The Helium Murder(26)
Two short letters from Patrick Gallagher carried the threat of suicide if Hurley didn’t take him back. “How can you let a career in corruption keep us apart,” were his exact words in one of them.
Two long letters, several pages each, from Vincent Cavallo, were reasoned pleas for Hurley to reconsider his proposal for upgrading the helium facility instead of scrapping it. Hurley had attached her responses with paper clips. Put briefly, the answer was no.
The letter from Carey was the most revealing. It read, in part: “I strongly urge you to continue the relationship you’ve had with our firm. I’m sure neither of us would profit from letting your colleagues or the general public in on our agreements.”
“So, Hurley got him the contracts in the first place,” I said.
“Something to ask him about,” Matt said, checking his watch. “How convenient that we’re on our way to Chelsea.”
We rode in one of the RPD’s unmarked sedans, a beige four-door decorated with white swirls from the remains of snow and rock salt. It occurred to me that Matt and I did a lot of our talking in cars. I was beginning to know his right profile very well, from the tiny mole on his ample Roman nose to the wrinkled collar of his soft blue shirt. More often than not, we were on the way to or from interviews with murder suspects. It worried me a little that I liked this getting-to-know-you scenario more than the usual ones, like cocktail talk or blind dates.
“Did you have a chance to ask Rose or Frank about Saturday night?” Matt asked.
“Yes, they’re free and would love to go,” I said, understating Rose’s excitement by a lot. “I’m looking forward to hearing the new and improved audio system that Symphony Hall has been advertising.”
“I don’t do this very often, you know.”
“You mean fraternize with your PSAs?” I asked, referring to our Personal Services Agreement.
“That, too,” he said, with a laugh.
“I hope you like it. You can have a preview if you like—I have The Messiah on disc.”
“Maybe I’ll do that. Are you as good at teaching music as you are science?”
Blushing is not as bad when you’re in a car, I thought, and maybe that’s why I like this side-by-side arrangement.
“Thanks,” I said. “I hope I’ve been some help.”
Matt turned to look at me briefly.
“More than you know,” he said, and this time I was sure he caught my blush.
When we pulled into the parking lot at CompTech, I was almost relieved. I didn’t know how many compliments I could take from Matt in one day.
CompTech was behind a market I remembered going to as a child with Josephine. I had a clear memory of standing in line with her to exchange stamps for government-controlled items like butter and sugar. Like my other memories of World War II, however, I wasn’t sure whether I actually experienced the event or simply thought I did because I’d heard the stories over and over. Well into my teens in the late fifties, my aunts and uncles spoke of victory gardens, stamps for gasoline and alcohol, and ticker-tape parades as if they’d happened the day before.
CompTech’s Chelsea operation was unimposing—a small office off a reception area, and a modest manufacturing section at the back. All the doors were open, and every room was visible from where we stood in the foyer.
The noisy back room had a dark concrete floor, lined with bulky metal tables. Men and women in unisex gray overalls sat on stools and in front of workbenches cluttered with tools and papers. A far cry from what I’d pictured when I thought of computer manufacturing—I’d envisioned rows of silent workers, clad in white from head to toe, in a meticulously clean room, using nanosized instruments.
“We have an appointment with Mr. Carey,” Matt told the young receptionist, as if we couldn’t see him, all six-one of him, standing behind the desk in an office a few feet away.
Carey was on the telephone, motioning to us with his free hand to enter. The receptionist seemed insistent on protocol, however, and ushered us in with a slight bow.
Near the door was an open box full of circuit boards in the shade of green familiar to anyone who’s looked at the innards of a computer or any other piece of nineties electronics.
“This is all we do here,” Carey said, pointing to the box and anticipating my question. He’d come around the front of the desk, towering over both of us.
“Just the boards. The chips are made at our main plant in Amarillo. We have three hundred thousand square feet down there in Texas,” he said, feeding into my stereotype that everything in the Lone Star State is enormous. Carey certainly was—as wide as a steer, I thought, with a healthy amount of dark brown hair and a flat, square face with enough wrinkles to put him at about sixty years old, I guessed.