The Nitrogen Murder (9 page)
Read The Nitrogen Murder Online
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
I showed him empty palms, as if I’d have been holding a car in my hands if I had one. “Elaine dropped me off, and Matt and Dana will be picking me up. He went with her to her counseling session.”
“I heard that. It’s quite handy that he’s around. I appreciate all he’s doing. I know Dana admires him a lot.”
I nodded at Phil the Charming. “He’s happy to do it. He’ll go to the police station with her also.”
Phil stopped midsleeve, a frown crossing his wide brow.
“But don’t worry about me,” I went on. “I have my book, and if I get impatient, I’ll catch a bus up University Ave.”
If that’s what you’re worried about
, I thought.
, I thought.
“Right,” Phil said, favoring his bandaged hand while adjusting his jacket. Maybe he wanted me to remember the lovely hors d’oeuvres platter he’d given blood for. “Well, good-bye for now, Gloria.”
I thought back to Phil’s slight hesitation at the mention of
police. Was that the slip I’d been waiting for? How desperate was I to incriminate Phil in something?
police. Was that the slip I’d been waiting for? How desperate was I to incriminate Phil in something?
I ordered another coffee and took out my notebook.
Contact Andrea
, I wrote.
, I wrote.
M
y next contact was not with Andrea but with Matt’s voice mail. I called his cell phone and left a message that I wouldn’t need to be picked up. I walked from the bagel shop to a branch of the Berkeley Public Library, staying on the shady side of the street as long as possible. I enjoyed the odors that reached the sidewalk from Berkeley’s many ethnic restaurants. I passed a Black Muslim bakery (bean pie?), a Thai cafe (lemon-grass soup, I decided), an Indian eatery (curry, for sure), and a French bistro (the strong coffee that I loved), all in the same block.
y next contact was not with Andrea but with Matt’s voice mail. I called his cell phone and left a message that I wouldn’t need to be picked up. I walked from the bagel shop to a branch of the Berkeley Public Library, staying on the shady side of the street as long as possible. I enjoyed the odors that reached the sidewalk from Berkeley’s many ethnic restaurants. I passed a Black Muslim bakery (bean pie?), a Thai cafe (lemon-grass soup, I decided), an Indian eatery (curry, for sure), and a French bistro (the strong coffee that I loved), all in the same block.
I began to resent the simple bagel lunch forced on me by Phil Chambers.
I arrived at the library tired out from the hot weather and the slight incline of the streets I’d covered. I made another of my heat-of-battle resolves to exercise more, but a blast of air-conditioning and a long drink from a water fountain helped immensely, and the image of a Nautilus machine faded from my mind.
I was eager to log on to the Internet without looking over my shoulder, worried about whether Elaine would catch me in the act of Googling her fiancé.
As with the Revere Public Library, computer monitors, though welcome in my life, seemed out of context with the dé-cor of the beautiful old building. This Berkeley branch had dark wood bookshelves along each wall, intricately designed stained
glass lamps hanging from the ornate ceiling, and a circulation desk so large that it appeared to have been ensconced on the spot before the building went up.
glass lamps hanging from the ornate ceiling, and a circulation desk so large that it appeared to have been ensconced on the spot before the building went up.
The library was crowded this Monday afternoon. My guess was that many of the older people browsing the magazine and newspaper racks were there as much for contact with society as for reading material. And I would have bet my latest
Dictionary of Scientific Biography
that it was cooler here than in their apartments and houses. The myth was that the cities and towns immediately around the bay, like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, never got very hot, so air-conditioning was unnecessary. It was true that there weren’t as many ninety-plus days as out in the valley towns, but when the heat waves did hit, the days were just as miserable, and no one was prepared.
Dictionary of Scientific Biography
that it was cooler here than in their apartments and houses. The myth was that the cities and towns immediately around the bay, like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, never got very hot, so air-conditioning was unnecessary. It was true that there weren’t as many ninety-plus days as out in the valley towns, but when the heat waves did hit, the days were just as miserable, and no one was prepared.
I e-mailed Andrea, using the sloppy grammar and punctuation we’d all gotten used to in the electronic era. I felt a sour sun-dried tomato taste as I remembered lying to Elaine about nonexistent e-mail correspondence with Andrea over the weekend as an excuse to use her computer system.
This will make it right
, I told myself.
This will make it right
, I told myself.
I hit the keys.
Andrea: M. and I having a great time out here. weather is *hot* but supposed to break well before the wedding. Wondering if u can look up something for me … anything on the nitrogen fullerene, and find out if anyone knows a Dr. Philip Chambers or a Dr. Lokesh Patel who might have visited “your” lab. not a rush, but if u have a minute, it would help greatly in my class prep. hope things are good with u and T. love, G.
T. was short for Thaddeus Jin, Andrea’s new boyfriend, also a technician at the Charger Street Lab. Some giggled at the notion of XL-sized Andrea at the movies sharing popcorn with the very small-framed Chinese-American Jin, but I was delighted they’d
hit it off and that Andrea was more and more confident in her attractiveness as the wonderful person she was.
hit it off and that Andrea was more and more confident in her attractiveness as the wonderful person she was.
Not that I’d been quick to notice Andrea’s personal qualities myself. At first I’d seen her as my surrogate with a badge, helping me gain access to the personnel and informational assets of the Charger Street Lab. I now thought of her as my friend and not simply a resource.
Except for today, when getting information was at the front of my mind. I checked the time—almost five o’clock on the East Coast. Andrea would be heading home. I knew most of her e-mail activity was business related, but with me here on the West Coast, she might check for a message when she got home. In any case, I’d have something from her in the morning. If I could only get to a computer to access my e-mail without a major lie.
It was too long a walk and there were too many hills between the library and Elaine’s. I called to see if she could pick me up.
“Of course,” she said. “The flower emergency is over. You can come with me to check out the table linens for the reception. I’m not convinced they understand the colors I need now that my flowers are all different.”
“Table linens. Fantastic.”
Elaine laughed. “It’ll be fun, Gloria. There’s a great new coffee place right nearby. I’ll be at the library in about twenty minutes.” She took a breath, and I imagined her tucking strands of gray-blond hair over her ear. “Oh, and did I tell you? I found a new wedding book at the florist’s. I hope I don’t see anything in it it’s too late to do. Oh, that was a bad sentence, but you know what I mean. See you!”
I punched END and sighed. Bad sentences from BUL’s best technical editor? Where was my friend Elaine who subscribed to
The New Yorker
and read all the fiction and nonfiction nominated for book awards, who had season tickets to the San Francisco Symphony and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, who’d dragged me to museum exhibits on both sides of the Bay Bridge? She
seemed to have disappeared into a shower of filmy white lace and linen. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d ordered a plastic bride and groom for the wedding cake.
The New Yorker
and read all the fiction and nonfiction nominated for book awards, who had season tickets to the San Francisco Symphony and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, who’d dragged me to museum exhibits on both sides of the Bay Bridge? She
seemed to have disappeared into a shower of filmy white lace and linen. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d ordered a plastic bride and groom for the wedding cake.
I clicked my tongue and opened the article Phil left with me. “Stability for the Nitrogen Fullerene.”
Finally, something interesting.
The article Phil had brought me was a general, nontechnical piece on nitrogen, covering all its uses. It included everything from research on synthesized new forms of nitrogen fullerenes to the presence of nitrogen as a detonation product of a high explosive—bomb, to the layperson. Nothing I couldn’t have found with a good search engine, but it was interesting background nonetheless, with up-to-the-minute descriptions of supercomputers used in modeling events. Even before I’d retired from physics, computer modeling had become prevalent. Better to input equations and test an explosive on a screen than in someone’s backyard.
I read the special section about insensitive high explosives, materials that are remarkably insensitive to high temperatures, shock, and impact. These features improved the safety of explosives while they were stored and transported. Though I’d never worked directly with weapons at BUL, I’d spent enough time around weapons scientists to be immune to the euphemisms—“energetic materials” instead of “bomb constituents”—and the seeming oxymoron of “weapons safety.”
I tapped my fingers on the attractive figures in the article, colorful simulations of different experimental geometries for the molecule on one page, surreal close-ups of TATB crystals on another. I decided Phil had chosen this article more to distract me than to illuminate his work. I was about to fold the pages up—maybe even toss them into the nearby wastebasket—when I noticed the fine print at the bottom of the last page. The article had been distributed by the National Nuclear Security Administration,
the people in charge of maintaining the country’s weapons arsenal in the program called Stockpile Stewardship.
the people in charge of maintaining the country’s weapons arsenal in the program called Stockpile Stewardship.
So what? I asked myself, but I stuffed the article into my bag and went outside to watch for Elaine.
The linen lady (Ms. Colbert? Ms. Corbett? Elaine had said her name just as a fire truck screamed past us on busy Shattuck Avenue) had about her a faux sweetness that I guess had developed over thousands of hours interacting with brides. She was wizened and hoarse, and I pictured her lighting up a cigarette at every opportunity, but never in front of a bride. On the way across town to the shop, I’d wondered why Elaine had to take care of this in the first place.
“Doesn’t the club have its own linens?” I’d asked, remembering how excited Elaine had been when she’d been able to book a country club in the neighboring city of El Cerrito.
She gave me another of her poor-unenlightened-Gloria looks. “Their linens are … ordinary. Wait until you see what Ms. Colburn offers.”
Now, in Ms. Colburn’s shop, I saw how many different shades and textures of blue there were. I even felt a twinge of understanding, putting myself in a similar situation, but in a lab supply warehouse, like the kind I’d visited in my grad school days. Instead of swatches of cloth, I imagined row upon row of meters and scopes. Voltmeters. Ammeters. Fluke meters for all applications. Oscilloscopes, large and small. Instead of brocade or not brocade, I’d have to choose between analog and digital.
“Did you have a nice lunch with Phil?” Elaine asked. We were waiting for the linen lady to reappear with a corrected invoice. Not Queen Anne blue but Parisian blue, it would say.
“Yes, we did,” I said, as smoothly as I could, given the lack of honesty in my answer.
“I know you didn’t take to him right away, Gloria.”
I said something like “Pshaw” and waved away the idea. I was glad Elaine had turned her back to sign the reprinted form.
“He’s a wonderful guy. He’s wonderful to me.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Did Dana live with him, growing up?” I asked. I needed to ease us off the Wonderful Phil topic.
“Phil and Marilyn split when Dana was about eleven, but she stayed in the area, so it’s not like Phil ever lost touch with Dana. Then, when Dana started college at Cal, Marilyn moved to Florida with her new husband. I think his family’s out there.” She cocked her head and smiled at me. “She won’t be coming to the wedding, in case you’re wondering.”
I realized I knew few wedding details. I was embarrassed to ask, in case Elaine had already told me the vital statistics by phone or e-mail. How many guests? What time of day in the Rose Garden? Who was performing the ceremony? I knew Dana was Phil’s “best man,” but were she and I the only attendants?
But more than wedding data, I wanted to know what was going on at the Berkeley PD. I knew Matt had called ahead to tell—warn?—Inspector Dennis Russell that he’d be accompanying Dana. I imagined Russell welcoming Matt graciously. Let me show you the files, I heard.
And please bring Gloria to help us with the investigation
. My imagination wouldn’t quit these days; the California sun was doing strange things to my brain.
And please bring Gloria to help us with the investigation
. My imagination wouldn’t quit these days; the California sun was doing strange things to my brain.
I couldn’t wait for the fog to roll in.
We skipped the idea of sitting in an un-air-conditioned coffee shop and drove directly from the linen lady’s shop to Elaine’s. I headed straight for the pitcher of iced coffee in the refrigerator and poured us each a glass.
Elaine’s answering machine was blinking 4. The first call, from a colleague at work, annoyed her.
“Elaine, this is Dave Hamill. I need to talk to you about some of the edits you made to my input for the annual report. I don’t think we need to spell out those acronyms. Everyone who reads this will know
what they stand for. If they don’t they should be taken off the distribution list. Anyway, call me back …”
what they stand for. If they don’t they should be taken off the distribution list. Anyway, call me back …”
“Typical,” Elaine said. “I’m on vacation,” she shouted to the machine, giving the NEXT button a sharp push.
Dana called to say thank you for the massage, claiming to be
totally looking
forward to it and to being
so not ready
to just go back to work.
totally looking
forward to it and to being
so not ready
to just go back to work.
Two messages were for me, from Revere. Elaine and I stared at the machine as we heard Rose, in a panic over an explosion. Someone had planted a bomb under a hearse belonging to O’Neal’s Funeral Home in. Chelsea.
“It’s terrible,” she said. “At least the vehicle was empty, but these people will stop at nothing, and I just know we’re next. Frank and Robert are with the police now, to see if there’s anything preventive we can do.” A big sigh. “Well, I’m sorry to be always bringing bad news. I’m sure everything there is rosy and beautiful and I wish I were there, or you were here, not that I’d want you to miss the wedding …”
Rose rambled for a few more seconds. Ordinarily I would have called her back immediately upon hearing something so dramatic as an exploding hearse in my hometown. But the next message on Elaine’s machine precluded that.
It was from Andrea, and it caused an explosion between Elaine and me.
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