The Art Forger (34 page)

We filter into the North, East, and West Cloisters, whose Venetian archways frame the courtyard. The enclosed garden is in full fragrant flower, so green and lush after the dreary gray outside that it almost hurts to look at. Champagne is passed by tuxedoed waiters, and a string quartet plays in the corner. It’s gorgeous, but it’s clear there are far too many people to view a single painting in a tiny room. The stairway that leads to the Short Gallery is roped off, and guests in the West Cloister are already queuing up behind it.

“How’s this going to work with all these people?” I ask Rik.

He points to a covered painting sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the courtyard. I try to conceal a gasp. She’s no more than a few yards from me, and I didn’t notice. Or maybe I didn’t want to.

Rik checks his watch. “The director’s going to unveil
After the Bath
in a couple of minutes, say a few words, then carry it upstairs to the Short Gallery.”

“And we follow her like the Pied Piper?”

“No. We wait.” He frowns at me. “After the painting’s hung—we don’t get to be there because the room’s so small—we’ll all go upstairs in staggered groups to see the old girl back where she belongs. There’ll be a videotape of the actual hanging at dinner.”

I bite my lip. I’m going to have to pretend I haven’t seen her in twenty years.

“You don’t look very excited. I thought
After the Bath
was one of your favorites. Degas your idol. That you’d be thrilled—” His frown deepens. “Oh, shut up, Rik,” he admonishes himself. “You’re an idiot. Forgive me, Bear, I wasn’t thinking. Aiden. Of course. He was supposed—”

“No, no, it’s okay. I am thrilled to be here.” I take a few deep cleansing breaths.

Rik throws an arm around my shoulder. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this. Bad timing.”

“I’m good,” I assure him, and look around for something to distract us. But before I do, the lights flash on and off, the quartet stops playing, and the room quiets.

Alana Ward, the museum director, walks along one of the courtyard pathways where no mere mortal is normally allowed. Although she’s wearing a nicely cut cocktail dress, her jacket is buttoned too high and her shoes are too low. Interesting that a woman who has dedicated her life to art is so uninterested in her own appearance. But according to Rik, she’s doing a bang-up job for the museum and fights for what she believes in—which he says doesn’t always lead to a stress-free working environment.

Alana stands next to the painting. “I just want to thank you all for coming tonight to celebrate this glorious moment in the life of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.”

Loud applause and a few whistles, which is surprising for this crowd. But Alana looks happy enough to whistle herself. After a few minutes of the predictable sentiments about the return of the long-lost scion and how pleased Belle would be, Alana pauses dramatically. The museum goes totally silent.

My heart begins to pound, and I’m guessing many hearts are racing all around me, but for a very different reason.

“This is it,” Rik whispers unnecessarily. His eyes are wide with excitement.

“You haven’t seen it yet?” I ask, surprised.

He clasps his hands. “Hardly anyone has.”

With a whoosh, Alana pulls away the velvet covering.

A loud gasp fills the chamber, followed by rollicking applause and more wolf whistles. I keep my eyes on the floor.

Rik presses a hand to his chest. “Oh,” he says, his long eyelashes spiked by his tears.

Alana dabs her eyes with a tissue, and I notice that I’m one of the few dry-eyed in the crowd. Everyone believes Belle’s masterpiece has been returned to her, and they’re deeply touched at the sight of a well-loved lost work of art.

A guttural growl that sounds like “no” escapes my lips.

“Claire!” Rik grabs me, and I sag into him. “What the—”

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” I say quickly, pushing myself away from him. “It’s, it’s just the painting. It’s so, so mind-blowing. I drew it, copied it, as a girl . . .”

“Guess it
is
one of your favorite paintings.” Rik points to a granite bench. “Let’s go sit down. I’ll get you some water.”

I struggle to regain my composure but find it difficult to stand with the room spinning around me. “Really. Not necessary.”

But he won’t take no for an answer. When he leaves me on the bench and goes in search of water, I turn so I’m facing away from the painting. Fortunately, the water does revive me a bit. “I don’t know, pal,” I tell Rik. “I’m thinking maybe you should get yourself another date.”

“You sick?”

“Not really. Just a little dizzy, kind of nauseous.”

He presses the inside of his wrist to my forehead. “No fever,” he says, then gives me a long look. “When was the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”

“It’s been a while, but—”

“You probably haven’t eaten much today, either.” He gives me an aggrieved parental scowl. “And how many glasses of champagne?”

I smile sheepishly. “I still think it’d be better if I just took a cab home.”

He jumps up. “I’m not going to let you miss the reinstallation of your favorite painting. Stay here and drink that water. I’m going to find Alana and get her to put us in the first group. That way you won’t have to wait in line as long.”

“Really,” I call after him. “You don’t need to.” But he’s not listening.

I think about slipping out and grabbing a cab before Rik comes back. I’ll call him and apologize when I get home. It’s believable. I already said I wasn’t feeling well. But before I can put my plan into action, he’s standing in front of me.

“You’re looking better already.” Rik holds out his hands to help me up. “Let’s go, Ms. Roth, we’re on.”

I allow him to pull me through the crowd.

“Truth is,” he says, “this is a great excuse to get in there first. It’s going to take hours for everyone to file by. So thanks for getting sick.” He rubs his hands together.

Halfway to the second floor, the line stops. I look behind us; people stretch all the way back to the Spanish Cloister. Above the ground floor, each level of the museum is essentially a circle surrounding the courtyard. Open arches provide views of the gardens from almost everywhere as well as views into the opposite galleries; the stairs are on the west side and each gallery flows into the next until you reach the stairs again. From where we’re standing, hemmed in by the crowd, there’s no going down, only up.

Rik checks out the throng in front of us. “I’m guessing half an hour.”

This gives me either thirty minutes to calm myself or thirty minutes to freak myself out. “There are worse places to be stuck in line,” I say, going for the former. “At least there’s plenty to look at.”

Rik gives me a hug. “Feeling better, I see.”

I stare out over the bubbling crowd in their jewels and fine attire, so pleased with themselves and the great moment they’ve come to experience. A wave of loneliness and isolation washes over me, and again I wish Aiden was standing beside me. I turn my attention to the art. Unfortunately, Italian High Renaissance has never been one of my favorites. Nor is the ornate furniture that fills the gallery. There’s a beautiful Pesellino,
The Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death,
but as I study it, all I can see is evil stalking good. A Bellini,
A Seated Scribe,
is superb, but the Turk is so earnest, so decent, that just looking at him makes me feel guilty. Almost all the other paintings in the room are religious, pious, and righteous. Woe be to the sinner . . .

“So what’s Belle thinking?” I ask.

Rik chuckles. “Since when do you believe in an afterlife?”

“Must be all the religion in here.”

“I guess it’s hard not to imagine her looking down on her museum, in constant contact to make sure everything’s being done exactly the way she wants. But to tell you the truth, I think she’d still be so mad about the heist that the return of one painting would only make her fume more about the absence of the others.”

Especially when she knows the prodigal painting is a forgery. I take Rik’s hand as we cross into the Raphael Room. “Only one more gallery to go.”

The Raphael Room is bigger and brighter than the Italian Room, which is a relief. Although, it, too, is filled with religious art. Even Raphael’s brilliant
Portrait of Count Tommaso Inghirami
portrays him in the red robes of the church. And although Inghirami is looking upward—evidently Raphael’s camouflage for a wandering eye—I feel the count is looking down on me with contempt. As are the many Madonnas and Child, the archangel Gabriel, and the dove representing the Holy Spirit in
Annunciation.

As we make our way across the Raphael Room and closer to
Bath II,
I look to my favorite painting in this gallery, Botticelli’s
Tragedy of Lucretia,
for distraction, thinking it’s safe as it’s based on a pre-Christian legend. But I’ve forgotten that the story is of a virtuous wife who’s raped under the threat of death. In the aftermath, Lucretia is so appalled and guilt-ridden over what she perceives as her immoral behavior that she stabs herself to death rather than live with her depravity.

The Short Gallery is actually a narrow, high-ceilinged corridor linking the galleries on the north side of the courtyard with those on the east and south, rather than an actual room in and of itself. We cross the threshold into the small, overheated space. The odor of expensive perfume tinged with genteel sweat is cloying. As are the waxing and waning murmurs of admiration that swirl around me like seasickness. I can’t look.

Rik grabs my shoulders. “Oh, Claire, look at her. Just look at her. Have you ever seen anything as stunning?”

My eyes light on the painting. “Oh,” I cry, but not in praise. I don’t know what else to say. This isn’t mine. I didn’t do this. The experts weren’t fooled. And after all my whining and carrying on, I don’t know what to feel.

“Speechless . . .” Rik says.

It’s the real original, an authentic Degas. The dense layers of vibrant color. The pulsating greens, blues, and corals. The women’s skin so pale and luminescent. Françoise, with her reddish hair and sharp nose. Jacqueline, tall and beautiful. Simone, introverted and fine-featured. But how did it get here? I elbow closer.

I immediately realize I’m wrong. I just haven’t seen
Bath II
in a frame before, only as a canvas. At first glance—hung in the spot I remember from my childhood, bordered in the familiar, heavy gold leaf—I didn’t recognize her. But Françoise is still not Degas’, and the craquelure on the bottom left corner, which I worried was too deep, is definitely mine. Although I can’t see it, I know there’s a tiny spot of green on the back.

This painting will hang here forever—my painting, a double pretender, a forgery of a forgery—while Degas’ real masterpiece gathers mold in the sub-basement and Aiden loses his finger. I turn to Rik. “We need to talk. Right now.”

Forty-two

I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with Rik in which I speak for so long and he doesn’t interrupt. We’re in his office, the door closed tight, the noise from the party muted but discernable: Beethoven, laughter, clinking cutlery. The space is cramped, damp, and cold, my chair hard and uncomfortable. Rik’s elbows rest on his desk, his hands over his mouth, nose resting on his forefingers, eyes focused on me. When I run out of words, he continues to stare as if I’m still talking.

“Well?” The relief I felt at unburdening turns into doubt in his heavy silence. “Say something.”

He shakes his head as if emerging from a swim in the ocean. “For real?”

“All too.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “What if I said I didn’t believe you?”

“I probably wouldn’t believe me either.”

“But it’s true?”

I nod.

“All of it?”

“I probably left a few things out.”

“I don’t even know how to begin processing this,” he says, then pauses. “So this means Markel knows where the other paintings are.”

“He was the broker for just this single painting. He didn’t have anything to do with the original robbery. And probably the people he got it from didn’t either.”

“And you’re sure because . . . ?”

“He’s in danger.” I twist my hands together. “From the sellers. Physical danger.”

“But he’s in jail,” Rik argues.

“They’ve got a long reach.”

Rik stands up, looks surprised that there’s nowhere for him to go, sits down again. “And you’re positive the one downstairs is the one you painted?”

“I recognize the craquelure.”

“I don’t believe this.”

I smile wryly. “Full circle.”

He stares off into the distance, focuses back on me. “And you decided you had to tell me about this right now because . . . ?”

“I need to get into the sub-basement. To see if it’s possible. If it’s there, the Gardner’s got an authentic Degas to hang, which could easily be his finest work ever. And the world has a new masterpiece.”