Murder on the Mullet Express

by Gwen Mayo

  “Good, you can put that fool camera away and help us figure out who’s trying to frame you for murder.”

  “Are you sure they’re trying to frame me, Corny?”

  “Don’t call me Corny. And yes, I’m sure. That bottle of savin didn’t get in your room by accident. Someone put it there after I searched the room.”

  His brilliant blue eyes widened. “Why were you searching my room?”

  “Because you keep lying to me.” She tried to look severe. It was all an act. No matter how much trouble he gave her, Cornelia adored the old man. It was impossible to stay mad at him for more than a few minutes. She wasn’t about to let him know that, though.

  “I haven’t lied to you. I simply neglected to tell you every detail of my plans.”

  “When I broke your friend Doc Haydon’s microscope slides, you told me that lies of omission were as dishonest as the ones we tell.”

  The professor’s cheeks turned a rose color that made him look even more like Santa. “The crowd is dispersing. Shall we find your friend Mitch to take you back to the hotel?” he said. "I'm sure you girls are exhausted."

  Andy Davidson cruised along with the windows down, ignoring the cloud of dust billowing behind his black and tan. He loved the sound of shells crushing under the tires. Every fall the county graded the road and put down another three or four inches of shells. They were cheaper and more plentiful than gravel. Besides, it didn’t matter what you put on the roads; when the rainy season hit, the sandy ground sucked paving materials into the depths and the ruts returned.

  He was glad that the weather was warm enough for open air driving. The mud-soaked bag in the passenger floorboard stank of fish and river muck. Other than that, getting the goofy professor's film developed was a great excuse to see if his new sheriff’s department car lived up to the advertisements. Once he hit the paved section of Tampa Road, he was going to open her up and see if he really could do forty miles-per-hour. Wouldn’t that be something?

  The part of the Dixie Highway that ran through Citrus County was a fancy-named dirt road. Paved highways were further south. Word was that between Oldsmar and Tampa there was a divided highway with asphalt so smooth that you could drive for miles without hitting a single bump. He’d never seen a road like that.

  It took him more than an hour to reach Tarpon Springs, thanks to a tractor he followed for at least five miles before the road widened enough him to pass. Half an hour later, he noticed a black Ford in the rear view mirror. Andy couldn’t see the driver, but something about the vehicle made him nervous.

  He tried speeding up, then slowing down. Either way, the Ford stayed about the same distance behind him. It was still there when he rounded a curve a too fast and nearly smacked into the disabled Packard blocking the road.

  Andy stood on the brakes.

  That’s when he noticed the barrel of a shotgun coming out from under the hood of the Packard.

  He threw his car into reverse. The gears ground as he lurched backwards.

  The Ford was coming up behind him fast. Too fast.

  Shells flew out from under his car as he stepped on the accelerator. He had to cut sharply to the left to avoid a large live oak.

  There was no avoiding the bushels of Spanish moss hanging from the branches, though, as he drove through someone’s lawn. Each soft thud deposited another pile onto his windshield, making it harder to see the road ahead.

  The sheriff was going to have his hide for the damage he was doing to the county’s new car, but Andy wasn’t about to let the driver overtake him.

  A shotgun blast took out the rear side window when he passed the Packard.

  The Ford was still with him.

  His accelerator was on the floor. He still pressed harder.

  Through a cloud of dust, he could see he was pulling away from the Ford, but the Packard joined the chase and was gaining ground fast.

  There was another blast from the shotgun, taking out his right rear tire. Deputy Andy careened out of control. In an instant, the rapid thumping of the flat stopped with a loud snap. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his rear wheel bounce past him. It bounced a couple more times before rolling into a ditch. Meanwhile, the back end of the car spread a stream of sparks as it scraped the shells from the road and crushed them into dust under its steel frame. The sound sickened him.

  Seconds dragged by as he fought to recover from the skid.

  The steering wheel was real and solid. Andy clutched it as though he were drowning and the smooth leather was his only lifeline. His hands ached from the effort of holding on…to the wheel…to his nerve…to life.

  When it was over, he closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths, thankful that he was still alive.

  His respite was short lived. Andy’s stomach knotted at the sound of a pump action shotgun expelling the spent shell that caused his skid. Andy glanced at the Colt holstered in the seat beside him. It might as well have been back at his house. There was no way he could get to his pistol before the shotgun took his head off.

  “Don’t even think about it, son,” the hoodlum said.

  Andy wasn’t capable of thought with a shotgun barrel inches from his head, though it would have been imprudent to say that.

  “Keep those hands right where they are, and nobody has to get hurt.”

  “Willy, get the bag.” the man, perhaps six foot two, ordered. “Then get moving. The boss don’t like waiting.”

  A thin young man with oily hair opened the passenger door and took the professor’s film bag. Then he lifted Andy’s pistol. “I’d better take this too,” he said, “just so you don’t get any ideas.”

  “Give me the handcuffs.”

  The third man man loosened them from the belt and handed the cuffs to his partner. “Just put them on him and get out of here.”

  Andy winced as the cuffs clicked tight around his wrist.

  His oily captor grinned at him. “I always wanted to do this.” He laced the other cuff through the steering wheel and locked it around Andy’s left wrist.

  “No hard feelings,” the big man said when the Ford passed them. “The boss just wants a première of the old guy’s moving picture show. When I get to town I’ll send you a tow truck.”

  Chapter 12

  The ladies were finishing an early dinner when a familiar figure appeared on the patio.

  “Ladies,” Sheriff Bowden said. “I hate to disturb your meal, but I have some unfortunate news.”

  “Uncle Percival. Something’s happened?” Cornelia began to rise, but the sheriff waved her back down.

  “Your uncle’s fine, ma’am. No, something else has happened. Mind if I sit?”

  “By all means.”

  “Thank you,” Bowden said. “It’s been a long day, and it just got longer. The Tampa police contacted me. Seems they got an anonymous call that Deputy Davidson’s car had an accident. They found the car on the side of the road, with one wheel missing.”

  “And the deputy?”

  “They found him in the driver’s seat, locked in his own handcuffs. His pride is wounded, but that’s all. Being alive means a lot, considering that the description he gave of the men pursuing him sounded like a couple of Charlie Wall’s boys. They took the film.”

  “Oh, no,” Teddy said.

  “Seems everybody wants to get their hands on this film of your uncle’s.”

  “What will you do now?” Cornelia asked.

  “Go ahead with the investigation, but the film would have helped a lot. Your uncle just became a whole lot more important, too. I don’t know how a jury is going to feel about his weird memory, or the fact he can’t hear thunder without that pocket contraption he uses, but he’s the only witness we have.”

  “Does that mean you are going to let him out of jail?” Cornelia asked.

  The sheriff frowned. His fingers drummed on the table as he considered the question. “I think he is better off where he is, for now. No offense, Miss Pettijohn. Your uncle is a little too h
eadstrong for his own good. They’ve called an arraignment for tomorrow.”

  He saw the anger flash in her eyes and held up his hand. “I’ve spoken to Judge Bullock on his behalf. Honest, ma’am, the prosecutor is not going to charge him with Mr. Janzen’s murder without more information. He's just asking the judge to keep your uncle from traipsing off before we figure out the truth.”

  Before Cornelia could come up with a plausible defense of her uncle’s behavior, Sheriff Bowden stood up. “As much as I enjoy charming company, there is work to be done. I’ll let you ladies get back to your dinner.”

  “Humph,” Cornelia grunted when he was out of earshot. “At the rate he is losing evidence, Sheriff Bowden is never going to find who killed Mr. Janzen. That man will keep Uncle Percival in that tiny cage until he catches something dreadful. I guess it is up to us to clear his good name.”

  “Are we going to grill more suspects?” Teddy asked.

  Cornelia lowered her head into the palm of her hand and groaned. “Where do you get these notions?” Her voice sounded gruff, but a trace of a smile gave the game away. Teddy’s impetuous nature always amused her, no matter how much Cornelia felt like an old grizzly bear.

  “Where do we start?” Teddy asked when her companion stopped growling.

  “I saw Mr. Rowley duck out when he spotted the sheriff. He must be around somewhere. Why don’t you tell the kitchen that we would like a pot of tea in the lounge? Meanwhile, I’ll locate our missing salesman.”

  Rowley and Cornelia entered the lounge and sat down across from Teddy.

  “Tea?” Teddy indicated the tray. “I just ordered a fresh pot.”

  “On a cold evening like this?” Rowley said. “Great.”

  “If you think it’s cold today, it must get quite warm in the summer.” Teddy filled a cup for him. “Sugar?”

  “One lump. The summers definitely get warm here. Not as bad as Miami, but pretty hot.”

  They all sipped their tea. Teddy glanced at Cornelia, Cornelia glanced at her. Rowley watched them both, and then spoke.

  “I thank you for the invitation, ladies. I—er—notice that the Professor isn’t here. Have you decided to purchase your own home?”

  “No,” Cornelia said, “we invited you here to discuss a person. Raymond Janzen.”

  Rowley’s face darkened and he clenched his jaw, deepening the cleft in his chin. “I’d prefer not to. The man is dead and I have nothing good to say about him. From what’s happened with your uncle, you know what sort of man he was.”

  “Neither Cornelia nor I had heard of him before this trip,” Teddy said. “But his death seems to have landed us in the soup right beside you.”

  “You’ve been talking to Deputy Davidson, I see.”

  “No, dear,” Teddy patted his knee, “but we couldn’t help noticing that you were his prime suspect.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s something you don’t know. When I went to serve in the Great War, I left my best friend and my fiancée behind. When I returned, I didn’t have either one.”

  Teddy formed a moue with her lips. “I presume the friend was Andy?”

  “You presume correctly. Alice was my fiancée. I wrote her all the time during the War, and she wrote me. I thought everything was fine till I got a letter from her one week before I was due to be shipped home. She’d married him. The year before. And she didn’t tell me.”

  Another sad outcome of the war, Cornelia thought. She’d had to deliver letters like that to many wounded soldiers, and in a few cases even read them aloud for a patient, which meant she and his wardmates were also privy to his humiliation.

  “How rotten of her!” Teddy squeezed his forearm. “Any girl who had a handsome and honorable man like you should have counted herself lucky.”

  “Uh, thanks, ma’am. If you’d just meant to offer me your sympathy, I’m grateful. But I don’t know anything else, and there are clients I need to—” He half-rose.

  “Sit down, Sergeant Rowley,” Cornelia said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. He complied immediately. “I apologize for your discomfort, but it is necessary in this case. Since the time we attended Lieutenant Janzen in his final illness, we have dealt with break-in attempts at our hotel.”

  He nodded. “I know, ma’am. I apologize. Are you saying that you think they’re connected?”

  Cornelia nodded. It was stretching things a wee bit, but at least one break-in had been to plant evidence. “In the last day or so, several unsavory acts on Janzen’s part have come to our attention. I understand that you, or rather your brother, might have been one of his victims. For reasons you are undoubtedly familiar with, we are now strongly motivated to learn more about him and the life he led.”

  “I can see why, but I didn’t poison him. And I promise you, I didn’t try to break in on your uncle. No dirt in my hair.”

  “Oh, we don’t think you did it,” Teddy said. “We have other sus-ow!” She shifted in her chair, moving her ankles out of Cornelia’s reach.

  “What we need is information,” Cornelia said, keeping her eyes on Peter. “Please tell us what happened to your brother. You will receive a less biased hearing from us than the deputy has given you.”

  Rowley rubbed his forehead, and then clasped his hands. “Janzen worked as the quartermaster for our unit during the War. Everything was fine at first, but then we fell low on supplies. He’d tell us he’d ordered more, but we were always short.”

  “You suspected that something else was going on.”

  “Not at first. I mean, everyone was making sacrifices. He told us that supplies had been diverted to this or that place along the front. Lots of shooting going on, so who were we to suspect him of lying? Who were we supposed to complain to?”

  Cornelia’s dour expression became more so. “The shortages continued.”

  “Yeah.” He looked down at his hands. “It all came to a head in the summer before the war ended. We were strung out in the trenches and we—we ran out of ammo. The Krauts swarmed and slaughtered us.”

  “One of them was your brother.”

  “Stevie.” His voice softened. “My big brother. He sent me to one of the rear positions when he realized that our supplies were coming to an end. I lived. He didn’t.”

  Poor lad. Guilty because his brother had chosen Peter’s life over his, and then dumped by his fiancée. “You must have been very angry.”

  “Not as much as I was later. Jennings Bowden—that’s the sheriff’s son—worked as a quartermaster for one of the other companies. When we met after the Armistice, he told me there were rumors that Janzen was selling our supplies to the Germans and pocketing the cash. No one could prove anything, though.”

  “And you wrote Alice about it,” Teddy said. “You had to tell someone.”

  Rowley snorted a half-laugh, but there was no humor in it. “I wrote her, and she reminded Andy about it the other day. Made me a prime suspect.”

  Cornelia wished Janzen were still alive, so she could strangle him herself. The betrayal of those boys… “Tell me more about the man himself,” she managed to say in even tones. “Where he was from, how he came to be in the Army.”

  “He was Floridian, actually. From St. Augustine, not this area.”

  “Was his family military? A man like the one you describe would hardly volunteer.” There were less dangerous places to cheat people, as proven by Mrs. Minyard’s story.

  “His dad was a minister. Janzen couldn’t get away from him fast enough, went to college up north as soon as he was old enough. Virginia, I think. He said something about it when I got dumped. Said I was better off, that he’d had to leave Virginia because of girl trouble.”

  “A college student might be made a quartermaster, yes. I can’t picture him earning a field commission.”

  “No, I can’t either.”

  “You didn’t confront him on the train?”

  Rowley shrugged. “I know that sounds like I’m lying, but I don’t think I even spotted him. He might have seen
me, though, and decided to duck me. I met Malcolm Hofstetter when the conductor brought him to my car. He said that Hofstetter had been in a fight and I should keep an eye on him. So, I did.”

  That cleared Rowley for the time immediately after the fight, but not before. If he were lying about seeing Janzen, though, he might have tried poison. The only problem was the same one they had encountered with Mrs. Minyard: Janzen wouldn’t have been foolish enough to eat or drink anything Rowley gave him.

  “Thank you for coming here, and for telling us about your brother, Mr. Rowley. You’ve given us plenty to think about. I know it was difficult for you.”

  He stood. “That’s okay, ladies. You just stay safe. The sheriff’s a good man. He will find out who killed Janzen.”

  Cornelia’s fists were clenched so tight that blood couldn’t circulate. Her voice dropped an octave and took on the cold tone that had earned her the nickname “The Iron Petticoat.”

  “I have little evidence that Sheriff Bowden is a good man. He thinks my uncle killed Janzen. He is holding him in a tiny cage because the real killer planted evidence in his room.”

  The steel in her blue eyes made Rowley trip on the wingback he’d vacated in an attempt to escape. He righted himself before he fell, and mumbled an apology as he fled the lounge.

  Once he was gone, Teddy sighed and took off her spectacles. “That wasn’t very promising. We’re finding plenty of people with reason to want him dead, but no one seems to have done it.”

  “We know a little more about his background, which is helpful,” Cornelia said. “The part about girl trouble was interesting.”

  “Mrs. Minyard is too old for him, although it would make her a much more interesting person. Kathleen would have still been in pigtails when he was in college. The Carsons are from Virginia.”

  “Yes, but Rosemary is also older than him and already married.”

  Teddy half-smiled. “So?”

  “You have such a naughty mind. It’s one of the things I love about you,” Cornelia said. “If Rosemary was the ‘girl’ he had trouble with, we still have the same problem we have with the others: why would he eat or drink anything she offered him?”