The Helium Murder
Page 11
“The old lady,” I said, carrying my cordless phone to my window. With my free hand, I pulled the drapes to rid myself of my reflection, which I saw as that of the worst kind of person, taking advantage of my best friend’s weakened condition. “How did she hold up this morning, by the way?”
“Like a rock. She’s an amazing woman. Why do you want her number?”
Oh-oh, I thought. Rose is starting to wake up; time to move fast.
“Gloria?” This time her voice was suspicious, and I knew I’d been found out.
“If it’s in your office, I can get it myself. I think I know where my key is,” I said.
“Are you going off on your own again?”
“Rose, I know your records are confidential, but I do have a police contract. And if it comes to anything legal, I’ll say I broke into your office and stole your Rolodex.”
“What are your plans, Gloria?”
It was never easy to derail Rose from her train of thought, I remembered, so I decided to stop trying to distract her and answer her questions as honestly as possible.
“I just need to ask her a few questions about the night of the murder.”
“And Matt thinks this is a good idea?”
“Well, he would, but he’s too busy to bother with details right now.”
“And that’s why you’re not asking him for the telephone number?”
“Right.”
“You’re not fooling me, Gloria, but I suppose it’s safe for you to talk to an old lady.”
“Right,” I said again, as if the whole arrangement were Rose’s idea.
“If you can’t find your key, let me know, and I’ll come over.”
“No, no, I won’t call her till tomorrow anyway.”
“I’ll call you in the morning when I wake up,” Rose said, “and we’ll set a time for shopping.”
Her voice was trailing off to a whisper as we said good-bye.
As soon as I clicked off my phone, I rummaged around my desk drawer and found the key I had to Rose’s office on the second floor. Although I’d let Mrs. Whitestone rest on the evening of her friend’s funeral, it wouldn’t hurt to have the number handy, I thought.
When I opened the door to my apartment, I saw a long white envelope lying just in front of it. I hadn’t heard anyone in the hallway and decided that Galigani’s bookkeeper and assistant, Martha, had left it, probably during a loud rendition of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” I picked it up and opened it as I headed down the stairs.
I stopped short halfway down to absorb the contents of the note, then turned quickly around, and ran back up the stairs into my apartment. I locked the door behind me and took a deep breath.
Chapter Sixteen
I read the note again. Dr. Lamerino, it said, in neat handwriting on ordinary white paper, you are well-advised to abandon your work on the Hurley investigation. There was no signature—I’d hoped for “love, Mole”—and no date or other distinguishing mark.
I turned the note over and over as if I could scramble the words and rearrange them into a pleasant greeting, like “Merry Christmas,” or “have a nice day.” I shivered at the idea that someone had invaded my personal space, which I considered anything above the second floor of the building. Having had my apartment trashed once already, I was doubly sensitive.
I routinely used the Galigani alarm system, but not before I knew I was in for the night. It bothered me to think I’d have to barricade myself in on a routine basis.
After checking my lock two more times, I sat down and examined the note. The language of the threat, which was how I interpreted the message, intrigued me. The formal grammar and correct spelling were not what I’d expect from Buddy or his friends, if the late Rocky Busso was any example. And not especially Texan, I thought, envisioning the mark of a branding iron and a “‘y’all” if the note had come from William Carey. Patrick Gallagher and Vincent Cavallo, both well educated, were still in the running.
I didn’t relish the thought of being a prisoner in my own home, but the idea of venturing out into the mortuary building, dark and empty all around me, was even more unappealing. Tomorrow was soon enough for Frances Whitestone’s telephone number, anyway, I reasoned, and I had a freezer full of gourmet ice cream to ease the pain of my captive status.
One more reading of the unsettling note satisfied me that I wasn’t in immediate danger, certainly nothing to warrant a call to Matt. I did, however, wish that there could be a cruiser outside my house on a permanent basis.
I took a bowl of Cherry Garcia ice cream and a mug of coffee to my computer. I had some finishing touches to add to my presentation for Peter’s class, assuming he was still talking to me. It seemed months since the dramatic flop I’d produced and directed in his faculty lounge, but it was less than twelve hours ago, I realized.
As usual, I found respite from the emotional highs and lows of the week in science. Although it wasn’t news to me, I marveled again at the feat of Guglielmo Marconi, successfully transmitting a signal using radio waves when he was only twenty-one years old.
The outline I’d handed to Peter in draft form still needed attention and I began to fill in a few lines summarizing the contributions of each of the six other scientists on my list. Working alphabetically, a pile of scientific biographies on my lap, I started with a few sentences about the short but brilliant career of Maria Agnesi.
The oldest of twenty-one children, Maria spoke many languages and, at the age of seventeen, wrote a commentary on conic sections. At twenty, she published a volume of one hundred and ninety essays on philosophy, logic, mechanics, and Newton’s theory of universal gravitation. Among the essays was a plea for the education of women. I hoped that Peter’s students, in the same age range as both Marconi and Agnesi when they did their ground-breaking work, would be inspired.
For the most part, I was comfortable working at my computer, but every now and then I’d hear a noise and feel a twinge of panic. At least three times I tracked down sounds that ended up as refrigerator noise, ice falling from the roof, and steam from the radiator in my bedroom.
I decided to write one more summary, on Avogadro, and then call Elaine in Berkeley, to hear a friendly voice.
Avogadro, unlike the two well-respected child geniuses, received little acceptance as a scientist during his lifetime, but became famous after his death when people realized the importance of his hypotheses. Almost everyone who’d had even an elementary chemistry class knew “Avogadro’s number,” 602,600,000,000,000,000,000,000, also written, 6.026 × 1023, the number of particles in a mole of gas.
To give the students an idea of how big Avogadro’s number was, I used the standard analogy: if you could count one hundred particles every minute, and counted twelve hours every day and had every person on earth also counting, it would still take more than four million years to count a mole of anything.
A mole of anything. A mole! I came close to shouting “Eureka!” when it hit me. Margaret Hurley had minored in chemistry in college. She would have known Avogadro’s number by heart. Even I did, and I’d had only two chemistry classes in my life. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t the first thing that came to me when I heard “mole.” I’ve been retired too long, I thought.
I stood up and paced, back and forth from my computer to my window, recreating the crime scene in my mind. What if Hurley had seen the license plate of the car that was coming toward her, and read 6026 or even 602623, the number including the power of ten? She would have recognized it immediately and made the connection with a mole. One word, mole, was certainly easier to say to the paramedic than the six digits she’d seen.
One problem stood out, however—Massachusetts license plates didn’t have four or six digits; they had three digits and three letters. I thought of other possibilities, like an out-of-state car, or a Massachusetts plate with 602, the first part of Avogadro’s number, and any three letters. I wondered how to approach Matt on the research that would have to be done to check out my hypothesis.
I hoped I wouldn’t follow in Avogadro’s footsteps and have my theories win acclaim only after my death.
My excitement at determining what I saw as the connection between Margaret Hurley’s “mole” and her murderer took over, and my anxiety at the near-ultimatum I’d received on my doorstep all but disappeared. I wanted to share my discovery, but hadn’t worked out my strategy for telling Matt. Technically, he’d fired me, I remembered with dismay. Calling Peter was out of the question, and I’d already disturbed Rose sufficiently. It occurred to me that my circle of friends in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was pitifully small.
I punched in Elaine’s number, and got her answering machine. At five o’clock Pacific Standard Time, I pictured her in a traffic jam on Interstate 580—crowded but ice free, I thought.
Finding myself out of ideas for indoor amusement, my only recourse was to leave my apartment. I was sure that whoever left the note in front of my door was long gone, probably thinking I was frightened out of an inclination for further investigation. Nearly correct, I thought, but not quite.
The temperature had risen during the day to the high forties, and it was still above freezing at eight in the evening, so I decided to take a walk. I bundled myself into my new wool jacket, navy blue, hip length, with a serious fleece lining. My winter wardrobe had been enough of a financial commitment to ensure that I’d stay in Revere for at least a few seasons of cold weather. I added boots, scarf, gloves, and a hat, feeling ready to climb an icy peak, and ventured out of the building.
I walked around the bend in Revere Street, past St. Anthony’s. I didn’t have to enter the church to picture the beautiful Venetian mosaic at the Altar of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, where I’d prayed as a child. I remembered an observation by Niels Bohr, when someone questioned the presence of a horseshoe on a wall in his country cottage. “Can it be that such an eminent physicist believes a horseshoe brings luck?” the guest had asked. “Of course not,” Bohr is said to have replied, “but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe or not.” Maybe the same is true of prayer, I thought.
I headed for the beach, experimenting on the way. Each time a car passed with its headlights facing me, I looked at the license plate to test my hypothesis about Margaret Hurley’s mole. I knew that no streetlights were working on Oxford Park on the night of the murder, so I chose the darkest places I could find on Revere Street for test sites. I also took data both with and without the flashlight I’d brought.
I managed to convince myself that I could read a plate, green letters and numbers on a white background, at a distance of between ten and fifteen feet. Of course, I was looking at an angle, and wondered how different it would be if the car were approaching me head-on. Would my brain just click off and not register any information? More important, what did Hurley’s brain do?
Distracted by my measurement task, I made it all the way to Revere Beach Boulevard, which runs along the ocean for more than three miles, and is never without traffic. Even in the dead of winter, the ocean’s roar competes with the noise from cars and motorcycles, and its salty smell mingles with that of roast beef and fried clams from Kelly’s takeout counter.
For a few minutes, I watched a man comb the frosty sand with a metal detector, and a young couple run along the water’s edge. I wondered if anyone could stand at that spot and not think about life and death.
I hadn’t counted on the return trip when I’d mentally calculated how far I could walk in forty-degree weather. I picked up my pace to keep warm, and had a hard time resisting the more than half a dozen neon invitations from pizza parlors. I was colder than I’d been in many years, and the walk back to my apartment seemed interminable.
When I finally entered my building, my eyes watery and my face and fingers numb, I walked up the main stairs and into my apartment quickly, checking for more unsolicited mail.
I kept on most of my outer clothing while I prepared fresh coffee and toast from a loaf of Italian bread that I had in the freezer. The smells and the steam from the kettle worked their magic and after a few minutes I had the confidence to remove my jacket.
I was also cheered by a blinking red “2” on my answering machine, and pushed PLAY while I made what could be called my dinner if you didn’t count the ice cream I’d had earlier.
I heard Elaine’s voice first.
“I missed you today,” she said. “We went to Bobby’s for the department party this afternoon. At least it’s December.”
Elaine and I joked about how the Christmas parties at our lab started earlier and earlier every year, sometimes barely clearing Thanksgiving.
“I’ll be home all evening, so call me.”
“I’ll be happy to,” I told her machine voice, and waited for the second message, which turned out to be not so welcome.
Peter, from my own time zone, had also called while I was out. Since it was nearly ten o’clock it would have made more sense to call him first, but I needed warmth and friendliness more than bickering, so I punched in Elaine’s number.
“I think I have a breakthrough,” I told her, walking her through my Avogadro’s number theory.
“Wow,” she said, “you’re good, Gloria,” and I knew why I’d called Elaine first. I told her my dilemma about the Massachusetts system of three digits, three letters.
“Maybe rental cars have different sets of characters. I know they do in some states. I think it was in Virginia where I was once, and all the rentals started with R.”
“Good idea, Elaine, you should come here and be my partner.”
The image of William Carey, the out-of-towner, came to my mind, and I found it easy to picture him behind the wheel of the car that killed Margaret Hurley. I added the rental car idea to my list for Matt. It felt good to think that I might be earning my stipend.
I kept Elaine talking as long as I could, hoping it would be too late to call Peter, and the strategy worked. It was nearly eleven when we wrapped up our stories, and if Peter held to the same schedule he’d had as a young man, he’d be in bed by now.
Before I went to my bedroom, I looked at my unwelcome letter of warning again. It didn’t sound like William Carey, nor the somewhat scattered receptionist I’d met at his Chelsea plant. Maybe the Texas drawl was a cover, I thought.
Reviewing my hate mail wasn’t conducive to restful sleep, and for a long time I tossed around my bed, trying to insert a picture of Matt Gennaro where now there was only an angry Peter Mastrone, a murderous William Carey, and a dead Rocky Busso.
Chapter Seventeen
After another night of fitful sleep, during which I dreamed I was run over by a mail truck, I rated my week on the Hurley case twice as stressful as the week before my doctoral exams.
I brought a mug of coffee into bed around seven o’clock and started my day by punching in Peter’s number. He was always more cheerful in the morning, I remembered, even if I wasn’t.
“I’m sorry it was too late to return your call last night,” I said.
“Out with the cop?” Peter asked, shooting holes in my theory about his morning mood.
“Peter, I’m sorry about yesterday morning. I know it was very awkward for you.”
“It was. But it’s not as though Gallagher and I were thick, anyway. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks,” I said, almost disappointed at Peter’s civil response. It gave me no excuse to tell him I didn’t want to see him for another thirty years.
“I called last night to see if you were free for dinner, but obviously you weren’t.”
“I walked to the beach, on the spur of the moment,” I told him, feeling that, as such a good sport for once, he deserved the truth.
“In this weather? Gloria, you’re not in California anymore.”
And what a shame, I thought, but not because of the weather. So far, Peter was the only one who could provoke me to regret returning to Revere.
“Peter, I’m sure you have to run. I’ll see you Monday. The class is coming along fine.”
“How exciting,” I said, noting Peter’s emphasis on “girl.” “I’ll work it into my talk.”
“How about a little Christmas lunch on Saturday?”
“I thought we were doing that on Monday.”
“Monday’s rushed now. I found out I have a faculty meeting in the afternoon.”
Before I realized it, I’d agreed to lunch with Peter on Saturday, thus booking myself a two-date day.
Sitting in bed with my phone on my lap, I wished I’d been brave enough to get Frances Whitestone’s telephone number the night before. Eventually, I faced reality, with a heavy sigh, and exchanged my nightgown for the jeans and sweatshirt I’d worn to the beach. I hoped to sneak downstairs before any of the staff arrived, and copy the number from Rose’s file.
I made it safely to Rose’s desk, an antique from her grandparents’ home. Although few clients ever saw Rose’s office, it was appointed like the elegant person she was, with heirloom furniture and a beautiful Aubusson carpet. I took her Mont Blanc pen from its mahogany cradle, handling it as if it were expensive labware, and copied the Whitestone number.
I turned to leave and ran head-on into Martha. I was more frightened than I should have been, and poor Martha was full of apologies. She was also wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and was just as surprised as I was to meet someone on the second floor of the mortuary at seven-thirty in the morning.
“Oh, am I glad it’s you,” Martha said, echoing my sentiments. “We’re all technically off today. I’m on my way to drop the kids off at school, and thought I’d come in and pick up some work to take home. It was such a hectic week.”
“It certainly was,” I said. “Martha, what time did you leave yesterday?”
“Thursday,” she said, frowning and clutching her chin. “I picked up the kids at four-thirty, so I left around four-fifteen. I was supposed to stay till five, but I was exhausted. That’s why I came back this morning.”