Death Rides the Zephyr

by Janet Dawson

  Mr. Cole clamped his hand on her arm. “The doctor’s busy. If you’ll just come and take a look.” Jill looked at his hand, frowning. He released her, his brow furrowed underneath his blond crew cut. “I’m sorry, I really am. I’m just worried about my wife. Please.” He reached down and picked up the first-aid kit.

  “All right,” Jill said. She led the way to the vestibule of the dining car, walking down the passageway next to the kitchen, with Mr. Cole at her heels, then along the aisle between the tables, where many of the passengers were eating dinner. They might as well, Jill thought. With the rock slide, it would be a while before they got to Denver.

  They entered the Silver Gull, passing the porter’s seat, but Jill didn’t see Si Lovell. When they reached compartment B, Mr. Cole opened the door and held out his hand, ushering Jill inside. She entered the compartment. The upper berth was still down, a tangle of blankets on top. That was odd. The porter should have made it up, unless the Coles wanted it down so they could nap. They certainly couldn’t have lowered it themselves without the porter’s key.

  Rita Cole was in the seat below, her legs stretched out in front of her. Mr. Cole entered the compartment and shut the door, setting the first-aid kit on the floor. Mrs. Cole turned to face Jill. Her forehead was scratched, an angry red mark, and she had a large bruise on her cheek.

  “Oh, Mrs. Cole, your husband didn’t tell me your face—”

  Suddenly Mr. Cole grabbed Jill’s right arm and twisted it behind her. Jill cried out in pain. Why? What on earth was going on?

  Mrs. Cole rose from the seat, moving toward Jill. She had something in her hand. Something made of dull gray metal. A gun.

  “I know Laszlo gave you an envelope,” Rita Cole said. “Where is it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jill gasped again as Mr. Cole twisted her arm.

  “It’s not in her compartment,” he said.

  So he had been coming out of her quarters. What was in that envelope? What was so important?

  “You killed him,” Jill said.

  Rita Cole didn’t answer. Instead she slapped Jill, hard.

  “Where’s the envelope?” Clifford Cole hissed in her ear. Then she felt something cold, something metal, pressing against her throat. It was a knife.

  “I don’t know,” Jill said, finding her voice. “The envelope’s gone. I looked for it after I found the body. It must have fallen on the floor, or slipped between the seat and the wall.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “I searched your compartment from top to bottom. It’s not there. You gave it to someone. Who? The conductor?”

  “I didn’t give it to anyone. I tossed it onto the seat in my compartment after the professor gave it to me. When I came back after I found the body, the envelope was gone. I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where it is.”

  “You’re lying,” Cole said. He pressed the knife harder. “Maybe a little cut would make you tell the truth.”

  Jill heard the sound of a latch being released. The wall that separated the Coles’ compartment from bedroom A moved, folding in on itself. She stared. Neal Paynter stood just the other side of the wall, his face impassive, tossing a porter’s key in his hand.

  “No, I think she is telling the truth,” Paynter said.

  “Then where the hell is it?” Cole demanded.

  Rita Cole examined Jill, a speculative look on her face. “I have an idea. It’s that game. That scavenger hunt you started, with those kids roaming around looking for things. I saw you write out the list of things for the children to find. Things like an envelope.”

  Jill didn’t say anything. She’d already come to the same conclusion herself. But she wasn’t going to tell them anything.

  Paynter nodded and tucked the porter’s key in his pocket. “Yeah, that would explain it. But which kid? Damn brats are roaming all over the train collecting things.”

  “I’m betting on Emily,” Mrs. Cole said. “The one who is our Zephyrette’s little shadow. Cliff, you go forward. Neal, go back through the sleeper cars. You find Emily, and I’ll bet that we will find that envelope.”

  “I don’t like leaving you alone with her,” Cole said.

  “I’m fine. I have this.” Rita Cole pointed the barrel of the gun at Jill.

  The pain in Jill’s arm lessened and Clifford Cole took the knife away from her throat. He circled around in front of her, a cold look in his eyes as he folded the knife and stuck it in his pocket. Then he opened the door and left the compartment. Neal Paynter left bedroom A. Now Jill was alone with Rita Cole.

  Where was Emily? Now she remembered. After the murder, the little girl had been with Mr. and Mrs. Benson in their quarters on the Silver Palisade. But after the rock slide, Mike Scolari told her that Norma Benson had been injured when the train stopped. So all three children—Emily, Billy, and Chip—had gone back to the Silver Solarium. Were they still there?

  Jill didn’t know much about guns. They always looked as though they could do a lot of damage at close range. Particularly this one, pointed at her, just a few feet from her. Jill glanced down at the first-aid kit, near her feet. Could she grab it and hit Mrs. Cole? Maybe, if she could distract the woman.

  “The professor recognized Mr. Paynter,” Jill said. “He told me that, when he gave me the envelope.”

  “What else did he tell you?” Mrs. Cole asked.

  “He told me about your marriage. You were a refugee, like him. When you married him, he was working at Oak Ridge. Then you went with him to Los Alamos, but you didn’t like it there in New Mexico, so you left.”

  Jill looked at Mrs. Cole’s scratched face. She didn’t think the woman had gotten that wound when the train stopped. It looked as though she’d been in a fight. With whom? Now she recalled what Norma Benson had said, about having seen Clifford Cole before, at Los Alamos.

  “Was it Los Alamos where you met Mr. Cole?” Jill asked. Mrs. Cole frowned, as though Jill’s words had hit home. “I know your husband says he’s never been to New Mexico. But I think he has. I’ll bet that’s where you met him, while Dr. Kovacs was working on the Manhattan Project. I get the feeling this is all tied up with New Mexico. There’s someone else on the train who worked at Los Alamos during the war. Someone who has seen Mr. Cole before.”

  That got a rise out of Rita Cole. Her mouth tightened, and so did her hand, on the grip of the gun. “What do you mean by that?”

  Jill shrugged. “Just what I said. Someone recognizes your husband.”

  “Who?” Rita Cole leaned toward her. “Tell me, or I’ll knock it out of you.”

  Jill backed away. Her right leg brushed the first-aid kit. If she could lean down and…

  The door to bedroom A opened and Neal Paynter stepped inside. He held Emily by her left arm. Clifford Cole, his hand on Emily’s right arm, shut the door behind them.

  “See, we told you Miss McLeod wants you,” Paynter said.

  Emily wrenched herself free and sped through the door that separated bedroom A and compartment B. She threw herself at Jill, wrapping her arms around the Zephyrette.

  “Now, Emily,” Mrs. Cole said. “I think you took something that doesn’t belong to you. An envelope. I want you to tell us where it is.”

  Emily’s voice was muffled, her face buried in Jill’s jacket. “I don’t know anything about an envelope.”

  “Don’t lie, you little brat,” Cole said, stepping into the compartment, his right hand raised. “Your pal Billy said you had an envelope. Now where is it?”

  “Stop it. Let me handle this.” Rita handed the gun to Neal Paynter. Then she moved to Emily and pulled the little girl’s arms away from Jill. “Emily, you wouldn’t want us to hurt Miss McLeod, would you?”

  Emily looked from Rita to Jill and back again. Then she shook her head.

  “You took the envelope before the party, when I was talking with Mr. Scolari,” Jill said, recalling how Emily had smoothed the front of her sweater when she left Jill’s compartment. Before the party. That seeme
d like such a long time ago. “I was distracted, and the envelope was lying there next to my book. So you took it, for the scavenger hunt. It’s all right. You can tell me.”

  Slowly Emily nodded. “It was just a game. I was going to give it back.”

  “It’s not a game anymore. Tell them where it is, and they’ll let us go.” Even as she said the words, Jill didn’t believe them.

  Emily considered this. “I hid it. So I could bring it out when it was time to see if we won the game. You said we had to find everything on the list by five o’clock and bring it to the Silver Solarium. Then we found the professor and I had to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Benson. And then we had the rock slide—”

  “Never mind about the damn rock slide,” Clifford Cole said, leaning forward. Emily shrank back. “Where’s that envelope?”

  “I hid it,” Emily said.

  “Where? The observation lounge? That’s where you kids have been playing. Where is it? Up in the Dome, or downstairs?”

  “You’re scaring her,” Jill said as the frightened child leaned into her.

  “I mean to scare her.” Cole reached for Emily.

  “No, wait.” Paynter held up his hand. “She’ll tell us. Won’t you, Emily? So Miss McLeod doesn’t get hurt.”

  “I hid it.” Emily drew out the words, as though she was stalling for time.

  Where could the little girl have hidden the envelope? Jill wondered. Was it somewhere in the bedroom Emily was sharing with Mrs. Tidsdale? If not in the bedroom, there were a number of possibilities. The soiled linen locker was in the middle of the sleeper car, next to bedroom A. The clean linen locker was at the rear end of the car. And there was another locker just off the vestibule, across from the porter’s compartment. Perhaps she’d hidden it in an empty roomette.

  Cole snarled at Emily. “Come on, tell us where.”

  “I hid it in…” Emily stopped. “In the car where Mrs. Tidsdale and I stay. But not in our room. It’s in another room on the sleeper car.”

  “In the porter’s compartment?” Rita Cole asked. “One of the roomettes? Or another bedroom?”

  Emily shook her head. “No. It’s not any of those. I found a special hidey-hole. I have to show you.”

  “Then take us there,” Paynter said. “And everything will be fine. We’ll leave Miss McLeod here, just for safekeeping.”

  He handed the gun to Rita. Then he opened the door to bedroom A and looked out into the corridor. “Good evening, Porter.”

  Jill heard Si Lovell’s voice, just outside. “Evening, sir. Everything all right?”

  Jill opened her mouth, but Rita Cole anticipated her, laying the barrel of the gun alongside Jill’s cheek.

  “Yes, everything’s fine, Porter. Any idea on when the train will start moving again?”

  “No, sir, just that the track crew is coming. They’re gonna have to blow up that boulder that’s in front of the train. I’m afraid we’re going to be a few hours late getting into Denver.”

  “Nothing for it but to have dinner in the diner,” Paynter said, his voice jovial.

  “Yes, sir, you do that. They are serving dinner now.”

  “Yes, I’ll head down to the diner soon. Thank you, Porter.” Paynter waited a moment. “He’s gone, into another compartment. Come on.”

  Cole took Emily out of the compartment. Now Jill was alone with Rita Cole, wondering if Emily really had secreted the envelope in the Silver Palisade in a special hiding place. Perhaps she’d put it in another car, instead of the Silver Palisade. Maybe Emily was trying to misdirect their captors.

  Jill erased this new thought from her mind. She didn’t want to reveal anything on her face. She certainly didn’t want Rita Cole to guess what she was thinking.

  She looked around the compartment, her gaze coming to rest on the open upper berth. She frowned. The sight of the open berth had bothered her earlier, and it bothered her now. Even if the Coles had been taking naps, surely they would have had the porter put the berth back up into the wall. Or they could have done it themselves, since Paynter had somehow acquired a porter’s key. With the berth put up in the wall, the Coles would have more space and wouldn’t have to look at that untidy, rumpled blanket.

  The blanket moved.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jill stared, and then she quickly masked her expression. Someone was in that upper berth, concealed under the blanket.

  The blanket moved again. A hand snaked out. A woman’s hand, wearing a ring. Jill recognized the square-cut ruby. That was Mrs. Tidsdale’s ring.

  Jill moved to one side and Rita moved as well. “There’s no need to wave that gun at me. I’m not going anywhere. It’s just that I’ve been standing so long. My feet hurt.”

  She moved farther to the side and again Rita moved so that she was facing Jill. Now Rita’s back was to the open upper berth.

  The blanket moved again, the hand and an upper arm visible. Jill saw a slim cord wrapped around the woman’s wrist. Then a face, shadowed by the blanket. Tidsy’s face.

  Jill pretended to stumble over the first-aid kit at her feet, moving forward, toward Rita Cole. The other woman moved backward. She was out of Jill’s range, but well within the reach of that hand moving out from under the blanket.

  Grace Tidsdale grabbed Rita Cole’s ponytail and yanked it upward. Rita screamed in pain, her left hand clawing at her hair as she tried to free herself. Jill picked up the first-aid kit and swung it at Rita. Then Tidsy came down out of the upper berth, landing on Rita. Both women sprawled on the floor of the compartment. Mrs. Cole lost her grip on the gun and it skittered away, coming to rest at Jill’s feet. Jill reached down and picked up the gun, holding it carefully as Tidsy struggled with the taller woman. Then Tidsy straddled Rita Cole and slapped her, once, twice. Mrs. Cole’s head fell back and she moaned.

  Tidsy got to her feet. Blood streaked her blond hair and there was a lump on her forehead. A handkerchief, used as a gag, had been tied around her jaw. There were red marks on her wrists where the cord had bound them together. Now she took the gun from Jill, fury blazing in her blue eyes as she glared down at Rita Cole. “You bitch. You killed Laszlo, you and your friends. I’ll see all three of you get what’s coming to you.”

  “You’re hurt,” Jill said. “Where were you?”

  “I’ve been here all along,” Tidsy said, freeing her other wrist from the cord as Rita struggled to rise. “Don’t even think about it. Come on, help me tie this one up, before she gets ideas.”

  Tidsy shoved Rita Cole back onto the floor, rolled her onto her stomach, and with Jill’s help, tied the woman’s hands behind her back. Jill opened the first-aid kit and pulled out a roll of tape. She tied it around Mrs. Cole’s legs and looped another length around the leg of the chair for good measure. Then she straightened.

  “That ought to hold her. So what happened?”

  “I faked the headache at lunch,” Tidsy said. “Then I came back here to search this compartment. Never mind why, I’ll tell you later. But I got caught. Rita came back from the dining car early. She hit me over the head. Then she and Cole and Paynter tied me up and stashed me in the upper berth. I was out for a while. Don’t know how long. Then I came to and started working on getting my hands free. Took a hell of a long time. The train stopped. Rock slide, they said. Then I heard them talking about Laszlo. They killed him, looking for something.”

  “That envelope he gave me, the one Emily took,” Jill said.

  Tidsy hefted the gun and made for the door. “Right. Now we’ve got to get Emily.”

  They stepped outside. A few doors to the left, Si Lovell was talking with Mike Scolari in front of the doorway of his compartment.

  “I tell you, I thought I heard someone scream,” Mike said. Then he looked past the porter and gasped. “Jill! Mrs. Tidsdale! What the hell?”

  Mrs. Tidsdale didn’t answer. She stalked past Mike and the porter, gun in hand, heading back to the Silver Palisade.

  “Mr. Lovell,” Jill said as she hurried to catc
h up. “Please go find the conductor. There’s a criminal in compartment B.”

  Jill followed Tidsy past the rest of the Silver Gull compartments, through to the Silver Palisade vestibule. They stopped. Tidsy opened the door, slowly. Jill heard someone coming up behind them and glanced back to see Mike. She put her finger to her lips. Then she looked ahead and saw Clifford Cole walking along the corridor between the roomettes, behind the much taller Neal Paynter. She didn’t see Emily. The little girl must be between the two men.

  “Porter’s compartment is empty,” Jill whispered. “So’s roomette one.”

  Tidsy nodded. They slipped through the door, Tidsy into the tiny porter’s compartment, Jill and Mike into the slightly larger roomette 1. Jill looked out into the passageway. Paynter and Cole reached the soiled linen locker in the middle of the car, turning to their right. Now she saw Emily. Cole had hold of the girl’s arm.

  Now Paynter and Cole stepped aside as the Benson boys ran into view, Chip in front and Billy following his younger brother.

  “Hey, Emily,” Chip said. “I found a treasure but Billy doesn’t believe me. I’ll show both of you.” Chip stopped, pushed open the door of the nearest roomette, and took a step inside. Then he froze and looked up.

  “Uh-oh,” Chip said.

  “God damn it to hell, you little…” Mr. Smith came out of roomette 10. The burly man loomed over Chip, grabbing the little boy’s arm.

  “You leave my brother alone.” Billy began flailing at Mr. Smith with his fists, then he kicked the man in the shins.

  Smith bellowed and released Chip, who ran back the way he and Billy had come. Now the little boy barreled into Cole and Paynter. Cole let go of Emily’s arm. The little girl darted around the corner, heading back toward the bedrooms.

  “Son of a bitch,” Paynter said. He and Cole followed Emily, disappearing from view.

  “What in the world is going on out here?” Mrs. Barlow stepped out of roomette 9. She shook her finger at Mr. Smith. “I am really annoyed by your language and your loudness. I’m going to complain to the conductor.”

  Smith growled something and backed into his roomette. Mrs. Barlow harrumphed and went back into hers.