The Hydrogen Murder (5 page)

"Then it would make sense that the killer would try to
remove all evidence that there was something wrong with their work," I
said. "And that evidence would most likely have been around Eric's
computer."

"Wouldn't the error in the data eventually be found out
anyway?" Matt asked.

Temporarily abandoning loyalty to my profession, I explained
that this kind of thing happened all the time. Not murders necessarily, but
borderline dishonesty. It wouldn't be the first time scientists exaggerated the
potential of a new technology in order to get funding to further the research.

Although I still didn't know the exact nature of the
discrepancy or error Eric had uncovered, I'd been around research science long
enough to make a good guess. I told Matt that the error wasn't necessarily an
incorrect number or calculation. It could be that the team had neglected to
account for some particular factor in their experiment, like a magnetic effect,
or a temperature dependency. In an extreme case, scientists who used
complicated computer programs to do their calculations could actually fake
data, by adding a line or two to their software that even another expert in the
field might not be able to uncover.

"Maybe a few years later," I told Matt, "the
discrepancy between promise and fulfillment would be obvious, but it could be
suppressed until long after money had been granted and large facilities were
built. And even then, it could be passed off as something no one could have
known before."

"Hmf," was all I heard from Matt, so I continued.

 
Reluctantly, I
gave him some other examples of this kind of incident, drawing from the history
of weapons technology and nuclear energy.

Matt had been taking notes with his right hand, holding his
sandwich in his left. He put down both, wiped his hands on his napkin, and
shook his head, as if he'd just heard about another pop idol on drugs.

"I guess I'm still naive about what goes on in the
world of science," he said. "I feel a lot more comfortable with people
killing each other over insurance money or large family fortunes. I understand
the motives involved in wills or domestic situations, but I'm out of my league
here."

The phrase "domestic situations" got my attention
and I wondered if I should I tell Matt about Janice. Not now, I decided. As
bitter as Janice Bensen seemed to be about her life with Eric, I couldn't
picture her standing in front of him with a gun and shooting three times. But
then, I was new to this life of crime solving, so it was hard to picture anyone
other than an obvious madman killing another person.

Awkward moment number three came when our waiter brought the
check. I reached for my purse. Matt smiled and held up his hand like a stop
signal.

"Department expense," he said.

Another smooth move. Like my late beloved Uncle Tony, Matt
had a left-leaning grin and a habit of raising his thick eyebrows when he
smiled. I mentally gave Matt a role in the fourth Godfather movie, which I
desperately hoped was in the works. I cast him as head of security in a
legitimate family pastry business.

"I wonder if you'd consider visiting the murder scene
with me," Matt asked, leaning forward to stuff his wallet in his back
pocket. His jacket fell open just enough for me to see the gun holstered in a
light brown leather case under his arm.

It was hard to play it cool, but I managed a simple,
"I'd be happy to."

"I brought this along in case you agreed," Matt
said, spreading a legal-sized packet of paper in front of me. Another charming
crooked smile.

I recognized the standard consultant's contract, like the
one I'd signed a few months before in Matt's office. Matt reminded me of the
conditions of the contract. I wasn't an investigator in the sense that he was,
so I couldn't ask suspects about alibis, for instance, or motive. But I could
be present when he asked those questions, and I could ask technical questions,
like how close was this research to achieving full superconductivity at room
temperatures?

He also warned me, as he did the last time, not to do any
personal interviews on my own.

"At this point, everyone who knew Eric Bensen and had a
motive and the opportunity to kill him is a suspect," Matt said. "And
we don't want you in any danger."

Matt had no reason to think I'd do any sleuthing on the
side. On my last contract, I'd stuck to the rules, and done only what was
required of me. Moreover, I'd never been one to take risks when it came to my
body or any of its parts. I wouldn't even consent to let Rose's hairdresser
have a go at getting rid of my gray hair. I was afraid she'd do just that, and
I'd be bald.

"I have no plans to play detective," I said,
breaking into what I hoped was delightful, flattering laughter.

But this case felt different to me from my one and only
other murder case. I'd known Eric Bensen and all the more obvious suspects
personally, and I wondered if I meant what I said.

CHAPTER
5

As much as I'd looked forward to going to the Columbus Day
parade, I agreed with Matt that we needed to get to the gas gun lab right away.
I left my Cadillac and rode with him in his unmarked beige Ford. He drove to
within a block of the parade, so at least I heard the band music, smelled the
popcorn, and felt a little vibration from the pounding of hundreds of boots
hitting the pavement at the same time.

"I could use my light and siren and plow through the
lines— get you really close to the action," Matt offered.

"I don't think so," I said, afraid he was serious.

We headed across town just after one o'clock, driving
through older residential sections of Revere that hadn't changed much over the
years, with small shingled houses and well-kept lawns, tiny by the standards of
the newer developments in the western part of the city. Most of these side
streets off Broadway still held enough tall elms and maples to give the city
the look of a fall scene on a postcard.

Matt wanted one more look around Eric's cubicle before our
scheduled meeting with Doctor Ralph Leder, the project leader for the hydrogen
research. We entered the building, made our way to the basement, and walked
toward the steep ramp that lead down another half level to the gas gun lab. The
crime scene tape was still hanging across the ramp and a uniformed policewoman
was sitting on a chair in the corridor. I remembered reading in the police report
that the security guard had found Eric's body at four in the morning when he
noticed that the ramp door was open.

"Pretty quiet down here," the policewoman said as
Matt greeted her and unlocked the door. Since she made no attempt to cover a
wide yawn, I figured she knew Matt from the station. Some parts of police work
are more interesting than others, I thought, happy to be involved in a new
puzzle.

The temperature seemed to drop two degrees with each foot as
Matt and I made our way down, putting this sub-basement at about forty-five
degrees, colder than the air outside. I breathed in the odor of rust and cold
metal and realized I missed walking around in places like this. I missed the
thick logbook that I'd carried around all day and my short white cotton coat,
its pockets cluttered with scraps of paper and small tools.

The gas gun lab was one enormous room, divided into sections
by a motley selection of drab green felt partitions and black plastic curtains.
To a layperson the multi-million-dollar sixty-foot gas gun at the far end of
the room would be hard to distinguish from the water pipes that lined the
ceiling. Tiny red and green lights from the row of high-voltage power supplies
called attention to the giant piece of equipment resting on brackets above
them.

The rest of the room in front of the gas gun, uncarpeted and
unpainted, held cubicles with desks and workbenches. There were no windows and
just the one door that led to the ramp and then to the basement corridor. Even
with all the overhead lights on, the room looked overcast, as if it might rain
any minute. It was easy to understand how someone could have entered and left
this isolated area unnoticed.

Matt took me over to Eric's desk, a few yards in from the
edge of the ramp door, his chair facing the entrance. I remembered that the
newspaper account said the shots were fired from a distance and I asked Matt
about it, since there wasn't what I considered a great distance between Eric's
chair and the door.

"A distance means more than a foot," Matt said,
and although he was anything but patronizing, I felt like the novice I was. I
made a resolution to check the web for police procedural information before I
asked any more stupid questions.

I stepped onto the plastic pad under Eric's chair for a
closer look at his computer system.

"Has anyone tried to pull up the last file Eric was
working on?" I asked.

"We did boot up the machine, but there wasn't anything
listed with a time for late Monday night or early Tuesday morning."

I told Matt that Eric was the computer genius of the
project, and that all of his responsibilities revolved around the software he
was writing. I couldn't imagine that he'd come here in the middle of the night
to do anything but computer work.

"I think it would be worthwhile to dig deeper and see
if a file was deleted by the murderer," I said.

"If it's deleted, it's gone, right?"

"Not exactly. If you just hit "delete," the
name of the file will disappear from the directory and you won't see it listed
anymore, but the file's still in there somewhere, and there's software
available that will allow you to retrieve it."

"I never knew that," Matt said. "Let's hope
the killer didn't either. I'll ask Casey over at our computer lab to come by
and check it out."

As we turned to leave, I looked at Eric's computer monitor.
His collection of action figures was there, but something about them looked
different from what I remembered seeing in the police photographs.

I made a note to look again at the photographs, which we'd
left in Matt's car.

As a small gesture towards health and fitness, we took the
stairs to the second floor. Leder was standing outside his office talking to a
young woman with the efficient look of a secretary. He looked past her and
walked over to greet us with a wide smile.

Leder took my hand and gave it a couple of light pats.

"How unfortunate to meet again under these
circumstances," he said. He spoke in low tones, looking down from his
six-foot height at Matt and me. I noticed how closely his gold-toned turtleneck
matched the part of his hair that wasn't gray.

To Matt he said, "I hope you're here to tell me that we
can have our lab back."

"We're as anxious for that as you are, sir," Matt
answered. "In a couple of days, I hope. First, I'd like to know more about
the project Eric was working on. Doctor Lamerino's along so she can translate
for me when we get back to the station."

Matt smiled at me when he came to the last sentence and I
felt a tiny, but distinctive twinge in my chest.

"Oh, Gloria and I are old friends," Leder said,
"Very bright lady. But surely you don't think Eric's murder had something
to do with his work?"

"We can't rule anything out," Matt said. "Do
you have information about another motive, one that doesn't involve his
work?"

"No, no, but none of us are angels, you know, and Eric
did have some problems that could get a man in trouble." At this, Leder
winked, as if we all knew what he meant.

"Can you explain what you mean?" Matt said, his
voice calm and casual, as if he'd done this before.

"Well, I don't like to gossip, especially when someone
is dead, but I think Gloria here will verify that Eric's wife Janice was
unhappy in her marriage and his girlfriend was tired of sneaking around. His
girlfriend on this coast, that is."

Matt and I sat up straighter at the hint of a girlfriend on
each coast. By this time we were all seated in Leder's office, furnished in the
typical academic style of leftover furniture and an abundance of posters
covering up an old paint job. The woman from the corridor came in with
Styrofoam cups and a pot of coffee. The woman smelled of vanilla musk; the
coffee smelled old and burnt.

"Yes, Eric had quite a thing going on the side,"
Leder said, "with our little technician, Andrea Cabrini. And this other
little gal in Berkeley. I thought you'd have found out by now." Leder
rocked back and forth in his chair with his hands behind his head.

"Did you tell this to the officer who took your
statement?" Matt asked.

"No, he was more interested in me," Leder said.
"Where I was—in bed with my wife, by the way—how long I've
known Eric, and so on."

Seeing Matt write 'Andrea Cabrini' in his notebook, I
assumed he was going to pursue this line of questioning. Instead he brought up
the subject he'd come to discuss.

"Tell us about the work Eric was doing for you. You
were directing his research for his degree?"