Carbon Murder, The

by Camille Minichino

  MC laughed. “Aunt G, this is MC. Who are you trying to kid?”

  “Busted,” I said.

  MC and I sat across from each other at Tomasso’s Coffee Annex, at a table barely big enough for two espresso cups. We’d forced ourselves to make room for their pastry also, however, a maple scone for MC, a cannoli for me. We finished at the cashier’s desk just before a large influx of people who I guessed had come from St. Anthony’s Church, a few blocks away.

  I knew MC had made yet another trip to the morgue to see if by any chance she’d be able to tell the police something about the ex-con who’d apparently murdered Nina. I’d been hoping she might recognize him from work, from teaching, even from her local supermarket in Houston.

  “Nuh-uh,” MC said, looking down at her drink, stirring nothing into her espresso. “I’ve never seen this Rusty Forman before.”

  I searched her face. I didn’t like the lack of eye contact.

  “What do you think is going on, MC?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now it’s my turn—who are you trying to kid?” I kept my voice low, since the tables around us were now full, black wrought-iron chairs touching, back to back, throughout the small shop.

  MC laughed, but only barely. I wanted to put my arms around her and protect her, as I did on a too-windy ferry ride from San Francisco to Sausalito when she was a little girl.

  “If you mean Wayne and Nina and this Rusty, I really don’t know.”

  “But … ?”

  “It’s Jake,” she said, finally meeting my gaze. “He’s been calling, wants to see me. He’s at a big equestrian conference in New Hampshire and wants to stop by on his way back to Texas.”

  “How bad was it, MC?”

  She looked away again, her eyes tearing up. I could see her reflection in the shiny copper vat, only a foot or so away from us. “Bad enough.”

  “Then why would you even think of seeing him again?” I hoped she wouldn’t tell me she loved him. For me, love was a choice, not an inevitable “falling” that you couldn’t get up from. But no one had ever accused me of being a romantic, either.

  “Habit,” she said, and I sighed with relief. Habits can be changed, broken. Well, except for the one about eating cannoli.

  “I know what I have to do, Aunt G. Get a life. And I’m working on it. I have an interview at Charger Street lab at the end of the month.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “In fact, it’s with that Lorna Frederick, the woman I asked you about. She’s been recruiting me for the nanotechnology team.”

  “Would you be working directly with her?”

  “It’s not clear. She has one of those jobs out here on the org chart.” MC leveled her arm straight out from her shoulder and wiggled her wrist to indicate a vague position outside of line management. “She has a PhD in chemistry and used to do real research, but now she manages programs. I think her title is ‘Special Projects.’”

  “I have a well-connected technician friend out there. Andrea Cabrini. I’ll ask her if she knows her.” I made a note on a small pad I carried. “Lorna Frederick,” I said, as I wrote the name. It gave me a feeling of productivity, as if I could be a big part of MC’s life again.

  MC gave me a big smile. “And—you’ll be proud of me—I also have an interview at Revere High later in the week. How’s that for moving right along?”

  I sat back. “That’s perfect.”

  I resisted the temptation to pat the top of her head in approval. I’d save that gesture for Matt.

  We ended our coffee klatch, but not before we set a specific time, six o’clock that evening, for me to review MC’s emails with her, and another date later in the week, when we’d visit old Mrs. Cataldo in the senior center together.

  “Science teachers, unite!” MC said, and I grinned.

  My cell phone rang as I was buckling up in front of Tomasso’s. I’d planned to stop at Rose and Frank’s, to return a stack of platters that had been sent home with me, piled with gourmet leftovers, over the past month or so. Not to go empty-handed, I’d picked up a fall bouquet at a little stand right outside the coffee shop. I knew Rose would be able to call the flowers by name; I just called them yellow and orange.

  “Hi,” Matt said. “Where are you?”

  “Just finished having coffee at Tomasso’s with MC. I’m on my way to Rose’s.”

  “Can you meet me at home?”

  My chest clutched up. “What is it?”

  “I can be there in ten minutes. You?”

  “Don’t do this, Matt. I’m not one of your suspects. You can’t skirt my questions like that.”

  “You’re right. Sorry. My test results are back, and I’d like to see you, okay?”

  I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel of my Caddie, grateful I wasn’t on the road. My muscles went to a soft paste, like the filling of my cannoli, my skin as flaky and unsubstantial as its crust. “The doctor called you on a Sunday? It must be bad news.”

  “He’s a good guy, that’s all. He was at the clinic today, and he knew we’d be waiting. Please just meet me at home.”

  The flowers on the passenger seat seemed to wilt before my eyes. I started the car and drove toward Fernwood Avenue, slowly and carefully, as if my life depended on it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MC felt as tight as a helium bond. She needed exercise, but hated running in the rain, which had been continuous for the whole weekend. She dragged her worn navy and neon green mat onto the living room floor, and sat on it, legs crossed. Breathe. She leaned forward and placed her arms, elbow to wrist, flat on the mat in front of her, her butt rising in the air in the process. She rocked back and took a deep breath.

  She lay on her back and went through the routine. The straight leg raise. A hamstring stretch. A whole-body stretch. Raise, count, breathe in, breathe out, bend, count, breathe in, breathe out.

  When she was finished, she lay on the mat and closed her eyes. No babbling brooks; she was never any good at picturing nature in the abstract, but she’d built a stock of images that helped her relax. The Atlantic rushing toward her at Revere Beach. Lake Tahoe, California, where Aunt G had taken her over Christmas vacation one year. She smiled as she remembered the exhilarating skiing lessons Aunt G treated her to, while Aunt G herself read science books in the lodge.

  And all her trips to oil refineries as a professional engineer—San Francisco Bay, the Gulf Coast. Who would have guessed thousands of gallons of crude a day were coming out of such exotic locales? The Caribbean. Hawaii.

  Oops. Hawaii. Relaxation over. That’s where she’d gotten to know Jake Powers. After a few months as casual acquaintances and colleagues around the plant, they’d been sent to Oahu together on a job. The Hawaiian facility had reported problems with the cracking unit, where the larger molecules were broken down into smaller ones, and Jake was the expert on that part of the process.

  “I love making little ones out of big ones,” he’d said, cracking his knuckles for emphasis.

  She’d been so taken with him. Short, dark, and fit, like her father, and a smooth dancer. And the way he handled his horses, gently, but you knew who was in charge. One time he’d ridden right up to her after a practice oxer jump—he’d taught her the name of the jump with width as well as height—and he made Spartan Q, his jumper horse, bow to her. Cool. Later he told her the horse’s three snorts were really her initials, MCG, which he’d taught Spartan Q. Very cool.

  Yes, Jake was a real charmer. But a drinker, she eventually admitted. That first night in Oahu, they’d been sipping something pink at a bar, after a twelve-hour shift at the plant, lots of flirting on both sides. Coy glances, fingering each other’s bright fuchsia leis, brushing body parts here and there as they twisted on their stools.

  Another night they’d been with about twenty people their own age, many of them native Hawaiian plant workers out for a good time after a hard day’s work. Jake had picked up a plastic bowl of salty snack food. She could see it clearly, f
eel the excitement.

  “Hey, everybody! Want a lesson in how to convert molecules? Let’s pretend these are the heavy hydrocarbons we start out with at the plant.” Jake had swayed and grabbed the counter for balance. Then he smashed the bowl with his fist. Nuts, pretzels, cheese sticks, bits of plastic dish flew everywhere, across the counter, on the floor, on the flowery tee she’d bought in the hotel store. “Now they’re converted,” he’d said, drawing hysterical laughter from the crowd. “We just made gasoline!” Jake loved that he’d made a joke that only the in-crowd at the oil company would get.

  How adolescent was she that she’d been impressed by that display? The other guys and girls had encouraged him also, and it ended up with the manager politely asking them all to leave. MC left with Jake. And stayed with him that night.

  A few months later, after she’d been the target of his displays more than once, she’d finally called it quits.

  Buzzzzzzzz!

  The doorbell.

  She screwed up her nose. Who could that be? No one just dropped in anymore, and who’s going to climb two flights of stairs inside a mortuary building to take an advertising poll? She was glad Aunt G wasn’t very tall, either; the peephole was in just the right place.

  She closed her left eye, the weaker one, and put her right eye to the lens. Her breath caught. She stepped back, nearly tripping over the runner.

  Jake.

  “Come on, MC, open up. I know you’re in there. I saw you at the window. I haven’t bugged you, like you asked. Just let me in for ten minutes.” Jake’s voice was pleading, almost sweet, and maybe sober. “Okay, nine minutes.” A laugh. The charming side of Jake Powers. She knew if she looked out the peephole again, she’d see a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

  MC blinked, turned away, as if her thoughts of him in Hawaii, in Houston, in bed, had caused him to appear on her landing. If she could just stop thinking of him, he would go away. She shut her eyes against the images.

  Thump. Thump. Buzzzzzzzz!

  “What’s going on here?” Her brother Robert’s voice, from the other side of the door. He must have a Sunday client downstairs.

  MC breathed deeply. She heard Jake’s voice.

  “Hi, I’m Jake Powers, a friend of MC’s. I … uh … I guess she can’t hear the buzzer.” Robert, at five eight or nine, was the tallest in the family, and the most muscular. MC figured Jake, nearly jockey-size, heard the slightly intimidating tone in her brother’s voice. “Maybe I should come back later.”

  MC went back to the door, and opened it. She saw the two men, one carrying flowers for her, the other ready to protect her. Robert was in a suit and tie, indicating he’d just come from claiming a client. Robert’s thick neck strained against his dark blue shirt. It would not be out of the question to mistake him for a professional bodyguard. Jake, on the other hand, was dressed as if he’d just come down from the back of a horse.

  Jake glanced over at her, tucked the flowers at his waist, and bowed slightly. His most charming posture, that always won her heart. She could let him in just for minute, she thought.

  “It’s okay, Robert,” MC said. She made very brief introductions, her eyes turned away from Robert. “Come on in, Jake.”

  “I’ll be downstairs,” Robert said, knocking his knuckles together.

  “I have the number,” MC said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Matt came through the door, generating a smile for my benefit. The attempt made his face look contorted. I buried my head in his shoulder, not wanting him to see my own unhappy expression.

  “Hi, honey,” he said. I looked up in time to see his tipping an imaginary hat. Our little domestic joke.

  I’d gotten home before Matt and put on a pot of coffee, for something to do. I’d looked around the house at what seemed important only a few days ago. A bag of Christmas wrapping paper and tags waiting in the corner, a tattered kitchen curtain that needed to be replaced, a pile of newspapers ready for recycling, a to-do list, a to-call list. Call Daniel Endicott at Revere High for the lecture schedule; call cousin Mary Ann in Worcester for a holiday date. None of it was real.

  “Tell me,” I said, still in his arms.

  “My cancer is a five,” he said.

  This is no time to be funny, I thought, but I smiled anyway. Matt often teased me about my need for quantizing everything. Give me a number from one to ten, I’d ask him, if I wanted to know his reaction to a concert, or a book, or even a tie I’d bought him.

  We walked to the couch, still holding on to each other. “No, really, they give these things a number. It’s called grading the cancer.”

  “A grade? They give cancers a grade?”

  “Yeah, they call it the Gleason system. You know, like Jackie?” Matt tried a va-va-voom, so comical I had to laugh, as much as I wanted to cry.

  I let Matt explain. “It goes from one to five, based on how much the arrangement of cells in the cancerous tissue looks like normal tissue. I’m only repeating what they told me, not that I understand it completely. But one is good, five is not.”

  I gasped, held my breath. “Five is the worst?”

  “No, no. Sorry. I’m a three in one area, and a two in another, so they add them and get a five, which is my total Gleason score. But the five in the total is not bad; it’s average.” He paused, resting his fingers from the demonstration, and put on another smile. “I thought you’d like all this math, Gloria.”

  Not in this context. I moved my lips into a weak smile. My hands had become like ice and I pulled them into the sleeves of my turtleneck, a poor imitation of waif-ness.

  He held up his hand, wiggled his fingers. “Five for a total is sort of intermediate. I’m your average guy, as we always knew.”

  I loved him for sparing me his own anguish. I took a deep breath, calmed myself. It was his cancer, after all, and I should be at least as composed as he was.

  “So, what’s next?” I asked, with a forced calmness. This was a problem, and we would solve it together, as we had so many others.

  “Well, it’s a Stage-Two; then there’s another designation with Ts and letters.” Matt pulled a pile of literature out of his briefcase. “I have to digest this information on treatments and come to a decision.” He held the leaflets and notebook pages out halfway between us. “A project for us.”

  I took them from his hands. We sat on the couch for a few more minutes, moved to the bedroom, and did not let go of each other for a long time.

  Rose had been on my mind. Playing amateur psychologist, I’d decided that she was repressing feelings of anxiety about MC, whose student had been murdered, and not long after MC herself had felt threatened by a prowler. But I had a hard time concentrating on anything other than Matt’s Gleason score, and in the end she called me first, early Monday morning.

  As soon as I heard her voice, I thought of MC and a date I hadn’t kept. I’d forgotten completely that I’d made a date to be at her apartment at six the night before.

  “Jake Powers, MC’s ex-boyfriend, stopped by her apartment last night, Gloria,” Rose told me. Apparently, MC hadn’t missed me, I thought. “We wouldn’t even have known, except Robert was working late with Mr. Baroni, and he saw someone go upstairs. The guy was banging on her door, making a scene in the hallway. MC let him go in, but Robert waited around until he left, about two hours later.”

  I pictured Robert, slightly taller than his father, and well-built. “It’s good that Robert was there,” I said, trying to maintain a neutral tone.

  “I’m worried about her, Gloria. I hope she doesn’t take that guy back; I think he wasn’t nice to her in Texas.” Rose’s voice cracked as she told me, and, strangely, I was glad. Psych 101 again—better that she’s acknowledging her concern.

  I thought I’d set a good example, and bare my own soul. “I feel so guilty and selfish, Rose. I meant to call you to talk about MC, and instead this … situation with Matt has consumed me.” I knew that Matt and Frank had talked the evening before, and that Rose woul
d understand what the “situation” was.

  “Well, I feel selfish, too, and useless. What you and Matt must be going through!”

  So we had a deal, born of decades of friendship, that we would allow each other our momentary self-centeredness. Nothing a shared cannoli wouldn’t fix, I decided, and offered to take a box over to Prospect Avenue.

  “Just come,” she said. “The cannoli are already here. That’s why I called.”

  It felt like old times, except for the layer of worry that seemed always present since I’d heard Matt’s test results. I tucked him in for one of his naps, no longer rare since his illness, and headed over to Rose’s.

  We sat on Rose’s porch, squinting at the first bit of sunlight in several days. Rose’s collection of glass vases caught the light and I traced the rays with an invisible protractor. Reflection, refraction, diffraction, diffusion—the beauty of geometric optics.

  Rose always broke into a stream of stories when she was overwrought, and having her daughter under any kind of stress qualified for that condition. I let her tell me incidents I’d heard dozens of times, many of them from the early days of the Galigani business, when the whole family lived in the mortuary building. Their residence took up the top floor and the one below, which now housed offices for Rose and her assistant, Martha. Frank’s idea was to introduce all the children to the trade, but Rose set limits. She’d never let them see anyone they had known while the client was “being prepared” in the basement, as she called it.

  “One time MC sneaked down to the prep room,” Rose said, “because she’d heard that her girlfriend Joanie Della Russo’s grandmother was a client. She was about five at the time.” At the last telling, MC had been closer to seven, but I didn’t correct her. “Frank was weighing something, uh, messy, for some reason, when he saw MC out of the corner of his eye. So he swooped down on MC and put her in the pan of the other scale. She laughed and laughed, swinging in that scale. Can you imagine? Any other kid would have been scared to death, but not MC.”