The Helium Murder(4)
“Well, her marriage lasted longer than any of mine,” Elaine had said, “so maybe there’s something to that.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
With Elaine on the phone now, I took the opportunity to talk about Margaret Hurley’s death and my idea that it might not have been accidental. I brought up the tricky helium vote and what I knew about Cavallo’s report. Cavallo worked at the lab on Charger Street in Revere, the same one that had a lot to do with why my left arm was sore, and how I’d come to know Matt so well.
“I was only kidding when I asked about new murders,” Elaine said. “You’re really getting into this homicide business. This is not the Gloria I know. I can’t picture it.”
“Maybe you should come for a visit and see for yourself.”
“I don’t know. I think I’ll wait till you have a real apartment. I was a little freaked out by your living situation. Is this congresswoman’s body going to be waked in your house, too?”
I drew in my breath at the reminder of where I lived. I carried my cordless phone to my rocker where I’d left the Globe and scanned to the end of the article. I let out a near whistle, and Elaine knew the answer to her question.
“She’s going to be right there in your living room, isn’t she?” Elaine said, mimicking the voice of the narrator of a scary radio show.
“Not exactly in my living room,” I said, straightening up as if Elaine could see my defensive posture. “On the first floor of the building I live in.”
Although I was getting used to having my home address constantly in the obituary column of local newspapers, I renewed my determination to look for an apartment in a real building, one with no noises from an embalming prep room or stacks of funeral-car stickers and prayer cards on a table in my foyer. I wasn’t about to give in to Elaine, however.
“I like this apartment,” I said. “It’s light and comfortable, and I’m settled in. You know how I hate to move.”
“Right.” Elaine laughed. “You only go for dramatic moves—leave your hometown when you’re twenty-two and don’t go back, not even for a visit. You stay in the same place for thirty-three years, then leave and return to your hometown. Doesn’t everybody do that?”
After Elaine’s call, I wandered around my apartment, unable to focus my attention on a single task. I took out my notes for the presentation I had to give in a week for my friend Peter Mastrone’s Italian class. After an unsuccessful attempt to renew our high-school romance, Peter and I were now working on an unsuccessful friendship. Peter had been unhappy about my work with Matt from the beginning, and except for the commitment I’d made to visit his classroom once a month, I would have enforced a no-contact rule.
Fortunately, I loved the interaction with Peter’s students and looked forward to the next visit, timed to coincide with the anniversary of Marconi’s invention of the radio—December 12, 1901. The overall theme of my talks was the contribution of Italians and Italian-Americans to science and technology. I gave the talks in English, but the students wrote their reports in Italian, thus helping me brush up on the language of my parents at the same time. There hadn’t been many Lamerinos, Galiganis, or Gennaros in my blond California neighborhood. People whose names did end in a vowel were more likely to celebrate El Cinco de Mayo, Mexican Independence Day, than Columbus Day.
After a brief review of Marconi’s wireless system and the first message transmitted across the Atlantic, I put down my notes and renewed my wandering. Thanks to Josephine’s neatness gene, even in my idleness I accomplished something, picking up a crumb here, a stray piece of paper there, straightening a pile of newspapers. My version of good housekeeping was much less compulsive than Josephine’s, however; I couldn’t claim as she did that “you can eat off my floors.”
Each time I passed my phone, I had a strong urge to call Matt. I had no such urge to use my exercise bicycle, situated at the foot of my bed, like a legless soldier with arms open to capture me.
I reminded myself that I’d see Matt at dinner with Rose and Frank in a couple of hours. I still wasn’t comfortable calling Matt “for no reason,” or just because I couldn’t wait to compare notes on an item in the news.
I walked to my window and studied my favorite scene—the Romanesque tower of St. Anthony’s Church outlined against a dull gray sky, streaked with a tiny remnant of sunset red. We’d had an early storm over the weekend, and the trees were heavy with snow. I mentally renewed my minority position that a murky East Coast sky was more soothing than the stark bright sun of the Pacific.