6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6 Read Free Page B

correctly, it does. And that is important how?”
    “I noticed this guy had a couple of bottles of peroxide in the bathroom too. I seem to recall that bomb makers used them two ingredients with some kind of acid to make explosives. That’s all.”
    “I’ll check it out. I don’t think that is where this is going, however…but you never know. You’re sure about the peroxide?”
    “Billy rolled his eyes toward Essie and her Dolly Parton locks. “Oh yeah, I know all about that stuff.”
    Ike dismissed them with a grin. What had Dolly Parton said? “You have to spend some real money to look this cheap.” When they’d cleared the office he lifted the phone from its cradle and dialed the university. He raised the president’s office. Agnes Ewalt, Ruth Harris’ secretary, answered.
    Agnes Ewalt sat at her desk outside Ruth Harris’ office like Horatio at the bridge, screening her boss’ visitors and phone calls with a diligence bordering on compulsion. She was a stereotypical spinster who had spent the previous year trying to keep Ruth, as president of the then college, now university, and Ike apart. She seemed to feel it her duty to maintain what she assumed to be a respectable and necessary distance between town and gown. And the town’s sheriff, in her estimation, was the quintessential townie who needed to be kept at bay. She had failed in that, but her efforts had exacted a cost in the general area of aggravation. Since the fall, however, she had moved not quite one hundred and eighty degrees in her estimation of Ike, and now provided aid and comfort to her boss and the man Agnes insisted on calling her
boyfriend
against the as yet still hostile faculty.
    “Sheriff, she has a visitor. I’m afraid I can’t disturb her short of an emergency. She did leave a message for you though.”
    “That’s okay, Agnes. I can ask you the question I had for her. But what was the message?”
    “Tonight, dash, dash, A-frame, question mark.”
    “Got it. Tell her yes, and leave me a voice message telling me what she wants for dinner. Okay? Now, what can you tell me about a man named Louis Dakis?”
    “He’s an adjunct faculty member. I know that. I think he joined this quarter, sort of at the last minute. The chairman of the Art Department had an FTE line in his budget open up and he knew his friend Mr. Dakis needed a place temporarily, so he brought him down.”
    “FTE means full time equivalent, I assume. Down from where, exactly?”
    “FTE—correct. Down from Washington, D.C., I think. He is something of an expert in his field, whatever it is, and the department thinks they have pulled off a coup. I don’t know. But anyway, that’s the story.”
    “He’s an iconographer. Is that right?”
    “You know, Sheriff, that sounds about right. Hold on a sec.” The line went silent and Ike thought he could hear paper rustling. “Here it is, in the supplemental catalogue. ‘Iconography 101’—you were right—‘a course which will explore the history of the icon, or holy images, as practiced in the East and the recent resurgence of interest in them in the West.’ There’s an optional lab offered, too. Let’s see, students will be taught the basics of icon making and will paint one for themselves. There’s a note attached in Dr. Harris’ handwriting that says the optional lab filled in two hours after the course was announced. My, my, imagine that.”
    “Thank you, Agnes. You wouldn’t happen to have Dakis’ phone number and schedule handy, too, would you?”
    “Phone number, yes. Schedule, no. But I’ll look it up and have Dr. Harris give it to you this evening.”
    “Perfect. Thank you.” Ike took down the phone number and hung up. Question: why would someone break into an iconographer’s house, ransack the inventory, and leave empty-handed? Whoever it was had something else in mind other than to steal icons, but what? Perhaps Dakis came home too soon and he or she had to duck out before loading up.