Read Online The Hydrogen Murder by Camille Minichino - Free Book Online
Authors: Camille Minichino
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the
leaning tower of Pisa. They'd have to wait a month for the answer.
Peter walked me to my car and leaned on the window ledge as
I got settled.
"I'm sorry about last night," he said. "It's
just that I worry about you."
I was proud of myself for not asking him if he'd been
worrying for thirty years, or just since I'd been back in his life, for the
last two days.
"I'll be fine," I said instead, turning my key in
the ignition. "Matt isn't going to let anything happen to me. In fact, I'm
going to meet him at ten, so I have to rush."
Peter straightened up, his shoulders stiffening. "If
you change your mind about the dance, give me a call," he said.
"I will."
Driving off I asked myself why I'd deliberately made Matt
and me sound a lot chummier than we were. The answer had something to do with
teen-agers and dating, so I dismissed it in a flash.
With just enough time for a cappuccino, I stopped at a new
Starbuck's at the edge of Revere by the Chelsea border. I used the break to
switch my brain from one kind of physical evidence to another. I'd managed to
find an old issue of a science magazine that carried the original story of the
breakthrough by Leder's group. I looked over the article as I drank my coffee
and refreshed my memory of the experimental set-up.
~~~~
Matt was in his office when I arrived, seated behind one of
two completely outfitted desks occupying the small space behind a door with a
frosted glass window. The other belonged to his partner, George Berger, whom
I'd met on previous department visits. My memory of Berger, a short, heavy man
in his early thirties, was not pleasant—he'd made it clear from the beginning
of my contract that he'd taken physics in high school and chemistry in college
and didn't need my help solving a murder.
"You have any experience in detective work?" he'd
asked.
"Just a lifetime in scientific research," I'd
replied, less confident than my clever remark indicated. It was hard enough for
me to get over my feeling of intimidation simply walking into a building full
of police officers, in spite of only one moving violation in my thirty-five
years of driving. Just as every driver on a California freeway automatically
slows down at the sight of a black and white highway patrol car, I straightened
my shoulders and walked with careful strides every time I entered the tiny
high-security vestibule of the Revere police station.
"Here's her resume," Matt had said that first day,
holding out my complete professional history. Meager, I thought, fitting on six
pages stapled together, hardly more than a page for every ten years of my life.
But Matt made a lot of what he had to work with.
"She has everything but the Nobel Prize," he said.
"She has all these publications and she's an honorary fellow of three
different scientific societies." Overblown as his summary was, I was
grateful to Matt for his support. My pre-retirement research was of the
everyday garden variety, basic experiments on the properties of crystals.
Almost every workday for years, I'd plug away at some step in my experimental
procedure—zap a small piece of solid crystalline material with a laser,
collect the light that bounced off, put the data into a computer and analyze it
for information about the structure of the material. Not even close to
brilliant or award winning, but my perseverance and hard work had paid off with
recognition in my narrow specialty of crystal spectroscopy.
Remembering the interaction with Berger, I was happy to find
him out of the office as I started work on a new contract. Matt gave me the
schedule for the day—Jim Guffy was first, due at ten-thirty, then Connie
Provenza after lunch. He hadn't been able to reach Andrea Cabrini, Eric's
possible East Coast love interest.
"Let me give you a progress report," he said, his
voice soft and comfortable, but sounding more like a bank loan officer than a
friend. "First, I got a printout from Casey, our computer guy. I'm not sure
it's useful, but I'll
leaning tower of Pisa. They'd have to wait a month for the answer.
Peter walked me to my car and leaned on the window ledge as
I got settled.
"I'm sorry about last night," he said. "It's
just that I worry about you."
I was proud of myself for not asking him if he'd been
worrying for thirty years, or just since I'd been back in his life, for the
last two days.
"I'll be fine," I said instead, turning my key in
the ignition. "Matt isn't going to let anything happen to me. In fact, I'm
going to meet him at ten, so I have to rush."
Peter straightened up, his shoulders stiffening. "If
you change your mind about the dance, give me a call," he said.
"I will."
Driving off I asked myself why I'd deliberately made Matt
and me sound a lot chummier than we were. The answer had something to do with
teen-agers and dating, so I dismissed it in a flash.
With just enough time for a cappuccino, I stopped at a new
Starbuck's at the edge of Revere by the Chelsea border. I used the break to
switch my brain from one kind of physical evidence to another. I'd managed to
find an old issue of a science magazine that carried the original story of the
breakthrough by Leder's group. I looked over the article as I drank my coffee
and refreshed my memory of the experimental set-up.
~~~~
Matt was in his office when I arrived, seated behind one of
two completely outfitted desks occupying the small space behind a door with a
frosted glass window. The other belonged to his partner, George Berger, whom
I'd met on previous department visits. My memory of Berger, a short, heavy man
in his early thirties, was not pleasant—he'd made it clear from the beginning
of my contract that he'd taken physics in high school and chemistry in college
and didn't need my help solving a murder.
"You have any experience in detective work?" he'd
asked.
"Just a lifetime in scientific research," I'd
replied, less confident than my clever remark indicated. It was hard enough for
me to get over my feeling of intimidation simply walking into a building full
of police officers, in spite of only one moving violation in my thirty-five
years of driving. Just as every driver on a California freeway automatically
slows down at the sight of a black and white highway patrol car, I straightened
my shoulders and walked with careful strides every time I entered the tiny
high-security vestibule of the Revere police station.
"Here's her resume," Matt had said that first day,
holding out my complete professional history. Meager, I thought, fitting on six
pages stapled together, hardly more than a page for every ten years of my life.
But Matt made a lot of what he had to work with.
"She has everything but the Nobel Prize," he said.
"She has all these publications and she's an honorary fellow of three
different scientific societies." Overblown as his summary was, I was
grateful to Matt for his support. My pre-retirement research was of the
everyday garden variety, basic experiments on the properties of crystals.
Almost every workday for years, I'd plug away at some step in my experimental
procedure—zap a small piece of solid crystalline material with a laser,
collect the light that bounced off, put the data into a computer and analyze it
for information about the structure of the material. Not even close to
brilliant or award winning, but my perseverance and hard work had paid off with
recognition in my narrow specialty of crystal spectroscopy.
Remembering the interaction with Berger, I was happy to find
him out of the office as I started work on a new contract. Matt gave me the
schedule for the day—Jim Guffy was first, due at ten-thirty, then Connie
Provenza after lunch. He hadn't been able to reach Andrea Cabrini, Eric's
possible East Coast love interest.
"Let me give you a progress report," he said, his
voice soft and comfortable, but sounding more like a bank loan officer than a
friend. "First, I got a printout from Casey, our computer guy. I'm not sure
it's useful, but I'll
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