The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(50)

“I can take them now, thanks. Sorry, with everything going on, I’d completely forgotten about clearing out his stuff.”

“Please,” she said, helping him gather the boxes. “I was happy to have the great Isaac Severy occupy my workspace for a time.”

The boxes were heavy; Philip’s muscles ached just from the short walk to the parking lot. He loaded them into the trunk of his car and tried to tell himself that the forced entry was a coincidence. Nothing had been taken, after all. But then, how would anyone know? He lifted the lid of the top box to reveal a collection of discolored newspaper clippings.

The articles were all from Southern California papers, mostly the LA Times, their dates spanning decades. “Film Producer Dies in Freak Yard Accident.” “Man Electrocuted in Pool, Faulty Wiring Blamed.” “Man Drowns off El Segundo Beach.” “Static Electricity Turns Man into Human Torch.” “Father Dies Locked in Own Refrigerator.” “Family Car Rolls Backward onto Mother.” Some of the articles were flagged with a red Sharpie.

Isaac had been a nut for these sorts of gruesome incidents. As Philip recalled the similarly grim clippings that littered his father’s house, he felt an urgent pulse travel up the back of his neck, followed by a phantom strobe of light. These auras happened more frequently now, which led him to suspect his migraines were evolving in some way, finding means to outwit his medication.

He shut the trunk and ferreted his pill bottle out of the glove compartment. Philip had managed to convince his doctor to up his prescription significantly, allowing him to accumulate a decent stockpile, but his Subaru reserve would need replenishing. There was a single pill left, and as he tipped the bottle over like a liquor shot, he felt the very image of an upmarket junkie. A highbrow, tweedy version of Tom.

Glancing up briefly to make sure no one had seen this undignified move, he noticed a black town car with opaque windows parked in a corner of the lot, facing out. As he felt the pill slide down his throat, he was overwhelmed by the suspicion that he was being watched, and had been for days.

A second later, he saw Nellie Stone in a black brim hat and sunglasses cutting across the parking lot toward the town car. Philip quickly ducked behind the wheel to avoid detection, but something made him look back in the direction from which she had come. In the shadow of the physics building, he could make out Andrei Kuchek standing there. His colleague wore an irritated expression and clutched a pile of books to his chest, as if it were armor. Kuchek took one last look in Nellie’s direction, mumbled something to himself, and hurried back inside.

Philip felt his anger returning. Letters from Lyons he could ignore, but these repeated intrusions into his life? Nellie had left several messages on his phone the past week, all of which he had deleted without listening to.

When the town car had pulled out of the lot and was gone, Philip locked up his car and tracked Kuchek to the faculty lounge, where he poured his colleague a cup of coffee and asked him about the encounter.

“What did she say, Andrei? Was this the first time she’s approached you?”

Kuchek was typically unresponsive.

“Did you hear what I said, Andrei? Andrei.”

Kuchek dropped his pencil and answered in his strong Czech accent, “I told her you were on leave. Pushy woman. Why don’t you ask her what she wants yourself? I haven’t the time.”

“I know, Andrei. Don’t worry, I’ll see that she doesn’t bother you again.”

Kuchek picked up his pencil and, in a rare moment of curiosity about someone not connected to his work, asked, “Who is she?”

“Someone who knew my father,” Philip said. “If you see her again, please don’t speak to her.”

On his circuitous way back to the parking lot, Philip found himself standing on the modernist footbridge of the Millikan Reflecting Pool in the fading sunlight. He wasn’t sure why he’d come this way; he felt ridiculous on this tiny bridge, like a character in a storybook. He knew he should go home to Jane. He knew he should make time to have a closer look at his father’s boxes. But he felt so inert, as if he were waiting for something to happen—and then it did.

Philip jumped slightly at the sound of her voice.

“I wanted to say how sorry I was about your daughter. I hope you got my card.”

He turned. Anitka stood at one end of the bridge, wearing a saffron-yellow cardigan and striped scarf, a look more New Haven than Pasadena, and her face was strangely blank—no, unhappy. He had never seen her look sad before, and it stirred something protective in him.

“I was on my way to the library. Good to see you.”

“Anitka—”

She stopped.

“Your dissertation. How’s it coming?”

“Still looking for an advisor,” she said with forced cheer. “I have feelers out to John Britton.”

Philip felt the familiar twinge of professional envy. “And how is Great Britton taking your attack on his work?”

“He hasn’t responded, exactly.” She began to step away. “Walk me to the library?”

They started down the tree-lined path in the direction of the Athenaeum, and in a rising sensation of déjà vu, Philip realized this was the second time they had walked this way together. His preoccupation with Anitka had dimmed dramatically since Sybil’s death, to the point where he was sure he had conquered his mania entirely. But he now knew that whatever Anitka had injected into his bloodstream, his recent grief was not an inoculation, just an aggravating course of antibiotics. They overshot the library. Neither of them mentioned it, and they soon found themselves in the quiet of the adjoining neighborhood.