The Nitrogen Murder (22 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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Dana kissed the top of Rachel’s head. She breathed in a sweet lavender scent. Evidently baby shampoo products had branched out from the smells Dana remembered as a child.
“Of course we’re friends,” Dana said, relieved Rachel wasn’t interested in what had caused the nasty interlude at the funeral parlor.
“Tell me the airport story,” Rachel said. She put her bowl and spoon carefully on the table and turned sideways so she could see Dana’s face.
Dana swallowed hard and tried to psych herself up for Rachel’s favorite ambulance tale.
“It was a spooky, rainy night,” Dana began, her voice low and scary
“And what happened?” Rachel asked.
“And a great big plane slipped on the wet runway and banged into a truck and some people were hurt.”
“So they called Mommy.”
“That’s right. And Mommy got in the ambulance and put on the sirens.” Dana made high-pitched noises, and Rachel joined her. “And the lights.” Dana fluttered her fingers in a flashing
motion, tickling Rachel. “And Mommy drove that ambulance down the runway as if she were flying a plane.” Another elaborate flying gesture. “Vroooom!”
Rachel clapped and squealed. “And she saved everybody.”
“She did,” Dana said, holding back tears. She dared not look at Marne.
“Knock, knock,” Rachel said, kicking her feet enthusiastically.
“Who’s there?”
“Lemon.”
“Lemon who?”
“Lemon me give you a kiss,” Rachel said, with a wide smile and a giggle that was too close to her mother’s for Dana’s comfort.
 
Marne’s house was spotless. The kitchen counters were free of clutter, the bright yellow curtains freshly laundered. Every inch of the swirl-patterned beige linoleum looked washed and waxed, unlike the floor covering Dana and her roommates had inherited. Dana knew Marne used to clean other people’s houses until Tanisha had put in enough overtime to afford Marne’s staying home full-time with Rachel. She imagined Marne now putting all her housekeeping skills to daily use in her own home, even though it was a rental.
Once Rachel was put to bed for the second time that evening, Marne’s tears flowed. Dana didn’t know whether to cry with her or to tell more knock-knock jokes.
When Marne got around to talking about the police search, her tone turned harsh.
“Pigs.” Marne spat out the word. “Some of them brothers, too. They come in here and upset Rachel and her friend. Scared them half to death.” Marne poured blood-red Rooibos tea into thick multicolored mugs. Her deep coral lipstick looked fresh, and Dana wondered if she’d applied it just before opening the door. “Flipping over pillows, lookin’ into cereal boxes, liftin’ up the cover on the toilet tank. And finally they find this laundry bag in
Tanisha’s closet, full of meds, you know, all kinds of pills. I tell you, they was
planted.”
“What made you think I sent the cops?” Dana kept her voice low, hoping soft sounds plus the tea might calm Marne. In the background she could hear a singsong bedtime tune from the tiny boom box Tanisha had bought for Rachel only a few days ago, when her raise came through.
“One of them dumb white cops … I ask him, ‘Why you here?’ ‘A tip,’ he says, ‘from your sweet girl’s partner.’”
“I swear, Marne—”
Marne waved her hand. “I know, I know. Somebody had it in for you, too, I figure. You know, they come looking for one kind of drugs, and they find meds. I watch TV, and I think that’s not supposed to count. If it’s not on the paper and they find it, it’s rotten or something.”
“Fruit of the poisonous tree,” Dana said.
“That’s it. If I could afford a lawyer I’d sue them. But it don’t matter now. Tanisha is gone anyway.”
Dana nodded, but her mind had wandered, thinking how this was something else she and Tanisha had in common—they’d both been objects of police attention lately, though Dana had no direct evidence that the cops had been to her house; she just assumed they were the ones who took her stash. She’d have to ask Matt if cops could search without informing the person, either before, during, or after executing a warrant.
She thought back to her dates with the rookie, Derek. “Your senses cannot trespass,” he’d told her, as if he’d just come from passing a pop quiz with that question on it. “If you can see it, smell it, taste it, you know, the senses, then it’s fair game.”
So unless the Berkeley PD had smelled the little stash in her jewelry box, they had no right to take it, unless they had a search warrant.
What a lucky break that Tanisha was between stashes
, she thought. But as Marne said, she was gone anyway.
 
 
Dana slipped into Tanisha’s nightshirt, a long-sleeved tee with a decal of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in
Men in Black
, and about three sizes too big for her. She was so grateful to Marne for letting her stay in Tanisha’s old bedroom for the night, or for as many nights as Dana wanted, with no explanation. Which was good, because Dana would have had a hard time explaining why she was afraid to return to her own house. Even to herself.
She looked around the small room, one she’d been in a few times during their friendship. Dana had been surprised the first time that the room was so feminine. Not your typical firefighter-in-training decor. She guessed the ballerina music box was pretty old, but the collection of elephants that lined the dresser and shelves was an ongoing “thang,” Tanisha called it.
“I have a
thang
for elephants,” she’d say, laughing.
Dana recognized a spongy gray elephant she’d given Tanisha for her last birthday, and a small malachite model Tanisha had found in a hospital gift shop.
For Dana, her girlhood obsession had been shells. Real shells from walks along Monterey Bay, fake shells from souvenir shops on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, shell jewelry from who knows where. She wondered what Rachel collected, other than an enormous number of different colored beads to hold her braids and cornrows together.
Dana stretched out on Tanisha’s bedroom floor and started leg exercises. Flat on her back on the brown shag rug, she pedaled the air as fast as she could. Why did she bother paying health club dues, she wondered, when she carried out most of her fitness program on her bike or her living room floor? One twenty-dollar floor pad was all she really needed.
Dana remembered Tanisha kept a floor pad under her bed and thought she’d indulge herself in a little comfort. She shuffled sideways, spreading her left arm to feel the floor under the twin bed. Nothing within reach. She twisted halfway to get a better look at
the whole area. Maybe Tanisha had shoved the pad under the bed from the other side. She shifted her body farther in. Dust filled her nostrils and she sneezed. The bedsprings were few inches from her face.
So was an envelope, stuck among the coils. Dana’s heart skipped. She jerked up and hit her head on the coils and part of the frame. She blinked her eyes and twisted around until she was flat on her back.
Leave it alone
.
Not likely
She took a deep breath. She tugged at the envelope, a regular business-size white envelope, the kind you might a pay a bill with, held closed with a thick rubber band.
As soon as Dana removed the elastic band, the envelope fell open.
She couldn’t believe the police wouldn’t have found this. It didn’t say much for their thoroughness.
So, the cops had come looking for drugs, they’d found stolen medical supplies instead, and they’d missed this envelope full of cash.
S
omeone stole Dana’s Jeep?” Elaine asked. More a sentence than a question, as if nothing could surprise her.
“I don’t think it was stolen,” Matt said. “My guess is that Dana got a ride back here from the uniforms and drove off in her car.”
I tended to agree. In fact, I hoped he was right. Otherwise, I could imagine the buzz at the Berkeley PD.
Gloria Lamerino arrives in town, and the crime rate shoots up
.
In a week we have two killings
,
a missing person, and now a stolen car
.
“Don’t you have her keys?” Elaine asked.
“Just this.” Matt produced a miniature blue-striped beach sandal hanging on a chain, along with a single key. “I’m sure Dana has another.”
“Why would she do that? Just sneak off.”
I felt Dana had had enough of us, but I didn’t express that to Elaine. “She probably needed some space” was how I put it. I thought it sounded holistic enough for a Berkeley native.
 
We sat in front of dried-out eggplant parmegiana, limp salad greens, and strained conversation, until Elaine called us to order.
“Okay, I’ve consumed about two thousand calories here. It’s time to come clean.”
Well, at least the food brought back her sense of humor
, I thought.
We laid everything in front of Elaine, including the two Phils:
one in Hawaii and one on Woodland Road. There was a way quantum mechanics could account for colocation, through the eigenstates of a system, but I knew it wasn’t the time for a modern physics lesson.
I could tell Elaine was running the possibilities through her mind. “He could have business in Hawaii,” she said finally, casting her vote against my first-rate evidence. “Did they tell you which hotel he checked into?” she asked Matt.
I had to admire my friend, keeping it together while asking
my
fiance what the police had reported on the whereabouts of her fiance.
Matt shook his head. I searched his face for signs of strain. The bags under his eyes were a permanent part of his Italian American look, I knew, so I wasn’t worried about them, and I calmed myself by remembering that his doctor had given him a referral to a Berkeley physician in case of emergency. “I think they quit at the airlines stage,” he told Elaine.
Elaine put her napkin aside and got up from the dining room table. “Excuse me, please. I need to make some calls.”
I followed her as far as the stairway and gave her a hug.
“I’m here,” I said.
I was sorry I had so little to offer.
 
Once again I was on my own.
I’d heard Elaine’s office door close, shutting me out of the e-mail and attachments that might be coming from the young PDA genius, William Galigani. I imagined her coursing through every hotel on the five Hawaiian Islands.
Matt had fallen asleep on the couch to a mellow jazz saxophone. He’d found a CD of the Monterey Jazz Festival among the collection Elaine’s old boyfriend Bruce had left behind.
It was a good thing my cell phone rang, to keep me from being bored. I picked up on the first ring, not to disturb Matt, and
carried the phone to the empty kitchen, which still smelled of cooked tomatoes and oregano.
“Hello?” I said.
“Galileo?” A man’s voice.
I nearly knocked over a stack of dishes on the counter. I couldn’t be sure it was Phil. But who else? Even if someone else had heard the answering machine message I’d left at Patel’s phone number, he wouldn’t know who Galileo was. Or was I more transparent than I thought?
“Yes,” I said. A soft, quick answer, not wanting to wake Matt, and even less to betray my fear and ignorance of who was on the line.
“Come to the house. Alone.”
I held on to the phone with both hands and talked in a whisper. “What house?” As if I didn’t know. “Who is this?” As if I couldn’t guess.
But the line had gone dead.
I tried to remember my phone message to “Robert Boyle.” I’d referred to my cell phone number only, knowing that Phil had it—he’d used it to change the location of our lunch date. There was no question in my mind; the house was Patel’s, the caller Phil.
I told myself how
foolish
it would be for me to respond, unescorted, to such a message. Then I rationalized. How
superb
it would be if I got some valuable information, especially something that cleared Phil in all our minds. And if he meant to hurt me, surely there were easier ways to get to me than to lure me with a nebulous phone call.
I checked Elaine’s freezer. No ice cream.
Good
.
I walked upstairs and knocked on Elaine’s office door.
“I’m going out for a bit—we’re out of ice cream.” I talked quickly, hoping to sound desperate for dessert, with no time to chat.
“Oh, sorry, and thanks, Gloria. I’m plugging away here. We’ll have some ice cream when you get back.” Elaine seemed no
more eager to chat than I was. “Was that your phone I heard?”
“Wrong number,” I said.
 
I drove to Woodland Road, my brain split between
This is unwise; you’re going to be killed
and
What a lucky break; we can settle this and get back to the plans for the wedding.
I never thought I’d long for chats about who would be seated with whom at the ten-person tables at Elaine and Phil’s wedding reception.
The Claremont neighborhood, so beautiful in the daytime with its magnificent, dark, leafy trees, had an eerie cast at night. The cul-de-sac Patel lived on seemed even quieter and farther away from the city streets than it had during the day.
I pulled up to the house I’d cased a few hours earlier. A single dim light showed in a downstairs room, more likely to be an automatic night-light on a timer than a reading lamp for a current occupant. I sat in the Saab, its motor still running in case I decided to leave, and took some breaths. What did I hope to gain?
Information
, I answered. I cursed myself for not being a normal person who spent Thursday nights in front of the television with a favorite sitcom or hospital drama.
I drove up to the spot I’d been in earlier in the day and parked the car, again mostly hidden by the trees. I walked up to the front door this time, poised to ring the bell. A visitor, for tea. I told myself once again that this was not a dangerous scenario. What attacker sits and waits for his victim to ring his doorbell?
I’d told Elaine I was going out for ice cream but had left no note for Matt. I was afraid he’d see through any sentence I’d construct. If he woke up before I returned, maybe he’d believe Elaine.
And maybe they’d be having this conversation at my funeral services. Why did I continue to put myself in danger? I hated to think my motive was to win approval, an attitude that had dominated my childhood and young adult life. Growing up with a
mother who would never be pleased can have that effect.
Look, Ma,
I’d say, I
got all
As.
So?
she’d say.
You don’t do anything around here but study. Who couldn’t get
As
with your life?
But that was a long time ago. What was my excuse now? Was I so insecure in Matt’s love that I felt I needed to be heroic to win his approval?
Crrrash!
A loud noise coming from the bushes by the side of the house where I’d been snooping this afternoon.
I froze.
A raccoon,
I told myself,
going after the pizza boxes.
A rational explanation from my brain, but my body took over, and I turned and ran down the path, back to the car. My heart pounded, and at once I saw the ridiculousness of being there alone. I made my usual bargain with the universe: If I would be spared, I’d never do this again.
I’d put the keys in my pants pocket. I pulled at them, but they were caught on some loose threads that I’d meant to cut.
A little careful homemaking would come in handy at times like this,
I thought. I managed to get the keys free and clicked the remote.
I didn’t hear a beep—and remembered that I hadn’t locked the car.
I dove for the driver’s side, jumped in, and pushed the lock button, at the same time wrestling with the key to fit it into the ignition. After an interminable amount of time, the key clicked in. I drove away without looking back.
At the first traffic light, I caught my breath and steadied my hands. I looked in the rearview mirror, but I knew I’d never be able to tell if someone was following me. All I saw was headlights, one set indistinguishable from another.
At the next light, I was stopped directly under a streetlight. An unfamiliar reflection from the passenger seat caught my eye.
I looked over to see a small white padded envelope.
Someone had entered the Saab on Woodland Road and made a deposit.
 
 
I stepped into Elaine’s living room with a quart of chocolate showers—Loard’s delicious version of chocolate chip ice cream—in one hand and an audiotape in the other. I found her and Matt across from each other. Elaine’s eyes were red; the nearby wastebasket overflowed with tissues. I suspected there was no Dr. Philip Chambers registered in a hotel anywhere in the Hawaiian Islands.
It might have been the first time in my life that I postponed ice cream in favor of an audio recording.
 
“You got this tape where?” Matt asked.
I put my finger to my lips and pointed to Elaine, who had pushed the PLAY button on her old portable tape recorder. I remembered the little black machine from the days when she’d record meetings to be sure she got work assignments and due dates right. I had fond memories of the time she’d been the lead editor for a program I worked for, making it legitimate for us to have long lunch meetings.
“Okay, Howard, it’s just you and me here, and we need to get some things straight. It’s almost the middle of June, and I need to find out what you want me to do, how far we’re willing to go, and so on.”
Elaine pushed the STOP button. “That’s Phil’s voice,” she said. She took a breath and held it.
“He wants to establish a record,” Matt said. “He’s giving us who’s there, the date, and the agenda. I’m guessing Howard didn’t know this was being recorded. Very smart.”
“Phil is very smart,” Elaine said, as if she’d been trying to tell us this for a long time and we were getting it at last. I wondered if she felt a bit of relief, just hearing her fiance’s voice. “‘Howard’ must be Howard Christopher, Phil’s boss.”
Matt nodded. “Gloria and I met him at Dorman the other day.”
I was itchy to push PLAY, which Elaine finally did.
“What do you have so far?”
Howard Christopher’s voice.
“I have more than enough to take this to the next level. First, as I told you, I’ve been tracking missing nitrogen in Washington’s database of special substances. You can see from this table”
—(rustling)—
“that Patel has been at the site in all these highlighted cases.
”
“Phil’s giving us a review,” Matt said, nodding approvingly.
“We’ve been over this. So Patel was in the vicinity of reported material losses. That could be coincidence. The man travels a lot.”
“You sound like you don’t want him to be guilty.”
“Not at all. I’m just trying to keep you honest, Chambers.
(laugh)
I want to get to the bottom of this more than you do. When you came to me with this, what did I do? I gave you a full go-ahead, relieved you of other duties. You know that.”
“Okay, you’re right. I’m just telling you now what I’ve found out. I told you I saw Patel download from the classified system in the VTR. I walked in on him and he tried to cover it up, but I’m positive that’s what he was doing. Our work is paid for by the U.S. government, and that’s all who’s meant to see it. Patel is stealing.”
“Let’s say he is stealing. What’s he going to do with the information?”
“He could have been transferring everything we’ve been working on. Those files contain all the equations for nitrogen-enhanced molecules and all the device designs.”
“And what’s he doing with them, in your view?”
“Making money, I presume. India is, what, third place in the world economy? We’ve been hearing for years that it wants to become a member of the nuclear club.”
“This isn’t nuclear.
”
“No, but it would go a long way toward getting them into the big weapons club.”
“And isn’t this a little racist, Chambers? Just because the guy’s Indian?”
“Okay, some other country. He could be sending the stuff anywhere.
”

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