Carbon Murder, The

by Camille Minichino

  I scanned the list.

  Clever names, I thought, wondering if astronaut Dr. Sally Ride or the owner of McDonald’s restaurants had given permission for use of their names. Or if they owned the horses. Inventive, either way.

  There it was. Lucian Five. The names of horses didn’t have a long shelf-life in my brain, but I recognized Penny Trumble’s deceased horse.

  “What if all these horses are dead?” I asked Matt. I tapped my pencil the way Dr. Schofield had, end on end.

  Matt lowered his Revere Journal. “I doubt it. That would raise a flag.” He came to my chair and peered at the list. “There’s one I know,” he said.

  I gave him a strange look, as if he’d just admitted to having fathered a child now living on a ranch in Texas with its mother. “What else are you keeping from me?”

  He laughed and pointed to a line on the chart.

  “Mike Mercati used to be on the job. He went into private practice a couple of years ago and opened an agency in Saugus. This is probably his middle daughter; I remember she was into horses as a teenager.” Matt sounded like Rose. It seemed I was the only one who had forfeited my knowledge of Revere history.

  We looked up simultaneously, our heads making a nearly identical angle, its sides being parallel lines from my chair to the old analog clock on the mantel. I had the fleeting thought that we should implant an identification microchip in the clock, a valuable antique.

  At the same time that I said, “It’s only ten o’clock,” Matt said, “It’s ten o’clock already.”

  “I said it first.” I kissed his cheek and handed him the phone.

  The crooning had stopped, but neither of us bothered to reload the player. The evening had turned into a work session where the words to “Catch a Falling Star” would only be distracting.

  I waited through a catch-up session between Matt and his old friend, hearing Matt’s easy comments, as if he had all the time in the world. How nice that Sheila was teacher of the year at Saugus High. Did Uncle Bill ever buy that cottage by the ocean? And yes, Matt was still on Fernwood Avenue and things were fine. I noticed he left out both me and his cancer. I heard a few more pleasantries, then finally, the reason for the call.

  “Okay, yeah. And I’m glad to hear Uncle Sam is doing so well.” A pause. “No, no, I’m just following up with some statistics for a case. Thanks a lot, Mike.”

  “Alive?” I asked. I was glad Mr. Mercati couldn’t hear my disappointment

  Matt nodded. “Uncle Sam won a second in a show yesterday.”

  “So the chips don’t kill all the horses.”

  “Or any of them, as far as we know.”

  “Right. Coffee break?” I asked, already at the espresso maker.

  It had been a long time since I’d responded to a dream by waking up with an idea. I got out of bed as quietly as I could and went down to the living room.

  In my dream I kept forgetting to put cash or credit cards or my checkbook into my purse, so I couldn’t pay for what I was buying. I had no idea what I was trying to buy, but the dream crisis reminded me that I hadn’t looked at the financial details of the Charger Street reports. Sometime later I might delve into what the dream really meant. As far as I knew, I was solvent.

  I pulled the stack of material onto my lap—I’d read the same annual summaries of the projects over and over and thought I knew them by heart, but had just skimmed the financial reports. Not the most interesting to me. I riffled through and found the money sections, appearing as appendices to the reports.

  Since most of Lorna Frederick’s program money was from government sources, the financial aspects were a matter of public record, just as my salary at mostly DOE-funded BUL had been. I checked the Revere payroll for Dr. Timothy Schofield, and the Houston payroll for Dr. Owen Evans. Both were listed at an hourly rate that was reasonable—for doctors or lawyers, though high for consultants in general. And certainly high for people who weren’t working for the program yet.

  I found the input/output sheets for the microchips.

  If I was reading the sheet correctly, Lorna was buying chips from different manufacturers—probably to satisfy a government regulation to avoid sole sourcing—and then selling them to the veterinarians. But Lorna was giving a 30 percent discount to the doctors. I was amazed the sponsors wouldn’t notice and question this. I had the feeling that somewhere in an executive summary meant for bureaucrats there was twisted jargon that made this seem reasonable. What else was being sanitized, I wondered.

  Another perk for the doctors—I was willing to bet they were not passing the savings on to their clients.

  I went back over the fiscal reports, looking for … something else. I didn’t know what. Until, there it was. I knew I’d recognize it when I saw it. Another chart for microchips, with different parameters tabulated.

  Lorna kept a record of each chip, with its history. The page wasn’t numbered and I wondered if it had been submitted by mistake. Most intriguing was the column labeled PROCESSING.

  The good doctors were installing “processed” chips? What kind of processing would take a month or more? I wondered why the chips couldn’t go straight from the manufacturer to the veterinarians. Surely if the veterinarians bought the chips themselves they wouldn’t “process” them. But, of course, why would they buy their own when they could get a huge discount from Lorna’s program?

  I looked through the technical reports one more time, to see if I could find anything on “processing.” Nothing. Did Dr. Schofield and Dr. Evans know the chips were being processed before they received them for implantation? I wished I’d looked at the financial statements before interviewing Dr. Schofield. This case, plus all the time I’d been spending in hospital waiting rooms and in emotional stress over Matt’s illness, had made me sloppy.

  I got off the couch, pulled my navy corduroy bathrobe tighter, and walked around the living room and dining room to warm up and to reorganize my thoughts. I needed to talk to someone. Andrea Cabrini could help, but not at two o’clock in the morning. It was only eleven o’clock in California, but I hadn’t given Elaine Cody running commentary on this case as I had on others. I had, however, poured all my stress over the phone lines to her.

  I went upstairs to my office and found my notes from the first interview Matt and I had had with Lorna. I made noises, shuffled past the bedroom door, but not too loudly, just enough to wake Matt gently, I hoped. He slept on. I went back down with only my notes.

  I’d recorded the dialogue as best as I could remember it, once we’d left Lorna’s office. I read the section where I’d questioned her about having veterinarians on her payroll:

  Q./me: Do some of your programs require testing on animals?

  A./LF: Not exactly. (Annoyed. Ends meeting abruptly.)

  The question of chips never came up. I started to blame Houston PD for not sharing the transcript sooner. If we’d known from the beginning Nina Martin was investigating the death of a horse, things might have moved more smoothly. Matt had defended them when I’d brought it up, however.

  “It hasn’t even been two weeks,” he’d said. “And the HPD couldn’t just walk into Nina’s office and take her files. Not only that, once they had them, they had to sift through to find the case that might have sent her here.”

  “And it’s not as if she had had an equestrian card in her pocket,” I’d said, deciding to join his side.

  After another fruitless half hour, I wanted to shake Matt awake and brainstorm, but I’d never keep him from the sleep he needed. It would be too rude, I concluded—unless he woke up from an odor, like the aroma of espresso.

  Technically, I knew better—we can’t smell in our sleep—but something worked, because Matt came downstairs a few minutes into my middle-of-the-night coffee break.

  “I thought I was going to have to bake lemon cookies,” I said. “Or try my new intense pesto sauce recipe.”

  “You mean if I’d held out a little longer, there’d be an extra treat?”

&n
bsp; “Next time.”

  I summoned him to the coffee table and briefed him on my marked-up lists.

  “What I don’t understand—besides what processing they’re doing—is why Lorna’s giving us all this potentially incriminating evidence in nicely bound reports.” I spread out the material on the coffee table, making a fan of the colorful plastic strips down the left-hand side of each report.

  Matt shrugged. “You know what they say. If criminals didn’t do dumb things …”

  “None of them would get caught.”

  Matt pointed to other line items on the expense sheet. “Also, look at how expensive these other items are. Capital equipment, for one. Rare chemicals. CPU time, whatever that is. The chips are way down in the noise of the money they’re spending. But Lorna certainly wants to be reimbursed for the full amount she’s spending, so she sticks these little chip expenses in there. Why not, if she thinks no one will question her.”

  Good point. “So where are we on this?” I asked him, exhausted and frustrated. “Are we any closer to why Nina and Jake were murdered?”

  “Maybe it will look better in the morning.”

  I was tired enough to wait.

  Matt climbed the stairs extra slowly, holding on to the worn oak banister that was on our list to refinish some week. Along with repapering the hallway and buying new stairway lighting.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, but planning to sleep in.”

  “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  On Tuesday morning I was awakened by retching noises coming from the bathroom. I shot out of bed. Matt was doubled over, unable to tell me exactly what was wrong. He mumbled syllables I couldn’t understand, then a few seconds later his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he fell over, unconscious. I called 911, then Rose, and then George Berger, as if it would take all of them to save Matt.

  How could I have been so selfish? I asked myself over and over as I sat in the hospital waiting room, dry-eyed, having used up my tears driving behind the ambulance. I’d kept Matt up late, luring him to work in the wee hours of the morning, helping him ignore his doctors’ orders to rest. I’d even let him heat up the clam chowder himself, and forgotten to restock the cranberry juice.

  Dr. Rosen had been assigned to Matt again. I hoped she would be a little less cheery now that she had at least more one week of experience, but her chestnut ponytail still bounced when she greeted me.

  “Detective Gennaro’s fiancée, right? I’ll be back in a sec,” she’d said, a half hour ago.

  There was nothing I could do but wait. Wait for Rose, wait for Berger, wait for Dr. Rosen. I felt I’d read every old periodical in every waiting room in Suffolk County, though I’d have hated to be quizzed on the contents.

  None of this had been predicted by the dozens of consultations, brochures, pamphlets, URLs, or wellness letters we’d drowned ourselves in. Side effects of external beam therapy for prostate cancer, if any, weren’t due until well into the radiation program. Matt had had only one treatment and had seemed fine the rest of that day. Until I prodded him into working, I told myself.

  I’d dozed off in the stiff chair when I felt a sharp poke on my upper arm. I looked up to—none of the people I’d been waiting for—Jean Mottolo. I’d forgotten that I’d asked Rose to call Matt’s sister. I wasn’t ready for her criticism; I’d already given myself enough.

  I was even less ready for her friendliness.

  “Gloria, how are you? I can’t believe this is happening. Did you talk to the doctor yet? You must be exhausted.” Jean slung her burgundy shoulder bag onto the chair next to me and gave me a warm smile.

  I waited for the zinger. It’s all your fault Matt’s here and I had to drive all this way again, my mind heard. But there was no zinger. Jean took off her coat, plunked down next to me with a big sigh, and put her hand on my arm. The way Rose would.

  “I … uh … Dr. Rosen should be here any minute. I hope the traffic wasn’t too bad.”

  Jean waved her hand and spoke rapidly, as if she wanted to close a deal quickly. “It took about an hour and a half. I was making good time until that Braintree split. Then things got bogged down. Thank God for easy-listening WQRC, and of course WBZ.” She took a breath. “‘Traffic on the threes,’” she said, mimicking the radio announcer’s signature line. She looked at her watch, a fancy number with her children’s birthstones along the band. I remembered the day she explained it to me—I’d tried to hide my imitation-leather-strapped drugstore watch under the sleeve of my jacket. “Anyway, I’m glad I’m here.”

  “So am I.” I said this shakily, thinking Jean might be laying a trap. Trusting soul, that Gloria.

  Jean patted my hand. “We’ll get through this.”

  Rose arrived upon this scene, and gave me a look that was no more trusting than I felt. “Hi, Jean. You made great time.” I heard the wariness in her voice.

  “Rose, I’m so glad to see you.” Jean stood up and hugged Rose. I saw Rose’s arms stiffen, then make their way to patting Jean’s back. She looked at me over Jean’s shoulder—possible only because Jean had bent over to accommodate Rose’s height. “How’s your daughter? I heard the terrible news about her friend’s death.”

  I wondered how Jean could have known about Jake’s death. I didn’t think the Cape Cod Times would carry stories of murder or mayhem in Revere. Most likely Matt had told her.

  Dr. Rosen came through double doors that seemed to swing in tune with her hair. She beamed a big smile at us, and motioned me to come forward.

  “You go ahead, Gloria. We’ll be right here,” Jean said, earning another strange look from Rose. I wondered briefly if Rose thought I’d decided to try one of the “I’m pregnant” stories on Jean.

  “We just can’t seem to get this right,” Dr. Rosen told me. “Another bad reaction, this time to no medication. So, somewhere in the middle between too much and zero, that’s where we’re aiming.”

  I blinked my eyes at her glibness. This was my … fiancé, for all she knew, and her reporting came off as if she were trying to gauge the right distance to clear the highest pole in a competition. I took a breath before addressing her.

  “So this reaction was to just one dose of the radiation?”

  She nodded gaily, as if to commend me for getting the correct answer. “It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes that’s all it takes. He’s presenting with exactly the symptoms we might expect in the fourth or fifth week. He’s ahead of the class, you might say.”

  No, I might not say that.

  “Can I see him?”

  She shook her hair. “Not for a while. He’s all doped up.” Dr. Rosen checked her watch, more like mine than Jean’s, with a plain brown strap. “I’d say come back at noon.”

  I gave her the best smile and thank-you I had available.

  Jean insisted she be allowed to treat Rose and me to an early lunch at a place of our choice, so at about eleven-thirty the three of us sat in Russo’s, the elaborately decorated restaurant on Broadway where I’d met Matt for one of our first meals together. We called it our Half Meeting because it had been half work, half date, and, as Matt remembered, he’d half stood to greet me, not wanting to offend my sensibilities either way.

  “I didn’t know whether to expect a feminist or an old-fashioned girl,” he’d told me once, reminiscing.

  “Which was I?” I’d asked.

  A crooked smile. “The best of both.”

  As I thought of him now, I turned my head away, having brought myself to the brink of tears. Rose and Jean kindly ignored me, but in a way that said, We’re here. The best of both, I thought, mimicking Matt.

  My friends—I was starting to include Jean in that group—ordered a bottle of wine and we clinked their wineglasses and my mineral water tumbler to Matt and his good health.

  “I’m so glad to be with you both,” Jean said. “I know you’re not asking, but I have to tell you.” She brushed back a faux fern that appeared to be growing o
ut of an armless torso just over her left shoulder. Russo’s seemed to add a little more of Old Rome every month or so, and Jean’s eyes landed on each pink plaster cherub in turn. Any minute I expected criticism of my choice of restaurant, and the news that her hometown of Falmouth had rules against such cheesy artifacts.

  “Tell us what?” Rose asked.

  Jean looked at me. “Matt wrote me a letter.”

  Rose looked uncomfortable, as if she’d asked an embarrassing question and should excuse herself, but Jean apparently sensed it and held her arm. “This is for both of you. If I open my eyes, I can see how much Gloria cares for him, and I realized after reading Matt’s letter how much both of you mean to my brother and well, you know, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Well, you mean a lot to him, too, and we’re all lucky, aren’t we, because Matt is so wonderful. Thank you for sharing that, Jean.”

  That was Rose, the gracious lady of Revere, whose ability to rise to any social occasion often stunned me. I stared past Jean’s shoulder at a fountain with water emanating from the mouth of an enormous winged creature, possibly Michael or Gabriel. Matt was not a letter writer. No notes, postcards, or Christmas cards. I had instituted the practice of sending birthday cards to Petey and Alysse. I couldn’t imagine why Jean would make up such a story, however.

  Way behind in the conversation, I said, “Matt wrote you a letter?”

  Jean nodded. “He didn’t say anything specific, but I know why he wrote it.” She laughed. “He wanted me to stop being huffy—that’s what he used to call me even when I was a little girl. Huffy.” She cleared her throat. “I knew what he meant even then.”