The Carbon Murder (11 page)
Authors: Camille Minichino
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths
I
t wasn’t like me to miss deadlines, even self-imposed ones, but my concern for Matt and for MC had pushed my to-call list out of my mind. At seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, it was time to get back on track, I decided.
t wasn’t like me to miss deadlines, even self-imposed ones, but my concern for Matt and for MC had pushed my to-call list out of my mind. At seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, it was time to get back on track, I decided.
I looked up the home phone number for Daniel Endicott, the young science teacher and Science Club leader at Revere High, and punched it in. Thanks to Daniel and his enthusiasm, the science curriculum had greatly expanded since my day, giving students electives in astronomy, meteorology, and environmental sciences, besides the core subjects and several AP courses.
“We’re conducting a study of coyote populations in urban areas,” Daniel told me over the phone, prompting me to wonder if there was any end to the Texas influence in Revere. “We’re trapping the animals, with humane boxes, of course. We put radio transmitter collars on them so we can track them for up to three years. We’re working with a vet—Dr. Timothy Schofield. He’s local, so maybe you know him. In fact, he might come to your talk. He’s going to do a session for us later on, and he wants to get an idea of how to do it.”
I smiled at the idea of a humane trap, and also at the notion that I might know a veterinarian. I’d studiously avoided pets all my life, not wanting any more maintenance chores than those already required for clean clothes and dishes. That I might be a model high school lecturer also added to my amusement.
“Sounds like you have the wildlife topic covered. I’m leaning toward buckyballs at the moment,” I told him.
“Cool,” he said, sounding like his predecessor and peer, Erin Wong, who was on maternity leave. “I’m a huge fan of Bucky Fuller. Very cool.” I decided
cool
was the designated enthusiastic response of people under thirty. I tried to remember what Rose and I would have said at their age; it seemed it would have been a long sentence, correctly constructed. But then, we weren’t very cool in those days.
cool
was the designated enthusiastic response of people under thirty. I tried to remember what Rose and I would have said at their age; it seemed it would have been a long sentence, correctly constructed. But then, we weren’t very cool in those days.
“And, for the second talk, I thought I’d do Maria Telkes.”
“Sure.”
Not
cool
. I figured he didn’t know her. “Hungarian-American, physical chemist. You might have heard of her as the Sun Queen. She designed the first solar-powered house, long before it was fashionable. It went up in 1948 and is still in use, in Dover.”
cool
. I figured he didn’t know her. “Hungarian-American, physical chemist. You might have heard of her as the Sun Queen. She designed the first solar-powered house, long before it was fashionable. It went up in 1948 and is still in use, in Dover.”
“Dover, Mass.?”
“That’s right. I thought your students might relate to her. Telkes started her research when she was in high school, then went to MIT. She has many other solar-power patents; we ought to have your class try to reproduce some of the simpler ones, like her solar oven.”
“Cool. I’m all into solar stuff, so I’m surprised I haven’t heard of her. By the way, Gloria, did you hear about the dead body in the marsh last week?”
“I certainly did.”
“Well, the weird thing is I got my general science students involved in the restoration project. You know, some dumb land debates held up that construction project, so it became, like, one large junkyard. So I got my kids interested in the cleanup. Environmental consciousness and all that. We hauled more than three tons of trash out of there last year. Well, the point is we were there the day before the dead woman turned up. It would have been awful if one of them had stumbled onto a dead body.”
Daniel uttered a shuddering noise.
“Awful,” I agreed.
“The reason I’m telling you is, maybe you could mention to the class—the parents, really, but the kids will take the info home—that it’s not dangerous to be out there. You know, the chances of getting murdered out there are …”
“Very slim, Daniel. I’ll be happy to reinforce that, though maybe you want a visiting detective in your class. In fact, you can tell the students the police think the woman was murdered somewhere else and her body dumped there.”
“Oh,” he said, weakly, and I imagined he was considering whether that made things sound better or worse to the parents.
When we hung up, I put a check mark next to Daniel’s name, and wrote
buckyballs and Telkes
in large letters off to the side.
buckyballs and Telkes
in large letters off to the side.
Andrea Cabrini, a technician at Charger Street lab, was next on my list. I’d done better in the last couple of months keeping in touch with her, and not simply using her as a way for me to get into the lab without a badge. Andrea was the kind of person who wouldn’t have minded the latter, but I would have. I was glad I’d invited her to lunch last week, when there was no murder on the agenda.
I punched in Andrea’s number. She gave me her usual enthusiastic greeting, always making me feel she’d been sitting around hoping I’d call.
“Hi, Gloria. I’ve been thinking about you.” She lowered her voice. “The body in the marsh and all. And I figured you’d need a consultant.”
“A consultant to a consultant. You’re too good to me,” I said.
“I pass by there all the time, when I go to see my aunt in Lynn.”
Andrea had come a long way from the days when she would have thought she might be a suspect herself, for just such a drive-by connection. Her “big, beautiful woman” status didn’t help her self-confidence, but I thought she was doing better since she’d started dating my old friend, Peter Mastrone.
Gloria, the matchmaker.
“The only thing is, I couldn’t see that there was a link to the lab,” she said.
“The police didn’t release everything, Andrea.” I lowered my voice for effect, bringing her into the small inner circle. “It turns out there might be a connection.”
“Wow.” She whispered, matching the pitch of my clandestinemeeting voice.
How good I’d become at manipulation—I knew Andrea loved being on the inside of police work. Come to think of it, so did I.
“I have some brochures on the buckyball program, but I need some real, technical reports. Can you meet me—”
“You bet. When and where?”
I gave her specifics of what I would like, and we made a date for the next morning. I checked another name off my list.
I made a few other calls, leaving Jean for last. I’d decided I should personally confirm her visit, and make her feel welcome. I’d prepared an “I’m looking forward to having you” line, with a tone to match.
I can do this much for Matt
, I told myself. As luck would have it, I was interrupted in the middle of dialing her Cape Cod number.
I can do this much for Matt
, I told myself. As luck would have it, I was interrupted in the middle of dialing her Cape Cod number.
MC arrived on our doorstep out of breath, her eyes filled with tears and panic. She flung her keys onto the small table in our entryway, and curled up on the couch, pulling her hands back into the sleeves of her navy blue sweatshirt. Her retreat position.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life. I didn’t know what he was going to do to me. Kidnap me, or … or kill me.”
Jake Powers, I thought.
“Wayne Gallen,” she said.
Déjà vu—like midnight at the RPD, my thinking of Jake when Wayne was the culprit.
I sat down next to her. Matt, who’d been reading the newspaper while I was phoning, gave MC a glass of water, which she guzzled down too fast, causing her to cough for a few seconds. I waited for the details, flexing my fingers, clenching my jaw. Had he … raped her? I could hardly think the word, and looked for signs that might
tell me. MC did not look disheveled or bruised, which brought me some relief.
tell me. MC did not look disheveled or bruised, which brought me some relief.
I let her tell the story, in fits and starts. The parking lot at the Windside in Winthrop, entering her car, keeping her there, wanting her to go away with him, once again telling her she’s in danger from someone in Houston.
“I don’t know if he’s crazy—well, I
do
know he’s crazy—but is he
just
crazy or am I really in danger from something?”
do
know he’s crazy—but is he
just
crazy or am I really in danger from something?”
My question exactly.
“I didn’t know whether to go to the police first, or come here, Aunt G,” MC said, addressing me but looking at Matt. “I figured coming here was a little of both.”
“You did the right thing,” I said, patting her hand. I looked across at Matt for confirmation. He gave a slight nod, as if to say we were half right, that MC should have made an official complaint. Matt was tied into law enforcement protocol in a way that I was not.
“Did he give you any idea where he’s staying?” Matt asked.
MC shook her head. “He appeared from nowhere, and then left. I wasn’t paying attention to the direction he went. There was no other car in sight, so I don’t know how he got there or how he got away.”
“I know he hasn’t rented a car from any of the local places—we checked, just for closure after we let him go last week,” Matt said. “We could check again, see if anything’s changed in the last few days.” Matt had taken out his notebook. Making this now an official interview?
“What about the car Rusty Forman rented?” I asked, wondering if indeed hit men did rent cars. “Maybe Wayne took that car.”
Matt shook his head. “That vehicle was impounded from outside the motel when Forman’s body was found. Either it’s still in the impound lot, or it was returned to the rental agency, a place at Logan if I remember correctly.”
“What should I do?” MC asked, looking like a child, asking a question to which there should be a simple answer. I felt utterly inadequate.
“A PFA,” Matt said. “That’s about all we can do at the moment.”
“Isn’t that like a restraining order? Is that it?” I asked, my voice shrill.
“Protection From Abuse, a specific kind of restraining order. Even that’s pushing it,” Matt said, “since he didn’t really threaten her. Right, MC?”
She nodded, shrugged her shoulders. “I guess not,” she said, in a weak voice.
“He entered her car and kept her there against her will,” I reminded them both.
“Let me get busy on the PFA,” Matt said, doing his job.
We have to find him first, to serve him,
I thought, but decided not to make a point of it.
I thought, but decided not to make a point of it.
An hour later, I sat next to MC in my old apartment on Tuttle Street. Matt had insisted on accompanying us. He made some calls from MC’s phone, then fell asleep in one of my old glide rockers. I worried about all the extra napping he was doing these days, and hoped it didn’t mean his system was breaking down. The cancerous “five” that was always at the back of my mind.
MC had installed her computer on the opposite side of the room from where mine had been, and I felt lopsided. I found myself checking off items in the apartment that were the same as when I’d lived there. The blue-and-white speckled linoleum in the kitchen, a small bookcase I’d brought from California, appliances that were duplicates with Matt’s, like the espresso maker and the toaster. I’d left MC my bed, too, and it looked the same, except for colorful pillows that I wouldn’t have thought to add.
We sat together in front of her monitor, waiting, after MC clicked on open messages.
It seemed to take forever, though I knew if we clocked it, no more than fifteen seconds would have passed. How quickly we adjust our level of patience to the speed of the digital era, I thought—by the time we get to MC’s children’s generation, even
the Polaroid camera will be in the Smithsonian, if it wasn’t there already.
the Polaroid camera will be in the Smithsonian, if it wasn’t there already.
MC scanned through to two emails from Mary Roderick, Nina Martin’s undercover name. As MC suspected, the correspondence had to do only with the private investigator’s term paper for MC’s class. She read the first one aloud.
Thanks so much for extending the deadline for my research paper, Ms. Galigani. Dr. Gallen has given me some new references that I want to check out. MR
“Dr. Gallen. Ugh,” MC said, giving a shudder. She wiped her hand across her mouth and took a drink of water from a bottle on the desk.
We double-clicked on the second email, dated a couple of days later, and I read aloud this time.
Just to let you know that I left the paper in your office this morning. :=) MR
“A smiley face and all.” MC choked up, biting back a swell of tears. I swallowed, feeling the tragedy myself, though I hadn’t known the woman. Playing on the keyboard one day, and the next, the police are dragging your body from a marshy grave.
“Well, see, there’s no hint that she was headed for Revere,” MC said.
“I wonder why she was so conscientious about her homework if her entire student persona was simply an undercover identity,” I said. “It’s not as if she really needed a grade.”
“Not to arouse suspicion,” Matt said, from the rocker, apparently awake enough to hear our conversation. I’d noticed he’d been going in and out of a light sleep while we worked. “Undercovers are nothing if not thorough. She probably had a secretary write the paper for her.”
MC groaned. “That’s annoying.”
“Why can’t we just find out who hired her to take MC’s class?” I asked, straining my neck to make eye contact with Matt. “And then ask the FDA if she was working on anything for them.”
“No one at the FDA admits to knowing anything about a case with a Houston PI. Not their procedure to work with civilians, they said.”
“What about the card in Nina’s pocket?”
Matt shrugged. “Nothing they know about. They’re saying she probably met someone in a bar and the guy happened to work for the FDA and gave her his card. There wasn’t a particular person’s number on it, just the general FDA switchboard number.”
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