The Carbon Murder(23)

I grunted and paced the thirty-foot expanse that included the living room and dining room, picking up a piece of lint here and there, ignoring the dust gathering in the corners of the hardwood floors. When the bottom level produced nothing inspiring, I climbed the stairs to the old guest room that was now my office. I looked with distaste at the pile of notes I’d accumulated for my next Revere High Science Club lecture, on crystallography, which had been my specialty in graduate school and for many years after.

The rain beat down on the roof, spilling out of the gutters, sweeping an idea into my head. The Science Club. I shelved the old notes. Another time. I couldn’t very well storm the clinic for medical information on Matt, but I could face the other, distracting loose end.

I pushed the phone buttons and tapped my fingers on my desk during the fewer than ten seconds I had to wait for the pickup. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been less patient. “MC. I’m so glad you’re home. I’m preparing a lecture on buckyballs for Revere High, and wondered if you could help me out. We could go for coffee and—”

MC laughed. “Aunt G, this is MC. Who are you trying to kid?”

“Busted,” I said.



MC and I sat across from each other at Tomasso’s Coffee Annex, at a table barely big enough for two espresso cups. We’d forced ourselves to make room for their pastry also, however, a maple scone for MC, a cannoli for me. We finished at the cashier’s desk just before a large influx of people who I guessed had come from St. Anthony’s Church, a few blocks away.

I knew MC had made yet another trip to the morgue to see if by any chance she’d be able to tell the police something about the ex-con who’d apparently murdered Nina. I’d been hoping she might recognize him from work, from teaching, even from her local supermarket in Houston.

“Nuh-uh,” MC said, looking down at her drink, stirring nothing into her espresso. “I’ve never seen this Rusty Forman before.”

I searched her face. I didn’t like the lack of eye contact.

“What do you think is going on, MC?”

“What do you mean?”

“Now it’s my turn—who are you trying to kid?” I kept my voice low, since the tables around us were now full, black wrought-iron chairs touching, back to back, throughout the small shop.

MC laughed, but only barely. I wanted to put my arms around her and protect her, as I did on a too-windy ferry ride from San Francisco to Sausalito when she was a little girl.

“If you mean Wayne and Nina and this Rusty, I really don’t know.”

“But … ?”

“It’s Jake,” she said, finally meeting my gaze. “He’s been calling, wants to see me. He’s at a big equestrian conference in New Hampshire and wants to stop by on his way back to Texas.”

“How bad was it, MC?”

She looked away again, her eyes tearing up. I could see her reflection in the shiny copper vat, only a foot or so away from us. “Bad enough.”

“Then why would you even think of seeing him again?” I hoped she wouldn’t tell me she loved him. For me, love was a choice, not an inevitable “falling” that you couldn’t get up from. But no one had ever accused me of being a romantic, either.

“Habit,” she said, and I sighed with relief. Habits can be changed, broken. Well, except for the one about eating cannoli.

“I know what I have to do, Aunt G. Get a life. And I’m working on it. I have an interview at Charger Street lab at the end of the month.”

“Wonderful.”

“In fact, it’s with that Lorna Frederick, the woman I asked you about. She’s been recruiting me for the nanotechnology team.”

“Would you be working directly with her?”

“It’s not clear. She has one of those jobs out here on the org chart.” MC leveled her arm straight out from her shoulder and wiggled her wrist to indicate a vague position outside of line management. “She has a PhD in chemistry and used to do real research, but now she manages programs. I think her title is ‘Special Projects.’”

“I have a well-connected technician friend out there. Andrea Cabrini. I’ll ask her if she knows her.” I made a note on a small pad I carried. “Lorna Frederick,” I said, as I wrote the name. It gave me a feeling of productivity, as if I could be a big part of MC’s life again.

MC gave me a big smile. “And—you’ll be proud of me—I also have an interview at Revere High later in the week. How’s that for moving right along?”

I sat back. “That’s perfect.”

I resisted the temptation to pat the top of her head in approval. I’d save that gesture for Matt.