Free The Hydrogen Murder by Camille Minichino Page A

ragged
clothing and a scruffy beard. They entered the same door I was exiting and as
we passed I nearly gagged on the odor. Maybe I'm in the wrong business, I
thought.
    But after a refreshing walk along the busy street I got my
perspective back. A scoop of mocha almond fudge from the Lantern Dairy helped.
As usual, I felt guilty abandoning my resolve to give up desserts until I lost
at least ten pounds. I ate right past the feeling, holding the sweet-smelling
sugar cone far from my body so I wouldn't spill ice cream on my blouse.
    I had a lot of company as I walked, passing men and women in
stiff business suits talking about prime rates and real estate. I passed the
Revere Journal office and interrupted deliveries to several merchants as I
stepped around open trap doors in the sidewalk. I didn't recognize anyone and
wondered when I would have enough friends in the city to increase the chances
of meeting someone I knew on a casual stroll. I was conscious of my walk, my
clothing, my accent, anything that gave me away as a foreigner. At times, in
local stores I deliberately tried to drop the final r in words like hamburger
and sugar, reversing the process I'd gone through when I moved to the West
Coast. I felt like I was operating at both ends of a seesaw, constantly missing
the equilibrium point in the middle.
    The ice cream kept me from going into any of the shops, but
nothing looked that appealing anyway. Most of them offered retail
services—dry cleaning, photocopying, TV repair, hair styling, and the
inexplicably popular trend of the nineties, nail sculpture.
    I stood in front of a manicure shop done in fake art deco,
and watched one young woman paint the fingernails of another. I tried to
imagine my mother and her friends having their nails done. Not likely. It was
enough of a chore for Josephine to change out of her housedress and slippers
now and then for a wedding or graduation. She'd grown up poor and married poor,
and was never comfortable with formal dress, by which she meant nylons rolled
to her knees and real closed-in shoes.
    Heading back to the police station, I met Connie at the
front entrance. When I saw her outfit—a tailored navy blue suit and
pumps, my first thought was that she looked upon this as an important meeting.
Like most working scientists, Connie wore jeans and tennis shoes around the
lab, in keeping with its construction site decor. The real reason for the business
attire, which I estimated to be in size seven, soon became apparent.
    "I hope we're finished in time for my management
class," she said. "I can't imagine what more I can tell these people.
They questioned my boyfriend and Bill wasn't even in town the other
night."
    "It's really awful about Eric, isn't it?" I said.
    It occurred to me after I said it that I was getting very
good at sarcasm and reproachful comments. In the last twenty-four hours, I'd
made snide remarks to at least four people. I'd suggested to Ralph Leder that
he was deceitful, guilty of scientific fraud, and out for money. I'd told Peter
Mastrone to lay off after he'd brought me presents and expressed concern over
my well-being. I wasn't a bit kind to Janice Bensen whose husband had just been
murdered, and now I was being self-righteous with Connie, who was one of my own
species, a female physicist. So far only Leder had been rude back to me.
    Was I this bad in California, I wondered? I'd have to ask
Elaine the next time I talked to her.
    Connie didn't take scolding well, and she shot me a look of
annoyance, lifting her pointy chin high in the air. I pulled my shoulders back,
trying to match her perfect posture. Connie's career-length dark hair and
regulation half-inch diameter gold hoop earrings bounced as we walked. I
pictured her canceling her subscription to Science Magazine and writing out
checks for business weeklies and money magazines.
    "Of course Eric's murder was awful," she said.
"That's not my point."
    It was just as well that we'd arrived at Matt's office