CompTech was behind a market I remembered going to as a child with Josephine. I had a clear memory of standing in line with her to exchange stamps for government-controlled items like butter and sugar. Like my other memories of World War II, however, I wasn’t sure whether I actually experienced the event or simply thought I did because I’d heard the stories over and over. Well into my teens in the late fifties, my aunts and uncles spoke of victory gardens, stamps for gasoline and alcohol, and ticker-tape parades as if they’d happened the day before.
CompTech’s Chelsea operation was unimposing—a small office off a reception area, and a modest manufacturing section at the back. All the doors were open, and every room was visible from where we stood in the foyer.
The noisy back room had a dark concrete floor, lined with bulky metal tables. Men and women in unisex gray overalls sat on stools and in front of workbenches cluttered with tools and papers. A far cry from what I’d pictured when I thought of computer manufacturing—I’d envisioned rows of silent workers, clad in white from head to toe, in a meticulously clean room, using nanosized instruments.
“We have an appointment with Mr. Carey,” Matt told the young receptionist, as if we couldn’t see him, all six-one of him, standing behind the desk in an office a few feet away.
Carey was on the telephone, motioning to us with his free hand to enter. The receptionist seemed insistent on protocol, however, and ushered us in with a slight bow.
Near the door was an open box full of circuit boards in the shade of green familiar to anyone who’s looked at the innards of a computer or any other piece of nineties electronics.
“This is all we do here,” Carey said, pointing to the box and anticipating my question. He’d come around the front of the desk, towering over both of us.
“Just the boards. The chips are made at our main plant in Amarillo. We have three hundred thousand square feet down there in Texas,” he said, feeding into my stereotype that everything in the Lone Star State is enormous. Carey certainly was—as wide as a steer, I thought, with a healthy amount of dark brown hair and a flat, square face with enough wrinkles to put him at about sixty years old, I guessed.
I looked around for a ten-gallon hat on a coat rack somewhere, but didn’t find one. I did see the traditional bolo tie around Carey’s neck, however, a thick black cord with a large turquoise-and-silver ornament that looked out of place in Chelsea.
“You’re Sgt. Gennaro, I presume,” he said, taking Matt’s hand. I hoped he didn’t crush my boss and friend. “And you’re Miss—?” This last query was directed at me, but before I could recover from his enthusiastic Southern drawl, Matt introduced me.
“This is my technical consultant, Dr. Gloria Lamerino,” he said.
I thought I saw Carey’s eyebrows go up a notch, but it may have been my biased imagination.
We took seats around the desk in the small office. What motif there was leaned decidedly toward southwestern, with geometric patterns the colors of sand and pastels in the carpet, and Native American art on the walls.
“I’m afraid we’re not set up for the kind of hospitality we could show you down in the Panhandle,” Carey said, “but I can have Miss Lacey get you a cup of coffee.”
We shook our heads “no thank you,” and exchanged a few more pleasantries about the Massachusetts weather. Then Matt assumed his business posture, his right leg crossed over his left, his notebook on the newly made lap.
“What was your relationship to Congresswoman Hurley?” Matt asked.
“Why, I didn’t really have one to speak of,” Carey said. “Of course, we met during the course of business now and then.”
“The business being the federal government’s helium operation?”
“That’s right.”
“Tell us about your contracts with the program,” Matt said, sounding as casual as if he were interviewing a celebrity for a general interest magazine.
“Oh, we have a contract or two with them, has to do with computers and such. Lots of folks do. Universities, laboratories.”
“I noticed that you’re installing upgrades in the software and adding memory boards,” I said. “Sixty-four megs of RAM on each of three dozen PCs since last fall. Isn’t that overkill for a simple database system?”
“Especially one that might close this year?” Matt added. I’d resolved to leave the political phrases to him.
“That surely has not been decided,” Carey said, stiffening, and converting his relaxed smile into a tight-lipped frown. “That project is one of the few examples of government gone right. They provide a valuable service to private buyers, for one thing.”
“Not since the new source was discovered in Wyoming more than twenty years ago,” I said, noticing both Carey’s and Matt’s eyebrows go up this time. It bothered me to be arguing against the helium operation, but I felt it was necessary to smoke out Carey’s vested interest, and therefore his motive for murder. “That source amounts to about two hundred billion cubic feet of helium, and the total worldwide consumption is less than four billion cubic feet a year.”
While I was rattling off numbers that I’d boned up on that morning, Matt was waiting to zero in on his real question. He took out the letter we’d found in the hidden compartment of Hurley’s briefcase and handed it to Carey.
“Can you explain this letter, Mr. Carey?”
Carey handed the letter back to Matt, holding it by one edge as if it might be contaminated, or, I thought, evidence in a murder trial.
“I have no comment,” he said.
“It looks to me like you and the congresswoman had something going that you didn’t want to end,” Matt said. “You contracted for more than two million dollars last year alone. Maybe Ms. Hurley was starting to worry about her conflict of interest?”
“And maybe I misunderstood the nature of this call,” he said.
Carey stood up, looming over the neat desk. He buttoned his jacket in a gesture of closure.
“This conversation is over until my attorney is present,” he said. “Leave your card with Miss Lacey and she’ll call you to schedule an appointment.”
I admired Matt’s response under the circumstances, showing that he was more accustomed to this kind of abrupt send-off than I was.
“Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Carey,” he said. “I’ll see you at the police station with your lawyer.”
On the way back to Revere, I took the Hurley folder out of my briefcase to insert my new notes.
“I had a few more questions,” I said, “but I guess they’ll have to wait.”
“You did all right with the time you had,” Matt said. “Those numbers you had at the tip of your fingers—very impressive.”
“I just learned them this morning,” I said, reverting to my old-time habit of self-effacement. “The numbers are on the Internet.”
“Maybe, but not everyone knows how to get them or what they mean.”
“So, do you think he did it?” I asked, amazed at my ability to change a subject.
“I’m not ruling him out.”
Before I closed my Hurley folder, I made a neat pile of the newspaper clippings from the day following the murder. A headline caught my eye and I remembered something I’d wanted to ask Matt.
“One of these clips says that the 911 call came in shortly after eight o’clock on Sunday night,” I said.
“Right. Mrs. Whitestone was at the back of the house, without her hearing aids, and didn’t hear anything. The young couple next door heard a loud noise and the screech of a car leaving in a hurry. They went out to check and called 911.”
“But another clip here says that Hurley died late Sunday night. Eight o’clock isn’t ‘late.’ Did Hurley live for a while in the hospital?”
“She did. She hung on for a couple of hours, but didn’t regain consciousness.”
“Did she say anything at all? Maybe to the people who found her or the paramedics?”
“You sound like Mrs. Whitestone. She demande
d to talk to all the people who handled Margaret, asking how she was and if she had any last words.”
“Did she?”
“As a matter of fact, the paramedic has her making some sound. I can’t quite remember, but I wrote it down. If you want to reach into my coat pocket on the backseat, you can take out my notebook.”
I leaned over and pulled Matt’s coat toward me. I found his notebook and flipped through some pages, stopping at one headed Paramedic. I was impressed with his organizational skills and legible handwriting. The sign of a good researcher, I thought, if someone else can follow your notes.
“It looks like ‘mole,’” I said. “As in ‘spy’?”
“That’s what the guy said. Mole or moles. No name in the case sounds like that, so I gave up on it as a lead. And, of course, she kept asking for Mrs. Whitestone. That’s it.”
“Hmm,” was all I said, but something else that I couldn’t put my finger on was churning in my brain.
Chapter Twelve
Trying to cultivate at least one healthy habit, on the way home I stopped at a market and picked up bread and fruit and raw material for a salad. At the last minute, I added a quart of ice cream to my basket, unable to resist a new Ben & Jerry’s flavor with caramel and marshmallows. For unexpected company, I told myself.
Mrs. Whitestone had chosen the old custom—two evenings of wake before burial—so Wednesday evening presented another opportunity to talk to the principals in the case.
I had to weigh my desire to meet Patrick Gallagher and Vincent Cavallo against the dread of encountering Rocky Busso again. I threw the probability of seeing Matt into the equation, although he hadn’t said anything about attending the wake. All in all, I entertained one final vision of Rocky’s tiny eyes and puffy face and came down on the side of staying in my apartment.
“I have too much to do tonight,” I said, talking to Rose over the intercom.
“I’ll stop by when we’re finished and give you any news,” she said. “Don’t forget, the cruiser will be out there again tonight.”
Following my theory of no personal attacks while a police car is outside one’s door and Christmas music is playing, I put on a CD of The Messiah. I changed into comfortable pants and a loose black sweater and went to my computer. I checked my e-mail, paid some bills, and opened my Hurley file. After typing in the new notes from the interview with Carey, I printed out the whole file and took the pages, with a cup of coffee, to my rocker.
Somehow, I’d convinced Matt to let me make photocopies of the letters in Hurley’s personal correspondence file, and I added those to the pile of paper on my lap. I sat back and glided a few minutes on my rocker, enjoying the music. It was a nice reminder that my weekend was looking good.
I sorted through my notes, Hurley’s letters, and the newspaper clippings, looking for a pattern or an indisputable clue to Hurley’s murderer. I was amazed at my own arrogance—did I really believe I could solve this high-profile murder more easily or quickly than all of the police power of Revere and the neighboring cities that had been brought in for support? Did I care so much about justice in general, and Congresswoman Margaret Hurley in particular? Was I trying to impress Sgt. Matt Gennaro? Or did I just love a puzzle? I settled on “all of the above,” and got to work.
I reviewed what I knew about each suspect—William Carey, Patrick Gallagher, Buddy Hurley, and Vincent Cavallo had all made my list, in that order. I’d moved Carey into first place after meeting him—realizing that assigning guilt by familiarity probably wouldn’t make it in the annals of detective work.
Buddy’s alibi was the most solid, witnessed by a large crowd in a public place, but I didn’t think it meant much, since it wouldn’t have been hard for him to hire someone to do the deed. I flashed on an image of Buddy Hurley handing over a thick envelope to Rocky Busso, both nodding knowingly. And I didn’t doubt that Carey had access to a large pool of very strong cowboys.
Since alibis were a dispensable variable in my theory of the case, I moved on to clues, which were as scarce as women in physics. The only real clue in my mind was Margaret Hurley’s last word, or syllable, before she died.
I made a list of all the possible meanings of “mo” or “mole.” I ruled out a license plate since I couldn’t imagine anyone’s using a car with vanity plates as a murder weapon. I doubted that Hurley meant mole/spy, since there was no national security issue that I was aware of with the helium reserves. Did the murderer have a mole on his body? I deemed it impossible that Hurley would have been able to see a mole on the driver of a vehicle coming at her full speed, in the dark. Or that a gopherlike, furry underground animal was behind the wheel.
Leaving alibis and clues for a while, I focused on motive. Although Buddy had been written out of his father’s will, I was sure that more options opened up to him with Margaret out of the way. Maybe the courts would look more kindly on a sole heir. On the “not so nice” side of the ledger for his sister was renewed gossip that it was Margaret who had instigated the change of will not long before both parents died in a plane crash.
I was neither proud nor completely trusting of my sources for these tidbits—TV coverage, news magazines, and hearsay from Rose the Eavesdropper—but not much was forthcoming from Matt the Detective on nontechnical matters.
The motive I’d assigned to Cavallo was different from the others. It didn’t have to do with either love or money, but professional reputation and frustration. Weak, I concluded, so he was my last choice. The only strange thing was why Margaret Hurley had put Cavallo’s letters in her personal file. From what I’d read, everything he’d said in the letters was already in his public reports, the ones I’d found on the Internet.
Matt had invited me to Cavallo’s interview the next afternoon, Thursday, but not to Gallagher’s or Buddy’s in the morning. They had no apparent link to the helium program, so there was no technical reason for me to be there. Maybe on our Saturday date I’ll speak to Matt about this handicap he’s giving me, I thought, and also find out what he’s done about Al’s notebook; but I doubted it. I knew I’d be concentrating on not tripping on Boston’s cobblestone streets.
I’d had only a brief glimpse of Gallagher, plus copies of two letters he’d written to Hurley, plus Rose’s account of his drunken apology to the victim; so far, not exactly winning behavior. I’d had even less direct contact with Buddy, if you didn’t count the intensity of the moment I did have with him.
I wanted to talk to Gallagher and Buddy so badly that I reconsidered going downstairs to the wake, and probably would have, if I hadn’t changed out of my professional mortuary clothing and misplaced the staff ribbon that provided a modicum of armor.
I took another glance at the piece about Gallagher in the newspaper and let out a tiny gasp when I read that he worked for the school district and had an office at Revere High School. How did I miss that before? I wondered, with mounting excitement. And what’s the protocol for asking one’s ex-boyfriend to introduce her to a murder suspect?
Before I could change my mind, I picked up the phone and called Peter. I owed him a call, anyway, I reasoned, and maybe I could trade Christmas lunch for an introduction. Or maybe Peter knew Gallagher well and we could all go to lunch, I thought, pushing positive thinking way over the limit.
Peter answered, with the voice of one who has just swallowed a bite of dinner.
“I’m sorry to call you at dinnertime,” I told him.
“Not at all. I’m delighted, Gloria. I was wondering if you got my message the other night.”
“I did. I’ve been busy, working on your class, too, of course.” I was disgusted with my fawning, but I did need his help to carry out my limited duties for the RPD.
“I’m looking forward to Monday,” Peter said. “All I ever wanted to know about Marconi, right? And I’m hoping you’re free for lunch afterward. We need to do Christmas.”
I shivered at the thought of getting close to someone who “did Christmas,” but I persevered.
&n
bsp; “I’ll count on lunch,” I said.
I managed a few more sentences of chit-chat about Peter’s plans for the holidays and the state of health of his sister, his nephews, and grand-nephews, then got to the point.
“By the way, Peter,” I asked, “do you know Patrick Gallagher?”
“Not well. I work with him a little, since he’s running our curriculum project for the district. He keeps an office in our building.” As Peter progressed through his sentences, his voice became softer and his speech slower until, finally, he ended with a long, heavy sigh, and I knew he’d put the pieces of my call together. “Gloria,” he said.
“I’d like to meet him, Peter, just briefly.”
“And that’s why you’re calling?” It was more a statement than a question, and I couldn’t argue with it. My silence must have said as much, so Peter continued.
“Gloria, I don’t know what bothers me more, that you’re way over your head investigating a murder on your own, or that you’re using me to do it.”
“Peter, I don’t need you to do my job. And let me remind you that this victim is our representative to the United States Congress, yours and mine.”
“It’s tragic, Gloria, but it’s not your job.”
“I’m simply asking you for a favor that you’re obviously not willing to do. Let’s forget the idea, Peter. I’m sorry I bothered you and I’ll see you on Monday for class.”
“Wait,” Peter said. “I know how stubborn you are, and you’ll get what you want one way or another. I can take you down to Gallagher’s office. I have to drop some papers off to him anyway.”
I ignored the slur on my character and took what I could get.
“Thanks, Peter,” I said. “When?”
“Tomorrow morning, early, say, eight-thirty. He’s not going to be here after nine.”
I almost said, “I know,” remembering Matt’s interview schedule. I had a few qualms about talking to Gallagher even before Matt did, but I shrugged them off.
The Helium Murder Page 8