The Oxygen Murder

by Camille Minichino

  In the past year, water-treatment plant personnel and employees of a welding company had been victims of overexposure to ozone. Another company had failed to provide protective gear when the PEL—permissible exposure limits—couldn’t be met.

  I started to list the names of the guilty parties until I realized that the people Amber and Lori were threatening to expose probably hadn’t been caught yet. What I really needed were the oxygen files. Ha, what a good title for a best-selling spy thriller, I thought.

  I drummed my fingers next to the keyboard for a minute, gazing back and forth at the interior café surroundings and the street outside for inspiration. The light shades and the counter in the café had a modern, burnished-metal look. The cappuccino rivaled the best I’d had; the croissant was fresh and flaky. The people passing in front of my window—here a head of neon green spikes, there a long, silky fur coat—seemed much more heterogeneous than any slice of the population of Revere.

  All that stimulation gave me an idea. Maybe the oxygen files were out of reach for the moment, but Tina Miller, Amber’s employer, would have PI client files—and her place wasn’t a crime scene.

  Click, click, click.

  Within a minute I had an address and a phone number for the agency. Lori entered the café just as I wrote down the information.

  I made a quick plan to walk to the agency—not that far away, on West Fifty-seventh Street—after Lori left and before Rose and Matt were available again.

  My vacation had become busier than my regular life.

  Lori took a seat and looked around the café with approval.

  “How’d you find this? I thought I knew all the hot spots.”

  “An eighteen-year-old concierge advised me,” I said.

  “Cool.”

  Lori grinned, improving her drawn appearance only slightly. She had on a black jacket with quilt stitching and a different lacy scarf from the one she’d worn the first evening. This wrap was red and orange, with bits of fluff throughout. I’d seen the same style on many young women in New York, and I was positive Rose would buy a couple before she left. Maybe she’d be the one to move the new look northeast to Boston and Revere. In our short time in New York, she’d already picked up two Coach-like bags and a pair of chenille mittens, both from sidewalk vendors.

  In the overheated café, I pulled off my cardigan and added it to the jacket over the back of my chair. The outside air had grown colder over the weekend, but no more rain was in sight.

  “I’ve been thinking about Amber, wondering if she has any family around here,” I said.

  Lori took a long breath and shook her head. “They’re all still on this wheat farm in Nashville, Kansas.” She paused. “Not Tennessee. Kansas. It was such a stereotype, I couldn’t believe it the first time I went there. Even her name. You know, amber waves of grain, that’s what her parents named her for.” Lori stared off at a distant spot in the café, as if she were trying to see all the way across to Kansas. A small smile took over her face. “Her brother, Billy, literally had straw in his hair. He and Amber argued all the time about big city versus small town. He was very hot, though. I could have had a thing for him if he were a tiny bit older and willing to leave the farm.”

  Lori stopped abruptly. I gathered she hadn’t meant to say as much as she did.

  “Do you know what Amber did, specifically, for the PI agency?” I asked.

  “Gloria!” The very buff young counterman in a long-sleeved black tee sang out my name.

  My second cappuccino was ready.

  Foiled.

  I’d hoped that catching Lori off guard about Amber’s moonlighting might loosen her up and evoke an unfiltered response.

  “I’ll get it,” Lori said, rushing toward the counter. She seemed relieved to be leaving me, even for a few moments.

  Lori came back with my drink plus a plain coffee and a croissant for herself. She had her answer ready.

  “Amber did just routine work, you know, like background checks and taking pictures of the scene of an accident, like for an insurance company or some lawyer.”

  “Did she follow any unsavory types?” I asked. Wink, wink. Just an old retired lady looking for a vicarious thrill.

  Lori stirred a packet of sweetener into her coffee. “Only if you think it’s unsavory to cheat on your wife.” She winked at me, as if to tell me, gently, that she saw through my attempt at casualness. “You know, what I’d really like to know is the exact way that too much ozone hurts you, and the way that CFCs destroy the ozone layer. What happens, atom to atom, if that’s the right way to ask?”

  When had I not wanted to talk about science to anyone who would listen? Here was a person seriously interested in hearing me expound on the mechanism of ozone depletion. Instead of reveling in the idea, I was intent on reminding her of what was likely the most traumatic event of her life. I owed Lori my best expository powers.

  “That’s just the right way to put it,” I said. “Ozone is generated as a side product in a lot of industries. Arc welding is one of the main culprits. The ozone is created in the high voltage of the arc.”

  Lori shook her pen at me. “We’re looking into a welding company. So it would be great if I can get this straight. I know that ozone has three atoms, and it’s not very stable—it wants to give up one of the oxygen atoms, to take it back to a stable two-atom state.”

  “You’re halfway there,” I said. “The ozone is ready to react with anything in its way in order to return to that stable state.”

  “And if it happens to be our lung tissue that’s in the way, ozone will eat it up.” Lori snapped her fingers.

  There went a lung, I thought.

  “You certainly are a quick study, Lori,” I said, and meant it. “Was Amber able to help at all with this? Did she have a technical background?” Not to be too subtle.

  “No more than I did, with our liberal arts degrees. You know, chemistry for journalism majors. No physics at all, I’m afraid. Not required.”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  Lori gave me a comic sheepish look and turned the page in her notebook. She’d maintained a neutral expression through my attempt to bring Amber into the conversation.

  “I’m thinking of doing only the ozone workplace exposure issue and not the CFCs this time around, but I’d still like to go over what happens with CFCs. They’re tougher for me to understand.”

  “An excellent idea, to stay with one issue at a time. People can get mixed up otherwise.”

  “I’m glad you agree,” Lori said. “Show me the CFC problem anyway.”

  “In case I’m not in New York City when you do Part Two.”

  She smiled. “Right.”

  “It’s the chlorine atoms in the CFC molecules that cause the damage. When the CFCs reach the stratosphere, the ultraviolet radiation from the sun causes them to break apart, into two separate atoms, which then are free to react with the ozone. This starts the chemical cycle of ozone destruction.” I made rolling motions with my arms. “One chlorine atom can break apart tens of thousands—I don’t know the exact number—of ozone molecules.”

  Lori looked up from notes she’d been taking while I talked. “Wow. That’s as clear an explanation as I’ve ever heard.”

  “Thanks. Of course, it’s more complicated chemically. The meteorological conditions have to be just right—or just wrong, I guess—for ozone depletion to occur. It has to be very cold, for one thing, which is why the worst cases are near the poles. But, generally speaking, the mechanism is that simple.”

  Lori grew quiet, and I thought I’d lost even a student who started out eager to learn.

  “I know you want to talk about Amber,” she said. “Uncle Matt’s told me about you.”

  I straightened my shoulders. My stiff “He has, has he?” brought a laugh.

  “In a good way,” she said. “How you love to investigate and all. But it’s just too soon for me.”

  “I understand.”

  “Amber and I�
�” Lori stopped and stood suddenly. She kissed my cheek. “ ’Bye, Gloria,” she said, and was gone in a flash, leaving tufts of red and orange yarn behind her on the table.

  I sat, skimming a tiny spoonful of foam from my cappuccino. I felt like a failure, unable to find out anything useful about Amber.

  Except that Lori seemed to know a lot more about Amber than she’d let on to us yesterday. Not close, she’d said, just colleagues. Yet she’d been to the Keenan farm and had a thing for Amber’s brother?

  I swallowed the rest of my cappuccino, put on all my layers of outer clothing, and headed out into the cold.

  Maybe the meeting hadn’t been a waste after all.

  CHAPT SEVEN

  After a ride in a mercifully modern elevator—no wobbly accordion door, no worn-out, sticky buttons—I found Room 903, with TINA MILLER, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR stenciled on a frosted glass window.

  I opened the door to a young woman in stiletto-heeled boots, bent over a low file credenza. From the bottom drawer she’d just pulled a snazzy, sequined purse—not just for formals anymore, I knew from my thirty-something goddaughter.

  I thought of my file cabinets in my old lab. They were chiefly a storage place for small equipment, meters, calipers, cables, and a general assortment of spare parts. No purses, and very few files.

  “Dr. Lamerino? Dee Dee Sanders,” she said, extending a hand. Close up, I saw that Dee Dee’s purse had a sparkly outline of a horse-drawn sleigh bearing Santa and a pile of gifts.

  “I’m glad you could fit me in,” I said.

  She waved her hand and clicked her tongue. “No problem. Have a seat—there’s some brochures right in that rack—and Ms. Miller will be with you in a sec. And help yourself to some candy.” Dee Dee pointed extravagantly first to the row of dull, padded chairs, then to a stack of pamphlets, and finally to a candy dish on her desk. “And if you don’t mind? I’m leaving to have lunch with my boyfriend.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Oops, here he is,” she said, fluttering toward the doorway, where a dark-haired young man in a business suit with stubble-by-design on his face gave her a big smile. “Zach, this is Dr. Lamerino. Dr. Lamerino, Zach.”

  “Hey,” Zach said, not making eye contact with me. He sported a nonchalance that said I was one of a million clients he’d met in this office.

  Dee Dee grabbed two pieces of candy, gave me a quick wave, then sped out of the office with Zach, her sweet perfume trailing. For some reason—their ages or their manner or recent events in my own life—I pictured an occasion in the near future with small white napkins bearing the words “Dee Dee and Zach Forever” in script lettering.

  I fished through the candy dish, shaped like Santa’s boot, for something not peppermint and found a chocolate kiss wrapped in red foil. Not See’s chocolate Christmas balls, the California delight, but it would do.

  I flipped through a brochure on the agency and its services. Testimonials from satisfied clients filled sidebars in the booklet: Words from CEOs and human resources directors lauded the Tina Miller Agency, claiming that it was “more efficient and effective than our company could have hoped for.”

  One of Miller’s services was premarital screening. I wondered if this had anything in common with the old Pre-Cana conferences that were mandatory for Catholic couples when I was in school. Neither I nor any of my friends had been to Pre-Cana, but we’d heard rumors about the sessions—couples promising to have “as many children as God sent” and to bring them up in the strict Catholic tradition, and signing papers to that effect. Papers that were sent directly to the Holy Father in Rome, it was said.

  The agency list included executive, corporate, and celebrity protection; preemployment verification; spousal surveillance; individual background profiles; assistance in civil liability and personal injury cases; missing persons cases; insurance claims and fraud; and child custody and protection cases. Tina Miller handled workers’ compensation, medical malpractice, automobile accidents, and slip and fall.

  I thought it curious that “slip and fall” was its own category, unlike, say, tumbling down stairs or being hit by a test tube flying out of a centrifuge.

  I was glad I had a trouble-free life. My only lab accident had been too much exposure to a germicide lamp, requiring hours of sitting in darkness to reverse the effect.

  The walls of Tina’s outer office had the same neon glow as those of our hotel room. I imagined a widespread sale on yellow in Manhattan paint stores, which led me to wonder where Manhattanites bought their paint and home improvement supplies. A hardware store was the one business I hadn’t passed in the seven blocks between Coffee And and Tina’s building.

  Ten minutes after I’d finished reading the brochure and browsing through the latest issue of Technology Review, which I’d brought along, I sat across from the PI herself.

  At a glance, I guessed that Tina Miller was about my age and shopped in the men’s department. She wore a long-sleeved polo shirt and brown corduroy pants. An image of a cowboy astride an unruly horse sat at her waist on a large bronze belt buckle. Was she from Colorado? Montana? All the licenses and framed certificates on the walls bore the seal of the State of New York.

  One more guess and I’d have said Tina had worked against her name all her life, trying to be a Maxine or a Sydney. She had a wide mouth, free of lipstick, and a loud voice.

  “So, Dr. Lamerino, I’m glad this timing worked out. What is it? A malpractice case? I’ve done a few. Doesn’t usually take long to smoke out fake limps or whatever. You’d be amazed how quickly a guy will shed his back brace if you offer him a tee time at Mansion Ridge.”

  I gave her a questioning look. “Mansion Ridge?”

  She leaned back in an upholstered swivel chair that could have used a duct tape repair and opened her arms, as if to embrace my ignorance. “The Jack Nicklaus signature course up in Monroe. Not a golfer, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Not a golfer and not a physician, I’m afraid. The ‘doctor’ is an academic degree, in physics, and retired at that.”

  Tina plopped forward with a thud. “Ah, clever,” she bellowed. Her voice had the volume I wished for in my Revere High classroom visits. “Did you think I wouldn’t agree to see an untitled client, or a mere scientist?”

  I shrugged, a bit embarrassed, and looked past her at the ninth-floor view of West Fifty-seventh Street. More office buildings, more Christmas garlands, and a Lladro store that Rose had spent a good deal of time and money in over the years.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t have agreed to see me so quickly,” I said. “I’m sorry—”

  She held up her right hand, decorated with four rings, all of them silver with various ornamentation. Only her index finger was bare. I felt my fingers itch at the density of metal Tina carried around. It had taken me long enough to decide to wear one ring, a thin, plain platinum band.

  “Don’t apologize for a little pretense,” Tina said. “Deceit is the core of my business. And I have nothing against scientists. I started out as a chemistry major, believe it or not, downtown at NYU, but then Martin Luther King was shot, and then Bobby Kennedy, so I switched to sociology, you know, the better to help humanity. Imagine my surprise when no one was hiring people to save the world.”

  “I always assumed a physicist would save the world.”

  “Yeah, well, you may be right. Now I try to bring equity to the universe at large by catching one little cheater at a time.”

  I thought of nobler causes, but who was I to judge? Besides, I guessed flattery would get me more cooperation.

  “I’ll bet it wasn’t easy for you, either, in a man’s field, especially a few years ago.” Oops. Another false start in my so-called interview. Maybe being technically on vacation had slowed down my brain. “Not that you’re old . . .”

  Tina’s laugh was loud and hoarse. “I’m not in denial about my age. Kind of proud of what I’ve done, in fact. It took a while to build this business up. People tend to think women ca
n’t do this job. You have to be sneaky, and nosy, and persistent. You have to be willing to take risks to learn other people’s secrets.” She picked a pencil from a generic black holder on her desk. She managed to doodle and keep eye contact with me at the same time. “I say, who better than a woman?”

  Another show-stopper. It was clear who was in charge of this interview.

  “Who indeed?” I asked.

  “So what does a physicist want with a PI firm?” Tina asked. She nodded toward my only ring. “Looks new. Trouble already?”

  I had a fleeting idea of claiming that I needed her services to track down my lowlife husband, who’d betrayed me after only a few months, but in the back of my mind I heard a voice: Don’t con a conner, or something like that. I opted for the truth.

  “I was a friend of Amber Keenan’s,” I said, “and I work with the police.”

  Well, mostly the truth. I was fewer than six degrees of separation from Amber, and I did work with a police department only a ninety-minute plane ride away.

  Tina cocked her head, her countenance turning sad. “I heard about Amber on this morning’s news. Awful. She freelanced for me now and then. I didn’t know her very well.”

  So far, apparently, no one did.

  Tina continued, maintaining a mournful look. “I didn’t know you were her friend. I’m so sorry.”

  Here I was, claiming friendship with Amber, a woman I’d seen only once, in the throes of death.

  “I wonder if you’d be willing to tell me what Amber was working on recently,” I said.

  Tina put the pencil down and folded her hands, a pose that signaled the delivery of bad news. “I’m sure you’re aware that I can’t release that information.”

  I nodded, creating an expression of sympathy with the rules of confidentiality, combined with disappointment at not being able to help in the worthy effort of finding Amber’s killer. Tina’s file cabinets, in various wood grains, stood around the room, their gold metal handles tempting me, like an elusive password behind which was hidden data. “Maybe you have a few minutes to tell me in general what Amber did for you?” I spread my hands, a helpless gesture. “Or just what kind of things you do here?” I hated my dumb-little-girl voice, but I hated more the idea of leaving Tina’s office empty-handed.