Read The Boric Acid Murder Online

Authors: Camille Minichino

Tags: #Revere Beach (Mass.), #Police Procedural, #Mystery & Detective, #Boric acid, #General, #Boston (Mass.), #Lamerino; Gloria (Fictitious character), #Women Sleuths, #Fiction, #Women physicists, #Detective and mystery stories; American, #Massachusetts

The Boric Acid Murder (2 page)

BOOK: The Boric Acid Murder
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TWENTY MINUTES after the police led John away in an unmarked sedan, Matt and I sat on a sofa in his partner’s Fenno Street living room. I was relieved they hadn’t handcuffed John, at least not in front of his parents. We’d brushed past Rose and Frank, in silent acknowledgment that it was better for us to work on the case than to stay around offering consolation. Matt had put up no fuss when I asked to accompany him.
“Jeez, I’m sorry, Matt. Gloria.” George Berger looked at each of us as though condolences were in order. I felt enough like a grieving parent to welcome his concern. “It happened pretty quick. One minute, no suspect—the next, John Galigani. Parker asked me to help out. I agreed, but”—Berger turned to Matt and shrugged his shoulders—“of course, officially, you’re off the case.”
I knew police department rules. Matt had known the Galiganis since he was a rookie cop, and detectives were prohibited from investigating cases where their objectivity might be compromised. But the immediate effect of the policy hadn’t struck me until Berger’s reminder. Matt nodded, apparently reconciled to the situation.
Unlike me. I’d already resolved to find the real killer. I saw myself in the victim’s home, workplace, places of recreation. Interviewing, using the Internet, reviewing her address book, police files … until Matt’s voice gave me some perspective.
“I realize we can’t work on this,” Matt said. “I’m just curious what you have.”
“Can’t see the harm.”
Although he was Jewish, Berger’s short, heavy physique and dark hair gave him the look of most Neapolitans, Matt and me included, if you subtracted about twenty years. He was in suit pants and shirt, apparently considering this Saturday a workday.
Every visible surface of Berger’s yellow clapboard home held signs of a modern tot—bulky plastic toys, tiny shoes, and strange-looking contraptions with wheels, all in primary colors that clashed with the soft mauve carpet and pale blue upholstery in the living room. It was a relief to hear that Baby Cynthia was out with her mother—I was never up for relating to an eight-month-old child, least of all this evening.
Berger pushed a few red and blue plastic creatures off the coffee table and spread out pages from an accordion file. I twitched involuntarily when I saw the label—GALIGANI—on a police department folder.
In a file marked FIORE was a photograph of the victim. Leaning against the lab’s large maroon and gold sign at its Charger Street entrance, Yolanda Fiore appeared tiny, her hands folded below a wide, multicolored belt tied around her slim waist. Even in the long-distance shot I could see her neat pixie haircut, bright round eyes, and disarming smile. I guessed she raced through a day’s work and had energy to spare.
I could see why John Galigani might be attracted to her. I tried to imagine why someone would want to kill her—not that I ever understood the motives for murder. Could Yolanda have been the victim of random violence—someone burglarizing the library?
Of what?
I had to admit, the idea of a hooded thief attempting to steal overdue fines was shaky at best.
I grimaced at the next photo—the same lovely body, lifeless, at the bottom of the interior library stairs. The crime-scene photographs presented every angle, although there was little difference among them. Yolanda’s head seemed to be folded under her chest, bringing back the image of Frank’s decapitated client.
I breathed deeply and turned my attention to Berger.
“Evidence says she was hit on the head—probably with a
coat rack we’re looking at—then she was pushed, or she fell down the stairs as a result of the blow. We can’t place Galigani at the scene at the time of the murder, but a few things point to him.”
Berger’s words seemed to come from a black hole. I swallowed hard. What could point to John, this man I’d known since his birth, other than a mistake?
“First, several letters from Galigani in the victim’s apartment. Apparently she’d dumped him for another guy.” Berger pulled photocopies of the correspondence from a thin file.
“He sounds pretty angry,” Matt said as we followed Berger’s fingers down the lines of John’s handwriting.
I read the harsh words, threats, and name-calling, and winced at labels like
conniver, cheater
,
liar
, that jumped from the pages. I groaned inwardly at John’s closing line in one of the letters.
I’ll have you back
,
one way or another, I swear
. Surely a prosecutor’s dream evidence.
I remembered the times I’d seen John angry. He was definitely the most hotheaded of the family, lashing out at his sister, now living in Houston, for not coming home to Revere often enough, or at his older brother for canceling a fishing trip. And he’d been almost proud to tell us how he’d often storm out of meetings at the newspaper office. He was known around town for questioning the ethics of his editor, railing against the incompetence of his colleagues, harassing any group whose policies and practices he thought inhumane.
But angry enough to kill someone? I knew better. And I intended to prove it.
I bent over to look more closely at John’s letters to Yolanda Fiore, checking the dates.
Aha!
“These letters are more than a year old. Why does it matter now?” I asked, a note of triumph in my voice. Had I already come up with enough to clear my best friends’ son?
“Doesn’t matter. Everything’s important in a murder investigation,” Berger said. He used a teaching tone, as if he were instructing a rookie. Not far from the truth.
Why would Yolanda have kept the letters so long? I asked
only myself, afraid the answer might cast even more of a shadow over John. Maybe it was part of a pattern of harassment and Yolanda was building a case against him. I shook the thought away.
I knew John had dated several women in the intervening year, and had planned to take his latest significant other, Carolyn Verrico, on a cruise to Bermuda. I held back the information until I could determine whether that would make him look better or worse in the eyes of the law.
I wished I knew more about Yolanda Fiore. Was she as sweet and innocent as she looked in the publicity photo—or had she provoked her killer? Was she a blackmailer? A jealous lover? A killer herself, perhaps, murdered by someone defending himself? I winced at how far I’d strayed from reason.
Matt leaned forward and scratched his chin, a sure sign he was paying close attention. “Is that it?”
Berger shook his head. “There’s more.”
I wanted to clap my hands over my ears so I’d hear no more incriminating details, but I needed to know everything if I was going to help John.
“His prints were on her purse, next to the body.”
I gritted my teeth. I can deal with that, I told myself. Maybe it was a very old purse, one she’d used when she and John had dated. I’d heard fingerprints last for years.
But Berger wasn’t finished.
“And we have a couple of witnesses who claim they saw John and Yolanda having dinner at Russo’s on Thursday, likely only a few hours before she was murdered.”
I groaned. “I suppose they were arguing.”
Berger nodded. “Loud and clear.”
I sat back, trying to push away a feeling of defeat. It didn’t help that I was tired, after a long flight and a hectic ten days in California. I longed for my apartment, a refreshing shower, quiet time with Matt. Not yet.
I tried to keep my mind off John the murder suspect, and focus on Berger’s summary of the details in the case. Derek Byrne, assistant director of the Revere Public Library and Yolanda’s
current boyfriend, told police he’d let her into the library building on Thursday after hours, so she could use the Internet. He left her around eleven o’clock, adjusting the security system so she could leave when she wanted to without setting off an alarm. When the director, Dorothy Leonard, came in early the next morning, she found Yolanda’s body at the foot of the stairs to the basement and called the police immediately.
I mentally listed the facts of the crime scene as Berger read from the report. Yolanda’s purse with the usual contents—wallet, hairbrush, tissues, cosmetics, keys. Traces of blood on the coat rack near the top of the stairs. No sign of a break-in. Nothing else disturbed.
My mind drifted to the chief suspect, journalist John Galigani, and to an article he’d written a few months ago on the city jails, housed in the basement of the police department building. Last winter, a prisoner had escaped by pushing the bars away from the decaying old masonry and John took the opportunity to plead for state funds for a new facility. How ironic that he was virtually a prisoner there himself. I pictured him escaping—snapping a rusty old lock in two, running through the building, racing across town, breathlessly climbing the stairs to my apartment for refuge. Would I harbor a fugitive? I wondered, as if I had to make the decision any moment.
“So we’ve got the letters, the prints, and the alleged argument,” Matt said. I was glad one of us was in the proper mood for objectivity.
“Right,” Berger said. “And he does have a record.”
My head snapped up. “A record? John Galigani?”
Berger moved a sheet of paper to the top of the stack. “Afraid so. He’s been arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct. Twice, in the last ten years.”
I sank back on the sofa. “Good Fridays.”
Berger clucked his tongue. “That’s right.”
How could I have forgotten? The Good Friday protests against the weapons program at the Charger Street lab. Every year, anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds of protesters
were arrested for blocking the entrances to the lab. Rose and Frank were so upset when John was among them, their feelings bouncing back and forth between anger at their son’s criminal behavior and pride that he had such strong convictions. Rose blamed herself for not keeping better track of John’s activities. Frank claimed John’s sociology professors at Boston College put him up to it. Robert and Mary Catherine thought their brother was on something.
“Now I remember,” Matt said.
“Once in the seventies twelve hundred people were arrested outside my Berkeley lab,” I said, eager to give a context to John’s actions, make him part of the culture, not a lone criminal, capable of anything.
“But it does show he’s willing to break the law,” Berger said.
I pressed my lips together to avoid speaking before I was ready. I reminded myself that Matt, and even his partner, probably wanted to clear John as much as I did.
“Is that how it’s perceived?” I finally asked. “Civil disobedience leads to murder?” I hoped my voice sounded more controlled to them than it did to me.
“You have to think like a DA.” Matt screwed up his Roman nose—only slightly bigger than mine, and with one extra bump—and shook his head. His signal for bad news. “They’re going to pull up everything.”
I sat back, willing myself to think clearly. I remembered John’s comment on how he’d met Yolanda—she’d been a writer at the Charger Street lab when he’d worked that beat for the
Revere Journal.
I wondered how her employment there squared with John’s anti-lab leanings.
“What exactly did she do at the lab?” I asked, carefully phrasing the question. I didn’t want to remind them of another possible motive for John—differing political positions, in addition to a romance gone bad.
Berger sifted through the papers in front of us. “Here’s a memo that says she was fired a week ago. That’s why she was in the library—to use the Internet since her home computer
evidently belonged to the lab and she’d had to return it. Before that her job was to put together material for the lab’s outreach programs. Public Affairs Office, Visitor Center, Education Division, things like that. Here’s a page with Parker’s notes on her latest project.”
Berger handed me the sheet. I squinted at Detective Ian Parker’s tiny script. His list of questions under “Lab” sparked my interest.
I read out loud.
“
Controversy?
“
Nuclear reactor
—
safety issues?
“
Cooling water?
“
Spent fuel pools?
“
Boron
(
i.e
.,
boric acid)?
”
I breathed deeply and smiled broadly at my partners. “There it is. Yolanda uncovered a problem with boron and she was fired.”
Matt looked at Berger. “I think that’s an ‘aha,’” he said.
IT SEEMED TOO GOOD to be true, but I saw myself digging up the boron connection, setting John free.
“Am I the only guy here who doesn’t know what boron is?” Matt asked after Berger and I spent a few minutes discussing how a work-related controversy could have led to Yolanda’s murder.
Matt and I both knew Berger would appreciate an opportunity to use his one year of college chemistry. When I first appeared on the Revere Police Department scene to help investigate the murder of a Charger Street lab hydrogen researcher, Berger had resisted.
“How much detective work have you done?” he’d asked me.
BOOK: The Boric Acid Murder
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