The Nitrogen Murder(76)

“And he might have gotten anchovies the next night,” I said.

Elaine looked bewildered at that, but I didn’t take the time to explain.

“Hmmm, it almost looks as though you’ve been doing the work of a cop,” Matt said.

“I prefer to call it research, acting as a consultant, as usual.”

“You know what this means,” Elaine said, ignoring our banter. Her voice had all the confidence of a moment of enlightenment.

Matt and I gave her similar looks. I, for one, hadn’t begun to see the clear picture Elaine had apparently worked out.

“What does it mean, Elaine?” I asked, since she seemed to be waiting to deliver a punch line.

“Phil’s one of the good guys.”

I should have realized how much it would mean to Elaine for Phil to be the guy who was ferreting out a spy, and not be a criminal himself.

I gave her a hug. I heard the faint sound of wedding bells.

All we had to do now was straighten out a few loose ends. It was looking good for Christopher as the murderer, and I looked forward to working out the logic more carefully in a session with Matt.

And to luring Phil out of hiding and down the aisle.



Elaine went upstairs shortly after we heard the tape-recorded meeting between Phil and his boss. I heard a soft “Thanks, Gloria” as she left the room. She looked weary beyond words. I sensed that hearing Phil’s voice had brought her about a microliter more hope than she had the day before.

Matt and I called Patel’s phone number a few more times, to no avail, then agreed that we needed a fresh start before outlining murder scenarios and listing all the questions that still remained to be answered.

William Galigani called long before we’d had enough sleep, however.

“Hey,” William said. “I’m surprised you’re up this early. But I have some stuff to send you.”

I guessed this was a teenager’s version of you had to wake up anyway to answer the phone.

“What did you find, William?” Words spoken through a wide yawn.

“There’s no games on it,” he said, through boyish chuckles. William’s voice was in the transition stage; I expected any day to mistake his voice for his father’s, as had happened with Rose’s two sons. “And only a few hot chicks.”

“Nice, William.”

“Sorry, don’t tell Grandma, okay?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

And I wouldn’t, though I thought it curious that William was more concerned about Rose’s reaction to his little jokes than his parents’. But William had probably been up half the night working on my project, and he deserved a little fun. At least school was out for the summer and I didn’t have to worry about keeping him from his homework.

“Okay, well, there’s a calculator, and an expense sheet, and then some book downloader, but no books,” William said. “Then there’s some charts, with columns, like the first heading says ‘storage places,’ and there’s amounts, and it says ‘missing materials.’ I think it’s, like, a list of missing chemicals and stuff, plus dates.” The facilities Phil mentioned on the tape, with evidence that Patel was in the neighborhood during the time period of recorded thefts. “There’s a lotta equations, too, and formulas and reactions. They don’t look that complicated, though.”

“Do you recognize the equations from your chemistry class?”

“Yeah, they’re sort of like TNT and nitroglycerin and ammonium nitrate. Stuff like, you know, we studied this year, except there’s one term that might be off from that. Well, it’s hard to explain, but I’m just sending it all now and you’ll see what I mean.”

“Thanks, William. You’re the man. Is that the right expression?”

“Wow, Aunt Glo, you talk the talk. Call me back if you need anything else, okay? And, oh, I think Grandma is going to be calling you in a few minutes.”

“William, do me one more favor and tell her I’ll call her later. I’m just walking out the door.”

“I get it.”

When we hung up, I had the awful realization of what a bad role model I was to children everywhere.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Matt and I sat in front of coffee and sourdough toast, both of us a little bedraggled. I’d put a load in the washing machine so that at least our clothes would be fresh and unwrinkled. My brow, on the other hand, had felt more furrowed with each day in California. Looking back over the week, I realized our only crisis-free moments with Elaine had been our time in the rush hour traffic from the San Francisco airport to Berkeley

There was still no sign of Elaine from the upstairs quarters, and I hesitated to rattle around in the office, lest I disturb her.