had approached her, early in the semester.
“I’d love to do some extra research, since there’s so much going on, right here,” Nina had said, sweeping her arm, as fluid as a ballerina’s, in the direction of the windowless research facility, the ugliest building on the campus. “I’m especially interested in Buckminster Fuller, and that new molecule named after him—the, uh, what’s it called?”
“Buckminsterfullerene—buckyball!”
“Right! I read that buckyballs started the whole carbon nanotech thing. Do you know anyone doing that kind of stuff?”
So MC had put Nina Martin in touch with carbon researcher Wayne Gallen and the nanotechnology team.
And now Nina was dead, and Wayne was MIA. And Wayne had told her “they” were after her. Did “they” murder Nina? MC shuddered, then peeked out her bedroom window, a habit she couldn’t shake, even in the middle of the day, ever since she’d first spotted the stalker. That is, Wayne. But maybe not Wayne. Well, at least she hadn’t seen the creepy-looking car for a while.
Nina was probably the real target all along, and now I’m safe, she thought.
Maybe one of these days she’d actually enter her house from the front.
CHAPTER SEVEN
R ose, the unofficial historian of Revere, had Rumney Marsh stories at her fingertips, literally. She held her hand up and drew a map in the air. The middle finger of her right hand was Route 107, also called the Lynn Marsh Road, which split the marsh (the palm of her hand) in two. She pushed her hand closer to me, as if she were asking me to read her future.
“They used to call this the Old Salem Turnpike,” she told me. “Remember how they’d find wrecked cars there with their motors running?” She used the fingers of her left hand as cars. “Oh, no, that’s right. You weren’t home then.”
To Rose, Revere had always been my home, my three decades in California a mere blip in my life. An anomaly, like a summer vacation that stretched out too long or a forced confinement that was finally over. Often, I agreed with her.
We sat on Rose’s porch, a mass of white wicker and leafy green plants, screened- and storm-windowed-in. We were waiting for MC to come by after her interview with Matt and George Berger. It had started to drizzle, which Rose hated, but I loved. I felt I was due thirty years of greater-than-normal rainfall once I returned to the East Coast. Easier on the eyes than the almost daily, unfiltered California sun; and setting a perfect mood for the hot coffees we drank. The smell of split pea soup from Rose’s Crock-Pot, a few feet away, also said “rainy New England fall day” to me.
I tried to get Rose back on track. “Do you know why the dead woman was carrying your business card?” I asked her.
“Well, apparently she was MC’s student in that night class. Of course, MC had no idea she was an undercover investigator.” Rose took a sip of coffee. “I was telling you about all these stories in the Journal, about the marsh—John covered a couple of them when he was just starting out. The thieves would steal sports cars from Lynn, Saugus, Everett, you name it, and have demolition derbies out in the marsh, on that unfinished road that went nowhere.” She wiggled her right pinkie, west of 107, from her point of view. “And then they’d just abandon the vehicles, motors running and all. Some of the cars were from as far away as Boston.”
Rose laughed, always enjoying her own stories as if she were hearing them all for the first time herself. I smiled at her depiction of Boston, about eight miles from Revere, as “far away.” By West Coast standards, that could be a quick jaunt to the nearest supermarket.
“How interesting,” I said. “So, do you think this Nina Martin could have been coming to Revere to visit MC?”
Rose shrugged. “That could be it. But MC doesn’t think so; she thinks the woman would have given her some notice, not just showed up. I guess they’re looking
“I’d love to do some extra research, since there’s so much going on, right here,” Nina had said, sweeping her arm, as fluid as a ballerina’s, in the direction of the windowless research facility, the ugliest building on the campus. “I’m especially interested in Buckminster Fuller, and that new molecule named after him—the, uh, what’s it called?”
“Buckminsterfullerene—buckyball!”
“Right! I read that buckyballs started the whole carbon nanotech thing. Do you know anyone doing that kind of stuff?”
So MC had put Nina Martin in touch with carbon researcher Wayne Gallen and the nanotechnology team.
And now Nina was dead, and Wayne was MIA. And Wayne had told her “they” were after her. Did “they” murder Nina? MC shuddered, then peeked out her bedroom window, a habit she couldn’t shake, even in the middle of the day, ever since she’d first spotted the stalker. That is, Wayne. But maybe not Wayne. Well, at least she hadn’t seen the creepy-looking car for a while.
Nina was probably the real target all along, and now I’m safe, she thought.
Maybe one of these days she’d actually enter her house from the front.
CHAPTER SEVEN
R ose, the unofficial historian of Revere, had Rumney Marsh stories at her fingertips, literally. She held her hand up and drew a map in the air. The middle finger of her right hand was Route 107, also called the Lynn Marsh Road, which split the marsh (the palm of her hand) in two. She pushed her hand closer to me, as if she were asking me to read her future.
“They used to call this the Old Salem Turnpike,” she told me. “Remember how they’d find wrecked cars there with their motors running?” She used the fingers of her left hand as cars. “Oh, no, that’s right. You weren’t home then.”
To Rose, Revere had always been my home, my three decades in California a mere blip in my life. An anomaly, like a summer vacation that stretched out too long or a forced confinement that was finally over. Often, I agreed with her.
We sat on Rose’s porch, a mass of white wicker and leafy green plants, screened- and storm-windowed-in. We were waiting for MC to come by after her interview with Matt and George Berger. It had started to drizzle, which Rose hated, but I loved. I felt I was due thirty years of greater-than-normal rainfall once I returned to the East Coast. Easier on the eyes than the almost daily, unfiltered California sun; and setting a perfect mood for the hot coffees we drank. The smell of split pea soup from Rose’s Crock-Pot, a few feet away, also said “rainy New England fall day” to me.
I tried to get Rose back on track. “Do you know why the dead woman was carrying your business card?” I asked her.
“Well, apparently she was MC’s student in that night class. Of course, MC had no idea she was an undercover investigator.” Rose took a sip of coffee. “I was telling you about all these stories in the Journal, about the marsh—John covered a couple of them when he was just starting out. The thieves would steal sports cars from Lynn, Saugus, Everett, you name it, and have demolition derbies out in the marsh, on that unfinished road that went nowhere.” She wiggled her right pinkie, west of 107, from her point of view. “And then they’d just abandon the vehicles, motors running and all. Some of the cars were from as far away as Boston.”
Rose laughed, always enjoying her own stories as if she were hearing them all for the first time herself. I smiled at her depiction of Boston, about eight miles from Revere, as “far away.” By West Coast standards, that could be a quick jaunt to the nearest supermarket.
“How interesting,” I said. “So, do you think this Nina Martin could have been coming to Revere to visit MC?”
Rose shrugged. “That could be it. But MC doesn’t think so; she thinks the woman would have given her some notice, not just showed up. I guess they’re looking
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