Murder on the Toy Town Express

by Barbara Early

  She pulled several folded bills from her apron. “We sell a few. Mainly the memorabilia just brightens the place up a bit. I imagine it must be fun to work with toys all the time.”

  I inched forward in line. “Some days more than others. If you’re ever looking to pick up a few hours here and there . . . not that I’m trying to steal you away from Craig or anything. I just meant near the holidays or whatever.” Yeah, smooth. But from what I’d seen, she was a loyal and diligent worker, and Craig treated her like garbage, so why not?

  “Funny you should mention that,” she said. “I could use a little more money around Christmas. Not that I have a lot of people to buy for, but utility bills are higher.”

  By this time we were at the front of the line, so I placed my order for Dad and myself. Jack added his and Terry’s and then paid for all of them. Maxine was waited on by a different clerk at the counter, and we ended up finishing about the same time.

  “Here,” I said to Maxine, setting my drinks down on a tall pedestal table a few feet from the counter. “Let me give you my card now. Call me after the show is over. We can arrange a time for you to come in, learn your way around the place, sign papers and all that.”

  Maxine looked around briefly, as if she were afraid of being spotted in cahoots with the enemy, but then she set her cups down and shoved the card in her apron pocket. “Thanks. You’ll be hearing from me.”

  “Well, hey!” The new greeting startled Maxine, but it wasn’t Craig spying on her. Ken Young, dressed very much like a civilian and not the current chief of police, sauntered up to the table.

  “Looks like everyone has a day off today,” I said.

  Ken eyed Jack. The two were friends, of a sort, but that friendship was strained a little by the fact that I was casually seeing both of them. Moments like this could feel a tad awkward.

  After they shook hands, Jack gestured to Terry. “Have you met my brother?”

  Ken reached over to shake Terry’s hand. “I don’t think we’ve met, but you seem familiar.”

  “Give it time,” Terry said. “It’ll come to you.”

  As Ken stepped back, he jarred the table with an errant elbow. It wobbled, and a couple of cups tipped, and we rushed to right them. Only a few drops escaped through the lids, so crisis averted.

  “I should get back,” Maxine said, shaking a few drops of coffee from her hands before rushing off.

  While Jack went to retrieve napkins, I asked Ken, “What brings you here?”

  “You mentioned the show. It sounded like fun.”

  Only he didn’t meet my eyes. Funny how a police chief trained in interrogation, in detecting those minute facial expressions that give away lies, could be so lousy when on the other end. He was trying to hide something.

  “Why else?” I asked.

  He took in a slow breath. “Your dad called.”

  “Called you? If it was about those comic books, I don’t think they were illegal in the first place.”

  “Comic books?”

  “That wasn’t why he called?”

  Jack returned with napkins to mop up our small caffeine puddle.

  Ken didn’t answer, just sent me a tight smile that was far from reassuring.

  My retired father still liked to dabble in police investigations. For him to call in the chief meant two things: one, Dad had finally come to his senses and was going to let the actual police do the police work, and two, he felt he was onto some kind of major crime taking place, here, at the train show.

  Whatever track Dad was on, my plans for a simple weekend selling toys just derailed.

  Chapter 3

  There were no lulls. A couple of hours into the show, my feet were tired from standing on the concrete, my throat was sore from all the dickering, and my brain was swimming from trying to figure out the lowest offer I could accept from the bargain hunters without taking a bath in red ink. Although a nice hot bath was sounding pretty good.

  While busy, we were nowhere near as swamped as Maxine, who was moving from customer to customer as if she were the Flash. I secretly congratulated myself on offering her hours at the shop. If energy like that couldn’t be bottled, at least it could be contracted.

  But as my most recent customer walked away happy with his Fisher-Price castle, I looked up again to see Maxine thumbing through the comics. Her expression was anything but cheerful.

  “I don’t understand,” she told a man standing in front of her table. “I packed them to bring to the show.”

  I stepped out from behind my table. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “They have to be here somewhere.” She turned to her customer and smiled. “Could you stop back? We had to do some last-minute rearranging, but I know we have them.”

  As he walked away, her expression grew more worried as her hands flew through the comic book selection.

  “If you tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help you find it,” I offered.

  “There was a special collection of comics.” Her voice quavered slightly. “They weren’t even supposed to go in the regular boxes. I packed and unpacked them myself.” She pointed to the display shelf behind their sales tables. “The ones there now aren’t the ones I put there.” She stopped for a moment. “When you helped me unpack, did you move any? They would’ve been in rigid plastic cases.”

  “Of course not!” I said. Although the toy market was down in general, I still knew never to open boxes.

  “Never mind.” She started to rake a hand through her hair but then grasped a handful of curls. “I don’t know what to do. Craig and I were here most of the morning, and I don’t see how anyone could have gotten at them without one of us seeing.”

  “Could he have sold them while you were busy with another customer?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose. But he would’ve told me. If he sold everything that was on that shelf, we’re talking thousands of dollars. He probably would have sent me to the bank. The ones there now are only worth hundreds.” She closed her eyes. “If they’ve gone missing when I was in charge, Craig is going to kill me.”

  My mouth got dry just thinking about that kind of loss and what a quick-tempered bully like Craig might do if he found out. I made a mental note to stay focused on their booth, just in case Craig reappeared.

  “Dad,” I said as I returned to our booth, “keep an eye on Craig’s booth, okay?”

  “I have been,” he said. “All day. What’s up now?”

  “A boatload of pricy comics is missing from their display. Is that why you called Ken in?”

  He shook his head, then went to greet a new customer. They chatted for a few minutes, and Dad made the sale, tucking the cash in his apron. He picked up our conversation right where we’d left off. “It’s an interesting development, but that’s not why I called Ken.”

  I cocked my head and waited.

  “Fine,” he said. “I saw a couple suspicious characters wandering around.”

  “Shoplifters?” As soon as I said it, I wondered if he’d meant Terry, who’d spent a good hour poring over the comics. He’d been sent up for burglary, though, and not shoplifting. In fact, it was my dad who caught him in the act and testified at his trial, which had ended up triggering yet another breakup between Jack and me. It also had given his mother yet another reason to decide I was unsuitable for her son.

  “No,” Dad said. “These were faces I thought I remembered from old FBI posters. Organized crime types. And more than one wandering through the show.”

  “The mob? Dad, you can’t be serious. What would the mafia be doing at a train and toy show in East Aurora?”

  He shushed me. “That’s why I called Ken.”

  “Thank you for not trying to take down the whole syndicate by yourself. Are they still here?” I hazarded a glance around. “Can you point them out?”

  “Lizzie, you don’t need to be involved in this. I managed to get pictures and e-mailed them to Ken. I mean, I might be wrong, and these guy
s could just be look-alikes. My eyes are getting older, and my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “You have a mind like an elephant’s.”

  “Yeah, wrinkled, gray, and way too much junk in the trunk. But that’s totally irrelephant.”

  I rolled my eyes and glared at him. Otherwise, he’d be making elephant jokes all day.

  His face instantly sobered. “Ken is checking for outstanding warrants and seeing if he can confirm their identities. Meanwhile, you just stay away from them.”

  “How will I know who to stay away from unless I know who they are?”

  “Fine.” He then casually began to scan the crowd. “Bolo tie and cowboy boots at three o’clock.”

  I glanced to Dad’s right and saw a jovial older man who looked more grandfather than godfather.

  “Batman T-shirt at seven o’clock. My seven.”

  The second guy took a little while to locate, but my eyes eventually found a younger man wearing black jeans and a weathered black tee with a bright-yellow Batman logo on it. He was heading in our direction. The suspected mobster’s eyes were sweeping the comic book table, and I accidentally made eye contact with him. I kept my gaze traveling, hoping he’d assume I was looking for someone else. “Shoot.”

  “You made eye contact, didn’t you?”

  “Sorry.”

  “This is why I didn’t want to point them out.”

  But as the man approached the table, I pushed past Dad and deliberately made eye contact again. “Great shirt,” I said. “Can I interest you in our Batman collectibles? We’ve got some nice Mego figures, trading cards, and I think we still have a 1960s lunchbox.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, so I made sure my smile never faltered.

  “Yeah. I’d like to see those,” he said. His expression relaxed. I must have passed muster as an overzealous vendor out to capitalize on his shirt.

  I directed him over to our superhero section. “Let me know if you have any questions.” And then I left him alone to peruse.

  I faced Dad. “What’s he doing?”

  Dad continued to face me, but his eyes darted, just for microseconds, to take in the man behind me. “He looks like he’s studying the case, but he’s really keeping an eye on the comic book booth.”

  “Because he already robbed it? Could he have taken those missing comic books?”

  “Rob means to take something by force from a person. If that had happened, we’d know it. Listen, Lizzie, if I tell you to hit the deck, you do it, okay? Don’t argue with me or ask why.” The last part wasn’t a question.

  I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

  “I think you made a sale, anyway.” He gestured toward the man. “Keep it casual. Like any other customer.”

  I spun around with a smile and checked out the man’s purchase. He handed me a credit card and several Batman items and asked if I could wrap them up.

  “Be right back,” I said.

  “Take your time,” he said. “I’ll keep looking.”

  By looking, he clearly meant absent-mindedly picking up every piece of merchandise on our tables while watching Craig’s place.

  I let Dad run the credit card, in case he wanted to check out anything about it while the authorization went through on our slow portable machine. Meanwhile, I wrapped the man’s purchases while also watching him and Craig’s place.

  Maxine was still doing a booming business, although she didn’t look nearly as happy as she had this morning. Those missing comics must be wearing on her. And Craig was nowhere to be seen.

  She was so busy, in fact, that I don’t think she noticed Lionel Kelley steal up to the corner of her booth. He quickly paged through the comic books, probably looking for more offending covers.

  The appearance of the uniformed guard at the comic booth seemed to make Batman-man shrink back. He put on sunglasses, which seemed a little odd. Then I plumbed the depths of my high school geometry, estimated angle of incidence and angle of reflection, and theorized that the glasses were also mirrored on the inside and that he was using them to watch the goings-on behind him.

  It didn’t take long for the overzealous guard to find something he considered offensive, and soon he was in Maxine’s face, shaking the book.

  I gave up pretending to focus on my work and watched them openly. I wasn’t alone.

  At first Maxine took it. Then she tried to reason with Kelley. Apparently that didn’t work. Moments later, she began draping fabric over her tables, her face red and jaw clenched.

  At this inopportune moment, Lexi Wolf showed up. Whoever Craig hired to play the part was fantastic. Her legs in those fishnet stockings and stiletto boots looked like they were three miles long, and she even had the wolf makeup down perfectly. She was Comic-Con worthy. She was also far from modest, especially when she flicked her long cloak aside to expose the leather corset.

  I was still staring when Dad nudged me and handed me Batman-man’s credit card. I glanced at it. Edward Millroy. Was that his real name?

  I held it out to the customer, who took several moments to notice, giving credence to my theory about the mirrored lenses. I had just offered him his gift bag when things heated up between Lexi Wolf and Lionel Kelley. Here’s where the fake Lexi showed her true colors: she was slipping in and out of her trademark Aussie accent.

  Maxine was caught between the lanky guard and faux sci-fi icon, and for a while, it seemed as if poor Maxine was getting it from both sides. Finally, she ducked out of the conflict and finished covering the tables. While gathering her purse and coat, she surreptitiously wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. I could understand her frustration. She kept her head down as she rushed away from the booth, pushing past Lexi, who was still engaged with the security chief.

  It was one of those train wrecks. Too terrible to watch. Too compelling to turn away. But after several minutes of this, the crowd noise changed abruptly. Conversations stopped midsentence, and I heard more than one gasp. Several attendees pointed up, and I followed the line to the catwalks that crossed the area near the high ceiling. My eyes found the bright reds and oranges of Craig’s costume.

  “It’s a bird. It’s a plane,” a nearby attendee said. “It’s a cheap publicity stunt.”

  That got several titters of laughter from the crowd, but necks craned and visitors watched to see what kind of antics Craig would perform on the narrow catwalk.

  I glanced at the large digital wall clock. Just a few minutes before ten o’clock. Maxine had said something about everything being revealed at ten.

  Craig climbed over the catwalk railing, his heels still on the metal grating, but the rest of his feet dangling over thin air. That quieted the crowd even more, all except the wail of a nearby toddler.

  Or maybe that was part of the stunt too. A lost helium balloon rested against the ceiling near Craig, the string dangling just out of his reach. He made a sudden grasp for it and overextended. His feet slipped. He managed to hold onto the railing with one hand, but his feet were kicking in the air.

  A gasp went up from the crowd.

  I squinted to see if I could make out the safety wires. Surely Craig wouldn’t have been stupid enough to attempt such a stunt without some kind of restraint. But I figured they must have been well hidden, because it really did look like he was just dangling there, hanging on for dear life.

  Seconds later, he lost his grip and plummeted, his superhero cape rippling behind him.

  Chapter 4

  Screams ensued. Parents pulled their children closer and hid their eyes. Some attendees rushed toward the central train layout where Craig must have landed. Others hurried away.

  Batman-man, a.k.a. Edward Millroy, grabbed his bag from my hands, said, “Thanks!” and started making his way to the door. Kelley had disappeared, and Lexi Wolf leaned against a pillar, her cloak pulled tightly against her.

  Minutes later, the lights flickered, and Lionel Kelley’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Please remain where you are. The bui
lding is in lockdown. You will not be allowed to leave. Shelter in place.”

  Whispers went up, but nothing near the normal roar of the center. Shortly after that, a brief siren was heard in the main aisle, and the crowd started to shift to allow a golf cart through. Lionel drove the cart, lights flashing, as he spoke something unintelligible into a bullhorn. His cart was followed by a team of paramedics, on foot and wheeling a gurney piled with equipment.

  I looked for Dad, but he had disappeared from our booth.

  It was here that I experienced a personal revelation. Yes, I was miffed at Dad for running off to investigate. That aspect was pretty typical. I had often reminded him that he was retired and that butting into police work was dangerous for him. But now I was confronted with the uncomfortable truth that my attitude had somehow shifted. Instead of being angry at Dad for running off to investigate, I was sulking because he had run off to investigate without me. Curse that man. He was pulling me into another one of his escapades.

  I found a few extra tablecloths and draped them over our inventory before cutting through the crowd. Even Santa was mingling with the rubberneckers near the spot where Craig landed.

  Ground zero turned out to be an elaborate HO train layout. As a dutiful toy store manager, I could, in my sleep, recite the odd ratio between metric scale measurements and English real measurements: in HO scale, 3.5 mm equals 1 real foot. Now perhaps the most common size in production, the models were scaled to 1:87 (Dad could add a couple more decimal points there), a little less than half the size of the O-gauge trains made popular in the 1930s.

  That was when they left the factory. These particular train cars had been compacted a little more by the meteor that was Craig. He’d landed on a hillside and had demolished it, exposing chicken wire and papier-mâché underneath. He’d also taken out a bridge, part of a river, and a considerable amount of track. The train had derailed and lay in a wreck on the floor near where Craig lay motionless, dwarfing the wrecked tableau around him, like Gulliver. Or Godzilla.