Chapter 4

Chapter 4
When I first thought about calling the police

Wick Dodson, was a linguist by name only. In reality, he was a fountain of odd bits of knowledge, skills and connections to others with even more unusual knowledge and skills. Years back, we had both started out in the Anthropology Department. He studied the development of language systems, while I was involved in the study of societal structure. As time went on, and the department shrunk and then grew again, we were both shifted to other department, me to the Humanities Department as A Social Historian, and he to the ever growing studies of Linguistics.
Wick was a large man and the most unorganized dresser in the world, unless you caught him on one of those rare days when his wife Jeanie helped dress him. She must have been alert that day for he had on a sports coat that matched his slacks.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” he said as we sat down in the commons areas outside the history department. It was a cool spring day, and there was a breeze coming in from the east. After I told Wick my story and showed him the yellow tab my husband had encoded he took the pad and studied it carefully, making approving noises as he examined the sheet. Finally he said, “It appears to be an ancient version of Coptic known as Schidic Coptic, which was one of the versions that early scribes used to translate the Bible from Greek. This version of Shidic though … there are many slang words and jargons that would never appear in the original Coptic because of the advent of new words, and new technologies. New things like television had to be given descriptive names, like moving painting. Because of this the translating of the material back to English would be imperfect since the original Coptic had been corrupted.”
He explained that this was a similar technique to the one that the Indian Code Talker used in the army during W.W. II, when they took the Navajo language and then translated it into code, thus the Japanese would not only have to be able to break the code, but would also have to be able to understand the Navajo language, plus determine all the sang and jargon that the Code talkers had developed. It was a simple, idea, but if you didn’t know the key, you could never break the code, as the Japanese found out, for they never broke the United States code in the war.
Fortunately, because we had the yellow pad, we knew what part of the code was, we knew the original Sahidic form of the Coptic language he had used. What we weren’t sure of was if the Coptic of this yellow table had been coded first, and two, we had to find someone who knew the ancient form of Coptic
I showed him where I found the word “screwfast” and the letters “A-L-T” on the bottom of the piece of paper. He noted this without comment; put the yellow tablet in a black satchel …

… as he was about to leave Wick asked Sandra, “Is there anything else that you want me to know about this?” He jiggled the satchel to indicate the yellow pad.
“There’s probably more,” I told him. “There is a journal full of code in his study, at least one that I’ve found. And there is a rollaway fill cabinet I found under his desk that is full of personal correspondence. The yellow table and the journal were inside the folder.”
“I’m so sorry Sandra. This must be really hard for you.”
“It is all a shock,” she stood up uneasily.
“What type of personal correspondence?”
“I don’t know. I was a bit of a coward I guess, but I haven’t looked yet.”
“I understand,” he said then changed the subject. “Have you thought about calling in the police?”
This made my heart leap, I had never had dealings with the police before and calling them seemed so dramatic. “No, I guess maybe I should.”
“This could help them in the investigation, don’t you think?”
“You’re right.”
“Well,” he said, “Are you going to be taking any time off from teaching?”
“No. I want to keep working. Besides, I only have three classes this spring, and summers almost here.”
“I’ll see what I can do with this,” he said indicating the yellow pad. As he got up he said, “Why don’t you come to our place for dinner Thursday, maybe I’ll have something to show you by then.”
“Wick, there is one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“In the journal, on the front page, is the word QWERTYUIOP. Do you have any idea what that would mean?”
“No, but write it down here in the margin and I’ll check it out.”
She wrote the word, and then the two friends kissed checks and parted. Sandra went to her office and went though her things there. She’d be teaching classes again starting tomorrow, and had to get back into the routine of classroom preparation. She got some materials ready for photocopying and made some notes on the text the class was working on. Her mind kept drifting off to Matthew; how she couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t be there tonight, coming home like always. He mind also kept returning to the letters inside the organizer under the desk, but later that day she meet up with some colleagues from her department and they went out for “just one drink” which turned into dinner and before she knew it she didn’t get back to the apartment till after ten.
It was quiet inside the apartment, and the memories of her life with Matthew flooded back to her. How would she ever be able to stay in this apartment now that he was gone and all the memories of their lives together surrounded her?
She found herself wandering back into his study and handling the tings on his desk again. Then she slowly sat in his desk chair, rolled the organizer out from under the desk and slid the lid open. There were about thirty hanging folders full of what appeared to be correspondence, none of them were labeled. She reached into the first folder and pulled out an unopened purple letter with purple writing on it. It had been written by a woman. Maybe she should just put it back, it was better not to know. She should just go to bed, and then in the morning she could make arrangements to have all of his stuff taken to auction, or put in storage or something so she wouldn’t have to deal; with it. She couldn’t deal with this now, She couldn’t deal with other women, and purple letters, a dn what all that meant. She was going to get up even, but she didn’t, she thought of the police, they would want to know it this had something to do with Matthew’s death. She reached out, picked up the ebony letter opener, slid the black blade under the purple flap and began to cut open the letter.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3
The chapter where I start to find out about the secret life of my husband,
And where I begin to track the modern day Casanova.

Matthew, my late husband, had the ability to compartmentalize his life, as if locking each section into a different room in his brain. His life’s work, so important to him, could be locked up as soon as his apartment key hit our front door and he entered the front door to our flat, at that moment, once more, he became entirely my man. Once inside, he would lavish attention upon me as if he had just gone to the corner newsstand for a paper instead of working twelve to fourteen hours at the office.
Although many men have this ability, Matthew had honed, through years of diligent differentiation, this skill into a way of life. As he was approaching his forty-eighth birthday, I noted that the walls he’d created between the different aspects of his-self had become rigid, tough and hard, and this could cause schizophrenic like confusion when he became trapped between compartments, or say the different parts of him-self were in conflict.
For instance, in the morning, when he was trying to decide what shirt to wear he would often take out two different shirts and try to put them both on at the same time, as if the were two or more people struggling to decide which shirt to wear
“Matt, what are you doing.”
“I don’t know”, he said in frustration with one shirt on his right arm and another shirt on his left arm.
“Here let me help you,” and I tried to take the shirt off his left arm, but he struggled away from me.
“No, not that one,” he said.
“But you can’t wear black with a navy suit,” I said.
But, he’d continued to dress, and went to work like that, with a navy suit and black shirt. What was happening to the man I married, I wondered.
One day I was shocked when he wanted to go with me to pick up a few things at Fairway Markets, on Broadway. While shopping he directed the cart to the snack area and as we rolled down the aisle he snatched a bag of cheese puffs.
“What are you getting those for?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“I’ll put them back.”
“No,” he said, covering the bag with his left hand, “we better buy them.”
He didn’t seem anxious, or defensive, or upset; something inside of him wanted the cheese puffs.
Later I found him working at his computer and saw that he was eating the cheese puffs. I asked him if he was enjoying them and he said, No, that he didn’t care for them. But he ate them all.
Yes I knew that Matthew was fight through demons of his own construction. I tried to get him help, but the walls he constructed were far stronger then anything medicine or couciling could tear down. He was found by doctors to be in excellent health, though the strange battles within kept up.
I did not guess that all this time the strongest wall he had construct was surely the wall between him and me. You see, Matthew was a lier. A very good one, so good in fact that he barely had to lie to deceive; like that poor Japanese bride that he seduced.
He seduced her by suggesting things, and directed her in a way in while she was more likely to react in a certain way. The only thing he directly lied about was his name. He never even said that he wasn’t married. When she asked him if he was married he responded, “It would be wrong of us being together like this if I was married, now wouldn’t it?” Throwing guilt back at her as if to say, you don’t think that I am that type of person, Do you?
But he was that type of person. Though looking at his darkly handsome face you might never guess that to be the case. But, Oh, how he could lie; sometime without actually saying a word …

… three days after Matthew’s funeral Sandra returned to her New York apartment from a weekend visiting her sister in Virginia. She had left town to escape the looks of her friends and neighbors. Even when they didn’t talk to her, they still looked at her in a accusing way. Like the police had looked at her when they asked, “Are you sure you never heard of a Mr. Yamasaki? He certainly seems to have heard of your husband. “ But no, she’d never heard of him before.
Sandra and Mathew lived on 105th St. between Broadway and West End Ave. in a huge beautiful building on the north side of the street.
Sandra had always loved the Upper West End, ever since she had first come to New York as a college student in the early seventies. It was here she met Matthew; it was here that she settled down with their life, their friends and with Matthew LeBrown’s secret life.
Standing in the doorway to he husband’s home office she noted the scent of lemon polish, his favorite. Two tan leather chairs faced the free form rosewood desk. The office had be customized to Matthew’s desires, and furnished with curios he’d and Sandra had acquired on their travels; earth toned vases, blue and green glass bowls decorated the shelves and credenza with back lighting to illuminate their sticking accent colors. A large blue checked basket weave rug hung on one wall. Running her fingers over the things on his desk; an ebony letter opener from an African leper colony, his black fountain pen, a pen well full of black Indian ink, his green felt blotter, the portable Kaypro 386 computer he carried with him everywhere.
Dumping out a manila envelope that contained his personal effects, she scanned the keys, business card holder, money clip containing money stained with his blood, the elephant skin wallet he’d gotten during the war. She’d come in to find his insurance papers from the term policy he maintained, but now that she was here she could surround herself with him again. Parts of him. Enough to surround herself. Pretend he were still here. It wasn’t time to let go. That would be for later. Now was a time to fill herself, overflow herself with him, so she could remember every minute, every part, even the parts she didn’t know yet.
After a half hour she became tired of the silence and turned on the sound system. The Bose Acoustimass speakers instantly filled the room from their small cubes. It startled her, for the news came on and the newsman sounded so real, and so close to her, as if he were standing in the room, but this was not possible she knew, it was merely the combination of her nerves and the accuracy of the sound system. There was a sound clip from President Bush, a sound bite, “a kinder and gentler nation” he assured her audience. And the she noticed the large walnut organizer under the desk. Funny, she must have seen it before, she thought, but she couldn’t remember it having a lock on it. Not a flimsy lock, a substantial burnished-steel lock.
Rolling the organizer from under the desk, noticing how heavy and well built it felt, yet it slid easily. She then sat in Matthew’s desk chair. The lid was definitely lock so she rummaged through the desk looking for the key, but it wasn’t there. Where would he piut it, then she noted his personal keys, the ones she had dumped out of the envelope. She knew he hated carrying key, and there were only four keys on the ring, but sure enough, one of the keys worked on the organizer. The ring contained only four keys; the house key, the keys to his Jaguar, this office key and this key. She opened up the organizer and saw it full with hanging files. Sitting on top of the files was a journal which had been placed there as if Matthew had been in a hurry, and had not had time to put the book away properly. Under the journal was a yellow writing pad with notes, lines and drawings across it.
Sandra flipped open the journal and saw on the front page, in large scripted letters sat a word: QWERTYUIOP. She had no idea what that meant, though she knew Matthew had been good at puzzles. Flipping through the book she saw that the book had been written in a numeric code. Lines of numbers filled the pages. The numers were in two colums on each page. They were written in black ink, presumably from his quil pen and his ink well. Every once in a while there appeared to be a title of heading. This was also written in numbers, but was written in red ink.
There was no punctuation, and no seperation between the number, as if each journal was the wirtting of one long neat number which went on, some times for page after page.
Flipping to the back of the book there was a page for names and addresses. There seemed to be five names on this page, but they too were written out in numbers with no seperation be tween words. The line where phone numbers appered had almost a humbers numbers. What had Matthews been doing, Sandra wondered. She realized that her heart had been beating rapidly, and set the journal on the desk. She need a cup of tea.
As she stood up, she realized that the radio was still on and newsman was still talking about President Bush. “A moment rich with promise”, she heard, and then the words, “a force for good.” just before she reached the radio and snapped off the power. Before going to the kitchen she picked up the yellow pad that had been uder the journal and looked at the marking across the surface. A crude drawing of a wedding cake adorned one border, there was a line down the middle of the page with the same strange numbering code going half way down the right hand side of the sheet.
The left side of the sheet was writing in ancient type writing. Matthew was of Lebanese descent, but the writing was not an arabic for. And yet, still Sandra knew it looked familier. And then she remembered. She went to her study and opened up a picture album from a trip to Alexandria, Eygypt. Sure enough, the lettering was similar, so it must be a form of Coptic, she thought. Where would he have learned Coptic, she wondered, maybe in the army. Mathew had been incredible with codes, numbers and languages all his life. She remembered in the army, for two years after the war he had spent time in something know as the Army intelligence. He was never able to tell her what he did during this period, but she knew some of the people that he had meet, and they had gone one to work with psychology and cuciling. A few that he still talked too worked as consultants, and ran marketing firms.
She walked to her kitchen and placed the new Viking range and watch the flames dance on the copper surface of the tea pot. She looked at the yellow pad again, not as an ex-wife this time, but as the scholar she had trained herself to become. One the bottom of the sheet were some pencil marks that had been erased. She tipped the page and looked at the writing closly. Scewfas, it appeared to say, no, screwfast, screwfast and the letters a-l-t. Screwfast alt, then almost on the edge of the tablet, very lightly was the name Casanova. What did that mean? Was it part of a message, or the complete message? The whistle started to blown on the tea pot, steam sputtered from the spout. She would be going to her office at the university today after all, she thought, and she knew who she would talk too about this…

…Matthew may have been fighting demons, but there was one thing for sure, he had been hiding something. I felt stupid to have been fooled by him.
Matthew had been shot down in his office by a man that my husband didn’t know. I thought that maybe the yellow pad and journal could help to tell me more about his secrets.
For a second I wondered, Should I call the police about all this. No, not yet. There was one thing for sure, Matthew had been hiding something from me, and not just for days, but months and maybe years. I had a right to find out what it was all about. Matthew had been lying to me about this, if not with words, at least I knew that he had been lying in his heart. Matthew had lied in his heart. And exactly what kind of person was he to be able to do that kind of thing?

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Little things that can change your life forever.

 

            I believe that sometimes the smallest thing can have the biggest impact on a life.  The first ring a boy gives to a girl will be cherished forever no matter what its cost.  The first meal that two lovers share will always be remembered.  But sometimes, little things are overlooked, and when that happens, when the things that our loved ones are trying to tell us get overlooked, bad consequences can often result.

            It was 1989 and George Bush had been elected just a few months earlier, but for most accountants in New York all they could think about was the upcoming tax season.  Yes it was nearing tax season in New York where, like no other city, accountants are pushed to the absolute limits of their mental and physical tolerances. It was not a surprise to me then that I saw little of my husband the months leading up to April fifteenth.  This was normal, him being the CFO of Labda Shoes, a manufacturer and importer of highend women’s footwear.  And it was because of his being so busy that he never read the letter warning him of his upcoming death, and his never reading that letter has changed everything for me…

 

            … the letter traveled the normal route of third class letters from Manhattan.  From the post office at West 83^rd Street it was picked up and taken to a distribution center in New Jersey where it was consolidated with all the other mail from the local routes.  The letter was on purple stationary, with purple ink, and tucked inside a purple envelope; beside that, nothing distinguished the letter save the fact that it was obviously a personal correspondence.  The letter was in fact from a Japanese woman who had arrived in New York two weeks earlier.  She had traveled to New York to marry her fiancée.  The wedding was to have been that Saturday.

            Like so many fish spilling from fishing trawlers the mail was dumped out and sorted at the distribution center where each post is separated into in-town or out-of-town sections.  The purple letter was sorted by zip codes to the regional post office, returned once again to the same West 83^rd Street post office where it began.  Even though the letter was written for someone not two blocks away it still had to travel many miles before it was delivered, for the Japanese visitor and Mr. LeBrown were living not two blocks from each other. 

            The letter was mailed Wednesday.  Mr. LeBrown brought the mail up to his apartment Thursday evening, flipped through the letters, spotted the purple envelope and considered opening it for a moment.  He then checked his Tag Heuer and realized his wife would be home any moment.  He sat the rest of the mail down on their cherry wood dining table as he walked the purple letter to his study.  He rolled a custom made walnut organizer from under his desk, noting his abstract reflection on the perfectly polished surface of the walnut gain, unlocked the organizer which clicked with a pleasing sound of fine lock-smithing, then he slid the envelope into the front pocket of the file compartment which was perfectly arranged with his secret cache of personal correspondence.

            Hearing the front door open he lowered the lid.  It eased down by the way of the perfectly balanced Swedish steel toggle hinges which counter balanced the weight, then the lid sealed with a rich sounding whish and locked automatically.  The letter sat unopened in the cabinet the next day.  Mr. LeBrown was never aware of its contents for the next day he was …

 

            … you might have noted that I have begun writing in the third person.  I suppose that I owe you an explanation.  I have discovered that some of this story is just too personal for me to tell from the first person, and that the third person helps me get a little distance from my subject, without being stuck reliving every emotion of those horrible days around Matthew’s death. 

Though Matthew is really just a small part of this story, I didn’t know where else to start, and now my fear is that you may come to believe that he was a horrible man; a man that I should hate, a man that should have been gunned down in the men’s room of his business.  Shot while on the toilet in fact, sort of like Elvis in a way, even though Elvis wasn’t shot.  But I can’t hate Matthew, that is, I can’t just hate him, because part of me loves him too.

            In my heart I have both love and hate, two snakes which are grabbing the other by the tail and are devouring one another, till I do not know where one feeling begins, and the other feeling ends.  I have a hating-love for him, a loving-hatred.  Who can explain the ways of the heart and how the mind and the heart fight for control, but neither actually wins. Now I am left with only this struggle between these two snakes.

            And so when the battle with the heart becomes too great I will shut it out and begin writing in third person so I can get on with the story, but when the heart must come out, then the heart will again start to tell the tale…

 

            …the Japanese businessman that killed Matthew LeBrown was a Mr. Yamasaki.  He was born in Hawaii, but was recruited by a Japanese firm and spent five years working in Japan before being transferred to New York.  While in Japan, he met and fell in love with, Kumiko Yoshikuni, whose name indicated the she would be forever beautiful.  And though many men had sought her hand, she agreed to become Mr. Yamasaki’s wife by flying to New York, and marrying him there.  For Kumiko, the idea of moving to, and marrying a well-to-do businessman in New York City was too exciting to resist.

            On Kumiko’s first day in New York she ran into Mr. LeBrown, a stranger, someone who helped her find her way to her hotel.  Her English was fairly good; she was a clever girl who was social and liked to show off her skills and knowledge to others.  At first she was a little concerned about Mr. LeBrown, but he took time to make her feel relaxed and comfortable.  He even bought her a coffee, and by the time they parted she had agreed to meet him the next day so he could show her MoMA. 

            As she drank her coffee she told him that she was engaged and would be marrying in two weeks.  He was a good listener, and she noticed that he had no wedding ring.  When she mentioned the fact that she could not become involved with Mr. LeBrown he agreed with her, but they promised to meet the next day.  There was one thing that Mr. LeBrown had lied about, and that was his name.

            The next morning at 10:30 Mr. LeBrown showed Kumiko around MoMA.  He was the complete gentleman, making her feel relaxed as they explored the Museum of Modern Art.  His behavior was of the highest order as they wandered through the lively, intricate, and unfolding patterns of modern and contemporary art.  By the time they reach the permanent collection she felt peaceful as he touched her arm to gain her attention.  Careful to gently touch.  Never grab or alarm … a brush, a warm soft petting.  Was he stroking her? She could not tell, but she was comfortable, and felt safe with this kind and handsome man.  Mr. LeBrown said that he had business to attend, but would meet her in Soho late that afternoon to visit some galleries.  Kumiko had to rush to make her lunch date with Mr. Yamasaki.  She told Mr. Yamasaki about her trip to the museum, but for some reason left out the fact that she was in the company of another man.

            When they meet that afternoon Mr. LeBrown squeezed Kumiko’s shoulders and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  It was a friendly kiss, but its warmth and memory lingered. She wondered, What would be like to kiss this new man?  These thoughts were all wrong, and she knew that, but still, it never hurt to … to what … to think … Well, maybe?

            After the third gallery it began to rain and he grabbed her hand as they ran for an awning.  Once protected he quickly kissed her.

            “I have to change this coat, I’m afraid, before the wool gets soaked.”

            “But where are we going?” she asked.

            Taking her hand they ran across the street to a five story brownstone.  “I have a loft here I keep for company business.  This will only take a second.”

            Inside the small entry of the building she noticed modern art posters neatly framed and illuminated by museum quality track lights.  Four potted ferns in symmetrical order lined the east wall, one after the other.  They got into the small elevator, soft jazz playing on a superior speaker system.  This was an exciting adventure for her, but what about Mr. Yamasaki, surely this couldn’t be right?  But, she still felt the kiss upon her lips.  What had that meant?  And what was happening to her?

            Mr. LeBrown left the door to the apartment open as he went inside, she looked inside to the chrome and glass bookcase, the leather couch with a llama skin tossed over one end.  She looked around and then went inside …

 

            … I don’t think I need to bring up all the details of what happened next.  The actual seduction lasted over two hours because Matthew wanted to tease her, torture her with desire until he finally took her.  Before the evening was over she had almost forgotten about Mr. Yamasaki.  In fact, Matthew had to remind Kumiko of his existence.  Only then did the shame of what she had just done fall down upon her.  Tears and guilt flooding in, but none of this stopped her from agreeing to meet with Matthew again the next day and everyday for a week.

            Then, that next Tuesday, Matthew made a horrible mistake; he let her leave the shower before him.  Maybe his ego had gotten the best of him and he had come to really believe he had transformed her into an unthinking “sex-slave” as he and his other seduction group members used to say.  For whatever reason, he stayed behind in the shower long enough for her to find his wallet which he thought he’d secured in the bedroom dresser. There she found his real name, his real address and she found out that he was married.  When he got out of the shower Kumiko was gone, the wallet sat tossed on the floor and the front door was wide open …

 

            … Mr. Yamasaki was worried and upset.  Where had Kumiko been running off to this last week?  He was determined to find out, but was having trouble finding her.  Finally, Tuesday night he waited outside her apartment all evening.  She finally got home about one in the morning.  Mr. Yamasaki followed her in the hotel room and demanded to know what was going on.

            “I can’t tell you,” she said, her face red with shame.

            “We are to be married in four days,” he said.  “I need to know what’s going on.”

            So, she told him, filling in many details about positions, techniques and numbers of acts performed.  Mr. Yamasaki couldn’t believe what he was hearing, it was like some awful pornographic anima, the kind he liked to read on the subway in Japan.  But in his fantasies it was always he that was doing the debauching.  This was the ultimate insult, and the man knew that she was to be married this Saturday.  Did that add to his excitement? he wondered. What kind of pervert was this?  By the time Mr. Yamasaki left her hotel room he had the name of the man who had seduced her.  It would be a simple thing to buy a gun in America, he reasoned.

            Kumiko decided she couldn’t go to see Mr. LeBrown, and so she wrote a letter to warn him, a letter written on purple paper, with purple ink.  She always liked that color, and by the time she was done she was feeling a little better, as if she was putting something behind her. After all, it wasn’t as if she were really in love with him, was she?  It was the last fling, she told herself, the last fling that a person has before their life changes to commitment, and marriage and children.  The closing of one door for another.  An early wedding shower.

            The day of the murder the security desk made Mr. Yamasaki sign in, but the guards never challenged the right of the small, neatly dressed businessman to visit the offices of Labda Shoes. Once he got off the elevator at he twenty-forth floor he had been accepted as a buyer for a large Japanese cooperation.  He stopped by Mr. LeBrown’s office.  “An old friend,” he said as he looked at Mr. LeBrown’s picture of himself and his wife.  He seemed to be studying the picture as if memorizing the facial outlines presented before him. 

            “No,” the secretary said.  ”Mr. LeBrown had just run down the hall a second earlier to go to the bathroom.”

            “Oh, was that so?  That way?  Well, I’ve got to go to marketing.  I have a meeting.  Maybe I can catch him on the way out,” he said.

            But Mr. Yamasaki didn’t walk to marketing, he walked to the men’s bathroom, went inside, and a few moments later three shots rang out.  A few seconds past, and then one more shot was heard.  Two men had died…

 

            …Matthew liked organization.  He tried to be home every evening by eight for dinner.  He rotated his suits, and sent them out for cleaning often.  He never wore the same pair of shoes two days in a row, and regularly changed his entire wardrobe.  He liked to take care of the little things.  So isn’t it strange that a small thing like a letter could have brought him down?  If he had only gone out of his routine a little to make time for the letter he might still be alive right now, and I might never have become a murderer.

Chapter One

 

The Seduction Code

by

Sandra LeBrown

 

Chapter One

 

The part where I try to get started writing this damned book.

 

I never knew what a contented a life I lived until that day fame determined it would sit down upon me.  I have never looked for attention.  I wasn’t even a flashy dresser.  Never the Escada type, like some of the women I’ve known.  I always wore conservative cloths, like St John Knits, complementing my traditional personality.  Simple winter shades at that, to synchronize my tones.  And believe me, I could afford Escada with the money my late husband made … but, like I said, I was not flashy by nature. 

The wheel of fate didn’t fancy leaving me to my private pleasures though.  So chance caught me, crushed me and I never saw my celebrity coming.  Fame didn’t arrive like a Christian Scientist, ringing the doorbell and asking politely to come in.  No, fame backed up to me like a dump truck full of sand with a broken warning bell.  Never a beep, beep, beep from fate, and by the time it tilted the bed of the truck and started pouring the sands of notoriety around my feet it was too late. It was up to my knees before I realized what was happening.  Stuck. 

But anyway, here I am now, and this is the first chapter of this book, the place where I‘m obliged to introduce myself, I suppose … tell you what this book is about … tell you something about the people in this book and the crazy twist and turns that have turned out to be my life.

First of all, my name is Sandra LeBrown, or as you may know me, Casanova’s Killer.  I have never written a book for “mass” consumption and never thought I would. If you know anything about my story through the various media outlets, you probably know I have written two academic books concerning historical sociological issues.  You can still buy them; the publisher I understand has reissued them.  Anyway, for most of my life I was known as an academic who was interested in the how of human history, I was not a criminal.

My life was dull, by media standards, until the day that I killed the man who “discovered” the seduction code.  I say he “discovered” the code, but what I really mean is that he stole it from a dead man like a common thief.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  I do that often, tear ahead to the conclusion before the story has even begun.  I suppose the publisher will have an editor or ghostwriter clear up those errors.  Anyway, where should I begin?

Once, late 1989 to be exact, while living in Manhattan, I came to know three intriguing people, each with a secret.  Since I am the only one who knows the intimate details, and because I have plenty of time to put them in writing, I have agreed to place pen to paper.  Also, I now know that I am very bad at keeping secrets.  I never realized how bad I was at keeping secrets until quite recently in fact.  This is rather odd, you might think, that a woman of fifty so odd years would not know these little things about herself.  But no, that is not how my life seems to be working out.  There are, in fact, quite a few things that I am just now learning about myself. 

I have taken a number of liberties with this “project” (as if one’s life should be referred to as a project).  I have created fictional characters to help me tell part of the story.  I have changed the names of some real people.  And I, like most good historians, have changed the truth when it has gotten in the way of a good yarn.  

If I had written this story during the last few months … that is, when the events were happening… I would have written a much different tale then the one I am writing today.   Your heart and your memories have a way of changing when given the distance of time and space.  You begin to question whether certain facts ever happened, or what your feelings were like at the time, for I did not write this piece as journal entries and so, like the good social historian I try to be, I am attempting to reconstruct the heart of the story:  My story. 

When I started writing several weeks ago (this is my fifth attempt) I tried to scrupulously document and verify every fact (the best I could do from captivity anyway).  After months of this work I threw my hands up in despair realizing that I would never have the time or resources to produce that type of clinical accuracy I was attempting.  In fact, I remember the day not that long ago when I was sitting at the little writing desk they have provided me, and I was trying to verify the date that I broke through my husbands password security on his computer to get to his personal records and emails, when I said to myself, Damn it, no one is going to care if you did not get the exact day that you did this, or found out that.  This is my life, not some clinical subject I was writing about, so why should I have to document every single day and fact?  If I missed some piece of information WHO COULD POSSIBLY KNOW OR CARE? 

After I calmed down with a few soothing breathes, and rubbed the stiffness out of my shoulders, I saw that I had come to a breakthrough.  I had arrived at that place where people believed that the only person that can be the real expect on a particular life is indeed the person that went through the process.  This is totally opposite of scientific “objective” thought by the way, but there you are, and this was where I was now.  I said to myself, well, you can do one of two things … you can stop now, if that is your intention, or you can continue writing more from the self (something rather against what scientist or pseudo scientist like myself are trained to do).  So, I took a deep breath, had a sip of the serviceable coffee that they provide for me here at the “institution” (where I am being kept for my mental well-being) and I started again; from the heart this time.  You alone are the expert on what happens to you, I decided, either that, or you are that worst person to tell the story due to “emotional intervention”. 

            And still there is part of me that refuses to let go of the rigorous crosschecking and detailing an historian goes through.  That is one reason I haven’t started the story yet, this damned internal battle.  Sometimes I wonder if I ever will begin, because I feel like I have to keep explaining everything to you, the reader, so that you will respect and trust me as “the expert”.  But then again, we come back to the question of who can be greatest expert on a person’s life and here I am: Full circle. 

            I certainly now feel that I am the greatest expert on Sandra LeBrown and if you can’t trust that, well, I don’t know what to say.  What are you going to say anyway, “That never happened … It didn’t happen that way?”

            So let’s really start now.  I am loathed to do so because of the facts of this beginning, but to get to the start I must return us to one of the saddest and most despairing time of my life.  We must return to the day that my husband was murdered, and how that fact changed my life forever. 

Introduction

The Seduction Code

Sandra LeBrown

Introduction

or

The part of the book where I raise the question, “Are we all programmed like computers? And then outline how the seduction code was first discovered and passed from the discovering professor, to a Graduate Assistant, and finally ended up with the Graduate Assistant’s roommate.”

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.  And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.  And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly …      And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.                                                         -Genesis

 

 

In the California University system in the early seventies, excitement mounted regarding a theory that proposed a universal system of innate rules governing all human interaction.  Though proponents of this idea had been around for many years, a growing number of scholars were speculating that there might indeed prove to be a universal system of rules central to all human relationships including conversations, social conventions, and even intimate exchanges such as bonding and mating. 

Not only did the researchers feel that this structure controlled the unwritten guidelines to social dealings, it also concluded, it was hardwired into the human mind … every human … regardless of her or his upbringing, socialization or racial makeup.  

Theory without evidence is worthless.  But evidence was being established; and for the first time research was beginning to be uncover, bit by bit, of the unwritten innate codes of human interaction.  Neologistic terms describing the researcher’s findings such as body language, conversational analysis and universal language began to tiptoe into the living room of everyday conversations among sociologist, anthropologist and social historians.  Were we on the verge of discovering the Rosetta stone of human behavior? 

At the center of this excitement was a scientist from Orange County California who proved to be so brilliant and so peculiar that even other linguists and sociologists found him a bit odd.  To name him would be doing a disservice to his memory, but the fact remains that many of his peers believed he was on the threshold of discovering what he said was, “The unwritten rules for social interaction”.  His arguments and discoveries were in fact so foreign to most scientists that they agreed that he must be correct. 

Unfortunately, we will never know, for Professor X worked in the period just before the advent of the personal computers, not that he would have bothered using one.  Practices such as note taking, publishing, and personal hygiene were, as his colleagues would later confirm, not his strengths.  And one evening in the middle of spring quarter as he was driving a narrow back road from the university to his home he dropped a cigarette in his lap and was killed in the ensuing auto accident.  All Professors X’s notes which he kept loose in the backseat of his dilapidated yellow Volkswagen Bug must have burned in the fire following the accident people speculated. 

The university tried to keep alive his work, but was unable … soon his efforts lapsed into obscurity; or so most people thought.  A group of California politicians close to the then ex-actor turned governor had taken note of the professor’s studies long before his death, and found his work worthy of study.  These politicians had been wondering among themselves, If the brain is hardwired then maybe it can be controlled; and wasn’t it our duty to be the ones in control?  They had approach the professor asking for copies of all his work, surprisingly Professor X agreed, but he never gave this cabal any of his work.

For months before his death the members of the political group ask for the papers, set up meetings and tried to get the papers from the professor.  He was always helpful, agreed to all their requests and never once gave them anything they asked for.  They believed that the professor was either incredibly absent minded, or just a stupid twit that really didn’t know anything.  Some said that maybe the professor didn’t even have any research to share.

The fact of the matter was that the professor was using a simple tactic he’d just picked up from his reading of studies concerning Japanese businessmen. He decided to try their technique that he called, Yanking Their Chains. 

The technique was to never to tell the targeted party anything negative, always say maybe, when you meant no. There were variations to this technique.  For example, if you really didn’t like the target party then you might promise to do whatever it was they wanted, never do it, and then laugh about them behind their backs to your friends and associates.  Since he couldn’t blow the politicians off directly, due to funding from the state, he decided to try this indirect approach.  What he didn’t suspect was that it really got the politicos angry when they found out they had been made fools of.

The politicos decided to find someone to break into the professor’s apartment and copy all his research. Whether the cabal ever got their hands on the professor’s work is still a matter of speculation, for shortly after this the professor died, the cabal dissolved as if it never existed.

There is one thing that is certain though, and that is that unknowingly, the professor did not have all of his research with him on the night that he died.  One of professor X’s Graduate Assistants had borrowed his file on Human Grooming Rituals.

The Graduate Assistant, William Astoanian, had different reasons than Professor X to be interested in these “unwritten rules” of human grooming.  Where Professor X was interested in what the rules were, William Astoanian was interested in determining how they worked.  The particular file, which William secretly kept in his dorm room, held the key to human courtship and most particularly, seduction.  If he could break down the key to courtship, William reasoned, he could unlock the box to the ultimate power of the world; the thing wars were fought for, the building of nations, the key to all power … for he would have the key to the seduction code.  A key so powerful that he could initiate it on any woman, at anytime, any place.  No one would be safe from his control, nun to nurse, queen to catholic schoolgirl; he could use his power to overcome any wall of protection a woman might construct.  He could melt it away into a passionate response of sexual desire. 

What William owned in lust and depravity he unfortunately lacked in imagination.  He made no progress on understanding the strange rantings of Professor X, women still found him intolerable and highly refusable, and he misjudged the fact that other people might somehow determine that he had the professor’s file and might want it for themselves.  Then one evening, just a mere six weeks after the death of professor X and the supposed dissolution of the political cabal, William Astoanian died in an unfortunate car crash on a seldom traveled back road not far from the university. The police report indicated that William Astoanian had dropped a cigarette in his lap while driving, even though his friends testified they had never seen William smoke.

But many things were strange to the investigators at the time, and there were other questions the investigators were never able to answer to their own satisfaction. 

First, what was William doing on that isolated road so late at night?  Why did his car catch on fire?  Though it was determined that he had been struck head-on by a large truck as he rounded the corner, the truck and driver were never found.  Why was his dorm room thoroughly ram sacked after the accident as if someone were looking for something vital?  And the final mystery concerned William’s roommate who disappeared after the accident and was never heard from again.  That is, not by his birth name anyway…