The Fractal Murders Part 9

"When was that published?"

"Couple of years ago."

"Interesting. If there was correspondence between them, it's possible they trashed it after the book came out."

"Maybe, but Fontaine obviously knew and respected Underwood. Seems unlikely they'd go for years without talking or trading letters."

"Yeah, it does."

"Who checked the phone records?" I asked.

"Wasn't me, so it must have been Polk."

"That's what I was afraid of. He probably spent five minutes on the phone with some minimum-wage clerk at the AT&T subpoena center." He laughed.

"Pepper, I know you don't like the guy, but he's not stupid."

"Just the same, will you take a look at it?"

"Yeah," he said, "I'll take a look at it."

9.

AFTER AN EARLY RUN AROUND THE LAKE with Buck, I spent Thursday morning putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches on an appellate brief I was writing for Big Matt Simms. A former offensive lineman at Colorado State, Matt stands six-two and must weigh two-seventy, most of it ego. He has a taste for the finer things in life, as is evidenced by the fact that he buys a new car every year. This year it was a Mercedes.

Because Matt won't turn away any prospective client with money, he frequently finds himself with more work than he can handle. Once in a while he asks me to write a brief for him. He pays me seventy-five dollars an hour, in cash, but the client never knows I exist. He bills the client at his normal hourly rate as if he had done the work. Matt prides himself on having one of the highest hourly rates in Denver, but the client gets a first-rate brief and I earn a little tax-free spending money without having to tolerate the daily indignities of practicing law.

Shortly before noon I drove to the post office, mailed the brief to Matt, bought a large diet c.o.ke at the B&F, and returned home to begin my search for Thomas Tobias.

People who intentionally disappear tend to fall into one of three categories: those running from the law, those running from their creditors, and those running from themselves. If you have a name and a Social Security number, it's pretty easy to determine whether someone falls into either of the first two categories. I phoned Gilbert, told him about Tobias, and asked him to run an NCIC check. That would reveal Tobias's criminal history, if any, as well as information concerning any outstanding warrants. "How'd you find out about this guy?" Gilbert asked.

"You don't want to know," I said.

"Probably not," he agreed.

When Gilbert and I had finished talking, I phoned Matt, explained the situation, and asked him to have the firm's collection agency obtain a copy of Tobias's credit history. "That's illegal," he deadpanned, "I can't be a party to that."

"Yeah, right," I said. "Just fax it up to me when you get it."

"I'll put it on my ever growing list of c.r.a.p to do," he said.

"Thanks, Matt."

"Hey, Pepper," he said, "when are you going to ditch the investigative bit and get your a.s.s back down here? I'm telling you, man, we're raking in money like never before."

"You're still young," I said. "I figure you've got about five more years until burnout."

"They are a pain," he said, referring to his clients.

"But you love the money and seeing your name in the papers."

"But I love the money and seeing my name in the papers."

"You're an addict," I said. "You need to find a twelve-step program. That's the only way to free yourself from that kind of thinking." He laughed and promised to fax me Tobias's credit history as soon as possible.

By two o'clock I knew Tobias had no criminal history and wasn't wanted for anything. By three I knew he'd had exceptional credit before disappearing. He'd paid his bills in full in May of ninety-seven and hadn't used a credit card since. I'd have to dig deeper. I dialed information for the Big Apple.

After identifying myself as an IRS agent, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 912, a woman in NYU's accounting department told me Tobias had left a forwarding address in Erie, Pennsylvania, but that his W-2 for last year had been returned with "No Such Address" stamped on it. The address had probably been bogus from the start; Tobias had chosen Whitman for his undergraduate education, and I had a hunch he'd grown up in the Pacific Northwest.

I called NYU again, this time asking for the dean of the college of arts and sciences. I got the a.s.sociate dean, Maria Santos. I gave my true name and occupation, then told her I was trying to locate Thomas Tobias. She was initially reluctant to provide any information, but opened up when I explained that Tobias had fathered a child out of wedlock and now owed more than twelve thousand dollars in back child support. "That's awful," she said. "What can I do to help?"

I asked if Tobias had completed an employment application or emergency information card. She put me on hold, but returned a few minutes later and told me he had filled out an employment application and an emergency notification card. She promised to fax them.

"Did you know Professor Tobias?" I asked.

"I'd met him."

"Any idea why he left? Was he in trouble with the administration?"

"No, not at all. He left on good terms." I heard her thumbing through papers. "His letter of resignation is somewhat vague; he felt he needed to take some time off for personal reasons."

"Couldn't he have taken a sabbatical?"

"No, he would've had to teach several more years to be eligible for a sabbatical."

I thanked her for her time, and she wished me luck in tracking down my deadbeat dad. I took a break to pump some iron in my bas.e.m.e.nt. I've acc.u.mulated a great deal of weight-lifting equipment over the years, mostly items my brother no longer needed at his gym. It was a leg day, so I did squats, leg presses, lunges, knee extensions, ham curls, step-ups, and calf raises. By the time I had finished, my legs were fried, but I love that feeling. It's a natural high.

I went upstairs and made a protein shake, then checked my fax machine. True to her word, Ms. Santos had faxed copies of Tobias's employment application and emergency notification card. I examined the notification card first. In case of emergency, Tobias had instructed NYU to contact his mother, Iris Tobias, of Bend, Oregon. I debated calling her, but there was a practical problem. If I did, she might notify her son. There was also a moral problem. If a person truly wants to disappear, he has to give up his past life entirely. I'd hate to call Iris if she hadn't heard from her son in two years. I'd have to think it over.

The employment application presented no such problems. It listed three references. Two were mathematicians at Harvard. The third was Paul Fontaine.

10.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON. I WAS IN MY CLIENT'S OFFICE, waiting for her to return from a meeting.

My first move that morning had been to phone Ms. Santos once more. I asked if Tobias's references had provided letters of recommendation. "No," she said, "but the hiring committee conducted telephonic interviews with them, and they all spoke in glowing terms." So much for that theory. A poor recommendation from Fontaine might've indicated bad blood between the two, and that would have given me some basis, however weak, to suspect Tobias had played a role in Fontaine's death.

I studied my client's bookcases. a.n.a.lytic geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, Riemannian geometry, fractal geometry. She even had Euclid's Elements and a three-volume treatise on the history of geometry. I was still taking inventory, head c.o.c.ked to the side like a curious collie, when she entered. She was carrying the latest issue of USA Today and in it there was a story about the latest terrorist attack on the other side of the world.

"Sorry I'm late," she said. She sighed and extended her lower lip at the same time so that the dark strands of hair hanging gracefully over her forehead flew up for a split second. I wasn't sure if she was frustrated or exhausted. She wore tailored slacks the color of b.u.t.ter, a white cotton blouse, and her trademark pink lipstick.

"That's okay," I replied, "it gave me a chance to check out your books." She stood next to me, looked at her bookcase, and sipped coffee from a foam cup.

"I wish I could tell you I've read them all," she said, "but I'd be lying. The textbook companies send them free of charge."

"Hoping you'll use their books in your cla.s.ses?"

"Yes." She sat down behind her desk and I took one of the chairs opposite.

"You seem frustrated," I said.

"It's been a hectic day," she said. "I'll just be teaching one cla.s.s this summer, but I'm on three committees, including the tenure committee, and I'm just stretched to the limit." I thought that a funny phrase for a woman of her height, but I kept it to myself. "I'm sorry," she said, "you don't need to hear my problems. What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to give you an update and ask a few questions."

She offered coffee and I declined. "You sound better," she said.

"I finally saw a doctor," I said. "After I flew up to Walla Walla."

"Really?" Despite her admonishment not to concern myself with her finances, I read her mind.

"Don't worry," I said, "it didn't cost much. I had more frequent flier miles than I knew what to do with."

"Wouldn't you have rather used them for a vacation?"

"I don't practice law anymore," I said. "Every day is a vacation." She gave me a half smile, but said nothing. "Besides, I had to do something to get things moving. The detective who investigated Fontaine's death is another ex-marine and we hit it off when we spoke on the phone. He invited me up."

"What does he think?"

"We're both pretty certain what happened at Fontaine's house wasn't a robbery." I told her about the execution style of the murder and the many valuable items the killer had neglected to take, then summarized my efforts in Walla Walla.

"This Lieutenant Gilbert, does he believe Professor Fontaine's death is related to the other two?"

"He's suspicious," I said, "and he's willing to help, but I don't think he feels comfortable with the mathematical aspects of the case. He's leaving that to us."

"What about the other deaths? Have you learned anything about them?" I told her I'd spoken with the detective in Lincoln, Amanda Slowiaczek, but that she'd been unusually hostile. I promised to keep on it.

"And Professor Underwood?" she asked. I'd been dreading this conversation. I took a deep breath and told her the police felt he had accidentally hanged himself while jerking off. My language was a bit more clinical, but she got the idea.

"I've read about that," she said. "Does it happen often?"

"Yeah," I said, "it happens a lot."

"I guess that explains his death." She sighed.

"Not necessarily," I said. "It would be easy to fake. Point a gun at a man, he'll do whatever you say."

"I suppose that's true," she said, "but if you're going to stage a suicide, why make it look like an autoerotic accident?" She finished her coffee and placed the foam cup in the waste basket beside her.

"Making it look like an accident allows the cops to close the case without asking a lot of the questions they normally ask when someone commits suicide." She a.n.a.lyzed that a.s.sertion as if considering a mathematical equation.

"Yes," she said, "that makes sense." She seemed pleased I was open to the possibility that Underwood's death had been staged.

"There are two other things I should tell you," I said. I told her about Fontaine's reference to Underwood in the third edition of his textbook.

"My G.o.d," she said, "how could the FBI have missed that?"

"Sometimes you miss the obvious because you're not looking for it. I stumbled onto it because I had nothing better to do."

"You're being modest," she said. "Familiarizing yourself with Professor Fontaine's textbook was a good idea."

"There's one other angle I'm working," I said. "I was able to develop a list of people who either taught with or took cla.s.ses from all three of the victims." I told her about the mysterious Thomas Tobias and my efforts to locate him.

"How were you able to obtain all that information?" she asked.

I smiled. "Persistence," I said. She waited for me to elaborate, but I remained silent.

"Well," she said, "you're making tremendous progress. I don't know why the FBI couldn't have done these things." Still angry because she felt the feds hadn't taken her seriously. I smiled, said nothing. "I'm sorry," she said, "I guess I should let that go. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes," I said. "Ask Mary Pat to plug Tobias's name into the MathSciNet and make copies of all his published articles. It probably won't lead anywhere, but I have to check."

"Consider it done." She started to brew a pot of coffee. "You said you had some questions for me?"

"Tell me more about fractal dimension."

"I'll try," she said, "but what has that got to do with the case?"

"Maybe nothing, but that was the topic of your article and I noticed that term over and over again in the other articles I read. I want to make sure I understand it. Inquiring minds want to know." She smiled and began my lesson.

"In Euclidean geometry we think of objects as being three-dimensional. A line is one-dimensional, a plane is two-dimensional, and a cube is three-dimensional." She paused to make sure I grasped the concept. I nodded to show I did.

"In fractal geometry, dimensions aren't necessarily whole numbers. The dimension of an object can be expressed as a fraction. That's where the term 'fractal' comes from."

"For example?"

"Remember that coastline we talked about?"

"Sure."

"If we drew that coastline on a piece of paper, in great detail, we'd see a very crinkly line, right?"

"Yes."

"In fractal geometry we would say the dimension of the line is greater than one, but less than two. It's greater than one because it isn't straight, but it's less than two because it doesn't consume the entire piece of paper."

"So a line with a lot of squiggles will have a greater fractal dimension than a line with just a few squiggles?"