Smoke and Mirrors (31 page)

It was shortly before noon when Kay called Erin into her office and handed over the car keys. She spoke about the errand as if it had been her idea; Erin was careful not to say anything that would indicate she knew better. Kay had a list of other errands as well:
the cleaning that had never been picked up, a few groceries. She didn't look well; her face was gray under her heavy makeup.

It was a warm, bright day, with a brisk wind blowing the fallen leaves into multicolored clouds. Erin lingered to stroke a cat that came to rub itself against her leg. She wasn't looking forward to the drive. Accidents could occur even with the most skilled and careful of drivers, but she knew Kay would hold her personally accountable for any dent or scratch. Things like that always seemed to happen when you were using someone else's car. . . . She was tempted to ask Sam if she could borrow the pickup. She'd feel quite comfortable in that battered vehicle; nothing short of a major collision could worsen its condition.

Since she hadn't seen Nick's car parked out in front, she had assumed he was off somewhere. The car was in the stableyard, and Nick was in it—literally, for the hood was up and only the lower half of his body was visible. He didn't hear her coming; when she greeted him, he started and he banged his head on the hood, which promptly collapsed on him.

"I'm so sorry," she exclaimed, helping him extract himself from the metal jaws. "Are you hurt?"

Nick rubbed his head. "Happens all the time," he said cheerfully. "I should have propped it with something. Where are you off to?"

"Errands for Kay." She dangled the keys.

"How about a lift to town? I was trying to recharge the battery, but I'm afraid it's a hopeless cause. I'll have to buy a new one."

"I thought you were broke."

"I may be able to squeeze one more charge out of my Visa. Worth a try, anyway."

He plucked the keys from her hand and led the way to the Mercedes. This high-handed maneuver would have prompted a caustic comment from Erin if she hadn't been glad to be relieved of the responsibility of driving. She allowed herself one mild warning: "For God's sake, drive carefully, will you? Kay will kill me if anything happens to this car."

"No, she'll kill me." Nick backed the car out and proceeded with exaggerated slowness down the driveway. "Anything new to report?"

"About what?"

"Anything."

"I don't know why you're asking me, you're the great detective. I presume Rosemary and Mr. Laurence went to the Red Fox last night, just as he said they would?"

"Uh-huh. Then home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Any comment?

"No."

"Good. Then I needn't mention that although tailing them turned out to be an idle exercise, I had no way of knowing that until I did it."

"I can't argue with that," Erin said agreeably. "Did you find out what he wanted to talk to Rosemary about?"

"Oh, that." Nick didn't stop at the end of the drive; after making the turn he put his foot down and the car picked up speed. "He's invited her to appear on his show Sunday."

"Firing Squad?"

"Hey, that's a good one," Nick said, with a sputter of laughter. "Where'd you hear that?"

"It's Fran's name for it. She says Laurence is as bad as Buckley when it comes to snide comments and unanswerable questions— and since it's not taped, but live, a lot of his guests have had a rough time."

"Shot down in flames, no survivors," Nick agreed. "Most of the guests are politicians, you'd think they would have learned how to lie and equivocate; but Laurence really knows how to needle people."

"That's why it's so popular, I suppose. It has all the ghoulish fascination of stock-car racing; the viewers hope someone will crash right in front of their eyes."

A few people have. Remember the time he goaded Senator Willis into admitting he was gay?"

"Fran told me about it. Maybe it wouldn't be such a smart move for Rosemary to go on."

That's what Joe says. He doesn't trust Laurence any farther than he can throw him, says he. But it's first-class exposure, free media to the max, and Rosemary says she'd be a fool to pass it up."

"He certainly seems to be an ardent fan of hers," Erin said doubtfully. "Slow down, Nick, this hill—"

"The trick," said Nick, over the squeal of tires, "is to get up enough speed going down so that you don't have to pump so much gas going up the next one. I dunno, though. I'm like Joe, I don't trust the skunk. He may be fond of Rosemary, but he loves his precious self and his precious show more."

"Nick, the stop sign is there, just around the curve."

"Yes, darling, I know. If there's anything that gripes me more than a woman who is smarter than I am, it's a woman who tries to tell me ..."

"What's the matter?" Erin asked.

Nick leaned forward, peering through the windshield. "Is that smoke?"

"Where?" Then she saw it. "Oh, God. It's coming from under the hood. The engine must be overheating. Stop, Nick."

Instead of stopping at the sign, Nick made an abrupt right turn onto the shoulder of the highway and slammed on the brakes. "That's not steam, that's smoke. Out. Get the hell out of the car."

There was no shoulder on the narrow road they had just left, no place to pull over without risking being rear-ended by another car coming around the curve. She understood his reason for turning, but she didn't understand his urgency, nor why, instead of opening the hood, he ran to the back of the car and unlocked the trunk. Not until she got out and saw that the vaporous extrusion was black, not the pale shade of steaming water.

Nick came running back, carrying a blanket. "Get the hell away from here," he yelled. "Move it!"

He had released the hood latch before he got out of the car. When he lifted the hood, a tongue of flame licked out at him; instead of drawing back he threw the blanket and himself onto the engine.

It had happened too quickly; Erin had no time to react to his orders, even if she had wanted to. When she saw him disappear under the hood, she ran—not away from the car, but toward Nick. "Get out of there," she screamed, tugging at his coattails. "Are you crazy? Let it blow up, let it burn!"

Nick said something. She didn't catch the words, she was
screaming too loudly, using words she had never expected to hear from her own lips, calling him every name she could think of. Not until a pair of hands grabbed her by the waist and swung her aside did she realize another vehicle had stopped on the shoulder ahead of them. A pickup—of course. Rusty blue, of course. . . .

"It's okay, lady, you can stop yelling," said the Good Samaritan, a tall, towheaded youth in jeans and a visored cap. "He's got it out. You wanna dump dirt on it, buddy, just to make sure? I got a shovel in the back. ..."

Erin staggered out of the way and sat down on the ground, while Nick and the other man evaluated the situation. For a while both of them had their heads together under the hood, and she bit her lip to keep from shrieking at them. After an amiable and hideously prolonged discussion, they nodded at one another, and Nick came toward Erin. "He's going to give us a lift back to the house. Are you okay?"

"Am I . . ." She took a long, steadying breath. "You stupid, bullheaded, thoughtless, arrogant, cocky . . . man!"

"Now that stung," Nick said, grinning from ear to ear. "Kindly select a less offensive epithet."

"You're all covered with soot!"

"And I have a blister on my thumb," said Nick. "Hold on, honey, you can faint or do something interesting like that after we get home."

"I am not going to faint!" She glared at him. "I am going to kill you. What do you mean by scaring me like that?"

"That's better. Here we go. . . . This is real nice of you, pal."

The young man dropped them at the gate and brushed away their thanks with a casual "No sweat." Erin thought she was in perfect control of her emotions until Nick plucked the campaign button from his lapel and pressed it on the Good Samaritan. She collapsed onto the ground and laughed till she cried.

Nick sat down beside her and put a tentative arm around her. Don't touch me!" A hard shove emphasized the words. What are you mad at me for?" Nick demanded aggrievedly. "I didn't do anything."

"Except risk your stupid neck for a hunk of machinery, and
push me out of the way like some doddering little old lady, and—"

"Oh, gee whiz, I apologize for all those terrible things."

"You could have been killed!" ,

"If I had let that car blow, Kay would have killed me."

"It's not funny! You never take me seriously. What's a rotten piece of machinery compared to death or serious injury?"

"There was no danger of that," Nick protested. "Luckily Kay had a blanket in the trunk. She read some newspaper article about keeping the car stocked with survival equipment; there's even a bag of kitty litter for icy conditions. ..."

"Shut up! You're doing it again, talking down to me. Why won't you take me seriously?'

"I do, believe me I do. You scare the hell out of me when you act like this. I can't understand why you . . ."A new and apparently pleasing idea dawned and was reflected on his face. "Could it be that you're all shook up because you thought I might've been hurt? My mother used to scream at me when she—"

"You bastard!"

"Leave my mother out of this." There was nothing tentative about the hands that drew her into a hard embrace. He smelled of oil and smoke but Erin didn't care; it was an aroma as sweet as perfume to her. Not until much later did she realize that his lips were crusted with ashes, and that she had absorbed them into her mouth with the eagerness of someone participating in a ceremonial rite.

"We look kind of silly squatting here by the side of the road," Nick remarked some time later. "I know a pretty little spot back in the woods—"

"Certainly not. At least . . . not now. Talk to me."

Nick helped her to her feet. "About fires?"

"About this fire. What was it?"

Nick hesitated, but only for a moment.

"It looks as if one of the fuel-injection lines came loose."

"Fuel? You mean gas? But if gas was leaking, wouldn't we have smelled it?"

"No. That's the thing." Nick picked up a stone and began to
draw in the dust. "See, the fuel-injection lines go into the fuel distributor—here. Gas doesn't flow through them until the fuel pump starts up. Then, if there's a loose connection, some of the gas will spurt out onto the engine, and when the temperature rises to a certain point, the gas will ignite."

"I see. Do I have to ask the next question?"

Nick sighed. "I wish I knew the next answer, Erin. If you ask a Mercedes dealer whether the line could work loose, he'll deny it with his last breath; but there's always a possibility of a faulty connection. A good mechanic will check things like that as a matter of routine when the car is serviced; and if I know Kay, it has been serviced regularly. We can find out when she had it in last, and we can ask the mechanic whether he checked the fuel connections. He will, of course, say he did."

"How hard would it be to loosen it?"

"All you'd need is a wrench and a couple of minutes—and the necessary know-how. "

"So anyone could have done it."

"Not you." Nick produced a rather wan smile. "You aren't even sure gas is fuel."

Like Queen Victoria, Erin was not amused. "I wouldn't have known how to do the job. But you don't know that I don't know."

Nick rose lithely to his feet and helped her to rise. "Your syntax is a little confused, but I get your meaning. Anyone could have had what I am pleased to call the know-how. Even Kay, I suppose. You pick up odd bits of information here and there. Like, a mechanic might have pointed out that the connection was loose, and warned her always to have it checked."

"Yes, let's not be sexist in selecting suspects. More to the point is why it was done."

"That's obvious, isn't it?" Nick kicked a pebble and watched it dribble off into the grass. "Another fire. Only this one could have been dangerous."

"How dangerous? You said it wasn't."

"I lied. Or let's say I exaggerated a trifle. To put it in the simplest possible terms—"

"In deference to my stupidity?"

"In deference to your charming ignorance of the internal combustion engine. If the driver kept his or her head, it is extremely unlikely that he or she could have been killed or seriously injured. If you see something boiling out from under the hood, your first impulse is to open it and find out what's going on. An inexperienced driver might assume, as you did, that the car had overheated. I knew that wasn't the case, but I thought—if I thought at all—that oil had slopped over onto the engine, or a rag or paper towel had been left inside. If I had known it was gas ... Oh, I suppose I'd have done the same thing, most people would—try to put out the fire by smothering it. Opening the hood admits air, and that fans the flames, so you've got to move fast and hope the fire hasn't taken serious hold."