The Nitrogen Murder(66)

I gasped and sat up straight. “She’s arrested?” My fault. I’d failed to account for Phil’s daughter in my dream world, where everything works out fine.

“No. I’m pretty confident they won’t arrest her.” Matt sounded tired, and I felt a pang of concern that he was overstressed. “They’re checking out her statement. Anyway, I’m taking her Jeep until they’re ready to release her.”

“Is that your news?”

“No.”

“I’m at the marina, in Elaine’s car.”

“Is that your news?”

“No.”



It wasn’t clear why Matt and I decided not to share our biggest news cell phone to cell phone, since they were better than landlines, as far as not being able to trace calls or set bugs. I’d brought my Galileo book and had read only a few pages before I saw Matt pull up in Dana’s Jeep. He parked it a few slots away and joined me in Elaine’s car.

“Want to walk on the pier?”

I pointed to my ankle. “Not today. I’m a little lame right now.”

“How did that happen?”

“I just … tripped.”

Matt clicked his tongue, willing to move on, but I knew he’d come back to it.

It couldn’t have been a more beautiful setting, in spite of our agenda. It was five-thirty still light out, but the promise of a magnificent sunset was ahead of us, with the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline as backdrop.

I wished we were on vacation.

“I know where Phil is,” I said.

“So do I,” Matt said. “You first.” Our version of cop banter, the kind that Matt claimed was necessary to survive day after day of stressful, life-and-death situations.

“I saw him,” I said. Meaning, I saw evidence of him. The way scientists say they see atoms.

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“He’s hiding out at Lokesh Patel’s home in the Claremont district. Remember the address was on Patel’s PDA? Well, I—” Oops. I hadn’t meant to be quite so open about my adventure in snooping. I swallowed. “He’s there, is what I’m telling you.”

“Am I going to be upset about how you know this?”

I gave him a special, distracting smile. My sweetheart. “Not too much.”

“Is that how you hurt your ankle?”

“Where do you think he is?” I asked. Using Matt’s own technique, answering one question with another. Not bad.

“Russell evidently took me more seriously than I thought the other day, and he did some checking on Phil. Pretty impressive, without a formal report. A Dr. Philip Chambers booked and boarded a flight to Hawaii on Monday night.”

I stopped in my mental tracks. “That can’t be. Are they sure?”

Matt treated it as a rhetorical question.

Elaine’s cold-feet theory came to my mind: Phil got wedding jitters, clutched at the last minute, and bailed. My spy theory wasn’t shot to pieces yet, however. I wondered if the mainland had extradition reciprocity with the Hawaiian Islands. Probably, since Hawaii was a state, I reminded myself. I’d been to Maui a couple of times, and to Oahu to tour Pearl Harbor, and while there I often forgot that I was still in the United States.

“What if whoever Phil works for—” I started.

“Dorman Industries.”

“I mean his … handler,” I said. “Like the KGB. What if they faked his travel?”

“The KGB is defunct.”

“You know what I mean.” I took a breath and formulated a plan. “I have an idea,” I said.

I dug my cell phone out of my purse and hit Patel’s phone number. An answering machine picked up immediately.

“You’ve reached 510-555-9712. Please leave a message.” A nondescript utility-generated voice.

“This is a message for Robert Boyle,” I said. “Please call Galileo on his cell phone. You have the number.”

Matt threw up his hands. He didn’t say anything, but I heard, Amateurs!





I knew Elaine would be wondering where I’d taken her car, though she was nice enough not to probe when I called her.

“We’re picking up dinner,” I told her. “And we’re cooking for you.”

“Thanks. I guess I haven’t been a very good hostess.”

“Not true, Elaine. Just have the coffee ready.”

I knew Elaine would have told me immediately if she had any news of Phil. Evidently Russell had charged Matt with updating Elaine on the whereabouts of her fiance. For me, I was getting to be a pro at withholding information from my friend. On the phone with her, I didn’t tell her that I was with Matt, that Russell had allegedly tracked Phil to Hawaii, or that I thought I’d found traces of Phil at Patel’s house. My evidence should also have an “allegedly” tacked on, I admitted.