The Fractal Murders Part 27

The atmosphere wasn't much, but the crinkle fries were good and the fluorescent lighting made it easy to read the doc.u.ments Scott had copied at the courthouse. I began with the complaint.

Janice Polk had filed for divorce a year ago, citing irreconcilable differences. They'd been married less than four years and had no children. It should have been a simple matter, but Janice had retained J. Bradford Compton, a silver-haired a.s.s who calls himself a "matrimonial attorney."

I had crossed paths with Compton a few times in private practice. He's tall and has a patrician look, but he's as trustworthy as a cobra. And arrogant. Once, just before starting a trial, he sauntered up to me and whispered, "My gal's gonna kill your guy on the stand." I thought about taking him literally and reporting the death threat to the judge, but that would only have p.i.s.sed her off. Instead, I looked at him and asked if anyone had ever told him he walked like a peac.o.c.k.

As you would expect in any Compton case, the complaint concluded with a request for temporary and permanent alimony, an "equitable division of the a.s.sets and obligations of the parties," temporary and permanent attorneys' fees, and an order restoring Polk's wife to her maiden name, Janice Ford. I put the complaint aside, ate some more fries, and began reading the decree.

It didn't take long to see that Polk had gotten the shaft. In addition to paying $1,000 a month in alimony for three years, the judge had ordered him to pay Compton's fees and the lion's share of the marital debts. I couldn't believe it, and I wondered how Compton had done it.

The answer became clear as I reviewed the remaining papers. The most interesting doc.u.ments in any divorce action are the depositions and answers to interrogatories. Those aren't usually filed with the court, but they'd been offered into evidence at trial and Scott had made copies.

Janice's deposition revealed that she held a master's degree in public administration. Throughout most of the marriage she had earned a good income as executive director of a foundation dedicated to wiping out a disease I'd never heard of. But she had begun to experience depression within a year of the wedding. Six months prior to filing the complaint, she'd consulted a psychiatrist. The shrink-almost certainly handpicked by Compton-met with her several times, conducted a mult.i.tude of tests, and diagnosed her as suffering from an "adjustment disorder with work inhibition." In his opinion, the prolonged and constant stress of marriage to a federal agent had rendered her barely able to work. The foundation allowed her a leave of absence.

That explained how Compton had achieved the result he had, but I read Polk's deposition just to be thorough. Taken in December, the deposition had lasted four hours. I tried to picture it. Polk, the hulking federal agent accustomed to interrogating suspects, sitting in Compton's conference room high above downtown Denver, biting his tongue, trying desperately not to lose his temper as he answered question after question. I smiled and continued reading. It was amusing until I came upon this: MR. COMPTON: Aside from your salary as an FBI agent, have you earned income from any other employment during the past year?

MR. POLK: Yes.

MR. COMPTON: Tell me about that.

MR. POLK: I earned approximately five thousand dollars as a consultant for a small corporation.

MR. COMPTON: What kind of consulting?

MR. POLK: Corporate security.

MR. COMPTON: And when was this?

MR. POLK: I started in August or September.

MR. COMPTON: I didn't know agents were allowed to engage in outside employment?

MR. POLK: You have to have permission from the special agent in charge.

MR. COMPTON: Did you have permission?

MR. POLK: Yes.

MR. COMPTON: Did you report this income?

MR. POLK: I'm a federal agent. What do you think?

MR. COMPTON: Please answer the question, sir.

MR. POLK: Yes, I reported it.

MR. COMPTON: Are you still doing work for this company?

MR. POLK: No.

MR. COMPTON: Do you plan to in the future?

MR. POLK: If I'm asked.

MR. COMPTON: What is the name of this company?

MR. POLK: It's called the Koch Group. It's an economic consulting firm.

MR. COMPTON: Is this a local company?

MR. POLK: Yes. It's in the Colorado State Bank Building.

MR. COMPTON: During your career with the FBI, have you engaged in any other outside employment?

MR. POLK: No.

MR. COMPTON: All right, let's talk about your investments.

The remainder of the deposition was unremarkable. I gathered the doc.u.ments together. From my review of them, one thing was clear-the couple had been living beyond their means. New cars, vacations in Mexico, a condo near Aspen. Polk had been in financial trouble even before the divorce, and that was interesting, but his mention of the Koch Group was what stuck in my mind.

"The Koch Group," I muttered to myself. I finished my fries, bought a soft-serve ice-cream cone for the road, and climbed into the truck. "Guess what?" I said to the dogs. "One of Daddy's cla.s.smates is gonna die by lethal injection."

30.

BY MORNING I REALIZED I didn't have that much. And what I had was circ.u.mstantial. I thought about it in my kitchen as I ate a mixture of Grape-Nuts and yogurt.

The gun used to kill Fontaine had been logged into evidence by Polk and later taken from the FBI's evidence room in Denver. Polk had falsely told Gilbert that the bureau still had the weapon. The revolver had been pulled from the Columbia River near Richland, Was.h.i.+ngton. Richland was Polk's hometown. Polk had personally reinterviewed a number of witnesses and had even done some work on the case after it was supposed to have been closed. There seemed to be an economic thread running through the case. Polk had a degree in economics and had done work for a firm that used mathematical models to predict market behavior. Polk had been having financial and marital problems. It was enough to go to the bureau, and maybe I should have, but I wanted to build a stronger case. There were too many unanswered questions.

The first question was motive. If Fontaine had developed some sort of revolutionary model or software designed to predict market behavior, how would Polk have known about it? Why would he have cared? Perhaps the Koch Group had learned of it and hired him to kill Fontaine. If so, it would have had to pay him more than five thousand dollars. And Polk certainly wouldn't have reported the income. Maybe that was just a smoke screen for his real business with the company. If they had paid him some money above the table, maybe they had paid him a lot more under the table.

Even if Polk had killed Fontaine, I had no evidence connecting him to the deaths of Carolyn Chang and Donald Underwood. What would have been his motive? Had the three been working together? If so, how would the Koch Group have known? How would anyone have known? Fontaine had never mentioned anything like that to his colleagues. Underwood had never discussed it. Had Carolyn Chang talked about it with Hawkins? He was an economist, and I knew she had helped him with his most recent paper. I called Susan Thompson.

"You're a hard person to reach," I said.

"It was a busy news week," she said. "And to top it all off, a pair of wolves escaped from the zoo yesterday."

"Good for them," I said.

"They found them soaking up the sun in a cornfield."

"I guess that's why they call them the Corn Huskies."

"You really need help," she said.

"No doubt about it."

"I suppose you're calling about Hawkins?"

"Primarily," I said.

"I don't like the sound of that," she said. I laughed. "I can't tell you much we didn't already know," she continued. "His name's been mentioned in our paper quite a few times. Whenever he receives an award or gives a lecture, he sends a press release. He writes a lot of letters to the editor, mostly arguing against government regulation of business."

"Free-market economist," I said.

"Evidently."

"Anything else?"

"He's been active in Big Brothers since he got here," she said. "He received some sort of award for it."

"That's it," I said, "that's the clue I've been waiting for."

"This might interest you," she said. "He was in the army. He finished an ROTC program at the tail end of the Vietnam War, seventy to seventy-three. The school paper did a story on him when he first got to Nebraska."

"Any idea what he did in the army?"

"He was an intelligence officer, whatever that is."

"That's what they do with you when you're too smart to lead an infantry platoon." Probably drafted and commissioned as soon as the army realized his potential. "I appreciate your help," I said.

"It's not free," she said. "Tell me something to keep me interested."

"I'm wearing only boxer shorts," I said.

"I want a big story," she said. I laughed, then told her everything. "Wow," she said. "The FBI loses a gun that ends up being used in a murder. That's quite a story."

"Not as good as the zoo losing a pair of wolves," I said. I asked her not to print anything yet, and promised her first crack at the story when it all came together. She gave me her word.

"So what else do you need from me?" she asked.

"I don't think this has anything to do with the case," I said, "but there's a math professor in Boulder named Stephen Finn. He used to teach at Nebraska and he's somehow connected to Amanda Slowiaczek, but I don't know how."

"Why do you care?" she asked.

"One of my neighbors saw Finn snooping around my house not too long ago."

"F-I-N-N?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I'll check it out and call you back."

"Thanks, Little Red."

I placed the cordless phone in its cradle, put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher, showered, and dressed for the day. Sat at my desk and pondered the case.

It would be nice to know where Polk had been when the victims died. I could get that from Gumby, but I'd have to lay the whole case out for him and then Dittmer and the bureau would take it away from me. I didn't want to do that if I could avoid it. I'd put a lot of time into it and wanted to take Polk down on my own terms. I still held him responsible for Joy's death, and I wanted to be there when his karma caught up with him. I punched in Scott's number.

"McCutcheon," he said.

"How hard is it to tap into the airline reservation system?" I asked.

"We may not have to," he said. "One of Bobbi's friends owns a travel agency. It's that one over on Baseline. What are we looking for?"

"I want to know if Polk made any trips to Walla Walla, Boston, or Lincoln during the relevant time periods." I told him about the Koch Group and Polk's admission that he had done work for the firm.

"He wouldn't use his real name," Scott said.

"Maybe not," I said, "but let's check it out just the same."

"I'll see what I can do," he said, "but I don't know how those systems work. It might help if I had his Social Security number or a credit card number."

"I think I've got his Social," I said. "Hang on." I thumbed through Polk's law school records, found the SSN, and read it to Scott. He read it back to make sure he'd written down the correct number. I promised to work on the credit card information.

"By the way," I added, "there aren't any direct flights from Denver to Walla Walla, so you might as well check Seattle, Portland, Spokane, and Boise. Better check Omaha too."

"I'm on it," he said. "What are you up to today?"

"I've got to make some calls," I said. "Then I'm thinking about visiting the Koch Group and trying to rattle the bushes a little."

"If Polk takes a shot at you as you come out of the building, I'd say that would be pretty strong circ.u.mstantial evidence." I laughed, said good-bye, and thought about the best way to obtain information about Polk's credit cards. I reviewed the records from his divorce, but there were no references to specific account numbers. I punched in the number for Keane, Simms & Mercante, and asked for Big Matt.

"I'm sorry," the receptionist said, "Mr. Simms is in court right now. May I take a message?" I doubted my former partner was in court at eight-thirty on a Monday morning. Matt hates talking with clients, but he wants them to think his advocacy skills are in such high demand that he's constantly in court. For years he'd been instructing receptionists to feed the "He's in court" line to all callers.

"Tell him it's Pepper Keane," I said. She put me on hold.

"Sorry about that," Matt said, "we have a new receptionist and she didn't recognize your voice."

"That's okay," I said. "I just called to ask another little favor."

"That was a great brief, by the way. Thanks."

"You're welcome," I said. "Listen, I need you to run two more credit histories."

He sighed. "Jesus, Pepper," he said, "I had to really push hard to get our agency to run the last one."

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"I know," he grumbled. "Give me the names of these two f.u.c.kers."

"First guy's name is Dale D. Hawkins," I said. He wrote it down. "Second guy's name is Michael K. Polk."

"Polk? You want me to ask our collection agency to run a credit history on an FBI agent?"