The Nitrogen Murder(4)
“Her partner?” I tried to recall what Elaine had told me about Phil Chambers’s daughter. Twenty-four, living with a couple of roommates in a house in Oakland, working to earn money for med school. Dating preference? Male or female, I couldn’t remember.
“Her ambulance partner,” Elaine clarified. “A beautiful young black woman. Tanisha Hall. I’ve met her.”
I moved closer and rubbed Elaine’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Elaine.”
“I just can’t believe it. She was studying to take the firefighter’s exam. She has a little daughter.”
Had a daughter hadn’t registered yet, I noted.
I continued my amateur massaging, though I wasn’t sure Elaine was aware of my touch. “You said she was shot?” I asked.
Elaine took a deep breath; her voice told me she was close to tears. “Dana says Tanisha was walking from the ambulance to the trauma center entrance. They’d just delivered the patient on a gurney, and Tanisha was taking his property in after him.” Elaine threw up her hands, as if newly surprised. Her voice became a whisper. “Someone ran up and shot Tanisha and stole the briefcase that belonged to the patient. And she died. While just doing her job.”
In the line of duty. So much for the taxi driver theory.
CHAPTER TWO
Granted, I wasn’t meeting Dr. Philip Chambers under the best of circumstances. He’d been interrupted during an important meeting the night before to talk to his traumatized daughter. She’d seen her friend and partner shot down in front of her. Phil may even have known Tanisha Hall and been grieving for her. On top of all that, he’d cut his hand making special hors d’oeuvres for Matt and me.
Still, I wished I liked him better. I’d always relied on my first impressions as holding true. I ran a checklist through my mind. Did his expensive-looking clothing intimidate me? Not likely—I wasn’t put off by Elaine’s cashmere sweater sets, nor by the dapper wardrobes of my friend Rose and her husband, Frank Galigani, the well-put-together mortician.
Was it his physical appearance? Phil Chambers was tall and thin; he had thick brown (I wondered about this) hair and wore strong cologne. Citrus, I guessed. Matt was short and stocky and odor-free, and his hair color matched my own more-salt-than-pepper locks. But I couldn’t imagine that was what turned me off about Elaine’s fiancé.
I hoped it wasn’t solely his opening remark when Elaine introduced us.
We’d all met for breakfast on Saturday morning at Bette’s Oceanview Diner, an award-winning Berkeley restaurant. Old-timers remembered when Bette’s stood out on Fourth Street, one of the few operating businesses for blocks, surrounded by abandoned factories and warehouses and gravel lots that were empty except for debris. Now the diner was physically dwarfed by gentrification. In the early eighties, we referred to the whole neighborhood, close to the Berkeley marina, as “Bette’s”; now it was “the Fourth Street Shopping Center.” I’d even heard “the Crate and Barrel Mall.” Still, Bette’s managed to attract both locals and tourists on its own merits, and in great numbers, as evidenced by the long sign-up sheet for seating.
Bette’s itself hadn’t changed much since its opening: black-and-white harlequin floor; long, shiny counter with swivel stools; authentic 1950s jukebox that crowded the minimal waiting area; and chrome trim wherever possible. Bette’s was always densely populated with the eclectic mix we expected in Berkeley Elaine and I used to play at naming the customers. The long-haired family in the booth next to ours today, for instance—we would have imagined the children’s names to be Sunflower (a girl), Redwood (a boy), and Mulberry (too young to tell). A twenty-something couple waiting by the jukebox, on the other hand, dressed nearly identically in khaki shorts and white tops, had to be Ashley and Josh.
Phil had been seated in a red Naugahyde booth when Elaine, Matt, and I arrived. He stood and shook Matt’s hand, protecting his bandaged left hand with his right underarm, then turned to greet me. His eyes narrowed as he half said, half asked, “Elaine tells me you have a doctorate in physics?” As if he hadn’t believed his fiancee and, now that he’d seen me, he was sure she’d been mistaken.
I called up a questioning look of my own. “And you have one in chemistry? Amazing!” I said.
Elaine and Matt laughed, both better prepared than Phil for the nastier, sarcastic side of me. Most people don’t expect much from a short, gray-haired female.
“We need a diner like this in Revere,” Matt said, redirecting our attention to what no one could be acerbic about. He slid in next to me and unobtrusively patted my knee. Relax. “I’ve been craving homemade pancakes, and I see that’s a specialty here.”