Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “Do you remember Eric’s saying anything about a discrepancy in the hydrogen data at your party?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t. I guess I was too busy with the songs.”

  Jim took his Saint Patrick’s Day party seriously. He photocopied the words to dozens of Irish folk songs, with verses no one ever heard before, and we all sang along to the music on CD. It was the only time I’d seen Jim show any signs of leadership.

  “But I know a lot of people heard him,” Jim said. “Doctor Leder says Eric was drunk.”

  “Do you know what Eric’s supposed problem was?” I asked.

  Jim looked down at his brown tassel loafers. “I heard it was about my trigger mechanism,” he said. “Eric said the timing of the signal was off.”

  “You mean ‘they say Eric said,’ don’t you,” Matt asked, “since you didn’t hear him?”

  “Right,” Jim said. He looked flustered and nearly dropped his glasses again. “That’s what they told me.”

  After a few more questions, Matt thanked Jim for coming in and encouraged him to call the station if he thought of something that might help the investigation.

  Jim let out a deep breath and started out the door. As he passed me, he said, “Neat hologram, Gloria.”

  “What was that all about?” Matt asked when Jim had left.

  “The hologram?”

  “That too. But I was thinking about the trigger thing.”

  “Jim designed a trigger mechanism that produces an electrical signal when the shock wave from the gas gun hits it. A certain measurement at that very moment tells us whether or not the hydrogen has been metallized. It’ll be clearer if I draw a diagram.”

  I reached over to the pad on his desk and noticed several infinities, just like the ones he’d drawn in Leder’s office. I wondered if I’d ever know Matt well enough to tease him about that.

  “No more science until after lunch,” Matt said, leading me out by my elbow. “There’s a small deli around the corner, unless you have other plans.”

  I was starting to worry about the Police Department food budget, but I didn’t let that keep me from agreeing. The deli was almost all counter, with a high refrigerated meat and cheese case along the length of it. There was a single row of small round tables along the opposite side and we got the last one at the back.

  The turkey sandwich was good, but no match for Russo’s eggplant special. I picked up our conversation, explaining how Eric’s computer program would determine when the trigger fired.

  “Eric might have seen something in his own program—a line of code that told the trigger to fire at the wrong time. Then the measurement they got would be meaningless.”

  “Do we have to do this during lunch?” Matt asked. “Tell me about your Einstein picture.”

  He looked at my hologram resting on my bosom when he said this, sending a pleasant shiver through my upper body. His question also caused me to look again at Albert Einstein and a piece of a puzzle clicked into place. I put down my forkful of oniony potato salad and looked at Matt.

  “He’s missing,” I said. “That’s why the figures on Eric’s desk were rearranged. Someone took Albert Einstein and covered his tracks by moving the superheroes around.”

  “Are you sure?” Matt asked.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Einstein’s missing.”

  EIGHT

  As soon as we got back to Matt’s office we checked into the eight-by-ten color photograph of the area around Eric’s computer monitor. The small white figure of Einstein was in front, as I remembered it, to the right of the monitor, next to Batman and the UC mug.

  Matt was almost as certain as I was that Einstein was no longer on Eric’s desk. He changed our schedule to fit in a return trip to the lab to be sure.

  “So much for yellow tape and a police guard,” he said. “Whoever did this risked being caught at a crime scene without authorization.”

  Matt tried reaching Andrea Cabrini again and left a message that he’d look for her in the physics building around four in the afternoon. As I was preparing my notebook for the interview with Connie Provenza, Matt shuffled through pink phone message slips and pulled one out.

  “This one’s from the security guard at the lab. He’s been thinking about the Corvette and is now pretty sure it had Connecticut plates. I’ll have to check that out. See if there’s anyone from Connecticut in the group, or anyone visiting. Maybe the Physics Department secretary would know.”

  Matt seemed to be talking to himself, so I waited for a sign to continue our conversation.

  “I see that Connie Provenza lives in Chelsea,” Matt said. “Before she gets here, can you tell me what her job is in this group?”

  He turned over a page on his yellow pad and started to frown, with his science-is-boring look, but relaxed his face instead. Maybe I have a convert to physics, I thought.

  “Connie’s a theoretical physicist,” I told him. “She writes equations, figures out which factors are important in the experiment, and works with Eric on—uh, worked with Eric...”

  I paused and cleared my throat. For the most part I’d managed not to dwell on the fact that someone I knew had been murdered. And the equally distressing fact that most likely someone I knew was a murderer. To be of any help to Matt, I had to think of Eric Bensen’s murder objectively, squeezing it into the format of a puzzle, as if it were a question on a science test. Somehow at that moment the reality of death had taken over, keeping me from doing my job.

  Matt brought me a cup of water from the cooler outside his office. I hadn’t even seen him leave.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “We can do this later.”

  “I’m fine, thank you, I just needed a minute. You’re not getting out of physics class that easily.”

  Matt laughed and seemed relieved. I wondered if any of his other PSA’s broke down in front of him. I wanted to continue, and managed to compose myself.

  “Connie worked with Eric on the computer code that represents what’s happening to the hydrogen target. She’s close to the data, and the most likely one besides Eric to know if something wasn’t right with the information coming off the printer.”

  “Clear enough,” Matt said, a little too quickly. “Connie isn’t due for another half-hour, so why don’t we take a break. I have some other things to finish up if you don’t mind leaving for a while. Maybe you could take a walk along Broadway?”

  I didn’t know if this was for my benefit or his, but either way it was a good idea. I left the station, walking past an unpleasant-looking young man handcuffed to a bench in the lobby. A policeman in the dark blue uniform of the RPD was coming toward me, escorting an old man in ragged clothing and a scruffy beard. They entered the same door I was exiting and as we passed I nearly gagged on the odor. Maybe I’m in the wrong business, I thought.

  But after a refreshing walk along the busy street I got my perspective back. A scoop of mocha almond fudge from the Lantern Dairy helped. As usual, I felt guilty abandoning my resolve to give up desserts until I lost at least ten pounds. I ate right past the feeling, holding the sweet-smelling sugar cone far from my body so I wouldn’t spill ice cream on my blouse.

  I had a lot of company as I walked, passing men and women in stiff business suits talking about prime rates and real estate. I passed the Revere Journal office and interrupted deliveries to several merchants as I stepped around open trap doors in the sidewalk. I didn’t recognize anyone and wondered when I would have enough friends in the city to increase the chances of meeting someone I knew on a casual stroll. I was conscious of my walk, my clothing, my accent, anything that gave me away as a foreigner. At times, in local stores I deliberately tried to drop the final r in words like hamburger and sugar, reversing the process I’d gone through when I moved to the West Coast. I felt like I was operating at both ends of a seesaw, constantly missing the equilibrium point in the middle.

  The ice cream kept me from going into any of the shops, but nothing looked that appealing anywa
y. Most of them offered retail services—dry cleaning, photocopying, TV repair, hair styling, and the inexplicably popular trend of the nineties, nail sculpture.

  I stood in front of a manicure shop done in fake art deco, and watched one young woman paint the fingernails of another. I tried to imagine my mother and her friends having their nails done. Not likely. It was enough of a chore for Josephine to change out of her housedress and slippers now and then for a wedding or graduation. She’d grown up poor and married poor, and was never comfortable with formal dress, by which she meant nylons rolled to her knees and real closed-in shoes.

  Heading back to the police station, I met Connie at the front entrance. When I saw her outfit—a tailored navy blue suit and pumps, my first thought was that she looked upon this as an important meeting. Like most working scientists, Connie wore jeans and tennis shoes around the lab, in keeping with its construction site decor. The real reason for the business attire, which I estimated to be in size seven, soon became apparent.

  “I hope we’re finished in time for my management class,” she said. “I can’t imagine what more I can tell these people. They questioned my boyfriend and Bill wasn’t even in town the other night.”

  “It’s really awful about Eric, isn’t it?” I said.

  It occurred to me after I said it that I was getting very good at sarcasm and reproachful comments. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d made snide remarks to at least four people. I’d suggested to Ralph Leder that he was deceitful, guilty of scientific fraud, and out for money. I’d told Peter Mastrone to lay off after he’d brought me presents and expressed concern over my well-being. I wasn’t a bit kind to Janice Bensen whose husband had just been murdered, and now I was being self-righteous with Connie, who was one of my own species, a female physicist. So far only Leder had been rude back to me.

  Was I this bad in California, I wondered? I’d have to ask Elaine the next time I talked to her.

  Connie didn’t take scolding well, and she shot me a look of annoyance, lifting her pointy chin high in the air. I pulled my shoulders back, trying to match her perfect posture. Connie’s career-length dark hair and regulation half-inch diameter gold hoop earrings bounced as we walked. I pictured her canceling her subscription to Science Magazine and writing out checks for business weeklies and money magazines.

  “Of course Eric’s murder was awful,” she said. “That’s not my point.”

  It was just as well that we’d arrived at Matt’s office by then, and we took seats in front of his desk.

  “Thanks for coming in Ms. Provenza,” Matt said.

  “Doctor Provenza,” Connie said, to my horror. Even in my earliest days, as proud as I was of my doctorate, I wouldn’t have corrected anyone that way. Whatever happened to the notion that education was supposed to make us humble.

  “Excuse me, Doctor Provenza,” Matt said with a calmness that I admired. “What I’m most interested in today is anything you can tell me about Eric Bensen and his problem with the data from your group. Doctor Lamerino is here as my interpreter, so to speak.”

  “Eric was drunk,” Connie said. She sat up straight on the chair and, like Jim Guffy that morning, seemed ready to bolt. Unlike Jim, however, Connie didn’t seem the least bit nervous. As she elaborated, she kept her chin high and at an angle, her tone not at all like that of a murder suspect, but more like that of a wealthy bank customer who’d come to register a complaint with the manager.

  “He was joking,” she said. “I can’t imagine anyone taking him seriously. If something really were wrong do you think he’d wait until we’re singing ‘Danny Boy’ to bring it up? God knows we have more than enough meetings for that purpose.”

  I knew Connie well enough not to be surprised at her tone. I’d never seen her intimidated by anyone, and I saw that homicide detectives were no exception. I chalked it up to her youth. I’d come to the conclusion that my generation of fifty-something women were just now reaching the level of self-confidence and assertiveness that women Connie’s age started out with. My liberal intellect told me that was a good thing, but my conservative feelings rebelled. I still hadn’t seen what I was looking for—some perfect combination of high self-esteem and a pleasant manner.

  “And the last time you saw Eric was when?” Matt asked, seeming less ruffled by Connie’s attitude than I was.

  “I was with him all day on Monday,” she said, “until I left at four for a class. I’m getting my MBA in January.”

  “I see that,” Matt said, running his pencil along a page in the Bensen file. “We just had a report from security at the lab. I’m sure you know Mr. Gallante. He says he saw a late model red Corvette with Connecticut plates in the lot around midnight.”

  For a moment I thought I saw Connie flinch. Not a broad movement, but a definite flinch, a slight twitching of her shoulders and a brief flush to her face. If this is what it seems, I noted, Connie needs more practice before negotiating in the boardroom with the good old boys.

  Matt must have noticed it, too. He leaned forward.

  “Do you know that car, Doctor Provenza?” he asked. It may have been wishful thinking, but I thought I detected a slight emphasis on the word Doctor that time.

  “No,” Connie said, “I drive a red ‘73 BMW.”

  Matt nodded, then read a few more sections of Connie’s statement to her and asked three or four general questions.

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill Eric?”

  “No, of course not. I mean, I’ve never known anyone who was murdered or did a murder.”

  “Have you ever seen him arguing with anyone?”

  “Doctor Leder, which we’ve already discussed. And he bickered with his wife. But don’t we all. Bicker I mean.”

  Connie had mellowed considerably since the red Corvette question. She’d adopted a cooperative spirit and took her time answering Matt’s new questions, even calling him Sergeant Gennaro at one point.

  “Do you think Eric and Andrea Cabrini were having an affair?” Matt asked.

  “Poor Andrea adored Eric, but I can’t see them sl... I don’t think it was an affair.”

  “What about on the West Coast?” Matt asked. “Do you think he was seeing anyone while he was out there?”

  Connie sat back and ran her tongue around her teeth, staring at her polished navy pumps as if deep in thought.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Eric was a flirt, I suppose, although never with me. Not like Doctor Leder, if you know what I mean. Eric was just friendly.”

  “Anyone he was particularly friendly with?”

  “No, not really.”

  I made a note to call Elaine and ask her if she thought Eric had a girlfriend in California, although I couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t already have told me something like that. Elaine had edited one of Eric’s short technical memos and saw him often for several weeks. She’d also come on one or two of our dinner excursions.

  “I think that’s all, Doctor Provenza. Thanks for coming in,” Matt said.

  Once again comparing Connie to Jim Guffy, I determined that Connie’s sigh of relief as she left to go was at least as loud as Jim’s.

  “Interesting,” Matt said, when she was gone. “The Corvette got a rise.”

  Matt seemed to be talking to himself again, at the same time writing on a sheet of paper in Connie’s file. I had the feeling he thought I’d left with Connie—Doctor Provenza, I reminded myself with an internal tsk-tsk.

  “Maybe she responded that way because she has a red car,” I said, to alert him to my presence so he wouldn’t inadvertently reveal any private thoughts. “Maybe at first she thought you meant her red BMW.”

  “Could be,” he said. He looked up at me and scanned my face, as if he were holding a Geiger counter or on the lookout for radiation damage. “Are you ready for more, or would you like to call it a day? We can put off the lab visit for another day, Doctor Lamerino.”

  That time there was a definite emphasis on Doctor and I responded in kind.r />
  “I’m just getting started, Sergeant Gennaro,” I said, with the brightest smile I could manage. Our first shared joke, I thought with a shiver of contentment. It flashed through my mind that the idea of visiting a murder scene with Matt brought more smiles to my face and warmth to my heart than the thought of dinner dancing with Peter.

  NINE

  Matt drove north along Broadway to Squire Road, the main westbound thoroughfare. As we headed toward Charger Street to the lab, we kept the conversation on the case at hand except for a few remarks about the changing weather. The sky had darkened considerably and we guessed it was the end of our long string of two sunny days. Matt had thrown an umbrella and a wrinkled beige raincoat like Columbo’s in the back of his car before we left.

  “It must be the wake and funeral,” Matt said. “Doesn’t it always rain at cemeteries?”

  “It certainly seems that way. Do you plan to attend the services for Eric,” I asked, “or does that only happen on TV?”

  The idea of Matt below, if not in, my apartment at Galigani’s had been fluttering around my brain for a while. I wondered about the protocol of asking him up for coffee afterwards. No middle ground, I thought, either I’m broken up about Eric’s death and can’t even talk, or I’m plotting to use his wake as a fast track to a romantic rendezvous.

  “One of us will go. I was thinking of getting my partner over there. You remember George Berger?” Matt said. “His wife had a baby this week.”

  I wasn’t sure whether Matt really forgot about my interaction with Berger, or he was testing my ability to get along with others, as measured by reports from day care providers.

  “How nice. Their first child?” I asked, showing magnanimous good will and forgiveness.