The Nitrogen Murder (3 page)
Read The Nitrogen Murder Online
Authors: Camille Minichino
Tags: #California, #Lamerino; Gloria (Fictitious Character), #Missing Persons, #Security Classification (Government Documents), #Weddings, #Women Physicists, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Women Sleuths, #Reference
D
ana’s neighborhood in the flats, where the cities of Berkeley and Oakland overlapped, was densely packed with single homes and duplexes, mostly run-down, their unkempt front yards dotted with rusty toys and car parts. Battered old autos and trucks were parked bumper to bumper on both sides of the street. We’d been lucky to find a parking spot around the corner from Dana’s. I doubted the
chirp chirp
of Elaine’s car alarm meant a lot, but it did give some comfort.
ana’s neighborhood in the flats, where the cities of Berkeley and Oakland overlapped, was densely packed with single homes and duplexes, mostly run-down, their unkempt front yards dotted with rusty toys and car parts. Battered old autos and trucks were parked bumper to bumper on both sides of the street. We’d been lucky to find a parking spot around the corner from Dana’s. I doubted the
chirp chirp
of Elaine’s car alarm meant a lot, but it did give some comfort.
The sun beat down on us. I’d remembered to wear long sleeves for protection against the intense California rays, but Matt had on a polo shirt and complained mildly about his skin burning up. “Summer wimps,” Elaine called us both. Her sleeveless linen dress, a pale yellow, showed no sign she’d even sat in it.
As we picked our way along the broken sidewalk, skirting candy wrappers and cigarette butts, Matt assumed his assessing-the-environment attitude, scanning the area. The posture seemed incongruous with the pretty flowers he carried.
“Dana just moved in a couple of weeks ago. I’ve never been here,” Elaine said. From her tone, she may have wanted to assure us that she had nothing to do with choosing the shabby neighborhood.
Except for several rowdy dogs, mercifully behind chain-link fences, there was no sign of life on the street until we arrived at the house Dana shared with two roommates. Her door was
propped open by a large, bulging backpack. The purse of choice for recent generations.
propped open by a large, bulging backpack. The purse of choice for recent generations.
Dana’s house was old, built long before safety codes. The stairs were steep and narrow, with no railing, almost as precarious as the Rose Garden’s terrace steps, but not at all as attractive. Neither were the few roses in the small front yard. They hung limply from their stems, as if they were sad, having just heard the news of Tanisha Hall’s death.
I worried about Matt, who insisted on carrying everything up the steps. I strained to listen to his breathing, inexpertly evaluating his respiration. He’d awakened to news of a murder that affected someone close to Elaine, if not to us, and probably was concerned about my juvenile reaction to Phil Chambers. So far, not a fun vacation. I’d wondered about the wisdom of his making the trip in the first place, but his doctors enthusiastically had given permission.
“I was on the lookout for you,” Dana said, appearing at her door. “It’s hard to see the number here with all this greenery.”
She’d swept aside a hanging plant, her gentle voice and sad eyes belying the obvious strength of her body Fitting my stereotype of what an EMT should look like, Dana was tall and broad-shouldered; her long arms and legs, not very covered by short shorts and a tank top, were tanned and muscular.
Elaine embraced Dana, reaching up as high as when she’d embraced Phil a while earlier. “I’m so sorry, Dana,” Elaine said. “This must be just … incredibly hard for you.” The two women stayed together a moment or two. Elaine sobbed quietly; Dana stared over Elaine’s shoulder, her eyes ringed with red. She patted Elaine’s back, as if Elaine were the one needing comfort. My heart went out to Dana; I liked her immediately and pointlessly wished I’d been nicer to her father.
“We brought some sustenance from Fourth Street,” Elaine said when she broke away
Matt produced the food and the plant and a warm smile,
and we crossed the threshold into Dana’s living room.
and we crossed the threshold into Dana’s living room.
“Elaine’s told me all about both of you, and I’ve been dying to meet you,” Dana said, addressing Matt and me. “I’m sorry I’m not in better shape, but I’m so glad you came. My roommates both had things to do, and I told them I didn’t need them to stay around, but I really don’t want to be alone.”
I had the feeling this visit would be free of hidden, or not so hidden, hostility and resolved to give Dana’s father another chance.
We settled ourselves on a variety of mismatched chairs in Dana’s living room. I took a wooden rocker with a multicolored braided pad; Dana and Elaine sat on the floral patterned couch, which I recognized from Elaine’s old living room set; Matt dragged in a straight-backed chair from the dining room. I imagined three sets of parents, plus assorted stepparents, all contributing to furnishing the house for the three young women. I wondered what, if anything, Dana’s mother had passed along. Elaine knew little about Phil’s first wife, she’d told me, other than she now lived in Florida with a new family.
In spite of her cushy seat on the couch, Dana sat stiff as the bed board I’d used when I hurt my back lifting an oscilloscope. Her conversation was equally taut.
“How was your flight?” she asked. She swung her head from me to Matt, her eyes not quite focused on either of us.
“No incidents,” I replied, regretting my word choice as soon as I said it. Dana showed no special reaction.
“Don’t you hate airplane food?” Dana asked. She glanced at the buttery scones, the moist muffins, and the double-thick brownies we’d brought from Bette’s as if they, too, had been served ice cold, wrapped in plastic on a tray of questionable cleanliness.
“We stopped at the Rose Garden,” Elaine said, with no elaboration.
Elaine’s tongue is stuck, too
, I thought.
, I thought.
“Have you had your incident debriefing?” Matt asked Dana. I gasped, inaudibly, I hoped. He’d run in, guns blazing, so to speak, and addressed what was on all our minds.
Dana shook her head. Her long, straight hair was wet, as if from a swim or a shower, with no attempt at styling. “Not yet.” A weak voice, but on the way to opening up.
“You know, I’ve been there, as you can imagine.” Matt’s face was as serious as I’d ever seen it, as if he’d just been through a life-changing experience. He reached back into his pants pocket. “I made some notes. Might be useful to you.”
Dana looked at him, focused now. “Yeah?”
Matt patted his pockets. Front, back. Nothing. He clicked his tongue. “I guess I left them in the car. Want to walk out with me to get them?”
Dana pushed herself off the couch. “Yeah, sure.” She glanced at Elaine and me. We nodded back.
Permission granted
.
Permission granted
.
Matt stood and followed Dana out the front door. I heard their footsteps on the old wooden stairs and started at the loud bark of a nearby dog.
A moment later, Elaine jumped up. “They don’t have the keys,” she said.
I shook my head. “I don’t think they need them.”
Elaine went to the kitchen, leaving me with my thoughts about Sergeant Matt Gennaro, the man I was engaged to. I was proud of the way Matt presented himself to Dana, but something gnawed at me. I wondered how long you had to be with someone before you’d seen all his potential and knew all his secrets. Was Dana hearing something I’d never heard? Or was this just Matt and Dana, ES worker to ES worker, engaged in shop talk?
Matt didn’t tell me much about being in the line of fire. I could only imagine how frightening it would be to confront violence as part of your everyday work life. Had he witnessed the
death of a fellow police officer? A partner, as Dana had? A criminal? I was aware of some of the crises in Matt’s life. His wife of ten years died of heart disease, and he was still dealing with his own prostate cancer. What else was there? I chided myself for not being more alert.
death of a fellow police officer? A partner, as Dana had? A criminal? I was aware of some of the crises in Matt’s life. His wife of ten years died of heart disease, and he was still dealing with his own prostate cancer. What else was there? I chided myself for not being more alert.
Elaine’s return and the smell of the espresso she brought distracted me from further uneducated psychological analysis.
“It’ll be great if Matt can help Dana,” Elaine said. “We should have thought of that in the first place.”
I nodded and smiled, as if I’d done something good by bringing Matt to California just when it needed him.
When Matt and Dana returned, we decided there was time for one more round of coffee. “Then we need to let Dana get some rest,” Elaine said.
It was my turn in the kitchen, and I volunteered to freshen the mugs. No one mentioned Matt’s “notes,” and the atmosphere had become significantly more cheerful.
“You’ve done a nice job with the place,” Elaine said. She did a similar “nice job” of sounding sincere, considering she’d recently invested a month’s pay in a new carpet because the color was maybe ten wavelengths off from matching her new couch.
We all looked around, as if to verify Elaine’s judgment. It was clear that her evaluation didn’t include the pots and pans stacked on chairs and window ledges, nor the unopened cartons scattered through the common area.
A laptop computer and its peripherals occupied most of the dining room table. The cord was looped over the backs of chairs and along the floor until it disappeared into one of the bedrooms, to an AC outlet, I assumed. The living room had a badly scratched bookcase stuffed with paperbacks, and stacks of CDs (the equivalent of my old crate of LPs, I told myself ) were strewn around a stereo system. Two sleek, contemporary-style bicycles
were propped against the wall outside one of the bedrooms.
were propped against the wall outside one of the bedrooms.
If we’d been playing a game from a puzzle book—find the object that doesn’t fit—I’d have chosen the expensive brown leather briefcase, standing in a corner next to a
Whole Earth
canvas tote bag full of recyclable cans and bottles. The case was the attache style, thin and rectangular, with a gold spinning combination lock at the top.
Whole Earth
canvas tote bag full of recyclable cans and bottles. The case was the attache style, thin and rectangular, with a gold spinning combination lock at the top.
“It belongs to the guy,” Dana said when she caught me staring at the briefcase. “The guy Tanisha and I took to the trauma center last night—a gunshot vic. He had a briefcase plus a duffel bag.”
“So the person who shot Tanisha probably just got sweaty gym clothes,” Elaine said, sadness in her voice.
Dana nodded, twisting a long strand of brown hair in her fingers. “We usually make two trips into the hospital, the first one with the patient, of course, and then we go back to the ambulance, and one of us changes the paper on the gurney and cleans up whatever”—I tried not to picture “whatever” from an ambulance patient—“while the other makes a run inside with the patient’s belongings. But this guy had a lot of stuff, so Tanisha said she’d run in with the big duffel bag while I checked around the back of the ambulance for anything that might have spilled, and”—Dana’s voice cracked—“and then I’d take this briefcase and whatever else I found, like his wallet was on the floor, and some cards fell out and I wanted to make sure I got them all. And … I was sort of reading them, because it looked like there were a dozen IDs, all different. The same face. An Indian, I’m pretty sure. But different names. A lot of what looked like lab badges. I’ve seen a few of those. Now I’m thinking, if I weren’t so nosy, if it hadn’t taken me so long …”
Matt seemed to have unleashed a talkative Dana. A dozen IDs, that was interesting. I made up a quick story about how the patient ran an identity theft scam, then I clicked my tongue at my runaway mind. This new habit of seeing criminal behavior
everywhere must be a substitute for my former theorizing days in a physics lab, I figured, when an errant data point on an otherwise smooth curve might unleash one theory per hour.
everywhere must be a substitute for my former theorizing days in a physics lab, I figured, when an errant data point on an otherwise smooth curve might unleash one theory per hour.
Still, the man
was
shot.
was
shot.
Elaine moved closer and put her arm around Dana’s shoulder, handing her tissues. Matt went to the kitchen and brought back a glass of water. I sat, helpless, putting myself in Dana’s shoes, rubbery yellow thongs at the moment. I could guess what she was thinking. If she’d been faster, she might have been out of the ambulance and able to help Tanisha immediately; if she’d have been alert, she might have been able to warn Tanisha; if she’d gone out first, she’d be dead and her friend Tanisha might be alive. All the ifs and might-haves of survivor guilt.
It wasn’t too long before Dana was able to talk again, perhaps remembering Matt’s “notes.”
“I didn’t know what to do with the briefcase. I mean, Valley Medical doesn’t want it, right? So I called the police. I gave them all those cards that were in the guy’s wallet, because I’d already stuffed them in my pocket before I heard the … shots.” Dana cleared her throat and swallowed. “I didn’t think of the briefcase. Anyway, they said they’d come and pick it up, but I don’t know when.”
“I’m surprised they haven’t already claimed the case,” I said, looking at Matt, as if he were the “they” and not three thousand miles from his sphere of responsibility. “What if there’d been a bomb in it?” I asked, and immediately regretted it. We all moved back an inch or so and then laughed.
“Too late,” we all said, in one form or another.
“The cops wanted to question me at the station, so Julia, my boss, had to send a couple of people to get the ambulance back to Valley Med headquarters.”
“The ambulance was not the crime scene,” Matt said, as if to defend the Berkeley PD for not taking custody of a vic’s belongings immediately.
Dana continued. “And this guy, Reed, is new, so he thought
the briefcase was mine.” Dana slapped her forehead. “Go figure. He brought it here, thinking he was doing me a favor.”
the briefcase was mine.” Dana slapped her forehead. “Go figure. He brought it here, thinking he was doing me a favor.”
“And now here it is,” I said, nearly salivating at the idea of opening it. I stared at it, and then it came to me. In our midst was a briefcase, not a duffel bag. Phil had been correct this morning when he said a duffel bag had been taken from Tanisha. But how had he known? “Elaine, didn’t you say the shooter”—oops,
police talk
—“uh, the person who shot Tanisha absconded with a
briefcase
?”
police talk
—“uh, the person who shot Tanisha absconded with a
briefcase
?”
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