SPEED LIMIT’S FIFTY-FIVE,” Scott warned.
“I don’t believe bureaucrats in Washington should decide speed limits in Nebraska,” I said. “I’m kind of a Republican in that regard.”
It was a gorgeous Sunday, and we were zooming over Nebraska Highway 2 at seventy-five miles per hour. Unless I have to be somewhere in a hurry, I avoid the interstate. You see more of the country that way. That’s particularly true in Nebraska because I-80 follows the Platte River and deceives you into believing the entire state is flat.
The windows were down, and the sweet voice of Jerry Jeff Walker poured forth from the speakers. Wheat rode up front with us while Buck slept in the back of my truck. It’s carpeted and has a shell on it; I’ve slept in it myself more than once.
“Any luck on Thomas Tobias?” Scott asked.
“A little,” I said. I told him what I’d learned from Maria Santos and Tobias’s credit history.
“He’s got to be using an alias,” Scott said. “We’re not going to find him unless we talk with people.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but I’m not ready to do that. Once he knows we’re looking for him, our chances of finding him go way down.” We had discussed the uncertainty principle many times.
“You’re the boss,” he said.
It was three P.M. and we were eighty miles above North Platte when we started seeing signs for the Nebraska National Forest.
“Didn’t know there was such a thing,” Scott said.
“Me either.”
The terrain was rough and dry. We were in the Nebraska sandhills, an area long considered good for cattle and not much else. Every so often we’d see a dozen or so grouped around a stock tank. Scott said the ranchers used windmills to pump water from the Ogallala Aquifer. It was an unlikely place for a forest, but as we continued east, an oasis of pine began to appear.
A quick drive through the designated campsites convinced us we had the Nebraska National Forest to ourselves. We could’ve made Lincoln that evening, but decided to camp. Scott set up the tent and I built a fire. As Boy Scouts we’d learned to do it by rubbing sticks together or using flint to create a spark, but Coleman fuel is quicker.
We grilled turkey franks and feasted on roasted corn. When I had finished my second ear of corn, I walked back to the park entrance, put our overnight fee in the box, and picked up a forest service brochure. We were in the largest man-made forest in North America. More than 100,000 acres. On the back of the brochure was a map that showed a lookout tower three miles above our campsite.
A clear, spring-fed river—the Middle Loup—ran across the northern edge of the forest. The sun was still up, so we let the dogs swim while we jumped off the bridge into the river. Then we decided to hike to the tower.
The trail was well marked and not particularly steep. Ignoring the signs that said all dogs must be on a leash, I let Buck and Wheat run free and hoped like hell they didn’t come across a rogue skunk or porcupine. When we reached the tower, it appeared unoccupied, but the gate leading to the steps was locked. A sign warned:
“It’s the goddamned bureaucrats in Washington,” Scott joked. “I’m changing my party affiliation when we get back.”
The gate was only chest high. Scott climbed it and I passed Wheat to him. Buck was more difficult, but we got him over it. We climbed the metal steps, slightly out of breath by the time we reached the top. Scott, by the way, is a great athlete. In addition to his martial arts training, he was the place kicker for the Colorado Buffaloes for two years. In one game he broke three toes on his right foot, but still managed to kick two field goals, thus earning the nickname Two Toe.
It was dark now and there was not a man-made light in sight. We enjoyed the stars, sipped hard apple cider, talked of love and life, and listened to a North Platte station on my shortwave radio. The DJ was playing some great old tunes and we cranked up the volume more than once. We sang along when she played “Bottle of Wine” by the Fireballs. If the deer and the antelope minded, they didn’t say anything.
After a few hours we hiked through the darkness back down to our campsite. The dogs slept with us. Sometime in the middle of the night a loud noise startled us.
“What the hell was that?” I whispered as I reached for my Glock. He grabbed his one-million-candlepower spotlight—he likes gadgets—unzipped the tent fly, and slowly moved the beam from side to side. We saw that our cooler had been knocked off the picnic table and then eyed the culprit. I put the pistol down.
“It’s a fuckin’ badger,” Scott said.
“Badger?” I said in my best Mexican accent, “we don’t need no stinkin’ badgers.”
The birds woke the dogs before six and the dogs woke us. Took an invigorating swim in the Middle Loup, made blueberry pancakes on my portable backpacking stove, then fired up the truck and headed to Lincoln with Scott at the wheel.
Somewhere along the way we left cattle country and entered the land of corn and soybeans. The scenery consisted mostly of rolling hills and red-winged blackbirds, but we also saw a turtle that must have been a foot in diameter. When it comes to detecting, I’m a lot like the proverbial tortoise, so I considered it a good omen.
We arrived in Nebraska’s capital before noon. It was a typical Midwestern city, not much different from Tulsa, Topeka, Des Moines, or Wichita. Wheat sat on my lap, content to poke his small face and pointy ears out the passenger window as we drove around to get the lay of the land.
There was a Best Western on one of the main boulevards a mile or so east of the university. It had an inviting pool highlighted by two inviting blondes in floral bikinis. “Looks like our kind of place,” Scott said. He made a U-turn and guided the truck to a stop beneath the portico.
The desk clerk was a rotund man with a German accent. He reminded me of Sergeant Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes. He saw Buck and Wheat in the truck and said, “No petz.” I reached for my wallet.
“The dogs won’t be a problem,” I said. “They’re trained guide dogs.” I handed him a twenty.
“Vell, in that case, vee make exception.”
I paid cash for the room and registered us as Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper just for the hell of it. “Yeah,” Scott muttered as we left the lobby, “guide dogs for the socially impaired.”
We carried our backpacks upstairs, guide dogs in tow, then showered to remove the smell of the campfire and the silt from the river. It was one-thirty on a Monday afternoon and time to earn our pay. Scott caught a bus downtown. I reread the news clippings pertaining to Carolyn Chang. The articles had been written by Susan Thompson of the Lincoln Journal Star. Forty minutes later I was sitting across from her.
We were at a coffeehouse near the university. She ordered an espresso; I asked for a diet Coke, but had to settle for the house cola. After we’d ordered drinks, she removed a steno pad from her purse, indicating that she wanted to get down to business. “So,” she began, “you’ve got a new angle on the Chang murder?” She was in her late twenties. Long auburn hair, green eyes. About five-six, nice figure. She wore black gabardine slacks and a white silk blouse.
“What do you know about Carolyn Chang’s work?” I asked.
“She was a mathematician. Is that important?”
“It might be,” I said. “She specialized in a branch of mathematics known as fractal geometry. She was one of the top people in that field.”
“I’m listening.”
“Three months prior to Carolyn’s murder, the man who wrote the book on fractal geometry was murdered in Washington state.” I paused to sip my so-called drink. “Six weeks after Carolyn’s murder, a Harvard mathematician was found dead in his home. Guess what his specialty was.”
“Tell me more,” she said.
I gave her the details of the other deaths and explained that I was investigating the possibility that the three might be related. I also explained that I’d been unable to make friends with Amanda Slowiaczek.
“Few people do,” she said.
“What’s her problem?”
“She’s a woman in a man’s world, and she’s got an attitude about it.” A Hispanic busboy came by, saw the lemon in my diet cola, and poured iced tea in it before I could stop him. Probably improved it, but I ordered a new one just to be safe. While waiting for my replacement drink, I told the reporter the FBI had investigated the matter and concluded the deaths were unrelated. “I knew the bureau was involved,” she said, “but I didn’t know about the other deaths.” I folded my hands on the table and studied her face as she sipped espresso. “Now that you’ve put me onto what might be a good story, what do you want from me?”
“I want to know what you know about the Chang murder. I’m sure you’ve heard things you didn’t print.”
“There’s a lot you’re not telling me.”
“I’ve told you almost everything,” I said. I hadn’t mentioned Thomas Tobias. “If you help me, I’ll tell you more as things develop.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Ever read The Little Red Hen?” I asked. “You only get to eat the bread if you help bake it.” She smiled.
“Okay,” she said, “I can tell you a few things, but it may not help much. Just bits and pieces I’ve picked up from contacts in the department.” We talked another thirty minutes, then exchanged cards and went our separate ways.
I plugged the meter and walked to the university’s admissions office to get a catalog. “Ten dollars,” said the clerk. I wanted a list of the math faculty, the schools they’d attended, and their academic specialties. I didn’t know why I wanted it, but I did. I paid the ten bucks.
When I returned to the motel, the blondes had been replaced by three scruffy young men playing Frisbee. Their red 1967 Pontiac GTO was parked next to the pool, and heavy-metal music was blaring from the huge speakers mounted beneath its rear window. New Jersey plates.
I walked upstairs to find that Scott had beaten me back and changed into shorts. “Dogs need to go out?” I asked.
“Already done,” he said. Wheat was resting on one of the double beds and Buck was on the other gnawing a Bible placed by the Gideons. “It was either that or the Book of Mormon,” Scott explained.
“Tough call,” I said.
“Mormons allow polygamy.”
“Good point,” I said. I removed my shirt, placed it on a hanger, then sat on the edge of Buck’s bed and untied my shoes. “So,” I said, “what’s new at the courthouse?”
“Not much,” he said. “Carolyn Chang had never been arrested or sued, at least not in this county. There was no probate file. She’d never been called for jury duty, and she was a registered Democrat.”
“What about Amanda?” I asked. I took off my slacks and gave Buck a pat on the head.
“She went through a nasty divorce about four years ago. Lost custody of her two boys.”
“Why’d she lose custody?”
“Husband claimed she was a workaholic and the judge bought it. You’re the expert on this stuff, but from what I saw in the file, his lawyer was in a different league.”
“What did the husband do?”
“He was selling real estate, but he moved the kids to Florida two years ago.”
I found some khaki shorts in my backpack and put them on. “What about the police station?” I asked.
“You can forget that,” he said. “The detectives are on the third floor. We’d never get past the lobby. There’s a steel door with a magnetic lock. You can’t get to the elevators or the stairs unless someone behind the glass buzzes you in.”
“Could we get in at night?”
“No, the place is covered with cameras because the jail’s in the same building. Wouldn’t matter anyhow; there are detectives in there around the clock.”
“I guess that answers that.”
“What did you learn?” he asked.
“Couple of things.” I put on a green polo shirt. “First, they didn’t find any semen, so whoever did it wore a condom. Second, when Carolyn left her office that day, she told a colleague she was going home. Her car was in the driveway, so they’re working on the assumption she made it home. Third, there was no sign of a struggle or forced entry at her house.” I found my loafers and put them on. “Oh yeah,” I said, “she had a big white cat named Snowball, if you can believe that, and it was still in the house when the cops arrived.”
“Maybe the guy just doesn’t like cats.”
“Good theory, but it won’t fly. Fontaine owned a dog he kept on his parents’ farm, and Underwood didn’t have any pets.”
“Oh.” He went into the bathroom and closed the door. “Sounds like she might’ve gotten into a car with someone she knew,” he yelled.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” I heard a flush, then the sound of water running in the sink.
“Anything else?” he asked as he reentered the room.
“Yeah, they found a few unidentified pubic hairs on her body, but that doesn’t do them any good until they have a suspect. And they still don’t know where she was killed.” It was almost four o’clock.
“This music is starting to bother me,” Scott said. I sensed it was way past that point. Despite fifteen years in the martial arts, Scott sometimes has a quick temper.
“Forget it,” I said, “let’s get some pizza and check out that downtown mall.”
Every city in America has a trendy area, and in Lincoln it’s known as the Haymarket, a few square blocks of hundred-year-old buildings converted into restaurants, shops, and lofts. We browsed and enjoyed a meal that included deep-dish pizza, hot garlic rolls, and cold beer from a local microbrewery, but when we returned to the motel at six, the heavy metal was still blaring. I parked next to the GTO, handed my cassette case to Scott, and said, “Pick a tape.” He thumbed through them, selected one, and held it up. I told him it was a good choice.
We went upstairs, took the dogs for a walk around the block, then changed into our trunks and with our ghetto blaster headed for the pool. We grabbed two chaise lounges and positioned ourselves at the deep end of the pool. By the time Tammy Wynette had finished belting out “Stand by Your Man,” the riffraff had decided it was time for supper.
The rest of the night passed without incident. No badgers. No blaring music. No blondes.