Our eyes met.  I tried to keep a poker face.  I failed. 

“Ah, hell,” Ernst swore softly.

“So don’t tell anyone it’s a fake.  Who would know?”  My voice echoed in the nearly empty vault.

“I will not be party to a fraud,” he snapped.  There was a sheen developing on Ernst’s elegant brow, which I noted with guilty pleasure.  It was kind of fun to see an ex-boyfriend sweat.  Especially one who had dumped me so unceremoniously. 
 
“Besides,” Ernst added, “you knew.”

“I could be wrong,” I lied.

He shook his head and sighed.  “You’re never wrong about forgery.  I had my doubts anyway.  That’s why I asked you to meet me here tonight.” 
 
That’s why he begged me to meet him at the Brock Museum in the middle of the night, to be more precise.  I wasn’t exactly welcome during regular business hours.

“In that case, I suggest you keep my name out of it when you go to the Board. It won’t help your case if I’m associated with this,” I said, turning my attention back to the exquisite fake of Caravaggio’s The Magi.  I had to bite my tongue to refrain from praising the forger’s skill in capturing the artist’s unique blend of dramatic shading and rich, almost luminous colors.  Upstanding art types usually found it hard to appreciate this kind of talent.

And Ernst Pettigrew was as upstanding as they came.  The glamour boy of museum curators, Ernst had twinkling blue eyes, a charming European accent, and a sleek BMW convertible.  As nurturing of the fine art in his care as he was of the egos of wealthy benefactors, he had won the coveted position of Head Curator at San Francisco’s Brock Museum last year at the tender age of thirty-five. 

Ernst and I enjoyed a brief fling six years ago, when I was happily working as one of the Brock’s lowly, underpaid art restorers and he had just arrived from Austria to catalogue the museum’s substantial European art collection.  He had broken off our nascent affair when I was “outed” by an old rival as having once been accused of art forgery. My assurances that the charges had been settled out
of court placated no one at the Brock, including Ernst. Although I’d been upset by Ernst’s lack of faith, what hurt the most was his public denunciation of me over a mediocre Waldorf salad and a watery iced tea at the annual Brock Frock Talk fashion show fundraiser.

One does not know true humiliation until one has been shunned by the Ladies Who Lunch. 

Ernst was now living in a plush condo in the Marina and dating an emaciated model named Quiana.  I knew this because in moments of weakness and self-loathing, I read the San Francisco Chronicle’s society pages.

Now my damning assessment of the “Caravaggio” resting on the easel before me might well mean that Ernst’s career was finished. Any way you looked at it, fifteen million dollars was a lot of money to spend on a fake. And knowing the way museums such as the Brock reacted to these kinds of  expensive mistakes, I was certain Ernst’s vilification would be even more public than my own.  Scummy ex-boyfriend or not, I didn’t wish that kind of professional humiliation on anyone.  

“You could try to spread the blame,” I suggested.  “Didn’t Sebastian run the usual tests to authenticate the age of the canvas and types of paint used?”  Dr. Sebastian Pitts was the overrated and under-talented art authenticator who had ruined my chances in the legitimate art restoration field by digging up those old forgery charges.  I would happily help Ernst feed Pitts to the Brock lions.
Nodding distractedly, Ernst walked out of the vault, past a long bank of archival storage drawers, and wordlessly smashed his fist through the wall.   I gawked at the gaping hole, impressed by both his temper and his strength. 

“Who painted it?” Ernst demanded, the color mounting in his face as he struggled for control.

“How should I know?”  I lied again.  Of course I knew.  How could I not?  Part of learning how to perpetrate fraud is learning how to recognize it. However, just as it takes true artistic talent to be a world-class forger, the ability to perceive another artist’s signature style is more inborn than acquired.  And to my grandfather’s delight, I had a real flair for aesthetic profiling.