The Oxygen Murder (19 page)

“I’m okay,” Billy said, after his own bout of tears. “It was just that first impact of seeing where Amber died.” He slammed his chest with his fist and choked up again.

Craig distracted Billy with questions about life on the farm. The two guys hit it off immediately—one who’d lived in Brooklyn all his life, a professional film worker in a dark turtleneck, the other a Kansas farm boy wearing a plaid flannel jacket and a clean white T-shirt. Lori wondered if Craig really cared how many acres the Keenans had (like asking one’s yearly salary, Lori had heard) or whether this year’s weather was good for the crops (did Craig even know what a crop was?).

Lori served beer and two kinds of pizza: Craig’s with the works, Billy’s with the works plus anchovies.

“Wouldn’t this game look great on one of those big flat screens?” Billy asked Craig.

Lori heaved a sigh and remembered the trade-off to having guys around.
“Mangiatevi, ragazzi,”
she said.

C
HAPTER
IXTEEN

O
n Tuesday evening, I had an opportunity to work on my notes and lists. Unfortunately, the paper I was writing on was very small, the lighting poor, and the conditions cramped.

I was in seat A101, front mezzanine, of a Broadway theater. Rose had gotten us tickets for a long-running musical with an animal in the title.

“You need to relax, Gloria,” she’d said, surprising me. I thought she knew me better.

I’d been told that I didn’t know how to relax, but, in my opinion, it was all relative. At work I’d relaxed when my experimental data fit a theoretical curve, when my xenon flash lamps were in good working order, and when there was a calculator nearby for some fun with arithmetic.

In retirement, I relaxed when a killer was identified and brought to justice.

I gave my two suspect groups—Amber’s blackmail victims and the ozone documentary subjects—a column each. I’d leave it to the NYPD to cast a broad net. I knew they were interviewing Amber’s roommates and her ex-boyfriend. They’d continue to comb her financial records for suspicious charges and probably go door to door in her and Lori’s neighborhoods. They’d cover her phone logs and e-mails, broadening the horizon. For me, I needed to narrow the scope to make the problem seem manageable.

Matt glanced down at my busy lap and grinned. I wasn’t trying to fool either him or Rose. I’d asked for the aisle seat so I wouldn’t disturb any of the other theatergoers. I hoped they’d think I was a music critic taking notes.

I used the new ballpoint pen Rose’s grandson, William, had given Matt on his birthday in October. The pen lit up as soon as the tip hit the paper. I’d gotten so excited when I saw it that Matt generously handed it over to me.

“I’ll get some free ones at the conference,” he’d said.

He was right. He’d come back to the hotel every day with giveaways—pens and pencils with advertising from companies selling training classes, ankle holsters, tactical vests, and other gear I didn’t want to think about. Plus a complimentary roll of tamperproof evidence tape.

The old building was beautiful, I had to admit, one of many densely packed into the theater district. The dark red, plush interior and elaborate sconces throughout the theater were reminiscent of an earlier day. Rose had recited its refurbishment history on the cold, windy walk from our hotel, telling us the date it opened (1925?) and the seating capacity (approximately six hundred, down from one thousand, for more of a sense of intimacy, Rose said). There was no elevator in the building, but it was worth the hardship of climbing first up three long flights and then down one short, steep flight to our seats to be closer to the ornate paneled ceiling. My exercise for the month. I wondered how they moved freight and equipment without motorized aid, then realized I was probably confusing theaters with labs.

The ambience of a remarkable old building might be all I got from the evening, I realized. I’d done nothing but doodle. I remembered the companies Lori was featuring in her documentary and wrote their names in the ozone column: Blake Manufacturing and Curry Industries. I made a note to check on the Internet if necessary, for their CEOs and HR directors, but I felt Lori would give me the information. I knew we’d had a rocky start, but I deemed that to be because I’d pushed too hard on talking about Amber when she was trying to hide their illegal business dealings.

I drew a star next to the idea of taking a little trip to the Blake and Curry facilities on the pretext of being a science teacher at Revere High. I had hardly any qualms about this, since I did give occasional lectures to the science club at the school. I penned in an arrow to point
to my note
faulty ozone monitors recalled?
and a question mark next to
slip away from Matt and Rose.

Finding Amber’s blackmail victims would be harder. I knew it was hopeless to try to enlist Matt’s help in pumping Buzz for information. It would have been hard enough for me to find a way into this part of the case in Revere; in New York City, it was probably impossible.

Not that I’d stop trying.

I adjusted my coat over my lap and continued doodling—the better to think—and drawing stars on my notepad here and there as I listed possible avenues of research.

Every now and then I remembered that I was in an excellent seat at a widely acclaimed Broadway show and looked across the orchestra to the stage below. I saw humans dressed as animals, dancing and singing. One time I saw creatures wearing large hats the color and shape of a thatched hut.

I went back to my notes.

I’d commuted to college from Revere to Boston, fewer than ten miles away, but more than an hour on buses and subway lines via the limited public transit routes of those days. I did my calculus homework on the MTA, the one Charlie was famously lost on in song. If nothing else, the experience was good preparation for doing mental work in the midst of noise and hubbub.

Here in the theater I was able to concentrate on the pieces of the puzzle that was Amber’s murder. I was unbothered by the stampeding dance troupe or the thunderous orchestra.

Neither was I making any headway.

“How do you like the performance, Gloria?” Rose asked at intermission.

I knew how hard she’d worked to garner tickets at the last minute. After all, we were supposed to be back in Revere this evening. Playing our usual canasta game, albeit in the hotel room, would have been good enough for me, but I didn’t say that.

“This is wonderful,” I said, waving my glass of lime-flavored mineral water in a toasting gesture.

“Good to multitask by?”

“I’m getting all there is out of the drama, complex as it is.”

“Shall I give you a quiz?”

Matt shuffled his feet and bit his bottom lip. A nervous gesture, one I’d seen in the past when he thought Rose and I were arguing seriously. But I could read all of Rose’s different smiles, and the one she wore throughout this interchange was her good-sport smile. She didn’t mind my not showing overwhelming gratitude for all her work getting the tickets. In fact, she probably saw my willingness to even attend the performance as a sign that I might someday become cultured.

“Just don’t ask me to name the animals in the jungle,” I said.

Matt, still not completely attuned to the decades-old patterns Rose and I had built up, broke in.

“Time for some police humor from the precinct?” he asked. “I have a couple of those how-stupid-can-they-be stories that cops tell about the bad guys. Buzz swears these are true.”

Matt started in, before we could shake our heads no or start another round of flippant teasing. “Here’s one: The cop asks the suspect, ‘How old is your son, the one living with you?’ The guy says, ‘Ten or eleven, I can’t remember.’ Cop asks, ‘How long has he lived with you?’ Guy says, ‘About twelve years.’ ”

Rose rewarded Matt with a good laugh. “Congratulations, Matt, you’ve got the attention of me and your wife.” She paused. “Hmmm, your wife. Funny, I don’t have much recollection of the ceremony. Oh, that’s right. You didn’t have one.”

Matt cleared his throat and looked at me. “Please,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, and Rose knew at once that she’d been given the go-ahead to have a reception for us. If arranging a party—invitations, cleaning, ordering food, then milling around, chatting, and more cleaning afterward—would give her pleasure (as evidenced by her immediate, though discreet, clapping when I agreed), who was I to deny her?

At my request Matt had stepped aside to check his phone messages before the gongs signaled us back to our seats.

“Maybe Buzz called to say there’s been a breakthrough in the case,” I’d said.

“Don’t know that I’d be the first to know, but will do.”

Now he came back from a corner of the mezzanine where there were at least a half dozen other people on cell phones. I didn’t like his frown or the anxious look on his face.

“You were right in a way,” he said.

“A new lead?” I asked, though I knew better. I’d seen his new-lead look, and this wasn’t it.

“Not exactly.”

A chill went through me. “What?”

“A message on my voice mail. There was a mugging on a jogging path in Central Park.”

So what?
I thought. A response that embarrassed me when I considered it later.

“How awful,” Rose said. “Imagine the poor family, and around holiday time.”

Not that it was news to me, but I marveled that my friend could care so deeply about an anonymous mugging victim. Surely this wouldn’t make headlines in New York City. Why would Buzz leave Matt a message about a mugging?

Unless . . .

I held my breath. Lori? No. Uncle Matt would be much more distressed. I looked again at his face, for reassurance.

“A woman named Dee Dee Sanders. She worked for Tina Miller, the PI that Amber Keenan—” Matt paused. “Well, you know who she is.”

The one you robbed,
I heard in his voice, but it might have been my guilt picking up a nonexistent nuance.

For the second time in a little more than two days I’d thought Lori was a victim, and it was another woman instead—and I’d failed to revive one of the victims and I’d stolen from the other.

I had a lot more to think about during the second act but gave it up when my tiny notepad became too overrun with stars, bullets, and arrows. I leaned back and tried to enjoy the music.

Matt reached over and took my hand. “Now that it’s available,” he said.

“You should have asked.”

We wrapped ourselves in our layers of wool and knit and elbowed our way past theatergoers waiting for taxis. Our destination was just around the corner, a bistro on Eighth Avenue, where dessert beckoned.

We were so close to our hotel, it felt like we were sitting in an extension of our lobby.

“This is okay,” Rose said, pushing away the long-stemmed glass that held her zabaglione. “But I still miss Rumplemeyer’s.”

I, too, longed for an amazing brownie sundae from the restaurant that once graced Central Park South. However, that didn’t stop me from finishing the dessert in front of me—a decent affogato all’amaretto. This lack of discrimination on my part, where desserts were concerned, was one of the reasons I outweighed Rose by many kilograms.