The Fractal Murders Part 7

"Good morning," I said. "I'd like to see a probate file on a man named Paul Fontaine. He died last year."

"Are you an attorney?" she asked. It was a public record and I had a right to see it, but practicing law had taught me that court clerks are among the most powerful people in the world. You p.i.s.s them off at your peril.

"I hate to admit it," I said with a smile, "but I am." I showed her my plastic American Bar a.s.sociation card-the one with the Hertz #1 Club logo on the back. I positioned my thumb so she couldn't see my name. The card had expired, but she didn't notice. Or didn't care.

"Not from around here," she remarked.

"Doing some work for an insurance company," I lied.

"Just a moment." She disappeared, and I was left to exchange small talk with her protegee, a wholesome cutie excited about her upcoming marriage to a rodeo cowboy. Edna reappeared two minutes later with a thin file in her right hand. Before entrusting it to me, she slid a checkout card across the counter and instructed me to fill it in. I scrawled something illegible and she handed me the file. "File's due back at four," she said as she tapped a sign with the eraser on her pencil. Attorneys who didn't return files on time would lose their checkout privileges.

"I'll have it back in an hour," I said. I winked at her, took the stairs back down to the first floor, bought a cold diet c.o.ke from a vending machine, and returned to the library. I had never been fond of probate work, but I knew what to look for.

Fontaine had executed his last will and testament more than ten years prior to his death. A will executed shortly before his death might have indicated that he had antic.i.p.ated trouble, but a will made more than ten years ago suggested he probably hadn't had any reason to believe his life was in danger.

His will left everything to his parents, both of whom were still living at the time of his death. The only other doc.u.ment of interest was the inventory of a.s.sets. In addition to a home valued at more than $200,000 and his half-million-dollar interest in the wheat operation, Fontaine had owned stock in nineteen corporations. No mutual funds. All told, the value of his estate had exceeded two million dollars. Not bad for a math professor.

I copied the entire file and walked upstairs to return it to Edna. She wasn't there, but the young girl was. As I handed her the file, a yellow sticky note fell from it. I picked it up to give it to her and noticed a handwritten message: Fax copies of all doc.u.ments to Special Agent Mike Polk FBI-Denver (303) 877-8121.

"Any idea when that was written?" I asked. She took the note and studied it.

"I remember this," she said as Edna returned to the room and joined her younger colleague at the counter. "He called Friday and I faxed everything the same day."

"Are you working on the same case?" Edna asked.

"Same case," I said, "except the FBI's done with it and I'm not." I asked her to photocopy the note for me, then drove to what had been Fontaine's home as I pondered why Polk would've sought copies of the probate doc.u.ments after the bureau had concluded its investigation. Maybe the local agents had neglected to obtain them and the bureau just wanted to be sure its file was complete. Or maybe the Denver office had managed to lose them and wanted replacement copies.

Fontaine's residence was an impressive white structure with tall columns. Just three blocks from the college. Probably built in the early part of the century. Similar homes sat on each side of it, but none was separated by more than thirty feet. There was a covered porch complete with porch swing. Roses were in bloom in front of and along both sides of the house. The same home in Boulder would cost half a million dollars.

I walked up the seven wooden steps and peered inside. Toys were scattered about, but nothing in the probate file indicated the home had been sold, so I a.s.sumed it had been rented to a family with young children. I rang the bell, received no response, and walked around back. The windows were old and large, but high off the ground. Th.o.r.n.y rosebushes nearly reached the windows. Not an easy way to gain entry.

I was back at the station by eleven, but Gilbert wasn't, so I took a chair and read USA Today. Two scruffy teens occupied the bench next to me, their heads down, waiting quietly for their parents. "Is that the Group W bench?" I asked the desk sergeant.

"Huh?"

"Never mind," I said. Evidently too young to remember "Alice's Restaurant."

Gilbert walked in at eleven-fifteen, flicked his cigarette b.u.t.t into an ash can, and said, "Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

"No problem," I said as I folded the paper. He walked to the counter and retrieved his messages.

"Daughter's eight months' pregnant and she's having some problems, so the doc put her in the hospital. Wants her to stay there till she pops the kid. Seems like I spend half my time over there." He placed the pink message slips in his pocket and said, "Let's get some lunch." I followed him out and donned my aviator's sungla.s.ses. With my haircut, they make me look like a Secret Service agent on steroids, but I can't stand bright sun in my eyes.

"How many kids do you have?" I asked.

"Three. Oldest boy's an architect in Seattle." He paused to light another cigarette. "Daughter's twenty-two. This is her second child; she had a rough time with the first. My other boy's a student at the college here; costs an arm and a leg, let me tell you."

We ate at a surprisingly good deli. Sat outside and watched the cars and people on Main Street. Everyone knew Gilbert. Some from Rotary, others from church or the Little League team he coached. He ordered a ham and cheese; I opted for turkey and Swiss. A spinning electrical sign on top of the tallest building gave the time as 11:34 and the temperature as 77.

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and said, "You're a man with a past."

"I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't checked me out."

"I got the police reports from Denver," he said. "I can't understand why they charged you in the first place."

"I was a pretty well-known criminal-defense lawyer," I said. "I'd been a vocal critic of the DA, and it finally caught up with me."

"f.u.c.ker comes at me with a knife and I ain't got a weapon, one of us is goin' home dead."

"Water under the bridge," I said. A college girl in jeans arrived with our drinks and sandwiches, and Gilbert switched topics.

"So what do you think about this thing?" he asked.

"No forced entry," I said. "I'd guess Fontaine knew the killer. Or felt no reason to fear him."

"Maybe," he said. "Around here n.o.body locks their doors, so it's hard to say."

"Pretty pathetic robbery," I said.

"Christ, the guy's credit cards are still in his wallet. Silver candlesticks on the dining-room table."

"Don't forget the nineteenth-century coins on display in the study. It looks like the killer never went upstairs."

"If he did, it was before he pulled the trigger. There wasn't a speck of blood up there."

"If we exclude the possibility of a psycho, somebody wanted him dead."

"Guy had no enemies," he said.

"Girlfriends?"

"Not really. He had a thing with one of his students year before last, but she'd already graduated when he took the bullet. She's teaching high school math in Portland. I talked to her, but she didn't have much to say. He was a sweet man, it was a real tragedy, and all that."

"I didn't see any of that in the file."

"The notes are in my office. He'd slept with some others over the years, but the college doesn't need that kind of publicity. I'll give you copies before you leave."

"I looked at his probate file," I said. "He didn't appear to have had any financial problems."

"No, he'd done pretty well in the stock market. And his family owns the biggest wheat farm in the county. That's big business up here, let me tell you; ain't none of them farmers hurting." The waitress refilled our drinks, and Gilbert extinguished his cancer stick. "People don't know it, but this is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation."

"Why fake a robbery," I said, "unless you're trying to disguise your motive or lead us down a false trail? And if you're going to fake a robbery, why not take those coins?"

"The more he takes, the more he has to carry."

"The more he takes, the greater his ties to Fontaine. If somebody finds those coins in his possession, he's got some 'splainin' to do."

"You do a mean Ricky Ricardo."

"Thanks."

We kicked it around for forty-five minutes, and I explained what little I had learned about fractal geometry. Fractal image compression, medical imaging, and all that. "Sounds like there's money in it," he said.

"There is," I said. "And I'm guessing that's why these people are dead."

"Well," he said, "I'm no math whiz-never went past high school-but if you're willing to tackle that angle, I'll help you any way I can." I finished my sandwich and told him there was one favor he could do for me.

"What's that?" he said.

"Call the homicide cop in Boston. He wouldn't share any information with me, but he'll probably share it with you."

"Probably," he agreed. He finished his pickle, then lit yet another cigarette. The smoke annoyed me-it's one of my pet peeves-but I kept my feelings to myself.

"Tell me about Fontaine's student a.s.sistant," I said.

"Ronald Bartels. An aspiring math nerd."

"Mind if I talk to him?"

"No. I interviewed him twice, but that was before the other two turned up dead. He's the one told me about the girl in Portland."

"I'd like to know more about Fontaine's research. Maybe he can shed some light on it."

"Knock yourself out," he said. I paid for lunch, and he gave me directions to Bartels's room. "You'd better hurry," he said, "most of these kids will be leaving town by the end of the week."

It was early afternoon and a festival atmosphere permeated the campus. Loud music and plenty of coeds in colorful bikinis soaking up the sun. I caught myself looking more than once and reminded myself I was old enough to have a daughter in college. It didn't stop me from looking.

Bartels lived in Douglas Hall, a dormitory named after William O. Douglas. A plaque indicated the former Supreme Court justice had attended the school, but the building's cornerstone told me it had been constructed a year before his death. His untimely demise had probably deprived the college of an opportunity to name the building after a wealthy alum in return for a generous donation.

The dorm itself was clean, quiet, and utterly unremarkable. When I'd been in college, you couldn't walk through a dorm without smelling dope, stepping in beer, or seeing Farrah Fawcett. Now pot is out of fashion, the drinking age is twenty-one, and Farrah is over fifty. Times change.

I found Bartels's room and knocked, but there was no answer. I knocked again, hard, but the result was the same, so I made my way to the math-and-science building. It was a newer structure with a copper facade along the roof. A long metal bike rack was positioned outside the entrance. Some of the windows were open, the faculty members apparently enjoying the nice weather and/or the music pouring forth from the dorms.

Max LeBlanc and two other math professors agreed to speak to me, but n.o.body could shed any light on the mystery. Fontaine had spent the summer running his parents' farm. If he'd been involved with a woman at the time of his death, n.o.body knew about it. They let me see what had been his office, but it had since been a.s.signed to another mathematician who had rearranged things to suit her needs.

My next stop was the student union. I bought a large diet c.o.ke at the fountain, ignored the NO FOOD OR DRINK sign, and meandered through the student bookstore. I love bookstores. Sometimes I think owning a bookstore would be the perfect job.

"May I help you?" a woman asked. Too old to be a student, but not bad looking. There was something sultry about her in spite of her gla.s.ses. Maybe the bored wife of a faculty member.

"Just browsing," I said. Wishing I didn't smell like cigarette smoke.

"That's fine, sir," she said with a smile. "If you need anything, please let me know." She turned and started to walk away.

"Wait a minute," I said. "There is something you can help me with. Where are the textbooks for your math cla.s.ses?"

"Right over here," she said. I followed. I found Fontaine's text on fractal geometry, removed one from the top of the stack, and opened the cover: $44.95. I put it down and clutched my chest as if having a heart attack. She laughed.

"I'll take it," I said. I handed it to her and followed her to the register.

"Will that be all?"

"Trust me," I said, "this'll keep me busy for a while."

I walked back to Douglas Hall and heard faint music from Bartels's room, but my knock went unanswered. I gave the k.n.o.b a gentle twist and peeked inside. Disaster area. Clothes and fast-food wrappers everywhere. Bartels and his roommate had built a loft to make better use of the s.p.a.ce, and I noticed a young man asleep on the bunk. I rapped the open door a few times with my knuckles and he began to stir. A dark-haired young man sat up, rubbed his eyes, and tried to focus. He wore beige shorts and a T-shirt with "Just Do It" printed across the front.

"Are you Ronald Bartels?"

"Yeah," he said. I guessed he was six feet tall. About one hundred sixty pounds. He was a handsome kid, but had one of the worst haircuts I'd ever seen. It looked like someone had just taken scissors and snipped their way around his head to create a poor replica of Ringo Starr circa 1964.

"My name's Pepper Keane. I'm a private investigator." That caught his interest. "Lieutenant Gilbert suggested I talk with you." He stretched his arms.

"Sure," he said, "no problem. Sorry about the mess. We've been taking finals all week." He made no effort to climb down and both chairs were covered with clothes, so I took the liberty of sitting on a footlocker that evidently doubled as a coffee table.

"I'd like to talk about Professor Fontaine. I'm trying to determine if there is a connection between his murder and the deaths of two other mathematicians."

"Yeah, the FBI mentioned that when they questioned me. Weird, huh?"

"When was that?"

"I don't know, a month or two ago."

"What did they ask you?"

"Which time?" he replied.

"They questioned you more than once?"

"Yeah," he said. "Two agents from Spokane came down here maybe six or eight weeks ago and spent a day with me. Then an agent from Denver interviewed me by phone, maybe a week or two later, and asked the same questions all over again. I told him I'd already been interviewed, but he didn't want to hear it."

"You get his name?"

"No, but I should have. He was kind of a d.i.c.k." An agent from Denver. Kind of a d.i.c.k. That sure sounded like Polk. Why would Polk reinterview a witness who had been questioned at length and in person by two Spokane agents? Standard practice would be for those agents to prepare a Form 302-"FBI Interview Summary"-and forward it to the office handling the investigation. I put that question aside and continued questioning Bartels.

"I'm sure they asked you whether Professor Fontaine had had any contact with Carolyn Chang or Donald Underwood?"

"Yeah," he said, "they asked about that. I told them I wasn't aware of any, but I was just his student a.s.sistant."

"What exactly does a student a.s.sistant do?" I had never been a student a.s.sistant, though I had earned a little extra money in law school as a bouncer at a place called the Grizzly Bar.

"Grade tests, work with freshmen who are having problems."

"Do you get paid for that?"

"Not enough," he said. I smiled.

"What about his research and writing, were you involved with those things?"

"A little. We were always getting comments about the textbook, and one of my jobs was to organize those and make notes about changes we might consider in the next edition. Sometimes he'd ask me to get articles from the library or proofread something, things like that."