Wrenley paused.

“I know you showed one of them to Marco Varelli.”

He looked me in the eye to see whether I was just testing him.

“Those paintings have been out of circulation for almost ten years, since the date of the theft. Everyone knows, Alex-well, everyone in my circle -that the thieves have had trouble unloading them. Some of the minor things have sold, of course-”

“But not the Rembrandt or the Vermeer.”

“So Anthony was asked to get in touch with me long before he met Omar.”

“By the thieves?”

“I prefer to call them the custodians. I have no idea who the Philistines were who actually broke into the building. Couldn’t have been art lovers-I think they left the most valuable painting behind, in their ignorance.”

Titian’s Rape of Europa, wall-sized and worth even more than the Rembrandt and the Vermeer.

“I’d been trying to find a way to sell them, collect a broker’s fee. I had heard about Lowell’s fantastic private collection, and I knew Deni was supposed to be a bit of a wild card. They were still together at the time, of course. I thought I might interest her in buying one of the great pieces for their own collection. Discretion advised. It happens more often than you’d think with stolen art.”

“And you called her shortly before she was supposed to travel to England with Lowell. That’s why she didn’t go on that trip with him, isn’t it?” Sooner or later our subpoenaed phone records would show the incoming call to Deni from Frank Wrenley. If only those records had arrived before now.

“She was wild with excitement when I told her about the paintings. Funny thing is, she wanted to buy them for Lowell. It was to be the greatest coup of her life, to give him something he didn’t have and couldn’t have found anywhere else in the world. She sent him on ahead to England with the best intentions.”

“And she took the Vermeer to Marco Varelli, to make sure it was the original?” I asked. I thought of our conversation with Don Cannon, who had witnessed the meeting.

“I never expected to become personally involved with Mrs. Caxton. That wasn’t part of the grand design. But it was icing on the cake. She developed a serious case of cold feet once Varelli threw his tantrum, so she decided to catch up with Lowell in Bath. She’d been planning the surprise of a lifetime for him, and he’s in bed with the young English girl. Drove Deni right back home, into my waiting arms.”

“You convinced her to keep playing with the paintings, even though she knew they were stolen?”

“Let’s say it was the free spirit in her. Once she and Lowell decided to split, she became more carnivorous, more worried about how she could maintain the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed. Every now and then she’d get a little crazy on me. You know about the reward?”

“Five million dollars tax-free from the Feds, for the return of the art.”

“Deni would occasionally try to convince me to turn in the paintings, in exchange for immunity from prosecution for possession of stolen property. Take the five million and run off with her-well, I can’t tell you where, exactly. I’m still hoping to be there by tomorrow. Beyond your jurisdiction, Miss D.A. And no extradition policy, either.”

“But the other man she was dating? Preston Mattox.”

“Why is it women like you always enjoy a sad love story? I did have some competition. Deni wasn’t quite ready to make a commitment after what happened with Lowell. Her selfconfidence had skyrocketed after our first few months together.”

The story was becoming clearer all the time. I stretched out the fingers of both hands, to see whether they trembled. Wrenley watched me. “Very good, Alex. Getting better.”

I balled them into fists and looked back at Wrenley. “Then why was she killed? She had the paintings, didn’t she? You were afraid you’d lose everything if she walked away from you?”

“Correction. One painting. We were going to be partners, so I let her hold on to the Vermeer. Less valuable than the Rembrandt, but she loved that domestic little scene. I favored the seascape.

“I called to tell her I thought she was right. That we ought to return the paintings to the museum and collect the reward. Her name wouldn’t be connected to the scandal, and I’d give her half the proceeds. We had been doing other deals together, so it made perfect business sense. To prove my bona fides, I offered to take her to lunch so she could give me the painting-wrapped up, of course-at Jean-Georges. In public. Neat and clean. She could carry it to the table in a Bergdorf shopping bag and just pass it to me with a peck on the cheek. A check would eventually follow for two and a half million.”

“But you must have concocted a way to get all five million?”

“Well, minus a slight commission for Anthony.”

“Did you know where she kept the painting?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t have had to offer her a twohundred-dollar lunch, would I? Anthony was to follow Deni from home. He had borrowed Omar’s station wagon. He was to abduct Deni, drive her to a fairly remote spot, and steal her purse and whatever else was in the car. He knew he was after a painting, but the painting was supposed to look incidental to the usual money, jewelry, fancy-car theft.”

I closed my eyes and my right hand covered my mouth, trying to keep the words inside. “But you knew he was a rapist. How could you let him near Deni?”

“I didn’t know that Anthony had been convicted of rape. It’s not a popular category of criminal acts among inmates. He always described himself as an armed robber. True, naturally. And a carjacker. True as well. He just neglected to tell me that he’d also raped his victims.

“All he was supposed to do was steal the Vermeer. Obviously, Deni wouldn’t be able to report the crime to the police. That was the bottom line of my plan. She would have undermined her whole divorce settlement with Lowell if she had gone to the police. No judge would give her a nickel of Lowell’s fortune, or any of his art, if she was caught with stolen paintings. A Vermeer that had been missing for a decade? How do you walk into a police station and tell them that you were just carrying it around when you went to meet a friend for lunch? Then, there’d be me to deal with. She’d feel badly about my loss, and I’d be sure to make her feel guilty, and there she’d be, owing me more than two and a half million dollars, just because she’d been careless and lost our painting.”

“Plus, you’d still have the painting. Or both paintings?”

“Voilà!”

“Where did the plan go wrong?”

“Denise made Anthony angry.” Wrenley’s indifference was chilling. “First of all, he tells me that Denise didn’t have the painting with her in the car. Lots of cash, enough jewelry to make a splash at our lunch-he was entitled to keep those things, under our agreement-but no Vermeer. Now, between you and me, Ms. Cooper, this is still a point of contention between me and my old pal Anthony. He’s not beyond pulling a sting on me, either.

“So he was angry with her. And then-well-you know this better than I do. What makes a man decide to rape a woman? Anger? Lust? Control? Or the Willie Sutton theory of robbing banks-just because she’s there?”

I had been doing this work for more than ten years and I had never seen or heard any satisfactory explanation of what motivates a human being to force another into an act of sexual intercourse, the most intimate contact two people can experience. The only factors that were the same in every case were the vulnerability of the victim at a particular moment in time and the opportunity that this presented to the assailant.

Wrenley stepped forward and moved closer to me, passing behind me and putting his left arm around my back, ready to lead me to the staircase going down to the street level.

“Bailor denied assaulting Deni at first. Made up a whole story about Omar being along for the ride, and blaming the rape on him. That’s actually why he killed poor Omar-so that dumb con artist couldn’t tell me otherwise. Worked fine with me until I read the newspaper story about the DNA eliminating Omar. Not so tense, Alex. C’mon. I’m telling you all this so that you don’t waste the government’s money trying to hunt me down. I don’t have the damn paintings after all. I got screwed out of the Vermeer, and the Rembrandt was never actually in my control.”