“Is the collector of stolen goods more or less culpable than the thief?”
Darius Masoud
I left Anna at the museum talking to the chatty young docent Crystal, who had just come back on duty, and met Dan O’Malley in the lobby of Gray’s offices. The building had likely been a bank at one time, and just as Anna had surmised, there was art.
My art education was limited to the requisite undergraduate art history class, so I wasn’t particularly well-versed in the styles and periods, but even to my untrained eye there didn’t appear to be any particular method to Gray’s collection, other than that everything in it could be attributed to a recognizable name. There was an O’Keefe hanging near a Warhol and what looked like a Miró near something that may have been a Sargent.
“You looking at the art?” Dan came to stand next to me and spoke quietly.
“If they’re originals, they’re worth several fortunes,” I murmured back.
He shot me a quizzical look. “He’s got the dough and the swagger. You think they might not be the real deal?”
I shrugged. “I’ve had some interesting debates about authenticity recently, and what I think is that I don’t know nearly enough about the art world.”
Dan gave our names to the receptionist, who could just as easily have been a model as an economist, and after a hushed phone call we were politely directed upstairs.
Another beautiful woman, this one slightly older than the receptionist, met us at the elevator.
“Mr. Gray is just finishing a call with his son,” she said as she ushered us into an office that contained even more valuable art than the lobby had. To my eye the paintings were more classically European and would have fit right into one of the rooms in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Gray hung up the phone and came around his desk.
“It’s good to see you again, O’Malley,” Gray said as he shook Dan’s hand. With me he was less jovial. I got a nod, not a smile, with my handshake. “Masoud, my son tells me your system failed.”
I could feel Dan bristle next to me, but I kept my voice even and unaffected. “My system did exactly what it was designed to do. The thief exploited a weakness in the type of security it was, not in the system itself.”
Markham Gray was in his late fifties and had the build of someone who still took his fitness seriously. His custom-made suit fit him perfectly, and everything from shoes to watch was designed to project class, elegance, and power. He was not a man who appreciated contradiction, no matter how mildly it was delivered.
He turned his attention back to Dan. “I expect that Cipher Security will find and return my painting to me.”
“I understand the painting wasn’t insured,” I persisted. Gray either didn’t know or didn’t care that he was poking a bear by speaking to Dan as though he were an employee.
“You can’t insure sentimental value,” he snapped at me.
“Wiring and alarming a painting inside a panic room seems a bit more than sentimental,” I said casually. The corner of Dan’s mouth lifted wryly, but I didn’t think Gray saw it. He was too angry at me to notice that Dan had started pacing around the room looking at the art in it.
“I knew the artist,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Her family will want to know the painting is safe.”
“Is that so?” I didn’t have to feign interest. “Perhaps I could speak to the artist directly?”
“She’s dead,” he said, with what sounded like anger.
“What’s her name? Someone in her family might know something about the painting’s disappearance.”
He glared at me, and his right hand flinched as though he resisted clenching it into a fist. “Find the thief and you’ll find the painting.” His voice held menace, and Dan looked up from a Picasso sketch.
“Art’s only worth what someone will pay for it, unless it’s made of glitter paint and your kid did it in pre-school – then it’s priceless. So either it’s worth money, or someone thinks it’s made of glitter. Tell us who the artist is, so we have a place to start,” Dan said. It was a remarkably astute observation.
Markham studied Dan through narrowed eyes and didn’t look at me at all. Finally he gave a quick shake of his head. “No, she doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago, and if the painting’s gone, it’s gone. Now, get out of my office. You’re fired.”
Dan’s eyes hardened, but he kept his expression neutral as he nodded once. “Right.”
He looked at me and then quickly around the room, as though directing my eyes to all the things I’d already taken in - cameras aimed at all the art, and the faint red glow of the motion sensors in the doorways. The office art was better protected than the painting in the safe room had been, and I said as much to Dan when we were finally outside the building.
“He let the painting go too easily,” Dan said. It wasn’t an answer, but I’d felt the same.
“First the son pitches a fit to me about no police and threatens me with the wrath of dad, and then when we want to know more about the artist, we get told to leave it alone and mind our own business.” I pulled my phone out to call for a ride and noticed a text from Shane. It was the names and address of Anna’s parents in Rockport, MA.
Dan looked up at the building which housed Gray’s office, a thoughtful expression on a face more suited to menacing glares. “He’s hiding something big, and he’s an asshole.”
I thought about the break-in at the Gray mansion, and the woman who was likely a thief waiting for me at the Gardner Museum. She’d lied and then disappeared when her lie was discovered. She was embroiled in a mysteriously hidden Manet, and she continued to lie by omission about how she’d found it. I had enough proof from her own lips to go to the police, but not enough to get a conviction on the theft of a painting Gray hadn’t insured and didn’t want the police to know about.
“There are mysteries here – a couple of them. About Gray, about the woman who may or may not have stolen his painting, about the painting itself, and even about a thirty-year-old art heist that may have nothing to do with anything, but is damned compelling,” I said to Dan, who raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “I have a couple of sick days accrued. I’d like to stay in Boston to look into some things here, if you don’t mind.”
Dan considered me for a moment. “You said the kid threatened you with Gray’s wrath if the painting wasn’t found, yeah?”
I nodded. “He implied that the senior Gray had connections in the Chicago press with which he wouldn’t hesitate to smear Cipher.”
He grunted and scowled in response. “I’m not taking your sick days. Sometimes you muzzle the fuckers with the law, and sometimes you muzzle ‘em with the truth.” His gaze found mine again, and his smile had an edge to it as she shrugged. “He fired us. As far as I’m concerned, anything you find is a muzzle.”