“You’re as curious as I am,” I told Matt, who hovered over me as I hit the keys and entered PHILIP CHAMBERS.
Matt smirked and opened his arms, palms up. “It’s what I do.” Detective Matt Gennaro’s trademark act, the one that always made me laugh.
I had no idea that another Philip Chambers was a movie and television star, with twenty-four movies to his credit. I scrolled past his fan club sites; past links to others of the same name who were lawyers and doctors; past a well-published Dr. Philip Chambers, oral surgeon and specialist in something called maxillofacial reconstruction, which I planned to look up later; and finally arrived at a P L. Chambers in a reference to a conference on nitrogen.
“Here’s something,” I said. “A paper delivered by chemist Dr. Philip L. Chambers. It’s on the BUL Web site, dated a year ago. It has to be Elaine’s Phil Chambers. He worked with a group developing a molecule with a combination of carbon and nitrogen, shaped like a soccer ball.”
“Didn’t someone already do that with carbon alone?” Matt asked. “Buckminsterfullerene, right?” He seemed very pleased with himself.
I smiled broadly and patted his forehead, which was sweaty, like mine. If I weren’t concerned about California’s outrageous utility rates, I’d have cranked up—or down—the temperature on Elaine’s air-conditioning unit. “I love it when you remember my science lessons,” I said. “Technically, any soccer-ball-shaped molecule is a buckminsterfullerene. The nitrogen version would store more energy than a totally carbon version—a tremendous amount of energy, in fact—and it’s a prime candidate for a new high explosive or a high-performance propellant.” I adjusted my glasses to peer more closely at the screen. “According to this, success was imminent, but they always say that. ‘We’ve made great progress,’ ‘In the next fiscal year,’ etc.”
“I don’t get why this matters,” Matt said. “What’s so good or bad about Phil’s working on a new nitrogen molecule?”
I shrugged. How did I know? “It’s just that here’s a guy, Dana’s transport patient, an Indian with multiple identities and laboratory badges. He gets shot, presumably over something in either a briefcase or a duffel bag, and there’s Phil, who seems to know the difference between them. And …I flicked my finger at the computer screen.”And here’s Phil working on a potential new weapon. Something any country would be happy to have.”
“Isn’t this a little too James Bond?” Matt asked, with good reason.
I shrugged again. “You read the papers. Think of all the recent true-life spy stories, at the national labs, at the Department of Energy.” I summarized the cases I could remember on the fly and ticked them off. The scientist who allegedly transferred American nuclear technology information to China. The supposedly accidental misplacement of a computer disk with classified data at a DOE facility. The Pakistani nuclear scientist who sold secrets to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Even a chaplain at a military base caught selling restricted data. “And those are just the ones we know about. James Bond is all around us.”
“Myself, I’ve been wondering about the bullet,” Matt said.
“Aha.”
“I’m sure the Berkeley PD will try to match the two bullets.”
I hung my head. “I didn’t think of that. It might not have been the same shooter for the spy and Tanisha.” Matt laughed at “spy,” but didn’t contradict me.
“Of course, if the guy lives and knows who shot him, we may have an immediate end to our game here,” Matt said.
A sound in the driveway brought us both up short. I quickly logged on to check my e-mail. I found a short thinking-of-you note from Andrea and a blank message from Rose. Her teenaged grandson William’s name was in the sender line, but there was no title and no text message. Rose had never used e-mail but had promised to learn while I was away. I smiled at the image of her sitting at William’s computer, annoyed at the icons and the cursor. I planned to phone her soon and talk the old-fashioned way.
We heard the sounds of the back door opening and closing, and then Elaine’s footsteps on the stairs, accompanied by her cheery voice.
“Warning, you two, I’m on my way up.”
I was sure Elaine meant her warning to break up a compromising position. I felt a pang of guilt that Matt and I were not under the covers but undercover at her computer.
Elaine stepped into her office, hands behind her back. “We have avocados, green beans, peaches, and …” Elaine pulled her arms around to the front and dangled a long, narrow package, almost hitting Matt’s pronounced Roman nose. Kettle corn, one of Matt’s favorite snacks. And hard to get at home in Massachusetts. Though the sweet popcorn dates back to colonial times, we’d seldom seen it anywhere but at West Coast farmers’ markets.