Murder on the Mullet Express

by Gwen Mayo

  Murder on the Mullet Express

  Gwen Mayo

  and

  Sarah E. Glenn

  Published by:

  Mystery and Horror, LLC

  Tarpon Springs, Florida

  Murder on the Mullet Express

  Kindle Edition

  Gwen Mayo and Sarah E. Glenn, Authors

  Sarah E. Glenn, Editor

  Darby Campbell, Associate Editor

  Cover by Gwen Mayo

  Copyright © 2017 by Gwen Mayo and Sarah E. Glenn

  Published by Mystery and Horror, LLC

  This book has been printed with the permission of the authors.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9981132-1-0

  No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any electronic system, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the author. This includes any storage of the author’s work on any information storage and retrieval system.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person living or dead, or to any current location is the coincidental invention of the author's creative mind. Historical events and persons are entirely fictionalized within the bounds of what can be imagined without contradiction to known facts.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  The Mary Pickford Cocktail

  Cocktail Recipe

  Author’s Notes

  Real People

  About the Authors

  Chapter 1

  When traveling with Percival Pettijohn, it was best to bring a sidearm. Cornelia was glad that she’d brought hers.

  Here they were, broken down on the Dixie Highway in the no-man’s-land between Gainesville and Ocala. All she saw were pines and cabbage palms on either side of the rain-soaked highway. Two vehicles had already splashed past, ignoring their waves and cries for help. If a car stopped, though, would it hold assistance, or thieves who had decided to pluck two old crows and one old coot?

  “What is the world coming to?” she muttered. “When I was a girl, no driver would have left a stranded motorist in the middle of nowhere.” It was irrelevant that the only motor car she'd seen as a girl was a steam-powered monstrosity built by her Uncle Percival.

  The hood of her Dodge Brothers Touring Sedan was up and her uncle bent over the motor. Cornelia hoped that he could do something to get it running again, even if his expertise was in steam engines. There’d been plenty of steam when he lifted the hood. Great billows of metallic-tinged clouds still assaulted her nostrils and moistened her iron-gray hair.

  The countryside around them was deserted, probably a good thing. Since they’d passed the Florida state line, they hadn’t traveled for more than an hour at a time without passing a chain gang of shackled prisoners at hard labor. She pinned a loose strand back into the bun at the base of her neck, and leaned over the motor beside her uncle.

  “Any luck?”

  “The water pump is leaking. These automobile manufacturers know plenty about gasoline combustion, but they should have bought the water cooling system I patented in 1923. Would have saved us a great deal of misery.”

  “Humm,” she mumbled. His invention sounded like a screaming banshee, but Cornelia wasn’t about to tell him that. “Can you fix it?”

  “If I were in my shop and had my tools, it would be no problem.” He scowled and added, “I was not permitted to pack everything I wanted to bring.”

  He glanced at Teddy, who leaned against the side of the sedan. She was reading a ponderous tome with a puzzled expression on her face.

  “Did she have to bring two cases?” Uncle Percival asked, wiping his face and smoothing his short white beard. “Plus a sewing kit and a book large enough to claim its own seat?”

  “Don’t worry; your new motion picture camera was sitting on its lap.” The tripod took the rest of the space. Traveling with the two of them, Cornelia counted herself lucky to have one carpet bag for herself. That was jammed between their mountains of luggage in a way that made it impossible to keep her two suits and single evening dress from wrinkling.

  “She needs diversions that allow her to sit, Uncle. Her lungs don’t tolerate exertion well. The second case holds her medicine.”

  “One flask of medicinal alcohol?”

  “One flask wouldn’t last a week, and you know it.”

  He straightened, no longer frowning.

  “Oho. Mr. Scroggins has supplemented her again? No wonder she’s embroidering curtains for our local bootlegger.”

  “A man who has a private stash of bourbon barrels in his cellar shouldn’t be criticizing other people’s drinking. Besides, I’m sure she could be persuaded to share.”

  To keep the peace, if for no other reason.

  Cornelia glanced down the road again. At least they were close enough to a city for paved roads. That narrow ribbon of pavement was the only modern innovation in an otherwise savage jungle. A thin cloud of fog hovered inches above the wet ground. The desolate stretch of road and the scent of decaying foliage reminded her of her early days as an army nurse in San Juan. She wasn’t young any more. Neither was her uncle.

  Why was he so stubborn? He could die down here, between the pneumonia he caught from his Thanksgiving trip to Arkansas, the arduous car drive from wintry Kentucky, and the damp air. He was determined to make the trip despite his poor health, and was certain that nothing would befall him with two nurses in his entourage. The man was fooling himself. At his advanced age, a bevy of nurses couldn’t keep him going many more years.

  Another car approached from the other direction. It was one of the new Cadillacs.

  Teddy set the book aside. “Perhaps I should show some leg this time.” She posed in front of the breakdown and hiked her skirt an inch.

  Her legs were still lovely, Cornelia thought, but the silver curls peeking out from under the red cloche hat might put the wolves off. To her surprise, the Cadillac slowed and parked in front of them.

  “Works every time.” Teddy was smug. She reached up and poked an errant tress back into place. “I should have tried that earlier.”

  A young man climbed out of the car, straw hat in hand. He jammed it on his head, obscuring a shock of sandy hair.

  “I heard that you were broken down. Has anyone offered to help yet?”

  Someone had told him that they were stranded? Cornelia’s mouth curled down. “Have you come offering your assistance for money, sir?”

  “No, ma’am. I don’t own a tow truck. But I thought you could use a ride. It’s not very far to Ocala from here.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry; I should have told you who I am. Peter Rowley, land agent.” He stuck out his hand.

  “What a coincidence,” Teddy said. “We drove down for the grand opening in New Homosassa.”

  “I thought that might be the case, when I heard that a car from Kentucky had broken down on the highway,” Rowley said. “I’m selling several plots there, so it was in my best interest to come see if you were potential customers, although I would have helped you anyway.”

  “How sweet of you to offer,” Teddy said. “We appreciate it.”

  Cornelia was unsure of the arrangement, but at least s
he understood his motives. She did have a gun if he turned out to be an expert liar. Strictly speaking, the M1911 hadn’t started out as her sidearm. The army issued sidearms to their doctors, but hadn’t seen fit to issue them to nurses. A young officer she saved insisted his was better off in her hands than his own. Cornelia hadn’t traveled without it since.

  “And you three are—?”

  The old man bowed slightly. “Percival Pettijohn at your service, sir. Retired professor from the University of Kentucky. This is my niece, Cornelia Pettijohn, and her companion, Theodora Lawless.”

  “Glad I could help. You ladies might want to bring your valuables with you, since your car will be alone for a bit. I could even fit a suitcase or two—”

  Uncle Percival was already tugging the tripod out of the back seat, and Teddy had yanked her ‘medicine’ case out the other side.

  The Cadillac had an impressive amount of room. Everything from the Dodge fit, even Teddy’s steamer trunk, although the trio wound up sharing seat space with the smaller items.

  Rowley glanced at the green sedan as he pulled out onto the road. “That is a fine car. I’ve never seen one with embroidered curtains before.”

  “I made those,” Teddy chirped from the back seat. She sat on her sturdy Rimowa suitcase. “I thought the car needed a woman’s touch.”

  “Charming and talented, too? Marvelous.” The suitcases shifted as the car picked up speed, dislodging slender Teddy from her perch and landing her in Cornelia’s lap. “So, all three of you are coming to the opening?”

  Uncle Percival nodded as he adjusted the amplification of his hearing aid. “I’ve been considering a winter home for a while, one in a milder climate.” He studied the wet yellow grasses whizzing past. “Wildflowers at the end of January. Impressive. Do you get frost here?”

  “Rarely,” the young man assured him.

  “Excellent. I’m getting a little long in the tooth for ice and snow.”

  The garages in Ocala were closed for the weekend, but Rowley got one to open for the three travelers. It was clear that he considered them his customers now. He even waited with them while the mechanic went after their car.

  Cornelia had trouble getting the garage owner to understand that the sedan was hers, especially when Uncle Percival kept interrupting her to tell the poor man his business. It was of no consequence to him that she had managed on her own through three wars and the Pancho Villa Expedition. The lovable old coot had to be in charge. She decided that if they presented her uncle with the bill, she might make him pay it.

  Rowley helped them find lodging for the night, which was no easy chore. Most of the hotels were filled with other attendees of the opening. When he announced that he had procured reservations, Cornelia expected to be boarded in some tiny inn on the outskirts of town. He must have done an extraordinary sales job; their rooms were a suite at the Ocala House. Within minutes, they were unloading the Cadillac in front of a stately brick hotel in the center of town.

  The real estate agent stared at the mound of luggage the hotel staff wheeled away. “I didn’t think that you ladies would be able to fit everything into the car, but you did. You’re remarkably efficient packers.”

  Cornelia smiled for the first time that day. “It’s not hard when you have to be. In the Great War, nurses weren't afforded much room or time on the front. Teddy and I are retired army nurses, well, nearly retired in my case. I’m on leave until I muster out in May.”

  The young man’s grin was genuine. “Really? I served in the war myself. Alsace. Where were you stationed?”

  “Verdun,” Cornelia said. Where Teddy had fallen to mustard gas. Lungs damaged, she had retired from the Army with a disability pension, while Cornelia had continued to serve for nearly another decade. She had begun taking more of her accumulated leave in the last year; first, when her mother passed away, and now, chaperoning her uncle in Florida.

  “I hope you weren’t one of our patients,” Teddy said.

  “Not me, ma’am, but some of my buddies were. A bunch didn’t make it. One of them was my brother.”

  They exchanged sober glances. The tragedies of the French battlefields were past, but always present.

  Professor Pettijohn broke the silence. “The mechanic told me that they would need to order a new water pump. We won’t be able to drive in to New Homosassa tomorrow. Mr. Rowley, could we impose on you, or perhaps one of the other attendees?”

  “I’m sorry to say, sir, that my car will be full of equipment and I’ll barely have room for my assistant, but getting there from Ocala isn’t a problem. There’s a train leaving for Homosassa tomorrow afternoon.”

  “A train? I’d heard that the railroads had embargoed everything but food and essentials.”

  “That’s true, the big railroads have been overwhelmed since the Miami port got blocked, but this is a small local line. It runs passengers and cargo between here and Homosassa. The cargo is mostly fish.” Rowley added with a laugh, “It’s called The Mullet Express.”

  Teddy sat on a wooden bench outside the train depot. “Broad boulevards designed to care for every traffic demand traverse the city,” she read from the booklet for New Homosassa, “winding parkways lined with palms…”

  Cornelia shifted the tripod to her uncle’s camera. “We all saw the brochure last night.”

  “I’m just reviewing the information before we arrive.”

  Uncle Percival waved to his niece. “Come over here with that, my dear. I want to get a full shot of the train.”

  That wouldn’t take long. Rowley oversold the Mullet Express when he called it a small local line. The train consisted of an ancient engine that belched smoke and cinders, a coal car, a couple of old Pullman passenger cars, a gondola laden with some kind of bins, and a mail car that doubled as the baggage car. The pile of luggage waiting on the platform for loading grew as she watched.

  Nearby, Cornelia's uncle fussed with his Eastman motion picture camera, pausing to wipe imaginary dust from the brass-mounted lens. It had been his Christmas gift to himself. The professor was determined to document every detail of their trip on film. At every state line, he had insisted that she and Teddy stand near the sign and wave. Teddy enjoyed being the focus of attention, but Cornelia considered every moment in front of his camera an imposition.

  “Ah, steam engines,” he said. “So much more dependable than those newfangled diesel ones. I wonder if this locomotive uses that valve array I patented? It was the industry standard for a good twenty years.”

  Teddy resumed examining the advertising literature Peter Rowley had given them. That was much safer than giving the professor the opportunity to expound on mechanical engineering. “Look," she said, "they already have a theater—how nice.”

  “Why don’t you go back to reading Gertrude Stein?” Cornelia grumbled.

  Her companion shuddered.

  “I’ve been reading it since we began the trip. Or, I should say, I’ve tried to read it. It gives me a headache.”

  Cornelia’s eves widened. Teddy, bested by a book?

  “Maybe you’ll be able to read it once we arrive in Homosassa. The roads have been rough in places.”

  “The problem’s not in the reading. It’s in the understanding. I’ve tried my best, but I think I’m just going to throw it away before we get on the train. It takes up so much room.”

  “After the amount of money you paid to order it? That would be wasteful.” Cornelia reached for the book. “Let me have it. I’ll read it myself.”

  Teddy smiled at this. “You didn’t like Joyce. Stein’s writing style is somewhat similar.”

  “Joyce was a man. This is a woman. It makes all the difference.”

  “Just warning you, dear.”

  “Consider me warned.”

  Teddy fished in one of her bags and pulled out the fat book. “Prepare for shell shock.”

  Uncle Percival returned with the tripod, camera still attached.

  “Take charge of these, Cornelia. I wa
nt to speak to the conductor.”

  Cornelia set the book aside so she could break the apparatus down, but decided instead to try the machine for herself. She’d watched her uncle use it often enough over the past month. She aimed it at the baggage car, where her uncle was strolling past a woman having an animated discussion with the baggage handler. She was sure her uncle would like having footage of himself with the conductor, so she began turning the crank. Once she was comfortable with the motion, she moved it in a slow pan towards Teddy.

  Teddy’s response was a smile and curtsy. She hiked her skirt an inch.

  Shouts broke out behind her, and she turned, dropping the hem. Cornelia shifted the camera to follow her glance.

  Chapter 2

  “You bounder!” a man’s voice shouted. “I should have known you would be here!”

  Through the viewer, Cornelia now saw two men circling each other near the entrance of the first passenger car. One, a burly man with a heavy mustache, held his fists in a boxing stance, while the other had his arms up in a defensive pose.

  “Cheat! Thief!” The aggressive one swung, and his opponent jumped back. People began gathering—to watch, of course, not to stop the fight.

  The first man lunged and gained purchase on the defender’s sleeve. He closed in.

  “Let go of me, you—” The second man stabbed at the mustached man’s eyes with his free hand.

  The burly man responded with an uppercut to the defender’s solar plexus, sending the man to his knees.

  “That was quite a wallop!” Teddy sounded impressed, rather than dismayed. Cornelia wasn’t surprised.

  The first man moved in for another punch, but the conductor, who had come running to the site of the fracas, blocked him. The baggage handler hoisted the second man to his feet.

  “What’s this, then?” the conductor demanded. “There’ll be no fighting on railroad grounds. Do I need to summon the railway police?”