Think of a Number (Dave Gurney, No.1) Read Free

woods of cherry, maple, and oak.
    The house retained its original architectural simplicity. During the year they’d owned it, the Gurneys had restored to a more appropriate appearance the previous owner’s unfortunate updates—replacing, for example, bleak aluminum windows with wood-framed versions that possessed the divided-light style of an earlier century. They did it not out of a mania for historical authenticity but in recognition that the original aesthetics had somehow been
right
. This matter of how one’s home should look and feel was one of the subjects on which Madeleine and David were in complete harmony—a list that, it seemed to him, had lately been shrinking.
    This thought had been eating like acid at his mood most of the day, activated by his wife’s comment about theugliness of the portrait he was working on. It was still at the edge of his consciousness that afternoon when, dozing in his favorite Adirondack chair after the tulip-planting activity, he became aware of Madeleine’s footsteps brushing toward him through the ankle-high grass. When the footsteps stopped in front of his chair, he opened one eye.
    “Do you think,” she said in her calm, light way, “it’s too late to take the canoe out?” Her voice positioned the words deftly between a question and a challenge.
    Madeleine was a slim, athletic forty-five-year-old who could easily be mistaken for thirty-five. Her eyes were frank, steady, appraising. Her long brown hair, with the exception of a few errant strands, was pulled up under her broad-brimmed straw gardening hat.
    He responded with a question from his own train of thought. “Do you really think it’s ugly?”
    “Of course it’s ugly,” she said without hesitation. “Isn’t it supposed to be?”
    He frowned as he considered her comment. “You mean the subject matter?” he asked.
    “What else would I mean?”
    “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You sounded a bit contemptuous of the whole thing—the execution as well as the subject matter.”
    “Sorry.”
    She didn’t seem sorry. As he teetered on the edge of saying so, she changed the subject.
    “Are you looking forward to seeing your old classmate?”
    “Not exactly,” he said, adjusting the reclining back of his chair a notch lower. “I’m not big on recollections of times past.”
    “Maybe he’s got a murder for you to solve.”
    Gurney looked at his wife, studied the ambiguity of her expression. “You think that’s what he wants?” he asked blandly.
    “Isn’t that what you’re famous for?” Anger was beginning to stiffen her voice.
    It was something he’d witnessed in her often enough in recent months that he thought he understood what it was about. They had different notions of what his retirement from the job was supposed to mean, what kind of changes it was supposed to make in their lives, and, more specifically, how it was supposed to change
him
. Recently, too, ill feeling had been growing around his new avocation—the portraits-of-murderers project that was absorbing his time. He suspected that Madeleine’s negativity in this area might be partly related to Sonya’s enthusiasm.
    “Did you know he’s famous, too?” she asked.
    “Who?”
    “Your classmate.”
    “Not really. He said something on the phone about writing a book, and I checked on it briefly. I wouldn’t have thought he was well known.”
    “
Two
books,” said Madeleine. “He’s the director of some sort of institute in Peony, and he did a series of lectures that ran on PBS. I printed out copies of the book jackets from the Internet. You might want to take a look at them.”
    “I assume he’ll tell me all there is to know about himself and his books. He doesn’t sound shy.”
    “Have it your way. I left the copies on your desk, if you change your mind. By the way, Kyle phoned earlier.”
    He stared at her silently.
    “I said you’d get back to him.”
    “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, more testily than he