Carbon Murder, The

by Camille Minichino

  “I kind of like hanging around the police station,” I said with a smile, then a sigh, as the remark led me straight to worrying about Matt’s test results. I’d almost stayed home, in case the doctor called, but I knew they’d get in touch with Matt directly, no matter where he was, and probably not before the weekend was over.

  “So how did the interview go?” I asked MC.

  In other words, I’m dying to hear everything. Rumney Marsh was on the same side of town as the Charger Street lab. Maybe scientists were involved. Maybe someone needed tutoring on buckyballs.

  MC rubbed her arms, as if she were chilly, and in the next minute Rose left the porch and came back with a sweater, a tightknit beige one with tiny off-white flowers along the ribbing, thus preserving her daughter’s put-together chino-and-white look. MC gave her mother an adoring glance that warmed me more than my plum-colored wool vest did.

  Finally, MC started in, letting out a rush of words. “I guess I wasn’t much help—they told me more than I could tell them. Nina was not a pre-law student, and she was not working nights as a waitress to pay for school, and she was not writing any paper on the geodesic dome. She’d asked me for an extension because her mother was sick, who now I know was not in Mexico.” MC jerked her head to the side at each “not,” frowning as if she’d been betrayed, which in a way was true. “Nina’s family is middle-class; her mother and father are both dentists in San Diego. Not even her grandparents are in Mexico anymore. She’s about as Mexican as I am Italian.”

  Rose looked at her, seeming uncertain whether that was good or bad.

  We ran through the obvious questions, interspersed with tenuously related anecdotes or trivia tidbits from Rose. No, Nina had never mentioned having relatives in Boston that she might be visiting. (Robert and Frank were going to a conference in Boston; they might give a paper on independent funeral homes versus chains.) Yes, Nina would have told MC ahead of time if she were going to fly out to see her. (The Logan reconstruction project was behind schedule.) No, Nina gave no indication that she needed to talk to MC about schoolwork, or anything else. (William’s school band would be playing at the North Shore games on Thanksgiving.)

  I felt uncomfortable putting MC through yet another interview, but she seemed willing enough to talk. Once or twice I had the feeling MC didn’t want to remind her mother how close she was to a “situation,” as Matt might call it. Neither did I.

  The rain continued falling at a slow rate as the streetlights came on. Up and down Prospect Avenue, all the cars looked highly polished, every leaf glistened, shiny patterns played on fences and on the Galiganis’ special rosebushes. Tiny lamps sat on small tables in the back corners of the porch, creating an intimate setting that would be impossible to read in. “It’s for atmosphere,” Rose had said often. “You’re supposed to be musing, not reading.”

  Rose adjusted the lamp shades as she made her way to the kitchen, where she’d prepare dinner for ten, though she was expecting only five. Matt and I would join MC and her parents. Like my own mother, Rose claimed you never knew who might drop in, and God forbid there wasn’t enough food.

  MC moved to the chair her mother had used, and pulled her legs up under her—a position my always-chubby body would have had trouble with even in kindergarten.

  Alone at last. But start slowly, I told myself.

  “How did you like teaching?” I asked MC.

  “I liked it enough to want to do more, but maybe something more advanced. These students were all …”

  “Poets,” I said, and she laughed. “I taught a class called ‘Physics for Poets’ for several years. It’s frustrating, because you know most of the students don’t want to be there.”

  She nodded. “On the other hand, there’s this great opportunity to change someone’s view of science. So you try to make it fun.”

  “Did you do the banana trick?” I asked.

  MC rolled back in laughter. “How did you know?”

  Together we mimicked immersing a banana into a vessel of liquid nitrogen, pulling it out, stiff as a board, then cracking it in half by slamming in onto a desk or chair in the classroom.

  “I used a hammer,” MC said, seeming embarrassed that she’d succumbed to the gimmick.

  I’d always wondered if students learned anything from the tricks science teachers came up with to make the subject seem more fun than the amusements that used to line Revere Beach Boulevard. If nothing else, I figured, it showed we had a playful side.

  Sharing science teaching anecdotes with MC was fun, but I needed to talk about the recently deceased Nina Martin.

  “Had you been in touch with Nina at all since you came back to Revere?” I asked.

  She shrugged, apparently not surprised that I’d changed the topic. “Just an email or two. I glanced at them when I went through the list the other night for the first time, but I haven’t read hers closely. They seemed to be about her Incomplete, and could wait. I have till the end of the year to post the grades.” She threw her hands up. “Not that she’ll be getting a grade.” MC paused to catch her breath. “I’m sure I would have noticed, Hey, Ms. Galigani, I’m coming up to Revere to visit.”

  “Well, Nina obviously had some intention of contacting you, MC, or she wouldn’t have been carrying the Galigani card. Do you even remember giving it to her?”

  She nodded. “Vaguely. She said something about keeping a file on all her teachers, for potential casework when she was in law school, and she’d like to be able to contact me after I left Houston.” MC banged her fists together. I saw sadness mixed with frustration. “She sure fooled everyone.”

  Except for her killer, I thought.

  “Have you had a chance to look at all your emails, MC?” My way of asking if she had any clue what Wayne Gallen had been warning her about, and whether Nina’s murder might be connected to it.

  MC nodded. “I went through them all. I didn’t find anything in Alex Simpson’s emails that would explain what Wayne was talking about, if that’s what you mean.”

  That’s what I meant. “I was thinking—”

  “Would you be willing to look at them yourself, Aunt G?”

  “My, what a good idea,” I said, feigning surprise.

  I loved it when MC smiled.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The most entertaining dinner table stories always came from Frank Galigani, professional mortician, Rose’s high school sweetheart, and husband of many decades. As usual, the contrast between Rose’s elegant place settings and Frank’s work environment was striking. A soft, cloth runner in autumn hues on the one hand, and the bare, steel-gray embalming table on the other. Cheerful flower arrangements on mahogany surfaces in their home on Prospect Avenue, somber gladioli in stately baskets down on Tuttle Street.

  Frank had the same all-Italian look as Matt, only thinner. And neater. Matt’s body did not accommodate “dapper” any more than mine did, but Frank always looked perfectly groomed and ready to represent families in mourning, to stand as a confident sentinel in a shadowy parlor, to console the grieving with style and grace.

  You knew Frank would take care of you and your deceased in the most dignified manner. You knew Matt would be willing to walk through garbage and murky marsh waters to find evidence that would solve a crime perpetrated on you or your family. I loved them both.

  This evening’s story came as soon as we’d all sat down to Rose’s idea of casual dining for a rainy fall evening. Matching place mats and napkins, and a cornucopia centerpiece that seemed designed for Thanksgiving, but, in fact, would be dwarfed by what she had in mind for that day.

  Frank served from one end of the table, placing a small, stuffed Cornish hen on each platter. We helped ourselves to gravy, biscuits, green beans, and yellow squash for color, Rose said. We’d already enjoyed small china cups of split pea soup.

  “There I am, in the prep room, ready to dress Sonny Lucca’s boy.” Frank had started his story, with no break in his meticulous serving technique.

&nbs
p; “A shame, really, a young boy; he died in that eight-car pileup on One-A.” An interruption from Rose, and we knew that Frank wouldn’t mind. He waited a respectful amount of time before continuing.

  “I push the casket up close to the table, so I can move him after he’s dressed. I hate those hydraulic lifts; I like to move my clients myself. I pick up the jacket from the side chair, and I make a slit up the back as usual, and I arrange the arms, and the jacket’s way too big.” A grin made its way across Frank’s face; he could hardly keep from laughing before the punch line. MC, sitting next to her father, put her elbows on the table, on either side of her plate. I thought I saw a grin on her face, too, before she buried her head in her hands. It seemed we had all guessed where the story was headed, but we let Frank have his moment.

  “The sleeves are so long, they cover the kid’s hands.” By now, Frank had dropped the serving tools and used his hands to illustrate various points. “I figure maybe Sonny sent one of his own jackets by mistake. But the next thing I know, Mikey comes down—you know Mikey Vitale, who helps me out sometimes. He was upstairs in the office, on his way to some fancy shindig in his new suit.” Frank had a wide smile, ready to erupt in laughter. “‘Where’s my jacket?’ Mikey asks me.”

  “Oh, no,” Rose said, leading a chorus of such exclamations. “You cut up Mikey’s jacket!”

  “Well, at least this story’s not a gross-out,” MC said.

  “As if you never had your own messy stories, sweetheart,” Frank said. He patted her arm, and earned the same adoring glance MC had given her mother a while before.

  Our Fernwood Avenue home looked a bit dismal after the festive dinner at Rose’s, but neither Matt nor I was willing to put the time into making it anything more than extremely comfortable for us. I remembered a quote attributed to Buckminster Fuller, something like, “Homes should be thought of as service equipment, not as monuments.” Besides the couch and coffee table layout in the center of the room, the living room was big enough to accommodate a reading area at one end. We’d arranged two easy chairs and footstools at a slight angle, nearly facing each other, and shared news or ideas across the space.

  “McConachie is playing at Jazz Too next weekend,” Matt, the avid jazz fan, might say, scanning the entertainment section of the Boston Globe.

  “Let’s plan on it. Look here, there’s a new book on string theory by James Bryer, that BU physicist we heard last year.”

  “Sounds good. Want a coffee?”

  “Sure. I’ll find those cookies Rose packed up for us.”

  If married life—not that the phrase had come up—was like this, no wonder people flocked to it.

  This evening’s banter included police matters, however. Matt brought me up to date on the Nina Martin murder—it looked like the body had been dumped in the marsh postmortem, and there was a kind of standoff between the Houston PD, the FDA, and the RPD.

  “The FDA won’t tell us why PI Martin had one of their cards until we share our forensics, and … you know the rest.”

  “Toddlers will be toddlers,” I said, and Matt nodded.

  “There’s a sit-down with us and them on Monday that might get some cooperation on both sides.”

  “How about Wayne Gallen?” I asked him.

  “He hasn’t shown up yet, at home or at work in Houston.”

  “And he never went back to the Beach Lodge once he left the station?”

  Matt shook his head. “No reason to put a lot of effort into finding him, either,” he said. “Gallen’s hardly a suspect in Nina’s murder just because he also happened to be in town from Houston. Nothing else connects him to that crime.”

  “Except the fact that he acted suspiciously with respect to MC,” I added. “And he did know Nina in Houston. I assume there’s no word from the hospitals about a gunshot victim showing up?”

  “Nope.” Matt wiggled around to read his vibrating pager. “Berger,” he said.

  I turned down the CD player—I was tired of jamming woodwinds anyway—and gave him a pleading look.

  “I know, the speakerphone.” Matt punched in the number and switched on the system so I could hear the conversation.

  Berger’s speaker voice was hard to understand, but it was better than my standing over Matt’s shoulder trying to read his notes.

  “The good news is we got the shooter,” Berger said, his voice sounding muffled. “A pharmacy over in Chelsea called in response to our bulletin. Told us a guy phoned and said he sliced himself with a piece of broken glass, and he wants hydrogen peroxide, antiseptic cream, tape, bandages, extra-strength painkiller.” Matt and I gave each other a thumbs-up. “And here’s the clincher—the guy asks for forceps. Says there’s a piece of glass in his hand, he has to catch a plane, doesn’t have time to go to the ER, et cetera, et cetera, and he wants the package to be delivered to the Beach Lodge.”

  “Where Gallen stayed.”

  “Yeah. ’Course there’s not exactly a hundred places to hole up around here. Anyway, by the time we got there the guy was out cold, bleeding like crazy.”

  Good girl, Nina, I thought.

  “The other good news is that we found two weapons in the room. One is most likely the gun used on the PI woman, the other probably her gun, which he must have kept after dumping the body. We have to wait for ballistics, but it looks like the right ballpark all around.”

  PI woman? Would Berger have said PI man? Never mind, I told myself, that battle’s for another day.

  “Could have been shot by a third party who killed the PI, planted the gun, and so on.” Matt made twirls in the air as he spoke, as if he were reciting a formula he was very familiar with, but which needed reviewing. “Or, he shot the PI, and someone else shot him using her gun. Handy that her gun was right there, don’t you think?” Matt’s tone was more telling than asking, as he continued his elaborate hand gestures. “Won’t know till we talk to him. Where is he now?”

  “Oh, that’s the bad news.”

  “He’s DOA,” Matt said, with a click of his tongue.

  “Right.”

  Bad news for sure. I’d been hoping for a wellspring of information from a killer in custody, some connections that might also solve MC’s problem, though I seemed to be the only one who thought there was anything to worry about in that regard.

  “Any ID?” Matt asked.

  “Yep. An ex-con, Rusty Forman, from—three guesses, the first two don’t count.”

  Leave it to George Berger to pull up a corny expression from the fifties.

  “Houston,” Matt and I said together.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sunday morning. Still raining, and still twenty-four hours before there was a chance we’d hear from Matt’s doctor. It had been a while since I’d been to church for anything other than a wedding or a funeral, and I gave it some thought. I pictured myself kneeling to pray, opening my missal—where was it? Had I seen it when I was packing for the move to Matt’s house?—singing a hymn, standing for the Gospel. Then came the hard part. I heard the priest’s homily as clearly as I had when I was in Confirmation prep classes. As they were then, the words were meaningless to me, and I mentally left the church again.

  Rose was still practicing the faith. On the most recent Holy Day of Obligation, August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, I’d called their house, and Frank told me she was at mass.

  “She goes for all of us,” he’d said lightly.

  Later, I’d chatted with Rose about how likely it was that the body of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, had been assumed into heaven, not subject to the deterioration process every other human body underwent.

  “And why not just pray wherever you are?” I’d asked her, continuing our Why I Am (or Am Not) Still A Roman Catholic debate.

  “Because God lives at St. Anthony’s,” she’d said with a grin. End of discussion. At times I envied her faith.

  The mortuary was just down the street from St. Anthony’s Church, so I’d had a daily reminder when I lived there of th
e choices I made regarding religion. I always came to the same conclusion—I couldn’t pretend. Some days I felt I knew what it meant to pray, and others I didn’t. Some days I believed there was an all-loving God in heaven who knew each hair of our head, and other days I imagined random gaseous events set in motion and left to the laws of science. There was no use trying to package that into religious observance. Blame it on Sister Pauline, I thought, who never could answer my logic questions when I was ten.

  “Maybe they counted the loaves of bread and the fishes wrong to begin with, and that’s why there seemed to be more at the end,” I’d said, earning no holy card that week.

  Surely there was no hope for me now.

  Matt, another fallen-away Catholic, as we were officially called by Holy Mother Church, was spending Sunday morning at his office to make up for his hours on the tubular pillow in our living room. He was being productive, while I was home, too distracted to do anything useful.

  I grunted and paced the thirty-foot expanse that included the living room and dining room, picking up a piece of lint here and there, ignoring the dust gathering in the corners of the hardwood floors. When the bottom level produced nothing inspiring, I climbed the stairs to the old guest room that was now my office. I looked with distaste at the pile of notes I’d accumulated for my next Revere High Science Club lecture, on crystallography, which had been my specialty in graduate school and for many years after.

  The rain beat down on the roof, spilling out of the gutters, sweeping an idea into my head. The Science Club. I shelved the old notes. Another time. I couldn’t very well storm the clinic for medical information on Matt, but I could face the other, distracting loose end.

  I pushed the phone buttons and tapped my fingers on my desk during the fewer than ten seconds I had to wait for the pickup. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been less patient. “MC. I’m so glad you’re home. I’m preparing a lecture on buckyballs for Revere High, and wondered if you could help me out. We could go for coffee and—”