Insatiable Appetites (6 page)

“The mother superior would like to see you,” the young woman said. She was eighteen or nineteen and quite beautiful. Dolce resolved to paint her portrait.

“Thank you,” Dolce said, and left her brush to soak. She wiped her hands on a cloth, brushed her hair, and left the studio, walking through the convent’s garden to the small administrative wing. The secretary at work outside the office looked up and nodded for her to go in.

The mother superior, a woman in her early sixties, six feet tall and painfully thin, was working at her computer when Dolce entered. She waved Dolce to a seat without taking her eyes from the screen, then tapped in a few more words, closed the document, and turned to face Dolce.

Her mien was different today from her usual brisk but pleasant self; she seemed sad. “Dolce,” she said. “My dear, I have just received an e-mail from your sister, Anna Maria, which tells me that yesterday, your father had a stroke and passed to God peacefully a few hours later.”

Dolce felt a pang in her chest that she would not have expected in the circumstances. She was unable to speak.

“Your father was ninety-four years old,” the mother superior said. “He lived a long and abundantly fruitful life and was true to himself and his God.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Dolce managed to say.

“Your father and I have had a considerable correspondence since you came to be with us. He was very pleased to hear of your recovery from your illness and hoped he might see you again.”

Dolce managed a wry smile. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said. She had her own collection of letters from her father, which had always been warm and affectionate.

“I believe the time has come for you to leave us,” the mother superior said. “I believe you to be in every way fit to rejoin the outside world and to make your way there.”

Dolce smiled. “I think you are right,” she said.

“What do you think you will do?”

“I have given that a great deal of thought,” Dolce replied. “I think I will devote myself to my painting.”

“You have a remarkable gift, and I am glad to hear you wish to make a career of it.” The mother superior rose from her chair and walked into a smaller room, then returned, carrying a suitcase and a purse. “These are the things you had when you came to us,” she said, setting them beside Dolce’s chair. She then went back into the room and returned with a thick envelope. “Your father sent ten thousand euros, in preparation for this day,” she said, handing it to her. “He wanted you to know that your bank and investment accounts remain open, your credit cards, as well, and your apartment in New York has been kept ready for your return, if you wish it. Your sister said in her e-mail that there is to be a high mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for your father next week. Where do you think you will go?”

“I will take a little while to re-accustom myself to the outside world,” Dolce said. “Then decide.”

“As you wish, my dear.” She came around the desk and embraced Dolce.

“Thank you for your many kindnesses, Mother,” Dolce said, then she picked up her case and her purse and left the room.

She stopped in the sun-filled garden and sat on a bench for a few minutes, letting her heart return to its normal beat, then she took a cell phone from her apron pocket and called American Express Centurion Travel.

A few hours later, a chauffeur-driven Mercedes met Dolce at the front gate and the driver put her case into the trunk while she settled into the rear seat. “Take me to the Grand Hotel Villa Igiea,” she said.

After an hour-long drive along the coast, the car arrived at the old castle, now one of Palermo’s premier hotels. Her travel agent had arranged everything: she checked into a spacious and beautiful suite and looked at her spa appointments. She was hungry, and there was time for lunch.

She was given a table on the terrace, overlooking the marina and the sea beyond. She had pasta with seafood and half a bottle of wine and reflected on her time at the convent.

She had been in nearly a catatonic state when she arrived, and it took a week of tender care to revive her. During her second week there a handsome Irishman arrived and introduced himself as Frank Donovan, a priest and a psychiatrist, who had been sent to Palermo for several months to treat a bishop who had been discovered to have a woman and two children in a village outside the city, near the convent. He would be a daily visitor for her first three months, and it took only a short time for Dolce to corrupt him. To her surprise, she found him to be no virgin, and a skillful and affectionate lover. Most of her two-hour sessions with him were, thereafter, conducted in bed.

The mother superior caught on before long, and Father Frank disappeared from her life. He paid one final visit, supervised, and told her that his patient, the bishop, had recovered and that he, himself, was being sent to the Vatican to become private secretary to a highly placed cardinal, who was in charge of the Vatican Bank.

When Father Frank said goodbye, he pressed the cell phone into her hand, along with a note with a phone number, so they had stayed in touch.

Now, over her espresso, Dolce called him. “I’m out,” she said.

“Wonderful! Come to Rome.”

“My father has died, and I must go to New York. Can you come there?”

“Not for at least a week,” he said. “It will take me that long to invent some business there.”

She gave him her address on the Upper East Side. “Bring civilian clothes,” she said.

He laughed. “I doubt if I will need much in the way of clothing.”

“You are quite right, but we will need to leave the apartment sometimes.” She said goodbye and headed for the spa.

Four days later, refreshed and carrying a new wardrobe in new luggage, Dolce arrived at JFK Airport in New York and was driven to her Park Avenue apartment. The doorman greeted her warmly and took her luggage upstairs.

Dolce settled back into her spacious apartment and began to plot her return.

Stone and Herbie arrived at the Bianchi house to find a large team of catalogers and art experts swarming over the place, with the exception of Eduardo’s study, which Stone had left locked. He greeted the team, then unlocked the study door and let himself and Herbie in, then locked it behind him.

“What do you want to do today?” Herbie asked.

“I want to search this room thoroughly for hidden compartments.”

“Why do you think there are hidden compartments?”

“Because Mary Ann was searching the desk for one when we found her here. Maybe she knows something we don’t. Let’s start with the desk.”

They had been at work for, perhaps, ten minutes when Herbie found the compartment in the desk, simply by pressing on a panel in the kneehole that sprang open. “It’s not so hard to find hidden compartments when you know they’re there somewhere,” he said.

“What’s inside it?” Stone asked.

Herbie swept the compartment with his hand. “Nothing,” he said.

The two of them spent the remainder of the morning searching every nook of the study, then gave up and had the lunch Pietro had brought them.

“What did you think Eduardo might have been hiding?” Herbie asked.

“Evidence of holdings not mentioned in his will or financial statement. Eduardo had the house, the art, and investment accounts worth ninety million dollars managed by Mary Ann, nothing else.”

“Ninety million is a pretty nice estate.”

“It wasn’t just about the money for Eduardo. He wanted power and influence, more than ninety million would buy.”

“And you think Mary Ann knows about these holdings?”

“Somebody had to know—she’s the logical guess.” Stone slapped his forehead. “I forgot to tell you the news.”

“What news?”

“You remember when Eduardo gave us the tour the other day, and you admired what you thought were two Picassos?”

“But one was a Braque? Sure, I remember.”

“That afternoon, before his stroke, Eduardo wrote a codicil to his will that left you those two pictures.”

Herbie burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope, and the estate will pay the taxes. He left me the Modigliani portrait.”

“Well, congratulations to us, I guess,” Herbie said.

There was a rap on the study door.

“Come in!” Stone shouted. A woman wearing an artist’s smock and carrying a clipboard came into the room. “Excuse me, Mr. Barrington, Mr. Fisher,” she said, “but we’ve discovered something you should know about. Would you come with me, please?”

Stone and Herbie followed the woman into the large dining room. There were four blank spaces where pictures had hung, and the four were out of their frames and spread out on a green baize cloth over the dining table: a Matisse, a Toulouse-Lautrec, and two Blue Period Picassos.

“These four paintings are fakes,” the woman said.

Stone stepped forward and looked more closely. “Impossible. I know these pictures, they’ve been in the Bianchi collection for years.”

“Nevertheless,” she said. “They are brilliant fakes, but fakes all the same. Look at this.” She turned over the Toulouse-Lautrec, pointed to a place on the canvas frame, and handed Stone a magnifying glass. “Have a look.”

Stone looked at the spot. “I don’t see anything but the grain of the wood,” he said.

“Look more closely. I’ll point it out for you.” She held a pencil point at the spot.

Stone looked again. “Oh, I see it, it’s a check mark. How does that make it a fake?”

“It is a check mark, from a dye, tapped into the frame’s wood. It is the trademark of an art forger named Charles Magnussen.”

“Why would a man go to all the trouble to forge a painting, then put a trademark on it?”

“Pride, I suppose. Magnussen died last year, but on his deathbed he told the dealer who sold his original works about the trademark. The Metropolitan discovered two Renoirs about a month ago that bore the check marks.”

“First of all,” Stone said, “you are bound by your contract to keep this information confidential.

“Second, I want you to examine every painting and drawing in this house for the presence of that trademark and any other signs that any of the works might be forged.”

“As you wish. I’ll put my people to work on it.”

“And, if you would, please examine that Modigliani and the Picasso and the Braque below it.” He pointed. “Do those first.”

Stone led Herbie back into the study.

“I don’t understand,” Herbie said, “Eduardo willed his collection and the house to this foundation mentioned in the will, so there would be no taxes to pay on the art. Do you think Eduardo was bilked?”

“Possibly,” Stone said. “On the other hand, maybe he had the paintings copied and sold the originals—although I think that is extremely unlikely.”

An hour later, the woman came into the study again. “We’ve carefully examined the three paintings, and it is our conviction that they are all genuine.”

“Thank you,” Stone said. “Please continue with your work.”

“Whew!” Herbie said when she had gone.

Stone had to laugh.

By the end of the day Stone and Herbie had finished examining every object, cupboard, drawer, and book in Eduardo’s study and had found nothing of import. The art expert walked through the open door.

“Mr. Barrington, we have found twenty-four forgeries of artwork in the house, nearly all of them by Magnussen and nearly all of them from the cream of the collection. It will take us another couple of days to examine the rest of the collection.”

“Do you need more help?”

“I have already invited two experts on art forgery to join us, and they will be here tomorrow.”

“Good. May I have a copy of the list of the twenty-four forgeries?”

She tore a page from her legal pad and handed it to him. “I’ve already made copies for our purposes.”

“Remember, this information is highly confidential,” Stone said. “There may be a logical reason for the presence of the copies in the collection.”

“Of course.” She left the room.

Stone laid the list of forgeries on Eduardo’s desk and picked up the phone. “Now I have to call Mary Ann.”

“Why?” Herbie asked. “Isn’t that premature, until we know more?”

“Mary Ann may already know all we need to know.”