about the Tlatilco.”

“The Tlatilco sounds irrelevant now,” she said.

“I know what you mean. But maybe it will help us put together a more complete picture of where this guy is coming from. Anyway, just thought you’d want to know.”

“I appreciate the call.”

She gave Mac a more complete accounting of the conversation once she’d hung up.

“All I can say is I’m glad he took it out on your clay figure instead of you.”

“What pushes somebody like that over the edge, Mac? That line we all walk between sanity and insanity.”

Mac shrugged, stood. “I think it’s more a matter of how long you stay on the other side once pushed.”

And how many people you annoy once you’re there, thought Annabel.

Until setting off on this Caravaggio odyssey, Luther Mason had always been a sleeper. No matter what turmoil surrounded him, he was able to sleep peacefully through the night.

Not this night. Sleep came in fits and starts. He gave it up at five Wednesday morning, showered, dressed in a gray tweed jacket, checkered shirt, yellow knit tie, slacks, and his favorite Rockport walking shoes, had breakfast, and was in his office in the East Building before seven.

This was the day
Grottesca
would be hung.

He checked with Design and Exhibition for the time the painting would be positioned on the wall. Nine-thirty, he was told.

He tried to pass the time handling paperwork, but he was preoccupied with other thoughts. Living on Hydra. Franco del Brasco.
Time
magazine. The ex-Father Pasquale Giocondi. Lynn Marshall. Julian.

He rode the interior moving walkway to the West Building and stepped into the gallery in which Caravaggio would be exhibited.
Grottesca
leaned against the west wall; two staffers from Conservation flanked it. Its frame was the simple one created by the New York framer.

Mason was transfixed as he stared at the painting, wanting to scoop it up and run.

“A beauty, isn’t it, Mr. Mason?” a workman said.

“Yes. Oh God, yes. It is beautiful. Beyond description. He
was the most revolutionary artist of his time, you know. Completely broke from tradition. No idealizing man and religion for Caravaggio. Everything was so dark and urgent, so real. Rembrandt was profoundly influenced by him. He—” Realizing he was giving the workman one of his lectures on Caravaggio, Mason smiled and said, “Yes, it’s beautiful. Beyond description.”

“I still think a more elaborate frame would serve it better.”

Mason turned to face Don Fechter, who’d been eavesdropping.

“Don’t you agree, Luther?”

Luther returned his attention to the painting and squinted. He used his hand to create an imaginary box around it, and said without looking back at Fechter, “More elaborate? No, I think not. That’s the usual Italian gallery approach. This is the perfect frame for it, Donald. We see the painting’s strength, not the frame’s.”

Fechter stepped away as Court Whitney, wearing a new double-breasted gray suit tailored for him in London, lightly patted Luther on the back. “I knew I’d find you here,” he said. “Excited?”

“Of course. This is a great moment for me. And for you and the National Gallery.”

Luther, Whitney, Fechter, and others stood back as
Grottesca
was positioned in its place of honor on the wall. Luther saw now that he would have preferred it an inch lower, but those details had been painstakingly worked out earlier, the wall marked a week ago.

“Lunch?” Whitney asked as he and Luther headed back to the East Building.

“Love to, Court, but I have other plans. Perhaps another day. How is the breakfast shaping up for Friday?”

“Splendid. The biggest press turnout we’ve ever had for an opening.”

“That’s gratifying,” Luther said.

Whitney stopped them before passing through glass doors leading to the ground-floor administrative offices’ reception area. “I must tell you, Luther, that I had grave reservations
about the
Grottesca
from the beginning. The unusual circumstances of finding it. The old priest. Your need to maintain secrecy, to use your own unnamed conservator. All of it. But I see now that everything you did was carefully thought out. A method to your madness.” He grinned broadly. “Not only are you a curator without peer, Luther, you’re a born public relations man. A real P. T. Barnum. All I can say is, well done! Bravo!”

Mason was astonished at how touched he was hearing the director’s kind words. He said, “Your confidence in me means a great deal, Court. Thank you.”

“Well, let’s get upstairs and see what last-minute problems might have reared their ugly heads.”

Mason had no sooner settled in his office than Lynn Marshall poked her head in. “Is it hung?” she asked.

“Yes. It looks wonderful.”

“I’m sure it does. Luther, I—”

“I know what you’re about to say, Lynn, but it isn’t necessary. I would like to sit down with you tomorrow and have a long talk. Are you free for lunch?”

“I suppose so. But if you’re not ready to—”

Luther held up his hand. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Lunch tomorrow. I have something important to tell you. In the meantime, I would like a complete status report on our plans for returning
Grottesca
to Italy next month. Please have it on my desk by ten tomorrow morning.”

“Including what?”

“Including everything. Logistics, packing, transportation, clearances, diplomatic plans, the reception in Italy. Whatever you can pull together.”

“All right.”

At noon, Mason drove home. Ten minutes later the doorman buzzed. “A man from a moving company down here to see you, Mr. Mason.”

“Good. Send him up.”

“You aren’t planning to—?”

“Move?” Luther laughed. “No, Harry. Just planning to ship
some nice paintings to my mother in Indiana. I’m running out of wall space.”

The estimator from the moving company was a short, stocky young man wearing a black suit that was too tight for his body, who managed to be both ingratiating and condescending at once. Mason decided he’d sold used cars before going to work for the movers.

“Well, Mr. Mason, planning to move to Paris, huh?”

“I’m interested in what it will cost to ship everything from this apartment to Paris, France. I’m especially concerned about my paintings. I would want assurances that they would be packed in such a way that the chances of harm to them would be minimal. No. Nonexistent.”

The young man slapped Mason’s arm. Actually slapped his arm. “You bet,” he said. “N-o-o problem.”

“Follow me,” Mason said, leading him to the bedroom at the rear of the apartment. The estimator carried a clipboard holding a form with multiple lines to fill in, and boxes to check.

“Are these famous paintings?” the estimator asked, looking at the art hanging in the bedroom.

“They are worth some money. Please, I must get back to work. Could you hurry a bit?”

“Sure. Only I want to do the right kind of job for you. We’re not like other moving companies. They give you a lowball and then hold you up for more at the end. We pride ourselves on—”

Mason left him in the bedroom and went to the kitchen, where he took deep breaths and told himself to ignore the aggravation. Just get through it as quickly as possible.

A half hour later, the young man smartly removed the top copy of what he’d been filling out and handed it to Luther, snapping it like men on sidewalks handing out leaflets. “An honest price, Mr. Mason. A fair price. You can get another twenty moving companies to give you estimates. Most of them will come in lower and then jack you up at the end. Blackmail you, really. Not deliver your things until you pay up. You see, we’ve been in business for over thirty years and—”

“I am sure your company is an excellent one,” Mason said,
gently placing his fingers on the man’s back and guiding him to the door. “Your estimate sounds just right to me. I’ll need a few days to make final plans. I’ll call you then.”

“Better book us now,” the estimator said. “This is a busy time of year. I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“Good day, sir.”

That night, Mason brought in Chinese food, put on a CD of Haydn’s Symphonies No. 60, “Il Distratto,” and No. 91 by his favorite chamber orchestra, Orpheus, and wrote a series of letters.