The Tempest (28 page)

Along with the sketch of Fiorille's life were five photos taken of her over about fifteen years, four of them mug shots. She was smiling in all but one of them. But it wasn't a happy smile. It was a flattened, surly smile. In the earliest mug shot, it seemed to be trying to become a smirk. A dare: Don't come too close.

At 2
P.M
., Tanner rapped on Hunter's door again. “It's official,” he said. The museum had just sent out a statement confirming that the painting that had appeared in the Dutch Room overnight was in fact Rembrandt's
The Storm on the Sea of Galilee
.

Hunter switched her computer to cable news to watch. There was, by then, a uniformity to how the story was being covered:
A Miracle in Boston
. “The so-­called miracle in Boston,” some broadcasters were saying, already reporting on the reporting.

Surely, it had been planned that way, Hunter figured. Kepler must have made the use of the word “miracle” one of his conditions.

She was interrupted again by a call: Thelma Williams, a name Hunter didn't recognize until the woman identified herself: she was Eddie Charles's daughter. Her voice sounded unfamiliar, deeper and more assured than before. Had their meeting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art happened just two days ago?

Thelma had seen the news about the Rembrandt, and decided she needed to talk with Hunter again. Walters had given her the number.

“This was why my father died, wasn't it? This was the deal.”

“Maybe,” Hunter said. “There may have been some connection, anyway.”

“I'm almost tempted to go to the media and tell them about it.”

“No, I don't think that would be the best course of action at this point,” Hunter said.

“Is there something I can do? Something that would help clear my father's name?” she asked.

“I think there is,” Hunter said. “But not right away. Give me a little time to work on it first. I promise I'll get back with you.”

“He died because of this, didn't he?”

“Give me some time,” Hunter said. “I promise I'll work on it and get back with you.”

Hunter stared out at the pinewoods after hanging up. Thelma represented the part of the case that Helen Bradbury had called the “moral tale.” It was thornier than solving a murder, and not in Amy Hunter's job description; but it wasn't something that she wanted to ignore, either. She'd work on it with Calvin Walters, she decided, during her “administrative leave.” Maybe go up and visit with him and have lunch with Thelma Williams. See if they could find a way to redefine Eddie Charles's death, to remove the stigma of “drug related”—­although in real life, of course, it wasn't so easy to tie bows around crime stories.

Hunter still wondered if Eddie Charles
had
played a role in this case, which would make his death even more complicated. He'd been in the photo, after all, on Susan's phone, in the same frame with the stolen Rembrandt. But maybe he'd just been in the house that day to wire it for electricity.

Just as she was thinking this, and as if to provide dramatic relief, Marc Devlin called her desk phone. With his slow Southern inflection, he said, “Miss Hunter? Marc Devlin here. I saw the news from Boston and just wondered—­I mean, if this had anything to do with what we were talking about?”

“What we were talking about?”

“Yes, about Miss Champlain.”

“Oh, I can't say a lot about that,” she said. “But, between us, yeah, it may have.”

“Did you know this was going to happen? With the painting?”

“I didn't.”

He cleared his throat; she thought about his unearthly blue eyes, the way he'd been walking behind Susan Champlain weeks earlier on an afternoon when the air seemed to be drugged with heat. “I was thinking,” he said. “Maybe we could go out for a drink sometime. Just to talk.”

“Okay,” Hunter said.

“Really?”

“Sure.”

Hunter smiled. He hadn't expected that. She hadn't, either.

“Okay, well. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Hunter said, feeling a tingle of gratitude again. She needed to loosen up. “I can meet you over at Kent's, if you'd like. Six o'clock?”

“Really? Okay. Great.”

Hunter smiled and went back to the file that Moore had given her, although her mind kept taking her on tangents. Wondering how Kepler had managed to pull this off, and where he was now. At three o'clock, she turned on CNN just to see if there was any new Rembrandt coverage and was stunned to see Scott Randall's face on the screen. He was playing FBI spokesman, talking in a measured, annunciated voice: “. . . the culmination of a years-­long investigation. I couldn't comment on any particulars at this point other than to say that it was a team effort, involving the assistance of several agencies.”

Hunter tried calling him right away, her heart racing; but naturally she couldn't get him. She was a little too angry to leave a message. She tried Dave Crowe again, reaching him on his cell phone.

“It's been running since noon,” Crowe told her, amused at Hunter's urgent tone. “You're just seeing it now?”

“It's like he's doing a victory lap.”

“Oh, he is. Like I told you before, he's justifying the Kepler investigation, that's all.” Then his voice fell to a more sober register: “Did you have any idea this was going to happen?”

“None. You?”

“No.”

“Got to give Kepler some credit, I guess,” Hunter said.

“Some. I just wonder where the money came from. I don't think it came from the government.”

“No, I'm sure it didn't,” Hunter said.

“Maybe a philanthropist or wealthy art patron. Or maybe the museum.”

“Or maybe him,” Hunter said.

Crowe said nothing at first. “Kepler?”

“Yeah.”

“That wouldn't be his M.O.,” he said. “Or make a lot of sense.”

“That's right. And maybe that's why it worked.” Hunter gazed at the familiar picture of Susan Champlain on her corkboard. “I was thinking about the
Mona Lisa
earlier,” she told him. “I've been reading about her, how she came to be such an iconic painting.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We thought the point of this deal was to make money,” she said. “That's the logical assumption. But it couldn't have been. Despite what the Stolen Art Division might have thought. That's why this worked.”

Crowe answered with silence. Then: “You're saying, what, that Kepler's only objective was to return the painting?”

“And to create this story. This so-­called miracle. The idea that a great painting can come back and tell a story.” Hunter waited a beat. “It's a theory.”

“Okay.” More silence. “But what do you mean, the
Mona Lisa
?”

“When the
Mona Lisa
was stolen from the Louvre a hundred years ago, it wasn't a widely known painting. It wasn't even the most popular painting in the museum. Scholars said it was great, but the public didn't know it.”

“I didn't even remember it was stolen,” Crowe said.

“Well, no, you probably wouldn't; this was in nineteen eleven. The point is, the theft helped
make
it an iconic painting. If it hadn't been recovered eighteen months later, and returned to the Louvre, it would be completely unknown today.”

“Oh. I see,” Crowe said. After a moment, Hunter sensed he really
did
see. “And so you're saying he spent his own money to tell this story, for the sake of the
painting
?”

“Something like that. With a little subsidy from the U.S. government, maybe,” she said. “I keep hearing that he cares more about art than he does about ­people or anything else. That would give a funny kind of logic to this whole thing.”

“Does Scott Randall know this?”

“No. I don't think he's supposed to.” Just hearing Randall's name gave her a prickly sensation. “Listen,” she said, “I need to talk with you about Randall. You and Bradbury. The whole thing about when he disappears on weekends to see his mother. And the way he goes out West sometimes and no one hears from him for a while. Where does he go, exactly?”

“He owns property in Wyoming. Retirement property.”

“And you said you thought he'd retire after this case.”

“I think he will. Why?”

“Something Kepler said to me. I think there's something wrong about the whole setup.”

“What—­with Kepler?” Crowe wasn't following.

“No,” she said. “I'm becoming less concerned about Kepler getting away than about Randall getting away,” she said.

“Oh.”

“You and Bradbury have all sorts of reservations about Randall, anyway, right?”

“Some.”

“I think you need to find a way to take them to the Justice Department.”

“What?” Crowe's confusion was becoming anger. “Why?”

“To help them find out if there's a hidey-­hole.”

“A
what
?”

“That's what Kepler called it.”

Even Crowe's breathing seemed confused now. Hunter told him the rest of what Walter Kepler had said to her and then she let him know what she was thinking. “These are just suggestions,” she said, afterward. “I'm on administrative leave now and not supposed to be involved. But we have an investigator here named Gerry Tanner who . . .” Then Hunter broke it off. She recognized the number calling in on her office phone. “Speaking of Scott Randall.”

“What, is he there?” Crowe asked.

“Let me call you back.”

Hunter cleared her throat and sat up straighter before answering.

“Hunter,” she said.

“Amy? Scott Randall. Are you all right? I heard you were in a shooting.”

“I'm fine, yes, thank you,” she said. “I saw you on television earlier.”

“Yeah, I know, I didn't want to do that.” Hunter was surprised that her heart was racing again; a reaction to Randall's voice.

“You made it sound like this was some kind of victory for the Bureau,” she said. “But you didn't have any idea that Kepler was
returning
the painting. Did you?”

“I couldn't really comment on that.”

Hunter worked at keeping her composure. “You told me that you thought Kepler was selling it to a Middle East terrorist.”

“Not a terrorist.”

“A terrorist sympathizer.”

“Yeah, slight difference.” Hunter exhaled. He was right, although that wasn't the issue. “The bottom line, Amy? Is we got it back, okay? My job is heading up the Stolen Art Division. And we just brought in one of the art world's great masterpieces. The art's home, it's a happy occasion. We won. Okay? What are you griping about?” There was an edge to how he said the word
griping
.

“You didn't get the guy you wanted.”

“No,” he said. “But we will.”

“I'm told you wanted to get the government to fund this operation,” she said, “to set up a straw man as the buyer. That's how you did it the last time, right?”

Randall chuckled uneasily.
“Amy,”
he said, scolding her.

She decided not to press him on that. It wasn't something he would talk about, anyway. Instead, she told him, “I think I understand about Belasco now. About your reluctance to pursue him. He told me all about it.”

“Who did?”

“Kepler. He told me about your screenplay.”

“Oh?”

“I didn't realize how well you knew Walter Kepler. The two of you were college pals at one time.”

“Not pals,” he said. “Acquaintances. That was thirty-­five years ago, Amy. I told you that. Hey, I gotta go. Take it easy, okay? Talk with you later.”

Hunter held the phone out and took a deep breath, then put it back to her ear. He was gone. “Yes, very nice talking with you,” she said. She set the phone in its cradle and then went outside, where she took a walk around the perimeter of the parking lot; the slow warm breeze through the pinewoods made her feel better.

We won
: Is that what Scott Randall really thought? Hunter didn't think so. It would be a while before this story was told properly, but she was pretty sure Scott Randall wouldn't be the one telling it. If the winners write the history, as they say, it was possible that Kepler had already written this one. He was probably doing a secret victory dance right now, wherever he was, watching this play out across the media. Maybe it was like being in the spy business for him, where recognition came away from public view, the satisfactions cultivated privately or not at all. Maybe winning wasn't about other ­people, anyway; maybe it was just about getting the art back.

Rather than return to her office, Hunter drove over to the church to see Pastor Luke. Aggie made her wait in the lobby first, while Luke finished a call. She sat and watched Aggie type at her computer for several minutes, her posture impossibly erect, her eyes moving maddeningly back and forth across the screen. Hunter wondered what she was typing.

Finally, without saying anything, Hunter stood and walked into Luke's office.

He looked up from his desk. His blue eyes seemed to smile. He hadn't been on a call, he'd been watching cable news on his computer: an art historian talking about Rembrandt; it was one of the clips the network kept repeating.

“Hi,” she said. “Just wanted to stop by and say hello.”

“Come on in.” They gave each other a hug. Luke felt like an anchor again. Sometimes, Hunter felt closer to her life's purpose, even if she didn't know what it was, when she was around him; this was one of those times.

“Sorry I didn't call back earlier,” she said, having a seat. “Hectic day.”

“I can imagine. I'm glad you're okay.”