CHAPTER 5
As much as I'd looked forward to going to the Columbus Day parade, I agreed with Matt that we needed to get to the gas gun lab right away. I left my Cadillac and rode with him in his unmarked beige Ford. He drove to within a block of the parade, so at least I heard the band music, smelled the popcorn, and felt a little vibration from the pounding of hundreds of boots hitting the pavement at the same time.
"I could use my light and siren and plow through the lines— get you really close to the action," Matt offered.
"I don't think so," I said, afraid he was serious.
We headed across town just after one o'clock, driving through older residential sections of Revere that hadn't changed much over the years, with small shingled houses and well-kept lawns, tiny by the standards of the newer developments in the western part of the city. Most of these side streets off Broadway still held enough tall elms and maples to give the city the look of a fall scene on a postcard.
Matt wanted one more look around Eric's cubicle before our scheduled meeting with Doctor Ralph Leder, the project leader for the hydrogen research. We entered the building, made our way to the basement, and walked toward the steep ramp that lead down another half level to the gas gun lab. The crime scene tape was still hanging across the ramp and a uniformed policewoman was sitting on a chair in the corridor. I remembered reading in the police report that the security guard had found Eric's body at four in the morning when he noticed that the ramp door was open.
"Pretty quiet down here," the policewoman said as Matt greeted her and unlocked the door. Since she made no attempt to cover a wide yawn, I figured she knew Matt from the station. Some parts of police work are more interesting than others, I thought, happy to be involved in a new puzzle.
The temperature seemed to drop two degrees with each foot as Matt and I made our way down, putting this sub-basement at about forty-five degrees, colder than the air outside. I breathed in the odor of rust and cold metal and realized I missed walking around in places like this. I missed the thick logbook that I'd carried around all day and my short white cotton coat, its pockets cluttered with scraps of paper and small tools.
The gas gun lab was one enormous room, divided into sections by a motley selection of drab green felt partitions and black plastic curtains. To a layperson the multi-million-dollar sixty-foot gas gun at the far end of the room would be hard to distinguish from the water pipes that lined the ceiling. Tiny red and green lights from the row of high-voltage power supplies called attention to the giant piece of equipment resting on brackets above them.
The rest of the room in front of the gas gun, uncarpeted and unpainted, held cubicles with desks and workbenches. There were no windows and just the one door that led to the ramp and then to the basement corridor. Even with all the overhead lights on, the room looked overcast, as if it might rain any minute. It was easy to understand how someone could have entered and left this isolated area unnoticed.
Matt took me over to Eric's desk, a few yards in from the edge of the ramp door, his chair facing the entrance. I remembered that the newspaper account said the shots were fired from a distance and I asked Matt about it, since there wasn't what I considered a great distance between Eric's chair and the door.
"A distance means more than a foot," Matt said, and although he was anything but patronizing, I felt like the novice I was. I made a resolution to check the web for police procedural information before I asked any more stupid questions.
I stepped onto the plastic pad under Eric's chair for a closer look at his computer system.
"Has anyone tried to pull up the last file Eric was working on?" I asked.
"We did boot up the machine, but there wasn't anything listed with a time for late Monday night or early Tuesday morning."
I told Matt that Eric was the computer genius of the project, and that all of his responsibilities revolved around the software he was writing. I couldn't imagine that he'd come here in the middle of the night to do anything but computer work.
"I think it would be worthwhile to dig deeper and see if a file was deleted by the murderer," I said.
"If it's deleted, it's gone, right?"
"Not exactly. If you just hit "delete," the name of the file will disappear from the directory and you won't see it listed anymore, but the file's still in there somewhere, and there's software available that will allow you to retrieve it."
"I never knew that," Matt said. "Let's hope the killer didn't either. I'll ask Casey over at our computer lab to come by and check it out."
As we turned to leave, I looked at Eric's computer monitor. His collection of action figures was there, but something about them looked different from what I remembered seeing in the police photographs.
I made a note to look again at the photographs, which we'd left in Matt's car.
As a small gesture towards health and fitness, we took the stairs to the second floor. Leder was standing outside his office talking to a young woman with the efficient look of a secretary. He looked past her and walked over to greet us with a wide smile.
Leder took my hand and gave it a couple of light pats.
"How unfortunate to meet again under these circumstances," he said. He spoke in low tones, looking down from his six-foot height at Matt and me. I noticed how closely his gold-toned turtleneck matched the part of his hair that wasn't gray.
To Matt he said, "I hope you're here to tell me that we can have our lab back."
"We're as anxious for that as you are, sir," Matt answered. "In a couple of days, I hope. First, I'd like to know more about the project Eric was working on. Doctor Lamerino's along so she can translate for me when we get back to the station."
Matt smiled at me when he came to the last sentence and I felt a tiny, but distinctive twinge in my chest.
"Oh, Gloria and I are old friends," Leder said, "Very bright lady. But surely you don't think Eric's murder had something to do with his work?"
"We can't rule anything out," Matt said. "Do you have information about another motive, one that doesn't involve his work?"
"No, no, but none of us are angels, you know, and Eric did have some problems that could get a man in trouble." At this, Leder winked, as if we all knew what he meant.
"Can you explain what you mean?" Matt said, his voice calm and casual, as if he'd done this before.
"Well, I don't like to gossip, especially when someone is dead, but I think Gloria here will verify that Eric's wife Janice was unhappy in her marriage and his girlfriend was tired of sneaking around. His girlfriend on this coast, that is."
Matt and I sat up straighter at the hint of a girlfriend on each coast. By this time we were all seated in Leder's office, furnished in the typical academic style of leftover furniture and an abundance of posters covering up an old paint job. The woman from the corridor came in with Styrofoam cups and a pot of coffee. The woman smelled of vanilla musk; the coffee smelled old and burnt.
"Yes, Eric had quite a thing going on the side," Leder said, "with our little technician, Andrea Cabrini. And this other little gal in Berkeley. I thought you'd have found out by now." Leder rocked back and forth in his chair with his hands behind his head.
"Did you tell this to the officer who took your statement?" Matt asked.
"No, he was more interested in me," Leder said. "Where I was—in bed with my wife, by the way—how long I've known Eric, and so on."
Seeing Matt write 'Andrea Cabrini' in his notebook, I assumed he was going to pursue this line of questioning. Instead he brought up the subject he'd come to discuss.
"Tell us about the work Eric was doing for you. You were directing his research for his degree?"
"That's correct. Eric did all the programming for fluid molecular hydrogen at over one hundred and forty gigapascals. I should also remind you that this work represents a condensed-matter physics breakthrough and gives us insight into the nature of Jupiter."
Great, I thought, just the kind of talk that gives physicists a bad
name, pouring out jargon on a layperson as a way of gaining the upper hand. It was time for me to speak up.
"Jupiter's ninety percent hydrogen, isn't it?" I said. "So whatever you find out about hydrogen will add to our knowledge of Jupiter and the rest of the solar system."
Leder nodded and pointed high up on the wall behind him at a large poster of our sun and planets, but before he could speak again I pushed on.
"But that's not where the profits will be, is it?" I asked. Leder dropped his arm. His smile disappeared into the folds of skin around his lower jaw. "Didn't I read about some preliminary talks you've had with SuperCon Tech? I think I saw something about their interest in funding the next version of the gas gun based on the results you have so far."
Matt looked at me, then down at his notebook where he'd been doodling. I saw the symbol for infinity. Or maybe it was just a figure eight.
Leder sat forward and folded his hands on his desk blotter. His large flat forehead had the markings of a frown.
"It's not at all uncommon to form partnerships between science and industry. You should know that, Gloria," he said, as if he were explaining fractions to a dull child.
"I was just surprised to read about negotiations so soon. Wasn't it only in March that Eric was mentioning a significant problem with the data? Something about not making enough runs with the signal from the new trigger pin?"
I was guessing about the trigger pin—the device that produces an electrical signal when a shock wave hits it— but it seemed good enough to get his attention. There's always something that strains the relationship between computational physicists like Eric and project directors like Leder. The physicists who work out the long complicated equations for big projects want to keep going over every possible decimal place for accuracy. The ones who become project directors like Ralph Leder, while not entirely unscrupulous, tend to focus on the bottom line. They're looking for reportable, fundable results as quickly as possible.
"I remember that occasion," Leder said. "It was at Jim Guffy's Saint Patrick's Day party. I think we'd all agree Eric had too much to drink that night."
I noticed he didn't correct me on the trigger signal, which meant either the problem was with the data from the trigger signal, or Leder wasn't about to give me any free information.
"Did you pursue this problem that Eric had with your data?" Matt asked. He'd added a string of infinities to the margin of his notepad.
"As a matter of fact, I did discuss it with the team, and we came to the conclusion that our findings are solid," Leder said, looking at his watch at the same time. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a faculty meeting in ten minutes."
Matt closed his notebook and we all stood up.
"It certainly was a pleasure seeing you again, Gloria," Leder said. His smile came back too easily, reminding me of why I distrusted him and why I'd given him four stars on my potential killer scale.
Back in Matt's car, we talked about the interview.
"What's a gigapascal?" he asked.
"It's a unit to measure pressure. We used to refer to 'pounds per square inch' or 'psi,' which you're probably familiar with. Now we have "pascals," named after the French scientist. A gigapascal is a unit representing one billion pascals."
"Is that the same Pascal who was a philosopher?"
"The same," I said. "He turned to religion and philosophy at the end of his life—first he worked in mathematics and science. He published a book on geometry when he was only sixteen."
"And you know all this?"
"I spent a lot of time in school. You pick things up if you hang around long enough."
"Right," Matt said, sounding like he didn't accept my explanation, which I firmly believed—if you show up at school often enough, you'll learn a lot and people will think you're smart.
"Woody Allen says 88% of life is showing up," I said, to support my position.
"Is that right?"
"Well, some number like that. I saw it on a bumper sticker."
I figured that would show him that I had a wide repertoire of resources. It did at least get a laugh.
"However you did it, nice work in there with Leder," he said.
In my younger days, I would have downplayed my little contribution even more, but I'd made some progress in recent years accepting myself as an intelligent and worthwhile person. I finally accepted Matt's compliment graciously.
"Thanks," I said. "I'm glad I can help."
~~~~
Our next stop was back toward the center of Revere, at the house Eric and Janice rented on the lower end of Broadway. As we drove along, I opened the envelope with the crime scene photographs and looked carefully at the close-up of the area surrounding Eric's computer monitor. One of them was a tight enough shot to show the University of California seal on his pencil mug. I focused on the little brown cartoon bear that was UC's mascot.
And that's when it jumped out at me.
The arrangement of Eric's figures in the police photograph was not the same as the arrangement on the desk that I'd just seen. I was sure of it.
"Batman is supposed to be in back," I said out loud.
"What's that?" Matt asked.
He turned his eyes from the road and tried to see the photograph. I held it up for him, and pointed to the small black Batman figure.
"The way we just saw Eric's desk," I said, "Batman is hiding the UC bear. And also the rest of these figures are in different places."
We looked at each other for a moment until Matt returned his gaze to the road.
"Someone's rearranged Eric's figures," we said, almost in unison.
CHAPTER 6
We pulled up in front of the Bensen residence, a large two-story white-shingled duplex set back from the sidewalk. Next to the Bensen's was a run-down apartment building with a makeshift basketball court in the back. Several teenaged boys played in the mild afternoon, their voices loud, their language crude. Within a block of the Bensen house was a fast food restaurant with drive-up ice cream service. Although I wouldn't have called it exactly an inner city slum, I guessed it was not Janice's first choice in neighborhoods.
Matt had called ahead from his car phone to tell Janice we were on our way. I remembered the last time I'd seen her, just before I left California. We'd all gone out to dinner—Leder, Connie, Jim, Eric, Janice, and two other scientists who'd worked on the gas gun. All my suspects, I thought, except for the ones left on the West Coast.
I walked in front of Matt up a narrow, sloping driveway, past neat green hedges to the first floor apartment. Janice greeted us at the door. Although her smile was pleasant, her face twitched like someone in a hurry.
"I have an appointment in hour," she said, "but I do have some coffee ready." Unlike the Physics Department coffee, this time the aroma was enticing and Matt and I accepted.
We drank our coffee from china cups, sitting on brown leather chairs in Janice's living room. The carpet was a shag, with thick tufts of browns and oranges, echoed in brown and orange wallpaper above stained pine paneling, reminiscent of the earthtone era. The decor didn't fit at all with Janice's usual classy image and I suspected she was still living with the landlord's choices.
In one corner of Janice's living room stood an old maple desk with a pen and sheaves of papers that looked like formal documents spread out, as if its owner had just left a moment ago. I made a mental note to ask Matt if there was any insurance money involved in Eric's death.
I came back to the present and Matt's soothing voice.
"Is there anything in particular you remember about the night Eric was killed?" he asked.
"I don't know what else I can tell you," Janice answered. "I must have been asleep when Eric left the house. He was always slipping out in the middle of the night if he got some idea in his head that couldn't wait."
Her words came out shrill and whiny and I wondered if Janice ever talked in a normal voice. I had to admit this time she had reason to whine, and felt guilty thinking ill of this new widow.
Even in a state of mourning, in her casual black slacks and silk shirt Janice looked ready for a stroll on Boston's Beacon Hill. She had the look of people whose clothes remain perfectly pressed, and never touch their skin even if they do their gardening in them. I scanned her fair complexion for signs of crying and couldn't see any. I did see a fine make-up job and newly coifed chestnut hair. Probably because Eric was nearly bald, Janice looked a lot younger than her late husband, though I seemed to remember that she'd had her thirtieth birthday.
"It's always awkward to ask this question, Mrs. Bensen," Matt said, "but it's fairly routine in cases like this. I need to know if you thought Eric might be seeing someone else."
"You mean that technician," Janice said, with a shrug of her shoulders, as if Andrea Cabrini were sitting there and needed to be brushed off. "She was infatuated with him, that's all. And Eric probably enjoyed it, as men do."
"So, as far as you know, there was nothing going on between them?"
"Nothing."
"And in California?"
"What about California?"
Janice wasn't making it easy for Matt, but he remained unflustered, taking time to sip his coffee and dab his mouth with the tiny cloth cocktail napkins Janice had set out.
"Do you think he was seeing someone else in California?"
"No, I don't," Janice answered, sounding annoyed. She looked at her watch and then at Matt, but didn't say anything more.
"I think that's all then," Matt said. "In a couple of days you'll be able to collect his things at the lab. I assume you know where to go?"
"Vaguely. I found it very depressing, all those drab walls and clunky equipment, and no light or air from the outside world," Janet answered. "What a place to die."
Janice put down her cup and walked over to the large bay window facing Broadway. She opened the filmy white curtains as a bus rumbled by and came to a stop at the corner. We were all silent for a moment, as if its noisy brakes had called time-out.
"I could have someone do that job for you," Matt said. "If you'd trust us to take care of everything, we'll bring his things here."
The Hydrogen Murder (The Periodic Table Series) Page 4
