Murder on the Orient Espresso Page 13

  I was still trying to translate ‘off the grid, official-wise’ to plain English. ‘What exactly—’

  We were interrupted by Missy, who had added the wringing of hands to her repertoire. ‘We’re doing our best, but people are getting very impatient for answers. We … we haven’t told Audra.’ Missy’s voice broke. I could see tears.

  Pavlik squeezed her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry – this shouldn’t all fall back on you.’

  ‘He’s just wonderful,’ she whispered to me as Pavlik strode to the front of the car.

  While I couldn’t echo the worshipful tone, I did the sentiment.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Pavlik said, standing in the aisle at the front of the car. Zoe was seated in the first window seat, twisted around to Markus behind her. I wondered how much help either had been to Missy in keeping a lid on things.

  At least they’d herded the group as instructed into the passenger car. There were just a few seats to spare, including the one next to Zoe. I took it, feeling charitable. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Better,’ she said, looking surprised that I’d asked. ‘Though I’m not sure why. We’re in a terrible fix.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Prudence called from a few rows back. She was sitting next to Rosemary Darlington. ‘Why have we stopped?’

  ‘According to our engineer,’ Pavlik pointed at Hertel, but didn’t give him an opportunity to speak, ‘a portion of the railroad bed has been washed away by the storm, temporarily stranding us here.’

  ‘Isn’t Jacob going to tell them about Larry?’ Zoe whispered to me.

  ‘Got me,’ I said. ‘All I know is that we shouldn’t.’

  ‘Where is he? I mean … Larry?’

  ‘In the sleeping room where the “crime” was solved.’ I used my index fingers to fashion air quotes.

  ‘But what happens if someone goes in there to lie down or something?’ Zoe persisted. ‘Or he starts to smell?’

  I was afraid that ship had sailed, but didn’t see how my answer could give her any comfort. ‘Don’t worry. Pavlik will handle it.’

  Zoe was looking at me quizzically. ‘Why do you do that?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Call Jacob by his last name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I snapped, charity out the window. ‘Why do you call him “Jacob”?’

  Zoe shrugged. ‘He was listed as “Jacob Pavlik” the first time he spoke here. I was in charge of the nametags and program materials and I guess it just … stuck.’

  It could be the truth, I supposed. Zoe was looking for an explanation in return, so I obliged. ‘He suspected me of murder. Believe me, “Pavlik” was the nicest thing I called him.’

  Zoe’s eyes flew open and she managed a weak, ‘Oh.’

  ‘So,’ I said brightly. ‘How long have you known Larry?’

  ‘I, uh … about five years, perhaps?’ She was edging away from me as best she could, given the constraints of the side-by-side seats.

  ‘You needn’t worry about me,’ I told her, feeling a little hurt. ‘I didn’t commit the crime then and I certainly didn’t have any reason to kill Potter now. But somebody must have.’

  ‘Must have what?’ Zoe was looking a lot like she did before she passed out. Happily, if she toppled, she couldn’t go far.

  ‘A reason to kill Larry Potter, of course.’ I slid closer and in a confidential tone whispered, ‘So who do you think it was?’

  ‘How would I know?’ The conference organizer was back to the window.

  ‘But you know these people. For example,’ I nodded toward Rosemary Darlington, ‘could the legendary author have finally snapped when her rumored former lover trashed her new book? Or maybe,’ I hooked a thumb over my shoulder at Danny, ‘it’s the aspiring young writer who’s the killer. He’s practically been stalking the victim, after all, since the critic refused to read his work.’

  ‘Then there’s the literary agent.’ A head tilt toward Carson, seated with Markus across from us. ‘Could he have had a reason to kill his client? Or what about the librarian? I’m pretty sure he was one of Potter’s “victims” in the past. And what about the long-suffering wife?’ I couldn’t see Audra Edmonds, but plunged on anyway, still keeping my voice down. I was on a roll. ‘Might Don’t-Call-Me-Mrs-Potter have done away with her cheating mister?’

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course not. How could you?’ I turned back full-face to Zoe. ‘The only person who does isn’t talking.’

  ‘You mean Larry?’ Zoe’s voice was raspy, as if she couldn’t draw in enough air.

  ‘And the killer, of course.’ I swept my hand to encompass the entire assemblage. I couldn’t help myself. ‘Or killers.’

  Zoe was surveying our fellow passengers warily, so I left her to it and turned my attention back to Pavlik’s question-and-answer session, chewing things over in my mind.

  ‘… say, we’re stuck here,’ Carson was saying. ‘But for how long?’

  ‘Has someone called for help?’ came from Grace, who looked a little worse for wear. Hopefully she hadn’t been dancing on top of a table when we’d come to our abrupt stop, but her body language did project an aching head.

  ‘Unfortunately, it appears the only communication is by cell.’ I noticed that Pavlik didn’t elaborate. ‘And there seems to be no service here.’

  Cell phones magically appeared in hands.

  ‘Huh,’ Markus said, looking at his. ‘Not a single bar.’

  ‘We’re still deep in the Everglades.’ I tried to look out the window, but all I could see was my own reflection against the black backdrop of rain riveting down the glass.

  ‘There are no cell towers. Or at least not many.’ Zoe slipped her phone back into her pocket. ‘And I’m sure the storm didn’t help matters any.’

  ‘I hear the Everglades is like twice the size of Rhode Island,’ Danny contributed. ‘Some hunter got separated from his friends a while back and they didn’t find him for four days.’

  Prudence sniffed. ‘Must have been decades ago. Now—’

  ‘You’d think,’ Danny interrupted, ‘but this was like three years ago. And just this past spring a whole family got lost. They were found a day later, but the newspaper story I Googled said they got lucky. They could have been out here a week.’

  ‘A week?’ Missy’s voice squeaked from somewhere in the back of the car. The assistant event coordinator was probably keeping a low profile.

  ‘Please,’ Pavlik said, holding up both hands. ‘I’m not familiar with the area. But once it’s light, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with. For tonight, stay in this car and the two behind it – the dining and club cars. The forward one is off limits.’

  ‘The sleeping car?’ Rosemary asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘See?’ Zoe hissed, elbowing me. ‘I knew they’d ask.’

  ‘At least a few of us should be allowed to catch some zzz’s in there,’ Prudence contributed in support of our surviving guest of honor.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ Pavlik said flatly. No explanations, no apologies.

  I dug an ‘I told you so’ elbow into my seatmate’s ribs.

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ demanded the big guy who’d followed Grace onto the table earlier. ‘Who says?’

  ‘Can it, Fred,’ Zoe said, rubbing her side. ‘The sheriff is in charge.’

  ‘Some cop from Hicksville, Wisconsin?’ The guy surfed tabletops – I guess it figured he had more nerve than brains. ‘That doesn’t give him any authority here.’

  ‘And you are …?’ asked Markus.

  Fred got up and unsuccessfully tried to hike up his belted pants over his enormous paunch. ‘I’m in South Florida law enforcement. I should be in charge.’

  Geez, just what were we being treated to, ‘Lord of the Flies: Their Boomer Years’?

  Though in truth, I’d prefer that classic over the Donner Party experience in the Sierra Nevadas, given that this guy looked like he could give the python a run for its money at an all-you-can-
eat buffet.

  ‘You’re a gate guard at a senior housing complex,’ Zoe said, cutting him off at the knees. The woman still had some fight in her. ‘When was the last time someone was stabbed to death there, huh?’

  Uh-oh.

  ‘Stabbed to death?’ someone echoed, sounding more than a little horrified.

  ‘And,’ a firm, also female, voice from the back, ‘just where is my husband?’

  TWENTY

  I wouldn’t say the writers with us on the Orient Espresso were ghouls exactly, but they did seem loathe to let a forensic learning opportunity pass by unexploited. However impromptu and even if the corpse was, in a vertically integrated sense, one of their own.

  ‘I don’t see how it would hurt,’ Prudence was saying. ‘I mean, you said the man is already dead.’

  ‘And, outside a funeral home, I’ve never seen a dead body,’ Grace whined. ‘This may be my only chance.’

  ‘You said he was stabbed?’ Harvey – the man playing Hardman, the American detective disguised as a ‘flamboyant American’ in Christie’s book – was taking notes. ‘How many times?’

  Obviously thinking about the number and variety of blade wounds in Christie’s original, he winked at me.

  I’d been bombarded with nonstop questions since Pavlik had taken Potter’s wife away to break – or, thanks to Zoe – elaborate and maybe soften the news for Audra.

  I wished the sheriff good luck on the last, especially since at least one paragraph of his explanation would have to include the expressions ‘cake knife’ and ‘exploding python.’

  I was twisted around in my seat to face the crowd, one knee tucked under me and my patience wearing thin. ‘I told you. I can’t—’

  ‘So the cause of death is a stab wound or wounds, plural?’ from Danny, who seemed to be tapping notes into his iPhone.

  ‘The knife was stuck in his back,’ Missy piped up. She was still a little green around the gills, but determined to be helpful. ‘Though the python—’

  ‘Python?’ Prudence interrupted. ‘Nobody mentioned a python.’

  ‘There’s a snake on the train?’ Grace was glancing around like the thing was going to slither down the aisle.

  ‘No, no,’ Missy said, seeming to realize the firestorm she’d just sparked. ‘And I didn’t say it was the cause—’

  ‘There is no python – or snake of any type – on this train.’ Pavlik had entered from the dining car, shooting a dark look at the young woman. ‘You have my word on that.’

  I knew the drill all too well, but Missy looked like the sheriff had slapped her. The bottom lip trembled and I knew she was seconds from another round of tears.

  ‘Oh, look,’ I said, holding up my cell phone to distract the group. ‘I have service!’

  A dozen phones promptly reappeared and then disappeared as their owners realized I was mistaken. Or lying.

  ‘Sorry, phantom bar,’ I said, tucking my prop away. ‘Anyway, you’re welcome to ask the sheriff, but I can’t imagine that the authorities in any state would want us traipsing in and out of that sleeping car before they have a chance to examine it.’

  A surge of muttering waved down by Big Fred, of all people. ‘Folks, the sheriff’s tootsie has it right. The crime scene must be preserved.’

  ‘It’s in all the books,’ someone else said. ‘And TV shows, too.’

  A third piped up. ‘But we could go one by one. Or just send a representative to take a few photos we can share.’

  OK, maybe they were ghouls.

  ‘It’d be like a press pool,’ Prudence said. ‘Back in the day—’

  Pavlik held up his hands. ‘I appreciate your concern,’ I had to hand it to him, he managed to sound more commanding than sarcastic, ‘but I think your – and our – time here is better spent trying to figure out how Mr Potter spent his last hour or so on this train.’

  I shot Pavlik a look of disbelief and, since he was standing in the aisle next to me, I tugged on his pants leg.

  He held up his finger to the assemblage and leaned down. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re encouraging witnesses to discuss the things they saw?’ I whispered.

  ‘You really think we can stop them?’ He shrugged. ‘At least this will keep them busy and away from the body. We can make a record of what they claim to have seen and done before their memories are further compromised.’

  Hmm. My ‘tootsie’ was a smart cookie, too. God knew when the local authorities would arrive and by then this group would have written their own storylines and rearranged their memories to match. Not to mention using their cell phones as we drew sufficiently near civilization to sew up book and movie deals before we left rail for pavement at the station.

  ‘Maggy, I have to ask you to serve as secretary,’ Pavlik said, raising his voice so the rest of the group could hear and pulling a notebook out of his pocket. ‘I’ll conduct the interviews and record them on my smart phone.’

  Even without the ability to make a call, we could do that. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Oooh,’ Grace squealed. ‘This is just like Murder on the Orient Express. Do you want to interrogate us in the dining car?’

  Pavlik said, ‘I think that will do nicely. Just give us a few minutes to set up.’

  A tired-looking Zoe Scarlett stood and tugged closed her perpetually gaping dress. She was looking less like a bombshell and more like its crater. ‘What would you like me to do, Jacob?’

  ‘Stay in this car and Maggy will let you know who to send in next.’

  The woman, who an hour ago would have thrown me a scathing look, just nodded resignedly and turned away. ‘I can’t believe this,’ I thought I heard her say. ‘I just can’t believe this is happening to me.’

  ‘Do you think it’s odd there was just one real railroad employee on the train?’ I asked Pavlik as we prepared the same table in the dining car where we’d sat earlier in the evening. It was just past midnight. ‘Shouldn’t there have been a conductor and … I don’t know, a brakeman or steward or something?’

  ‘Got me,’ Pavlik said, sliding into the booth. ‘We’ll ask Zoe and Missy when they’re in here, but it sounds to me like corners were cut, probably because of budget limitations.’

  ‘Missy did say she’d hoped more people would attend.’

  ‘And now there’s one fewer.’ He handed me his smart phone.

  ‘I thought you wanted me to take notes.’ I held up the cell. ‘What do I do with this?’

  ‘Changed my mind.’ Pavlik took back his pad and flipped it open. ‘You video and I’ll take notes. I need to be looking at their faces directly, not paying attention to a screen.’

  Made sense. My ex, Ted, had been a camera bug and I swore the man never experienced any place that we went except afterwards on video and photos. Always had his eyes glued to a lens, following the strategy of ‘make camp and break camp: we’ll look at the pictures when we get home.’

  ‘Did you bring a charger?’ I slid the control on the phone to ‘video.’ ‘I’m afraid this could take all night.’

  ‘Yes, I did, and I hope it will. Take all night, I mean.’ Pavlik was jotting down a list of buzzwords toward his questions. ‘The longer we can keep these people engaged the better.’

  ‘You mean the less trouble they’ll be to us?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean. You saw it. Their imaginations are already running away with them.’

  I found it hard to believe that the imaginations of even a bunch of mystery writers could measure up to the reality of what we’d just witnessed.

  ‘The minute Missy mentioned pythons,’ Pavlik continued, ‘they started fabricating. That’s what I want to avoid.’

  ‘That’s not really fair,’ I protested. ‘There was a python. A big one. And eggs, filled with little bitsy pythons. Remember?’

  ‘But not on the train.’ Pavlik spaced each word as though it were a separate sentence.

  ‘True.’ As far as it went.

  ‘Remember, Maggy: we obtain information
, not provide it. The detail of the python’s involvement is better kept among those of us who are already privy to it.’

  The detail of the python’s ‘involvement’? I was starting to feel like I’d fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice. ‘You’ve reminded Missy, Zoe, Boyce, Markus and Engineer Hertel to keep mum?’ Our privy wasn’t very private.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Then consider the snake off the table,’ I said. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Any chance you remember the order of the witnesses called in Murder on the Orient Express?’

  ‘No, but we do have access to a crib sheet.’

  Pavlik, for nearly the first time since I’d known him, let a look of confusion cross his face.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Grace/Greta’s copy of Murder on the Orient Express in front of us, we surveyed the chapter headings of ‘PART II – THE EVIDENCE.’

  ‘Let’s see, first witness.’ I looked at Pavlik. ‘Pete the bartender is playing the role of Pierre Michel, the fictional “Wagon Lit conductor.”’

  ‘I can’t imagine he has anything to tell us,’ Pavlik said. ‘He’s been behind the bar in the club car most of the time. Besides, he’s not one of the people we want to keep occupied.’

  ‘Good point. What about Engineer Hertel? Should we call him to the stand?’

  ‘I’m not sure we can keep the natives from getting restless out there while we get an encyclopedic lowdown on Wild Kingdom – The Everglades Franchise.’

  Another good point. Hertel was probably more a bizarre Marlin Perkins than a carnivore’s Euell Gibbons.

  ‘Still,’ the sheriff said. ‘I do have one thing I need to clarify with him before we talk to anyone else. So yes, bailiff, please bring in the first witness.’

  I grinned and got up.

  Pavlik’s hand stopped me before I could get any farther. ‘I know this hasn’t been exactly what you expected when I asked you to come along.’

  I smiled. ‘You mean when I invited myself?’

  ‘Yeah, since you mention it.’ His blue eyes flashed. ‘But I’m glad you did. Even now, and maybe especially now, given what’s happened. You were truly stand-up brave following me off the train when I know you were scared.’