The Carbon Murder(92)

When the light turned green, MC pulled over to the curb. A new decision came to her. She clenched her jaws and nodded, as if she were agreeing with herself. She flipped through the CD holder on the passenger seat and found an upbeat jazz disk Matt had given her. She shoved it into her player and turned the volume up. She moved forward, got into the left lane, and made a U-turn, heading toward Revere Beach. She imagined herself standing under one of the pavilion rooftops, her breathing slowing to the sound of the surf.

She made a firm resolution never again to have coffee with anyone unless she wanted to.

The best thing was she’d forgotten to say where she was meeting Wayne, so she didn’t have to worry about Aunt G getting stuck with him.





CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Stay where you are, Matt had said, surely the most sensible advice.

I started the car and rolled out of the parking lot. A right onto the street would take me to the hospital, a left to Tomasso’s. There’s still time to be sensible. I turned left, my windshield wipers going more slowly than my heartbeat.

I punched in Berger’s cell phone number. When it rang through to his voice mail, I clicked off, not bothering to leave a message.

I made it to Tomasso’s in record time, in spite of a new downpour, ignoring the speed limit as if I had a siren and flashing lights attached to my Caddie. I’d hoped to see six or seven cruisers crisscrossed in front of the restaurant, but the street was quiet. I didn’t see MC’s Nissan, either, but realized it didn’t mean anything, since she might have walked.

I pulled up across the street from Tomasso’s and studied the exterior of the squat yellowish building. The right side, the main dining room, was dark, but the Coffee Annex on the left seemed busy as usual. Through the long narrow window onto the street I could make out a few people at the drink counter, several occupied tables and chairs, and the long handles of baby strollers.

Once again I was on a kind of stakeout without a description of the person I was there for. I let out a loud sigh. With any luck, I thought, Alex Simpson doesn’t know what I look like, either.

I checked my watch. Eleven-ten. MC had said she’d be here about eleven, but she tended to run late. Or, MC was across town in another coffee shop. That thought was too frightening to pursue.

I reviewed my options.

I could go into the restaurant and look for a Texan. I wondered what the chances were that Alex too had a handlebar mustache. I figured MC would have mentioned that at some point.

Be more specific, I told myself, look for a man—did I know his age? He’d be old enough to run a major science program, and he’d be sitting alone. Looking like a killer.

I got out of my car to the sound of ding ding ding. My keys. Not that I was nervous.

At the last minute I decided not to enter through the front door. What if Alex had a gun pointed and ready as soon as MC gave a sign that she recognized me? What if he was shooting everyone coming through the door? That theory was happily blown when an old man with a cane entered and I heard no shots or sounds of struggle.

There was a small alley around the side of the restaurant, along the left wall of the building, on the Coffee Annex side. In the old days of the bakery, I remembered, there was a delivery door there.

I got back in my car and drove up the block and around so that I was now one half a building past the restaurant, on the same side of the street. From this position, I could exit my car and walk around the front of it, and then down the alley without being seen by the people in the shop.

I got out again, this time remembering to take my keys.

Thanks to unpredictable weather the last few days, I was wearing my flat, black boots, comfortable and rubber-soled. Quiet, as the shoes of a scout should be. There was no window along the wall, no opening except the old delivery door with a new-looking storm door in front of it. A narrow overhang prevented me from getting soaked. I made my way down the alley, keeping my back against the wall. Another jacket lost to the job, I thought, as I heard the scraping of the rayon against the rough wood.

In front of me was the yard to the next house, raised off the sidewalk and surrounded by a chain-link fence. If anyone were looking out the top window, what would they think? The senior-citizen branch of the CIA let loose on the street? An inmate from the nearest asylum? I picked my way through orange peels and halfcrushed soda cups and straws. And Styrofoam to-go containers, to remind me of Matt waiting for me at the hospital. I took the reminder as a signal to turn off my cell phone, in case he tried to call me. Wouldn’t that make an amusing headline on the police blotter—RESCUE ATTEMPT FOILED WHEN CELL PHONE RINGS.

I could hear crowd noises from inside the shop, but not too loud, with background music that could have been classical jazz or some other instrumental strains. I pictured the interior of the restaurant just behind the door. I’d been inside enough times and had a clear memory of the rest rooms at the back, beyond the door, between the main dining room and the coffee shop. When I entered the door, I’d be not quite that far back, but in front of the kitchen area and directly behind the famous, enormous copper vat.