The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(47)

Philip turned and smiled down on her, his eyes even redder than before. He blinked rapidly, as if trying to loosen something from his eyes. “Sorry, don’t mean to speechify, it’s just—” Before she could tell her uncle it was all right, that she was, in fact, glad they were talking (flattered, really, that he would reveal such thoughts to her), his gaze darted past her to the other end of the living room, where the twins had begun a ragtime duet on the piano. They had clearly taken lessons, but they had no sense of rhythm, and the resulting commotion was jarring. “Excuse me, will you?” With a quick squeeze of her shoulder, Philip left to ask his sons to select a piece more appropriate for the occasion.

A second later, Fritz Dornbach was standing in Philip’s place. He looked tired and bloated, possibly fending off a hangover. “Unspeakable thing, isn’t it?” He looked out the window at the same child, who was now battling an exasperating amount of friction on her way down the slide.

Hazel nodded. “Terrible.”

Silas and Sidney began to pick their way through Chopin’s funeral dirge.

“I have this vague recollection,” Fritz said, “that you wanted to talk to me about something on Halloween.”

“Oh, did I?” Hazel was starting to feel embarrassed at all her clumsy attempts to gather information. “I don’t remember. I was drinking quite a bit.”

“I know the feeling,” he said, suddenly patting his jacket pockets. “I have something for you, you know.” He located a folded piece of paper, one of those old-fashioned slips for jotting down messages. “Frankly, I’m a little tired of this guy tying up the phone lines.”

Hazel unfolded the note.

Urgent

For: Hazel Severy

From: Prof. L. F. Richardson

Message: George C. Page Museum Theater @ 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14. Please come alone.

“Professor Richardson?”

“You know him?”

Hazel now wished she hadn’t shredded that earlier note. “Did he leave his number?”

“No, he was way more interested in getting your cell number, which we didn’t give him.”

Hazel’s head began to ache.

“Fritz?”

“Hmm?”

“How did Richardson know I’d be in town?”

“Oh, well, he was very persuasive, and he did say he was a good friend of Isaac’s. Did I forget to mention that? He also had some kind of accent, in case that’s relevant.” Fritz coughed. “Page Museum . . . Isn’t that the tar pits?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I should go with you, in case he tries to push you into a bog.”

Hazel frowned and dropped her voice to a near whisper. “I maybe remember what I wanted to ask you on Halloween.” The truth was that she didn’t know until it came out of her mouth: “How do you think Isaac died?”

Fritz’s expression changed to one of surprise. He let a few seconds go by before answering, “Maybe he was very sad, and none of us could see it. That can happen, but . . .” He frowned. “There was always more going on with Isaac than he let on. Don’t you agree, Hazel?”

*

That night, back at her brother’s house, after a quick search on his computer, she found the only professor by the name of Richardson with whom her grandfather might have been acquainted: Lewis Fry Richardson. From what Hazel could gather, he was quite famous and had several fan pages of the nerdy, poorly designed variety. He was an English mathematician-meteorologist and a pioneer of mathematical weather prediction, an ambitious field with as-yet-lackluster results. Richardson was also an early pioneer of chaos theory, along with meteorologist Edward Lorenz, the latter of whom coined the ubiquitous term butterfly effect to refer to minuscule events having far-flung consequences. (An insect twitches in China; weeks later, a man’s hat blows off in Bermuda.) Yes, this was exactly the kind of person her grandfather would have befriended, and exactly the kind of man who would be interested in Isaac’s most recent work, save for one detail: Lewis Fry Richardson had been dead for sixty years.





–?16?–


The Leave


Dear Professor Severy,

Please accept my sincerest condolences on the loss of your daughter. Though I never had the pleasure of meeting Sybil, I have no doubt that she was as remarkable a person as her father and grandfather. True brilliance, after all, is a hereditary monarchy—as I think someone brilliant once said.

I cannot imagine the extent of your pain, but please know that you and your family are in my thoughts. Perhaps you find my concern somewhat odd considering that we have not, in fact, properly met, and that our most recent meeting was suspended. But I had a great fondness for your father, and that fondness extends to the entire Severy family.

Do not hesitate to let my office know if there is anything I can do to be of service to you during this very sad time. I say this without any hope of gain, but simply as an unlikely friend.

Sympathies,

P. Booth Lyons

The note irritated Philip more each time he read it. It had been written on fine letterhead, with the precision of one clearly devoted to the art of cursive. As his eyes passed over the lines, he could almost picture Nellie taking dictation at her desk, her boss pacing in front of her with all the self-importance of a big-game hunter, the dough of his neck rising over his oxford collar. “I had great affection for your father—no, strike that—fondness for your father. Did you get that, Ms. Stone?”