Master Thieves by Stephen Kurkjian Read Free Book Online Page B

1989.
    McAuliffe took over as the MFA’s security director soon after that daring heist, and right from the start he promised to get together with Lyle Grindle, the security chief of the Gardner Museum. Together they were charged with protecting some of Boston’s greatest and most irreplaceable riches, and McAuliffe knew he would benefit if they compared notes. And because of the Yuan vase caper, McAuliffe knew all too well the hazards of screwing up.
    He had known nothing about museum security before he applied for the job; he had spent his career in the Massachusetts state police. But he was a quick learner, having risen to second in command of the force, and quickly immersed himself in the intricacies of guarding priceless treasures. In short order he came to learn two important lessons: that a museum was most vulnerable at night, and that guards and night watchmen should always secure a supervisor’s approval before making any decision.
    Whether supervisor approval was required in the past is anyone’s guess, but McAuliffe underscored it to the several watchmen who worked the overnight shift at the MFA.
    The importance of the lesson was driven home in the predawn hours of January 15, 1990. The winding streets around the Museum of Fine Arts were quiet, empty, and, with the Boston police force having just wrapped up its safety detail for the first official Martin Luther King Jr. holiday commemoration, lightly patrolled. Suddenly two men dressed in Boston police uniforms showed up at the rear entrance of the MFA and rang the buzzer.
    â€œBoston police—open up. We’re looking for someone.”
    A thirty-four-year-old who had been working the overnight watch shift for several years was alone manning the control room. Security at the MFA that night was heavier than usual since the museum was about to open a new exhibit ofClaude Monet’s works, with dozens of his paintings on loan for the exhibit inside.
    The night watchman could see clearly through the video security system that the men who had buzzed certainly looked like police officers, but he had his orders.
    â€œI can’t let anyone in,” he called back on the intercom. “We’ve got a new procedure. No one gets in after hours without the approval of my supervisor. I’ve got to find him and I’ll get right back to you.”
    â€œHey, we’re looking for someone,” the officer said impatiently. “Let us in!”
    But the night watchman had already gone off to find his supervisor, William L. Miller, who was in a faraway gallery. It took them several minutes to get back to the rear entrance of the museum, and by the time Miller arrived, the police officers had disappeared. Except for filing an “incident report” the following morning with McAuliffe, nothing more was said of the strange episode. That is, until two months later, when Boston woke up to television news bulletins that the Gardner Museum had been robbed of several major works of art, hours after the city’s next holiday, St. Patrick’s Day.
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    In early 1990, the two security directors kept their promise to each other to evaluate how secure the Gardner Museum was from theft or other catastrophes. Their tour was barely under way when, at the wooden security desk by the museum’s employee entrance, McAuliffe pointed out what he saw as a major security flaw.
    â€œLyle, you don’t have a secure control room,” McAuliffe said, clearly alarmed. “Everything is right out here in the open. You need to build a control room in a place that is secret from the public, a place that isn’t vulnerable to attack.”
    McAuliffe was right. Grindle had a suite of security controls: communication systems to connect the cadre of guards on patrol or on duty in the various galleries inside the four-story mansion; cameras watching activities at several places inside and outside the museum on a closed circuit