The Nitrogen Murder(75)

“Phil is very smart,” Elaine said, as if she’d been trying to tell us this for a long time and we were getting it at last. I wondered if she felt a bit of relief, just hearing her fiance’s voice. “‘Howard’ must be Howard Christopher, Phil’s boss.”

Matt nodded. “Gloria and I met him at Dorman the other day.”

I was itchy to push PLAY, which Elaine finally did.

“What do you have so far?” Howard Christopher’s voice.

“I have more than enough to take this to the next level. First, as I told you, I’ve been tracking missing nitrogen in Washington’s database of special substances. You can see from this table”—(rustling)—“that Patel has been at the site in all these highlighted cases.”

“Phil’s giving us a review,” Matt said, nodding approvingly.

“We’ve been over this. So Patel was in the vicinity of reported material losses. That could be coincidence. The man travels a lot.”

“You sound like you don’t want him to be guilty.”

“Not at all. I’m just trying to keep you honest, Chambers. (laugh) I want to get to the bottom of this more than you do. When you came to me with this, what did I do? I gave you a full go-ahead, relieved you of other duties. You know that.”

“Okay, you’re right. I’m just telling you now what I’ve found out. I told you I saw Patel download from the classified system in the VTR. I walked in on him and he tried to cover it up, but I’m positive that’s what he was doing. Our work is paid for by the U.S. government, and that’s all who’s meant to see it. Patel is stealing.”

“Let’s say he is stealing. What’s he going to do with the information?”

“He could have been transferring everything we’ve been working on. Those files contain all the equations for nitrogen-enhanced molecules and all the device designs.”

“And what’s he doing with them, in your view?”

“Making money, I presume. India is, what, third place in the world economy? We’ve been hearing for years that it wants to become a member of the nuclear club.”

“This isn’t nuclear.”

“No, but it would go a long way toward getting them into the big weapons club.”

“And isn’t this a little racist, Chambers? Just because the guy’s Indian?”

“Okay, some other country. He could be sending the stuff anywhere.”

“You know, Patel could also have been uploading, not downloading. Maybe his only violation was to use a classified computer to upload his PDA calendar with his kids’ birthdays, for God’s sake.”

“He doesn’t have kids.”

“Geez, Chambers, maybe it was his tee times. You can’t be sure he was downloading classified information.”

(Exasperated grunt) “You’re right, Howard. So, you want me to back off?”

(Sigh) “Yeah, you get back to work, Chambers. We need you back on the bench. I’ll take it from here.”

The machine went silent, except for the whiny noise of the clutch. The meeting, obviously held before Patel’s murder, appeared to be over.

“Phil might have taped this for his own protection,” Matt said. “Maybe he’d begun to suspect his boss of being in on it.”

“It being some kind of industrial espionage or even national security violations,” I said. Aren’t you sorry you didn’t pay more attention to my nitrogen lesson? I thought, but considered it too flip to say at the moment. “And that’s why he mailed the PDA to me instead of turning it over to his boss.”

“Why not the police?” Elaine asked.

“No context,” Matt said. “If I were the cop who got this, I’d need a long explanation. On its face, there’s nothing but two guys disagreeing about a third.”

“But the third one is dead,” Elaine said.

No one mentioned the “missing” status of the second one.

Matt yawned. As much as I felt we were making progress, I wanted us all to retire for the night.

“I’m not saying Phil made the right choice. But he knew Gloria was investigating.” Matt ticked off the evidence. “She asked him pointed questions at lunch—”

I felt my face flush. “You weren’t there.”

“Did you?”

“Lucky guess,” I said.

“Let’s say it is Phil at the house. He probably saw her the first time. He’d have to wonder how she got the address and realize she’d accessed the PDA.”

“She could have gotten the address from the police,” Elaine said.

“Not likely,” Matt said, apparently thinking, as I was, that the police were not bending over backward to include us in their investigation, nor to share information. “Then, if he had any doubt, she left the Robert Boyle message.”