by Mark Cohen
The being that exists is man. Man alone exists. Rocks are, but they do not exist. Trees are, but they do not exist. Horses are, but they do not exist. Angels are, but they do not exist. God is, but he does not exist.
I read that passage several times, and I understood the difference between a man and a horse, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the horse wasn’t better off because it didn’t have to wonder about the meaning of life or the inevitability of death—issues that had followed me for years, particularly since Joy’s death.
A door opened and I heard my name. I followed a female LPN to an examining room. Young and reasonably attractive, but seemingly detached. She took my blood pressure, said it was a little high, then asked the reason for my visit. I told her the cuff wasn’t big enough for my arm, then gave an abbreviated history of my illness. She took it down, then left and promised that the doctor would be along shortly.
The doc turned out to be a slender young carrot-top named Cameron Edwards who had agreed to practice in a rural area in return for the state’s assistance in paying for his education. Instead of sending him to some godforsaken outpost on Colorado’s eastern plains, the state had set him up in a town twenty-five minutes from Boulder and five minutes from a ski area. I described my symptoms and told him I had a sinus infection.
He examined me, then said, “We see a lot of allergies this time of year.” I assured him I had no history of allergies, but he felt the best plan was to start me on an antihistamine and a decongestant. He seemed like a decent young man, but I’d spent a good chunk of one year fighting a sinus infection that had ended in surgery. I recounted that experience and suggested that if he wasn’t going to prescribe an antibiotic, he’d darn well better take X rays, draw blood, and perform a throat culture. After a brief lecture on the dangers of overusing antibiotics, he relented. I was glad he didn’t take my blood pressure then. I might’ve popped the cuff.
Being a private eye is not what it once was. I’ve never had to stand on a dark corner in a trench coat with a revolver in my pocket, and I’ve never had a sultry blonde sashay into my office and lay down a wad of cash. This being the Information Age, I spent that evening preparing letters to the Alabama Department of Public Safety, the Wyoming Department of Revenue, and forty-eight other state agencies sandwiched between the ends of the alphabet. Not to mention the District of Columbia. Requesting driver’s license information on Thomas Payne Tobias, date of birth 2/5/66.
And that was about as glamorous as my evening got because when all fifty-one envelopes were stamped and ready to go, I settled into my black recliner with a green highlighter and my newly purchased copy of Fontaine’s Fractal Geometry. It wasn’t light reading, but it wasn’t any worse than Being and Time. The first edition had been published in 1984, but a second had been issued in 1992, and a third just a few years ago. That’s what I had. Like the author of every textbook ever written, he’d ended the preface to the first edition by acknowledging the assistance of numerous colleagues. Nobody from Harvard or Nebraska. Same story with the preface to the second edition. The preface to the third edition began with a discussion of the growth of fractal geometry since the publication of the second edition:
Fractal geometry has blossomed in ways hardly imaginable when the previous edition of this text was published seven short years ago. What began as an attempt by Mandlebrot to define a geometry of nature today finds application in fields ranging from astronomy to medicine, from cinematography to cartography, from engineering to urban planning, and even in the world of finance.
It ended like this:
Finally, I’d like to thank Donald Underwood, associate professor of mathematics at Harvard University. Professor Underwood’s insights were invaluable, particularly in connection with chapter twelve.
A quick look at the table of contents told me chapter twelve, the final chapter, was devoted to the use of computers in fractal geometry. And a quick look at chapter twelve told me that trying to understand it would be a waste of time. I recalled Gumby’s words: “Far as we know, they never spoke with each other, never corresponded.” Yet there it was, right there on page viii of the third edition.
It was past nine. I put the book down, let the dogs out, went into my office, phoned Ronald Bartels and told him of my discovery. He stood firm in his belief that Fontaine had never corresponded or spoken with Underwood concerning the textbook or anything else as long as he’d been at Whitman. Fontaine kept all comments on the third edition and had always tasked his student assistant with organizing and maintaining such letters. “I was still in high school when the third edition was published,” Bartels said, “but when the FBI became involved, we dug out that file and went through it page by page. There was nothing from Dr. Underwood.”
I thanked Bartels for his time, then thumbed through my Rolodex. Found what I wanted and punched in the number. “Hello?” A woman’s voice.
“May I speak with Tim?”
“Who’s calling?” The new wife sounded younger than the old one.
“Pepper Keane.”
“It’s for you,” she said, “someone named Pepper.” There was a brief pause.
“Does this concern national security?” asked Gombold.
“Tim, sorry to bother you, but I just came across something I think you should know about.”
He sighed. “This on your fractal case?”
“Yeah.”
“Fire away.”
“You told me the bureau had been unable to find any evidence that these people had ever phoned each other or corresponded?”
“That’s right.”
“I was reading Fontaine’s textbook—”
“That’s a sad comment on your social life.”
“I know,” I said. “Anyhow, in the preface to the most recent edition, Fontaine credits Underwood as one of the people who read it and provided feedback.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“When was that published?”
“Couple of years ago.”
“Interesting. If there was correspondence between them, it’s possible they trashed it after the book came out.”
“Maybe, but Fontaine obviously knew and respected Underwood. Seems unlikely they’d go for years without talking or trading letters.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Who checked the phone records?” I asked.
“Wasn’t me, so it must have been Polk.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. He probably spent five minutes on the phone with some minimum-wage clerk at the AT&T subpoena center.” He laughed.
“Pepper, I know you don’t like the guy, but he’s not stupid.”
“Just the same, will you take a look at it?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll take a look at it.”
9
AFTER AN EARLY RUN AROUND THE LAKE with Buck, I spent Thursday morning putting the finishing touches on an appellate brief I was writing for Big Matt Simms. A former offensive lineman at Colorado State, Matt stands six-two and must weigh two-seventy, most of it ego. He has a taste for the finer things in life, as is evidenced by the fact that he buys a new car every year. This year it was a Mercedes.
Because Matt won’t turn away any prospective client with money, he frequently finds himself with more work than he can handle. Once in a while he asks me to write a brief for him. He pays me seventy-five dollars an hour, in cash, but the client never knows I exist. He bills the client at his normal hourly rate as if he had done the work. Matt prides himself on having one of the highest hourly rates in Denver, but the client gets a first-rate brief and I earn a little tax-free spending money without having to tolerate the daily indignities of practicing law.
Shortly before noon I drove to the post office, mailed the brief to Matt, bought a large diet Coke at the B&F, and returned home to begin my search for Thomas Tobias.
People who intentionally disappear tend to fall into one of three categories: those running from the law, those running from their cre
ditors, and those running from themselves. If you have a name and a Social Security number, it’s pretty easy to determine whether someone falls into either of the first two categories. I phoned Gilbert, told him about Tobias, and asked him to run an NCIC check. That would reveal Tobias’s criminal history, if any, as well as information concerning any outstanding warrants. “How’d you find out about this guy?” Gilbert asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
“Probably not,” he agreed.
When Gilbert and I had finished talking, I phoned Matt, explained the situation, and asked him to have the firm’s collection agency obtain a copy of Tobias’s credit history. “That’s illegal,” he deadpanned, “I can’t be a party to that.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “Just fax it up to me when you get it.”
“I’ll put it on my ever growing list of crap to do,” he said.
“Thanks, Matt.”
“Hey, Pepper,” he said, “when are you going to ditch the investigative bit and get your ass back down here? I’m telling you, man, we’re raking in money like never before.”
“You’re still young,” I said. “I figure you’ve got about five more years until burnout.”
“They are a pain,” he said, referring to his clients.
“But you love the money and seeing your name in the papers.”
“But I love the money and seeing my name in the papers.”
“You’re an addict,” I said. “You need to find a twelve-step program. That’s the only way to free yourself from that kind of thinking.” He laughed and promised to fax me Tobias’s credit history as soon as possible.
By two o’clock I knew Tobias had no criminal history and wasn’t wanted for anything. By three I knew he’d had exceptional credit before disappearing. He’d paid his bills in full in May of ninety-seven and hadn’t used a credit card since. I’d have to dig deeper. I dialed information for the Big Apple.
After identifying myself as an IRS agent, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 912, a woman in NYU’s accounting department told me Tobias had left a forwarding address in Erie, Pennsylvania, but that his W-2 for last year had been returned with “No Such Address” stamped on it. The address had probably been bogus from the start; Tobias had chosen Whitman for his undergraduate education, and I had a hunch he’d grown up in the Pacific Northwest.
I called NYU again, this time asking for the dean of the college of arts and sciences. I got the associate dean, Maria Santos. I gave my true name and occupation, then told her I was trying to locate Thomas Tobias. She was initially reluctant to provide any information, but opened up when I explained that Tobias had fathered a child out of wedlock and now owed more than twelve thousand dollars in back child support. “That’s awful,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
I asked if Tobias had completed an employment application or emergency information card. She put me on hold, but returned a few minutes later and told me he had filled out an employment application and an emergency notification card. She promised to fax them.
“Did you know Professor Tobias?” I asked.
“I’d met him.”
“Any idea why he left? Was he in trouble with the administration?”
“No, not at all. He left on good terms.” I heard her thumbing through papers. “His letter of resignation is somewhat vague; he felt he needed to take some time off for personal reasons.”
“Couldn’t he have taken a sabbatical?”
“No, he would’ve had to teach several more years to be eligible for a sabbatical.”
I thanked her for her time, and she wished me luck in tracking down my deadbeat dad. I took a break to pump some iron in my basement. I’ve accumulated a great deal of weight-lifting equipment over the years, mostly items my brother no longer needed at his gym. It was a leg day, so I did squats, leg presses, lunges, knee extensions, ham curls, step-ups, and calf raises. By the time I had finished, my legs were fried, but I love that feeling. It’s a natural high.
I went upstairs and made a protein shake, then checked my fax machine. True to her word, Ms. Santos had faxed copies of Tobias’s employment application and emergency notification card. I examined the notification card first. In case of emergency, Tobias had instructed NYU to contact his mother, Iris Tobias, of Bend, Oregon. I debated calling her, but there was a practical problem. If I did, she might notify her son. There was also a moral problem. If a person truly wants to disappear, he has to give up his past life entirely. I’d hate to call Iris if she hadn’t heard from her son in two years. I’d have to think it over.
The employment application presented no such problems. It listed three references. Two were mathematicians at Harvard. The third was Paul Fontaine.
10
FRIDAY AFTERNOON. I WAS IN MY CLIENT’S OFFICE, waiting for her to return from a meeting.
My first move that morning had been to phone Ms. Santos once more. I asked if Tobias’s references had provided letters of recommendation. “No,” she said, “but the hiring committee conducted telephonic interviews with them, and they all spoke in glowing terms.” So much for that theory. A poor recommendation from Fontaine might’ve indicated bad blood between the two, and that would have given me some basis, however weak, to suspect Tobias had played a role in Fontaine’s death.
I studied my client’s bookcases. Analytic geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, Riemannian geometry, fractal geometry. She even had Euclid’s Elements and a three-volume treatise on the history of geometry. I was still taking inventory, head cocked to the side like a curious collie, when she entered. She was carrying the latest issue of USA Today and in it there was a story about the latest terrorist attack on the other side of the world.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. She sighed and extended her lower lip at the same time so that the dark strands of hair hanging gracefully over her forehead flew up for a split second. I wasn’t sure if she was frustrated or exhausted. She wore tailored slacks the color of butter, a white cotton blouse, and her trademark pink lipstick.
“That’s okay,” I replied, “it gave me a chance to check out your books.” She stood next to me, looked at her bookcase, and sipped coffee from a foam cup.
“I wish I could tell you I’ve read them all,” she said, “but I’d be lying. The textbook companies send them free of charge.”
“Hoping you’ll use their books in your classes?”
“Yes.” She sat down behind her desk and I took one of the chairs opposite.
“You seem frustrated,” I said.
“It’s been a hectic day,” she said. “I’ll just be teaching one class this summer, but I’m on three committees, including the tenure committee, and I’m just stretched to the limit.” I thought that a funny phrase for a woman of her height, but I kept it to myself. “I’m sorry,” she said, “you don’t need to hear my problems. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to give you an update and ask a few questions.”
She offered coffee and I declined. “You sound better,” she said.
“I finally saw a doctor,” I said. “After I flew up to Walla Walla.”
“Really?” Despite her admonishment not to concern myself with her finances, I read her mind.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “it didn’t cost much. I had more frequent flier miles than I knew what to do with.”
“Wouldn’t you have rather used them for a vacation?”
“I don’t practice law anymore,” I said. “Every day is a vacation.” She gave me a half smile, but said nothing. “Besides, I had to do something to get things moving. The detective who investigated Fontaine’s death is another ex-marine and we hit it off when we spoke on the phone. He invited me up.”
“What does he think?”
“We’re both pretty certain what happened at Fontaine’s house wasn’t a robbery.” I told her about the execution style of the murder and the many valuable items the killer had neglected to take, then summarized my efforts in Walla Walla.
�
��This Lieutenant Gilbert, does he believe Professor Fontaine’s death is related to the other two?”
“He’s suspicious,” I said, “and he’s willing to help, but I don’t think he feels comfortable with the mathematical aspects of the case. He’s leaving that to us.”
“What about the other deaths? Have you learned anything about them?” I told her I’d spoken with the detective in Lincoln, Amanda Slowiaczek, but that she’d been unusually hostile. I promised to keep on it.
“And Professor Underwood?” she asked. I’d been dreading this conversation. I took a deep breath and told her the police felt he had accidentally hanged himself while jerking off. My language was a bit more clinical, but she got the idea.
“I’ve read about that,” she said. “Does it happen often?”
“Yeah,” I said, “it happens a lot.”
“I guess that explains his death.” She sighed.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “It would be easy to fake. Point a gun at a man, he’ll do whatever you say.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she said, “but if you’re going to stage a suicide, why make it look like an autoerotic accident?” She finished her coffee and placed the foam cup in the waste basket beside her.
“Making it look like an accident allows the cops to close the case without asking a lot of the questions they normally ask when someone commits suicide.” She analyzed that assertion as if considering a mathematical equation.
“Yes,” she said, “that makes sense.” She seemed pleased I was open to the possibility that Underwood’s death had been staged.
“There are two other things I should tell you,” I said. I told her about Fontaine’s reference to Underwood in the third edition of his textbook.
“My God,” she said, “how could the FBI have missed that?”
“Sometimes you miss the obvious because you’re not looking for it. I stumbled onto it because I had nothing better to do.”
