Murder on the Mullet Express

by Gwen Mayo

  Sheriff Bowden’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know about that?”

  Mitch reached into his pocket with two fingers and took out his press card.

  “It was my job to know, Sheriff. Call my editor, if you believe otherwise. I don’t know about your men at the Chronicle, but I’ve been following this story since Antinori started moving in on Charlie Wall’s operation.”

  “What interest do Tampa crime lords have in Homosassa?”

  “Plenty,” Mitch said. “Charlie Wall never was the typical sort of mug that works the angles. He’s smart, had a good family, but he turned his back on all that ‘cause he saw that a smart man could clean up with his own mob. So he hired some muscle and started up a numbers racket. Now he controls the gambling, prostitution, bootlegging. Anything but dope, not even reefer. He made a deal with the Cubans.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Well, Sheriff, Charlie has lots of dough and no room to expand south, so he’s claimed all of central Florida as his turf. He sent a few of his boys up to check out rumors that other mobs were looking for some opportunities north of Tampa. Homosassa’s planned casino is a sugarplum just waiting to be nabbed by one of the gangs. Charlie says it’s his. Trouble is, Ignacio Antinori’s mouth is watering for the same plum.”

  Mitch leaned against the wall.

  “The way I see it, Charlie’s got himself a problem. One of his boys and a pile of his money disappeared. Coppers found his bag man sleeping under a pile of fishes but his dough is still missing. He’s mad as all get out and determined to learn what happened. His hatchet men are all over the place.”

  “Where do the ladies and the professor fit into this tale you’re spinning?”

  “Yes, tell us,” Teddy said. “This is so interesting.”

  Mitch smiled at her before going on. “Aside from sharing a drink and a dance or two with one of Charlie’s boys, I think the ladies are only interested in clearing their uncle of any involvement in the Janzen case. At least, that’s all they wanted until Antinori’s goons took such a keen interest in the professor’s movie.”

  “My movie?” Professor Pettijohn exclaimed. “What do you mean they took a keen interest in my movie?”

  “Sorry, Professor. They took your films,” Mitch said.

  Uncle Percival glared through the bars at Bowden. “Sheriff, that is my private property. Since we know who committed this theft, I expect you to recover it. Cornelia, give him a full report.”

  Cornelia snarled in frustration. “There’s not much he can do now, Uncle Percival. Your film is at the bottom of the river, compliments of Mr. Belluchi and his friend. This evening, they broke into your room and demanded the film at gunpoint. Teddy managed to shoot one of them and Mitch gave the other a shiner, but they got away.”

  “We gave chase,” Teddy chimed in. “It was quite thrilling.”

  “If by thrilling you mean dangerous and foolhardy,” the sheriff said, “then yes, it was. These men are hardened criminals. All of you could have been killed.”

  Teddy’s face flushed. “But they had the film! There might be evidence on that film that would clear the professor. We couldn’t let them get away with that.”

  “Miss Lawless, they did get away with the film. Even if he had filmed someone giving Mr. Janzen a hefty dose of poison, it doesn’t do us any good soaking in the mud at the bottom of the river. There is no way of finding out now what, if anything was photographed by Professor Pettijohn. We may have lost valuable evidence.”

  “Not necessarily,” came the barreling voice from the cage.

  Every head in the room turned toward the professor. He stood up and stepped to the corner of his tiny cell. His blue eyes twinkled as they traveled from face to face.

  Cornelia could tell he was enjoying having everyone’s attention riveted on him.

  “Out with it, Uncle.”

  Pettijohn chuckled.

  “Eastman packs its motion picture film in metal canisters. I haven’t tried submerging one in water, but it is quite possible that those canisters are watertight. If there is a way to recover the film, it could be undamaged by these hooligans’ attempts to send it to a watery grave.”

  “That’s all well and good, Professor,” the sheriff said, “but how do you propose we retrieve them from the bottom of an alligator-infested river? I’m not going in after it.”

  “How about one of those Greeks down in Tarpon Springs?” Mitch suggested. “The ones who gather the sponges. They’re used to gators and have diving gear.”

  The sheriff blinked. “Do you have any idea what that would cost? The county isn’t going to pay for me to bring in a diver just to get some tourist’s movie out of the river.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” Professor Pettijohn said, “if you’ll let me film the dive.”

  “Uncle Percival, really? Filming a diver is the least of your worries.” Cornelia’s face grew hotter with every word. “May I remind you that you are locked up in that cell? You’ll pay for the diver and anything he needs to resolve this situation. There are thugs the size of gorillas after us.”

  “Calm down and stop giving me orders, Corny.”

  Her eyes bulged. “Calm down? Do I need to remind you that we nearly got killed tonight? What on earth did you film that got us into this much trouble?”

  Professor Pettijohn rested his thumb under his jaw and tapped one finger against his temple as he mulled over her last question. “I’m not quite sure.”

  “Then tell me what’s on those films and I’ll figure it out.”

  “Where should I begin?” he asked.

  The phone rang and the sheriff rose. "Don't start without me, folks. I want to hear this."

  After he left, Cornelia went over to the cell. “With the exception of Rowley, you didn’t meet any of these people until Ocala. Start there when the sheriff returns. Don’t just tell us what you were filming, tell us every detail of what was going on, even the events that could have been in the background of your film.”

  Mitch’s eyebrows shot up.

  “He can do that?”

  The professor nodded, then sat down on his cot and closed his eyes.

  Sheriff Bowden returned, scowling.

  "Has someone else died?' Teddy asked.

  "No. Let's start. I'm powerful interested in what your uncle remembers.”

  They stared at the professor, waiting for him to speak.

  The old man's eyes were still closed. “Very well, I’ll start with the filming in Ocala. There were some interesting construction methods being employed in building the new courthouse across the street from our hotel. Although that didn’t involve any of the people that continued to Homosassa with us.”

  “Skip ahead then, Uncle. Where did you first film the people that came with us?”

  Mitch pulled a notebook and pencil from his pocket.

  “If you try to record everything, you’re going to need a bigger notebook,” Teddy whispered. “Listening to the minutiae of our daily lives in detail would fill the Sunday edition of your paper, not that anyone would want to read it.”

  “How the blazes can he remember everything?” Mitch whispered back.

  “Eidetic memory. It is really quite remarkable—for a little while. After that, it becomes tedious.”

  Within the first ten minutes of Professor Pettijohn’s description of the luncheon the West Coast developers held for prospective investors, Mitch concluded that tedious was a gross understatement. Listening to the professor drone on was worse than when he’d worked the city government beat and had to sit through council meetings. The only useful information was where the suspects were located during lunch. He finished his sketch of the seating arrangement and stood up from his chair to stretch.

  Teddy took advantage of the reporter blocking Sheriff Bowden’s line of sight and had a generous swig of her medicine. She hoped the scent didn’t carry to the other side of the room. There wasn’t much danger of anyone else seeing her. Cornelia was engrossed in her uncle�
�s monologue. The night jailer had drifted off and was snoring softly with his head on the checkerboard. Sheriff Bowden was putting up a valiant effort to pay attention, but his chin had dropped toward his chest more than once.

  By the time the professor reached the point at the Ocala station where he gave Cornelia the camera, Teddy had completely lost interest in listening. She contented herself with watching the fire through the tiny slots in the front of the stove until her eyelids grew heavy.

  “That’s it,” Cornelia shouted. “Did you hear that, Sheriff?”

  She turned and looked at Sheriff Bowden, who had plainly been jolted awake by her outburst.

  “Humm…yes. Could you repeat that, Professor?”

  “What part do you want me to repeat?”

  “Uh…”

  Cornelia took mercy on him.

  “Start with when the train was finished loading cargo, after most of the fish house crew had departed.”

  “Right,” Sheriff Bowden agreed. “Start there and tell me what happened.”

  “I’d been filming the train and the bustle of loading. The sun wasn’t quite above the horizon, but there was enough light for me to film the bins of fish being loaded to ship north.”

  “What does this have to do with Janzen’s murder?” Mitch asked.

  “Nothing,” Cornelia snapped. “It was the other fellow. The one they found in Ocala.”

  Mitch let out a low whistle and started scribbling in his notebook.

  “Go on,” Sheriff Bowden said.

  “I was filming the locomotive on the turntable when a couple of men carrying a heavy load approached the gondolas from the rear. The light back there wasn’t good, so I paid no attention to them. Besides, I didn’t know them at the time.”

  “But you know them now?” the sheriff asked.

  “Indeed. One of them was the fellow my niece compared to a gorilla. He and his friends are staying at the new hotel.”

  “Tiny Belluchi?” Mitch asked. “Was his pal Cesare Ricci the other, or was it Leo?”

  “Cesare,” the professor said. “As I was saying, I was getting a great shot of the engine on the turntable. It seemed like a perfect beginning to my film for the day. The growing light, fish being loaded, the steam coiling round the engine like mist as it rotated…”

  “Belluchi, Professor?” the sheriff growled.

  “I don’t know if he was in my film, or too far to the side. After the brakeman finished inspecting the gondolas, Belluchi and his friend came around the end of the train and dumped the man they were carrying into an empty fish bin. Tiny piled some fish on top of him while his friend got some buckets of ice. Mr. Ricci was facing me when he came back with the ice. He must have seen the camera.”

  “Professor Pettijohn, why didn’t you report this immediately?” the sheriff spluttered. “Even if you didn’t see the actual murder, you must have realized you were witnessing a body being disposed of.”

  “I was filming the train,” the professor said defensively. “My focus was there. It is only now, since I have been asked to remember details of the background, that I am aware of what I saw.”

  “Are you kidding me? You didn’t notice that a dead man was being buried in ice about twenty or so feet from your focus?”

  “Sheriff, you must understand. When I need to, I can recall the details of everything I see or hear. The images play in my head like a movie. Over the years, I taught myself to concentrate on what I was doing. That is the only way I can block out the plethora of distractions going on in the world. If I were to pay attention to every detail in my field of vision and hearing, I wouldn’t get anything done.”

  “Hell’s bells—pardon my language, ladies.”

  Cornelia stood up, crossed her arms in front of her, and glared at the sheriff.

  “The point is, I told you that my uncle didn’t have anything to do with the murder. Now will you let him go and lock up the real killers?”

  “Miss Pettijohn, what your uncle described may prove to be what happened to that fellow they found in Ocala. It doesn’t clear him of Mr. Janzen’s murder. In fact, there isn’t one bit of evidence connecting the two murders.”

  Cornelia looked like a boiler on the point of exploding. “Will you at least be releasing him in the morning?”

  “That’s unlikely, after this evening.”

  “And why not? You just said that there was no evidence connecting the two crimes.”

  “There isn’t. But, Miss Pettijohn, your uncle’s room became a crime scene tonight. It was searched.”

  “So?”

  “A bottle was found in your uncle’s valise.” He turned back to Percival Pettijohn. “Would you care to explain, sir, why you are in possession of an aspirin bottle containing savin tablets?”

  “Okay, so give,” Mitch said once they were on the road back to Homosassa. “What’s savin?”

  “It’s a poison from a plant related to juniper. It produces a sour odor when it metabolizes,” Teddy said. “No wonder it seemed familiar. I’m surprised neither of us had identified it properly, Cornelia.”

  Cornelia didn’t reply; she was fit to be tied. They had done their own search of the room while gathering clothing for Uncle Percival’s night in jail. There was no such bottle in his valise. She always carried his medications.

  Teddy was busy musing. “But why savin? I can’t imagine that he had call for its usual use.”

  “Which is?” Mitch asked.

  “To traumatize a woman’s body and produce a miscarriage. It makes a dandy poison for the same reason. You remember my friend in Puerto Rico, Cornelia?”

  “Yes,” Cornelia mumbled, wishing Teddy would leave her alone. Of course she remembered Puerto Rico and Martha, a nurse stationed there. Martha lost the soldier she loved at San Juan, then discovered that she was pregnant. Rather than face the shame of giving birth out of wedlock, she gambled with one of the patent medicines offered by unscrupulous sellers. Martha purchased one that promised to stop female ‘irregularities’. Savin was the main ingredient.

  “How would he get hold of something like that?” Mitch asked.

  “He didn’t,” Cornelia retorted. Why wouldn’t they both just shut up? “That bottle wasn’t in his luggage—we would have seen it when we searched his things. I searched his valise and it wasn’t there.”

  “I can’t believe the sheriff thought that we might have had that among our own medicines,” Teddy said. “We’re both well past the age of conceiving.”

  “He thought we might have been keeping some to aid young girls in trouble,” Cornelia snapped. “I informed him that a bad reputation was not lethal, but savin is.”

  Tears gathered in the corner of Teddy’s eyes. “The pain, the vomiting, the odor. Exactly the same symptoms she had. And I didn’t even notice.”

  So that’s what was bothering Teddy. Cornelia took her hands and held it between her own. “Don’t blame yourself for missing it; no one was going to think savin poisoning with a man. Besides, it has been a long time since Martha died.”

  The mention of her name brought the whole ugly incident back. Martha had been so young, so full of promise, before her sickness. When her fellow nurses realized how ill their friend was, they all took turns caring for her. Martha confessed the cause of her malady to Teddy, who had trained with her and knew her best. It had been Teddy who attended her death, and Teddy who had convinced the physician to list yellow fever on the death certificate in order to spare Martha’s family further pain.

  “You’re right, dear, but I do feel rather the fool.”

  “You’re not a fool. I’d like to catch the fool, though, who planted that bottle in my uncle’s room.”

  “When do you think it happened?” Mitch asked. “We weren’t gone that long, and gunshots tend to discourage visitors. Not to mention the fact that everyone in the hotel knows your uncle booby-traps his room.”

  “I think we left the door open when we followed the gangsters,” Cornelia said. “I’m sure that t
he true murderer has been keeping track of the police investigation, and word probably traveled fast that my uncle was a suspect. Desperation overcame fear, and he or she seized the opportunity to cement the law’s suspicions where Professor Pettijohn was concerned.”

  “Janzen’s killer must have been in the hotel at the time,” Teddy said.

  “And have access to the evidence,” Cornelia added. “Which implies that the murderer was with us on the train, and is also staying at our hotel.”

  “This trip is getting a little too interesting, even for me,” Teddy said.

  The corridor to their room was marred by a new feature: a sign declaring the professor’s room off-limits. “Keep Out—Order of the Sheriff” was hand-lettered block style on the cardboard.

  “At least our luggage isn’t waiting for us here in the hall,” Cornelia said. She unlocked the door to their room. “Hmm. Things look undisturbed in here.”

  “We’re not as interesting as the professor.”

  “No one is as interesting as my uncle. Help me check the room for signs of searching or theft.”

  “Good idea,” Teddy said, pulling the drawer to the nightstand open. “Drat. I left my Oreos in the professor’s room.”

  “They should be safe. They’re under lock and key, order of the sheriff’s department.”

  “Maybe they have more at the little shop across the street.”

  “We’ll go over when they open.”

  “You know, Mitch is not the only one who should get some sleep,” Teddy said. “No one went to bed last night. Not even your uncle.”

  Cornelia straightened from her position over her suitcase and sighed. “I’m too angry to sleep right now.”

  “And worried, perhaps?” Teddy ventured.

  “Yes, worried too. I think I’m going to clean up and have breakfast. After breakfast, I’m going to question Mrs. Minyard about her visit to Mr. Janzen’s room. The police aren’t going to look any further than my uncle, so it’s up to me to find the real killer.”

  Teddy took her arm. “Up to us, dear. Two heads are better than one, they say.”

  Chapter 11