Page 59 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)

Jake said, “The museum ... okay, let’s think.”

Tandy offered, “We’re not going to catch him at the ticket windows. He won’t use a credit card. And facial rec’s useless with that many visitors. But if we could figure out where he went specifically, maybe he got caught on one of those vids.”

Sanchez shook her head. “But there are so many places he could have gone ...”

Declan had continued his Wikipedia report and told them that the Uffizi held nearly two hundred thousand paintings, drawings and statues.

Both Jake and Sanchez found themselves looking at the murder board. She mused, “What do we know about him that tells us what he might like to look at?”

“No sexual component. Nothing financial.”

Tandy added, “And generally thrill killers don’t try to cover up the deaths and make them seem like accidents. The pleasure is both in the act of killing—”

“And watching the public reaction,” Sanchez added. “But this one’s a bit different. He wants the world to know someone died ...”

Jake added, “But not that they were murdered. He’s setting them up as accidents.”

On the screen Tandy was nodding. “What else?”

Sanchez offered, “He kills newlyweds, people at the beginning of their lives together.”

Mouse threw out, “And at a wedding reception. So a whole bunch of people know about the death.”

Sanchez said, “We’re getting to something. Keep going.”

“He went to the funeral,” Tandy said. “What killer goes to the funeral of the victim and risks getting caught? Which he almost was.”

Silence for a moment. Then it was broken abruptly by Sanchez. “And he was smiling.”

Jake turned to her. “Yes. Sylvie, the girl in the cemetery. She said he was smiling but it wasn’t like a formal greeting. He was happy to be where he was. At a funeral .”

“Jesus,” Tandy muttered. “Think about this: maybe it’s not the murder itself that gets him off. It’s what the death does to the survivors. The mourners are his true victims.”

Mouse said nothing but she was clearly shaken by the idea that someone would enjoy the sorrow of others.

“Declan,” he called.

“Yes, Jake?”

“What are the most famous paintings of mourning in the Uffizi, ‘mourning’ as in grieving, not sunrise?”

“I deduced that from the context, Jake. There are a number of paintings whose themes are death, sorrow and mourning in the Uffizi Gallery, as those are persistent themes in Italian Renaissance art. It is not possible, according to the information I have, to give you a specific number. But I can tell you the two most visited works falling into that category are Rogier van der Weyden’s Lamentation of Christ , and Giovanni Bellini’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ . ”

“Where are they hung, in the Uffizi?”

“The van der Weyden is on loan to the Vatican. The Bellini is on exhibit in the Uffizi, in the Bellini and Giorgione room. The museum has a 360-view feature of that room on its website. Would you like to see the room?”

“Yes,” Jake and Sanchez said simultaneously.

Instantly a 3D image appeared on the monitor. The gallery was smaller than Jake expected. On the tan-colored walls hung only a dozen or so paintings. After circling the room, Declan focused on the Bellini. It was a monochrome of several sorrowful men surrounding the body of Jesus.

“You see any?” Sanchez asked.

Jake knew exactly what she was talking about.

Security cameras.

“Two, I think. Let’s find out. Mouse, we need you to be an international woman of intrigue again.”

“Bond. Jane Bond.” She grabbed the phone and eventually got through to the security office, which was open, though the museum itself was closed. A gazillion euros’ worth of art would not go unguarded.

The person in charge, however, did not immediately cooperate. Mouse cited the IICI again, but her sternness did not sway him.

She turned to Sanchez and Jake. “He needs something official.”

US-issued warrants have no power in foreign jurisdictions. You need to apply to the local police and they in turn would get a magistrate’s warrant from their own court system.

Sanchez thought for a moment, then sat at her desk and pounded out a letter on HSI letterhead. The top said “Law Enforcement Demand for Warranted Information” and requested clips of the security videos from the Bellini room for the days in question.

She saved it as a PDF file and then Jake went online and ordered Stable Diffusion—an art generation program—to “create a stamp that resembles an outdated Italian apostille.”

The resulting image resembled the stamp that was affixed to US documents that had been authenticated by the Italian embassy for use overseas—with birth certificates, marriage documents and certain contracts.

He copied and pasted the image into Sanchez’s letter, and Mouse got the security man’s address at the Uffizi and sent it off to him via the encrypted server.

“What does it mean?” Mouse asked, eyes on the letter.

Jake had to chuckle. “It means your boss and I are dancing on the edge of propriety.”

Sanchez shrugged. “Nothing illegal about it. The fact is, it’s meaningless. He’ll be well within his rights to ignore it. But I’m betting he wants to help. He just needs a cover-your-ass document in case somebody asks him why he released the vids. Let’s hope he buys it.”

Which he did. The letter was all the man needed.

And in ten minutes they received the videos and Jake sat down at his station and scrubbed. They counted about four hundred individuals who had visited the room where the Bellini was hung.

“Declan.”

“Yes, Jake?”

“Scan the videos in Heron Secure Folder 89 labeled ‘Uffizi’ and compile best-quality screenshots of dark-haired White males aged twenty-five to thirty-five who viewed the Bellini.”

Sanchez said to Jake, “And add in your Sherlockian deductions about him physically. What we talked about in the coffee shop earlier.” She nodded to the murder board.

“Good. Declan, prioritize right-handed individuals in good physical shape.”

“I’m doing that now, Jake.”

Ten seconds passed. Then:

“I have forty-two, in descending order of seconds spent examining the painting.”

Jake nodded to Sanchez, who took over the hunt. “Compare the images with those of passengers in the Customs and Border Patrol database flying into the US from Rome, Milan, Venice or connecting from Italy through Munich, Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris and London.”

Declan suggested, “I would add Reykjavik too. Icelandair is a popular carrier for flights into and out of the United States. Would you like me to do that, Carmen?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes met Tandy’s, Jake noted. The detective said, “The plan, it seems kind of ... fragile. What if it doesn’t work? Do we have any alternatives?”

The answer was no, they didn’t.

An endless moment of silence.

Finally broken by the computer’s low tenor. “I have one match. Would you like to hear it?”

Now it was Jake’s and Sanchez’s eyes that met. She said, “Yes.”

“The individual fitting all your search criteria is Damon Garr, 4437 Ocean Vista Drive, Malibu, California, 90265.”