I looked around for MC.
“Mary Catherine’s doing the paperwork,” Berger said, responding to my questioning gaze. “The guy’s in the Orange Room. We’re running his ID through the system.”
“Jake Powers,” I said, with some confidence.
Berger shook his head, flipped some pages in his notebook. “Nope. Name’s Wayne Gallen. Chemist at Houston Poly. Says he’s a colleague of Mary Catherine. Says he came to warn her about something and that’s why he was skulking around the building.”
“A warning?” I’d often worried about MC’s vulnerability among the drill pipes and rotary bits of her oil company job, but not in a research lab or classroom, and not now that she was home. What kind of danger could a chemical engineer be in, once she was out of fieldwork?
“That’s what he claims,” Berger said, scratching his fleshy chin with his notepad.
In the next few minutes—thanks to Frank’s police scanner—the blue hallway became very crowded with Galiganis in various stages of after-midnight attire. MC’s brother John, a reporter for the Revere Journal, in thick maroon sweats. Frank and Robert, father-and-son partners at the mortuary, in business casual, as if they might be picking up a client. Rose and daughter-in-law, Karla, in almost-matching navy pantsuits that they could have worn to a Civic Club luncheon. Fifteen-year-old William in respectable jeans and a clean sweatshirt, probably a condition of his being allowed to come along. I was still in my Tomasso’s outfit, consisting mostly of black fleece.
I doubted the RPD hosted such a hubbub for a prowler call-in in a normal case. The Galiganis were a key family in the city, their mortuary business and John’s newspaper job bringing them in regular contact with Revere’s infrastructure. The family even had a divorce lawyer in its ranks—Robert’s wife, Karla. Though I liked her, I hoped I’d never need her services.
An inordinate number of uniforms milled around us. I wondered if the phones, radios, and keyboards were always this busy in the early morning hours. With the staff thus occupied, it seemed an excellent time for a felony across town.
MC sat against a wall, the center of attention in her extra-large Texas sweatshirt that dwarfed her tiny body. She’d returned from talking to Wayne Gallen, who was still being held in the Orange Room.
Standing in the farthest of three semicircles around her, I caught only snippets of the chatter.
“I heard a car screech away. Wayne thinks it was them, these people who are supposedly after me,” came from MC.
“Did he get into the building? Did he hurt you?” from Rose, distraught, notwithstanding her crisp white blouse.
“Wayne says he didn’t want to lead the others to me, but he thinks he might have done exactly that,” from MC.
“What others?” from John, thankfully not taking notes for the Journal.
“Did you hear a noise or something?” from Robert.
“Why was the guy sneaking around?” from Karla. “Are you going to press charges?”
“Who is he again? I didn’t know you taught at Houston Poly,” from someone I couldn’t see.
Non sequiturs. I couldn’t stand them. I needed a logically laid-out version of the night’s events. I forced my way to the front, aware that Matt wasn’t in the immediate vicinity. I had a fleeting worry that he might be in a corner somewhere, doubled over in pain.
I scrambled closer to MC. When I brushed past William, the only person in the room shorter than I, I heard him say, “Go, Auntie Glo.” At least someone in the group was relaxed.
I leaned over MC, cross-legged on the seat of a wide gray chair. “Mary Catherine …” I said.
She gave me a frown that I read: Is this really so serious that you have to use my full name?
“MC,” I said, with a smile meant to calm us both. “Can you start from the beginning? What led you to make the call to the police in the first place?”
She took a deep breath and wrapped her hands in her sleeves. She shivered, as if she were chilled to the bone, in spite of the stuffiness of the area. “I was doing laundry in the basement and I heard a noise at the window.”
My eyes widened, and MC smiled for the first time. She knew I’d be impressed that she’d use the mortuary laundry room, below street level and immediately adjacent to the prep room—and late at night. I had chosen to cart my clothes to a Laundromat every week rather than deal with the eeriness and deathly odors of the Tuttle Street basement even in the light of day.
“And then?”
“Then I heard a car pull away, really loud. Screeching. And I couldn’t tell if the noise at the window was a knocking or a, you know, break-in. And who would be knocking on the basement window of the mortuary at eleven-thirty at night anyway? Plus, with this feeling of being followed lately, I guess I overreacted. I had my cell phone down there with me, so I just called nine-one-one.” MC took a sip of water, slowed her breathing. “Wayne’s not a bad guy. I met him at Houston Poly when I was teaching that night class. He was a great resource for one of my students who needed material for a term paper. I shouldn’t have called the police on him.”
I patted her knee. “You did the right thing,” I said. “Did he say what exactly he’s doing here, following you around?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I know he likes me. He’d never ask me out though, while I was with Jake. But he said he came to warn me that the research guys at HP are after me.” I assumed she meant Houston Poly and not the real HP, the company that made my printer and other peripherals in my home office. “But it’s hard to believe anyone’s on my case. I never did anything to make Alex Simpson or the guys on his team mad at me, as far as I know.”
“Did he give you any details about why they’re after you?”
“Supposedly I have some privileged information that came to me through an email I shouldn’t have gotten. It could be something about the research, maybe a patent? Not that I’m working with them that much, but I’ve had a little interaction through Wayne and this student, Mary Roderick, who’s doing a term paper on buckyballs.”
I’d blocked out the crowd around us until I heard a chorus of “Buckyballs? What are buckyballs?” I thought I also heard “Bocce balls?” and “Bucking broncos?”
Berger’s reappearance prevented me from calling everyone to attention and giving a lecture on buckyballs, starting with the original “Bucky,” F. Buckminster Fuller, and the geodesic dome, and nanoscale technology—one of the hot items in today’s research arena.
“We’re going to let him go,” Berger said. “No priors, no reason to keep him, since you’re not pressing charges. Right, Mary Catherine?” Berger raised his bushy, dark eyebrows in a gesture that offered one more chance for MC to request formal police action.
MC shook her head. “He’s harmless, really.”
For myself, I thought Wayne Gallen ought to be punished simply for upsetting my godchild. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t knock on her door if he had information—I suppressed “a warning”—to give her.
“We should at least check out your email,” I said, swinging my head from MC to Berger. Before you let him go, I meant, but Berger had turned and walked away by then.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” MC said.
I smiled and nodded. She didn’t need to know I’d be nagging her until we had no loose ends.
It took about ten minutes to clear the area outside the station. At one in the morning the breeze from the ocean had taken over, lowering the temperature several degrees. The chill felt more intense after the overheated police station. I suspected the heating system in the old building had only two settings, on high or off completely, with no control in between.
The Galigani clan moved quickly to their cars, but slowly enough for hugs, kisses, and expressions of both relief and concern. Rose had talked her daughter into spending the night with her and Frank on Prospect Avenue, a few blocks from our house, and well across town from the scene of the incident.
Matt, who showed up while we were disper
sing, threw his coat over my shoulders as we walked toward his Camry.
My mind was anything but settled. I had the feeling I hadn’t heard the last of Wayne Gallen. Or a few other Texans.
Once strapped into the front seat, I mulled over the appropriate time to ask Matt for an account of his whereabouts during our ad hoc interview with MC. But a bigger question came up. Instead of heading home, Matt turned left on Broadway and drove toward Chelsea.
“I think Landano’s is closed,” I said.
Matt smiled. “But they’re probably in there baking the cannoli shells right now. I can flash my badge, and …”
I laughed. “You win. Matt, where are we going?”
“Gallen will be released in about fifteen minutes. We’re going to beat him home.”
“We’re going to Houston?”
“Ha.” Matt hit the steering wheel to indicate good one.
“You pulled his address,” I said, then reviewed my own language. When had I switched from “discovered” or “located” to police jargon like “pulled” an address?
Matt made no reference to my migration to his language. “He’s registered at the Beach Lodge,” he said.
“And you want to make sure he stays home tonight.”
Matt nodded. “Covering all bases. Two guys are standing by outside the station. I offered to take the first shift here, and since this is not likely to turn into a wild ride, I figured I’d save myself the trouble of suggesting that I take you home first.”
I stretched across the seat, my ample bosom straining the fabric of my seat belt, and gave his rough, dark cheek a kiss, a reward for not banishing me from the action. “Good move.”
The gray in Matt’s hair, a pattern that nearly matched my own, caught the light of the streetlamps along Broadway, and eventually the bright signs in the motel parking lot, giving him neon-green highlights. I’d always considered Matt the picture of health, if on the chunky side of the insurance stats. He had a lot of well-paced energy, decent upper body strength for a man his age, good coloring. That he looked tired and pale this evening was all in my mind, I told myself, a reaction to hearing his medical report.
He caught me looking at him and covered my hand with his. “You’re thinking we could do better than a B-rated motel, aren’t you?”
I smiled. The Beach Lodge was a joke among the natives, its name playing a trick on tourists. We’d all seen their brochures that implied an ocean view, whereas in fact the so-called inn was at least two miles from sand and surf. I’d never been inside, but its low rates and dingy exterior didn’t inspire confidence about the amenities within.
The parking lot had few cars, not surprising in the off-season. We parked in a corner, facing the entrance, the Camry’s taillights toward the intersection of two major arteries, the Revere Beach Parkway and Route 1.
I scanned the area. My second stakeout in one evening.
“I’ll bet you know what Wayne Gallen looks like.” I realized that’s where Matt had been while everyone else was gathered around MC—he’d been checking the stats on Gallen.
He nodded, and smiled. Together we said, “It’s what I do.”
“Short, thin. A lot like the way MC described her boyfriend to you, which must be why she thought it was Powers hanging around. But Gallen has some facial hair—a long handlebar mustache if you can believe it, and a short beard. All red.” Matt massaged his own hairless chin.
Traffic on Route 1 stayed light, and there was not much action at the lodge. We talked, uninterrupted, speculating alternately about Wayne Gallen and about the cost of a new roof on the Fernwood Avenue house, about MC’s emergency call and about yet another fund-raiser Rose and Frank wanted us to attend. In the air between us was health talk, as if we had an unspoken agreement to take it up later, when we were face-to-face in a well-lit room.
Matt pulled out the large, heavy-duty department thermos and poured us cups of coffee. I took a sip, and promised myself a Tomasso’s Coffee Annex high-quality double cappuccino at the next possible opportunity.
Then a light dawned. I had a captive audience.
“About buckyballs,” I said.
“Oh, no.” Matt pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead, but I’d long ago stopped being sensitive to that kind of rebuke.
“Let’s start with nanotechnology. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. That’s about a billionth the size of your leg.” I reached over and ran my hand along his thigh, to his knee, down his calf. “Well, at least the leg of a tall man.”
He laughed. “Do that again. Maybe you’ll pique my interest after all.”
There was a time when a line like that would have sent a flush across my face, but that was a different, more naïve Gloria. I could tell that my cheeks had not turned red, just slightly pink. I pushed on.
“The width of a period at the end of a sentence—that’s already about a million nanometers, and buckyballs are only about one nanometer in diameter. Impressed?”
A slight nod from my captive student. “The technical name is buckminsterfullerenes, after Buck—”
“Buckminster Fuller. I get that part.”
“Buckyballs are just one molecule among many that make up the science of the very small.”
“Nanotechnology.”
I nodded. “The original buckyball discoverers were chemists from Houston, as a matter of fact. Most people—most scientists, I mean—give them credit for kicking off the nanotechnology revolution.”
“So?”
Matt yawned, a fake one I thought, so I went on. “It started with buckyballs about fifteen years ago, then buckytubes or nanotubes, a sort of cousin to buckyballs a few years later, and now, well, it could lead to nanoscale computers eventually.”
“I’m falling asleep. You’d better step it up. Or make that measurement along my leg again.”
Too late. A progression of loud noises took over. Tires whipping up gravel, indistinct cheers, and whoops of laughter. A group of young people had arrived in tandem cars, their raucous partying already well under way. The flickering lamps and garish red door of the lodge added to the Halloween atmosphere. A couple of weeks early, but there was no mistaking a large, brown, lumbering bear, no fewer than three witches and two fairies, and a couple in prom attire.
“Whatever happened to curfews on a school night?” I asked.
Back to slouching and coffee. By the time the second RPD shift arrived, I’d slipped in some of the major applications of nanotechnology, explaining how the word was used to describe many types of research where the characteristic dimensions were less than about one thousand nanometers—data storage and gasoline production among the most common. Plus the big market for new, smarter drug delivery systems. Like the kind that might be used for treating prostate cancer.
Michelle Chan, out of uniform, came up to Matt’s window and gave us a friendly smile. She waved at me. “Hi, Gloria. We need to get you a badge. You’re putting in more hours than my partner. Any action?”
Matt shook his head. “Unless you count the rowdy kids in cheap costumes.”
“That’s funny. Gallen was released about an hour ago.”
We’d been there longer than I thought.
“What about Jaspers and Connors? They pick him up from outside the station?”
Officer Chan shook her head. “Nope. Well, you’re off the hook anyway; I’ll check it out.”
My stomach tensed. Where was Wayne Gallen? How had he evaded police who were supposedly on his tail?
At least MC was safe at home with her parents. Wasn’t she?
I dug my cell phone out of my purse and pushed the numbers for the Galigani residence. Matt raised his eyebrows, tapped his watch, mouthed “two-thirty,” and, in the end, threw up his hands. I ignored his elaborate gestures.
Rose picked up on the first ring. I pictured my friend, wrapped in dark green chenille, in her unable-to-sleep spot—her closed-in front porch, in full view of her special roses. “She’s fine,” Rose whispered. “Tucked
in upstairs. The world’s fine, Gloria. We should be sleeping. Or shopping.”
A laugh, a few more whispered words, like the kind we used to share in the back of the long-gone Revere Theater when we were kids. Is that Paul with his arm around Carol? Are you going to wear heels or flats to Boston on Saturday?
I hung up. Rose was right—we should all be sleeping. There was nothing wrong with Wayne Gallen wandering the streets of Revere. The real concerns were the inconclusive cells wandering around Matt’s body.
I leaned over to him. I wanted to know if he was in pain, if he was afraid. I wanted to be strong for him, to assure him that I’d take care of him, no matter what.
“Are you all right, Matt?” was all I could manage.
Most of his face was in shadow, but I caught a pinched expression, then a loving one as he turned to me. “I know you’re here for me, Gloria. That means everything to me.”
As usual, Matt was ahead of me in expressing his feelings, and mine.
He ran his hand down my cheek. “Let’s just see what happens with the biopsy.”
I smiled. I could be patient—this was like a research project needing more data.
I focused on MC tucked safely in her childhood bed.
CHAPTER FOUR
MC’s heart raced. Her breath came in quick bursts as she pumped the pedals of her nephew William’s bike. She sped through the quiet streets of Revere at two-thirty in the morning, not sure whether she was headed toward or away from something. A goal or an escape? It could be either. Yes, she wanted to check her emails to see if there was anything that would clarify what Wayne was talking about, but she also needed to prove to herself that she wasn’t trapped in her old bedroom.
What am I doing wrong? Coming back to Revere was supposed to bring me peace.
MC rode past the bank where she’d deposited her first babysitting check, the dry cleaners that had removed a telling beer stain from her satiny pink prom dress. Past an all-night gas station, past pungent Dumpsters that lined the deserted parking lot of the old corner market where she’d bought endless quantities of junk food. Except for the beach, with its missing boardwalk, the city hadn’t changed much since she’d drawn daily hopscotch outlines on the sidewalk.
Carbon Murder, The Page 3
