Among Thieves

The Co

In the wake of the scandal, Kozlowski had been assigned to work with the feds to wrap up certain aspects of the Bulger case, rounding up some of those within Bulger’s gang against whom cases could be made. The brass and politicians figured that if the local cops and the FBI could work together in closing those cases, it might help to repair some of the damage. They were partially right. Kozlowski had worked well with his FBI counterpart, and they had earned each other’s respect. Any additional benefit to the relationship between the enforcement organizations themselves had been minimal and short-lived. At an organizational level, there was no trust between the cops and the feds in Boston. Many suspected that there never would be again.

Fi

She looked up at him with a neutral gaze; Fi

“Thanks.”

Kozlowski walked away from the receptionist’s desk. Fi

“Ever?”

“In there,” he said. “I’m tempted to leave you out here. This guy trusts me, but this is delicate. He’s go

“I’m not staying out here,” Fi

Kozlowski nodded. “I figured you’d feel that way. So you come in. But don’t speak. The more you say, the less we’ll get out of this. You understand?”

“Yeah,” Fi

Kozlowski frowned at him. “I’m serious.”

“I got it. No talking.”

Kozlowski looked at him for another moment or two before letting his gaze drop. If he’d had time to think about it, Fi

“Kozlowski,” he said. It seemed an acknowledgment and little more, but Fi

Kozlowski nodded but said nothing. It was like some strange Kabuki dance. Neither one had extended his hand. They just stood there looking at each other.

Then the agent looked at Fi

“He’s Fi

“Fi

“So was I once,” Hewitt said.

“It’s curable?” Fi

Hewitt led them through a large open area overrun with cubicle dividers covered with gray industrial fabric. It resembled so many corporate offices Fi

Hewitt brought them through the maze, around toward a long hallway, and into an interior conference room. They went in ahead of Hewitt and he closed the door behind them. They sat around the conference table. It was a cheap piece of furniture. “Okay, Koz,” Hewitt said. “You said you needed to talk to me. I’m here.”

“Yeah,” Kozlowski said. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

Hewitt shook his head. “No thanks needed. Ask what you need to ask.”

“It’s about the robbery at the Gardner Museum that happened back in ’90. You familiar with it?”

Hewitt was silent for a moment. “Sure,” he said slowly. “It’s the biggest art theft in modern history. Still unsolved. I’d have to be dead not to be familiar with it.”

“What’s the status of the investigation?”

Hewitt’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”

Kozlowski shook his head. “Can’t really get into that.”

“Can’t get into it?” Hewitt leaned back in his chair. He looked back and forth between Fi

Kozlowski nodded. “I understand that. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Hewitt looked at the former cop for a moment before answering. Then he shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Truth is, I don’t really know. I hear bits and pieces from time to time, but it’s nothing more than rumor. You know how it is, Koz-it’s not my case, so I don’t have a whole lot of real information.”

“Whose case is it?” Kozlowski asked.

“Art Theft Program. It’s a relatively new division at the Bureau; they started it up in 2002. There are only ten agents or so. Scattered around the country, but they’re based out of the home office in DC. The division’s headed up by a guy named Angus Porter. He was a field agent up here in Boston back in the eighties and nineties. He used to dabble in a lot of the local stuff-organized crime, drug trafficking, the usual crap we all work on in satellite offices. But he got bit by the art bug. Boston was a major player in the stolen-art world, even before the Gardner got taken. A couple of years before, a guy actually plucked a twenty-million-dollar painting off the wall at the Museum of Fine Arts and ran out the door with it. There wasn’t any security at all. True story.”

“The guy got away with it?”

“For a while. The painting was eventually returned to reduce his sentence on another heist that didn’t go quite as well for him. But there were lots of stories like that back in the day. Angus started the process of pulling together information on the thefts and the movement of the paintings. Studied the fences, the transactions, took art classes-became a real expert. After the Gardner job he started lobbying the brass to start up a special division. It took him a dozen years, but they finally gave in and assigned him a half dozen agents and a budget. I’m sure he wanted more, but I gotta give him credit. After 9/11 we were so focused on the antiterrorism issues that I’m shocked he got anybody’s attention.”