Smoke and Mirrors (27 page)

"What was the argument about?" Joe wanted her to plan a series of speeches and visits to the
southwest. That's Bennett country, and we're down in the polls in that part of the state. She said there wasn't time—"

"That's true, isn't it? Her schedule is impossible already."

"There's always time for what has to be done," Nick said. "Then she said— Hey, look! Was I right or was I right? Squat down!"

The figure he had indicated had emerged from one of the side doors and was walking quickly toward the garage. It wore a nondescript flapping raincoat and carried an umbrella; but the brassy gold of its hair was visible even through the falling rain.

"That's not Rosemary. It must be one of the girls who—"

"That's Rosemary. Haven't you ever heard of wigs? I recognize her walk." The keys were already in the ignition; his fingers played with them but did not turn them. "Hunker—"

"Shut up."

Before long they heard the sound of a motor, and a vehicle came into sight. It was the old pickup truck; through the window Erin saw a glint of brassy hair. The driver's head did not turn as the truck passed them and lurched along the rutted driveway, sending sprays of water from under the wheels.

Nick turned the key. The engine whined and coughed and died. "Goddamn battery," he muttered. The truck reached the gate, paused briefly, and turned left. Nick swore and pounded the dash with his left fist; the engine caught, stuttered, and settled to an uneasy roar.

Erin was thrown forward, then back, as Nick went in hot pursuit. His natural resiliency had asserted itself and he was beaming with satisfaction. "We can't follow too close anyhow," he explained. "I should have taken one of the other cars, I guess, but there wasn't time to borrow . . . Oops, sorry, you'd better buckle the seat belt, I may have to make some quick stops and turns."

Erin rubbed her forehead. It had contacted the windshield rather forcibly when Nick hit a large-sized pothole. He continued to drive with more panache than care until they caught sight of the pickup a few hundred yards ahead. Rosemary—if it was Rosemary—was driving under the speed limit, keeping carefully in her lane and slowing on every curve. Rain had soaked the fallen leaves into slippery masses and visibility was poor; but Nick, characteristically, found another interpretation for the other driver's
caution.

"She doesn't want to get stopped by a cop," he muttered. "Wonder where she's going?"

"Home, I shouldn't wonder. If that's one of the maids—"

"It is not one of the maids, none of 'em have hair that color. Nobody has hair that color. . . . They wouldn't take the truck, it belongs to the estate."

"Maybe they—she—got permission to borrow it. Maybe she's going home to get lunch for her husband, or on an errand for Sarah."

"You have a very vivid imagination, ' said Nick, banging on the windshield in an ineffectual effort to speed up the wipers, which seemed to suffer from the same lassitude that affected all the other parts of the car.

"Z have a vivid imagination? If that's Rosemary, why didn't she use her own car? Or Kay's?"

"Obviously because she doesn't want to be recognized," Nick said smugly. "Sam won't even notice the truck is missing; he's deaf as a post and right now he's absorbed in his soaps. No reason for him to go out on a day like this. "

Ominous noises from under the dash implied that the heater had been turned on, but the air blasting Erin's legs was ice cold. She turned the collar of the coat up and shivered.

Her own theory received a blow when they passed through Middleburg without stopping and headed east on Route 50. Most of the kitchen workers were local people, and 50 was the most direct route to Washington. Nick grunted with satisfaction as the pickup increased its speed. "I knew it. She's meeting someone. If she turns north at the crossroads, she could be going to Leesburg."

The pickup turned south, onto Route 15. "Not Leesburg," Nick muttered. "The Virginia suburbs? Route 15 to 66, I'll bet. She should have stayed on 50."

There was a good deal of traffic; Nick let several other vehicles get between them and their quarry. The wipers wheezed and stuttered.

Some distance ahead a stoplight glowed green, where a state route intersected the highway. Without signaling, the truck moved
into the left lane, catching Nick by surprise. He stamped on the brake. "Now where the hell is she going? Come on, one of you guys, get in that left lane, I don't want to be right behind her. ..."

The truck had to wait for oncoming traffic to clear. The light turned yellow and it completed its turn, followed, illegally, by the car behind it. Nick pulled into the left lane and sat quivering with frustration while the pickup disappeared into the distance. "That is Route 234. Maybe she's going to take 29 east to Fairfax. Unless she spotted us and is trying to lose us. ... Damn! She's going to do it, too, if I don't get moving!"

He made an illegal turn on the red; the car veered sickeningly as the balding tires skidded on wet pavement.

"Nick, for God's sake," Erin groaned.

"It's okay, I'm a good driver," Nick assured her. Water rose in a mighty spray as the car roared through a puddle.

After a frenzied mile or so they caught up with the pickup, whose driver was proceeding at a sedate pace. Nick grunted with satisfaction and slowed down. In good weather it would have been a pleasant drive, for the road wound and curved through the countryside, and the fall foliage was muted by mist into soft pale shades of umber and topaz, like a time-faded tapestry. Gradually the rain slackened to a drizzle and the sky brightened.

Nick paid no attention to the scenery or the weather, he was still theorizing. "Wherever she's going, it's this side of the Beltway. Fairfax, maybe, or west Falls Church. She'll have to turn on 29."

She didn't. A stoplight marked the intersection. Instead of turning, the pickup crossed the highway.

"Manassas," Nick said blankly. "She's heading for Manassas. Why would anyone want to go there?"

Erin huddled into the folds of the coat. The question was obviously rhetorical, so she didn't answer it, though she could think of a number of reasons why a number of people might want to go to Manassas. It contained as many potential voters as any other town of its size in Virginia, and it was large enough to rate a temporary Democratic campaign office. However, she was becoming a reluctant convert to Nick's theory. A worker on a legitimate errand to local headquarters would take his or her car, not Sam's pickup.

The imminence of the town was announced by the usual sprawl of commercial clutter—gas stations, fast-food chains, motels. Traffic had thickened; there were several other vehicles between them and the truck when it made a sudden turn into a small shopping center and pulled into a parking place next to a fast-food restaurant with a familiar arch. Nick followed suit, picking a spot from which he could see but could not easily be seen. The driver got out of the truck and trotted toward the restaurant. She was not carrying an umbrella, but she had tied a brown scarf over her brassy curls.

By this time Erin was thoroughly infected with the thrill of the chase. Height, shape, and walk were definitely Rosemary's, and the choice of a rendezvous was unexceptionable if her aim was to pass unrecognized. No one would expect to see Rosemary Marshall lunching in a McDonald's on the outskirts of a town forty miles from home, and the chance of accidentally encountering a colleague was almost nonexistent.

"Now what?" she asked.

"We can't go in," Nick said. "She'd see us for sure. Are you hungry?"

"Not especially. Are you?"

"I'm always hungry. Have you got any money?"

"Not a cent. You dragged me out of the house before I could get my purse. "

Nick shifted position and dragged a worn wallet out of his hip pocket. It bulged, but not with cash; sorting through a motley collection of business cards, scribbled notes, and receipts, Nick finally located a few bills. "Seven bucks. Hey, not bad. What would you like?"

"Just coffee. You said we couldn't go in—"

"We are about to make use of that marvelous modern invention, the drive-in window. And, not so incidentally, case the joint as we do so."

The front and side of the restaurant had large windows. Heedless of the fine drizzle, Nick rolled his own window down and peered intently as they glided slowly past. "I don't see her, do you?"

"No. Wait—there she is, on the other side. I recognize the scarf."

"Where? Oh—yeah." Nick's voice rose in a howl of triumph. "Who's a genius? There's someone at the same table. A woman. Do you recognize her?"

"She's got one of those plastic rain hats shielding her face. You're going to hit that post. ..."

The car swerved and managed to avoid the post. Nick drove on around the restaurant and turned into the drive-in lane. He was ingenuously delighted to learn there was a special on hamburgers and ordered three, with fries and coffee, receiving a jingle of change in return. Then they went around again, with little more success; both women were leaning forward, heads together, and Rosemary's scarf hid the face of her companion. Nick backed into a parking place near the door of the restaurant and turned off the ignition.

Nick ate two of the hamburgers and all the french fries, munching vigorously without taking his eyes off the door of the restaurant. Erin found she was hungry after all and accepted the other hamburger. It was lunchtime; the door of the restaurant kept opening and closing as customers crowded in. A few came out. Nick had barely finished eating when Rosemary appeared. Without pausing or looking around, she walked to the truck and got in.

It was unquestionably Rosemary, though Erin wouldn't have recognized her if she had not been expecting to see her. A thick layer of bright-red lipstick had altered the shape of her mouth, and mascara practically dripped from her lashes. She looked like an aging but optimistic go-go dancer, and the brilliant red mouth wore a wide familiar smile.

"There she is," Erin exclaimed. "Aren't you going to follow her?"

The truck backed out of its place and jolted toward the exit. Nick shook his head. "I know where she's going. Home. She has to be at her office on the Hill at two, and if she doesn't drive like a bat she won't make it. It's the other one I'm interested in. Come on, lady, come on; I haven't got all day."

Another five minutes passed before he got his wish, and at first Erin wasn't certain the plump little woman who came out was their quarry. A couple of other women had worn the cheap, ubiquitous plastic rain hat and she had seen only the shoulders of a tan coat,
the commonest variety of bad-weather clothing. This woman had a round, healthy pink face and pink-tinted glasses. Masses of fluffy white hair had been flattened by the plastic cap.

Nick let out a startled exclamation. "My God! It can't be!"

"Who? Who?"

"Don't you recognize her?"

"She looks vaguely familiar."

"It's her all right," Nick said, neglecting grammar in his excitement.

The woman trotted across the parking lot and got into a long, sleek black car—a Cadillac. "Yep," Nick said. "She favors Cadillacs. Jesus, look at that! They tell stories all over the state about her driving. When the word goes out that she's on the road, everybody stays home."

The big car shot forward in a series of jerks and starts, skimmed a post, forced the driver of an oncoming Camaro into a wild sideways swerve, and turned into the line of traffic on the highway without pausing or signaling. Horns blared.

"That's her, " Nick repeated.

"Who, damn it?"

Nick turned to face her. His face was awed. "That, my dear, was Miz Marylou. The much-loved, loyal wife of our incumbent senator, Bill the Buzzard Bennett."

9

The discovery
stupefied Nick so completely that he didn't even swear when his car refused to start. Calmly extracting a set of jumper cables from the trunk, he talked a boy in a car almost as decrepit as his into assisting in the restoration of power and presented him with a campaign button as a thank-you gift. Not until they were back on the road heading home did he condescend to discuss the matter, and with less than the exuberance Erin would have expected. She was the one who peppered him with questions and speculations.

"I suppose they've known each other for years, haven't they? Would you say they were friends? Because if they are, then it would be a little difficult for them to get together, with things as they are. Maybe they have a mutual godchild or friend who's in trouble, and they wanted to confer."

"That's stupid."

"You think everything has a political orientation. It doesn't, you know; there are some people in this world who go right on sleeping and eating and worrying about the mortgage without giving a damn whether Rosemary Marshall wins an election. There are matters of greater importance—" Her voice rose to a shriek as Nick cut across Route 29 on the last split second of the yellow.

"Sorry," Nick said. "If I stop, the damn engine may conk out for good. The battery is shot."

"Why don't you buy a new one? "

"Can't afford it,"

"Oh. Maybe if you asked Rosemary—"