The Nitrogen Murder (27 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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I
nspector Dennis Russell sat across the table from Dana—a very narrow table, Dana noted, so that he was in her face. His big ears and pointy chin gave him a comical look that put Dana more at ease than she normally would have been in a police station interview room.
She’d wanted to talk about Robin Kirsch, accountant for Julia Strega, scam artist, and fraud. But Russell made it known that he was in charge, and this interview was about Tanisha Hall.
“Did Ms. Hall seem upset about anything in the days before her death?” he asked her.
“No,” Dana answered, determined not to reveal anything negative about Tanisha. If the police were going to make a case against Tanisha, they’d do it without her help. It wasn’t as if her partner’s illegal activities had anything to do with Patel’s shooting, or her father’s. There was Rachel to think about, and Marne, both of whom deserved a dignified memory of Tanisha. Dana had been trying to think of a way to get the money to them; she couldn’t care less what the disposition should be legally
Dana wished she knew Russell’s thinking. Who did he suspect killed Tanisha? Russell wouldn’t even reveal how much he believed about Julia’s scam.
Behind Dana’s firm no to Russell, that Tanisha had not seemed upset lately, was the awareness that there
had
been signs
of trouble. And Dana might have been able to help, if only she’d been paying closer attention to her partner.
“What if you were stuck in something?” Tanisha had asked her, during what would be one of the last EMT shifts of her life. “You know, before you knew it, you’d got yourself on a track … maybe for the right reason, but it’s wrong anyway. And you can’t see a way to turn back.”
Dana had figured Tanisha was referring to the nasty custody battle with Rachel’s father, that Tanisha might be having second thoughts about keeping him as far from their daughter as possible.
“This is about Darryl, isn’t it?” Dana had asked.
Dana remembered the long silence. Then, “Yeah,” Tanisha had said. “Yeah, it’s about Darryl.”
But now Dana suspected it wasn’t about Darryl’s weekend visits with Rachel. What if Tanisha had been trying to get out of the fraud business, and she was looking to Dana for support? Strangely, that thought cheered Dana-that her friend was about to give up on the scam and blow the whistle. She was ready to be a heroine.
The nerve of Robin
, Dana thought, going to great lengths, like tampering with her incident report, sending the cops to Tanisha’s house to look for drugs, knowing it was highly likely they’d find a bag of supplies. For all Robin knew, Tanisha had already given her up to the cops, and Robin had to protect herself.
It was depressing to think she’d known so little about her supposed friends. She’d have to sit down with Jen one of these days and ask some pointed questions so she wouldn’t be caught off guard again.
Dana managed one-word answers to the rest of Russell’s questions. Did Ms. Hall seem to spend more money than she was earning? (No.) Had she missed a significant number of workdays? (No.) Had she acquired any new or different associates recently?
“Associates? Do you mean people?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
A few more nos and Russell was ready to move on.
“Okay, Ms. Chambers, now let’s talk about your roommate Ms. Kirsch. You indicated you have something you wanted to report?”
She rolled her eyes, but not so much that he would notice; she wasn’t looking for trouble
that
much hard. Dana handed Russell the spreadsheet.
Cops
, she thought, and wondered where Matt was.
 
“How soon am I going to get over this whole thing?” Dana asked Matt. She’d found him in the lobby of the PD, waiting his turn with Russell, and had taken a seat next to him.
“It depends, Dana. There are so many variables, most of which have nothing to do with you, like whether other people let you get over it, for one thing.”
“What if something like this happens again?”
“I’m not going to lie to you. It might. You have to admit that. You like to think you’re in control. You wear a respected uniform. You have all the equipment you need. Communication tools hanging from your belt. Then something like this happens, a loss, the potential for physical harm to yourself—and you lose confidence. But what you’re going to do is, you’re going to strengthen your coping skills.”
“My dad is already making noises like I should find another profession. He thinks I can just switch my head around and teach third grade or something.”
Matt had his arm along the back of the uncomfortable wooden bench. He was paying attention to her.
Why couldn’t more people just pay attention?
Dana wondered.
“Can you tell me how you’re responding so far? Some people would be very angry and lash out at those around them. Others might withdraw”
“Both, I guess. I’m angry inside, but I withdraw. That shrink I saw asked if I wanted medication, but I don’t. It wouldn’t look very good on a med school app, for one thing. But how am I going to be a doctor if I’m going to get emotionally involved?”
“How can you do it if you don’t?”
She wanted to bury her head in Matt’s shoulders. Not sexual, she knew that. Fatherly, or brotherly.
Maybe she just needed to give her own father another chance.
 
It was getting a little better all the time, Dana admitted. One week, and she was able to call up happy memories of Tanisha. And she’d taken some action for Marne and Rachel. She’d opened an account with the money she’d found, and told Marne that since Tanisha died in the line of duty, Valley Medical Ambulance Company had offered compensation.
“Well, I’ll be, if that isn’t nice,” Marne had said. “My girl took good care of us right to the end.”
Dana inhaled some good weed, a miraculous present from Kyle that came with a note:
Heard about your troubles. This is on me
. Sweet guy. “Dope shit,” Tanisha would have called this batch. Dana smiled as another memory came to her.
They have a repeat patient, an old black man named Antwon. They know he’s okay, but they still have to ask the four A&O questions—alert and oriented. What’s your birthday? Tanisha asks. Who’s the president of the United States? What month is this? And then, when she knows Antwon is fine, What was Puff Daddy’s greatest hit?
Dana took a toke, maybe her last, she thought. She didn’t need this anymore. She was going to be the cleanest MD there was.
“Here’s to you, Tanisha,” she said into the cool night.
I
’d been involved in so many interrogations, formal and informal, with Matt, and at times with his partner, that it seemed unusual for two regular Berkeley PD detectives to be on tap to interview me.
To my relief, Inspector Dennis Russell didn’t bring up the nature of our interaction on my last trip to California. You might think we’d just met, starting from scratch, with mutual respect. Unless you were paying close attention.
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” I said to Russell and a female detective, introduced as Inspector Ariana Gilmore.
“I’ll bet you have,” Russell said.
Russell allowed me to go through the two separate threads it had taken a whole team of us to work out. He’d already talked to Phil, Elaine, and Dana and apparently was saving Matt for last.
I thought about how differently I’d worked this week, as part of a group. More reminiscent of my research days than my recent police consulting. Usually Matt and I worked together to put the pieces of a puzzle together, whenever a science-related homicide came to the attention of the Revere PD. At most, we’d be joined by his partner, but more and more in special cases, Berger left Matt and me alone when I had a contract.
This time it had taken several of us, combining information and abilities. Phil had found a way to expose Patel, in spite of the odds against him; Dana had shared all her discoveries, no matter
how difficult; Elaine had stood firm, and in the end saved Phil’s life; William, from three thousand miles away, had extracted the PDA data; Matt had provided support for Dana and a link to the Berkeley PD that surely helped us all. Ironically, the one “fact” Matt had learned from Russell—that Phil had boarded a plane to Hawaii—turned out to be incorrect. But Matt’s ego withstood that, and he continued to work effectively behind the scenes, even going out of his way to help Dana and Marne reconcile.
I looked at Russell and pictured his grade-school report card the antithesis of Matt’s:
Little Dennis does not work well with others.
Our whole time together on Saturday morning, Russell used me as a character witness.
Did I have any reason to think Phil would betray his company or his country? Did I think Dana was really innocent of any drug-related charges? What was my impression of Howard Christopher? Of Julia? Of Robin? Was there anything else I wanted to say?
I laid out my understanding of Howard Christopher’s role, from the tape. Russell listened but didn’t comment. When I was finished, he asked again, “Is there anything else?”
Yes, but I’d better not say
. “Nothing at the moment, thank you,” I said, and left the room.
 
“Robin flipped on Julia,” Matt said, pouring us ordinary coffee in Elaine’s kitchen. The one without an espresso maker. “Julia’s being charged with a number of counts of theft, drug-dealing, fraud.”
“So Robin is free and clear?” Not exactly a whine, but close.
“Free and clear. In the other matter, Howard Christopher is being charged with two counts of murder, one attempted.”
“That ‘attempted’ is for Phil, right?” I asked, meaning,
You didn’t tell Russell about the shot fired at me, did you?
“For Phil, yes,” Matt said, frowning. Neither of us wanted to talk out loud about the bullet that passed way over my head.
“I’ll bet Christopher gets a better deal than Julia gets,” I said. “They’ll want all the details of the information that got leaked.”
“Same reason cops make deals every day,” Matt said. “Damage control. You want to know the big picture. In this case, what did they sell to whom, and for how long?”
“And that’s the message we’re sending. You can beat a murder charge if you’ve also been involved in selling government secrets.”
Matt gave me a that’s-life shrug. Sometimes I was happy that I hadn’t spent my career as a cop.
“In any case, Russell seemed to like Christopher for Patel and Tanisha. He thought it seemed likely Christopher assumed the duffel bag might have something that incriminated him.”
“Why wouldn’t Russell tell me all this?” I asked.
“It’s a cop thing.”
Oh, well,
I thought,
a person didn’t have to like
all
cop things to marry one
.
M
att and I spent a good part of the next week shopping for our wedding present of choice for Elaine and Phil—the most up-to-date espresso/cappuccino maker in Berkeley.
“Almost as pleasant as searching scientific supplies catalogs,” I told Matt.
We decided against a bronze model with a mythical bird on top. Matt liked a tall, old-fashioned tower arrangement topped off by an Italian glass dome, but we settled on a squat black version that would blend in with the modern Cody/Chambers kitchen. It was labeled “semiautomatic,” and Matt enjoyed pointing out that espresso makers, like weapons, came in automatic, semiautomatic, and manual models.
“It has a three-way solenoid valve,” I said.
“That should do it,” Matt said.
I didn’t tell him it also reminded me of a fast servo tool I’d seen in a precision engineering magazine.
We bought the package that included a pound of special beans each month for a year. Expensive, but we meant it as combination hostess, shower, and wedding present, with maybe an apology thrown in.
“We can deliver it at the shower on Thursday evening,” I said.
“We
?
”
“Wedding showers are not just for girls anymore.”
“That’s a shame.”
 
 
Dana seemed excited about hosting the shower for Elaine and Phil, whose doctors declared him ready for anything he thought he could handle. She’d enlisted the help of some friends: her noncriminal roommate, Jen Bradley, who wore a tiny white apron (“I’m here to serve,” she announced); Jen’s boyfriend, Wes, who plied his short-order-cook trade for our benefit (no on cucumber sandwiches, but yes on man-sized pesto-stuffed mushrooms); and a young, petite EMT, Melissa (who seemed thrilled to be included and allowed to fill coffee cups and collect dirty plates).
It was obvious Dana had cleaned and rearranged things for the occasion. The moving boxes were gone or hidden, the floor vacuumed, and fresh flowers placed on every available surface. The wall that usually supported two bikes was now covered by a stack of presents; the bikes had been moved out of the way into the hallway off the kitchen.
Besides Matt, Phil, and Wes, there were a number of other men present, evening out the population to ten and ten. I was happy to reconnect with some BUL acquaintances I hadn’t seen in a long time, most of them part of a group of editors and graphic artists Elaine worked with.
“How’s retirement, Gloria? Any new hobbies?” a woman I recognized as an editor asked. She didn’t know me well enough to realize I had no old hobbies.
I smiled, calling up the expression I use on small-talk occasions. “I’m keeping busy,” I said.
I caught Matt’s grin.
I had a flashback to the wedding showers of my college days. All girls, silly games, pink- or (the more creative ones) yellow-and-white crepe paper, doll-sized food, and too much giggling over filmy sleepwear and sexy (we wouldn’t have said that word) lingerie. I remembered once having to make as many words as possible from the letters in HERE COME THE BRIDE AND GROOM. The first on my list had been BORING.
I knew I would have felt the same even about a shower for me, but I hadn’t been engaged long enough to have one. I made a note to talk to Rose Galigani, in case she had plans for me this time around.
Much of the talk was about the dramatic events of the week, some of which had made the local papers. I listened without comment to opinions about the spy ring in our neighborhood (not the first); about whether the ambulance company owner, Julia Strega, would stand trial or take a deal; about Howard Christopher, whom a couple of BUL editors had worked with, and how he still denied shooting anyone.
Out of deference to the hostess, I guessed, no one brought up Robin Kirsch, who had a deal in the works for a suspended sentence in exchange for her testimony against Julia Strega. Robin was on an employee retreat with her San Francisco bank group, Dana told us, and was sorry she couldn’t make the shower.
Everyone doubted it.
As soon as we’d eaten, Matt offered to leave separately, and early, to take the presents to Elaine’s house.
“Generous man,” I said, leaning into his ear.
“I’m practicing for ours,” he said, leaning back.
“Let’s serve these delicious mushrooms,” I said.
Hearing my nonchalant tone, you might have thought I was looking forward to a shower of my own.
 
At the end of the evening, I abandoned my privileged position as guest and took my turn with the cleanup crew. By now, all the men had left; most of the women stayed to help. Maybe times hadn’t changed all that much.
Elaine was practically giddy. After the meal, Dana had set up three card tables, with different games: mah-jongg, Scrabble, and a board game I didn’t recognize. I’d opted for mah-jongg since that table had its own Chinese American tutor, a computer scientist I’d worked with a few years back. Much better than wedding games.
“I can’t remember a nicer evening, Dana. Thank you so much,” Elaine said. I was sure she meant it, even if the past week would not have been hard to top. She quickly dropped her bride privilege and pitched in at the sink.
The mood was so light and happy, I expected us all to break out into a song like “Whistle While You Work,” or the modern-day equivalent.
As my last chore, I wrapped the trash and dragged it into the hallway by the back door. I bent over to settle the plastic bag between two bicycles and an already stuffed waste can.
Something not very heavy hit my head as I straightened up after depositing my load. I’d bumped into a crystal hanging from the handle of one of the bikes.
I remembered it from the first time I met Robin, when she carried her bike into the living room. And from another time …
My mind went back to Patel’s cul-de-sac, to the third time I was there, after Elaine had found Phil on the floor of the library. I’d gotten out of the Saab and spun around to check the reflections from the streetlight. One was off the bumper of a car in a neighboring driveway, a new Volvo.
And that was the car that
didn’t deserve the garage
, I thought irrelevantly. Another reflection came from the crime scene tape, and the third from the handle of a bike.
But it wasn’t from a handle; it was from a crystal.
I saw it now. Robin’s bike had been near Patel’s home the evening I was shot at.
 
“We have what we wanted,” I told Matt. “The second link between Robin and Patel. The ID card could be explained away, but not this.”
I’d waited until Elaine went upstairs to tell Matt the latest in what was supposed to have been a closed case. Two closed cases. Dana had dropped Elaine and me off; I’d spared her also. Both
women deserved an evening and a night’s sleep uncluttered with confusing pieces of information.
“This means Robin could have been part of what you lovingly call the spy ring,” Matt said.
“It does. It makes Robin part of both threads. But how did she even know Patel? If it were anything obvious, like meeting through Phil or Dana, one of them would have told us.”
What I hoped was that this new revelation didn’t bring us back to Robin and Phil being involved involved.
We tried to devise a way to query Dana about the link without alarming her. Matt was in favor of leaving her out of it. “She must have been thinking about this for a long time already,” he said. “Ever since she found that ID card.”
I deferred to his judgment.
“Okay, we don’t ask Dana. Let’s focus on why. Why would Robin involve herself in giving secret data to India—or wherever Patel was sending his downloads? Just for the money?”
“Why does anyone do it?” Matt asked.
“Still,” I said, “there should be a reason.”
“It’s not physics,” Matt said.
“Well, it should be.”
 
On Friday morning, the day before the wedding, I had a voice message from Rose, who’d sent a lovely set of linens as a shower present. I knew she’d want a complete description of the party. I tried to remember the menu (mushrooms plus an outstanding seven-layer cake were all I could recall), what everyone wore (California casual), what the other gifts were (general household merchandise, boring as it sounded). I wished I’d taken notes.
Catholic guilt took over my mind, and I decided to dig out and look over the police report Rose had sent me on the exploding hearse, so I could sound as though I cared.
After all,
I thought,
Rose is the person I’ll be living near whenever I’m not on vacation in California
.
I scanned the report, stopping at a mention of nitrogen, my current favorite element. Apparently the uniform who wrote up the incident decided to include a tutorial on the workings of explosives. I read his description.
Most bombs are like fireworks. They contain nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon,
I read.
When the molecules containing these atoms decompose, carbon dioxide and nitrogen gases are released quickly and with great energy, making the explosion.
Not bad, I decided, and figured that passage was probably the reason Rose wanted me to see the report.
“That was one thing,” Rose said, when I reached her. “And I also wanted you to see that list down at the bottom, where the police catalogued the other incidents that they felt were from the same perps. See, I just didn’t want you to think I was crazy.”
I looked at the sheet of paper with the familiar letterhead. At the very bottom was a list of what the RPD had called “similar pranks,” some of which I’d already heard from Rose. Like the switched clothing. My eyes settled on a new one to me.
Deceased had tennis ball stuffed in mouth.
“A tennis ball?” I asked, fishing around my mind for a connection I knew was there.
“Yes,” Rose said. “Didn’t I tell you that one? That was at O’Neal’s, too. Someone came in the middle of the night and evidently went into the parlor and stuffed a tennis ball in the deceased’s mouth. Imagine when his family came in for the viewing—”
“Thanks, Rose,” I said. “You’ve just become part of the Berkeley homicide team.”
 
“It was there all along,” I said.
“The tennis connection,” Matt said. He’d already made the trip to the Berkeley PD, as the official liaison for the team. “Robin
hanging out with the rich guys at the tennis club; Patel right there, recruiting for his cause.”
It hadn’t taken a long discussion for Matt and me to decide to inform Elaine, Phil, and Dana of this new development, for safety reasons first. Robin was still Dana’s roommate, after all.
Robin had been in charge all along, we realized. Working with Julia for money, as Dana figured out, and with Christopher and Patel for political reasons. She’d used her skills in finance to help Julia launder money, and her knowledge of international business procedures to help Patel manage his crimes against the country
“Well, Russell was impressed,” Matt said. “That’s something, huh? He said they were on it. They’ve already hit the bank where Robin works with a warrant. Since Robin thinks she’s clear, there shouldn’t be any problem finding her.”
“I knew something was going on in her mind, some real resentment about the way her father ended up,” Dana said. “It was like she blamed the government for what happened to the Vietnam vets.”
“Many people did,” I said.
“But why would she think India was any better?” Dana asked, apparently still trying to make sense of things.
“Not everyone thinks things through,” Matt said.
I had a few things to add, but I could see that Dana was satisfied with that.

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