Among Thieves (47 page)

“Me too,” Finn said.

“I’d give almost anything to have the paintings back here, where they belong. Where people could enjoy them, marvel at them.”

“A little girl lost her father. She’d give anything to have him back, too.”

Bass nodded. “I read about her. She was the one you were trying to save, when you came here? I’m very sorry for her.”

“Her name is Sally,” Finn said. “She’s remarkable.”

“I’m sure she is.” The old man scratched at the thick layer of patchy gray stubble covering his chin. “Did you see them? The
paintings? The papers said that they had disappeared again, but they said they were there in Charlestown all along. Did you
see them before they vanished?”

Finn shook his head.

“Pity. You would have liked them. I can see you would have liked them.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose the police learned anything
that might lead to their recovery.”

“Not really. Not that anyone is willing to discuss. I have my own theories.”

“Of course you do,” Bass said. “We all have our own theories.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to discuss mine with you,” Finn said. The man hesitated. Finn looked at his watch and saw
that it was approaching five o’clock. “The museum closes soon. We could go someplace to sit and talk. I’ll buy you a drink.”

The old man studied Finn’s face. He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I think I’d like that.”

They walked north, along the Fenway, and found a café a few blocks away on Brookline Street. The weather was fine, and they
took a table outside. The waiter brought them a plate of bread and glasses of water. “Would you like a cocktail?” he asked.

“I’ll have a beer,” Finn said. “Anything on tap would be fine.” He looked at Bass. “You?”

“I have some health issues,” he said. “My doctor says I can no longer drink.”

“I’m sorry,” Finn said.

Bass looked up at the young waiter. “I’ll have a glass of chardonnay if you have one.” As the waiter left, Bass closed his
eyes and turned his face toward the sun. He looked even closer to death outside than he had in the darkened gallery of the
museum, and Finn wondered how long it had been since the man had been out in the daylight. “Are you enjoying your youth, Mr.
Finn?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

“I have my days.”

“Well, if I could offer you one piece of paltry advice, it would be to enjoy your youth. It passes quickly. Whatever it is
you love, dedicate yourself to that. If you can do that faithfully, that is the key to happiness.”

Finn thought about it for a moment. “I’m still trying to figure out what I love.”

Bass laughed as though Finn had told one of the funniest jokes he’d ever heard. When his laughter died down, he said, “Give
it some thought. I’m sure it will come to you.” He opened his eyes and leaned forward. “You said you wanted to discuss your
theories about the paintings?”

“I did,” Finn said. “I…” The waiter brought their drinks. Finn sat back and let him put them down. Once he’d walked away,
Finn began again, his voice lowered. “I wanted to ask you some questions about Paul Baxter.”

“Our illustrious director,” Bass said. He picked up his wine and held it under his nose, swirling it around as he inhaled
deeply. “I can’t drink it anymore,” he said, “but I still enjoy the aroma of a decent chardonnay. What would you like to know
about Baxter?”

“He started at the museum a month or so before the robbery?”

“That’s right.”

“What were his responsibilities at the time?”

Bass folded his hands in his lap. “He’s the director. He was in charge of the museum,” he said. “He had responsibility for
the entire operation.”

“Yes, I know, but what does that encompass, exactly?”

Bass thought for a moment. “That encompasses everything. He had responsibility for the preservation of the place. He was in
charge of maintaining the building, making sure the place ran smoothly, making sure everything was taken care of.”

“How about maintaining the art itself?”

“Of course,” Bass said. “He had people helping him, obviously, and there is a curator, but ultimately he was responsible for
the preservation of all of the pieces in the museum.”

“And security?”

Bass nodded. “Security, too. After the theft, he oversaw a total overhaul of the security procedures and systems. He had new
alarms installed and implemented new protocols for the security guards. In every way, he made sure that what happened that
night could never happen again.”

“What about the finances? Was he in charge of those, as well?”

Bass shrugged. “The museum has a director of finances, but that person reports to the director. The financial health and sustenance
of the place was ultimately Baxter’s responsibility.”

“That’s what I was guessing,” Finn said as Bass lifted his wine to his nose again.

“These are all pointed questions, Mr. Finn. Do you mind if I ask what they are all about? You don’t really think that Paul
Baxter had anything to do with the robbery, do you?”

Finn shrugged. “It’s possible. The way I figure it, there are only a few people who could possibly have been involved—who
could have helped to plan the robbery, and who could have also known where the paintings were hidden. Baxter’s one of the
people at the top of that list.”

“Do you mind if I ask who the others are?”

Finn shook his head. “Not at all.” He took a long drink from his beer. “Two of them were associates of Whitey Bulger’s. Mob
guys. Vinny Murphy and Eddie Ballick. They were definitely involved in the robbery—they brought in Devon Malley to do the
job. They partnered him up with a man named Liam Kilbranish.”

“The newspapers talked about the two of them,” Bass said. “They were killed, right?”

“That’s right,” Finn said. “Kilbranish was IRA. A hard-core case, and he came back to find the paintings. Speculation is that
he wanted to start the troubles back up, but he needed money to do it. According to Devon, after the robbery, Bulger kept
the paintings. He was supposed to get them to the IRA somehow, but he took off before that happened. Devon said Bulger told
him that there were only three people who knew where the paintings were hidden. Bulger, Devon, and one other. The question
is: who was the third? Because both Murphy and Ballick were in on the job from the start, it’s possible it could have been
one of them.”

“But you don’t think so,” Bass observed.

“No, I don’t,” Finn said. “It’s pretty clear in the end that Bulger didn’t trust anyone in his organization. These two guys
were fairly high up, and they had lots of other guys loyal to them. I don’t think Bulger would have risked giving them the
chance to cross him. More importantly, Kilbranish killed them himself—tortured them—and if they’d known where the paintings
were, he probably would have gotten it out of them.”

“You think?”

“He would have been very persuasive.”

“Who else, then?” Bass asked.

“There are two FBI agents who could possibly have been involved. They were both here in Boston at the time of the robbery,
and they were both working on different aspects of the investigations into the Boston mob. So they could have developed the
ties necessary. One of them, though, clearly didn’t know where the paintings were. I saw him the night everything went down,
and he was out of his mind.”

“How about the other one?”

Finn sat back in his chair and took another swallow from his beer. “Rob Hewitt. For a few weeks after Devon was killed, I
thought he was probably involved. I was sure he’d moved the paintings. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it
made.”

“How so?”

“The way Devon described the robbery, it’s pretty clear that they had some help from someone who was familiar with just about
every aspect of the museum. They had a complete understanding of the security systems; they knew how many guards would be
on duty; they were given detailed maps of the entire place. Hewitt was in the FBI, so it’s possible that he could have gotten
a lot of this information just by snooping. But there are other things that don’t fit. For example, Bulger also gave Devon
and Kilbranish a list of which paintings to steal. I don’t think Hewitt would have known enough about the art in the museum
to give them that kind of information. Plus, whoever helped Bulger hide the paintings knew a lot about how to preserve the
art. When they were stolen, the paintings were ripped out of their frames and rolled up; but when Devon saw them again, they
had been professionally stretched and remounted. And the box they were kept in was specially designed to keep the paintings
from suffering any more damage. Hewitt didn’t have that kind of expertise. I suppose it’s possible he could have learned about
those sorts of things, but it seems unlikely.”

“Which brings you back to Baxter.”

Finn nodded. “It does. He would have had all the necessary knowledge to help pull off the robbery, plus he would have been
able to help Bulger take care of the paintings afterward.”

“Have you shared your theory with the police?” Bass asked.

“Not yet,” Finn said, shaking his head. “I may, if I get more comfortable with my theory, but right now it’s all speculation,
all circumstantial. Besides, even with Baxter there are things that don’t quite fit.”

“Like what?”

“Like how would he have gotten hooked up with Bulger in the first place? I suppose Whitey could have sought him out and put
a gun to his head, but that would have been awfully risky, and Bulger wasn’t known for taking chances like that. There’s also
the insurance issue.”

“The insurance issue?”

Finn nodded. “Bulger arranged all of this with the IRA, which had a history of art theft. That’s one of the ways they funded
their part in the troubles. But the IRA had a fairly standard method of operation. They would steal paintings and then ransom
them back to the owners for the insurance money. Only in this case, the Gardner Museum didn’t have any insurance. That’s why
they had such a hard time disposing of them. From what you’re telling me, Baxter would have known there was no insurance,
and that knowledge probably would have put an end to the entire plan before it started.”

“Maybe,” Bass said. “But you never know; they might have taken their chances and gone ahead with it anyway.”

“It’s possible,” Finn admitted. “As I said, it’s all really just speculation.”

“As far as it goes, though, it still seems that Baxter is the most logical suspect.”

“One of them,” Finn said. “There’s one other.”

“Who?”

Finn looked at his beer. It was almost finished, and he took the last sip. “You.” He raised his hand to get the waiter’s attention
to order another beer.

“Me?”

The waiter came over. “I’ll have another,” Finn said. He looked at Bass’s glass and noted it was still full. “You all set?”

Bass looked bewildered. “Yes, thank you.”

The waiter sauntered away toward the bar. “Yes, you,” Finn said. “In a lot of ways, you fit better than anyone else. You’d
been working there for, what, forty years when the robbery took place? You would have known as much about the security system
as anybody. You also would have known which paintings were most valuable. You told us yourself that you had worked at nearly
every job at the place, and had even worked for a while helping to preserve the paintings, so you could easily have designed
the box they were kept in. One of the few things that you probably wouldn’t have known was that the museum had no insurance.
I’d be surprised if you ever worked in the business end of the operation. Am I right?”

Bass stared at Finn, his lower jaw dangling. “I never worked in the business office,” he said.

“I figured,” Finn said. “Plus, I did some checking. You told us you grew up poor. You stayed poor even after you started working
at the museum. Poor enough to qualify for a little apartment in the Old Harbor projects in Southie, which is where you’ve
lived for almost fifty years. Less than six blocks from where Whitey Bulger grew up. You must have tried hard to lose the
accent, but a little bit of it comes through every now and then.”

The waiter arrived and set Finn’s drink down on the table. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No, we’re good, thanks,” Finn responded. He took a sip of the beer. “There’s really only one thing that doesn’t fit,” Finn
said after a moment.

“Which is?”

“Motive. I still can’t figure it out. If you were involved, you clearly didn’t make any money off the robbery, and that knocks
out the motive that usually drives people in situations like this—greed. From what I can tell, the museum has treated you
pretty well. Maybe not perfectly, but I’ve seen the way you talk about the place; it’s pretty clear that there’s no revenge
at issue here. So, I can’t figure out what your angle would have been.” He took another drink.

“I’m not sure how you expect me to respond to all this,” Bass said.

“I expect you to tell me the truth,” Finn said.

“The truth is I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. When we first talked to you in the museum, you described the robbery as a ‘betrayal.’ It seemed like an odd
choice of words to me at the time, and it stuck. You can only betray something you love; something you have some loyalty to.
It seemed like you knew what you were talking about. Like it was personal.”