The Nitrogen Murder

by Camille Minichino

  I found it interesting that no one suggested inviting Phil to our meeting.

  As I’d have predicted, Matt wanted to adopt a show-all/tell-all philosophy, including full disclosure to the Berkeley police. I knew he was uncomfortable withholding even the little information he’d picked up from Dana. This was a double homicide, and he had to have been putting himself in Inspector Russell’s shoes. I had the sense he’d call Russell no matter what, and that he was simply waiting for Elaine and me to come to the same conclusion.

  “Matt would be able to find out if there’s any progress on the Patel murder investigation,” I said, bolstering Matt’s case. “Unless Russell found a package of rolling papers in Patel’s pockets, too.”

  Matt gave me a look. You’ve made your point.

  We developed a plan. Matt would set up an appointment with Russell for Wednesday morning. He admitted he had nothing concrete enough to warrant immediate disclosure. Everything we had was circumstantial, all our theories hypothetical in the extreme. In the meantime, we’d go to Dana’s and continue to brainstorm.

  “This evening’s news might even tell us the case is solved,” Elaine had said. The red rings around her eyes gave away her true state, but she’d attempted a lighthearted tone.

  We’d all nodded. Why not?

  It had been almost a whole day since the last time Elaine brought up wedding trivia. I’d gotten my wish, but at a great price.

  Now, at Dana’s, we focused on helping her through whatever stage of grief she’d reached. She looked more relaxed than the first time I saw her, dressed in black pants and a sheer black blouse over a white tank top. Ready for a wake. The heat wave had broken, making it useful to open the Oakland house to the outside, and a breeze ruffled Dana’s long, fine hair as she sat next to a window.

  “I had such a great massage last night,” Dana told us. She picked up a basket full of small bottles of different colors and sizes and held it out to us. “And they gave me all this cool stuff—samples of oils and lotions. It made going to that mandatory group counseling so much more palatable. Thanks again, Elaine.”

  Elaine smiled, seeming happy to have something go right.

  We’d decided Matt would take the lead in introducing a list of things we thought Dana could help clear up. After a suitable time for small talk, he started.

  “Have you heard from your dad?”

  Dana fiddled with the tiny bottles of toiletries. Her long fingers were unadorned, her nails short and unpolished. “No. I left a message for him yesterday It usually takes him a couple of days to get back to me.”

  “I know what you mean,” Elaine said, surprising me.

  Almost from the beginning of our relationship, Matt and I had seemed to know how much or how little distance we each needed. We had talked frequently during the day, before we lived together, and now it was still the norm for us to check in by phone every few hours. I couldn’t imagine going twenty-four hours without a call. Quite a turnaround for someone who’d spent most of her adult life living alone.

  From what I knew of Elaine in her relationships, she was more likely to be a call-every-hour partner, and I wondered how that played out with Phil Chambers.

  No one had seen Phil since he left me on Monday afternoon. Was I that hard on him? I wondered facetiously. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours, but I realized if I hadn’t heard from Matt in that long, I’d be frantic.

  “Is Phil likely to work long hours and not call?” I asked, before thinking ahead to whether I should probe.

  Elaine gave a resigned sigh. “He’s likely to fly to Hong Kong and not call until he gets there.”

  Dana threw up her hands and nodded in agreement. “That’s Dad.”

  I would have thought that between his imminent wedding and his daughter’s troubles, Phil would be checking in more frequently. But Phil Chambers’s women, it seemed, had acquiesced to his style.

  “Elaine says you met Robin Kirsch through another EMT in your company, right?” Matt asked. He was moving on.

  Like the rest of us, Matt looked significantly more cool and comfortable than he had over the weekend. He’d ironed a pale blue cotton shirt and wore it under a light sports coat. My mind drifted back to his regular workweek in Revere, where Tuesday was brown suit day. Except for his casual clothes, Matt’s week was turning out to be “regular” in some ways.

  “Yeah, Tom Stewart introduced me to Robin at a party,” Dana said. “She was an EMT a couple of years ago and worked with Tom, who was born at Valley Med, as Tanisha used to say.” Dana paused for a heavy breath. “This was maybe three months ago, when Jen and I lived in a small apartment and were thinking of moving into a bigger place.” Dana frowned, as if remembering an unpleasant smell or taste. “Tom’s not my favorite partner, in case you haven’t guessed.”

  “I thought Tanisha was your partner,” I said.

  “We rotate. Not like cops.” She gave Matt a glance I’d have classified as just short of adoring. “We might have a different partner every shift. Some you get close to, some you don’t.”

  “Okay, we know it’s likely that Robin doctored up your incident report yesterday.” Matt crossed one leg over the other. He kept his voice casual and wrote no notes. “But before that, did you have any reason to think Robin might be involved in something squirrelly, or have something to hide?”

  Dana wrinkled her brow, as if trying to focus all her energy into answering Matt. “She’s always been more private than Jen or me, but I assumed it was because she was an add-on, sort of. Jen and I have been roommates forever. Robin’s doing a lot, I know, so she’s stressed. She’s going to school online, and she has this intern position at a bank that doesn’t pay a lot—hardly enough for her tennis club dues—so she moonlights doing some kind of work on her home computer. Says she’s ‘consulting,’ whatever that means.”

  “What about her boyfr—” Matt began, then stopped at a noise.

  Clump. Clump. Clump.

  It sounded like someone wearing tap shoes on his way up the front steps. We all turned to the door as a tall young woman came through, carrying a skinny bike in one hand, its frame resting on her slim shoulder. Not your mother’s bicycle, I thought, remembering the Monarch I’d had as a child, with its balloon tires, thick handlebars, and heavy metal chain guard. This bike seemed as light as the pair of titanium earrings Rose’s daughter had in her collection, all thin wires and spokes. Its largest component was a plastic water bottle buckled to its frame. A crystal pendant hung from one of the handles, reminding me of people who draped such items over the posts of rearview mirrors, distracting themselves and other drivers. At least Robin’s crystal wasn’t at her eye level.

  “Robin!” Dana said. I wondered if she always greeted her roommate so enthusiastically, or only when caught talking about her in an unflattering and accusatory manner.

  I had to stop myself from staring at Robin’s outfit. Brand-new? Expensive? An unobtrusive look said no, although they were serious bike-riding clothes—black spandex pants and a tight rubbery jersey, topped off by a helmet with hot green and yellow stripes. She propped her bike against the outside living room wall. Her shoes made tapping noises on the wooden floor around the area rug; evidently bikers had special shoes, like golfers and bowlers and tap dancers. Not so in my Monarch days, when thin white Keds ruled.

  Dana introduced us, nicely recovering from the blush I’d seen. Robin’s smile was pleasant but lacked warmth; she made no eye contact that I could tell. She wore fingerless gloves—as a bike fashion statement? for protection?—and there was no handshaking.

  “Won’t you join us for coffee, Robin?” I asked, boldly taking over hostess duty I felt entitled only because Elaine and I had brought the coffee and miniature biscotti now filling the small metal table.

  “Thanks, but I need to change,” Robin said. She was about as tall as Dana, and I could see how they’d be able to share clothes. Her hair was darker brown, shorter, and thicker than Dana’s but had the same shiny quality


  “Robin doesn’t like to be seen in her bike clothes,” Dana explained.

  Robin shot her a look and a twisted grin. She took a key from what looked like an impossibly tiny fanny pack strapped to the back of her bike, unlocked the door to her bedroom, and disappeared.

  We sat like four guilty gossipers, at a loss for conversation since our most recent target was within earshot. It didn’t seem prudent to bring up Dorman Industries, either, with Robin in the house. Everyone reached for the biscotti plate at the same time, fingertips and knuckles bumping, prompting a round of soft chuckles.

  “Is Robin planning to attend Tanisha’s service?” Elaine asked in a near whisper, though the question was quite harmless.

  “No, she only met her once, I think. But Tom’ll be there. You’ll have that pleasure,” Dana said. She brushed crumbs from her shirt, as if she were dismissing her unappealing sometime partner from her lap.

  We shared another awkward round of eating and sipping; then Elaine suggested it was time to head to San Leandro for Tanisha’s service. A rather loud collective sigh and we were on our way, leaving Robin Kirsch and some unanswered questions behind.

  On the road, with four of us in the green Saab, Elaine tried to reach Phil on her cell phone. She left a message, during which Matt, Dana, and I chattered, to give her some privacy. But sitting up front, I couldn’t block out Elaine’s voice entirely. I heard “Hutton Funeral Home; call me either way” and “even if you’re in Tokyo,” followed by a nervous giggle and a sign-off click.

  The streets of San Leandro, a Bay Area suburb, were sunny and lively. We passed an elementary school in time to see children rush out like atoms escaping a container, creating high entropy conditions on the sidewalks and crosswalks. I marveled at the large number of vans with momlike drivers jockeying in and out of the school’s parking lot. Didn’t anyone walk to school anymore? And didn’t kids stay after school and help the teachers, as we loved to do?

  I was impressed by the rows of neat houses, many of them with senior citizens in bright straw hats bent over colorful front-yard gardens. On one corner, a small park was busy with the stroller crowd. Tinny, excited voices came in through the open windows of Elaine’s car.

  But once we entered Hutton’s, dark and quiet prevailed, overlaid with the flowery smell that signaled a potentially sickening odor just below the cold surface.

  It was strange to be in a funeral home that wasn’t, one, the Galigani Mortuary in Revere and, two, downstairs from my living quarters. When I first returned to Massachusetts, Rose and Frank offered me the apartment on the top floor of their building while I decided whether the move would be permanent. The conveniences were many: a lovely living space, without house hunting, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean, plus the world’s best “landlords.” I quickly got used to the distinctive smells and sounds of the business of death, but not to the daily reminder of mortality.

  We fell silent as we signed in at Hutton’s guest-book stand, then entered the parlor, crowded with nearly equal numbers of African American and Caucasian mourners. Some sat on straight-backed chairs; others gathered in small circles along the sides of the room.

  I couldn’t help comparing Hutton’s decor with that of the Galigani Mortuary. Not as different as I might have expected. With its dark mahogany paneling, Hutton’s felt solemn enough to be transported to an old East Coast community like Revere. No bright lighting or pastel carpets, as I’d seen in other West Coast mortuaries. Not the cheerful look that marked the more modern funeral parlors, but heavy and serious.

  I thought Rose would have placed the gladioli closer to the ends of the cherrywood casket and would have chosen a smaller, more discreet cross for the curtain behind the tableau. Hutton’s cross—or maybe it belonged to the Hall family—was enormous, an elaborate gold affair with sparkles and flourishes on each arm.

  Both Rose and Frank would have approved of the music, fitting the deceased. The Galiganis had been known to accommodate everything from grand opera for the late president of the Sons of Italy to band music for a teenage member of the Revere High marching band who died in a drowning accident.

  For Tanisha Hall and her family, soft gospel music filled the room at Hutton’s. Here and there a row of guests swayed to the soothing rhythm, one or two mouthing the words.

  I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;

  come quickly and abide, or life is vain.

  I heard a tired sigh from Dana as she preceded us into the parlor, as if she’d just single-handedly lifted someone as heavy as me onto a gurney. She walked down the long aisle toward Tanisha’s open casket and took a place on the maroon velvet kneeler.

  Tanisha’s face appeared natural in death, and I heard Frank Galigani’s approving voice in my mind. A jeweled, multicolored striped hat covered the top of her head; her braids were draped over her shoulders, falling on a bright orange, black, and green tunic top. Tanisha looked colorful and at peace, but mostly, she looked very young.

  I guessed Tanisha Hall was Catholic, though I couldn’t have said for sure that other Christian denominations didn’t use kneelers. I pictured Protestants more like Martin Luther, standing strong, taking on the kneeling Roman Catholic hierarchy.

  Matt, Elaine, and I followed Dana from the kneeler to the front row of visitors, where a thin, dark-skinned woman with straight black hair sat in an overstuffed armchair, the kind of chair the Galiganis reserved for the principal mourners. In her lap was a small girl, perhaps three or four, in a loose navy blue dress and tights. Tanisha’s mother and daughter, Marne and Rachel Hall. The ends of Rachel’s neat braids were folded into dark blue beads.

  As Dana approached Marne, the woman stood, reaching eye level with Dana. Dana had said Tanisha’s mother was only forty, having given birth to Tanisha as a teenager, but tonight Marne looked every bit someone’s grandmother. She bit her lip; her fist tightened around a white handkerchief.

  I waited for the tender embrace, the soft words, comforting pats on the back. Instead, Marne put her hands on her hips and thrust her face close to Dana’s.

  “You have a nerve coming in here,” she said. Marne’s voice was low but sharp, her attitude unmistakably irate. Rachel had slipped off her lap and now leaned against a bent, elderly woman in the next seat.

  Dana stepped back. We followed suit, nearly tripping over each other in the awkwardly narrow space between Tanisha’s casket and the front row of chairs. In the dim light I couldn’t see the expression on Dana’s face, but I imagined she was surprised at the angry reception. The soft music continued—Thou art the potter; I am the clay—and it appeared that only a few people were aware of Marne’s hostility to Dana.

  “What—” Dana began.

  Marne kept her hands in place, on her hips. “Did you bring the police here, like you sent them to my house?” She said “he-ah” for “here,” as I used to, before I lost my Boston accent, and she stretched out “police” until it was a long hiss. I glanced back at Matt, experiencing a fleeting moment of worry that she’d see through his civilian clothes and recognize him as the pohleesss.

  “I didn’t send—” Dana sputtered. She put her hand on her heart, ready to utter an oath.

  “Not what I heard. They about tore my house apart. Rachel was there. And her friend, for a sleepover. How could you do that?”

  Before Dana could answer, if, indeed, she had a response, a large black man in a dark suit stepped in and gently took Marne’s arms from their stiff akimbo position. Another black man handed her an opened bottle of water. I had the useless thought that Rose would have had a crystal glass at the ready.

  “Trouble, Mrs. Hall?” the first man asked, guiding her back to her seat. He turned his head toward Dana, his thick neck suggesting considerable muscle mass at his disposal.

  Marne relaxed her posture but still glared at Dana. “No trouble. This lady and her friends are leaving.”

  Matt and Elaine and I filed around to the side aisle, dismissed, not stopping to speak to Marne
or other family members in the front row. I saw that most of the guests had become aware of the drama. They strained their necks, shook their heads, and whispered. I had a rare feeling of alienation from my surroundings.

  Wounded and weary, help me I pray, the music continued.

  I couldn’t imagine what Dana must be going through.

  I glanced back at Tanisha. She seemed at peace, unlike the rest of us.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dana felt confused and dizzy. Her eyes stung and her stomach hurt. She’d had nothing to eat all day except some crumbs of biscotti to please Elaine, and they weren’t sitting well. And now Gloria was hovering over her as she leaned back on the couch in Hutton’s lobby. Elaine was off in the corner, on her cell, probably trying to reach Dad. At least Hutton’s goons hadn’t forced them outside the building.

  What had gotten into Marne? Dana had barely heard the words. Something about sending the police to Marne and Tanisha’s home. She wanted to go back into the parlor and take Marne aside, find out what was going on.

  A dozen questions about her current state were being pummeled at her.

  Do you need some air?

  Are you dizzy?

  Do you feel nauseous?

  “I’m okay,” she said to no one in particular, hoping to cover all the questions.

  Dana took a deep breath and a sip of the water Matt had miraculously produced. It seemed years since she’d signed the guest book, years since she’d looked at Tanisha in the casket.

  She’d nearly fainted on the kneeler, even before Marne lashed out at her. Seeing Tanisha like that, so beautiful. But so dead. Dana had always admired how Tanisha could pull off the head-turning, flamboyant look. Next to Tanisha, Dana felt boring, with her middling-brown hair, only occasionally brought to life when she bothered to add a little red; her drab wardrobe; her uninspired accessories. But Tanisha had a way about her. She’d sashay into a room, wearing wild jungle-print tights or bright red shoes with enormous platform heels, full of confidence and optimism.