Murder at the National Gallery (15 page)

Death was almost instantaneous.

Giliberti’s final words were obscenities, directed not at his killers but at the artist and current toast of Washington, Michelangelo Caravaggio.

By the time Annabel reached her gallery on Georgetown’s Wisconsin Avenue, it had started to rain. The parking lot she used was two blocks away; the only things in shorter supply in Washington than character and integrity, she thought, were parking spaces in Georgetown.

Her hair dampened, but not her spirits, she let herself into the gallery, punched in the code to deactivate the alarm system, turned on the lights, and went to her small office in the rear to settle in for some administrative duties before her buyer arrived. She hoped other customers wouldn’t come in. Browsers almost never bought any of the expensive artifacts. Her sales were primarily to a network of collectors she’d established, each name carefully entered into her computer’s database, including what she knew of the pieces in their collections, their personal preferences, the financial limits to which they were likely to go, and other pertinent information.

She took a break a half hour later and entered the showroom, standing in the middle of the large, well-lit space to admire what she’d managed to accomplish. Each work had special meaning for her, making it sometimes difficult to part with them. When she forgot that she was in the business of selling the pre-Columbian art in the gallery, Mac was always there to gently remind her.

She went to what she considered the centerpiece of her current collection, a baked clay, six-inch-high, Tlatilco female
figure, unusual, and by extension more expensive, because of its double face. It was a superb example of Mexican preclassic culture, dating back to circa 1300–1700
B.C
. She’d negotiated long and hard to purchase it from its previous owner, a wealthy Mexican physician. When the deal was set, she could barely contain her trader’s glee. As far as Annabel was concerned, she’d “stolen” the piece; its worth was far greater than what she’d paid.

She’d bought that particular piece before she’d closed her law practice and opened the gallery, having made the purchase purely for personal pleasure, installing it in an alarmed Plexiglas case in her law office. Clients often admired it. Eventually, Annabel began using it to make a point with warring couples—that rather than approaching divorce from two distinctly different standpoints, two faces, it was better for everyone concerned, especially children, that the parting couple cooperate. She was never sure whether the analogy was effective. But she did have an impressive number of divorcing couples come to the bargaining table under less angry circumstances than when first becoming involved with her.

“I trust you slept well,” Annabel said to her inanimate Tlatilco friend before returning to her office to resume running figures on a broad spreadsheet.

Fifteen minutes later, a buzzer indicated that someone had entered the gallery. Annabel got up and looked into the showroom. A short man wearing a green raincoat and a Baltimore Orioles’ baseball cap closed the door behind him.

“May I help you?” Annabel asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Just looking.”

“Make yourself at home,” Annabel said, certain he’d come in only to escape the rain. She returned to her desk and positioned herself so that she could watch him.

Annabel glanced down at her work. The next time she looked up, she couldn’t believe what was happening: The man had pulled a hammer from his raincoat pocket and swung it with great force at the case, smashing its top and sides and sending the Tlatilco to the floor. The case’s special alarm had come to life, its scream bouncing off the four walls.

Annabel gasped. She started to shout, but the words wouldn’t come. Springing from her chair, she raced into the showroom. The man had turned and was about to run for the door. “What have you—?” Annabel managed. She grabbed the back of his raincoat collar, spinning him around. Annabel’s hand instinctively went up to protect her face as he brought the ballpeen hammer down in a wide, uncontrolled arc, its peen aimed directly at her forehead. The hard metal nob deflected off the back of Annabel’s hand, causing it to graze her ear and cheek and land with a painful thud on her shoulder. She fell to her knees as the man stumbled to the door, opened it, and disappeared.

Annabel shook, wrapped her arms about herself, and looked down at the white marble floor. She was surrounded by small pieces of what had been her beloved Tlatilco. She reached tentatively to touch them, then drew back her hand. “Oh my God, why?” she said aloud. She’d knelt on one of the pieces, causing a sharp pain where it cut her knee. Her shoulder ached. She got to her feet and went out to the street, looking left and right. No sign of the man. Across Wisconsin, on the corner of M Street, stood two uniformed Washington MPD officers.

“Help! Help me, please,” Annabel yelled.

She and the two officers stood inside the gallery.

“What is it?” one of the cops asked.

“A valuable piece of pre-Columbian art,” Annabel replied, her voice trembling in concert with her body.

“And you say this guy just walked in, hit it with a hammer, and left?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what happened.”

“And then he hit you?”

“Yes.”

One of the officers checked the side of her head. Her ear and cheek were red, but the skin hadn’t been broken. “Maybe you should sit down,” the officer said. To his partner: “Call for an ambulance.”

“No,” Annabel said. “I’m all right.” She looked down at her torn stocking and knee, where the small gash oozed blood
that ran down the front of her leg. She pressed a paper towel to her knee.

She pointed to the open door to her office. “I was in there doing some bookkeeping. He came in, stood at the door for a few seconds, then went over and examined the piece. I looked down for a moment. When I looked up, the hammer was in his hand and on its way toward the case. It happened so fast.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“No. I mean, I asked if I could help him, and he shook his head. I think he just said, ‘No.’ Maybe he said he was just browsing. I really don’t remember.”

“What did the guy look like?”

“I never saw his face. Not clearly. He had on a green raincoat and a baseball cap. I think it said Baltimore Orioles on it, but I can’t be sure. Yes, that’s what it said.”

“You didn’t see his face good?”

“No.”

“Hair? Any distinguishing features?”

“If I didn’t see his face, I don’t see how I could—” She caught her anger. Nothing was to be gained by being short with them.

“And he attacked you?”

“Yes. No. I mean, I don’t think he intended to attack me. He was heading for the door but I stopped him. I grabbed his coat and … he hit me to get away, I think.”

“Can I use your phone?” one of the officers asked. “Certainly. In there.”

From beneath a display case Annabel took a plastic bag in which to place the Tlatilco fragments.

“Don’t touch them, ma’am,” one of the cops said. “Let’s wait until we get a detective down here.”

She called George Washington University but was told Professor Smith wasn’t available. She asked to have him call her at her gallery. “Tell him it’s urgent,” she said.

A couple of browsers attempted to enter the gallery, but one of the officers had positioned himself at the door. “There’s been a crime committed here,” he said. “The gallery is closed.”

Annabel remained in her office until the buzzer said
someone else had arrived. She went to the showroom. “Steve,” she said. “Of course. I should have thought to ask for you. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Detective Steve Jordan headed Washington MPD’s art squad.

“This time, for some reason, they put the call through to the right person,” he said. “What happened here?”

Annabel explained.

Jordan knelt and visually examined the broken figure. He looked up from his position on the floor and said, “Doesn’t make any sense. Why would a guy come in and smash this thing?”

“I wish I knew,” said Annabel.

Jordan stood. “I can see somebody
stealing
it. Worth a lot of money, huh?”

Annabel nodded.

“Insured, I assume.”

“Yes, but not for its full value.” Annabel had meant to increase coverage on that piece along with others in the gallery but hadn’t gotten around to it.

“Report said injuries. You?”

Annabel shrugged. “Nothing serious. I tried to stop him and he took a swing at me with the hammer.” She grimaced against pain in her shoulder. “Not very bright on my part.”

“Get yourself checked out,” Jordan said.

A police technician arrived and took photographs. Jordan asked Annabel whether the man had touched anything on which he might have left fingerprints. She said she didn’t think so, except for the front doorknob, which a criminalist dusted.

After the uniformed officers and criminalists had left, Jordan sat with Annabel in her office. He took a small tape recorder from his pocket and placed it on the desk in front of her. “Okay, Annabel, give me a complete statement.”

When she was finished, he turned off the recorder and sat back. Jordan was a short, compact man with salt-and-pepper hair that closely followed the contour of his temples. He wore a gray tweed jacket, white button-down shirt, and maroon knit tie.

Annabel had known him for three years, ever since he was
appointed head of the art squad. Mac Smith’s relationship with him went back further, to when the detective worked Homicide.

Jordan had earned, at nights and on weekends, a master’s degree in art history at Georgetown University. Other members of his family were involved in the arts—his father edited an art magazine in New York, and an uncle was a painter of minor note in Denver—which helped explain this homicide detective’s interest in matters other than murder.

Shortly after earning his advanced degree, the head of the Washington MPD art squad retired, and Jordan got the job. Annabel had heard nothing but praise for his having shaped what had been an ineffective appendage of the police department into an important, functioning addition to it. A number of articles had been written about him, including a piece that recounted his role in recovering a stolen Velázquez. The case had involved close cooperation between Jordan, his counterparts in Spain, and other international art sleuths. The painting was discovered and recovered in Washington, turning Jordan into a hero of sorts, at least to the arts community.

“Strange,” Jordan said.

“Very,” Annabel agreed. “An insane act. Nothing to be gained. Just wanton destruction of a beautiful object.”

“I know,” he said. “If the guy wanted to steal it, it would make sense.”

“I really appreciate you being here, Steve,” Annabel said. “All I hope is that you find the madman who did this. It won’t restore the figure, but it will satisfy my need to find out why.” She picked up her ringing phone. It was Carole Aprile. “Yes, Carole. Noon? All right. I can be there. What? Oh, nothing. I’ll fill you in when I see you. Noon it is.”

“Free for lunch?” Jordan asked after she’d hung up.

“Can’t. I just got summoned to a noon meeting at the National Gallery.”

Jordan raised his eyebrows. “About what happened last night to the Italian cultural attaché?”

“I assume.”

“Strange case, too. Homicide has it, but everybody is
fighting over jurisdiction. State. Embassy cops. The National Gallery’s own police force. FBI. But I’m rung in, too. The guy had something to do with art, so the art squad gets involved. How about later in the day? Can I buy you a drink? Dinner?”

“I don’t know, Steve. I was leaving things open. Mac and I had dinner plans but—is there something else on your mind?”

He laughed easily. “I wanted to make you a proposition, hopefully one you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, refuse.”

“A proposition? Sounds intriguing.”

“Maybe. I’d like you to come down to headquarters sometime today to look at mug shots.”

“To what end? I didn’t see his face.”

“You never know what you’ve seen, what your mind’s eye might have recorded. At least go through the procedure. We’re big on procedure.”

“All right. What time?”

“Whatever’s good for you. Four?”

“I’ll be there.”

“An early dinner after?”

“I’ll ask Mac. He still doesn’t know what happened here this morning. Maybe the three of us can have dinner together.”

“The Collector? At six?” he said.

“I’ll let you know at four.”

The phone rang. “Must be Mac,” she said.

“See you at four, Annabel. And have that shoulder looked at.”

Mac raced to Annabel’s side after returning her call and hearing what had happened. By the time he arrived, the numbness that had consumed her had been replaced by regular pulses of anger.

“Forget the meeting and come home with me,” Mac said. “You don’t realize what a traumatic thing you’ve been through.”

“I’m fine, Mac. Honest I am. I was lucky. No major damage.”

“Raise your arm.”

She did, pleased that only a mild ache remained in her shoulder. “See? I’m okay. I don’t want to miss the meeting.”

“You’ll come directly home after it?” Mac said.

“I can’t. I told Steve Jordan I’d come down to look at mug shots at four.”

“To what avail? You said you didn’t see him.”

“I know. But Steve thinks I might have seen more of him than I remember. Seeing a man in the mug book could trigger recognition. Please, I’m fine. What I want most is to find out who did this, and why.”

They stood outside as a young reporter from the
Georgetowner
, who’d learned of the incident from a friend, arrived to interview Annabel. Annabel graciously put him off. He asked if he could call her at home later that evening. “She won’t be available,” Mac responded gruffly. “Sorry.”

“I’ll be home about six,” Mac said after the dejected reporter had departed. “I’ll have something ready for dinner.”

“I almost forgot,” said Annabel. “Steve wants to have dinner with us tonight. At The Collector.”