Ridley Pearson - Killer Summer

“And?”

“He left his pants.”

“Excuse me?” Finch said.

“Remy left his pants in the emergency room. Was driven home in a pair of hospital scrubs. One too many painkillers, and he spaced out and forgot his pants. The pants, and their contents, were turned over to me. I’m required to do an inventory, and, as it happens, the card was in his pocket. I’d seen it before. This office has every intention of returning Mr. Remy’s belongings. We have been in communication with him, and it was agreed I would pass along his things when I see him tonight at the auction.”

“Holy shit! Did he ask about the card?”

“Not a word. I’m sure he didn’t want to attract my attention to it.”

“Who says there’s no God?” Finch said.

“Other than the photographs, we can document the test results, right?” Walt said.

“Of course,” Levy said, still making adjustments on what appeared to be some complicated electronics.

“I’d rather have a spectrometer,” Finch said. Wearing cotton gloves, she viewed the labels with a loupe, and, as she did, she made noises like she was in the throes of really good sex.

“Trust me,” Levy said, “the piezoelectric effect is just as conclusive. We can measure density, size, clamped capacitance, and low-field dissipation.”

“English?” Walt said.

“She can determine the pattern of any microfractures,” Levy said. “Listen, we wouldn’t have this gear if I didn’t know what I was doing. It was donated by the father of one of our students after we found those pottery shards out at Muldoon. Remember? The mine cave-in? The piezoelectric effect was the cheapest way to determine if it was authentically Native American without sending the shards out to a lab, which would have cost aplenty.” He laughed one of his laughs. “Turned out they were common gardening pots. But, hey, I got the equipment donated, so who’s complaining?”

“The results will have to be verified,” Finch reminded. “No offense, but they’re not going to take the word of a grad student and a school principal.”

“Alternative-school principal,” Levy corrected. “And I taught science for twelve years. And graduated from MIT, don’t forget.”

Finch didn’t comment.

“Do you know someone?” Walt asked.

“I can ask one of my professors to examine the data we collect,” Finch said. “There will definitely be someone on campus who can do this.”

“But not before the auction?”

“Doubtful,” Finch said, “it being a weekend and all. But, who knows? These bottles are famous. I can think of a couple people who would jump at a chance to examine them.”

“I can try Lowry, at MIT,” Levy said, “there’s always a chance…”

“Dr. Lowry would do it,” Finch told Walt. “If he signed off on this, no one would dispute it.” She flattered Walt with a look. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Don’t mistake this as benevolence,” Walt said. “Those bottles are evidence in a homicide. If they’re fakes, that impacts the investigation. It’s something I need to know.”

“I would so love to see you bust Arthur Remy,” Finch said.

“That’s not how it works,” Walt said. “But if Remy is pawning off fakes…” He didn’t finish the thought.

“We’re ready,” Levy said.

He ran nearly the exact same test five times. The glass near the engraving was exposed to ultrahigh sound frequencies that were then measured from different places on the bottles. A laptop computer crunched the data, displaying it as a color-coded graph that Levy studied and then saved before repeating the test.

At the conclusion of the tests, Levy looked up from the laptop, wearing a grave expression. “The microfractures are random,” he said.

“I knew it!” Janet Finch looked as if she’d won the lottery.

“That’s good?” Walt asked Levy.

“They’re fakes,” said Finch, smiling widely.

As Summer heard the television switch off, she braced herself for the confrontation. Like a heavyweight fighter before the bout, she lowered her head, closed her eyes, and visualized her opponent’s weaknesses, his soft spots, knowing all along that he had the weight advantage.

First, she wanted to see if he would remember that he’d invited her. Supposedly, she was to be his date at the wine-auction dinner, but he tended to forget his offers to her, especially if a better offer came along.

If he did remember, then she intended to incite his anger, exploit his sense of social punctuality with her wet hair and the towel wrapped around her. Seeing her like this he would make impossible demands she couldn’t meet and would then desert her, telling her to catch up-and that was all she needed.

“Summer, are you ready?” he eventually bellowed from the other side of her door. “We don’t want to be late.”

She drew a deep breath and strode into the living room just in the towel, knowing how uncomfortable it would make him. He could barely look at her at the pool. Perhaps he saw her mother in her, or maybe he couldn’t face his daughter as a grown woman, but whatever it was it momentarily gave her the upper hand.

“I’m running a teensy bit behind.”

His face registered horror.

“Sorry. Is twenty minutes okay?”

“Twenty minutes? NO! That’s not okay. I told you ten of seven. It’s already five ’til.”

“Hey, I don’t get all dressed up that often,” she said, changing to a tone of voice she knew he didn’t care for. “Besides, I thought it starts out as a cocktail party, right? So, what’s the big deal? We can be late.”

“We cannot be late! Cocktail hour’s more important to me than the auction.” He drew a deep breath-a bad sign; he was struggling for patience. “You’re important to me. I wanted to show you off.” He sounded so hurt, she loved him for it. “Once we’re sitting down at dinner, we’re stuck with whoever we’re stuck with. But at the cocktail party…”

“Please, go ahead,” she said. “I’ll hurry.”

“I’ll wait.”

“NO!” she barked out too loudly and too quickly.

His parental radar switched on, and she chastised herself for the outburst. He could read her far better than she was willing to admit, and he cared more about her than she let herself believe. His look conveyed all of this, and the guilt it caused her ran up her spine in an icy shiver.

“You’re trying to put together a deal,” she said, “right?”

“I’m always trying to put a deal together, sweetheart.”

He sounded defeated. She resisted feeling any sympathy for him. He had denied her the opportunity of watching Enrico in the semi-finals. He had made her come to Sun Valley with him instead. He’d made her play tennis with him in the mixed doubles, had humiliated her with his poor playing. He deserved what she was about to do to him.

“You go on,” she said. “I’m not real big on cocktail parties, anyway. I mean, what’s the point?”

“I’m sorry if this trip hasn’t lived up to its billing,” he said. “I really thought you’d have a better time than you’ve had.”

“I’m okay.”

“No. I should have had you bring a friend or something. I wasn’t thinking right.”

“I’m fine, Dad.” The guilt now traveled to her throat, where it balled up in an unforgiving knot. She was not going to change her mind about this. She was not going to cry.

“Fact is, things are not going real well moneywise. I think you know that. I think you know I’m going through a rough patch. Times like this, I know we both miss her. Miss her a lot more than we talk about-”

“Don’t.”

“We should talk more, you know? Figure this stuff out together.”