Smoke in Mirrors Page 8

  She raised her eyes to Thomas. He wondered if she intended to pat him, too.

  “Just thought I’d make sure you got settled in okay,” he said when it became obvious that she was not going to scratch him behind the ears.

  “Everything is fine.”

  He glanced around her, trying to get a look at the living room. “Furniture working out?”

  “Yes. Some of the pieces are a little oversized for the space, but they’ll do for my purposes.”

  He remembered how he had stood in the showroom at the furniture store and made his selections from the three basic rental packages that had been offered. In the end he had gone with the Traditional Rustic Comfort set-up because it had the largest bed and he liked a big bed, himself. What the hell had he been thinking? Not like she would ever invite him to join her in it.

  Contemplating that big bed in her small bedroom was not helpful. Time to change the subject.

  “Had dinner yet?” he asked.

  “No. I was just about to fix something.”

  “Want to join me? There’s a café in town that serves some good fish. Very casual. We can have a couple of drinks. Talk about our, uh, investigation.”

  She pondered that for a few seconds. Then she shrugged. “Okay, I guess that would be all right.”

  “Hey, thanks,” he said. “I really appreciate the enthusiasm, you know? I was braced for outright rejection.”

  “Really?” She arched one brow. “Do you get rejected a lot?”

  “It’s a case of love me, love my dog. Not everyone takes to Wrench.”

  She looked down at Wrench. “You blame your dog when you get rejected?”

  “He doesn’t mind taking the heat and it saves a lot of wear and tear on my ego.”

  “A win-win situation.”

  “Yeah, that’s how I look at it. Why don’t you get your coat and we’ll be on our way?”

  “What about Wrench?”

  “We’ll go back across the bridge and leave him at my house.”

  She nodded, turned, opened the hall closet and removed a long, black, down-filled coat.

  He helped her into it. The small task gave him an opportunity to examine the curve of her neck and get a whiff of her scent. He liked the elegant line of the first and figured the latter for a mix of lemon-infused soap and warm woman. No heavy perfume. He appreciated that. He was not a fan of strong fragrances.

  They walked across the footbridge and along the lane to his house. Wrench gave him a pitiful look when he realized that he was about to get left behind.

  “You know they won’t let you in the café,” Thomas reminded him. “You’ve tried sneaking in before and it didn’t work.”

  “Management probably finds it hard to overlook a wolf coming through the front door,” Leonora said dryly.

  “I keep telling you not to judge by appearances.” Thomas unsnapped the leash.

  “Sure, right. A poodle in his former life.”

  “A miniature poodle. Pink, I think.”

  Wrench abandoned the pathetic look and wandered off in the direction of the kitchen and his food dish.

  Leonora watched Thomas lock the door. “You’re sure he doesn’t bite?”

  “I told you, he’s a pacifist at heart. Totally harmless.”

  “What breed is he, anyway?”

  “Beats me. Got him out of a shelter when he was a pup.”

  They went down the steps and took the footpath into the small town of Wing Cove. The tiny business district consisted of two bookstores, a hardware store, a post office, a handful of miscellaneous shops that catered primarily to students, a pub and some small restaurants.

  Thomas ushered Leonora through the double doors and into the cozy warmth of his favorite café. A fire crackled on the stone hearth. Hardwood floors gleamed in the subdued light. Two college-aged waiters in white aprons and black trousers circulated among the small crowd.

  He recognized several of the diners. They nodded to him when he and Leonora followed the hostess to a table in the corner. Polite nods. A little reticent. Cautious. He was the brother of that obsessed Deke Walker, after all.

  When he pulled out a chair for Leonora he noticed Osmond Kern, silver-haired and vaguely regal-looking in the manner of the tenured aristocrats of the academic world, sitting at a nearby table. He was with the woman Ed Stovall had identified as Kern’s daughter, Elissa.

  Even from here it was easy to see that Osmond’s movements had the careful, exaggerated quality that indicated he was attempting to compensate for too much alcohol. A half-finished martini sat on the table in front of him. It was obviously not the first of the evening.

  Elissa was steeped in that grim tension that was unique to those who were obliged to appear in public with relatives who drank too much and who might prove extremely embarrassing at any moment.

  He sat down across from Leonora and opened his menu. “How did things go at Mirror House?”

  “So far, so good, but I haven’t got anything exciting to report. I’m settled into the office in the library. I was surprised by the book collection, though.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It really is quite extraordinary. I only did a quick survey but it looks like it contains a number of old and rare works. Everything from scholarly papers on ancient Greek bronze hand mirrors to technical treatises on the manufacture of looking glasses in seventeenth-century France and England. There’s a good deal of material on the symbolism of mirrors in art and mythology, too. Humans have a long history of being fascinated with reflections.”

  He smiled. “Mirror, mirror on the wall?”

  “To cite just one instance.” She unfolded her napkin and placed it neatly on her lap. “There’s a wealth of mythology in a lot of cultures that relates to mirrors and reflections. Remember the story of Narcissus?”

  “Fell in love with his own reflection and pined away, right?”

  “Yes. In addition to the myths and fairy tales that feature mirrors, there are all those old master painters such as Jan van Eyck and Rubens and Goya who used them for symbolic purposes in their art. Leonardo da Vinci studied mirrors.”

  “I’ve seen pictures of pages from his notebooks,” Thomas said. “He kept them in something called ‘mirror-writing,’ didn’t he? Left-handed and moving right to left.”

  “Yes. Mirrors were a big part of Aztec rituals and the ancient Egyptians were really into them, too.”

  Her enthusiasm amused him.

  “Okay, I believe you,” he said.

  She made a face. “Didn’t mean to bore you. It’s just that the Mirror House collection is very unique. It really should be put online and made accessible.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been told that a lot of the antique mirrors and looking glasses hanging on the walls are extremely valuable, too. But according to the terms of Nathanial Eubanks’s will, neither they nor the books can be sold or donated to any other institution unless the house itself is demolished for some reason.”

  “Roberta Brinks, the director of Mirror House, told me that Nathanial Eubanks had a real thing about mirrors.” Leonora made a face. “That second-floor hall is a little spooky.”

  “Some folks think that he drove himself crazy with those antique looking glasses.” He studied the menu even though he had memorized it months ago. “Bethany was fascinated by them, too. She spent hours in the library, working on what she called her Mirror Theory.”

  “What was that?”

  “Something to do with explaining mathematical relationships between positive and negative numbers. She hoped that ultimately her theories could be used to help physicists understand exactly what went on in the universe in the first few seconds after the big bang.”

  “Oh.”

  “Right. Oh.” He held up one hand when she opened her mouth. “Don’t ask me for any more details, I’m no mathematician.” He lowered his voice. “That man sitting over there with his daughter could explain it better than anyone else in this room. If he wasn’t slos
hed to the gills, that is.”

  She glanced quickly around and then looked back at Thomas. “Who is he?”

  “Dr. Osmond Kern. Believe me, if you’re anybody at all in mathematics, you’d recognize the name. Several years ago he won a prize and got his name into the textbooks. Came up with an algorithm that turned out to be very important in the computer world. Made a lot of money off it, too, I understand. He’s on the faculty at Eubanks.”

  She smiled. “Tenured, I imagine.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  One of the young waiters finally stopped at their table. Leonora ordered a glass of wine. Thomas ordered a beer. They both decided on broiled halibut.

  Thomas was oddly pleased. Something in common at last, he thought. A fish.

  “The thing that bothers me the most about our own conspiracy theory,” Leonora said midway through the meal, “is that there don’t seem to be many similarities between Bethany and Meredith. They were two very different women who came out of very different worlds.”

  “That’s what makes this whole mess so damned frustrating.” Thomas forked up a bite of halibut. “If Deke is right, there should be some obvious links between the two. But they weren’t even working on the same things at Mirror House. Bethany was completely absorbed with her math theory. Meredith was focused on her scam.”

  “They both used computers,” Leonora offered.

  “For entirely different purposes.” Thomas waved that aside. “Trust me, Deke checked out that angle. He crawled through every inch of Bethany’s hard drive after she died. Ditto for all the stuff he downloaded from Meredith’s computer. Nothing. Maybe now that you’re here, he’ll be able to make sense out of that book and those clippings Meredith left in the safe-deposit—”

  A man’s voice, angry and petulant, rose from a neighboring table.

  “I want to go home, damn it. Now.”

  Thomas did not have to look around to identify the voice. Everyone in the café was being very careful not to look at the table next to the fireplace.

  “Osmond Kern,” he said very quietly.

  “I feel sorry for his daughter. She looks mortified. Not to mention scared. She doesn’t know how to handle the situation.”

  “Rumor has it Kern’s drinking problem has been getting worse in recent months.”

  “The hell with you.” Kern’s voice rose another notch. “You sound just like your mother. Leave me alone, damn it.”

  He shoved his chair back and lurched to his feet.

  “Dad, please, sit down.” Elissa’s voice was soft and hoarse with humiliation.

  “Stay here if you want,” Kern growled, slurring the words. “I’m leaving.”

  He swung around and nearly fell.

  “Dad, wait.” Elissa rose quickly. “I’ll help you.”

  “Shut up and leave me alone.”

  The tension in the café was palpable as everyone studiously ignored the unfolding scene.

  “I’ll be right back,” Thomas said quietly to Leonora.

  She watched him with a troubled expression, but she said nothing.

  He got to his feet and crossed the room to where Kern was swaying like a wounded bull trying to find the matador. He took the professor’s arm and steered him toward the front door.

  “Let me give you a hand, Dr. Kern.”

  “What?” Kern glared at him, confused and angry. “You’re Deke Walker’s brother, aren’t you? Crazy bastard. Let go of my arm.”

  “Sure. Just as soon as we get outside.”

  He had Kern halfway across the room. The hostess rushed to open the front door and gave him a look of sincere gratitude.

  Elissa grabbed her purse and hurried after them.

  Kern was too befuddled to resist.

  Outside on the sidewalk the cold night air seemed to have a calming effect. Kern subsided into a sulking silence. Elissa gave Thomas a shaky smile.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m very sorry about this. I’ll take him home now.”

  “Can you handle him?” Thomas asked.

  “Yes. When I get him home he’ll fall asleep. In the morning we’ll both pretend nothing happened.”

  She took Kern’s arm and guided him toward a dark SUV parked at the curb. Kern muttered, but he allowed himself to be stuffed into the front seat.

  Thomas waited until Elissa got behind the wheel, started the big vehicle and drove off down the street before he went back into the restaurant.

  Leonora was waiting for him, an enigmatic expression in her vivid eyes.

  “It was very kind of you to help her,” she said when he sat down across from her.

  “That’s me, Mr. Fixit,” he said.

  “There’s no need to brush it off that way. It was a genuinely nice thing that you did.”

  He looked at the door of the restaurant. “Kern was a colleague of Bethany’s. She admired his accomplishments in the field of mathematics. Practically idolized him, according to Deke. She wouldn’t have wanted to see him humiliate himself or his daughter in public.”

  “It’s getting worse.” Elissa got Osmond through the door of his bedroom. She was shaking now. Her heart was pounding and her breathing was shallow. She could barely contain her rage and frustration. But she knew from previous experience that losing her temper would do no good. “You’ve got to stop the drinking, Dad. You’re killing yourself.”

  “It’s my own business.” Osmond dropped down onto the bed and turned his head toward the wall. “If I want to kill myself, I will.”

  “Please, don’t talk like that.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “I think you should talk to your doctor. Or maybe see a therapist.”

  “What do you know about any of this? Get out of here and leave me alone.”

  The helplessness threatened to swamp her in a sea of despair. There was no point talking to him anymore tonight.

  She went out into the hall and quietly closed the bedroom door.

  It had been a mistake to come back here. She knew that now. What had made her think that she could establish a relationship with the distant man who was her father? Osmond Kern was not interested in family bonds. He lived in a time warp. The singular, defining event of his life had occurred all those years ago when he had published the algorithm and established his reputation.

  Nothing else had ever mattered to him, not even his daughter.

  If she had any sense she would leave Wing Cove and go back to her life as a financial analyst in Phoenix.

  Every time she started to pack, however, she thought of Ed. Strong, dependable, reliable Ed. She did not know if he would ever see her as anything more than a friend, but she could not stand the thought of leaving town until she knew the answer to that question.

  She went slowly along the hall to the door of Osmond’s study and stood looking into the room that seemed to contain the essence of her father.

  The plaque he had received for his work in mathematics hung on the wall. His computer sat on his desk. The bookcase was crammed with volumes and notebooks.

  There were few personal effects. No pictures of her or her mother. He had not kept any of the cards or letters that she had sent to him over the years.

  She sat down in his chair and looked at the computer. She wondered how he had invested the money he had made from his work on the algorithm. He had certainly not asked her to help him with his finances, although she was very good at that kind of thing. She knew that she was not the mathematical genius that he was, but she had gotten some of his talent for numbers.

  What had he done with the money?

  Curiosity made her reach out and boot up the computer.

  Chapter Six

  Wrench greeted them at the door. He had a length of badly gnawed rope in his mouth. He dropped it at Leonora’s feet and sat back proudly on his haunches.

  “It’s a very nice rope, Wrench.” Gingerly she picked it up by one end, trying to avoid the section that had been soaked with dog slobber. “Thank you.”

>   Pleased that his gift had been accepted, Wrench prowled back toward the living room.

  Leonora followed. And stopped short when she realized that the entire space was infused with warmth and light and rich, vibrant color. Stunned, she halted in the center of the living room and turned slowly on her heel, examining every surface.

  “This is incredible.” She had her back to Thomas but she could feel him watching her. “Who did all the tile work?”

  “I did. Went a little over the top but it’s a small space. Didn’t take long to cover it.”

  She crossed to the nearest wall and ran her fingertips lightly over the thickly applied yellow-gold plaster. Wrench padded after her and leaned heavily against her leg. She patted him again. He leaned a little more heavily. She looked up and saw a handsome crown molding defining the line where wall and ceiling met.

  There was an uncanny depth to all the finishes in the room. The palette would have done credit to a Renaissance architect, she thought. The small house was a beautifully cut and polished gem.

  “Did you do all of this work?” she asked.

  Thomas shrugged. “It’s a hobby. Part-time job. I buy fixer-uppers and remodel them.”

  “This is more than a hobby or a part-time job. This is art.”

  He smiled and went around the end of the counter.

  “How can you bear to put it on the market?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t put my houses on the market. Not usually.”

  “You don’t sell them?”

  “They all sell. In their own good time. But I rarely have to go looking for buyers. The houses always seem to find their own owners. The right ones.”

  “Is this how you make your living?” She walked to the counter and sat down on a stool.

  “Only a small part of it. In my real life I manage money.”

  “Whose money?”

  “The money Deke and I made when he sold his software firm a few years ago. I had a big stake in it because I had provided the venture capital.”

  “I see.” She waved a hand at the interior of the house. “Where did you learn to do this kind of work?”

  “My father was a contractor. My mother was an artist. I got some weird combination of their genes, I guess.”