The Nitrogen Murder(72)

“I swear, Marne—”

Marne waved her hand. “I know, I know. Somebody had it in for you, too, I figure. You know, they come looking for one kind of drugs, and they find meds. I watch TV, and I think that’s not supposed to count. If it’s not on the paper and they find it, it’s rotten or something.”

“Fruit of the poisonous tree,” Dana said.

“That’s it. If I could afford a lawyer I’d sue them. But it don’t matter now. Tanisha is gone anyway.”

Dana nodded, but her mind had wandered, thinking how this was something else she and Tanisha had in common—they’d both been objects of police attention lately, though Dana had no direct evidence that the cops had been to her house; she just assumed they were the ones who took her stash. She’d have to ask Matt if cops could search without informing the person, either before, during, or after executing a warrant.

She thought back to her dates with the rookie, Derek. “Your senses cannot trespass,” he’d told her, as if he’d just come from passing a pop quiz with that question on it. “If you can see it, smell it, taste it, you know, the senses, then it’s fair game.”

So unless the Berkeley PD had smelled the little stash in her jewelry box, they had no right to take it, unless they had a search warrant.

What a lucky break that Tanisha was between stashes, she thought. But as Marne said, she was gone anyway.





Dana slipped into Tanisha’s nightshirt, a long-sleeved tee with a decal of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black, and about three sizes too big for her. She was so grateful to Marne for letting her stay in Tanisha’s old bedroom for the night, or for as many nights as Dana wanted, with no explanation. Which was good, because Dana would have had a hard time explaining why she was afraid to return to her own house. Even to herself.

She looked around the small room, one she’d been in a few times during their friendship. Dana had been surprised the first time that the room was so feminine. Not your typical firefighter-in-training decor. She guessed the ballerina music box was pretty old, but the collection of elephants that lined the dresser and shelves was an ongoing “thang,” Tanisha called it.

“I have a thang for elephants,” she’d say, laughing.

Dana recognized a spongy gray elephant she’d given Tanisha for her last birthday, and a small malachite model Tanisha had found in a hospital gift shop.

For Dana, her girlhood obsession had been shells. Real shells from walks along Monterey Bay, fake shells from souvenir shops on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, shell jewelry from who knows where. She wondered what Rachel collected, other than an enormous number of different colored beads to hold her braids and cornrows together.

Dana stretched out on Tanisha’s bedroom floor and started leg exercises. Flat on her back on the brown shag rug, she pedaled the air as fast as she could. Why did she bother paying health club dues, she wondered, when she carried out most of her fitness program on her bike or her living room floor? One twenty-dollar floor pad was all she really needed.

Dana remembered Tanisha kept a floor pad under her bed and thought she’d indulge herself in a little comfort. She shuffled sideways, spreading her left arm to feel the floor under the twin bed. Nothing within reach. She twisted halfway to get a better look at the whole area. Maybe Tanisha had shoved the pad under the bed from the other side. She shifted her body farther in. Dust filled her nostrils and she sneezed. The bedsprings were few inches from her face.

So was an envelope, stuck among the coils. Dana’s heart skipped. She jerked up and hit her head on the coils and part of the frame. She blinked her eyes and twisted around until she was flat on her back.

Leave it alone.

Not likely

She took a deep breath. She tugged at the envelope, a regular business-size white envelope, the kind you might a pay a bill with, held closed with a thick rubber band.

As soon as Dana removed the elastic band, the envelope fell open.

She couldn’t believe the police wouldn’t have found this. It didn’t say much for their thoroughness.

So, the cops had come looking for drugs, they’d found stolen medical supplies instead, and they’d missed this envelope full of cash.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Someone stole Dana’s Jeep?” Elaine asked. More a sentence than a question, as if nothing could surprise her.

“I don’t think it was stolen,” Matt said. “My guess is that Dana got a ride back here from the uniforms and drove off in her car.”

I tended to agree. In fact, I hoped he was right. Otherwise, I could imagine the buzz at the Berkeley PD. Gloria Lamerino arrives in town, and the crime rate shoots up. In a week we have two killings, a missing person, and now a stolen car.