Smoke and Mirrors (40 page)

"I didn't know Joe was here. And I couldn't go to Rosemary, Nick—not at that unearthly hour, not just rush in and blurt it out." She pushed the tangled hair from her face and pressed her hands
to her head. "I was looking for Sarah, I suppose. Someone warm and solid and unflappable. The rock in the storm. She wasn't here,
so . . ."

"You mean I was your second choice?" Erin stared blankly at him, and Nick's feeble attempt at a smile never made it past his lips. "I should take that as a compliment. Let me think. I don't like to leave you alone—"

"I'm perfectly fine," Erin said.

"You're in shock, that's what you are. ' He filled a cup with coffee and poured in half the sugar bowl, waving aside Erin's protests. "Drink it. All of it. I'm going to wake Joe, and then one of us will have to break it to Rosemary. Hang on till I get back."

"No problem." Her hand was rock-steady as she reached for the cup. Maybe I am in shock, she thought coolly. If so, I hope it lasts. This is no time to break down and blubber. We were wondering what would happen next. Well, now it's happened.

As the dreadful day wore on she could only marvel at the calm efficiency with which the others dealt with Kay's death. For Joe it was easy. Nothing mattered to him now except the election; his only concern was how the tragedy would affect Rosemary and her already overcrowded schedule. His attitude seemed horribly calloused to Erin, but when she said as much to Will, he shook his head.

"Joe isn't calloused, he's just honest. It may make you uncomfortable, but don't misjudge him. He didn't know Kay well, and he wasn't particularly fond of her. The pressure he's putting on Rosemary, to get on with her work, is the best possible thing for her. Don't worry, she can handle it. She's handled worse."

Later that morning Rosemary called her into her office. She was not alone. Standing beside the desk was a tall, rawboned man with graying hair and a long, large-featured face. "This is Harry Blair, our local lawman, ' Rosemary said. "He wants to ask you a few questions."

She was pale but quite composed; the only trace of tears was the faint pinkness of her eyelids.

Blair's attitude was almost paternal. Erin told her story; when she started to explain why she had gone running out of the house,
instead of notifying one of the occupants, he cut her off with a kindly, "Yes, I see. Perfectly natural thing to do. I don't suppose you happened to notice anything out of the way, anything unusual? Not that you'd be likely to, the way things were. ..."

"Was
there anything out of the way?" Erin asked.

Blair appeared a trifle disconcerted. Sweet little young ladies in a state of shock weren't supposed to ask leading questions. He ignored the question and asked one of his own. "Did you see the bottle of sleeping pills on the table by the bed?"

"No. I mean, I suppose it was there, I just didn't. . . Was that how she died? An overdose?"

"Suppose you just let me ask the questions, miss."

"You don't have to treat her like an idiot, Harry," Rosemary said with some asperity. "Naturally she would wonder. Yes, Erin, that's the assumption. The bottle was almost full. Didn't you pick up a refill of that prescription last week?"

"It was Nick who picked it up, actually. I was going to, but the car—"

"Yes," Rosemary said quickly. "The point is that it was a refill. The original prescription was filled only the week before. I have explained that we can't be certain Kay took the medication as prescribed; if she didn't, there are fifteen or twenty of the capsules unaccounted for. Obviously you can't account for them. ... Is there anything else you want to ask her, Harry?'

Blair's expression showed that he knew he was being manipulated, but he seemed more amused than resentful. "Just the usual things. Whether you noticed anything unusual in her behavior— signs of depression, confusion, anything abnormal?"

Rosemary's hands were folded on the desktop; her eyes were fixed on Erin. The message came across loud and clear. "I didn't know her that well," Erin said slowly. "I only met her a couple of weeks ago. She was annoyed because of her hand—not being able to do the things she normally did, it was frustrating for such an active person. "

"Yes, we know about that. Well, I guess that's it, then. Thanks, Mrs. Marshall. I'm sorry about this. We'll make it as easy on you as we can."

"I appreciate that, Harry. If you want to talk to anyone else,
ask Joe. He's in his office, I expect." Her gesture at Erin kept the latter in her chair; after the sheriff had left, Rosemary said, "I'm so sorry, Erin. I never imagined when I asked you to come here that you'd be faced with anything so dreadful. If there's anything I can
do—"

"I'm the one who should be saying that," Erin broke in.

"You've already done a great deal and I expect you'll be called on to do more. If you stay. If you choose to bow out—for a few days, or forever—I won't blame you in the least."

"I'll stay. Of course I'll stay."

"Good." Rosemary's quick smile reshaped every feature, warming her eyes, smoothing out the lines of weariness and tension. It was the smile known and loved by millions of voters; Erin suspected she could turn it on and off like a light switch, but it had the same effect on her that it did on Rosemary's audiences.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Rosemary went on. "I just want to tell you what has happened and what to expect. I think you're like me—you'd rather know the worst than imagine things. There will be an autopsy. Depending on the results of the autopsy, there may or may not be an inquest. If it is determined that Kay died of an overdose, the verdict will almost certainly be accidental death. "

"I see."

"Yes. You're a clever little thing, aren't you?" Rosemary's hands twisted. "I have one more thing to say. I'm going to be candid with you, not only because you are intelligent enough to figure it out for yourself but because I don't want to leave you with any lingering doubts or feelings of regret. I had known Kay for a long time. Our friendship was based on shared experiences and memories and interests, rather than emotional commitment, but it was very real. And yet her death came as something of a relief. You look shocked. Please don't. You were very tactful in your answer to Harry Blair, but you must have noticed her memory lapses, and you, of all people, have suffered from her increasingly short temper. Sooner or later, it would have been necessary for me to replace Kay. She could not have accepted that. This is so much kinder. To go out, painlessly and quickly, before your ambitions and hopes are shattered ..." Her reddened lids lowered and she
bowed her head. "It's what I'd want for myself," she whispered. Erin's eyes filled with tears, the first she had shed that day; but even as she nodded in sympathetic agreement, some separate section of her mind told her that she had just witnessed one of Rosemary's more impressive performances. Nick was absolutely right, she was getting better all the time.

"The inquest
is Monday?" Erin exclaimed. "So soon?"

"That's what happens when you are a big shot, on your own turf," Nick said. "Everybody is cooperating. Get it over with, out of the way, so the important people won't be inconvenienced."

They were sitting on the tree trunk watching the sun set from Christie's favorite spot on the hill. Christie wasn't with them; she wouldn't get a chance to run that day, except to run herself ragged. Erin ought to have been in the office trying to help, but she had felt a desperate need to get away from the house. Nick had caught up with her along the path, scaring her half to death when she heard his pounding footsteps behind her.

Nick poked moodily at the ground with a stick he had picked up. Its rough point made little impression; the ground was baked hard. The stick cracked across, and Nick tossed it aside. "It's all wrong, Erin," he said. "Cover-up is the name of the game in politics, but this stinks. Joe is counting on a verdict of accidental death. "

"The sleeping pills."

"Uh-huh."

"I don't believe it."

"Neither do I."

Nick shifted position. The log was certainly not the most comfortable of seats. "The police are thinking suicide," Erin said. "If the autopsy shows she had Alzheimer's or cancer, or some other horrible disease, that will confirm their theory. If it doesn't . . . well, everybody knows menopause is tough on these old ladies, they get funny ideas. So make it accidental death, spare the feelings of the survivors, don't dig around for dirt that might hurt Rosemary's campaign."

"Nasty, logical way you have of looking at things," Nick muttered. "Maybe she did kill herself. Maybe she was the arsonist."

"Menopause?" Erin suggested caustically.

"Blackmail, pure and simple. To remind Rosemary she knew the truth, and intended to hang on to her job."

"Then she got religion and repented? That would be a nice neat solution, wouldn't it? Criminal and judge in one; crime wave ended, punishment meted out."

"I'm afraid it's too neat," Nick admitted gloomily. "The other possibility is that she found out who was persecuting Rosemary, and the criminal silenced her."

"That would suggest that she confronted the suspect instead of going to Rosemary or the police. So it was someone she knew and liked?"

"Say rather someone she feared. That's the whole point about blackmail; the victim can't go to the police. So why should he kill her? It's usually the other way around."

"But we keep coming back to the same group of people," Erin argued. "It wouldn't have been difficult for any one of them to arrange for Kay to get an overdose."

"And it would have been almost impossible for anyone outside that group to have pumped the pills into her." Nick brooded. "Damn. That lets Laurence out. He was my favorite suspect."

"I don't like him either, but I can't think of any reason why he'd want to threaten or blackmail Rosemary. It all goes back to that fire in Richmond. Who else could have known about it?"

"Everybody and his kid brother," Nick said despondently. "We've been down that track before. However, I want you to know I'm finally getting my act together. I ran a few checks on some of our suspects today. Better late than never, right? If I hadn't sat on my butt dreaming dreams of glory, Kay might—"

"No, don't ever think that." Erin put a comforting arm around him. "It's unfair, untrue, and unproductive. If we had known what was going to happen, we'd all have behaved differently. But we didn't know. At least you were nice to her. She liked you."

Mmmmmm." Nick returned the compliment physically and verbally, drawing her close before he said, "She liked you too."

"No, she didn't. And—and I really didn't like her very much. I wasn't as nice as I should have been."

"I expect everyone feels the same," Nick said gently. "You know something? I don't think Rosemary really liked her either. She's probably feeling guiltier than anyone. "

"She has no reason to feel guilty. She put up with a lot more from Kay than most people would. Oh, Nick, what are we going to do?"

"How about a little canoodling? No, don't give me that reproachful look; as the man said, life goes on. The more love in it, the better."

She responded, not in words, but by raising her face to his. His kiss was warm and sweet; less than passionate and more than kind, both a fulfillment and a promise.

"Now, then,' he said, "where were we?"

"Checking on suspects?"

"Right. I think we have to eliminate Joe. Not only does he have every reason to pray for victory, but he didn't know Rosemary until last winter, when he joined the campaign. I found no connection between them before that, except for casual encounters in the course of political business.

"Will she's known since college. Dated him a few times before she met the great Edward Marshall and was swept off her feet. He was married; got a divorce last year. Three kids. I couldn't find any evidence that he saw much, if anything, of Rosemary after she married Marshall. It's not likely that he would, you know."

"Not likely, but you can't be sure."

"True. I didn't have time for in-depth investigations. As for Laurence, he was Ed's friend originally, not Rosemary's. They met at Hah-vahd as undergraduates. We know Jeff is clean, but I looked him up anyway; he comes from Arizona, went to law school in LA, where he aced everything—law review, the works—and then went to work for the State's Attorney's office in Sacramento. He joined the campaign in April. Said he wanted to get into politics, and he liked Rosemary's style—"

"Isn't that an inadequate reason for giving up his job and
traveling clear across the country to work for a woman he'd never
met?"

"No more inadequate than my reasons for giving up
my
job and scrounging scraps from Sarah to keep body and soul together. He may have met her casually, for all you know, and been swept off his feet. She has that effect on people. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Jeff's parents are both living, and he has two younger brothers."

"Good work," Erin said. "How'd you find that out?"

"Personnel file. Same for Christie; mother's dead, father's married a second time, they live in Petersburg. Her birth date is May fourteenth."

"That lets her out."

"Right. Sarah—"

"Oh, Nick!"

"A sleuth has to keep an open mind. The woman who died in Richmond could have had a sister. If she did, it wasn't Sarah. Background is an open book. Same for Jackson. He's a native Washingtonian."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Right back on square one," Nick said. "Any suggestions?"

"We can't take this to the police."

"This tangled web of surmise and guesswork? No, dearie, we sure as hell can't. There's only one thing we can do. Confront Rosemary. "

"I didn't think you'd agree to do that."

"Nothing else we can do without more time and a helluva lot more resources than either of us can command. But we've got to do something. Even if we're wrong, even if we end up looking like a pair of horses' behinds, we can't sit on our hands and wait for the next incident. If Kay's death was murder, we've got ourselves a whole new ball game."

He jumped to his feet and began pacing up and down, his fists clenched. Erin got up too. "I agree. Completely. But we don't know how Kay died, not yet. Let's wait till after the autopsy."

"I don't know if I can wait that long," Nick groaned. "Something else is going to happen, Erin. I can feel it."

"Yes." A shiver ran through her. Nick stopped pacing and put his arm around her. "Cold?"

"No. Somebody walked over my grave. ' "Don't say things like that!"

When they neared
the house Nick let out a grunt of disgust. "Damn, there's Laurence's car. I might have known that ghoul would be on the scene. "

"How did he find out so quickly?"

"He has informants all over town. The word has gone out; I sent the obituary to the paper a couple of hours ago, and Christie called some people; Rosemary canceled her appointments for this afternoon, you know."

"I should know; I made several calls myself." Erin rubbed her forehead. She had had a dull headache all day, on which the aspirin she had taken had little effect. "I'm not functioning at peak efficiency."

"Me neither. Let's sneak in the back door. The mood I'm in right now, I don't think I can listen to Laurence ooze sympathy and advice. "

"Rosemary doesn't seem to mind," Erin said thoughtfully. "And there are times—"

"Oh, for God's sake, not that again!"

"No, not that again. I was going to say that I have a feeling there's more to him than meets the eye, that his languid air is only a facade. " She broke off with a laugh. "For instance ..."

Laurence had just come out of the house. As usual, there were several cats waiting to sneak in; as soon as the screen door opened, a lean calico darted between his feet and he executed a complex, graceless stagger to avoid stepping on the animal. They heard his comment; it was profane but amused, and he paused to stroke one of the losers in the race. "Sorry, old chap, better luck next time."

It was too late for the guilty pair to retreat. Laurence caught sight of them and wove a tortuous path around the cats on the steps and the porch. "Hello, young Nick. I dropped by to discuss Sunday's show, but this is obviously not the time. Perhaps we can set up another appointment."

"I don't know," Nick began.