Title: The Many and Varied Reasons Why Neal Caffrey Should Listen to His Friend Moz
LJ Username: dhrelva
Characters: Neal, Peter, Mozzie, Jones, Cruz, Hughes, June
Pairings: None
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 26,266
Summary: None of this would have happened if he'd played the alias how Mozzie told him to instead of how he did. Seriously, with all the other stuff he'd done, an honest identity shouldn't be able to get him into this much trouble six years later.
Author's Note: This takes place at some unspecified time during the second half of Season One, with only mild spoilers for Free Fall and a hint of Home Invasion.
[Artwork Placeholder]
"Neal, new case." On days like today, those were Neal's three favorite words. He eagerly put aside the paperwork he'd been going through on an old case and bounded to his feet, beaming at Peter as though the FBI agent had just given him the moon. "We're going to the auction house. One of the paintings was stolen out of their storage vault before the highest bidder could come pick it up. The painting went for $25,000 yesterday evening. The bidder went to the bank this morning to pick up the payment but when she returned to the auction house to pay for it, her painting was gone."
Neal nodded thoughtfully. It sounded like a fairly straight forward case. "Inside job?" he asked.
Peter shook his head. "Doesn't look like it. The lock on the side door was broken and the vault was cut open."
Neal's face scrunched up in mild distaste. "So whoever did this isn't and doesn't have access to a lock picker or safe cracker, either. We're probably not looking at a professional or group of professionals. They broke into the vault, though. Did they take anything else, or just the one painting?"
"Just the one painting."
Neal's eyebrows drew together thoughtfully. "Then it's probably not for money. Twenty-five k isn't a petty haul," he himself probably wouldn't have bothered with anything that low, but it did qualify as grand larceny in New York, "but there had to be something else there that was worth more, something else they could have also grabbed. They wanted that specific painting. What was it?"
Peter checked his notepad. "'Boy in Orchard' by Thomas Wellington."
Neal stopped walking. Peter took three more steps before he realized his consultant wasn't with him anymore. He turned around and frowned. Neal was staring at him in stunned shock. "Thomas Wellington," he repeated, disbelief and incredulity flooding his tone. He shook his head. "That can't be right. You've got it on there wrong."
"Don't like Wellington's work?" Peter asked in amusement. He was not surprised anymore that Neal would be familiar even with obscure budding artists. He took the last few steps down the hallway and pressed the call button for the elevator.
Neal moved forward as well, joining him after a few seconds. "Wellington is an amateur. Nothing he did is worth one k, never mind twenty-five. He's lucky if what he produces is worth what he paid for the paint and canvas."
Peter's eyebrows rose. Neal never made a secret of art he didn't like, but this sounded harsh even from him. Normally, he belittled a piece for not reaching the artist's potential, not the artist himself. More often, though, Neal could find something he liked in almost everything he saw and it was Peter who didn't understand why a painting or sculpture would go for as much as it did. From the photograph they'd been given with the case briefing, 'Boy in Orchard' was actually a pretty nice painting from what Peter could see. He'd hang it in his house. He wouldn't pay $25,000 for it, but a print might be nice over the guest room's dresser. It had that peaceful kind of homey quality to it, with the little boy asleep under the apple trees.
The elevator's arrival postponed the conversations for a short while, but once they were both inside and Peter pressed the button for the parking level, he asked, "Have you actually seen the stolen piece? It doesn't look that bad to me."
Neal gave him a long look that clearly told him his inferior and plebeian tastes in art were why he was an FBI Agent and not a true connoisseur like Neal was. "I've seen it," he answered shortly. "It's like every other farmland landscape in existence. It has no fire. There's nothing special about it. It should only have value to the parents of the boy in it. Why don't they still have it, anyway?"
The elevator dinged as they reached the bottom floor. The doors opened and they began their trek across the parking garage to the Taurus. Peter used his keyring to unlock it from a few dozen feet away then handed over the folder of information about the case to Neal. "You can read the history of the painting on the way over."
"It's six years old, how much history can it have?" Neal grumbled as he opened the passenger side door, but he got in and put on his seat belt without real complaint. He opened the folder with the force of a toddler in a temper. Peter was only a little surprised when he began reading from the first page instead of skipping ahead. Peter had a few minutes of peaceful driving before Neal slapped the folder closed and looked out the window sullenly, almost as though he was sulking over something he'd read. At least he'd waited until after he'd read the whole thing to start.
Peter stole a few looks in his direction, but when Neal continued to not offer any insights into the case or his irritation, Peter prompted, "So what personal affront did this case give you?"
"Someone stole 'Boy in Orchard'!" Neal exclaimed, as if that were affront enough right there. "As if paying $25,000 dollars for it wasn't bad enough, now someone's probably going to go to jail over 'Boy in Orchard'! It's insane! At least go after a decent painting by a real artist!"
That was when Peter realized it really was a personal affront. The venom in Neal's voice would not be turned against some random artist unless he truly disliked that person for a very good reason. "You've met Thomas Wellington. Is this going to be a problem, Neal?"
Neal pressed himself against his seat's back, closed his eyes, and let out a deep breath. "I'll be okay. I won't denigrate Wellington or his painting in front of the auction house staff or the bidder. I can be polite and sympathetic and keep my criticisms to myself."
Peter kept watching his consultant for longer than traffic really allowed. The car and Neal protested at the same time that he should be looking at the road and not his passenger. After he'd managed to narrowly avoid an accident, he glanced briefly back at Neal, trying to remember what they'd been talking about. Right. Wellington. "You don't have a conflict of interest here, do you, Neal? You didn't already steal 'Boy in Orchard' and we're chasing a fake right now, right?"
Neal glared at him fiercely, the strongest response Peter had ever gotten out of him when he suggested Neal might have committed a past crime. He sounded truly insulted as he denied almost viciously, "I would never steal 'Boy in Orchard'. I would never touch any of Wellington's work. It's not worth stealing and even more absurd to forge it." He grimaced and relented a little, "Don't worry, the closest we're venturing to my history in this case is an alias that was used for hiding not stealing." Whatever his history with Wellington was, Neal was clearly off his game because there was a distinct two second pause before he realized his slip and qualified, "Allegedly stealing."
Peter just hoped it wasn't going to affect Neal's ability to help solve the case.
The interviews with the curator and the bidder offered no further insights, but their inspection of the crime scene made Neal whistle as he ran a finger over the smooth melted edge of the cut vault. "I rescind my statement that this wasn't professionals," he told Peter, squatting down to look closer at the melted metal. "Amateurs don't have access to this kind of gear, and the vault door's good enough that only somebody who had the combination could get in without some property damage. I think we're looking at a professionally hired team that came in here for a specific purpose. Which just begs the question:" He looked up at Peter with a pained expression on his face, "Why 'Boy in Orchard'?"
The curator returned from where ever he'd wandered while they examined the vault, just in time to hear the question. "Oh. Are you familiar with it? I admit, it's not a well known piece, but it is actually quite fascinating."
Neal's face clearly expressed his dubiousness. "It's a six year old painting by an amateur." So much for not denigrating the painting in front of the staff.
The round little curator just clucked at him. "Now, now. That might not be entirely true. There's a lot of mystery around just who Thomas Wellington is. He's clearly been classically trained and has obvious talent. Some people even say Wellington is a pseudonym for any of a number of artists. His style has been compared to," and he spieled off into a list of different names, some of which Peter recognized from past cases, some of which he didn't. Neal seemed to know them all, though, and he grew increasingly distressed with each one mentioned.
"That's ridiculous," Neal finally interrupted. "Wellington's a nobody. Strictly a hobbyist. He paints because he thinks it's an enjoyable way to pass his time. He doesn't, he doesn't," he waved an agitated hand around them, "he doesn't sell his paintings, doesn't even try. He just gives them away to people he knows because that's what nobody hobbyists do." Neal gestured with an irritated flourish at the hole in the vault door, careful not to smudge any fingerprints that might be there, but no less personally insulted by the thieves' lack of taste than he was earlier as he grouched, "Wellington is not good enough to get stolen from."
"Neal," Peter warned, but it was already too late.
The curator was advancing on Neal with an avid light shining in his pale blue eyes. "You know him? You know who Thomas Wellington is? Can you contact him, do you know who else has his works? How many paintings has he done?"
Neal shifted uncomfortably and looked to Peter to save him, but Neal had gotten himself into this mess. "I don't think that's relevant to the case," Neal tried in a hopeful tone aimed more at Peter than at the curator.
Peter suddenly stood up straighter; something in what the con had just said collided with the words of his earlier rant in the agent's mind and poked at his honed instincts. "Wellington is an small name artist who doesn't sell his paintings? Maybe doesn't even want to break into the art scene?" Neal nodded emphatic agreement to the tentative assessment Peter made on the character of the enigmatic artist, so Peter voiced his guess, "Do you think he stole the painting himself, to keep it away from the public?"
Neal shook his head rapidly, eyes going wide with alarm. "Thomas would never do that. Never ever ever. Couldn't have been him. No."
The about face in Neal's relationship with the artist made Peter's eyebrows draw together in confusion. "I thought you didn't like this guy? And now he's 'Thomas' all of a sudden?"
"Thomas?" Neal repeated, as if they'd been talking about some other Wellington all this time, "No, not at all. Great guy. Very polite. Very generous to anyone who gives him a good turn. Excellent company. In fact, I saw him just last night, so don't worry about his alibi, he was with me. No need to bother him with any of this."
Peter felt his heart sink. Neal was lying and covering for a suspect. Neal was involved in this case. Damn it. "Doesn't it seem a little suspicious that he's right here in town the day his painting goes missing?"
"Sure, if he didn't live here. But he's from New York, Peter. He's always here. Comes by my apartment quite frequently. This wasn't aberrant behavior." Peter almost might have believed him if he didn't look so very very earnest and honest. He was also talking a good deal faster than normal, which Neal only did when he was spinning, trying to get someone to see things his way. Neal was on the defensive and he was almost certainly hiding something.
The curator stepped in at that information, all but bouncing on his feet. "He's been right here all this time? Thomas Wellington lives in New York? Where?"
"Yeah, we're going to have to ask him a few questions," Peter stated, frowning at Neal forcefully, as if scowling at him hard enough could make him somehow innocent of something he'd already done.
Neal shook his head, distressed, and ran a hand through his hair. "This is 'Boy in Orchard', Peter! It was a nice enough piece for what it was meant to be - a gift of gratitude to a family that let him stay with them for a few weeks - but it's not worth all of this. Wellington's an honest guy, he's not going to try and hire an old friend to get him some painting he did six years ago." Peter was not surprised that Neal had picked up on the fact that he was in the hot seat as much as Wellington was. "The wretched thing isn't even supposed to have a name. Hobbyists like Thomas don't name their paintings, they just call them 'that one I did for the couple with the little boy in the apple orchard when I had that sprained ankle that time'. If the Hendricks decided to sell it, that was their call and no business of ours! He's not a real artist. He has no artistic integrity to protect! Thomas is as upset that he's getting this kind of attention as I am! He likes to lay low!"
And then Peter understood. Everything came together with crystal clarity. "Thomas Wellington is your alias."
Neal shot an alarmed look toward the curator and a desperate look back at Peter, but didn't try to deny it. "You see why this whole thing is completely surreal. I don't do original work, except as gifts. I'm not a real artist. What I paint isn't worth anything. I tried the whole starving artist thing; it didn't work - actually, it worked too well - I nearly starved. How is this even a real case?"
"There's a stolen painting valued at $25,000. That's how it's a real case, Neal."
"But it's mine." Neal's voice sounded so small and confused. "It was just something I did to pass the time while my ankle healed."
"You are Thomas Wellington, then?" the curator asked, cutting in. "If you can provide some documentation, the Hendricks did request that we offer the artist 10% of the proceeds of the sale. Obviously, that'll be tied up until the theft is sorted out and the painting is hopefully recovered, but you may be entitled to part of the insurance money if the case doesn't get solved . . ."
Neal stared down at the shorter man in disbelief. "Just give it to the Hendricks. It's their painting and I don't need the money."
"I'll still need documentation to release the reserved funds."
Neal looked at Peter a little warily, but he opened his wallet, shuffled through a dozen or so cards, then showed one of them to the curator. The little man nodded and went to make a note in a ledger that was hanging on the wall of the vault. "Let me see that," Peter said before Neal could put the laminated rectangle away. Neal gave a guilty wince as he handed over a New York driver's license bearing his own picture and Thomas Wellington's name. The address was June's. Peter held out his hand. "The rest of your wallet, Neal." The con gave him a hurt look but reluctantly handed over the wallet.
Peter collected all the IDs and credit cards that were not in Neal's name, as well as took a note of a card that was but that he hadn't known about. Giving back the wallet and items in Neal's name, he put the rest into an inside pocket of his suit and said, "As your parole officer, I'm confiscating these. There will be a notation in your file." Hughes wouldn't be happy to learn Neal was still forging IDs for himself, but if that was all he was doing, it could probably be overlooked.
Neal's shoulders slumped slightly and he had the grace to look guilty. He decided not to give Peter any ideas by asking whether or not that notation was going to coincide with a restriction on his radius or another fitting for an orange jumpsuit. Carrying forged identification was almost certainly a breach of his parole. And the less they discussed it and the more remorseful he looked about it, the less likely he'd get directly punished for it.
The curator looked over from his ledger and asked nervously, "Exactly what kind of consultant is Mr. Wellington, Agent Burke?"
"Mr. Caffrey," Peter emphasized Neal's real name, "is on a work release program with us. He's a felon with extensive knowledge of art theft and forgery." Realizing they were in a vault full of valuable objects, many of them related to art, and that he'd just told the man responsible for keeping them all exactly where they were that one of the investigators sent over by the FBI was an accomplished thief, he added quickly, "We keep a close eye on him. It's perfectly safe to have him in here."
Neal smiled charmingly. "I assure you, I'm a reformed man."
The curator's eye darted toward the side of Peter's suit where the confiscated IDs and credit cards had gone. "Of course, Mr. Wellington."
Peter decided he should return them all to the purpose of the visit. "Neal, if you didn't do it -"
"- I didn't do it! You can check my tracker, and this is completely not my style. Fully alibied here. June can vouch for me!"
Holding up a hand, Peter tried to calm him down, "I mean, if Thomas Wellington didn't do it -"
"He didn't do it either! Thomas is a completely law-abiding citizen!"
Peter rolled his eyes, but made an internal note to himself that Neal defended Thomas with an argument based on personal character while his own defense was focused solely on his alibi and MO. "Except for his forged ID," Peter pointed out. Neal waved negligently as if that didn't count. Peter decided to let it pass for now and give him the full lecture later, when they were back in the office. "Anyway, Thomas Wellington is off the suspect list, so who does that leave us with?"
"I was saying that I thought it was a professional team hired to grab the one painting. But I still don't get why anyone would hire people like that - who are not cheap, by the way - to grab my original work. Is there anything else in here that they might have been supposed to grab and they took the wrong thing by mistake?"
He started to reach for a painting that was about the same size as 'Boy in Orchard' but Peter was there, grabbing him by the wrist and forcing his hand away, keeping him from touching anything. "No touching the art, Neal," he warned, being more overt about it than they normally were, now that the curator knew Neal's background. Peter ignored his affronted look and released him only when Neal let his arm fall back down to his side. "And let's work under the assumption that these guys took what they meant to take. No sense in complicating it unnecessarily when the painting in question is valued at $25,000."
"I am in no way responsible for whatever scam made that happen." Neal apparently felt it was important to put that out there.
Peter nodded and added dryly, "Yes, Neal, your disbelief of its value is noted."
"It is worth that much, though," the curator put in. "As you can see, 'Boy in Orchard' was kept over here, in a position where they would have needed to walk past most of the rest of the inventory to get to it. It is entirely likely that someone with a discriminating taste would have eyes only for that one painting. As I had begun to say earlier, the style is fascinating."
"It's not fascinating," Neal disagreed. "I primarily paint reproductions. When I make something original, I just mix styles from the artists I've reproduced."
Peter considered that, given the caliber of paintings Neal tended to 'reproduce', it was really no surprise his own composite style was considered 'fascinating' by the art world. He wondered briefly if he could use Thomas Wellington's works as evidence then dismissed the thought.
"How many original paintings have you made, Neal?" he asked, genuinely curious, and the curator looked at him gratefully for asking a question that had clearly been on his mind as well.
Neal shrugged and shook his head. "I never counted. They were never meant to -" he waved at the hole in the vault door. "They were downtime projects. Just a hobby. They're scattered all over the world under a half dozen different artist names, mostly in homes of people who helped me out, signed with whatever name they knew me by. Discounting the ones from college and before, Mozzie's got one of only two paintings that I signed with my name. Kate's got the other. Thomas might have done, I don't know, eight? Ten?"
"Could you tell me who might have those?" the curator asked hopefully. "This was the second Thomas Wellington I sold. The first went for less, but that's understandable for an artist debut. I actually liked it better, but there was no other work to compare it to. 'Girl with Balloon'?"
"Candice," Neal said, nodding. "I did like that one." His fond smile faded and he shook his head, "But no. I won't say who else has Wellingtons. They're not for sale unless the families involved decide on their own that they want to sell them, especially given the FBI's inevitable interest in Thomas Wellington now." For Peter's benefit, he added, "None of them knew I was a fugitive, of course."
"Of course," Peter agreed, figuring it was probably even the truth and not overly important anymore now that Neal was caught even if it wasn't. He had no interest in prosecuting a bunch of families who had been scammed by Neal and then compensated with an original painting. He was, however, interested in knowing when and where any of them hosted Thomas Wellington. Neal's old cases were still technically open and it would feel good to slap a closed stamp on some of them. They could probably work out some kind of deal for Neal that wouldn't put him back in prison.
Peter waited a moment then waved around them, "Did you see everything you need to see here, Neal?"
Neal nodded and started moving toward the door. "Yeah. I have a pretty good idea of how, a reasonable guess on who, but nothing here is going to tell me why. I've got to talk to Moz."
"You got any specifics on the who?"
"That what I need to ask Moz. I have a couple ideas on who could do this kind of work, but I don't know who's in town. And I have no idea who would have hired them. Not without a why."
The curator closed the vault door behind them as securely as he could given that there was a gaping hole in the middle of it. That was what the two rent-a-cops and borrowed FBI agent were there for. Peter gave the little curator his card and got the curator's in exchange. Neal got one as well, along with an invitation to sell any of his artwork through the auction house with only a very reasonable commission off the top.
As they got into the Taurus, Neal leaned his head back against his seat and let out a long breath. "I hate giving up aliases, even the honest ones. Especially the honest ones."
"Don't you like being a semi-famous artist in your own right?" Peter asked. He wouldn't have ever anticipated a situation like this, but if he had, he might have thought Neal would be a little more excited about having his talents recognized. The effort it took Neal not to gloat about some of his forgeries was almost painful to watch. Here, he had a perfectly legal painting that sold for $25,000 and he was almost acting embarrassed about the attention. Neal loved attention, almost as much as he loved accolades and praise. The whole thing just sat wrong with Peter and he felt there was something critical that he was missing about the whole thing.
Neal's response to Peter's attempt to get him to see the loss of his alias in a better light was as distressed as anything else he'd said since Thomas Wellington's name had been mentioned. "No! I already had one stolen! I've got two paintings on the market, and one of them was grabbed within a few days of it coming to public attention! Do you have any idea how weird it is for me to be on this end of an art theft? I have no rights to it at all, and I still feel like I was personally victimized." Internally, Neal promised himself to only steal works created by dead people in the future, but he didn't think Peter would fully appreciate the sentiment, so he didn't mention the vow out loud.
Beside him, Peter sat up straighter and braked the Taurus to a sudden and abrupt halt before they'd even left the parking lot. Any insight he might have garnered from Neal's admission was overshadowed by a case related hunch. "Call that curator, Neal. Find out who bought the balloon one."
Neal stared at him. "You think they are targeting me?" Something very like fear fluttered in his chest. The sense of violation intensified. Cards of apology were going out first thing in the morning to any living artist he'd ever done this to.
"You? No. Your art, possibly. This thief took exactly one painting and it's half your collection. We should at least check on the other half. Like you said, the stolen painting is hardly a well-known piece, and $25,000 or not, that's not really a resale value worth bringing in a professional retrieval team. There's got to be more to it."
Unable to argue the point, Neal used the number on the business card to call the curator. After explaining the theory and finding out the current owner of 'Girl With Balloon', he repeated the name and address aloud to Peter as he wrote it down on the back of the card.
They returned to the FBI parking garage with no further traffic incidents or significant case breakthroughs (it's possible the two might have been related). Neal had been unusually quiet (which was probably a contributing factor to both of the previous non-events as well). Peter pulled into a parking spot and looked over at his partner, who didn't even seem to realize they were here. At least, he was making no moves to leave the car.
Peter cleared his throat and Neal looked back at him, so at least he was aware of his location now, though he still didn't reach for the door. "Peter?" Neal asked in a small voice that Peter almost wouldn't have recognized if he didn't see Neal say it. "If I bring you to a storage locker that I happen to know about but have no connections to whatsoever, so a few things can be returned to some people who might have misplaced a couple of homemade crafts, would you have to arrest me?"
Peter stared at him. "You're really spooked by this, aren't you? You're giving up your cache?"
Neal smiled lightly, "Peter," he chided, "Why would I have a cache of anything? I'm innocent."
"Yeah, right," Peter put in, feeling obligated to lodge his disbelief about that.
Neal beamed at that, the most normal expression he'd offered since the case began. After a few moments, it faded to a more serious look. "But, yeah, there are some items that I may know the location of that should be returned to the crafters who made them."
"The artwork won't be returned to the artist, Neal. It'll go to whoever owned it."
Neal nodded quickly, "I know. That's what I meant. It's the same thing, though. If 'Boy In Orchard' re-appeared in the Auction House right now, it was given off to the bidder that won it, and I never saw it again, I'd still feel like I got it back, as long as I knew that it wasn't lost anymore. These pieces, in the locker, they're lost. They're not where they should be, where their creators can know they're safe. Their best work, and they don't know where it is. It's not right."
Peter was staring at him, trying not to look stunned. "Wow. Neal. You have no idea how proud I am of you right now."
Neal blinked, baffled by that reaction. He'd kind of expected Peter to be mad. Maybe disappointed. He'd even been a little afraid that handcuffs might come into play. Peter being proud hadn't even registered as a possibility.
Peter hugging him had been even lower on the list, so Neal wasn't able to anticipate that action at all, never mind avoid it. Fortunately, it only lasted a moment and Peter looked even more embarrassed by it than Neal felt and Neal had been too surprised to create an awkward fight over it during the millisecond it lasted and it looked like they were going to pretend it never happened, which was fine with him. "You might get rehabilitated yet," Peter said, sounding so . . . so happy, so hopeful that Neal didn't have the heart to point out that he would only be returning the items he had that came from living artists. There wasn't a lot in that category, probably no more than six or seven pieces - artwork younger than a few decades tended to be less valuable and harder to fence so what he'd taken had mostly been ones he'd wanted for himself - but at least he still had access to most of them.
Peter clapped him on the shoulder and smiled warmly. "C'mon, let's go upstairs and tell everyone about the latest developments."
Neal noticed he never answered the original question.
"Okay, people," Peter said, when he, Neal, Cruz, Jones, and Hughes had gathered in the conference room. "We're only a few hours into this case, but I think we've already made a lot of headway. Neal thinks we're looking at a professional retrieval team that was hired to steal a specific item. Before I go into that item, though, I do want to make a mention of something else." He looked around the table, looking at each person sitting there, and lingered just a moment longer on Neal than anyone else. Neal didn't look nervous, but he wasn't offering any interruptions or displaying a blatant lack of attention to the meeting, which told its own tale.
"We do have a link to an earlier case here," he said. "For reasons that will become obvious in a minute, we're not going to actively pursue any tangential leads on that case, but I feel it should be made known that we've discovered another alias to a suspect from an earlier string of art thefts."
"The thefts are not related at all," Neal put in quickly.
Peter nodded. "We don't suspect the earlier suspect of any criminal involvement in this particular case," he confirmed. "The style is completely wrong and he has an alibi."
"So you already checked him out," Hughes remarked and made a note onto one of the papers in front of him.
"The possibility was explored, yes," Peter granted. Neal shifted on his chair, but his expression remained one of mild interest, as though he were waiting for Peter to explain what he was talking about right along with everyone else. "The alias is Thomas Wellington," Peter continued. "Evidence suggests the name was used when the original suspect went to ground, which is why we never caught it before. It's not associated with any crimes that I've been able to find in my brief computer search, though Jones, you might want to check on that. The alias is only connected to this case by the fact that Thomas Wellington is the name of the artist who painted the stolen artwork."
He looked around the table once more. Hughes was frowning, Jones was writing down his assignment, Cruz looked a little puzzled. Neal looked a little put out and was frowning alternately at Peter and Jones.
"How did you connect Wellington to the original suspect?" Hughes asked after a moment. "If he's that uninvolved, what told you he was an art thief himself? And what suspect are we talking about here, anyway? I don't see another case file."
Peter took a fortifying breath. He thought he saw Neal do the same. "I've already updated Caffrey's file to include it among his known aliases. I didn't think his old cases were otherwise relevant."
Jones looked up sharply from his notes, staring first at Peter, then at Neal. Everyone else skipped right to Neal.
Neal smiled brightly and tipped his hat toward each of them in turn, "Hello, good afternoon, I'm Thomas Wellington. Good to meet you. Pleasure." His posture was just a little different though Peter couldn't quite pin down how - not quite stiffer exactly, but something in that neighborhood. His voice had also taken on a hint of a British accent.
Cruz broke her stare long enough to look down at the case file. "The painting stolen was worth $25,000. You're telling me Caffrey painted that?"
As if the same fact hadn't dumbfounded Neal a couple of hours ago, the conman looked offended. "Are you suggesting that just because I have an alleged talent for reproductions, I can't paint anything without copying off of somebody else?"
While Cruz decided whether or not that was exactly what she was suggesting, Jones said, "Congratulations, man."
Neal had been ready for Cruz's reaction - it had been the same as his own, after all. He wasn't ready for Jones'. Peter felt a little bit proud of Jones for that. Neal looked at the man as if he'd lost his mind. "For what? Getting robbed?"
"Neal's had a sudden burst of victim empathy and conscience," Peter put in, figuring that was as good an opening as he was going to get for that next item on the agenda. "He's offered to return some of his stolen loot."
Neal scowled at him. "I said I knew about a storage locker that might have some missing property in it. I never said anything in there was related to me in any way."
"We'll take it," Hughes put in before careless phrasing lost them a chance to recover stolen property. "Caffrey, where is this storage locker that you just 'found' entirely by coincidence?"
Neal actually fidgeted. "Can I have a couple of hours to remember where I put the address?" By 'remember where he put the address' what he actually probably meant was 'get rid of fingerprints and other incriminating details' and everyone around the table knew it.
No one said a word until Hughes nodded and said, "Just let us know as soon as you remember it. Burke, bring him back to June's after this meeting, so he can look for it." But his eyes narrowed as they turned back to Neal. "Caffrey, after Burke leaves you alone, if you leave your radius or otherwise violate your parole, and we find you at that locker, there will be a full investigation."
Neal nodded quickly in assurance, "I'm almost positive I left the address somewhere in my apartment." He reached down and picked up a pile of about a half dozen case folders that he'd had sitting beside his chair and pushed them into the middle of the table. "I think you'll discover these are the items that will be found in that locker." It was the best collateral Peter could imagine. If Neal chickened out before he could hand over the cache location, they had about six cases they could look into that Neal had all but confessed to. Not that knowing Neal was guilty had ever helped close a case before. Peter thumbed briefly through the cases and found Neal was already the primary suspect in four of the seven cases and on the short list for each of the other three.
"Neal," Jones said quietly while Peter was still reading over the cases, "I was congratulating you for selling a painting worth twenty-five grand. That's a huge accomplishment, man."
Neal looked at him a little doubtfully. "Thanks, but I didn't sell it. The people I gave it to sold it." Modesty was not in Neal's repertoire, but Peter guessed the modesty he was currently displaying wasn't false so much as an effect of Neal not fully internalizing what had happened yet.
Cruz's eyebrows rose. "You just gave somebody a $25,000 painting."
Neal just shrugged, like he did it all the time, instinctively responding more confidently to her aggressive tone than to Jones' quiet compliment. "Sure."
Jones called him on it before Peter could. "No, you didn't. You gave them a painting, that you made for them. It's intended value was not monetary."
The look Neal turned on Jones was just a little bit terrified, but Peter thought he was the only one who'd be able to tell. "You're getting to know me all together too well, Agent Jones." Honesty, too. Today was a big day for Neal.
Jones smirked back at him playfully, and though his words were in the same tone, that didn't make them any less deadly serious: "That's my job."
Neal's eyes darted around the table and briefly played over the folders Peter was still skimming over. Open cases about crimes Neal himself had committed, cases he could still be tried for, if they got any solid evidence. Peter imagined Neal hadn't felt this much like he'd wandered deep into enemy territory since his first week working as a consultant. It was good to remind him of that every once in a while, to let him know that running wasn't going to be easy now that even the interns at the FBI knew him and his quirks personally. Peter wasn't the only expert they could field anymore on how Neal Caffrey thought and worked. Peter still knew him best, but Jones and even Cruz could probably predict him as well as Peter had four years ago. And in the back of both their minds, influencing every thought and observation they made about him, was the the knowledge that, one day, they might be chasing him. That Neal was here because it currently suited his purposes, not because he was in any way rehabilitated. They all liked to pretend otherwise, but there was only one of them who ever had moments of truly believing it. Peter was proud to say that the one person on his team most susceptible to Neal's cons and lies was Neal himself.
But it wouldn't be good at all if Neal was left to dwell on that for too long, or he'd lose his trust in them. And they needed Neal's trust far more than Neal needed theirs. "Neal, can you think of anyone in Thomas Wellington's life who might want to collect the paintings he's made?"
Neal shook his head, slowly, but the question had served its purpose. Neal's mind was back on the case. "Almost exclusively, Thomas knows only good Samaritans who are willing to open their homes to a complete stranger in need. He stopped writing to them when I got arrested because I didn't want any of them to get a letter with the Supermax as a return address, but he kept up a friendly correspondence with some of them for years after they helped him out. None of them would do something like this, not in general, and certainly not to him. And Thomas didn't have a solid enough existence to be tracked from one appearance to the next. There's no reason to think any of the paintings besides 'Girl With Balloon' are at risk. But if I can check a PO box that's a few miles outside my radius, I could see if anyone's written to him lately."
"You haven't had Haversham check that for you?" Peter asked, surprised.
Neal shook his head, eyes widening in horror at the very idea. "Are you kidding? He'd burn them for my own protection, cancel the box, and then flog me with a paintbrush if he knew I was corresponding with old marks. Peter, you've got a pretty scary 'would-it-save-time-if-I-just-brought-you-to-prison-now?' look, but against all expectations to the contrary, especially given how harmless he normally looks and the fact that he has never yet sent me to prison while you have twice, Moz's version is much much worse than yours. He's known me longer, he has more practice giving the look, and I think he has a lot more cause to follow through than you do. I'd rather you go with me to the mailbox." Until that moment, Peter never imagined it was possible for him to feel a shared kinship with Haversham, but it seemed he was wrong. "Also, if I turn up dead at June's this afternoon, Mozzie did it."
"Over the letters?" Peter asked with a raised eyebrow.
Neal shook his head, eyes wide. "Over the paintings."
Peter frowned and lifted one of the files on the table, a little bit of real concern touching him. "These paintings?" Haversham had never seemed a violent sort, but there was a treasure cache at stake, and the harmless looking little man had once purposely run a limo into a suspect.
"My paintings. Wellington's paintings. Wellington wasn't supposed to be an artist. Moz made me swear none of my emergency identities would be artists. He thought it would make me too easy for you guys to find, but this," he plucked at the printout describing their current case, "is worse. So much worse."
"How so?" Hughes asked, and Peter almost jumped, having been so focused on Neal, he'd forgotten the others were still there.
Neal covered better, but he didn't think Neal would have spoken so openly about Haversham if he'd remembered they weren't alone. He just turned his head to look at Peter's boss with a harried look. "I have original work valued at a price high enough to make its theft grand larceny and it's a matter of public record, and then someone liked it so much they did steal it. I just became an artist, a real honest-to-God artist, with talent recognized during my own lifetime on pieces I don't consider even close to my best work." He laughed, a sound more like grief than joy, and slapped a frustrated hand down against the file in front of him. "And it's not under my name."
He shook his head, then looked up from the printout to meet Hughes' piercing stare and smiled bitterly. "The work I'm proud of, the masterpieces of my career, those I can't even acknowledge. Hardest thing I ever did in my life was sit behind that witness stand and say those bonds weren't mine. From a purely artistic point of view, I'm glad you proved beyond reasonable doubt that I was perjuring myself with every word that came out of my mouth. Now I have one thing I can point at and say I did that. The four years were almost worth that freedom. But this," he jabbed a finger down at the photograph of 'Boy in Orchard', "this little art project I threw together to hang in a run-down farmhouse, to show my gratitude to a couple who were nothing but kind to me, this is what brings in $25,000 at a prestigious auction house? This is what put my work on the map, under a name that was never supposed to see the light of day? This is what people are hiring other people to steal? This is what Jones is congratulating me about? You can not begin to grasp how much I regret having Thomas Wellington ever pick up a paintbrush right now." He looked back down at the print-out, and finished more quietly, "This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. This wasn't how I was supposed to be known."
"How was it supposed to happen, Neal?" Peter asked gently, barely daring to breathe. Cruz and Jones were both holding themselves perfectly still, probably as afraid as he was that they might break the spell if their heartbeats were a fraction of a decibel too loud. He'd never seen Caffrey so close to a confession before.
But Neal just laughed and shook his head as he held it in both of his hands. "God, I have no idea. But not like this. This is wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start."
"Pick one," Peter prompted. "What feels the most wrong?"
Neal closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting both of his hands fall clasped together on the table in front of him. He was pulling himself together again, calming down. So Peter was more than a little stunned when Neal said straight out, "I'm a counterfeiter not an original artist. I'm a thief, not a victim. I don't like this role. I'm worried about Billy. I was never worried about the forgeries, even the best ones. Whether they were in my workshop, hanging on a gallery wall in an original's place, or locked away in Evidence, they always seemed like they could take care of themselves. Billy's just a kid. I need to know he's okay. Candice, too. Did anybody call about her, yet?"
Peter reached over to cup his hand over both of Neal's. "We'll do that first thing after this discussion. What's the next thing that feels wrong?"
"I don't like the names they gave my paintings. But that's not relevant to the case. The next thing after that, why take Billy? Okay, yes, I'm starting to accept the $25,000 value, but that vault had things worth way more than that. And it's hard to fence pieces like that. You only take artwork that young if you already have a buyer or you think it's so good you want it for yourself. That's why I think it was a hired team, but even if it was, did someone want it because they liked how the brushstrokes fell, or was it something more personal than that?"
He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and looked right into Peter's eyes. "I think we need to talk to the Hendricks. I'm probably biased, but this feels personal, and if it's not Thomas Wellington, it's probably them or the bidder. The Hendricks have a far greater history with the piece, so my first gut feeling says it's them."
"Right. We'll try to reach them for an interview. What else feels wrong?"
"Little things. I can't put them together yet or explain why they feel off. I think I need to check Wellington's mail. Maybe something in there will jog it out."
"Okay. We'll pick up your mail and then I'll drop you off at June's to find that locker address. Cruz, you're calling the owner of 'Girl With Balloon' and making sure that hasn't been stolen. Jones, you're researching Wellington." Peter took out the IDs and credit cards he'd taken from Neal earlier and gave them to the junior agent with Wellington's on top.
"Is that really neccessary?" Neal put in with a small whine to his voice.
"I thought you said it was a clean alias."
"It's as clean as an alias can be," Neal prevaricated.
Peter wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but he reiterated, "Jones, you're researching Wellington. That's it, guys. Everyone but Neal is meeting back here in an hour."
Mozzie stopped suddenly a few feet into Neal's apartment. Unless he was very much mistaken, he'd just caught his friend hiding a bunch of papers under the couch he was sitting on. He stood stiffly and frowned, looking at Neal half in suspicion and half in disbelief. "Are you hiding something from me?"
Neal looked up from his seat, a look of guileless innocence on his face that meant he was guilty of something. "Not for much longer. You wanted to know where my cache is. I'm about to tell you."
Mozzie's eyebrows drew together. Now he really was suspicious. No criminal, not even one like Neal, voluntarily gave up the location of his buried treasure. Neal had already proven that, and Mozzie was in no mood for another round of see-who-flips-the-rock. "Why?" he asked distrustfully.
"Because it's outside my radius and I need you to go there, move seven of the paintings to another location - a storage locker somewhere, I don't care where, just probably not inside my radius because that'll look bad though it's probably best if it's in New York - and make sure we have no prints on the paintings and no ties to the storage locker. Once you're done with that, I'll give the locker to the FBI."
Aahh. It wasn't another round of see-who-flips-the-rock. It was a symptom of Neal losing his mind. That was okay. Mozzie had planned for this eventuality for years. Since they met, really. It had only been a matter of time. "Neal, why would you want to give the FBI part of your stash?" he asked in a slow and measured tone. It was important to determine how far the crazy had spread before making any sudden moves. But even as he finished asking the question, it occurred to him that there very well might be a reason a sane Neal (or as sane as Neal got) would do this. "Oh, no. What do they have on you? Are we going to have to run?"
"No running," Neal insisted immediately, so whatever it was couldn't be too bad. Life in prison wasn't on the itenerary, then. Neal got caught on a minor offense that could be bought off with a few paintings and maybe a shorter leash, perhaps? "They got me on Thomas Wellington."
Mozzie frowned, as he tried to remember who Thomas Wellington was. Ah. British writer. Traveling the Americas to collect experiences for his book. A bit accident prone. Nice guy. Completely clean. "Thomas Wellington never did anything," he pointed out. Well, almost nothing. "Neal, I told you he didn't need health insurance."
"He needed the health insurance," Neal insisted, but then waved a hand irritably to dismiss the old argument. "That's not it, or at least, that's not it yet. Jones is checking into his background. But that's not the point. Thomas Wellington did something else."
Mozzie groaned and sank down onto the couch next to Neal, holding a hand to his head. "Oh, God. I knew I couldn't trust you to keep your nose clean for weeks at a time. Just, please, tell me you didn't knock over a bank while you were in a wheelchair."
"I didn't knock over a bank while I was in a wheelchair," Neal promised, and Mozzie actually believed him. But he wasn't innocent. Mozzie could tell that by the way Neal was fidgetting.
"What did you do?" he asked a little hopelessly, already knowing that he didn't want to know.
"I painted?"
Okay. There were far worse things Neal as Thomas Wellington could have done. "You painted. You painted what, exactly? Fences? Easter eggs? Monet's best works?"
Neal looked downright guilty. That was never ever ever a good thing. "Original works. Oil on canvas. And Thomas signed them."
"O-kay," Mozzie said slowly, drawing out the word, trying to figure out why this was a bad thing. Painting, painting was bad, but not as bad as Neal was making it out to be, and its threat value was limited now that Neal was already captured and caged. And then it hit him. "Oh, no. They're using the dates of the paintings to determine where you were at specific times and tying you to past crimes that way. These seven paintings I'm supposed to get out of your cache, they're the ones they've nailed you at time and place. Neal, that's not proof. Means, motive, and opportunity are only building blocks. They need to have you at the scene to nail a conviction, not the general vicinity."
"No, Moz, that's not-"
"Oh! Oh, no. Neal. Oh, man, I am so sorry. I should have realized sooner. An original work. God. That tells all about you, doesn't it. With something like that, they can get in an expert analyst who can compare your brush strokes to those on your fakes and prove they were done by the same artist."
"Thank God you don't work for the Feds, Moz. No. That's not it either. Moz. One of my paintings was sold at auction for $25,000, and then it was stolen."
Mozzie stared at him. "Someone stole your painting." He blinked and went back another clause. "Your painting sold for $25,000."
"Yes," Neal said. "But not in that order."
"Your painting sold for $25,000. Your painting was stolen." Mozzie's brain was able to correctly adjust the chronological sequence, but anything beyond that was quite impossible for him over the next twenty seconds. If Neal said anything else, his brain was unable to process it. It was too busy processing what it already had to chew on. "That's," he began when it started working again, "a little ironic, isn't it?"
"You see why I have to return the paintings now, don't you? The seven in question are the ones by living artists."
Oh. Oh. He did see. "You don't like it from this end, do you?"
"Not even a little."
That wasn't too surprising, really. Though, he'd always wondered . . . "It's not flattering? That someone would -"
"No," the word was immediate and absolute and couldn't even wait for the end of Mozzie's question. Not flattering, then. "I'm writing apology cards, too. I'll need addresses."
The trauma had unseated his mind then. "No. No, Neal. You are not writing apology cards to the artists of paintings you stole."
"Yes I am."
It was worse than Mozzie had thought. This was the same stubborn bullheadedness that made Neal decide not to destroy the bonds when the FBI got too close. Mozzie feared it would have the same consequence. "At least don't sign them."
Neal gave him a look like it was Moz that was losing his mind. "I'm not planning to tell them what I'm sorry for, Moz. Not in writing. I've not completely taken leave of my senses."
Mozzie studied him doubtfully for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Good. I was worried." He waited to see if Neal had anything else to say on the subject, but he didn't seem to. "So, the cache. Seven paintings. Where and which ones?"
When Neal finished describing the paintings and where they were, Mozzie couldn't help but shake his head in wonderment that they'd been so close all this time. True, Conneticut wasn't exactly a short walk when one was stuck in a two mile radius, but Moz could get there and back in only a few hours. Well, three of the paintings were in Connecticut. Two more were in Rhode Island, and the last two were in Vermont. Clever of Neal, to spread the cache out like that. Mozzie suspected now that there were more mini-caches, farther away - probably spread all over the world even, but either they didn't have any paintings from living artists in them, or Neal hadn't thought they were close enough to send anyone to for today's little adventure. As it was, hopping through the three nearby New England states was going to take Mozzie the rest of the day and he'd probably have to switch stolen cars at least twice for a trip of that duration.
Before he left though, he stopped and frowned at Neal as he remembered what he'd seen as he walked in. "One more thing. What's under the couch?"
"The couch?" Neal asked with raised eyebrows and the perfect expression of puzzled bafflement.
Mozzie just crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes to let him know he wasn't buying it. "Yes. I saw you put something under there as I came in."
"I didn't -" Neal started, shaking his head, but Mozzie didn't let him finish.
He held out his hand impatiently, and demanded, "Give me the papers."
It was to his utter shock that Neal's lie crumpled on his tongue and he sighed and reached down to retrieve the sheaf of what looked like handwritten notes of some form. Mozzie was even more surprised when Neal gave them to him without any more complaint than an unhappy pout. Neal would never have done that before prison. For Kate, maybe, but not for Mozzie. It was clearly the Suit's influence on Neal, but Mozzie wasn't sure if the change was an exploitable good thing, or just absolutely terrifying. For now though, he ignored the fact that Neal had clearly lost all expectation of privacy and looked through the papers because he really did want to know what it was that Neal had tried to hide from him.
He knew Neal didn't trust him fully. He knew that. It went with their line of work. But he felt he'd done a fairly good job of proving his loyalty these last few months, what with Neal all but turning Fed and all - heck, there were people who wouldn't talk to Mozzie anymore because of Neal's current arrangement with the FBI and the recent correlations between questions he'd been asking and crimes Neal was working on getting solved - and he wanted to know what kinds of things Neal still thought he needed to hide from him.
After reading the first paragraph of the top letter, though, his hurt and betrayal was replaced with understanding and - well, no, he couldn't understand this. He could grasp why Neal wanted to keep the pages away from him, for causes that had nothing to do with lack of trust, but he couldn't feel any understanding for the situation. Mostly what he felt was exasperation. He couldn't even feel properly angry. Because only Neal - only Neal - would do something like this, could even think about doing something like this nevermind actually doing it. He shook the papers at Neal anyway and tried, really tried, to summon the tone and expression that might make him understand why this was so very very wrong. "You wrote to Wellington's marks? Neal, you can't - you don't - " he shook his head, fought for clarity and words, and tried again, "Neal, I can't believe you wrote to Wellington's marks - no, you know what? It's worse. I'm not surprised. It's stunts like this," he shook them again for emphasis and impact, "that let the Feds put that little piece of jewelry on your ankle."
Sitting there on June's couch, with his shoulders all hunched and pathetic blue puppy dog eyes shining up at him, Neal looked properly chastised, but Mozzie felt little hope that he'd actually gotten through to him. He sighed and gave the letters back. "I'm going to go set up your locker for the Feds now. Do you think you can go the rest of the day without giving the Suit another gilded invitation to put you back in prison?"
"I think I can manage it," Neal said, no doubt trying to sound contrite, but Mozzie didn't - couldn't - believe him. There were some things he could trust Neal about implicitly - and Moz was proud of his well-developed paranoia so that was saying something - but right now Neal's sense of self-preservation wasn't one of them. Mozzie had far too much proof to the contrary to believe it could possiblity still exist anymore.
"Well, try anyway," he said and left, getting in the final word as he closed the door on his final admonishment, "And no apology cards!"
The meeting about Neal's case (as Peter was already starting to think of the whole Wellington mess) took place shortly after he returned to the office. It had taken very close to a full hour to drive out to the post office where Thomas Wellington's letters were sent, drop Neal off, and then return. It didn't help that Neal wanted to cancel the box and forward any future ones to a PO Box within his radius, and then they had needed to set up that box, too. Thomas's ID was required for most of these activities, so Peter had hovered and provided the mail clerks with his FBI badge and signed a few more forms to assure them that Thomas Wellington didn't actually exist and it wasn't violating anyone's rights if Neal collected Wellington's mail and all his future deliveries were forwarded to a box owned by somebody else (the new one had to be opened in Neal's name because imaginary people were apparently not allowed to own PO Boxes, though apparently they could get forwarded mail and be listed as one of the people receiving mail at that location). Finally, Peter had dropped him off at June's and headed back to work, neither of which thankfully became unduly complicated just by Neal's mere existence (or Wellington's lack of one).
Lauren reported that 'Girl With Balloon' was right where it should be and the owner was more than willing to allow them to come by to check that it wasn't a forgery and to check their security if the FBI felt it was at risk. Peter told her to set up the appointment for early that evening. She had already scheduled a meeting with the Hendricks at their hotel for three o'clock. The couple had been planning to head back home (they lived upstate) but the theft at the auction house had interrupted their plans so they were sticking around for an extra day.
Jones said that it had been difficult to track down any information about Thomas Wellington. He'd almost started to think that there wasn't any record of the man at all until he'd noticed there was a health insurance card for him among the licenses and credit cards that Peter had confiscated that morning. The insurance had been arranged under obviously false pretenses as it was under a fake name, but Neal had apparently paid (and continued to pay) all of Wellington's premiums dutifully. Using the insurance claims made by Wellington, Jones had been able to track down three hospital stays where Neal had apparently been treated for a badly sprained ankle, a concussion, and a broken arm under Wellington's name. He'd also used it for a few follow-up treatments, a couple check-ups, and several prescriptions. Jones thought the alias was probably Caffrey's medical recovery identity and Wellington's medical history was probably a more complete and accurate account of Neal's than the one they currently had under Caffrey's own name.
Peter reported that there had been a few letters from the Hendricks and Neal was going to read through those once he'd arranged for the cache turnover. That comment had been met with an exchange of looks. Lauren broke the silence first. "Are we really just going to let him get away with stealing those paintings?"
"He's giving them back," Peter pointed out.
"He stole them and he's barely even denying it. His deflections were so obvious, he may as well have confessed."
"Exactly," Peter argued, looking at Hughes rather than Lauren. "This is the first sign Neal has ever given us that he's truly rehabilitating instead of just playing along with us. We can't slap him down for doing the right thing or he'll never do it again."
Hughes sighed. "As much as I hate to admit it, Agent Cruz, I'm going to have to go with Peter on this one. Caffrey's of more use to us as a consultant than in prison. The victims of his thefts are getting their paintings back. That's enough for now. Once we have the paintings in hand, we'll give Caffrey the option of signing confessions to officially close those cases with no legal action taken against him. If he does, it's over and done with, and that's seven more convictions on his record. If he doesn't, we'll have the option to convict him in court at a later date when it suits us better. Caffrey's still got more than three years left with us. There's no hurry to pin anything more on him right now. These are all federal art theft cases. We've got a twenty year statute of limitation on each of them." Peter opened his mouth to protest the callous self-interest of the statement, but Hughes guessed his intent and overruled it: "He's got the option to confess and get off scot-free, Burke. He just has to swallow his pride and take the hit to his record. If he really rehabilitates himself, it's not going to make any difference to him. Whether he has one conviction or eight isn't going to matter unless he goes to court again."
"Future employers -" Peter began, but didn't get to finish that protest either.
"He's a convicted felon, Agent Burke. Any employer that cares about that will not care how many times he was convicted, just that he was. If he applies to a job open to felons, he can list us as a reference and I'll be happy to explain the reason why he has so many - both the fact that he cooperated today and the fact that he committed a lot more than we've ever been able to pin on him. Please keep it in mind, Agent, that your partner is a criminal - more than that, he is a persistent criminal and very much at fault for all seven of these thefts. There are doors that should be rightfully closed to him no matter how 'reformed' he gets. Caffrey's a slippery eel and, honestly, I want his record to reflect that more than I want to see him in prison. I'd happily let him off with no punishment on twice the number of crimes, just to get the convictions on him."
Outmaneuvered, Peter sat back in his chair and didn't try to defend Neal any further.
"Boss," Lauren suggested carefully, "If he doesn't have to go to prison for it, I don't think Caffrey's going to mind taking credit."
"Maybe," Peter granted. "But I think he's well and truly spooked here. He honestly feels bad for what he did. He's not going to boast about it like he would have a few days ago."
"Which is the only reason I'm entertaining this notion in the first place," Hughes put in. "With this much evidence against him, if the kid wasn't already punishing himself for this more than prison ever could, I'd have no choice but to send him to court."
"I don't think he's punishing himself more than prison would," Lauren stated dubiously.
Peter figured Hughes had nailed it better. "He's not bragging about his own painting going for twenty-five grand and it was his own idea to return some of his cache. Neal doesn't like prison - you're not supposed to like prison - but he was willing to trade another four years of it for a chance of seeing Kate three months earlier than he would have gotten out anyway. He would rather avoid it - the food's bad, the clothing is worse, and it's boring - but it doesn't scare him. This," he tapped a finger at the case folder, "scares him. This," he jabbed it again for emphasis, "makes him feel honest-to-God guilt. I couldn't have said Neal was capable of feeling real guilt before today, and I'm not sure Neal could have either. So, yeah. It's worse than prison for him."
Lauren frowned a little but didn't argue it again. She was the only one expressing even that much doubt over Peter's assessment. Hughes and Jones both took it in stride.
Hughes looked ready to dismiss the meeting but then the conference room phone buzzed and the switchboard operator came over its intercom. "We've got a Harvey Buchanan on the line, Agent Hughes. Says he wants to report an odd telephone call he got from an art thief. You said to forward anything to the conference room that had to do with the Wellington case, and the old Buchanan case was tagged as related."
The four FBI agents looked around the table at each other. "Put him through," Hughes instructed. There was a beep and the light for line three started blinking yellow. Hughes pressed the speaker phone button and then the line three button. "This is Special Agent Reese Hughes, with Agents Peter Burke, Lauren Cruz, and Clinton Jones. You're Harvey Buchanan, the artist of a painting called," he paused and began flipping through his notes.
Peter found it first, and finished the sentence for his boss. "'Summer On the Lake' that was stolen seven years ago?"
"That's correct," the voice answered in a mild southern accent. "I was told the painting had been stolen shortly after it happened, then I got another update about a year later, just letting me know the case was still open, but that there hadn't been any new leads so it was unlikely it would be solved. After that, I heard nothing more about it until just a few minutes ago when I got a very strange phone call. This was the number I was supposed to call if I ever heard that the painting resurfaced, so I thought I should call about this. The thief called me. On the phone. He called me. To apologize."
Peter closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. He was going to kill Neal. He really was.
"What did he say, exactly?" Hughes asked.
"He said, here, I wrote it down because I thought you might ask that and I didn't want to miss anything. He said, 'Hi? Is this the artist Harvey Buchanan?' and I said I was." Buchanan took a deep breath and continued to read, "And he said, 'My name is - actually, I can't tell you my name. I'm the guy that stole 'Summer On the Lake.' I wanted to tell you that I am really' - he emphasized that very strongly - 'sorry for that. I want you to know the painting was treated well and stored safely when it couldn't be properly displayed, and it will be returned to where it belongs very soon. It never came to any harm, and I assure you that I never meant to cause any to you. Again, I am so sorry.' And then he hung up. I have the phone number that was on my caller ID if you need that."
"We'll take it," Hughes said and wrote down the numbers that were recited. Peter was just glad it wasn't Neal's cell phone number or June's house phone number. After Hughes put down his pen, he told the artist, "We expect this case will be closing in the next day or two. The thief has not officially confessed yet, but he has already volunteered to turn over 'Summer On The Lake' along with several other pieces he stole to the FBI."
"Why would he do that? As I understood it, the case was at a dead end. I haven't heard a thing about 'Summer' for six years. I figured whoever took it was just quietly waiting out the statute of limitations."
Peter spoke up then, "The thief is an artist himself. Last night, one of his original works was stolen. He did not care for being on the victim's side of the table and while he has not formally confessed, he made it very clear to us that he wanted to make amends for his past crimes."
"Ah," Buchanan said, clearly satisfied by the explanation. "May I ask? What is the thief's name?"
The agents looked at one another again, and Hughes answered a moment later, "His name is Neal Caffrey."
"Hmm," hummed the artist thoughtfully. "I can't say I've heard of him. What was his piece called?"
Peter fielded this one, "He painted under the name Thomas Wellington. The stolen artwork was 'Boy in Orchard.'"
There was another quiet moment before Buchanan said, "I still don't know him. I'll look into it and let you know if I find anything."
"Wait," Peter interrupted before the man could hang up. "You're going to look into the Wellington case?"
"Of course," Buchanan sounded taken aback. "He had a painting stolen. Least I can do after he risked himself to get mine back."
"Neal's the one who stole yours in the first place," Lauren pointed out.
Buchanan's voice sounded very slightly reproachful, "And he apologized for that. I now have every reason to believe he meant it. May I have the names of the artists of the other paintings he's returning?"
Playing a hunch, Peter listed the other names, along with the name of each stolen painting. Buchanan gave a low whistle. "Guy got around, didn't he?"
"He used to, but now he's in FBI custody." Peter never got tired of saying that. Never.
"I thought he might be. The last time I talked to the FBI, the agents promised to get the guy and put him behind bars even when they didn't have any leads. Today, you guys know exactly who did it and you haven't mentioned how he'll be punished once, plus y'all talk about him like you know him personally."
Hughes sighed. "You're right. Unless he gives us trouble about signing a confession, Caffrey probably won't be going back to prison for this. You can kick up a stink about it, of course, and he probably will get locked up again if you do, but I'd recommend you don't. He's less than a year into a four year sentence with us, and he's already proven to be a valuable asset in catching other criminals like him. Caffrey's a thief, and these seven paintings are only the tip of what he's suspected of, but his time is better served with us than in jail."
"I'm not making a stink," Buchanan insisted. "I was just commenting that this guy sounds like he reformed - switched to the good side and everything - and I'm willing to let him have his second chance."
There was an awkward silence on the FBI end while they figured out how to agree with the artist without actually confirming that Caffrey was reformed. After a moment, Jones said, "Thank you for your understanding. If we have to bring in Caffrey again, we'd rather do it on something he wasn't so obviously feeling horrible about. It kind of undermines the rehabilitation process to punish a guy when he tries to do the right thing."
"Yeah, I see how that could be tricky," Buchanan agreed. "Well, I satisfied my concerns that someone might be setting up a forgery or trying to sell my painting on the black market, so I'll let you get back to your new case and the retrieval of these seven. I'll call again if I find out anything in my circle about Wellington or his 'Boy in Orchard'."
"Thank you," Peter said for all of them before they heard the click of disconnection. Peter lifted and dropped the handset to end the call on their end, and barely waited for a dial-tone on the speaker before punching in the Caller ID number they'd just been given. Don't answer it. Don't answer it, Neal. Just don't.
But after a few rings, Neal's voice tentatively greeted, "Hello?"
"Neal," Peter stated his name flatly. "How many artists have you called so far?"
"Um. What are you talking about, Peter?"
Peter rubbed at his temple. The baffled tone was not convincing. "Don't call anyone else. I just got off the line with Harvey Buchanan."
A brief silence on Neal's end, then, "Oh." Another hesitation. "He called the FBI?"
"Yes, he did, so stop whatever it is you think you're doing and get back to work on the case."
"I'm sorry."
Peter sighed. "I know you're sorry. I just don't want to see you sorry yourself back into prison. Neal, you confessed to a crime over the phone and then answered the phone call to the thief's Caller ID number. We can't keep ignoring evidence, Neal. No more telephone calls to victims."
"But Moz wouldn't let me send apology cards."
Thank God. "At least wait until the paintings are returned and the legal issues are resolved so we don't have people demanding to reopen those cases right now."
There was an uncomfortable but familiar quiet and Peter was about ready to release his exasperated 'what did you do now, Neal?' when Neal told him. "Peter? What happens if I already finished calling everyone?"
Peter sighed again and wondered if banging his head on the table would help at all. His headache couldn't get worse, could it? "Then we hope the rest of them think you are as reformed and forgivable as Buchanan thinks you are."
"I think I make a pretty convincing reformed felon today."
Making a noncommittal sound, Peter just said, "And I hope I don't find that phone when I come to pick you up in forty minutes."
"Forty minutes?" Neal repeated.
"Yeah, we've got an appointment with the Hendricks. Can you make it? Or are you still busy with the locker?"
"Moz is taking care of that. He thinks he can get me the address by tonight. I'll be waiting downstairs in forty."
They exchanged closing remarks and then Peter hung up the phone again and turned off the speaker. Before anyone could say anything else, Lauren demanded, "Is he trying to get himself arrested?"
Peter looked at her, suddenly getting it, and answered as if she hadn't intended to be rhetorical. "Yes."
She blinked. "What?"
"Neal's sense of right and wrong is skewed, but he has one, and he just figured out that he's done something that's wrong, even by his own definition of the word. He's a good enough person with a strong enough sense of justice that he probably believes he should get caught. It's probably subconscious, but he's leaving us clues so we can catch him if we want to."
"So you're saying that Caffrey's helping us find evidence against him because it's the right thing to do?" Lauren sounded incredulous.
Peter stared right back at her. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
"He's never helped us catch him before, and these aren't even his worst crimes," Lauren argued.
"Not to us, no. But to Neal, these seven thefts just went from perfectly acceptable behavior to hurting people. Neal can't tolerate hurting people."
Jones spoke up next, "He's hurt people before, Boss. No physically, obviously - this is Neal - but he's left victims behind. He's a smart guy. He's got to realize when he takes something, someone losses it."
Peter nodded. "Of course he does. But he picks his victims. Like I said, Neal has a sense of justice - skewed because he can't recognize the same right and wrong we do - but when he steals, he doesn't just think he's not doing wrong, he thinks he's doing right." Peter wasn't sure if that was entirely true of all of Neal's criminal activity, but he was positive that was how the con felt about the laws he'd broken or folded into pretty little origami shapes since his release into FBI custody. "Neal's not only not-sorry for his crimes, he's proud of them. He's said as much to a judge. He feels no guilt because, in his eyes, he never did anything to feel guilty about; he was entirely within his own code of ethics. But now he suddenly realizes these thefts, thefts that he had fully justified to himself, have additional victims he never considered. And those were people he never meant or wanted to hurt. That's what's bothering him, not the stealing or the broken laws. He hurt people he admired and that's why he's seeking justice against himself and making confessions that will almost stick in a courtroom. Because for maybe the first time in his life, he feels like he did something that qualifies as 'bad'. Neal agrees with us that bad guys belong in prison. He just rejected the idea that he was ever one of the bad guys. Until today, Neal honestly believed with every fiber of his being that he was an unconditionally good person. Right now, his certainty of that is shaken."
Hughes had narrowed his eyes as Peter spoke. "None of that is in his psych profile."
"His psych profile hasn't been updated in over four years. We know him a lot better now than we did then."
The agent in charge of the White Collar division frowned some more. "Agent Burke, in your honest professional opinion, is Caffrey even capable of following the law? I can't in good conscience give up a chance to nail him for seven counts of federal art theft if there's a better than average chance he'll revert the day his four years are up."
Peter looked down at his hands, wishing he didn't have to answer this question, but knowing he could neither avoid it nor lie. His conscience couldn't allow it any more than Hughes' could. "Neal knows the law. He doesn't always understand or agree with it, but he knows when he breaks it." He took a deep breath and continued, "That never concerned him in the past, and even now I think his consideration is more for whether or not I'll approve rather than because he cares in the least about whether or not an action is legal. Can he follow the law? Yes. Will he? In my professional opinion, probably not. He has enough trouble staying on our side of the law when he's under the direct supervision of the FBI. I don't think that will change unless he gets a lot more victim empathy for the other kinds of crimes he commits. I can guarantee he will never again steal artwork that has been made by a person who is still alive, but I could believe he'd still pursue any other criminal activity he used to engage in if he thought he could get away with it."
"He spent four years in prison. That hasn't deterred him at all, has it?"
Peter shook his head. "Not at all."
"Today's events have been his first and only sign of rehabilitation since his original arrest four and a half years ago."
"Yes," he agreed with absolute conviction and a growing hope in the direction of the conversation.
Hughes nodded. "And in your professional opinion, Agent Burke, a longer sentence with the White Collar crime division will provide him with greater opportunity to not only learn this victim empathy necessary for his rehabilitation into an honest citizen, but also provide a far greater public service than serving his time in prison would?"
"Without a doubt."
Hughes stood. "Good. I need to talk to my superiors, a judge, and a couple of lawyers. When you see Caffrey later, Burke, tell him to send over his lawyer to work out a plea bargain he can live with. I don't see a need to formally arrest him unless he insists on going to court."
Peter tried to maintain an expressionless face as he commented dryly, "His lawyer is probably moving stolen property across state lines for him right now."
"Suggest to him that he find one a little less legally ambiguous for this discussion. I'm trying to keep him out of prison."
Peter nodded and agreed, "I'll do that."
Peter's intent to pass along Hughes' suggestion as well as discuss Neal's plea options lasted exactly as long as it took to drive to June's and see Neal standing outside of it. All he could do was stare wordlessly as Neal opened the passenger side door and took his usual seat. It wasn't until his seat belt was on and Neal was looking at him expectantly that Peter found his voice again. "What are you wearing?"
Neal looked down at himself as though he couldn't understand why Peter was making a fuss. "I admit, it's not as nice as what I usually wear, but tweed is perfectly respectable." He adjusted his cap - not his fedora, but one of those cap things you saw in Irish bars or in old movies - and raised an eyebrow expectantly, though what he was expecting was quite beyond Peter.
"You look like a British school teacher from 1910."
Tilting his head and smiling, Neal asked, "So is that better or worse than a cartoon?"
Peter honestly wasn't sure, so he ignored the question to ask a more pressing one of his own. "Where did you even get something like that?"
Neal's posture straightened and he beamed with a genuine delight that Peter hadn't really expected from him after everything else that had happened today. "Have I mentioned recently how much I love Byron? Not only did he have a whole closet full of some of the finest suits in the world, but June showed me this wonderful wardrobe filled with all kinds of character pieces like this. Do you think Hughes would mind if I came in tomorrow in a leisure suit and rose glasses?"
Peter tried to imagine that, broke his brain a little, and shook his head. "Don't. He would mind," he stated firmly, because you had to be stern with Neal on things like this or he'd do it anyway.
Neal slumped a little, but he didn't seem badly put out by it. "I thought so, but I figured I'd check anyway."
Taking the opportunity to pull back onto the street and start toward the hotel where the Hendricks were staying, Peter waited a few moments before saying, "So what's with the tweed look?"
"Thomas likes tweed," Neal said easily, as if he took it for granted that this played a role in how he was supposed to dress himself for this meeting.
Peter sighed. "You're aware we're going to introduce you as Neal Caffrey, not Thomas Wellington, right? I'm not letting you keep up your con."
Neal gave him a reproachful look. "It wasn't a con. I just lied about a couple key facts that might have changed their minds about whether or not they should let me into their home. They were very kind people and I never meant anything but the best for them. I thought if I at least looked like Thomas, it might not be so glaringly obvious that I may have abused their hospitality a little."
There were other things he should probably be saying, but what came out of Peter's mouth was: "I can't believe you wore tweed when you were trying to be inconspicuous."
Spreading his hands a little, Neal raised his eyebrows, "Would you have looked for me if you got the description 'White British male, tweed jacket'? People see the clothes and hear the accent when I wear this. You know I was never good at blending, Peter. I always get noticed. My best defense is to get them to focus on something other than my features."
"Maybe if you didn't wear tweed, you'd have a better chance of not getting noticed."
"Hey," Neal protested, "you never found Thomas Wellington. I think it worked pretty well. Besides, who suspects a guy dressed a century out of date of being in hiding? You can criticize my techniques when a manhunt on me is actually successful."
"I caught you twice, didn't I?"
Neal gave him a dirty look. "First of all, tracking me to Kate's apartment did not require a lot of work and barely counts. That wasn't me hiding. Secondly, it's a lot harder to hide a printing press than it is to hide a person. If I'd run when Mozzie told me to run, you wouldn't have gotten me. I thought I had another hour before you'd get there. That was me trying to finish the job with just enough time to spare that you could see me waving good-bye but I didn't quite getting the timing right."
Peter raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm starting to see a theme here. Has the FBI been wrong all this time? Tell me the truth here, Neal, you've just been the front man for Haversham's criminal genius since the beginning, haven't you?"
Neal grinned at him, his blue eyes alight with mischief at the little game. "You caught us. Dante set me up as his fall guy. I'm innocent, Peter."
"Oh, don't say that. I thought I was onto something for a minute," Peter grumbled, faking disappointment. They fell silent for a little while as Peter continued to drive. The hotel wasn't far but traffic made getting there a slow process. After a few minutes, Peter said more seriously, "But he's been in thick with you for a long time, hasn't he?"
"I'm not talking about this, Peter."
Peter looked at him sharply, surprised by his tone. Neal stared straight ahead, not looking at him and his lips pressed tightly closed. "I'm not planning on charging him with anything. I'm just noticing that he's advised you against most of the actions that got - or could have gotten - you into real trouble."
Neal shrugged, relaxing a little but not entirely. "He likes a much larger margin of safety than I usually have, when I have one at all. I've always liked the adrenaline. I take risks. I think it's fun. He thinks I'm one honest psychological evaluation away from commitment to a psych ward. I'd be worried, but he trusts psych wards even less than he trusts feds, so if he ever figures I'm enough of a danger to myself that he can't handle it alone anymore, I'm confident he'll call in your kind of Suit to take care of me before he'd resort to the White Suits."
"Your best friend and closest accomplice thinks you're suicidal?" Peter asked in real concern. He'd never gotten that impression, but if anyone knew Neal better than he did, it was probably Haversham.
"No! No." Neal looked at him in alarm, eyes wide and shaking his head. "No. He thinks I can't recognize the consequences of my actions."
"You can't," Peter couldn't help but point out.
Neal ignored him. "And since Moz is a professional paranoid, he thinks the consequences of my actions can be far more dire than most people would put within the realms of probability. I mean, he thinks I've been inviting you guys to arrest me today."
And just like that the friendly companionable air that always felt so easy between them was gone, replaced with a heavy and foreboding silence. Peter tried to figure out how to tell Neal that his lawyer's presence was required for a plea bargain arrangement in a way that didn't sound like he was trying arrest Neal again.
"Oh." Neal said. He swallowed audibly. "I'd like to point out it doesn't count as catching me if I voluntarily get into your car under false pretenses."
"Neal!" Peter called out, taking one hand off the steering wheel to grab Neal's arm, suddenly afraid he was about to jump out into traffic and make a run for it. "We're going to the Hendricks. No false pretenses."
Sparing a glance for the traffic around them but not trying to escape Peter's grip, Neal looked at him incredulously. "You were going to wait until after I helped solve your case before arresting me? That's pretty cold, Peter."
"Hughes wants you to send in a lawyer - preferably a real one - to discuss the large volume of evidence against you right now, and how it would be in your best interest and ours to make a plea bargain to add a couple years to your time with us. No prison time. We promise you that. Not even any handcuffs. You'll just have to sign a few forms and let the anklet stay on a little bit longer."
"You caught me red-handed on the bonds and I didn't plea then. What makes you think I will now?"
Peter sighed, "Because you confessed, Neal. You confessed outright to the victims and your attempt to cover yourself with us was so poorly done you may as well have said you did it outright. With the bonds, you never felt guilty, so you never acted guilty. Now you do and you are. You want to see whoever took Billy put away where they can't do this again, don't you?" It felt mildly awkward to call a painting by a small boy's name, but he was trying to make Neal understand the parallels between the current case and the old ones, to use that new-found victim empathy that Neal had, and 'Billy' was what Neal called it.
Except Neal didn't want any such thing, and his denial was immediate. "No! No, I want Billy back where he belongs. I don't care one way or another about the thief. I'll help you catch him because that's my job, but honestly? I want to see him arrested less than I would on a normal case where I wasn't the artist."
Looking at his passenger in surprise, Peter asked, "Why's that?"
"Even discounting the hypocrisy and the fact that I don't think 'Boy in Orchard' is worth a felony charge . . . Peter," Neal gave him that distressed look that Peter normally interpreted as that tie causes me traumatic emotional pain; why can't you understand that and burn it?, "someone is going to be going to jail because I made a mistake six years ago. None of this would have happened if I just listened to Mozzie. The Hendricks wouldn't have had a $25,000 painting, they couldn't have brought it to the auction house, nobody would have bid on it, nobody would have been tempted to steal it, and we'd be working on something safe, like mortgage fraud, that has no connection whatsoever to Thomas Wellington who wouldn't be such a thorn in my side even if he was, because Thomas Wellington never did anything illegal! How is it that Nick Halden never gave me this much trouble but Wellington is?"
Mostly reassured that his consultant wasn't about to bolt after all, Peter gave the man's arm a squeeze then returned his hand to the wheel, where it belonged. "Neal, it was their choice to steal a painting. That it was yours doesn't make it your fault. There are plenty of crimes you can claim responsibility for, but this isn't one of them."
Before turning back to put his eyes back on the road (which needed his attention even more than the steering wheel needed both of his hands), Peter saw Neal smile at him, his eyes alight, and couldn't tell if it was faked or not as Neal said, "See, I told you I was innocent."
Peter snorted, letting him get away with the happy face and light banter because they'd be at the hotel soon and Neal would need to be in top form. "That's not what I said."
"You so did."
"I said you were guilty of other crimes."
"But not that one, and that one was art theft. So you said I wasn't guilty of art theft. Which means you said I'm innocent."
"I meant you were innocent of that one instance, not the whole class of crime."
Neal crossed his arms and pouted. "When you make sweeping generalizations like that you really ought to clarify that you're not making a sweeping generalization, Peter."
He shook his head and rolled his eyes and turned into the hotel parking lot.
The Hendricks were waiting for them in the lobby. They owned an apple orchard in the mid-Hudson valley, north of the City, and they dressed like a pair of normal middle class Americans. Both were in jeans and a t-shirt. The woman saw Neal first, and she rose to her feet, her eyes widening in surprise but a warm happy smile spread across her face. "Thomas!"
"Nancy!" Neal greeted, his answering smile every bit as warm and happy as hers was, and caught her in a hug, twirling them both around. "Good to see you again!" He released her in order to give her husband a friendly handshake and a smile of his own. "Bob. How've you been? How's Billy?"
"Billy's fine," Nancy assured him. "Growing up much too quickly for my taste. He's fifteen now."
"No!" Neal gasped.
"Oh, yes," Bob confirmed. "High school freshman. He's on the JV soccer team."
"Good for him. You guys must be proud."
Nancy nodded, "Very much." Then she poked him on the chest, "And you. You didn't tell us your painting was worth so much. We had one of Billy's friends over, and when his dad came to pick him up, he saw it hanging there over the couch, and told us to go get it appraised because it was worth more than our truck was."
"If you still had the one I remember, that wouldn't take much."
She punched him and Neal pretended it hurt. "Oh, stop it, Thomas. I've seen you in real pain."
That sobered Neal a little and he waved toward Peter, "Nancy, Bob, I'd like you to meet Agent Peter Burke. He's the FBI agent in charge of finding the painting. He'd like to ask you a couple of questions about it."
Bob and Nancy both shook his hand, and Bob said, "I'm pretty sure Thomas could tell you more about the painting than we could. We never really thought much on it except to remember Thomas and appreciate how well he captured Billy on the canvas."
They all sat down on the lobby furniture, the Hendricks together on a couch, Neal and Peter each in matching arm chairs. "Actually, I was going to ask more about what happened with the painting since Neal left."
The couple looked blankly at him. "Who's Neal?" Nancy asked.
Peter looked at Neal to let him handle this. Neal looked back at him to make him handle this. They exchanged a few facial expressions telling the other to do it until finally Neal sighed and his shoulders slumped. "You may have noticed I stopped writing about four and a half years ago, and that I don't have an English accent anymore."
Neither of the Hendricks seemed able to make sense of these random facts, but they nodded. "It was a very light accent before," Nancy said, "I thought maybe you'd fully Americanized in the years since we knew you. Though we were concerned when you didn't write for so long. We thought something might have happened to you."
Neal took a deep breath and nodded. "Something did happen. My name's not Thomas Wellington. It's Neal Caffrey. I've got some ancestors who were Irish, but that's as close as I get to being English. Shortly after the last letter I sent you, I was here in New York and the FBI finally caught up to me. I was convicted of bond forgery with a sentence of four years. I stopped writing because I didn't want you to get a letter from me with a federal prison as the return address. When I got out less than a year ago -"
"Escaped," Peter put in.
Neal frowned at him for interrupting. "That wasn't a euphemism, I was glossing over that part entirely to get right to the FBI thing." He sighed and looked back toward the Hendricks, who were regarding him with something like disbelief. "With three months left of my sentence, I escaped just long enough to get another four years, but they let me out not long after that so I could finish off my time helping the FBI catch people like the guys who stole your painting. So that's why I'm here with Peter today. Can we get back to the case now and stop talking about me?" He fidgeted in his seat, unhappy as he always was when he was forced to tell an unpleasant truth.
Bob spoke to Peter while pointing at Neal, "So he's saying he lied to us and we had a criminal living in our house, with our son, for five weeks."
Neal visibly winced, and pleaded in a small voice, "Please don't use that word like that."
Peter took pity on him. "Neal is more emphatically non-violent than most people who don't have a criminal record. He's as white collar as crooks come. I assure you, you - and your son - were never in any danger from him and he gave you the only thing he was likely to steal from you."
"I didn't," Neal swore. "Peter already established that I couldn't have done it. You're welcome to see my GPS tracking data from the night of the theft."
Nancy leaned forward to squeeze his knee. "Oh, we know you didn't steal your own painting, Thomas. If you wanted it, you could have just made a new one."
Peter looked at her in surprise, but Bob spoke first, gently reclaiming his wife's hand. "Sweetie, Thomas lied to us about who he is. We never really knew him at all. We don't know what he is and isn't capable of."
Neal's eyes closed and he looked as though he'd just taken a knife wound. Peter didn't think it was faked. His face was too white. His body was too still.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks," Peter said, "I've been working closely with Neal since he was released into FBI custody. I was also the one who tracked him down and arrested him almost five years ago. I believe I know him as well as anyone does. I want you both to know that whatever affection you think Thomas had for you, Neal feels it, too. The reason he makes such a great con artist - especially on long cons like the one he pulled on you - is that he's as emotionally invested as you are and he believes his own lies as much as you do. His motive was very simple - he just needed a place to hide and recover from his injury - and he honestly believes he didn't do anything wrong despite making you guilty of harboring a fugitive from justice."
Neal looked at him in horror. "Peter! First - I am way more professional than that. Second - this wasn't a con. Third - it's not harboring a fugitive unless they knew I was a fugitive and they didn't. I swear they didn't."
"We didn't," Bob hurried to confirm.
"Oh, I believe it," Peter assured him. "Neal's a very skilled liar and it wouldn't have been in his best interest to let you know that."
Neal gave him a hurt look. "I lied a lot less than you think I did. Go ahead and ask them anything about me besides surface details. Something fundamentally Neal Caffrey. See if they don't get the right answer."
Fine. Peter could play this game. The best test was probably the one aspect that he and Haversham agreed on but that Neal refused to recognize. "Describe Thomas Wellington's ability to anticipate consequences."
"None at all," Nancy answered immediately, perking up and smiling like a fourth grader who realized she knew the answer to the teacher's question despite not having done the homework. "He climbed up into an apple tree to get Billy's kite out and didn't realize he couldn't get down again without hurting his ankle more until he was already stuck up there."
Bob nodded. "Then there was the time he put his crutches down to try walking on his own and stepped into a gopher hole. Nobody was home and three hours later when Nancy got home with Billy, he was still on the ground with his good foot trapped in the hole, the crutches out of reach, and his pain medication on the kitchen table."
Peter looked at Neal who was looking distinctly uncomfortable. "I don't normally have to think about a sprained ankle, and the city doesn't have gopher holes. I'm an urban person, Peter. I'd have seen a pothole."
"Uh-huh. I think you missed the point of that story, Neal. Didn't they yell at you for walking on your own when no one was home to supervise you?"
"That's why I did it then. The doctors didn't want me walking on it yet."
Peter looked at the ceiling. "It just gets better."
"He does that kind of thing when he's not Thomas?" Nancy asked.
"No," Neal denied at the same time Peter said, "All the time." They looked at each other. Neal insisted first, "I haven't gotten stuck in a tree in years."
Peter decided not to point out that prison didn't have trees to get stuck in. That would have been cruel. Instead, his retort only focused on the last few months. "If you spent more time in Central Park, you would find a way."
Neal looked offended, "I bet I can spent all of next weekend there and not get stuck in any trees."
"If you can spend two weekends in the Park without ending up in any trees, lakes or fountains and you can keep yourself from getting arrested, kidnapped or injured, I'll buy you a dinner at the restaurant of your choice."
Neal considered it. "Deal. But if I get kidnapped or mugged, that's not my fault, and I don't owe you a dinner."
Peter thought there were ways Neal could reduce his risk of being kidnapped or mugged that he probably wouldn't abide by, but he granted that it wouldn't be Neal's fault, so he let the proviso stay. "Deal." They shook on it.
The Hendricks watched this exchange in something like bemusement. Bob wagged a finger between the two of them. "So Thomas is a friendly kind of criminal, then?"
Neal beamed at him, like he'd just been given the moon. "Very friendly."
Peter nodded and conceded, "Check for your wallet if he bumps into you, but overall, he's a good guy."
Neal shrugged, not defending himself, and allowed his smile to look a little abashed as he promised, "I'd give it back." The excited glint in his eyes belied any outward appearance of remorse or guilt, though. Peter made a mental apology to the Hendricks for saying anything. Neal was apparently taking the comment as permission to include them in the game he sometimes played with Peter's wallet.
"Don't, Neal," Peter tried to warn, but Neal's wide eyed look of innocence proved he hadn't made an impression. Making a mental note to tell Neal to return everything he stole later, Peter sighed and returned the conversation to the point of the meeting. "You were going to tell us about the painting since Neal gave it to you. Who knew you had it? Who knew it was worth anything? Did anyone seem overly interested in it?"
The Hendricks looked at each other, and decided Nancy should answer the question. "It hung in our living room for over five years. Anyone who visited noticed it, of course. They all commented on it. Almost everyone recognized Billy right away, so they knew it was painted specifically for us. Even if Billy hadn't been in it, it was a very nice painting. Obviously, we never thought - and so far as I know, none of our visitors ever thought - it was worth as much as it auctioned for, but it was very well liked by everyone who saw it. I had a few people ask me how to reach Thomas, to see if he would paint them something. I gave them his PO Box, but he'd stopped writing to us by then, so I told them I wasn't sure if he was still checking it."
Neal nodded and put in to Peter, "I did see some of those when I was going through Thomas's mail this afternoon. They looked like what would have been standard commission requests had I ever been a real artist, mostly for portraits. Nothing that looked suspicious. Some of them offered to pay pretty decently, too. Do you think the FBI would let me -"
"We'll discuss this later."
Neal shrugged, unperturbed, and urged Nancy to continue her story, "What made you decide to sell?"
"Like we said, Vince's dad came in and said the painting should get appraised, so we got it appraised. The person we brought it to said Thomas Wellington had one other painting that went for eight thousand dollars about a year ago. Since it was a second, previously unknown painting by an artist that had already sold that well, the appraiser estimated the painting value at ten thousand." She looked at Neal with an expression of entreaty. "Ten thousand dollars, Thomas. We had a ten thousand dollar painting hanging on our wall. We're not the kind of family that has ten thousand dollar paintings. There were other things we could do with that kind of money, especially in this economy. We didn't want to sell your painting, we didn't want to give up such a beautiful picture of our little boy, but it was ten thousand dollars. And the appraiser must have mentioned it to the auction house curator, because he called us, and told us if we ever wanted to sell, he could probably get us well over ten thousand dollars for another Thomas Wellington. So we brought it to him, and here we are."
"Here we are," agreed Neal.
"You can't think of anyone who took a particular interest in the painting, or tried to get you to sell it privately to them?" Peter pressed.
Bob shook his head. "Nothing like that, no."
Peter looked at Neal. "I don't think it was personal on their end."
Neal shook his head. "Me either. So it's either me, the bidder, or someone just took a shine to that painting after seeing it at the auction house. Did you find out about Candice yet?"
Nodding, Peter set Neal's mind at ease on that score. "Yeah. Lauren talked to the owners and they say 'Girl with Balloon' is right where it should be."
"Thank God. I don't think I could take both of them being missing."
Peter gave him a sympathetic sqeeze on his knee. "We'll be going by there a little later. You can check the security and double check it's not a forgery."
Neal shuddered visibly.
"I noticed you didn't leave forgeries of any of the seven paintings you're returning." Peter was careful not to say the word 'stole'. 'Returning' was far more neutral and far more likely to allow Neal to talk about it.
"I knew that was disrespectful if the artist was still alive. That's just needless cruelty. It's rude to rub it in that someone else could reproduce your finest work with enough accuracy that you'd need chemical analysis or a magnifying glass to tell the difference. I've never been rude, Peter."
"No, of course not," Peter agreed, because Neal seemed to be expecting some kind of reassurance that Peter didn't think he was - heaven-forbid - a rude criminal.
"I've always been very curteous, even when breaking the law or lying about who I was," Neal told Bob and Nancy earnestly. "You never thought I was impolite, did you?"
"Never, Thomas," Nancy promised.
Neal seemed to relax immediately. Peter wasn't sure if he just got control of himself or if Nancy was really that much better at reassurance than he was. Or perhaps it was just that Nancy actually had been a mark, and that made her an authority on the subject that Peter wasn't. Neal gave them each a smile and stood up. "We're done, right, Peter? Do you mind if I take a little walk?"
There was still a tension in him, not quite masked to Peter's well trained eye. Walking it off would probably do him good - if he could be trusted not to run off. Peter hesitated, thinking about the conversation in the car on the way over. But he wouldn't get far, and the case bound him as surely as the tracker did. He nodded. "Take your time. We've got over two hours to make it down to Staten Island. I want to grab dinner before then, though, so don't take too long."
Giving him a warm, relieved smile, Neal nodded and promised, "I just need ten minutes, tops."
Peter waved him off. "Go on, then."
"Thanks, Peter." He gave Peter's shoulder a squeeze of gratitude, then shook hands with both Bob and Nancy before heading toward the front doors of the hotel lobby. The Hendricks watched him go almost as closely at Peter did.
Bob fidgetted in his seat before asking carefully, "You're not afraid he's going to . . . do something?"
Peter frowned at the door for a moment, but decided Neal hadn't had that about-to-run look he sometimes got. Looking back at Bob Hendricks, he shook his head. "Nah. Worst he's likely to do is make a phone call to someone engaged in moving stolen property. He hasn't had time to plan anything for this area and he's too agitated to enjoy picking pockets today." Then he remembered his promise to himself, and told them, "But check yours anyway." They both patted themselves down and found everything where it was supposed to be.
All of the Hendrick's things were where they belonged, anyway; Nancy did find Peter's wallet in her purse, in addition to her own. "I didn't take it!" she swore and gave it back to its rightful owner with an embarrassed flush.
Peter just sighed and tucked it back into his pocket. "I know you didn't."
Bob looked worried. "How much trouble is Thomas, really?"
"To you? None. You said yourselves that you're not the kind of family that owns ten thousand dollar paintings so you're not in the demographic he targets. And like I said, he's fond of you. That puts you at an increased risk of petty but temporary theft - he seems to think picking pockets is a sign of affection - but otherwise, he poses no risk at all to any of you. I'd stake my job on that."
Bob nodded slowly as he digested that, but Nancy wrung her hands together and glanced toward the lobby doors. "He's an art forger, isn't he? He makes illegal copies of existing paintings?" Peter barely managed to nod before she rushed to continue, "I didn't know! I swear! I thought it was innocent! We'll turn it over right away!"
Blinking at her, Peter tried to figure out what she was talking about. "Neal painted something else for you? Something that wasn't as original as 'Boy In Orchard'?"
Nancy nodded, looking agitated, and Bob looked like he'd just remembered that something like that had happened and now he was worried, too. "My favorite painting has always been that one with the dogs playing poker. Nancy mentioned it to him, once. Next we know, we've got a copy of it hanging in our bedroom."
Peter closed his eyes and took a few moments to count to five before opening them again and looking at each of the Hendricks seriously. "It's public domain and not protected by copyright laws anymore, so I need you to answer a question and this is very important. Whose name did he sign it with? Thomas Wellington's or Coolidge's?"
They looked at each other uncertainly. "I don't remember seeing a signature," Nancy ventured, as much a question as a statement.
"No, no, there was something in the bottom left corner," Bob insisted, and bit his lip apparently trying hard to picture it. "I remember that much because it didn't look like what he signed Billy's painting with. But I want to say it was just a pair of initials. I thought at the time he'd credited the original artist, but . . . you said his real name's Neal Caffrey? I might just be remembering wrong, but I think he signed it NC."
Peter let out the breath he'd been holding. "That's fine then. It's legal to make reproductions as long as you don't try to pass it off as the original. He never claimed it was the real one, did he?"
"Good Lord, no!" Nancy denied. "We knew he painted it. He never pretended otherwise. Honestly, he seemed more proud of himself for that one than the one with Billy in it."
That made sense, Peter decided without needing to consider it very hard. "Neal knows exactly how good he is at reproductions," Peter told them. "His best work is almost flawless. I imagine he figured he had more to be proud of in the painting he could apply his professional expertise to, than the one he made without that benefit."
"Oh, my," Nancy said, looking a bit distressed. "If that one really was his better work, should we get that one appraised, too?"
"I expect it's a very good reproduction, but it's still a reproduction. Unless Neal becomes a famous artist in his own right - which given Thomas Wellington's auction success so far, isn't as unlikely as I would have thought yesterday - you probably won't ever get much more than a couple hundred for it."
Nancy relaxed. "Oh, good. I thought for a second we'd have to sell that one, too."
Neal was still in his Thomas Wellington tweed when they arrived at the home of Amanda Patterson, the current owner of 'Girl with Balloon.' Despite the fact that she had never met Neal or Thomas before, when Peter was introducing them ("I'm Agent Burke, and this is Neal Caffrey,") Neal spoke over his own name to introduce himself to her with his alias, "I'm Thomas Wellington."
She looked between them, ending on Neal. "You're who?"
"Thomas Wellington," Neal said with his trademark smile at the same time Peter repeated, "Neal Caffrey." Peter waited a beat then said again, "He's Neal Caffrey." This time Neal at least let him finish saying it before offering his own rebuttal introduction again, "I'm Thomas Wellington, the artist." Peter scowled at him, and after a moment Neal added, "And I'm Neal Caffrey, the FBI consultant, too." Neal looked up at Peter with those quietly pleading blue eyes that he'd used to scam countless people before and spoke softly as an aside, "It's not every day I get to introduce myself as an artist to a person who paid real money for one of my paintings, Peter. Give me a little slack here."
Peter sighed and found Amanda looking at him for final verification of Neal's identity, and Peter briefly shook his head and admitted defeat. "Thomas Wellington is one of Neal's professional names. 'Girl with Balloon' is one of the paintings he made. He'll be the one performing the FBI's appraisal to determine its authenticity."
She raised her eyebrows, impressed, "I was wondering where you'd find an expert who would know 'Girl with Balloon' well enough to tell if it was forged. Come on in."
As Peter ushered Neal inside ahead of him, Neal turned under his hand to give him a bright smile, obviously pleased with the reception he'd gotten once the confusion over who he was and what role he played in the world had been sorted out. Peter could only assume Neal was starting to settle into the idea that his original paintings were worth something. Giving him a push the rest of the way inside so Neal didn't forget who was still in charge, Peter followed the con into the Patterson home and closed the door behind them.
"The painting's in the dining room, here," Amanda said, leading them down the hall.
Neal's eye roamed over the other paintings and trinkets they passed along the way, and Peter kept his eye on Neal. Once they entered the dining room, Neal moved directly toward a painting that could only be 'Girl with Balloon.' Candice was a little a blond girl, no more than five years old, in a little blue sailor's dress, and holding onto a yellow ribbon tied to a red helium balloon. The colors were vibrant and striking, while the details of the little girl's features were exquisitely detailed. Even from five feet away, Peter could tell Candice had a light sprinkling of freckles over her nose, and her full compliment of uneven baby teeth were proudly revealed by a smile that was every bit as brilliant as the bright colors of her dress, ribbon, and balloon. Neal's eyes softened and a fond smile touched his lips as he looked at it.
"Candice might be my favorite," he said softly. Drawing in a breath and pressing his lips together, Neal leaned in closer to examine the brush strokes. After a few minutes, he settled back on his heels and let out a long breath of relief. "She's genuine." He waved Peter over and pointed at the bottom left corner, right at the edge of the frame, "See, there? That's where Candice touched it while it was drying, before I could stop her. I decided not to fix it, partly because it seemed appropriate she should make a mark on her own portrait, partly because nobody was going to see it that close to the frame anyway, and partly because I had to wash her hands before she got oil paint everywhere and her mom killed me."
Peter nodded, acknowledging both the authentication and the story behind the tiny fingerprint. "Do you think it's safe here?"
Neal looked around the dining room, probably picking out all the points of entry (three windows, and doorways leading out into both the hall and the kitchen) and well as noting the lack of security cameras. Peter was doing the same thing. Slowly, Neal shook his head. "Any art thief used to museums and galleries with lasers, pressure plates, armed guards, and heavy duty vaults can burgle a residential house like this in their sleep. Some won't, because it's beneath them, but if they wanted something kept in a private home badly enough, the call of a full set beats out vanity every time. If the guy who took Billy wants Candice, nothing here is going to stop him."
"What can I do to make . . . Candice . . . safer?" Amanda asked, sounding worried.
Neal shook his head. "Not a lot, unfortunately. I mean, you can make her safer," he pointed out a corner of the room, "by putting in a security camera," he frowned a little, "but that will just give us a picture of them, if and when they come for her. They'll still get her. Unless . . ." Neal turned to look pleading at Peter.
"No," Peter said without even waiting to hear the idea. He could tell by the look on Neal's face that it was either illegal, or only half a step away from it.
"But it's not really forgery if it's my own work, is it?"
Peter frowned at him, narrowing his eyes. He already had a pretty good idea of Neal's plan, and it wasn't even a bad one, exactly, but Neal should not be encouraged to do things like that. "You are not duplicating any paintings, regardless of who painted the original. No. Absolutely not."
"But until these guys who took Billy are caught, Candice isn't safe here."
"We don't know that they even want Candice," Peter returned. "It's only conjecture that 'Boy in Orchard' was taken because it was a Wellington. The thief may have no interest in 'Girl with Balloon' at all. We can't draw patterns from just one theft, Neal. For all we know, the person responsible just likes apple trees. The only reason we even came here was because the Wellington collection is so small and because it's you."
Neal frowned, obviously upset. "So if Thomas Wellington was who he said he was, we wouldn't be trying to protect his work? Peter, that's not fair."
Peter took a deep breath. "If Thomas Wellington was who he said he was, we'd have no reason to think it was an aimed attack against the artist."
Flinching visibly, Neal turned away, looking at his hands instead of Peter. "The only people who knew Thomas Wellington was me were Moz and Kate. Neither of them are going to steal my work."
"Neal," Peter began, then shook his head and sighed. "I meant the artist, Thomas Wellington, not the artist, Neal Caffrey. If Wellington was who he said he was, there wouldn't be as much mystery about him. Mystery makes people obsess. You heard the auction house curator. There were all kinds of rumors about which famous artist Wellington really was. If Thomas Wellington had been real, people would have been able to find him, and put those rumors to rest." Neal seemed to buy that. He wasn't avoiding looking at Peter anymore, anyway. So Peter felt it was reasonably safe to add, "As for the fact that Thomas Wellington is you, specifically . . . you can't deny that if there's trouble to be found, you'll find it. It just seemed like it would be a gross oversight not to follow this angle, all things considered."
Fortunately, Neal smiled instead of looking freaked out, like he had every other time the suggestion was raised that the thief was targeting him personally. "So we'll protect Candice?" he asked hopefully.
"No. We checked her out. She's here, she's fine. It's a dead end, Neal. We're not going to throw dozens of man-hours and tens of thousands of dollars into protecting a portrait worth less than five grand on the off chance that the thieves might want to steal it. You said yourself the going rate of the retrieval team that took 'Boy in Orchard' was already close to the same as the value of the painting. 'Girl with Balloon' is valued at less than half that."
Amanda cleared her throat, reminding him that the owner of the painting he was dismissing so casually was still right there. He flushed a little and turned toward her. "That said, I'd recommend reporting anything strange you see in your home or neighborhood, maybe putting in that security camera Neal mentioned, and possibly even locking 'Girl with Balloon' into a secure safe or vault somewhere for the next few weeks or until this thief is caught. If you don't have insurance on it already, I'd also suggest you take out a policy."
Neal pulled out a business card and a pen, and wrote down something on the back. "Here's Agent Burke's card," he added (Peter wondered when Neal had gotten a stash of his business cards), and handed it to her. "My number's on the back. Call either of us if anything happens." As Amanda glanced over each side of the card, Peter caught a glimpse of the back, where Neal had written his name, his cell phone number, and then Wellington's name. For an alias only Neal, Kate, and Haversham had known about that morning, Neal was becoming increasingly eager to make sure people knew they were one and the same. Neal smiled reassuringly as she put the card away. "We have your number already, so we'll be sure to let you know when there's been a break in the case."
June breezed into foyer of her home as Neal closed the front door behind him. "There's someone waiting upstairs for you," she warned, with a glance up the stairs toward Neal's door. "He said you knew him. A gentleman in his early fifties, I think. Dark hair just starting to go grey. A little taller than you. He didn't leave a name, even when I prompted him for one." She looked a little worried about this fact, but added, "I didn't get the sense that he was dangerous, but you may want to be careful anyway." Since Pierce had taken Neal hostage in his own room, June's vetting process of his guests had become a little more stringent. She didn't actually turn anyone away, but she always made sure Neal knew when he had someone visiting and who they were, so he was prepared to deal with potentially dangerous situations before he opened the door.
Neal didn't recognize the description, but he trusted June's character judgement. She hadn't liked Pierce, Alex, or Mei Ling, which he felt spoke well for her powers of threat assessment. Of course, she had also suggested he be careful, so he planned to do that. "Did he say what he wanted?"
Shaking her head, June gave the only information she had, "Only that he was following up on your call."
Having made a lot of calls today, Neal still couldn't narrow down who might have come to see him. He shook his head slowly. "Well, I guess I'll find out what it's about in a minute." He dropped his hat down on the banister (it would be safer down here if something did happen up in his rooms) and took the first step up the stairs.
"I'll come up in a minute to ask if you want tea," June told him. "If you want me to call Peter, ask for the Jasmine."
Neal smiled at her warmly, appreciating her brilliance and subtlety. Byron had been a very lucky man. "Thanks, June." He climbed the rest of the stairs quietly and eased open the door, slipping silently into his own living space. A man fitting the description June had given was browsing Neal's bookcase. Not recognizing him, Neal left the door open in case he need to make a quick escape. Despite the other's height advantage, Neal thought he'd have the edge if it came to a chase. The visitor just didn't look like the kind of man who regularly engaged in things like running, climbing walls, leaping over obstacles, or, well, leaving his house to do anything more taxing than mowing the lawn. He could see why June thought he was harmless. Everything from the way he stood (twisted sideways a bit as he read the titles of the books on a shelf below eye-level, still oblivious to Neal's arrival) to his clothes (a pair of khaki pants and a loose polo shirt that was a size too large for him) suggested he was a normal person, mixed up in normal things that did not include criminal activity or law enforcement.
Still, appearances could be deceiving and ordinary people did not tend to have any reason to seek Neal out in his home, so Neal left the door open and remained wary as he cleared his throat. "May I help you?"
The man startled a little and turned toward Neal. He examined Neal as intently has Neal had just finished studying him. "Neal Caffrey? The art thief?"
Neal tensed further but resisted the urge to back through the door. Running away wouldn't tell him who the man was or what he wanted. "Alleged," he agreed. "Who wants to know?" With Mozzie busy setting up the locker, Neal had been the one calling around to find out information about the case. He'd only turned up dead ends, but maybe he'd made enough noise that someone had heard he was looking. He decided it was best to leave his current legal status ambiguous. If the man was more criminally inclined than he looked, the words 'FBI consultant' would scare him away and the words 'alleged art thief' might reassure him that Neal was in deeper than he was. On the other hand, if the man really was as criminally disinclined as he appeared, the 'alleged' protected Neal from being accused of confessing to anything.
"I'm Raoul LeMarque."
Neal's eyes widened in recognition. He closed the door. His tongue failed him. All he managed to say was, "Oh." He moved further into the apartment and sat down at his table.
LeMarque followed him into the kitchen area but didn't sit. "You're not what I expected."
Neal hadn't expected to find Raoul LeMarque in his living room, either, so he figured they were even in that respect. "I thought you lived in Canada. I did not call you on a local number."
It was an admission, and LeMarque seemed to recognize it as such, since it drew a tight-lipped smile from him. "My cell phone still has the Vancouver area code, but I've been living here in New York for almost two years." Neal nodded, accepting the explanation. For a long moment, neither said anything. Then, LeMarque spoke the truth that they were both thinking. "You are the thief that stole 'Midnight Conversations' from the Seattle Art Museum."
Neal flinched at the bluntness of the statement and looked away. He dared not make a verbal reply or even a non-verbal one. He'd promised Mozzie. The FBI already wanted him to sign a plea bargain. Peter practically ordered him not to incriminate himself any further.
The air hung heavy with silence. LeMarque just waited.
In any other situation, Neal could have misdirected. He could have lied. He could have started talking about something else completely unrelated. But this was Raoul LeMarque. He'd done his final thesis in his Contemporary Art course on 'Midnight Conversations'. He'd stolen this man's best painting - this man who Neal had spent most of his college years idolizing and emulating. And now he was here. In Neal's kitchen. Standing less than two feet away. Waiting for him to respond to his accusation.
Neal squeezed his eyes closed and the only words he wanted to say escaped his lips. "I'm sorry."
"Tell me again what you told me over the phone, Neal Caffrey."
He'd said it once, but he couldn't now. Not to his face. Not without the protection of anonymity. He shook his head, and he wasn't sure if he should be grateful for or curse June's timing. The door opened, and she entered with a laden tea tray. "Tea?"
"No, thank you, June," Neal said, looking up with a smile. "I'm fine. Mr. LeMarque?"
"Yes, thank you. Some Earl Grey, if you have it."
June nodded, and he sat down across from Neal as she put down a teacup and poured in the steaming water. She collected several leaves in a strainer and placed that down on the saucer with a friendly hostess smile. "Enjoy." Then she looked over at Neal in concern and asked, "Are you sure? I brought up some Jasmine for you. I know it helps with your stress."
Neal shook his head and put a little more effort into his smile, hoping to reassure her. "Not today, thanks, June."
She nodded. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me."
Once the door closed behind her, Neal looked at LeMarque again. He was stirring his tea slowly, letting the flavor mix with the hot water "You want me to make a legally binding confession."
The artist nodded once. "Yes, I do."
"Why?"
LeMarque watched him seriously for a long moment before taking a sip of his tea. He answered only after he returned the cup to its saucer. "To see if you are sorry enough for what you did to accept the consequences of it."
There was a right thing to say now and there was a wrong thing to say now. Neal's conscience battled his self-preservation instinct, and, as it usually did, the self-preservation lost in the face of a higher ideal. Neal swallowed hard and nodded. "I'm sorry I stole 'Midnight Conversations' from the Seattle Art Museum. I'm sorry I stole 'Summer on the Lake' from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I'm sorry I stole the other five paintings I'm surrendering to the FBI from their respective museums and galleries. I, Neal Caffrey, confess to seven counts of art theft. I did it. I'm guilty." He wavered a little in place and was glad he was already sitting down. "I'll be signing a plea bargain to that effect within the next few days," he added, trying not to let the defeat show. Peter had said there was already too much evidence against him, and that was before he had spelled it out so clearly for the jury. Neal had no choice but to sign the agreement they were offering him.
LeMarque nodded, satisfied. "In that case, you may be interested in knowing that since its auction was announced, 'Boy in Orchard' was the subject of some intense discussion in several forums this week. A collector named Fredrick Parson was a vocal participant in most of them and seemed particularly taken by it. Due to a personal conflict with the curator of the Auction House, however, he was not permitted to bid on it. I'd start with him in your investigation." He stood up, took a final sip of his tea, and then nodded at Neal. "Good luck getting your painting back, Mr. Caffrey."
Neal sat up, several of the little thing bugging him about this case finally beginning to gel together. "A personal conflict? What kind of personal conflict?"
"Oh, they had words which led to blows. I think it may have had something to do with the curator's daughter. I think Parson was issued a restraining order, keeping him away from both the Auction House and the curator's personal home. I don't have the specific details, though."
Neal started dialing Peter's number even before it cleared his pocket. "Excuse me one minute," he told LeMarque, holding up one finger on one hand and pressing the send button and holding the cell up to his ear with the other. "Finish your tea." The artist had only taken two sips. Then Peter's voice, sounding grumpy (probably for being interrupted from whatever game he was watching), asked what Neal wanted, and Neal turned away, pretending this gave him some privacy as he quickly explained what he learned. "There's a collector named Fredrick Parson who had some kind of violent disagreement with the curator at the Auction House. He's not allowed on the property anymore, so he couldn't take part in the auction even though he showed an interest in Billy's portrait. Peter," Neal's voice turned excited as he explained this part, because he felt it was the key piece in the entire investigation. "Ms. Karington, the winning bidder, was going to put it up in her home. Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to wait until it was there instead of breaking into one of the best commercial vaults available? This whole thing, I told you it felt personal, but it was against the curator, not the painting owners or me. Parson wanted to get the painting he liked, but more than that, he wanted the Auction House to look bad. Any professional team worth their salt could have gotten into that building without busting up the door. The size of the hole in the vault door was just plain excessive. They did those things on purpose, to make it even more obvious that the place had been robbed. They were probably paid extra to be so destructive. But they didn't do anything worse than that because Parson was smart enough to realize that if everyone thought the motive was simple art theft, nobody would look into the people who had motive against the Auction House itself."
Peter took a moment to digest this (or maybe his sports team was doing something interesting on television), but after a moment, the agent asked, "Do you have any proof for any this?"
Neal wilted a little. "No, not yet, but I can maybe get some testimony - my source isn't even illegal this time - " which was perhaps the not best wording for that particular sentiment, but Peter just huffed a short laugh and didn't question him about what his usual sources were, "but I'm not sure Raoul LeMarque wants to get his name mixed up with this and all he did was give me some general information anyone with some knowledge of the auction scene could have gotten. I'm mostly working on conjecture right now. But give me a day and I'll get you proof."
"Raoul Le- no, don't tell me. I don't want to know. Just . . . Neal."
"Yes, Peter?"
"Don't do anything illegal or otherwise stupid tonight."
Neal considered his options then nodded. "I won't do anything illegal or otherwise stupid tonight," he promised. Mozzie was due back sometime tonight anyway. Any plans for gathering proof could wait until the early morning.
"Good. Good work today, Neal. We'll look into Parson first thing tomorrow."
"Got it," Neal agreed cheerfully, taking that as permission for an early morning stunt. "Bye, Peter."
"Night, Neal."
Hanging up and dropping the phone back into his pocket, Neal turned back toward LeMarque, who was putting his teacup down again, and beamed brightly at the artist. "That was Peter Burke, the FBI Agent in charge of the case. He thinks your tip was really good, too." He held out his hand. "Thank you so much for your help."
LeMarque looked down at his hand, and then up at Neal's face. "I'm not going to insist you serve your time in prison, Mr. Caffrey, but I don't shake the hands of art thieves."
Neal stepped back, dropped his hand, lowered his eyes. "Sorry."
"Tell your landlady thank you for the tea," LeMarque said and then left.
Neal sank back down onto his chair. A few minutes later, June returned with the tea tray. "Jasmine tea?" she asked, putting the set down on the table beside Neal. The aroma coming from the kettle, however, was decidedly more minty.
He shook his head. "Already taken care of. Some mint tea would be nice, though."
"Of course," she agreed and poured them both some. She sat down where LeMarque had been. "Did he threaten you?"
Neal shook his head and looked into the murky depths of his tea. "He's an artist who painted one of the pieces I stole. He wanted a confession."
June reached across the table to hold his hand. "Did you give him one?"
Neal nodded. "Seven counts of federal art theft. You're getting me as a house guest for a few more years. Peter says if I sign a plea bargain tomorrow I won't have to spend any more time in prison. No handcuffs, even. They'll just tack the time onto the end of my FBI contract."
June's hands squeezed around his. Her eyes were soft with sympathy. "You'll be free eventually, Neal." She smiled encouragingly, "Besides, I'm sure you can think of far worse places you might be staying than my home, even if you weren't confined to New York."
Smiling warmly at her, Neal laughed. "This is the apartment Kate and I dreamed of having. Have I thanked you again recently for letting me stay here?"
"This afternoon, Neal, just this afternoon."
"That's not nearly recently enough. Thank you again, June."
"Hush, you, and drink your tea before it gets cold."
Mozzie returned with a slip of paper that he handed to Neal. Neal glanced over the single line of text, nodded, and pulled out his phone. "Thanks, Moz," he said, as he pressed the familiar combination of buttons to dial Peter. "Hey, Peter," he said when the agent picked up, "That address you guys wanted me to find? I've got it now. It's at," and he read off the words on the sheet of paper. He hung up shortly after that, and looked at Mozzie again, smirking a little. "So did you leave everything else where it was, or was there too much temptation to leave it be?"
"Unlike you," Mozzie snarked back with a superior uptilt of his chin, "I don't need to touch every shiny thing I see."
"You miss half the fun that way," Neal chided, shaking his head in mock disappointment, before turning relatively serious again, "So everything else is where I left it?"
Moz made a pained face and looked like he was about to shake his head and shrug before he stopped himself. "Mostly," he admitted reluctantly. "You had some interesting silverware in the Conneticut one."
Neal took a moment to remember the set of antique silver that he'd put in a contemporary locker 'temporarily' before nodding, "Right. And don't think I didn't notice the past tense in that statement."
Soothingly, Mozzie held out both hands as though trying to calm an angry animal, though Neal was more amused than anything else. After all the trouble Moz went through for him over the past few months - which included the previously unheard of torture of sitting at the same table as a Suit, not to mention voluntarily going into the Suit's own home - Neal figured he was entitled to a set of silverware. "I just wanted a better look at it in the daylight. I dropped it off again in the Vermont one." Neal nodded and made a note of that (both its current location and that Moz liked it enough that it would make a great Christmas or birthday present as soon as he could get his hands on it again) in his mental filing system.
"Did you move the whole set, or just the silverware?"
"What kind of Philistine do you take me for? I wouldn't break up a set like that." Which answered the question of whether or not Moz was only interested in the flatware. He was definitely getting the whole set then. Neal smiled, satisfied that he had a gift idea that could not be easily outdone. Moz frowned at Neal's expression, clearly not trusting its source, which only made Neal more pleased with himself, because he knew Moz was paranoid enough that he'd come up with much more dire causes for Neal's smile. Sure enough, Moz demanded, "What did you do?"
"Nothing!"
Moz narrowed his eyes. "You send the cards."
"No cards, I promise," Neal swore, making the scout's honor sign. He could see in Moz's eyes that his friend was on the verge of taking him at his word when he added, "I called them, instead."
Moz dropped into a chair at the table and lowered his head onto his crossed arms. "Call me when you get out of prison." His voice was a little muffled, but easy enough to understand.
"Don't worry," Neal assured him, "Only one of them called the feds. I've got a plea agreement I'm supposed to sign once I get a lawyer to look it over. No prison, not even any handcuffs. Peter promised. And it worked out. The artists found a lead for us. Have you heard anything about a guy named Fredrick Parsons?" It was best to downplay the whole forced-to-sign-a-plea-agreement thing or Moz would blow it all out of proportion. Distraction was even better.
Shaking his head, Moz took the bait, "Not yet, but I expect I'm going to soon."
Neal nodded and fulfilled the prediction. "He's an art collector who showed an interest in Boy in Orchard, but was banned from the Auction House premises so he couldn't bid on it. He has bad blood with the curator. The property destruction, the timing, it all fits."
Moz nodded slowly, considering whatever it is Moz considered under circumstances like this. After a moment, he agreed, "Makes sense."
"So we'll go snooping in the morning," Neal stated, as though it were decided.
"What? No! Neal, I admire your ability to live under the Man's thumb without getting crushed, but you are not bringing me down with you. You played with fire and got burned. Again. Don't think I missed that part about your plea. Now is not the time to test the Suit's patience. You're lucky to not be in jail as it is. You want to run, fine, I'll help, but I'm not letting you dig yourself a deeper hole than you've already made. You play this one the Suit's way, or you get out of town." Moz crossed his arms and frowned as fiercely at Neal as Moz was capable of doing.
"But," Neal protested, but stopped when Mozzie shook his head.
"No, Neal. Count me out. You are too close to this case. That's the only excuse I can make for your astoundingly bad judgment today."
Neal opened his mouth - he had no idea what he'd planned to say in his own defense because it never made it to his tongue. Instead, Moz pointed at a chair and commanded, "Sit!" before he could say anything. Neal wasn't sure which of them was more surprised that his teeth snapped back together and he sat with reflexive obedience.
For a moment, they stared at each other. Mozzie's expression was an odd mix of shock and pity. Neal wasn't sure if he should make a joke or apologize, so Moz found words first. "Since you've apparently learned how to take simple directions, I'll keep this very easy for you to understand." Moz pointed at the floor in front of Neal. "Stay."
Neal crossed his arms, and gave Moz his best You're mean scowl. Peter called it a sulk, but Neal knew better. It was definitely a scowl. "I never quite figured that one out," Neal muttered.
"I believe it," Mozzie snipped. "Okay, here's what's happening tonight and tomorrow. You're going to sleep. I'm going to wait right here." He plopped himself down on the couch. "If you so much as snore in the direction of the door, I'm turning you in myself. In the morning, the Suit picks you up to go to work where you'll go do legal investigations, and I'll go and check over your plea as your lawyer. You will not be doing anything else that will make anyone want to lock you up more than they already do. Are we clear?"
Neal sighed. "Yes, Peter."
Moz shuddered. "Do not call me by a Suit's name, Neal. It's not because you ignored Burke's advice that you got into this mess."
His friend did have a point. Neal looked contrite. "Sorry, Moz. Do you want to throw an I-told-you-so at me?"
"At least two of them," Moz confirmed, but didn't actually sling the words.
"Is this a bad time to mention Peter suggested I should hire a real lawyer?"
Moz looked offended. "I'll have you know I actually passed a bar exam."
Neal nodded placatingly, though he knew Moz wasn't actually upset over this particular point. It was easier to address this than the real problem, though. "I'm sure you got paid quite a lot for it, too." By Moz's half-suppressed smirk, Neal assumed he'd guessed the circumstances correctly. "They implied there may be an independent investigation into me and that I'd probably look better if my lawyer wasn't one of my shady associates."
"The Feds don't have anything on me, and I don't trust anybody else to defend your interests properly. Anyone who knows as many legal loopholes as I do can't be trusted, and you're going to need all the legal loopholes you can find."
Neal nodded, accepting Moz's word on the subject. "Count yourself as hired, then."
Moz barely inclined his head in assent, apparently taking his employment as a given. "Now, as your lawyer, I advise you to get some sleep and stay out of trouble."
As both Moz and Peter were in agreement on the topic, Neal reluctantly conceded that he would not be visiting Fredrick Parson's home in the early hours of the morning. There wasn't anything urgent about it. He could still do it tomorrow night if nothing came up during the day.
Neal woke the next morning to the sound of Mozzie's voice saying, "He's been here all night, Suit. He did not go over to snoop around Parson's house."
Peter's voice was gruff, "Thanks, Haversham," and then the door into Neal's bedroom opened and Neal groaned. "Rise and shine, Caffrey."
"I'm up," Neal muttered, and pushed himself out of bed. He glanced at the clock. It was a very good thing Moz had talked him out of doing anything. "Aren't you a couple hours early?"
"Big day today. Last night we found a stash of seven stolen paintings. There's paperwork, and authentications, and property reclamations, and a thief to arraign." Peter sounded downright cheerful.
Despite the early hour, Neal felt suddenly wide awake as his heart started to pound more quickly. He fought against the instinct to flee. "Arraign?" he repeated, going for casual.
Peter nodded. "Formal hearing in front of the judge. Charges get read. Defendant pleads guilty or not guilty."
"I know what an arraignment hearing is," Neal protested.
"Right," Peter granted, as if just remembering. "You've had one before."
"You are entirely too happy about this," Neal told him. "I thought you said no handcuffs."
Peter held up his empty hands. "I don't see any handcuffs, do you?"
Neal frowned at him a little distrustfully. "The bailiff. . ."
"Will be informed of your cooperation and the terms of your agreement."
"I'd like to see those terms," Mozzie put in.
Neal nodded. "He's my lawyer again."
Peter frowned at Neal, but addressed Moz, "You'll be given an opportunity to go over them at the courthouse before the hearing."
Moz left and promised to meet them at the courthouse went it opened. In the meantime, Neal was allowed to shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast before Peter escorted him down to the Taurus. He was pretty sure Peter had come over when he did to make sure Neal didn't lose his nerve and try to run now that he'd basically confessed and turned in the evidence that could convict him. In all truth, if he'd thought about it before Peter had arrived, he might have. Neal hesitated a few steps from the car, and looked at Peter who was watching him like a hawk watches a mouse. "Go on," Peter encouraged.
Neal looked between the car and the agent, and took careful control of his own voice as he asked, "Should I sit in the front or the back?"
"The front," Peter answered without pausing to think about it. Neal started to smile. "I can see you better there." The smile died stillborn. Peter rolled his eyes and gave him a push toward the door. "Oh, for the love of - cut it out, Neal. Nothing's different between us."
Catching his balance against the Taurus, Neal looked back at his partner and studied his face. Peter crossed his arms impatiently and raised an eyebrow. Neal really did smile then. "Okay, good. I was worried."
"Well, don't be. I know exactly who and what you are. That you're about to admit it doesn't change my opinion of you for anything but the better. I meant what I said in the car yesterday. I'm proud of you, Neal."
Neal felt a warm glow settle the nervous energy he'd felt since the arraignment had been mentioned. He could get through this. Moz and Peter were both behind him. He let himself into the front seat and beamed at Peter as he slid into the driver's seat. "You'll be even more glad to know that I told Moz I wasn't going to break into Parson's house and that you and I are going to solve the Wellington case the legal way." Solving one case the way Peter wanted to do it wouldn't kill him. Probably.
Peter gave him a look that told Neal he knew there was a lot more to that story, but out of respect to Neal's recent signs of rehabilitation he was going to let it slide just this once. "I am glad to hear that, Neal. So you did learn something from everything that happened yesterday, then."
Neal nodded, answering facetiously. "Yes, I did. I learned the many and varied reasons why Neal Caffrey should listen to his friend Moz from now on."
Peter snorted. "I'd be worried if you had a history of ever doing the things you should do."
