The Nitrogen Murder

by Camille Minichino

  It was easy to think of possible scenarios for intercepting secret information. I knew that some PDAs could beam data to each other at a distance of a couple of yards, no cable or computer required. I wondered if Patel had a partner, another operative receiving his information across the room. So high-tech—I gave some thought to getting myself a PDA after all.

  I had a harder time imagining the end user of the information Patel had been stealing, but that was because I was embarrassingly out of touch with international politics. Give me a quiz on the status of the world’s major accelerators, from BESSY in Germany to KEK in Japan, and I could get an A. I was current on which countries were participating in the research program called ITER, the international collaboration for the advancement of fusion science and technology (Korea was still in; Canada had pulled out). But if you asked me to name the current leaders or political leanings of any non-English-speaking country, I’d be lost. Even for my native land, I was more apt to follow the press releases and decisions of the president’s science adviser than of his attorney general.

  I’d always thought I’d do more nonscience reading when I retired, but I’d simply switched technical fields, from spectroscopy to forensics.

  In Elaine’s office late Friday night, I had my ear to the sounds from outside the house. I’d opened the office window a crack and heard only light traffic. This was a quieter neighborhood than the streets closer to the campus, where weekend nights especially were alive with party noise from the many fraternity and sorority houses.

  I was downloading and printing William Galigani’s attachments—the equations he’d mentioned, drawings of molecular configurations, notes, e-mails—when I heard Dana’s Jeep start up in Elaine’s driveway.

  Finally.

  I looked out the window, hidden, I hoped, by Elaine’s draperies. Dana backed out and onto the street. I assumed she was heading home, having mustered the courage to face her roommate. My heart went out to her; it couldn’t have been easy for Dana this week. Elaine, at least, had a few life experiences under her belt. Dana was only twenty-four, a little older than I was when my fiance died. All in all, Dana had acted in a more mature way than I had. For one, she didn’t flee the scene and avoid dealing with the problem.

  There was another reason I was happy to see the Jeep pull away Dana had been parked behind Elaine’s Saab, and I had an errand to do.

  In a few hours everything would be out in the open. Julia Strega and Howard Christopher would be in custody, and the rest of us could get back to wedding plans.

  So why was I driving to Patel’s house late Friday night when sensible people were either partying or sleeping? The only difference between the first two times I snooped around and now would be a bloody spot on the library carpet.

  At least no one will be following me this time, I thought. It was late at night, and besides, the Patel case was over. I asked myself again what I hoped to gain with this excursion.

  The only thing I could come up with was that lately I’d been generating the same curiosity for crime scenes that I used to reserve for the results of the latest NASA mission. I had to admit also that I was searching for a link between the two cases. Patel’s ID card in Robin’s closet was tantalizing, and we still had no ballistics information about whether the bullets that entered Patel, Tanisha, and Phil were from one, two, or three guns.

  For now, here I was, the poor man’s answer to Einstein, who spent much of his life trying to tie gravity and electromagnetic forces together, in one grand unified theory.

  Winding through the narrow streets in the Claremont district, needing a U-turn in spite of my having been here before, I wondered how anyone could have followed me that first time without my spotting him. But assuming it was Howard Christopher, Patel’s boss, all he had probably needed was to realize the direction I was heading. Then he could have figured out that the Woodland Road home must be Phil’s hideout.

  I pulled into the cul-de-sac, drove around under my own private hide-a-car willow tree, and stepped out of the Saab. No sounds other than whispering branches; no rooms lit up in the neighboring houses. No rowdy frat parties here. But there was a dim light in an upstairs room of Patel’s house, not the night-light I’d seen on the bottom floor on my last nighttime trip. Inadvertently left on by the crime scene team, I figured.

  Light from the streetlights at two and at ten o’clock in the cul-de-sac circle bounced off various shiny surfaces—the chrome bumper of a car in a driveway (the least worthy vehicle in the family, I guessed), the handle or hand brake of a bicycle, and then the shiny yellow plastic of the crime scene tape. The strip of tape fluttered in the slight breeze, and as I approached the front door, I saw why.

  The tape had been cut.

  I froze.

  Someone must be in the house. Someone also addicted to crime scenes? A curious neighbor who’d witnessed the drama earlier in the day? Not the police—the only cars in the cul-de-sac besides mine were tucked into driveways, and whoever had a right to be here wouldn’t need to hide his vehicle or nose around inside in dim light.

  I’d gone halfway up the walk; my feet seemed attached to the flat stones. I strained to see if the door was open; it appeared to be slightly ajar. My body swayed involuntarily, following my mind. To go forward or to run back to the car?

  I took a short step toward the door, mesmerized by the shadows, the breezes, the dim light, the yellow tape that seemed to glow.

  In the next second, the upstairs light went out, and a shot rang out over my head.

  I unstuck my shoes from the walkway in record time and ran.

  I arrived at the car gasping for breath, my already injured ankle and my knees hurting badly As I ran, I’d kept my head and shoulders low—no mean feat for someone without a well-defined waist, and now my limbs were protesting. My heart pounded somewhere up in my throat. I fumbled to put the key in the ignition, dropped it to the floor, picked it up, and tried again. When I finally roared out of the cul-de-sac, I checked the rearview mirror. I noticed no cars or people following me or even looking after me.

  The shot had sounded like an early firecracker.

  I wanted desperately to think that was what it was.

  This time there was no interesting package on the front seat, no amusing prank I could play with a pizza delivery person.

  Possibilities ran through my mind. My best guess was that Howard Christopher had broken into Patel’s house, suspecting his time was running out, trying to destroy any additional incriminating evidence at the last minute.

  Halfway across town I caught my breath. I realized I would have been dead if the shooter had been seriously trying to kill me. I’d been the world’s best target, standing under a streetlight, my hips wide enough for any sighting mechanism, especially if this had not been the shooter’s first experience with a gun.

  I was sure the person was only trying to scare me off.

  It worked.

  I pulled into Elaine’s driveway. Unlike the Patel house, in Elaine’s all the lights were on. I’d been found out. Comforting as the lights were, I knew it would be a specious welcome.

  “You could have been killed,” Elaine said. Not one to talk after her stunt this morning. Except she could claim that her instincts saved Phil’s life; all I’d done was endanger mine.

  My aborted visit to Patel’s house had been so upsetting that I’d blurted out the truth before I could stop myself.

  Matt’s silence unnerved me. I wished he would yell, though yelling wasn’t his style. It had been a long while since he’d chided me for putting myself in a dangerous situation. I hated the thought of his being angry with me.

  “I was curious.” It sounded lame, even to me. “And I guess someone wanted me to mind my own business, so they … scared me off.”

  “Shot at you,” Matt said. “Someone shot at you. Is that right?” His tone was gentle; his voice would sound cool to anyone but me. I heard the undercurrent of distress and frustration.

  “Yes, a shot went
way over my head,” I said, making it sound as if I’d been able to calculate the harmless trajectory of the bullet. I looked at the kitchen clock. One o’clock; my fiancé and my hostess, each holding—almost leaning on—a mug of coffee, looked exhausted and tense. “I’m so sorry. I caused all this.”

  Matt, not usually given to public displays of affection, finally came over and embraced me.

  Elaine let us have our private words, then gave me a hug and went upstairs.

  Matt wrapped an afghan around me on a living room chair. I was glad he didn’t lecture me. I convinced him to go up, too, and let me stay downstairs for a while, to get my bearings.

  He left the room, taking Elaine’s keys with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Inspector Dennis Russell sat across the table from Dana—a very narrow table, Dana noted, so that he was in her face. His big ears and pointy chin gave him a comical look that put Dana more at ease than she normally would have been in a police station interview room.

  She’d wanted to talk about Robin Kirsch, accountant for Julia Strega, scam artist, and fraud. But Russell made it known that he was in charge, and this interview was about Tanisha Hall.

  “Did Ms. Hall seem upset about anything in the days before her death?” he asked her.

  “No,” Dana answered, determined not to reveal anything negative about Tanisha. If the police were going to make a case against Tanisha, they’d do it without her help. It wasn’t as if her partner’s illegal activities had anything to do with Patel’s shooting, or her father’s. There was Rachel to think about, and Marne, both of whom deserved a dignified memory of Tanisha. Dana had been trying to think of a way to get the money to them; she couldn’t care less what the disposition should be legally

  Dana wished she knew Russell’s thinking. Who did he suspect killed Tanisha? Russell wouldn’t even reveal how much he believed about Julia’s scam.

  Behind Dana’s firm no to Russell, that Tanisha had not seemed upset lately, was the awareness that there had been signs of trouble. And Dana might have been able to help, if only she’d been paying closer attention to her partner.

  “What if you were stuck in something?” Tanisha had asked her, during what would be one of the last EMT shifts of her life. “You know, before you knew it, you’d got yourself on a track … maybe for the right reason, but it’s wrong anyway. And you can’t see a way to turn back.”

  Dana had figured Tanisha was referring to the nasty custody battle with Rachel’s father, that Tanisha might be having second thoughts about keeping him as far from their daughter as possible.

  “This is about Darryl, isn’t it?” Dana had asked.

  Dana remembered the long silence. Then, “Yeah,” Tanisha had said. “Yeah, it’s about Darryl.”

  But now Dana suspected it wasn’t about Darryl’s weekend visits with Rachel. What if Tanisha had been trying to get out of the fraud business, and she was looking to Dana for support? Strangely, that thought cheered Dana-that her friend was about to give up on the scam and blow the whistle. She was ready to be a heroine.

  The nerve of Robin, Dana thought, going to great lengths, like tampering with her incident report, sending the cops to Tanisha’s house to look for drugs, knowing it was highly likely they’d find a bag of supplies. For all Robin knew, Tanisha had already given her up to the cops, and Robin had to protect herself.

  It was depressing to think she’d known so little about her supposed friends. She’d have to sit down with Jen one of these days and ask some pointed questions so she wouldn’t be caught off guard again.

  Dana managed one-word answers to the rest of Russell’s questions. Did Ms. Hall seem to spend more money than she was earning? (No.) Had she missed a significant number of workdays? (No.) Had she acquired any new or different associates recently?

  “Associates? Do you mean people?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  A few more nos and Russell was ready to move on.

  “Okay, Ms. Chambers, now let’s talk about your roommate Ms. Kirsch. You indicated you have something you wanted to report?”

  She rolled her eyes, but not so much that he would notice; she wasn’t looking for trouble that much hard. Dana handed Russell the spreadsheet.

  Cops, she thought, and wondered where Matt was.

  “How soon am I going to get over this whole thing?” Dana asked Matt. She’d found him in the lobby of the PD, waiting his turn with Russell, and had taken a seat next to him.

  “It depends, Dana. There are so many variables, most of which have nothing to do with you, like whether other people let you get over it, for one thing.”

  “What if something like this happens again?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you. It might. You have to admit that. You like to think you’re in control. You wear a respected uniform. You have all the equipment you need. Communication tools hanging from your belt. Then something like this happens, a loss, the potential for physical harm to yourself—and you lose confidence. But what you’re going to do is, you’re going to strengthen your coping skills.”

  “My dad is already making noises like I should find another profession. He thinks I can just switch my head around and teach third grade or something.”

  Matt had his arm along the back of the uncomfortable wooden bench. He was paying attention to her. Why couldn’t more people just pay attention? Dana wondered.

  “Can you tell me how you’re responding so far? Some people would be very angry and lash out at those around them. Others might withdraw”

  “Both, I guess. I’m angry inside, but I withdraw. That shrink I saw asked if I wanted medication, but I don’t. It wouldn’t look very good on a med school app, for one thing. But how am I going to be a doctor if I’m going to get emotionally involved?”

  “How can you do it if you don’t?”

  She wanted to bury her head in Matt’s shoulders. Not sexual, she knew that. Fatherly, or brotherly.

  Maybe she just needed to give her own father another chance.

  It was getting a little better all the time, Dana admitted. One week, and she was able to call up happy memories of Tanisha. And she’d taken some action for Marne and Rachel. She’d opened an account with the money she’d found, and told Marne that since Tanisha died in the line of duty, Valley Medical Ambulance Company had offered compensation.

  “Well, I’ll be, if that isn’t nice,” Marne had said. “My girl took good care of us right to the end.”

  Dana inhaled some good weed, a miraculous present from Kyle that came with a note: Heard about your troubles. This is on me. Sweet guy. “Dope shit,” Tanisha would have called this batch. Dana smiled as another memory came to her.

  They have a repeat patient, an old black man named Antwon. They know he’s okay, but they still have to ask the four A&O questions—alert and oriented. What’s your birthday? Tanisha asks. Who’s the president of the United States? What month is this? And then, when she knows Antwon is fine, What was Puff Daddy’s greatest hit?

  Dana took a toke, maybe her last, she thought. She didn’t need this anymore. She was going to be the cleanest MD there was.

  “Here’s to you, Tanisha,” she said into the cool night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I’d been involved in so many interrogations, formal and informal, with Matt, and at times with his partner, that it seemed unusual for two regular Berkeley PD detectives to be on tap to interview me.

  To my relief, Inspector Dennis Russell didn’t bring up the nature of our interaction on my last trip to California. You might think we’d just met, starting from scratch, with mutual respect. Unless you were paying close attention.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this,” I said to Russell and a female detective, introduced as Inspector Ariana Gilmore.

  “I’ll bet you have,” Russell said.

  Russell allowed me to go through the two separate threads it had taken a whole team of us to work out. He’d already talked to Phil, Elaine,
and Dana and apparently was saving Matt for last.

  I thought about how differently I’d worked this week, as part of a group. More reminiscent of my research days than my recent police consulting. Usually Matt and I worked together to put the pieces of a puzzle together, whenever a science-related homicide came to the attention of the Revere PD. At most, we’d be joined by his partner, but more and more in special cases, Berger left Matt and me alone when I had a contract.

  This time it had taken several of us, combining information and abilities. Phil had found a way to expose Patel, in spite of the odds against him; Dana had shared all her discoveries, no matter how difficult; Elaine had stood firm, and in the end saved Phil’s life; William, from three thousand miles away, had extracted the PDA data; Matt had provided support for Dana and a link to the Berkeley PD that surely helped us all. Ironically, the one “fact” Matt had learned from Russell—that Phil had boarded a plane to Hawaii—turned out to be incorrect. But Matt’s ego withstood that, and he continued to work effectively behind the scenes, even going out of his way to help Dana and Marne reconcile.

  I looked at Russell and pictured his grade-school report card the antithesis of Matt’s: Little Dennis does not work well with others.

  Our whole time together on Saturday morning, Russell used me as a character witness.

  Did I have any reason to think Phil would betray his company or his country? Did I think Dana was really innocent of any drug-related charges? What was my impression of Howard Christopher? Of Julia? Of Robin? Was there anything else I wanted to say?

  I laid out my understanding of Howard Christopher’s role, from the tape. Russell listened but didn’t comment. When I was finished, he asked again, “Is there anything else?”

  Yes, but I’d better not say. “Nothing at the moment, thank you,” I said, and left the room.