The Oxygen Murder

by Camille Minichino

  Grace had told us at dinner that the hat district was in the West Thirties between Fifth and Sixth avenues, east of the garment district, but still on the West Side. “I thought you were going to shop on the East Side,” I said.

  “We covered a lot of ground,” Rose said. “Including a glassmaking store on Madison Avenue.”

  Rose and I had visited with the Sassos on previous trips, but usually only for dinner and a performance of one kind or another. Staying in town longer this time gave Rose a chance to indulge her shopping fantasies with a native New Yorker. I wanted to hug Grace for making my friend so happy and not involving me in the process.

  I made appropriate excited sounds over Grace’s purchases. Then I noticed that one of the packets of ribbon was coffee-colored.

  Uh-oh.

  I could see that Rose had been waiting for my reaction: Clearly Grace had been commissioned to make a hat for me for my wedding party, which Rose kept referring to as a reception.

  “It’s going to be a tiny, tiny hat, Gloria. No one will even know you have it on.”

  “Then why should I wear it?”

  “Just for the appearance.”

  For some reason this exchange sent Grace into a fit of laughter. For Rose and me it was business as usual.

  Rose’s purchases had come from the shops on Mulberry Street, the heart of Little Italy. She had found a gold mine of Italian souvenirs: the long, skinny red pepper that brought good luck, on key rings, pot holders, and T-shirts; and the mal’occhio fingers that kept away bad luck, also on key rings, pot holders, and T-shirts. Something for everyone back home.

  I envied Rose and Grace and other people who could get so excited about shops that had nothing that plugged in or required calibration.

  I needed to buy something soon, I thought, just to prove I’d been to New York City during Christmas season.

  Aware that I had a meeting with Lori at two o’clock, Rose had ordered for me. I accepted a steaming plate of clam linguini from a young blond server wearing a Santa hat, as did the other restaurant staff. He set identical plates in front of Rose and Grace.

  I knew Rose preferred the smaller restaurants with middle-aged waiters who lived in the apartments above the establishments and hardly spoke English. After one taste of the delicious clam sauce, though, we all agreed it didn’t matter that the floors were new and shiny instead of old linoleum with wax buildup.

  Blip blip blip. Blip blip blip.

  My cell phone. I checked the caller ID and clicked it on.

  Rose frowned.

  “My husband,” I said to her. “Maybe it’s about our wedding.”

  Her frown disappeared.

  “Is Lori with you?” Matt asked.

  The lack of preamble worried me. “No, we’d planned to meet at Curry’s. What’s the matter?”

  “Maybe nothing.”

  “But?”

  “Buzz says Billy is out.”

  My stomach clutched. “How?”

  “I guess he’s not as much of a country bumpkin as he seems. Apparently he just asked a uniform who brought him a soda if he was under arrest. The cop says no and Billy says ’bye. The good news is that the canvass did turn up a neighbor who saw Amber fighting with a young man on Saturday morning. Between Dee Dee’s claim and this one, they can bring him in as soon as they find him.”

  “That’s something.” I swallowed hard. “When they find him.”

  “I’m going to hang up now and try her cell again,” Matt said. “I’ll let you know.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NNE

  I left Rose and Grace in the New Vineyard and, after a nearly fifteen-minute wait, caught a cab to Curry Industries on the West Side. Looking around the neighborhood, with no sea of yellow four-doors as in midtown, I knew it would be even harder to get a cab back uptown.

  First things first. I tried to concoct a Plan B—what I’d do if Lori didn’t show up. Other than worry.

  Curry Industries, just south of the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey, was a large concrete and glass building. So was MOMA, I realized. Different architects, obviously. Where MOMA gave the impression of blending seamlessly into its environment through its enormous windows, walkways, and connecting hallways, the Curry building was a solid block, with no graceful lines to break up the austerity. It looked like most lab buildings I’d worked in, so why was I disappointed in it?

  Was New York City turning me arty, as well as mushy?

  The wide glass doors parted as I approached the entrance, up one flight of concrete steps. Inside, a reasonably pleasant carpeted area held a reception desk and giant posters of refrigerators and freezers. I recognized the designs as the same ones used in their literature. Here, too, I was reminded of labs I’d known and loved, where technical illustrations provided the décor. I was happy to note that I still enjoyed close-ups of technology and science in action and hadn’t completely lost my appreciation of gears and switches.

  Hallways ran off in three directions from the front desk. I wondered in which wing the regional purchasing manager sat.

  The young woman at the desk was wearing elaborate dental appurtenances and a school ring on a thin gold chain around her neck. Right out of high school, her first job, I thought. Not much of a challenge.

  “I have an appointment at two with Zach Landram,” I told her.

  She consulted a large calendar-ledger combo. “Your name, please?” Her voice was sweet and high-pitched. I imagined her last job being at an establishment where the next question would be Do you want fries with that?

  “Dr. Gloria Lamerino. I’d be listed with Ms. Lori Pizzano, who isn’t here yet. Is it all right if I wait in this area?”

  She ran her finger down a page of the book. “Oh, okay, I see it. Mr. Landram is running a little late anyway. Can I get you some coffee?”

  Curry Industries was decidedly more hospitable than the hospital, despite the etymology of the word. That didn’t mean I’d break my no-office-coffee rule.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  I took a seat in the reception area facing two of the hallways. I glanced at the array of booklets and saw that they were duplicates of what I already had. Lori had been thorough.

  Although I carried my own reading material in my tote—copies of Scientific American, New Scientist, and Physics Today—I flipped through one of Curry Industries’ magazines of choice for its visitors: Popular Mechanics. It was nice to branch out once in a while, I told myself, and skimmed an article that was a retrospective on the icebox.

  By two thirty, Lori still hadn’t shown up.

  I called Matt. “She’s a half hour late.”

  “That’s not like her.”

  “What about calling Buzz?” I asked.

  “Technically, she’s been missing for only thirty minutes.”

  “Technically isn’t all there is to it.” As if he didn’t know.

  “Dr. Lamerino?” Zach Landram had come up behind me. His office was evidently in the wing to the far right of the reception desk, out of my range of view.

  “I’m going to check on whether they’ve located Billy,” Matt was saying. “I’ll call you back when I have anything.”

  I hung up with Matt and extended my hand to Zach, who was jacketless but wearing a crisp blue-and-white-striped shirt and a wide blue tie.

  “You might remember me from Dee Dee’s office at the Tina Miller Agency,” I said, my mind still half on the missing Lori.

  “Of course, I remember you,” he said. Barely was what he didn’t say. “Let’s go back to my office.” He snapped his fingers as he passed the receptionist. “Kelly, have Lynn bring us some coffee.”

  This was the Zach who’d sent Dee Dee to do his dirty work three times. It seemed he commanded an entourage of willing females. Just annoying enough for me to forget my manners.

  “Did Dee Dee tell you I’d be paying you a visit?” I asked him, hardly waiting for him to close his office door. I’d been wrong about the cubicle. Zach had his own office, just one with i
nexpensive, cubicle-like furniture.

  Zach hesitated, then said, “She called me, yes.”

  “Let’s not waste time, Zach. What’s on the DVD that you risked Dee Dee’s life to retrieve?”

  Zach had gone from cool manager to flustered suspect in less than a minute. I was conscious that I’d counted on my looks to throw him off track—not a new trick, but one employed usually by the young and beautiful. People often have low expectations of someone who’s middle-aged with a matronly figure and frizzy hair (especially on damp days like those this week). She looks frumpy; she must also be mentally dull might be their reasoning. The perfect image for an investigator, when you thought about it. Maybe that was why Matt had chosen the rumpled look, I mused, allowing myself a tiny diversion. In any case, it had worked on Zach.

  “Okay, I know you’re helping the police,” he said, running his fingers through formerly well coifed hair. “I don’t want any trouble. It’s not as if Dee Dee or I killed Amber. It was just a little violation, that’s all.”

  “A CFC violation.” I spoke as if I already knew.

  “We had to finish this one project, for a major customer. The regs came into effect at a bad time. One more shipment of CFCs and we’d be done.”

  I sat comfortably on a padded chair while Zach paced. “Amber was there when the shipment arrived.” By now I could write the story without him.

  “Amber happened to be around with her camera on the loading dock just when the stuff came in. She got suspicious because of the way the guys were behaving, not wanting her to see the labels. If they’d played it cool, she’d never have known. Then all she had to do was come on to one of the idiots.”

  The rest was obvious. “She approached you for money.”

  “Yeah. No way was I going to pay.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “So you killed her.” Even as I said it, I had a feeling—based on the dubious judgment of a police consultant—that I was not in an office with a killer, nor the fiancé of a killer.

  Zach threw up his hands. “I didn’t kill her. I figured I’d just get the DVDs somehow. Look, the regulations are a laugh in the first place. You’re a scientist, you should know that. It’s just busywork for some bureaucrat.”

  It was hard to disagree completely. Like every consumer, I’d been annoyed by laws that had their origin in a single isolated incident: One person trips over a step and the next thing you know all steps have to be painted a bright yellow.

  “I’ve never viewed the law that way,” I said simply.

  “Let me tell you a story. A certain group in the city government that shall go nameless called here about six months ago. Turns out they moved their offices and in the process lost all the files relating to our safety procedures in the fab shops. All the paperwork on ventilation, helmets, safety glasses and shoes, signage, you name it. Not to mention applications, permits, inspection reports, correspondence to and from us and them.”

  I moved to the edge of my seat. Zach’s report was mind-boggling. “They, uh, actually told you they lost all your files?”

  Zach had his hands on his hips. He nodded rapidly, his eyebrows up. “They wanted us to make photocopies of everything, starting from January 1980, and send them to their office.”

  I was aghast. “That means you could send whatever you pleased.”

  “You got it. Now you tell me, can you have respect for an outfit like that? What makes you think they know what they’re talking about?”

  I certainly saw his point, but—

  A knock on the door startled me. I’d been lost in a sea of logical fallacies that gave Zach his rationale for ignoring federal regulations and committing a crime in the process. Not to mention endangering his fiancée.

  Zach’s secretary, Lynn, appeared in the doorway. “Ms. Pizzano is here,” she said.

  Lori was right behind her. I restricted myself to a smile and a deep breath, when I really wanted to jump up and hug her.

  “So, so sorry I’m late.” She extended her hand to Zach and took the seat he indicated. She gave me a smile. “I’m sure Dr. Lamerino has done very well on her own.”

  “Very well indeed,” Zach said, clicking his tongue.

  “We missed you,” I said.

  Zach loosened the collar of his shirt and gave me a pleading look that shouted, Don’t tell her, please.

  I had what I wanted and didn’t see the point of embarrassing the man further at that moment.

  I looked at my watch. “You know, Lori, I think I’ve learned enough to help you fill in your narrative. Maybe we should let Mr. Landram go to his next meeting.”

  “Right, right,” Lori said, her tone telling me she’d picked up my cue. “Well, it was at least nice to meet you, Mr. Landram.”

  As much as I felt sorry for Zach and his plight, I looked forward to turning him in. To the appropriate agency and to Lori.

  For now I was happy to leave the building with Lori by my side.

  “My phone went dead,” Lori said as soon as the wide glass doors shut behind us. “I can’t believe I forgot to charge it. Anyway, I knew you’d be worried, and as soon as I got here I gave that teenaged Curry receptionist Uncle Matt’s number and asked her to tell him I arrived, so he should be okay now.”

  Lori hadn’t taken a breath. I responded with a long one, trying to keep up with her outpouring and her quick pace as we walked toward a more cab-friendly neighborhood.

  Lori had a lot of news. She’d headed home from the video store, where she thought she’d find the CURRY II DVD, and seen Billy Keenan on her doorstep.

  “I panicked. I didn’t see a cop on the street, so I hid. Then he was gone, but I didn’t feel like taking a chance. I went back to the café where I’d had my coffee. I hated to be all wimpy and call the cops, but I was still all freaked out about Rachel Hartman confessing to me—”

  I gasped. “Rachel Hartman confessed? That Blake PR woman who was at the awards breakfast?”

  “Yeah. Well, no, not to Amber’s murder.”

  As Lori explained, I was fascinated by a thread of the case that I hadn’t been aware of—Rachel’s connection to Family Suites and the threat of her ankle (intertwined with Blake’s, so to speak) being exposed to the world. Another reminder of the narrow vision I’d had trying to solve this puzzle.

  Lori went back to her timeline for the morning. It made my schedule of visiting Dee Dee and enjoying lunch with Rose and Grace seem leisurely.

  “I decided to call Craig and see if he’d come and get me and walk me to my apartment, but like I said, my phone was dead. By the time I found a working pay phone, I don’t know what time it was, but Craig came through.” She paused and blew out a breath. “We might hook up some time.”

  “Hook up?”

  Lori shrugged her shoulders and blushed. I got the idea. “Anyway, he showed up with this big bruiser of a buddy, and they walked me to my place and waited while I changed and then caught a cab here.”

  “And Billy?”

  “Not there or anywhere in sight. I have no idea where he is.” She lowered her voice, and I could barely hear her. “I guess I’m a coward.”

  “I’d say you were smart, Lori, especially after all that’s happened.”

  “Thanks, Gloria.”

  “I hope you don’t equate meeting me for the first time with all the misfortune of this week.”

  Lori stopped, came around to face me, and threw her arms around me. We had a long, teary hug, right in the middle of the sidewalk. Pedestrian traffic flowed around us on both sides, like water around an obstacle in a pipe.

  No one paid attention otherwise.

  All was well. Except that Billy Keenan was on the loose.

  CHAPTER THTY

  It’s definite that Billy was in New York earlier than he claimed,” Matt said. “Buzz is on it. He put a car back in front of Lori’s building, just in case, though I doubt Billy would go back there. He’s probably on his way to Kansas by now.” Matt paused for a sip of mineral water from a six-pack of bottle
s Rose had brought to our hotel room. “But we can be happy that a few pieces of the puzzle are crossed off the list.” Matt started to tick off the successes. “We know who was in the loft with Gloria and why; we tracked the letters, explained the missing DVD—”

  “If Billy was in New York already, how did the police get ahold of him to notify him of Amber’s death?” Rose asked.

  “I guess it took a while,” Lori said. “That’s why they didn’t release the information about Amber until later on Monday.”

  “With cell phones and remote access to answering machines, no one has to know where you really are anymore,” Matt said.

  “That’s spooky,” Rose said.

  She had a point.

  The biggest piece of the puzzle, Amber’s murderer, had eluded us, but we’d done our best. Something nagged at me, however. Something a little off-center. I had the feeling that eventually it would come to me and all would be clear. Like the last turn of a potentiometer, finally reaching the right frequency and clicking in to give a sharp signal.

  “Who’s up for a trip to the Met?” Rose said, always ready for action. Nothing was nagging at her.

  I’d promised Rose one evening at a museum that was open, and she was collecting on my pledge.

  “I think I’ll pass,” Matt said. “Frank called with a little RPD story.” He emphasized the R. “They caught that guy who’s been a fugitive for almost ten years—the one who killed his own grandfather when he found out the old man was an FBI informant.”

  “Silvio Di Gregorio,” Rose said. “I remember the case.”

  I was grateful she didn’t give us the genealogy of the family. “Are you sure he wasn’t from Everett?” I asked, needling Matt about the town he grew up in, a few miles from Revere.

  He hummed a few bars of the Everett High fight song, then reminded us, “You know, at some point I need to go back to work. It might as well be tonight. I’m expecting some faxes from Berger. You remember George, my partner from long ago when we were in Revere?”

  I gave him a big grin. “We’ll be home Saturday morning.”