Robert B. Parker's Wonderland (23 page)

“Because of a formula?”

“Harvey can stand back and take an unemotional appraisal of a business situation. His moves and reactions are purely mathematical.”

“And this is revelatory?”

“Very.”

“Do you recall a student who was here when Harvey Rose taught?” I said. “A woman named Jemma Fraser. She was or is a British citizen. I don’t have the dates.”

“We do have certain privacy standards.”

“Of course,” I said. “But just to verify she was a student.”

“That should be easy enough to find out.”

He opened the door to an anteroom and requested the information from his secretary. He promptly closed the door and returned to our grouping.

“The name seems familiar, but I can’t place it.”

“She was one of Mr. Rose’s protégés.”

Agarwal shook his head and surreptitiously looked at his watch. The door opened and the secretary appeared with a computer printout. She smiled at me as she walked out.

“Ah,” he said.

“You know her?”

“Vaguely,” the dean said. “I think she worked with Harvey in some capacity.”

“Can you tell me more from her student record?”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot share academic information, Mr. Spenser.”

“I’m looking for more personal,” I said. “Do you know someone who knew her?”

He held the paper loose as he thought. He fluttered the paper in his fingers, studied the information in hand, and then called his secretary again. The door opened, and she appeared. This time she did not smile at me. I felt we were keeping her from something.

“Can you find out if Stephanie Cho is teaching today?” he said.

The secretary nodded and the door closed. Agarwal nodded.

“A lead?”

“I believe I have someone you should meet.”

“Goody,” I said.

55

“OF COURSE I REMEMBER
Jemma Fraser,” said Stephanie Cho. “We called her the Duchess because of the accent and the attitude. She always wore these killer tall riding boots. God, that was a while back.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Other MBA students,” she said. “I’m pretty sure she attended Oxford and worked for some private equity group before coming to the States. Knew everything and thought everyone else was a lesser being. All the men, and some of the women, were crazy about her. But she didn’t really mingle. We had some classes together. Can’t say I liked her very much.”

We sat together at a table outside Spangler Hall, the student union of Harvard Business School. I had bought Stephanie a tall iced mocha. I had decided against more coffee and drank bottled water. Now out of sight of the dean, I again sported my Brooklyn Dodgers cap and slumped a bit in my chair.

“Do you remember the classes?”

Stephanie Cho thought for a moment. She was a pretty girl, a bit heavyset, with blunt-cut black hair and a wide face. She wore a short-sleeve cowboy shirt that fit tightly around her chest and upper arms. She tapped her front tooth as she thought. “Machiavelli, for one.”

“That was a business class?”

“It has a fancier title than that, something like ‘Machiavelli and Computational Models for Consumer Behavior’ or some kind of junk,” she said. “It was Harvey Rose’s signature class. We all read
The Prince
, and Rose would relate the text to using data to get your consumers to do what you want them to do.”

“As in the ends justified the means.”

“Computational models are not educated guesses,” she said. “Using data of past behavior, a well-built model allows its user to accurately predict what consumers will do in any given situation, often more accurately than the consumer assesses his or herself.”

“And what does that have to do with
The Prince
?”

“It reduces everything to a data set,” she said. “If you think of your consumers as data sets and not people, it allows you to completely disengage from morality. Data sets are amoral. If the data says low-income consumers are more likely to spend that extra fifty bucks than middle-income consumers, then you target them. You don’t care if they can’t pay the rent or go to the doctor.”

“Ah.”

“And as the model gets better and better, it becomes a manipulation tool. Based on past behavior, you can set up the optimal circumstances that pretty much guarantee the outcome. It almost destroys free will. We can know that they will, and how they will, and for how long, and under what conditions.”

“Yikes.”

“What did you think we discussed here?”

“Love thy neighbor?”

“Yeah, right.”

“How about Jemma?” I said. “Did she ever discuss Professor Rose’s lack of ethics?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “But I really didn’t know her very well. Sometimes I’d see her out for beers or at parties. That was rare. But mainly she was stuck up Rose’s ass.”

“A true believer.”

“More than that,” Cho said. She took a sip of the mocha. “I think she had a thing for him.”

“For Harvey Rose?”

“I know, I know,” she said. “Right? He was one of those professors who couldn’t match his socks. Had ketchup stains on his shirt all the time. Uncombed hair.”

“I’m not so good with ketchup myself. Worse with salsa.”

“So you know, he wasn’t exactly the kind of professor that made women swoon,” she said. “I think he found Jemma’s devotion very flattering. Especially with her style. And that gorgeous accent.”

“Was there preferential treatment?”

“Well, he hired her immediately when he left Harvard.”

“Do you think they were intimate?”

“I have no idea,” Cho said. “God, I hope not. I mean, that’s why you come here. To be independent, to impress employers into leadership positions. Not to screw your way to the top.”

“Do you recall anyone else she was close to?”

Cho shook her head. “I really can’t. I’m sorry. We all knew her. But she was very, very aloof. I can ask around.”

“Did she have family in the States?”

“I had the impression she was here just for the education. All I can remember are those clothes of hers. Wore very fancy stuff that was a bit out of place. Inappropriate for nine a.m. classes.”

“And the riding boots.”

“Always wore them.”

“And her without a horse.”

“You have to understand we don’t have traditional graduate assistantships here,” she said. “You are not required to have an internship, either. But we all pretty much do. I had one with Prudential and later with Bain. You work with a company and then you’re assigned a professor as a mentor.”

“And Rose was Jemma’s mentor.”

“And mine, too, and plenty of male students’,” she said. “I just don’t recall him taking that active a role in my off-campus work.”

“Do you remember what Jemma did?”

“I think she pretty much interned with Professor Rose,” she said. “Some of the students did that. But it was preferred that we left campus and worked in a real business setting. I just recall her always being in his office. Almost like his secretary, or a personal assistant. I thought the whole arrangement a bit weird. Maybe it was because I was always wearing sweatpants while Jemma was in haute couture.”

“You should see me on Saturday nights.”

“You seem very odd for a cop,” Stephanie said. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her knees with her arms. She stared at me, looking very much like a little girl, a bit quizzical. Her blunt-cut hair ruffled a bit in the spring breeze.

“I could not stand being a cop,” I said. “That’s why I work for myself.”

“That’s what I want,” Stephanie said. More wind kicked up on the common and you could smell the river. “My parents were first-generation. My father thought life was work. He believed that every day you must take a hard path to be a good man. You don’t seem that way.”

“I am often late for work.”

“My parents are very proud of me,” she said. “But they don’t understand why I left my job. And why I don’t take what I learned and put it in practice. I could never tell them I’m quite content to teach.”

“Makes sense to me.”

“You know, Professor Rose came back here last fall to speak,” Cho said. “He told us to be unemotional and detached in our decision making. He said you only need to know the who, what, and when, not necessarily the why.”

“I’ve been teaching an associate of mine the same thing.”

“Computational models?”

“Hoodlum ethics.”

56

Z MET ME
at Danehy Park in Cambridge at sunset. People jogged along paths, and dogs frolicked about. I had decided to sort out what I learned by throwing the tennis ball to Pearl. She had spent much of the last week cooped up, which tends to make a hunting dog psychotic. So we worked out her issues by letting her sprint for the ball and return it. My arm had grown tired and I tossed the ball to Z. Pearl, tongue lolling from her mouth, showed no signs of fatigue.

“I heard about the two dead men,” Z said. “They part of the new team?”

“Healy thinks so,” I said. “Heavy hitters from Vegas. Someone wanted to make sure they were not welcome.”

“Maybe they were hired by Weinberg’s people,” Z said. “To come for the killers.”

“Or maybe they killed Weinberg and got their due.”

Z threw the ball over a rolling hill. Pearl disappeared for several moments. She appeared triumphantly with the tennis ball covered in slobber and blades of grass.

“What is Jemma saying?” I said.

Z shrugged. He watched Pearl intently.

“She won’t talk about Weinberg,” he said. “It makes her very upset.”

I nodded. Z tossed me the slobbery ball. I wound up and threw it to the moon. Pearl was off like a rocket.

“How does she treat you?” I said.

“Fine.”

“I found out today that she had been an intern for Harvey Rose,” I said. “Ten years ago at Harvard Business School.”

Z nodded.

“That was something she had not told me,” I said. “You?”

Z’s face was impassive, and he shook his head. Pearl returned. I rocketed the ball again. This time a black Lab broke into stride with Pearl but was no match for her. She beat him by three car lengths, and upon return, she teased him with the ball, nudging it to his mouth.

“Watch your step,” I said.

“She’s very scared and alone.”

I nodded.

“She said I make her feel safe.”

I nodded again.

Z took the ball from Pearl and threw it far and wide. His face was slick with rain as he stared up at the rolling hills and picnic tables. Pearl and the black Lab nuzzled each other. Pearl was faster and stronger, but for some reason, she dropped the ball in front of the Lab. I reached for the ball and threw it as far as I could.

“We had sex,” Z said.

“Uh-huh.”

“The other night,” he said. “She wanted me to come up to the room. She was naked.”

“Hard to resist.”

Z shrugged.

“I don’t know much about this woman,” I said. “But the more I know, the less I like.”

“Because she was Rose’s protégée?”

“That she didn’t mention it.”

Z nodded.

“She asks me a lot about you,” Z said. “Wants to know what you know. She asks me a lot about Rachel Weinberg, too. And wants to know about your meetings with Healy.”

Pearl returned. She looked happy and winded. A man in a red windbreaker called for the Lab, and the Lab trotted off. I placed my hand on Pearl’s head and attached her leash.

“What else?” I said.

“Jemma says you took advantage of her the other night.”

“By saving her life?”

“After,” he said. “She said you poured her a lot of drinks and that things happened.”

“She tripped on my rug and I put her to bed.”

“She said she does not remember it all,” Z said. “But she remembers you crawling on top of her in the night. And doing things.”

“You would think that I would remember, too.”

“I told her that I couldn’t trust you anymore,” Z said. “I said that you were a liar and a man without honor.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Z broke into a grin. “I said I was through with you,” he said. “But I would act as if we were still friends and pass along information.”

“Some sidekick.”

Z shrugged. He was still smiling.

“Perhaps you can find out why she kept her relationship with Harvey Rose secret?”

“If you slept with that man, wouldn’t you lie about it?”

“Most definitely.”

We walked back to our cars, taking a winding path covered with pebbles and stones. The air seemed to swell and expand, the dark, full clouds pregnant with an oncoming storm. Z walked to his car while I stopped at my Explorer.

“She does believe those dead men were coming for her,” Z said.

“Maybe so.”

“She has a lot of fear in her,” Z said.

“You would know,” I said.

“How long do we keep this up?”

“Me as the Lone Ranger?”

Z nodded.

“When we come to a fork in the road, we both take it.”

57

DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS,
nothing new was learned for two whole days. Pearl seemed unconcerned, as she had taken the entire new couch while I walked across Berkeley for a tall Starbucks coffee. I tossed her a bit of a blueberry scone, and she caught it in midair and swallowed it whole. I spread out a copy of the
Globe
on my desk, going right for the sports section. It was early in the season, but many were already calling for the Sox manager’s resignation. Many also doubted the salaries of several marquee players. Perhaps my job was more stress-free. Then again, ballplayers seldom dodge bullets.

After reading the box scores and checking in with
Arlo & Janis
, I got right into the accumulated mail. I was shocked to find a check from a previous client. And not so shocked to see a check I had sent to Mattie Sullivan torn in half and returned in a new envelope. I received an amazing offer from a local pizza chain, two for one. I put that aside. I found out I was preapproved for a credit card. That I tossed in the trash. I saved the largest envelope for last.

I slit open the edge with my thumbnail and out dropped what seemed to be a basic key fob. But on further analysis, I realized it was a flash drive. The envelope was otherwise empty. My address was computer-generated on a basic Avery label. Of course, there wasn’t a return address.