The Oxygen Murder

by Camille Minichino

  How legitimate was that? The welder really did make that face—no phony Photoshop expression—and the narrative was accurate, but putting them together was an editing choice, and a statement. It reminded her of the discussion Rose and Gloria started about blackmail, how two things might be separately okay, but the juxtaposition produced another entity entirely. Maybe someday blackmail wouldn’t be a crime. All Lori knew now was that she’d never felt so guilty or so remorseful in her entire life.

  “Let’s not do that, Craig,” she said into the phone. “The facts speak for themselves.”

  “I thought you’d say that, but I wanted to be sure.”

  Lori took a deep breath. “Have you had dinner yet?”

  “Uh, no. I was just going to grab some pizza.”

  “You want to go somewhere?”

  “You know, I better not. I’m taking an Italian class to get ready for my trip to Italy, and I have to study if I’m going to get anything out of it.”

  “Oh, sure, sure,” Lori said, glad that Craig couldn’t see her face getting redder and redder. “I forgot about your art cruise with the Met. When is it again?”

  “Not until April, but there’s a lot to learn. All I know so far is Dov’è la sala da bagno?” While Craig laughed at his bathroom reference, Lori tried to figure how to end the call.

  “Well, I have some work to do, too,” Lori said. “I have some footage from Blake’s that I haven’t looked at yet.”

  “Oh, I thought I had all the Blake and Curry tapes and DVDs here.”

  “You have most of them, probably. I think these are from shoots you didn’t go on. Amber must have done her own sound on those days.” Why was Craig prolonging this conversation? Lori was ready to pull the old you’re-breaking-up-I-can’t-hear-you routine, but she’d called his landline.

  “I plan to have everything out of my in-box before I leave for the cruise. Next time I see you, we can go over my list.”

  “Good idea,” Lori said. “Or should I say, fa bene? Oops, I think I have another call.”

  “Okay, see you.”

  Lori hung up. That went well, she thought, rearranging herself on the sofa. Next time she’d offer to help Craig with his Italian homework instead of inviting him to dinner.

  She looked across at the framed prints on the long, exposed brick wall along West Forty-eighth Street. Her college graduation present from her father: a two-week trip to Italy and a print from a local artist in every city they visited. She didn’t have many pleasant memories of Dr. William Pizzano—a surgeon too preoccupied with his patients to give his healthy daughter much attention—so she clung to these mementos. Before the pictures were back from the frame shop, her father was dead of a heart attack. Lori scanned the wall. The Trevi Fountain in Rome. The Duomo in Florence. A view of Lake Maggiore from Lombardy. Country churches in Assisi and Sorrento.

  When she found herself wondering what the CFC and ozone regulations were in Italy, she decided she might as well do some work. The police hadn’t returned all her DVDs and videos yet, but she had two or three DVDs that she hadn’t watched in her tote bag. She always kept a few with her in case she was stuck somewhere, and lately she’d been going to Starbucks or Timothy’s with her laptop, to avoid being in the loft at the same time Amber would be working there.

  Lori blew out a breath. No more of that, but why did there always have to be bad news with good?

  She needed to recoup something from the day. Plan A—dinner with the adorable Craig Daly—had failed. There was still a chance for Plan B: popcorn with Blake Manufacturing footage.

  On her way to the cabinet for the air popper, to the kitchen for tea, to her armoire to get her robe, to the media rack with the DVD—every time Lori passed by her door, she glanced at the security chain, relieved it was still hooked across the jamb, wondering if she’d ever feel safe again at home.

  Lori changed into her old velour robe and took up her usual position for watching videos. She plopped on the couch, feet on the coffee table, notebook and pencil on her lap, a large bowl of cheddar popcorn and a mug of tea within easy reach. She pushed PLAY on the remote.

  “Roll film,” she said with a smile to the empty room. An expression from an earlier time that she and Amber had playfully used with each other.

  Blake Manufacturing came into focus on her TV. A gray cinder-block building with few windows, a common enough sight in Lower Manhattan. Amber had kept the camera on as she walked into the front entrance, checked herself in at a security post, and made her way down a narrow passage with a Blake employee leading the way.

  In the welding area, Amber had shot the camera up to the ceiling, catching the ozone monitors in the high corners. She’d managed to zoom in on the model number of one unit so Lori could check catalogs on the Internet and see what kind of equipment Blake used. Good work, Amber. Whatever else she did, Amber got her job right. She’d also found the one female employee Blake listed as a certified welder. Lori watched as a woman with a long, curly ponytail, wearing what looked like serious oven mitts, maneuvered around a brilliant arc.

  Colorful but deadly, Lori thought, remembering how ozone was created in the sparks. She was so pleased with the phrase that she jotted it down. She decided this would be the spot to insert an animated graphic to show how ozone was created by the high voltage across the two pieces of metal. She had a few minutes to spare now that she’d decided to leave the ozone-CFC issue for Part II (which, due to the critical acclaim that Part I was sure to receive, would be a snap to get funding for). She could ask Gloria to help with a sketch, maybe even accompany her on the follow-up visit to Blake’s—but first she’d need to think of how to establish limits. Lori had the feeling Gloria could go on forever about science. Now that she had nothing to hide from her, though, it might be a more pleasant interaction.

  Lori refilled her popcorn bowl and ate through a segment that showed a dark-skinned man wielding something he called a welding tip. Lori made a note of the funny alliteration for possible use as comic relief. “This provides concentrated heat for better puddle control,” the man said. The sound was so muffled, Lori wasn’t sure she’d be able to use this piece. She remembered now that Amber had insisted on going down to Blake’s that day even though Craig couldn’t make it. As a result, there was no boom mike, just a lavaliere that Amber had clipped to her subjects. Eventually Craig would get this material and take it to an editing studio in Chelsea. Lori made a note to ask if he’d be able to beef up the sound then.

  Lori shifted and pulled her robe down around her ankles. She cued up a Curry segment and was tempted to fast-forward through a guy talking about how robots were taking over the big production jobs. A tough-looking woman showed the camera the details of her helmet: lens, inside and outside protection plate, headband, sweatband, and accessories that made Lori yawn.

  No wonder Amber was bored. Even though some of the guys were cute—one in particular, waving a long narrow rod around and talking about low-voltage welding. “Putting on the finishing touches is more like art,” he said, clearly enjoying his few minutes of fame. “This pencil tip is conducting the heat. You’ve got an eighth-inch weld here, not like the big globs you see on your bridge pieces.” Lori scanned forward. An older guy talked about what a shame it was that bikes were now mass-produced overseas, and, finally, a very old guy—Uncle Matt’s age, she thought—said these young guys should be grateful Curry still had a department for arty-farty welding.

  These must be Amber’s happy takes. No disgruntled workers here. Lori hoped the rest of the material had something juicier. Such was the life of a documentary filmmaker—you never knew what you were going to come home with. Not like the fun short shorts she did in school, where she was in charge of her story, start to finish. She missed that sense of control, designing a storyboard and shooting, knowing what you were going for. On the other hand, sometimes documentary subjects came up with surprises. Lori wished for that one little gem that would have PBS begging to give her airtime.

&nb
sp; Back to Blake’s and more talk of structural pieces, brackets for construction, beams, rails, and titanium. Lori decided she had time for a bathroom break without pausing the disk. So what if she missed a couple of minutes of a dark room with sparks flying, she thought, shuffling off.

  When she came back, the dark room had been replaced by a brightly lit office filling the TV screen. She saw jerky shots of a desk, file cabinets, a woman’s foot and ankle, all the way up to midcalf, and then no image, as the lens was blocked.

  Lori scanned back and forth a couple of times, but nothing clearer emerged. Maybe this was just the end of Amber’s self-defined shift, and she’d forgotten to turn the camera off.

  Lori scanned back to get one more look, left the player in pause, and headed for another refill of popcorn and tea. Some dinner.

  Thump! Creak!

  Lori stopped short, a little past her door. The elevator? Hopefully just old Wa Tant on three, home from his late shift at the bakery.

  The elevator passed two, then three. There was no mistaking the bumping, clicking sounds as the cage ticked off the floors, making its way through the tight, grimy shaft. Lori pulled her robe around her body, shook off her slippers, and walked barefoot to the peephole. She looked around the apartment—the nearest thing to a weapon she saw was Amber’s tripod. Unless you counted the rose-petal pillows. Lori shivered at the memory.

  She stood at the door, giving up the idea of arming herself. She simply wouldn’t open up. The door was metal and two inches thick, with industrial grade hinges. She was safe. Trembling, but safe.

  Lori peered out into the hallway. The cage stopped; the accordion gate opened.

  A guy with a blue-and-white striped Yankees cap, carrying a large, flat box, stepped out.

  Craig. With a pizza.

  Lori turned her back to the door and looked at herself in the full-length mirror bolted to the brick wall a few feet away. Her oldest robe, no makeup, her hair not brushed once since this morning, barefoot, her left hand sticky from buttered popcorn.

  Great. Might as well start off with no pretense, she thought, and opened the door.

  “Hey,” Craig said. “I figured we have to eat, right? And maybe you can help me with some Italian.”

  Lori was so sorry she’d changed out of decent clothes. As the smell of pizza—with the works, she could tell—reached her nose, making her feel slightly ill, she also wished she hadn’t eaten so much popcorn.

  “This is great, Craig. Ho molto fame.” She couldn’t believe she’d said it—back to dating tricks she thought she’d abandoned years ago, telling a guy she was starving when she had no interest in his pizza.

  But so what? He was here, she had company, and that was good.

  Craig stepped in front of the TV, where a woman’s lower leg and foot, partway behind a desk, had been captured in freeze-frame. “What’s that you’re watching?”

  “Oh, nothing, it’s the end of some stuff Amber shot at Blake’s.”

  “Dude, look at that. Someone’s having fun in an office.”

  “Yeah, I think Amber forgot to turn the camera off.”

  Craig picked up the remote. “Do you mind?”

  “Knock yourself out. I’ll get some drinks.” And put on some clothes.“Beer okay?”

  “You bet.”

  Lori came back into the area she defined as her living room wearing jeans and an NYU sweatshirt.

  Craig had switched to a sports channel that Lori didn’t even know was part of her package. He’d dug into the pizza.

  “Dude, you need a new TV.”

  “Dude” again. What generation was this guy? How come I don’t notice this language while we’re working together? Lori asked herself. It must be the curious expectations of a date, which this almost was. “A new TV. Right,” she said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.

  “No, really. You should get that new hundred-and-two-inch flat screen they showed at Expo. What I wouldn’t give to see Spider-Man on that set.”

  Lori raised her eyebrows. She felt herself losing interest with every new revelation of the off-duty Craig.

  Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

  Her tinny, irritating doorbell. The basketball game, which Craig had on way too loud, must have drowned out the elevator noise. Lori went to the peephole, hoping not to see an NYPD uniform.

  She stared at the distorted view of a guy with straw-colored hair sticking out around a Pacers cap. Another guy carrying a pizza box.

  Lori opened the door.

  “Billy Keenan!” she said, and fell into his arms.

  Finally, she was able to cry about the loss of Amber.

  “I’m okay,” Billy said, after his own bout of tears. “It was just that first impact of seeing where Amber died.” He slammed his chest with his fist and choked up again.

  Craig distracted Billy with questions about life on the farm. The two guys hit it off immediately—one who’d lived in Brooklyn all his life, a professional film worker in a dark turtleneck, the other a Kansas farm boy wearing a plaid flannel jacket and a clean white T-shirt. Lori wondered if Craig really cared how many acres the Keenans had (like asking one’s yearly salary, Lori had heard) or whether this year’s weather was good for the crops (did Craig even know what a crop was?).

  Lori served beer and two kinds of pizza: Craig’s with the works, Billy’s with the works plus anchovies.

  “Wouldn’t this game look great on one of those big flat screens?” Billy asked Craig.

  Lori heaved a sigh and remembered the trade-off to having guys around. “Mangiatevi, ragazzi,” she said.

  CHAPTER IXTEEN

  On Tuesday evening, I had an opportunity to work on my notes and lists. Unfortunately, the paper I was writing on was very small, the lighting poor, and the conditions cramped.

  I was in seat A101, front mezzanine, of a Broadway theater. Rose had gotten us tickets for a long-running musical with an animal in the title.

  “You need to relax, Gloria,” she’d said, surprising me. I thought she knew me better.

  I’d been told that I didn’t know how to relax, but, in my opinion, it was all relative. At work I’d relaxed when my experimental data fit a theoretical curve, when my xenon flash lamps were in good working order, and when there was a calculator nearby for some fun with arithmetic.

  In retirement, I relaxed when a killer was identified and brought to justice.

  I gave my two suspect groups—Amber’s blackmail victims and the ozone documentary subjects—a column each. I’d leave it to the NYPD to cast a broad net. I knew they were interviewing Amber’s roommates and her ex-boyfriend. They’d continue to comb her financial records for suspicious charges and probably go door to door in her and Lori’s neighborhoods. They’d cover her phone logs and e-mails, broadening the horizon. For me, I needed to narrow the scope to make the problem seem manageable.

  Matt glanced down at my busy lap and grinned. I wasn’t trying to fool either him or Rose. I’d asked for the aisle seat so I wouldn’t disturb any of the other theatergoers. I hoped they’d think I was a music critic taking notes.

  I used the new ballpoint pen Rose’s grandson, William, had given Matt on his birthday in October. The pen lit up as soon as the tip hit the paper. I’d gotten so excited when I saw it that Matt generously handed it over to me.

  “I’ll get some free ones at the conference,” he’d said.

  He was right. He’d come back to the hotel every day with giveaways—pens and pencils with advertising from companies selling training classes, ankle holsters, tactical vests, and other gear I didn’t want to think about. Plus a complimentary roll of tamperproof evidence tape.

  The old building was beautiful, I had to admit, one of many densely packed into the theater district. The dark red, plush interior and elaborate sconces throughout the theater were reminiscent of an earlier day. Rose had recited its refurbishment history on the cold, windy walk from our hotel, telling us the date it opened (1925?) and the seating capacity (approximately six hundred, down from one
thousand, for more of a sense of intimacy, Rose said). There was no elevator in the building, but it was worth the hardship of climbing first up three long flights and then down one short, steep flight to our seats to be closer to the ornate paneled ceiling. My exercise for the month. I wondered how they moved freight and equipment without motorized aid, then realized I was probably confusing theaters with labs.

  The ambience of a remarkable old building might be all I got from the evening, I realized. I’d done nothing but doodle. I remembered the companies Lori was featuring in her documentary and wrote their names in the ozone column: Blake Manufacturing and Curry Industries. I made a note to check on the Internet if necessary, for their CEOs and HR directors, but I felt Lori would give me the information. I knew we’d had a rocky start, but I deemed that to be because I’d pushed too hard on talking about Amber when she was trying to hide their illegal business dealings.

  I drew a star next to the idea of taking a little trip to the Blake and Curry facilities on the pretext of being a science teacher at Revere High. I had hardly any qualms about this, since I did give occasional lectures to the science club at the school. I penned in an arrow to point to my note faulty ozone monitors recalled? and a question mark next to slip away from Matt and Rose.

  Finding Amber’s blackmail victims would be harder. I knew it was hopeless to try to enlist Matt’s help in pumping Buzz for information. It would have been hard enough for me to find a way into this part of the case in Revere; in New York City, it was probably impossible.

  Not that I’d stop trying.

  I adjusted my coat over my lap and continued doodling—the better to think—and drawing stars on my notepad here and there as I listed possible avenues of research.