Death Deals a Hand

by Janet Dawson

  “I know they don’t, and the railroad appreciates their discretion.” Mr. Dutton sighed. “Passengers getting drunk and acting like idiots is one thing. Murder is another.”

  “We should talk with Mr. Geddes,” Jill said. “He and Mr. Fontana were business associates. They were on their way to San Francisco. Something about finalizing a business deal. I heard them discussing it.”

  “Good idea,” Mr. Dutton said. “Mr. Winston, would you please get Mr. Geddes?”

  “Should I tell him Mr. Fontana’s dead?”

  “No, leave that to me,” Mr. Dutton said. “Just say that there’s been an incident and we need to talk with him.”

  Rachel yawned and looked at her aunt. “We might as well go back to bed.”

  “I agree.” The doctor stifled a yawn of her own and addressed the conductor. “Please wake me before we get into Wendover. I’m sure the sheriff’s office will have questions, and I want to be available to answer them.”

  ———

  Art Geddes, roused from sleep, looked rumpled. He was dressed in blue pants and a shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. His brown hair was swept back from his long hangdog face, his jaw darkened by the five-o’clock shadow of a persistent beard. He looked around at the people gathered in the Silver Crescent’s lounge. His eyes lingered on Sean Cleary before he spoke in his nasal Brooklyn accent. “What’s going on? This porter here says the conductor wants to talk to me.”

  “Yes, I do,” Mr. Dutton said. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Mr. Fontana is dead.”

  “Dead?” Geddes’s expression changed to one of consternation. “What do you mean, he’s dead? When did this happen? How?”

  “He was shot, sometime this evening,” Mr. Dutton said. “We don’t know exactly when it happened. The train will stop in Wendover and we’ll turn all of this over to the sheriff’s office there.” The conductor glanced at Sean. “In the meantime, Mr. Cleary has some questions. He’s a retired police officer from Denver.”

  Mr. Geddes snorted derisively, jerking his chin in Sean Cleary’s direction. “I know who he is. Vic told me he was a cop. So you got him investigating Vic’s murder? That’s like the fox guarding the hen house. You better take a good long look at Cleary. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him that shot Vic.”

  Sean Cleary’s face reddened. He got to his feet and took a step toward Geddes. “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Bullshit,” Geddes said. “You had it in for him, for years, since back when he was in Colorado.”

  The conductor raised his hand. “Watch your language. There’s a lady present.”

  “Excuse me, Miss McLeod.” Geddes nodded at Jill. “All I’m saying is Cleary and Vic had some history. I don’t trust him.”

  “What sort of history?” Jill asked. Her uncle didn’t say anything. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know all the details,” Geddes said. “I just know when Vic saw Cleary was on the train, he said to me, that guy’s a Denver cop. He made trouble for Vic before the war and Vic said he’d do it again if he got half a chance.”

  “You better believe I made trouble for him before the war,” Sean snapped. “He was a hoodlum, working for gangsters.”

  “Says you.” Geddes tossed the words back at Sean. “He never got convicted of anything. Never went to jail.”

  “He should have. He was in it up to his neck, bootlegging, hijacking, gambling. And murder.”

  “Sounds to me like maybe you got your half a chance, Cleary.”

  Both men faced off, talking at once. The conductor moved toward them, raising both hands. “Quiet, please. This isn’t getting us anywhere. I think we’d better cool things off here.”

  “I have a question for you, Mr. Winston,” Jill said. “Mr. Cleary was in his nightclothes when I went to his berth to get him. What about Mr. Geddes?”

  The Pullman conductor nodded. “Yes, Miss McLeod. He was in his pajamas when he answered the door. I waited while he got dressed.”

  “So it appears both of you were in bed when Mr. Fontana was killed.” Jill looked at Sean and Geddes, who glared at each other.

  The conductor turned to Geddes. “What was your relationship with Mr. Fontana? How long had you known him?”

  “I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” Geddes snapped. “You, or anybody else.”

  “Mr. Geddes, please,” Jill said. “We’re trying to find out what happened to Mr. Fontana, and why. It’s possible that whoever killed Mr. Fontana could hurt someone else on the train. I would hate for that to happen. Wouldn’t you? We need your help.”

  He thought about it for a moment. Then he relented. “All right, Miss McLeod. Since it’s you that’s asking. I don’t know what I can tell you. We were business associates. That’s how I know him. He was in the liquor business in Chicago. I’m in the liquor business in New York City. I met him in ’forty-seven. We started doing business. Him and me, we’re back and forth between New York and Chicago. Nothing illegal.” He shot a poisonous look at Sean. “Our dealings were on the up-and-up.”

  “When did you see him last?” Jill asked. “What time?”

  “Tonight. We had a few drinks in the buffet. I don’t know what time it was or what time I went to bed. I was tired. Traveling on trains makes me sleepy. I’ll tell you something else,” Geddes added. “You better talk to that other guy, Cleary’s son, the one who’s keeping company with the Southern belle. He was plenty steamed at Vic, because Vic was paying attention to the little lady. The son, he was all wound up to hit Vic, but Cleary grabbed his arm.”

  Yes, what about Doug? Jill glanced at her uncle, knowing he was thinking the same thing. Instead he asked Geddes a question. “Did Fontana carry a gun? Did he have one with him this trip?”

  “I don’t know,” Geddes said. “I mean, I know he carries a gun sometimes. But I don’t have any idea if he brought one along this trip. If he did, I haven’t seen it.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  “A thirty-eight special. Just like most of the cops I know,” Geddes added, his voice tart.

  “Do you carry a gun?”

  Geddes scowled at him. “Sometimes. For protection. Also a thirty-eight. But I don’t have it with me this trip. Didn’t see the need. We were just going to San Francisco on business.”

  “How did you and your partner get along?” Sean asked.

  “He wasn’t my partner,” Geddes said. “Not exactly. We had a business relationship. We did some deals together. And we got along just fine.”

  “But you had a disagreement with Mr. Fontana,” Jill said.

  Geddes’s face closed up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Perhaps I misunderstood. You and Mr. Fontana were talking about a business deal. It sounded to me as though you were having an argument.”

  Jill recalled the incident that afternoon, outside Mr. Geddes’s bedroom aboard the transcontinental sleeper. The words had been rather heated. Geddes was concerned about the deal with the man in San Francisco. What was his name? Holt, that was it. Fontana had been upset with Geddes getting cold feet, as he put it, telling him that he worried too much. Fontana and Holt had done business before, during the war, he said, and they’d made a lot of money.

  Geddes was staring at her. “I didn’t know you were such an eavesdropper, Miss McLeod.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to listen. But Mr. Fontana was in the corridor while the two of you were talking, and his voice carried.”

  “So what’s this deal?” Sean asked. “And why were you concerned about it?”

  “It’s a business deal. It’s got nothing to do with who killed Vic,” Geddes said.

  “Maybe it does,” Sean said. “If you didn’t like the deal, maybe you killed your partner.”

  Geddes snarled at him. “I know what you’re trying to do, Cleary. You think you’re going to pin this on me, so as to take the heat off of yourself, or your son? Forget about it!”

  “We�
��ll talk to my son, in good time,” Sean said.

  “Are you done?” Geddes didn’t even wait for an answer. “Well, I am. I’ll be in my bedroom. Let me know when we get to the next stop.” He stalked off.

  The conductor sighed. “He has a point. What about your son, Mr. Cleary?”

  “I can’t believe Doug would have anything to do with this.”

  “Maybe not. But he did threaten to hit Mr. Fontana earlier this evening, in front of witnesses.”

  “We should talk with him, Uncle Sean,” Jill said.

  Sean’s mouth thinned into a grim line. “My son and I don’t get along very well. I think it would be a good idea if Jill comes with us.”

  They left the lounge and walked forward. As they passed the drawing room, Jill’s eyes were drawn to the door, thinking of Mr. Fontana’s body behind it. Did he have a wife? Children? She looked at bedroom C as well. Although Doug had visited Miss Larch in her bedroom earlier in the evening, Jill assumed that he had been enough of a gentleman to return to his own quarters.

  Or had he? How well did she know her cousin? That wasn’t always the case with men and women traveling on the California Zephyr. Things did go on behind the closed doors of the bedrooms in the sleeper cars. Jill had seen enough during her two years as a Zephyrette to know that.

  More importantly, if Doug had been in bedroom C when the murder occurred, had he or Miss Larch heard anything? She guessed that the shot that killed Mr. Fontana in the drawing room had been loud enough to be heard in the next compartment. Maybe not, though. The ever-present clack of the train’s wheels on the rails could have muffled the noise. And it was clear that the pillow, with its black-rimmed hole, had been used as a silencer.

  Her cousin and Pamela Larch weren’t the only potential witnesses, though. Both Miss Grant and Miss Margate had been in the observation lounge when Jill left the Silver Crescent. Given the distance from the bedrooms, they might not have heard anything. But they’d both been sitting in chairs with a view of the corridor. Perhaps they’d seen something, or someone.

  Avis Margate had removed her wedding ring before boarding the California Zephyr in Chicago. What about that note she had received, written in what Jill was sure was Victor Fontana’s handwriting? Whatever was in that note had certainly put a troubled expression on Avis Margate’s face.

  When they reached the Silver Falls, Frank Nathan was awake. He stood in the doorway of the tiny porter’s compartment, speaking to the conductor in a whisper. “Has something happened, sir? I notice you’ve been back and forth. Then we stopped. Now the train’s going slower.”

  “We’ve had an incident in one of the other sleepers,” the conductor said, his voice also low. “And there’s a derailed freight ahead of us. Is Mr. Douglas Cleary in his bedroom?”

  “Bedroom A, yes, sir. I made up his bed sometime during the evening. I saw him go in there before I went to bed.”

  Mr. Dutton nodded and led the way down the corridor between the roomettes, with Sean and Jill close behind him. They went around the corner to the passageway in front of the bedrooms. Coming toward them from the front of the train was Carl Mooney, the brakeman. He beckoned to the conductor.

  “Looks like I’ll have to leave this to you,” Mr. Dutton said. He continued walking forward to join the brakeman, then both men headed toward the front of the train.

  Uncle Sean knocked on the door of bedroom A. The door opened. Doug peered out, his blond hair tousled as he belted a robe over his pajamas. He stared out at them. “Jill? Dad? What’s going on?”

  “May we come in?” Sean asked.

  Doug looked perplexed. “Be my guest.” He stepped aside to let them into the bedroom, then he shut the door as they crowded in. “The train stopped a while back. When it started moving again, it’s going really slow. Is there a problem?”

  “A freight train derailment,” Jill said. “We must be getting close to the place where it happened. That’s probably why the brakeman came looking for the conductor.”

  “That’s interesting,” Doug said. “But I don’t think that’s why the two of you came to see me at this hour. What’s going on?”

  “Fontana’s dead,” Sean said. “Somebody shot him.”

  Jill felt the brakes of the CZ begin to engage. There was a jolt. She put her hand on the door jamb to steady herself.

  Something slid out from under the bench seat that had been made into Doug’s bed. It was a gun with a wooden grip, the light from above glistening on the dark metal surface of the weapon’s body and short barrel.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Doug’s face blanched as the gun skittered across the floor. “I don’t know where that came from. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Hell’s bells.” Uncle Sean stared down at the gun. “Smith and Wesson, a thirty-eight special. Five-round capacity, swing-out cylinder.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his hand. Then he knelt, picking up the gun. He carefully swung out the cylinder and looked inside. “No cartridges. But…” He sniffed the barrel. “It’s been fired recently.”

  Doug shook his head. “Not by me. I had nothing to do with Fontana’s death.”

  “I know that and so does Jill,” his father said. “But this looks bad. I’ll have to tell the conductor. Get dressed and go back to the lounge in the dome-observation car. We’ll talk there.”

  Jill and Sean left bedroom A so Doug could change clothes. As her cousin shut the door, the train slowed again. Jill looked out the window. But she couldn’t see anything in the darkness that covered the Great Salt Desert.

  Uncle Sean was already walking back to the Silver Crescent. Jill hesitated, looking at the door to bedroom B. Should she wake Miss Margate and ask the questions that had been roiling in her mind? Or was she getting ahead of herself?

  She raised her hand. Suddenly the door opened. Avis Margate stood there, wearing a peignoir set of peach-colored silk trimmed with white lace.

  “I heard voices,” Miss Margate said. “And it seems there are a lot of people walking back and forth. Now the train’s moving at a snail’s pace. What’s happening?”

  “A freight train derailed up ahead. So we’ll be delayed.”

  Miss Margate smiled. “Is that why you were going to knock on my door? To tell me about a derailment?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Jill said. “Mr. Fontana is dead.”

  Various emotions flickered over Miss Margate’s face, including relief. “Come in, Miss McLeod. I think we should talk.”

  Once Jill was inside, Miss Margate shut the door and sat down on the bed she’d just vacated, running her hands through her tousled brunette curls. “You saw the note.”

  Jill nodded. “I did. I wondered about that, because you seemed so upset. Then I recognized Mr. Fontana’s handwriting, because he’d given me a letter to mail. What was in the note?”

  Avis Margate’s mouth twisted. “He threatened me, the son of a bitch.”

  “I can guess why,” Jill said. “I know you’re married. I saw you take off your wedding ring in the Chicago station.”

  The other woman smiled. “You don’t miss a trick, do you? You must see a lot riding the rails.”

  “Yes, I do. Ordinarily a passenger’s private life is none of my business.”

  “Unless I kill one of the passengers. Is that it?”

  Jill wasn’t sure she’d have said it that way. But now that the subject was out in the open, she might as well proceed. “I have some questions.”

  “I’ll bet you do.” Avis Margate leaned back on the bed and crossed one shapely leg over the other. The peignoir slipped off her shoulders and the V-neck of her nightgown revealed the top of her lush bosom. “Well, ask away.”

  “How did Mr. Fontana know you were married?”

  “Evidently he met me and my husband at some function in Chicago,” Avis said. “Not that I recall meeting Fontana. If I’d known that, I would have steered clear of him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, there�
�s a story. My husband’s an attorney. Socially prominent, respectable, fine old family. He’s also boring and he works all the time. So I decided to go visit a friend in San Francisco and kick up my heels. Be single again, for just a little while. What better place to start than on the train? I thought it would safe and anonymous. Nobody knows me, right?” She laughed.

  “But I was wrong. The first night out of Chicago, at dinner, I sat at the same table as Fontana and Geddes. We were bantering back and forth. Well, Fontana and I were bantering. Geddes is a cold fish. He couldn’t banter if his life depended on it. But Fontana can be charming when he wants to. The little bastard,” she added.

  “After dinner, I came back here, to my bedroom. Then later I went to the lounge in the buffet car. While I was there, Fontana and Geddes showed up. Geddes left a while later, and so did the people I was talking with. Fontana moved over to my table and bought me a drink. Fontana started taking liberties, so I decided to call it a night and go to bed. He followed me, and grabbed me in the hall. Damned octopus. It felt like he had eight hands. I broke away from him and slapped him, hard. He called me a bitch.”

  Jill nodded. She’d thought it was Mr. Fontana she’d heard outside her door the previous night. Now that was confirmed, and so was the identity of the other person, Avis Margate.

  “I got out of there and came back here to my bedroom. Thank God he didn’t follow me. But today I got that damn poisoned pen note from Fontana. He said he was going to tell my husband. And believe me, my husband will be furious.” Miss Margate cocked her head to one side and looked at Jill. “So what you want to know, Miss Zephyrette, is whether I would kill Fontana over that.”

  “The thought crossed my mind,” Jill said.

  “When I got the note I wanted to wring his damn neck. But that was immediate. I cooled off later. How did Fontana die?”

  “He was shot.”

  “There you go,” Avis said. “I don’t have a gun. Wouldn’t know how to use one, really. Anything else?”

  “Tonight, when I did my last walk-through, you, Miss Grant and Miss Ranleigh were in the observation lounge. That was ­before we got to Salt Lake City at five minutes after ten. Miss Ranleigh left before I did. What time did you leave?”