“Where did the tip come from?”
“It was anonymous.”
“I see. So what happened next?”
“I flew to San Francisco and met with the homeowner, who told me he had acquired the paintings in a private sale and had no idea that they’d been stolen.”
“You believed him?”
“They were not particularly important works, so his story was plausible.”
“And then?”
“I arranged for him and his lawyer to meet with representatives of the museum to negotiate the return of the paintings.”
“Were you compensated for your role in this?”
“I was not.”
“I understand that the thieves were never apprehended.”
“That’s true. The names on the sales agreement proved to be phony, and there were no other leads.”
“So now, less than a year later, you are attempting to negotiate the return of the masterpieces stolen from the Gardner Museum.”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“Did you get another anonymous tip?” the agent asked, ignoring Val’s question.
So he again described the mysterious phone call, the long drive with a hood over his head, and the meeting with a man he didn’t know—although he figured the agent must have already heard all this from the Gardner’s security director.
“Did you recognize the man?”
“No.”
“Are you aware that lying to an FBI agent is a felony?”
“I am.”
“So I’ll ask you again: did you recognize the man?”
“I did not.” It was not a lie because Val didn’t figure out who the fat man was until later.
“And where did this meeting take place?”
“As I already told you, I wasn’t allowed to take the hood off until they brought me inside.” Another evasion, but still not a lie.
“Did you look out the windows?”
“They were covered.”
“Describe the room to me.”
Val did so.
“Describe the man.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Would you be willing to look at some mug shots?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I identify him, and you pick him up, I won’t be able to negotiate the return of the masterpieces. They could be lost to the world forever.”
“Did this man you claim you didn’t recognize show you the stolen art?”
“Only the Chinese ku. I didn’t see any of the paintings or drawings.”
“Was the ku genuine?”
“I think so, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Do you know where the stolen art is being kept?”
“No.”
“Have you been promised a share of the reward money?”
“A small one, yes.”
“How small?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“So you have a financial incentive to obstruct this investigation.”
Val didn’t respond to that.
The agent shuffled through the file again. “The FBI has reason to believe that New England organized crime figures were involved in the Gardner heist.”
“I read that in the newspapers.”
“Your family, the Sciarras, have a history of involvement in organized crime.”
“Just my late uncle Rudy,” Val said.
“And your father.”
“My father? That’s not true.”
“He has a record of multiple bookmaking arrests.”
“Oh, right. I heard something about that. It was when he was young, before he had us kids. After that he got out of it.”
“Or maybe he just got better at concealing his illegal activities.”
“My dad was a bus driver, for godsakes.” With that, Val pushed back from the table and got to his feet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Burns said.
“To work, but I’d like my firearms back first.”
“Not until we run ballistics tests.”
“What for?”
“To assure ourselves that they haven’t been fired at any crime scenes. It’s routine.”
Val headed for the door.
Hanrahan blocked it. “One last question,” he said, breaking his long silence. “You claim you didn’t recognize the man when you met with him, but do you know who he is now?”
Val didn’t answer. He shouldered the agent aside and strode out the door.
*
The first thing Val noticed when he got to his office was that his desk drawers had been rifled through, the contents scattered on the floor. And his desktop computer was gone.
“The FBI was here, Val,” Charles said. “They had a search warrant, and they asked me a lot of questions about you. They talked to Higgerson too. What in heaven’s name have you gotten yourself into?”
Val didn’t reply at first. Instead he pawed through the debris and saw that his files on stolen art were gone. “What did they ask about?” he finally said.
“They were intensely interested in what you know about the Gardner Museum theft. I told them stolen art was a fascination of yours but that we hadn’t discussed it much. They also showed me a dozen mug shots and asked if I had observed you in the company of any of the people in them. I told them that I hadn’t.”
Val turned to leave.
“Val? Did you have something to do with it?”
“With what?”
“The Gardner robbery.”