The Fluorine Murder

by Camille Minichino

  Matt pushed the printouts closer and waited. Who would break?

  "We've been through all of this with the fire department," Carson said, finally. "You should be looking elsewhere. Don't you have a list of known offenders or something? We have work to do."

  I was convinced that Danielle was our victim, but I pushed my distress to the side. Maybe I could come at this in a different way and catch someone off guard. "I know how it is, these days especially, to get funds for research," I said. "By the time you write up a proposal, wait for the approval and then the funding, you're way behind another lab or even another country." I clucked my tongue in sympathy.

  "Throw in a mountain of paperwork and regulations that are updated hourly and you've got an impossible situation," Carson said. "No one on the outside seems to get it."

  Stan leaned over and stared down the table at Carson, knocking into his coffee mug, splashing the sleeve of his white lab coat with brown liquid.

  Which prompted me to wonder—why was Stan so nervous? And where was his sweater?

  I couldn't recall seeing Stan without his trademark cardigan, even in the summer months since the whole facility was kept at a pretty low temperature for the sake of the computers and the equipment.

  Things were stacking up against Stan. As the oldest in the group, he'd likely be the most eager to get results and retire on the strength of a groundbreaking paper. Danielle could have been in the wrong place, or perhaps trying to end a romance with an improbable future.

  On an impulse I stood up. "I need to use the restroom," I told the group. "I'll be right back."

  Matt gave me a questioning look. I knew he didn't believe my excuse for a minute.

  ****

  I headed down the carpeted hallway toward Stan's office, multitasking as usual. I emailed the RPD from my iPhone. I needed to send Matt's good buddies in uniform to Danielle Laurent's residence. It would be awhile before DNA or even dental records would provide an ID, but maybe there'd be something among her belongings that would confirm my ad hoc assessment.

  I also needed to find Stan's sweater. I pictured myself returning to the room triumphant, carrying a charred green cardigan. A few feet from his office door, I nearly collided with Albert, a janitor I'd seen a few times. He was carrying a plastic bag from a dry cleaners. Through the transparent wrapping, I saw a hanger with a green sweater attached.

  I swallowed hard. Had Stan already destroyed the evidence I needed to put him at the scene of the latest fire?

  "Nice to see you, Dr. Lamerino," Albert said in Italian-flavored English.

  "You look busy," I said. "Doing errands for Dr. Nolan?"

  "Yes. His sweater. He let me borrow it last week when I was sick and had the chills. I have it cleaned for him and now I return it. He's a nice man, no?"

  "He's a very nice man," I said.

  As relieved as I was that the fluorine team leader was probably not an arsonist, I was aware of the huge setback in solving the case.

  I turned and headed back to the conference room, peering into cubicles as I walked. Only the leader of each group in the department had an office; the others worked in cubicles, open to the world.

  Teresa's space was surprisingly pink for the modern girl that she seemed to be. A pink stuffed animal of generic makeup sat atop her four-drawer file cabinet. I bent my neck to read the nameplate on the side wall, to be sure I had the right cubby. Peter's cubicle was spare, no decorations except for a large poster of chess champion Boris Spassky. I wondered if Peter was even around during Spassky's reign in the early seventies.

  I came to Carson's cubicle and stopped short. I knew of his passion for the early days of atomic energy, but I'd never seen the array of photographs in his workspace.

  Many of the shots were familiar from my own passion, reading science history and biographies. Carson's collection included a sketch of the pile at the University of Chicago, where sustainable nuclear fission was born; a startling black and white image of Little Boy; a fiery mushroom cloud.

  Most striking was a series of time-lapse images of test houses at the Nevada Proving Ground. Several operations during the era of above-ground testing consisted of building houses at different distances from ground zero and blowing them up to test their responses. The set of pictures on Carson's wall showed six shots of one house, from standing upright to collapsing in a surge of flames, in less than three seconds.

  I felt a shiver as it dawned on me how Carson Little's hobby was woven into his approach to his research.

  I walked back toward our meeting room knowing all I needed to know about the fires.

  ****

  Matt and the fluorine team seemed to have taken a break at the same time that I did. I wondered if Teresa had looked for me in the women's room.

  Now Matt was ready to resume. He pulled four copies of a photo from a folder and placed one in front of each chemist. He folded his hands and watched their expressions, like a macabre Nevada blackjack dealer: Hit or no hit?

  Not only the chemists gasped at the sight of the charred body, face down, surrounded by a thick layer of debris. So did I. Up to now, I'd seen only the cleaned up image of her tattoo. I couldn't help staring at this image, making out a human form that was as black as carbon and so thin in places that I knew it could be pulled apart with very little force. I was grateful that I hadn't eaten yet.

  "Is this the woman who died in the fire?" Peter asked.

  "Not in the fire," Matt said. "Someone murdered her first."

  Teresa shivered. "Why are you showing us these? Are we supposed to recognize her?"

  I knew better. Matt was trying to shake loose a telltale reaction—a show of remorse, a slip of the tongue, an uncontainable need to confess.

  No such thing happened, however. Instead, everyone looked ill; they drew back from the table and now all arms were folded across chests.

  "Can you tell me a little about your work here?" Matt asked. He smiled and added, "In layman's terms, please."

  Teresa volunteered. "Sure, I'll explain what we do. We're investigating various flame retardant coatings."

  "Coatings for … ?" Matt asked.

  "Anything," Carson said. "Once we figure out the process, we'll be able to use the coating for leather, glass, ceramic, plastic, wood … you name it."

  As the other members of the team pitched in to inform us of the value of their research, I got a chance to slip Matt a hastily written note that read TATTOO IS DANIELLE. He nodded and paused.

  "You have quite a testing facility here." I said.

  "Sure do," Peter said. "We have all the standard stuff."

  "But there's nothing like testing in the laboratory of real life, is there?" I asked. "It reminds me of the model town built at the Nevada Proving Grounds in the fifties." I turned to Matt, as the one who might need an explanation. "The government built houses of every kind of material, furnished them, and then blew them up and studied the results."

  "Is that what you're doing?" Matt asked, looking from one chemist to the other.

  Stan stood up, kicking his chair behind him. "Absolutely not," he said. "Is that why you're really here? To accuse us of setting the fires in town?"

  "Just so we can do research on the ashes?" Teresa gave me a look that was part sad, part disappointed, mostly angry.

  "It beats your plan, which is to wait around forever," Carson blurted.

  "What are you talking about?" Teresa asked him.

  "You guys may have all the time in the world, but that's not what I signed up for." Carson unleashed his frustration in a loud blast of words, then stretched his arms out on the table and put his head down.

  Stan took his seat again. He put his hand on Carson's arm and shook it. "What's this about? Is everything okay?"

  "Nothing's okay. Nothing will ever be okay again," Carson said, his voice soft.

  "Carson? You did this? You set the fires?" Teresa's face had fallen, making her seem almost as old as Stan.

  "I'd do it again," he said. "Exc
ept for Danielle."

  Peter put his head in his hands; Stan looked up at the ceiling, an uncomprehending look on his face.

  "What about Danielle?" Teresa's voice was high pitched, her tone worried.

  Carson closed his mouth, folding his lips inward. "It was an accident."

  Teresa looked at the photo in front of her. "You killed Danielle?"

  "I didn't mean to." Carson raised his voice to match Teresa's. "She wanted to stop the project."

  Stan slumped over. For a minute I feared the revelation had given him a heart attack. Peter reached over and rubbed Stan's shoulder seeming to console him.

  "What project are you talking about?" Teresa was nearly screaming now.

  "'Big Boy,'" Stan said. "We called it Big Boy. Danielle was fine with it for a while, but she didn't want to use the nursing home. She came down there to stop me. We fought and I pushed her away." Carson's voice grew more and more shaky. "She fell … and … I … she hit her head."

  "And you left her there?" Teresa had assumed Matt's role of interrogator. I was sure that was fine with him.

  Carson threw up his hands. "I had to get out of there. The fire was coming at me. I couldn't help her. I knew she was dead."

  Stan and Peter, who'd remained silent through Carson and Teresa's shouting match, now stood together and, as if they'd planned it, lunged toward Carson with faces and arms ready for battle.

  Matt jumped up, handcuffs at the ready.

  Carson continued to babble through the four-man struggle. "The fire was blazing. I couldn't breathe. I panicked." I might have felt sympathy for Carson, except for his last words: "And I had to test the compound."

  I buried my head in my hands and resigned myself to the fact of a scientist gone bad.

  ****

  A lot had happened between two Sunday brunches at the Galiganis'.

  "It was all there in the emails," Matt told us during the omelet course the following week. We listened attentively as he recounted how Carson had talked Danielle into helping with Big Boy, convincing her that it would be good for the environment in the long run. He'd assured her that no one would be hurt.

  I swallowed hard at the outcome: only Danielle ended up being hurt.

  "It was a different kind of motive for arson. We've got to give him that," Frank said. "Nothing ordinary, like vandalism, or insurance scamming, or a guy getting his kicks from seeing the flames."

  "Or someone making a political statement, like a terrorist," Rose said.

  "In a way it was a statement," I said. "About how researchers have to struggle for funding." I put my hand up in a STOP gesture to stem any backlash, and to protect my right to a cannoli. "Not that I'm excusing Carson or Danielle," I said. "Not a bit." I looked at my husband. "I'm a big fan of law and order."

  "Wonderful news," Rose said. "Now let's plan that anniversary party."

  "I won't stall anymore, I promise. But I have just one favor to ask."

  "Anything, as long as we can set a date," Rose said.

  I smiled a thank you at my best friend. "No candles, please.

  The End!

  About the author:

  Camille Minichino has published eight novels in the Periodic Table Mystery series and four in the Miniature Mystery series (writing as MARGARET GRACE). Her thirteenth novel, "Monster in Miniature" is due in April 2010 from Berkley Prime Crime.

  Camille received her Ph.D. in physics from Fordham University, New York City. She has had a long career in research, teaching, and writing. She is currently on the faculty of Golden Gate University in San Francisco, and on the staff of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Camille is on the boards of the California Writers Club and NorCal Sisters in Crime, and a past president and member of NorCal Mystery Writers of America.

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