2 Pane of Death (22 page)

“Do you want to get in some furnace time?”

“That would be grand! If it’s no trouble.”

“None at all. Come on through to the studio when you’ve closed out.” I loved to teach glassblowing, and Allison was an apt pupil. Not everyone got it—they were afraid of the heat and the urgency of working the glass, or they were just klutzes and couldn’t coordinate their movements. Allison was competent and efficient, and she even took criticism well and learned from it. I couldn’t ask for more.

Besides which, we really hadn’t had much time alone to talk lately, and I admitted—to myself, at least—a sisterly curiosity about how her relationship with Cam was going. Not that I wanted to pry, but . . . I wanted to pry. I felt responsible for them.

When she appeared, I said, “Okay, grab a pipe and we’ll try a small gather.” Allison knew by now just what I meant, and extracted a hot blowpipe from the pipe warmer and approached the furnace. I slid open the door so she could get at the glowing crucible inside. With an assured motion she collected a blob of glass on the end and pivoted gracefully to take a seat at the bench, keeping the pipe with its load of glass in constant motion.

“Good,” I said. “Now, what’s it going to be?”

“Let’s keep it simple. I still mess up as many as I get right. A tumbler?”

“Fine. Using color?”

“Please. The cobalt blue frit?”

I went to the shelf to retrieve the right frit can and laid it on the marver. “Good to go.” I watched as Allison manipulated the gather, shaping it, giving it a quick puff of air then watching critically for a moment, then shaping again. The glass cooled, and she returned it to the glory hole to reheat.

“You know, I think you’ve got the basic technique down now.”

She nodded, her eyes on the piece. “I hope so. I wish I had more time to work with the glass, but between working in the shop and my classes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.”

“How do you like being in school?”

“I feel like a child in a candy shop—there’s so much I want to learn, although it’s not easy, after so long. I spend so much time doing the reading and the rest of the work.” She swung back to the bench with her glass, turning and watching. “Another gather?” She looked at me, and I nodded. “You know, the advisers there keep telling me I should choose a major or some such nonsense. They want me to have a plan.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity. “Do you want to go for a degree?” I asked carefully.

“I’ve no clue. This is all so new to me. Do I have to decide this very moment?” She went back to the glory hole. “Shall I add the frit now?”

I nodded. She heated the glass briefly, then rolled it in the crushed colored glass, then took it back to the glory hole to fuse the frit to the surface. This part was always kind of fun—you never quite knew what the end result would look like, certainly not while the glass was glowing red. She resumed shaping the piece at the bench.

“Don’t let them pressure you. There’s no hurry.” I paused, then took the plunge. “Have you talked to Cam about this?”

I thought she smiled, although I couldn’t see more than the side of her face. “He thinks whatever I do is wonderful, but he frets at the distance between us. Em, I don’t mean to shilly-shally, but I’m not ready to make up my mind about him either. Is that a problem for you?”

“Hey, I’m not the person to be telling anybody else how to run their lives. My track record isn’t exactly brilliant.”

“You and Matt?” This time I know she smiled. “You’ll work it out.”

She was more confident about that than I was.

Her next question surprised me. “Em, can I ask . . . how do you know when you’re good at something?”

I gave the question the consideration it deserved. Allison had been dominated by her late jerk of a husband for so long that she barely had any ego to speak of, and I wanted to encourage her. “I think that if you love what you’re doing, you’re likely to do it well. Are you talking about glassmaking or other things?”

“I was thinking about taking an art history class, but I wondered . . . who is it that gets to decide that a work of art is good?”

Sometimes I’d wondered that myself. I’d taken the required art history classes when I went back to school for my degree in glasswork, but sometimes it did seem as though the professors kept trotting out the same old favorites, giving short shrift to new artists or movements—or female artists, for that matter. “Society, I guess. I don’t think there’s a simple answer, but the pieces that people love, they preserve. And those artists are encouraged. It used to be that artists—like Michelangelo or da Vinci—would find a patron. That way they knew they’d have steady work, even if they didn’t get to choose their subjects. Economic reality, you know.” I glanced at her piece. “You need help with the transfer?”

“One more round,” she said, going back to the glory hole for another gather of clear glass. The next few minutes were devoted to the choreography of transferring her piece to a different rod, so that she could open it up and make it a vessel. Some people managed to do it solo—I’d done it plenty of times myself—but for a novice it was easier to have help, which I was happy to provide. But it took concentration, which hampered conversation

“And who gets to decide that art is art?” Allison continued, when she had a moment. “I mean, is what you do art? Or something else?”

“Got me. Oh, that’s not to say there isn’t a hierarchy among glassblowers, with the immortal Chihuly at the top, along with a couple of others currently—Lino Tagliapietra, William Morris—and at the bottom end, those poor people who haul minifurnaces around to Renaissance fairs and make cute little things. I’m somewhere in the middle, and that’s fine with me.”

In making a tumbler, it’s necessary to swing the glass back and forth like a giant pendulum, which elongates it into a drinking vessel. Allison knew this, had done it before, but this time something got away from her and the poor thing crumpled into itself, beyond salvage. Allison looked sadly disappointed.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” I reassured her. “Even I mess up now and then. Regularly, in fact. That’s why this isn’t some kind of assembly line—there’s that element of risk. Makes it fun, no?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged as she slid the poor deformed creature into the annealer. Even though it would never be a glass, it still had to cool gradually before we could discard it. Unfortunately there was no salvaging a piece that combined glass types such as clear and frit, and it would end up a murky mess.

“Look, you’ve come a long way in a short time. Don’t beat yourself up because you can’t do everything perfectly. Some things just don’t work out, and it’s not your fault.”

“Like relationships?” She eyed me slyly as she cleaned up her equipment.

“Maybe. You do the best you can, but there are no guarantees.”

“But once it’s broken, you can’t fix it. It’s gone.”

“Unlike relationships,” I said firmly. “At least there you get more than one chance. Like Matt and me.”

 

I had just made it upstairs when the phone rang. “Hey there, you rat,” I said when I picked it up.

“Em, your cell’s off.” It was Cam.

“I was in the studio. You sure took off in a hurry yesterday. I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I really did need to get back here, and this is the first chance I’ve had to call all day.”

“Your departure didn’t have anything to do with avoiding Nat and Matt?”

He chuckled. “The thought had crossed my mind, but I’m sure you handled them brilliantly. Did you get any flak from them?”

I leaned against the counter and sighed. “About what you’d expect. Matt was upset that you got the computer and that Nat shared it with you. He was also annoyed that I knew anything at all about it. We all sat down and made nice, and now they’re best friends. But I’m sure you’ll be hearing from them again. So are you just calling to make sure that they didn’t eat me alive? Oh, and we found Andrew Foster. Actually, I found him, which didn’t make Matt any too happy.”

“But, how . . . ? No, I’ll wait for that explanation. How’s he look as a suspect?”

“I’m not really sure. He spun me a good story about going off into the desert to clear his head, and he was roaring drunk when I ran into him, but he claims that he and Peter had mended their fences. Matt isn’t quite convinced, so he’s keeping him in Tucson for the moment.”

“Huh. I guess we can’t cross him off the list, then. But the reason I called—Em, I found something else interesting in Peter’s computer files, but I haven’t had time to really get into it. But I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

“Really? What?”

“As far as I can tell, he was working on a new algorithm for identification of artworks.”

“Algorithm has too many syllables. What does this mean?”

“I don’t know much about tracking missing art—that’s Nat’s domain—but I think he was developing a program to record art in unique detail. So if it gets stolen, there’d be a definitive and widely accessible record.”

“Wait a minute—doesn’t this already exist? Didn’t Nat tell us about that?”

“Sure, but not at this level of specificity. Nat was talking about the existing tracking and identification programs, but many of those rely on written description, which is subject to interpretation. Peter was working on a visual scanning system that would be much more accurate.”

“Interesting. Was this before he shut down PrismCo?”

“No, I think this was after, something to keep his hand in. And as far as I can tell he was working pro bono. He could afford it.”

“Does Nat know about this program?”

“I can’t say. She didn’t mention it. Maybe she figured I didn’t need to know, but it’s also possible that Peter hadn’t shared it with anyone yet. I told you he was a perfectionist, and I’m sure he wanted to get all the bugs out first.”

I turned over the implications in my head. “Nat told us that art theft is big business in this country—we’re talking millions if not billions, and most of the stuff is never recovered. If Peter, who was actually a player, was coming up with a better way to track art, then the thieves might see him as a threat—but then, they didn’t take his computer, did they?” I shook my head, trying to work out the implications. “Does that mean there were algorithms or whatever for his own pieces?”

Cam chuckled. “Yes, he did record his own collection. Sort of a beta test now, huh?”

“If the pieces ever resurface at all,” I said glumly. “Nat says a lot of them disappear forever.” I had a sudden brain-storm. “Cam, while you’re snooping, could you dig a little deeper into Ian Gemberling?”

“Who?”

“That dealer who sold the glass to Peter originally. He should be in Peter’s files somewhere. Remember I asked you about him a while ago? Your first search came up clean, but I don’t follow the gallery scene much. Anyway, he stopped by the shop, and I had lunch with him today. He said Peter raved about me, and he might want to give me a show.”

“Em, that’s terrific! Why didn’t you say something sooner? You must be thrilled.”

“I guess.” I was surprised at my own lack of enthusiasm, and tried to pump it up. “It would be a real boost for my career, and for the shop.”

“But . . . ?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just naturally pessimistic. I don’t want to get too excited.”

“Em,” he replied patiently, “why do you underestimate yourself? Peter saw your talent, and he happened to mention it to a dealer, who apparently agrees with Peter. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I guess. Maybe I’m just surprised. After all, I’ve had to work for everything I’ve accomplished up until now, so when something just falls into my lap, I don’t trust it. Look, just work your computer magic, see what you can find out about Gemberling, if only to put my mind at ease. Okay?”

“Piece of cake. Where’s his gallery?”

“Los Angeles. Check Peter’s files.” For some reason I felt better now that I knew Cam was on the job. “By the way, Nat said she was trying to reach you. Have you talked to her? Oh, and make sure you get some sort of compensation from the FBI for the work you’re doing, will you, Mr. Hotshot Consultant?”

“Yeah, she tracked me down this morning. Don’t worry, I will see that I get paid. I’ll call you when I have anything. Love you, sis.”

“Back at you.”

As I hung up, Fred and Gloria looked up at me with imploring eyes. “Yeah, yeah, walk time. And then we’re all going to get a good night’s sleep. Right, pals?”

They nodded. No surprise.

My first thought when I pried my eyes open the next morning was that I should talk to Maddy. At first I couldn’t figure out why she had wormed her way into my head. I hadn’t heard from her since her soggy meltdown the other night, although that didn’t surprise me. But in all honesty, I had never done more than walk by her shop and peer in her window. Maybe I should take a look at what she was turning out. After all, if she had been a
total
hack, would Peter have allowed her anywhere near his art? And maybe she knew something about Peter’s collection that I didn’t.