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an apparent robbery at his home last September. A Walla Walla native, Fontaine earned a doctorate at twenty-three and had taught at some of the best schools in the country. Michigan, Tufts, Harvard. As my client had mentioned, he'd authored a widely used textbook on fractal geometry. He was the oldest of three children and the only son; his par- ents owned an immense wheat farm just east of Walla Walla. His father had suffered a minor stroke in 1977, and he'd taken the Whitman position at that time so he could help oversee the wheat operation. Students described him as an easygoing man with a passion for teaching. An avid runner, fly fisherman, and collector of rare American coins. The photo showed a handsome fellow, sharp features and distinguished silver hair. He had never married and had been living alone at the time of his death. I hoped the same would not someday be said of me. Victim number two, Carolyn Chang, had been an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Nebraska, in Lin- coln. A farmer had found her frozen body somewhere north of Manhattan, Kansas, in late December. She'd been raped and repeatedly stabbed. An only child, Carolyn had been born and raised in Honolulu, where her father was a successful building contractor. She'd done her undergraduate work at Harvard and carned her Ph.D. at Berkeley. Though she'd been teaching in Lincoln only five years, she'd been named acting dean of students during one of them. Colleagues and students alike described her as hardworking and demanding. She was thirty-five years old at the time of her death. Like Fontaine, she had never married. The same photograph appeared in several articles; it was a pro- fessional portrait, probably taken for a yearbook or obtained from the university's public relations department. Despite her Chinese surname and Asian features, her well-endowed front and the baby fat in her cheeks suggested at least one of her parents was of Poly- nesian descent. She had possessed a wonderful smile, wide and