The Theory of Death (27 page)

“George Clooney and Sandra Bullock,” McAdams said. “Aha! I get it. The space vehicle they were working on got whacked with some kind of floating shit … er, debris, and that caused all sorts of problems.”

“Exactly,” Tolvard said. “The theory is that a single collision could form debris which in turn could cause another collision which in turn causes more debris, etcetera, until low outer space is completely destroyed along with all operable satellites within it. That would completely destroy technology as we know it today, not to mention the possibility of debris colliding with earth and possibly throwing it off axis.”

“A real gloom and doom scenario,” Decker said.

“Yes, I know it makes good science fiction, but it really is a problem because lower outer space is only going to get busier and busier. The world needs more bandwidth, and huge tech companies like Google and Facebook want it before anyone else. Currently, Google is launching high-altitude balloons twelve miles up in the stratosphere to increase its bandwidth. But as you can imagine, balloons have their issues. For one thing, you’d need a lot of balloons to cover the earth properly. Plus balloons are less stable and more fragile than geostationary satellites.

“Satellites orbit much higher in space—twenty-two
thousand miles
from the surface of the earth. They are bigger, more powerful, and you’d only need about three or four of them to get all the coverage you’d want. But satellites cost exponentially more than balloons. If you’re going to go about investing billions in a satellite, you might want to know what crap is floating around and where it is so your very expensive machinery doesn’t get whacked to smithereens.”

“Okay,” Decker said. “So Eli was trying to map all this debris?”

“He was trying to create a prototype on how to map the orbits, yes. It’s a nascent field, but the implications are tremendous.”

McAdams said, “And potentially highly profitable.”

“Potentially yes. I don’t think Eli cared about that. He was just excited to be doing something original with eigenvectors, although they’ve been used for decades as coordinates in space.”

“How do you map debris if it’s changing locations all the time?”

“That’s why I said ‘map the orbit.’ ”

“How would you map the orbit of a paint flake?” McAdams asked.

“You bounce waves off of it. Your FM radio for instance. It gives off rogue waves that have the capacity to bounce off objects in space. If you have the capacity to pick up the waves with a specialized dish—for instance, let’s say an FM dish—you can map the item by the defection.”

“Even a paint flake.”

“Even a paint flake weighs more than a radio wave, Detective. Eli had begun working on his own mapping system using Fourier analysis to break down the complex waves to see where they were coming from and using eigenvectors as his coordinates in space. He’d been working on it for over a year. Then …”

Tolvard threw up his hands.

“Just terrible. I still …”

“You’d been working with him for over a year?” Decker asked.

“On and off, yes.”

“Did you notice any change in him these past months?”

The room went quiet. Tolvard said, “He wasn’t depressed or anything like that. If anything, he seemed a little more engaged. I had assumed it was because he was so excited about what he was doing. But at times, he also seemed … distracted … like he couldn’t quite concentrate. At one point, I thought he might be burning out. That’s always a possibility. Students get this initial rush, but then get bogged down in the nitty-gritty of calculations. I asked him if maybe he wanted to take a break for a while to finish up his thesis with Rosser. But he said his thesis was done and he insisted he was fine. But obviously he wasn’t fine.”

The professor shook his head.

“In hindsight, I should have pressed him about it, but I didn’t want to pry into his personal life. I should have. From my own anecdotal evidence, I’ve found that students have two peak periods for suicide. When they enter and right before they leave. Thesis panic, job panic, life panic.”

Decker said, “From what I’ve learned, it didn’t seem to me that Eli was panicky over anything.”

“Something must have been bothering him. I feel terribly guilty. I should have been a little more directive.”

Decker said, “You know that people who are determined to commit suicide will do it no matter what the obstacles are.”

“Nice thing to say but … I just wish I knew what was distracting him.”

McAdams said, “Did you know that he was also working with Katrina Belfort?”

“No.” Tolvard looked genuinely perplexed. “No, I didn’t. What was he doing with her?”

“She was doing some outside consulting with some financial companies,” Decker said. “Eli was helping her out with some calculations.”

“Really?” He shrugged. “I had no idea. No wonder Eli was distracted. His mind must have been pulled in many directions.” He smiled. “My God, that must have ruffled Rosser’s feathers. It was bad enough that Eli wanted to work with me. At least I’m not in the math department. Belfort was.”

“It might have irked him if he knew about it.”

“Ah yes, that makes sense.” A pause. “Outside work is frowned upon in the math department.”

McAdams said. “Not so in physics?”

“People can take outside work if the department head allows it. And he usually does. He understands about the paltry salaries of academics and economic necessities. I have several consulting jobs. Of course, it’s easier with me because I have tenure.” He paused. “Do you think that Belfort’s death and Eli’s death are related to the work he was doing with her?”

“We’re working on all kinds of theories,” Decker said.

Tolvard looked at the clock. “I do have a class to catch in twenty minutes.”

“I understand.” Decker stood up. “Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us.”

“I hope I’ve helped you. You can feel free to call me anytime if you think of something else.”

“You have and I will,” Decker said.

Tolvard smiled. “You know you’re one of the few people I’ve met who hasn’t asked me about my name. What they’re obviously asking about is the disconnect between my name and my race.”

“Scandinavian name and the Ethiopian face,” Decker said. “My son-in-law is Ethiopian. They have distinct features.”

“Yes, we do. So ask me the question.”

“How’d you get a Scandinavian name?”

“My biological parents were farmers. They died during a famine along with a great deal of my biological relatives. My older brother and I were placed in an orphanage and adopted out to a wonderful Swedish family who didn’t have children of their own. Both my adopted parents were scientists. My brother is a chemical engineer. I’m a physicist. My biological parents were illiterate. So what does that say about nature/nurture and genetics?”

Decker said, “To me it says that if your biological parents had been raised in the same environment as your adopted parents, they might have been scientists, too.”

“Of course, of course,” Tolvard said. “I suppose I’m saying that I am who I am because of both sets of parents. A fluke of the right set of circumstances coming together at the right time. What does your son-in-law do?”

“He’s a neonatal nurse who went back to medical school.”

“We’re bright people … Ethiopians. I still think of myself as Ethiopian. It smacks me in the face every time I look in the mirror. But I’m eternally grateful for my Swedish parents. For one thing, they gave me a real cool name.”

A
FTER REINTERVIEWING BELFORT’S
neighbors and coming up dry, Decker returned to the station house at one in the afternoon. McAdams was at his spot on the opposite side of their shared partners desk. He was reading intently and had his feet up on the desktop.

“What are you doing here?” Decker’s voice was testy. “You should be studying.”

“I
am
studying.” He held up a law book. “Precisely what bee has entered your bonnet?”

“That idiom is very retro.”

“Yeah, way classier than asking about the stick up your ass.”

Decker sat down. “None of Belfort’s neighbors remember seeing anything or hearing anything.”

“What about the one next door?”

“Now she isn’t even sure she saw anything. Maybe the shadow was a trick of the night. She certainly doesn’t remember seeing a car or hearing a motor spring to life. How can you drag a body in an open backyard and up the mountain with no witnesses?”

“It’s called three in the morning.” McAdams put down his book. “I’ve been thinking. What about Tolvard?”

“What about him?”

“Do you like him as the bad guy? Maybe Belfort was trying to muscle in on Eli’s research. Maybe Eli told Tolvard and the prof went to her house to confront her and things got out of hand.”

Decker began going through his phone-call memos. “Don’t see it.”

“Why? Because he reminds you of your son-in-law?”

Decker looked up. “Where did that come from?”

“I’m just saying …”

“It’s not because he reminds me of Koby. I don’t see Tolvard as the bad guy because he talked freely. There were no phone calls or e-mails between them.”

“What about using the college phones?”

“Of course. You can always find a way to communicate, but it just doesn’t seem logical. Besides, Tolvard was just helping Eli along.”

“So says Tolvard.”

“Why don’t you believe him?”

“I’m idling in neutral with Tolvard. But that doesn’t stop my brain from thinking up possibilities. Like how about this? Maybe Tolvard was trying to muscle the project away from Eli. The project, if successful, could potentially be beaucoup lucrative to billion-dollar companies. Maybe Belfort was trying to defend Eli against Tolvard. She called him up to talk about things, he went over to her house, and then things got out of hand.”

“Well, speculation could be cleared up if we had Belfort’s phone records since he claimed he’s never called her.” Decker felt himself getting peeved. “How long does it take to get a phone record? You’d think I asked for a Gutenberg Bible.”

“This isn’t L.A., Old Man.”

“It’s ‘Lieutenant’ to you.”

“I stand corrected, sir.”

“By the way, I got Eli’s phone records two days ago.”

“You didn’t tell me.” McAdams made a sour face. “Typical. Why do I even try?”

“Sorry. You were studying and I didn’t want to disturb you. Anyway, there was nothing illuminating in them. He rarely used his phone, and when he did, he texted instead of called. Since the phone record doesn’t record the contents of the text, I don’t know what they were about. On the day of his death, there were a couple of outgoing texts to Mallon. That corresponds to the texts she showed us when we first talked to her—that she had asked him to meet her at the college dining hall. Obviously the texts went unanswered. But I went through the days prior to his suicide. I didn’t find any texts or calls from Rosser or Belfort or Tolvard. If any of them was the motivating factor behind his suicide, I haven’t found any evidence to back that up.”

“What about the actual contents from the server?”

“I’m still waiting. That takes even longer than getting a phone record. I could be wrong, but I don’t expect anything revolutionary.”

“I’m not saying his professors had anything to do with his suicide. What I’m saying is maybe Rosser or Tolvard had something to do with Katrina’s death and Eli was the catalyst. Could be Rosser was angry at her for involving Eli in her outside activities. Or maybe Katrina was trying to steal Eli’s research with Tolvard and Tolvard got mad.”

“Anything’s possible. It would help if we had the contents of her computer.”

Mike Radar came into the detectives’ room from his office. “Hello, gentlemen.”

“Hi, Mike,” Decker said. “Have you had any luck obtaining Katrina Belfort’s phone records?”

“They haven’t come through yet?”

“No, they have not, and I could really use them.”

“We were approved from the judge.”

“Can you call them and maybe ask for the company to e-mail them to me?”

“No, they send them in the mail. Sometimes it takes an extra day to get here. It’s only been a couple of days.”

Decker sighed. “I can’t do anything without her phone records and without her e-mail. What about the warrant to get the contents from the server? I’ll need her entire computer, of course, but the e-mail contents would be a great start.”

“I haven’t applied for it since we have the tech.”

“He seems to be having a little trouble. I’m getting frustrated.”

“Speaking of that …” Radar cleared his throat. “The tech called me about two hours ago. He came down with a fever last night. He tried popping Tylenols and working, but he couldn’t concentrate and was afraid he’d do more harm than good. So he’ll try again once he’s feeling better.”

“You are kidding me,” Decker said. “Can’t we get someone else?”

“Your L.A. is showing,” McAdams said.

Radar smiled. “It’s faster to wait for him to get better. If he can’t do it, we’ll petition for the files. She has quite a few servers, fyi. She has the school, but in addition she has Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and there may be even more. That’s why I’m loath to petition a judge because I need separate warrants. In the meantime, I’ve got a callout for you. It isn’t murder, but it is in our job description. Lydia Tucker reported her car missing.”

“I’m pleased it isn’t murder. When did she call?”

“About a half hour ago.” Radar handed Decker a slip. “Check it out.”

“Do you know her?”

“Lydia? Sure. She’s about ninety. I’m shocked that she was still driving.”

“Maybe she just forgot where she parked it,” McAdams said.

Radar turned to Decker. “Smug, isn’t he.” To McAdams, “Wait until you get there.”

“I’m just saying …”

“Go to her house and take a report, Pete. Then go home. I know it’s a short day for you, so there’s no sense hanging around unless there’s a reason for it. Remember this was to be your semiretirement job.”

“Fine.” Decker exhaled. “If anything should come in tonight, could you call me and leave a message. If we get hold of Belfort’s communications, I’ll come in to the station house on Saturday night.”