The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(72)

“The best inventions are borne out of strife, Philip.” Nellie leaned back in her chair. “Why do you think I built this company? Because I’m an innately ambitious person, or because I feel compelled to correct some intolerable imbalance from my past?”

“I wouldn’t attempt to understand your motives, Nellie. But I promise to read your memoirs.”

“You ready to move on?” she asked.

With a click of a button, the numbers vanished along with their wagging tongues, and in their place appeared a map of Los Angeles County, perforated with colored dots. Each one held a string of numbers: time code.

“You created this from the equation?”

“Oh, no. We’re not that far along yet. Your father left this for us. A gift.”

“For you to steal.”

“For us to find,” she corrected him. “The dots are for the month of November. They stop after that. The green ones have been confirmed by us; blue, unconfirmed.”

“And you’re saying this actually works?” As Philip heard himself pose this question, he could suddenly see a terrible future spinning out before him, one in which control and certainty ruled every aspect of their lives. He shuddered.

“It works exceedingly better than the LAPD’s medieval attempts at crime forecasting. We still have work to do, of course.”

“And the red?” He silently counted nine red dots.

“Those are happening today.”

“How are you verifying these?”

“Police scanners, blotters, internet, newspapers. But often we need to verify them on the scene. That’s when I send someone. I believe you know him.”

“Someone I know is working on this?”

She smiled. “When you join us, I will happily reveal his identity.”

He shifted in his chair, checking his mental Rolodex for a possible traitor.

Nellie flicked a laser pen at points around the city. “The Whittier dot has a time code of early this morning, and Culver City”—she glanced at her phone—“twenty minutes ago. Which, incidentally, my guy has just confirmed. A domestic murder. Very sad.”

Philip stared, stunned by her nonchalance. “If these dots are accurate, if people are going to die, why not do something about it?”

“What do you suggest we do? Run around the city playing superhero?”

“Why not?”

“Don’t be funny.” Nellie clicked off her laser pen. “Our task now is to verify the equation’s power and limits. Only then can we begin to decide what to do with the information.”

Philip squinted at the map, straining to read the dots. “Tell that to the person who’s going to die downtown this evening. Or the one this afternoon in the Angeles National Forest.”

“I should add,” she said, ignoring his last remark, “that your father distinguished murders from homicides. All murders are homicides, but not necessarily the reverse. Murder requires intent, of course, while homicides can include involuntary manslaughter. Drunk driving, for instance, doesn’t figure into Isaac’s equation. In the end, it really comes down to intent.”

“And suicides?”

“Ah,” she said. “In order to create a true murder map, your father tried his best to cancel them out. Not that a suicide map wouldn’t be useful on its own, but he wanted the option to filter them. Unfortunately, he never got to it.”

“So his equation can’t tell the difference?”

Nellie shook her head. “When it comes to a distinction between the two, the equation is blind.” She peered at the map. “But then, suicide is murder, isn’t it? It’s in the etymology of the word, after all.”

He frowned. “Then this means that my father’s own—”

“Yes,” she said. For the first time that day, he detected something in her voice that sounded close to regret: “It means that Isaac’s own death was predicted by the equation.”

Philip was silent for a moment as he tried to reconcile all he knew of his father—and his apparent suicide—with this new information. Just as an unsettling scenario opened up before him, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He saw that he had somehow missed three calls, one from the house and two from his sister-in-law’s cell phone.

“Something the matter?” Nellie asked.

He stood up. “I need to make a call.”

A minute later, he was back upstairs in her study. As he headed past the lioness, he couldn’t help but glance again at the rifle case. He’d always had a visceral reaction to guns, but at that moment they held a particular dread or a kind of warning: hurry, hurry, hurry. Philip pulled his eyes from the weapons and left the room.

In the waiting area, he hunted for a signal. He found a couple of bars near the window, and as he looked out over the water, the sky threatening rain, he dialed Faye.

She picked up immediately. “Is Jane with you?”

“Why would she be with me?” he asked.

“It’s just that after dropping the twins off at their lesson, she never came back. We were supposed to go to yoga an hour ago. She’s not picking up her phone.”

“Did you two fight?”

A sigh. “She said I was smothering her, but it’s nothing she hasn’t said before.”