Elaine sighed heavily. I regretted every complaint I’d uttered, albeit to myself, about her bridelike demeanor and wished I could get it back for her. Maybe if instead of nosing around I’d offered to tie little ribbons around delicate, lacy favors, Elaine wouldn’t be in this predicament. But Lokesh Patel and Tanisha Hall would still be dead, I reminded myself.
“Someone at work, I think his name is Tom.” Elaine seemed to have pulled a name from a high corner of her newly furnished living room.
Matt and I looked at each other. What?
“You asked how Dana and Robin met.” Elaine managed to make “Robin” sound not like a lovely bird with a red breast but like an ugly witch to be reckoned with and from whom you needed to protect your family. “An EMT, Tom something, introduced them.”
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Matt said, rubbing his hands together. Exactly where, I wasn’t sure, but I admired his technique. A cop is always a cop, I thought, even on vacation in sunny California. “Did Phil ever talk about working with a scientist from India?”
“He works with people from all over the world, all the time. And I know he can’t talk about his projects, so I don’t question him about them.”
Unlike me, I thought.
I took a few minutes to explain to Elaine the importance of the work Phil was doing.
“Insensitive bomb materials? I remember seeing something like that in BUL’s annual report, the glitzy version they send out to potential funding partners. I thought it an oxymoron.”
“The term refers to how easily an armed and ready package might go off.” I reached over to an end table and lightly tapped one of her Hummels, a little girl with a red bow in her hair and a book on her lap. Elaine flinched, then gave me an I-trust-you smile. “You don’t want detonation at the slightest jiggle,” I said. “Insensitive explosives resist shock and temperature changes, making them safer. Insofar as an explosive can be safe.”
“She makes it sound so easy, doesn’t she?” Matt said.
I looked at the ormolu clock on Elaine’s mantel. Almost eleven o’clock. “Is it too late to go over and check out that briefcase?” I asked Elaine.
Elaine cleared her throat. “The briefcase is empty,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I thought about the ideal vacation Elaine, Matt, and I had worked out before our visit. On this Tuesday morning we’d be packing for a trip south, to Monterey and Carmel. I wanted to show Matt the Carmel Mission and the oft-photographed Lone Cypress Tree on the touristy Seventeen Mile Drive down along the Pacific coast. Over the past weekend, we would already have picnicked in Muir Woods, called “the best tree-lovers monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world,” by conservationist John Muir, and Elaine would have coaxed us into San Francisco’s downtown Museum of Modern Art.
As it was, between our arrival on Friday evening and now, we’d breathed neither salty ocean air nor fragrant redwoods. Instead of wandering the shops of Carmel (no great loss for me, I reminded Elaine), at one o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, we were climbing the steps of Dana’s Oakland house.
We’d agreed to go together to Tanisha’s service. Dana was feeling remorseful about not visiting Tanisha’s family in the days since her death.
“I’d like some company, if you don’t mind,” she’d told Elaine on the phone.
We both knew she meant Matt.
We’d had a roundtable discussion in Elaine’s living room before we left for Dana’s, still trying to settle on a strategy. To tell Dana about her father’s work with Patel, or not? Matt and I were pro, since Dana had already seen a Patel ID card for Dorman Industries. Elaine was con, arguing that we shouldn’t upset Dana any further “until we know what we’re talking about.”
I found it interesting that no one suggested inviting Phil to our meeting.
As I’d have predicted, Matt wanted to adopt a show-all/tell-all philosophy, including full disclosure to the Berkeley police. I knew he was uncomfortable withholding even the little information he’d picked up from Dana. This was a double homicide, and he had to have been putting himself in Inspector Russell’s shoes. I had the sense he’d call Russell no matter what, and that he was simply waiting for Elaine and me to come to the same conclusion.
“Matt would be able to find out if there’s any progress on the Patel murder investigation,” I said, bolstering Matt’s case. “Unless Russell found a package of rolling papers in Patel’s pockets, too.”
Matt gave me a look. You’ve made your point.