Turned to Stone Page 20

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Paloma said, still half-asleep. “It has always surprised me that such a young woman could become editor of such an important magazine.”

  “I’m flattered.” Laura tried unsuccessfully to keep from blushing.

  Jaime handed Paloma the glass of lime flower tea. “I’m afraid it’s gone cold.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Paloma sat up in the chair. “Obviously I didn’t need it.”

  Laura suggested they go to her office so they could talk more comfortably. There, she gave Paloma her usual seat and settled herself into an armchair while Jaime leaned against the wall beside her. “Jaime told me what happened to you.”

  “It’s been a nightmare. The thing is, I’ve been living in a nightmare for a long time.”

  Paloma sipped the cold infusion. Her hand was trembling. “I don’t know what to do anymore . . . I’m desperate. I don’t even recognize myself.”

  “Paloma, you can talk to us.”

  “We want to help you,” Jaime said. Paloma appeared to him less cagey than she had been the other day. She was still on edge, but no longer seemed defensive. Now she acted more like a woman defeated by her own obstinacy than one tired of hiding a secret. “Will you tell us?”

  Paloma glanced around, as if looking at something only she could see. Finally she fixed her eyes on Jaime. “What do you want to know?”

  “We could start with the guy who tried to kill you.”

  “I’m not sure who that was, Jaime, I told you earlier. It could be the same person who broke into my apartment. At first I blamed that on Oscar Preston, but now I’m not so sure it was him.”

  “Who’s Oscar Preston?”

  “He’s my rival at the museum. The director of my department is going to appoint a deputy in less than two months, and each applicant has to submit an original art history research project. I have reason to think Preston isn’t playing fair, but I don’t think he would take things this far on his own. Whoever broke in was searching for something, and when they didn’t find it, they decided to get rid of me.”

  “That makes no sense. If they didn’t find what they were looking for, the logical thing would be to keep you alive so you could tell them where it is. What were they after?”

  Paloma rubbed her forehead, letting her fingers run through her dark bob. As Jaime and Laura waited, she picked up her glass and took another sip of tila. “It’s better cold,” she said and then sighed. “Do you remember you told me that the person who wanted to kill you had a copy of our essay?”

  “You mean your essay.”

  “Same thing. It’s because of the Medusa. All of this is because of the Medusa.”

  Paloma’s answer came as no surprise to Jaime, but it didn’t explain why someone would go to such lengths over a virtually unknown bust by one of the least fortunate sculptors of seventeenth-century Italy.

  Jaime rested a hand on her shoulder. She avoided his gaze. She seemed about to burst into tears but managed to maintain her composure.

  “It’s true.” Paloma rubbed her face with her hands as if to clear her mind. “I’ve been working on this for a long time, prompted by the study we did in college. That’s what the people who searched my home wanted: my research.”

  “What research? Does it have to do with the Medusa?”

  “Yes.”

  Jaime tried to focus on just Paloma’s words and not be distracted by the sound of her voice or her gestures. Both of these reminded him of the past, and the past filled him with guilt.

  “What’s so special about the Medusa?” he asked.

  “In the faculty library I found a reference to a book entitled Mythological Sculpture in Italy, written by Cosimo Rizzoli of Rome. The volume was a copy of a book published in 1789, and I couldn’t resist ordering it from the warehouse. It was filled with fabulous illustrations of mythological pieces from the Renaissance to the rococo period. The section on Gian Lorenzo Bernini included some splendid prints of his most famous works: Apollo and Daphne, Aeneas and Anchises, Neptune and Triton. The biggest surprise was that, alongside the illustration of the goat Amalthea, which you know Bernini sculpted when he was just twelve, there was a print of the Medusa.”

  Jaime raised his eyebrows. “Of our Medusa? Wasn’t it supposed to have been sculpted by Bolgi?”

  “When I found the print, I was so surprised I went to talk to Professor Pérez-Ramírez about it. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

  “He was one of the best lecturers I ever had—and I barely went to his classes.”

  “You missed out, Jaime. When I told him about my discovery, his eyes lit up, the way they always do when something piques his interest. He invited me over to his house, where he showed me an old book with yellowing pages that turned out to be Andrea Bolgi’s diary.”

  “Bolgi kept a diary?”

  “Well, not a diary, exactly; rather, a sort of book of notes and sketches. One of Pérez-Ramírez’s hobbies is collecting biographies of artists from every period, and he’s particularly passionate about diaries and notes made by the artists themselves. He has notebooks by Leonardo and Michelangelo; Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, of course; Baglione’s biography of Caravaggio; and tons of notebooks that belonged to various painters, sculptors, and architects. He told me he’d been collecting them for forty years and had invested a great deal of effort and money in them.

  “Anyhow, in his diary, Bolgi explains how he sculpted the bust of Medusa, and says that when his patron, a rich collector named Domenico Corsini, told him he didn’t like it, he asked for permission to start again. When Bolgi showed Corsini the new statue, his patron loved it and gave it pride of place in his garden of mythological sculptures. When we read that, Pérez-Ramírez and I looked at each other and immediately knew what had happened.”

  Jaime scratched his head. He was following what Paloma was saying, more or less, but his brain ached from so much thinking and he was struggling to grasp the full implications of her words.

  “Are you saying that Bolgi’s Medusa—?”

  “Isn’t really Bolgi’s.” With that one simple phrase, a massive weight lifted from Paloma’s shoulders. “The damn Medusa belonged to Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s workshop.”

  “That would explain a lot,” Jaime said as he thought about it. “A Bernini sculpture would stir up far more interest than one by Bolgi. And it’d sell for a much higher price.”

  Paloma gripped the glass of lime flower tea that was beginning to warm in her hands. “That’s all true,” she said. “But the thing is, the sculpture isn’t by Bernini.”

  “It isn’t? But you just said—”

  “I said it belonged to Bernini’s workshop. The master kept it there along with other sculptures from classical times that he used as models. It actually was a Hellenistic piece, from the third century BC. Captivated by its chilling naturalism, Bolgi stole it from Bernini’s workshop and took it to Naples. When Corsini commissioned him to sculpt a bust of Medusa for his garden, Bolgi was tempted to offer up the ancient piece as his own, but he didn’t have the nerve. Instead he made a copy, but it wasn’t to Corsini’s liking. When his patron gave him permission to try again, Bolgi forgot whatever scruples he had left and presented the original bust.”

  “Incredible,” Jaime said. “And how has it been masquerading as a seventeenth-century piece all this time?”

  “Bolgi retouched it so that it would look like a piece contemporary to his time. The expressive qualities shared by Hellenism and the baroque played in his favor. Domenico Corsini took the bait, and, ever since, it has been catalogued as a sculpture by Andrea Bolgi. There was never any reason to doubt it.”

  Jaime looked at Laura out of the corner of his eye to see how she was taking the revelation. The Arcadia editor was listening attentively to Paloma and seemed to be doing some kind of mental calculation. “I don’t get it. We
have a sculpture from Hellenistic times passing itself off as a baroque piece, but it’s not by Bolgi or Bernini or any other known artist. It’s got a strange history, but that doesn’t explain why someone would go to so much trouble to get their hands on it.”

  Paloma swallowed hard. “The answer has to do with something I discovered when the initial clues made me think the sculpture was, in fact, a piece by a young Bernini.”

  “But it isn’t.”

  “No. It’s ancient, as I said.”

  “So?”

  “Remember the book I mentioned earlier? The text that accompanied the print of the Medusa linked it to a third-century-BC physician and a document known as the Chronicle of Asclepius. With Pérez-Ramírez’s help, I followed that document’s trail and eventually found it listed in the bibliography of an exhibition on mythological sculpture held a few years ago at the National Gallery in London. Thanks to Pérez-Ramírez’s influence, I was able to gain access to it. It turned out to be a compendium of classical myths that related to medicine: a curiosity of minor historical interest. But one of the chapters mentioned a Medusa’s head and the magic that Asclepius imbued it with.”

  Jaime gave a hint of a sardonic smile. “Asclepius? What does a Roman god of medicine have to do with Medusa?”

  “Well, according to the legend,” Paloma said with excitement, “when Perseus cut off Medusa’s head, the blood that spilled out of her caused a number of extraordinary phenomena—natural wonders like Red Sea coral and Saharan cobras. It’s also said that the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor were born from this blood at the moment she was beheaded. But the most interesting thing is that the blood was supposed to have curative properties. Asclepius used it to cure the sick. According to the Chronicle of Asclepius, a quartz vial filled with it was hidden in a bust of Medusa that had been carved from marble in the third century before Christ.”

  “In a bust of Medusa? In our bust of Medusa?”

  “That’s what the documents seem to indicate.”

  Now it was Jaime who was excited. “So we’re dealing with a myth.”

  “The blood of Medusa isn’t just a myth!” Paloma said. “We’re talking about one of the most important relics in Greek mythology, comparable to Christ’s crown of thorns or the Holy Grail.”

  “And there are plenty of wackos who are looking to collect those things.”

  “Come on, Jaime! Surely you of all people aren’t going to go all skeptical on me.”

  “The role reversal is as surprising to me as it is to you. Do you really believe what you’re saying?”

  “Of course I don’t believe the bust contains the magical blood of Medusa! But I do believe that the sculpture is the same bust that the Chronicle references. That in itself makes it valuable, and not just to me. These people are after my research because it can prove to them it’s the same statue.”

  “Or prove it to someone else,” said Jaime.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Clearly the people who stole the sculpture already know its secret. I bet they plan to sell it, but they know they’ll get a better price if they can establish that it’s the piece referred to in the Chronicle of Asclepius.”

  “My notes cover the entire research process, including every step that led to the Chronicle and its link to the bust. My goal has been to shape the material into something solid within the next month and submit it to Ricardo. What I don’t understand is why they attacked me if I still have what they want.”

  “Good point. If they don’t have your work, then they need you alive. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Paloma, are you sure they don’t have it?”

  “Completely. I always carry my work on me and I have a copy hidden in a safe place. I don’t even keep the document on my hard drive.”

  “When was the last time you saw that copy?”

  “I was working on it last night.”

  “Did you go home for lunch today?”

  “No, when I left the museum I went for a walk to clear my head. I was on my way back when—” Paloma’s face grew pale.

  Jaime jumped to his feet. “Right, you stay here. Laura, keep her company.”

  “Where are you going?” his boss asked, alarmed.

  “To Paloma’s apartment.” He turned toward his former girlfriend. “Keys.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Give them to me.”

  Paloma hesitated before taking her keys from her bag and throwing them to Jaime.

  “Where do you keep it?”

  “On a disk hidden among my music CDs. Water Music, by Handel.”

  “You still have good taste,” Jaime said. “I’ll call you later. Now you two behave yourselves. And don’t open the door to strangers.”

  31

  As Jaime rode in a taxi to Paloma’s apartment, he felt a strange mixture of euphoria and fear. On the one hand, he was excited by the idea of the Medusa statue supposedly containing the magical blood of the mythological creature—though he lamented having been unaware of this angle when he wrote his article about the curse. At the same time, as a journalist and as Paloma’s friend, he had a nagging feeling he was speeding toward a new danger: the person who was pulling the strings in this sinister plot.

  Was it Alvino Nascimbene? The Carrera family? Either way, Jaime was getting closer to finding out, and he knew from experience that it was at just such moments that he needed to be most prepared. He couldn’t let down his guard now.

  He rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and found Paloma’s door bolted. A good sign.

  He let himself in with the keys. At first everything appeared to be in order. The computer was still in the same place, as was the furniture. However, the bookshelf at the back of the room, where the music CDs had been, was empty.

  Bingo.

  Jaime saw it all clearly. Someone had broken into Paloma’s apartment and taken all the CDs, ensuring that they got the one containing the research document. The perpetrators had the research in their hands, and now they wanted Paloma dead. But why? What threat did she pose to them?

  The past continued to nag at him, and Jaime thought again of how he hadn’t behaved well toward Paloma all those years ago. It would be a lie to say that he hadn’t known then how she felt about him, and he had completely disappeared from her life. He’d never introduced her to his mother. For heaven’s sake, he’d never even referred to her as his girlfriend around his friends. Despite everything, she had loved him. But Jaime had begun to feel something else: a suffocating sensation, as if he had become someone’s property. He had tried to distance himself from her gradually, so he could breathe more easily, and in the end he had untangled himself completely.

  There must have been a better way to do things.

  He was about to leave her apartment when the doorbell rang. Jaime froze for a moment, his heart racing. He hoped that whoever it was would give up and leave. After an extended silence he relaxed. And then there it was again: the bell, followed by the faint sound of keys clinking together on the other side of the door.

  He slipped off his shoes and tiptoed to the entrance hall. Looking through the peephole, he could see a blurry figure fiddling with the lock. Instinctively, he reached out for a vase that stood on a nearby sideboard and lifted it above his head. Whoever was trying to sneak into Paloma’s place was about to get a nasty surprise.

  Jaime held his breath as the door opened. Slowly, someone edged through the threshold. “Paloma?” a quivering voice whispered.

  Then the woman turned her head and saw Jaime standing with his arms raised. Her scream was followed by a sudden fall to the floor, and she hit the sideboard on her way down.

  Jaime approached the figure sprawled on the ground and studied her for a moment. Then he put the vase back in its place, closed the door, and helped her to her feet.r />
  “Y-you? Here?” Amanda Escámez could barely stand, her legs were trembling so badly. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to smash your head in. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Me? Why? I—I came to see Paloma.”

  “Paloma’s not here. How come you have keys to her apartment?”

  “I’ve had them for a while. We used to be roommates.”

  “I don’t think that gives you the right to let yourself in and take whatever you want.”

  “I haven’t stolen anything!”

  “I never said you did.”

  Amanda stared back at Jaime, looking as suspicious of him as he was of her.

  “Well, what are you doing here? What do you want?”

  “It looks like we’re both a bit slow about this, don’t you think? Let’s relax and start again. I’m Jaime, and you’re . . .”

  “Amanda. I remember you, from the restaurant. Paloma started crying when she saw you.”

  “Not exactly; she wasn’t crying because of that. Come on in and sit down. Since we’re both here already, I doubt Paloma will mind.”

  When they sat down on the sofa, Amanda broke down and began to talk and cry. She told Jaime about her friendship with Paloma, describing how it had gone downhill in the last week and how strange her friend had been acting.

  “None of that surprises me, but I’m wondering what it is you came here to do.”

  Amanda swallowed hard and bowed her head, like a teenager admitting to her dad that she’d skipped school for a week. “You were right. I came to steal something.”

  “Steal something?”

  “I need to find some kind of document that Paloma’s been obsessed with. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care, but . . . I’m so sorry. Normally, I’d never do this to Paloma, but—”

  “But?”

  “That bastard’s making me do it.”

  “Who?”

  “Oscar Preston. He works at the museum, and he’s blackmailing me to make me find out what Paloma’s working on. I have to hand over the document to him by Wednesday or . . .”