Page 171 of Homeport

“The Caymans?” She wondered her head didn’t simply tumble off onto the floor, by the way it was reeling.

“Popular spot the Caymans. Good for scuba, sunshine, and money laundering. Now all that is idle speculation. But I hit gold in Hawthorne’s room.”

“You had a very full night while I was asleep.”

“You needed your rest. I found this.” He took the storage receipt out of his pocket, unfolded it. “He rented this space the day after the bronze was brought to Standjo. The day before your mother called and sent for you. What did Andrew say about coincidences? There aren’t any.”

“People rent space for all sorts of reasons.”

“They don’t generally rent a small garage just outside of the city when they don’t own a car. I checked, and he doesn’t. Then there was the gun.”

“Gun?”

“The handgun—don’t ask me the make and model. I try to avoid guns, but it looked very efficient to me.”

Idly, he took her coffeepot off the burner, sniffed, and was pleased to find what was left was still fresh. “I think there’s a law about transporting weapons on airplanes,” he added as he poured a cup. “I doubt he went through the proper channels to get it here. And why would a nice, quiet researcher need a gun to attend an exhibit?”

“I don’t know. Richard and a gun. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I think it might, once you read this.” He took the notebook out of his pocket. “You’ll want to read it, but I’ll give you the highlights. It describes a bronze, ninety point four centimeters, twenty-four point sixty-eight kilograms. A female nude. It gives test results on said bronze, dating it late fifteenth century in the style of Michelangelo.”

He watched her cheeks drain of color and her eyes go glassy, then held out the coffee until she’d wrapped both hands around the cup. “The date of the first test is at nineteen hundred hours, on the date The Dark Lady was accepted and signed for at Standjo. I imagine the lab’s closed at eight most nights.”

“He ran tests on it, on his own.”

“It lists them, step by step, giving times and results. Two solid nights’ work, and it adds several points of research. The documentation. He found something you didn’t, and he didn’t tell you about. An old baptismal record from the Convent of Mercy, written out by the abbess on a male child, infant. The mother’s name was recorded as Giulietta Buonadoni.”

“She had a child. I’d read there was a child, possibly the illegitimate son of one of the Medicis. She sent him away, most likely for his own protection as there was political tension during that period.”

“The child was baptized Michelangelo.” He saw when the idea struck home. “One might speculate, after his papa.”

“Michelangelo never fathered a child. He was, by all accounts, homosexual.”

“That doesn’t make him incapable of conceiving a child.” But he shrugged. “Doesn’t mean the kid was his either, but it does make the theory that they had a close personal relationship highly possible, and if they did . . .”

“It helps support the likelihood that he would have used her as a model.”

“Exactly. Hawthorne thought it was important enough to record it in his little book—and to keep the information from you. If they were lovers, even once, or if they had a close enough platonic relationship that she would name her only child after him, it goes a long way toward concluding that he created the bronze of her.”

“It wouldn’t be proof, but yes, it would add weight. It makes it less and less likely that he’d never used her, and we have no documentation of any other sculpture or painting of Michelangelo’s that uses Giulietta as a model. Oh, it’s good,” she murmured, shutting her eyes. “If nothing else, as a springboard to keep looking.”

“He didn’t want you to look.”

“No, and I stepped in line in that area. I left nearly all of the research in his hands. What I did came primarily from sources he gave me. He recognized it, exactly as I did. Probably the minute he saw it.”

“I’d say that’s an accurate assumption, Dr. Jones.”

She could see the sense of it now, the logic and the steps. “Richard stole the bronze and copied it. And the David, he had to have taken that as well.” Her fisted hand pressed against her midriff. “He killed Giovanni.”

“It wouldn’t be proof,” Ryan said, laying the book on her desk. “But it would add weight.”

“We need to take this to the police.”

“Not yet.” He laid his hand on the book before she could grab it. “I’d feel a lot more . . . confident of the outcome if we had the bronzes in hand before we talk to cops. I’ll go to Florence tomorrow, check out his garage. If they’re not there, they’ll be in his apartment, or the record of where they are will be. Once we’ve got them, we’ll work out what to tell the cops.”

“He has to pay for Giovanni.”

“He will. He’ll pay for it all. Give me forty-eight hours, Miranda. We’ve come this far.”

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