The Dreamer

Chapter 4: Triage

Federal Building. January 21, 2005. Friday morning.

Neal woke up early on Friday morning, eager to begin work on the Corot forgery. He was the first to arrive in the bullpen. After he tossed his fedora on the bust of Socrates on his desk, he headed straight for the niche. As he walked, he repeated it in several different languages: la niche, el nicho, nisha, die Nische, la nicchia. He liked the way it rolled off his tongue. It was a matter of great satisfaction that his niche was becoming almost as accepted a designation as the bullpen or Peter's office.

During Neal's first year at the Bureau, he needed to borrow someone's workstation whenever he wanted to work in the lab. In the beginning, that wasn't a problem since none of his cases involved extensive lab work. But during the fall, he was increasingly called upon to perform authentications. Having zero space to stow his supplies was a growing annoyance. His solution was to turn it into a game of bartering favors for shelf space.

His doodles and drawings had attracted a large following. In exchange for a few sketches, he quickly amassed assorted shelves and cubbyholes throughout the lab. His FBI cartoons were particularly popular—he'd been able to acquire a new graphics tablet in return for a cartoon of the bullpen. But his success led to another issue—he had to spend a ridiculous amount of time collecting his supplies from the various storage spots before he could get any work accomplished. And he was still confronted with the challenge of finding a vacant workstation. Often he went into the lab only to find that the techs had already snatched up all the available spaces. A permanent solution was imperative.

The campaign for a niche started in November when Neal pleaded his case to Peter, pointing out he'd been hired to consult but didn't have the means to do his job. Peter then acquainted him with the ponderous and prehistoric procedures of office space allocation. It wasn't until late December that his request had finally cleared all the red tape hurdles with the proviso that all equipment was to be shared. Purchases had to be justified based on their usefulness for non-art investigations. The White Collar budget had zero money allocated for art authentication which was considered to be the exclusive domain of D.C. Art Crimes. Changing that attitude was Neal's new mission.

Upon his return from Hawaii, Neal staked out his claim to a far corner of the lab that had primarily been used for storage. For him, that was what made it prime real estate. It already had the required shelving space. He was able to collect his supplies and gear from their various hiding places and group them in one location. Travis helped him scrounge a surplus computer and two excellent monitors. Between Travis's tech consults and Neal's sketches, they were able to barter enough equipment. His niche was born.

Much more than his desk in the bullpen, this was Neal's personal space. He had a magnetic board where he posted a few of his drawings. It soon became almost as popular with White Collar staff as the bulletin board in the breakroom. Recently he'd added his copy of Head of a Muse by Raphael to his board.

Neal planned to spend the day in his niche, studying The Dreamer. The painting was already confirmed to be a forgery but that only served to make it more of an enigma. When had she been painted? Had the forger left any clue to his identity? Was he brazen enough to sign it?

The painting wasn't large—only 25 by 17 inches—and he was able to prop it up in front of his monitor. Before starting the digital analysis, Neal first wanted to get better acquainted. After all, they'd only met two days ago. He relaxed his eyes to let the image blur. That might seem paradoxical but if she were slightly out-of-focus, details emerged from the painting that he might otherwise have missed. he must have spent at least a half-hour just staring at her. Lab techs came and left, but he didn't pay any attention to the activity around him.