I headed back to the area where I’d left Matt, my arms full of books, prepared to lecture, as he called my explanations, on the conversion of nitrogen dioxide to nitrogen gas.
I was within a few yards of Matt when I noticed he wasn’t alone. He was deep in conversation with a tall, thin woman who sat on the chair next to him.
I stopped short and thrust my head forward to see more clearly, though I had little doubt who it was. The woman, wearing an olive green skirt with sandals to match—the only person in the school library dressed for tea—was Elaine Cody.
My unsettling first thought was that Elaine had our luggage out in the trunk of her car. My second was that Matt must have called her as soon as we arrived in the building, on his alleged restroom trip.
I had no time to decide whether that should annoy me or thrill me. First Dana, now Elaine. Matt seemed to be headed for a career in HR, taking over the human relations part of this trip.
I dropped the books on the nearest table and walked toward Matt and Elaine. I was prepared to drop the whole business, too, if that’s what it took, if that was the price of repairing our friendship.
I greeted Elaine with a hug that threatened to wrinkle her white sleeveless shell.
Matt stood by as we uttered mutual apologies and forgiveness. If any of the other library patrons noticed the display, they gave no sign.
When Elaine stepped back, she dabbed at her eyes with her left hand and held up her right, in the halt position. “Before we go any further I need to tell you really what brought me here.” She looked at Matt. “Besides Matt’s phone call.”
Uh-oh, I thought, the bags are in her car. “Elaine, I promise—”
She shook her head, causing her long gold and green-glass earrings, which I’d sent for her birthday one year, to swing. “I went to Phil’s place as soon as you left the house, Gloria. I needed to talk to him or just … I needed him. He didn’t answer, so I let myself in, thinking he was upstairs in the back, in his office, where he might not hear the bell. Well, he wasn’t home, but you’ll never guess what was in his office.”
With her rambling sentences, she sounded more like Rose than the old Elaine, a sign of her high stress level. Then it hit me. I had a pretty good idea what she’d seen in her fiancé’s office.
“The briefcase,” I said.
Elaine nodded; her eyes filled up.
“We’re going to figure this out,” I said. “Now that we’re all together.”
Back in Elaine’s living room—never was there such a welcome sight—I tried to express my regrets once more about my inappropriate snooping. I didn’t want Elaine to think I was happy to have been correct about Phil’s involvement, however slight it might turn out to be, in the deaths of Tanisha Hall and Lokesh Patel.
“There may be a perfectly innocent explanation,” Matt said. I agreed, showing more enthusiasm than I felt. I’d learned my lesson.
“Right now, I just want to help straighten all this out,” Elaine said.
Since she didn’t believe Matt and I could have had a satisfactory dinner, Elaine had laid out a spread of berries, California cheeses, and small cocktail breads. I’d long ago decided that food eaten under stressful conditions didn’t count as caloric intake. I cut into the white slab of Monterey jack, decorated my dessert plate with strawberries and a handful of See’s chocolate-covered raisins, and settled into one of the burgundy leather easy chairs.
“We have some questions,” Matt said, arranging snacks on his plate. “Could help clear things up. First would be, do you know how Dana met Robin?”
Elaine’s red-rimmed eyes widened. “Robin Kirsch? Dana’s roommate? Is she involved in all this?”
Matt updated Elaine on the few scattered facts we had: the deceased Lokesh Patel’s Dorman Industries ID card, found in Robin’s closet; her expensive new wardrobe; the slew of coauthored scientific papers showing that Phil had lied to me about his association with Patel, the topic of those papers being weapons research; how Robin most likely altered Dana’s report concerning drugs being involved in the incident that took Tanisha’s life; the missing, now located, briefcase.
“What if Phil and Robin are … involved involved?” Elaine asked, placing her mug on the coffee table. She hadn’t taken any food from the lovely three-tiered serving set, though I was sure she hadn’t had dinner.
I saw that Elaine was still operating on the personal level, as if she preferred that Phil turn out to be a traitor to his country rather than an unfaithful fiancé.
“It might be bigger than that, Elaine,” I said. Another blunder, implying I didn’t think her engagement to Phil was a big deal. I hurried to add, “I mean it might have to do with national security.”