Death Train to Boston

by Dianne Day

  Michael nodded gravely. ‘‘Yes. Many bodies were burned beyond recognition. Hers may have been among them. We can only know through dental records, and so one thing we must do is to send Fremont’s dental records to the morgue in Salt Lake without delay. However, here is where the timing becomes so important: If Fremont had not yet reached her compartment at the moment of the blast, it’s far more likely that she would have been thrown from the train. The people who burned to death were trapped inside the cars.’’

  ‘‘But,’’ said Wish, still frowning, ‘‘in that case, she would have been among those rescued, as you were. Wouldn’t she?’’

  Michael winced, then raised his right hand to run it hard through his hair—a habit of his when distressed.

  ‘‘Now, now, son,’’ Edna said, recognizing the significance of the gesture and nodding, ‘‘you let the man go on tellin’ this his own way. He knows where he’s goin’ with it. You go on, Michael.’’

  ‘‘Thank you, Edna. But yes, Wish, that’s a logical assumption and I’m getting to that very point. I stayed on in Provo until all the bodies and all the bones from the charred wreckage were brought out. They did a head count. At least one person was missing.’’

  Edna and Wish looked at each other. Then they both looked back at Michael.

  ‘‘I think Fremont survived. I think she was hurt and confused, and wandered away into the wilderness. Head injuries will do that to a person. It may be days or weeks or months, or maybe never, before someone with that kind of injury regains knowledge of who she is, where she is, what has happened.’’

  Just then the coffeepot began to perk vigorously, as if in affirmation.

  ‘‘I believe Fremont is alive,’’ Michael said, getting up with a sudden surge of strength and striding over to adjust the flame beneath the bubbling coffee. ‘‘She may even find her own way home. Or, there is another possibility: Meiling and I will find her.’’

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them.

  ‘‘I beg your pardon, sir,’’ I said nervously, one hand splayed at the throat of that too-large nightdress, ‘‘I should have begun by thanking you for saving my life. Thank you very much indeed.’’ I bowed my head deferentially, thinking, But where is Michael?

  ‘‘I was directed to you,’’ said the man called Father, advancing toward the bed and growing bigger with every step—or so it seemed. ‘‘I do not know who Michael is, but I was not directed to him. Only to you.’’

  Now I remembered him, though his name did not immediately come to me: the religious fanatic. The dangerousreligious fanatic, who had hovered over my naked body, it seemed like a century ago.

  ‘‘I am very sorry to hear that,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Who is this Michael? You have called for him loud and long.’’

  ‘‘He is . . . my business partner.’’ That was true enough, but somehow the lie on the tip of my tongue felt more like the truth. I wanted to say He is my husband, but then I thought better of it. Further explanation seemed required, so I said, ‘‘We were traveling together on business. On the train that blew up.’’

  Now the religious fanatic stood at my bedside. The five women had advanced along with him and fanned their semicircle out around the foot of my bed.

  ‘‘So you’ve remembered,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I remember some things, yes. I do not recall your coming to my rescue, or very much since I’ve been here —it’s all a jumble, I’m afraid.’’ I looked at the women and smiled. I had not smiled for the man, nor did I want to; there was something about him I did not like at all, although I was not quite sure what. To the women I said, ‘‘I don’t know how many of you took care of me, aside from Verla’’—I found her eyes with mine and nodded—‘‘but to all who did, I give my most sincere thanks. When I’m home again I’ll want to see that you’re all rewarded.’’

  ‘‘You are home,’’ the man said. ‘‘This is your home now.’’

  Verla came to the other side of the bed and took my hand, saying, ‘‘You’re one of us now.’’

  I snatched my hand back, too shocked by what they’d said to care about rudeness. I exclaimed, ‘‘I beg your pardon!’’

  No sooner had I reclaimed one hand from Verla than the man took hold of my other—so firmly that I quite got the point: He did not intend to give it up.

  ‘‘Carrie,’’ he said in a low voice that might have been rather thrilling under different circumstances, ‘‘do you not recall the promises I have made you?’’

  ‘‘I can honestly say, sir, I do not even recall your name.’’

  He dropped my hand, straightened up to his full height, and with a severe expression said to Verla, ‘‘Set this right, wife.’’

  ‘‘Yes, Father,’’ Verla replied.

  He turned his back and walked away, rather dramatically I thought, to stand at the window all alone while the women came closer still and huddled around the bed. They seemed curious as kittens. Well, so was I. If Verla—who looked as if she might be a few years older than the man, or perhaps she was just worn out—was the mother and he the father in this household, then these other females should be the daughters. I scanned their faces; only one of the remaining four appeared young enough to be their child.

  ‘‘Carrie, we are the wives of Melancthon Pratt. I am first wife. Next to me here is Sarah, she came second.’’ Verla was introducing them counterclockwise around the bed. ‘‘Norma is third wife, then Tabitha is number four, and this is our youngest and most recent, Selene. Selene, like you, came from far off.’’

  Selene was the young one, probably about fifteen years old. She was very fair, with hair like cornsilk, so thin and fine, and great watery blue eyes. She bobbed her head and said, ‘‘Pleased to meet you, Carrie. Welcome to Deseret, and welcome to our home.’’ The others did the same, murmuring and bobbing.

  ‘‘Five?’’ I whispered in disbelief. ‘‘Five wives?’’ Deseret I took to be the name of their farm—of course in that I was mistaken, as I would soon find out.

  ‘‘Father rode out twelve days ago because he had a vision in which an angel told him to go to a certain place, and there he was to find something we’ve all been praying for. Three days later he came back, with you.’’

  I ignored the business about the angel and the vision —that was all too absurd and only proved my guess that the man, Melancthon Pratt, was a religious fanatic. I remarked instead upon the practical, altogether obvious fact: ‘‘It is against the law to have more than one wife.’’

  ‘‘We are Mormons,’’ Verla said. ‘‘It is not against our laws, or the laws of the Prophets, or the laws of the True Faith. We Mormons are called to bring into the world as many souls as possible. To this end, a man needs more than one wife. Our men are also priests; they know the laws of God, which are far more important than the laws of man. It is not for us women, or for people of other faiths, to question the word of a Morman man.’’

  Poppycock, I thought. But I did not say anything. The language in which Verla had given her ‘‘We are Mormons’’ speech sounded a great deal like an Episcopalian reciting the Catechism. No use trying to argue with that. Besides, they all agreed with her—they were nodding, all those women. I was seriously outnumbered. But no, wait, not all. Young Selene wasn’t nodding, she just stared at me with her huge, pale eyes.

  ‘‘You said,’’ I addressed Verla, but kept track of the others from the corners of my eyes, ‘‘that Father rode out looking for something you’d been praying for. You think I have some connection to this, this . . . whatever it was?’’

  Verla glanced at Father, who still stood at the window with his back to us, then turned back to me. ‘‘Yes. The angel led him to you, Carrie. You yourself are the answer to our prayers.’’

  Yes, what is it, Wish?’’ Michael asked, looking up from his desk to the younger man, who stood in the doorway of Michael’s small study, just off the conference room. It had once been a butler’s pantry.

  ‘
‘I want to come with you to look for Fremont. I’m offering my services.’’

  ‘‘I would prefer that you stay here, keep the investigations of J&K going. I expect you need the income, and of course any cases you take while we’re both gone would be entirely yours, you’d keep one hundred percent of the fees involved. Edna will pay herself the usual salary from our account.’’

  ‘‘I don’t need the money that much. Look, may I come in while we discuss this?’’

  ‘‘Of course.’’ Michael gestured. ‘‘Do come in.’’ It had been rude of him to keep Wish standing in the doorway, but he was too exhausted to think straight. ‘‘Have a seat.’’

  Wish closed the study door before taking the one other chair the room’s size allowed. ‘‘I’d rather Mama didn’t hear us,’’ he explained. ‘‘She’s already pretty upset about, you know, Meiling.’’

  ‘‘I don’t understand.’’ Michael picked up a pencil and began to slowly spin it end over end in his long fingers, touching first the eraser, then the lead tip to the desk blotter, over and over again.

  ‘‘Well’’—Wish pulled at his ear, crossed his legs, looked over Michael’s left shoulder with all the awkwardness that had once claimed his every hour—‘‘you know you wired us to get in touch with her. With Meiling. And so, Mama did it. Mama’s the one who found her, talked to her on the telephone, and all that.’’

  ‘‘So?’’ Michael’s black eyebrows arched upward.

  ‘‘So, well, Meiling’s Chinese.’’

  ‘‘Of course she is. She is also one of Fremont’s best friends, and one of my oldest and dearest friends. I have known Meiling since she was a child. She comes from one of San Francisco’s oldest families.’’

  ‘‘Oldest Chinese families,’’ said Wish, crossing his legs the other way.

  ‘‘Don’t tell me Edna is prejudiced! Edna? I find that hard to believe!’’ The pencil came to a rest, jabbed point down into the green desk blotter with some force.

  ‘‘Only against the Chinese,’’ Wish declared earnestly. ‘‘The Italians, the Irish, the Spanish, the Negroes, even the Indians don’t bother her at all.’’

  Michael pulled a half-smile with one side of his mouth; it was the best he could do. ‘‘I see. What a pity she’s chosen our largest minority to be bothered by. I suppose there’s no talking her out of it? No chance she’ll change her mind once she meets Meiling?’’

  ‘‘I really don’t think so. Anyway, there’s a couple of other things you don’t know yet. I mean, you just got back last night after we’d already left for the day; there hasn’t been time to tell you.’’

  ‘‘Go on,’’ Michael said. He turned and turned the pencil.

  ‘‘Meiling’s not at Stanford anymore, and she’s not living at the address Fremont had for her in the address book. Got a different telephone number too.’’

  ‘‘Hmm. I don’t suppose you know why she left her studies. Don’t suppose she told your mother in whatever conversation they had?’’

  ‘‘No, afraid not. Meiling’ll see you, though, and she wants to talk to you right away. We’ve got the new address and the new telephone number—she’s still in Palo Alto. Mama didn’t tell her Fremont was missing or anything like that, she just told her you needed some help with something if she were free to do it. That’s how we know she doesn’t take classes anymore. She laughed, Mama reported, and said she was free as a bird to come and go any way she wanted.’’

  ‘‘I suppose that sounded altogether too irresponsible for Edna.’’ This time Michael did smile.

  ‘‘Well, yeah,’’ Wish said, ‘‘especially considering Meiling’s, you know—’’

  ‘‘Chinese.’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Wish said, nodding his head rather miserably. With his shoulders hunched, he cocked his head and looked sideways at Michael. ‘‘Don’t you think it would be more, well, appropriate if you took me with you instead of Meiling? I mean, she’s not just Chinese, she’s a woman.’’

  Michael set the pencil down carefully, lining it up precisely with the edge of the blotter’s leather keeper. ‘‘Wish, it’s because of her gender that I want Meiling with me. You know, as an investigator, how useful it can be to have a woman for a partner. She can go into places where you or I cannot. Also in Meiling’s case, she is actually far better able to defend herself than our friend Miss Jones. Meiling is skilled in the martial arts. And she has other skills as well.’’

  ‘‘Oh. Martial arts, fancy that. What other skills?’’

  ‘‘Knowledge of the workings of various drugs and poisons, that kind of thing. Meiling was the only child in the youngest generation of the Li family, much beloved by her grandfather, who gave her unusual privileges because of her being his sole heir. And she was trained by her grandmother, who was an unusual woman in her own right.’’

  ‘‘Still,’’ Wish protested, ‘‘it would just look a whole lot better—’’

  ‘‘Next you’ll be telling me that it looks improper when I travel and work with Fremont. After all, she too is a young unmarried woman.’’

  ‘‘Awww—’’

  ‘‘Wish’’—Michael stood up to indicate their talk was over, because exhaustion was making him short-tempered—‘‘tell your mother, if you please, that I need you both to stay here and keep the business going. It’s what Fremont would want as well. And that’s an end to it.’’

  Wish lumbered to his feet. Whether it was his concern for Fremont, dislike of having to deal with his mother’s disapproval, or whatever, something had caused him to revert to all the awkwardness and uncertainty that had characterized him when he was a rookie in the San Francisco Police Department. Michael was sorry, but he couldn’t handle Wish Stephenson’s problems. He had big enough problems of his own.

  Melancthon Pratt turned from the window and came back to the bed. His wives scurried around to the other side so that he could have one all to himself. He looked down at me, not unkindly, but rather with a burning concupiscence that was bad enough. ‘‘You are no doubt hungry,’’ he stated.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ I agreed.

  ‘‘Norma, you will bring a meal, something appropriate for a convalescent. You will all leave now so that Carrie can rest. I will stay while she rests. When she has rested and eaten, I will begin her instruction. That is all. You may go.’’

  Each of the wives said goodbye to me, a series of soft ‘‘Goodbye, Carrie’’s. I wanted to call them back, but I did not have the strength. And besides, it was perfectly clear that it would do no good. Melancthon’s word was law here, not one of them would go against him.

  When the door closed behind Selene, the last to go, Melancthon said to me, ‘‘You must be tired. It will take at least half an hour for Norma to bring you food. Close your eyes and rest. I will sit here beside you.’’

  I said nothing, but watched through lowered lids as he took the chair where Verla, his first wife, had formerly sat. When seated, he folded his hands and bowed his head as if in prayer. Only then did I close my eyes. I put away my thoughts and all my questions and most of my fears. I wasn’t going anywhere—my legs wouldn’t let me. I still had a lot of questions, and Melancthon—Father—could answer them better than anyone else. For now, it was obviously best to play along, whatever the game might be.

  A sigh escaped my lips as I thought, I must not despair!Even though being where I was, in the condition I was, seemed a lot like being in prison.

  4

  I WAS SO WEAKENED by my recent trauma that I sank immediately into a state of being neither awake nor asleep, but somewhere in between. No question but that I would have slept had I been alone; however, Melancthon’s pervasive presence kept me from letting go entirely. Still, I did not think but rather drifted, farther and farther toward the Land of Nod.

  In this oddly restful state I began to feel that someone, some wise female person (for surely these were a woman’s thoughts), was counseling me; and such was my detachment that it did not seem so strange to me that this pe
rson should be invisible. Perhaps she was a spirit, or a guardian angel. That in my everyday waking state I did not believe in, or at least questioned, the existence of such entities did not for the moment seem important. What did seem important was the quality of the counsel, which impressed me with its wisdom—a type of wisdom I certainly should never have arrived at myself, for the things suggested were so alien to me:

  Be docile and submissive in manner; keep differing opinions to yourself; try not to show your keen mind. Your body needs time to heal itself. Carrie James is a role you must play meanwhile, until you can be FremontJones again.

  This advice made eminently good sense, no matter where it had come from. I committed it to memory by allowing the words to sound over and over again as I spiraled closer and closer to true sleep. Especially those first two. Be docile, be docile, be docile. . . .

  Michael had apprised Meiling of the basic facts of Fremont’s disappearance over the telephone. This was possible because of the newly installed long-distance telephone lines that connected San Francisco to the villages of the lower peninsula, all the way to San Jose. He had Edna to thank for keeping them up to date in such matters; anything new-fangled, preferably mechanical, excited Edna Stephenson beyond the ability to control herself. She pounced on anything that even vaguely smelled of progress.

  Next, Michael thought as he downshifted the Maxwell preparatory to turning left off the old El Camino Real, which was still the main road down the peninsula, she will be wanting me to teach her to drive. God forbid!But his grin belied the thought.

  He made a left turn in front of the gates to Stanford’s Farm, as the university campus had once been, and sometimes was still, called. The sandstone pillars of the gates had tumbled down during the Great Earthquake two years earlier, along with even more substantial structures around the Quad, but now all had been rebuilt, as Michael knew from previous visits. He did not enter the campus, but rather went the opposite way, into the town proper.

  He was looking for a street named Bryant, and soon found it, then proceeded south. The day was beautiful, warm and sunny. Fall in California was generally warmer and more pleasant than either summer, with its fogs, or the rainy winter. Having been born in the state, Michael had grown up knowing that when the distant hills were golden brown, the season was fall; but in spring, after the winter’s rains, those same hills would be covered with emerald-green grass. Here and there among their gently rolling contours, groves of live oaks stood in clusters of deep, dark green. Along either side of Bryant Street the same type of trees, occasionally interspersed with shaggy, fragrant eucalyptus, cast their shadows. Compared to San Francisco, Palo Alto— which in Spanish means ‘‘tall stick’’—was a small town with a decidedly rural atmosphere.