by Mark Cohen
“I like the rain,” she said, “but if it doesn’t let up, I’m going to have to make a mad dash for my car.”
“I have an old poncho in my truck, but camouflage might clash with your outfit.”
“Oh,” she said, “that’s sweet, but it’s not raining that hard. That’s what I get for relying on the weatherman.” I had intended it as a joke, more or less, but that’s what I get for trying to be funny. She sat down behind her desk and poured some coffee into her coyote mug. “So,” she said, “what do you think of Mary Pat?”
“Bright young lady.”
“She’s one of the most talented students we’ve ever had. She scored a nine-eighty on the Graduate Record Exam. That’s as close to perfect as you get.”
“She told me she wants to earn her doctorate here.”
“I’ve encouraged her to keep her options open. She could go anywhere, but she likes Boulder.”
“Does she want to specialize in fractal geometry?”
“That’s an interesting question. One minute it seems to appeal to her, the next minute she’s off on something else.”
“If she can’t make up her mind,” I said, “there’s always law school. That’s what it’s there for.” She smiled to acknowledge my keen wit. Or maybe she was acknowledging the element of truth in my remark. Either way, I’d take it. She had a nice smile.
“You don’t sound much better,” she said. “You should see a doctor.”
“It’s on my list of things to do,” I said. I don’t trust doctors. I knew plenty of morons who had made it through law school, and my years defending navy doctors against malpractice claims had convinced me a similar percentage survived medical school. “Anyhow,” I said, “it looks like I’ve got some reading to do, so I’d better be going. Thanks for having Mary Pat get right on this.”
“You’re more than welcome. If you need anything else, just call.”
“By the way,” I said, “when Professor Finn stopped by, Mary Pat told him I’m helping you prepare a workshop on personal safety for some women in a shelter. Which one of you came up with that?”
She smiled. “She did, but you have to admit it’s a good lie.”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “I am an investigator, and you evidently work with one of the shelters.” I pointed to the plaque honoring her service.
“I’m on the board of directors of the Boulder Women’s Shelter.”
“That’s terrific. If you ever do want to put together a workshop, let me know. I’ve had some training in verbal de-escalation and personal safety techniques.”
“Well,” she said, “let’s get through this first.” I was almost out the door. “You know,” she said, “when I first met with them, those FBI men asked me not to discuss this matter with anyone else. Even after the bureau closed the case, their boss encouraged me to be discreet—he wanted to protect the privacy of the families—so I haven’t mentioned any of this to my colleagues, but at some point you may want to talk with Stephen.”
“Why’s that?”
“He taught at the University of Nebraska.”
“When?”
“Just before joining the faculty here.”
“Really? Did he know Carolyn Chang?”
“Yes, he learned of her death from a former colleague. He was quite upset.”
“Small world,” I said.
4
I DROVE BACK UP THE MOUNTAIN with twenty-eight papers on various aspects of mathematics. I speculated as to the nature of the relationship between Finn and my client as Mick Jagger explained why he had been unable to obtain any satisfaction. It couldn’t be too serious if she hadn’t shared her suspicions about the three deaths with him.
Arriving home at three-thirty, I let the dogs out into the rain, then watched as they reentered and shook from side to side. Nothing like the smell of wet hounds to make a house a home. I headed to my office to study the collected works of the three victims.
My office is in my home. When I left the U.S. Attorneys’ office to found Keane, Simms & Mercante, I purchased, among other things, a mahogany desk, a matching credenza, and an original Robert Batemen painting of an Alaskan brown bear. When I left the firm two years ago, I took it all with me. I had enjoyed the tremendous view of downtown Denver, the plush offices, and the other trappings of success, but I don’t miss paying four thousand dollars a month in overhead. I have everything I need right here, including a great view of the Continental Divide. And you can bet I take the home office deduction.
Most of the articles had been published in professional journals, but a few had appeared in publications intended for a broader audience, magazines like Scientific American and Omni. Surprisingly, Fontaine, who had spent most of his career at a college I’d never heard of, had written fifteen of them. Of the remaining thirteen, Carolyn Chang had published seven and Underwood six.
Twenty of the articles were highly theoretical. Of those, Fontaine had written twelve, but several had been early in his career and had nothing to do with fractals. Five of Underwood’s six fell into the theoretical category, and the remaining three had been authored by Carolyn Chang. The terminology was foreign to me. I had never heard of Julia sets, parameter spaces, or the escape time algorithm, and I guessed I’d need two years of college mathematics to have a prayer of understanding them. Except for my inability to comprehend them, I was unable to detect a common thread in the theoretical writings of the three victims.
I stood to stretch and became hypnotized by the rain. The clouds hung low, obscuring the tops of the snow-capped peaks in the distance. Frightened by the thunder, Buck trotted into my office and sought refuge beneath my desk. I gazed out the window until a passing squirrel on an electrical line turned and gave me a quizzical look. We stared at each other for a good twenty seconds, then he scampered on down the line and I went back to work.
The remaining eight papers were more in the realm of applied mathematics; each had something to do with how fractal geometry was being used in the real world. Of those eight, Fontaine had written three, Carolyn Chang four, and Underwood one.
Fontaine’s first paper was a dull narrative about the applications of fractal geometry in electrical engineering, but the other two fascinated me. They were nontechnical discussions of fractal image compression, a technique that makes it possible to store tremendous amounts of data in a small amount of space. An English scientist named Barnsley had developed the concept while searching for more efficient ways to send satellite images back to earth.
Barnsley believed that images of natural objects could be broken down into a small number of component parts by finding similarities among shapes. By digitally coding these shapes instead of using the conventional bit-mapping technique, a color image that would normally consume 1.4 megabytes could be described using just 25 kilobytes. Fontaine claimed this was what had enabled Microsoft to put an encyclopedia with six thousand color photographs on a single CD-ROM.
The technique had also been used to create backgrounds for video games and movies. Suppose you wanted to create an image of the lunar surface. To reconstruct the moon as it actually is, wrote Fontaine, would take the combined memory of ten thousand home computers. But fractals offer another way. Though craters vary in size, their basic shape remains the same. All you need to do is describe that shape to a computer and provide a formula (an algorithm) that tells it to reproduce that shape on varying scales until it has generated something that resembles the moon. To make sure no two craters are identical, you throw a few random numbers into the formula. In effect, the computer creates a “fractal forgery” that mimics the lunar surface without worrying about precise details. I didn’t fully understand the mechanics of it, but I got the idea.
I stretched again, caught a glimpse of two green hummingbirds as they darted from one of the feeders I had filled with red nectar, then turned my attention to the writings of Carolyn Chang. The four nontheoretical papers she’d authored were exceptionally well written; she’d had a knack for
presenting complex concepts in plain English. Three of them addressed the growing use of fractal geometry in medicine. The articles demonstrated how fractal patterns obtained from medical images were being used to identify and classify many types of disease. As an example, she cited several studies that had found correlations between the fractal dimension of heart rhythms and the presence of disease. She predicted fractals would play an increasingly important role in automating the science of medical diagnosis.
Carolyn’s other piece intrigued me because it seemed out of place in a professional journal. It was an essay in which she had expressed the view that fractals could change the way artists and musicians portrayed the world. “Fractal geometry,” she wrote, “offers a new way of looking at space and form. Just as the discovery of geometric perspective transformed the way Renaissance painters represented depth on a flat surface, fractals may free artists to portray natural objects as they truly are rather than within the confines of Euclidean concepts of dimension.”
Underwood had made one attempt to write for a broader audience, and that had been one too many. He had not possessed Carolyn Chang’s skill with the written word. His sentences were long and flowed in no logical sequence. His topic was neural networks, computer programs capable of recognizing fractal patterns. Because of their ability to identify patterns, such programs were valuable tools in efforts to predict the future. According to Underwood, they had been employed in fields ranging from meteorology to finance.
By now it was past seven o’clock. It had taken nearly four hours to review all twenty-eight papers, but I hadn’t discerned any pattern or common theme in the writings of the three victims. I pushed the stack to one side, fed the dogs, and started to boil water for spaghetti. Then I placed another call to the cop in Walla Walla. It was an hour earlier on the West Coast. “I think the lieutenant is still at the hospital,” said the female dispatcher, “but I can take a message.” I left my name again and called it a day.
Surveying my stacks of CDs, I selected a collection of old Jack Guthrie tunes. The cousin of Woody and a distant relative of Arlo, Jack had died in 1948, but I just love those old western songs. Jack Guthrie, Patsy Montana, Jim Silvers, and anyone else who can yodel.
I opened a two-pound package of spinach spaghetti, broke the thin strands in half, and placed the entire contents in the rapidly warming water. I chopped up an onion, some mushrooms, and a garlic clove, then sautéed the mixture in a Teflon pan. No hamburger because I’ve been flirting with vegetarianism for a few years, though I’m not real consistent about it.
I opened a jar of marinara sauce, added some ingredients of my own, including red wine, cinnamon, and clove, and began to heat it. I wouldn’t eat it all, but I could save what I didn’t eat for another day. That done, I deposited myself in my recliner and clicked on CNN. Wheat jumped up and sat on my lap. Ten minutes later the phone rang. It was the cop from Walla Walla, Lieutenant Gilbert. I picked up the cordless. “Thanks for returning my call,” I said as I lowered the volume on the TV.
“No problem, what can I do for you?” He sounded like a regular guy. Maybe a few years older than me.
“I’m a private investigator. I’d like to talk about Paul Fontaine.”
“Three-o-three, that’s Colorado, right?”
“Yeah.” The 303 area code had once encompassed the entire state, but in less than a decade the influx of people from California and New Jersey had forced whoever runs the deregulated mishmash once known as the telephone company to carve the state into three distinct calling areas. Now 303 covers only Denver/ Boulder, and they’ve started using yet another area code for new numbers in the metropolitan area, so you have to dial ten digits even for local calls. “I’ve been hired to see if I can find a link between the death of Professor Fontaine and the deaths of two other mathematicians.”
“You know the FBI already investigated that?”
“I was a federal prosecutor for years. I don’t take the bureau’s conclusions as gospel.”
He laughed. “Lawyer turned investigator, huh? You’re movin’ up in the world.”
“Long story.”
“Well, what do you want to know?”
“What I’d really like is to see your file. I’ve read everything these people ever wrote, but all I know about their deaths is what was in the papers and what I learned from talking with a detective in Boston.”
“You probably know more than me. All I know is, I’ve got a dead math professor, no motive, and no suspects. And this guy wasn’t just shot, he was executed. Single bullet to the back of the head at point-blank range. Then I find out two other math nerds are dead.”
“Any chance I could see your file?”
“You really read everything these people ever wrote?”
“All their professional papers.”
“I’ll bet that was fun.”
“Gotta start somewhere,” I said.
“True enough,” he said. “Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. I’m up to my ass in alligators right now, but if you can find a way up here, I’ll show you what I’ve got and we can kick it around a bit.” It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
5
ON THURSDAY MORNING I DID something I’d been putting off. I called the Denver office of the FBI. I’d been putting it off because I wanted to learn a little about the case before I called. And because I’m not exactly Mr. Popular down there. On their list of least favorite people I’m right up there with Randy Weaver, Richard Jewell’s lawyer, and every congressman on the Waco subcommittee.
“FBI.” She had the sterile voice of a government receptionist. In my kitchen, wearing only flannel boxers, I was making a peanut butter and brown sugar sandwich for breakfast as the morning sun filled my kitchen. The Sinus Infection from Hell seemed to have weakened.
“Tim Gombold, please.” I was using the speakerphone.
“May I say who’s calling?”
“D. B. Cooper. I want to turn myself in.” That had been the name used by America’s first skyjacker. He had parachuted out the back end of a Boeing 727 in 1971 with $200,000 in twenties tied to his waist and hadn’t been seen since.
“Just a moment, sir.” She put me on hold. I heard a few clicks and listened to forty-five seconds of static. It was just after eight, so I thought I had a good chance of catching him. He’d just gotten remarried a month or two ago—I’d attended the wedding—but old habits die hard. Gumby likes to get to work early, down some government coffee, and read the morning papers before hitting the pavement. He reads both Denver papers cover to cover each morning. Says he likes to know what’s going on.
“Jesus, Pepper,” he shouted, “you can’t do shit like that.” I picked up the receiver.
“Have a sense of humor, Tim.”
“I ought to drive up there and shoot you myself for that.” I struggled to keep from laughing. “What do you want, for Christ’s sake?”
“I want to talk about a case you worked.”
“And based on the high esteem the FBI holds you in, you thought we’d be only too happy to oblige?”
“Exactly.”
“Which case?”
“The fractal murders.”
“Oh, Jesus. That math professor hire you?”
“Say she did.” I heard a typewriter in the background. Despite the advent of word processing, every FBI office kept a few IBM Selectrics on hand for use in completing forms that aren’t easily scanned.
“Look, Pepper, three people with the same specialty died within six or seven months of each other. Stranger things have happened.”
“Which office ran the investigation?”
“We did.”
“Denver?” None of the deaths had taken place in Colorado.
“Yeah, your math professor was the one who brought it to our attention, and we needed someone who could explain the mathematics to us. The boss figured it would be easier to run it out of our office.”
“Did you
check the victims’ phone records?”
“No,” he said. “With all the budget cuts, we’ve had to stop doing that. Now we just rely on psychics.”
“What I meant was, did the phone records tell you anything?”
“Far as we know, they never spoke with each other, never corresponded.”
“Three of the best-known people in their field,” I said. “Seems strange they never communicated with each other.”
“Pepper,” he said, “we ran down every lead and couldn’t find a connection. Fontaine takes a shot to the back of the head, the girl in Lincoln gets raped and stabbed. Totally different MO. And there’s nothing to indicate Underwood didn’t commit suicide.”
“While he was jerking off,” I said.
“How’d you know that?”
“Give me some credit, Tim.”
“It doesn’t even matter,” he said. “Our guys say it was a typical autoerotic death. Happens every day.”
“Not to a Harvard professor,” I said. He sighed.
“Listen,” he said, “if you can make a buck helping this lady satisfy her conscience or curiosity or whatever, I’ve got no problem with that, but we put a lot of hours into it and couldn’t find anything.”
“Can I see your file?”
“You must have balls like an elephant.”
“Is that a no?”
“I’ve got work to do, Pepper.” He sighed again.
“Had to ask,” I said.
“Besides, Dittmer would have my ass. He’s canned two agents in the past six months. We’re all walking on eggshells.” I knew Dittmer had been the agent in charge of the Denver office for about two years. I knew he’d been a Rhodes scholar. I didn’t know much else about him, but I’d heard he’d won the Silver Star while serving as a counterintelligence officer in Vietnam.
“I thought you liked Dittmer,” I said.
“He’s the sharpest guy I’ve ever met, but he’s changed over the past year. He was in line to be a deputy director, but the director chose a woman with nine years on the job. And just after that, he lost his wife to cancer.”