The Nitrogen Murder (15 page)

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Authors: Camille Minichino

Tags: #California, #Lamerino; Gloria (Fictitious Character), #Missing Persons, #Security Classification (Government Documents), #Weddings, #Women Physicists, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Women Sleuths, #Reference

BOOK: The Nitrogen Murder
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Now I had another agenda, which was to find Phil Chambers. I had no idea what the law was concerning missing adults. I could imagine the police declining to put much effort into locating a healthy, strapping man who was known to be a frequent international traveler and who was destined for the altar in less than two weeks. I suspected that, like Elaine, they’d first latch on to the cold-feet theory. But Phil was also a scientist working on a classified, security-related project. Shouldn’t someone care? Maybe Matt’s presence, as one of their own, would help.
Apparently Matt’s offer unnerved Elaine, too, since her tears started flowing.
Right then Dana appeared in the kitchen wearing a lavender chenille robe I recognized as Elaine’s. Her arrival made things worse, as it seemed to occur to all of us at the same time that Phil’s daughter needed to know why Elaine was crying.
I knew Dana’s short period of grace, which had brought color to her cheeks, was about to end.
W
e dropped Matt off at the Berkeley PD—
lots of luck
,
I
thought, glad I wasn’t the one headed up the imposing stone steps to the front door—then Elaine, Dana, and I drove to Phil’s house in Kensington.
The FOR SALE sign on the lawn reminded me how glad I was that Elaine had convinced Phil to move to her house after the wedding, instead of her moving in with him. Elaine’s neighborhood was physically almost an extension of the UC Berkeley campus, a significantly more diverse environment than this small, affluent, mostly white community in the hills to the north. Of course, I reminded myself, Phil hadn’t yet made the move.
“What are we even looking for?” Dana asked as Elaine produced a key. She scanned the house and grounds, seeming less concerned than I expected that no one had heard from her father for almost two days. Probably because they weren’t in daily contact. Neither Elaine nor I wanted to disabuse her of the notion that there was really nothing to worry about. I also had the thought that Dana couldn’t admit yet another crisis into her consciousness this week.
“We’re going to check out the briefcase,” Elaine said.
“And try to find his calendar,” I added. “Or just a telephone number or note that might give us a start to figuring out where he went.”
“And see if his suitcases are missing.” Elaine was still on the he’s-having-second-thoughts theme, I noticed.
Dana shrugged. Tall as she was, she looked like a child who’d been dragged on a family outing.
Once inside Phil’s home, I had second thoughts about big, sprawling houses in the hills. The real estate agent’s flyer, prominent in the high-ceilinged foyer, promised
lavish living room suite wlbalcony and magnificent gg bridge view
—not an exaggeration. An enormous redwood deck offered panoramic views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Also correct was the description of the state-of-the-art kitchen with cherrywood cabinets, granite counters, hardwood floors, and exquisite light fixtures.
Beautiful as it was, however, the house had an eerie feeling, partly because it was unnaturally neat—to impress prospective buyers, I guessed—and partly because I knew its owner might be missing. I sniffed the air, as if to test for human presence, alive or dead.
“It’s creepy in here,” Dana said. Her sigh sounded nervous to me, as if she dreaded what we might find. “Like his cleaning lady just came through and sucked up everything with the vacuum. Let’s get some sound at least.”
“Judy Collins is in the CD player,” Elaine said. “We play it all the time, once we found out we were both at a concert she gave in the seventies in the Greek Theatre.”
Dana uttered a disgusted grunt, plucked Judy Collins from the player, and tossed her carelessly onto the couch. “That’s so last century,” she said.
A new side of Dana Chambers. Now I was sure she was more stressed out than she let on. She pushed the radio on, scanned around the frequencies, and settled on something loud and jerky.
I resigned myself to the fact that we’d be searching the three thousand square feet quoted in the broker’s flyer to the strains of something I’d never be able to hum.
“Evanescence,” Dana said. I wasn’t sure if that was the artist or the song. She moved her body to the rhythm. Elaine and I tried to follow suit and were rewarded by a full-throated laugh from Dana. Mission accomplished.
Our plan: Elaine would take the more personal areas of the house, Phil’s bedroom and office; Dana and I would comb the downstairs rooms.
“Look at this,” Dana said, pointing to a photo mounted on Phil’s refrigerator. “It’s me and Scott. I guess Dad’s not up-to-date.” The photo was of Dana and a young man with hair almost as long as hers, both in serious hiking clothes. A rectangular magnetic frame held the photo to the refrigerator door. Next to it, in a similar frame and aligned with the edges of the door, was a snapshot of Phil and Elaine, with the same misty mountainous backdrop. Not like my fridge photos, which were askew, precariously held at their corners by clunky decorative magnets. A Cape Cod lighthouse, Paul Revere on his horse, the Golden Gate Bridge, and a miniature bumper sticker—TRUST ME, I’M A SCIENTIST—stuck at a forty-five-degree angle to the floor.
Dana removed the photo of her and Scott, folded it, and put it in her pants pocket, leaving the magnetic frame empty. I had a feeling its life was over. I caught a snippet of the Evanescence lyrics, something like
fifty thousand tears I’ve cried
. By actual count? The scientist in me wondered.
A cork bulletin board was bolted to the wall over a small desk in the kitchen. Dana and I reviewed the contents together. A fractals calendar, for looks or reference only, apparently, since there were no appointments listed. A postcard from Hawaii—from a cousin, Dana said. A list of speakers for the BUL chemistry department colloquia. An agenda for the next department meeting. A two-dollars-off coupon for a pizza.
On the counter was an old book, verification of Elaine’s claim that Phil loved science history as I did. I picked it up and breathed the slightly musty smell of its worn brown cloth covers.
It was dated 1919—a treatise on the manufacturing and testing of military explosives. Not “regular” history, as I called it, with stories of kings and queens and one country invading another that left me cold. Scientific biographies and early science texts, on the other hand, intrigued me. This old book, by John Albert Marshall, described work he did for what was then the War Department.
I flipped through a chapter on the history of nitrogen as a component of explosives, first suggested in 1890. I smiled at the description of TNT as “resembling powdered maple sugar” and wished current texts would be so easy to read and so accessible to the layperson.
It made sense, I thought. Phil Chambers, working on nitrogen in the twenty-first century, would do as I would—go back to the beginning, for interest and amusement, if not critical information.
I was starting to like Phil again, but that might have been because he was missing.
 
When my cell phone rang, Dana and I jumped. Not that we were on edge. I checked the caller ID: the 781 area code, followed by Rose Galigani’s phone number.
I’d put Rose off long enough. “I’d better take this,” I told Dana. She gave me a salute and disappeared into the living room.
“Gloria! I can’t believe you’re there.”
Rose’s exclamation was suited to a long separation, and it had been only Monday evening that I’d talked to her. I realized I’d given no more thought to her faxed police report on the blown-up hearse, and hoped she hadn’t called to quiz me on it. I decided to tell her right up front.
“I haven’t had a chance to look at the police report—”
“No, no, don’t worry about it. There’s been no further action takeover-wise, but we’re all walking on pins and needles waiting for the next little prank. But I’ve been thinking—I’ve been so selfish. You’re the one on vacation, so I’m really calling so you can tell me everything you’ve been doing.”
“Well, we’re dealing with two murders, a theft of drugs and medical supplies, secret nitrogen files, and a missing person.”
Rose made no attempt to contain her laughter. “I know you hate wedding things, Gloria, but stop wishing for calamities.”
“Just kidding,” I said, making a quick decision, too emotionally drained to do anything but let Rose keep her illusion that Matt and I were enjoying a relaxing prewedding vacation. “Everything’s fine.”
“Did you buy your shoes yet?”
Shoes. The last thing on my mind. “Not yet.”
“Elaine has hers, I’m sure. How’s it going with Phil’s daughter? Is she nice?”
“
She’s very nice.” She’s currently searching her father’s house for a clue to his whereabouts
. I needed a diversion, lest I break down and tell Rose the truth. “Has Frank persuaded everyone to take the trip to Houston?” I asked her.
“You know Frank. He can talk his family into an igloo in the heat.”
I had a passing thought that she meant “cold,” but Rose had her own versions of figures of speech. The important thing was that she was ready to take off with her own agenda. She updated me on Frank’s latest project—organizing a family vacation to the National Museum of Funeral History, in Houston.
“They have an exhibit of bizarre caskets, Gloria. People who’ve had different shapes to go with the spirit of their lives, like one fisherman was buried in a casket shaped like a giant marlin.”
I rubbed my forehead, parallel to my frown lines. “Fascinating.”
The only way I’d be able to handle this conversation—I knew Rose would roll right through the whole family now—would be to multitask. I carried the cell phone to the island in the middle of the kitchen and started opening drawers. Maybe Phil had a junk drawer, as I did, where a scribbled note might land.
While Rose told me about her lawyer daughter-in-law Karla’s
newest case, I shuffled through serving spoons, spatulas, and long forks, careful not to make too much noise.
“Karla’s doing so well,” I said, feeling that would cover anything I missed.
When Rose moved on to John, son number two—“He had another date with Denise on Sunday. She’s old man Mattera’s granddaughter, you know”—I’d moved to the counter.
I quietly pulled the appliances out from their positions against the wall and checked behind the toaster, blender, can opener, mixer, bread box. Not a crumb. Phil’s cleaning lady had done a perfect job. Not a clue, either, however, and I wondered what we were doing there. Maybe with two hands free, Elaine and Dana were doing better in other parts of the house.
“John will find the right woman, in his own time,” I said. Another platitude to the rescue.
By the time Rose started her report on her teenaged grandson, the e-mail whiz William, and his success at basketball last night, I’d covered the whole kitchen and the half bath between the hallway and the family room.
I turned back to the kitchen and caught a side view of the bulletin board. Its wooden frame wasn’t flush with the wall at the bottom, as if something were pushing it out. I walked up to it for a closer look and saw that the bottom bolt was loose. With a pair of scissors from a drawer, I fished around in the gap at the lower edge. I wedged the phone between my jaw and shoulder and tried using the scissors and my fingers to pry the gap into a reasonable size.
“William’s a natural,” I said. I’d heard Frank use that phrase when William took off on his first set of Rollerblades; I hoped it applied to all sports.
With my head pressed against the wall, the phone in the crook of my neck, and my arms contorted to hold a gap open, I noticed the corner of a piece of white paper hanging below
the bulletin board, partially obscured by the pizza coupon.
“ … in the next couple of months,” I heard. Rose was now talking about her youngest, Mary Catherine, my godchild, who was living in the mortuary apartment I’d abandoned to live with Matt.
“So MC is moving out?” I hoped I got that right.
“No, Gloria. This must be a bad connection. I have your mail here. Is this a good time to go through it? Lots of catalogs and junk mail, but there are a couple of first class pieces.”
A long distance reading of my mail was so far down on my list of priorities, it reached the status of contemporary poetry.
“Rose, I hate to go, but Elaine is waiting, and—”
“Oh, you should have told me you were busy. Sorry, Gloria. I wish I could go shopping with you two. We’ll finish later. Miss you.”
I hung up and went to find Dana and Elaine. I needed help with some carpentry.
 
“Nothing missing that I can see,” Elaine said. She’d already come down the stairs. “His closet’s full. His large suitcases are there. I can’t speak for his carry-ons—he has so many. And there might be a few missing shirts and pants.”
“Did you find a calendar or date book?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“How about his computer?” I asked. “Did you look through the files?”
“As many as I could access, which was most of them. Nothing.”
“I have nothing, either,” Dana said, looking as though she needed a nap.
“I might have something,” I said.
 
Thanks to Dana’s familiarity with her father’s garage and tools, in a few minutes the bulletin board was off the wall and standing
against an island cabinet. The bolts that had held it to the kitchen wall rolled around the ivory granite of the island, surrounding the pile of business cards from the real estate broker.
As the only one who’d turned up anything vaguely useful, I was assigned the task of extricating the several eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheets from the back of the cork panel. They were unbound and had been held in place by masking tape. What I’d seen during my acrobatics was the page closest to the panel, which had slipped a bit from the package.
We spread the pages—five in all, obviously photocopies—on the island and peered at them. Elaine had made coffee, decrying the lack of snack food in Phil’s cabinets or refrigerator, as well as the absence of an espresso machine.

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