“Actually, things have changed a bit since Detective Winston spoke to you,” McCaleb said. “I can be more specific about what I need now. I’ve been able to narrow down my questions to a specific painter of that period. If you can tell me about him and maybe show me some of his work, that would be a big help.”
“And what is his name?”
“I’ll show it to you.”
McCaleb took out his folded notes and showed him. Scott read the name aloud with obvious familiarity. He pronounced the first name Her-ron-i-mus.
“I thought that was how you said it.”
“Rhymes with anonymous. His work is actually quite well known. You are not familiar with it?”
“No. I never did much studying of art. Does the museum have any of his paintings?”
“None of his works are in the Getty collection but there is a descendant piece in the conservation studio. It is undergoing heavy restoration. Most of his verified works are in Europe, the most significant representations in the Prado. Others scattered about. I am not the one you should be talking to, however.”
McCaleb raised his eyebrows in way of a question.
“Since you have narrowed your query to Bosch specifically, there is someone here you would be better advised to talk to. She is a curatorial assistant. She also happens to be working on a catalogue raisonné on Bosch — a rather long-term project for her. A labor of love, perhaps.”
“Is she here? Can I speak to her?”
Scott reached for his phone and pushed the speaker button. He then consulted an extensions list taped to the table next to it and punched in three digits. A woman answered after three rings.
“Lola Walter, can I help you?”
“Lola, it’s Mr. Scott. Is Penelope available?”
“She’s working on Hell this morning.”
“Oh, I see. We’ll go to her there.”
Scott hit the speaker button, disconnecting the call, and headed toward the door.
“You’re in luck,” he said.
“Hell?” McCaleb asked.
“It’s the descendant painting. If you’ll come with me please.”
Scott led the way to an elevator and they went down one floor. Along the way Scott explained that the museum had one of the finest conservation studios in the world. Consequently, works of art from other museums and private collections were often shipped to the Getty for repair and restoration. At the moment a painting believed to have come from a student of Bosch’s or a painter from his studio was being restored for a private collector. The painting was called
Hell.
The conservation studio was a huge room partitioned into two main sections. One section was a workshop where frames were restored. The other section was dedicated to the restoration of paintings and was broken into a series of work bays that ran along a glass wall with the same views Scott had in his office.
McCaleb was led to the second bay, where there was a woman standing behind a man seated before a painting attached to a large easel. The man wore an apron over a dress shirt and tie and a pair of what looked like jeweler’s magnifying glasses. He was leaning toward the painting and using a paintbrush with a tiny brush head to apply what looked like silver paint to the surface.
Neither the man nor the woman looked at McCaleb and Scott. Scott held his hands up in a
Hold here
gesture while the seated man completed his paint stroke. McCaleb looked at the painting. It was about four feet high and six feet wide. It was a dark landscape depicting a village being burned to the ground in the night while its inhabitants were being tortured and executed by a variety of otherworldly creatures. The upper panels of the painting, primarily depicting the swirling night sky, were spotted with small patches of damage and missing paint. McCaleb’s eyes caught on one segment of the painting below this which depicted a nude and blindfolded man being forced up a ladder to a gallows by a group of birdlike creatures with spears.
The man with the brush completed his work and placed the brush on the glass top of the worktable to his left. He then leaned back toward the painting to study his work. Scott cleared his throat. Only the woman turned around.
“Penelope Fitzgerald, this is Detective McCaleb. He is involved in an investigation and needs to ask about Hieronymus Bosch.”
He gestured toward the painting.
“I told him you would be the most appropriate member of staff to speak with.”
McCaleb watched her eyes register surprise and concern, a normal response to a sudden introduction to the police. The seated man did not even turn around. This was not a normal response. Instead he picked up his brush and went back to work on the painting. McCaleb held his hand out to the woman.
“Actually, I’m not officially a detective. I’ve been asked by the sheriff’s department to help out with an investigation.”
They shook hands.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Has a Bosch painting been stolen?”
“No, nothing like that. This is a Bosch?”
He gestured toward the painting.
“Not quite. It may be a copy of one of his pieces. If so, then the original is lost and this is all we have. The style and design are his. But it’s generally agreed to be the work of a student from his workshop. It was probably painted after Bosch was dead.”
As she spoke her eyes never left the painting. They were sharp and friendly eyes that easily betrayed her passion for Bosch. He guessed that she was about sixty and had probably dedicated her life to the study and love of art. She had surprised him. Scott’s brief description of her as an assistant working on a catalog of Bosch’s work had made McCaleb think she would be a young art student. He silently chastised himself for making the assumption.
The seated man put his brush down again and picked up a clean white cloth off the worktable to wipe his hands. He swiveled in his chair and looked up when he noticed McCaleb and Scott. It was then that McCaleb knew he had made a second error of assumption. The man had not been ignoring them. He just hadn’t heard them.
The man flipped the magnifiers up to the top of his head while reaching beneath the apron to his chest and adjusted a hearing aid control.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know we had visitors.”
He spoke with a hard German accent.
“Dr. Derek Vosskuhler, this is Mr. McCaleb,” Scott said. “He’s an investigator and he needs to steal Mrs. Fitzgerald away from you for a short while.”
“I understand. This is fine.”
“Dr. Vosskuhler is one of our restoration experts,” Scott volunteered.
Vosskuhler nodded and looked up at McCaleb and studied him in the way he might study a painting. He made no move to extend his hand.
“An investigation? In regard to Hieronymus Bosch, is it?”
“In a peripheral way. I just want to learn what I can about him. I’m told Mrs. Fitzgerald is the expert.”
McCaleb smiled.
“No one is an expert on Bosch,” Vosskuhler said without a smile. “Tortured soul, tormented genius . . . how will we ever know what is truly in a man’s heart?”
McCaleb just nodded. Vosskuhler turned and appraised the painting.
“What do you see, Mr. McCaleb?”
McCaleb looked at the painting and didn’t answer for a long moment.
“A lot of pain.”
Vosskuhler nodded approvingly. Then he stood and looked closely at the painting, flipping the glasses down and leaning close to the upper quarter panel, his lenses just inches from the night sky above the burning village.
“Bosch knew all of the demons,” he said without turning from the painting. “The darkness . . .”
A long moment went by.
“A darkness more than night.”
There was another long moment of silence until Scott abruptly punctuated it by saying he needed to get back to his office. He left then. And after another moment Vosskuhler finally turned from the painting. He didn’t bother flipping up the glasses when he looked at McCaleb. He slowly reached into his apron and switched off sound to his ears.
“I, too, must go back to work. Good luck with your investigation, Mr. McCaleb.”
McCaleb nodded as Vosskuhler sat back in his swivel chair and picked up his tiny brush again.
“We can go to my office,” Fitzgerald said. “I have all the plate books from our library there. I can show you Bosch’s work.”
“That would be fine. Thank you.”
She headed toward the door. McCaleb delayed a moment and took one last look at the painting. His eyes were drawn to the upper panels, toward the swirling darkness above the flames.
• • •
Penelope Fitzgerald’s office was a six-by-six pod in a room shared by several curatorial assistants. She pulled a chair into the tight space from a nearby pod where no one was working and told McCaleb to sit down. Her desk was
L
-shaped, with a laptop computer set up on the left side and a cluttered work space on the right. There were several books stacked on the desk. McCaleb noticed that behind one stack was a color print of a painting very much in the same style as the painting Vosskuhler was working on. He pushed the books a half foot to the side and bent down to look at the print. It was in three panels, the largest being the centerpiece. Again it was a ramble. Dozens and dozens of figures spread across the panels. Scenes of debauchery and torture.
“Do you recognize it?” Fitzgerald said.
“I don’t think so. But it’s Bosch, right?”
“His signature piece. The triptych called
The Garden of Earthly Delights.
It’s in the Prado in Madrid. I once stood in front of it for four hours. It wasn’t enough time to take it all in. Would you like some coffee or some water or anything, Mr. McCaleb?”
“No, I’m fine. Thank you. You can call me Terry if you want.”
“And you can call me Nep.”
McCaleb put a quizzical look on his face.
“Childhood nickname.”
He nodded.
“Now,” she said. “In these books I can show you every piece of Bosch’s identified work. Is it an important investigation?”
McCaleb nodded.
“I think so. It’s a homicide.”
“And you are some kind of consultant?”
“I used to work for the FBI here in L.A. The sheriff’s detective assigned to the case asked me to look at it and see what I think. It led me here. To Bosch. I am sorry but I can’t get into the details of the case and I know that will probably be frustrating to you. I want to ask questions but I can’t really answer any from you.”
“Darn.” She smiled. “It sounds really interesting.”
“Tell you what, if there is ever a point I can tell you about it, I will.”
“Fair enough.”
McCaleb nodded.
“From what Dr. Vosskuhler said, I take it that there isn’t a lot known about the man behind the paintings.”
Fitzgerald nodded.
“Hieronymus Bosch is certainly considered an enigma and he probably always will be.”
McCaleb unfolded his notepaper on the table in front of him and started taking notes as she spoke.
“He had one of the most unconventional imaginations of his time. Or any time for that matter. His work is quite extraordinary and still subject these five centuries later to restudy and reinterpretation. However, I think you will find that the majority of the critical analysis to date holds that he was a doomsayer. His work is informed with the portents of doom and hellfire, of warnings of the wages of sin. To put it more succinctly, his paintings primarily carried variations on the same theme: that the folly of humankind leads us all to hell as our ultimate destiny.”
McCaleb was writing quickly, trying to keep up. He wished he had brought a tape recorder.
“Nice guy, huh?” Fitzgerald said.
“Sounds like it.” He nodded to the print of the triptych. “Must’ve been fun on a Saturday night.”
She smiled.
“Exactly what I thought when I was in the Prado.”
“Any redeeming qualities? He took in orphans, was nice to dogs, changed flat tires for old ladies, anything?”
“You have to remember his time and place to fully understand what he was doing with his art. While his work is punctuated with violent scenes and depictions of torture and anguish, this was a time when those sorts of things were not unusual. He lived in a violent time; his work clearly reflects that. The paintings also reflect the medieval belief in the existence of demons everywhere. Evil lurks in all of the paintings.”
“The owl?”
She stared blankly at him for a moment.
“Yes, the owl is one symbol he used. I thought you said you were unfamiliar with his work.”
“I
am
unfamiliar with it. It was an owl that brought me here. But I shouldn’t go into that and I shouldn’t have interrupted you. Please go on.”