The Carbon Murder(5)

We left Tomasso’s and headed for our three vehicles, having foisted the leftover pizza on Rose. William, her teenage grandson, was spending the night at her house, so we were sure the food would not see the light of morning.

I gave MC one last look that said, Please come home with me. She bit her lip and shook her head, ever so slightly. No.

Leaving me no alternative except to follow her home and see what was going on outside my old apartment.



It seemed perfectly natural for me to head for Tuttle Street, around the corner from St. Anthony’s Church. I’d loved my mortuary apartment, in spite of its proximity to scenes of mourning and its constant reminder of mortality. Rose and Frank had offered me the apartment on the top floor of their building, temporarily, to make my transition from California smoother.

The apartment above the funeral parlors of Galigani Mortuary had served me well, but it had its drawbacks. The smells, for one. I’d never minded chemical odors in the science buildings of my life, but the noxiousness seemed exaggerated when I was aware that a particular compound was being pumped into—or out of—“clients,” as Frank and Robert, his son and partner, called the corpses that arrived regularly at their door.

I’d considered eventually buying a small condo in one of the new high-rises that now lined Revere Beach Boulevard. A balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, with spectacular sunrises for breakfast. A salt-smelling sea breeze. The sounds of seagulls and breaking surf. Memories of my first job, selling cotton candy and then going home with sugar crystals stuck to my eyelashes.

But I’d ended up staying at the mortuary until I moved in with Matt. Why had I chosen the odor of restorative, wound-filling chemicals, the whirring of pumps and saws, over the smells and sounds of Revere Beach? Matt’s theory was that, deep down, I couldn’t stand the thought of living where in my youth there had been the world’s greatest amusement park. Two miles of thrill rides and food stands, a bowling alley, ten-cent prizes, and Sunday bandstand music. All gone by the late seventies, replaced by enormous apartment buildings.

“I think you’d feel like you’d sold out to the developers,” he’d said.

He had a point. As if my boycotting a one-bedroom condo with an ocean view would bring back the Cyclone, the biggest roller coaster in the country in its time, or the two colorful merry-go-rounds, which were more at my level of risk-taking.

I arrived at my stakeout just as MC’s silver Nissan turned into the garage. She had an easy time with her normal-size car, I noticed. I didn’t miss the times when I’d had to maneuver my Cadillac between a hearse on one side and a limo on the other. I was still driving the large, hand-me-down Caddie from the Galigani Mortuary, hard to hide on the narrow, one-way Tuttle Street. At least it was black, I told myself, and MC wouldn’t be expecting me to do something so silly as sit outside her building looking for her stalker.

Silly, indeed. I tapped the steering wheel, wondering what in the world I was doing there, parked across the street from a funeral parlor, other than reminiscing about my twin blue glide rockers, which I’d left for MC. I had a feeling that MC was not being completely candid about Jake and their relationship, that he’d been violent to more than MC’s dinner dishes, and I wanted to see him for myself.

But I’d forgotten to ask what Jake looked like. Skin coloring? Facial hair? A limp from horseback riding? And what might he be wearing? “Fine police work,” I muttered, half aloud.

And suppose I did see someone suspicious—what would I do? Shake my plump finger at him and tell him to leave my godchild alone, or else?

Like the rest of New England at this time of year, tree-lined Tuttle Street still had a wash of reds and yellows, startling even in the dim light of the streetlamps. Several times as I sat in my car I heard or saw movement, but nothing out of the ordinary. Teenagers hanging onto each other, a kid shooting hoops by the light of an open garage door, an older couple almost jogging. A dog-walker came by—a possible? I wondered if you could rent a dog to blend into an environment where you were stalking someone.

I liked the more ordinary living quarters I had now—the house I shared with Matt on Fernwood Avenue, just west of Broadway. It smelled fine, and looked fine, if not up to Rose’s standards. It even came with china and silver, from Matt’s ten-year marriage to Teresa, who died of genetic heart disease many years ago.

When the light went on in MC’s bedroom, I held my breath, as if listening for a crash or a shot. Nothing. Even so, I imagined different scenarios, none of them attractive. I punched Matt’s number into my cell phone so it would take only one button to ring him in case I needed him in a hurry.