“Fair enough.”
“I love you,” Decker said.
“Love you, too.”
Decker said, “No, I really mean that. I love you.”
“And I really mean I love you, too. We’ll talk later. Finish your sandwich in peace…and hopefully without indigestion.”
Fat chance of that! Decker said good-bye, then cut the line and leaned back in the driver’s seat. As always, after these types of issues, he debated his efficacy as a husband and father. Would his children—unlike Ganz’s—mourn for him when he was dead? Would it make a difference if they did? To him, life wasn’t about memories, it was rooted in the here and now. Yet there was his stepson, Sammy, desperately trying to communicate with the departed. What was the point of telling him it couldn’t be done? It would only build resentment.
But better resentment than to risk his son’s welfare. Youth had no concept of danger. Decker knew that because once he had been young. He waited a few moments, then started the engine. When the lane was clear, he pulled out into the void and joined up with the smooth flow of oncoming cars.
Southwest University of Technology had set its roots in Pasadena, a quiet, staid town northeast of Los Angeles. A small place compared to its overcrowded sister, it harked back to gentler times—less traffic, street parking and even some small cafés without a franchise logo. Once a year, Pasadena still grabbed the spotlight with its annual Rose Parade. But the day after January 1, the city seemed to fade like the flowers on the floats.
The Tech’s campus hosted an amalgamation of low-profile structures nestled among ancient pines and majestic oaks. Some Ivy League architecture had crept into a few of the buildings—the administration house and the student union—but most of it was postmodern and utilitarian. The air was cool, and Decker enjoyed walking around. The backpack-toting students were a diverse lot of ethnicities, and seemed younger every year. Since the weather was inviting, many of the kids studied outdoors, sprawled out on the lawns or sitting at a café table drinking lattes, poring over texts of particle physics or nonlinear topology. Jeans and T-shirts appeared to be the corporate dress, and no one gave Decker or his typical cop-suit a second glance. Judgments here were made on the basis of what was inside the package rather than the wrapping.
Dr. Europa Ganz was stationed in a triangular-shaped corner office on the fourth floor of the astrophysics building. She had the requisite institutional desk, metal chairs and file cabinets and bracket bookshelves. It was fluorescently lit, but it did have a window that showed a patch of steel sky and the quad area below. Hanging on the walls were two black-and-white photographs of some planetary surface, excellent in their clarity and resolution. Decker took a moment to study them, both chalky white, pockmarked and completely barren.
“The moon?”
“This one’s the Mohave Desert at night,” Ganz answered. “The other one’s the moon. Hard to tell the forest from the trees, eh?”
“You fooled me.”
“We were all one once—the moon, Earth and planets, the sun, the entire universe. And when you’re young—like babies—you all look alike. Later on comes the process of differentiation. Look at me. Forty years old and still trying to pull away from my father’s ghost.”
Decker nodded while studying the scientist. Her hair was light brown and had been clipped short across the back. Feathered bangs softened her wide forehead. Her face was square-shaped with a strong jawline. Pale, white skin and intense blue eyes. Her gentlest features were her lips—lush and red. No makeup, but there were gold studs in her ears. She wore jeans, a white T-shirt and a black jacket, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. She pointed to a chair.
“Have a seat. Is it Lieutenant Decker?”
“Yes.”
“My father must rate.”
Decker smiled. “Only you can answer that.”
Europa’s lip gave a half-smile. “Snappy retort. I hope you’re not intending to delve into my family’s psycho-drama. I don’t have time.”
Decker sat down. “Why would I do that?”
“Now you’re really sounding like a shrink.”
He took out his notepad. “Actually, Doctor, I came here to find out who told you about your father’s death. No one at the Order of the Rings of God seems to know who called you.”
“Can’t answer that because I don’t know who called.” Europa sat down at her desk. “I hope you didn’t drag yourself all the way out here just to ask me that.”
“No idea?”
“No idea.”
“Male or female?”
“That I can answer. Female. She was probably making the call on the sly.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she spoke quickly and in hushed tones.” Europa stood. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
“How do you take it?”
“Black.”
“Caffeinated?”
“The more drug-laden, the better,” Decker answered.
Europa laughed. “You’d do well here.” She brought out a bottle of water and poured it into the coffeemaker. “She also told me to alert the police.”
“The police?” Decker wrote as he talked. “Did that make you suspicious?”
“Of course it did.”
“You made the call around seven?”
“I suppose. You’d know better than I would. Don’t you tape incoming phone calls?”
“Just trying to get your recollection.”
She paused, heaved her shoulders as if they held granite epaulettes. “It’s been a long day.”
“I’m sure it has. Thanks for seeing me.” Decker smoothed his mustache. “Recall as best as you can the exact words this female caller used.”
“Something like…‘I thought you should know. Your father just died. I’m not sure how it happened. It’s suspicious. Call the police.’” Europa measured out coffee. “Then the woman hung up. I knew it was useless to call the Order back. They wouldn’t tell me anything. So I found out the number of the closest police station and reported it as a suspicious death. The news is saying it’s an apparent suicide. Is that your conclusion?”
“One of them.”
“Cagey fellow. What are the others?”
“Too early to speculate,” Decker answered. “People at the Order have said you haven’t spoken to your father in years.”
“Not true. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on their part. If he completely denies his real children, then they’ve co-opted the right to be substitute children.”
“So you’ve seen your father recently?”
“No, not recently. The last time I saw him was maybe fourteen…fifteen years ago. But I have talked to him. He would call me every so often, usually around my birthday. I’m surprised he remembered it. Not that he’d ever wish me a happy birthday. Instead, he’d say something like he’d been thinking about me. He’d ask me about what I was doing. I told him my latest research. If I asked him about an idea, he’d offer an opinion. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t. We’d talk for about twenty minutes. Then nothing until the next year.”
“Why do you think he called you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe he missed me. More likely, he missed his science—real science. Not the pseudoscientific garbage he’s been professing for the past fifteen years.”
“You don’t approve.”
“No, but that doesn’t matter.”
“Have you ever been down to the Order?”
“Way back when.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I came and I went. Jupiter wasn’t the father I remember. Nor did I want him to be. I found the entire experience disconcerting. Also, back then, I was mad at him. Your dad deserts you at a crucial moment in your life…disappears for ten years, well, you don’t suddenly welcome him back into your arms.”
“Do you remember any of the people there?”
“No, not really. Well, this one guy named Pluto. Short, obnoxious fellow. Hated me from the get-go simply because I w
as Jupiter’s daughter.”
“He’s still there.”
“It doesn’t surprise me. My dad likes people he can push around.”
Decker paused for just a fraction. “He was pushing Pluto around?”
“He was pushing everyone around. Dad always liked his underlings subservient.”
“Your father was a notable man,” Decker said. “I’m sure he had underlings in academics.”
“Yes, he had underlings, but he also had colleagues. Sometimes it’s hard to be challenged.”
“Your father felt that way?”
“I’m second-guessing, but yes, I think he didn’t like to be questioned. I think that’s one of the reasons he dropped out. As his ideas drifted farther and farther from the mainstream, he became a target for intense criticism. I don’t think that set well with him. But this is all very beside the point. I don’t know who called me. I certainly don’t know why she did. But I’m glad she did. It’s good to have the police involved.”
“Did anyone from the Order other than your father ever call you before this?”
“No.”
“So this woman who called you…it was the first time you had heard her voice?”
“Are you asking me if her voice sounded familiar?”
“Did it?”
“No. It wasn’t Venus, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I’m not getting at anything. How do you know it wasn’t Venus?”
She took down two mugs from the bookshelf. “Because I know what Venus sounds like. You see, Venus, née Jilliam Laham, was my girlhood best friend.”
8
Sipping coffee, her feet propped on the desk, Europa said, “Once upon a time, I had friends just like any other little girl. Jilliam was one of them. We formed an alliance out of mutual loneliness. Both of us had absentee fathers and narcissistic mothers, but her situation was more extreme. At least my father and I had occasional talks because I was scientifically inclined. Jilliam and her father had nothing in common. He was a high-powered attorney who hated children but loved sex with teenage girls. Looking back, I suppose her relationship with Dad was a natural sequela of her own father’s misbehavior.”
She paused.
“Our mothers had points in common as well. Mine was self-absorbed, but hers was selfish and egotistical. We met when we were eleven. I took pity on her. She seemed needy.” She rolled her eyes. “Little did I know.”
Decker put down his mug. “When did she actually become involved with your father?”
“Hard to say.” She took another drink from her cup. “My father vanished when I was fifteen. When he was resurrected as Jupiter some ten years later, I knew I had to see him. Jilliam came with me for moral support. It was a reunion from hell.”
“In what way?”
Europa’s eyes glazed over. “I wanted a father.” A pause. “I didn’t get one. I felt betrayed, but not surprised.”
“How did you find out about his return?”
Europa’s eyes took in Decker’s face. “A phone call.”
The room fell quiet, the only sounds coming from the wall clock’s ticking and ambient noise from down below.
“It wasn’t that he was cruel. He just couldn’t help being who he was. And that was good enough for Jilliam. She lapped up every word of his bizarre pseudoscientific ramblings. I don’t think she understood a word of it. But she did react to the force of his personality. Then I realized that the rapture was a two-way street. The way he looked at her—such naked hunger. Though in denial at the time, deep down I knew something was going to happen.”
“Do you think they had a prior relationship before that reunion meeting?”
“You mean before he disappeared? I doubt it.” A grimace. “She was only fifteen.”
“Was your father inclined to seduce women?”
Europa stared at him. “Why are you asking about Dad’s sexual proclivities?”
“Your father’s death is under investigation.” Decker tapped his pencil. “I was just wondering if your father could have angered someone—like an irate husband or jealous boyfriend.”
Europa immediately broke into laughter. It was so abrupt it took Decker by surprise.
She said, “Lieutenant, the more appropriate question is who in this world hasn’t my father angered. Before he disappeared, he must have burned every bridge in existence. Often my brothers and I would muse that he had disappeared because he had done something even more nefarious than ruin careers—which, by the way, was a favorite hobby of his.”
Quickly, Decker turned a page on his notepad. “Your father ruined careers?”
Europa started to speak, then stopped herself. She peered at him with intense blue eyes. “Somehow you suckered me into talking about our family’s sordid saga. Although what it has to do with Dad’s death, I don’t know. No, Lieutenant, I really don’t think he murdered anyone. Back then, my brothers and I were engaging in childish fantasy, giving my father an exotic alibi to excuse his devastating and inexplicable behavior.”
But Decker was persistent. “How did your father ruin careers? Did he sabotage experiments? Did he steal someone else’s research?”
Europa stared out of the window. “No, nothing illegal. If he had done that, he wouldn’t have been so feared. Instead, he decimated within the proper channels.” She hugged herself. “To understand my father’s potency, you’d have to know the academic world.”
Decker said, “I’ve heard its moral accountability falls somewhere between politics and Hollywood.”
“You’ve got it.” Europa gave him a beleaguered smile. “In academia, to be associated with the right people is all-important. And Dad was the right person to know. His stamp of approval added prestige to anything it touched. He was on the board of many scientific organizations and peer-review journals. A good word from him could immediately advance a career just as a well-placed barb could set it back ten years. During his scientific years, Dad doled out much more criticism than praise. He had brought down many a promising career with a single, snide comment. Presenting a paper to Emil Euler Ganz was an ordeal akin to being placed on the rack. A few of Dad’s remaining colleagues have enlightened me as to how truly sadistic he was, taking pleasure in smashing someone’s life’s work.”
Decker formulated his question. “Of all the people your father…offended—”
“Ruined.”
“Is there any specific person that sticks in your mind?”
“No. My older colleagues might be able to help you.”
“I’ll ask around,” Decker said.
“Approaching my father’s colleagues might be akin to entering the enemy camp.” She smiled. “Maybe not now that he’s dead. I’m sure they got their revenge witnessing my father’s downfall in cosmology. Since Emil Euler Ganz had become an object of derision, Dad’s enemies could discredit his previous criticism of their past work.”
She seemed bitter. Decker asked, “When you entered the field, did they hold your father’s behavior against you?”
She thought for a moment. “I’m sure a few did. Mostly, people felt sorry for me. As a girl, I had been abandoned by him. As a scientist, I was now saddled with this embarrassing nutcase called Father Jupiter. In reality, even before Jupiter my father had lost his scientific luster.”
“Why was that?”
“He was espousing some way-out theories even before he took his famous hike. Now, the few times I’ve spoken to him, his mind was as scientifically sharp as ever. But we kept our conversation on neutral ground, never talking about his postulations.” She got up and poured herself another cup of coffee. “Which are not as crackpot now as they were then.”
Decker asked, “What kind of crackpot theories did he hold?”
Europa returned to her desk. “It’s a long story as well as a complicated one.”
“I’ve got time. Try me.”
“How’s your working knowledge of physics?”
“I know Newton had three laws of motio
n.”
“That’s a start.”
“Actually someone at the Order clued me into that one.”
“Who?”
“Someone named Bob.”
“Ah…” Recognition. “Tall, thin…I think now he sports a beard.”
“Goatee.” Decker tried to hide his surprise. “Does he have a last name?”
“Changes with the wind. When I knew him, it was Robert Ross.”
Decker wrote it down in his notes. “Where do you know him from?”
“From Southwest. We were fellow students—actually dated for a couple of months. He was a fanatic admirer of Emil Ganz the scientist. With my father gone, I was his sole link to the great man. But when Dad was resurrected as Jupiter, Bob went directly to the source. At one time, he had a working brain. By now I’m sure it’s mush.”
“He impressed me as being sharp. But what do I know?”
Europa shrugged. “Maybe.”
Decker regarded her with a swift glance. She wasn’t as separate from the Order as Decker had thought. She had kept in contact with her father via phone, she had dated one of the members, and had been best friends with her father’s woman. Also, she remembered Pluto, albeit not fondly. And this was what she admitted to. Who knew what she wasn’t telling him. He said, “Explain your dad’s whacked-out theories.”
She sighed heavily. “Dad had developed some far-out theories about teleportation and time machines into alternative universes—a combination of H. G. Wells and Beam me up, Scotty.” Again, a sigh. “Not that this bears any relevancy to your investigation.”
“Actually, it may be very relevant,” Decker answered. “Maybe he chose to end his life because he believed that he was transporting himself to a better place with a time machine.”
“Even so, why would that be relevant to the police?”
“Because we have to make sure no one tries to follow in your father’s footsteps. I don’t want another Heaven’s Gate—not anywhere and certainly not in my district.”
“How can you guarantee that?”
“With adults, we can’t. Kids are another story.”
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