Chapter 182: Meanwhile, What Had Been Happening in Corvallis

Tuesday, May 3 to Friday, May 6, 2005

Vanessa's story interrelates too much with Mom's and the PIs, so I'll merge their stories to make them more comprehensible.

Vanessa's fun and games started when Prof called her early Tuesday evening, after he'd started talking to Patrick. Patrick had mentioned that Binion's would send investigators to Corvallis. Prof had excused himself, called Vanessa, warned her that there could well be investigators in Corvallis already, and to keep Mark totally out of sight.

I thought Vanessa had overreacted by sending me fleeing in such a dramatic fashion, but from her point of view she wanted to keep me out of the clutches of big, violent, immoral men (she had a terrible opinion of casinos) who'd just been ripped off to the tune of $11 million. From her point of view, it was impossible to overreact.

Not that Vanessa knew the following, but Binion's people had been suspicious about my standing so close to the wheel at both of Prof's wins, so when they supplied the pictures of all the possible accomplices to their investigators, mine was right on the top of the stack as the most likely accomplice. My picture had been in the local newspaper often enough that the investigators sent to Corvallis quickly found someone who recognized me as being familiar, "I've seen him somewhere before. In the paper I think. I can't remember his name though."

It didn't take long for them to go through the paper's back issues to locate the photo of me winning the 10k race. That gave them my name, and while they were searching the paper's archives, they did a search for "Anderson", which took them to the article about the Eaton Incident, which gave them my school and a slightly erroneous age.

Mid-morning they sent an honest-looking, middle-aged, female investigator to my school, asking to see me about a family matter. There she learned that I'd been at OSU all yesterday and was there again today (Julia had extended her cover story, including telling the office because I'd be gone for several days).

The investigator had asked the obvious questions: "What's OSU?", "Why is a 16-year old boy going there?" Which taught her that I was a genius.

Another PI who was questioning students coming and going from school soon gained them the news that I was Julia Williams' 15-year old boyfriend.

Alarm bells were ringing back at Binion's HQ now, especially because Prof and I had ignored each other in the casino. Binion's dispatched more investigators to Corvallis, correctly suspecting they were onto something important.

Finding an individual student out of the 20,000 that go to OSU would be next to impossible, but they knew I was studying mathematics so one of them went to the Mathematics Department's office to ask for my schedule. Needless to say, when he asked for "Mark Anderson's schedule please" the office lady called Maureen over. The PI explained his request to Maureen, who told him she'd look it up.

Maureen knew Prof was away, so she tapped away on her computer, as if to pull up my records. In fact she was instant messaging Vanessa to call Maureen back to avoid the "suspicious person" seeing Maureen place a call in the open-plan office.

Maureen, being the senior secretary, sits the farthest from the inquiries window, so her call couldn't be overheard. Vanessa knew this must be a PI looking for me. Obviously I wouldn't be found here, as I'd left town the previous evening, but Vanessa thought this was an ideal opportunity to buy me some time. Maureen was willing to cooperate (who was she going to trust, a stranger standing at her window, or Prof and Vanessa whom she'd known and liked for years?). Vanessa and Maureen cooked up a little plan, doing the necessary checking first.

While Maureen pretended to still be talking on the phone, Vanessa had put her on hold so Vanessa could call the lecturer they'd chosen, a guy Maureen and Vanessa had thought would cooperate and who had a lecture at a suitable time. Vanessa asked him for a favor, quickly explaining what she wanted him to do and promising to explain why later. He agreed, provided they weren't police officers.

Vanessa reconnected with Maureen, updating her with progress and agreeing on what to do next.

Maureen hung up then went back to the window to ask, "Are you a police officer or is this a private inquiry?"

"Private, but it's important I get hold of him."

"Sure, no problem. Who were you were looking for again?"

"Mark Anderson."

"Okay. Because you're not a police officer I can't give you his complete schedule, but I can tell you what his next class will be. I'll just go look it up now; hang on."

Maureen went back to her desk, did some typing, then returned to the window, telling him a lecture room number and a time three hours later.

"Will he definitely be there?"

"We don't take attendance; this is a university, not a school. Most students choose to attend their lectures."

After the PI had left, Maureen gathered "her girls" together (the other secretaries) and told them all to direct all inquiries about Mark Anderson or Prof to her.

"Why? What's happening?"

"I don't know much. Vanessa said that Prof and Mark are in Los Angeles. They've pulled some sort of clever move in the financial markets and the big boys have hired PIs to track them down because they want to find out how they did it. Prof and Mark don't want to be found yet, so we're stalling the investigators."

One of the 'girls' (who was older than Maureen) wondered, "I wonder how much they made?"

Maureen said, "I got the impression they're still doing it, and that's why they don't want to be found. I guess the longer we stall, the more money Prof will make."

Maureen called the lecturer to confirm that the inquirer had not been a policeman.

Four PIs were scattered around the lecture hall doors to intercept my arrival at the 2pm lecture. They were frustrated by my no-show. They waited a few minutes, in case I was running late, then they entered the lecture hall to try to scan the crowd, in case I'd somehow got in unobserved. That incurred the ire of the lecturer who told them to behave, "And who the hell are you anyway?"

"We're looking for a student. Perhaps you can help us locate him, Mark Anderson. Do you know where he is?"

"Yes. I'll tell you after the lecture."

"It's important, can you tell us now please?"

"No! I will tell you AFTER the lecture. You are disrupting the entire class. One more word from you and I'll call campus security."

So the PIs sat through a calculus lecture. It delayed them another hour, but at least they had the pleasure of an hour of calculus.

At the end of which, "You said you'd tell us where Mark Anderson is?"

"Are you police officers?"

"No, but it's important we find him."

"He came to my office earlier, to pick up the lecture notes because he had a clash. He said something about having an appointment in the Student Lounge at the same time. You might still catch him there."

"Argh! Why didn't you tell us that earlier?"

"Because I am answerable to the university and the hundreds of fee paying students who were waiting for me to get back to their lecture. They have priority over whoever you are."

Another PI asked, "Where is the Student Lounge?"

"There are several of them, but he was probably talking about the one that is..." Accurate directions were provided, in the sense that there was a Student Lounge at the end of them.

The PIs rushed off.

They missed me. Hardly surprising, as I was several hundred miles away at the time.

It wasn't essential that it work, but Vanessa had sent one of the young secretaries from her department to the Lounge, on the good chance that the PIs would do what they did next, which was to start showing my picture around and asking if anyone had seen me recently. The secretary didn't know what I looked like, but there weren't that many other students being hunted at the moment.

She approached one of the PIs while pretending to be merely curiosity. When she was shown my photo, she said what she'd agreed to, "Sure, I've seen him. We had a stamp collecting club meeting here just before. You just missed him. He's still around though, because he arranged a meeting with one of the guys to buy a stamp from him."

"Do you know where and when they're meeting?"

"I don't know. I only overheard part of their conversation. I got the impression it was in the next hour or two, but probably not in this room. Maybe one of the other student rooms, or in one of the libraries."

"How many student rooms and libraries are there?"

"Heaps. I have to go now. Good luck finding him."

"Wait! What was the name of the other guy?"

"I don't know."

"What did he look like?"

"Like a guy who collects stamps. I've got to go."

She went to Vanessa, and reported her success.

The four PIs at OSU quickly located a detailed map of OSU, and discovered that there were far too many possible meeting points for just the four of them to cover. They called their problem in.

The head investigators, those in the know and in charge of the operation, had a problem. Their team had quickly discovered that the Williams' residence was guarded by a private security firm. After finding my name, they'd located my address and found that guarded too. That greatly frustrated their ability to search for physical evidence. They could assign underlings to the usual mundane tasks like photographing the family members, getting background information about us, etc., but none of that was going to provide them with what they most wanted: proof that we'd cheated.

Their best hope was obviously in coercing a 15-year old accomplice to confess, which they thought wouldn't be difficult once they found me. They seemed to have a good chance of locating me at OSU, which would be ideal, as it was well away from my parents and without the tight supervision of school. Thus finding me at OSU was a priority. They needed more people at OSU, so they pulled everybody off whatever they were doing, and sent them on Vanessa's wild goose chase.

They had even less success than they'd had in the Student Lounge, because no one recognized my photo.

Vanessa's intent had just been to waste some of their time, which it certainly did. Far more man-hours than she would've guessed. There were two additional consequences:

1. They didn't see Julia get a lift home from school from a friend. She'd been observed being taken to school by Vanessa, but the PI hadn't thought her mode of transport worthy of highlighting, and it was a different PI who'd obtained a list of the Williams' cars a couple of hours later. Julia's Honda wasn't noticed as missing. Those that knew about it assumed she'd taken it to school. If she'd been seen coming home in another car, the discrepancy might have been noticed.

2. Although they'd already found out which cellphone carrier I used, and had access to my phone records [phone company employees sell/give away private information outrageously often] they hadn't pushed as hard for information as they could have. They knew I was at OSU, so they hadn't needed to ask the phone company employee to dig into the system far enough to locate my phone. I had turned my phone on briefly when I was in McCleary, but only to check for messages of which there'd been none. I hadn't made a call, so the phone company guy had simply told the PIs that I hadn't used my phone.

I rather enjoyed the next bit, so I'll reproduce it verbatim.

While the PIs were trying to track me down, they had the idea that I might have another lecture sometime in the afternoon, so the PI who'd previously asked Maureen for my schedule tried again.

Vanessa and Maureen had thought this might happen. Maureen said, "Let me check." Maureen walked back to her desk. Tap, tap, tap. Then back to the window. "No, not today."

"What about tomorrow?"

"Let me check." Maureen walked back to her desk. Tap, tap, tap. Then back to the window. "He's got a tutorial at 10am."

"What's a tutorial?"

"It's halfway between an informal study group and a lecture. Students are advised to attend them, but they're only sometimes compulsory, depending on the circumstances."

"What room will it be in?"

"We don't have access to that information here."

"Who does have access to it?"

"The tutors book their own rooms and keep track of their students."

"How do I contact Mark's tutor then?"

"We don't store that information. Tutors are allocated in class."

"How do I find out who his tutor is?"

"You could ask his lecturer."

"Who is his lecturer, and how do I contact him?"

"Let me check." Maureen walked back to her desk. Tap, tap, tap. Then back to the window. "It's the same lecturer as you saw last time."

"Where can I find him?"

"It's no good looking for him now. You need to see him during his office hours. He doesn't carry around all the paperwork for hundreds of students."

"Aren't his office hours 9 to 5?"

"No. In universities, 'office hours' means when a lecturer will be in his office and available to answer questions. Most of the time they're giving lectures, doing research, writing papers, marking assignments, etc. Their time is very carefully managed. If you want to ask an administrative question of a lecturer, it has to be during his office hours."

"When are his office hours then?"

"Let me check." Maureen walked back to her desk. Tap, tap, tap. Then back to the window. "Tomorrow his office hours are from 11 to 12."

"Thanks. Hey, that's no good. I'm trying to find out where Mark Anderson will be at 10 o'clock. By 11 o'clock it's too late, isn't it?"

"Yes. Tutorials last an hour. Fifty minutes, to be precise."

"It doesn't make any sense that I can't find out where he is until after he's gone. There's got to be a better way?"

"I'm sorry. I'm just following departmental policy. I'm just a lowly secretary; I don't make the rules, you know."

"But it's important I find Mark Anderson."

"In that case I suggest you arrange to meet him outside his next lecture."

"When and where is that?"

"I explained that to you the last time you were here. I can only give you the details of the NEXT item on a student's schedule. His next item is his tutorial. If you want the details of his next lecture you'll have to come back after his tutorial finishes. Any time after 11 will be fine."

"This is crazy! I need to contract Mark Anderson urgently. There must be a way of contacting students urgently."

"Certainly. Are you faculty, immediately family or a policeman?"

"Ahh, no. None of those."

"Then the best I can do is suggest you write him a note and I'll make sure he gets it."

"But I need to talk with him."

"Then write him a note explaining why, and asking him to call you. Do you wish to leave a note?"

"Ahh, no. Not at the moment."

"I'll get back to work then. Don't hesitate to ask if you need any more help."

After they were sure he was gone, the secretaries all cracked up.

[The idea was to keep the PIs hopeful about finding me at OSU, so they'd keep wasting manpower on it. Maureen and Vanessa had to keep coming up with many different excuses for me to miss lectures. Doing my schedule one item at a time gave them a lot more control.]

It wasn't until I didn't come home for dinner that the PIs started getting quite worried about my location. They got one of the younger-sounding PIs to call my home and ask for me.

"Who's calling?" asked Mom.

"Peter, Mrs. Anderson. I'm one of Mark's classmates at OSU." (They clearly hadn't done NEARLY enough background research on me yet!). Mom immediately knew 'Peter' was one of the PIs hired by the LA money men that Vanessa had warned her about.

"Mark's not here at the moment, Peter. I'll tell him you called."

"When are you expecting him? I'm hoping to get his help with an assignment that's due tomorrow."

"I'm not sure. He's a busy boy."

"Do you know where he is?"

Mothers should know where their young children are; a habit Mom had fifteen years of practice at so she didn't really consider saying "No." Nor was she going to say the truth. A lie was ideal, and fair considering that 'Peter' was lying to her. Mom thought about where I could be at this time of night. Peter referring to an OSU assignment gave Mom the idea of telling him, "I think he's at the library."

"Would that be the Math Library, the General Library, or one of the other faculty libraries?" After the stamp collector hunt, Peter knew all about the multitude of libraries at OSU.

Mom thought that was an excellent question, so she answered, "You'll have to look for yourself, sorry."

"I'll do that, thanks ma'am."

Back to OSU they went. Not all of them, as reinforcements had arrived by now. There were other tasks that still needed doing, such as surveilling the two family homes in the hope that an opportunity arose to sneak in.

A couple of hours later, the PIs were starting to get more than a little annoyed by their inability to locate me. They'd unsuccessfully searched every library they could get into (some had closed), I hadn't come home, or to the Williams' house either.

"Hello Mrs. Anderson. It's Peter here again. I couldn't find Mark in any of the libraries. I was wondering whether you'd heard from him?"

Mom had suspected they wouldn't be able to find me. She asked, "Did you try the Public Library?" (formally the Corvallis-Benton Country Public Library, nothing to do with OSU.)

"The Public Library?"

"Sure. He just said he'd be at the library. I assumed he meant OSU, but he could've meant the Public Library." Actually Mom had been thinking of the Public Library when she'd first mentioned "library" to Peter. [Mom uses it quite often, such as getting the martial arts videotape that turned me onto Aikido, and a couple of books Donna was reading about Karate. The Andersons were too frugal to buy books unnecessarily.] After Peter had questioned Mom about which of the many OSU libraries she meant, Mom had thought letting him believe she meant an OSU library was best, and it had given her the idea what to say if 'Peter' rang back after failing to find me.

Peter said, "Okay. Thanks."

One of the options open to the PIs was to call my cellphone and ask me where I was. But I was presumably on alert as my house was being guarded by hired security and Robert Williams during the day (they knew who he was because they'd run his plates, and had followed him back to the Williams' when he was replaced by my parents coming home). It was unlikely I'd tell a stranger where I was, and it might make me run for cover, so they elected not to take that route. I was still going to OSU, so I obviously wasn't being very careful. They'd corner me sooner or later.

I wasn't at the Public Library either. They decided to merely wait for me to come home, and follow me when I left tomorrow morning. They'd get a chance for some 'quality time' with me tomorrow morning.

To their distress, the only people to arrive were the new shift of our security guards, clearly intending to patrol all night, and a young woman who subsequently patrolled the house from the inside. Much the same happened at the Williams' residence, except the internal patroller was a boy. During the night Mom or Dad got up at random intervals to check that all was well, and that the internal guard wasn't watching TV or otherwise not doing her job - which was to check all the rooms virtually constantly. All the doors were left open with the lights on. Donna was sleeping with Carol in the double bed. What the girl thought of that was the least of Mom's and Dad's worries. Mom or Dad would stay up long enough to give the girl a break, then they'd go back to sleep again. It was a bit hard on them, but it'd only be for a few nights. Similarly at the Williams', with either of The Boys or Vanessa getting up and checking on things.

I never came home, so the PIs thought I was most likely staying at a friend's place. Or maybe I'd been smuggled into the Williams' home by hiding in the back of a car until it was parked in the garage, and had thereafter stayed out of sight. All the drapes were drawn throughout both houses, so my hiding out inside the Williams' wouldn't have been hard. My home had a detached garage, was single-level and not so well draped, so my hiding there was unlikely. My going on the lam was considered the least likely possibility as I'd been at OSU during the day. They'd have to try to acquire me at OSU or school tomorrow.

So Wednesday ended with the PIs thinking they were on to something, but totally unable to get close enough to confirm it.

Thursday morning, as the kids were being taken to school, one of the PIs thought to ask, "Isn't there a Honda Civic registered to Julia Williams? Where is it?" Which soon become, "Has it been seen since we arrived?"

It might've been at a mechanic's being repaired, as it was an old car. Or maybe it'd just been sold. Or maybe the missing car was connected with the missing Mark. But they knew I was fifteen, so I couldn't be driving it legally. I shouldn't even know how to drive yet.

Unfortunately (in the PIs' opinion), they hadn't identified me until mid-morning yesterday, so they had no idea what transport I'd used to get to OSU. It seemed unlikely that my parents would let me habitually drive illegally. If I'd been panicked into fleeing, my taking the car might have been believable, presuming I was a 15-year old who knew how to drive, but I'd apparently been wandering around OSU all day. The PIs were confused.

They did their best to reacquire me. There were no walls or fences around OSU, people came and went along every road, every path, between every building, across every field - there was no way the PIs couldn't reliably monitor the entrances, but they stationed several people around the Math Department building at OSU, with more checking out the libraries and student lounges. They also staked out OSU's parking lots for my Honda or to catch a lucky glimpse of me.

My high school has one main entrance, with a foot and bike path in the back way, so monitoring the people entering school was much easier. The PIs didn't see me enter school, of course. From their point of view, one possible reason for their missing me was that the volume of foot, bike and vehicular traffic was so high they couldn't be sure I hadn't gotten in unobserved.

A couple of the students who'd been shown my picture and asked about me mid-morning Wednesday had told Julia about it, which she passed onto Vanessa yesterday evening. Vanessa realized that the PIs might have discovered Mark attended OSU by asking at school, especially because Julia was explaining Mark's absence by saying he was at OSU. So Vanessa had called my mom as soon as they were both at work, which led to Mom calling the school.

The school confirmed that a woman had been asking for me yesterday.

Mom said what she and Vanessa had planned, "That woman was the front person for a weapons development company that aggressively tried to pressure Mark into to signing up with them. They'd heard what a genius he is and wanted to get the jump on all the other hi-tech firms that will be bidding for him. They annoyed Mark considerably yesterday, even disrupting one of his lectures. They were aggressive enough that I wouldn't be surprise if they come back again today. For the next few days would you please refuse to answer any question about any member of my family. Not even confirming whether or not they're at school. Vanessa Williams also wants you not to answer any questions about her daughter Julia in case they know that Mark spends a lot of time with her. Will you do that for us please?"

"Yes. I'm very sorry. The woman said it was a family matter."

"I can't say I'm surprised. Weapons companies aren't known for their honesty. No real harm done, but please refuse to confirm or deny that you've heard of anyone called Mark, let alone whether he's in class today, okay?"

"Yes, certainly we will. I'll make sure everyone here knows."

Vanessa had enjoyed the scam she and Maureen had pulled off the day before, and had briefly described it to Mom. That gave Mom enough information to have a cute idea. Mom added, "If they do turn up today, would you pass on a message to them from Mark. 'Their behavior at OSU yesterday annoyed him considerably, and if they ever do it again, he won't hesitate to call campus security on them.' Can you do that please?"

"It'll give me pleasure. I don't like being lied to."

"Thank you very much."

It was only a quarter of an hour later that the school's office lady got to say, "We will not answer any more questions about Mark Anderson. I am extremely annoyed at your lying to me yesterday. Mark is annoyed too. He says if you annoy him at OSU again, he'll immediately call campus security on you. Now get lost before I call our security!"

Shortly after that, a young student approached OSU's Math Department office and tried to find out where Mark Anderson would be. Maureen put the fear of God into him (actually, "fear of the Head Secretary", but the two aren't dissimilar inside a large organization), gave him some effective warnings never to be someone's lackey again, and sent him packing out the back way.

By mid-morning Thursday, the PIs had been unable to determine whether I was at school, OSU, or somewhere else, but it seemed they must've gotten close to me yesterday. Then the local head of the operation got a call from Vegas telling him they had to get proof of our cheating by 10am tomorrow.

"We can't get into their houses because they are guarded inside and out 24/7, and even if we could get in, anything incriminating would be long gone by now. We can't locate Mark Anderson. We got close to him yesterday, but there are tens of thousands of students at that university. I don't think it's going to be possible in that timeframe."

"What would help?"

"A lot more people; we need to comb that university. It's a nightmare to search. There are thousands of students, hundreds of rooms, and every hour or so everyone gets up and changes location. We have to keep re-searching the same areas over and over again."

"I'll send another thirty or forty guys. Most of them will be independents from the nearby cities, okay?"

"It's just grunt work, so that'll be fine. How far over the line do you want us to go?"

"What've you got in mind?"

"We can't get bugs into their houses, but we can bug their cars and maybe their workplaces?"

"Approved, but don't get caught. Going over the line has to be invisible or the targets will go public. The boss insists on that."

"That's tying our hands. This doesn't look doable with the limits we've got, especially the time limit."

"I told the boss that already. That's his call." He'd called it sensibly. Doing something extreme - like having twenty men storm the houses and turn them inside out looking for proof of cheating - would cost Binion's far more than $11 million. It'd cost them everything, even if they found the proof.

They discussed various possible actions, some of which were approved, some were not.

One of the measures they did take was to throw more money at their contact in my cellphone carrier. They soon learned that my cell had been turned off since Tuesday evening, except for a minute on Wednesday morning when it'd been turned on at a place called McCleary, WA.

"Where the fuck is McCleary?"

They learned it was a small town two hundred miles north of Corvallis. "What the fuck was he doing in McCleary? And how did he get back to OSU so quickly?" The time between the two 'sightings'- my cellphone's usage at McCleary and when they thought I was at OSU - was 3.5 hours, and it was a 3.5 hour drive so it was JUST possible, but not by bus.

They decided that I was probably lying low by living with friends in McCleary, commuting to OSU in the Honda Civic, perhaps driven by someone else. They sent some people to McCleary.

They had a busy day accumulating a great deal of useless information about me, Prof and the other members of the two families. Trivia like the number of speeding tickets we'd each got wasn't going to break this case for them, but the nature of such investigations is that the more information that's gathered, the more chance that an important clue would be included.

They couldn't find a reason for Prof to need urgently $1 million. They put quite a lot of effort into that, but it was a difficult aspect to research. Neither could they find ANYTHING that indicated we were likely to be gambling cheats. Our being into math was a worry as that screamed suspicion that we'd invented a super-system, except that the number had been pre-chosen for the first bet and chosen by Ted for the second.

They sent some of their trusted people to all the nearby casinos, and our pictures were recognized at Spirit Mountain. Spirit Mountain's boss informed his Vegas compatriots that we'd been there once very recently, we hadn't any idea how to play, had lost a trivial amount, and had left. Our visit was over a week ago, so the videotapes had been overwritten. Spirit Mountain was surprised to learn I was underage, but they couldn't remember anything about my ID (despite their security guard having checked it three times). They naturally connected the inquiry to the huge win at Binion's that was all over the news, especially within the casino industry, but the investigators merely said, "We cannot comment. I'm sure you understand." Our names had never been mentioned, and no photos were left behind.