The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(86)
Much like herself, Isaac had been an early riser, the type who just couldn’t wait to get started on his day, even if it was the day he was to die. Why Nellie had picked the morning of October 17 to drop in on the Beachwood Canyon house unannounced, she couldn’t say. She hadn’t picked the day for any particular reason. How could she have known there was a dot on Isaac’s map corresponding to the date and time of her arrival? She knew only that she was tired of having Isaac followed and was getting exasperated by the chase. She had hoped instead to throw him off balance with an impromptu visit, to further woo the man she had fiercely come to admire—as one admires a distant, brilliant father—and to woo the mathematics that came with him.
There had been no answer at his house. She knew that Isaac wasn’t asleep because she could make out a light inside and hear the Baroque precision of keyboard music. When she tried the knob, she found the door was unlocked, and, well, she just couldn’t help herself. What had she been planning to do exactly? Storm his office? Plunder his files? Plead? Threaten? She had no plan, but she pushed open the door and stepped inside. A light from the kitchen fell across the dark floor. A cheerful Bach suite issued from speakers somewhere to her left. The place smelled of toast.
“Mr. Severy?” she called. Then louder, “Mr. Severy!”
She moved in the direction of the light, floorboards cracking beneath her. In the kitchen, she found a pot of cooling water on the stove and a ladle lying on top. She felt cool air on her skin and turned. The patio door was partly open. She walked over to it, peered outside, but it was still too dark to see.
“Mr. Severy?”
A sound came from somewhere at the end of the yard—a stirring, and the lapping of water.
Then he spoke: “Good morning. Join me for breakfast?”
His voice was calm, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to break into his house. Now it was Nellie who was thrown off balance.
“I would love some breakfast,” she replied as coolly as she could manage. She reached out with her right hand for the patio light switch, but couldn’t locate it. “Are we to eat in the dark, then?”
“Whatever you like. It’s entirely up to you, Nellie.”
A few seconds elapsed. Her fingers moved along the wall until they found the cool metal plate of the switch. It had been placed unusually far from the door, and she had to lean slightly to reach it. It was one of those old push-button switches. She pressed the top button, like a doorbell, and in this simple, nothing movement, something terrible happened. There was a bright flash and a sound, like a burst of lightning and thunder. Then darkness again.
The Bach had stopped, as if on cue. For some reason—instinct, maybe—she looked at her watch. It was five minutes before six, a time that would be imprinted on her mind forever.
“Mr. Severy?” she called. Then, softly, “Isaac?”
She knew there would be no answer. She couldn’t see a thing, but she knew what she had done.
Using the flashlight on her phone to light the way, she slid open the patio door and stepped into the crisp morning air. At her feet, an extension cord snaked from the patio outlet, across the grass, and finally to a platform that housed a whirlpool tub. As she made her way across the yard, she could smell it: the odor of burnt flesh and hair. She pointed the light at the still smoking water, where Isaac sat, head bowed to his lap and to a snarl of string lights.
She blinked at his silent gray head, which, unlike her African game—her lioness, her zebra, her antelope—would not be moving again. Not in twenty minutes, not ever. She had pulled the trigger on a taser gun of Isaac’s own making.
To anyone happening upon the scene, of course, it would look as if he had done it all himself. But if that was his intention, why hadn’t he? With an equation that didn’t discriminate between murder and suicide, why involve her at all? But the answer came to her instantly: because he trusted the Reaper to arrive at the appointed time. He needed him to, whatever form he ended up taking. The ultimate affirmation of Isaac’s life’s work had been his own death.
She turned to the café table. On the side nearest the water, there was a splash of tea left in a cup, a single triangle of toast, and the neat husk of an egg cradled in its holder. On the other side was a second breakfast, untouched. For an insane instant, Nellie considered sampling from the plate he had prepared so carefully for her, though she knew this was unwise. Besides, she felt sick, as she had never felt sick in her life. That smell. After wiping her fingerprints from the patio door, light switch, and front doorknob—just to be safe—Nellie returned to her car. She would drive herself to Malibu and go about her day as if she had never been there at all. She could halt her quest for the equation for twenty-four hours, at least—she certainly respected the man enough not to ransack his house as his corpse lay in the yard—but Isaac’s death only made his mathematics more precious to her.
Now Nellie straightened at her library window. Philip’s Subaru appeared and stopped in front of the house. He emerged. Perhaps it was best that he had turned down the offer to work for her, however much she might have liked to add another Severy to the company, at least to replace the one she’d lost. In any case, Philip had proven useful as an unwitting talent scout, packaging Anitka Durov as a kind of substitute. Philip needn’t ever know, of course, that Nellie had already recruited Ms. Durov months ago for a far less glamorous job: keeping an eye on him and reporting what she found. Anitka had been grateful for the money, but this was before she had fallen in love with Philip, at which point the reports stopped, forcing Nellie to fall back on more commonplace modes of surveillance. Sure, romance was only natural in the course of a young person’s life, but Nellie had learned that intimacy was a thing best avoided if one was to get anything done.