The Nitrogen Murder(9)

Matt seemed to have unleashed a talkative Dana. A dozen IDs, that was interesting. I made up a quick story about how the patient ran an identity theft scam, then I clicked my tongue at my runaway mind. This new habit of seeing criminal behavior everywhere must be a substitute for my former theorizing days in a physics lab, I figured, when an errant data point on an otherwise smooth curve might unleash one theory per hour.

Still, the man was shot.

Elaine moved closer and put her arm around Dana’s shoulder, handing her tissues. Matt went to the kitchen and brought back a glass of water. I sat, helpless, putting myself in Dana’s shoes, rubbery yellow thongs at the moment. I could guess what she was thinking. If she’d been faster, she might have been out of the ambulance and able to help Tanisha immediately; if she’d have been alert, she might have been able to warn Tanisha; if she’d gone out first, she’d be dead and her friend Tanisha might be alive. All the ifs and might-haves of survivor guilt.

It wasn’t too long before Dana was able to talk again, perhaps remembering Matt’s “notes.”

“I didn’t know what to do with the briefcase. I mean, Valley Medical doesn’t want it, right? So I called the police. I gave them all those cards that were in the guy’s wallet, because I’d already stuffed them in my pocket before I heard the … shots.” Dana cleared her throat and swallowed. “I didn’t think of the briefcase. Anyway, they said they’d come and pick it up, but I don’t know when.”

“I’m surprised they haven’t already claimed the case,” I said, looking at Matt, as if he were the “they” and not three thousand miles from his sphere of responsibility. “What if there’d been a bomb in it?” I asked, and immediately regretted it. We all moved back an inch or so and then laughed.

“Too late,” we all said, in one form or another.

“The cops wanted to question me at the station, so Julia, my boss, had to send a couple of people to get the ambulance back to Valley Med headquarters.”

“The ambulance was not the crime scene,” Matt said, as if to defend the Berkeley PD for not taking custody of a vic’s belongings immediately.

Dana continued. “And this guy, Reed, is new, so he thought the briefcase was mine.” Dana slapped her forehead. “Go figure. He brought it here, thinking he was doing me a favor.”

“And now here it is,” I said, nearly salivating at the idea of opening it. I stared at it, and then it came to me. In our midst was a briefcase, not a duffel bag. Phil had been correct this morning when he said a duffel bag had been taken from Tanisha. But how had he known? “Elaine, didn’t you say the shooter”—oops, police talk—“uh, the person who shot Tanisha absconded with a briefcase?”

“Yes, I guess I did. I must have heard Dana wrong last night.”

“But at breakfast, Phil said the murderer took a duffel bag. Did you tell your dad it was a duffel bag, Dana?”

Dana shook her head. “No, I don’t think I went into that kind of detail with Dad.”

“I’m the one who told Phil about the briefcase,” Elaine said. “Or maybe I did say duffel bag.” She waved her hand. “Who knows what we said, with all this confusion.” She gave me a strange look, as if to ask why any of this was important.

Matt’s look, however, was quite different.

I could hardly wait for a private talk.



“I see where you’re going with this, Gloria,” Matt said the next time we were alone. It was late that afternoon, back at Elaine’s, when she left us to make some phone calls. Matt shook his head, put his hand under my chin, and stared into my eyes. “You’re as bad on vacation as when you’re on the job in Revere.”

At least he followed the scolding with a kiss.

“Just hear me out,” I said. “Assume Dana got it right the first time and told Elaine the shooter took a duffel bag. Elaine doesn’t own a duffel bag. She wouldn’t be caught dead—uh, she would never own one. She thinks they’re sweaty when they’re brand-new. So she probably translated it in her mind to a briefcase. Then she tells us, and Phil, it was a briefcase that got stolen, but Phil knows it was a duffel bag.”

“How would he know that?”

“Exactly.”



Between the hearty brunch and the snacks at Dana’s, none of us wanted dinner on Saturday evening, so we settled for a liqueur from Elaine’s vast store. Neither Matt nor I drink alcoholic beverages, but we both feel that liqueur is more dessert than liquor. This one was coffee flavored and lovely to look at in Elaine’s special crystal. I hoped I’d be able to control my clumsy fingers, more used to holding tumblers bought in sets of eight at the supermarket.