by Gina Cresse
“Then I’d say we should go talk to Larry.”
I followed Ronnie through the maze of machines, cars, motorcycles, and racks full of various shapes and sizes of sheet metal and rods. We walked past what must have been the office. A large window allowed a view into the semi-organized room. I noticed an assortment of framed photos hanging on the walls. I stopped momentarily to study them. By the looks of the cars in the pictures, they must have dated all the way back to the fifties. A few were from the sixties. As my eyes advanced along the wall, I deduced that they were organized chronologically, with the most recent disappearing around a corner, out of my view. I didn’t recognize any of the faces in the photos, but the general theme was very similar to the photos I’d observed at Ronnie’s house—man’s infatuation with machines. Cars, motorcycles, boats, planes. A couple of the pictures seemed a little out of place. They were more human interest rather than mechanical. I guess that’s why they caught my attention. I suddenly realized Ronnie had left me behind, so I scurried through the shop to catch up with her.
A tall, slender man with curly gray hair glanced over his big safety glasses at us and smiled. “Hey, Ronnie. What brings you out here?”
“Hi Larry,” Ronnie replied. “I’ve come to see if I can buy you lunch.”
“Lunch? You need a favor? Something machined right away?”
Ronnie laughed. “Not today.” She motioned toward me. “This is my friend, Devonie. We wondered if you could talk to us about my dad…you know…the explosion?”
Larry smiled at me, then returned a confused look to Ronnie. “Your dad? I don’t know what I can tell you.”
“Anything you can remember, Larry. It’s really important,” Ronnie pleaded.
Larry seemed to sense the desperation in her voice. “Okay, kid. Just let me set up this run. I got an order for twenty jacks. They gotta go out tomorrow.”
I watched Larry bolt a sheet of metal to a plate inside a large box with windows on two sides. He closed a door on the machine, slipped a floppy disk into a drive, and punched some buttons. Cutting bits started spinning and arms and levers began moving inside the box. Slowly, a shape was cut out of the metal, and then another. Larry watched, satisfied that the program was running smoothly.
“Once in a while, it’ll get a wild hair and cut out twenty parts with a big ol’ cocky-wow smack dab in the middle. Ruin a whole sheet,” Larry explained. “Looks okay, though. You ready? Let’s go.”
Larry ordered a steak. Ronnie and I ordered salads. While we waited for our lunches, Ronnie told Larry about the attempt on her life, the burning of her house, and Lance’s disappearance. Larry appeared shocked.
“Egads. Are the police doing anything?” he asked.
Ronnie shook her head. “They’re doing what they can, I guess, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be enough. Do you remember the fuel-cell engine my dad was working on when he died?”
Larry chuckled as he recalled the last time he’d seen Ronnie’s father. “Thought he was gonna blow the whole place up the day he brought that tank in and started welding on it.”
I sat forward in my seat. “Blow the place up? Was his engine prone to explode?” I asked, wondering if maybe Mel Oakhurst caused his own death.
“Turns out it wasn’t. Harold explained it to me. He was using metal hydride. It’s non-explosive.”
“Do you think something Mel did caused the explosion?” I asked.
Larry cut a piece of steak and put it in his mouth. When he finished chewing, he started talking again. “Mel came over to our shop at least once a week to weld something. He wouldn’t even keep an oxygen tank at his house. He didn’t want to have anything around that might be dangerous to his family. Never met anyone more worried about stuff like that. I guess that’s part of the reason he decided to make the fuel-cell engine. He was bent on saving the world from itself.”
“So you don’t think the explosion was an accident?” I asked.
Larry set his fork down. “There was a lot of talk back then, when it happened, you know. Mel was supposed to demo the engine for some potential investors. Talk was they were going to mass-produce it, if it performed as advertised. After the explosion, rumors were that the oil companies did it to protect their interests. No one could ever prove it. I think that’s why they just called it an accident, so they could put it to rest.”
Ronnie’s face grimaced as though she’d just swallowed a bitter pill. “Put it to rest? It’ll never be put to rest. They just keep killing the people who threaten their interests, or buying them off.”
Larry looked at me, somewhat confused. “Did I miss something? What people are we talking about?”
“Since Mel’s death, we’ve discovered a few more inventors who’ve died under questionable circumstances. Others sold their patents and are living high-off-the-hog. We think the same person or people are probably behind all these killings. That’s why we’re here. Do you remember anything about any connections Mel may have made around the time he died?”
Larry scratched his head. “I don’t recall. It was a long time ago. Harold did tell me the fellas who were interested in the engine were from some small manufacturing company up in L.A. Small time outfit looking to hit it big. What was the name of that outfit? Had a funny name, I remember. Something like oyster or clam. Shell? Maybe. Gosh, I can’t remember.”
Ronnie sat forward in her seat. Her eyes grew wider. “Was it Pearle? Pearle Manufacturing?” she asked.
“That’s it. Pearle. I knew it was something like that,” Larry said, snapping his fingers.
Ronnie’s face grew as pale as the paper napkin in my lap. “How do you know Pearle Manufacturing?” I asked her.
“Jack Pearle. That’s the name of the guy from L.A. who wanted to partner with me on my engine. Pearle Manufacturing.”
“The one who didn’t have any money?”
“That’s the one,” she said.
We dropped Larry off at his shop and headed for the nearest library and a Los Angeles telephone directory. There was no Pearle Manufacturing listed in the entire county.
“Didn’t the guy give you a number to call him—in case you changed your mind?” I asked Ronnie.
“He did, but I knew I wouldn’t change my mind. I think I threw it away. Even if I’d kept it, it’s gone now—burned to a crisp.”
“Well, I think we’ve got another piece to this puzzle. Mighty big coincidence that this Jack Pearle would be interested in your dad’s engine just before the big explosion—”
“Then he wants in on mine, and déjà vu, another explosion.”
The phone was ringing when we walked through the front door of our house. Craig still wasn’t home from the hospital. I raced to the kitchen and picked it up, hoping I wasn’t too late. “Hello?” I said, slightly out of breath.
The call was for Ronnie, from her insurance company. I handed her the phone and went to let the puppy in.
The puppy. Still no name for my poor little—son. I squeezed him and gave him a kiss on top of his head. “What are we going to name you? Hoss?”
He wagged his tail.
I gave him a doubtful look. “I don’t think Craig will go for it. Not dignified enough.”
I heard Ronnie’s voice from the kitchen. “What?” she nearly screamed.
I ran to see what was wrong. She was barking into the telephone. “That’s crazy! No way! It’s a lie!” she yelled.
“What’s wrong?” I mouthed.
She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back tears. “You’re guy is a liar,” she blurted, then slammed the receiver down on its cradle.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
Her face was nearly as red as her hair. I took her arm and led her to a chair, which she collapsed into. “They said they’re not going to pay on my claim,” she said, sobbing.
“What? Why?” I asked, dumfounded.
“They…they said I had dangerous chemicals—that I was running some sort of meth lab. They threatened to report
me to the police for manufacturing methamphetamine.”
I gaped at her. “Where’d they get an idea like that?”
“They said the investigator from the fire department told them. He said that was the cause of the explosion and the fire. It’s all a lie—a big lie,” she insisted, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.
I handed her a box of Kleenex. The puppy sat at Ronnie’s feet and rested his head on her knee. He looked genuinely concerned for her, his brown eyes almost as teary as hers. At the moment, I couldn’t offer any more comfort than he was providing. The doorbell rang, so I left her in the puppy’s care while I answered the door.
The man standing on my front porch was tall—six-foot-four at least, and handsome. Clark Gable was the first thought that flashed through my mind when I opened the door. His dark hair was cut short on the sides and back, but the extra length on top allowed the waves to fall across his forehead. His eyes were hazel or green—I couldn’t tell for sure. I stood there, like the village idiot, waiting for him to recite his line—“Frankly Scarlet…”
He smiled at me. I think I might have blushed.
“Is Ronnie Oakhurst here?” he asked.
I managed to close my mouth before any bugs flew in, or anything stupid fell out of it.
He smiled again. “Ronnie Oakhurst? Is she here?” he repeated.
I shook my head as though I’d just been released from a deep trance. “Ronnie? Who’s asking?”
“Tell her Jake is here. Jake Monroe.”
Chapter Eight
Caller ID is how Jake Monroe found Ronnie. When she called him from our phone, Craig’s name and telephone number appeared on a display on Jake’s phone. From there, it was a simple matter of using a reverse phone directory to get the address.
Craig and I sat at the breakfast nook and watched through the bay window as Ronnie and Jake walk down the dock for a private talk. Jake opened the walk-through gate for her, then took her hand and held it as they continued to stroll.
“What do you see when you look at them?” I asked Craig.
He studied the pair for a moment. “I see a couple who appear to be in love.”
“This is how I know you’re definitely the more romantic of the two of us,” I replied.
“Why? What do you see?” he asked.
“I see a woman who’s invented an engine that’s free to run. I see a man who’s in a position to put that engine in every car World Motors builds. I see that they’re more than just acquaintances. They’re not trying to hide it.”
“Meaning that we’re not the only ones who know about their relationship,” Craig added.
“If that happens—if Jake gets World Motors to tool up for Ronnie’s engine—it’ll spread like a wildfire. It’ll be the beginning of the end for oil companies.”
“I’d say it’s a miracle that Ronnie’s still alive,” Craig said.
“And probably the only reason Jake hasn’t been eliminated is his willingness to honor the wishes of the oil companies that pull his strings. Ronnie said he basically does whatever they tell him.”
Craig and I watched the couple stop at the end of the dock. Ronnie wrapped her arms around Jake’s neck and he returned the gesture by holding her close and kissing her.
“If that picture doesn’t scare the heck out of every oilman in the world, I don’t know what would,” I said.
Jake, Ronnie, Craig, and I sat around the dining room table eating the best meal I can prepare in less than thirty minutes—spaghetti with toasted garlic bread and a green salad. Craig poured red wine for all of us.
“So, Jake. How’d you and Ronnie meet?” I asked.
Jake and Ronnie exchanged glances, then they both laughed.
“We met last year at Daytona. My company had given me a pit pass. One of the perks of working for World Motors—I get to play on their dime. Anyhow, Lance was racing, so Ronnie was there, working on his car. I spotted her cute little…coveralls, buried halfway under the hood. Not too often you see a woman mechanic at the track. I was intrigued, so I introduced myself. Offered some advice on the timing—sounded a little off to me. Anyhow, she let me know that my advice was neither needed nor appreciated.”
Ronnie shot him a defensive look. “I was nice to you.”
“Like heck you were,” he shot back. “If I had any less self-confidence, I’d have run away with my tail between my legs instead of hanging around to take more of your abuse.”
“Abuse. You don’t know abuse. You’re just too sensitive,” she joked.
Jake grinned at her. “So I hung around and pestered her until she finally told me she had to leave. She climbed into her souped-up golf cart and peeled out like she was driving one of those racecars she works on. The tires actually burned rubber on the pavement. I’d never seen anything like it.”
I caught Ronnie’s attention. “Your engine?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not the same one that’s in my car. I put a little steam engine in the cart. That one I showed you my plans for.”
Jake continued. “I followed her to the team’s trailer and begged her to tell me about the golf cart. I was fascinated and offered to buy her dinner if she’d show me her other engines.”
Ronnie shook her finger at him. “Admit it. You were just interested in getting a date with me. You used the excuse of wanting to see the engines just to get on my good side.”
“Guilty as charged,” Jake admitted. “Anyhow, after the race was over, I bought her dinner. Somehow in the conversation about all her inventions, she told me where she lived. The next week, I flew to California, then I drove out to her place. She wheeled a funny-looking motorcycle out of her garage—looked like a little Yamaha two-fifty, but with an engine like I’d never seen before. She sat on the seat and told me to climb on behind her. Then she told me to hang on.” Jake smiled and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. But the thing wasn’t even running yet. I thought she was crazy. She told me, again, to hold on. I asked ‘what for?’ Then she spurred that thing on, and I fell right off the back. Knocked the wind out of me.”
Craig chuckled at the thought. “No kidding? Had some kick, did it?”
“Kick? You can say that again. She literally knocked me off my feet.”
We all laughed.
“But Ronnie said you live in Detroit. That’s taking the term ‘long distance relationship’ to a new level,” I said.
Jake smiled and nodded. “I’ve tried to convince her to leave the land of the short thermometer for Michigan. I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t want to move. I mean, once you get used to the ice storms and the sub-zero temperatures in the winter, and the heat and humidity in the summer, what’s the problem?”
“Can you blame me?” Ronnie said. “I don’t know why you don’t move here.”
Jake smiled at her. “Believe me, it’s very tempting. For now, we have to do the tele-relationship thing and grab every weekend opportunity we can to get together. You know how demanding my job is. All the engines are in Detroit.”
“Not all the engines,” Ronnie reminded him.
I used this opportunity to bring up the subject. “So I take it you’ve got some interest in the engine Ronnie has in her car? The heat-exchange engine?”
Jake frowned. “It’s a very interesting concept. It has a lot of potential.”
Ronnie rolled her eyes. “It has more than potential. It could change the world.”
“You don’t understand. It’s very complicated. You can’t just upset the balance of nature, so to speak,” Jake said.
“Oh, I understand,” Ronnie said. “I understand that you’re in the back pockets of the oil companies. I understand that they’re a bunch of greedy vultures, picking meat off the bones of the working-class people who are struggling to make ends meet.”
Craig and I sat back and watched this argument flare up. It was obviously a rehashing of something that had been discussed over and over in the past.
“Ronnie, I’ve told you this a thousa
nd times. The whole world’s economy is a delicate balancing act. If you pull the legs out from under an industry as big as oil, it’d be like knocking the earth off its axis. You know how many people would be out of jobs? How many companies would go under? It’d be a disaster.”
Ronnie gritted her teeth. “It wouldn’t happen overnight, Jake. There’d be time to regroup. There’d still be jobs—they’d just be in a different industry. It’s gonna happen anyway, and you know it. It’s not just a matter of cost to the consumer, either. We can’t continue to pump four hundred and sixty-nine million metric tons of carbon into the air every year and expect to be a healthy race of people.”
Craig and I exchanged glances. I had no idea the number was so high, and I could tell by the surprise on his face that he didn’t, either.
Jake placed his palms over his eyes and shook his head. “Don’t get started on the whole environmental thing again. Today’s engines burn so much cleaner than they used to—”
“And there’s so many more of them now that the net effect is the same amount of poison is released into the air. How many more people have to have some part of their body cut off because of a cancerous tumor before someone has the guts to turn the titanic?”
“Don’t start on the whole cancer thing—”
“Don’t start? When my mother was thirty, she couldn’t name one personal acquaintance who either had or died of cancer. When I was thirty, I could name a dozen off the top of my head—and they were all under fifty.”
“But that’s only because we’ve gotten better at diagnosing cancer. She had to know people who died of something, but no one put the label ‘cancer’ on it because they didn’t know it back then.”
“Oh, come on, Jake. We’re not talking about the middle ages, here. Pull your head out of the sand. You sound just like the fast-talking bull-sellers who continue to shovel that theory down our throats every chance they get. Like we’re too stupid to see the facts for ourselves.”
Jake was silent.
Ronnie was just getting started. “And at thirty-six, my mother died of lung cancer. She never smoked a day in her life. Explain that one to me, Mr. Monroe.”
