The Nitrogen Murder

by Camille Minichino

“City, this is Valley Med 225. I have a Code 2. Forty-plus-year-old male, BP 106 over 56, pulse 100, resp rate 24.” The numbers Tanisha had yelled out. “ETA five to ten minutes. How do you copy?”

  “Copy clear.” The trauma center dispatcher, at the ready.

  Seven minutes later—good timing, in spite of too many arrogant bicyclists thinking they were more important than any motor vehicle, even an ambulance—Dana pulled into the wide semicircular driveway.

  Dana walked to the back of the ambulance, where Tanisha had the doors open. They unlocked the gurney and pulled it out. They wheeled it over the rough asphalt, into the trauma center.

  One, two, three. Dana and Tanisha moved the patient, supported by the sheets from Golden State Hospital, from the gurney to the trauma center bed. They handed over the paperwork and left Golden State’s sheets behind.

  Dana and Tanisha walked back to the ambulance.

  “This guy has a lot of stuff. I’ll start with the duffel bag,” Tanisha said. “You clean up and follow me with the rest, okay?”

  “Got it,” Dana said.

  Or did Dana say, “Tanisha, you take the duffel bag”? Dana doesn’t remember. She hopes it was Tanisha’s idea to go first.

  Tanisha left the back of the ambulance carrying the duffel bag. It was a gray-and-silver bag, shiny, and distended enough to strain the white zipper.

  Dana stayed behind. She sprayed the gurney with a germicide from a clear plastic bottle and wiped it down. She gathered up the contents of the patient’s wallet, which had spilled on the floor. She noticed multiple IDs; same face, different name. Oh well, not her problem. She stuffed the laminated cards into the pockets of her uniform pants.

  She heard a noise. Fireworks already? It was barely mid-June. They started earlier and earlier every year.

  Another blast. Not a firework. She stepped out of the back of the ambulance and looked toward the ER doors.

  Tanisha is down, sprawled on the driveway.

  Someone is running through the bushes to the left of the doors. Running away.

  The old security guard runs out from the building. He yells something—it’s unintelligible to Dana, who is also running toward Tanisha.

  More people come. Doctors and nurses, a gurney, not rugged and yellow like Valley Med’s but small and white. Tanisha’s large frame fills the bed of the gurney; there’s blood on her cornrows.

  Dana hangs on to the gurney, walks with it, her body leaning over Tanisha, calling her name, “Tanisha, Tanisha, oh my God, Tanisha,” until someone pulls her back and sits her down on the cold cement bowl of a potted plant.

  Dana’s ears are ringing. She tries to block the sound, but it only gets louder and louder.

  The phone was ringing, but Dana couldn’t find it. Bleary-eyed, she fished around under her pillow, among the folds of her tangled comforter, on the floor, under the bed. Finally the shrill sound stopped and her answering machine clicked on.

  “Dana, this is Julia. It’s Sunday morning. Actually, noon.” Her boss’s voice, sounding like she had a cold. Valley Medical Ambulance Company’s owner, Julia Strega.

  Dana threw herself on her back, arms outstretched, and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force herself back to sleep.

  “Just want to say we missed you today,” Julia’s drone continued. “You need to come in and get debriefed and, you know, let’s just talk. Call me, okay? Take care.”

  Sure, Dana thought. I’ll take care.

  “Dana, Dana, wake up.”

  Dana opened her eyes enough to see Jen, one of her roommates, standing over her. “How come the door was wide open? I can’t believe you went to sleep and didn’t lock up the house.”

  Jen’s voice was a scalpel, cutting into Dana’s brain, her short blond hair a surgeon’s cap. “What?” Dana managed. “I overslept.”

  “It’s two in the afternoon. Didn’t you go in for your meeting? And the front door was open to the world. My bike and Robin’s are still here, thank God, but—” Jen stopped and stared at Dana. “Oh, my God, Dana, I’m so sorry I forgot, almost.” Jen sat on Dana’s bed, hardly making a dent with her tiny body, and took her hand. “I just got worried when I saw the door like that. Can I get you something? How about some tea? And I see all kinds of delicious pastry out there.”

  Dana nodded yes to the tea and shook her head no to the pastry She could still taste the blueberries from yesterday’s scone. She felt it was still high and heavy in her gut, which she’d known would happen, but she’d wanted to show her appreciation to Elaine and her friends.

  “And don’t worry, I closed the door,” Jen said.

  Dana had no idea what the big deal was about the door. Of course she’d locked up. Robin must have come back or something.

  “Here you go,” Jen said, stirring honey into a mug of hot chai. Jen had coaxed her to the living room.

  Dana watched her roommate—the youngest of the three women, a junior history major at UC Berkeley—as she moved the milky liquid around in careful swirls, as if trying to make up for her lack of gentleness earlier.

  Dana knew she should be grateful to have good friends and family. A lot of people were there for her. Her dad—not the warmest of guys, but in a pinch he’d come through. Well, most of the time, unless someone in China needed him. Her mom—not so much since she moved to Florida with Mike, but she’d called as soon as she’d heard about Tanisha from her dad. She was sure it was Elaine who’d suggested her dad call her mom. He’d never have thought of it. She liked Elaine and hoped her dad wouldn’t screw it up as he usually did.

  Her two roommates, Jen Bradley and Robin Kirsch, weren’t bad, either, especially compared to some roommates-from-hell she’d lived through in college. Robin’s and Jen’s boyfriends were nice guys, too. If it weren’t for Jen’s boyfriend, Wes, who loved to cook, they’d be eating frozen dinners every night. So what if she herself was between significant others? Not a bad place to be while she thought about her life.

  She thought of her good friend and sometime partner, Tanisha. There goes the lucky feeling.

  Dana’s eyes filled up; her gaze drifted past the dining room to the bikes Jen had been so worried about, to the furniture, which any thief would be dumb to steal. The only thing vaguely valuable was the laptop, which was still in its place on the dining room table, and maybe that expensive-looking briefcase—

  Dana sat up, alert. “Did you move the briefcase?” she asked Jen.

  “What brief …oh, that one Reed brought by Nuh-uh.” Jen had eaten the rest of the blueberry scone and had started on the currants in another. Hard to believe she could stay a size one with her sweet tooth. “Maybe Robin moved it.”

  Dana had a vague memory of Robin’s coming home while she was moving in and out of sleep a while ago. She couldn’t be sure. She’d heard the dumb dogs next door bark. They yelped no matter who came or went in the neighborhood, residents or strangers. Some watchdogs.

  “Yeah, maybe it was Robin. Or maybe the cops came by,” Dana said, only half aloud, while she made a circle around the house. Into her room, then into the bathroom, and out through Jen’s room. Checking corners, behind doors. Did I really leave the front door open? Skipping Robin’s room, which was locked. She’d have to wait till Robin came home. Through the kitchen, into the back hallway and second bathroom. And the cops just walked in and took the briefcase? Back through the kitchen, dining room, living room. No briefcase.

  It didn’t make sense.

  But then not much did this weekend.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I found it hard to get away from Elaine, even for a minute. After all, I’d come three thousand miles to visit, to help with wedding chores, to gush over the antique crystal necklace her great-aunt Judith had worn. (With each wedding, Elaine chose a different “something old.”) How could I tell my friend, the bride, I needed some time on her computer to investigate her fiance?

  “Don’t do this, Gloria,” Matt said, in response to nothing in particular. I could tell by his tone that it
was only a halfhearted recommendation. Either he agreed Phil needed to be vetted, or he knew I’d do it anyway.

  I started on Sunday morning by asking Elaine if I could check my e-mail.

  “I didn’t realize you were that connected,” she said.

  I was ready with a small lie. “I told Andrea I’d keep in touch; she’s looking into some material I’ll need for my next science class presentation at Revere High.”

  Half true. My friend Andrea Cabrini, a technician at Revere’s Charger Street Lab, regularly checked the lab’s news bulletins for topics I might use for my work with the high school science club. Okay, one-quarter true. I knew Andrea would not expect to hear from me while I was away.

  Elaine looked confused. “School’s over until fall, isn’t it? What’s the rush?”

  Now what? I felt my face flush. I hoped that if my color had changed noticeably, Elaine would attribute it to her warm living room. Or to my old California allergies.

  “Summer school,” I said, not daring to look at Matt. I made a mental note to think things through more the next time I planned a lie.

  Elaine seemed satisfied. “I need to make a run to the farmers’ market,” she said, showing me the canvas tote she’d gotten out. Unlike my market totes, Elaine’s looked cleaned and pressed; I questioned the net energy savings. “I thought we’d shop together, but you don’t really have to come, I guess.” She sounded forlorn, as if she’d been so looking forward to our picking out ripe avocados and giant string beans, arm in arm. Normally I’d enjoy it also, but I had work to do, so I stood firm.

  “Thanks, Elaine. I’m glad you don’t mind going alone. Maybe we can skip out on Matt this afternoon and go for a walk around Holy Hill? Our favorite route, remember?”

  Elaine’s face brightened, and I felt the heel that I was.

  Matt and I huddled over Elaine’s computer. I’d assigned him lookout duty for Elaine’s return, but he thought he could do it as well from her upstairs office.

  Elaine’s home office was as well put together as the rest of her home. Framed award certificates from the Society for Technical Communication hung on the wall behind her scanner and printer; her file cabinets were made of fine wood, as was her corner desk and shelf arrangement.

  “You’re as curious as I am,” I told Matt, who hovered over me as I hit the keys and entered PHILIP CHAMBERS.

  Matt smirked and opened his arms, palms up. “It’s what I do.” Detective Matt Gennaro’s trademark act, the one that always made me laugh.

  I had no idea that another Philip Chambers was a movie and television star, with twenty-four movies to his credit. I scrolled past his fan club sites; past links to others of the same name who were lawyers and doctors; past a well-published Dr. Philip Chambers, oral surgeon and specialist in something called maxillofacial reconstruction, which I planned to look up later; and finally arrived at a P L. Chambers in a reference to a conference on nitrogen.

  “Here’s something,” I said. “A paper delivered by chemist Dr. Philip L. Chambers. It’s on the BUL Web site, dated a year ago. It has to be Elaine’s Phil Chambers. He worked with a group developing a molecule with a combination of carbon and nitrogen, shaped like a soccer ball.”

  “Didn’t someone already do that with carbon alone?” Matt asked. “Buckminsterfullerene, right?” He seemed very pleased with himself.

  I smiled broadly and patted his forehead, which was sweaty, like mine. If I weren’t concerned about California’s outrageous utility rates, I’d have cranked up—or down—the temperature on Elaine’s air-conditioning unit. “I love it when you remember my science lessons,” I said. “Technically, any soccer-ball-shaped molecule is a buckminsterfullerene. The nitrogen version would store more energy than a totally carbon version—a tremendous amount of energy, in fact—and it’s a prime candidate for a new high explosive or a high-performance propellant.” I adjusted my glasses to peer more closely at the screen. “According to this, success was imminent, but they always say that. ‘We’ve made great progress,’ ‘In the next fiscal year,’ etc.”

  “I don’t get why this matters,” Matt said. “What’s so good or bad about Phil’s working on a new nitrogen molecule?”

  I shrugged. How did I know? “It’s just that here’s a guy, Dana’s transport patient, an Indian with multiple identities and laboratory badges. He gets shot, presumably over something in either a briefcase or a duffel bag, and there’s Phil, who seems to know the difference between them. And …I flicked my finger at the computer screen.”And here’s Phil working on a potential new weapon. Something any country would be happy to have.”

  “Isn’t this a little too James Bond?” Matt asked, with good reason.

  I shrugged again. “You read the papers. Think of all the recent true-life spy stories, at the national labs, at the Department of Energy.” I summarized the cases I could remember on the fly and ticked them off. The scientist who allegedly transferred American nuclear technology information to China. The supposedly accidental misplacement of a computer disk with classified data at a DOE facility. The Pakistani nuclear scientist who sold secrets to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Even a chaplain at a military base caught selling restricted data. “And those are just the ones we know about. James Bond is all around us.”

  “Myself, I’ve been wondering about the bullet,” Matt said.

  “Aha.”

  “I’m sure the Berkeley PD will try to match the two bullets.”

  I hung my head. “I didn’t think of that. It might not have been the same shooter for the spy and Tanisha.” Matt laughed at “spy,” but didn’t contradict me.

  “Of course, if the guy lives and knows who shot him, we may have an immediate end to our game here,” Matt said.

  A sound in the driveway brought us both up short. I quickly logged on to check my e-mail. I found a short thinking-of-you note from Andrea and a blank message from Rose. Her teenaged grandson William’s name was in the sender line, but there was no title and no text message. Rose had never used e-mail but had promised to learn while I was away. I smiled at the image of her sitting at William’s computer, annoyed at the icons and the cursor. I planned to phone her soon and talk the old-fashioned way.

  We heard the sounds of the back door opening and closing, and then Elaine’s footsteps on the stairs, accompanied by her cheery voice.

  “Warning, you two, I’m on my way up.”

  I was sure Elaine meant her warning to break up a compromising position. I felt a pang of guilt that Matt and I were not under the covers but undercover at her computer.

  Elaine stepped into her office, hands behind her back. “We have avocados, green beans, peaches, and …” Elaine pulled her arms around to the front and dangled a long, narrow package, almost hitting Matt’s pronounced Roman nose. Kettle corn, one of Matt’s favorite snacks. And hard to get at home in Massachusetts. Though the sweet popcorn dates back to colonial times, we’d seldom seen it anywhere but at West Coast farmers’ markets.

  “Whoa!” Matt said, clearly pleasing Elaine. He undid the twist-tie and opened the waxed paper bag, releasing a wonderful sugary aroma. We let him have the first handful, then helped ourselves.

  “Anything from Andrea?” asked Elaine, the most well-mannered kettle-corn chewer I’d seen.

  A whopper came to my lips, way too quickly for comfort. By rights, I should have choked on a salty-sweet kernel.

  “An attempted message from Rose.” (A truth to start with, at least.) I cleared my throat. “And also Andrea mentioned some new work on a nitrogen molecule. Maybe Phil knows something about it? Do you think he’d be willing to talk to me?”

  I saw Elaine’s eyes light up. At any time that wasn’t two weeks from her wedding, Elaine would have balked at the coincidence—an hour after she tells me Phil is working on nitrogen, Andrea Cabrini, three thousand miles away, finds something that prompts me to have an interest in it, too? Blinded by love as she was, I thought, Elaine instead saw this as a bonding opportunity I could almost re
ad her mind—her best friend and her fiancé, discussing a common interest. So what if it was a molecule?

  “Of course!” she said, with enough enthusiasm to power a firecracker.

  I didn’t dare look at Matt.

  On Sunday afternoon, Elaine and I walked around the neighborhood, as promised. For girl talk, we told Matt, who was just as happy to stay home and listen to Elaine’s many jazz CDs.

  “Every one of my boyfriends had a different musical taste,” she’d told us. “And each one added a new section to my music collection. The jazz is from Bruce, the one who …” Elaine waved her hand and grinned. I thought I saw a blush creep onto her face. “Oh, never mind. Enjoy, Matt. Let’s go, Gloria.”

  I hoped she would not tell me about Bruce.

  Elaine and I returned to one of our favorite routes, up and down Holy Hill, the local name for Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union. Nine different Catholic and Protestant seminaries and a dozen other religious programs were centered at GTU. We played our traditional game of picking out religion or theology students from the other passersby. We checked out the spines of their books, noticing their medals, pins, and T-shirt logos. (WWJD slogans were in the lead: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? A close second was SHANTI, the Hindi word for peace.)

  We thought the snippets of conversation were uniquely Berkeley

  “Deepak Chopra is old news,” from a young man with very worn Birkenstocks. “I’m listening to an audiotape by Houston Smith.”

  “I thought he was dead,” from his female companion.

  A nun in a modified dark blue habit crossed the street in front of us. Her posture was ramrod straight; her veil hung off the back of her head, like a fabric ponytail.

  “I didn’t think they wore those anymore,” said I, a long-lapsed Catholic with no factual basis for the observation.

  “You see them all the time around here,” said Elaine, who’d never belonged to a major religious denomination. Unless you counted the Spirit of Energy Church, the Breath of Life Congregation, and a few other flocks of Berkeley souls she’d joined over the years.