The Oxygen Murder (30 page)

Matt pretended to choke on a crumb. He and I should have been eating low-fat muffins, too. Instead Matt had a frosted lemon scone, and I was enjoying a thick slice of pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting. A seasonal treat. Might as well have it while it was available, I told myself.

Rose looked at Matt, smiled, and pointed at me. “You’d think I’d be used to the idea that she’d rather be in a welding shop than a hat shop.”

“They both take a lot of creativity,” I said. A weak argument, one that made them both smirk.

“You don’t see this kind of craft much anymore,” Rose said. I assumed she meant hatmaking and not joining two metals together at high temperatures. “Young people don’t even know what a milliner is.”

“Are you planning to have a hat made for yourself?” Matt asked her.

“I’m thinking of ordering one for MC for Christmas, to go with the scarves I bought. And maybe for Karla, too, as a surprise. They’d really be good for just about anyone.”

I had a sudden insight into what Rose was getting at. “Not for me, Rose, okay?

“Of course not.” She cleared her throat. “I’d never buy you a hat, Gloria. Matt, maybe, but not you.” Chuckles rippled through the air between the two of them. “Where are you going this morning? Want to meet us for lunch in Little Italy?”

“I have another cop date,” Matt said.

Lori and I were due at Curry’s at two o’clock. I could have an early lunch with my friend to make up for rejecting her hat shop—and her hat.

“I could meet you at, say, eleven thirty?”

“Grace likes the more upscale places down there,” Rose said.

“I can do upscale.”

Another choking sound from Matt.

“Good,” Rose said. “I’ll call you on your cell and tell you the address once we pick a spot.”

Rose wrapped herself in her fashionable winter outerwear and went off to meet Grace. Matt stood and got ready to head in the opposite direction to a precinct on the West Side where he’d been invited to see the latest in gun technology.

“They call it a shot spotter,” he said. “It does this computer calculation, and it can tell you almost exactly where the gun was located when the shot was fired. Some kind of automated triangulation, like figuring out where a telephone call came from.”

It sounded a lot better than a hat shop.

“I’m glad you met so many nice people at the conference. I’ll bet you could spend a week just taking them up on invitations to visit their squads.”

“You mean you’re glad I have enough to keep me busy.”

I stirred my foam. “Well, that, too.”

Rose had her felt and ribbons. Matt had his shot spotter. I had my DVD on chlorofluorocarbons.

New York had something for everyone.

I took a seat at a new table at the back of the shop and slipped the Curry disk into the DVD drive on one of the PCs available for a small hourly fee.

I’d read through the Curry brochures Lori gave me and learned that the company made refrigeration products for large restaurants and supermarkets and for other commercial and industrial uses. Their literature contained detailed descriptions and photographs of enormous coolers and freezers and entire refrigerated buildings and vehicles. In case I’d ever need such information, a separate illustrated booklet gave me tips on icing problems in walk-in freezers.

The DVD was disappointing. Most of the content comprised head-shots of administrators answering standard questions with stock answers. What did I expect from a company that made refrigerators? Nothing fascinating like cyclotrons or atomic force microscopes or grating spectrometers.

A young man at the computer station next to me in the bakery was watching an animated movie featuring creatures wearing headpieces that reminded me of welding helmets. Even his video looked more interesting than my upright freezer displays.

I turned back to my screen. Off camera, Amber asked questions of a group of men in suits and ties. It was unnerving to hear her soft, intelligent voice. I couldn’t help picturing her in the only position I’d ever seen her in—dying at my feet. I had a hard time imagining her gentle intonations extorting money from devastated clients. Here, her tones were quiet and smooth, meant to evoke confidence and trust from her subjects. Not that it worked. The Curry subjects gave her the party line anyway.

“Do you believe that additional UV exposure due to ozone depletion will eventually be significantly harmful to humans?” Amber asked. She sounded as though she were reading from a script. I guessed that Lori
had written it. The answers were equally scripted. (
No, the data showing the connection is weak, and such claims are premature
was the bottom line after three men spoke.)

Hmmm.
I thought I’d read that the FDA found evidence linking sun exposure to skin cancer, with twice as many melanoma-caused deaths in lower latitudes, closer to the equator.

“Do you think the ozone depletion we’ve already measured is significant enough to warrant government regulations prohibiting CFCs?” (
No, the changes are too small to be concerned about,
said one executive after another.)

Hmmm.
I knew that an infinitesimal amount of CFCs could deplete an enormous amount of ozone. Besides that, there were countless examples in science and mathematics to indicate that even a small change made to an apparently stable system could alter the system radically.

Would the bureaucratic answers have anything to do with the estimated 130 billion dollars it would take to refit industrial equipment across the country?

I was getting ready for my Curry meeting, all right, but not in a way that put me in a good mood.

I scanned past the boardroom scene to see if there was anything more riveting in later chapters on the disk. I played the DVD at regular speed now and then to hear bits from employees in work clothes on the plant floor.

A refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanic declared, “This is a cool career.”

Cute.

A graduate of the New England Institute of Technology in Rhode Island explained his duties as “complex.” “We have to read blueprints and do all the cutting and welding,” he said.

I paused to learn the difference between
reach-ins
(refrigerators with pull-out trays, more like pizza ovens I’d seen) and
roll-ins
(refrigerators with space to wheel in an entire rack of many shelves).

“Five years ago I used to repair ice machines,” another worker said. “Now I have my degree and I design them.”

Curry seemed to have many happy workers.

I thought I’d inadvertently clicked on another program when a mortuary prep room appeared on the screen, but evidently mortuary coolers were among Curry’s products. I had a flashback to my former residence above the Galigani funeral home and the noises and smells of its basement prep room.

“Our designs store up to six bodies,” a worker said. He stood in front of a large box set on casters. “The unit is ready for the funeral home to put into use immediately. A team of funeral directors assisted us in the development of this product line.”

In all my years as friend and then tenant of the Galiganis, I’d never thought to wonder where they bought their refrigeration units. I made a mental note to ask Rose if she or Frank had ever been approached for their input into mortuary cooler design.

I thought I’d seen enough until a tall young man with reddish-brown hair walked across the screen behind a worker who was demonstrating a small refrigerated vehicle that reminded me of an ice cream wagon. I wondered who had the contract for such wagons for New York City. I’d run into them everywhere.

One scene I’d never noticed on a New York postcard had been the appearance of a giant flatbed truck on Fifth Avenue around six o’clock on our first evening. The trailer section was loaded with six or eight hot dog and ice cream wagons, their umbrellas deflated, stuffed together so tightly their wheels intertwined. Not only had the vision shattered my image of the little old vendor in business for himself, but it also made me wonder where all that wonderful ice cream was going to spend the night.

I promised myself a chocolate Drumstick after I completed my homework: finishing the Curry DVD.

The young man in the background in the last section tweaked my memory. I scanned back and took a closer look at his broad shoulders and the trendy stubble on his chin and cheeks. Before he walked out of the frame, he turned his head and glanced briefly at the camera.

The final glimpse sealed it for me: The man was Zach Landram, Dee Dee’s fiancé.

And a Curry employee?

I had no tools to zoom in or enhance the frame, but I was sure enough who the man was without any special editing capability. He had on a pale blue dress shirt and tie and carried a clipboard. I pictured him in profile standing in front of Nurse Pogel. Lacking a split screen and dual imaging, I still had to say the noses matched.

I scanned ahead to the end of the DVD, but Zach didn’t appear again. I reached into my bag and took out the Curry brochures. A man in a dress shirt walking among employees in stained jumpsuits might be a manager, I thought, and managers often had their names and faces in company literature.

By the time I’d leafed through the brochures this second time, I was warming up (so to speak) to refrigeration technology. Not that I’d trade my scientific supply catalogs for details of cooling systems, but I had to admit there was something fascinating about structural steel frames, observation windows, pressure relief ports, and diaphragmatic speed locks.

My diligence was rewarded by the fourth pamphlet: “The Curry Industries Team Working for You.” The first pages featured an organization chart with photographs of all the managers. A broadly smiling Zach Landram was regional purchasing manager.

I looked at the details of the photo of Zach at a desk, surrounded by what looked like cubicle furniture—L-shaped surfaces with cabinets hanging on the wall. I looked for a snapshot of Dee Dee in the cluttered area, but the resolution was poor. I could make out only generic stacks of papers, books, and files. I winced at the sight of a tall metal organizer that reminded me of my clumsy pilfering at Dee Dee’s desk.

I ran all the coincidences through my mind, drawing imaginary lines. From Amber to Curry Industries, working for Lori. From Curry to Zach, one of their managers. From Zach to Dee Dee, his girlfriend. From Dee Dee to Tina Miller, Amber’s other boss. I factored in Dee Dee in the alley and Dee Dee being attacked in Central Park.

Too many
D
’s, I decided. I needed a face-to-face with her.

I retrieved the disk from the drive and went to the counter to pay my fee. While I was there I ordered another cappuccino.

I needed to be alert for my upcoming interaction.

I was on hold for several minutes before someone in Dee Dee’s ward picked up the phone.

“Ms. Sanders is back in her room now and will be on the line shortly,” I heard. I was glad she didn’t sound like Nurse Pogel.

I waited about five minutes, sipping cappuccino and checking my battery power icon every now and then. It wasn’t even ten o’clock, but lunch smells were already taking over the café. I breathed in the aromas of pastrami, panini sandwiches, vinegary salads, and garlic bread. Too early. The huge slab of pumpkin bread I’d eaten felt heavy in my stomach, and I resolved to try to be more like Rose and not feel obliged to eat every crumb I was served.

Finally, “Hi, this is Dee Dee.”

“Dee Dee, this is Dr. Lamerino. You may remember I met you at your office earlier this week.”

“Oh, yes. Dr. Marino.”

Close enough. I wouldn’t expect a secretary to remember the name of every nonclient who passed through her office, even ones who absconded with correspondence. I still didn’t know exactly what had become of Karla’s letter, or whether Tina Miller or Dee Dee had been made aware of its absence, temporary or permanent. Every time I asked Matt where the letter was and what, if any, explanation had been given to the women in the agency, he’d answer, “I’ll tell you when we’re safely back in Revere.”

“. . . nice of you to call,” I heard Dee Dee say.

I realized my mind had wandered to my recent brush with felony status.

“I hope you’re making a good recovery,” I said.

“Oh, yes. I should be out of here tomorrow.”

If Dee Dee was surprised that a relative stranger would be calling her hospital bed, she didn’t let on. I’d seen the same ability to interact with hundreds of background people in most of the secretaries I’d known in my lab career. I, on the other hand, had a hard time keeping track of the few foreground people in my life.

Time to own up to the reason for my call.

“Dee Dee, I’ve been looking into Curry Industries for a project I’m
working on. Imagine my surprise when I saw Zach Landram on a video of the facility.”

I heard a big sigh, and something like a whispered “Uh-oh.”

“Will you talk to me about it?”

“I’ve already talked to the police. They keep coming back.” She sighed, as if the cops were a persistent virus.

“Did you tell them your boyfriend is a manager at Curry Industries, where Amber Keenan shot some video for a documentary?” The
murdered
Amber Keenan, I meant.