The Hydrogen Murder (9 page)

"Connie's a theoretical physicist," I told him.
"She writes equations, figures out which factors are important in the
experiment, and works with Eric on—uh,
worked
with Eric..."

I paused and cleared my throat. For the most part I'd
managed not to dwell on the fact that someone I knew had been murdered. And the
equally distressing fact that most likely someone I knew was a murderer. To be
of any help to Matt, I had to think of Eric Bensen's murder objectively,
squeezing it into the format of a puzzle, as if it were a question on a science
test. Somehow at that moment the reality of death had taken over, keeping me
from doing my job.

Matt brought me a cup of water from the cooler outside his
office. I hadn't even seen him leave.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "We can do this
later."

"I'm fine, thank you, I just needed a minute. You're
not getting out of physics class that easily."

Matt laughed and seemed relieved. I wondered if any of his
other PSA's broke down in front of him. I wanted to continue, and managed to
compose myself.

"Connie worked with Eric on the computer code that
represents what's happening to the hydrogen target. She's close to the data,
and the most likely one besides Eric to know if something wasn't right with the
information coming off the printer."

"Clear enough," Matt said, a little too quickly.
"Connie isn't due for another half-hour, so why don't we take a break. I
have some other things to finish up if you don't mind leaving for a while.
Maybe you could take a walk along Broadway?"

I didn't know if this was for my benefit or his, but either
way it was a good idea. I left the station, walking past an unpleasant-looking
young man handcuffed to a bench in the lobby. A policeman in the dark blue
uniform of the RPD was coming toward me, escorting an old man in ragged
clothing and a scruffy beard. They entered the same door I was exiting and as
we passed I nearly gagged on the odor. Maybe I'm in the wrong business, I
thought.

But after a refreshing walk along the busy street I got my
perspective back. A scoop of mocha almond fudge from the Lantern Dairy helped.
As usual, I felt guilty abandoning my resolve to give up desserts until I lost
at least ten pounds. I ate right past the feeling, holding the sweet-smelling
sugar cone far from my body so I wouldn't spill ice cream on my blouse.

I had a lot of company as I walked, passing men and women in
stiff business suits talking about prime rates and real estate. I passed the
Revere Journal office and interrupted deliveries to several merchants as I
stepped around open trap doors in the sidewalk. I didn't recognize anyone and
wondered when I would have enough friends in the city to increase the chances
of meeting someone I knew on a casual stroll. I was conscious of my walk, my
clothing, my accent, anything that gave me away as a foreigner. At times, in
local stores I deliberately tried to drop the final r in words like hamburger
and sugar, reversing the process I'd gone through when I moved to the West
Coast. I felt like I was operating at both ends of a seesaw, constantly missing
the equilibrium point in the middle.

The ice cream kept me from going into any of the shops, but
nothing looked that appealing anyway. Most of them offered retail
services—dry cleaning, photocopying, TV repair, hair styling, and the
inexplicably popular trend of the nineties, nail sculpture.

I stood in front of a manicure shop done in fake art deco,
and watched one young woman paint the fingernails of another. I tried to
imagine my mother and her friends having their nails done. Not likely. It was
enough of a chore for Josephine to change out of her housedress and slippers
now and then for a wedding or graduation. She'd grown up poor and married poor,
and was never comfortable with formal dress, by which she meant nylons rolled
to her knees and real closed-in shoes.

Heading back to the police station, I met Connie at the
front entrance. When I saw her outfit—a tailored navy blue suit and
pumps, my first thought was that she looked upon this as an important meeting.
Like most working scientists, Connie wore jeans and tennis shoes around the
lab, in keeping with its construction site decor. The real reason for the business
attire, which I estimated to be in size seven, soon became apparent.

"I hope we're finished in time for my management
class," she said. "I can't imagine what more I can tell these people.
They questioned my boyfriend and Bill wasn't even in town the other
night."

"It's really awful about Eric, isn't it?" I said.

It occurred to me after I said it that I was getting very
good at sarcasm and reproachful comments. In the last twenty-four hours, I'd
made snide remarks to at least four people. I'd suggested to Ralph Leder that
he was deceitful, guilty of scientific fraud, and out for money. I'd told Peter
Mastrone to lay off after he'd brought me presents and expressed concern over
my well-being. I wasn't a bit kind to Janice Bensen whose husband had just been
murdered, and now I was being self-righteous with Connie, who was one of my own
species, a female physicist. So far only Leder had been rude back to me.

Was I this bad in California, I wondered? I'd have to ask
Elaine the next time I talked to her.

Connie didn't take scolding well, and she shot me a look of
annoyance, lifting her pointy chin high in the air. I pulled my shoulders back,
trying to match her perfect posture. Connie's career-length dark hair and
regulation half-inch diameter gold hoop earrings bounced as we walked. I
pictured her canceling her subscription to Science Magazine and writing out
checks for business weeklies and money magazines.

"Of course Eric's murder was awful," she said.
"That's not my point."

It was just as well that we'd arrived at Matt's office by
then, and we took seats in front of his desk.

"Thanks for coming in Ms. Provenza," Matt said.

"Doctor Provenza," Connie said, to my horror. Even
in my earliest days, as proud as I was of my doctorate, I wouldn't have
corrected anyone that way. Whatever happened to the notion that education was
supposed to make us humble.

"Excuse me, Doctor Provenza," Matt said with a
calmness that I admired. "What I'm most interested in today is anything
you can tell me about Eric Bensen and his problem with the data from your
group. Doctor Lamerino is here as my interpreter, so to speak."

"Eric was drunk," Connie said. She sat up straight
on the chair and, like Jim Guffy that morning, seemed ready to bolt. Unlike
Jim, however, Connie didn't seem the least bit nervous. As she elaborated, she
kept her chin high and at an angle, her tone not at all like that of a murder
suspect, but more like that of a wealthy bank customer who'd come to register a
complaint with the manager.

"He was joking," she said. "I can't imagine
anyone taking him seriously. If something really were wrong do you think he'd
wait until we're singing 'Danny Boy' to bring it up? God knows we have more
than enough meetings for that purpose."

I knew Connie well enough not to be surprised at her tone.
I'd never seen her intimidated by anyone, and I saw that homicide detectives
were no exception. I chalked it up to her youth. I'd come to the conclusion
that my generation of fifty-something women were just now reaching the level of
self-confidence and assertiveness that women Connie's age started out with. My
liberal intellect told me that was a good thing, but my conservative feelings
rebelled. I still hadn't seen what I was looking for—some perfect
combination of high self-esteem and a pleasant manner.

"And the last time you saw Eric was when?" Matt
asked, seeming less ruffled by Connie's attitude than I was.

"I was with him all day on Monday," she said,
"until I left at four for a class. I'm getting my MBA in January."

"I see that," Matt said, running his pencil along
a page in the Bensen file. "We just had a report from security at the lab.
I'm sure you know Mr. Gallante. He says he saw a late model red Corvette with
Connecticut plates in the lot around midnight."

For a moment I thought I saw Connie flinch. Not a broad
movement, but a definite flinch, a slight twitching of her shoulders and a
brief flush to her face. If this is what it seems, I noted, Connie needs more
practice before negotiating in the boardroom with the good old boys.

Matt must have noticed it, too. He leaned forward.

"Do you know that car, Doctor Provenza?" he asked.
It may have been wishful thinking, but I thought I detected a slight emphasis
on the word Doctor that time.

"No," Connie said, "I drive a red '73
BMW."

Matt nodded, then read a few more sections of Connie's
statement to her and asked three or four general questions.

"Can you think of anyone who'd want to kill Eric?"

"No, of course not. I mean, I've never known anyone who
was murdered or did a murder."

"Have you ever seen him arguing with anyone?"

"Doctor Leder, which we've already discussed. And he
bickered with his wife. But don't we all. Bicker I mean."

Connie had mellowed considerably since the red Corvette
question. She'd adopted a cooperative spirit and took her time answering Matt's
new questions, even calling him Sergeant Gennaro at one point.

"Do you think Eric and Andrea Cabrini were having an
affair?" Matt asked.

"Poor Andrea adored Eric, but I can't see them sl... I
don't think it was an affair."

"What about on the West Coast?" Matt asked.
"Do you think he was seeing anyone while he was out there?"

Connie sat back and ran her tongue around her teeth, staring
at her polished navy pumps as if deep in thought.

"I don't know," she said. "Eric was a flirt,
I suppose, although never with me. Not like Doctor Leder, if you know what I
mean. Eric was just friendly."

"Anyone he was particularly friendly with?"

"No, not really."

I made a note to call Elaine and ask her if she thought Eric
had a girlfriend in California, although I couldn't imagine she wouldn't
already have told me something like that. Elaine had edited one of Eric's short
technical memos and saw him often for several weeks. She'd also come on one or
two of our dinner excursions.

"I think that's all, Doctor Provenza. Thanks for coming
in," Matt said.

Once again comparing Connie to Jim Guffy, I determined that
Connie's sigh of relief as she left to go was at least as loud as Jim's.

"Interesting," Matt said, when she was gone.
"The Corvette got a rise."

Matt seemed to be talking to himself again, at the same time
writing on a sheet of paper in Connie's file. I had the feeling he thought I'd
left with Connie—Doctor Provenza, I reminded myself with an internal
tsk-tsk.

"Maybe she responded that way because she has a red
car," I said, to alert him to my presence so he wouldn't inadvertently
reveal any private thoughts. "Maybe at first she thought you meant her red
BMW."

"Could be," he said. He looked up at me and
scanned my face, as if he were holding a Geiger counter or on the lookout for
radiation damage. "Are you ready for more, or would you like to call it a
day? We can put off the lab visit for another day, Doctor Lamerino."

That time there was a definite emphasis on Doctor and I
responded in kind.

"I'm just getting started, Sergeant Gennaro," I
said, with the brightest smile I could manage. Our first shared joke, I thought
with a shiver of contentment. It flashed through my mind that the idea of
visiting a murder scene with Matt brought more smiles to my face and warmth to
my heart than the thought of dinner dancing with Peter.

CHAPTER
9

Matt drove north along Broadway to Squire Road, the main westbound
thoroughfare. As we headed towards Charger Street to the lab, we kept the
conversation on the case at hand except for a few remarks about the changing
weather. The sky had darkened considerably and we guessed it was the end of our
long string of two sunny days. Matt had thrown an umbrella and a wrinkled beige
raincoat like Columbo's in the back of his car before we left.

"It must be the wake and funeral," Matt said.
"Doesn't it always rain at cemeteries?"

"It certainly seems that way. Do you plan to attend the
services for Eric," I asked, "or does that only happen on TV?"

The idea of Matt below, if not in, my apartment at
Galigani's had been fluttering around my brain for a while. I wondered about
the protocol of asking him up for coffee afterwards. No middle ground, I
thought, either I'm broken up about Eric's death and can't even talk, or I'm plotting
to use his wake as a fast track to a romantic rendezvous.

"One of us will go. I was thinking of getting my
partner over there. You remember George Berger?" Matt said. "His wife
had a baby this week."

I wasn't sure whether Matt really forgot about my
interaction with Berger, or he was testing my ability to get along with others,
as measured by reports from day care providers.