The Neon Ornaments

by Camille Minichino

  "The mixture of the two metals can be accomplished in any number of ways, with different percentages of each one. In each case, the properties of the final alloy will be different." He nodded. "Hypothetically, there are any number of ways this can be accomplished. Do you want the resulting metal to be able to withstand a higher temperature than either of the metals alone? Then you prepare it one way. Do you want it to be stronger—"

  "Wow, I get it already."

  "Music to my ears," I said. But it was better than the so-called real music we were being treated to, a Christmas song involving silver, another metal with many popular alloys. One of my life's goals was to make science accessible to laymen. Here was a cop saying he got it.

  "So the patent would be like a recipe I'd want to protect," Matt continued. "Like for my Aunt Celia's lasagna."

  "Exactly, and you'd file a composition-of-matter patent claim, a very common one for protecting materials-related inventions. As with a time-worn recipe, a particular alloy may be known, but there could be a new characteristic or property that emerges from a new combination, or a dash of something extra, to use your lasagna example. For instance, an amorphous microstructure may be patentable, where only the crystalline form of an alloy was known before."

  Matt held up his hand. "I think I heard the bell for end of class."

  "That's the hotel's version of Silver Bells, but I'll quit soon. One more point— whereas I might try to figure out the exact ingredients of your aunt's lasagna, it would be hard, going on taste alone, unless I raided her spice rack. With metal alloys, however, reverse engineering with a simple chemistry test could reveal the composition."

  "Thus, making a patent very important."

  "Very. And now I'll stop. I know I can go on and on."

  "I don't mean to cut you off," he said, handing me another folder. "I just want to make sure I give you this. More reports and maybe a photo or two that may be tough to look at. We're hoping there's something in his personal notes that will give us a clue as to what he had in mind with regard to his partner and the whole patent issue."

  "I'll look through them," I said, though I didn't remember specifically agreeing to work on the case. Matt was as good as Rose at duping me into decisions they had in mind for me. But it wasn't their fault if I was easily led. "I assume you've checked for the obvious references to the USPTO and PTRCs ?"

  "Uh, the first is the patent office, right? Somewhere in the DC area? I don't know what the second is."

  I bit my lip, wishing I could take it all back. There was nothing worse than making someone feel deficient because he didn't know an acronym that was completely out of his area of expertise. "I apologize. There are centers all over the country connected to the Patent and Trademark Office. They're called Patent and Trademark Resource Centers, where you can find everything from the forms you need for filing, to searching the status of an existing disclosure."

  "You've done this before? You have a patent."

  I waved my hand. "Only a very simple thing when I was in grad school. My professor and I were able to patent a new measurement technique."

  "You're scaring me."

  I laughed. "You're letting me talk way too much. Why don't I just get busy and look for signs that Schott knew that Richardson had taken the initial steps toward a patent."

  "Perfect. I appreciate this," he said.

  "No promises," I said. "I have a flight out on Monday morning and once I get back—"

  "I know what happens when you get back to work after a few days off. Suddenly you're the head of some committee."

  "Or someone swooped in and used your account to buy a new oscilloscope."

  Matt laughed. "By the way, you can bill this as holiday pay. We have special rates for our expert consultants."

  I gave him a sideways look. "You know, this is really the realm of chemistry. The study of the elements is more about chemistry, once you get into atoms more complex than hydrogen. Are you sure Richardson and Schott are physicists and not chemists?"

  "Aren't they about the same? Rose said they were interchangeable, and as your best friend, she's my go-to person for science."

  I put my head in my hands. Rose knew better. And I had a feeling Matt knew better also but needed help so badly and quickly that he'd take the first offer. "Sure," I said, "the way firefighters and cops are interchangeable."

  Matt frowned, then grinned. "Or lasagna and eggplant parm." More laughter.

  I took it as a good sign that we'd had so much fun while discussing physics, chemistry, and murder.

  <><><>

  We agreed to split for an hour while he checked in with the police station in Revere and I retreated to a quiet corner of the Boston Public Library's main McKim building, only a few steps from a side entrance to the hotel. The library had its own fair share of bells and tinsel for the holidays. A glassed-in display case at the entrance showcased its logo items—the usual caps, T's, mugs, totes, and notecards—with the added offerings of red-ribboned ornaments that featured interior and exterior architectural details of the building.

  Before we parted, Matt had handed me two more folders of notes and I'd stuffed them all into a tote I'd intended to use for shopping. I spread them out now on a beautifully polished table in the magnificent reading room with its barrel-vaulted ceilings and arched and grilled windows.

  I knew that the library had a patent resource center in the building, but I doubted I'd need that much depth of inquiry to figure out what the two men were up to, together or separately.

  In some ways, this little project was preferable to me than jostling the holiday crowds in the stores across the way. On the Saturday before Christmas, no less. I knew Rose was having a great time, assuming there was really no mortuary emergency. Rose enjoyed even the Filene's basement tugs-of-war where she pulled on one leg of a pajama bottom and an equally determined shopaholic pulled on the other. I'd never been the big fan of retail that Rose was, but she had a lot of explaining to do—she'd brought someone into our special weekend, and part of me was annoyed at that. The other part wondered why she hadn't introduced me to Matt sooner.

  I started in on the stacks of paper in front of me. A quick glance revealed one form after another, many filled in by hand, some typewritten, some signed by the reporting officer, a few transcripts of taped statements. I read the headings: ITEMS collected from the execution of a search warrant at suspect Schott's home; STATEMENTS FROM BYSTANDERS ("saw nothing" was a common phrase), CRIME SCENE TECHNICAL REPORT. I noted the times, expressed in military format and was impressed at the hours law enforcement put in. Stamps read 0605 hours, 2010 hours, and one even 2400 hours. A very brief CORONER INVESTIGATOR'S REPORT proclaimed that "this death is a homicide."

  I figured Matt had dumped all of this on me to give me a feel for the case as a whole. But it was time for me to stop browsing and take up the specific pages I was tasked to interpret. I found the sheet marked SUSPECT'S PERSONAL NOTES, and the attached copies of handwritten pages. It looked like the police had copied a combination notebook and calendar, about six-by-nine inches, onto regular eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper. Some of the images were askew and in some cases it was hard to read what had been written in the center, stapled part of the original calendar.

  I remembered Matt telling me that Schott had shredded most of his technical notes, using the excuse that he didn't have enough storage space for all of them. What was left were memos to himself, like "birthday presents for twins" and odd lists like 1. tubes, 2. batteries, 3. sweat sox. Like most of us, Schott used a great deal of shorthand when writing for himself, not expecting others to ever see it. Or, perhaps, in case others did gain access to it.

  I shifted my focus to the days leading up to Richardson's murder and wrote out a list for myself of what I couldn't easily decipher. GM brakes was obvious, as was Linda: CU soon. But Call library re: W was one cryptic entry I extracted for further study; W. @ library another.

  My hour was almost up and I felt I was just beginnin
g. I walked back across Dartmouth Street, accosted by no fewer than three Santas on the way—two looking for donations, one handing out red and green lollipops. Matt waited at a coffee stand inside the mall. Just a few yards in the outside air was enough to give me a chill and I accepted Matt's offer of an espresso in the café a few mall stores away. I gave him a report of my progress, such as it was, and agreed to spend time with the files in the afternoon, after I checked in with Rose.

  "Maybe we can meet this evening," he said.

  "I'm afraid that won't work. Rose and I have tickets for 'Nutcracker'."

  He reached into his jacket pocket. "You mean these?"

  "What?"

  "She said she forgot she'd made other plans, and would I be interested in her ticket." His smile said he'd been helpless in the face of her not-so-subtle ruse.

  My feelings were torn. Should I be annoyed? Hurt that Rose didn't want to spend the weekend with me? It was supposed to be just us girls. She'd tried to set me up before, but not with this all-out campaign, and she'd never used the allure of science to draw me in. Science, and one very charming homicide detective.

  "Do you like 'Nutcracker'?" I asked Matt.

  "I'm sure it's wonderful. I know it's famous, one of those 'must see' things when you're in Boston at Christmas. Like seeing the Rockettes at Radio City in New York."

  "So, no, you've lived in Boston all your life and you've never seen it?"

  "I never had tickets with you before."

  For no reason, I felt my face turn red and the temperature in the café rose ten degrees.

  I snuck a look at Matt's face. Not red, a slight smile, focused now on the notes I'd made for him on my observations so far. If he'd been joking, it didn't show. I had to admit the possibility that he meant what he said.

  <><><>

  Since Rose was way ahead of me in the communications area, I had to resort to an old-fashioned means of finding her. I used a phone in the lobby to call up to our room. No answer, except from the voicemail lady. Plan B: Using my intimate knowledge of Rose's preferences, I headed to the high-end wing of shops and found her in a little salon tucked in a corner. "Nails by Nicole," site of her favorite indulgence.

  She waved her newly polished fingers at me (I'd thought they were already perfect) and wiggled her wet toes, causing her attendant to roll her chair back and make room for me. "I want to hear all about it," she said.

  "There's nothing to hear."

  She patted the chair next to her. "Come sit and let Ailee do your nails."

  I curled my fingers and looked at my nails—uneven, cracked, with telltale signs of lab dust that never completely went away from deep between my nails and fingertips. It was impossible to keep dust from accumulating around battery terminals, the meters in a power supply, and, clearly, my nails.

  "They're a mess," I said, meaning why bother?

  "Exactly," she said, meaning that's what Ailee is for. She patted the empty chair again and this time I sat.

  It seemed if I wanted time with Rose at all this weekend, it was going to be shared with the world of beauty products. "I'm sorry you can't make 'Nutcracker'," I said. "What came up?"

  "Uh, Ailee, could you do another swipe with that wonderful new lotion. It smells divine." She turned to me. "Oh, just something with Frank. How's the case coming? Are you going to have to extend your trip? You know, we can arrange it so you won't have to pay a fee."

  "I have no doubt. Of course, I'll have to lie in a casket and pretend to be dead, right?"

  Rose grinned and patted my hand, without disturbing the coatings on hers. "Mortuary humor. I'm so glad you're catching on."

  "I learned from the best."

  "Now let's get you ready for tonight." Rose leaned over to Ailee. "She needs the 'And More' package. She has a big date tonight."

  "It's not a date."

  "Is it at the Opera House?"

  "Yes."

  "At night?"

  "Yes."

  "Just the two of you."

  "Yes."

  "It's a date."

  The next "Yes" came from Ailee, who turned the chair into a recliner at the touch of a button. I would have disagreed with them, but there was a towel covering my face.

  <><><>

  I toughed it out at Nicole's and came away hardly recognizing my hair, face, and hands. I was tempted to shower everything off but I knew Rose would find a way to arrange a do-over that might be even worse. When I told her I had to spend some time with the police reports I'd received from Matt, she seemed genuinely sorry that I couldn't join her for a quick run through of the high-end shops—a paper goods store, a leather shop, and several specialty stores for the younger set.

  I made myself comfortable in our room with a cup of coffee and the hotel's artisan plate of cheeses and breads, delivered to my door. I had a sweeping view east, toward Boston's Back Bay. Not a bad place to work.

  Feeling adventuresome with my new hairdo, still with a generous sprinkling of gray, since I'd avoided the color step of my treatment with Ailee, I opened the folder marked PHOTOS.

  The first few shots were innocuous enough, photographs of John Richardson and Roger Schott in what might be passport poses. Richardson, my vic, as I'd come to think of him, was round-faced, with a flat nose, not particularly handsome, but pleasant looking. Schott, the suspect, had a more conventionally good-looking countenance, light hair, and piercing eyes. Whether piercing-good or piercing-bad, I couldn't tell from the grainy shot.

  Photos of the two men in their lab were more interesting, though I wished I had more than pop psychology to figure out the relationship. Was the guy who assumed a standing position the one in charge? The guy with a lab coat more serious a worker than the one with the nice shirt and tie? (Admittedly, I had my suspicions about laboratory workers in Sunday clothes.)

  The equipment behind the men looked vaguely like a gas gun I'd used once to look at the properties of tungsten. The set up seemed very far from the alloy work I'd been told that Richardson and Schott were doing, but probably where Rose got the idea that I was a tungsten expert. Not that she needed any prompting when it came to hyperbole.

  I studied the photo again. One of these men was dead, I reminded myself, possibly at the hands of the other. I had a job to do.

  Earlier, I'd tried to find patterns in Schott's notes. The only things that stood out were scheduled dates, for which he used the cool kids' notation of c u for "see you," in either caps or lower case letters; many meetings and scheduled phone calls with W. about J.R.; and a smattering of single notes, like W. is good today, with C U, followed by a phone number. I guessed J.R. was John Richardson, but so what?

  Reading the police reports was a lot like reading lab journal entries. There was no embellishment to the prose, no attempt to make the narrative interesting. One officer at the scene of Richardson's murder reported that at approximately 2030 hours he had "examined a pair of black athletic shoes in a reasonably well lit area and noticed a foreign material on the left shoe." Then "at approximately 2045 hours, a presumptive blood analysis test was performed on the left shoe. The test resulted in a positive reading for blood."

  The report, typed out single-spaced, went on in great detail about the examination of every piece of clothing, describing a "reddish stain" here or a "rust-colored fragment" there, and spelled out how each piece of clothing had been laid on a clean surface, with no article of clothing touching any other article of clothing. Plutonium should be handled so carefully, I thought. But then, as a rule, no lawyers were involved in plutonium handling.

  You couldn't get much more clinical about a stabbed, blood-smeared body. Cops would make good scientists, I decided.

  I worked through three cups of coffee and all of the bread and cheese, standing to stretch now and then, each time wondering when lightning would strike and I would get an insight into the case.

  I plowed through diagram after diagram of the lab space and even the parking lot adjacent to the building. I saw where the handicap
ped parking spots were and how many speed bumps there were in the entrance and the exit. If I needed to, I could contact the owner of every car parked in the lot during the hours before and after the murder.

  I took a break around four, just after attacking a stack of papers with pre-drawn outlines of the body of a HM (human male, I learned). Someone had used the line drawing to indicate locations of the various wounds on the victim and make notes in strategic places. I was just as glad the handwriting was impossible to make out. And also that it wasn't in color.

  Time had gotten away from me and I realized I had to think about getting dressed for the ballet. I was surprised Rose hadn't come back to supervise. I opened the closet door to search for the one (sort of) dressy outfit I'd brought on the trip, which was one of two I owned—a plain black dress with long sleeves. The fabric was a soft knit that rejected wrinkles. I figured polyester wouldn't be very popular with the ballet-going crowd, but, never mind, the lights would be dim.

  I couldn't find the dress. Had I not hung it up? I checked my luggage, which I'd stuffed in a corner next to my bed, by peering into the small opening and feeling around the lining. Nothing. I recognized that I was looking for a black dress in a black lined suitcase, so I lugged it to the top of my bed and opened it completely. Nothing. Back to the closet, this time examining Rose's side, which was full of lovely, flowing garments. Too bad they were too small for me by miles. I must have forgotten to pack my dress. Now what? I'd have to make do with my casual pants and hope the lights were even dimmer than usual.

  I made a tiny sandwich of crunchy raisin toast and brie and went back to the work at hand, this time avoiding the endless police department forms.

  I picked up Schott's journal. I found a section where he'd summarized some of the work that contributed to the final alloy. I wasn't sure why it belonged in his personal notebooks, unless he thought he needed backup in case his lab notebook was lost? It was hard to tell. I read through a chronology of significant dates in his journey toward a patent, one he apparently thought he was taking with his partner.

  The list of dates seemed to mark times when he and Richardson each signed off on a particular step in the creation of the alloy. I couldn't find a date when they had filed formal disclosures, possibly because the prototype didn't work. Usually inventors serious about their work will inform someone, say, an in-house attorney, of even a questionable prototype, if only to show the uniqueness of one that eventually does work.