The Nitrogen Murder

by Camille Minichino

  A three-atom form of nitrogen, however, was highly explosive.

  Even the explosive form had a spectrum of uses. Nitrogen gas exploded in air bags to save lives; it also exploded in events like the Oklahoma City bombing.

  At the last minute, just as we were about to leave for our lunch date with Phil, Elaine had a call. I gathered from her side of the conversation that something logistic was not going well. By the time she hung up, Elaine had an exasperated look.

  “My florist,” she said. “I’m going to have to go down to the shop and choose another color scheme.”

  “With three thousand blooms in the Rose Garden, you need a florist?” I asked. “That’s probably seventy-five thousand petals.”

  Elaine laughed. “Leave it to you to find a way to do arithmetic, Gloria. We still need bouquets, corsages, centerpieces for the tables at the reception.” She gave me a hopeless look as she prepared a beige leather purse, almost as large as my carry-on, for departure. Of course, she had on beige shoes. “I can see that you’ll need me when it comes to planning your wedding.”

  I choked. On nothing but my own breath. Matt and I hadn’t talked about a wedding date. Or a wedding at all. I didn’t see why we couldn’t stay engaged forever.

  Elaine patted me on the back. “Don’t worry I’m too caught up in this wedding to worry about anyone else’s. But after our honeymoon, I’m linking up with Rose, and we have major plans for you and Matt.”

  Scary as that thought was, I at least had a reprieve. I blew out a breath.

  Elaine looked at her watch. “The bad news is I’ll have to skip lunch with you and Phil. The good news is you and Phil get to bond without my being in the way.”

  “Is that a deliberate pun?”

  Elaine frowned, then raised her neatly drawn light brown eyebrows. “Of course. I meant, like nitrogen bonding.”

  I’d taught my friends well.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The bonding lunch suffered from another last-minute change. A call from Phil, his cell phone to mine, brought me to a bagel place near his work site, a few blocks from Bette’s Diner. He had to give a presentation to some visiting consultants at Dorman Industries, he’d said, and needed to keep his lunch hour short. Typical bureaucracy, I thought, where consultants have consultants.

  The bagel shop was in the same block as Berkeley’s Breathing Institute. I smiled as I passed the recessed, glassed-in doorway. Ah, Berkeley, the city that trains you to breathe.

  I remembered the year Elaine signed up for breathing classes. To stop her nagging, I’d agreed to give it a try and accompanied her to a session. About a dozen of us sat in a converted kindergarten classroom on tiny wooden stools—already a hindrance to good respiration, in my opinion—and chanted the vowel sounds, one after the other, using all the possibilities. Short a (aaaaaaaah, as when the doctor says, “Open wide”), long a, middle a, long e, short e, and so on. That had been enough for me, and I dropped out. It hadn’t been as easy to drop off the mailing list, however, and for several years I received invitations, on recycled paper, to their events and holiday parties. My favorite was the flyer inviting all to BREATHE IN THE NEW YEAR CORRECTLY!

  I approached the bare-bones bagel shop at the same time as Phil, who was accompanied by a tall, white-haired man. I thought he was the same man who’d picked Phil up outside Bette’s diner on Saturday.

  “Dr. Gloria Lamerino,” Phil greeted me. “Dr. Howard Christopher, my boss at Dorman.” Phil seemed enamored with the titles, nearly bowing when he uttered them, the way we used to bow our heads at the name of Jesus when I was a little girl in Sunday school.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” I said. “Will you be joining us?” Over the odor of fresh bagels, I smelled a golden opportunity to quiz two Dorman employees at once.

  “I’d love to,” Christopher said, “but duty calls.”

  “Some other time,” I said.

  Christopher pointed his index finger at me, in the gun-shooting position. “You bet.”

  I almost “shot” him back but thought I’d behave, for the time being.

  Neither Phil nor his clothes showed any signs of being affected by the heat. He wore a silver-gray shirt and a light blue jacket, the best-dressed person in the shop.

  I’d pinned to my summer shirt a blue-and-gold seaborgium pin, a small replica of a block on the periodic table assigned to element 106, named after Berkeley’s Glenn Seaborg. Common ground, I figured. Who hadn’t loved Seaborg, Nobel-winning scientist and devoted educator? I was proud of myself for the gesture, honoring a chemist.

  “Your bride has a flower crisis,” I told him.

  He threw his head back and laughed. Elaine was right; he was handsome. “If it were up to me, we’d be married in a judge’s office and have dim sum afterward. But I’m happy to let her do what she wants.” Two points for Phil, I thought. His idea of a wedding matched mine, but he’d given in to my friend’s wishes. “Thanks for meeting me here instead of a place with cloth napkins,” Phil said. “Not elegant, but it’s close to Dorman. I’m on a short track for a deliverable.”

  I translated mentally: My funding sponsor wants a report immediately, and I have no data. But I had to admit, Phil was charming.

  “I love bagels,” I said, calling up my own charming side.

  “Thanks for saying that. Elaine says you’re doing some teaching—I’ve thought about that, too. Maybe someday when I’m not as critical to these projects, when I really retire.”

  Uh-oh, minus a point. As if teaching were not a valid career choice for the nonretired. I’d always considered it part of a working scientist’s responsibility to inspire youth … I turned off the recruiting brochure in my head. When would I stop trying to mold Phil and every other scientist into my picture of what they should be?

  I settled for “Actually, I’ve always done volunteer work in the schools.”

  Phil made a good-for-you gesture, with a wink and a nod.

  Phil scored another point by noticing the book I’d brought, a new biography of Galileo. He’d already read it, he said, which added value. We chatted for a few minutes about whether the great Renaissance man sincerely recanted or pretended to, all the while using Church resources to further his own theories. A Galileo enthusiast in the family, so to speak, would definitely be a plus.

  I was dizzy trying to keep score. One moment he was Phil the Charming—he’d shaken my hand warmly, laughed at my joke about Elaine’s flower crisis, and allowed me to rave on about Galileo. The next minute he annoyed me. Phil the Supercilious, making it sound as if he were too important to teach.

  At least I could get something out of this bagel lunch, I decided. “I’m interested in your nitrogen work,” I said. “I like to be sure my Revere High classes are getting up-to-date material. Maybe you could give me a quick overview of your projects?”

  “Well, most of what I do is classified, as I think Elaine told you.” Phil had a pleasant smile, but I read his face: So this is really a waste of time.

  “I’ve been reading about a nitrogen fullerene molecule, where some of the sixty carbon atoms are replaced by nitrogen atoms. This gives it much more explosive power, of course.” I took a sip of coffee. “Is that part of your work?” I asked. I meant Are you working on explosives?

  The appearance of our lip-ringed waitress gave Phil time to think, though I was sure he’d been preparing since Elaine set up this meeting. The young woman, in black jeans and turtleneck despite the lack of air-conditioning, set down the toasted bagels we’d ordered at the counter.

  “My project deals with computer modeling to determine the stability of energetic materials,” Phil said.

  Energetic materials. I smiled at the euphemism, but Phil remained straight-faced. We talked for a while about the various possibilities of inserting nitrogen subunits into an otherwise carbon fullerene. All very interesting, but not moving me toward the connections I sought among Phil, the Indian scientist, and a certain briefcase.

  With a mental pictur
e and my creative X-ray vision I saw through the leather briefcase to a computer disk or DVD storing classified data. Phil’s spy-partner had messed up the assassination of Lokesh Patel, followed the ambulance, killed Tanisha, and run off. But he took the wrong bag. Phil knew this and was now desperate to get his hands on the briefcase. My scenario was so real, I was surprised to hear Phil’s voice out loud.

  “I have something for you,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, now hanging on the back of his metal chair. “I brought an article that might interest you, on some of our modeling work. It includes some new work on boron doping as well.”

  I marveled that he’d brought a report. I’d been correct to figure that Phil was much more prepared for this meeting than I was.

  I was losing ground. I had to catch up.

  “I read about plans to develop TATB even further, to make it more insensitive. Are you involved in that at all?” I hoped Phil wouldn’t challenge me to recite the composition of TATB; I remembered only that it ended with trinitrobenzene, and I wasn’t sure I could find the URL again since I’d had to refrain from bookmarking Elaine’s browser with my revealing choices.

  “You know I couldn’t tell you even if I did know anything about it,” he said. “Our funding sponsors keep their cards close to their vest.”

  I love gambling metaphors almost as much as sports metaphors. More minus points for Phil. As he ran his fingers through his dark brown hair, I glanced at his fingertips for signs of dye.

  “Dorman seems to be a match for BUL as far as its security and funding,” I said, honestly wondering why our government wouldn’t keep classified work on its own sites.

  “Yes, indeed,” Phil said. “You must remember what a complicated org chart BUL has, as far as funding.”

  “Money from the government, oversight from the university or private industry,” I added.

  “And your annual raise determined by no one who ever saw your work.”

  I nodded, sensing a bonding moment. “Does Dorman have the same Big Brother physical safeguards around the building?”

  “Not quite that bad.” We laughed at the reminder of the barriers around BUL’s site. About half a block from the checkpoint was a STOP sign. If you decided not to stop your vehicle and accelerated as you approached, a four-foot metal barrier buried in the ground would rise from the asphalt.

  “At one point in my career, I had fourteen passwords,” Phil said. “One to get into a VTR—you probably know what vault-type rooms are—and then thirteen others to access all the different computers and storage areas once I was inside. On a given day, I’d use at least eight or nine of them. And they’d change every six months. It’s definitely not that bad at Dorman.”

  “I recall a lot of inconsistencies,” I said. “Your briefcase might be searched on a random basis, but never your coat pockets, for example.”

  “You bet,” Phil said. “Or how about this—no cell phones or personal laptops in the VTR, but you can keep your PDA handy.”

  Phil’s expression turned serious, and he seemed concerned about the illogical procedures, as I used to be. “And download anything you want into your address book,” I added.

  Personal digital assistants weren’t around when I was working. I suspected it took management a while to catch up with all the new technologies that threatened the security of a classified system. Maybe Phil remembered the old days, as I did, when everything was on paper, to be hand-carried from one facility to another. I’d had a little white card in my wallet authorizing me to carry classified material.

  “Remember when you couldn’t keep a classified file with you in a hotel room overnight?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. No matter where you were, you had to find a government field office and deposit the material in a safe, and then go and pick it up in the morning for your meeting.”

  Since we were doing so well, I told Phil my favorite security story. I was leaving BUL on my bicycle, in the days when commuting by bike was a treat for me, with a large tote bag in my wire basket. I was due for a change of office, and the tote was full of material I’d cleared out of my desk—periodicals and files I wouldn’t need on a daily basis. My bike was so old and beaten up, it looked like it belonged to the fleet of bikes BUL kept on site for travel among its spread-out buildings.

  At the gate, the guard stopped me.

  “Is this a lab bike? You can’t take a lab bike off the property,” he’d said.

  I assured him it was my own personal bike, but he kept me a good five minutes while he searched the entire frame for a hidden government serial number.

  “He even tipped the bike upside down,” I told Phil, “while I stood to the side, holding the tote bag, obviously overflowing with goods. Then he let me go.”

  “He never bothered to check the tote? You could have had a couple of line-up lasers in that bag,” Phil said, laughing. “I have to remember that one. Well, this has been fun, Gloria. Tell you what—maybe next time I’m in your neighborhood I could visit your classroom myself. I love to talk to kids, and I go to MIT now and then.”

  I straightened my shoulders, alert. MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, less than ten miles from Revere. “And you’ve been to the Charger Street Lab in Revere, I presume?”

  “Uh, once or twice.”

  Aha. Lucky guess.

  Phil seemed to have been caught off guard. I guessed he’d kept this from Elaine, who, I was sure, would have told me if she’d known Phil was in Revere. I wasn’t easily offended, so the fact that Phil might not want to spend time with his fiance’s friend didn’t bother me. The good news was that I’d be able to sic my favorite lab technician, Andrea Cabrini, on the case. My girl in the field, I thought.

  What case? I asked myself. What field?

  No time for self-doubt; I decided to press my luck.

  “Did you work with Lokesh Patel?” I asked, neatly spreading sun-dried tomato cream cheese on a jalapeño pepper bagel. Phil had opted for plain all around, probably better suited to an afternoon of work to follow.

  Phil gave me a quizzical look, raising eyebrows almost as neat as Elaine’s. “Should I know him?”

  “He’s the man Dana was transporting when her partner was killed,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, I think I read his name in the Trib. I doubt Dana knew him.”

  Not a smooth move: answering a different question, one he couldn’t be expected to know the answer to. “I meant—” I started. But I’d observed no sign of nervousness or discomfort when I mentioned the gunshot victim, so I decided I’d gone down a fruitless road. I told myself I should be thrilled to find Elaine’s fiancé free and clear of wrongdoing. It was time to drop the whole idea of the briefcase/duffel-bag murder and get into a wedding/vacation mode.

  Phil checked his watch, stood, and pulled his jacket from the chair. “My people will be looking for me. I’d better get back. Can I walk you to your car?”

  I showed him empty palms, as if I’d have been holding a car in my hands if I had one. “Elaine dropped me off, and Matt and Dana will be picking me up. He went with her to her counseling session.”

  “I heard that. It’s quite handy that he’s around. I appreciate all he’s doing. I know Dana admires him a lot.”

  I nodded at Phil the Charming. “He’s happy to do it. He’ll go to the police station with her also.”

  Phil stopped midsleeve, a frown crossing his wide brow.

  “But don’t worry about me,” I went on. “I have my book, and if I get impatient, I’ll catch a bus up University Ave.”

  If that’s what you’re worried about, I thought.

  “Right,” Phil said, favoring his bandaged hand while adjusting his jacket. Maybe he wanted me to remember the lovely hors d’oeuvres platter he’d given blood for. “Well, good-bye for now, Gloria.”

  I thought back to Phil’s slight hesitation at the mention of police. Was that the slip I’d been waiting for? How desperate was I to incriminate Phil in something?

  I order
ed another coffee and took out my notebook.

  Contact Andrea, I wrote.

  CHAPTER NINE

  My next contact was not with Andrea but with Matt’s voice mail. I called his cell phone and left a message that I wouldn’t need to be picked up. I walked from the bagel shop to a branch of the Berkeley Public Library, staying on the shady side of the street as long as possible. I enjoyed the odors that reached the sidewalk from Berkeley’s many ethnic restaurants. I passed a Black Muslim bakery (bean pie?), a Thai cafe (lemon-grass soup, I decided), an Indian eatery (curry, for sure), and a French bistro (the strong coffee that I loved), all in the same block.

  I began to resent the simple bagel lunch forced on me by Phil Chambers.

  I arrived at the library tired out from the hot weather and the slight incline of the streets I’d covered. I made another of my heat-of-battle resolves to exercise more, but a blast of air-conditioning and a long drink from a water fountain helped immensely, and the image of a Nautilus machine faded from my mind.

  I was eager to log on to the Internet without looking over my shoulder, worried about whether Elaine would catch me in the act of Googling her fiancé.

  As with the Revere Public Library, computer monitors, though welcome in my life, seemed out of context with the dé-cor of the beautiful old building. This Berkeley branch had dark wood bookshelves along each wall, intricately designed stained glass lamps hanging from the ornate ceiling, and a circulation desk so large that it appeared to have been ensconced on the spot before the building went up.

  The library was crowded this Monday afternoon. My guess was that many of the older people browsing the magazine and newspaper racks were there as much for contact with society as for reading material. And I would have bet my latest Dictionary of Scientific Biography that it was cooler here than in their apartments and houses. The myth was that the cities and towns immediately around the bay, like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, never got very hot, so air-conditioning was unnecessary. It was true that there weren’t as many ninety-plus days as out in the valley towns, but when the heat waves did hit, the days were just as miserable, and no one was prepared.