The Nitrogen Murder(27)

I began to resent the simple bagel lunch forced on me by Phil Chambers.

I arrived at the library tired out from the hot weather and the slight incline of the streets I’d covered. I made another of my heat-of-battle resolves to exercise more, but a blast of air-conditioning and a long drink from a water fountain helped immensely, and the image of a Nautilus machine faded from my mind.

I was eager to log on to the Internet without looking over my shoulder, worried about whether Elaine would catch me in the act of Googling her fiancé.

As with the Revere Public Library, computer monitors, though welcome in my life, seemed out of context with the dé-cor of the beautiful old building. This Berkeley branch had dark wood bookshelves along each wall, intricately designed stained glass lamps hanging from the ornate ceiling, and a circulation desk so large that it appeared to have been ensconced on the spot before the building went up.

The library was crowded this Monday afternoon. My guess was that many of the older people browsing the magazine and newspaper racks were there as much for contact with society as for reading material. And I would have bet my latest Dictionary of Scientific Biography that it was cooler here than in their apartments and houses. The myth was that the cities and towns immediately around the bay, like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, never got very hot, so air-conditioning was unnecessary. It was true that there weren’t as many ninety-plus days as out in the valley towns, but when the heat waves did hit, the days were just as miserable, and no one was prepared.

I e-mailed Andrea, using the sloppy grammar and punctuation we’d all gotten used to in the electronic era. I felt a sour sun-dried tomato taste as I remembered lying to Elaine about nonexistent e-mail correspondence with Andrea over the weekend as an excuse to use her computer system. This will make it right, I told myself.

I hit the keys.




Andrea: M. and I having a great time out here. weather is *hot* but supposed to break well before the wedding. Wondering if u can look up something for me … anything on the nitrogen fullerene, and find out if anyone knows a Dr. Philip Chambers or a Dr. Lokesh Patel who might have visited “your” lab. not a rush, but if u have a minute, it would help greatly in my class prep. hope things are good with u and T. love, G.





T. was short for Thaddeus Jin, Andrea’s new boyfriend, also a technician at the Charger Street Lab. Some giggled at the notion of XL-sized Andrea at the movies sharing popcorn with the very small-framed Chinese-American Jin, but I was delighted they’d hit it off and that Andrea was more and more confident in her attractiveness as the wonderful person she was.

Not that I’d been quick to notice Andrea’s personal qualities myself. At first I’d seen her as my surrogate with a badge, helping me gain access to the personnel and informational assets of the Charger Street Lab. I now thought of her as my friend and not simply a resource.

Except for today, when getting information was at the front of my mind. I checked the time—almost five o’clock on the East Coast. Andrea would be heading home. I knew most of her e-mail activity was business related, but with me here on the West Coast, she might check for a message when she got home. In any case, I’d have something from her in the morning. If I could only get to a computer to access my e-mail without a major lie.

It was too long a walk and there were too many hills between the library and Elaine’s. I called to see if she could pick me up.

“Of course,” she said. “The flower emergency is over. You can come with me to check out the table linens for the reception. I’m not convinced they understand the colors I need now that my flowers are all different.”

“Table linens. Fantastic.”

Elaine laughed. “It’ll be fun, Gloria. There’s a great new coffee place right nearby. I’ll be at the library in about twenty minutes.” She took a breath, and I imagined her tucking strands of gray-blond hair over her ear. “Oh, and did I tell you? I found a new wedding book at the florist’s. I hope I don’t see anything in it it’s too late to do. Oh, that was a bad sentence, but you know what I mean. See you!”

I punched END and sighed. Bad sentences from BUL’s best technical editor? Where was my friend Elaine who subscribed to The New Yorker and read all the fiction and nonfiction nominated for book awards, who had season tickets to the San Francisco Symphony and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, who’d dragged me to museum exhibits on both sides of the Bay Bridge? She seemed to have disappeared into a shower of filmy white lace and linen. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d ordered a plastic bride and groom for the wedding cake.