Murder on the Orient Espresso (11 page)

‘Exactly,' my personal weapons expert said. ‘When that's pushed and you flick out to the side with your wrist, the weight of the blade opens the knife.'

‘But isn't that a switchblade?' Missy seemed puzzled.

I, for my part, was completely lost.

‘Not at all,' Pavlik said. ‘When you thumb the button – or ‘switch' – on a switchblade, the blade flicks out automatically.'

‘So no gravity needed.' Prudence was nodding.

‘Correct,' Pavlik said. ‘The pocket knife, on the other—'

‘We're moving,' I interrupted, feeling the train hiccup in the other direction.
And
with Pavlik still safely inside. My delaying tactic had worked.

‘Oh, thank goodness.' Missy was back to the window. ‘The engineer has already moved to the other locomotive. We must be starting back toward Fort Lauderdale.'

‘Spry old fellow,' Prudence said.

‘The engineer? Oh, he's quite the character.' Missy checked her watch. ‘I do worry that we'll get back to the station too early, though. You know, before the crime is solved?'

‘Maybe someone should make an announcement,' I suggested. ‘Requesting that Potter and the rest of the “cast” come to this car.'

There was a flaw, of course, in my plan: Laurence Potter obviously didn't want to appear. Missy, however, didn't seem to see it. ‘That's a wonderful idea, Maggy. Zoe should—'

‘Zoe? Why not you?' Prudence prodded. ‘You do most of the work, anyway. Why let her take all the credit?'

Missy blushed, tugging down her dress. ‘Oh, no, I prefer to work behind the scenes. I couldn't.'

‘You couldn't what?' Zoe, perhaps instinctively, had magically turned up, too.

‘Maggy suggested that we make an announcement …'

‘Maggy?' Zoe repeated.

I raised my hand. The woman was either stupid or trying to rile me. I was betting on the latter.

‘Oh, right,' Zoe said distractedly, her attention drawn to the commotion in the corner, where a huge man dressed in a zoot suit was trying to climb onto the table.

Pavlik, having been thwarted in his effort to save the day by venturing into the Everglades, slid out of the booth. ‘You!' he said in a thundering voice. ‘Down! Now!'

The big man ignored him. With the train's swaying movement he looked like an overweight, overdressed mob surfer trying to position his feet for one last Big Kahuna of a wave. Worse, he was a decade off in his costume. The high-waisted trousers and long coats with wide lapels and padded shoulders were popular in the forties, not the thirties.

‘Off the table, Fred!' Zoe bellowed.

‘Fred' got off. Pavlik shrugged and returned to our table.

‘Zoe, we think you should cut the cake,' Prudence suggested. ‘Sop up some of the alcohol.'

‘Too late,' Missy said mournfully.

‘Too late to sop up the alcohol or too late to cut the cake?' One more Orient Espresso martini on an empty stomach and
I'd
be up on a table. Or under it.

‘Maybe both.' Missy was agitatedly tip-tapping her foot. ‘But what I mean is that someone took a big hunk out of our cake and made off with the knife. Can you believe that? What are we going to use to cut the rest of it?'

I looked down at my swizzle stick, hungry enough to give it a good-faith try.

‘I'm sure we can come up with something,' Pavlik said. ‘If all else fails, I have my trusty Swiss Army knife.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another knife in addition to the ones that apparently awaited us in the Flagler Suite.

‘But the original cake knife was also meant to be the murder weapon. We need it for the “reveal.”' Missy was near inconsolable. ‘Somebody has ruined everything!'

‘Oh, for God's sake, don't be such a child,' Zoe snapped, adjusting her dress. ‘It's not the end of the world.'

By this point I desperately wanted to do something to assist poor Missy, and if it got me closer to food then all the better. ‘Show me the cake, Missy. Maybe the knife just fell off the table after someone messed with it. If not, we'll come up with a substitute.'

‘Good idea.' Zoe seemed to be glad to be rid of her overly emotional assistant. And, perhaps, me. ‘In the meantime, we can't wait any longer to solve our little crime. I was going to have you go back to the sleeping car, Jacob, but without Larry I wonder—'

I wanted to hear more about Zoe Scarlett's plans for Pavlik, but Missy had my arm and was pulling me toward the cake at the far end of the car.

‘H
mm,' I said, looking at the hacked-up corpse that had been part of the cake. ‘Somebody amputated the left foot.' Including the big toe, where I'd swiped the bit of frosting earlier, resulting at least in my tracks being covered there.

Missy looked forlorn. ‘Didn't I tell you?'

‘He or she might have taken the knife blade to carry the piece of cake on,' I glanced around. ‘I don't see any plates.'

‘I didn't put them out yet. So no one would get ideas of cutting it early, for all the good that did.'

‘The best-laid plans,' I commiserated. ‘By the way, I loved that knife – what a loss. My grandmother left me a carving set that contained one just like it.'

I was thinking about the gift, which I only brought out for special occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving. The hinged brown box contained two large knives and a serving fork. One, with an eight-inch blade, was a twin of the missing knife.

‘That's so nice,' Missy said. ‘I got this one on eBay for fourteen ninety-five.'

$14.95. Apparently, I wouldn't be retiring on the proceeds from the sale of my family heirloom. But then if it
were
a collectible, Missy would hardly have put it in the cake. Unless … ‘Maybe somebody
did
think it was valuable and stole it. I believe the handle is staghorn and—'

‘Your attention, please.' Zoe Scarlett's voice came over the speakers.

The sudden lurch of the train coupled with a metallic grinding made me grab for a pole. Apparently the new tracks were adding a few more kinks for the return voyage.

‘Hercule Poirot requests that all guests assemble,' Zoe continued, ‘in the forward dining car. It seems there's been a murder.'

At the words, most of the costumed guests started to head in from the next car.

A clap of thunder was followed almost immediately by a searing flash of lightning outside the window. Although we'd been traveling through the blackness for more than an hour and a half, this was my first glimpse behind that curtain of darkness.

‘My God,' I said, leaning down to peer out the window. ‘There's nothing out there except low brush and the occasional clump of trees.'

‘And sawgrass, as far as the eye can see. The Everglades is a “slow-moving river of grass,”' Missy quoted, seeming to relax a little. ‘Over three million acres originally. It really is striking when you fly into Fort Lauderdale at night. You'd swear you're soaring above the clouds or over the ocean because you can't see anything and then, suddenly, the lights of South Florida pop up beneath you.'

Then Missy tensed again as people continued to file past us. ‘I still don't see Laurence. Would you help me search while the rest of the group is occupied?'

My eyes lingered longingly at the cake, but I said, ‘Of course.'

Missy turned, and I managed a last swipe at the frosting before following. ‘Aren't you going the wrong way? You said the sleeping car is the last one, right?'

‘Yes.' Missy stopped. ‘Except that we've reversed direction, so it's the first car after the locomotive, which used to bring up the rear of the train, but now is the front.'

I think my eyes must have crossed, because Missy waved for me to come along. ‘I'll show you.'

We passed from the dining car into the vestibule, where the noise of the track passing below the metal plates beneath our feet made conversation difficult until we opened the next door into the passenger car. It was empty except for Danny and Audra Edmonds. They were seated side by side, curly dark hair and blonde waves close as they chatted in low tones.

‘Excuse me,' Missy interrupted. ‘But we seem to have lost track of Mr Potter.'

Audra looked up. ‘Have you checked with Rosemary?'

‘She's not feeling well,' Missy said. ‘She's lying down in the sleeping car.'

Danny's eyes flickered. ‘Rosemary Darlington? I saw you go by with her before. I'd love to meet her.'

I bet he would. I'd also bet that if I quizzed the star-chaser he'd have no memory of meeting me once, much less twice.

‘I'm afraid she's unavailable at the moment,' Missy said in the voice of an experienced gatekeeper. ‘But I'd be happy to introduce you sometime during the conference,' she glanced at his badge, her nose crinkling, ‘Danny.'

I caught the sign of displeasure, probably at Danny/Col. Arbuthnot's lack of alliteration.

‘He signed up late and barely caught the bus,' I told her. ‘You and Rosemary had already left, so I assume the conference registration person just assigned a character to him randomly.'

Danny glanced down at the badge self-consciously. ‘Is there a problem? Like I told Zoe, I did pay.'

‘No, no – it's fine,' Missy said and, to my surprise, smiled brightly at the young man. ‘We're happy to have you.'

The two were probably close in age. Could love be in the air?

‘Thank you,' Danny said. ‘Are you an author?'

Before Missy could answer that she was ‘just a researcher,' and thereby render herself invisible, I jumped in. ‘Missy is one of the conference organizers. She knows everyone.'

That piqued his interest. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Missy. You must have a very interesting job.'

Missy blushed. ‘I suppose so. I—'

‘Missy works closely with all sorts of famous authors,' I said encouragingly. ‘And publishers, too, I'm sure. Right, Missy?'

‘Well, I … No—'

‘All guests to the dining car,' Zoe's voice thundered over the intercom again.

‘Oh, dear,' Missy said. ‘If we don't find Laurence, who's to solve the crime?'

‘If it helps, Mr Potter passed through here not long after you and Ms Darlington did,' Danny said. ‘He had a pack of cigarettes and was headed the same way.'

Toward the sleeping car. Having walked a mile in the cheated-upon spouse's shoes myself, Danny's statement would have raised a red flag for me. It apparently did for Audra as well.

‘“The same way,”' she repeated, not seeming at all surprised. ‘What a coincidence.'

‘He may have gone out on the landing – or whatever you call it, between cars – for a smoke.' Danny seemed to sense he'd said something to upset her. Why he cared, I didn't know.

‘It's called a vestibule,' Missy said. ‘And there's no smoking on the train, anywhere.'

So I'd been right.

‘Like I said,' Danny continued, ‘I wasn't sure where he was going, only that he had his cigarettes. I was going to follow, see if we could talk, but I saw Mrs … um, Audra, and thought I'd introduce myself.'

I frowned. Something wasn't right. ‘I'm sorry, but didn't I see the two of you speaking in the club car before Audra surprised everyone?'

‘Just for a second,' Danny said. ‘I didn't know who she was then.'

Well, that explained it. I had to admit Zoe Scarlett was right. It
is
hard to know who to suck up to without a scorecard – or, at least, last names and titles on nametags. I was curious about this kid. Hell, about
all
these people. ‘You sent your manuscript to Larry Potter, why—'

Missy tugged on my arm. ‘We really need to find Laurence, Maggy.'

‘Oh, of course,' I said and then to Danny, ‘I'm sorry. We can talk later.'

‘Umm, sure. Anytime,' he said distractedly. Then to Missy: ‘I'd love to hear more about you. Maybe you and I can get together for a drink.'

Missy giggled and tugged at her dress. ‘Maybe.'

As we pressed on toward the restroom at the end of the car, Missy was walking taller, with a sexy little wiggle that threatened to send her careening off her shiny spiked heels as the train chugged along the track.

Ahh, amour. And ambition. And always the twain shall meet.

Which brought me back to our guests of honor. Missy had said that Rosemary Darlington and Laurence Potter had a ‘history.'

I took that to mean an affair and Audra Edmonds's reaction to Rosemary seemed to bear that out. But was this affair truly ‘history' or more current events? As in, the two of them shacked up in the sleeping car at this very moment.

If so, I had to give both Potter and Darlington props for acting ability. The disdain he professed for her – and her new writing endeavor – seemed very genuine. Ditto, our female guest of honor's feelings toward the reviewer, not to mention her own reaction to the motion of the train, her medication and my espresso martini. If Rosemary Darlington was faking, I'd eat her beret.

As Missy and I reached the back of the car, wind was whistling through the opening in the windows I'd been forced to leave in order to secure her banner.

For all the good the thing was doing. Not only, as I expected, was there no one out there to see it except for the denizens of the Everglades, but the vinyl banner was slapping rhythmically against the side of the train, occasionally being lifted by a gust to cover the windows.

The sign might not survive the trip. I just hoped the windows would.

Hesitating at the restroom door, I said to Missy, ‘I suppose it won't hurt to check again.'

She shrugged. ‘Sure, maybe third time's the charm.'

‘Speaking of charm,' I said casually, as I tapped on the restroom door, ‘Danny is kind of cute.'