Insatiable Appetites (18 page)

“Had he been sedated?”

“He said his pain was being managed, but he seemed perfectly lucid to me.”

“How did the subject of the check marks come up?”

“I raised the subject of his legacy. I told him that he would be remembered as more than a forger, that he was a brilliant painter. He laughed.”

“Why did he think that was funny?”

“I think he disagreed, and he appreciated the irony that he would be remembered more for his forgeries than his original work. Then he said he had done many forgeries in recent years, and he told me how he had marked them. He said, ‘Believe me when I tell you, it’s the forgeries that will make me immortal.’”

“Did you believe him?”

“I didn’t know whether to or not. He was getting tired, so I said my final goodbyes and left.”

“Do you know where his girlfriend is?”

“I believe she’s living downtown at Charles’s place. He bought a disused commercial building in SoHo twenty years ago. He lived and worked there.”

“Let’s go and see her,” Stone said.

“I’ll call her and see if she’s available.”

“Don’t call—let’s surprise her.”

“All right.”

They got a cab downtown and found the building. Raoul rang the bell, and a woman answered the unicom and buzzed them in. They went to the top floor in a freight elevator and stepped off that into a large living room, comfortably furnished. The walls were adorned with what Stone assumed were Magnussen’s original paintings, since he didn’t recognize any paintings by others.

They were greeted by a striking woman in her fifties with long, perfectly straight gray hair, and dressed entirely in black. Raoul introduced Stone to Greta Olafson. She seated them and asked a maid to bring them coffee.

“It’s a nice surprise to see you, Raoul,” she said. “Thank you for coming to Charles’s memorial service.”

“I’m glad I was there,” Raoul replied. “It was nice to hear Charles spoken well of.”

“He was a better man than most people knew,” she said. “He helped many struggling artists—gave them studio space in the building and, often, stipends.”

“That was good of him and perfectly in character for the man I knew.”

Coffee came, and the maid served them.

“Why have you come to see me?” Greta asked.

“There’s something I want to ask you about,” Raoul said. “The last time I saw Charles—when he was in the hospital—we had a brief conversation that puzzled me.”

“About what?”

“He said that he had pressed into the wood of some pictures he had restored a little check mark. He said…”

Greta began to laugh.

Stone and Raoul exchanged a glance and waited for her to stop, but she continued to laugh.

Finally, she got control of herself. “That,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, “was Charles’s little joke on the art world.”

“Joke?”

“When he restored a picture, he had this little dye, and he tapped on it, leaving the mark on the frame. It amused him to tell me about it.”

“Why did it amuse him?”

“I told you, it was his little joke. He didn’t tell me why it was funny.”

“I think I’m beginning to see,” Raoul said.

“Then please explain it to me,” she said.

“I think Charles wanted to make some waves in the art world after his death,” Raoul said. “He told me he placed the check marks on forgeries he had made when he accepted pictures for restoration.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Greta said. “After Charles got out of prison, he never did another forgery. I watched him work all the time. I would be working on a sculpture while he was cleaning and restoring the pictures that came to him. He never once copied one of them.”

“Well, his little joke worked, at least once. Stone, here, is the executor of Eduardo Bianchi’s estate, and the appraisers found twenty-four paintings with the check marks and, having heard the story, thought they were forgeries. It appears they are not.”

She began to laugh again. “I can hear him laughing with me,” she said. “He would have loved to see their faces when they examined the paintings. They must have thought Charles was an even better forger than he had once been!”

In the cab on the way back uptown, Raoul said, “I think I’ll have a word with an art critic at the
Times
I’m friendly with. I believe he will find Charles’s little joke to be newsworthy, if not amusing.”

“I don’t think the appraisers will find it amusing,” Stone said, “but I will take great pleasure in telling them about the joke.”

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.

Bruce Willard drove his own car, an old Mercedes station wagon that he used mostly for buying trips, to Philadelphia, following the confident instructions of a dash-mounted GPS. He followed the directions numbly, trying not to think of Evan for a while.

As he neared his destination he began looking for a driveway or a mailbox but saw neither. Then the female voice of the GPS began to insist that he make a U-turn. He did so and retraced his track until the U-turn message came again. This time he slowed down to ten miles per hour, but he still nearly missed an overgrown, gravel track: no street number, no mailbox. He turned into the track and proceeded slowly, branches on either side scraping against the car. After a quarter of a mile or so the little road widened and became paved with granite cobblestones, winding through a corridor of old oak trees until he passed through a high, wrought-iron gate and into a forecourt before a large brick house of the Federal style—three stories, the corners and windows trimmed in limestone. The place practically gleamed with good care and fresh paint.

As he came to a halt the front door opened and an Asian man in a white jacket, black trousers, and black bow tie trotted down the front walk to the car.

“Good morning. Mr. Willard?”

“I am,” Bruce replied.

“May I take your luggage?”

“There’s just the duffel in the backseat.”

“I am Manolo,” the man said. “I take care of Mr. Hills. Please follow me.”

Bruce trailed him up the walk and into the house and a broad foyer containing a Georgian table so beautiful that he had to resist stroking it, upon which rested a heavy silver bowl filled with fresh flowers.

“The living room is to the left,” Manolo said, pointing, “and the library to the right. Your room is upstairs.” He trotted up the broad staircase and opened the first door down the hallway to the right. “This is the Elm Room,” Manolo said. “Mr. Hills hopes you will be comfortable here.”

Bruce surveyed the room—the canopied bed, the comfortable chairs before an Adam fireplace, the good pictures, the fine fabrics. “I’m sure I will be,” he said.

Manolo opened the door to a dressing room. “Would you like me to unpack for you?”

“Thank you, that won’t be necessary.”

“Mr. Hills expects you for lunch in half an hour,” the man said. “He will meet you in the library.”

“How are we dressing?” Bruce asked. He was wearing a blue suit and a necktie, since he did not know if he would have time or a place to change before the funeral.

“You are perfectly dressed, sir. Is there anything else I may do for you?”

“Thank you, no, Manolo. I’ll be down in thirty minutes.”

Manolo left, closing the heavy mahogany door softly behind him. Bruce took his toiletry items into the big marble bathroom, splashed some water on his face, then took off his jacket and sat in a comfortable chair for a few minutes, still numb.