The Carbon Murder(28)

Were all these Texans in Revere specifically to see MC? It seemed to have started with Wayne, who said he’d come to warn MC of a threat from Alex Simpson, the buckyball researcher. Jake appeared to be seeking only MC’s affection, but I didn’t believe in pure motives.

I added a spoke with a question mark, to indicate the possible AS and the bad guys who were after MC, the ones who allegedly sped off when Wayne showed up. As far as I knew, Alex Simpson had never been seen in Revere, but I left his initials on the chart anyway.

Nina had a Galigani business card in her pocket but had made no attempt to contact MC. Murdered before contacting? I wrote. I still hadn’t heard what leads the list of telephone numbers in Nina’s pocket had brought. I made a note to check on it with Matt. It was tough doing police work when you weren’t a cop. If I were a cop in Houston, for example, I could knock on Alex Simpson’s door and ask him to explain every email he wrote this year. If I had any authority at all, I could phone the local FDA office and get an interview with whoever Nina’s contact was. I could open her office files and find out who hired her in the first place.

I knew the real cops probably considered the cases closed, but not me. Nina Martin enrolled in MC’s class for a reason, and that reason could be connected to her murder. In my mind, therefore, MC was still vulnerable.

The days were getting shorter, and even at four in the afternoon, the light was fading. I switched on a new halogen floor lamp, one of the few items I’d purchased for the Fernwood Avenue home. I’d fixed up one of the extra bedrooms with my computer desk and file cabinets, not bothering to change the bold paisley area rug that hid most of the hardwood floor. I thought how we buy things with the idea that we’ll live long enough to use them, that they will “die,” or wear out, before we do. We don’t plan on our lives being interrupted by disasters. Or by a Stage-II cancer.

I swallowed hard, and went back to work on my star.

Only Rusty’s motive for traveling across the country seemed clear: To murder Nina. But if Wayne was right, Rusty might also have had MC on his list, and whoever hired him would still be after her.

I tapped my keyboard. Why was all this happening in Revere? Was it just because MC had returned to Revere, or was there something else going on in Revere, even before MC got back?

I looked at my star. Probably because I was thinking of the Wild West, I’d drawn little filled-in circles at the ends of the spokes, like the rivets on a western shirt, or the logo for some Bar Star Ranch. All at once the circles looked like atoms. Carbon atoms. Buckyballs. Not sixty atoms like a real buckyball molecule, but close enough. Except for Rusty Forman, all the Texans had buckyballs in common.

Now it was easy. Where were the buckyballs in Revere? I asked myself. At the Charger Street lab. And who at the Charger Street lab had been trying to break into this star? I smiled at my cleverness. Lorna Frederick, I answered. Lorna Frederick, who kept calling MC for an interview.

It made so much sense to me, I picked up the phone to share my insight with the real police.

“I have something,” I said to Matt.

“Lorna Frederick,” he said.

I dropped my shoulders, slumped in my chair, swept by a mixture of disappointment at not being first and excitement at the verification of my star calculation.

“Right.” Too weak, I knew, but I couldn’t take it back.

I heard the wonderful Matt-laugh. “You don’t like sharing the triumph?”

“Of course I do.”

“Isn’t there something like this in science, where two people in different parts of the world invent the same thing at the same time?”

I resisted the temptation to explain the difference between scientific discovery and technological invention.

“Lorna Frederick was on Nina’s telephone list?” I asked.

“Right. Only one of many, but for some strange reason, I thought I’d take this one to follow up on. I’m going out to Charger Street in the morning. Interested in a consulting job?”

“Does Revere have a beach?”





CHAPTER TWELVE

That evening Matt and I took a walk along Revere Beach Boulevard. I loved the shapes of the pavilion and bandstand rooftops, some trapezoidal, others with a parabolic cross-section. They were a deep green color during the day, and darkened as the light faded. Beautiful geometric patterns emerged, sandwiched between the gray sky above the ocean and the now almost completely barren trees on the road in front.

The old-fashioned streetlights came on as we strolled from Revere Street to Beach Street. We were surprised at the low traffic flow along the boulevard.

“Everyone’s home watching Monday Night Football,” Matt said.