A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [35]
“Lola Walter, can I help you?”
“Lola, it’s Mr. Scott. Is Penelope available?”
“She’s working on Hell this morning.”
“Oh, I see. We’ll go to her there.”
Scott hit the speaker button, disconnecting the call, and headed toward the door.
“You’re in luck,” he said.
“Hell?” McCaleb asked.
“It’s the descendant painting. If you’ll come with me please.”
Scott led the way to an elevator and they went down one floor. Along the way Scott explained that the museum had one of the finest conservation studios in the world. Consequently, works of art from other museums and private collections were often shipped to the Getty for repair and restoration. At the moment a painting believed to have come from a student of Bosch’s or a painter from his studio was being restored for a private collector. The painting was called Hell.
The conservation studio was a huge room partitioned into two main sections. One section was a workshop where frames were restored. The other section was dedicated to the restoration of paintings and was broken into a series of work bays that ran along a glass wall with the same views Scott had in his office.
McCaleb was led to the second bay, where there was a woman standing behind a man seated before a painting attached to a large easel. The man wore an apron over a dress shirt and tie and a pair of what looked like jeweler’s magnifying glasses. He was leaning toward the painting and using a paintbrush with a tiny brush head to apply what looked like silver paint to the surface.
Neither the man nor the woman looked at McCaleb and Scott. Scott held his hands up in a Hold here gesture while the seated man completed his paint stroke. McCaleb looked at the painting. It was about four feet high and six feet wide. It was a dark landscape depicting a village being burned to the ground in the night while its inhabitants were being tortured and executed by a variety of otherworldly creatures. The upper panels of the painting, primarily depicting the swirling night sky, were spotted with small patches of damage and missing paint. McCaleb’s eyes caught on one segment of the painting below this which depicted a nude and blindfolded man being forced up a ladder to a gallows by a group of birdlike creatures with spears.
The man with the brush completed his work and placed the brush on the glass top of the worktable to his left. He then leaned back toward the painting to study his work. Scott cleared his throat. Only the woman turned around.
“Penelope Fitzgerald, this is Detective McCaleb. He is involved in an investigation and needs to ask about Hieronymus Bosch.”
He gestured toward the painting.
“I told him you would be the most appropriate member of staff to speak with.”
McCaleb watched her eyes register surprise and concern, a normal response to a sudden introduction to the police. The seated man did not even turn around. This was not a normal response. Instead he picked up his brush and went back to work on the painting. McCaleb held his hand out to the woman.
“Actually, I’m not officially a detective. I’ve been asked by the sheriff’s department to help out with an investigation.”
They shook hands.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Has a Bosch painting been stolen?”
“No, nothing like that. This is a Bosch?”
He gestured toward the painting.
“Not quite. It may be a copy of one of his pieces. If so, then the original is lost and this is all we have. The style and design are his. But it’s generally agreed to be the work of a student from his workshop. It was probably painted after Bosch was dead.”
As she spoke her eyes never left the painting. They were sharp and friendly eyes that easily betrayed her passion for Bosch. He guessed that she was about sixty and had probably dedicated her life to the study and love of art. She had surprised him. Scott’s brief description of her as an assistant working on a catalog of Bosch’s work had made McCaleb think she would be a young art student. He silently chastised