Among Thieves

Chapter Ten

Stone stood before Sanchez’s front door in Brookline, just to the west of Boston. She’d called in sick. Word at the station was that she would likely be in later in the day, but he had no idea when. He checked the address listed in her personnel file and headed out. She didn’t know he was coming, and he figured she’d be pissed, so he was holding a container of chicken soup he’d picked up at a local deli, hoping it would allay her annoyance. Probably not, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. Ultimately, he didn’t care; he wasn’t going to spend his life with a partner who wouldn’t discuss cases with him. He’d decided to push the issue.

When he’d visualized Sanchez’s home, he’d pictured a small, dark apartment somewhere in one of the city’s worst neighborhoods. Two, maybe three rooms, sparsely decorated, with few pictures and no personal items. A place befitting this woman who was so focused on her work, and so distant from those around her willing to help. It was a dark, lonely, angry life he’d envisioned for her.

The dwelling that matched her address from the personnel files met none of his expectations. It was a medium-sized house in a nice neighborhood right off the Green Line. Two blocks from Commonwealth Avenue, it had a large well-tended yard, and flowers flanking the covered entryway. The driveway had been swept, the flower beds had been edged, and there wasn’t a hint of peeling or cracking in the bright yellow paint on the home’s exterior. The place exuded contentment.

He rang the bell and waited. It took a moment, but the door opened, and a young boy stood in front of him, wearing pajamas. “Hello,” he said. He had dark hair and dark skin-far darker than Sanchez’s. His eyes were bright and trusting. He couldn’t have been more than six years old.

“Hello,” Stone replied. “I may be in the wrong place. I’m looking for Detective Sanchez.”

“Mom!” the boy shouted. “She’s here,” he said. “I’m Carlos. I have the flu.”

“Carlos, get back in bed!” Sanchez’s voice was unmistakable, though the tone was softer than Stone was used to.

A moment later, Sanchez was standing in front of Stone. She was dressed in chinos and a loose blouse, and he barely recognized her. The difference wasn’t so much in the way she was dressed, it was in her face. She normally wore her hair pulled back from the temples, giving her face a severe, angry look accentuated by the scowl she wore as a permanent expression of contempt for the world. Now her hair was down and her features were relaxed. She resembled less a bitter cop, more an attractive middle-aged woman.

She recognized Stone, and her expression changed. She morphed before his eyes into the angry woman he knew from their time together. “What the hell are you doing here, Stone?” she demanded.

“I heard you were sick,” he said. “I brought chicken soup.”

The boy, who had disappeared for a moment, was standing behind Sanchez now. “I don’t like chicken soup,” he said.

“I asked you to get back in bed,” she said to him.

“Aw, Mom,” he replied sullenly. He headed back into the house.

She looked back at Stone. “This is my personal, private space,” she said. “I don’t want you here.”

Stone stood his ground. “We need to talk.”

“He’s adopted.”

Carlos was in the family room, watching television, and Stone was alone with Sanchez in the kitchen. He was sitting at the table; she was cleaning the breakfast dishes. The question had been unspoken. He was glad she’d answered it without his having to ask it, though; he wasn’t sure he’d have had the guts. It was clearly a question she had to address fairly often. She was a single cop in her fifties. A six-year-old calling her Mom didn’t fit.

“He’s normally in school, but he woke up this morning with a fever, and the woman who takes him in the afternoon isn’t available this morning.”

“Seems like a cute kid,” Stone said.

“He was two when he came to this country. Now you’d never know he lived anyplace else. Funny how the world works that way, isn’t it?” she said. “Time moves on; kids forget the bad.”

“Is he your only child?” Stone asked.

“I had a daughter,” she replied. “She was murdered. So was my husband.”

He had no idea what to say. “That’s why you became a cop.” It was the only thing that came to mind.

She glared at him. “Yeah. That’s why I became a cop. And that ends our discussion of my personal life. You wanna talk work, fine, but talk quickly. Then I want you out of here. You shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“Fair enough,” Stone said. “Let’s talk work. Why would the IRA kill a Boston mob boss?”

She sat down across from him at the kitchen table and stared at him warily. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not stupid,” he replied. “I know how to use the Internet. Padre Pio. It’s a form of torture used by IRA enforcers. Named after some Spanish monk from the 1960s who had the stigmata-bleeding from the palms and feet where Jesus was nailed to the cross. IRA enforcers tie their victims’ hands together and shoot clean through, so it looks like they’ve been nailed to the cross. They say they save it for people who’ve betrayed the cause. So why was it used on Murphy?”

She tilted her head. “Not bad,” she said grudgingly. “But I gave you that one.”

“Fine, you gave me that one. I thought that was what partners did-they gave shit to each other.”

“Keep your voice down,” she ordered him. “If my son hears you swear, it’ll be the shortest partnership in departmental history.”

“It already has been,” he said. “It’s never been a partnership at all.”

She took a deep breath. “Look, you seem like a decent kid-”

“No,” he interrupted her. “I’m not a decent kid. I’m a good cop.”

“You may be,” she said.

“No, not I may be. I am. You’d know that if you gave me a chance. So I’ll ask you again, what is the IRA doing knocking off a Boston mob boss?”

“I think it’s about art,” she replied after a moment.

“Art who?”

“Not art who; art, as in paintings.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What does this have to do with art?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. How old were you in 1990?”

He thought for a moment. “Ten,” he replied.

“Jesus,” she said. She rubbed her forehead wearily. “I’m too goddamned old.”

“What happened in 1990?”

“You remember the theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum?”

He sat back in the kitchen chair. “Not from back then, but I know about it now. Two guys got away with a couple of paintings, right?”

“That’s one way of putting it. Another way would be to say that it was the greatest art theft in modern history. They say the stuff that was stolen would be worth close to half a billion dollars today.”

“Billion? With a ‘b’?”

“Yeah, billion.” She stood up and walked over to the kitchen counter. “Coffee?”

“Sure. Black.”

She pulled out a coffee brewer. It had tubes coming out of it and looked as if it would take a degree from MIT to operate. He wondered where her money came from.

“It was the easiest robbery imaginable, too,” she said, her back to him as she continued to brew the coffee. “There were just two of them, and they faked their way into the museum. The guards were amateurs; not real security guards at all. They weren’t properly trained; they didn’t follow proper procedures. The robbers tied the guards in the basement and spent an hour and a half pulling artwork off the walls, then left. The paintings have never been found.” She brought two mugs over to the table.

“Interesting,” he said. “What’s this got to do with Murphy’s murder?”

“People have searched for these paintings for twenty years,” she said. “The police, the FBI, Interpol, private detectives, insurance detectives, art historians, treasure hunters. People have spent an enormous amount of energy trying to find these things, but no one has done it yet. There have been lots of theories about who was responsible. The most popular is that the IRA teamed up with the Boston mob to do the job, then split the take between the two groups.”

Stone considered this. “It’s an interesting idea. But it seems like a pretty big stretch to assume that this is what Murphy’s murder was about, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Sanchez said. “But one of the works stolen was a painting by Rembrandt. It was one of the most valuable pieces the thieves got away with. The title of it was Storm on the Sea of Galilee.”

It took a moment for the connection to register with Stone. “‘The Storm.’ You think that was the message that was being sent? That whoever did this was coming for the paintings?”

She shrugged. “I don’t have anything better to go on at this point,” she said. “Do you?”

He shook his head. “No. It just seems a little thin.”

“It does,” she agreed. “But it would also fit with the Padre Pio they pulled on Murphy. Back in 1990, nothing happened in this town without Whitey Bulger’s say-so, and Murphy was working closely with him at the time. Maybe this has nothing to do with the art theft. Maybe it’s just a beef between the IRA and the boys in Southie over drugs or guns. But then why paint ‘The Storm’ in blood?”

“Okay,” Stone said. “It’s a possibility. I’m not sold yet, but it’s someplace to start.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Thanks for sharing. It’s almost like we’re partners.”

She was looking at him across the table. “Don’t let it go to your head. In my book, I still don’t know whether this ‘partnership’ is gonna work. I like to work alone, and I don’t trust people easily. We’ll see where this goes; that’s the best I can do.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. I’m just looking for a chance. You may even find it’s easier to do the job if you have someone you can rely on.” He took a final sip of the coffee and put down his mug. “One question,” he said.

“What is it?”

“How do you know so much about the robbery?”

She frowned at him. “I may be old, but I can use the Internet, too.”

Special Agent Hewitt paid the barista for his coffee at the Starbucks in Government Center. It was overpriced, but he’d gotten to the point where he could no longer drink the swill that dribbled from the 1950s coffeemaker at the office. There were some sacrifices he wasn’t willing to make, even in the name of justice.

He walked out of the Starbucks and across the brick tundra that surrounded City Hall. He looked up at the building and grimaced. Boston ’s City Hall had been built in the 1960s, and was the most renowned example of the Brutalist school of design popular at the time. A monumental nine-level cement inverted pyramid set on eight acres of brick and stone, it won praise from the architectural community as a notable achievement in the creation and control of modern urban space. In a poll of historians and architects, it was voted the sixth greatest building in American history. To Bostonians, though, it was an eyesore. With all the warmth of a mausoleum, it loomed over the classic architectural beauty of Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market across the street.

The Boston field office of the FBI was housed in the John F. Kennedy Federal Building next to City Hall. It was a nondescript concrete structure in the heart of Government Center, close to the backside of Beacon Hill.

Hewitt flashed his badge at the guard standing next to the metal detectors and walked around the line. He took the elevator up to the eighth floor, walked through the gray industrial-carpeted hallways, past a warren of cubicles inhabited by dull-eyed functionaries trying to make it through another day on the government payroll, and into his office. It was small by the standards of those he had gone to law school with years ago who now made millions representing huge corporations in the great glass towers of private practice. The furniture was faux-wood laminate over particleboard, and the cabinetry was gray-steel government issue. Nonetheless, he was comfortable there. It was where he belonged.

As he hung up his coat on the hook behind the door he heard a voice coming from behind his desk. “Robert,” it said.

Surprised, Hewitt spun, his hand involuntarily going to his hip, where his gun was encased in a holster.

“No need to shoot, Robert. I’m one of the good guys.” The voice belonged to Angus Porter, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Art Theft Program.

“Porter,” Hewitt said with a heavy sigh. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Hewitt wondered how he’d managed to enter the office and hang up the coat without noticing the man sitting in his chair. On the other hand, it was Porter. He couldn’t have been taller than five-seven, and if he weighed more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds with his shoes on, Hewitt would have been surprised. He had wispy blond hair growing out of a pale scalp that looked too small for his skull. It was pulled impossibly tight and gave off a dull shine. He had the spoiled air of someone who’d grown up without having to worry about money.

“I told you on the phone I was coming to Boston,” Porter said with a smile. His teeth had been whitened, and were brighter than the starched collar of his tailored shirt.

“I don’t mean here in Boston, I mean here in my office.”

“You’re the only person here I came to see. Where else should I be?”

“I’m sure we have an office or a cubicle here we can get for you. You can work out of that.”

Porter shook his head. “No need. I’m not here officially, and I’ll be working out of my hotel.”

“Why?”

“You know why, Robert. On this investigation it’s just you and me, and that’s it.”

“I’m still not sure why,” Hewitt said. “We could have all the players blanketed with the right amount of manpower. You give the word and we could mobilize twenty agents. We could control the whole thing.”

“It wouldn’t serve our purpose. It would be like sending an army of fishermen into a shallow river. We would scare away the fish. But one or two men with the right bait-that’s how this must work.”

Hewitt walked around his desk and stood in front of Porter. “You’re in my seat.”

Porter looked up at him for a moment. Then he stood up and walked around to the far side of the desk. He pulled a chair over from a small table in the corner and sat in front of Hewitt’s desk. Hewitt sat down in the chair Porter had just vacated. “Have there been any further developments?” Porter asked.

“No,” Hewitt replied. “At least, none that have been discovered so far. How about on your end?”

“The offer seems genuine,” Porter said. “We intercepted physical evidence-paint chips. They match. Between that and the photographs, I have a high level of confidence that this time it’s for real.”

“Shit,” Hewitt said. “You sure we don’t want to bring in some additional help?”

“Absolutely. You and I were both here in the eighties and nineties. We know the players better than anyone. I have all the contacts we need in the art world to guide what’s going on from Washington. Bringing in others from the Bureau would only complicate matters.”

“What about the locals?”

Porter gave a grunt. “The local police? You must be kidding. They’d only create problems. You know the kind of jurisdictional tug-of-war that gets into.”

Hewitt picked up a souvenir baseball that was sitting on his desk. If it had been someone else sitting across the desk from him, he might have tossed the ball to him-physical activity helped him think. Porter didn’t seem like the kind of guy who liked to throw baseballs around, though. Hewitt tossed it in the air instead and caught it himself. “If Murphy was involved, chances are that Ballick’s involved as well. He was Whitey’s right hand back then. He was higher up than Murphy, too. Should we tail him?”

Porter shook his head. “Keep tabs on him, but don’t get too close. He may be involved, but maybe not. Whitey could have used someone else, and I don’t want to put all our money down on one bet.”

“Whoever was involved is in some serious danger. I haven’t seen anything like what was done to Murphy in all my time at the Bureau.”

“Murphy got what he deserved,” Porter said. “I don’t care how many of their own these people kill, as long as we find the paintings.”

“You really think the art is more important than lives.”

Porter seemed to consider the question. “Not all of the art, only some of it. The Vermeer and the Rembrandts, certainly. Maybe even the Flinck and the Manet. The rest of it, though, is irrelevant. The five unfinished sketches by Degas? Certainly not worthless, but trivial compared to the other works. I can’t even begin to fathom why the bronze beaker from the Shang Dynasty was taken, and the notion that they took the finial from the top of Napoleon’s battle flag is just flat-out insane. That’s one of the great mysteries of the theft. In so many ways it was perfectly executed, but why waste time on trivial pieces like that? Not to mention what wasn’t taken. These men were only steps away from Titian’s Rape of Europa. Arguably the greatest and most valuable Renaissance piece in the United States. If they had the knowledge necessary to identify the Vermeer and the Rembrandts as worthwhile, surely they would have known about the Titian.”

“Maybe they just got lucky.”

Porter laughed. “It wasn’t luck. Not with how smoothly the job went off. Not with how successful they have been in keeping the paintings hidden all this time. There are just some things about it that don’t seem to fit.”

Hewitt folded his hands on his lap. He wished Porter would leave; he didn’t enjoy being around him. There was something bloodless about the little man that set him off. “If we do this right, maybe you’ll be able to ask these guys about all that. We just need to keep them alive.”

“That’s hardly a priority of mine at this point,” Porter said. His expression darkened, and his eyes glassed over in anger. Even when Porter had been an agent in the Boston office, he had always seemed off to Hewitt, particularly when it came to art. It was an obsession of his, and it had led him to push for the establishment of the special unit in the FBI to focus solely on art theft. It was a small group, but they were dedicated, and they were the best in the world at locating stolen art.

“What these men did wasn’t just a crime,” Porter said. “It was a sin. They deprived the world of some of the greatest works of art ever produced. I have no sympathy for them, and I wouldn’t let a little thing like their safety jeopardize a chance to give these works back to the public.”