The Carbon Murder(3)

Our waitress, who’d come back to give me a fresh espresso from the coffee bar, heard that remark, too, I noticed. Her narrow, penciled-in eyebrows went up a few degrees of arc, generating tiny, fleshy waves across her forehead. If you have extra guys after you, send them to me, her look said.

“A woman named Lorna Frederick left a message for me this morning,” MC said. “She’s a project leader at Charger Street. Her name is familiar to me. I think she’s an equestrian, like my boyfr … uh, friend … Jake Powers. Do you know her?”

I understood why MC didn’t want to talk about an ex-boyfriend. No one in Revere had ever met him, but she’d hinted that it hadn’t been a happy breakup.

I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name.” The Charger Street lab, an R&D institution with government funding, was almost as large as the Berkeley University Laboratory in California, where I’d spent my career. Charger Street was technically a division of the Massachusetts University Department of Physics, with its main campus in Boston. I remembered a good laugh when my Berkeley friend, Elaine Cody, a tech editor at BUL, noted that I’d gone from BUL to MUD.

“So I guess you’re deciding between research and teaching?” I asked MC.

She nodded. “I’m torn, Aunt G. I loved the one class I taught, but I don’t know if I can give up research entirely. And Charger Street is working on very interesting projects, too, some really new carbon nanotechnology, which is like an extension of what I was doing, and what I’m most interested in.”

“At least she’s out of the oil business,” Rose said. “I’d rather tell people my daughter is a teacher, or she’s doing research, finding a cure for cancer. And look, she’s so famous, they know about her clear across the country.”

“Everyone knows everyone in the field, Mom,” MC said, smiling at her slip of the tongue, and at her mother’s pride in her. “It’s all part of doing research, Ma. I met a lot of the Massachusetts people at conferences.”

I nodded, knowing how it worked. When I was experimenting with titanium dioxide, I knew every person in the world who had a similar crystal, how powerful their laser was, and how far they’d progressed in characterizing the crystal coefficients.

MC turned to me. “You’ll love this, Aunt G. I got involved a little in buckyballs, and that kind of fun stuff, and even had one of my students do a paper on it.”

“Buckyballs! Pure carbon!”

While my eyes lit up, Rose rolled hers.

“You two and your science. But let’s not forget that the Charger Street lab has been a den of crime lately.”

I winced at Rose’s reference to my new career as a consultant to the Revere Police Department. Retired from physics—good, clean work, as my father had called it—I’d fallen into police work, helping the RPD with science-related cases. And many of those cases had involved the staff at the Charger Street lab as either vics or perps, in cop talk.

“Speaking of teaching—” Rose said. She paused for our laughter at her creative segue, then went on. “Mrs. Cataldo, your old high school chemistry teacher, was asking for you, MC. I told her you were coming home, and she’d love to see you. She’s at the senior care center on Pearce Street.”

“We should both visit her,” I said to MC. “Although I think she gave you better grades.”

“That’s because she was only ninety years old, and still sharp, when you had her. By the time my class came along, she was a hundred and fifty and only giving As.”

MC had the same smile as her mother, the same high-pitched voice, and I was thrilled to be with them both. Magnificent fall leaves outside and my two favorite women inside.

What could go wrong?

Nothing. Until Rose excused herself to go to the rest room. Once she’d slipped gracefully out of the booth, I hoped MC and I could sneak in a few words about buckyballs.

I pictured the buckyball molecule, made up of sixty carbon atoms, folded over into a soccer-ball shape, one atom on each “corner” of the soccer ball. After reading articles on the new material, I’d spent some time trying to think up a non-sports metaphor for the configuration. Maybe MC had some ideas.

But I knew I had to address more personal matters first.

“Is something wrong, MC? You seem a little distracted.” MC pulled her shoulders up, her neck almost disappearing into the ribbing of her gray TEXAS THE LONE STAR STATE sweatshirt. “Or are you just bored with the over-fifty crowd?” I asked, to give her a way out of talking if she needed one.

She leaned over and spoke softly, a catch in her voice. She pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her hands, further emphasizing her waif-like appearance.