Win

Chapter 31

Back on the jet, I get three calls.

The first I see incoming is from PT. I don’t want to talk to him quite yet, not when I’m so close to the end game, and so I let it go into the voicemail. This will no doubt displease PT, who will quickly deduce that I am avoiding him, but I can live with that.

The second call is from Kabir.

“Articulate,” I say, opening up the browser on my laptop. Kabir will normally email me all relevant backing documentation because, again, like my daughter, I am visual.

But his reply catches me off guard: “I have Pierre-Emmanuel Claux on the line. He sounds upset.”

It takes me a second to remember the name of the art curator and restorer whom I had insisted the FBI use to authenticate and tenderly care for the family’s Vermeer. I tell Kabir to patch the call through.

“Mr. Lockwood?”

“Speaking?”

“This is Pierre-Emmanuel Claux at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU.” I hear the muffled panic in his tone. “You asked me to look into a painting the FBI recently located for authentication and condition purposes — The Girl at the Piano by Johannes Vermeer.”

“Yes, of course.”

“When can you get to the institute, Mr. Lockwood?”

“Is this urgent?”

“It is, yes.”

“Is there an issue with the Vermeer?”

“I think it’s better if we discuss this in person.” I hear the quake in his voice. “As soon as possible, please.”

I check the time. Depending on traffic, it should take about three hours in total.

“Will you still be there?” I ask him.

“The institute will be closed, but I won’t leave until you arrive.”

The third call is from Ema.

After I offer up my customary greeting, Ema asks, “Any updates?”

I fill her in on the day’s happenings. I don’t hold back. I don’t sugarcoat. I do feel my heart swell, but alas, so what? As Ema might say, “Get over it.” I finish by telling her I’m heading straight to New York University Institute of Fine Arts’ Conservation Center across Central Park from the Dakota.

“Oh good,” Ema says. “That’s why I called.”

“Go on.”

“I’m going over the FBI witness transcripts for the art heist at Haverford,” she continues.

“And?”

“And the early investigators seemed convinced that it was an inside job, most notably the night guard, Ian Cornwell. In the end, they had no proof so they dropped it.”

I tell her I know all this.

Ema says, “You questioned Cornwell, right?”

“I did. He’s a political science professor at Haverford now.”

“Yeah, I saw that. What did you think of him?”

I do not want to prejudice her reaction. “What do you think of him?”

“I think the original investigators got it right. There is just no way it could have worked the way Ian Cornwell claims.”

“Yet,” I say, “those investigators couldn’t make the case.”

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

“Doesn’t mean that at all,” I agree. I hear street noise. “Where are you?”

“I’m heading into the subway, so I can catch the train home.”

“I’ll have someone drive you.”

“I’d rather do it this way, Win. Anyway, I don’t know how, but we need to get Ian Cornwell to talk. He’s the key. Oh, and let me know what the art conservator tells you.”

Ema hangs up. I replay the conversation in my head, and I know that as I do, I have a smile on my face. I close my eyes and try to nap for the duration of the flight. That won’t happen. I am feeling itchy, antsy, and I know why. I take out my phone and find my favorite app. I set up a rendezvous for tonight at midnight with username “Helena.” Midnight is later than I normally do, but it seems today will be a hectic day.

NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts is located on Fifth Avenue in the French-styled James B. Duke House, one of the few surviving “millionaire mansions” from New York’s Gilded Age. James Duke — yes, my beloved alma mater, Duke University, is named for his father — made his fortune as a founding partner in the American Tobacco Company, modernizing the manufacturing and marketing of cigarettes. The old adage is that behind every great fortune there is a great crime — or, as in this case, if not a great crime, the fortune was certainly built on a pile of dead bodies.

The institute has a boatload of security for obvious reasons. I pass through it all and find Pierre-Emmanuel Claux pacing alone in the second-floor conservatory. He wears a white lab coat and latex gloves. When he turns toward me, I can see something akin to terror on his face.

“Thank God you’re here.”

The conservatory is a hybrid of the old-school mansion and a state-of-the-art research center. There are long tables and special lighting and tapestries and paintbrushes and scalpels and what look like microscopes and dental tools and medical testing equipment.

“I’m sorry for the dramatics, but I think...”

His voice fades out. I don’t see the Vermeer, that image of the girl at the piano. The longest table holds but one item, a possible painting facedown, and it is approximately the correct size of the Vermeer. Next to it sits a Phillips-head screwdriver and several screws.

Pierre-Emmanuel walks toward it. I follow.

“First of all,” he says, his tone steadier now, “the painting is authentic. This is indeed The Girl at the Piano by Vermeer, most likely painted in 1656.” There is a hushed awe in his voice. “I can’t tell you what an honor it is to be in its presence.”

I give him this moment of silence, as though this is a religious service, which, for him, may be apropos. When I meet his eyes, Pierre-Emmanuel clears his throat. “Let me get to why I so urgently needed to see you.” He points to the back of the painting. “First off, there was a Masonite backing board covering the entire reverse of your Vermeer. It’s not original obviously, but Masonite backings are not uncommon. They protect the painting from dust and physical impact.”

He glances over at me. I nod to show that I am listening.

“The backing board is screwed in, so I carefully took out the screws and removed the Masonite in order to inspect the painting more thoroughly. That’s the backing board over there.”

He points to what looks like a thin school blackboard. On it, I can see the faded Lockwood family crest. Pierre-Emmanuel turns his attention back to the flip side of the Vermeer. “You can see here the stretcher up against the back of the canvas. That’s not uncommon either, but the thing is, first you need to remove the backing. Then you need to look under the stretcher. It’s not easy to do. But that’s where someone hid them — under a screwed-in backing board and taped between the stretcher and the canvas.”

“Hid what?” I ask.

He has it in his gloved hand. “This envelope.”

It had probably started life as white, but it is now yellowed to the point of being near manila.

“At first,” he continues, his words a rushed babble now, “I was so excited. I thought maybe it was a letter of historical importance. Oh, and it wasn’t sealed. I wouldn’t have slit it open or looked inside, if that was the case. I would have just put it to the side.”

“So what was inside?” I ask.

Pierre-Emmanuel leads me over to a desk and points. “These.”

I look down at the brown yet transparent images.

“They’re film negatives,” Pierre-Emmanuel continues. “I don’t know how old they are, but most people take digital pictures nowadays. And those screws hadn’t been removed in years.”

The shape of the negatives appears odd to my layman’s eyes. You usually think of negatives as being rectangular. These, however, are perfect squares.

I look at Pierre-Emmanuel. His lip is now trembling.

“I assume you looked at them.”

His voice is a terrified whisper. “Only three,” he manages to tell me. “That’s all I could handle.”

He offers me a set of latex gloves. I snap them on and turn on his lamp. I carefully lift one of the negatives with the pads of my thumb and forefinger. I raise it to the light. Pierre-Emmanuel has taken a step back, but I know that he is watching my face. I show nothing, but I feel the jolt everywhere. I gently put the negative back and move to a second. Then a third. Then a fourth. I still show nothing, but there is an eruption going on inside. I won’t lose control. Not yet.

But the rage is coming. I will need a way to channel it.

After I view ten of the negatives, I say to him, “I’m sorry you had to see these.”

“Do you know who those girls are?”

I do. More than that, I know where the photographs were taken.

In the Hut of Horrors.