The Theory of Death (13 page)

“Social acuity isn’t my forte, Detective.”

McAdams said, “Was Eli helping out anyone else besides Mallon Euler?”

“Eli helped anyone who’d ask for help. He was too nice, if you ask me. I was always afraid that people would take advantage of him.”

“In what way?”

“He would spend too much time in helping others and not enough on his own work. But I never said anything because with his own assignment, he was always on time or early. Things came easy to him.”

“What was Eli working on?” Decker asked.

“It involves a lot of complicated mathematics. Unless you’re in the field, you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about.”

McAdams said, “A friend of his told us it has to do with Fourier analysis and eigenvalues.”

Rosser furrowed his brow. “Which friend?”

McAdams looked up his notes. “Damodar Batra.” When Rosser waved him off, Tyler said, “Eli wasn’t researching eigenvalues?”

“Only as a starting point. Do you have any idea what Fourier analysis is or what an eigenvalue means?”

“It has to do with a relationship between matrices and vectors,” McAdams said.

Decker said, “The mathematics was beyond me, but what I took out of it was a paring down of complex things into simpler parts. What was interesting to me as a detective was the practical applications: the eigenface and eigenvoice recognition. You take a bunch of real faces, assign a value percentage to each part of the faces—like sixty-three percent of this nose, and thirty-seven percent of that nose, and then put them together to make a totally new face. It’s basically a computerized identity kit except you have a lot more features to draw upon. Those percentages of the features were called eigenvalues.”

“It’s interesting what sticks in people’s minds,” Rosser said. “Of course, that’s what you’d be interested in.”

“Could you get a little more specific on Eli’s research in layman terms?”

“First of all, it’s hard to explain in layman terms. You need the mathematics. Secondly, his research is still ongoing.”

“Meaning there are still original publications to be had from what Eli was doing.”

“He was part of a team, Detective. We share the work, we share the credit. Any paper he might have produced would have had multiple authorships. His theories were not developed in a vacuum. And what does his research have to do with his terrible, untimely death?”

“I don’t know if it has anything to do with it,” Decker said. “I suppose you heard that we found hidden papers—a stack of them actually—stuffed behind Eli’s desk in his dorm room.”

“I have heard. I’d like to take a look at those papers. I need to make sure he wasn’t compromising anyone else’s research.”

“I have a lot of people who are interested in looking over those papers for the same reason.”

“As his adviser, I would know right away what he was working on. I just want to make sure he wasn’t poaching someone else’s thesis.”

“That’s an odd thing to say,” McAdams told him. “Why on earth would you think that Elijah—who was your most brilliant student—would poach someone else’s thesis?”

“I don’t think that. I just want to make sure.” Rosser’s face tightened. “There’s an easy way to solve this problem. Just let me see the papers.”

Decker said, “I appreciate your need to keep your research within the confines of your lab, but you also need to realize if those papers are important to his death, I have to keep them under lock and key as evidence. Is it possible for you to give me something that Eli already made public so I can compare it to what we found behind the desk?”

“How could you tell—as a layman—if it was similar or not?”

“I couldn’t, but we know people who could.”

“Just give my research away?” Rosser shook his head. “No thank you.”

“That’s why I said something previously made public.”

“It was only made public within the lab. It certainly wouldn’t stop poachers from stealing what might be in those hidden papers.”

“Professor, we’re taking the papers to someone at Harvard. That’s a given.”

Rosser turned red. “To whom might I ask?”

“Someone who doesn’t need anyone else’s research for tenure,” McAdams said.

“We’ve used him before,” Decker told him. “He’s not about to poach your research. If for no other reason, he’d now be under scrutiny.”

“Cold comfort.”

“Let me promise you this,” Decker said. “If you supply us with some papers of Eli’s research and the hidden papers turn out to be relevant to your research, I’ll make sure you get them before anyone else. What do you say?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you have a choice. You can say no. But the best choice you have is to cooperate.”

Rosser sighed and sat back in his chair. “I probably sound like I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.”

McAdams said, “You’re being protective of your work. We understand academia.”

“I have tenure,” Rosser said. “It’s not for my personal gain. But not everyone in my lab is as lucky. I have students who are applying to very prestigious graduate programs. I have master-level students who are using my data to try to further their careers at other universities, and I have assistant professors here who are trying to get tenure. If privileged data were to get out, it would screw up people other than me.”

“I appreciate where you’re coming from,” Decker said, “but that isn’t our intention. The tragedy just happened a day ago and we don’t quite know what is or isn’t relevant.”

A long pause. “Let me sleep on it. Let me think about what I can give you that would do the least amount of damage.” Rosser sighed. “Anything else? I’m completely jammed up today. Eli’s death has thrown a monkey wrench into everyone’s schedules.”

“How specifically are you dealing with Eli’s death?”

“We’ve formed several ad hoc committees to meet with students. I’ve asked for a counselor to come down. Math people aren’t noted for emotional exuberance but that doesn’t mean that the kids aren’t affected. It’s a mess right now. So if we’re done …”

“I do have another question, Dr. Rosser. Did Elijah have a paid job doing work for the math department?”

Rosser furrowed his brow. “He worked as a TA in several lower-division classes as part of his tuition. He was here on a free ride, you know.”

“I do know. Did he work in the department for spare change? Well, a little more than spare change.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Eli was sending home around twelve hundred a month to his family. He said he got it by working a job for the math department. Maybe he kept a little for pocket money. So if you assume that, maybe he was making even more.”

“Twelve hundred a month?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have no idea where it came from. Maybe someone else in the department hired him on as a research assistant.” A pause. “Strange that he wouldn’t tell me, but as I said, we kept our conversations on his thesis. I suppose you can check with the bursar’s office.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that.”

Rosser seemed troubled. “I don’t mind his working for someone else other than me. But he should have said something. Do you know who he might have been working with?”

“No idea whatsoever.”

“Well, if it was someone in my department, I’d like to know about it. I don’t like people working with my students behind my back.”

“I understand.”

“So you’ll tell me if you find out anything?”

“Let me find something of significance first. Right now I’m just trying to piece together who Elijah Wolf was.”

“Do the police always delve so deeply in a suicide?”

“I do what I think is necessary for my peace of mind,” Decker said.

Rosser made a point of looking at his watch even though there was a wall clock in the room. “Anything else?”

“Not at the moment. Thank you.” Decker gave the professor his card. “Call me anytime. My cell is on the back. And please let me know about your decision to share some of Eli’s research. It may prove invaluable to all of us.”

Rosser flipped the card over a couple of times. “I’ll call you and let you know.”

“I’m taking the hidden papers to our professor tomorrow,” McAdams said. “Just to let
you
know.”

“What time?”

“I’m leaving around two in the afternoon.” When Decker looked at him, McAdams just smiled.

“Who is your professor? I don’t think you ever told me a name.”

“Privileged information.”

“There are only so many people in a math department.”

“If you ask around, we can’t stop you,” McAdams said.

Decker said, “Thank you for your time.”

“Not a problem. You can see yourself out.”

As soon as they walked into the hallway, Decker said, “I thought you were renting a car and leaving in the
morning.
”

“Guess I’m not a morning person.”

“You told me you didn’t want to go out in the afternoon. You told me that if you left in the morning, you’d be more on your game. You told me that the only reason you are staying tonight is to get a good sleep. Either you’re lying or stalling or all of the above.”

“All of the above.”

“Cool it with the snide talk. You’re beginning to piss me off.”

“You know, Decker, no one except my nanny has ever given a damn about me. It’s way too late for me to develop a father figure now.”

“I’m sure you can take care of yourself.” A pause. “But if you screw up and your dad finds out you were working with me, he’ll be major league pissed. And with some justification. You should be studying, Tyler. You should be concentrating on your tests, not running around trying to make sense out of a senseless act and being stalked by a crazy math girl in the process.”

“She hasn’t called me once since our lunch, FYI.” McAdams looked at his phone. “Okay. She only called me once.”

“Look, kiddo, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be on your own father’s shit list.”

McAdams smiled. “I’ve been on it many times and I’m still here to tell the tale. Actually, I consider it a place of honor.”

“Of course you do,” Decker said. “Pissing off one’s parents is a time-honored tradition. You seem to have extended the tradition to me. I don’t know whether to take it as an insult or a compliment.”

McAdams gave him a small punch in his arm. “What the hell, Decker. Live large. Take it as a compliment. And I still expect my picture on your piano.”

Decker said, “Get me a damn picture and I’ll put it up. Should I start calling you ‘son,’ McAdams?”

“Only if you pay my tuition.”

T
HE WINTRY NIGHT
was long and quiet and McAdams was finally able to slip into the zone. Sitting at the desk in the Deckers’ living room, he focused his eyes and mind on the intricacies of first-year law. Outside, snowflakes were dancing under the porch light. Inside, it was warm even though the fire was almost out: just a hint of flame, a waft of pine wood, and the occasional crackle of a splitting log. The fireplace, like the radiator, was mostly for atmosphere anyway. The real heat was coming from an updated forced-air system. Rina and Peter had gone to sleep hours ago. They kept the house a tad on the chilly side, but he was comfortable with a sweater on his chest and some single-malt Scotch in his belly courtesy of a rare bottle he packed before leaving Cambridge. In the wee hours of the morning, having plowed through about a third of the material, he felt good enough to call it quits.

He was in that drifting-off-to-sleep state when he heard his cell ring. At first he thought he was dreaming, but then the nasty intrusion refused to quit. Groping around, he found his phone, ripped it from the charger, and managed to croak out a hello, which was unusually civil for him at this ungodly hour. The voice on the other end was female and frantic. Her speech was way too fast for his brain to process. Even though he couldn’t understand the words, he had a pretty good idea who was speaking.

“Mallon?”

“Yes, of course. Have you been listening to me?”

“It’s three in the morning and you woke me up. You want to go a little slower?”

In a panicked voice, she said, “My … room … has … been … ransacked … can … you—”

“I get it. What do you mean ransacked?”

“Do you want an
OED
definition?” When the line went silent, she took a deep breath and said, “Tyler, you’ve got to come down here. I’m on the verge of hysteria.”

He managed to suppress a sigh. First things first. “Where are you?”

“Not in my room. I just got the hell out of there. I haven’t even called campus police yet. I just ran.”

“Okay.” He began to pull on warm clothes. “I repeat. Where are you?”

“I’m at a twenty-four-hour café about a block from campus. Do you think I’m safe here?” A gulp of air. “Please come rescue me. I’m …” She burst into tears.

“Just hang on and stay put. I’m dressing as we speak.” He had on a sweatshirt, jeans, and socks and was lacing up his boots. “I’ll go wake up Detective Decker. We’ll be right down. What’s the name of the café?”

“Insomnia.”

“I know it. I’ll be right there.”

“Can you stay on the line with me, Tyler? I’m petrified. And the worse thing is I don’t know who I should be scared of.”

“I’ll stay on the line. Just yell if you need me to talk.”

“If I’m yelling, it’s too late.”

“Mallon, I can’t get ready holding a phone up to my ear. I’m going to put the phone in my pants pocket, so that’s why I said to yell. It’ll be about five minutes. Just hang, okay.” He slipped his phone into his pocket and gently knocked on Decker’s bedroom door. He knew that the detective was a light sleeper: years of responding to emergency situations. A moment later, Peter opened the door a crack. His hair was a mess but his eyes were alert.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mallon Euler’s dorm room was ransacked. She’s at an all-night café. She’s on my cell line. She asked me to keep the line open until we get to the location.”

“Okay. Tell her we’ll be right down.”

“I heard that,” Mallon said from Tyler’s back pocket.

“Good,” Decker answered.

McAdams took his index finger and made circles around his temple. Then he shrugged.