2 Pane of Death (33 page)

“Well, I knew they’d be alone, and I couldn’t just go home and worry myself sick about you, now could I? I was glad that Cam got here so quickly.”

Cam was still holding my arm, as though I was about to fall over. I laid my hand over his, then pushed him gently away. “Hey, guys, what I need right now is a shower and some food. And then I’ll try to fill you in on my side, and maybe Cam can tell us what he’s been up to.” I looked at him. “I gather the FBI has been keeping him busy.”

He laughed. “I think we can cobble a meal together from what you’ve got. You staying, Allison?”

“If you want. I don’t want to be in the way.”

“Nonsense,” I said firmly. “You’re family, and you deserve to hear the story. Work it out, you two, because I’m headed for the shower.” I did, with Fred and Gloria hard on my heels. I had the feeling they knew something had happened, and they weren’t about to let me out of their sight any time soon.

I spent a glorious time washing away the events of the day. Being wrapped in that cruddy blanket and tossed around in the truck had not been much fun, but hot water put that right. And I was ravenous; I couldn’t even remember my last meal. I emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a huge towel, but as I darted toward my bedroom I caught a glimpse of Cam and Allison, and there wasn’t any light showing between them. I guessed there was no reason to get dressed in a hurry—dinner might be a bit delayed.

But by the time I dressed and ambled back to the living area, there were pots rattling on the stove with good smells emerging from them. I took a seat at the table to watch, and Cam handed me a cold beer without asking. I accepted it gratefully.

I couldn’t have named what they set in front of me, but it was delicious. Of course, under the circumstances, stewed tire might have been delicious. I filled them in on what had happened to me, and Allison made all the appropriate horrified noises. I even included Ian’s unkind remarks about my skills, which still rankled.

“Oh, Em, I’m so sorry,” Allison said. “That show would have been a wonderful opportunity for you.”

I snorted. “That show was never anything more than a smoke screen. Ian just wanted to distract me from thinking about what else was going on. Face it, he was right. I’m just not a top-tier talent.” When Allison started to protest, I held up my hand. “No, I’m not being modest, just honest with myself. Look, I like what I do. I’m a competent craftsperson, but I don’t delude myself that I’m going to step into Dale Chihuly’s shoes. I’m happy, and I make a fair living doing what I like to do. What more could I want?”

“Hear, hear!” Cam raised his bottle of beer to me. “Well, if nothing else has come of this, you’ve made Nat very happy. Looks like the FBI is going to have a new toy to play with, if they can get the rights to it, and Nat gets the privilege of taking it home to them.”

I peeked at Allison, but she didn’t twitch when Cam mentioned Nat. All must be right in their little world. I smiled at him, because he understood what I had been trying to say: I had made the effort to please our parents, following a path I thought they would approve of, but it just hadn’t worked. So then I had done what I wanted, and it had brought me to this place, this moment. And I was content with that.

 

I hadn’t expected to hear from Matt, knowing he would be caught up with administrative necessities. And he knew I had Cam to hold my hand, should I have night-mares. Ha! I slept like a log and woke up ready to face bears. Even so, Cam was already up when I came out of my bedroom. I threw myself in a chair, and he presented me with a cup of hot coffee.

“So, baby brother, what news? You seem to have enjoyed unraveling Peter’s computer.”

He smiled, more to himself than to me. “Let me tell you, it was a privilege to go through his code. Peter Ferguson was a genius. And there is such an elegant simplicity to what he’s done with the program . . . .” I tuned out when Cam lapsed into computerese, but I got the picture. The program was solid and simple enough for anyone to use. And it was clear that Cam had enjoyed his assignment. Eventually he ran out of steam. “Anyway, Nat’s over the moon about it.”

“That’s great—at least something positive has come out of all this. Too bad Peter won’t be around to enjoy it.” We both fell silent for a moment in honor of the late, great Peter Ferguson. “I wonder who ends up with the glass collection?”

Cam shrugged. “Probably the kids, but who knows if they’ll want it. Nat’s going to look into all that, since she wants clear title to the software.”

“Ah.” I chewed pensively on my English muffin. “Cam, about you and Allison . . .”

“We’re fine.”

I looked at him squarely. “I know, it’s not my business, but you’ve been a bit, I don’t know, at cross-purposes lately?”

He nodded, staring at his coffee. “You’re right. I guess I wanted too much, too fast, and I didn’t want to give Allison time to sort things out. But we’re good. How about you and Matt?”

I sighed. Cam had every right to turn the tables, since I’d been poking into his love life, but I still wasn’t comfortable answering. “I . . . don’t know. I’m kind of pissed at him at the moment, because he tried to keep me on the sidelines, and look what happened.”

“Em, he’s just trying to do his job, and like it or not, you’re a civilian.”

“Well, so are you, pal, and
you
got to play with the big boys. Girls. Whatever. And I understand his position, really, I do. But this involved me—my life, my work. He shouldn’t have shut me out.”

Cam stood up and started collecting the dishes. “In the words of a wise woman, that’s something you two have to work out.”

“Gee, thanks. Listen, you going to hang around for a while?”

“The weekend, at least.”

I stood up too. “Good. Because I’d better get down to the shop and see what I’ve missed.”

Nessa was in this morning, and looked up and beamed when I walked into the shop. “My, you seem to have had some excitement.”

“Tell me about it.” I sighed. “I could do without it. But at least things should calm down now. Good thing—I’m way behind, and I really need to make some glass pieces.”

“You go right ahead, dear. I’m sure I can handle things out here.”

“You’re a pal. Look, how about lunch? I can give you all the gory details then. Allison will be in later, won’t she?”

“Yes, and lunch would be lovely.”

I went to the studio and immersed myself in what I liked to do best, interrupted only by a phone call from Matt. “Em, will you have dinner with me? We need to talk.”

Well, duh
. “All right,” I said neutrally.

“Great. I’ll pick you up around seven, if that works for you.” Was that relief I heard in his voice?

“Fine. See you then.”

And I went back to work. I wasn’t going to stew over what Matt might or might not say. I was just going to wait and see what unfolded. In the meantime, I had hot glass to work with.

Matt arrived promptly at seven. I was ready, after an agonizing internal debate about whether I should dress up or not. Was this an important dinner? A special dinner? Was he going to lecture me or apologize? I had no idea. I opted for dressy, at least by my standards—heck, Tucson didn’t care.

He wasn’t providing any clues. “Shall we go?”

“Let me get my coat.” If he was going to play it formal, so was I.

We made meaningless chitchat as we drove to the restaurant. We were shown to a quiet table, and after Matt ordered a bottle of wine, the waiter retreated discreetly. Matt snagged the conversational ball then. “Em, I’m sorry. And I know you’re upset, and you probably have a right to be. But please look at it from my side: I’m the chief of police here. I have to set a standard for the department, and everyone was watching.”

The waiter appeared with a chilled bottle, Matt tasted, nodded, and the waiter filled our glasses. I waited silently until he withdrew.

So far the script held no surprises. Now it was my turn. “I do understand, Matt. And I certainly didn’t want to find myself in the middle of another murder—the last one was plenty. But the fact remains that I
was
in it, in more ways than one. And the fact that you were trying to protect me, or protect your professional integrity, nearly got me killed.”

“I know.” He really did look miserable. “But I had no way of knowing that would happen. Look, I appreciate what you did. If you hadn’t had your suspicions about Maddy and Ian, I can’t say what would have happened. And to tell you the truth, you scared me to death when you disappeared.”

I took a deep breath. What did I want? I wasn’t planning to join the police force or set up shop as a PI. So what was my problem? That Matt found it so easy to shut me out of the professional side of his life? That he had treated me as though the expertise I possessed was insignificant and irrelevant, when I knew and had told him it wasn’t? And was this an argument that I could win, or that was even worth fighting?

“Matt, I appreciate that you need to keep your job and . . . us separate. That’s fine. I guess I’m angry that you dismissed me, when I did have information that you could have used. You shut me out, and that was your loss. Maybe it’s policy not to involve outsiders, but you could have used my intelligence to your own advantage. And we both would have benefited.”

To his credit, Matt did not become defensive; he actually took time to think about what I had said. Maybe that was progress. “Em, I see that now, even if it’s a little late. Look, my ex never wanted to hear about my job. Maybe that was one of the problems with our marriage. But that was the routine we fell into. I know you’re different, and you were right about this case. How many more times do I have to apologize?”

I could be magnanimous in victory. “I think we’re square. Look, I promise to try to avoid any further murders, as long as you promise to share as much as you can if, heaven forbid, this happens again. Good enough?”

He grinned then. “Okay.” Then his eyes gleamed. “By the way, Nat passed on to me a little piece of information that might interest you.”

I took a sip of wine. “What?”

“As you can guess, she’s tracked down Peter’s will, and she’s been consulting various lawyers about who now owns the rights to Peter’s software, because her unit really, really wants it. Luckily Peter’s will is up-to-date. And he did make provisions for this software.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes. He made it clear that he wanted this program to be put to the broadest possible use, so it looks like the FBI will get it. But there’s one more really interesting provision in Ferguson’s will.”

Matt was having far too much fun with this, and he had certainly piqued my curiosity. “Okay, pal, spit it out.”

“He established and endowed a fund to provide what you might call a finder’s fee—a reward for people who provide material assistance or information in recovering stolen artworks. It will be administered by an independent board of directors, not the FBI. There’s a good chance that you might qualify.”

“That sounds nice. What does that mean, out here in the real world?”

“Peter specified that the fee should be a percentage of the fair market value of the recovered property—a flat ten percent.” He sat back and waited for me to work this out.

This was a simple calculation. If Peter’s collection was worth, conservatively, $3 million, then 10 percent would be . . . $300,000. Even net of taxes and such, that was a nice piece of change.
Oh, wow
.

Peter’s gift from beyond the grave. He’d been a good man, and I wanted to thank him.

“Matt, I think I’d like to order a bottle of champagne. I want to toast the late Peter Ferguson.”

The techniques of medieval stained glass were described around 1125 by the German monk Theophilus, who set forth both the philosophy underlying the use of glass and the technology that fascinated him. He laid out the steps for constructing a window: Mark the dimensions, select the colors, cut the pieces and fit them together, enclose the pieces with lead cames, and solder them together before setting into a wooden frame. Relatively few changes have occurred since.

The glass itself was colored by the addition of metallic oxides, creating intense blues, greens, and reds. In some cases the color became too dark to permit light to pass, so an alternate technique of “flashing” a thin layer of color over clear glass emerged. The glass was blown and shaped into sheets that were then cut into smaller pieces. Details such as faces, drapery folds, or inscriptions could be added with paint, after which the pieces would be baked in a kiln to make the paint fuse with the glass.

Stained glass was used for windows as early as the first century AD; examples have been found in the ruins of Roman villas in Pompeii. But stained glass took on new importance with the surge of church construction in the Middle Ages, especially the tenth through twelfth centuries, when glass was used as pictorial shorthand to illustrate scenes and stories from the Bible for a largely illiterate population.