David Hosp: Among Thieves

“But you don’t think so,” Bass observed.

“No, I don’t,” Finn said. “It’s pretty clear in the end that Bulger didn’t trust anyone in his organization. These two guys were fairly high up, and they had lots of other guys loyal to them. I don’t think Bulger would have risked giving them the chance to cross him. More importantly, Kilbranish killed them himself-tortured them-and if they’d known where the paintings were, he probably would have gotten it out of them.”

“You think?”

“He would have been very persuasive.”

“Who else, then?” Bass asked.

“There are two FBI agents who could possibly have been involved. They were both here in Boston at the time of the robbery, and they were both working on different aspects of the investigations into the Boston mob. So they could have developed the ties necessary. One of them, though, clearly didn’t know where the paintings were. I saw him the night everything went down, and he was out of his mind.”

“How about the other one?”

Finn sat back in his chair and took another swallow from his beer. “Rob Hewitt. For a few weeks after Devon was killed, I thought he was probably involved. I was sure he’d moved the paintings. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made.”

“How so?”

“The way Devon described the robbery, it’s pretty clear that they had some help from someone who was familiar with just about every aspect of the museum. They had a complete understanding of the security systems; they knew how many guards would be on duty; they were given detailed maps of the entire place. Hewitt was in the FBI, so it’s possible that he could have gotten a lot of this information just by snooping. But there are other things that don’t fit. For example, Bulger also gave Devon and Kilbranish a list of which paintings to steal. I don’t think Hewitt would have known enough about the art in the museum to give them that kind of information. Plus, whoever helped Bulger hide the paintings knew a lot about how to preserve the art. When they were stolen, the paintings were ripped out of their frames and rolled up; but when Devon saw them again, they had been professionally stretched and remounted. And the box they were kept in was specially designed to keep the paintings from suffering any more damage. Hewitt didn’t have that kind of expertise. I suppose it’s possible he could have learned about those sorts of things, but it seems unlikely.”

“Which brings you back to Baxter.”

Finn nodded. “It does. He would have had all the necessary knowledge to help pull off the robbery, plus he would have been able to help Bulger take care of the paintings afterward.”

“Have you shared your theory with the police?” Bass asked.

“Not yet,” Finn said, shaking his head. “I may, if I get more comfortable with my theory, but right now it’s all speculation, all circumstantial. Besides, even with Baxter there are things that don’t quite fit.”

“Like what?”

“Like how would he have gotten hooked up with Bulger in the first place? I suppose Whitey could have sought him out and put a gun to his head, but that would have been awfully risky, and Bulger wasn’t known for taking chances like that. There’s also the insurance issue.”

“The insurance issue?”

Finn nodded. “Bulger arranged all of this with the IRA, which had a history of art theft. That’s one of the ways they funded their part in the troubles. But the IRA had a fairly standard method of operation. They would steal paintings and then ransom them back to the owners for the insurance money. Only in this case, the Gardner Museum didn’t have any insurance. That’s why they had such a hard time disposing of them. From what you’re telling me, Baxter would have known there was no insurance, and that knowledge probably would have put an end to the entire plan before it started.”

“Maybe,” Bass said. “But you never know; they might have taken their chances and gone ahead with it anyway.”

“It’s possible,” Finn admitted. “As I said, it’s all really just speculation.”

“As far as it goes, though, it still seems that Baxter is the most logical suspect.”

“One of them,” Finn said. “There’s one other.”

“Who?”

Finn looked at his beer. It was almost finished, and he took the last sip. “You.” He raised his hand to get the waiter’s attention to order another beer.

“Me?”

The waiter came over. “I’ll have another,” Finn said. He looked at Bass’s glass and noted it was still full. “You all set?”

Bass looked bewildered. “Yes, thank you.”

The waiter sauntered away toward the bar. “Yes, you,” Finn said. “In a lot of ways, you fit better than anyone else. You’d been working there for, what, forty years when the robbery took place? You would have known as much about the security system as anybody. You also would have known which paintings were most valuable. You told us yourself that you had worked at nearly every job at the place, and had even worked for a while helping to preserve the paintings, so you could easily have designed the box they were kept in. One of the few things that you probably wouldn’t have known was that the museum had no insurance. I’d be surprised if you ever worked in the business end of the operation. Am I right?”

Bass stared at Finn, his lower jaw dangling. “I never worked in the business office,” he said.

“I figured,” Finn said. “Plus, I did some checking. You told us you grew up poor. You stayed poor even after you started working at the museum. Poor enough to qualify for a little apartment in the Old Harbor projects in Southie, which is where you’ve lived for almost fifty years. Less than six blocks from where Whitey Bulger grew up. You must have tried hard to lose the accent, but a little bit of it comes through every now and then.”

The waiter arrived and set Finn’s drink down on the table. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No, we’re good, thanks,” Finn responded. He took a sip of the beer. “There’s really only one thing that doesn’t fit,” Finn said after a moment.

“Which is?”

“Motive. I still can’t figure it out. If you were involved, you clearly didn’t make any money off the robbery, and that knocks out the motive that usually drives people in situations like this-greed. From what I can tell, the museum has treated you pretty well. Maybe not perfectly, but I’ve seen the way you talk about the place; it’s pretty clear that there’s no revenge at issue here. So, I can’t figure out what your angle would have been.” He took another drink.

“I’m not sure how you expect me to respond to all this,” Bass said.

“I expect you to tell me the truth,” Finn said.

“The truth is I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. When we first talked to you in the museum, you described the robbery as a ‘betrayal.’ It seemed like an odd choice of words to me at the time, and it stuck. You can only betray something you love; something you have some loyalty to. It seemed like you knew what you were talking about. Like it was personal.”

A light shade of crimson shone through the gray of Bass’s face. He stood up. “I don’t appreciate your insinuation, Mr. Finn.”

“Sit down.”

“Why would I?”

“Because I’m meeting the police at the museum in twenty minutes, and I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to tell them my theory about you.”

Bass stood by the side of the table, tottering slightly, hanging over Finn like some half-dead apparition. “You wouldn’t. You don’t have any proof.”

“Proof?” Finn laughed. “Who cares about proof? I’ve got a viable theory about the greatest art theft in history. I’m guessing it’s a theory that hasn’t been checked out very carefully before. The cops would have looked at you, sure.” Finn looked up at Bass and held his fingers up in a square, as though examining him through a camera. “But I’m guessing they passed by you pretty quickly and got on to people they thought were more likely suspects. Now they could take their time. Check you out thoroughly. Go through your records, search your apartment, check if you’ve rented any self-storage recently. Even if I’m wrong, it would be a serious hassle. I’m guessing someone your age might not even be able to survive it. Stress is a real killer, they say.”