by Robert Roper
The article was kind of solid, surprisingly. Bradley Limon, Chronicle staff writer, had talked to many of his epidemiology colleagues, including Vladdy Slem. Limon sketched in his whole career, and was there not a shadow of the New Yorker guy’s efforts, of his intellectually dutiful approach? Somehow Landau could tell that Limon had talked to Mark Wormser, knew of Mark Wormser, anyway. Wow, the New Yorker is preparing a piece! What excitement, what a prod to local efforts! Let’s see if we can scoop them!
Landau read the full front section. There was an editorial contra the Iraq war—how daring of the editorialists, at this late date, to take a stance against the war. More threadbare analysis, more liberal chest-beating: the tone was that of a drunk at a party who pokes you with a finger, brooks no disagreement.
Two things happened at once. Landau’s cell phone rang, and a workman entered wearing a builder’s tool belt, an Oakland A’s hat, and Red Wing boots. Call was Deena. He wanted to take it, very much so, and yet he also didn’t. The Red Wing man looked familiar, somehow. Had the bent shoulders of the men from the church basement, although in his case, this did not suggest defeat, discouragement; he was well-formed, moved decisively, looked as if he could really wield that hammer.
“Deena. Can’t talk long, sweetheart, have to go to a meeting.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m back, I’m downtown. Did you hear about me from Georges?”
“All right, call when you can. I need to speak with you.”
They had been out of touch for almost a month. An unconscionable length of time. Still he had that instinct to keep her away from all this, because if anything should happen to Deena, he would never forgive himself or the world—and she was the only one about whom he might say that, the only woman or man. All right, maybe his son, too. Maybe. The man with work boots sat at a table on the other side of the café, and now he pulled a white MacBook out of a plastic bag and was soon tapping away. Not an indigent, apparently. Landau heard him order a latte. His face was hidden, but not his blue-black abundant hair, all interesting waves and shevels—Mexican heartthrob hair.
Ten to ten. All right, get on with it then. He wished that he had a tool belt to wear, with tape measure, hammer, dangling phallic wrenches attached. The lawyers wouldn’t feel free to bully him if he came in dressed like that, but I must go as I am, Landau told himself, and a few minutes later, he gained admission to the severe conference room, on the third floor of a building three blocks south of University. Shook hands with Masha Dimitriopoulous, whom he had not yet met in the flesh. Now they came in from four different doors, the Landau defense team, no smiles, no endearing chitchat. There were eight plastic water bottles around the oval table. And the big dog himself? He slipped in last, pulling his door firmly shut.
“Doctor Landau, we are not the enemy,” Raboy announced.
“I know that, Cleveland. I know.”
“Just so that’s settled.”
He sat down across and three people down from Landau. Some complex message in that: this is not you vs. me, a battle of wills, this is democratic Berkeley, after all. We are all equals.
“How you feeling now, you okay?”
“Physically feeling? I’m all right, thank you.”
“You gained some perspective in, where was it, Buenos Aires?”
“Yes, Buenos Aires. Yes.”
Pause.
“Whatever the reason, no more traveling, okay? From here on in we need to know where you are at all times, and we need to be on the same page, always.”
“Okay.”
Two taking notes. The rest of them all watching—looking him over searchingly.
“Let me just mention one consequence. When it comes time for setting bail, the prosecution will say you’re a flight risk, you have a habit of whimsically getting on airplanes, and for that matter, you’ve taken three hundred international flights in the last seven years alone,” and Raboy nodded at one of the note-takers, who nodded as he went on noting. “We will argue, unsuccessfully, that though you went off you came back, like a good citizen. The point is, bail will be higher. You have many contacts overseas, you could easily skip to London, Johannesburg, Ho Chi Minh City, the list goes on and on. You see what I’m saying.”
“Okay. High bail not good. Low bail better. I get you.”
“It won’t be low, in any case. But there are degrees of high. Since we’re talking money, the retainer has changed. I explained that in two electronic messages. You never responded to them. Maybe you were busy, dancing the tango—otherwise engaged.”
Landau nodded. “I’m not happy about it, counselor, but if you’re determined to squeeze me, okay. But there are limits, ol’ buddy.”
“We are so far okay with our research budget, but that could enlarge significantly, remember.”
“We had an outside total figure. I stand by that, as I stand by the Constitution.”
Silence around the table.
Raboy cleared his throat. “If nothing else comes along, probably we’ll be all right with that. But be prepared for the unexpected.”
“Look, I’m not made of money. I can mortgage the house, but it’s not that complicated a case, frankly. And I didn’t do it.”
Silence again.
Landau met everyone around the table now. Names, functions, hello there. Two were investigators. They were dressed as nicely as the lawyers, but with subtle distinguishing marks—one had a scraggly ponytail, for instance. That same one had had bad acne in his youth, and it gave him the aspect of a noble ruin. Three women, four men. The junior lawyers were younger than the investigators.
Raboy had a long face, long teeth, long forehead. Landau didn’t like him. You can see the boy or girl in the faces of middle-aged wrecks sometimes, and you just know. You would never have been friends at school.
“Masha, why don’t you tell us about the online angle.”
“Okay, Cleve,” said Masha Dimitriopoulous. “There were two thousand posts to one of the Chronicle stories in less than an hour—a truly spectacular rate of response. We’ve been nudging the discussion in a useful direction, and it’s amazing how much of the chatter is procedural now, very different from the Scott Peterson case, to compare it with that, which was what, three years ago. That also happened around Christmastime, the wife went missing Christmas Eve, Laci Peterson. There’s something about murders around the holidays that gets people very upset, but in a way, having Doctor Landau out of the country let some of the steam out, until Elfridiana Mattos turned up. But, again, a flare of outrage and deep upset has been followed by a surprising calm, because Doctor Landau wasn’t here and wasn’t speaking, wasn’t inciting a response, and not much more came out about the case at that point. Now it’s got a different tone, intellectual almost. What will be the approach in court, etcetera. Again, Scott Peterson was three years ago, ancient days in terms of Web habits. It’s been fascinating to track.”
What was she, frustrated cultural studies major? Media “scholar”? Kept comparing him to Scott, Scott Peterson the paradigm, and that one had played out badly, the wife in her eighth month, fetus in the bay, massage-therapist mistress, all of that. Scott had told Amber Frey two weeks before Christmas that he was going to be “sad” this year, going to be missing his wife come Christmas, and that’s when he did away with her. The case had been poorly handled by the defense team, everyone seemed to agree—rueful looks around the table—a nightmare from the defense point of view, with Amber talking her fool head off, CourtTV.com turning up other affairs, a total horndog the guy was, Peterson. And we have a potential image challenge ourselves, Masha concluded, and it’s fundamental that Doctor Landau not speak for himself, no, let us do that, please. Just comport himself with all the dignity of his distinguished eminence etc., etc.
Another young lawyer gave another report now—they had been canvassing for people who would do well in court, if ca
lled on to testify about his character, about his whereabouts on this or that day. Was Landau aware that Samantha Beevors had had a close friendship with Jared Samuels, his son? And what was the nature of that relationship?
“Close relationship, you say? Well, it was close, I guess, in a way.”
“Was it intimate or not?” put in one of the investigators, not the one with the ponytail.
“Not that kind of intimate. Good God—she was as old as his mother.”
They kept looking at him, all of them. You think boys don’t sleep with older women? Even with their mothers sometimes?
“He took his mother’s name, right?” asked the second young female attorney, not Masha, but another one.
“Sorry?”
“She’s Margery Samuels. Normally his name would be Jared Landau, not Jared Samuels. Jared Landau.”
Landau opened his bottle of plastic water. He took a small sip.
“Yes, that’s true, I suppose. Look, there was a period. We were estranged, my son and I. He went to live with his mother for a while. I think she was more pro-skateboard at the time—something important like that.”
They kept looking at him. Encouraging him to babble on.
“He took her name. It was some kind of jab at me, possibly. I don’t think it’s all that important, to be frank. Was just one of those things.”
“No, come on,” said Raboy with some intensity. “Come on, work with us here.”
“I don’t know what more to tell you, Cleveland. Teenagers do funny things. Some are even angry.”
“There were expensive gifts. She took him to Hawaii. The friendship lasted from when he was a schoolboy till just a couple of months ago, am I right?” and Raboy looked to one of the note-takers for confirmation.
“How do you know that?”
“We’ve been looking into a lot of things. But the question is, what does this mean for what we’re trying to do for you, Doctor? Does this hurt us or help us.”
“Doctor Landau,” Masha piped up. “Just so I have this straight—they kept their intimacy from you?”
“I don’t think they ‘kept’ anything from me. But why shouldn’t they be seeing each other now and again? She was like his favorite aunt. A zany aunt who gave him funny presents. They liked each other. She never had any kids of her own, you know, and she missed that.”
“That’s not quite true. She had a child she gave up for adoption, a girl I believe.”
Landau took another sip of water. “What?”
“She had a daughter. Now about twelve years old. Ten, I’m sorry. She would be about ten now,” said Masha, “eleven next fall.”
Landau fell silent. The others, too. After a while, he waved an airy hand.
“She would’ve been forty-six then. That’s late in the game, no? She was always traveling here and there, in front of audiences every other week. I don’t know. I never noticed anything, certainly, personally I didn’t.”
“Were you still her lover then, Doctor? Still engaged in intimate relations?”
“I can’t be sure. We were engaging up to a point, then beyond that we weren’t engaging at all. I never saw her after about 1996.”
The session went on. Trying to maintain his sangfroid, Landau was, projecting a certain indifference, at least attempting to. But this is just great, he thought. My son was in bed with my mistress, and she and I had a child together. Or she had it with the boy. A whole other kind of TV show—a whole other kind.
No further revelations, nor did he quite understand the defense strategy that they were shaping—what about his idea, discussed briefly with Raboy on the phone once, that someone was out to ruin him, to commit crimes of which he could be accused, someone who knew him? Was that so obvious an idea that nobody needed to comment on it? Who would that be, though? He had wracked his brain.
Wake up, wake up, he told himself: he was falling asleep as another of the junior associates, Carl by name, reported on developments in the county attorney’s office, their decision to indict or not. And though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway—come on, man, it gets no realer than this, this is your own life, don’t you care? Carl was reporting that the prosecutors had backed themselves into a corner, would probably have to indict, even if they didn’t think they had a good case. The public expected an indictment. What was that movie about a law case, with that great scene with the defense team planning strategy—oh, right, The Verdict, with Paul Newman. James Mason playing an evil corporate defense attorney, commanding his eager-beaver minions, and it all came down to a stolen phone bill. But wait—why are you thinking about movies now? This is really happening, sir! Really!
Forced himself to focus on young Masha Dimitriopoulous’ sweater, a lime-green sweater. Four pearl buttons ran up the throat of it, three of them primly fastened—they communicated probity, somehow, a quality one hoped to find in one’s lawyer. Forced himself to look at Raboy next, to concentrate on his mouth, his teeth. Wasn’t it Shakespeare who coined the phrase “long in the tooth,” meaning that our teeth seem to lengthen as we age, because our gums are receding? Shakespeare, you mighty genius! Dentistry yet another of your areas of expertise, along with heraldry, falconry, canon law, glove-making. Shakespeare, I give you Shakespeare, gentlemen! William Shakespeare!
“Doctor Landau. Can I get you something to drink, some coffee maybe?”
It was the other female attorney, whose name was Taylor.
“No, I think I’ll pass, Taylor. On second thought—maybe a nice cup of tea. I’m feeling drowsy.”
“It often happens. Clients try to think so hard, so hard. They exhaust themselves, they knock themselves out.”
Stumbled out onto the street past three thirty. Feeling befuddled, in a waking dream. All right, you recognize this boulevard, calm down, you’re in Berkeley. You’ve just seen your lawyer, and they’ve filled you in on some matters. That’s good, things are moving along. Take one step down the sidewalk. Now take another.
chapter 10
How many postdocs had he had? How many grad students in various capacities in a forty-year career? By rough calculation Landau arrived at the figure of 235, which was on the high side, but not too far. Among this phalanx, this regiment of sturdy health-soldiers, all of them ambitious, thinking people, had been one bad apple, or not. It might as likely have been a senior colleague, but no, for the moment consider the youngsters. Look into their fresh faces. What do you see?
I see hope and lust, lust to succeed, Landau thought. I see annoying goodness for the most part. Not a one ever came at me with a weapon. Callow, nerdy, needy, but no women-slashers, no rapists among them. What did I know of their private lives, of course—relatively little. In a few cases, more than I wanted. I tried to rule that out of discussion, telling them, you come to my lab to work, to learn, so spare me tales of what a piece of work your mother was. We have all had mothers.
No, no, think harder. And Landau came up with someone, with a man named Emory Forbush Musselwhite, born Normal, Oklahoma, stout sandy-haired young fellow who had hung around for three years, whose dissertation Landau had supervised. Appallingly written, though showing command of numerical concepts, and then at his orals he had been nearly speechless, tongue-tied with over-brightness, over-preparation. Landau had somehow gotten him through. Thereafter, embarrassingly grateful, worshipful. Emory had begged not to be banished from Landau’s lab, sent forth into the cold, discomforting world, but Landau had insisted. A letter, arriving two years later more or less, had made demented threats. Landau had ruined his life, etc. Was somehow a Judas, a betrayer.
Searched for the letter but could not find it. He had never gotten an academic job, tightly wound Emory, but look, here on the Web site of Bluware Systems, of Pearland, Texas, Emory F. Musselwhite had lately been profiled as the new Senior Manager in Distributed Engineering, whatever that was. The photo showed a perfectly aged v
ersion of the former student, sandy hair thinning, neck fatter, eyes now behind heavy specs. A welcoming smile on the placid face.
This a mad slasher? No. No. You only had to look at him.
Christmas Eve. He celebrated at the palace, son Jad’s enormous sterile house—it evoked for him spreads in architectural magazines, mansions in Marina del Rey owned by Kuwaiti princes, that sort of thing. Bone-white walls, furniture that encouraged one to laze, to peel a grape. Statuary here and there, also oversized oil paintings. Canvasses of primordial forms, painted by Karin, the talented daughter-in-law—she had been a studio arts major, then a psych major, before turning to the law. Threatful shapes that loomed up out of lurid chaos. Whatever else they were they were not over-controlled, throttled by a search for technical perfection—and who had painted like that, Landau asked himself, some brilliant amateur of the past had. Oh, right—D.H. Lawrence. Paint just rudely glopped on.
Not a bad party, after all. Bunch of yuppies, but the mood was warm, there were even kids running about. One other older person, a woman from Karin’s church group, an attractive, pale widow who was all in a lather about Israel. Landau’s half-Jewishness awoke only in encounters with ardent anti-Zionists; he didn’t like the settlements, either, he was not a big fan of Bibi’s, but why are you so hung up on the Jews, my dear? All right, all right, you’re not hung up, you tell me. Sorry—my mistake.
Earlier in the day, he’d gone for a swim with Georges. Georges had remarked on his svelte new form—what is it, Anthony, are you on a diet? Have you got dysentery, leukemia?
“No, but I walked a lot down there. Twelve hours some days. And I sometimes forgot to eat. I’ve been off my feed ever since I found that poor hollowed-out girl under my deck.”
“That doesn’t sound like you, not hungry.”
“No, it’s unnatural.”
Taking more care with his appearance now. On the day after his marathon meeting with the lawyers, he’d gotten a friendly email from Masha, which went:
Dr. Landau, you are an impressive-looking man. I just wanted to say that right out. Please shave regularly and buy yourself some new shirts. You are on a public stage now, for better or worse. I will be happy to help you shop if you want. I buy my father’s clothes and he looks great. Everybody says so!