The Case of the Missing Botticelli, page 5
“W-what is this?” she asked Isabella.
“Amore,” Isabella answered simply.
“But how…where did this come from? H-how did you get it?”
If paintings could talk, what secrets would this masterpiece reveal?
Isabella expelled a breath. “It is a long story. A story that overlaps my family history.”
“I need to hear it. I need to know all about this painting. Is it genuine?” If so, the value of the painting would be inestimable—at a minimum in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“I am sure of it. Just like the rest.”
“The rest?”
“Look around,” Isabella said, indicating the circular space.
Hadley had been too intensely focused on the Botticelli in front of her to notice the rest of the room. When she turned in place, she saw them, other, smaller yet no less precious, paintings by Botticelli and others. Were they all plundered by the Nazis? Hard to classify them as missing when no one knew of their existence. Typically, a painting would turn up after the thief attempted to sell it. But these gems had been hidden in a private home, this private home, for more than seventy-five years—by Göring—a notorious art hoarder. He and Hitler were in a perpetual race to collect—aka steal—works of art. Were they stolen from an art dealer? From a collection? Then why hadn’t they ever been reported missing?
“But these, how can they be here? I’ve never seen some of these before or read anything about them.” It was believed that the Primavera and The Birth of Venus were a part of a much grander series that Botticelli was planning. This theory had fallen out of favor with the majority of art historians, but if it were true, Amore would be his third. The puzzle pieces were beginning to fall into place.
The historical record of whether Sandro Botticelli had burned several of his paintings based on classical mythology in the Florentine bonfire of 1497 was unclear. Could these be some thought to be destroyed in the bonfire of the vanities, where thousands of precious artworks were set on fire in the name of artistic excesses? Could Botticelli have had second thoughts about burning his remaining pagan works in the midst of his religious crisis and held back these paintings from the world? Somehow, if they were authentic, they had gotten into the hands of a private art patron, the Medicis perhaps, the Vatican, the Sforzas—the ruling family of Milan—and ended their circuitous journey in this Venetian villa. A Titian, the greatest Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school, would be a more likely find in this city, but this painting…these paintings…were incongruent but no less priceless. If that scenario were true, this would be the greatest art discovery in history.
Chapter Eight
“Hermann Göring, my grandfather, was madly in love with his first wife Carin, but when she died in 1931, he was desperately lonely, and on a trip to Venice, he met my grandmother, Karrissa. They were together on and off until 1935, when he married Emmy Sonnemann, a beautiful German actress from Hamburg, with a gala reception at the Berlin Opera House. Hitler was his best man. Their daughter, Edda, was born three years later.
“By then, he had all but forgotten Karrissa. Occasionally, he would appear out of the blue with another painting to hide, and she would allow him back into her bed. What choice did she have? He was one of the most powerful men in Europe. Not all of the paintings are on display in this room. There are many crates of his in the villa, on the upper level, including studies of Amore by Botticelli.”
Isabella walked over to a marble table and lifted two framed photographs and brought them over to Hadley and Luca.
“This is my grandmother with Göring.”
“She’s beautiful,” Hadley said. “She is the image of you.”
“Everyone says so.” She held up the second photograph.
“This is a picture of Matteo and me.” The picture showed a young man next to an adolescent girl, his arm slung possessively around her shoulder. Evil seemed to emanate from his eyes. He was the image of his grandfather, Hermann Göring.
“This is where our story begins. Herr Göring visited often. My grandmother was very young and innocent. She was only twenty, and he was forty-one, but no matter, just like Mussolini was twenty-eight years older than his mistress. Grandfather pursued Karrissa, showered her with gifts, made pretty promises he never kept. She relished the attention of the prominent, older man, one of the richest, most powerful men on the continent. She was in love with him. She provided comfort to him after the death of his beloved wife, Carin. But in the end, his attentions were focused on Emmy Sonnemann. She was sophisticated and available, in Berlin, whereas my unworldly grandmother was out of sight and out of mind in Venice.
“My grandmother could feel her hold on the Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief slipping. Pictures of Emmy and Hermann were in all the newspapers. She often served as Hitler’s hostess at state events. After they married in 1935, she was ‘First Lady of the Third Reich,’ freezing out even Hitler’s future wife, Eva Braun. I don’t think Emmy ever knew about Karrissa.
“When my grandmother found herself pregnant as a result of one of his secret visits in 1938, Hermann installed her in this villa. Göring owned many mansions, estates, and castles, so purchasing another villa didn’t raise any eyebrows. This Venetian villa belonged to a wealthy Jewish family in Berlin eager to escape to America, and he got it for a fraction of its worth, along with all of its contents, which included some of the artwork you see on the walls today and in the rest of the house. He set my grandmother up in their love nest, continued to support her and their illegitimate daughter, and built this room for the paintings he hid here. But when Emmy and Hermann’s daughter Edda was born, he stopped coming around.”
“What about the family who owned this home? Did they ever make it to America?”
“All that I know is documented in my grandmother’s diary. Many of them remained trapped in Europe and were sent to the death camps. No one came back to claim this house after the war.”
“What happened to Emmy?”
“Oh, it’s not really my family’s history, but I’ve always been interested in the story. So I did some research and found that she was sent to jail for a year after the end of the war, and thirty percent of her property was confiscated. She died in Munich in 1973 at the age of 80. But no one confiscated our villa because no one knew about it.
“After the Soviets approached Berlin, Hitler admitted defeat and made plans to remain in Berlin and commit suicide. Then Carinhall was evacuated and destroyed. A large part of Göring’s private collection had already been moved to a converted salt mine in Altausee, Austria. In January 1945, he moved most of his remaining art to the tunnels of Berchtesgaden and other locations.
“He made the final trip to Venice to hide some of the more priceless pieces and install them in the museum he’d built in our villa. This is what you see here. Then he rushed back to his estate in Obersalzburg in April 1945. He and my grandmother never saw each other again.
“The Americans found parts of Göring’s art collection when they captured him on May 7, 1945, in Schloss Fischhorn in Salzburger Pinzgau.
“He was a coward, my grandfather,” Isabella said icily. “He swallowed a cyanide pill and committed suicide, like Hitler, in his prison cell, rather than face up to his crimes, the night he was condemned to hang as a convicted war criminal. I am so ashamed of my grandfather, my heritage.
“I don’t blame my grandmother,” she added. “Göring wasn’t responsible for the ‘total solution’ of the ‘Jewish question,’ or at least not until 1938. By then Karrissa was in too deep, and she had already given birth to my mother.”
“Do you have any documentation of this story?” Hadley asked.
“Besides the paintings, only my grandmother’s diary and the Botticelli studies of Amore,” Isabella said. “It’s all there, our dirty family history. My grandmother said someone would come one day, and we were to turn over the contents of the museum and the crates. I assumed it would be his wife, Emmy, or his daughter, but they are both dead. I’ve been waiting. And now you have come.
“I know Matteo has been selling off some of the works through third parties, to support us,” Isabella stated. “We were warned not to do that. He sold one of the studies of Amore to the Uffizi Gallery. He was planning to sell Amore to the highest bidder, a wealthy private art collector. He doesn’t appreciate the art, just the profit. The people he deals with are not very nice. They scare me. When I pleaded with him not to sell, he slapped me and threatened me. No one outside the family has ever seen this museum.”
She paused. “Do you believe someone can be born evil, Signorina Evans?”
Hadley shrugged.
“My brother is evil,” Isabella whispered, trembling. “I myself have decided not to marry and have children because I don’t want to take a chance of bringing another evil person into this world. Matteo wouldn’t allow it anyway. He is very controlling. I am his—” Isabella broke into tears. “I am…so ashamed.”
Hadley could not be sure, but from the way Isabella was talking, it sounded like her brother was abusing her.
Luca balled one of his hands into a fist and punched the other hand, eager to take on Matteo, a monster he had yet to meet.
Hadley thought it was a shame such a beautiful girl would deny herself love and happiness and children because of an accident of birth. Was that what she was doing by denying a more serious relationship with Luca? Was she going to return to America to marry King Charles when all she wanted and needed was right here in front of her?
Isabella went to a drawer in the beautiful antique desk near the door and returned to hand Hadley her grandmother’s diary.
“I don’t know when he will do it, but I am sure he will try to sell Amore. I’ve heard him on the telephone. He’s been enticing dealers with the studies, introducing them, in an attempt to drive up the price. If he finds you here, he will kill you. If he discovers I’ve told you, he will not hesitate to kill me, too.
“It’s past time,” Isabella continued. “I want the world to know, to see these beautiful pictures. No one else is coming. Will you help me?”
“Yes,” Hadley assured her.
“Now you must go. Matteo cannot find you here. Come back in the morning when he is gone off to whatever it is he does all day.”
Luca hesitated. Hadley pulled out her cell phone to call the curator. She rifled through her handbag but couldn’t find the woman’s business card. So she called the Uffizi.
“Could you please connect me to the museum curator?”
“Signore Caruso is not in his office.”
“No, this is a woman, the new curator to the gallery.”
“There is only one curator. Signore Caruso.”
“She’s new. She may not have started yet.”
“There’s been a hiring freeze for months. There are no new female employees.”
Hadley frowned. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
Why would that woman lie to her? She finally located the business card. But there was no name on the front of the card, only a number scribbled hastily on the back. Hadley dialed the number.
The mystery woman answered right away.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Who are you?” Hadley challenged.
“What do you mean?”
“I just called the Uffizi, and they’ve never heard of you.”
“That’s because I haven’t started work yet.”
“The woman on the phone doesn’t know anything about you.”
“The current curator hasn’t told them he is resigning. It’s all very hush-hush.”
Hadley paused. She was in over her head. “I’m in Venice.”
“Have you found anything?” Excitement fairly crackled over the telephone lines.
“Yes. Meet us at the villa tomorrow morning.” She gave her the address. “Come quickly. And bring boxes and crates, lots of crates.”
A feeling of unease crept over Hadley, as she recalled Rule Number Two of the Pocket Guide. Watch Your Back. Stolen Art Is A Dangerous Game. Don’t Underestimate Your Adversaries. There Are People Who Will Want What You Have And Do Anything To Get It.
“I must alert Signore Domingo,” she announced.
Luca placed a reassuring hand over hers. “Cara, this is your case. You deserve all of the credit. You did all the work. You can handle it yourself. I have complete confidence in you. Have you heard of the Reggimento corazzieri?”
“The honor guard of the president of the Italian Republic?”
“Si. Their motto is ‘Virtus in periculis firmior,’ which means ‘Courage becomes stronger in danger.’ ”
Luca was trying to make her feel safe. But she was not courageous. And she smelled danger wherever she turned. The villa reeked of it.
Chapter Nine
“I hate to leave Isabella alone tonight,” whispered Luca. “She is afraid for her life. I could arrest her brother.”
“For what? For thinking of selling a stolen painting that we don’t know for sure is stolen or authentic? We should wait for the authorities.”
“I am the authorities.”
“But all we have to go on is hearsay.”
“And the diary,” Luca reminded her. “You saw the girl. Her brother has all but locked her away in this palace. She is virtually his prisoner. She didn’t come out and say it, but I feel sure something is not right with that relationship. I’m not comfortable leaving her.”
“But if we take her with us, her brother will suspect something is wrong. He might run off with the painting, or burn it—or worse.”
“So you are willing to sacrifice an innocent girl’s safety for your precious artwork? Art is all you think about. Your art is more important to you than me.”
“That’s not true,” argued Hadley. “It will take them months to catalog and authenticate all these paintings. But I know they are real. Hidden away in this private villa all these years. We can’t afford to lose Amore. Luca, can you occupy Isabella for a few minutes while I go back and check something in the gallery? Turn on your charm.”
“You expect me to seduce this girl?”
“Do whatever you have to do,” Hadley stated flatly, hiding her Furla bag under a decorative pillow on the couch.
Luca stalked off to do his duty, accompanied by Hadley.
“Isabella,” Hadley said. “I think I forgot my handbag. Could you let me back into the museum?”
“I don’t think…there’s not much time before…”
“Isabella,” Luca said, placing a calming hand around Isabella’s shoulder and rubbing her arm. “Let us take a quick stroll around the villa. Perhaps there’s a garden? I think you need some fresh air. Your face is frighteningly pale. Give my colleague the key, and she will retrieve her handbag.”
“But I—”
“Hush,” Luca whispered, leaning close in to the signorina. “Everything will be all right. Do you trust me?”
Luca placed a featherlight kiss on Isabella’s cheek, and she looked adoringly into his eyes.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” Luca said.
Disarmed, Isabella removed the lanyard with the key from around her neck and handed it to Hadley.
“Thank you. I’ll be right back.”
Luca led Isabella out into a glass-enclosed garden.
Don’t you dare kiss her again, you snake in the garden.
Hadley suddenly remembered Rule Number Three of Signore Domingo’s “Pocket Guide to Stolen Art Recovery.” Always Look Beneath the Surface. There’s More Than Meets The Eye. You May Be Surprised At What You Find.
She’d seen a rather large but forgettable painting on the wall opposite Amore. It was a hunting scene, perhaps painted by a Dutch Master.
She’d need Luca’s help to remove the painting from the wall, to check beneath the paper, to see if, perhaps there was another painting hidden there. Another priceless, undiscovered Botticelli, perhaps? She couldn’t do it alone, and she could hardly take the giant painting with her. But she’d bet her career there was a treasure either painted on the back of the canvas or nestled between the nondescript piece of art and its hand-carved frame. That painting was a black swan among white beauties. A definite red flag.
She took a quick look around and snapped some photos of Amore and some of the other works of art with her cell phone. She’d have to wait until they returned tomorrow to see if there was a treasure behind the painting opposite Amore.
When she locked the museum door and found her way into the garden, Luca’s body was wound around Isabella’s, and his lips were hungrily devouring hers. Her arms were around his neck and her substantial breasts were pressed against his chest.
“Luca Ferrari!” Hadley cried out.
Luca broke apart from the signorina and had the decency to look guilty.
Isabella’s hair was mussed and her lipstick was all over Luca’s face, outlining the trace of her kisses. Her chest was heaving, and she looked as if she were going to faint, again. It was obvious to Hadley that the girl was starved for real affection, had never been kissed like that, and was begging for it to happen again. Gritting her teeth, she tried to maintain a semblance of calm.
Hadley pressed the key firmly into Isabella’s hand, when what she really wanted to do was scratch the girl’s eyes out.
“We will be back in the morning,” she said in the calmest voice she could manage.
Isabella, still breathless, nodded, but she was so overcome with lust, she couldn’t form any words.
Hadley grabbed Luca’s hand and pulled him out the door, almost dislocating his shoulder. When they stood outside, she turned to face him, hands on hips, in her best battle stance.
“What the hell was that all about?”
Luca flashed a devilish smile. “You told me to turn on the charm.”
