The Fractal Murders Read online

  I began my self-study program by reading the pre-Socratics and had since worked my way well into the twentieth century. Consequently, I now found myself trying to understand one of the most incomprehensible philosophers of all time. Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher, has been variously classified as a phenomenologist, an existentialist, and a mystic. For Heidegger, the fundamental mystery of life was that something, rather than nothing, exists. He spent most of his adult life attempting to develop a philosophy based on this rather obvious fact. Of course, I had spent most of my adult life as a lawyer billing people for my services in six-minute increments, so who was I to judge?

  As often happens when I read philosophy at night, I soon found myself half asleep and skimming the same paragraph again and again. Something about “Dasein”—Heidegger’s term for man, or being. I put the book down. “C’mon, boys,” I said to the dogs, “time to hit the hay.”

  They followed me to the bedroom and we began our nightly ritual. Buck jumped on the bed ahead of me, stood on his hind legs, placed his grapefruit-size paws on my shoulders, and gave me a hug. That done, I slipped under the covers so Wheat could begin my face licking. After a suitable interval I turned out the light, then pulled the sheet over my head to signal Wheat the cleaning process was complete. Buck flopped down on my left, Wheat turned around three times and burrowed in on my right. Some people think I’m nuts when it comes to my dogs, but they’re all I’ve got.

  “Mornin’, Pepper,” Wanda said.

  “Mornin’, Wanda.” She took my Foghorn Leghorn mug from the rack on the back wall and handed it to me. Her blond-gray hair was in a bun, and her white apron was covered with assorted stains. She’d been baking for hours and she looked it. It was seven-thirty on a Tuesday morning and the place was crowded.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” she said. “You get tired of gas station coffee?”

  “Decided to treat myself today,” I said. Ever the diplomat.

  “Something to eat? I’ve got some cinnamon rolls just out of the oven.” They smelled wonderful, but I’m insulin resistant and have to limit my carbohydrates or I gain weight.

  “Tempting,” I said, “but not today.” I poured myself some coffee, mixed in a little cream, and placed a faded dollar bill on the glass counter by the register. I found a booth in the back, read the News, and listened to the morning gossip. The Post might be a better paper, but it’s divided into folding sections so large only an octopus with bifocals could comfortably read it.

  The gossip was more entertaining than the paper in any event. Wanda’s Kitchen is a gathering place for the telecommuting yuppies, aging hippies, and transient bikers who populate this mountain town of fifteen hundred. This morning’s conversation centered on a controversial proposal to eliminate the town marshal’s office and contract with the county for law enforcement services. The consensus was that this was a bad idea that would ultimately lead to enforcement of such things as building codes, marijuana laws, and the three-dog limit. I agreed with the consensus.

  I poured some more coffee and returned to my booth only to find Wanda’s black Lab, Zeke, sitting beneath the table. The Boulder County Health Department doesn’t make it up here very often. I took a moment to rub Zeke’s belly, then began reviewing the news clippings and biographical blurbs Jayne Smyers had provided.

  The first victim, Paul Fontaine, had been a fifty-five-year-old professor of mathematics at Whitman College, in Walla Walla, Washington. He’d been shot once in the back of the head during an apparent robbery at his home last September. A Walla Walla native, Fontaine earned a doctorate at twenty-three and had taught at some of the best schools in the country. Michigan, Tufts, Harvard. As my client had mentioned, he’d authored a widely used textbook on fractal geometry.

  He was the oldest of three children and the only son; his parents owned an immense wheat farm just east of Walla Walla. His father had suffered a minor stroke in 1977, and he’d taken the Whitman position at that time so he could help oversee the wheat operation. Students described him as an easygoing man with a passion for teaching. An avid runner, fly fisherman, and collector of rare American coins. The photo showed a handsome fellow, sharp features and distinguished silver hair. He had never married and had been living alone at the time of his death. I hoped the same would not someday be said of me.

  Victim number two, Carolyn Chang, had been an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln. A farmer had found her frozen body somewhere north of Manhattan, Kansas, in late December. She’d been raped and repeatedly stabbed. An only child, Carolyn had been born and raised in Honolulu, where her father was a successful building contractor. She’d done her undergraduate work at Harvard and earned her Ph.D. at Berkeley. Though she’d been teaching in Lincoln only five years, she’d been named acting dean of students during one of them. Colleagues and students alike described her as hardworking and demanding. She was thirty-five years old at the time of her death. Like Fontaine, she had never married.

  The same photograph appeared in several articles; it was a professional portrait, probably taken for a yearbook or obtained from the university’s public relations department. Despite her Chinese surname and Asian features, her well-endowed front and the baby fat in her cheeks suggested at least one of her parents was of Polynesian descent. She had possessed a wonderful smile, wide and unpretentious. I considered her attractive, and I assumed many of her male colleagues and students had felt the same way. Maybe one of them decided she’d been a little too demanding.

  Although her body had been found in Kansas, the location of the actual murder was not known. The lead investigator for the Lincoln Police Department, Detective Amanda Slowiaczek, told reporters Carolyn could have been killed anyplace between Lincoln and the site where her body had been found, approximately eighty miles south of there. Neither her department nor the sheriff in Kansas had any suspects.

  The third victim, if you could call him that, had been a thirty-seven-year-old associate professor of mathematics at Harvard. Donald Underwood had hanged himself in his upscale Boston town house on Valentine’s Day. He and his wife had been separated ten months, but friends and coworkers had noticed nothing unusual in his behavior in the weeks prior to his death. There was no mention of a suicide note. Because the authorities had treated his death as a suicide rather than a murder, the local papers had not seen fit to devote more than a few paragraphs to the story. All I knew was that he was survived by his wife and two sons.

  Three victims, three different states, and three different causes of death. That all added up to three unrelated cases, but all three victims had been mathematicians. And not just run-of-the-mill mathematicians, but experts in fractal geometry. The feds had closed the case, but I had a tough time chalking it up to coincidence.

  Another thing I had a tough time with was the paper my client had written. It was entitled “Fractal Dimension: Some Thoughts on Alternatives to Hausdorff-Besicovitch.” She lost me in the second paragraph, and after that it might as well have been written using an alphabet created by an ancient civilization from another planet in a solar system that had long since imploded. After twenty minutes of struggling with it, all I knew was that no matter how you measured it, the coastline of Norway was still more jagged than that of Great Britain.

  I gathered my papers, gave Zeke one last pat on the head, and walked home. It was approaching ten-thirty, so I donned my running gear and jogged to the post office with Wheat. I live on the outskirts of Nederland—a small town fifteen miles west of Boulder. The postal service won’t deliver mail if you live more than two miles from town, so I rent a box and check it six days a week.

  There was the usual assortment of junk mail, including yet another letter from the credit gods informing me I’d been preapproved for some kind of super titanium card because of my “accomplishments in life.” Once they know you’re a lawyer, it never stops coming. I tore each item in half, dumped the remains into the metal U.S. government trash
can, and started home. It was a good day to run, about seventy degrees and sunny. Little Wheat detoured now and then to check out a new smell or leave his mark, then raced to catch up with me. His paws didn’t seem to bother him, but they sometimes do and I have to walk. Or carry him.

  I never take Buck to the post office. Buck is a floppy-eared cross between a Rhodesian Ridgeback and a Great Dane. He was just a puppy when I found him wandering the streets of Denver four years ago. He wasn’t wearing any tags and looked emaciated. I figured anyone stupid enough to let a dog roam the streets without tags didn’t deserve a pet, so I kept him. Today he weighs 130 and he’s extremely protective, so I have to keep him on a leash when I’m in town. Trying to jog while you’re tethered to Buck is a great way to strengthen your lats, but doesn’t make for a very enjoyable run.

  Wheat, on the other hand, is a purebred schipperkee. He’s black, weighs about twenty pounds, and has pointy ears. The schipperkee originated in Belgium and was known as a boatsman’s dog. We don’t boat much, but the little dog is a joy to run with when his paws aren’t hurting. I adopted him two years ago, just before moving to Nederland. I had learned of his plight from a newspaper article. His jerk owner had abused little “Blackie” to the point where the jerk’s own roommates had called the police. The jerk had kicked the puppy so often that he had suffered permanent nerve damage in his front paws. Surgery helped some, but the dog needed a loving home. One look at the photo convinced me I had to have him. I drove to the shelter, paid the adoption fee, and took the curious animal home. The jerk was charged with cruelty to animals, but made bail and skipped town.

  I finished my run, clicked on CNN, and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Despite the lack of breakfast, I felt great. They say exercise is the best thing for depression, and in my case that is definitely true, but I add 150 milligrams of Imipramine every night just for insurance. I took one of my patented ninety-second showers, dressed, then sat at my desk to consider the case.

  I wanted to see the police files on the three victims. This would have been difficult even if they had all died in Boulder, but the three incidents had taken place in locations where I had no contacts. Unlike many private eyes, I had never been a cop, so I wasn’t a member of the law enforcement fraternity. I had been a federal prosecutor, but even that was unlikely to get me past the disdain most police officers feel for lawyers. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  I dialed information for Walla Walla only to learn the process had been automated so that you no longer spoke with a human being. A female cybervoice recited the number and offered to connect me for an additional seventy-five cents. I said, “In your dreams, sweetcakes,” then hung up and dialed it myself. The woman answering for the Walla Walla Police Department informed me that Lieutenant Dick Gilbert was handling the Fontaine case. He wasn’t in, so I left my name, number, and a request that he call me.

  I phoned the Lincoln Police Department and asked for Detective Slowiaczek, the woman quoted in the news clippings. I was transferred three times, but finally got her. “Slowiaczek,” was all she said. I identified myself and explained the reason for my call.

  “Who’s your client?” she demanded. She sounded like she was in her thirties. Her abrupt tone suggested my call was about as welcome as one from a sales rep asking her to switch long-distance companies.

  “My client,” I said, “is a concerned citizen who finds it hard to believe these deaths were unrelated.” I heard some noise in the background.

  “Tell that asshole I’ll be with him in a minute.”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” she snapped.

  “You sound busy,” I said. “All I’m asking is a chance to see what you’ve got.”

  “Out of the question,” she said.

  “I understand it’s an open investigation,” I said. “If you don’t want copies of documents floating around, how about I fly to Lincoln and review them in your presence.”

  “I’m sure that would be a real treat for me,” she said, “but it’s not going to happen.” Losing her patience.

  “Look,” I said, “I was a federal prosecutor for seven years. I know what I’m doing. I need to gather as much information as possible about these deaths.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, not impressed.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange,” I persisted, “that all three of these people were experts in fractal geometry?” It was one question too many.

  “In the first place,” she shot back, “I see strange every day of my life. In the second place, you’re asking me to violate department policy. And in the third place, the FBI already investigated that and I’ll be damned if I’m going to go over it again with some limp-dick lawyer turned private eye.” I got the impression she didn’t like men. I thanked her for her time and hung up before I became a suspect.

  The detective who had worked the Underwood suicide was Tom O’Hara. He had the Boston accent and sounded like he was nearing retirement. I envisioned a big, hard-drinking Irish cop with silver hair, a ruddy red face, and a bulbous nose. Probably a flask of whiskey in his desk and a Red Sox pennant on the wall behind him.

  “Yeah,” he said, “the feds went over my reports. Took about ten minutes.”

  “That long?”

  “It wasn’t a Boston case. They were doing legwork for some other office.”

  “They tell you all three of these people were experts in fractal geometry?”

  “Yeah, they told me all that, but you don’t need to be Dick Tracy to see this guy offed himself.”

  “Any way it could’ve been staged?”

  “Anything’s possible,” he admitted, “but at this point we’ve got no motive for anyone to do that and no reason to think that’s what happened.” Time to ask for the records.

  “Maybe there’s nothing there,” I said, “but I’d like to review your file. My client’s paying me good money and that’s the logical place to start.” He thought for a moment.

  “You contact the other two departments?”

  “Yeah, they’re sending me what they’ve got.” He thought for another moment.

  “I’d like to help you,” he finally said, “but I’ll bet we get three or four of these autoerotic deaths every year.” I didn’t say a word. “The department keeps these files locked up tight; you know, outta respect for the family.” I said I understood and thanked him for his time.

  So, Underwood hadn’t committed suicide. He had unintentionally strangled himself while engaging in autoerotic asphyxia. As a Marine Corps lawyer it had been my sad duty to deal with that sort of thing on a fairly regular basis. Write a report, collect the deceased’s belongings, help make arrangements and all that. I had practiced law long enough to know there were plenty of apparently normal people out there who had their own secrets and demons. Or, as one of my former law partners, “Big” Matt Simms, used to say whenever we walked into a restaurant for lunch, “I’ll bet half the fuckers in here have bodies in their basements.”

  I closed my eyes and considered the implications. If Underwood’s death had been an accident, then, by definition, it was unrelated to the other deaths. While the killing of even two specialists in fractal geometry still seemed highly coincidental, the belief that Underwood’s death was somehow related had given the whole thing a sort of critical mass.

  Okay, assume Underwood purposely took his own life. Why make it look like an autoerotic death? That didn’t make sense, so the only other possibility was that a person or persons unknown had killed him. Where did that leave me? Each of the victims had been an expert in fractal geometry. Each had also attended or taught at Harvard, but that was probably a coincidence. The three victims had not been America’s only experts on fractals, but they were the only ones who were dead. Why them? I punched in my client’s number. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Jayne Smyers.”

  “Hello, Professor, this is Pepper Keane.”

  “Oh, how are you? I didn�
�t expect to hear from you so soon.” She sounded more relaxed. “Do you have me on a speakerphone?” I like the speakerphone because it leaves my hands free to find documents or take notes, but I could tell it bothered her, so I picked up the receiver.

  “I’m fine, but I have a favor to ask.”

  “Sure.”

  “Would it be possible for me to get copies of all the published papers of the three victims?”

  “Wow,” she said, “you don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “I’m obsessive-compulsive.”

  “Most people who achieve anything in life are.”

  I wondered what I had achieved in life. Aside from being preapproved for a plethora of gold cards. “I’d like to see if I can find any pattern in their writings.”

  “That makes sense. I’ll ask Mary Pat to make copies right away.”

  “That’s your graduate assistant?”

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, if you don’t want her to know what you’re working on, I could do it, but it would take a few days. I’d have to do a computer search and scoot over to the library to pull them myself.” I hadn’t heard anyone other than Keith Jackson use the verb “scoot” in a long time. Keith covers college football for ABC. He likes to say things like, “I tell you, folks, this sophomore can really scoot.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, “go ahead and have her do it.”

  “I could tell her they’re for me.”

  “She’d know what you were up to. Just tell her the truth and emphasize that she’s not to mention it to anyone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, I’ll ask her to get right on it. They should be ready in a day or two.”

  I thanked her and said good-bye. Jesus, it was almost two o’clock. I let the dogs out for a few minutes, then fired up my truck and headed for Denver. I popped in a tape of old Sam Cooke tunes and made it down the mountain in twenty-two minutes. I love old rock ’n’ roll and old country. Besides, radio reception in the canyon is virtually nil; the only signal you can get is an AM station with a fundamentalist Christian orientation. I’m hoping that’s just a coincidence.