Madonna and Corpse

Chapter 7 Descartes

Six weeks after Madame Clergue’s “original” Botticelli was restored to its prominent spot in Gallery 11—six weeks after the lead-signed fake was consigned to an ignominious storage bin — Descartes received a call from Detective Sergeant Reginald Smythe of New Scotland Yard. According to the excruciatingly courteous Smythe, London’s National Gallery was having serious doubts about the authenticity of one of its prize paintings. The painting was Caravaggio’s Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist, which had passed through the hands of an art restorer in Avignon, a Jacques Dubois, several years before. Before Smythe traveled all the way from London, he wondered, might Inspector Descartes be so very kind as to determine, by discreet observation, whether Dubois was, in fact, still in residence and available for interrogation? Of course, Descartes assured the British detective, he’d handle it immediately.

Descartes tried Dubois throughout that morning and afternoon — a dozen calls — with no answer. Finally, as darkness fell, he decided to take a drive out to Barthelasse Island. It was possible the artist was away, but it was equally possible that he was simply absorbed in painting.

The day had been gray and cool, and as he crossed the bridge to the island in the deepening dusk, Descartes noticed fog spooling down the river, blanketing the emerald-green waters, spilling onto the low-lying farmland, triggering — for some inexplicable reason — his lifelong fear of drowning. By the time he descended the exit ramp, the road was dark and blanketed in mist. If Descartes hadn’t saved the GPS track from his prior visit, he’d never have found his way back to the narrow lane that led to Dubois’s place.

Halfway up the narrow, walled lane — all the more claustrophobic in the darkness and fog — Descartes felt the hairs on his neck prickle. At first he could not attach the sensation to anything but the looming walls and blinding fog. As he approached the house, though, he realized that the mist ahead was glowing red-orange, the light flickering and throbbing, rapidly growing higher and brighter. He punched the throttle, heedless of danger, careening between the high, narrow walls. Suddenly, with a crack like a gunshot, his left mirror snapped against one wall. Reflexively he swerved slightly, and with another sharp crack, his right mirror shattered.

By the time he reached the house, the foggy glow had resolved into flames — soaring, roaring flames — and he saw that behind the house, the studio was ablaze, the inferno fueled by turpentine, oil, and God only knew what other flammables. Skidding to a stop behind Dubois’s old Citroën—he’s home? he wondered with a mixture of surprise and concern — he leaped from the car and raced through the gate, not even slowing to glance at the incongruous object propped against the fence.

The high clerestory windows in the shop burst just as he reached the building, raining bits of glass upon Descartes. Shielding his face in the crook of one arm, he ran to the door and tried it, but it was locked. Pushing through the lavender that hugged the wall, he reached a large window and peered inside. Even through the glass, the heat broiled his face and he wrapped both arms across it, leaving only a narrow slit through which he surveyed the interior. Through the dancing flames, his eyes locked on a shape. “Shit,” he muttered. Slumped over the work table was Dubois. His right arm was splayed out on the table, and resting atop the hand, slightly askew, was what appeared to be a pistol. The left side of the artist’s head was missing.

“Shit,” Descartes repeated—“shit, shit, shit”—and stepped away from the window to call the dispatcher. He had not even begun to dial when the window exploded. Shards seethed past his head and tore across the yard, shredding the leaves of ornamental plants. Moments later, the window on the other side of the door blew, too. Arms of flame reached out from each window, enfolding the building in a deadly embrace, clawing at the roof. Small blooms of flame sprouted through the arches of the clay roof tiles. Then, in swift succession, the rafters burned through, and a hole in the roof opened like a maw, gaping wider and wider until it had swallowed the top of the studio entirely.

By the time the fire trucks arrived, the building had been reduced to smoldering embers.

The autopsy and forensics report confirmed what Descartes already knew. The corpse was burned beyond recognition, but the coroner confirmed that it was a white male, somewhere in his fifties or sixties. Although the fingers had burned down to bare bone, and the artist had no dental records that Descartes could locate, DNA from the charred corpse was matched to DNA from a hairbrush in the house, so the dead man was positively identified as Dubois. His manner of death was a single gunshot wound to the head, and his death was ruled a suicide.

As he tucked the autopsy report into the case file, Descartes took one last look at the note Dubois had tacked to the gatepost at the entrance to his yard. “The police in London plan to arrest me, but they’re too late. I cannot bear the thought of prison, and so I take the coward’s exit. My life has been one long series of deceptions and evasions, so this sort of death is only fitting.” Descartes replaced the note, closed the dossier, and filed it in the archive of closed cases. Then he signed out and headed home for lunch.

When he unlocked the deadbolt, Descartes stood in the apartment’s open doorway, his face breaking into a smile as he surveyed the opposite wall. There, Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist — regal, serene, and sexy — basked in the glow of the halogen track lights Descartes had stayed up late last night installing. The painting looked infinitely better than the horrible Jackson Pollock print that had hung there for years. Thank God that bitch Yvonne had taken it with her when she left.

Perhaps he should have left Magdalene and the Baptist where he’d found them, propped against the fence at the Dubois place, beside the post where the artist had tacked his farewell note. But what business was the painting of the National Police? The painting was a parting gift — a personal gift — from the old faker. A second note, taped to the frame, made that clear: “Goodbye, Inspector. I enjoyed meeting you, and I hope this trifle brings you much pleasure. —R.D.”

He’d driven home in the pale, watery light of midmorning, the second note tucked into his pocket, the painting tucked into the trunk of his car, the shattered mirrors dangling and flapping on either side of the car. He’d slammed the trunk only moments before the firemen and the forensic technicians had arrived to hose down the ruins, recover the charred body, and gather their evidence.