Kozlowski shook his head. “I thought about it. This guy’s desperate. It’s not just about the money, there’s something else driving him. That means he’s unpredictable. The cops and the FBI work from a standard playbook that depends on predictability. We call them in, he’ll know, and he’ll kill her without even thinking twice. We need to get to this guy ourselves.”
“How?” Finn asked. “I’ve been sitting here, racking my brain, trying to come up with some way to find him, and I’ve got nothing.”
“We won’t find him,” Kozlowski said. “There’s not enough time, and he’s smart enough to be holed up in a place we’d never locate.”
“So? What do we do?”
They were out at the car, and Kozlowski was opening the passenger-side door. He looked over the roof of the car at Finn. “We find the paintings.”
“What?”
“He wants them,” Kozlowski said. “Why not give them to him?”
Finn blinked back at him. “Well, yeah. That sounds good in theory; in practice it seems a little unrealistic, doesn’t it?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because every relevant law-enforcement agency in the world has been looking for those paintings for twenty years and hasn’t come up with anything. That doesn’t even include all the journalists, private investigators, art houses, and every profiteer with any knowledge of art.”
“We’ve never looked for them,” Kozlowski pointed out.
“You sure you’re not being a little bit overconfident?”
“Probably,” Kozlowski said. “You got any better ideas? Maybe this will give us back some control. Besides, we have a better reason than anyone else to find them.”
“How do we even know that they’re still in Boston? In all likelihood they were sold a long time ago and moved out of the goddamned country.”
Kozlowski shook his head. “They’re here. This asshole helped steal these things almost twenty years ago, and he’s here, now. Not only that, but he seems pretty fuckin’ sure that someone here knows something. He’s smart, we know that much; and he’s careful. Careful enough to torture and kill a bunch of people and not leave behind anything that’s got him caught by the cops. A guy like that doesn’t make the kinds of moves he’s making after twenty years unless there’s been some reason-unless he’s learned something concrete.”
Finn considered this. “Okay, that seems logical,” he said. “There’s only one problem with it. It assumes that a guy who’s running around torturing and killing people is rational. That may be a stretch.”
“It may be, but if we want to have any hope of getting the girl back, we have to make that assumption. If it’s wrong, then we’re fucked and he’s going to kill her no matter what we do.”
Finn started the car, let the engine run for a moment. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll buy all that for the moment. But I need to know one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Is this personal? Because of what he did to Lissa?”
Kozlowski took a deep breath. “He took the girl. The daughter of our client-a girl we were taking care of. He assaulted Lissa, and he could have killed my child before it was even born. It doesn’t get any more personal than this.”
Finn stared back at him. “Good,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to hear. So where do we begin?”
“Where every investigation starts,” Kozlowski replied. “At the scene of the crime.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Finn made the call from the car. Sometimes being a lawyer seemed like a life strung together in a series of unpleasant phone conversations. Your parole was denied; the judge ruled against you; there’s a problem with the contract. Nothing in his experience, though, had prepared him for a call as difficult as this one.
“ Devon,” Finn said. He stopped. He couldn’t figure out how to say it.
“What’s wrong?” his client asked.
Finn took a deep breath. “Sally’s been kidnapped.” Three words. The worst three words Finn had ever uttered.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Devon said after a minute. “How? When?”
“A couple of hours ago. From her school.” Finn could hear Devon suck in air like a drowning man pulled from the ocean.
“Was it him?”
“Yeah,” Finn said. “We got a call from him within the last hour. He said she’s okay, but he’s only gonna let her go if he either gets the paintings or he gets you.”
“Did you tell the cops?”
“No. He told us that if we did, he’d kill her. She’s your daughter, though. If you think we should get the cops involved, we will. It’s your call.”
“No cops,” Devon said. “He’s not the kinda guy who bluffs. He’ll kill her. I gotta deal with this myself. Can you get me outta here?”
“Probably,” Finn said. “I’ve got a motion for a new bail hearing ready, and I can get it filed today. After the last hearing, it’s not gonna be cheap, but they’ll set bail.”
“I don’t care what it costs. Just get me out. It’s me he wants. That’s her only chance. When do you think the judge will hear it?”
“He’s got a motions session tomorrow. I’ll try to get it scheduled for then.”
“Get it done. I gotta get outta this place.” Devon sounded deep in despair.
“It’s the best I can do,” Finn said. “It’s not gonna be an easy hearing.”
“Okay,” Devon said. “Finn, I’m worried.”
“I know,” Finn said. The guilt ripped at him. “I’m sorry, Devon. I didn’t know. I didn’t even think that this could happen.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. All this is my fault.”
“We’ll get her back,” Finn said with false confidence.
“We will.” Devon sounded even less sure than Finn felt. “I’m gonna make sure we get her back.”
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum wasn’t far from the hospital. It covered half a block on Fenway Drive, next to Simmons College, just around the corner from the Museum of Fine Arts and Northeastern University. Across the street to the east was a patch of garden that was the last natural remnant of the swampy fens that had once covered much of the area west of downtown Boston.
Finn had never been to the Gardner before, and he was surprised by its exterior. He was familiar with the larger Museum of Fine Arts, with its towering Ionic columns and broad marble staircase leading up from the sidewalk to the main entrance. He’d been to the Boston Public Library, with its imposing neoclassical facade, rising from the center of Copley like some great mausoleum. It seemed to Finn that such pomp was a necessary hallmark of cultural landmarks. The Gardner had none of it. From the outside, the museum begged for little attention. It had gray-brown stucco sides, set flush to the sidewalk, with a stubby steel door for an entrance that for its lack of pretension could have been admitting them to a college dorm.
Finn and Kozlowski walked through the dark entryway, paid their admission fee, and walked into the main section of the museum. Upon entering, Finn felt transported. Before him was an enormous three-story indoor courtyard garden, roofed by a great glass ceiling allowing in all the sunlight of the day. Rustles of clover and ivy covered the ground surrounding an intricate mosaic that was centered under the transparent ceiling. Across the courtyard from the entrance, a large fountain with inverted Chinese fish-dragons was framed by an elaborate two-way staircase. About the courtyard were strewn various works-headless statues, urns, and obelisks-looking almost haphazard in their placement. And yet there was an order to it all, as though the informality of their selection and display was central to their purpose. Above, balconies set against huge arched marble windows observed the scene.
“Nice,” Kozlowski said.
“Yeah,” Finn agreed.
The entire building was centered on the courtyard, with galleries and halls ringing the place on every floor.