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So, Underwood hadn't committed suicide. He had uninten- tionally strangled himself while engaging in autoerotic asphyxia. As a Marine Corps lawyer it had been my sad duty to deal with that sort of thing on a fairly regular basis. Write a report, collect the deceased's belongings, help make arrangements and all that. I had practiced law long enough to know there were plenty of apparently normal people out there who had their own secrets and demons. Or, as one of my former law partners, "Big" Matt Simms, used to say whenever we walked into a restaurant for lunch, "T'll bet half the fuckers in here have bodies in their basements." I closed my eyes and considered the implications. If Under- wood's death had been an accident, then, by definition, it was unrelated to the other deaths. While the killing of even two spe- cialists in fractal geometry still seemed highly coincidental, the belief that Underwood's death was somehow related had given the whole thing a sort of critical mass. Okay, assume Underwood purposely took his own life. Why make it look like an autoerotic death? That didn't make sense, so the only other possibility was that a person or persons unknown had killed him. Where did that leave me? Each of the victims had been an expert in fractal geometry. Each had also attended or taught at Harvard, but that was probably a coincidence. The three victims had not been America's only experts on fractals, but they were the only ones who were dead. Why them? I punched in my client's number. She picked up on the second ring. "Jayne Smyers." "Hello, Professor, this is Pepper Keane." "Oh, how are you? I didn't expect to hear from you so soon." She sounded more relaxed. "Do you have me on a speakerphone?" I like the speakerphone because it leaves my hands free to find documents or take notes, but I could tell it bothered her, so I picked up the receiver. "I'm fine, but I have a favor to ask."