The Savage Professor

by Robert Roper

  “Wasn’t like what?”

  “Well, she was a rational person, normally. But she’s seeing all this craziness in the papers, how I’m Jack the Ripper, and the police can’t get me off the streets, for some reason. People hear that and then if they actually see you in a store, say, they have a big fear response. Some people do.”

  The investigator nodded, yes, that sounds about right, please continue.

  “Fortunately, you-know-who was in the basement that night. Six or seven men got in line behind me, and one of them was following me, I’m fairly sure of it. Maybe there’s a surveillance camera down there. They were signing forms, so you might even have a name. Take a look at the tape, that’s got your murderer on it, I bet.”

  Rayboy touched him on the shoulder, and Landau inclined his head that way. But the lawyer said nothing—probably, he just wanted to be in touch.

  “Professor, why did Dolores Huerta leave your employ?”

  “Well, she was living in Rockridge, not over in the Mission anymore. It was a question of the commute, I think.”

  “Nothing personal that made it uncomfortable for her to be in your lab anymore, in your presence?”

  “You know, we’re not going to speculate about that,” Raboy put in. “That’s kind of beside the point.”

  “No,” Landau said. “Nothing personal.”

  “How would you characterize your relationship with her? What was it like, basically?”

  “Basically, it was professional, as well as friendly. She’d been with me a number of years, and we knew each other.”

  “To what degree friendly?”

  “Well, they invited me to their housewarming. Dorothea, that’s her wife, her spouse—I knew her, too. I saw them a couple of times over the last couple of years. They came to my Boxing Day parties—all of my staff get invited, though not all of them come.”

  Big mistake, Landau saw immediately. “Boxing Day party”—what the heck was that?

  “So you’re not American, is that right, Doctor?”

  “Technically, yes. I’m English, although I feel more American.”

  “Why don’t you take out citizenship then?”

  “I haven’t gotten round to it.”

  “Lieutenant, please, what’s going on? We agreed to talk about the night and the crime, not the professor’s citizenship status,” said Raboy.

  “You been here how long, Doctor, fifty years?”

  “Forty-two come next September, as a matter of fact.”

  “How many Boxing Day parties have you thrown?”

  “Boxing Day parties? Well, at least twenty. Today is Boxing Day, by the way. Funny coincidence. If this was an ordinary year I’d be out shopping now, and there’d be people trooping over in the afternoon. You could come, too, Inspector. You’d enjoy yourself.”

  The African-American policeman did not look interested. But then his affect changed, “Oh, Boxing Day,” he said snidely, “Boxing Day. That’s when the Earl of Bridgewater gives a shiny new dime to the loyal butler. A quarter to the gal who cleans the toilet. Gets cozy with the little people, for about a day.”

  “Yes, that’s how it started, some people say. It’s a Christmas-present-giving day, that’s all, a day for presents.”

  His idea about the church basement and the man who might have been there—the actual killer—getting lost in all this. He fielded further questions about whether he had a “lab” at UCSF or an office, about whether Dolores Huerta had been a statistical analyst or “actually a pretty wised-up gal, knew a lot about life on these hard streets,” as the police inspector theorized. Slowly it became clear what they were thinking, the narrative they were developing: that he was a cracked British lord dangerous to women on all levels, who made them uncomfortable in his “lab,” who assaulted and raped on occasion, who stole research results, who of late had been getting into murder. Even his Boxing Day parties were part of it, coded expressions of a poisonous condescension, his monstrous sexual response triggered by women subordinate to him. Oh-ho, we’ve got a live one here, he could practically hear them thinking—this is the new Jeffrey Dahmer, a major freak. There’ll be books and movies, and maybe the inspector would write one himself, Unspeakable Evil: The Story of the Century’s Most Degenerate Sex Maniac, Dr. Anthony Landau, As Told by the Oakland Homicide Detective Who Caught Him.

  “I think we’re about done here,” Raboy said, standing up abruptly.

  “Doctor Landau—Doctor, the dead gal, Dolores, what about the lesbian thing? That got anything to do with it, you think?”

  “Lesbian? Hmm, well, I wouldn’t know. You think that’s relevant, Inspector?”

  “Did it maybe get somebody viciously angry?”

  “Well— ”

  “All right, okay, okay,” said Raboy, and he gripped Landau’s shoulder, urging him to arise.

  “Some men, they go kind of overboard with that. We’re hearing that Doris, that she was assaulted somewhere else. Attacked elsewhere and then put in the car, maybe through a rear window. Cut up bad, deep incisions to the throat, the abdomen, near-expert incisions. They let her bleed out real slow, and she was only partially disemboweled, you see. More or less was holding herself together, holding her own guts in, possibly for as long as an hour. Too weak to move, and her voice box had been damaged. Then you come out of the party around eight thirty. If you’d come out twenty minutes earlier maybe you get to her in time, get her to a hospital, maybe there’s a different ending to this. Who knows.”

  Landau sat still for a long moment. Looking at his lap.

  “That’s very distressing to hear, Inspector. I wonder how you know that, though.”

  “Body temperature. Pattern of wounds. Some blood was drier than the other, so that kind of puts a timer on it. Someone could’ve waited with her, listening to her, checking her pulse every now and then. She’s groaning, pleading. Then when the groaning’s done, he drives on down the hill.”

  Raboy tugged hard at Landau’s sleeve. Come on, we’re out of here, let’s go.

  “Look at the tape, Detective. He’s on the tape. The killer is.”

  “Oh, right, the tape. Right, we’re on that.”

  chapter 11

  As it happened, there wasn’t a basement tape. There had been a surveillance camera operating but it was installed outdoors, where the men lined up. When Landau saw the footage, it was frustrating, because the men as they trooped into the church mostly didn’t show their faces—it was that infernal Mexican workingman’s stance, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes humbly cast down, that ruined everything. Only one visitor to the cohort-study free dinner that night had seemed to want to show his face, and that was Landau himself, who, the moment he reached the side door, looked up—and this image of him, of a vaguely smiling, semi-plump Englishman, obscurely pleased with himself, bland of long forehead, found its way onto the Web, as did the whole forty-five-second video sequence (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p4-RWBCEFRo&feature=related).

  Eleven men had arrived behind him that night, and you got a clear look at a few faces. Nine of the eleven were wearing baseball caps, Oakland A’s, Giants, San Jose State Spartans, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Sultanes, and one had on what Landau thought of as a fisherman’s hat, with a soft brim turned down. He watched the video again and again.

  One of these men had killed Dolores Huerta. One of these was the one. That was what he told himself, although, of course, he had no proof. Odds were that no one had been following him, that it had nothing to do with him, no—it was all chance.

  No one seemed to be thinking the way he was, anyhow. The ponytail and the other staff investigator were moving heaven and earth, he was told, but they weren’t running down the names the men had put on the study forms (a killer would not have signed his real name, of course, but you wanted to see those sign-ins anyway). Fairly soon it dawned on Landau that the theory that his ow
n team was working on was that he had done it. Had killed two women, maybe three. He was a sly one, no ordinary monster—it would take real cleverness to prove anything against him, but oh, yes, he’d done it. Therefore, the defense would not be about denying or disproving but about diminished capacity, how a diseased brain fails to know right from wrong. Think Hannibal Lecter. Think Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter—and Landau did bear the British star a resemblance, they both had big bluff heads, overly-intent gazes, and when Hopkins, a Welshman, tried to sound English, as he did sometimes, he seemed to come from Landau’s North London neighborhood.

  They’d get around to the videotape, to the sign-ins, Carl Glebefelder assured him, but first things first. Here was what was fascinating to the defense: hints that the DA would be presenting to a grand jury rather than to a preliminary hearing. Very smart, those DAs. By using the grand jury they moved more secretively, cut the defense out of certain information flows, thus gaining an advantage. Already it was a deep chess game.

  On his twentieth-fifth or thirtieth viewing of the tape, Landau saw things differently—one of the blurry heads seemed to remind him of someone. On the fortieth viewing he was still half-convinced, but after that he didn’t know. One of the Oakland A’s hat-wearers, one who had moved through after Landau—well, you could see his left ear plainly, also a wedge of wavy hair. Could that be Mr. White MacBook? The man who had ordered a latte, who had sat down with a certain decisiveness?

  One of those glorious early January days. Spring coming early, the rainy season already over, it seemed, hillsides going green. Landau rode his old bike to Tilden Park. Stashed it in the bushes then hurried down a wooded path. Let’s see if they’re following me here, too—but no, he couldn’t see anyone, he was alone.

  There was a lake below. To approach it one negotiated an oak forest, wending through hedgerows of poison oak, to end up beside a body of calm water, Lake Anza. Now the poison oak was stripped to bare branches, everything dankly dripping, but the day was fresh, paradisiacal in its way—the California winter so unbitter, so unchallenging! No wonder our brains go all to mush—O California, you hot tub of the soul! You winning girl who gives it all away!

  Trying to make himself think like a cunning criminal. His route down through the woods provided him with good views—and there his contact was, or rather, his car. The point was to see without being seen, to conduct oneself like a sneak-thief. Had he packed his automatic? No, he owned no automatic.

  He descended farther, and now he saw the whimsical detective, standing beneath a lakeside tree. Detective Johnson had an odd stick in his hand—it looked like one of those spring-loaded walking staffs, the fancy kind. Maybe we’ll be taking a nice hike afterwards, a nature hike.

  “Detective, you ever swim here?”

  “Oh, there you are. No, I haven’t, Professor. I’ve arrested some people here, but no, I’ve never gone in.”

  “It’s plenty cold, but in September in the hot spells it’s okay. It’s pretty much bearable.”

  The detective planted his staff. “So. What can I do you for, sir?”

  “Well, I have a feeling I’m about to be arrested. That the good times are about over. I wonder if you’ve been thinking about my case. Wondering if maybe I didn’t do it. Didn’t kill them all, drink their blood.”

  “I told you before, I didn’t think so. But things have changed now.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Did you have something you wanted to show me, Professor?”

  Landau had filled several yellow legal sheets with notes. He held these forth.

  “Whatever you show me, I tell the DA about. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “All right.”

  Landau relinquished the pages. They were not a confession—more an anti-confession. To the police they would read like a ploy, red herrings tossed clumsily across the path. But what can you do.

  “I didn’t bring my reading glasses, wasn’t that stupid.”

  “Here, let me read them to you,” said Landau.

  He read aloud. There was a nemesis—an insider-enemy. Someone was committing crimes in Landau’s shadow: that was the thesis of the notes. He had some institutional antagonists, people he had butted heads with over the years; here were their names, for what that was worth.

  “So these people don’t like you, is that it?”

  “I can’t even say that for sure. Some of them are almost fond of me, personally. But they tend to go apoplectic in my professional presence. I’ve stepped on them, and they’ve stepped on me, too.”

  “Let me ask you a simple question. If someone dislikes you enough to kill and try to blame it on you, why not do something more direct? Kill you, for example.”

  “That is a good question. I don’t know.”

  They began to walk. The detective had injured his hip, he said; he played in a Frisbee league, Ultimate Frisbee league, and had taken an awkward fall. Hence the cane.

  “Are you having me on, Detective?”

  “No, why?”

  “You really play Ultimate Frisbee?”

  “Yes, and Officer Ng does, too. A few other police. Some firemen.”

  “Oh, I like that very much. I don’t know why.”

  They were taking a nature walk, a nice limping nature walk. They circled the somber lake, the policeman lost in thought.

  “Makes no sense to me, Professor, to be honest.”

  “I know. On the face of it, it’s somewhat fanciful.”

  “Occam’s razor. Why not believe that you committed the crimes, instead of some antagonist. Some mysterious shadow figure who’s all involved in your business.”

  “The only reason is because I didn’t commit them.”

  “I know. So you say.”

  They descended into a dark canyon. The path became uneven, and the detective slowed down further; he reached for Landau’s elbow at one point.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, but maybe we should sit down.”

  “Okay,” said Landau.

  They sat upon a rock that looked like a squashed toad. The detective took out the notes again; he held them at arm’s length and made them out a bit.

  “What about these other killings, then? You say there are other killings.”

  “Right. Raboy’s investigators have found them. They happened in the mid-nineties, mid to late nineties. San Diego area. Bodies cut up. Knives and swords and razors used. Then, they stopped.”

  “Did you ever live in San Diego, Professor?”

  “You know, that’s the thing. I sort of did. Not lived there but visited many times. I had a friend who taught in the med school, a statistical physiologist. I was a reader on his doctoral students’ dissertations sometimes—an outside reader, you know.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  The detective was lost in thought again.

  “Professor. Did Mr. Raboy urge you to pass this information on to me, or suggest that you pass it on?”

  “No, not at all. He’ll kill me, actually, if he finds out. He’ll skin me alive.”

  “Why are you talking to me then, Professor?”

  “Well, I suppose it’s because I believe in intercourse. Intercourse of all kinds. The free flow of thought. You have a plausible demeanor, Detective, and an honest face. I feel that secrecy will not serve us, in the long run will not serve us, not you and me. That we might be able to cooperate.”

  “Secrecy will not serve us—okay.”

  “Right.”

  “And so, you want me to know about these San Diego killings. Is that it? That maybe you were around for. That you could’ve done.”

  “That someone knew I was around for. Knew that I was in the vicinity, roughly at the right time. A number of people knew that.”

  All too clearly, Landau could hear the echo of
this. At some conceivable criminal justice procedure in the foreseeable future, he could hear it being said, “Ladies and gentlemen, please note that the defendant, on his own, brought to the attention of law enforcement other savage crimes—crimes he was eager should not be overlooked. This is behavior typical of certain serial killers—they are immensely proud of what they do, enthusiastic about it, and their greatest fear is that their crimes should go unnoticed—unappreciated, as it were.”

  “Also, Detective, I want something from you. I want you to look at that video again. The seventh man in line behind me is the one, I think, the killer. He’s wearing an Oakland A’s cap. He’s got kind of blue-black hair. Wavy hair that sticks out under the cap. There’s just something about him.”

  “Wavy hair, you say?”

  “Yes, wavy hair. I think he sat with me in the café that morning, the morning before Dolores Huerta got killed. He got my attention but didn’t quite show himself. Didn’t turn his face my way.”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  No, of course he didn’t get it, Landau thought, how could he possibly get it? What he gets is that I’m an idiot—that I have some absurd theory, that I’m willing to accuse a complete stranger on the basis of his hair.

  “What about Samantha Beevors, then? You’re leaving her out of this, Professor.”

  “Yes, well, I thought we’d both agreed on that. That she should be left out. That she suffered a coronary event, a thrombosis, due to an AV node dysplasia. That was the whole story.”

  “No, I’m not so sure. Doesn’t explain why was she at your house that day.”

  “Is that important? She was kind of a practical joker, Samantha. In certain moods. It could be she wanted to surprise me, that she had an old key, and she was just stopping in to say hello.”

  Here was the scenario that had been plaguing him—had been disturbing his sleep for some days now. Say that Jad and Samantha, say that there was something there. Some unimaginable wrong relation, awkward and bizarre. Maybe they’d liked to come up to his house in secret. Rendezvous there, have their wrong relation in his bed. Stranger things have been known to happen in this world. Maybe the electric toy was even a favorite—Samantha had always had a madcap side, and Jad, as a boy, used to poke around in Landau’s sock drawers, looking for cuff links, loose change, condoms, other treasures.