“The guy got away with it?”
“For a while. The painting was eventually returned to reduce his sentence on another heist that didn’t go quite as well for him. But there were lots of stories like that back in the day. Angus started the process of pulling together information on the thefts and the movement of the paintings. Studied the fences, the transactions, took art classes-became a real expert. After the Gardner job he started lobbying the brass to start up a special division. It took him a dozen years, but they finally gave in and assigned him a half dozen agents and a budget. I’m sure he wanted more, but I gotta give him credit. After 9/11 we were so focused on the antiterrorism issues that I’m shocked he got anybody’s attention.”
“I’m surprised, too,” Kozlowski said. “Diverting any resources from antiterrorism to find lost paintings seems like a waste of manpower.”
“In principle, I don’t disagree,” Hewitt said. “But I’ve helped out on a couple cases, and you’d be surprised how big a business it is-and how tied in it all is to some other very bad things. Drugs. Terrorism. Extortion. It’s all related.”
“How so?”
Hewitt gave an ironic grimace. Finn figured it was the closest he ever came to a smile. “I could give you the basics,” he said. “But from the look on your face, you don’t want the basics. If you’re looking for the best information, the guy to talk to is Porter.”
“Do you feel comfortable calling him?” Kozlowski asked.
Hewitt thought about it for a moment. Then he stood and walked to the door. “I’ll do better,” he said.
Chapter Thirty
Finn shifted his feet as he and Kozlowski sat alone in the conference room at the heart of the FBI’s offices in Boston. Talking to Kozlowski’s trusted FBI contact made Finn nervous. Talking to an FBI agent neither of them had ever met made him nauseous. He and Kozlowski knew about a kidnapping and they hadn’t reported it to the police or to the FBI. They were already arguably guilty of obstruction of justice. In addition, his client had participated in the robbery at the Gardner Museum -the very crime about which they were asking questions. Just having the conversation with the FBI agents was putting them all at risk, and Finn didn’t like it.
He was still fretting when Hewitt walked back in, another man behind him. It would have been difficult to imagine two more physically different people. Hewitt was huge, with a massive upper body and giant hands. Porter was tiny, with shoulders pinched at the top and a neck that looked too thin to support his head. His hands were wiry and small. Finn guessed his age in the mid-fifties, and he had a disdainful look that made him resemble a British filing clerk.
“Gentlemen,” the second man said. “I’m Special Agent Porter, in charge of the FBI’s Art Theft Program. Special Agent Hewitt tells me you are looking for information about art theft. Specifically the Gardner Museum theft.”
“Yes,” Kozlowski said. “I’m Tom Kozlowski. This is Scott Finn, he’s an attorney.”
Porter remained standing. “May I ask what your interest in the Gardner theft is?”
“We can’t answer that right now,” Kozlowski said.
Porter looked at Hewitt and Hewitt shrugged. “Special Agent Hewitt speaks very highly of you, Detective. That carries some weight in my book. Perhaps we can talk for a little while? There is always the chance that you’ll develop the same trust in me that you have in him.” Porter spoke like a college professor. His diction was perfect, and there was a hint of an upper-class accent. He spoke slowly and chose his words carefully. “So what is it you want to know about the theft?”
“You were in the Boston office when the Gardner was hit?” Kozlowski asked. “You were one of the agents originally assigned to the case?”
“Yes. I have been involved in the investigation from the beginning.”
“At the time, were you also working with the organized crime unit in Boston?”
“Yes.”
“Did you work with John Connolly at all?” It was a pointed question, the implications of which could not be overlooked.
“That’s out of line, Koz!” Hewitt protested.
“No, no, Robert,” Porter said. “It’s a fair question.” He smiled. “I did work on cases involving organized crime in the eighties and nineties, Mr. Kozlowski. But I had no involvement with the tainted informant program. I was involved in the prosecution of the Angiulo offshoot of the Patriarca family that resulted from the information disclosed by Mr. Bulger and others, but I never ran any of my own informants. And I never had any idea where we were getting our information. Agent Connolly kept that information to himself. As a result, I never had the opportunity to become involved in anything untoward. Believe me, it was an issue that was seriously weighed by the Bureau before it approved the funding for the Art Theft Program.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“And, as you can see, they still saw fit to put me in charge of the new division. That should give you some comfort.”
“Should it?”
Porter smiled. “You don’t strike me as the kind of a man who likes to waste time, Detective,” he said. “Assuming that to be the case, you must have a very good reason to come all the way up here to ask questions about the Gardner Museum, yes?”
Kozlowski leaned forward in his chair. “We understand that there was recently an offer made to sell the paintings,” he said, turning back to Porter. “Is that right?”
Porter shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I compliment you on not beating around the bush, Detective. Where did you come by that information?”
“From the director at the museum. Baxter. Is it true?”
Porter looked as though he were sucking on a lemon. Finn guessed he was either angry or constipated. “Under what circumstances did Mr. Baxter tell you this?” he asked.
“No circumstances,” Kozlowski said. “We had some questions about the theft.”
Porter wasn’t done with the lemon yet. He folded his hands together and looked down at them. “In any conversation I had with Mr. Baxter, I indicated that he was to keep any information to himself,” he said. “It is crucial to the case. You understand my surprise at the notion that he would have just blurted this out to you, Mr. Kozlowski.”
“Maybe you should have been clearer with him,” Kozlowski said.
“Perhaps. You didn’t, by any chance, represent yourselves as law-enforcement officers, or give Mr. Baxter reason to think you were officially connected in some way to the investigation, did you?”
“We never represented ourselves as anything we weren’t,” Kozlowski said. “I showed my private investigator’s license to the woman at the desk. You’ll have to ask Baxter what he believed. It’s true, though?” Kozlowski pushed. “There has been an offer to sell the paintings?”
Porter cleared his throat. “These paintings have been missing for nearly twenty years. They are the most valuable pieces of stolen art in the world-worth an estimated five hundred million dollars. I’m going to need more information from you if I’m going to continue this conversation.”
“What do you need?” Kozlowski asked.
“First and foremost, I need a reason to believe you two have something to offer me. I need a reason to believe you aren’t full of bullshit.”