Smoke in Mirrors

“Roberta Brinks?” Leonora asked.

“Yep.” Thomas put a hand on top of Wrench’s head. “Osmond Kern paid blackmail, all right. For nearly thirty years.”

“But to Roberta Brinks, not Alex Rhodes,” Cassie concluded.

“Rhodes’s two large payments into Roberta’s offshore account this year had nothing to do with blackmail. They were to cover the cost of the two shipments of drugs that he bought from her,” Ed said.

“But as soon as we saw the thirty years’ worth of payments to Roberta Brinks,” Thomas said, “we knew the situation was a lot more complicated than everyone assumed.”

Leonora rested her head against the backs of the cushions. “Because it was clear that Osmond Kern had been paying blackmail to Roberta since shortly after the death of Sebastian Eubanks. And there was only one logical reason why he would do such a thing.”

Ed nodded his head once. “Roberta Brinks knew that he had murdered Eubanks and that he had stolen the algorithm.”

Roberta had babbled freely when Ed Stovall had arrived at Mirror House to take charge.

Thirty years ago she had been a grad student in the English department. She had struggled hard to put herself through school. In addition to teaching classes, she had taken on a part-time job working for Sebastian Eubanks.

“He was so paranoid at that point that he wouldn’t allow any math or science majors into the mansion,” Deke said. “But he figured an English Lit major wouldn’t understand any of his work even if she did see some of it.”

“Always a mistake to underestimate the liberal arts crowd,” Leonora said.

Deke nodded. “You can say that again.”

“Roberta was there the night Kern came to see Eubanks,” Leonora said. “Kern didn’t see her, but she witnessed the quarrel and the shooting.”

“What did they fight over?” Cassie asked.

Ed looked at her. “As Andrew Grayson said, Kern knew enough about Eubanks’s work to recognize its potential. He claimed that, because he and Eubanks had collaborated for a while, he had a right to have his name attached to the algorithm. He demanded that it be published under both of their names. Eubanks didn’t want to publish at all. He had convinced himself that the algorithm was only the first step to more important work. He pulled out a gun. There was a struggle. Eubanks died. Afterward, Kern was stunned and confused. Roberta took charge. She told him she would take care of everything.”

“And that’s just what she did,” Thomas said. “She got him out of the mansion and drove him home. The next day she went to see him in his office. He was still badly shaken. Panicky. She pointed out that there was no reason not to publish the algorithm under his own name. It would make him rich and famous. Secure his academic reputation forever.”

“And Kern went for it,” Deke said grimly. “But when the paper was accepted for publication, Roberta paid him another visit. This time she laid out the terms of the deal. She would protect him and his reputation as long as he paid blackmail. She protected herself by putting an incriminating account of Eubanks’s death and copies of his early notes on the development of the algorithm in a safe-deposit box.”

Cassie nodded. “In other words, if anything happened to her, Kern would also go down in flames.”

Thomas scratched Wrench’s ears. “In the end, the college administration was so eager to keep things quiet that neither Kern nor Roberta were even questioned. Things went smoothly for nearly thirty years. Kern got rich and famous. Roberta dropped out of the graduate program and married a chemist.”

Leonora sighed. “Another ABD type gone bad.”

Ed frowned. “ABD?”

“All But Dissertation,” Leonora explained. “A little academic joke.”

Ed did not smile.

Thomas cleared his throat. “Roberta decided to forego a career in English Lit in favor of running Mirror House and organizing alumni events. Meanwhile she built up her private retirement fund with Kern’s blackmail payments.”

“And then she struck it rich a second time when her husband developed a hallucinogenic drug a few years ago,” Leonora said. “Ever the opportunist, she saw the possibilities immediately. But she knew nothing about dealing illegal drugs. She was lucky she wasn’t caught running her little experiments on some of the students.”

“Meanwhile Bethany was deep into her work on her Mirror Theory,” Deke said. “In the course of her research she came across notes that convinced her that Eubanks had done the early work on the algorithm, not Kern. She confronted Kern, demanding an explanation. Kern panicked. As soon as Bethany left his office, he called Roberta.”

“Who understood immediately that Bethany’s work might expose Kern and thereby ruin her retirement plan,” Thomas said. “So she invited Bethany into her office, served her some of the drugged coffee and then arranged the so-called suicide.”

“But in those last moments before the drug overwhelmed her,” Deke said, “Bethany managed to leave behind some clues to her killer’s identity. She must have been hallucinating wildly, but there were mirrors all around her and she had been thinking in metaphorical and mathematical terms about mirrors for several months. She was no doubt beyond being able to write anything legible. So she picked up the catalog of antique mirrors and circled the picture of the looking glass that reflected her killer. Then she hid it together with the clippings behind the catalog in the library.”

“Alex Rhodes witnessed Bethany’s so-called suicide,” Ed said. “He figured out that Roberta Brinks was the source of the drugs and he formed the partnership with her.”

“All went well for a while,” Deke said. “Because no one was paying any attention to the crazy Walker brothers and their demands for another investigation.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Cassie offered thoughtfully. “The fact that you were pushing for answers was what inspired Roberta to start those rumors of Bethany’s drug use. She thought it would serve as a simple, believable answer that would put to rest any murder theories.”

“But I didn’t buy it,” Deke said.

“No,” Leonora said. “That must have made her nervous. Then, six months later, Meredith arrived on the scene to start her endowment scam. She got involved with Thomas for a while and in the process learned that Deke had major questions about the circumstances surrounding Bethany’s so-called suicide.”