Page 45 of Forging Caine
And she’d smell better than the adhesive I was breaking up. Its fish-gelatin base evoked memories of Italian markets and Christmas Eve afternoons with Nonna, preparing the branzino for dinner. After eight months of not working with it on a daily basis, it stank.
I slid my scalpel underneath the silk organza the conservator had used to protect the tear. Bridging with linen would have been more stable. I only would have chosen silk if the canvas had been far thinner. More evidence that whoever did the work had the right tools and knewhowto execute the work but lacked guidance from someone more experienced in what work to do.
“What?” Samantha’s voice startled me. At some point, she’d turned on the microscope and was inspecting an image more closely.
“Scusi?”
She flicked the microscope’s light off and turned to face me. “You made a noise like you found something.”
“Did I?”
“Geez, and you say I get focused.” She joined me at the conservation table, one of her hands trailing its way up my back. Sì, far more interested than Faith ever was.
“You see this?” I leaned closer and pointed at the tear with my blade. “Look closely. It’s a perfect slice, even finer than I’d thought from the front. No loose fibers, no ragged edges, it’s just perfectly straight on either side.”
“Definitely not glass?”
“Not a chance.”
“Why would Fiori say that if it wasn’t true?”
“He could simply be a pathological liar.”
“Or it’s linked to whatever reason he had for insisting you do the work.”
We remained huddled over the back of the painting, ideas churning in my brain.
Samantha ran her finger over the cut. “You said they didn’t use fill-in medium. Would it need that, considering how perfect the join is?”
“Sì, otherwise there’s a line showing on the front.”
“I bet your scalpel would make a perfect cut like that.”
“Or a knife?” I stiffened, unsure I wanted to have this conversation. One of Fiori’s bodyguards had shot at me in January and we were dancing around the discussion with Janelle that he was behind Jimmy’s death—even if Janelle didn’t realize we knew who was behind things. “Could something have happened on his boat and he’s covering it up? Perhaps that’s why he insisted on secrecy and on calling in a favor to a man he knew would honor it?”
“If Fiori knows about your past with Giovanni, he’d assume you won’t talk.”
“Could I be contaminating evidence?”
“Let’s assume for a moment there was a crime.” Samantha twisted her head, moving closer to the painting to inspect the back. “Another conservator’s already worked on it. They would have cleaned it first, right?”
“The work was amateur. Maybe they didn’t clean it properly. What if there’s blood under the paint? In the cut?”
“That’s not it,” she muttered. “Think clearly. Logically. If it were involved in some sort of crime that left blood splatters on it, he wouldn’t have someone repair it, andthenbring it to you. He would have the first conservator test to be sure it was clean. Otherwise, it’s too much of a risk you’d do an ultraviolet test—which would be completely normal—and find it. Fraud or theft, he might trust you to ignore. Then if you went to the authorities, he could easily claim ignorance. But not murder or anything like that.”
“True.”
She straightened, tapping her fingers against her lips. “Did Christian ever figure out what Parker was talking about when he said Fiori wanted to recruit you?”
“No, but he suggested this might be related.”
A smile gradually spread across her face, and her eyes lit up. She was on to something.
“What is it?”
“What if it’s nothing more than a test?”
I walked over to my second worktable, which was covered in photographs and notes I’d taken last night. “Meaning he or one of his men cut it intentionally?”