Murder on the Mullet Express

by Gwen Mayo

  “It’s for the best,” Cornelia said. “This place isn’t exactly the best influence on a young girl.”

  “Too late for me, I’m afraid. I became thoroughly corrupt some decades ago.” She finished her cocktail and set it on a nearby tray.

  “I think you started that way.”

  “I think you may be right. Ah, look. Here comes Chago.” The dark young man slipped through the crowd and joined them. Teddy reached out to touch his cheek. “Poor boy. I’m so sorry about your friend.”

  “Ladies,” Chago said, “I’m glad you could brighten this sad occasion.”

  “Have the police learned anything?”

  He chuckled, but did not smile. “They’re not going to learn much at all, Señorita Teddy. The killers won’t talk, and if I knew who they were, I wouldn’t say. I’d take care of them myself.”

  “That would be very dangerous,” Teddy said. “You mustn’t.” Then, a glint came into her eye. “Some men tried to break into the professor’s room last night. I wonder if they were the same ones.”

  The glint was returned by a glimmer in Chago’s own. “What men?”

  “Last night. Cornelia woke everyone up. She heard voices and thought they wanted to break into her uncle’s room.”

  Now his eyes, dark and intense, focused on Cornelia. “Tell me what happened.”

  She cast a resentful look at Teddy, then told Chago about the men. Comprehension dawned on his face, which was annoying since he didn’t offer to share his revelations with her. How could last night’s incident be connected to the death? Cardona wasn’t even staying in their hotel.

  Still, there was something they weren’t being told.

  The ride back to the Riverside Lodge that night was a foggy one. It was also exceptionally dark.

  “How do you not get lost out here?” Teddy asked the chauffeur, slurring the words. Cornelia had suggested she cut down on the Mary Pickfords at the party, and the response had been a switch to planter’s punch. The driver was the same one they’d had earlier. His name was Mitch, and he had come up from Tampa to get the extra work.

  “It’s not that hard,” Mitch told them. “There’s really only one turn you have to make. After that, you just have to stay on the main drag till you get to whichever hotel you’re headed for.”

  They heard a loud whistle just then.

  “Oh, now I know you’re lost,” Teddy said. “That’s the train station.”

  He leaned forward in his seat to look, puzzled. “Couldn’t be. We passed it already. It’s one of the few places out here that has a light next to it.”

  “Maybe you circled by accident.”

  “Can’t do that, either. Even if I made a wrong turn, it’d just take me to a dead end or the river. Besides, the train only makes one run. At this time of night they’re loading freight for tomorrow’s run. Look, there’s the hotel now.”

  The Lodge’s lights glowed in the fog. Too many lights. The doors were open to accommodate the number of people awake and standing in the hallway.

  “What the hell? ‘Scuse my French, ladies.”

  “Uncle Percival,” Cornelia cried, and she threw the door open. Mitch slammed on the brakes, and she was off, Teddy following more slowly with her cane’s assistance.

  The Carsons were standing on the patio. “What’s happened? Has something happened to my uncle?” She shoved Mr. Carson aside to get a better view.

  “I don’t know,” Rosemary said. “We were asleep, and then this horrible noise woke us up. I thought the train had jumped the tracks.”

  Kathleen waved her arm at Cornelia. “Come here! It’s Teddy, Mr. Hoyt, and she’s with the professor’s niece. Maybe she knows something.”

  The crowd parted, and she stepped through gratefully. Teddy and Mitch were behind her now.

  Her uncle stood in front of his door, a stubborn expression on his face. His face was red hot and his snow white beard bristled like the quills of a porcupine.

  Mr. Hoyt was equally red-faced, under the dust and sand that covered his hair and shirt.

  Pettijohn shook his finger at the night manager. “It’s not my fault that you don’t have a watchman. It was within my rights to take measures for my own safety.”

  “Oh, Good Lord,” Cornelia said. “What have you done this time?”

  “What do you mean, ‘this time’?”

  The manager turned. “Yeah, what does that mean, ‘this time’?”

  “You left us so you could meddle with something, didn’t you? What did you do?”

  “I merely created a safety alarm for the window. In case someone decided to force it, which is what happened.” He glared at Hoyt. “You should have a man to patrol the grounds, or patrol them yourself.”

  Cornelia could have kicked herself for not seeing this scene coming. He’d told them he was going to visit the engineer. “You borrowed a whistle, didn’t you? How’d you get it to work?”

  Her uncle looked pleased with her guess. “I got some parts at the hardware and attached the horn to the steam radiator. It was rigged to blow if someone opened the window.”

  “It woke everyone up, ma’am,” Hoyt added, wiping around his eyes with an already-filthy handkerchief.

  “Of course it did! That was the point! There was a day when I would have dealt with a burglar myself, but that was on my own property.”

  Teddy whooped and began to laugh; Mitch grinned. Cornelia glared at them both until the chuckling stopped. Then she turned back to her uncle. “What did you do to him?” She pointed at the night manager.

  “I did nothing to him. He came through the door unannounced and fell victim to his own haste.”

  “Uncle…”

  “He’ll be fine,” the professor insisted. “A man has to protect himself. Besides, it’s just a bump on the noggin and a bit of dirt. I procured a pail of gravel and sand and balanced it on the transom. It was set to fall if case someone came in through the door.”

  “I see that Mr. Hoyt did. Has anyone checked you for injury, sir?”

  “Not yet.” He rubbed his head and winced, then shook some of the sand out. “I probably have a concussion. When that steam horn sounded, I thought the train was coming through the wall. I entered his room to see what was up.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Cornelia glared at Uncle Percival. “See? Setting traps keeps people from helping you, too.”

  “He should have said something before barging in.”

  “I did,” Hoyt snarled, “at the top of my lungs!”

  “My mistake. It took me a while to shut the whistle off and put on my hearing aid. You should have waited.”

  “No, he shouldn’t have. There could have been something seriously wrong, Uncle.”

  Uncle Percival was impossible.

  “Mr. Hoyt,” Cornelia asked, “would it be possible for us to change rooms?”

  “Not with us,” Helen Minyard said. “Then we would be facing the burglar or enemies Professor Pettijohn has made. He says he’s retired, but what if he had to retire for other reasons? Like—like gambling debts, or unseemly behavior?”

  The old man bellowed with laughter. “Please go on! You make me sound so exciting.”

  Mrs. Minyard fumed.

  Teddy palpated Hoyt’s head, making him squirm. “Hold still. You have an impressive knot there, plus a laceration from the edge of the pail. A perfect arc. I’m surprised you didn’t bleed more. Head wounds usually gush.”

  She checked his eyes.

  “Pupils same size, appear normal. I suggest that you wash your hair as soon as possible. An ice pack should reduce the swelling, and please try to keep the wound clean. I’m sure you’ll recover without incident, but you should see a doctor in the morning to be certain.”

  “See a doctor? Who’s gonna pay for that?”

  Cornelia answered. “My uncle will. It is his fault, after all.”

  “Yeah, it is. He’s going to pay for that, and repairs to the room. After I speak to the owner, he may be paying for hotel r
ooms somewhere else, too! I don’t care if he is some kind of famous inventor. Thomas Edison stayed here and wasn’t nearly as much trouble as your uncle.”

  The manager stomped off.

  The crowd began to disperse, now that the show was ending.

  “Thrown out of our rooms,” Teddy said. “I haven’t been thrown out of a hotel since the War.”

  “You were thrown out of a hotel? What for?” Mitch asked.

  “My still blew up. It started a fire.”

  Mitch snorted.

  “You let it overheat. I warned you about that before I went to the boulangerie,” Cornelia said.

  Chapter 8

  Tiny Belluchi was having a bad morning. He hadn’t gotten any sleep the past couple of nights, sneaking around the Riverside Lodge with Cesare. Then Leo had kittens when they returned empty-handed the second time. He kept asking why Tiny didn’t have the camera yet, when the owner was just an elderly man with a couple of old ladies trailing him. If they were normal people, stealing a camera from them would have been duck soup. There was nothing normal about the old gent. He was more trouble than any copper Tiny had ever dealt with. Too bad the boss wouldn’t let him eliminate the problem in the usual way.

  Leo didn’t want to call down any more attention on their heads. They knew the heat would start when Cardona’s bin got opened, but then that old geezer had shown up at just the wrong moment with one of those newfangled moving picture cameras. Sure, he’d been focused on the fishing operation that was finishing up down by the river, but there was a good chance that the lens had caught Tiny and Cesare when he turned to film the train pulling into the stationhouse.

  They hadn’t noticed him cranking his camera while they were loading Cardona’s body into a bin and shoveling in layers of ice and fish. Tiny liked the new twist he’d added to ‘sleep with the fishes’, but up the line somewhere those fish were going to be unloaded. Sooner or later, the coppers would trace Cardona’s body back to Homosassa. He needed to get that film and be long gone when that happened.

  They’d tried the simple approach—burglary—but that hadn’t worked. Those old ladies had good ears for their age, drunk or not, and Gramps booby-trapped the room the next night. Tiny had never heard a whistle that loud. Not even the Chicago Els made that much racket. He and Cesare had ripped their clothes running away through the trees. Then he tripped on a cactus and got a leg full of needles. Who knew that there were cacti that didn’t grow in the desert?

  The time for tiptoeing was over. The old guy never went anywhere without that camera. They were just going to have to follow him and take it from him by force. Tiny and Cesare would need to lie low for a while afterwards, but Leo said there were some new guys coming up from Tampa anyway. He kicked them out with orders not to return without the camera.

  Now the pair were crouched behind a nearby stand of trees near the Riverside Lodge’s patio, waiting for the old guy to finish his egg sandwich. Palm fronds poked the Italian’s exposed neck. Where did this guy have to be at this time of the morning? It wasn’t even light yet. Tiny’s stomach rumbled; he’d grabbed an orange when he left the hotel, but that was all the food he’d had.

  The geezer checked his watch and stood rapidly. He wrapped the remainder of the sandwich in a napkin, and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Then, he gathered up his camera equipment and headed for the front of the hotel. Tiny and Cesare circled around with him, staying in the shadows.

  A Cadillac pulled up to the entrance. The driver got out and approached the old man. He took the equipment and headed for the car’s trunk. Tiny and his partner ran for the boiler they’d brought up from Tampa.

  The Cadillac circled round and headed for the main road. The pair followed at a distance. The sky was lightening now, so they didn’t need to turn on their headlamps.

  It was a short trip. The Caddy stopped at the rail station and the driver exited again to help Gramps out. Tiny drove the Ford Roadster up one of the dirt trails and parked it as far back in the trees as it would go.

  Mud squished under their shoes as they found their way back to the crushed limestone road. His mug had better be on that film, with all the crap he was taking. Cesare swatted something green and leggy off his sleeve.

  Their mark was standing at the engine. The train guys were jawing with him like they were old pals. One of the railmen took the equipment from the trunk of the Cadillac and stowed it away in the front passenger car. Then, the old man got a boost up onto the engine.

  “Is he gonna drive it or something?” Cesare whispered.

  “Maybe he drove it during the Revolutionary War and wants to take it for a trip down Memory Lane. It’s a rust bucket, that’s for sure.”

  “Where ya think he’s going?”

  “I dunno, but I think we’re taking a train ride.”

  The knock at the ladies’ hotel room came in the late morning, but still far too early for Teddy. She pulled the pillow over her head. Cornelia threw her robe on and cracked the door.

  An eye and a mustache, topped by a uniform hat, appeared in the narrow space. “Are you Miss Lawless or Miss Pettijohn?”

  “Miss Pettijohn. May I assist you some way?” It was the sheriff. Alarm sprang from the depths of her belly, and she threw the door open. “Is it my uncle? Has something happened?” They shouldn’t have left him alone last night. He’d been fine after the incident, but Belluchi could have forced his way in with a gun, and they wouldn’t have heard. Especially Teddy, when she was in her cups.

  Sheriff Bowden, startled, stepped back. “As far as I know, he’s fine—and according to the staff here, quite capable of looking after himself. I need to speak to you ladies. Would you be kind enough to meet me on the patio in a few minutes?”

  “Of course.”

  Cornelia poked Teddy. “The sheriff wants to talk to us.”

  A moan emanated from under the pillow. “Is it about my untimely death?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll still be dead this afternoon. Have the funeral home come pick me up at two.”

  “Teddy.” She grabbed a hip and shook it. “Come on. He’s waiting for us on the patio.”

  Her companion moaned again, but sat up. “Those evil police—no respect for the dearly departed.”

  Cornelia went to the bath and splashed her face with water. She dressed and returned to the room. Teddy was lying on the coverlet, half dressed. “Sleeping again? I don’t believe it.”

  “Yes, you can,” said the muffled voice from the pillow.

  “Either you get up and finish dressing, Theodora Lawless, or no more parties for you. And I will commandeer your stash, and ration it out to you in the correct medical dose!”

  “So cruel!” Teddy whined, but sat up.

  Despite the delay, the sheriff was still waiting for them on the patio. A cup of coffee and an orange juice rested on the table in front of him.

  “All the free juice you want, courtesy of the developers. You won’t tell ‘em I’m not buying, will you?”

  Cornelia smiled slightly. “It will be our secret.”

  “You were worried about your uncle, ma’am, when I knocked on your door. Why do you fear for his safety?” Bowden asked.

  She thought about lying, saying that she was just worried about her elderly uncle, but the situation had become serious. “Last night, someone tried to break into his room. It wasn’t the first time.”

  “Tell me more. Let’s get something to keep up our strength while you do it.” Bowden waved at the waitress, who came over with coffee and juice on her tray.

  Cornelia ordered ham and grits. The sheriff ordered eggs, sausage, biscuits, and a rasher of bacon.

  Susie nodded and turned to Teddy. “Do you need an ice pack this morning, miss?” she inquired.

  “No, thank you. I think the coffee will do. And some dry toast.”

  “Are you well, Miss Lawless?” the sheriff inquired. “I didn’t mean to pull you from your sickbed.”

  “It’s merely the Florida
heat,” Teddy said. “Hot weather gives me a headache in the morning.”

  He looked skeptical, especially since it was early February, but let the matter go. “Okay, tell me what’s been going on. I heard about the disturbance last night, but I don’t have many details.”

  “Night before last, we had a window cracked. Due to the heat.” She glared at Teddy. “I got up later to close it, and overheard some men outside talking about getting into an old geezer’s room.”

  “And you made an assumption.”

  “A well-founded one, since they tried it again last night.”

  He pulled his notebook from his jacket pocket. “I presume that they didn’t get in, or I would have heard about it.”

  “No, they didn’t.” Safe in the light of day, speaking to this lawman, she could see some of the humor in the failed attempt. “Uncle Percival is a semi-retired engineer. He rigged an alarm to wake him up if they tried again. A loud one. Mr. Hoyt will probably tell you all about it if he’s still on duty.”

  “It was loud, all right,” said the waitress, back at tableside with their food. “I could hear it from my house down the street. I thought someone was trying to steal the train.”

  Bowden frowned. “What sort of alarm was this?”

  She gave him a short explanation of the professor’s expertise with steam-powered devices. The waitress laughed, and even the sheriff fought a smile.

  “He sounds like quite a character. You should have contacted my office, though, the first night.”

  “I don’t know what could have been done.” She waited until Susie left again.

  Bowden split a biscuit and made a sandwich with the sausage patty.

  Teddy fanned herself with her napkin, turning chartreuse.

  Cornelia brought the man’s focus back to her. “Incidents that almost happened, but didn’t, are a little difficult to investigate.”

  The sheriff stood up. “Indeed they are, ma’am. Equally hard are incidents that might have happened and might not have.”

  “Such as?”

  “Excuse me for a moment, ladies.” Bowden stalked off toward the river; for a while he just stood there with his shoulders squared, his back to them. He wheeled round and returned to the table. He looked resolute. “Yesterday, Deputy Davidson spoke to you about Mr. Janzen’s death.”