The Race (Isaac Bell 4)

The Van Dorns hopped to obey, angling electric lights they had hooked u

p to the Statue of Liberty’s dynamo.

“You see? The sleeve that holds the pintle for the alettone is not strong enough. Nor is it solidly seated in the frame. It’s even worse on the other wing. Dumb luck that that one didn’t fall off, too.”

Platov felt the sleeve with his fingers, like a vet examining a calf. He turned to the nearest mechanician. “Please, you are bringing second tool bag from boat?”

The Van Dorn hurried to the dock.

Platov addressed the other detective. “Please, you bringing more lights.”

Josephine said, “I can’t believe my eyes. It’s an amateurish design. The man who built the machine didn’t seem to understand the stress on this part.”

Dmitri Platov looked Josephine full in the face and stepped very close to her.

She was taken aback. Having never stood within twenty yards of him until this moment, she had never noticed how thoroughly his dark springy hair and mutton chops covered his brow, cheeks, chin, and lips, nor how brightly his eyes burned within that curly nest. She felt herself drawn to his eyes. There was something strangely familiar about them.

“Poor design?” he asked in straightforward, unaccented English. “I take that as a personal insult.”

Josephine stared back in utter amazement.

She covered her mouth with her greasy glove, staining her cheek. Marco Celere’s voice – the voice he had used only when they were alone – the faintest Italian accent, speaking the British phrases he had learned as a teenager apprenticed to a Birmingham machinist.

“Marco,” she whispered. “Oh, my Marco, you’re alive.”

Marco Celere gave her the tiniest wink. “Shall I send our audience packing?” he murmured.

She nodded, still pressing her glove to her mouth.

Marco raised his voice and addressed the Van Dorn mechanicians in his familiar Dmitri Platov Russian accent. “Gentles-mens, de idea is dat too many cooks making cold soup. Let Platov being alone genius fixing Josephine aviatrix machine.”

Josephine saw the detective-mechanicians exchange glances.

“Josephine being helper,” Platov added.

The detectives were staring uncomfortably, Josephine thought. Did they suspect? Thank God, Isaac wasn’t here. Chief Investigator Bell would question the shock on her face. These younger, less experienced operators sensed something out of kilter. But were they clever enough to challenge the mechanician-machinist who everyone in the race knew as “the crazy Russian” Platov?

“It’s O.K.,” said Josephine. “I’ll be his helper.”

The head Van Dorn nodded his assent. After all, she was a better mechanician than any of them. They retreated to the ropes they had strung to hold the newspaper reporters at bay. “We’ll be right over here if you need us, Josephine.”

Marco said, “Are passing Platov monkeying wrench, Josephine.”

She fumbled for the tool. She could barely believe her senses. And yet she felt as if she had awakened from a nightmare that had started the week she married Harry Frost when she saw him punch and kick a man nearly to death for smiling at her. Her husband had never hurt her, but she had known from that moment on that he would one day, suddenly, without warning. What a fearful price she had paid for her aeroplanes, waiting, on tenterhooks, even as Harry applauded her passion for flying and bought her machines – until last autumn, when he grew suspicious of Marco.

He had moved like lightning. First, he cut her out of his will. Then he roared in her face that he would kill her if she ever dared ask him for a divorce. Having trapped her thoroughly, he refused to pay off Marco’s debts on the machine they needed to compete for the Whiteway Cup. When he invited Marco to go hunting, she feared the worst. It was a trick to take Marco out in the woods and kill him in a “hunting accident.”

But Marco had a plan to save them both and enter the race – a brilliant plan to fake his own murder and frame Harry for the crime.

He had jimmied the telescopic sight on Harry’s hunting rifle so it would shoot high. He positioned himself so he could jump to a narrow ledge right below the rim of the cliff when Harry fired. Josephine would fly over, witnessing the shooting, so that Harry Frost would run. Marco would pretend to be dead, his body swept away by the North River. Josephine’s violent, murderous husband would be permanently locked back in the insane asylum, where he belonged. And Josephine would be free to charm the wealthy San Francisco newspaper publisher Preston Whiteway into sponsoring her in the Atlantic – Pacific air race in a new Celere Monoplano. Later, after Harry was safely locked up, Marco would wander out of the Adirondack woods pretending amnesia, remembering nothing except being wounded by Harry Frost.

But things had gone badly wrong. Harry had actually shot Marco – she had seen him blasted off the cliff with her own eyes – and Harry was never caught.

Fearing Marco was dead, Josephine had felt punished for what was, she had to admit in retrospect, an evil plan. She had begun to wish she had not let Marco talk her into it. Just as now part of her regretted following through with their plan to make Whiteway her champion in the race. It had simply never occurred to her that the rich, handsome publisher would fall in love with a tomboy farm girl.

Some women might rate the opportunity to become the legal wife of a newspaper magnate as better luck than she deserved, but Josephine did not want any part of it. She loved Marco and she had grieved for him. And now, suddenly, unexpectedly, he was back, alive and well, like an unexpected Christmas gift delivered late.

“Marco?” she whispered. “Marco? What happened?”