DEAD WRONG?

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Correction Appended: March 14, 2007

Death and taxes, as the saying goes, are life's certainties. But, so far, their conjunction has only produced mystery as the IRS investigates the department of pathology at Tulane University's medical school. It is a mystery involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, the byzantine politics of academia, the plight of indigent patients and possibly the existence of an undead corpse or two.

One of the bodies in question belongs to the recently deceased Dr. Michael Gerber, chairman of the pathology department at the Louisiana institution. The doctor was alive and nervous in September as agents from the IRS's criminal-investigation division began questioning members of his department about its finances. Gerber's associates recall his behaving erratically and constantly phoning for legal advice. Then on Oct. 12, in Tennessee, his daughter Elisa, 21, walked away from the wreck of a car she had driven into two trees. She said she had been tired. Apparently she had fallen asleep at the wheel. There were two bodies in the car, her mother Minda and her father Michael, whose face, says a mortician who helped prepare the body for cremation 48 hours later, was damaged beyond recognition.

Dr. Aizenhawar Marrogi, a former colleague of Gerber's, does not quite believe he is dead. An Iraqi immigrant named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, Marrogi was once a star of Gerber's department, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars in research grants and computerizing the department's billing system. But Marrogi and Gerber were soon quarreling over the billing system, with Gerber setting up his own balance sheet and issuing accounting statements that Marrogi and other physicians disputed. The dubious statements included payments for services at Charity Hospital, a public facility where Tulane doctors work with indigent patients. Marrogi believes Gerber maneuvered him out of tenure and then engineered his dismissal from Tulane. He also believes Gerber funneled money into his own accounts. Upon hearing of Gerber's death, Marrogi's lawyers hired a private detective to look into the accident. His report is in the hands of the IRS.

While Tulane dismisses Marrogi's suspicions as far-fetched, documents examined by TIME as well as interviews with witnesses who have testified to the IRS illustrate financial machinations that appear to have Gerber at their center and, at the very least, paint a portrait of a prestigious university shoddily run. Indeed, the school's officials and its legal counsel openly contradict one another. The vice chancellor for finance, Ray Newman, contends that doctors are due compensation for work at Charity Hospital (which produces revenues for the university of $20 million to $30 million in payments), even as general counsel John Beal says the physicians merit no payment: "They provide the service as part of our community-service obligation." Still, Tulane officials dismiss Marrogi's complaints (as well as his lawsuit for unspecified damages) as having no basis in fact.