Case of Lies

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “I see.”

  “We’re screwed at the source. If my students had any idea how shaky math really is, they’d run screaming over to the English department.”

  “That would be pretty dire,” Nina said. “May I ask, how are things with you?”

  “My wife left me. I was thinking of coming to see you, then when you came here, I thought you must be representing her. I almost took off running, like I said. Reminds me of the old hermit mathematician who cracked open his door to some colleagues and said, ‘Please come at another time and to another person.’ ”

  “Well, I’m not here to harass you.”

  “And they’re not renewing my contract here. I had an affair with a student.” He had the grace to look embarrassed.

  Nina gave him her card. “Any time,” she said. “But right now, I need help on this case.”

  “Okay. Brown, Boston, Riemann.” He turned to his computer and clicked a few times with his mouse.

  “ Brown University,” he said. “ Amherst. Northeastern. Brandeis. BU. MIT. The Big H. To name a few. Have some coffee and don’t interrupt me.” The thermos he pointed to was almost empty, but Nina took the last drop. McGregor clicked away, grunting occasionally to himself.

  The campus was quiet. Occasionally a bird twittered, a squirrel chittered, or a student littered-no, muttered with another student, passing by. Not bad, acres of wooded park near a world-famous mountain lake, a state-of-the-art campus, friendly registrars-not her memory of college, but then, that was so long ago.

  “Bingo,” Mick said dourly. “Got him. Come around the desk.” She jumped up and came around to where the sun made it hard to see the screen.

  “Gottlieb Braun,” he said. “I’ve even heard of him. He hangs with the giants at MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” He sang to the tune of The Mickey Mouse Club song, “M-I-T, P-H-D, M-O-N-E-Y.”

  He added, “That’s a song the envious folks at Caltech sing, by the way, not the one they sing at MIT. Well, okay, they sing it at MIT but the difference is, at MIT they think it’s funny.”

  “How do you know it’s the right Brown?”

  “Come over here.” She put her case on the ground and walked over to stand behind his chair. “Look,” he said.

  Focusing on the MIT site, they reviewed the research interests of the math faculty. Dr. Braun was listed as being interested in “Areas Bridging Discrete and Continuous Math, Riemann Hypothesis, Continuum Hypothesis, Continued Fractions.”

  “A number hound. A real throwback,” Mick said. “None of the other colleges I checked with had Browns with these kinds of research interests. Ready for a conjecture? Your student is one of his. Or was.”

  “How sure are you?”

  “What a question. I’m guessing, baby.” He raised and lowered his eyebrows at her, shot a look at her legs, then cleared his throat to distract her from his crassness.

  She pressed on. “Gottlieb, huh?”

  “A lot of the great mathematicians are from Central Europe. Lots of Germans. It all started with Gauss at Göttingen.”

  “They’re fond of G’s, too, I guess.”

  “Hmm, ‘Frequency of Letter G in Topics Related to the Math Profession.’ Don’t get me thinking thoughts like that. I need to sleep tonight.”

  “Mick, I owe you.”

  McGregor smiled at her and said, “Really?”

  “You have my card. Thanks for this. And sorry to hear about your job. You’ll land somewhere better.”

  “Give the Herr Professor my regards. A nondescript from the hinterland sends his respects.” He turned back to his computer, clicking furiously.

  “See you, Mick.”

  “High probability of that.”

  Nina felt so excited she almost ran the red light at Al Tahoe and Lake Tahoe Boulevard. Back at the office, Sandy had laid her brown-bag lunch out on the desk. “Looks yummy,” Nina said. Tossing her jacket on the chair, she revved up her Mac and went straight to MIT, or the simulacrum thereof on the Web.

  Sandy came in and deposited a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper and a can of cola on her desk. “Mangia,” she said.

  “I’ve got the Brown,” Nina said. “Maybe.”

  “If you don’t eat lunch you’ll starve, drop to the floor, and never find out anything else.”

  Nina tore open the sandwich. Liverwurst and mayonnaise. Worse things had been turned into sandwiches, although she couldn’t think what they were offhand. She ate, clicking and navigating with her free hand. Sandy sat down with a legal pad. “Well?”

  “Braun’s in Room 2-181 at MIT. Write down this phone number and E-mail. Here’s a photo of him. Pale blue suit jacket, red tie, black hair, specs. It’s his birthday. His sixteenth, to go by his looks. He’s very young for a professor, isn’t he? Mud-colored birthday cake, most pathetic-looking cake I have ever seen. Take a look at those sprinkles, the festive arrangement of yellows on brown.”

  “You’re forgetting the one you made for Bob’s twelfth birthday. Remember?”

  Nina remembered. “The great thing was, he thought I did it intentionally.”

  “It took guts, serving that thing to friends.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got guts all right. Guts enough to put up with you and him both. Okay, back to our picture. There are students in the photo. No boys from India, no girls. Dreadful lighting that washes the blood out of everybody.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Braun was a finalist for the Abel Prize. I think that’s like the Nobel, only it’s given for math. He’s a big shot, a full professor, even though he’s young. Okay, the math department: fifty-two faculty members, thirty instructors, one hundred twenty-five grad students, and they graduate about one hundred forty undergraduates a year.”

  “Let’s check more photos.” Sandy edged around so that she could look with Nina. Additional pictures of student-faculty gatherings documented an unfortunate reliance on those rectangular brown cakes, which must have been a local caterer’s specialty. A couple of girls here and there joined the company, but didn’t seem to match the description of their witness.

  The boys caught milling around in the photos looked conventional, except that a few were shaky on style, wearing short-sleeved oxford and plaid flannel shirts, the kind of thing that might have been sold at the Harvard Coop circa 1951. Hair ran the gamut from slickly modern to huge frizz to fifties executive. Chalked-up blackboards tended to dominate the backgrounds.

  “They’re so pale, like slugs slithering out from under a rock,” Sandy said, disapproving. “I bet they never go outside.”

  “They eat cake and trade fashion tips instead. But let’s not be unkind,” Nina said. “So what if they don’t sweat the small stuff?”

  “Yes, but bad cake?”

  “The real brain food. And to think my doc always told me to take fish oil for brainpower.”

  “Supposedly, these kids will rule the world.”

  Nina laughed. “Hardly, Sandy. They’re mathematicians. It’s not like they study law or anything useful.” She bit into a gusher of grease. “Let’s start with the Herr Professor.” Drinking the last of her cola, she repressed a burp, consulted her watch, picked up the phone, and punched a number. “The direct method. A times B equals MIT.” Nina pressed the speaker button so that Sandy could listen to the ringing.

  A brusque voice answered. “Braun.”

  “How do you do? My name is Nina Reilly. I’m a lawyer, calling from California on an important matter.” She was grinning, feeling cocky. It must be the liverwurst.

  “Oh? What can I do for you, ma’am?” Herr Professor didn’t have a trace of an accent.

  “I’m looking for some witnesses in a legal case here. One or more of the witnesses may be students of yours. May I give you some descriptions, and ask you if any of them sound familiar?”

  “What kind of legal case?”

  “A wrongful-death case. A woman was shot two years ago here at Lake Tahoe, and the students were witnesses.”

  �
��Information about our students is confidential.”

  “Of course. But perhaps you could confirm the existence of such students, as a matter of public duty. I’m not asking for anything else. The first one is an Indian. Of East Indian heritage, that is. He has thick black hair and a nice smile, and his eyebrows grow together in the middle.” She went on with the description of the most memorable of the three witnesses, sounding perfectly calm. Sandy sat next to her, her bracelets jangling slightly as she wrote on the pad.

  “You think he’s one of my students?” Braun said when she had finished.

  “That is my information. He’s interested in, er, the Riemann Hypothesis, I believe. Possibly.”

  “And what would you do with him if you found him?”

  “Ask him to come back to California for a deposition. All expenses paid.”

  “And if he didn’t want to come?”

  “That would be a problem,” Nina said. “The witness-subpoena power does not extend beyond the state boundary.”

  “So he could refuse and you would not bother him anymore?”

  “I would have no power to compel him to come here as a witness,” Nina said. Sandy frowned at this circumlocution, and Nina winked at her. “Rest assured, Professor Braun, that I would not bother him if this were not necessary to right an injustice.”

  “Who did you say you were?”

  “Nina Reilly. A California attorney.”

  “Give me your state bar number.” She gave it to him. She wasn’t grinning anymore.

  “I’ll look into it,” the professor said.

  “A woman was killed,” Nina said. “This young man needs to step up and tell what he knows about it.”

  “I have your number in the memory. Good-bye, ma’am.” He hung up.

  “Is he gonna help us or not?” Sandy asked.

  Nina tapped her temple. “Even great minds may err, Sandy. He’s cautious, and that may outweigh his sense of civic duty.”

  “So are you gonna wait to hear back?”

  “Book me on United to Boston for tonight out of Reno, would you?”

  “Done.”

  “What have we got this afternoon?”

  “The DMV. The lady whose boat dropped off the trailer onto the freeway. Roberta. You ought to be finished by four.”

  “Then I’ll run home and get Bob over to his uncle’s house and pack a bag. And please call Chelsi Freeman. I can’t make the massage appointment this afternoon.”

  “What else should I do? When are you coming back?”

  “After I have talked to those witnesses.”

  “I’m not even going to ask who is going to pay for this trip.”

  “What are credit cards for?” Nina said.

  14

  HER OPTIMISTIC MOOD LASTED THROUGHOUT THE flight from Reno. She loved red-eye flights anyway, sitting in the window seat, watching dawn suffuse the sky, her beam of light trained on the material she was reading while the other passengers dozed uneasily beneath their inadequate blankets and the flight attendants gossiped in the back.

  She was coasting on a strong sense of determination, of being on the hunt. She’d never need to sleep again. She would find her witnesses. She was sure of it.

  She had brought piles of printouts Sandy had pulled off the Web concerning the two hypotheses, the state of mathematics these days, and MIT information. Packed in her carry-on were also the police reports on Sarah Hanna’s death, a small tape recorder, and her laptop. There had been just enough remaining room for two pairs of underwear and her curling iron.

  Nina read, making notes with her right hand, doodling, generating lists and plans.

  By 9:00 A.M. on Friday morning Nina was washing her face in her room at the Charles River Inn. Outside, sloping uphill from the muddy river, spread the curiously European village of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The iviest of the ivy-covered brick campuses of the Northeast, which Mick called the Big H, was six blocks up the street, past Harvard Square and the Red Line subway station. MIT was a few miles’ drive along the river, or a stop or two on the Red Line.

  She took a taxi up Memorial Drive. On this winter’s morn, sculls skidded through the icy water and boys and girls rushed along the banks as they had for about four hundred years. Bright sun blessed the bridges with golden light, sweetly disguising decades of gray grime. The venerable brown city of Boston loomed on the other side of the river, dry air sharpening the skyline, but even a clean hint of coming frost in the air couldn’t entirely subdue the reeking diesel and industrial smells.

  Lake Tahoe Community College had a serene woodland setting, with low California buildings. At MIT, islands of grass, brown at this time of year, were pitifully dwarfed by many-storied concrete stacks engineered by maniacal purists. One did not major in phys ed or English literature at MIT, as one might choose to do at Tahoe. One majored in science, any science. The older Greco-Roman style buildings, nods to classical academia, had in the last century given way to functional beige buildings that housed sharp minds who found beauty in things less evanescent than mere aesthetics.

  Lack of sleep and her ongoing self-assured mood had made Nina bold. “I need Professor Braun,” she told the male receptionist at the math department. “Room 2- 181.”

  The boy, who appeared to be just a few years older than Bob, said, “Professor Braun’s already gone for the weekend. Sorry.”

  “Oh, no! I really hoped to tell him some exciting results I have-this work I’ve been doing using Fourier inversions. I met him in Palo Alto at the American Institute of Mathematics a couple of years ago, and he was very interested in my work.”

  “The Riemann seminar?”

  “Right! I’m from Stanford. Had to come to the East Coast for a wedding and stopped off here. I really need to talk to him.” She clutched her briefcase to her chest and allowed herself to look slightly desperate, as though the nonexistent equations might be unraveling as they spoke.

  “I’m sorry, but he’s home in Newton. I can’t give out his address.”

  It was a blow, but Nina had fallbacks ready.

  “How about his student? You know, the guy who was going out with that pretty German girl, or was she Norwegian? He was Indian… I forgot his name…”

  “Raj attended that seminar?” His voice was mildly curious. “I didn’t know he had the interest.”

  A little thrill went down her back. “Raj. Yes, that’s him. Any idea how I could get hold of him?”

  “He’s probably drinking coffee at the student center right about now. With the lovely Silke sitting devotedly by his side, lucky man.”

  Hot ziggety dog, Nina told herself. “Silke. That’s his girlfriend, right? He talked about her.”

  He nodded. “You know, I applied to Stanford but couldn’t turn down MIT. Man, I regret it every single time I have to put on a coat, hat, boots, and gloves just to go outside to pick up the newspaper off the front step. So you’re a number theorist? An instructor there?”

  Ouch. She couldn’t pass for a student anymore. On the other hand, she had worn a suit and shiny high heels to impress the professor, and an expensive black wool coat she had borrowed from Andrea. Probably it was the clothes that had him thinking that. “Post-doc,” she said. “I do assist in a couple of grad courses.”

  “Do you want to leave a message for Dr. Braun?” He pushed a pad of paper her way.

  “You can’t even give me a phone number?”

  “It’s against the rules.”

  “I’ll run and catch Raj and come back to leave a message later.”

  “Suit yourself.” He pointed toward the direction she had just come from. “Can you find your way back to Building Eight?” He looked dubious. “We’re way over here, almost to Mem Drive. Can you get back there?”

  She thought she could, so she nodded.

  “Good. Then go back down-hey, you going to be around at sunset today?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “The sun sets down this hallway everybody calls ‘infini
te’ even though it’s just long. It’s a beautiful sight. People hang around all along the edges to watch it. The hall turns red. Glows. It’s truly mysterious.”

  “I won’t be here that late.”

  “Too bad,” he said. “Okay, so go all the way out of that building, and down the steps in front. Then cross Mass Ave. The student center’s that big building on the right, up steps with a glass front. You can’t miss it.”

  Incredibly, the first thing she saw as she walked into the large, noisy, glass-fronted room was a couple who fit the description from Tahoe. They sat at a table against the windows overlooking busy Massachusetts Avenue. The boy, dark-haired and much better-looking than his description, studied The Boston Globe. He wore fashionable glasses and, in a well-fitted golf shirt and slacks, seemed an exception to Professor Braun’s oxford-collar club.

  The girl huddled in a big chair, trim legs crossed, a laptop computer propped on her knees. She raised and tipped a coffee mug, sucking thirstily, all the while fastening her eyes on her monitor. Attractive in an Italian-film-star way, full-lipped, healthy-cheeked, tousle-haired, she wore a long-sleeved white sweater over jeans, with thick socks and incongruous flip-flops on her feet. A chair next to her held their winter coats. At her feet, long leather boots lay akimbo, like a pair of abandoned legs.

  They seemed to be here for the duration. Nina went to the counter to order a super-sized vanilla soy latte and a muffin. She needed them. Removing her coat, she looped it over the arm carrying her tray and walked back to her prey. She set the tray down on a low table in front of a cluster of chairs near them and tossed her coat over the chair back. “Hello. Are you Raj?”

  The boy put down his newspaper. A wary expression spread over his face. He said nothing.

  “My name is Nina Reilly. I’ve been looking for you. And you must be Silke!” She smiled and nodded at the girl. “Glad to meet you. Nina Reilly.” She sat down across from them, broke a piece of muffin off, and ate it, following up with a long wash of coffee. “No breakfast,” she said apologetically. “Just got off a plane.” Not true, but while they considered the information she had time to take another bite and another swallow. As the caffeine rushed to warm her chilled extremities, she began to feel very happy to be in Cambridge sitting with these two kid fugitives, making progress at last.