The Nitrogen Murder(70)

What she hadn’t counted on was seeing her boss, Julia Strega, one room away, in her dining room.

Julia and Robin were bent over pages strewn across the dining room table. When Dana walked in, Robin jumped, as if a firecracker had gone off. She came into the living room to greet Dana with a hug—when had that ever happened?—while Julia pushed the papers together.

“Hey,” Robin said, all cheery. “How are you doing, Dana?”

“Hey,” Julia said, with a guilty grin. She made a mess of the papers while trying to act casual about shoving them into a shiny gray-and-silver duffel bag.

Dana couldn’t think of any business Julia and Robin would have together. As far as she knew, Robin hadn’t worked at Valley Med for more than a year, certainly not since Dana had started there.

“How’s it going, Dana?” Julia asked, as if she hadn’t seen her in years, instead of at work that very morning. Then, “I’m just about to leave,” she said, without waiting for Dana’s answer.

Here was Dana’s chance to face both Julia and Robin with her questions: Robin, where did you get those new clothes (okay, not that important), and why was Patel’s ID in your closet (very important), and why did you change my incident report (most important)? Julia, what’s up with those phony invoices and listing me as a driver on calls to fake facilities?

Matt was a cop; he had to worry about breaking rules of interrogation or whatever, but Dana could just ask anything she wanted.

Julia had already swung the duffel bag over her shoulder and brushed past Dana, heading for the door. Dana needed to act fast. But another image came to her—Tanisha swinging the duffel bag that belonged to Patel. The same bag? Dana shook her head. There must be millions of duffel bags in Oakland, and half of them gray, but what a coincidence that this one, with its distinctive wide white zipper, looked exactly like the bag Tanisha had been carrying when she was shot, the one with Patel’s tennis balls.

Dana swallowed hard and pushed away the image of her partner sprawled on the trauma center driveway.

The whole scene in her house was very curious. And starting to get very scary. Julia kept going toward the front door. Dana heard her clump away in her clogs, down the outside steps. Robin faced Dana, her look threatening, as if to say, Go ahead and say something.

Dana went to her room and sat on her bed. She wanted to curl up under the chenille throw, but she knew she was too edgy to relax. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stay close to Matt for a while.

She listened for movement in the rooms outside and heard none.

She wished she had a lock on her door.



Dana showered quickly and left her house, slipping out her bedroom door, around to the foyer, and out. She didn’t know whether Robin was still home until she noticed her old blue Ford a half block down on their street. She’d wanted to pack some things and camp out at Elaine’s but decided to come back later with reinforcements, like a certain Massachusetts cop. Amazingly, she’d remembered to check her jewelry box for the stash. It was gone.

She pictured some uniform taking a toke at her expense.



Dana pulled the Jeep up in front of Marne’s house at about eight-thirty. She knew Marne was a late-night person and hoped she might be more mellow the later it got.

Up a flight of stairs from the street, ringing Marne’s doorbell, Dana didn’t feel any braver than she had when she’d seen Julia and Robin together. She couldn’t figure why the scene had freaked her out so much, except it was one more creepy thing among too many lately. Maybe Robin was applying to return to Valley Med, but she hadn’t mentioned it, and Dana hadn’t been aware that the two women had even kept in touch.

Dana couldn’t believe what a coward she’d been, not only abandoning her legitimate questions but cutting and running—a gutless wonder. And she was feeling more spineless by the minute on Marne’s front porch. She hoped Marne wouldn’t yell at her; she didn’t think she could handle it again.

No answer on the first ring. Dana thought she heard footsteps on the other side of the door and figured Marne saw her through the peephole. She pictured her friend’s mother scowling, hands on her narrow hips, as she was at Hutton’s Funeral Home.

She nearly cut and ran again, but instead she gave the bell a firmer push.

“Come on, Marne,” Dana said. “I just want to talk to you for a sec.” Her plea had been loud enough to penetrate the door, she hoped.

Maybe too loud. On the street below, several kids in baggy pants and sweatshirts stopped under the streetlight and looked up at her. Marne’s neighborhood—she used to think of it as Tanisha’s neighborhood—was an array of small, neat houses and mostly well kept front yards. The kids hooted and whistled. Though their gestures and taunts were obscene, Dana took them as harmless. Maybe this was the most interesting drama going on in their young lives. A white girl begging to be let into their neighbor’s house. In any case, they were certainly less scary than Robin had been earlier, in Dana’s own living room.