The Mystery of the Lakeshore Ltd - An Eleanor and Lydia Mystery

Chapter One

A warm summer breeze stirred past the gauzy white curtains of Eleanor Albright's parlor. When she sat upon the black walnut piano bench, she had perfect posture--the inevitable consequence of ninety years of refusing to slouch. Arthritis had robbed her of her former ability to draw forth the fast and forceful bass-heavy pieces she'd once favored, but music still lived within her, and she would not quiet it as long as the choice remained hers to make. The opening tones of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata drifted upward at her touch, but she'd not gone more than twenty or thirty measures when a knock at the door interrupted the song. She used the black and purple aluminum cane that she'd received as a Christmas gift from her son-in-law to steady herself as she hustled to see who'd come calling. 

Her great-granddaughter, a compact little bundle of a young woman with wild black hair piled atop her head, enormous brown eyes circled in dark liner, and a mind as sharp as a scalpel, bustled in and kicked the door shut behind her. Skipping over the usual hugs and pleasantries, she held Eleanor's shoulders in a firm grip and made an announcement. "My friend is in big trouble, Nana. I think you might be the only one who can help."

"Whatever is wrong, we'll face it." Eleanor gave Lydia's arm a reassuring squeeze. "My goodness, I've never seen you like this. Come inside and sit down. Tell me all about it."

The two women situated themselves on high-backed, upholstered chairs arranged before the fireplace at an angle that encouraged conversation. "Now, what  happened?"

Lydia took a deep breath and twisted the outer layer of her fluffy black skirt around her hands. The heels of her scuffed combat boots bounced up and down, rapid as a telegraph knob. "Do you remember when I told you I took a class about artificial intelligence last semester?"

"Of course. I'm so proud of how well you did."

The praise washed over Lydia without visible effect. "My teaching assistant was this lady named Larisa Johnson. She was great. I went to her for help a few times and we became good friends." 

Lydia abruptly rose from her chair and began pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace with her arms wrapped around herself. "She was working on some really next-gen stuff. Like, the kind of stuff that people win Nobel Prizes for, and sometimes she'd let me go through her notes or even help with her research."

"That sounds very exciting." Truth be told, Eleanor couldn't think of many things she'd rather do less than spend her days attempting to draw a computer into conversation, but she was humble enough to admit that her own ways of thinking and doing were old-fashioned and backward in the current day and age.

"It was amazing, but it was crazy expensive. There are probably only a handful of laboratories in the entire world that could afford to move to the next stage of her project, but she found one in Washington DC. She called and told me, maybe a week ago, that she was heading over there to present her work. If they liked what they saw, she had full funding for the foreseeable future."

So far, there was a brilliant scientist, cutting-edge technology, big money, and now the government in this story. Eleanor's long years of solving mysteries didn't seem necessary to make the next deduction. "The girl's gone missing."

Lydia dropped back into her chair and clasped her hands together. "That's why you have to be the one to help, Nana. You get it."

"I'm saddened to hear that I'm right, my dear. Fill in the gaps for me. What do the police say about all this?"

"That's just it. They don't say anything. They think she ran off with her lover or something."

It wasn't outside the realm of possibility. "Did she have a lover?"