The Neon Ornaments

by Camille Minichino

  Apparently toward the middle of the project Richardson and Schott trusted each other enough and didn't bother to protect themselves from the partnership. I wondered when that trust had broken down, and if it had led to murder. I hated to think scientists were capable of such inhuman behavior. I regretted that this wouldn't be the first time I'd be proven wrong.

  I wasn't looking forward to telling Matt I had nothing more than I'd reported on this afternoon. Just a few odd abbreviations, meetings with W, and dates on Schott's calendar.

  I heard the key in the door and Rose's cheery voice. "I'm back, I'm back. Sorry to take so long, but there's a new shop on the second level. Oh, my, temptation. Wait till you see what I bought. But first I need a cup of coffee."

  I obliged by pouring out the last of the liquid in the great silver pot I'd ordered earlier. Once she had a few sips and caught her breath, she was ready to show me the spoils packed inside the shopping bags surrounding her. She reached for the black-and-white Saks bag first. "Take a look at this," she said, pulling out a stunning evening dress in lapis blue silk with an overlay of lace. A scalloped neckline and an understated spray of gold sequins gave the dress a magical look.

  "It's gorgeous, Rose. But it looks huge. Did you try it on?"

  "It's not huge, but it is your size. I hope you like it."

  "Me? You bought me a dress?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "This dress?"

  "Don't you like it?"

  "I do, and this is what's so strange. I forgot to pack my good dress and thought I would have to wear these. I pinched the fabric of my best pants, a study in pilling.

  Rose's face took on a sheepish look. "You didn't forget, Gloria." She extracted my old dress from the bottom of the Saks bag.

  "What's this?"

  "I took it so I'd be able to match the size."

  "There's nothing wrong with this dress. It travels well; it never wrinkles."

  Rose sighed, deeply, as if she had a hopeless task in front of her. "That's the point, Gloria. Fine fabric is not wash and wear. Now try this on. The saleswoman was very helpful, writing down all sorts of dimensions I wouldn't have thought to take a measuring tape to."

  Rose. I didn't know whether to scold her or to kiss her. What I did was try on the dress. I'd never had one that fit so perfectly.

  <><><>

  Matt seemed not to recognize me when I met him in the hotel lobby. No wonder. I didn't recognize myself.

  "I thought we'd walk over," he said. He indicated my outfit, in a strangely inoffensive way. "But now I guess I'll send for a limo."

  After a couple of yeses and no's, back and forth, we took a cab the short distance to the Opera House. I wanted to get the apologies out of the way before we arrived for the performance. I told him about going through not only an entire journal of personal entries, but also a hearing transcript, a four-page crime scene photo report, and a twelve-page coroner's report, and still not coming up with anything useful, which was to say, incriminating. I had learned that controlled crystal grain size or orientation might represent patentable features in the case of some alloys, but I didn't think he'd be interested.

  "There was one thing that kept coming up," I said, in the interests of getting a conversation going that had to do with the investigation. "Is there someone named W in his life that he'd keep meeting?"

  Matt pondered for a moment. "His ex-wife is named Waverley. She's a Scot. He met her when on his first post-doc. What are the references?"

  "Just some innocuous ones, like 'meet with W' or 'See W soon'. It's probably nothing."

  "I know you're feeling pressured, and that wasn't my intent. If there's nothing there, there's nothing there," Matt said.

  "Thanks," I said. But I knew there was something.

  <><><>

  We took our seats in the beautiful Opera House, awash in red and gold. It had been years since I'd been here and I took in the lavish fixtures and elegantly dressed patrons as if for the first time. As I expected, there were many family groups, even at an evening performance.

  Two little girls in the row in front of us were dressed identically, like little ballerinas themselves, with white leggings and short red coats. I had a flashback to when I took Rose's daughter, my goddaughter, Mary Catherine, to see "Nutcracker" for the first time. MC was now an engineer working in a small town in Texas. I decided to send her the program for tonight's performance with a long overdue note.

  I opened my program and struggled to see in the dim light. "It's been many years since I've seen this. I forget the actual storyline," I said.

  "Would you like a summary?" Matt asked, his program unopened on his lap.

  "I thought you'd never seen 'Nutcracker'."

  "I do my homework."

  I folded my hands on my lap. "I'm ready."

  "We start out with a huge ball on Christmas Eve. Clara is a teenage girl who's given a beautiful nutcracker as a gift. After the party is over, the nutcracker comes to life."

  "Ah, yes, and so does the evil Mouse King, I remember now."

  Matt nodded. "The nutcracker takes Clara on a magical journey where she meets the larger-than-life mice, toy soldiers, princesses and, of course, the Sugar Plum Fairy." Here we hummed a few bars, very softly, but the children in front of us heard and turned around. It would have been embarrassing, except that they joined us and soon a few people around us were joining in the fun. I'd never thought of Tchaikovsky's music as cut out for a sing-along.

  I sat through one of the most enjoyable performances I'd seen in a long time. Everything was carried out perfectly—the Christmas tableau, the waltz of the snowflakes, the magic castle. The mood was sullied only by intrusions into my mind of coroner's terminology and the elusive Mr. W or Ms. W.

  <><><>

  We waited with the crowd at the bank of elevators, many of us still humming one waltz or another, swaying a bit or swinging our arms. It took a while, with elevators coming and going before it was our turn to approach the front of the throng. When the doors opened, a young man rushed out, bumping into an older gentleman next to us who was ready to board, as we were. There was a little commotion, the young man apologized profusely, and the gentleman entered through the elevator doors.

  It was our turn to enter, but Matt put his arm on mine and held me back. "Wait here," he said. Before I could ask what was going on, Matt took off after the young man. Told to wait, I followed, of course, staying a little behind.

  Matt stopped the young man, not dramatically, but he kept his hand on the man's arm, and engaged him a conversation. The next thing I knew, the stranger walked away and Matt returned to me, carrying a wallet. I raised my eyebrows in confusion.

  "Let's get this to Lost and Found," he said.

  I got it. "The wallet belongs to the older gentleman."

  Matt nodded. "The oldest trick in the book. The bump-and-hold. The pickpocket bumps into a person in a crowd and loosens the guy's wallet from his back pocket, so the wallet sticks up a little. The pickpocket makes a fuss apologizing and so on, and holds onto the top of the wallet. The best time is when a crowd is entering or exiting a place."

  "Like an elevator."

  "Right. So the mark effectively detaches himself from his wallet when he says 'No problem' and walks one way while the pickpocket walks in the opposite direction."

  "Fascinating," I said, still in a daze at how quickly it had all happened. "What did you say to the guy?"

  "I identified myself as a cop and said I thought there had been a little accident back there and someone else's wallet might have ended up in the wrong pocket, in his jacket."

  "Wow. Do you think he'll try that again?"

  "Hard to say. I wasn't going to arrest him here. Not my jurisdiction, for one thing. And I wasn't going to spoil your evening, sitting somewhere in a Boston PD substation for hours, which is what it would be on a Saturday night. He was young enough that maybe he'll think twice. If he's that bad at it—"

  "I'm astonished that something like that
would happen here." I indicated the opulent marble lobby, which we'd made our way to, and where we were told we'd see a sign for Lost and Found.

  "What's he going to do? Pick a pocket at a homeless shelter?"

  "I see your point. Are you always watching out for things like that? Even when you're not on duty?"

  He shrugged. "It comes free."

  Lesson to Gloria: we all have our particular fields of expertise.

  <><><>

  It was mild enough for us to walk back to the hotel, choosing the route that took us along Boylston Street and the southern edge of Boston Common. The decorations were a nice mix of elegant and tacky; one type to appeal to cultured taste, the other to nostalgia. The Common itself was ablaze with a magnificent lighted tree, with an enormous gold star on top, accompanied by reindeer prancing in place, here and there on the lawn. The capital building, with its twenty-three carat gold-gilded dome stood out as always.

  Although most shops along Boylston were closed, their lights were still aglow. I smiled at a pink neon Rudolph and wished I could point out to Rose that there was neon in that tube.

  I was glad Matt felt no need to talk. It was as though we'd known each other a long time.

  <><><>

  Back in the room, I had a hard time getting focused again on work, never mind that the stack of reports was where I'd left it, now staring me in the face. The conversation with Rose didn't help.

  "I have only one more day to find something," I told her, as she prepared her face for bed.

  "Do you really think that's what I want to hear about?" A pencil like object hovered perilously close to her eyes.

  "But you set it up. Didn't you want me to help out?"

  "Gloria, don't let your pride dictate your feelings."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "So what if nothing comes of your work; you gave it your best shot." She put her equipment away in a satin drawstring bag and settled on her bed.

  "But Matt—" I stammered.

  "Matt is already crazy about you."

  Was that my heart fluttering? "What makes you say that?"

  "What do you think was the emergency Frank called me about?"

  The rest felt like junior high as we discussed a boy who told another boy about a girl he liked. But then, there was nothing wrong with junior high.

  <><><>

  There was little hope of either sleep or concentrated work in my near future. While Rose slept, I chose to sit by the window and let my mind go where it wanted to. What Rose told me about Matt wasn't the shock it should have been. I'd felt drawn to Matt in a very comfortable way. He'd said goodnight with a simple "Ten o'clock okay?" and I'd answered with a nod and a smile. It was the most natural thing in the world. Did that mean I was coming home?

  Being back in Boston, a stone's throw from Revere, always got me thinking about why I left in the first place. What had been so wrong with an ocean side town with easy public transportation to Beantown, Where It All Began, the Cradle of Liberty, the Hub of the Solar System according to Oliver Wendell Holmes—all those epithets for Boston. Now, spending time here with Matt, feeling like we were old friends, brought me back to the past, to a time before I knew him.

  When my fiancé, Al Gravese, died, a brief inquiry had turned up nothing suspicious and the matter was put to rest. Officially. But that didn't stop the gossip that his father and uncles had been mixed up with an undesirable element—local bookies and small time criminals left over from the moonshine whiskey days—and that Al was part of the life also.

  For thirty years, I'd been wracking my brain trying to figure out how I'd become engaged to Al in the first place. I was in college; he was older, nearly thirty years old to my twenty. Sophisticated, if a passion for expensive suits and cars was sophistication. Romantic, if going off to "meetings" that he couldn't talk about was romantic. He never seemed to want for money, though I saw no visible means of support. And why would I question a guy who'd bring me two dozen roses just because I'd passed a math test? Or a solid gold locket when I baked cookies. As I said, I was twenty.

  <><><>

  Sunday morning. It was much too beautiful outside to stay indoors, working at a hotel desk, but that's where I could be found.

  "I'll give it one more hour," I told Rose, "then I'll hit the sales with you downstairs."

  "Okay, I'll do some recon for us and bring back some coffee."

  "Deal."

  I went through more pages, some legal size, some letter size. I read statements from Reporting Party One and Reporting Party Two, from Officer on Scene One and Officer on Scene Two. Single sheets listed bloodstain protein marker results and witness profiles. Nothing. Anywhere.

  I went back through Schott's journal pages for about the tenth time and felt I now knew his chiropractor appointments, prescription medicine schedule, and trips to the library better than he did himself.

  The door opened as I flipped through stapled pages from Scott's November calendar.

  "Your breakfast is here," Rose said, setting a bag and a cup on the edge of the dresser. "Coffee and a scone. It's not right. I had a delicious ham and cheese omelet in the new wing. I never intended that you'd be working so hard this weekend, Gloria."

  "You mean you thought it would take me ten minutes to solve a case that has the RPD stymied?"

  "Well, yes, in a way."

  "And then you and I would shop till we popped together?"

  "Drop. Shop till we dropped. Yes, exactly."

  "You'll get your wish this afternoon. I'm giving up. I'll see Matt at ten and confess that I have nothing. Zip. It's a good thing I already told him I wouldn't take any money, either way."

  "They'll figure it out eventually. Meanwhile, look what's happened, I got my wish." Rose sighed. "You and Matt."

  "You're getting ahead of yourself," I said, harboring the same wish.

  Rose kicked off her shoes and sat on the one free chair. "I have to tell you about my scouting for the best sales. I know you're looking for something for MC and I saw the cutest purses in Lord & Taylor. You might find one for your cousin Mary Ann in Worcester, too."

  "I'd never be able to choose a purse for Mary Ann. I don't think she's had a change of wardrobe in twenty years."

  "Look who's talking," Rose mumbled. "You can always go with a scarf. Neiman's has an amazing collection this year. Everyone can use an extra scarf." She stood and walked to the dresser and began moving articles around. "Where are those lotions I bought?" she asked, shifting the box of ornaments to her bed. "I thought they were right here."

  I followed her movements, my eyes settling on the ornaments and the label on the box. NE ORNAMENTS. The red, green, gold, and blue balls all caught the morning light coming in the window, becoming brighter and brighter as I had a thought. Not about neon but about tungsten.

  I knew who W was. Rather, what W was. The chemical symbol for tungsten. How could I not have seen it immediately?

  I picked up the box of ornaments. "You're warming up to those neon balls, are you?" Rose said.

  "This is it, Rose. This is the answer." I gave her a hug. "Thank you. Thank you."

  "I'm sure you're welcome. If I only knew why?"

  "The symbol for tungsten is W. Its other name is Wolfram, but it got changed at some point to tung sten, meaning 'heavy stone'. From the Swedish, I think. I'll have to look it up." I felt an exhilaration that matched my best research day. I'd now be able to give a homicide detective the break he needed. "I'm thrilled," I said.

  "I'm thrilled, too, Gloria, especially if this means we can go shopping."

  I assured her it did.

  <><><>

  Probably Matt could tell from the smile on my face that I'd cracked Schott's code. We met in what I'd come to think of as "our café." The Christmas music was much jollier today than yesterday. Or else, I was.

  I explained the nature of the symbol W and showed him where it appeared throughout Schott's notebook. "It's almost as if he was anticipating that someone would
be going through his notes. He put a period after the W, which, of course, you never do when naming an element."

  "Of course not."

  I took a pen from my purse and a napkin from a pile on the table. "So what I thought might be someone's initial"—I wrote W., making the period as bold as I could—"was really just the symbol for tungsten. And what I thought was "see you" when he wrote C. U. was really the symbol for copper, but not properly notated." I wrote Cu. "See?" I took a breath. "Sorry, it's just very exciting."

  "That it is."

  "Also, in many places there was a reference to J. R., which I took to be John Richardson, our victim, and I'm assuming you could get him to admit that?"

  Matt nodded. "I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there's a difference between 'Please explain all these letters, Dr. Schott,' in which case he can simply say it's shorthand and he doesn't remember, as opposed to 'Does W. mean tungsten, Dr. Schott?' where he'd have to lie if he said he didn't know."

  "Then all we have to do is go back through the notes and use this to interpret what it says every time he uses those initials. I haven't finished doing that yet, but I've already found one place where he mentions the WCu alloy in terms of talking to someone at a library, followed by a telephone number. I checked it out and it belongs to a library with a PTRC, as we discussed. It's where he'd be able to find out the status of a patent."

  Matt shook his head, all smiles, clearly pleased. "How did you come up with this finally?"

  "What do you mean 'finally'?" I nudged him. Our first frivolous physical contact. Had the Christmas bells gotten louder?

  "Are you going to tell me how you figured it out?"

  "Well, you're right that I should have seen it right away. Tungsten is certainly a popular metal, so to speak, with uses in everyday things like light bulbs, automobile parts, golf clubs. And probably every high school chemistry student would recognize W as its symbol sooner than I did. I simply wasn't looking for it and I missed it."