5 From the Grounds Up Page 3

  Like the coroner, Pavlik wasn't a first responder under normal circumstances. If this were baseball, he'd be more the clean-up batter. The game wasn't over, but if everyone prior to him had done his or her job, Pavlik could do his more efficiently and effectively.

  I watched as the sheriff climbed out of his cruiser and strode over to the knot of officers and EMTs surrounding the Buick. As he reached them, two firefighters with a hydraulic spreader went to work on the driver's door of Eisvogel's car.

  'Jaws of Life, huh?' Sarah said over the industrial whine, gesturing vaguely at the equipment.

  I guessed what she was thinking. That the description 'life' was wrong in this case. That the line between it and death had been crossed by Kornell Eisvogel, and that no fancy tool, act of heroism or medical marvel was ever, ever going to bring him back.

  Or maybe she was just making conversation.

  'Can't they simply pull him out the window?' Sarah asked me.

  'Maybe he's . . . stuck.'

  'So, like I said, pull. It's not like he's going to notice.'

  We were standing about thirty feet off the railroad bed. The police had moved us away from the Buick when they'd arrived. Sarah hadn't identified herself. Or Kornell, for that matter. When I'd started to, she'd shot me a look that stopped me.

  Sarah wasn't exactly a joiner, but she was going to have to get involved, like it or not. Me, too, and I really didn't fancy Pavlik catching me at the scene of yet another emergency. My timing--or lack thereof--had gotten to be a joke between us, but I feared the humor was wearing thin for him. I knew it was for me, and I wasn't surrounded by crime constantly, like he was. The last thing a cop needed was to be dating a death magnet.

  I didn't want Pavlik to see me, at least right then. I got some unexpected help in that area from the tenants of the Junction. They joined us now, providing cover for me.

  'How in the hell did this happen?' a grizzled man built like a toad asked. 'Did the driver go right through the gates?' As he waved his hand toward what was left of the Buick, I noticed his fingers were as long and tapered as his body was short and squat.

  'Look for yourself.' The little redhead next to me gestured toward the splintered railway crossing gates. She still wore an apron and yellow rubber gloves, so I pegged her as the caterer. The toady guy was the piano teacher, of course. The hands were a dead giveaway.

  The third of our new neighbors, a pretty brunette, shook her head. 'I wouldn't be surprised if he never saw the gates. The tracks are on a little rise and when you're heading south-west this time of day, the sun is right in your eyes.'

  'But what about the engineer's whistle?' the tall, blonde guy next to her asked. 'We certainly heard it. Wouldn't the driver?'

  'He was deaf,' Sarah said, not even bothering to look at the speaker.

  He cocked his head. 'I'm sorry. Do you know . . .' An awkward pause, 'the deceased?'

  Sarah didn't respond, so I tried to answer their questions.

  'I'm Maggy Thorsen,' I said, 'and this is Sarah Kingston. Sarah was showing me the depot when her Uncle Kornell stopped by.'

  Four heads swiveled toward the Buick, where the snarl of the hydraulic jaws had stopped. As we watched, the car door fell away.

  'That's Crazy Kornell?' the brunette said, and then clapped a hand over her mouth.

  'I apologize for my partner.' Blonde Guy laid his palm on Sarah's shoulder. 'I'm sure you were very fond of your uncle.'

  'Not really,' Sarah said. She looked at his hand, seeming to notice him for the first time. 'Who are you?'

  Blonde Guy blushed. It was adorable, and so was he. 'I'm Michael Ink. And this,' he drew the brunette over, 'is Rebecca Penn.'

  Penn and Ink, from their sign.

  'You're kidding, right?' Sarah said. My friend was obviously regaining steam. A good thing for her, not so much for the rest of the world.

  Ink got redder. 'Well, actually, my name is Inkel.'

  Penn and Inkel. Didn't have quite the same ring.

  'Are you artists?' I asked.

  'Rebecca is a graphic artist,' Michael said, turning his attention to me. 'I'm a writer.'

  I love writers.

  Sarah, though, had lost interest in our neighbors. She was watching Pavlik, looking on as Eisvogel's body was loaded on to a gurney.

  As the gurney was wheeled to an ambulance, Pavlik glanced toward the train's crew, now being questioned by a couple of guys in suits. From there, his eyes swept past the clustering passengers to the depot and the surrounding stores.

  And then he settled on us.

  Sarah said, 'Bull's eye.'

  Sure enough. We were in his cross-hairs.

  She waved.

  'Feeling social all of a sudden?' I asked, mildly perturbed.

  Pavlik looked more than mildly perturbed. He looked downright put out. Which probably meant he wouldn't. Put out, that is. At least not tonight.

  Thing was, though, Pavlik was so attractive when irritated that any grief he gave me was almost worth it. He had the most beautiful sunny blue eyes when he was happy. But, when less than pleased with me or a suspect, which on occasion had meant the same thing, his eyes turned gray. Dirty Chevy gray, I called them the first time I met him. Now I thought of them as 'stormy'.

  When he was truly angry, though, Pavlik's eyes went so black you could barely make out the pupil at the center. It was a little scary, actually, something that probably came in handy when the sheriff was talking to 'perps' and 'skels'.

  Me? I'd tell him anything he wanted if his eyes got that stormy. Hell, I'd tell him anything, period, just to tangle my fingers in his black curly hair or, even better, run my hand over the buttery leather jacket he wore when riding his Harley.

  Sadly, though, the May weather had turned warm and the jacket had been retired for the season. Or so Pavlik claimed. I feared he suspected something unnatural was going on between his lambskin and me.

  'Who's that?' the redhead asked, rubbing her gloved hands together.

  'The sheriff, and he's trouble,' Sarah growled. She looked the other woman up and down like she'd just noticed her, too. 'Who the hell are you?'

  The woman answered Sarah automatically. Yet another thing I didn't get. The more audacious Sarah acted, the quicker people yielded to her will. It wasn't fair.

  'Christy Wrigley.' The redhead stuck out her gloved hand.

  Sarah just looked at it.

  I took it. Beat meeting Pavlik's eyes as he approached. 'Maggy Thorsen,' I told her. 'Are you with PartyPeople?'

  The grizzled man, who'd been avidly watching the action at the train, stiffened. 'Don't be ridiculous. I'm PartyPeople. Art Jenada, master caterer.'

  'You cook?' Sarah asked. I don't think she registered surprise that the little, round hairy guy cooked. I think she was astounded anyone cooked. Sarah and her teenage charges survived on carryout.

  Jenada bristled. 'Cook? I'm a chef. I ran the restaurant there,' he pointed at the station, my station, 'until a couple of months back.'

  I glanced at Sarah. Why hadn't she told me Jenada had been her tenant?

  'What happened?' I asked Jenada.

  'Him.' He nodded at the ambulance, its door still standing open, Eisvogel lying lifeless inside.

  'Kornell?' Sarah asked. She seemed to know as little about all this as I did.

  'You bet. Cra . . . I mean, your uncle talked your aunt out of renewing my lease. If Vi had a backbone she would have stood up to him.' His eyes narrowed. 'The minute it looked like I might be able to succeed, I was out.'

  'But Kornell didn't own the depot,' I said to Sarah. 'Why was he involved in the leasing?'

  'Vi let him,' Sarah said. 'I didn't become part of the day-to-day management until after she died, and then, whether Kornell liked it or not, it became mine.' She shook her fist at the ambulance like the old man was going to argue the point from the beyond.

  There was a crisp crack of thunder and I jumped.

  'Sorry.' The little redhead was not more than a foot behind
me. 'I had dust on my gloves.' She clapped the big yellow rubber gloves together again--once, twice, three times--and then held them up in front of her like a surgeon about to go into the operating room.

  'Christy is the piano teacher.' Jenada said. Behind her back, he pointed his finger at his head and made air circles, the universal sign for 'the woman's crazy as a bedbug'.

  'The woman's crazy as a bedbug,' he said, in case I hadn't caught his pantomime.

  Since knowing Sarah, I'd come to appreciate frankness. I wasn't sure Christy would feel the same.

  To my surprise, though, she didn't take offense. Instead, she shivered. 'Bedbugs are not a problem if you maintain proper hygiene. I sanitize my mattress and flip it once a week.' Christy was wringing her hands as she spoke, the yellow rubber of her gloves making squeak-squeak noises. 'Everyone should.'

  I was lucky to rotate my sheets that often, much less my mattress. 'Of course.'

  'Of course,' Sarah parroted. 'But only if you're a germ freak.'

  'I have to be.' Christy's green eyes widened. 'Not just at home, but at work, too.' She gestured toward the music studio. 'Do you have any idea how much bacteria even a small child can carry?'

  Twice his own body weight, if I correctly remembered my son Eric's early years.

  'Little buggers dirty up your piano?' Sarah was enjoying this now.

  'It's terrible. Parents will spend a hundred dollars for a pair of sneakers. What's wrong with investing pocket change in a good anti-bacterial hand-cleanser?' Christy tsk-tsked. 'I have to disinfect the piano after each student.'

  'Cotton swabs?' Sarah asked. 'To get between the keys?'

  'And toothpicks, for those truly hard to reach places.'

  I didn't want to ask how she made the disinfectant stick to the toothpick.

  'How does the disinfectant—' Sarah started.

  'Maggy.'

  I jumped as I had with Christy, then reluctantly turned. 'Pavlik. I mean, Sheriff.'

  He'd been 'Pavlik' to me ever since we met. Even during our most intimate moments, I had to sort through 'Pavlik' and 'Sheriff' to get to 'Jake.' I think it amused him.

  Though by the look on his face, amusement wasn't what he was feeling right now.

  'Just passing by?' he asked.

  'No. That . . .' I pointed to the ambulance, which was pulling away, no lights, no siren, no hurry. ' . . . is Sarah's uncle.'

  She said, 'Make that "was".' Leave it to Sarah to quibble at a time like this. 'And at most he was my uncle-in-law,' she added. 'My aunt died last week, so Kornell and I haven't been related for some days now.'

  'Sorry,' Pavlik said, looking like he wasn't quite sure what to make of all that. Hell, I was familiar with the situation, and even I couldn't gauge Sarah's mood.

  The sheriff pulled a notebook from the pocket of his sports jacket. 'Were you with Mr Eisvogel before the accident?'

  'I guess you could say that.' Sarah sounded cautious.

  Pavlik looked in my direction.

  'Me, too,' I chirped. 'Together. All of us.' I'd found it best to put alibis front and center. Not that it should be important this time. The man had driven into the path of a long-haul train. 'Why do you ask? It was an accident, obviously.'

  Pavlik seemed surprised at the question. 'The death certainly involved a train. But that means everybody and their brother--State Department of Transportation, National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Railroad Administration--will all be here.'

  'Good. Let them come,' Art Jenada injected. 'I'll give them an ear-full. If this wasn't a "quiet zone", that man might not be dead. Another example of the government capitulating to the rich at the expense of the poor working man.'

  Power to the people. The guy did look like a regenerate hippie. 'What does he mean?' I asked.

  Christy smoothed her apron. 'A number of railroad crossings in Brookhills are in quiet zones. Municipalities have the right to designate that.'

  'Quiet? You mean they don't blow their horns?' I said. 'But this one did. I heard it.'

  'Sure,' Jenada said. 'When it was too late.'

  'The man was deaf anyway,' Sarah muttered crossly. 'And nearly blind.'

  'The setting sun is awful this time of year,' Rebecca Penn said, redundantly. The woman had been so quiet since our introduction that I'd forgotten she was there. 'It certainly could have wrecked his vision.'

  'No "vision" to "wreck",' Sarah said. 'Cataracts.'

  'What a shame.' I wasn't thinking about cataracts, I was thinking about fate. Chance. 'If Uncle Kornell,' which earned me a cutting glance from Sarah. 'If Mr Eisvogel,' I corrected, 'had left a fraction sooner. If the train hadn't been early—'

  'Early?' The question came in quadruplicate from Art, Rebecca, Michael and Christy.

  Pavlik expanded it. 'The train was ahead of schedule? By how much?'

  'I'm not sure, exactly. Kornell left at three minutes after eight and the train wasn't due until eight fifteen. He didn't leave at a dead run,' I felt myself flush at my choice of words, 'but it certainly wouldn't have taken him twelve minutes to start the car and drive the half-block to the tracks.'

  The train's conductor was standing about twenty feet away, talking with a deputy. Pavlik waved them over. 'Why didn't you tell me the train was early?'

  The conductor looked surprised. 'Because it wasn't. We were right on schedule.'

  I turned to Sarah for support. 'Your uncle left at three minutes past the hour, right?'

  Sarah shrugged. Probably ticked because I still referred to the deceased as her 'uncle'.

  I turned back to Pavlik. 'Before he left, Eisvogel checked the Brookhills wall clock.'

  'Figures.' This from Art Jenada.

  We all looked at him.

  He shrugged. 'Every day, when I ran the place, Crazy would "stop by to check the time". It was just an excuse. Bad enough the old man was too cheap to get a watch or have the other two clocks fixed like I asked him, but then he expected me to feed him, too. Acted like he owned the place.'

  Which, to give the devil his due, Eisvogel thought he did.

  'The decedent's license was restricted to daylight driving, sir,' the deputy contributed, as if none of us were there.

  'Kornell Eisvogel,' I said, 'told us he'd be home by sunset. He seemed to have it all timed out, like he did this on a regular basis.'

  'He sure as hell did.' Jenada rubbed his bristled face. 'I closed at eight and Crazy'd shoot out of there right after that, carrying any leftovers he could score.'

  'Where was the deceased's home?' Pavlik asked his deputy.

  The deputy opened a notebook. 'Brookhills Manor, according to his driver's license. It's just down the street. And they're right: The old man would have made it if he'd left a couple of minutes earlier.'

  'Or the train had been on time,' I added, sneaking a peek at the conductor.

  'We were on time,' he said testily. 'Check our log.'

  'I'll do that,' Pavlik said. 'It's most likely, though, that the depot's clock is wrong.'

  'Clocks,' I corrected. 'There are three of them, but like Art says, only one of them keeps time. I'll show you now if you'd like.'

  Pavlik let me lead the way. The rest of the group had already broken up and Sarah was nowhere in sight. Art Jenada and Christy Wrigley were walking diagonally toward their establishments. Michael Inkel and Rebecca Penn were heading parallel to the train about ten yards ahead of us and talking in low voices.

  Occasionally I could make out a word or so. 'Why did—', 'I warned—', 'You always—'

  Definitely a couple.

  I started to say something, but Pavlik put up a warning finger.

  When Rebecca and Michael turned off and were out of earshot, Pavlik said, 'Must you be at every unattended death in my jurisdiction?'

  'It's not any fault of mine,' I protested. 'It just happens. Like a curse.'

  His look made it clear he thought I might be the curse. 'People are starting to notice.'

  'Notice?'

  'That you show
up whenever somebody crumps.'

  'Oh.' I could see the awkward side of that. 'Did you explain it's just a coincidence?'

  'No. I told them you're my stalker.' His eyes flared blue for a second, accompanied by the slightest trace of a grin.

  Seemingly, we were OK.

  Continuing toward the caboose of the train, I could see vehicles of every shape and size backed up on Junction Road. I wondered if Sarah's Firebird was wading through that mess.

  Pavlik approached another of his deputies. 'Re-route traffic through the neighborhoods and over to Poplar Creek Road.'

  My house is on Poplar Creek, a narrow two-lane street. Given the sheriff's order, getting home wasn't going to be easy. 'How long will this road be closed?' I asked.

  'The train can't be moved until the other agencies arrive, investigate and release it as an accident--or worse, crime -- scene.' Pavlik was ahead of me now, striding toward the depot.

  'Crime scene?' I was trying to keep up. 'Eisvogel's car was on a railroad track and got hit by a train. It was an accident.'

  'Maybe, but that's not my call. There have been way too many transit incidents resulting in fatalities lately and all of this needs to be by the book. The agencies will take a while.'

  I thought I knew what Pavlik was referring to. There had been a recent rash of crashes--buses, trains, automobiles--caused by drivers talking on cellphones or texting. The authorities were really cracking down and prosecuting the people responsible. Assuming they survived.

  I broke into a trot and caught Pavlik on the steps up to the station. I was digging through my handbag for my own cellphone. 'Listen, we can compare the time on my phone to the depot clock.'

  I found my cell just as Pavlik swung open the door. 'It's . . . nine twenty-seven,' I said. 'If the conductor was right about being on schedule, the wall clock should be about ten minutes slow. So—'

  I stopped, cellphone in hand, staring at the Brookhills clock. Twenty-seven minutes after the hour.

  On the button.