“Good afternoon. May I be of assistance?”
Betta pulled a business card from her pocket and handed it to him. “My name is Betta Innocenti. I’m an investigator with the art police in Rome.”
Bruzzone pulled a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket, slipped them on, and studied the card. His face changed to a puzzled frown. “I’m familiar with your office, of course, and certainly hope my gallery is not suspected of dealing in stolen art.”
“No, sir, that is not the case at all.”
The smile returned. “Why don’t you come back to my office and you can tell me how I can help. I am always ready to assist the authorities.” He gestured toward the open door. “You’ll have to excuse the clutter. I hope eventually to move somewhere that gives me more room to display art, in addition to having a larger office. But that would be a large expense, and also I would lose this excellent location. What better address could there be for selling art than Via Raffaello? His birthplace is just up the street, you know. Have you been?”
“Not yet, but I hope to visit it while I’m here.”
He was accurate about size and clutter. The office was really a spacious closet, much of its square footage taken up by a desk with chairs on both sides. A credenza ran along almost all of one wall, its surface shared by stacks of files and a printer. The desk had more papers stacked up and a laptop computer. A corkboard stuck with more sheets of paper, exhibit programs, and drawings took up most of the back wall, and everything was illuminated by gray light from a fluorescent lamp hanging from the ceiling. Betta took the chair that was just inside the door on the right facing the side of the desk. She looked at the bulletin board behind the desk while Bruzzone squeezed around to sit across from her. He folded his hands on the papers in front of him.
“I trust you are aware, Signor Bruzzone, that Manuel Somonte arrived in Urbino two days ago.”
“Yes, indeed. I saw him yesterday.”
“Perhaps you are not aware that he was found dead this morning.”
Bruzzone’s face froze. “I…I was not aware of that. How tragic.” He rubbed his forehead and spent a moment trying to compose himself. “He was not a young man, but he appeared to be in good health for his age when I saw him. He dropped in, as he always does—or I should now say did—when he was in town, to see if I had any pieces of interest for him. I showed him the miniatures in the cases, though I knew they aren’t the kind of art he purchased.”
“Signor Bruzzone, Somonte was murdered.”
The man stiffened and swallowed hard. “O Dio. How…? But who would do such a thing?” He stared at the desk and slowly lifted his head to look directly at Betta. “I don’t understand. This is a matter for the local police—why would your office be involved?”
“I’m sure Inspector DiMaio will want to talk to you, but I am here because the drawing that Somonte was going to donate to the museum in Sansepolcro has gone missing.”
This bit of news seemed to upset the art dealer more than hearing about the death of Somonte. “That is indeed terrible. Just terrible.” His mouth stayed open, but no more words came out.
Betta broke the silence and zipped open the case she was carrying, taking out a notebook. “I thought that since you sold it to him, you could be of help in tracking it down. You could begin by telling me—” She looked past him at the board where a piece of paper at a crooked angle was stuck to the cork with a pushpin. Bruzzone followed her eyes and turned around to look.
“Oh, I forgot that was there. You must have seen the finished work in Sansepolcro. Yes, that is a copy of the drawing. Before I sold it to Somonte I made the copy and stuck it up there to remind me of the sale. Such transactions have been few and far between for me lately.” He reached behind him and pulled it from the wall, the pushpin falling onto the floor. “Would it be of help to your investigation? Perhaps you could show it around the city to see if anyone has seen it.”
“Thank you, but I have pictures of the drawing itself on my telephone.”
He pulled a pin from another corner of the board and stuck the copy back in its place. “You were saying how I could be of assistance?”
“You could begin by telling me something of the drawing’s provenance. I don’t think we have anything in our files in Rome.”
“Yes, of course. This was one of those cases that we art dealers dream about. Out of the blue an old woman walked into my shop and offered it to me. She said she came upon it in a trunk in her storage shed and wondered if it was worth anything. Can you believe that?” He shook his head slowly as if he still couldn’t believe it himself. “I studied it carefully, consulted a specialist about Piero’s various studies for the work in Sansepolcro, and concluded that it was the genuine item. The woman was unable to tell me how it got into her trunk, of course; it had been there for centuries. There is simply no way of knowing that kind of thing. But she and I were the beneficiaries of the find. It wasn’t the same as discovering a full painting by the master—that would be worth millions—but for a dealer like me, such a drawing was a
