Think Of a Number (2010) (2 page)

Madeleine peered over his shoulder at the computer screen. “How can you work on something so ugly on a day like this?” she asked.

D
avid and Madeleine Gurney lived in a sturdy nineteenth-century farmhouse, nestled in the corner of a secluded pasture at the end of a dead-end road in the Delaware County hills five miles outside the village of Walnut Crossing. The ten-acre pasture was surrounded by woods of cherry, maple, and oak.

The house retained its original architectural simplicity. During the year they’d owned it, the Gurneys had restored to a more appropriate appearance the previous owner’s unfortunate updates—replacing, for example, bleak aluminum windows with wood-framed versions that possessed the divided-light style of an earlier century. They did it not out of a mania for historical authenticity but in recognition that the original aesthetics had somehow been
right
. This matter of how one’s home should look and feel was one of the subjects on which Madeleine and David were in complete harmony—a list that, it seemed to him, had lately been shrinking.

This thought had been eating like acid at his mood most of the day, activated by his wife’s comment about the ugliness of the portrait he was working on. It was still at the edge of his consciousness that afternoon when, dozing in his favorite Adirondack chair after the tulip-planting activity, he became aware of Madeleine’s footsteps brushing toward him through the ankle-high grass. When the footsteps stopped in front of his chair, he opened one eye.

“Do you think,” she said in her calm, light way, “it’s too late to
take the canoe out?” Her voice positioned the words deftly between a question and a challenge.

Madeleine was a slim, athletic forty-five-year-old who could easily be mistaken for thirty-five. Her eyes were frank, steady, appraising. Her long brown hair, with the exception of a few errant strands, was pulled up under her broad-brimmed straw gardening hat.

He responded with a question from his own train of thought. “Do you really think it’s ugly?”

“Of course it’s ugly,” she said without hesitation. “Isn’t it supposed to be?”

He frowned as he considered her comment. “You mean the subject matter?” he asked.

“What else would I mean?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You sounded a bit contemptuous of the whole thing—the execution as well as the subject matter.”

“Sorry.”

She didn’t seem sorry. As he teetered on the edge of saying so, she changed the subject.

“Are you looking forward to seeing your old classmate?”

“Not exactly,” he said, adjusting the reclining back of his chair a notch lower. “I’m not big on recollections of times past.”

“Maybe he’s got a murder for you to solve.”

Gurney looked at his wife, studied the ambiguity of her expression. “You think that’s what he wants?” he asked blandly.

“Isn’t that what you’re famous for?” Anger was beginning to stiffen her voice.

It was something he’d witnessed in her often enough in recent months that he thought he understood what it was about. They had different notions of what his retirement from the job was supposed to mean, what kind of changes it was supposed to make in their lives, and, more specifically, how it was supposed to change
him
. Recently, too, ill feeling had been growing around his new avocation—the portraits-of-murderers project that was absorbing his time. He suspected that Madeleine’s negativity in this area might be partly related to Sonya’s enthusiasm.

“Did you know he’s famous, too?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Your classmate.”

“Not really. He said something on the phone about writing a book, and I checked on it briefly. I wouldn’t have thought he was well known.”

“Two
books,” said Madeleine. “He’s the director of some sort of institute in Peony, and he did a series of lectures that ran on PBS. I printed out copies of the book jackets from the Internet. You might want to take a look at them.”

“I assume he’ll tell me all there is to know about himself and his books. He doesn’t sound shy.”

“Have it your way. I left the copies on your desk, if you change your mind. By the way, Kyle phoned earlier.”

He stared at her silently.

“I said you’d get back to him.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, more testily than he intended. His son didn’t call often.

“I asked him if I should get you. He said he didn’t want to disturb you, it wasn’t really urgent.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No.”

She turned and walked across the thick, moist grass toward the house. When she reached the side door and put her hand on the knob, she seemed to remember something else, looked back at him, and spoke with exaggerated bafflement. “According to the book jacket, your old classmate seems to be a saint, perfect in every way. A guru of good behavior. It’s hard to imagine why he’d need to consult a homicide detective.”

“A
retired
homicide detective,” corrected Gurney.

But she’d already gone in and neglected to cushion the slam of the door.

T
he following day was more exquisite than the day before. It was the picture of October in a New England calendar. Gurney rose at 7:00
A.M.
, showered and shaved, put on jeans and a light cotton sweater, and was having his coffee in a canvas chair on the bluestone patio outside their downstairs bedroom. The patio and the French doors leading to it were additions he’d made to the house at Madeleine’s urging.

She was good at that sort of thing, had a sensitive eye for what was possible, what was appropriate. It revealed a lot about her—her positive instincts, her practical imagination, her unfailing taste. But when he got tangled in their areas of contention—the mires and brambles of the expectations each privately cultivated—he found it difficult to focus on her remarkable strengths.

He must remember to return Kyle’s call. He would have to wait three hours because of the time difference between Walnut Crossing and Seattle. He settled deeper into his chair, cradling his warm coffee mug in both hands.

He glanced at the slim folder he’d brought out with his coffee and tried to imagine the appearance of the college classmate he hadn’t seen for twenty-five years. The photo that appeared on the book jackets that Madeleine printed out from a bookstore website refreshed his recollection not only of the face but of the personality—complete
with the vocal timbre of an Irish tenor and a smile that was improbably charming.

When they were undergraduates at Fordham’s Rose Hill campus in the Bronx, Mark Mellery was a wild character whose spurts of humor and truth, energy and ambition were colored by something darker. He had a tendency to walk close to the edge—a sort of careening genius, simultaneously reckless and calculating, always on the brink of a downward spiral.

According to his website bio, the direction of the spiral, which had taken him down rapidly in his twenties, had been reversed in his thirties by some sort of dramatic spiritual transformation.

Balancing his coffee mug on the narrow wooden arm of the chair, Gurney opened the folder on his lap, extracted the e-mail he’d received from Mellery a week earlier, and went over it again, line by line.

The promised call had come two days later. Gurney had immediately recognized the voice, eerily unchanged except for a distinct tremor of anxiety.

After some self-deprecating remarks about his failure to stay in touch, Mellery got to the point. Could he see Gurney within the next few days? The sooner the better, since the “situation” was urgent. Another “development” had occurred. It really was impossible to discuss over the phone, as Gurney would understand when they met. There were things Mellery had to show him. No, it wasn’t a matter
for the local police, for reasons he’d explain when he came. No, it wasn’t a legal matter, not yet, anyway. No crime had been committed, nor was one being specifically threatened—not that he could prove. Lord, it was so difficult to talk about it this way; it would be so much easier in person. Yes, he realized that Gurney was not in the private-investigation business. But just half an hour—could he have half an hour?

With the mixed feelings he’d had from the beginning, Gurney agreed. His curiosity often got the better of his reticence; in this instance he was curious about the hint of hysteria lurking in the undertone of Mellery’s mellifluous voice. And, of course, a puzzle to be deciphered attracted him more powerfully than he cared to admit.

A
fter rereading the e-mail a third time, Gurney put it back in the folder and let his mind wander over the recollections it stirred up from the back bins of his memory: the morning classes in which Mellery had looked hungover and bored, his gradual coming to life in the afternoon, his wild Irish jabs of wit and insight in the wee hours fueled by alcohol. He was a natural actor, undisputed star of the college dramatic society—a young man who, however full of life he might be at the Shamrock Bar, was doubly alive on the stage. He was a man who depended on an audience—a man who was drawn up to his full height only in the nourishing light of admiration.

Gurney opened the folder and glanced through the e-mail yet again. He was bothered by Mellery’s depiction of their relationship. The contact between them had been less frequent, less significant, less friendly than Mellery’s words suggested. But he got the impression that Mellery had chosen his words carefully—that despite its simplicity, the note had been written and rewritten, pondered and edited—and that the flattery, like everything else in the letter, was purposeful. But what was the purpose? The obvious one was to ensure Gurney’s agreement to a face-to-face meeting and to engage him in the solution of whatever “mystery” had arisen. Beyond that, it was hard to say. The problem was clearly important to Mellery—which
would explain the time and attention he had apparently lavished on getting the flow and feeling of his sentences just right, on conveying a certain mix of warmth and distress.

There was also the small matter of the “P.S.” In addition to subtly challenging him with the suggestion that he might be defeated by the puzzle, whatever it was, it also appeared to obstruct an easy exit route, to vitiate any claim Gurney might be tempted to make that he was not in the private-investigation business or would not be likely to be helpful. The thrust of its wording was to characterize any reluctance to meet as a rude dismissal of an old friend.

Oh, yes, it was carefully crafted.

Carefulness
. That was something new, wasn’t it? Definitely not a cornerstone quality of the old Mark Mellery.

This apparent change interested Gurney.

On cue, Madeleine came out through the back door and walked about two-thirds of the way to where Gurney was sitting.

“Your guest has arrived,” she announced flatly.

“Where is he?”

“In the house.”

He looked down. An ant was zigzagging along the arm of his chair. He sent it flying with a sharp flick of his fingernail.

“Ask him to come out here,” he said. “It’s too nice to be indoors.”

“It is, isn’t it?” she said, making the comment sound both poignant and ironic. “By the way, he looks exactly like his picture on the book jacket—even more so.”

“Even more so? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She was already returning to the house and did not answer.

M
ark Mellery took long strides through the soft grass. He approached Gurney as if planning to embrace him, but something made him reconsider.