The Hydrogen Murder (The Periodic Table Series)

by Minichino, Camille

  I'd never before deliberately hurt a person physically. I was willing to risk a lot rather than use my box cutter on anything but sealing tape, but my brain was succumbing to my will to live. I took a deep breath and blocked out the knowledge that the person below me was another human being.

  I came down as hard as I could with my knife, catching Janice's hands and arms. I closed my eyes and struck again and again, aware that I was meeting flesh every time. Janice screamed and so did I, but I didn't stop until I heard her fall. It was at the same time that I heard the police sirens.

  ~~~~

  Without the benefit of an anatomy class, I'd managed to slash Janice's wrists and arms and the side of her neck, enough for her to lose her balance on the ladder.

  The bloody image that met my eyes when I looked down at her was more than I could bear. I fell back on the attic floor and leaned against the wall, fast becoming the most popular resting place in my apartment. Below me I heard a cacophony of sounds I'd heard only on television or in movies—police walkie-talkies, loud static, and hurried phrases about stretchers and IVs.

  Blue, white, and red lights from the emergency vehicles in Galigani's driveway flashed across the dark attic, creating a patriotic image strangely like the summer's fireworks display. I stared down at my body and saw that my own hands and arms were bloody. I became aware of a sharp pain in my left shoulder and realized that one of Janice's bullets had hit me.

  Before I even heard their voices, I felt the presence of Rose, Matt, and a paramedic near me in the attic. I was shivering and babbling, asking if Janice was alive or dead, not sure which answer I wanted to hear.

  "She's going to be fine," Rose said, putting a blanket around me. "And so are you. He says the bullet isn't even in you."

  Rose's voice had the comforting sound of a mother comforting a child who's just fallen from a swing. And whoever the "he" was that she referred to—Matt or the paramedic or God—I felt a wave of relief and a surge of confidence that I was still alive.

  Rose was sitting behind me, trying to enfold my wide body within her narrow frame. Matt was in front of me, holding my cold, clammy fingers between his own warm hands. The paramedic had torn away the sleeve of my tunic top, strapped something to my arm and dabbed a foul-smelling chemical in the vicinity of my shoulder.

  "We have some surface wounds," he said in a soothing bedside voice. "Try to relax. That's it. Just one more spot."

  Apparently, in my debut as an action figure I'd also slashed my own arm a few inches above my elbow.

  A feeling of safety came over me as I focused on the arms of my friend around my waist, a friend who'd come to spray me with perfume. I saw the face of Matt in front of me, tender and caring, and felt the skillful hands of the paramedic at my side.

  I heard the bells from Saint Anthony's Church. The Angelus. Six o'clock.

  "I made my deadline," I said, and listened with gratitude to the laughter of my attic guests.

  CHAPTER 24

  Matt and I sat in the Galigani living room three weeks after Janice's arraignment. Rose and Frank had invited us to dinner to sample one of Frank's specialties, pasta primavera.

  Matt had been called out on another murder case just before he picked me up, but he refused to divulge a word about it. I didn't pursue the topic, hoping he would reward me by telling me more about the final resolution of the Bensen and Leder cases.

  I knew that Janice had signed a confession in the hospital. I understood her frustration with Eric, even if I didn't accept her murderous resolution. After sticking with him through the long graduate school ordeal, Janice was about to be served divorce papers and for all she knew, watch Eric hook up with another woman. She knew enough about the dilemma he faced regarding the falsified data to try to make it look as though a colleague killed him.

  Although Matt tried to avoid it, we'd pressured him into tying up the loose ends of the case for us.

  "Janice owned two guns," Matt said. "One had been her father's when he was alive, and wasn't re-registered to her. Her own licensed gun, which she'd never used, was a perfect cover."

  "Why did she kill Doctor Leder?" Rose asked.

  "He'd figured out the significance of the last three characters just as Gloria did. Janice said she'd seen Eric hit the keys in his last moment alive, but she figured that even if he wrote her name in plain English she'd taken care of it by deleting what was on the screen. Janice's plan might have worked if Gloria hadn't suggested retrieving that file."

  I covered my embarrassment by faking a slight bow from the waist as I sat in one of Rose's antique chairs, opposite Matt.

  "I'm sure Leder was anxious to clear his team of suspicion of murder at least," I said. "He probably confronted her without thinking of anything but salvaging what he could of their reputations."

  "And he lost," Frank said, shaking his head and wiping his hands on his apron.

  I smelled the wonderful combination of broccoli, asparagus, green peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms and knew we were about to be called to a feast. On the sideboard I saw a white Luberto's box and guessed that was Rose's part of the meal. Matt had brought wine and sparkling cider. And, difficult as it was, I obeyed my friends' orders to bring nothing, allowing myself to be pampered while my arm was in a sling.

  I felt completely relaxed partly because I was surrounded by my friends in an elegant setting, and partly from the pain medicine I still had to take for my wounded arm and shoulder. For precaution, I'd been advised not to drive and to keep my left arm in a soft fabric holster for a few weeks.

  I'd learned a few things about Matt in the time after my contract ended. He had a quick wit and a wonderful sense of humor, a degree in criminology from Boston College, and a sister with a house on Cape Cod. He never used after-shave and his personal car was a steel blue Toyota Camry with a tidy interior. Although I hadn't converted him to classical music, he'd agreed to go to the Messiah concerts with me and Rose and Frank. For my part, I was letting him teach me about jazz. He loved improvisational music and knew a dozen little places in Boston and Cambridge to listen to it.

  I also learned a few things about myself in the meantime, and even made a couple of real decisions, like staying in Revere, but moving to a house of my own by the spring. I started to put Josephine's negative voice respectfully to rest and thank her for her intelligence and generosity. And at some moment when he was most vulnerable to my requests and least expecting it, I planned to give Matt the little black book with Al's handwriting so we could work on it together.

  Matt took my good arm, walked to the table with me and held out a chair for me to sit on. I looked at him sideways and raised my eyebrows.

  "Just until your arm heals," he said.

  "Thank you," I said, and sat down next to him.

  ~~~~

  After dinner, Matt and I moved into the living room while Rose and Frank prepared cappuccinos from their shiny black espresso maker. I walked over to the window and looked out on Adams Street, where a soft rain was falling on the immaculately groomed Galigani lawn and gardens. Mums in orange and yellow, and boxes of bright pink impatiens lined the area around their large white clapboard house. Across the street, the sight of a swing set in a neighbor's front yard and an old couple sitting on a covered porch two houses down reminded me of a Hallmark card, the family life I never had, but hoped was possible, even at my age. Not the swing set, of course, but the shared peace and contentment of people who love each other.

  I turned back to the room and my eyes fell on a newspaper resting on a beautiful mahogany end table next to the couch. I saw a caption that intrigued me and picked up the paper.

  "Helium Reserves Sold to Hi-Tech Company," I read.

  I walked towards the center of the room, paraphrasing the article as I crossed the carpet to where Matt was sitting.

  "Helium is necessary for hundreds of cutting-edge products, like MRI imaging machines in hospitals and switching devices for the next generation of computers. And according to this, it
looks like Dave Johnson beat out Tom Bradley in the race to get the government's supply of helium."

  I continued reading until I realized that my friends weren't paying attention to me. I folded the paper and made one final comment.

  "I'll bet Bradley is ready to kill him," I said.

  "Oh, no," Rose said.

  Matt was on his feet in a flash. He whipped the paper out of my hands and passed it to Rose, who passed it to Frank. Frank took the paper, stepped on the lever at the bottom of the plastic trash container in the kitchen, and tossed it in.

  "Dessert's ready," he said.

  "It's just an expression," I said, leaning over to fix the collar of Matt's shirt. "I'm not looking for a helium murder."

  THE END

  Camille Minichino, a retired physicist turned writer, is the author of the eight books in the Periodic Table Mysteries. As Margaret Grace, she writes the Miniature Mysteries; as Ada Madison, she writes the academic series featuring Professor Sophie Knowles, math teacher at fictional college in Massachusetts. Visit her website, http://www.minichino.com, and blog http://www.minichino.com/wordpress.