Spitzer Museum

Spitzer Museum – A small, exclusive joint on the Upper East Side that was robbed in Forgotten in Death. It was privately funded and heavily secured, but somebody got through and stole Monet’s Water Lilies painting from 1916, insured for one-hundred and twenty million dollars. Feeney worked the case, with Roarke assisting. The security system was privately designed, not one of Roarke’s, but still good.^[1]

The theft was done by identical twin sisters, using one official ID. They had both been inside the museum, but wiped the second ID, so when Irina Hobbs was vetted and hired by the museum as a curator several months ago, Iona Hobbs didn’t exist on record. Irina had all the qualifications, the resume, and recommendations. A very, very attractive woman as well, with an encyclopedic knowledge of art. Irina left the museum at 1805 on the night the Monet went missing. She met several friends for drinks and dinner, and her apartment security showed her entering at just before midnight and not exiting again until 0816 the next morning, in a rush, obviously upset, since she had just gotten the notification about the Monet.

One of the twins entered the museum an hour before closing, disguised with a wig, face putty, and body padding, and didn’t leave. The investigator missed that initially since there was a slight glitch in the feed at closing. It took four minutes, thirty-three seconds so reboot the security system, during which time the sister walked out with the painting. Irina had put in for two weeks vacation months ago, beginning two days after the heist, so they were in the wind. The client took a vid of the painting hanging in his private room in his country home upstate, and investigators were able to identify him and recover the painting.^[2]

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