Murder at the National Gallery (32 page)

“Did Luther know he was going to be here?” Annabel asked.

“Beats me. I’m just glad I work in conservation. These curator types can get a little too flaky for my taste.”

Annabel laughed quietly.

“You should have seen Luther this past month,” Fechter said. “Really acted strange. Bizarre.”

“Well, Caravaggio, and especially
Grottesca
, mean an awful lot to him,” Annabel said.

“I know,” said Fechter. “But there’s a difference between liking something and becoming maniacal about it. I guess I shouldn’t say that. I really do like Luther. Beneath that neurotic exterior is a very nice man. And smart. I never doubted that what he said to Spagnola at that conference was on the money. Excuse me, Annabel. I want to get that crate put back together before it ends up firewood in somebody’s house. Cost a bundle to make it. Hopefully we’ll get to use it again.”

On the bus trip back to Rome, Annabel asked, “Where’s Luther?”

“He went with Scott Pims in the limo,” a National Gallery staffer replied. “Said he had to get back to Rome right away. He sure seemed upset.”

Originally, Annabel had planned to fly to Washington the next day. But once back in Rome, she decided to catch a flight that night. She missed Mac, missed Rufus, missed her home.

The following morning, a jet-lagged Annabel and Mac sat in their kitchen reading
The Washington Post
. A small story appeared in the Style Section about the return of
Grottesca
to Ravello, illustrated with a photograph taken inside the church of Luther Mason shaking hands with Ravello’s beaming mayor.

“Did you ever see Mason again in Rome?” Mac asked.

Annabel shook her head. “He just disappeared along with Scott Pims.”

“You seem worried.”

“That business with the Vatican curator, Spagnola, or something, really upset him.”

“You say they don’t like each other.”

“According to Don Fechter. It sure looked that way to me. I must call Carole this morning, tell her how it went.”

“Later,” Mac said, coming around behind, wrapping his arms about her, and allowing his hands to wander into the folds of her robe.

“A little amorous for so early in the morning, aren’t you?” Annabel asked, jet lag falling away.

“I missed you,” he said. “By the way, I stopped in to see Susan Shevlin. She can get us some wonderful deals on a trip to Italy. I left a note on your desk with dates that are good for me. If any of them match up with your schedule, I’ll book it.”

“Wonderful,” said Annabel, pushing back her chair, which pushed him back, too. She stood, turned, wrapped her arms about his neck, and kissed him hard on the mouth. “You once asked me to come up to see your tattoos. Is the offer still good?”

“You bet it is, lady. Sure you’re not too tired from your flight?”

“There’s always time for sleep.”

If timing
is
everything, Mac and Annabel had lost their touch, literally and figuratively. The ringing telephone saw to that. “Let it ring,” Mac said.

“I can’t,” Annabel said.

“Sure you can.”

“I’ll be quick.”

“Not quick enough.”

“Hello, Carole. You beat me to it. I was about to call you.”

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Oh, no. We’re just—talking. I wanted to give you a run-down on how things went in Ravello.”

“That’s why I’m calling—to get your view of what happened.”

Annabel frowned. To get her view of “what happened”? “What happened?” she asked.

“You haven’t heard, of course. You just got back. Can you be here in an hour?”

“At your house?”

“Yes.”

Annabel glanced at Mac. “I can be there,” she said.

“Good. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Something’s wrong,” Annabel said after hanging up.

Mac looked up from his magazine and grinned. “I noticed,” he said, not referring to his wife’s phone conversation.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she said, slipping into a robe.

“I think you were right,” he said.

“About what?”

“About there being a Caravaggio curse.”

She laughed, dropped the robe to her feet—he gasped audibly—and got back in bed. Although Mr. and Mrs. Smith preferred their lovemaking to be leisurely, both were adept at responding to a sense of urgency.

An hour later Annabel arrived at the Naval Observatory, home of Vice President and Mrs. Joseph Aprile. To her surprise, Court Whitney was also there.

“Thanks for coming, Annabel,” Carole said after they’d settled in her office.

“What’s wrong?” Annabel asked.

Whitney handed Annabel a memorandum. The words
SECRET—CONFIDENTIAL
were written in big letters across the top. It was from Italy’s minister of culture, Alberto Betti, and was addressed to Whitney at the National Gallery. Annabel read:

Annabel dropped it on the desk and looked to Whitney. “It refers to an accompanying letter,” she said.

Whitney answered by handing her a longer document, addressed to Betti:

“My God,” was all Annabel could muster.

“Court brought these with him after calling,” said Carole. “I suggested we keep the use of fax machines to a minimum.”

“That’s prudent,” Annabel said. To Whitney: “What’s your read on this?”

“I have to assume a large mistake has been made, that Spagnola is wrong in his assertion. Still, it’s bothersome, an unneeded complication.”

“I told Court,” said Carole, “that the validation process
Grottesca
was put through by his staff would certainly rule out Mr. Spagnola’s contentions. Adding weight to that are Luther Mason’s credentials and scholarship.”

“What’s the next step?” Annabel asked.

Whitney replied, “I’m inviting Spagnola to come to Washington to discuss it. I’m sure once he does, he’ll realize he’s making a mistake.”

“I’d like you to attend such a meeting, Annabel,” Carole said. “That is, if you can.”

“I’ll make a point of being available. Any idea when he’ll arrive, Court?”

“No.”

“Did you pick up any hints in Ravello, Annabel, that all isn’t well there? Did you meet Mr. Spagnola?”

“No and no. Spagnola was pointed out to me by Don Fechter. He made a show of examining
Grottesca
in the church with a magnifying glass.”

Whitney snickered. “Sherlock Holmes.”

Annabel smiled. “There was an element of that. Hints that something might be wrong? Luther seemed upset. He left our group without a word and went back to Rome with Scott Pims and his crew.”

“Why?” Whitney asked.

“I have no idea. But he and Mr. Spagnola are not friendly, according to Don Fechter.”

“If they weren’t friends before, they won’t be now,” said Whitney.

“Have you spoken with Luther?” Annabel asked Whitney.

“Briefly. He’s at home. I asked him to come in this afternoon.”

“Want me to be there?” Annabel asked both Carole and Whitney. Carole nodded but Whitney said, “No. Better I go over this with Luther alone. I’ll report back as soon as I have.”

Annabel and Carole lingered in the office after Whitney left. “Level with me, Annabel,” the VP’s wife said. “Can you conceive of any way the original
Grottesca
might not have made it back to Italy?”

Annabel shook her head. “Not unless the world’s greatest art forger went to work in the National Gallery while it hung there.”

But on the way to her Georgetown gallery, Annabel had to
mentally add to her answer: Or unless the forger made a copy
before
it ever got to the National Gallery.

Luther had fled Ravello with Pims rather than return to Rome on the bus because he felt he might disintegrate on the spot. Crumble into a pile of smoldering cinereous flakes.
“And your quaint honor turns to dust. And into ashes all my lust.”

Was that his fate?
he thought, as he tried to talk himself out of his agitated state. It was only normal to be anxious. What man wouldn’t be? The event was significant enough to put anyone on edge, even if it had been the authentic
Grottesca
delivered to Ravello that morning.

But a forgery was being embraced and celebrated. Would it be discovered? Would he, Luther Mason, esteemed and respected senior curator of the National Gallery of Art—
America’s Museum
—be led away in handcuffs by Italian police, tarnished and disgraced, a pathetic criminal doomed to a life in a dank prison, the subject of snide articles in the art magazines? That possibility, as remote as he intellectually knew it was, went through him that morning like a diuretic cocktail.

The imagery of how he might end up was bad enough: If all he had to fear was fear itself, fear was doing a good job.

The reality had set in when he arrived in Ravello.

As the bus pulled into the piazza, Luther saw the man in the red beret and black raincoat, a cigarette dangling from his mouth—the same man who’d followed him in Rome. Who was he?

Luther decided before exiting the bus that he would confront him. But by the time he got off, the man had disappeared. Luther searched for him in the crowd, in the church. Vanished. Just as well. What if it was Red Beret’s mission to kill him? Better to stay as far away as possible. Stick with crowds. Control yourself, Luther. Think! Trust reason, not emotion.

And then Spagnola showed up. Bastard! A hack. A scholar wannabe with his silly hat and a magnifying glass to demonstrate authority. What if he suddenly shouted, “It’s a fake! A fraud has been committed and this is the criminal!” Fingers
pointed at Luther. Police. The arrest. The pictures in the newspapers.

Once again, Luther force-fed his denial system. The Saison copy was too perfect for someone with Spagnola’s limited talent to spot as a forgery. Unless, of course Spagnola knew something. Had been tipped. By whom? The old mafioso, Sensi? One of Sensi’s thugs? Or someone in Franco del Brasco’s employ?

Luther was proud of himself for the aplomb with which he’d handled his short speech and the unveiling inside the church, Spagnola’s distasteful display be damned.

But to have to ride back to Rome on the bus and sustain a façade of normalcy was asking too much.

The presence of the crew members in the limo precluded any sustained conversation with Pims, so they passed the time with small talk. But when the limo pulled up in front of the Valadier Hotel, Pims accompanied Luther inside.

“What’s wrong?” the jocular Pims asked. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m being followed.”

“Oh? By whom?”

“I don’t know. His name I don’t know. He was in Rome, then this morning in Ravello. Tall, black raincoat, red beret.”

Pims looked at him like a father catching a son in a lie. “Come now, Luther, you are not yourself. A tall man in a red beret? The Cold War is over.”

“Damn it, Scott, I’m not paranoid! And Spagnola being there. What if he—?”

“He won’t. Saison’s work will stand up. It will take a month of laboratory testing, and even that won’t be definitive. By that time you’ll be basking on a beach in—have you decided yet where to go?”

“Greece, I think. I need time to think.”

“At times a dangerous luxury for you, Luther. How long will you stay here?”

“I don’t know.”

“I would stay with you, but I must be in New York
tomorrow. Call me when you arrive. And calm down, for God’s sake. The worst is over.”

Mason checked in and sat alone on the balcony overlooking the Borghese. But after a few hours of aimless soul-searching, he checked out, to the surprise of the clerk who had just greeted him, and went to the airport in time to catch a flight to New York. The Amtrak train returned him to Washington.

The director was standing on his terrace looking out over the Capitol when Mason entered his office. “Court?” Mason said through the open sliding glass doors.

Whitney turned, his face as hard as his voice had been on the phone. He stepped through the open doors and went to a round table that served as his desk. On it were several sheets of paper. “Look at these,” Whitney said, returning to the terrace.

Mason was almost afraid to pick them up, as though to actually read the words would seal his fate. He glanced at Whitney, then slowly picked up the first of the pages. It had come from Alberto Betti.