The Hydrogen Murder (14 page)

The third symbol, the integral sign, was from calculus,
actually an elongated S, standing for "Sum," since integration in
mathematics is a way to add up quantities. The sign would always be followed by
what was being summed, such as a function of x. It was physically and
mathematically meaningless to have an integral sign as the last notation, with
nothing after it, as it appeared in Eric's printout.

I went over the series of characters again and again. Even
if Eric had been stopped in the middle of a line, the three characters together
didn't make sense in the context of his whole program.

After an hour of getting nowhere, I took a break to make
some phone calls. I had a cousin, Mary Ann, a widow in her seventies who lived
in Worcester, and I wanted to schedule a weekend with her. Worcester was only
about twenty-five miles west of Boston, but I'd already lost the California
habit of driving twice that distance just to meet someone for lunch. In my
Massachusetts persona I considered twenty-five miles a trip with a postcard and
slides requirement.

After being in touch with Mary Ann only through Christmas
letters and long-distance calls, we were trying to renew family ties. She was
the only relative I hadn't completely lost track of.

"I'll bet you're happy to be home," Mary Ann said
after we'd picked a mid-November date for my trip.

"Oh, yes, it's wonderful to be back," I said,
noting how easily I could skip over my deepest inner conflicts with a blood
relative. I'd known right away that Mary Ann wouldn't understand the crazy
emotional directions of my life as well as Rose did. And after my cousin's
nervous response to my first police contract, I also knew enough not to tell
her about my current work on a murder case.

I made an omelet and spread some scrap paper out on the
kitchen table next to my plate. I decided to make a simple outline of the
conductivity measurements so I could explain them to Matt. I thought it might
also be a good way to get a handle on what to look for in the printout.

I wrote notes as if I were preparing a presentation for an
overhead projector, using bullets for items that were key in understanding
first, that conductivity was higher for a metal than a nonmetal, and last, what
that meant for its useful applications.

I understood the breakthrough that Leder's team had announced—they
claimed they'd been able to measure a conductivity value for hydrogen. From
that they inferred that hydrogen existed as a metal, at least for the duration
of the measurement, one millionth of a second.

What were the possible ways that the data could be false?

It was Jim's trigger signal that switched on the measuring
device at just the right time. One possibility was that the trigger signal
fired at the wrong time. It might have measured a conductivity that wasn't
really for the hydrogen, but for the metal of the container. I made a note to
check the conductivity of aluminum, which was what the walls of the target
chamber were made of, and compare it to values in the printout.

Another possibility was that the trigger signal fired
correctly, and the actual measurement really was low, indicating no metal was
present, but the team misread it at first, then had to cover it up. Or maybe
they didn't misread it, but decided to cover up the low reading. I added a note
to check the printout for some numbers that could support any or all of these
admittedly wild guesses.

I felt better having accomplished two things: I had a way to
explain the significance of the conductivity measurements to Matt and I had at
least some leads on what to look for in the printout.

At about six-thirty, Rose called from downstairs and offered
to bring up a box of cannoli from Luberto's if I'd make some coffee. She knew
I'd never say no to a deal like that. A Luberto's cannoli, with its special
creamy custard filling enclosed in a delicate pastry shell, lightly sprinkled
with powdered sugar, was my favorite dessert. I wished I hadn't eaten grocery
store birthday cake that afternoon, but it was too late for regrets.

Rose was in a blue-gray dress that nearly matched the color
of my sofa. She wore pearls and black pumps, and had tiny onyx studs in her
ears. Her mourning outfit. She usually visited with me during wakes when Martha
was unavailable to be on call in case office support was needed. This was the
first time I'd be attending the wake myself.

"Are you making any progress," she asked.

I pointed to the papers spread out on my kitchen table,
making it unavailable for a pastry session.

"Not a lot," I said, "I'm just getting to the
printout."

"That's not what I meant," Rose said. "I'm
talking about your love life."

I blew a long sigh into the air above me and considered for
a minute telling her that Matt and I had spent the night together and then
eloped. I settled on the truth.

"I have no love life," I said, "and I thought
you were going to lay off until the case was closed."

"Just asking."

We were seated side by side on the sofa. Rose seemed to have
lost her train of thought as she held the cannoli far away from her funeral
director outfit. She licked flakes of pastry from her fingers, and I knew I was
off the hook.

~~~~

Rose and I left the apartment together and walked down to
the main parlor a little after seven o'clock.

Walking into the room where Eric was laid out was like
walking into the night. I remembered the last few funeral services I'd been
to—mostly Protestant ones, where the decor was bright and the spirit was
one of new life and resurrection. Was it only Catholics, I wondered, who
treated death as a nasty secret, hushed and bleak? Or was it just Galigani's holding
onto an old tradition? The piped-in organ music was slow and dreary, as heavy
as the scent of many different flowers placed close together in an airless
room.

A few more baskets and vases of flowers had arrived since
I'd stopped in that afternoon, and Janice was looking through the cards
attached to them. When she saw Rose, she walked over to her, holding the white
satin-covered guest book between her thumb and index finger as if it needed
dusting for fingerprints.

"Do you have another style?" she asked, dropping
the book into Rose's open hands. "This seems a little frilly, maybe it's
for a woman. I'd prefer something more subtle for a man." Janice was
wearing a short black crepe skirt with a matching jacket, topped off by a large
chiffon scarf with a black and white floral design.

I moved to the side to let Rose handle the crisis.

Straight-backed dark oak chairs with shiny brown and gold
fabric seat covers were arranged two deep along the two side walls of the room,
creating a wide center aisle in front of the casket. Eric's parents were
sitting in two more comfortable-looking armchairs in the front row to the right
of their son's body. They looked much older and smaller than I remembered from
the afternoon, and sat holding hands across the arms of their chairs, their
shoulders hunched, their mouths in thin lines across deeply wrinkled faces.

I was about to introduce myself, but Janice had finished
with Rose, at least for the moment, and met me as I crossed the carpet.

"This is Gloria Lamerino," she said, without
looking directly at the couple. "She knew Eric in California."

"These are Eric's parents," she said to me, waving
in their direction.

"I'm so sorry," I said to them, with the
awkwardness I always feel on such occasions.

"How nice of you to come," Eric's mother said. His
father nodded and motioned for me to sit next to him on the one other soft
chair in the room as Janice walked away.

Earlier in the day, I'd thought of a few questions I wanted
to ask Eric's parents, but once I was in their presence, I lost any inclination
to disturb their grief with an interrogation. Instead, I sat next to Mr. Bensen
and chatted about how beautiful the flower arrangements were, how Mr.
Galigani's men were picking up Eric's grandmother in a brand new Cadillac, and
how Father Tucci was due any minute. Mrs. Bensen sat silently through our
conversation, staring in the direction of her son's body and looking old enough
herself to be his grandmother.

"Look how far Eric got," Mr. Bensen said. "We
had him very late, you know, after we'd practically given up. I'm just a
shoemaker, but Eric was always good in school. Even as a little boy he was
always doing extra homework."

"Where do you work?" I asked, happy to have a new
direction to take the conversation.

"I have a shop on Beach Street, but I'm going to retire
now. Eric is my only child, and now he's gone."

I could sense that he had lost interest in life, and before
I knew it, I'd asked a question I knew to be inappropriate in such a setting.

"Who would want to kill him?" I asked.

Mr. Bensen turned to me, then looked at Janice who was
across the room with other visitors.

"Her," he said.

My eyes must have widened considerably, because Mr. Bensen
quickly took my hand.

"Forgive me," he said. "It's just an old man
babbling."

I forgave him, but I also wanted to know more. I tried to
sound casual as I picked up the thread of his accusation.

"How long were they married?" I asked.

"Eight years. They never should have got together in
the first place."

I ran the numbers through my head. Eric was thirty-one when
he was murdered. That meant he'd married Janice at twenty-three, probably after
graduating from college. I knew Eric had been a graduate student for six years,
including his year in California, so there were about two years during which he
was married to Janice, but not in graduate school.

"Did Eric go to work after college?" I asked Mr.
Bensen, keeping my voice low. I thought I might be imposing on Eric's father,
but I dismissed the idea as he rambled on. He seemed to be relieved to be able
to talk about his son.

"Janice wanted him to work for her father, in the
insurance business. Eric tried it but it wasn't for him. I knew that. But
Janice pushed him. She thought he could make a lot of money right away like her
father."

"So Eric left the company and went back to
school?"

"Old man Miller died. And Eric just took the chance to
get out. Janice had a fit, but Eric was determined to go back to school. He
..."

Mr. Bensen started to break down in tears, and I felt an
obligation to change the subject. The conversation had proved to be a dead end,
anyway, in a manner of speaking. If there was a murder every time a married
couple didn't get along, I reminded myself, or one spouse pushed the other into
taking a job he or she didn't want, the world would need a lot more homicide
detectives.

Several other groups of people were arriving at that moment,
and I took advantage of the distraction. I said goodbye to the Bensens and searched
the small group of newcomers for a familiar face. Finding none, I took a seat
on the opposite side of the room and let my mind wander over Mr. Bensen's insinuation
that Janice murdered Eric. I convinced myself that he was aware of the strained
relationship between his son and daughter-in-law and was merely angry at the thought
that Eric might not have died a happily married man.

Sitting in front of Eric's remains, in the presence of his
infinitely sad parents, it seemed more crucial than ever to find his murderer
and I resolved to give it my all over the weekend.

In the next half hour I was joined by Connie, Jim, Andrea,
and Leder, arriving at different times. They were all wearing black somewhere
on their person, and so far, with my gray and white suit and pewter jewelry, I
had the cheeriest outfit in the room. I noticed the guest book in its place on
a small wooden stand by the door and wondered how Rose solved Janice Bensen's
problem.

There was still no sign of Matt as we sat through a rosary
by Father Tucci, the pastor of Saint Anthony's. Jim was the only live person besides
the priest who held an actual rosary, with dark brown beads and a silver
crucifix. I hadn't had a rosary in my hands since I was a child praying for the
conversion of Russia, for the souls in purgatory and for pagan babies. I
wondered what happened to my childhood faith. I hadn't consciously abandoned
the religion I grew up with, just drifted away from it as I headed west.

As the closing time for the wake approached, I started to
think about how to get all the principals together for conversation, but Leder
took over.

"You live upstairs, don't you Gloria?" he asked.
As he stood over me, I caught a whiff of an elaborate cologne, reminding me of
Peter.

"Yes, it's a wonderful arrangement for now," I
said. "My friends own the building and the business."

"Well, why don't we send Jim here to get us a bottle or
two, and we can have a fine reunion," he said, taking several bills from
his wallet. To my astonishment, I realized he was inviting us all up to my
apartment. What possible motive can he have, I wondered, dismissing the thought
that he was acting out of innocent, if slightly rude, sociability.