Turned to Stone (34 page)

49

December 2013—Madrid

By eleven in the morning, the increase from the previous night’s near-freezing temperatures made cycling around Complutense University’s main auditorium bearable. At least, that was what Laura Rodríguez kept telling herself. She wanted to keep her vow to lead a healthy life, but this weather was enough to make her want to put the whole idea on hold until spring.

Laura would have preferred to stay warm and cozy in her office, but she was determined to continue with her fitness regime, and so—dressed in a windbreaker, thermal cycling pants, and earmuffs—she pedaled along the red track that encircled the sports field. When she’d completed a lap and a half, she noticed another cyclist riding beside her. Despite his helmet and polarized sunglasses, she recognized the attractive face of Inspector Víctor Giner.

“Do you mind if I join you?” he asked in a polite voice.

“Not at all. But I’m nearly two laps ahead.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch up.”

They pedaled together in silence, and, at the end of her tenth lap, Laura suggested they get a coffee at the
Arcadia
office. He gladly accepted and, without making the slightest effort to make up the extra two laps, followed Laura to the nearby CHR building. After they’d locked up their bicycles and Laura had made the coffee, she sat down at her desk and Giner took a seat opposite her.

“I didn’t have a chance to speak to you after the business in Sardinia,” he said.

“Are you going to give me a lecture? Or arrest me?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. I wanted to congratulate you on having such an extraordinary contributor. If Azcárate and his friends hadn’t kept Angelo Carrera’s daughter and nephew busy, Carrera would have escaped.”

“You should meet Jaime.”

“I’d like that. Officer Ezquerra told me about him. He says he’s nuts.”

“That’s one way of putting it. I like to say he follows his own rules.”

“That isn’t always a good thing, Laura. This time he was lucky, but next time things could turn out much worse.”

“I think he’s aware of that.”

“I still admire him for it.” Giner’s expression darkened. “I’m sorry about what happened to Roberto Barrero. He took some big risks, too.”

“They both knew what they were doing.”

“Too much risk to take for a legend.”

“Again: you don’t know Jaime.” Laura sipped her coffee and contemplated the winter scene outside her window. “And your crew? I imagine there’s a lot of work left for you to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, even though I’ve heard the damn story from just about every angle, there are still a lot of loose ends. Like, why did those people want to kill Jaime in El Burgo de Osma? He hadn’t even been hired by the EHU yet.”

“He hadn’t, but Vicente Amatriaín had. In their confessions to the Italian police, Angelo Carrera and his daughter explained that the family had been on Amatriaín’s tail for some time.” He paused. “The
real
Amatriaín, I mean. Especially since he’d started following the trail of the Medusa. Rosa Mazi, who was following Amatriaín—the
phony
Amatriaín, at that point—saw him talking to Jaime Azcárate and figured he was one of Amatriaín’s contacts. That’s why she tried to eliminate him.”

“But I heard Jaime found a copy of his essay in the criminals’ van.”

“It was there because the Carreras had a double mission. First, they were going to get rid of Amatriaín, and from there they planned to immediately travel to Madrid in search of Paloma Blasco’s research. Angelo Carrera knew that the essay was hers, so he gave his daughter and nephew a copy of the journal.”

“He was very shrewd, this Angelo.”

“He had to be. He and his family had been smuggling stolen goods right under our noses for years.” Giner cleared his throat. “They’re the direct heirs to the Pole’s ring. Even though they never worked together closely, the Carreras’ criminal operations were on a par with those of the legendary organization. But there was one seemingly unimportant, but in fact absolutely brilliant, difference.”

“What?” Laura asked.

“The mastermind of one group’s operations was dead.”

“Angelo Carrera.”

“It was all meticulously planned over a period of years. The Carreras had always dealt in stolen artifacts, but at first it was on a very small scale. They rarely got their hands dirty. When Carrera discovered that Paloma Blasco was paying so much attention to the Medusa at the Leoni Antique Center, he decided to look more closely at both Paloma and the Medusa. Then he found out about the legend of the blood and realized that he could be looking at the art deal of the century. He didn’t want to run the risk of stealing the sculpture from the gallery, so he bought it for his daughter’s museum and then later snatched it back.

“Not long after that, Nascimbene tried to murder him, an attempt that left him paralyzed but also gave him the opportunity to run his operations from the darkest shadow that exists: the grave. It was a brilliant move. No one could suspect a dead man. He locked himself in his luxurious apartment, where his only company was a maid who looked after him, and he began to control the operation from there.”

“How could he do that?”

“He was in constant contact with his two children and nephew. Angelo had ordered them not to contact him directly under any circumstances. They spoke to him through a communication link to the family yacht. Here’s an example of the old man’s personality for you: he spoke to his son and daughter through an oil portrait that portrayed him as young and brimming with health.”

“Was the yacht searched?”

“Yes, and just like at the gallery and Rosa’s apartment, there was nothing much there to find. I must admit, it was another brilliant strategy. If the police had suspected any of the Carreras and searched the yacht, they would have nothing but a few decorative pieces that the family acquired legitimately. No one could have imagined that the stolen artwork was stashed in the deceased Signor Carrera’s abandoned apartment, which had been registered under a false business name.”

“Well, it occurred to Jaime,” Laura said. “The gallery was the perfect front.”

“True. A neighbor even said that he’d once helped Rosa unload a shipment of paintings and carry them up to the apartment. Who would have suspected it was anything but a legitimate gallery business?”

“Have the police questioned Rosa?”

“They certainly have. The poor woman was a mess and quickly confessed everything. She had wanted to leave the organization and devote herself to the gallery and to starting an art school with her fiancé, but her father’s emotional blackmail was too powerful. She also admitted that Dr. Galliano was their organization’s best customer.”

“I guess he was willing to pay a tidy sum for the Medusa.”

“You can’t even imagine. Galliano is fanatical about Greek mythology, particularly all things medical. His collection includes sculptures of Apollo, Asclepius and his sons Machaon and Podaleirio, the centaur Chiron . . . all the mythological gods. When he heard about the existence of a bust of Medusa referred to in the
Chronicle of Asclepius
, he went crazy with desire. Of course, Carrera just saw opportunity—and money.”

“And now he’ll be seeing prison bars.” Laura turned to the window and looked outside just as it began to snow.

50

El Burgo de Osma

The giant polychrome wooden Christ by Juan de Juni looked down on the visitors as they advanced along the side nave, stopped to gaze at the series of medieval panels adorning the broad aisle, and then continued in the direction of the Baroque chapel that contained paintings and sculptures from three centuries later. The
Ars Homini
exhibition was running like clockwork. Hordes of visitors took the same route day after day, always stopping in front of the same pieces. All of the tourists, regardless of their nationality, seemed cut from the same cloth.

If the wooden Christ were able to think and see, it would have noticed that two visitors stood out from the rest. The man was tall and walked with a slight stoop, and his arm was draped around a woman slightly shorter than him. Their faces looked like ones from a Greek tragedy.

The couple progressed at a snail’s pace through the cathedral, examining each painting with equal interest and diligence. Though they looked like people who had suffered a lot, they seemed happy despite whatever ordeal had befallen them. At one point he whispered something into her ear, and she laughed. Then she held him gently by the neck and kissed his lips.

Jaime Azcárate thought about how much his life had changed since the last time he was in El Burgo de Osma. That time, he’d been alone, he’d been unable to get into the cathedral, and he had almost been frozen alive. Now he was enjoying the exhibition in the arms of a woman he never expected to see again, much less under such affectionate circumstances. Their recent experiences had been so intense that, though two months had passed, neither of them had yet fully recovered.

Medusa hadn’t fared so well. Jaime was present when the bust was provisionally taken into storage at Cagliari’s National Archeological Museum, and he’d witnessed the experts’ expressions of disgust as they examined the shattered marble and their surprise when they discovered a hidden mechanism that activated a small, round cavity whose purpose remained a mystery. After it had been carefully restored—the bullet hole and the damage Jaime wrought had left it virtually unrecognizable—the bust was returned to the museum in Verona, but there was much ongoing debate about its future.

But Jaime and Paloma gave all this little thought. After all they’d been through, what mattered most to them was the fact they were together again.

Newspapers and tabloids had immediately spread the news about the Medusa, and the weeklies published lengthy stories about every phase of the adventure from Paloma’s initial discovery to the events at the Cassiopeia Gallery. Due to the dubious ethics involved in the operation, some details had to be concealed or altered—a feat accomplished through the long arm of Herbert Monfort, the EHU man who’d planned the operation and was indebted to the CHR for his organization’s part in how the tragic events had unfolded.

Arcadia
published a full exposé, written by Jaime Azcárate, entitled “Turned to Stone,” which was a huge success in both its print and digital versions. Paloma, meanwhile, drew up an exhaustive study recounting the more scientific and scholarly aspects of the case: the true origin of the sculpture and the subsequent fraud committed by Bernini’s disciple, Andrea Bolgi. The publication of her essay in several national and international journals was a defining moment for her as a historian. The legend of Medusa’s blood and the statue’s curse also attracted more fanciful minds, extending her essay’s success beyond academic circles and earning it a featured place in everyday conversations and TV chat shows for almost a month.

All Jaime and Paloma wanted now, however, was to enjoy a few days of peace—together, if at all possible. That was why they’d escaped to El Burgo de Osma to see the exhibition. In a week, Jaime had to be back at
Arcadia
headquarters to prepare the next issue, and Paloma would take up her new post as deputy director of research and conservation at the Prado Museum. Everything had changed. Medusa had changed them.

After seeing the exhibition, they stopped for a coffee near the cathedral and then, feeling no rush, slowly strolled back to the hotel. When they got to their room, Paloma’s cell phone rang, and she excused herself to take the call.

Five minutes later, when she’d hung up, Jaime asked, “Is he walking?”

“Not yet. Amanda says he can almost eat without help, but he keeps trying to do more than he should, and it’s slowing down his recovery. That friend of yours is pigheaded.”

“He sure is. Though I’m sure he’s thrilled to have Amanda looking after him. How’s she taking it?”

“She’s delighted. She liked him immediately when you introduced them, and she’s happy to be able to repay him for saving her son. Roberto was extremely lucky. When I saw him lying there, I honestly didn’t think he’d live to tell the tale.”

“It was a pretty small bullet to be taking on all that flesh. He’ll never go on a diet now.”

“He’s a superhero. He can do whatever he wants.”

The comment amused Jaime; he could afford to laugh now. He hadn’t thought Roberto would make it, either. If Roberto had died, Jaime’s life and work would never have been the same. In fact, they still wouldn’t be the same; Roberto’s doctors weren’t sure Roberto would ever lead a normal life again. At the very least, he would have to stop playing at being Batman.

Mercifully, the Cassiopeia Gallery’s neighbors had reported hearing gunshots, and the police and ambulance had shown up just in time. They’d quickly extracted Roberto from the scene and taken him to the nearest hospital, where doctors removed the bullet and stabilized him. He’d lost a lot of blood and suffered severe tissue damage, but no vital organs had been affected, and he responded well to the hemostatic gauzes, antibiotics, and blood transfusion with which he was treated.

All this had taught Jaime a valuable lesson: superheroes, as tough as they might seem, were vulnerable, too. It was a lesson that, given his tendency to frequently risk his own neck, he would do well to etch into his mind.

Jaime sat on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling. He felt exhausted but content. “This is where it all began.”

Paloma sat beside him and stroked his chest under his shirt. “Yeah, but this time the story will have a very different ending. Hopefully, one with no curses.”

“Definitely no curses.” Jaime pushed aside the throw pillows on the bed and looked into Paloma’s honey-colored eyes. “I was thinking this might be a good time to do something I should have done years ago.”

“What’s that?”

Jaime gave her a timid smile. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Introduce you to my mother. I know she’d love to meet you.”

Paloma burst into laughter, tipping her head back. Around her neck was a silver chain, and at the end of the chain was a rock-crystal vial, no larger than a pearl, filled with pink liquid.