“Art isn’t the answer, it’s the reason.”
Sophia Collins
I made it to the museum just before it closed and went immediately to the Blue Room to study the Manet. The docent on duty was the woman from the Dutch Room, Amber, and she greeted me with recognition and a smile when I walked in.
I had spent the drive from Rockport pointedly not thinking about Anna. Instead, I used the time to look at the problem of the forged Manet from every angle I could see. First, if the painting behind the Kiriakis sisters was the original Madame Auguste Manet, then Anna’s mother and aunt were implicated in its theft. That it hung in Markham Gray’s panic room implicated him in the theft as well – an idea that troubled me less. Theoretically, an unknown thief might have hidden the original Manet behind a painting that had been stored in the annex, but that didn’t explain its presence in Gray’s panic room. But the constant through all of it was that Anna herself was implicated – not because she had necessarily stolen the Manet, but because she’d been responsible for the uninvited liberation of the Kiriakis sisters’ painting from Gray’s mansion and was now likely in possession of a stolen masterpiece.
The option that I continued to hope for, but which seemed less and less likely in the face of the circumstantial evidence, was that the Manet on the wall of the Blue Room was the original, and the one in Anna’s portfolio was just an excellent copy painted with period paints and brush techniques by her mother.
I stood in front of Madame Auguste Manet, staring up at the stark black-on-black of her dress, when I felt someone approach. I looked over to see Amber standing next to me. She studied the painting as she spoke. “Manet painted this just two years after he painted the nudes that made him infamous. I wonder what his mother thought of them?”
“She looks formidable,” I said, “as though she had opinions and wasn’t shy to express them.”
Amber laughed. “Apparently, Manet had a close relationship with his mother, who was a great supporter of his art, even when his father had pushed him into studying law. Mrs. Gardner bought this painting from Manet’s stepson, who inherited it from Madame Manet herself, and she may have been his grandmother, if the speculation that Manet was his father is true.” Amber looked at me with sparkling eyes. “Art history was my favorite subject. It’s why I came back here after …” She trailed off as she looked around the room.
“After they fired all the guards and interns?”
Her eyes darted to mine again. “Yes, exactly.”
“I had a chance to speak with my friend’s mother, Sophia, who also interned here then,” I said quietly.
Amber moved to another painting, and I followed as though our conversation was purely about the art. “I thought about your friend’s mother and realized I did remember her. She was a talented artist herself and spent a lot of time in this room copying the Impressionists.”
“She told us that she painted in here after hours, when Rick and his band played in the museum.”
Amber smirked and shook her head. “Those were very different times.”
We moved on to another painting, and I continued speaking in quiet tones, as though asking about the art. “Do you remember a young musician named Markham Gray?”
Her eyes darted to me in surprise. “Markham? Of course. Everyone knew him. He’s the one who invented sensor tag and was the best at playing it. The games we used to play here after hours horrify me now. The priceless art we put at risk just because we were bored—” She shuddered. “As awful as it is to say, the heist was probably the best thing that happened to this place. Attention was finally paid to proper security, which definitely put an end to the shenanigans, and the empty frames and the mystery of the missing art have become a huge draw for the public.”
We had walked all the way around the room and were back in front of the Manet, with the small, empty frame beneath it.
“Sadly, some invaluable artworks remain lost to the public because of it,” I said, studying the sad little frame.
“It’s very lucky that Madame Auguste Manet was in the annex that night for repair. I’m certain it would have been the thieves’ target if it had been here.” Amber said, studying the painting once more.
I failed to control my expression when I asked her, “You mean to tell me she was in the annex?”
Amber seemed confused by my shock. “It was a scheduled restoration.”
“The door to the annex from the Dutch Room was open that night,” I murmured.
She stared at me in surprise. “It was?”
“There’s a crime scene photo showing the open door. The Times printed it a decade ago.”
The docent exhaled quietly. “I didn’t know.” She was pale as she gazed up at the formidable woman looking down at us as though in judgment. “That makes it even more remarkable that she wasn’t stolen. She’s far more valuable than Chez Tortoni.”
Indeed.