S8E17 Was It the Vermeer?

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For.I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you in the heart of a mystery. All stories are structured to challenge you to beat the detective to the solution. Jack and I perform these live, front to back, no breaks, no fakes, no retakes.The rules for law and order create the boundaries for civil co-existence and, ideally, the backdrops for individuals, families, and companies to grow and thrive. Breaking these rules puts civil order at risk. And while murder is the Big Daddy of crimes, codified ordinances across municipal divisions, counties, states, and countries show the nearly endless ways there are to create mayhem. This season, we put our detective skills to the test. This is Season 8, Anything but Murder. This is Episode 17, art theft is the featured crime. This is Was It a Vermeer? by Erica ObeyDELIBERATIONMaggie Fletcher has thieves to the left of her, nuns to the right, and she needs our help to clear this holy rolling path. Who is the thief known as Dismas? Here are the suspects in the order we met them:Dr. Thomas, a canon lawyer who can take on—and take down—any real estate lawyer out there. Mr. Barry Wolf, owner of The Wolf Group, art appraisers and Maggie’s boss. Sr. Scholastica, caretaker of the Phelps treasury and seemingly the only member of the mysterious Sodality of St. Dismas. Fr. Hugh Sinclair, investigator for the Vatican Museum—or is he?Mr. Alexi Rublev, main investor in the Wolf group and a real estate developer with his eye on the property owned by Phelps Hall.Here are the facts the way Maggie understands them:When Alexei Rublev cannot reach Barry Wolf, who is returning from an overseas trip, he calls Maggie and orders her to appraise an icon of St. Dismas that was stolen from Phelps Hall, as well as demanding that she send him all the Wolf Group’s records about insurance claims involving the Vatican Museum. Rublev justifies his demands by saying if Barry won’t pull the trigger, Rublev will pull it for him. Unsure of what Rublev meant by that, Maggie does what Rublev asks, emailing him the records and going to Phelps Hall to conduct the appraisal. When she arrives at Phelps Hall, she finds what seems to be a far more valuable painting than the icon, which no-one knows anything about. For the first time, it occurs to her how odd it is to be asked to appraise an item that isn’t there. When Wolf arrives from overseas, he is unfairly furious with Maggie. Wolf gets even more furious when Rublev shows up with a state trooper, claiming that the stolen icon is evidence that Phelps Hall is nothing but a money laundering operation for the Vatican Bank, and demanding that Phelps Hall be shut down. Rublev is accused by Thomas of looking for an excuse to shut down Phelps Hall, so he can buy their land. Maggie remembers Rublev’s comment about pulling the trigger and wonders whether he and Barry were colluding in manufacturing evidence, so he can seize Phelps Hall. But there is also a great deal of evidence that in obeying Rublev’s order, she has stumbled across a massive money laundering scheme run by a master thief named Dismas, and it may be connected to Phelps Hall. Certainly, no-one at Phelps Hall is exactly what they seem. Who is the thief known as Dismas?ABOUT Art Theft True CrimeFrom Deep Sentinel, a security service company, come the stories of a few famous art thefts. We’ll start with Vermeer, since we just got acquainted with him.In March 1990, two thieves posed as police supposedly responding to a disturbance were given entry into museum into Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a private home turned museum with an extensive art collection. The thieves bound the two guards in the basement. 81 minutes later, 13 works were gone. broke into Isabella Sewart Gardner Museum, a private home turned museum with an extensive art collection. The stolen works include Johannes Vermeer’s ‘The Concert’, three Rembrandt’s – Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, and a Lady and Gentleman in Black, and Edouard Manet’s Chez Tortoni, five Degas drawings. The value of the works totaled over $500 mil. None of the works have been recovered. The museum is offering a $10mil reward for information leading to the safe return of the pieces. To see the stolen works, follow the links to the Gardner Museum.One other short story on a favorite of mine, Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa was a commissioned painting of Lisa del Giocondo that Leonardo Da Vinci never delivered to his customer. The biography of Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson describes how Da Vinci developed the painting using a technique of thin layers, built up over time to give her and his other works a depth unique and almost three-dimensional quality. Painted in the 1500s, Mona Lisa traveled with Da Vinci when he moved to France as a retainer of the French King, Francis I. Da Vinci died in France in 1519. At least some of his works were sold to the king to provide an inheritance for his heirs. The Mona Lisa was included in those works and thus she has resided in the France since the early 1500s and the Louvre since 1797. Then, in 1911, an Italian handyman who had worked at the Louvre determined to return her to Italy. He hid in the museum after it closed and, in the morning, walked out with her under his clothes. The Mona Lisa is not a big painting- 21-in wide by 30-in long. At first, there was no panic about the missing painting as it was assumed it was removed for photographing, which wasn’t uncommon. It didn’t take long for staff to realize the painting was not in the Louvre. The thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, kept the painting for two years before he contacted an art dealer about returning it. Today, her enigmatic smile is worth about $860 million.Lots of links in the shownotes. Yes, I was fascinated.https://www.deepsentinel.com/blogs/learning-center/famous-art-heists/?srsltid=AfmBOoqp4JRJwbIHPgXSxMcCKKLHe92XHDyrf_XNAVD7AZzztLwJ66Mahttps://www.gardnermuseum.org/organization/thefthttps://www.gardnermuseum.org/about/theft-storyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisahttps://www.amazon.com/Leonardo-Vinci-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1501139169/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CTEU0EEUDS7D&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.k766mrXU5oDutHeS7-XRJMTTDsLsYVXOXbYc_5pCpT5e7-w2sOfuz1tgJCjdNnLlHSaNzpKfXS3DJwXR1xY5eSUQaC43DG-huwMvhtZK3pTpIzeA7k6pvuO07uDfJfUPI7supPKxwOpn-gvmK_sYCiv9rCW4lO3lMsVcaO5C26j0-_5Ni-0hCN_jxJaaHqIEAcpeI5caTB6JuLIIKV7EmoEwDjrUhmlO0khM25bl6xM.TeRGfp_W71bNfQmb03miOxrK4dUJuzqkUu2r9YqNGBc&dib_tag=se&keywords=leonardo+da+vinci+biography&qid=1751828722&sprefix=leonardo+da+vinci+biography%2Caps%2C337&sr=8-1ABOUT Erica Obeywww.ericaobey.com There are three places you can find Erica Obey when she isn’t writing: Pottering in her garden; out on the trail, looking for birds; or taking Trivia Night far too seriously at a local establishment. She is the author of The Brooklyn North Murder, the first full-length Watson & Doyle mystery, as well as five other novels set in the Hudson Valley, including the award-winning The Curse of the Braddock Brides. Erica is the Past President of the MWA-NY chapter, and a frequent reviewer and judge. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and published academic work on female folklorists before she decided she’d rather be writing the stories herself.WRAP UPThat wraps this episode of Mysteries to Die For. Support our show by subscribing, telling a mystery lover about us, and giving us a five-star review. Check out our website m2d4podcast.com for links to this season’s authors.The anthology for the second half of this season releases in October. Add it to your Christmas, Hanukkah, or your To Be Read list.Mysteries to Die For is hosted by TG Wolff and Jack Wolff. Was It a Vermeer? was written by Erica Obey. Music and production are by Jack Wolff. Episode art is by TG Wolff. Join us next week for a Toe Tag, which is the first chapter from a fresh release in the mystery, crime, or thriller genre. Then come back in two weeks for our next original story where contract arson is the featured murderless crime. It’s Slow Burn by Chuck Brownman