Smoke and Mirrors (37 page)

Erin realized she had received an invitation. She said doubtfully, "I couldn't keep up with you, I'm really out of condition. And I don't have the right clothes."

"Nothing wrong with jeans and a sweatshirt. Let's see your
shoes."

Erin stretched out a sneakered foot. Christie frowned. "Well, it doesn't matter, we'll just take it easy. That is—if you want to
come."

To refuse might have weakened the tenuous new relationship. Besides, it offered a chance to ask questions. . . . Erin stood up, stretched. "Sounds like a great idea."

As they crossed the stableyard the not-too-muted sounds from Sam's cottage indicated that he was also glued to the big game. Fields and wooded hills dreamed in the hazy sunlight. Fallen leaves crackled dryly under their feet.

The path opened up between a stand of cypresses. It was in better condition than Erin had expected; when she commented on the relatively smooth surface, Christie said, "Thanks to Nick. You know the way he grabs hold of an idea and runs with it; I happened to mention it would be nice to have a place to run, and the next day he was out here with a rider mower. The weeds were waist-high! He even dug up a roller someplace and ran it up and down." She bent to check the laces on her shoes. "I kept him company when I could; it was a pretty sight, I can tell you. Ever see Nick without a shirt, and sweat gleaming on all those muscles?"

"No."

"Oh, really? There's a general impression—"

"It's wrong." After a brief hesitation Erin added, "Give me a little more time."

It was the right response. Christie laughed. "Good luck. He's a sweet guy. Not my type, though. He's too intense. I need somebody who can keep his cool.

"'Like Jeff?"

From one extreme to the other." Christie's smile faded. "There's something about Jeff... I don't know, it's like he's built a wall around himself a hundred feet high and two hundred feet thick. I'd like to be there if he ever tears it down, but I haven't got the time or the energy to fight something as strong as that. Ready?

Watch your feet, the surface isn't as smooth as it looks. You could sprain an ankle."

She took her running seriously. The pace she set might have been slow for her, but it left Erin gasping. When they stopped for a brief rest she didn't have enough breath to ask questions. Christie did all the talking; her breathing was scarcely quicker than normal.

"I love this place," she said, the sweep of her arm indicating the panorama of meadow and forest stretching westward, framed by the outline of the distant mountains. The setting sun washed their slopes with apricot, and burned on the tops of the trees behind them.

"You wouldn't think there was a house or a human being for miles," Christie went on dreamily. "Even Fairweather is hidden by the trees. If you come up here at twilight and sit quietly, after a while you start hearing little rustles and movements in the grass. Once a doe walked right past me, not ten feet away, with her fawn following—"

A sound like that of a dry branch cracking interrupted her. Christie turned to look, shading her eyes with her hand.

"Was that a shot?" Erin asked uneasily.

"Some jackass hunter," Christie said. "Deer season doesn't start for another month, but there're always a few heroes who can't wait to start killing things."

Erin struggled to her feet. Her lungs still ached. "It sounded close."

"Sound carries a long way on a quiet day like this. He's not on Rosemary's land, at least not with her permission. We'd better start back, though, it's getting late. You don't mind if I go ahead, do you? You can't get lost, just follow the trail."

Erin dropped back onto the fallen tree trunk they had used as a bench. "I'll just rest a few more minutes."

Christie gave her a friendly slap on the back. "It gets easier with practice. You did fine for a beginner."

She took off, running with a grace and ease that made Erin feel eighty years old. Within moments she had disappeared among the trees.

As soon as she was out of sight, the strangeness began, as if her
presence had held something sly and ugly at bay. Nothing in the landscape changed, but now it conjured up different images: loneliness instead of peace, isolation rather than solitude. The air was acrid with smoke, and the swollen, sullen sun sent long, blurred shadows sliding across the grass—shadows without definition or substance, like the thoughts in Erin's mind. She had reached a point where every statement, every look was distorted by her suspicions. Christie had been awfully anxious to make friends all of a sudden. And what had she said about Jeff. . . . "It's like he's built a wall a hundred feet high." Perhaps she had misremembered that vital date of birth, because she didn't want it to be Jeff. If he was the survivor of that tragic family, he had good reason to hide behind a wall of deception.

Was Nick avoiding her because he still entertained doubts about her, or for other reasons? He had personal and family connections with Rosemary that went back into the past; hadn't he said something about his aunt working for the Marshalls? A housekeeper had plenty of opportunities to discover the personal secrets of the people who employed her.

Erin jumped to her feet. The heavy dusk was making her morbid. Time she was getting back. She must be at least a mile from the house; the path had twisted and turned all the way. She should make better time going back, since it was downhill, but soon the sun would set, and considering her total ignorance of woodcraft, there was a distinct possibility that she might lose her way. She got to her feet. As she started toward the trees she heard a second, far-off echo of gunfire.

It was already dusky under the branches, but a long finger of sunlight kept her company for a short distance as she plodded through the fallen leaves. Then a turn in the path cut off the sunlight; shadows sprang at her like enemies from ambush. The leaves crackled under her feet as she broke into a trot. The distance seemed much longer than a mile, and it was with considerable relief that she emerged into the open and saw the roofs and chimneys of Fairweather below.

With the darkening woods behind her and an evening breeze dispelling some of the smoke, she felt rather foolish about her panic. That was what it had been, irrational terror, in the ancient
sense of the word. The faint haze in the air only mellowed the pastoral beauty of pasture and field and clustered dwellings; she stood still, waiting for her breathing to slow and her weakened knees to regain their strength.

A rustle and snap of shaken branches behind her startled her, but at first she did not connect that sound with the other, the now familiar crack of a rifle. The next bullet came close enough to whine before it smacked into a tree trunk.

It was instinct rather than reason that sent Erin into headlong flight. She didn't stop running until she had reached the shelter of the stables.

A high-powered rifle could carry . . . how far? Miles, she believed. The hunter probably hadn't even known she was there. He had fired at some miserable animal, and missed. No one could have known she would walk in the woods that day.

But if someone had been out with a gun, hanging around in the hope of finding her out of doors . . . There were such things as telescopic sights.

No, and again no. That was too farfetched. Delusions of persecution, that was what she was developing.

And anyway, gunfire wasn't . . . fire.

It is a well-known fact
of life in Washington that the mood of the entire city is colored by the results of the Sunday football game. When the Redskins lose, especially to Dallas, eyes are downcast and voices are surly. When they win, even Monday morning can be endured.

Whether the 'Skins thrashing of their traditional rivals affected Joe's mood was unproved, but he was certainly in excellent spirits next morning. A meeting with the State Democratic Committee Monday afternoon proved to be the first crack in his good humor, but that wasn't unusual; he always managed to pick a fight with someone in that despised group. The final blow came at six o'clock, when Buzz Bennett's latest campaign plug was aired. Bennett had hired the most prestigious group in the country to produce the commercial, which lasted for a full three minutes, and they had earned their money; he kissed old ladies on their wrinkled cheeks
and promised to introduce a bill doubling Social Security benefits; he hugged babies and promised their beaming parents he would make certain every child in Virginia had a chance to attend college, not to mention medical school; he stood stiffly at attention, hand pressed to his heaving chest, as a line of fighter planes shot across the cloud-strewn blue sky, and swore America would never bow the knee to tyranny. It was noticed by some that he conspicuously refrained from kissing, hugging, or even speaking to pretty girls. The overall effect—music, production, and Buzz's craggy, sincere face—was so skillfully calculated that Erin felt her throat tighten, even though she knew her response was as mindless and irresistible as the salivation of Pavlov's unfortunate dogs.

Joe was moved only to rage. "Why the hell isn't our new spot ready?" he roared, pounding on the table with both fists. "Where the hell is that lazy swine Nick?"

"You sent him to Roanoke," Will said. "He told you he couldn't—"

"We're shorthanded, that's the trouble, " Joe snarled. "Short on people, short on money. It's Rosemary's fault. Goddamn prudish, overly fastidious broad—we could have got half a million more from PACs if she hadn't been so goddamn fussy. Where is she? Why isn't she here?"

"As you yourself told me not twenty minutes ago, she and Kay are dining with the Morgans," Will reminded him. "Probably trying to smooth over the insults you handed him this afternoon."

"If the man can't take honest criticism he doesn't deserve to be party chairman," Joe said, chewing on his cigar. "All I said was that if we depended on the support of the party we'd be dead in the water. What's wrong with that? When is Nick due back? I want to talk to him about lighting a fire under those media morons."

At midnight Nick still had not returned, and Erin decided to give up and go to bed. She was pleasantly tired after an afternoon walk—not run—in the woods. She had had to force herself to return to the scene of her panic, but the effort had been worthwhile; there had been no repetition of that odd, senseless fear, only peace and beauty, without so much as a distant echo of gunfire.

Rosemary and Kay had returned shortly after eleven. Both looked drawn and tired, and Rosemary lost no time in telling Joe
what she thought of his performance earlier in the day. "Harry was seething. He said you called him an ignorant nincompoop."

"I did not. When have you ever heard me use a bland, innocuous word like 'nincompoop?' "

"I suppose he was too well-bred to repeat what you really said. ' Rosemary waved away the coffee Jeff offered her. "Thanks, Jeff dear, but I dare not insert another drop of liquid into this bloated body. And none for you, either, Kay," she added, turning to her secretary. "You hardly spoke a word this evening. That hand is giving you a lot of pain, isn't it? There must be something wrong. An infection, maybe? You're going to Dr. White tomorrow, and I don't want to hear any arguments."

"Not tomorrow," Kay said. "Tomorrow is Roanoke, remember?"

"Damn, I forgot. All right, Wednesday, then. Without fail. And take those sleeping pills tonight, do you hear?"

"I don't have any," Kay said.

"Surely you do," Erin exclaimed. "You gave me the prescription to be filled just last week. Nick picked it up for you, after the . . . after ..."

Her voice faltered as Kay transfixed her with a furious scowl. She had spoken without thinking and without any intent except reassurance; why was Kay so angry?

"Good Lord, " Rosemary exclaimed. "You haven't taken a whole bottle?"

"No, of course not," Kay said. "I do have them. I just didn't ... I guess I forgot."

The house seemed
very empty next day. The inner circle had
accompanied Rosemary to Roanoke; Christie was downtown, liaising, as the phrase went, with Democratic headquarters. As Erin typed the date on a letter she realized that election day was two weeks away. Two weeks to determine the outcome of Rosemary's bid for the Senate, and the futures of those who depended on her for jobs, patronage, support. Two weeks for her to find out the truth about her father. Assuming, of course, that the whole ugly business didn't blow up in their faces before then, wrecking Rosemary's
reputation and career and the hopes of those who had supported
her.

Erin wasn't even sure any longer what mattered more. Nick had been right; nothing could hurt her father now, though a disclosure of his complicity might have a devastating effect on her mother. But then her mother would probably just refuse to believe it. Erin wished she could do the same. She couldn't, and she could not share Nick's hope that nothing more would happen—that their theories had been wildly, melodramatically wrong, or that the unknown had, for reasons known only to himself, abandoned his campaign of intimidation.

It hadn't occurred to her before that she might search for clues in the house itself. The idea went against every moral principle she had learned. Besides, this was the first real opportunity she had had; there wasn't a soul around who would interrupt or interfere. It might also be her last chance.

One way or the other, win or lose, everything would come to a crashing halt on November 8. Rosemary would finish out her House term, a few office workers would clean up the debris, financial and physical; but staff would be cut and Kay would no longer need her assistance. Even if Rosemary won and even if she offered Erin another job, that job would be in Washington; the offices here had been set up especially for the campaign. The others would disperse as well; she would never again have as good a chance to watch them and question them, search. . . .

Hands idle on the keys of the word processor, she stared into space and fought a battle with long-accepted values. What she had said to Christie was only too true; women were trained to be law-abiding, gentle, considerate of others. Ladies didn't pry. Neither, in fact, did gentlemen; that moral maxim had no sexist overtones. Something Nick had quoted came back to her; some government official, she had forgotten who, decrying the efforts to break foreign codes. "Gentlemen don't read one another's mail," he had loftily proclaimed. A noble attitude like that one could lose a war, cost thousands of lives. She could lose her own personal war by following an equivalent ethical code. "Moral issues aren't as simple as they seem." She had said that herself. It seemed the most appropriate guide at this particular moment.

But where to look? Kay's office and Rosemary's were out of the question; she couldn't spend the necessary amount of time in either without one of the other workers' noticing. Besides, damaging, secret information was more likely to be concealed in one's private quarters. Too many people had access to the offices, and some—Joe, for example—would consider no locked drawer or safe out of bounds.

Rosemary's room, then. Or Kay's. Fine, Erin thought wryly. Now if I only had the faintest idea what to look for. . . .

That wasn't the only problem, as she discovered when she found herself in Kay's room. "The guilty flee where no man pursueth," and they also quake in their boots or sneakers even when no one is watching. She had taken the coward's way out by going first to Kay's room. No one could climb the bare, squeaking stairs or walk along the uncarpeted wooden floor without her hearing them approach, and even if she was found in the room, she had a valid excuse for being there. There was absolutely no reason why her hands should be icy and trembling, except her own guilty conscience.

She started by straightening up the room, plumping pillows— and feeling them to make certain nothing had been hidden inside— and remaking the bed. (Nothing under the mattress, nothing tucked in the springs, no locked box or briefcase under the bed.) Nothing under the rug, either. Lying flat on her stomach with the dusty stiffness over her head and shoulders, she swept the entire area with her hands, feeling at the same time for loose boards.