Turned to Stone Read online

  The photograph of the Pole disappeared and was replaced on the screen by an image of Bolgi’s Medusa. Jaime shivered.

  “On September 14 of this year, this sculpture disappeared from the Pontecorvo House Museum in Verona. Our experts suspect the robbery could be the work of a member of the Pole’s group who is still at large. Our intention is to follow the trail of the statue to the thief and dismantle this criminal organization once and for all.”

  By now, Jaime was awake enough to ponder what he’d just heard and formulate one or two questions. Five across, six letters, a thief of baroque sculptures and member of the Pole’s missing gang? Only one answer fit the puzzle: S-A-N-D-R-A.

  “Something doesn’t add up. The group’s thefts were big news for a long time, but as you said yourself, all of those pieces were taken from churches or private collections. This sculpture was taken from a museum in the middle of the night, and a security guard was murdered. There are other, more valuable and more portable works of art in that museum, and yet the thieves broke in, poisoned the poor guard, and snatched the Medusa without touching anything else. It’s not the Pole’s modus operandi—his group would be more likely to grab the first thing they thought would find a buyer on the black market. What’s so special about this statue?”

  A hyena-like smile formed on Amatriaín’s lips. “That’s what I wanted to know in El Burgo de Osma and, in fact, what I still want to know.”

  Jaime rolled his eyes as he realized why Amatriaín had thought specifically of him for this mission. An image of Paloma Blasco popped into his head, spat in his face, and faded away again.

  “Oh, no. You’re not going to start going on about that blasted essay in the Revista Complutense again, are you?”

  “It included a chapter about the sculpture,” Requena pointed out.

  “One page,” Jaime corrected him. He made eye contact with Laura, hoping for some assistance. “We mentioned it in the section on Bolgi simply because the rest of his works, other than the Saint Helena at the Vatican, are barely of interest. That doesn’t make me the ultimate expert on baroque sculpture.”

  “You might not be. But your coauthor, Paloma Blasco—”

  “Leave Paloma out of this. She just put her name to it. I was the one who did all the work.” This was a massive lie, but his intention was to protect Paloma. Although she could undoubtedly be a big help to Amatriaín, Jaime wanted her kept out of it. She seemed to have enough problems already, whatever they were.

  “Which is why I must insist on your help,” said Amatriaín. “Don’t forget the article you wrote years later about the supposed curse of Medusa. For better or for worse, that damn statue seems to follow you everywhere. We’re certain that the solution to the mystery is in your research.”

  “Well, there you have it. Both the essay and the article are in the public domain. Study them and draw your own conclusions, but leave me in peace. And please, someone bring me a coffee.”

  Ten minutes later, Jaime Azcárate emerged from the room in a foul mood, feeling more tired than ever, and sworn to silence about everything that had just been said.

  11

  “Man, it’s a good thing you didn’t have to use that pistol. You’re hopeless,” Roberto Barrero said after confirming that none of Jaime’s six bullets had come near the target.

  “I told you: I’m for making love, not war. Plus, I’ve still got a cold.”

  “In that case you should be at home, especially after the rough time you’ve had. Here, watch and learn.”

  Roberto put on his ear protection and picked up the revolver. He loaded six bullets into the cylinder, cocked the weapon, and started pressing the trigger. There wasn’t much paper left at the center of the silhouette when he was done. “Impressive,” Jaime admitted.

  “It’s just practice.”

  “Let me try again?”

  “No, that’s enough for today. If anyone catches you here they’ll have my balls.”

  “But aren’t you the instructor?”

  “Yep. And aren’t you the dickhead without a license?”

  “I’m hoping to get one soon.”

  “Well, it could take a while. Guns are like cats: some people love them and others are allergic. Come on, let’s grab a beer.”

  “They let you drink beer here?”

  “Not before practice. But afterward, yes.”

  “I’ll just have a juice.”

  As they seated themselves at a table in the firing range café, Jaime let out a groan.

  “You’re still wiped out,” Roberto observed.

  “I can’t sleep. This whole EHU thing has gotten to me. Paloma won’t answer my calls. Worst of all, I can’t stop puzzling over that damn Medusa.”

  “Why? I thought you already were the world’s foremost authority on it.”

  “Don’t be a dick, Roberto. We both know Paloma’s the expert, and she’s not talking.”

  “But hang on—all she did was go to the museum in Verona to study the bust, gather all the technical documents, write an essay that got you both top grades, and get it published in the university journal. What’s all that compared to what you did? ‘The Curse of Medusa.’ Now that’s impressive!”

  “Nice of you to say so.” Jaime smiled as he pulled a brown folder from his backpack. Inside were several sheets of paper, stapled together. “I’ve reviewed the article and done more research. This is everything I could find. Plenty there for a story.”

  Roberto exhaled loudly. When Jaime said “plenty there for a story,” it invariably meant he was about to spin a yarn that fell somewhere between The War of the Worlds and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. “Don’t tell me you actually believe the things you write.”

  “You know what they say: anything that can be imagined exists.”

  “Including the curse of Medusa?”

  “It’s not the only case of its kind. There have always been deaths blamed on some curse from an ancient object or work of art. Remember the Hope Diamond, or the monks of Lokrum? The diabolical amulet in The Exorcist? The curse of Tutankhamen?”

  “Oh, that’s a classic.”

  “Well, now it has a challenger. The death of that museum security guard is going to make our Medusa’s curse a critical and box-office success.”

  “That explains the theft. Who wouldn’t go crazy for a cursed statue?”

  “Go crazy? Die, is more like it. In every place the sculpture’s been exhibited, someone has met their death.”

  “There it is.”

  “What?”

  “That look.”

  “What look? I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “Maybe, but when you start talking about these things, you lose touch with reality. Let’s review: Most of the people involved with Tutankhamen died naturally. One had an accident, another was sick. Lord Carnarvon, who funded the dig, was an old man who got bitten by an insect. It’s the same with this statue. Through all the years it’s been exhibited, a lot of people will have died, but that doesn’t mean we should blame poor Medusa. She’s got enough problems with that hair.”

  Jaime sipped his orange juice. “If you stop interrupting me I’ll tell you what else I’ve found out.”

  “All right, I’ll be quiet. But just so you can tell me about that woman again.”

  “What woman?”

  “The one Requena said we had to stay away from. What did you say her name was?”

  “Sonia Durán. She’s an expert on heritage management and her legs are longer than both of ours put together, and much shapelier.”

  “Speak for yourself. When are you going to introduce me?”

  Jaime ignored the question and consulted his notes. “Let’s see . . . The statue is credited to Andrea Bolgi, a seventeenth-century sculptor who was a disciple of Bernini. They called Bolgi ‘Il Carrarino’ because he was born in 1605 in Ca
rrara, the land of marble. He apprenticed at Pietro Tacca’s workshop, and in 1625 he moved to Rome, where he encountered the sculptor Francesco Baratta, who was desperate to gain access to Bernini’s circle. Baratta finally did so and worked with Bernini on one of his masterpieces: the Fountain of the Four Rivers, for which Baratta sculpted the figure representing the Río de la Plata. In 1627 Bernini commissioned Bolgi to help with the Vatican’s famous baldachin.” Jaime raised his glass of juice, as if he were Laurence Olivier holding up the jester’s skull in Hamlet, and recited: “What the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did.”

  Roberto gave him a blank stare. “What the fuck was that?”

  “That’s what Romans said when the Pope stripped a bunch of ancient Roman monuments for the bronze and other materials Bernini needed to build St. Peter’s Baldachin. Pope Urban VIII’s real name was Maffeo Barberini.”

  “ ‘What the barbarians did not do . . .’ It’s an impressive turn of phrase.”

  “Bolgi tried to continue in the tradition of Bernini’s aesthetics, but his classical style was too cold. His most important piece is one of the four statues set into the niches in Saint Peter’s Basilica: the Saint Helena.”

  “Okay, great. But when are we going to get to the Medusa? I hate when you go all Wikipedia on me.”

  “We’ll get there very soon. Unfortunately for Bolgi, he wasn’t able to produce much work of note. No one liked his Saint Helena, not even Bernini himself, who criticized Bolgi’s classicism and the excessive serenity of the saint’s face. Bolgi had been in Rome for ten years without receiving a single important commission, so in 1653 he left for Naples, where he tried to imitate his master, and there he produced some of his best pieces.”

  “The fucking Medusa.”

  Jaime nodded. “He produced it in 1656 for Domenico Corsini, a rich Neapolitan merchant who collected sculptures of mythological creatures.”

  “There’s no arguing that the curse worked back then. No one from that time’s still alive.”

  “Well, get ready: this is where the fun starts. Bolgi himself died that year, but so did Corsini. And over half the population of Naples, thanks to an outbreak of the plague. At the time, some sources said Corsini went mad and committed suicide. Apparently he believed the Medusa was cursed. He was a strange man, what we’d call an eccentric these days—who was at odds with Catholic doctrine and fanatical about classical mythology and culture. He became so unhinged, he started to believe that the spirit of the gorgon Medusa, after drifting aimlessly for centuries, had installed itself in Bolgi’s sculpture. That was the beginning of the end for him. One night, he went out into the garden and drowned himself in the pond, near the statue.”

  “It’s guys like these that give eccentrics a bad name,” Barrero complained. “Anyway, that was four hundred years ago. What happened to the sculpture after that?”

  “It stayed in the garden until 1799, when an Italian named Pietro Parodi bought it for his private collection. In 1940, one of his descendants went to live in Rome and took the entire collection with him. He had no heirs, so when he fell ill in the late seventies he donated it along with the rest of his collection to the Leoni Antique Center. The statue remained there until there was a fire. Fortunately, almost all of the sculptural pieces were saved; but many paintings of great value were lost, including a Parmigianino and two Beccafumis.”

  “What happened to the things that were saved?”

  “Years after the fire, the Petrarca Gallery bought some of the Leoni pieces, including, among other sculptures, our good friend Medusa. After the statue was transported and put on display there, three people died.”

  “No shit. Did the pestilence get them, too?”

  “Very funny. No. One was a caretaker who’d worked at the gallery his entire life. Another was some rich guy who went often to see the Medusa.”

  “How did they die?”

  “I have no idea. The papers didn’t find the story important enough to report more than that.”

  “I don’t see why. Medusa, the beautiful princess who turned into a monster after screwing Poseidon in the Temple of Athena, would have been the perfect subject for a serial-killer profile. What about the third person?”

  “We know a bit more about this one. He was a security guard, but not at the gallery; he worked at the Leoni Antique Center before it burned down.”

  “A bit of a stretch, but it’s still a link to the Medusa.”

  Jaime smiled. “You believe me now? As you see, anyone who takes an interest in the gorgon can wind up dead. This guy, Alvino Nascimbene, died in a car accident. The body was badly burned. Some Italian magazines actually published photos from the scene.”

  “How tasteful.”

  “Quite. There were even close-ups of some of the most spectacular burns. This whole business is enough to make your hair stand on end.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I tried to contact the Petrarca Gallery in Rome, but they won’t answer the phone. Yesterday I spoke to Antonio Miguel Galán, an antique dealer who’s a friend of my father’s. He said that about a year ago the Petrarca wanted to buy a couple of illuminated bibles from him, but in the end the gallery backed out. He offered to ask around and see whether he can find out anything about the statue’s history.”

  “That’s my Azcárate. But . . .”

  “What?”

  “I know you won’t listen, but I’ll say it anyway: watch your step.”

  “Why?” Jaime rolled his eyes back in his head and stuck his tongue out in imitation of a mummy. “Because of the curse?”

  “Don’t be a shithead. I’ll bet you anything there’s no curse, but that some of those deaths still weren’t a coincidence.”

  “I’ll take that bet.”

  “All right, but be careful.”

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you actually worried about me?”

  “Who wouldn’t worry after seeing the way you shoot?” Roberto drained the last drops of beer from his bottle.

  12

  Coast of Sardinia

  From high in the sky the sun was painting a wide, glowing trail across the calm sea. Though it was well into October, the weather was almost summery, and there was no shortage of the bathers who came to Capo Testa to enjoy a pleasant swim in the Mediterranean. A group of boys and girls were surfing near the harbor, while people of all ages enjoyed the autumn morning beneath the small forest of umbrellas that had sprung up on the beach.

  One of the surfers was thrown off his board when a large wave made him lose his balance. When his head reemerged from the water, he saw that the swell had been caused by a motorboat speeding toward a large white catamaran anchored some distance out from the turtle-shaped rock near the beach. The young people waved at the dark-haired woman in sunglasses who was steering, but when they received no response they went back to their surfing.

  Skillfully, the woman turned to starboard and guided the motorboat to the stern of the catamaran, cutting the engine as she reached the boarding ladder. The name of the boat was painted on its side in black letters: “PHOENIX.”

  A deckhand working at the catamaran’s stern approached and greeted the woman with a smile. “Good morning, Miss Carrera.”

  The woman stood. She was tall and her black T-shirt and tight black pants emphasized her athletic figure. “My last name is Mazi,” she said in a cold voice. “Tie up the boat.”

  The young man rushed to obey and threw her a rope. Slowly she climbed the ladder leading up to the yacht.

  Rosa Carrera had changed her surname almost a year ago, but nobody seemed to have taken it seriously. She was starting to think that her attempt to put her past behind her had been a waste of time, especially since she was still doing the same things she’d done before. No matter what efforts she made to distance herself from her family, her destiny pursued her. She would
always be a Carrera. Especially if she couldn’t bring herself to cut ties completely.

  She stood on deck for a while, admiring the vessel’s aerodynamic design. Whenever she set foot on the family yacht she was filled with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, she enjoyed the sense of abundance, wealth, and danger that went with her family’s activities. On the other, she was filled with self-loathing because her attempts to leave it all behind had been in vain. A luxury yacht of the highest caliber, the Phoenix served as a reminder of everything she abhorred, even as it offered her an exciting life. Her father, the businessman and antique expert Angelo Carrera, had been on the ship when it sank off the coast of Cyprus three years earlier. Its recovery and restoration had cost the family a fortune, but the yacht was seaworthy once more and had been rechristened the Phoenix after the mythological creature reborn from its own ashes.

  A man of about forty, dressed in a blue-striped T-shirt and shorts, stepped through a glass door and beamed at Rosa.

  “The enchanting Mata Hari has returned.” He approached her with open arms. The red kerchief on his head and the ring in his left ear gave him the air of a pirate. He gave her a quick hug and led her toward the door. “Our venerable elder was just wondering aloud about when you might return.”

  “Then why didn’t our venerable elder pick up the phone?” she said, sounding irritated. “I’ve been trying to call for hours.”

  “You know how particular Papà is. He only likes to talk to us on the boat’s lounge. I spoke to him yesterday; he’s hoping you have some good news for him.”

  “Well, he can keep on hoping,” Rosa muttered, shoving her brother aside and walking through the door.

  At the bottom of a set of stairs was a short teak-floored hallway that led to a spacious lounge with tinted windows. The place had the look of a miniature museum, with oil paintings depicting ancient landscapes and ruins and busts representing historical figures from Socrates to Napoleon Bonaparte. In the corners of the room were marble pedestals decorated in relief, and above those were carvings of the Four Evangelists and their corresponding symbols—angel, lion, ox, and eagle. A bartender dressed spotlessly in white offered them glasses of champagne.