The Art of Vanishing (A Lila Maclean Academic Mystery Book 2)

by Cynthia Kuhn

  “No, thanks. I’m just here to speak to Dr. Bartholomew, if he’s in.”

  “He is indeed,” she said, swerving her pointer finger in a right-this-way gesture toward his office door, the movement releasing a tiny burst of patchouli scent.

  “How’s your writing going?”

  She held up her phone. “I’m writing a poem as we speak.”

  “What excellent multi-tasking,” I said appreciatively, as I moved toward Spencer’s office, where I paused to give a little knock on the doorframe and froze.

  Mei laughed. “It’s totally different, isn’t it? Everybody gasps when they see it.”

  Gone was the suffocating crypt-like decor that Roland had created. The massive mahogany desk still faced the door, but instead of one skeletal chair in front if it, there were two inviting wing chairs positioned atop a lush and elegant carpet. Instead of the mounds of dusty books and papers piled haphazardly on every conceivable surface, there were tidy bookshelves and a few tasteful pieces of art. The light streaming in through the windows was also in direct opposition to the previously overwhelming darkness, and a vase of fresh flowers stood on a side table.

  “It looks amazing in here,” I said to Spencer.

  “Judith did it all, as you probably could have guessed.” His suspenders today were the color of aged parchment with small letters looping across the fabric in intriguing ways. They gave the appearance of having been sewn from a manuscript. I wanted to read the printed words but couldn’t figure out how to do so without putting my face mere inches from his chest. That would have been awkward for both of us.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Spencer, but I just received a weird email.”

  “Is it about Damon?” He grimaced as he lifted a page from his desk and held it out to me.

  I handed him my email and scanned the one he gave me.

  Identical.

  Our eyes met, and he sighed. “You know, I’d just seen your email confirming Damon’s visit. I thought perhaps our troubles might be over.”

  I handed him back the paper. He lay both pages on his desk and gazed out the window, deep in thought.

  There wasn’t anything for me to say. This was way beyond my pay grade.

  Finally, he ran a hand over his gray hair and nodded. His usually gentle demeanor was spiked with something steely, though his words remained calm. “I’ll call the dean and chancellor right now. We’ll look into it, check with the rest of the committee, talk to campus security, and so on.” He picked up the phone. “Try not to worry too much. It’s probably just someone’s idea of a prank.”

  I certainly hoped that was the case.

  I did not want to find out what “or else” meant in practice.

  Chapter 5

  On the walk home, the sound of my boots crunching on the ice was an oddly satisfying companion to the brittle shell of defensive anger I retained not only from the threatening email but also from the exchange with Norton. He had to know that expressing doubt about my ability to produce suitable scholarship was akin to lashing an albatross around my neck. Not that it wasn’t there already: I knew what was expected of me. But somehow, I hadn’t anticipated anyone mentioning it yet. Was he being cruel? Or kind? I hadn’t had a chance to get to know him, though I remained suspicious enough from our brief encounters last term. The truth will out, my mother always said.

  I was just passing the steps of Pennington Library when Simone Raleigh emerged through the glass doors. She called my name, waving excitedly with one of her leather gloves, and asked me to wait.

  Reluctantly, I did.

  “Thanks, Lila. Need a quick word, if you don’t mind.” I don’t know how, but she often made me feel as though she was the hostess of a party and I was a guest who had just barely made the list and should consider myself lucky to be addressed by her though she was taking pains to pretend she thought we were equals.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I just ran into Norton at the reserve desk—he’s such a dear, isn’t he?” She readjusted the large black Jackie O. sunglasses she wore even though it was overcast. “He told me you asked about organizing the students to help Damon during his visit. I’d be happy to take on the responsibility.”

  “Great,” I said. “I have a volunteer in one of my classes already—I don’t know how the word got out but she came up after class and said she was interested.”

  “Keandra, right?” Simone said, catching me by surprise.

  “Yes…”

  “She’s in my class right after yours and spoke to me about it. She said you were going to email her once you knew, but don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I knew better than to allow this sudden burst of helpfulness to affect my existing opinion of Simone—I’d seen her in action before.

  “Also, are you free for coffee tomorrow? I’d like to have a little chat.”

  “I’m not.”

  She waited for a moment, probably so that I’d provide a reason. I didn’t—because my reason was I didn’t want to go.

  “Another time, then,” she said, pulling a long face. “We have some things to…address.”

  It didn’t sound like a “little chat” at all.

  “Simone, we don’t have to have coffee to”—I added air quotes—“chat. You can say whatever you like right now. You’ve certainly done that before.” I could feel my face flush with anger.

  She summoned a faux puzzled look. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “And I’m sure you do.” I didn’t know why she was pretending we didn’t have a history. We had one. We had both begun teaching at Stonedale last fall, but she’d had it in for me from the beginning. Someone had told me her sister had applied for the position I’d landed. That was enough to put me on Simone’s hit list, and as she was a close personal friend of the chancellor’s, it was especially worrisome. I couldn’t bring myself to relax around her, but I wasn’t going to let her push me around either.

  “Perhaps I’ll invite you again another time,” she said, still playing the role of society girl who magnanimously ignored the foibles of her unsophisticated country cousin.

  I said nothing.

  Simone drifted away gracefully down the sidewalk, tossing her teal pashmina over her shoulder. She seemed to glide over the ice without any effort.

  My own exit may have involved more stomping.

  I curled up on my red chenille sofa with a cup of peppermint tea to prepare my next classes. I’d just finished the first one when my cell rang. It was my mother.

  I greeted her as I pushed aside the papers and books on my lap.

  “Just wanted to let you know that Damon is fine—he apparently took off through a back door at the reading the other night.”

  “Why?”

  She laughed. “Who knows? The man is a mystery. In any case, right now, he’s at a friend’s mountain house in Vail.”

  “Where did you hear this?”

  “From Daphne first.” Of course. Daphne Duvall was the clearinghouse of New York City gossip. She wrote a popular column for one of the tabloids and knew who was up to what long before the public got wind of it. “And he confirmed it when we spoke. He was, as you’d suspected he would be, interested in the doubled honorarium. I also called Tally, who promised me that she’d get him to Stonedale, even if she has to drive him herself.”

  “Thank you so much, Mom.”

  “It was nothing,” she said. “I was happy to help.”

  “Was it strange to talk to Damon?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “No, it was as if not a day had gone by. He said he’d just been thinking about me.” Which was no surprise. People were always thinking about my mother.

  “How is he doing?”

  “Well, I think. He’s been doing a lot of publicity for the book, so
he has been out and about more than usual. He invited me for a drink when he gets back to the city, actually.”

  “Are you going?” I held my breath. I did not want Damon back in my mother’s life.

  “We’ll see. It’s crunch time now with the show coming up. I’m not sure I can spare a moment until after the opening.” She told me about her upcoming installation, which was sure to cause a buzz: “The Siren Song” would move incrementally from ethereal fare, women in flowing white gowns and halos, to models in ripped black leather with glittering wounds.

  “I want to visualize the angel/demon dichotomy as a manifestation of how society has victimized but also blamed the female body for that same victimization.” She sounded excited.

  “Should get some attention,” I said.

  “Yes, it should,” she agreed happily. “I wish you could be there.”

  “Me too. I’ll try to make it to New York during spring break.”

  “That would be fabulous.”

  After a few more minutes of conversation, we said our goodbyes and I went back to work.

  The next afternoon, I was sitting at a small wooden table at the front window of Scarlett’s, my favorite café near campus. A pile of essays waited to be graded before me, but I was sipping my latte and watching the water drip steadily off the striped awning. The sun had come out in full glare this morning, and it was making short work of the frozen landscape, emptying the roofs of their white crowns and reducing snowdrifts to puddles. Colorado wasn’t a place for people who appreciated being able to count on the weather. You never knew in the early months of the year whether it was going to be more like winter or spring. But after a week of gray, I was ready for some sun on my face, if only through glass at the moment.

  The bells on the door tinkled merrily, and I glanced over. Francisco strode up to the counter to place an order. I quickly grabbed the top essay and pretended to be deep in reading mode. I didn’t want another colleague confrontation to ruin my small peaceful moment. Soon after, I felt his presence beside me and had to look up.

  “Hello, Lila,” he said, his blue eyes boring into mine through his rectangular glasses.

  “Hi, Francisco.” I didn’t look away, sensing it was some kind of alpha thing. Eventually he blinked and asked if he could sit down.

  I removed my satchel from the seat next to mine and set it on the floor. He slid into the chair, his navy pea coat smelling faintly of pine.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Von Tussel visit. I’ve made the arrangements for the panel: we’ll have four readers. Each will present for fifteen minutes, then we’ll have a half hour of questions.”

  “Ah,” I said. A pretty standard format. I wasn’t sure why he was making a point of telling me.

  He ran his hand through his short dark hair. “We need a panel moderator though—someone who knows Von Tussel’s work. Would you be willing to do it?”

  There it was. “Uh,” I stalled. I would prefer to be in the audience, safely away from the limelight. I studied the silver around his temples, trying to think of an excuse.

  “Since you know him…” His hands made an elegant gesture.

  “But I don’t know him,” I said, emphatically. “My mother does.” Why did people keep saying that when I’d made it clear I only met him a few times? Were we academics so desperate to be respected we’d turn any brief encounter into something more? “And I don’t know his work,” I added, for good measure. “Not really.”

  Francisco considered my response, then shrugged. “But you are a professor.”

  I nodded.

  He pushed his glasses up. “So you could moderate a panel of scholars, at least. Regardless of topic.”

  “I suppose so. Theoretically.”

  He took my words to mean I’d agreed to do it. When I protested, rather loudly, he put his hands up to stop me. “I will consider this a personal favor.”

  So there was that.

  Chapter 6

  I spent several hours over the next week doing online research on the panel presenters to get a sense of their backgrounds. Across the board they seemed like active scholars, and I was looking forward to hearing them talk about Damon’s work.

  Finally, I was able to turn to my Isabella Dare proposal on Saturday. Her writing was engaging and unusual—something like a cross between Agatha Christie and Shirley Jackson—and I hoped to turn my dissertation into a book not only because it was expected for tenure, but also because I believed Dare deserved to be read and studied by others. Last fall, my colleague Willa Hartwell had vigorously encouraged me to try and publish Isabella’s books as well as my own critical study of them. I had long imagined doing that very thing, but for her to show such excitement gave me hope it might actually be possible. Of course, I didn’t know the first thing about publishing a book—neither my own critical study nor a scholarly edition of Isabella’s mysteries. But I’d researched how to write a proposal online and, now that Norton had lit a fire beneath me, was going to take the next step.

  I picked up the closest of the three novels she’d written. As always, when I began reading her work, time slipped away. She had an incredible ability to immerse the reader immediately with her lively voice and suspenseful plots. In the first book of the series, The Case of the Wandering Spirit, our plucky protagonist Athena Bolt was charged with investigating a strange urban legend connected to an abandoned mansion outside of New York City. Just as Athena was approaching an attic door which had mysteriously swung open, the phone rang.

  Even though I’d already read the book numerous times and knew what was behind the door, I jumped. That’s how good at creating suspense Isabella Dare was—one reason I hoped to bring attention to her work.

  “Dr. Maclean?” said a perky voice on the other end of the line.

  “This is she,” I said, bracing myself to reject the inevitable sales call.

  “Ruth Barnum here,” the voice said. “Head librarian at Pennington. We have received the Damon Von Tussel manuscript and wonder if you’d be able to stop by Sunday and help us with the arrangement of the document for display.”

  I hesitated, running through the items on my mental to-do list before Monday.

  Ruth interpreted my pause correctly. “I know it’s probably an imposition, on the weekend and everything, but Dr. Judith Westerly suggested you as a consultant. We just want you to take a quick look and give us a scholarly perspective.”

  I had no idea what that meant. Presumably, it was a stack of typed pages. What did they want me to do, make sure the pages were lined up correctly? Then again, if Judith had been the one to recommend me, I could hardly refuse. She was my mentor and friend—as well as Spencer’s wife. They’d both been very kind to me.

  “I’d be happy to help,” I said. “When do you need me?”

  We made plans for the next morning and disconnected, then I went back to work.

  There was ice on the stone steps of Pennington Library, so I ascended carefully. It was extremely quiet on campus, partly because it was a Sunday morning and partly because Ruth had asked me to come two hours before the library opened.

  I headed for the employee entrance door on the side, where Ruth had directed me, and rang the buzzer. After a moment, the lock clicked, and I went inside. A petite woman with a fuzzy yellow woolen sweater showcasing a sweet-looking Yorkshire terrier over a long denim skirt came toward me, and we exchanged greetings. Ruth’s brown hair was styled in a flip and embellished with a wide orange headband featuring more terriers. I asked the obvious question and was treated to an enthusiastic rendering of Mr. Barkley’s adventures at the last Westminster Dog Show. She pulled a plastic accordion of pictures from her skirt pocket and showed off her adorable pup, whom I complimented profusely.

  After carefully refolding the photo strip, she pointed at a row of silver hooks along the wall where I could hang my coat. As I unbundled, sh
e said she was glad I was here. I assured her I was happy to help.

  “Please follow me,” she said, crossing the room and disappearing to the right just outside the door.

  We walked through the library, which was silent and lit by only a portion of the overhead lights. At the back of the building, she went through a wooden door marked STAFF ONLY, and we entered an even darker hallway. After a few minutes, she paused next to a spot where light showed through a vertical crack. She fumbled with a key, then unlocked and pulled open two sides of the back of the display case. It was too dim to make out any objects inside the case.

  “Here’s what we have so far,” she said, gesturing. “Could you please go around to the outside and view it as an onlooker would? I’d really like to know, firstly, can you read it clearly enough through the glass? And secondly, should we make more single pages visible? We chose a few from the middle to showcase. And thirdly, are certain pages more appropriate than others?” She shook her head. “This all happened so fast. I’m just not feeling very confident about the choices we’ve made.”

  Now I understood why I was here.

  “I’ll do the curtains and lights when you’re standing in front of the case,” she continued.

  Once I was located in the correct position, the blue curtains slid open and the lights flickered on inside the case, allowing me to scrutinize the display. On the left side of a gorgeous mahogany desk was the manuscript title page in a clear acrylic frame, a black vintage typewriter with a page in the roller, and a neatly stacked pile of typed pages. Several single pages were spread out in an orderly row. It was an engaging writing tableau. On the back wall was a collage of black-and-white pictures of Damon Von Tussel: hunched over a typewriter, shaking hands with someone, sitting at a bus terminal, talking to a group of students, walking in Central Park. I took a closer look at the single pages, skimming them, and recognized an important scene in the book, when the colonel and the young writer argue over documents so intensely that it results in a fistfight followed by emotional confessions on both sides. It had received homage from numerous writers who followed.