The Theory of Death (34 page)

Decker said, “How did she get along with Rosser?”

“Why don’t you ask her that question?”

“I will, but right now I’m asking you. You said that Rosser was a misogynist, so I was wondering about his relationship with Dr. Zhou.”

“Katrina said Rosser was a misogynist. I did not.”

“But you said there was some truth in it.”

Ferraga was getting exasperated. “So far as I knew, Zhou and Rosser got along fine. Their duties were quite different. There wasn’t much …” He winced. “Academic competition.”

“What are Zhou’s duties?”

“She’s the dean of residency and student life at Kneed Loft.”

“Does she have tenure?”

“Of course.”

“I know she’s in the math department. Does she still teach or publish?”

“I think her publishing days are behind her.”

“She still goes to conferences.”

“She likes to keep current. But she doesn’t care about publishing. She’s a full professor. She’s been with the school longer than Rosser.”

Decker said, “And you have no idea who she might have been arguing with?”

“No.”

“And you’re sure she wasn’t arguing with Rosser?”

“I’m not positive, but it didn’t sound like his voice.”

“Did the voice sound familiar?”

Ferraga gave the question some thought. “If I had to guess—and it is a guess—I’d say she was arguing with a student.”

“A student?”

“There was that mention of a thesis. And it didn’t sound like she was talking to a faculty member. She was really dressing him down. Only a student would take that without storming out.”

“Which students would she be talking to?”

“It could have been anyone in the college. More likely it was probably one of her RAs who messed up.”

“You think it was an RA.”

“I don’t know for certain, but probably.”

“How many male RAs does she supervise?”

“I don’t know offhand. Maybe ten.”

“Was she particularly close to any of them?”

“I don’t know. Why would I know?”

“Well, you know more than I do,” Decker said. “Take a guess.”

Ferraga said, “Lin has a couple of graduate students who also work as RAs—Scott Sumpter and Alistair Dixon.”

Decker perked up at Dixon’s name. He was the graduate student who had first recognized Eli from the postmortem photo. He was anxious to help when Decker and McAdams first started investigating Eli’s death. “And you didn’t recognize the voice as belonging to either of them?”

“Maybe Alistair, although I’m not sure. Both of them are bright boys but no geniuses. Otherwise why would they be here for graduate school instead of Princeton or Berkeley?”

“Elijah Wolf was here.”

“That’s because his parents refused to let him go anywhere else.”

Probably the first true statement that had come out of Ferraga’s mouth. Decker handed him back his phone and said, “I’ll set up the polygraph. You’re free to go, but stick close to Greenbury.”

After Ferraga left, Decker took out his cell and called McAdams. He took out his cell and called McAdams. “How’s the studying coming?”

“Do you need me? I’m dying to take a break. It’s been three straight hours.”

“Tell me again why Professor Zhou returned early to Greenbury?”

“Migraine. That part seems to be true. I talked to several people at the conference who said that Zhou had been complaining of awful headaches the entire time.”

“What time did she arrive in Greenbury?”

“Around nine in the evening.”

“What did she do when she got in?”

“She said she went home and straight to bed.”

“Really.” Decker recapped his conversation with Ferraga.

“So she was lying.”

“Or Ferraga is lying. We already know he lies. I’m withholding judgment on Zhou until proven guilty.”

“You’re going to talk to her, right?”

“Yes, I am. Do you want to come?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

P
ACING IN HER
meticulously appointed office, Dr. Zhou stomped back and forth in black pumps, her heels clomping on the wooden floor. Her hand was touching her forehead.

“Yes, I left because of a migraine. I get migraines all the time.
This
place gives me migraines.” She wore a red knit dress. There was a black blazer hanging on the back of her desk chair. “And yes, Dr. Ferraga did knock on my door at around one in the morning that night … what was it, Wednesday? It was the night poor Katrina … anyway, he knocked, asking if I was okay. I wasn’t okay, but it was none of his business. By the time I left my office, it was close to daylight. I had a pile of work to catch up on, and since I couldn’t sleep, I thought I might as well clear my desk.”

Decker nodded. “You left your office around … what? Five? Six?”

“It was almost six. I stopped by Bagelmania and picked up breakfast. Then I went home and attempted a nap, but my head was pounding and I was sick to my stomach. Finally, the medicine kicked in and I came back to my office to finish up my work. After that, I nursed myself at home for two days because I wasn’t supposed to be in town anyway. I turned off the lights, turned off the phone, took a sedative, and slept for two days straight. I didn’t even hear about poor Katrina until the following Saturday when I returned to my office. Then that nonsense with Theo and Lennaeus happened, drawing me out of my cocoon. God, they are morons!”

“What time did you return to your office on Saturday, Dean Zhou?”

“Around eleven in the morning.” She sat in her desk chair and opened the drawer. She popped another pill in her mouth. “All this has been terrible for my health. Poor Katrina. I suppose I’m still in shock.”

“What do you know about it?”

“The affair or her demise? I don’t know anything about her death.”

“But you knew about the affair?”

“Everyone knew about the affair. No one cared except maybe Aldo’s wife.”

“What about Theo Rosser?”

“Yes, he’d care if he knew.”

“So not everyone knew.”

“Theo isn’t perceptive when it comes to his faculty and students. I’m left to pick up the pieces. By the way, did you ever find out what was in Elijah Wolf’s math papers?”

“We did.”

“Anything significant?”

“No.”

She was waiting for more information. Decker changed the subject. “Who were you arguing with the night Katrina died?”

“Pardon?”

“When Ferraga knocked on your door and asked if you were all right. Who were you arguing with?”

“What I was shouting about has nothing to do with poor Katrina. But I’ll answer you anyway. I was arguing with Alistair Dixon. He’s one of my grad students.”

McAdams glanced at Decker. He said, “We met Alistair when we met you: the night we were asking questions about Elijah’s death.”

“Yes. Right, of course. I remember now.”

“What were you two arguing about?”

“His sloppy work.” She shook her head then regretted the movement. “For God’s sake, this isn’t Princeton. It’s not
that
hard to get an M.A. We’re not asking for a proof of Fermat’s Theorem, we’re asking for a simple mathematical idea that might be expanded upon in the future.”

“I thought someone proved Fermat’s Last Theorem,” McAdams said.

“Andrew Wiles. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” Decker said. “What is Alistair Dixon working on?”

“I can’t tell you that. That would violate his privacy. But you can ask Alistair if you’re so
curious
.” She realized her tone was sarcastic. “I’m not feeling well. You’ll have to give me a pass if I seem snide.”

“We’re aware of that,” Decker said. “Thank you for talking to us.”

Her answer was a dismissive wave.

“If I name a few possible math topics, could you give me a yes or no?”

“No, I will not give you a yes or no. But feel free to ask.”

Something was brewing in Decker’s head. He couldn’t quite place it yet, but the idea would blossom eventually. He said, “Does it have to do with Fourier analysis? It seems to be a very popular subject around here.”

She appeared surprised. “It is not and was never
my
field of interest.”

“But it was Katrina Belfort’s field of interest.”

“Alistair was working with me, not Katrina.”

“Does it have to do with Fourier analysis?” Decker repeated. “A simple yes or no.”

When she didn’t answer, McAdams leaned over to Decker and showed him his notepad. Decker said, “Go ahead and ask her.”

McAdams said, “Does it have to do with stochastic oscillator momentum and stock theory?”

She flushed with anger. “So if you already talked to Alistair, why are you bothering me?”

“We haven’t talked to Alistair,” Decker said.

“Yet,” McAdams added.

Zhou opened and closed her mouth. “Don’t tell me it was a lucky guess.” She stood up, winced, and then sat back down. “What’s going on?”

Decker said, “Did you know that Dr. Belfort had been employed by hedge funds? She was using her own variation of the stochastic oscillator index to predict daily market movement.”

The woman ran her tongue in her mouth several times. “How did you find this out?”

“Never mind about my sources, what do you know about Belfort’s moonlighting?”

“This is the first I’ve heard about it.”

“You wouldn’t be lying to me, right?”

“Why would I lie to you?”

“Because employment outside of the department is usually frowned upon. If you knew about it, it could reflect poorly on you.”

“I’m not lying. I didn’t know about it. And I’m
positive
that Theo doesn’t know about it. He would
not
approve.”

“How did Alistair Dixon decide upon his topic?”

“He started out on something different and switched to Fourier and stochastic oscillator theory about a year ago.”

“And you approved the change of topic?”

“I did, but with reservations. It’s only a two-year program. That’s not a lot of time to develop a thesis. He had a lot of catch-up to do, but he assured me it wasn’t a problem. Then when I read a draft of his thesis coming home on the train from the conference, I was utterly shocked by how many holes he had in his logic. It wasn’t as if he had to prove something ingenious, but there had to be some mathematical basis for what he was suggesting.”

“What was Dixon’s relationship to Dr. Belfort?”

“So far as I knew, there was no relationship. This is very bizarre. Who told you that Katrina was moonlighting?”

Decker sidestepped the question. “If Theo Rosser found out about her extra job, how do you think he’d handle it?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re working on the assumption that Dr. Belfort was murdered.”

A pause. Then Zhou said, “Oh please! Theo didn’t murder Katrina because she moonlighted. Had he found out, he’d use it to fire her and ruin her chances of getting another job. He detested her.”

“So we’ve heard,” McAdams said. “Any idea why he hated her other than misogyny?”

“Theo has no love for women, but if you flatter him the right way, he’s a pussycat. She could have had him eat—” She didn’t finish. “Never mind.”

Decker smiled. “Eating out of the palm of her hand?”

The dean was quiet. McAdams thought a moment. “Okay. I get it. He had a thing for her and it wasn’t reciprocated.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Zhou insisted. “He hated her.”

“Fine line between love and hate and all that jazz.”

Zhou didn’t argue. “I don’t know. Could be. He started off very enthused about her, but it quickly changed. Katrina could be a charmer, but she also was ambitious. Maybe Theo just didn’t like the combination.”

“How do you think he would have reacted if he’d known about the affair? Do you think Theo would have actually fired her?”

“It’s very difficult to fire a person for moral turpitude once there is tenure.”

“She didn’t have tenure.”

“But Aldo did. He would have had to go as well or else we risk opening ourselves up to sexual discrimination.”

“Let’s get back to where you were the night of Katrina’s death,” Decker said. “You say that Ferraga knocked on your door at about one in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. When did Dixon come to your office?”

“It must have been a half hour before.”

“Around twelve-thirty?” Decker made a face. “A little late for an academic meeting.”

“When I got home, I e-mailed him my concerns. He asked if we might meet as soon as possible. Since I couldn’t sleep and I was in my office anyway, I told him if he wanted to drop by, I’d talk to him. Students are up late. So yes, he came in around twelve-thirty.”

“How did he respond when you told him your concerns about the paper?”

“He wasn’t happy, of course. He said it was a work in progress.” She paused. “He got upset. I really reamed him out. I could have handled it better.”

“When did he leave your office?”

“I didn’t look at the clock. I think we talked for around forty-five minutes, so he probably left around fifteen after one.”

“Do you know where he went after that?”

“No idea. I would think he’d gone back to his dorm or the library.”

“But you don’t know.”

“No, I do not know.”

“Did you talk to him the following morning?”

“I talked to him the following day. It was in the afternoon, I believe. He was still very upset. I would have thought he’d be over it by now.”

Maybe he was upset for other reasons.
Decker folded his notebook and handed her his card. “If you should think of anything else, give me a call.”

“I have a question,” McAdams said. “Did Rosser ever appear jealous of Ferraga?”

“Nothing naked, but Theo is, by nature, a jealous man.”

“How is his jealousy manifested?”

“I might have spoken out of turn. It’s just my opinion.”

“Please,” Decker said. “Tell us what you think.”

“Theo isn’t a team player. He isn’t wild about the successes of his faculty, even though they reflect well on him as head of the department. He especially doesn’t like ambitious women. Katrina wasn’t the first woman with whom he has had conflict.”

“You mean Mallon Euler?” McAdams asked.