The 6:10 To Murder (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 3)

by Linda L. Dunlap

  After leaving the store, she drove toward 220-A Sycamore Street and reflected on the evening’s tragedy, genuinely stumped. What could have happened in the house, and how did it connect with the incident on the Missouri-Pacific railway? Not a believer in coincidences, Maude began trying to put the puzzle together. There must be evil loose to come up with such dreadful circumstances of murder, if in fact someone had died within the house. A chill touched her, a feeling of someone walking over her grave, as Grace, her mother, used to say. They’d both hated the evil in people. Maude was frightened of those crazed by it, but she never turned away, no matter how much it scared her. To do so was to admit defeat.

  The house opened with the master on her key ring. Crime scene units put locks on doors after they were done with printing and photographing a scene, and the detectives carried keys to allow them later entry. The smell of blood was still sharp, filling her nostrils, making her gag for a minute. No matter how many murders she worked, Maude wanted to retch each time she smelled it. She waited to become accustomed to the feeling then began another look-see of the room, using the knowledge gained from the condition of the woman’s body at the train. Blood type was important for identification, and the coroner would have that soon. If Eve Devine’s matched the blood in the house, they would follow through with DNA testing for a positive response. In the interim, it was a detective’s duty to follow the evidence and find the perpetrator.

  The small house was plain, with life’s necessities and little else. In the master bedroom a chintz coverlet lay in disarray off the bed after the sheets had been stripped and the mattress photographed. A bathroom the size of a cupboard was in one corner of the room, and a walk-in closet took up the rest.

  The other bedroom was an office and sewing room, with a futon on one whole wall. A small desk holding an old-fashioned computer sat next to a sewing machine with a foot treadle. No signs of a small boy were found, not even a ring around the tub in the bathroom. Eve Devine might have lived in the small house, but it was doubtful a seven-year-old boy ever spent time there. The question remained, who was the boy? Was he Eve’s son who lived somewhere else? Did he even exist?

  She called the lab to see if anyone was in, hoping that early discoveries had been made by the coroner. They’d said earlier the computer had no hard drive; looked like it was old and worn out. The body at the train station had been packed in bags and taken to the morgue, awaiting the medical examiner’s autopsy. Surely, she thought, something has to have been discovered about the house at 220 Sycamore. She was frustrated without answers. How could she catch a criminal if there was no sign of a victim?

  The crime lab’s main phone went to voice mail, a matter-of-fact recording directing her to call back Monday morning.

  “Crap, now I wait,” she said, sitting on her porch that night with a large Gilbey’s and tonic over ice. She called dispatch to tell them she would be back on duty at 8:00 a.m. The peace of the night was interrupted by her concern for the kid. He had sounded genuinely frightened for his mother’s safety. Had she been fooled? It ate on her, the questions about the boy not making any sense.

  The night came on darker, with a billion stars above consoling her with their truth: human life was less than frail. She decided to go to bed, but sleep wouldn’t come because of the questions in her mind. A couple more gin and tonics later, her head started bobbing and it was past time for sleep. To be on the safe side, she poured one last glass before bed, finishing it while sitting on the toilet. Weary and sick of bloody scenes replaying in her head, Maude finally passed out.

  The next morning was all headache and hangover, but a pot of black coffee later, she decided that all the questions from the night before made her second-guess what she knew she had seen. After loading the laptop in its case, Maude headed toward the local resource center.

  The library at the local community college had several books about trains—both engines and passenger cars. The place for research was in the heart of the beast, in this case Engine 99 of the Madison 6:10 route. After an hour of study, Maude decided the huge payload—the ten cars behind 99—could never have stopped in time, no matter who was piloting. The woman on the track, dead or alive, would have been bisected given the speed of the train, the location of the body, and the weight of the engine. She looked at schedules, determining that the trip to Wilk, Texas, the farthest stop, would have taken three and a half hours with normal obstacles, such as crossings, heavy or light loads of passenger traffic, and inclement weather. Station stop times would vary according to the amount of people loading and departing—twenty minutes for the larger stops, ten for the smaller ones. Freight trains on a fast track could cause a delay the engineer would be forced to make up later to stay on schedule.

  The dead woman had a ticket to visit her sister at Bisbey, a small township about seventy-five miles down the line. The rehab center was on the outskirts of the populated area—the distance would have required her to take a bus or a taxi unless someone from the facility met the train. Maude had never heard of such a convenience from those businesses, so chose to ignore the possibility. That left the city bus, or a taxi. Eve Devine lived frugally; it was obvious from her house and furnishings, also, she took the train because it was less expensive, considering the price of gasoline. The bus was less money than the taxi. It was the obvious choice for a workingwoman’s budget. A quick Google search spat out the Bisbey-Cloverdell Metro as the transportation of the area, with a phone number listed. A call to the metro office put her in touch with Rain Baxter, the weekend dispatcher.

  Rain (who hastened to explain that her parents had just attended an outdoor concert in a thunderstorm when her mother went into labor) reassured Maude that the bus was available for passengers going to Bisbey Rehabilitation Center each hour of the day between 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

  According to Rain, “The driver of the bus that day and every day was a man named Elijah Cromwell. The route is his, five days a week, and has been for the last twenty years or so. He will be back on schedule Monday, Lord willing.”

  One more thing to do on Monday, Maude thought. The next best thing was to go back to the scene and interview the station manager/ticket seller, Henry Fonda. Making the assumption he would be there on Saturday, Maude detoured from the resource center, back to the train station, hoping to catch him before he left for lunch. She had observed over her extensive life that clerks and government employees regularly had difficulty returning to work from lunch. Maybe it was the half-day syndrome. It was best to go early. Besides, she wanted to look at the tracks again without the crime scene technicians everywhere.

  “Excuse me, my name is Maude Rogers, and I hope you’re Henry Fonda.”

  “What, no jokes? Most people right off ask me about my kids Peter and Jane.” The station manager wasn’t complaining, just jawing a little.

  Maude nodded. “Must get kind of old,” she said understandingly.

  “It does for a fact,” the man agreed, putting down his logbook and pen. “What can I do for you?”

  “Just some questions about the woman on the tracks. Hard to put a name to whatever happened,” Maude said. “That fellow manning the train was mighty upset.”

  “Samuel Blevins. Yes, he was pretty torn up about it. Not the first time someone has died on the tracks, but his first time to be on the engine. Shook him up real bad. Glad today’s Saturday; don’t think he would have come in to work.”

  “You said the woman, Eve Devine, bought a ticket to Bisbey, and boarded the train yesterday morning. Right?”

  “Yep. She came in early, hung around the desk afterwards, talking about her sister in the rehab place. Said she would be back on the 6:10.”

  “Did you know her, I mean before yesterday? Ever seen her before?”

  “I don’t recall. She looked kind of familiar, but can’t say if I ever saw her before, or maybe she reminded me of someone.”

  “I guess that red hair, you wouldn’t forget that,” Maude said casually.

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nbsp; “Yeah, now that I recall, she might have been a redhead,” Henry said, getting busy again. He shrugged both shoulders, sorry he had to cut his answer short.

  “Thank you, Henry. Nice talking to you,” she said, lighting up her second unfiltered of the day as she left the room, headed for the train tracks. All the passenger departures had been done for the hour, and even though a freight might pass through at any time, Maude figured it was okay to go about her business, searching for evidence missed by the crime scene techs, as long as she was alert to train whistles.

  So far there was little to go on, other than a bloodless woman had lain across the tracks, waiting for the 6:10 to arrive after she boarded that same train early in the day. If it wasn’t for the macabre punch line, the riddle would have been humorous. Maude could only wonder at the piece of humanity who put it all into play. There seemed to be no logic to the crime, no purpose. Eve Devine was, in her boss’s opinion, a dedicated clerk at a grocery store, nothing more. Not even a mother, as far as he knew, even though a kid had claimed her as his mom. Maude wished Joe was available for his insight. She had come to rely on his opinions about aberrant behavior in humans. Another thing for Monday.

  The switch was twenty car lengths away from the station, give or take a car, allowing for more than one set of wheels traveling on the same tracks. Passenger trains off schedule often waited patiently on aside tracks as fast-moving freight cars passed by the dozens. It was the way of the railroad. Keep on schedule and you get to go first, but woe to the engineer who lost his place in line. On the day that Eve Devine made her own history, Engine 99 was strictly on schedule. The overall trip was one hundred eighty-seven and a half miles, one way, taking eight and a half hours of travel, plus an hour at the stations. Ninety-nine left the station on schedule then picked up five minutes on the way to Wilk, stopping at MacArthur, Bisbey, and Johnson’s Corner, to pick up and drop off passengers. Samuel Blevins and the conductor, Kale Pittsford, sat down in the dining car, and ate a quick lunch as always, before turning the circle to head back to Madison. The wait at the Wilk station was longer than most, allowing time for the engineer to break for lunch. It was a schedule a person could depend on, even down to the pork chop sandwich that Samuel had for lunch every Friday.

  Back at the station, Henry Fonda thought about his memory. He was pleased to be a step ahead of most of his friends, who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag in the dark. Seemed to Henry the years had been kind in that respect, even though there were some dark shadows on his future. The oncologist told him three months ago that they would watch the spot, see if it changed any. He coughed, and felt with his hand along the middle rib, where sometimes it hurt to breathe. Doctor Mueller said it might be nothing, but Henry knew he could feel it growing, getting bigger, and before long it would take over his whole chest. Sometimes life didn’t treat a man just right. Here he had such a good memory, but wouldn’t be around long enough to use it. He didn’t tell the lady detective about the spot, or about his memory, but he intended to bring her up to date on his perspective, the next time he saw her.

  That woman Eve Devine had brought a powerful stink on the station. Why she wanted to get cut in half on his watch was beyond Henry’s understanding. He took a minute or two to step outside for a few puffs, before getting back to his duties of selling tickets, answering the phone, and making reservations for people traveling. The whole sorry mess was troubling him; there was plenty about the situation with the dead woman that gave him the willies.

  That Friday morning had been busy; seemed like every Tom, Dick, and Harry was taking a trip somewhere, looking for connections to California or New York. He remembered seeing the woman come through the door, her small red purse on her arm, red hair shining in the early morning light.

  She had pretty brown eyes—he remembered well the way she had watched the clock on the wall, and the line of people ahead of her. Like she was afraid she might miss the train. He had rushed through the line, making sure that he got to her before she turned and left. He wondered why she hadn’t brought anything with her, until she volunteered that her sister in Bisbey was in the rehab place, and she was going for a visit, but would be back when the 6:10 reached its final destination. Her ticket was for a round trip. She had acted like there was no problem with money, pulling out a fifty-dollar bill he had to return change for, but her clothes said different. Looked like discount store buys to him. He couldn’t remember exactly what she was wearing, because the window didn’t give him a view all the way to her feet, but he recalled a bright green skirt or capris. When those britches were loose, they kind of looked like a skirt.

  “Train boards at 8:15, but won’t leave until 8:30,” he’d told her. “Got plenty of time, rest yourself. Looks like you’ve been running.

  Her composure had slipped for a minute. “Leave me alone, old man. Stay out of my business.”

  Henry had been taken aback by the attack on his pleasantry. He certainly never meant any harm, just being concerned for her. But you can bet he stayed away after that, paid her no never-mind. Did seem strange, though, what with the help he had given, she would turn on him like that. Shows to go you, can’t tell a book by its cover.

  Chapter 2

  Maude looked the scene over again, taking notes, noticing a few things she’d missed the night before. The marks on the tracks showed the engineer had forced an emergency stop, which took at least fifty feet to come to a complete standstill. According to Samuel Blevins, the engine’s speed had already been cut to almost a crawl. She made note of the position of the body in its gory state, relative to the drag marks on the rails. God, what a way to go, she thought.

  Grass and weeds grew high on the section of land along the tracks across from the station and down toward the crime scene. The ragged adjacent pavement was a small road, once providing a thoroughfare to some houses farther south, but now the road was down to gravel in several places where the base had worn through. The closest neighborhood had a few old trailers, several three-room clapboard houses, and potholed streets, with rusted signs hanging askew. Maude had known the neighborhood as one Mayor Denise Royale had tried to recreate and gentrify, but the people who lived there didn’t want to be reclaimed.

  There were tire treads in the gravel near the end of the pavement—a car had been there recently. The technicians would have made molds of the tires, for, as usual when murder was involved, the questions piled up, needing answers that came from evidence. Maude knew the woman’s death wasn’t suicide, even though the coroner hadn’t formally put out the word. Theodore Hollingsworth, Holly to the detectives of the Cop Shop, was the stand-in coroner, a former FBI man who worked part-time for Edward Keller, the medical examiner, or ME. Holly was good man to have around, but his ego sometimes got in the way of his knowledge, making him testy when he wasn’t properly respected. Maude knew when to kowtow, to save hours of wasted footwork when Holly already had the answer to her questions. She thought about calling the morgue, wondering if he was on duty. The phone extension rang three times, before it was answered by a gruff, no-nonsense voice.

  “Hollingsworth, County Coroner’s Office.” Great, she thought, he’s on duty.

  “Maude Rogers here,” she said. “I know it’s early, but I’m puzzled by this train death. I didn’t see any blood last night. What do you think?”

  “Detective,” he said, “I don’t make assumptions. I wait for the evidence to tell me what I need to know.”

  “Yes, I know that. But you usually have an early opinion.” She was groveling, and he knew it.

  “Well,” he said, “if I had an early opinion, it would be that the victim died eight to ten hours before the train bisected her. She had no blood and was in rigor.”

  “Any idea what killed her?” she asked him.

  “Um, yes, but it isn’t official, you understand.”

  “I do understand,” she replied, “it’s an early opinion.”

  “Maybe more than an opinion—just not official.” Maude
could hear in his voice that he needed her to plead a little.

  Biting her tongue, she offered up, “Theodore, I appreciate anything you can tell me off the record. It would help immensely.”

  “Well all right, detective—the cause of death is exsanguination, with the point of origin the aortic valves. Your victim had her heart cut out while she was still alive. She was dead for some time before the train hit her. Seems a lot of trouble to go to kill a person, but it takes all kinds.”

  “Wait, did you say her heart was removed?” Maude croaked. “Her heart? This woman had no heart?”

  “Detective, are you all right? You sound distressed.” Holly was concerned, for he was accustomed to Maude’s acceptance of the facts of death and murder without any emotion.

  “I’m fine, just surprised. Was any other organ missing?” she asked, taking a deep breath, knowing there wasn’t.

  “No, just her heart. I must say, too, that it was done quite expertly. No peripheral damage to tissue, clean cuts. Now I really must go, I have work to do. Remember, detective, off the record.”

  “Yeah, I got it. Unofficial,” she said distractedly, and disconnected the phone call. Her second unfiltered for the day was early, the demand for nicotine made strong by Holly’s revelation. What earlier appeared to be a difficult case had morphed into a bizarre set of circumstances, with no logical continuity. “The woman was on the train, for heaven’s sake,” she said to no one.

  Sitting near the tracks, smoking, her thoughts were jumbled. Dread lived there too. Maude shook her head, refusing to believe there was another monster out there copying Robert Dawson. Some time had passed since she had seen a serial murderer with as little conscience and as much imagination as the convicted killer. Cautioning herself against jumping to conclusions, Maude finished her cigarette and went back to considering the facts and the evidence.