Monica Ferris - A Murderous Yarn

Cars coming off the highway slowed for a look, causing others to honk impatiently. One, steering where he looked, swayed toward them, and Lars blew his whistle angrily, nearly hiding the Stanley in the steam and setting off a chorus of honks. Betsy stood and waved her fist at the driver, but was laughing too hard to make her threat worth anything.

Then there came a gap and they went on down the road, past the sudden steep hill of the cemetery, around a curve, and past the police station, then Adele’s Ice Cream and the McDonald’s. At the next stop sign they turned right and were back on St. Alban’s. The circuit, about three miles, had taken less than fifteen minutes.

The view along St. Alban’s Bay Road was more open but no less pleasant, with Excelsior Bay on their left and St. Alban’s Bay on their right. They went onto a two-lane bridge over the narrow link between them. Some people had already put their boats in the water, though it was a little early for pleasure sailing. Over the bridge was a yacht and boat sales and repair company, then a row of mixed small cottages and bigger houses, some hidden behind hedges, others open, with grass showing green and tulips budding. The trees on either side had leaves almost big enough to hide their branches. Betsy sniffed, testing the spring air, but the car had a strong aroma of its own, an unpleasant combination of gasoline, kerosene, and hot oil. But now, quite suddenly, the scent of gasoline was overwhelming. She turned to ask Lars about it and saw the look of alarm forming on his face.

He shut the throttle down and began to brake. “I hope this isn’t what I think it is,” he muttered. He reached for a valve knob, pulling onto the narrow, sloping shoulder, fighting the wheel one-handed as the tires gripped hard at the loose gravel.

As they slowed nearly to a stop, he turned to say, “Get-” but was interrupted by an enormous fiery explosion. Betsy flung her arms up and screamed. Smoke, dark flames, and gas fumes filled the air.

The fat oval hood was standing up, and black smoke was pouring out. Betsy was standing in the middle of the road looking at the car, with no memory of climbing down.

And then there were people running toward them.

A car going by swerved sharply to miss Betsy. It pulled onto the shoulder and the man driving it got out and ran toward them, his face alarmed. A passenger got out, cell phone to his ear, gesturing as he spoke.

Betsy suddenly realized she was deaf.

But she felt no pain. She was not scattered in small pieces over the surrounding area. She was not on fire or even burned. Or bleeding.

Lars was standing behind the Stanley cranking down a valve. He was calm, intact, and not on fire.

In fact, the car seemed to be intact, the smoke almost cleared away.

“What the hell happened?” shouted the driver of the stopped car as he came up to them, sounding to Betsy as if he were speaking from under a thick blanket. Lars said something back, which Betsy could not hear at all.

The man repeated his question, and Lars came out from behind the Stanley. “The pilot light went out!” he shouted.

Betsy began to laugh. It was a sick, hysterical laugh, and Lars hurried over to take her by the shoulders and shake her. “Hey!” he said. “Hey! Stop it!”

Betsy managed to stop, and put her hands on Lars’s arms to make him quit shaking her. “I-I’m oh-okay,” Betsy managed between teeth that were suddenly chattering. Her touch on Lars turned to a grasp, as her knees began to give way.

Several people came close, and one said, “Shall I call 911?”

Everyone’s voice was becoming audible, if muffled. Betsy touched one ear with the palm of her hand.

The man with the cell phone said, “I already did!”

“What did you do that for?” demanded Lars angrily.

Betsy heard a sound and turned back toward town. Was that the volunteer fire department siren? By the way the others were looking toward it, it was. She moved her jaw in a kind of yawn, trying to get her hearing the rest of the way back.

Lars said angrily, “Call and cancel! The car’s fine, and we’re fine!”

That was met with disbelieving silence.

“No, really,” said Betsy, “I’m all right. I’m not injured.” She looked at the Stanley, which seemed innocent of all wrongdoing, though the hood still stood upright. “But my God, Lars, if that’s what happens when the pilot light goes out, what happens when you run out of steam?” And she started laughing again.

“Hey,” he began, but she stepped back out of his reach.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, and in fact her knees seemed to have regained their strength. “Better see to your car.”

“Oh, it’s okay, really, it’s in perfect condition. We’ll let the fumes air out and relight the pilot light, and we’re back on our way.” He walked over to the front of the car and began looking at the squat white round thing where the engine in an ordinary car would be.

“What the hell kind of a car is that?” asked a stocky young man near the front of the small crowd.

A skinny old man said, “I believe it’s a Stanley Steamer.”

Betsy said, surprised, “You’re absolutely right. How did you know that?”

“My grandfather had one. Kept it in an old shed back of the barn. He used to fire it up and let me drive it over the pastures. It could climb out of the deepest ditch on the place. Ran her on diesel fuel and kerosene, if I remember rightly. But I burned the boiler dry a couple of times and it wouldn’t run after that.”

He was speaking to the crowd as well as to Betsy. Lars had walked around to the side of the car to lift the front seat and rummage around among what sounded like heavy metal tools.

“What are you going to do?” the man with the cell phone asked him.

Lars came up with a flashlight and a length of stiff wire. “Gonna clean out the pilot light,” he said. “ If all of you will give me some room!” He spoke with annoyance weighted by the unmistakable authority of a police officer, and everyone decided to give him all the room he wanted.

“I used to use a coat hanger,” the old man said, and he was immediately surrounded by people who wanted to hear more about coat hangers and Stanley Steamers.

Betsy went to stand behind Lars, trying to see without interfering in what he was doing. She heard a car horn honking and honking and turned to see a big old Buick roaring up the road. “Here comes Jill,” she said.

Lars groaned. “She’s gonna make me sell it, I just know she is!” And then he groaned louder at the sound of a siren approaching. Several sirens.

The man who had waved the cell phone said, “I called and canceled! Honest!” Then he hurried into the passenger seat of his car and left.

The Buick slid to a stop across the road and Jill emerged, her face white. “What happened?” she demanded.

“The pilot light went out,” said Betsy, shrugging in further ignorance.

“Pilot light-?”

Lars said, slamming down the hood, “When the pilot light goes out, gasoline fumes collect, and if the boiler’s hot enough, it sets them off. You get a little bang, the hood flies up, the fumes escape, and you’re fine.”

Jill said, “I heard that ‘little bang’ three quarters of a mile from here. I imagine all of Excelsior, most of Shorewood, and half of Deephaven heard it. The 911 switchboard must’ve lit up like a Christmas tree.” She gestured back up the road at the approaching emergency vehicles, their sirens drowning out anything further she might have said.

The fire truck crew listened while Lars explained what was going on, the ambulance crew gave Betsy a cursory examination-Lars refused to let them examine him-and at last they departed. Most of the neighbors by then had gone back into their houses, though the old man hung out at a safe distance to watch Lars work.