Insatiable Appetites

38

Stone called the head of the art appraisal team and broke the news about the check marks. He was met with silence.

“Hello?” he said finally.

“I’m still here,” the woman said. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’ve just met with Charles Magnussen’s longtime companion, Greta Olafson, and she assures me that, once Charles got out of prison, he never forged another painting. They worked in the same studio, so she would have known. Does that impress you at all?”

“I’m not sure,” the woman said.

“Well, you had better be impressed, because if you should lend credence to a rumor that the Bianchi collection contains forgeries, I will fall on you and your group from a great height, and no one will ever again purchase your services. Do you understand me?”

“Quite,” she said.

“And you may watch the New York Times for a thorough debunking of your position and an account of Charles Magnussen’s little joke on the art world.” He hung up and called Dino. “Call off the art squad,” he said.

“I thought I would hear you say that when you broke off our call. You had Mary Ann on the line, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and Raoul Pitt and I got the whole story from Magnussen’s girlfriend.” Stone told him about their trip downtown.

“That’s a great story, Stone, you’ll dine out on it for years.”

“I certainly will.”

Stone called Mary Ann, who was greatly relieved to get the news. “I’m delighted, but something else has come up,” she said.

“What now?”

“I received a telephone call today from the mother superior of the convent where Dolce recovered from her illness.”

“Yes?”

“She told me that Dolce had psychiatric counseling for more than a year after her arrival there.”

“I’m glad to hear it. It seems to have worked.”

“That’s what the mother superior thought, but apparently it worked a little too well. Dolce and her psychiatrist formed a closer relationship than had been intended. This was confirmed to her by a novitiate who had come upon them in flagrante delicto in a storeroom Dolce used as a studio. The psychiatrist was removed from the case at once.”

“Why would the mother superior call you about that at this late date?”

“Because she read the name of the psychiatrist in the Italian newspapers,” Mary Ann said. “He was a brilliant man in a number of fields, by all accounts, who left Sicily to join the Vatican Bank in an important position. He was an Irish priest named Frank Donovan.”

Stone froze in his seat.

“You do read the papers, don’t you?” Mary Ann said.

“I’m sorry, yes, I know to whom you are referring.”

“Stone, it is very important that Dino not hear about this from you.”

“Then from whom should he hear about it? Are you going to tell him?”

“Certainly not, and if you have any respect for the memory of my father and for your duties as his executor, neither will you.”

“Mary Ann—”

“Listen to me, Stone. Even if it were known that Dolce knew him, there is nothing whatever to connect them after he went to the Vatican. Nothing.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because if a connection were known, Dolce would already have been questioned by the police.”

“I expect that is true, but—”

“No buts,” Mary Ann said firmly. “You cannot subject my father’s name and his family’s reputation to the kind of public scrutiny that would occur if the police could connect Dolce with Father Donovan in any way at all, even if they could be shown never to have met during Father Donovan’s brief visit to New York.”

“Very brief visit.”

“I’ve spoken to the cardinal, and he assures me that Father Donovan came to New York on Vatican business and stayed at an Opus Dei facility for visiting priests and dignitaries. He made no mention of having seen anyone outside the archdiocese during his stay there. The cardinal believes him to have been a victim of street crime, and that is what I believe, too.”

“Then why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I knew that if you or Dino — particularly Dino — heard of the connection between Dolce and Donovan, you would draw the wrong conclusions, and before the investigation was complete, a great deal of harm would have been done to all concerned.”

“Except to Father Frank Donovan.”

“Especially to the priest, whose reputation would be destroyed, and to the Vatican, which would be greatly embarrassed for no good reason.”

“I understand your views, Mary Ann, and I will keep them in mind.”

“Please see that you do.” She hung up.

Stone hung up, too, shaken and worried.