Loco Motive
Page 32
“How would I know?”
“Does it matter?”
Renie had climbed up into the top berth. “No.”
Judith looked again at her watch. “I think mine’s stopped.”
“Oh. Tough.”
Judith removed the watch. “To heck with it. Time’s relative. ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.’ Right, coz?”
“Shut the hell up,” Renie muttered.
“A time to wake and a time to sleep,” Judith said under her breath—and dropped into dreamland with her clothes on.
Epilogue
Judith and Joe strolled arm in arm along Boylston Street, admiring the fading autumn splendor of Boston Garden. “We’re almost three weeks late for the best fall foliage,” Joe said, “but you’ve got to admit this is pretty nice.”
Judith agreed. “How lucky to have Bill’s conference at the Four Seasons. The public garden, the Common, the statehouse—it’s every bit as wonderful as Renie described it.”
“Feel like walking over to Beacon Street?” Joe asked. “There are some wonderful old homes in the neighborhood.”
“Sure,” Judith said, squeezing Joe’s arm. “As long as we take it slow.”
“You feel rested now?”
“Oh, yes,” Judith replied. “With Renie’s weird sense of time, I don’t think I realized we wouldn’t get into Boston until midnight. I think she left out the part about a detour to D.C. But I slept in until almost eleven. Breakfast was lunch.”
Joe paused at the corner of Charles Street. “We can go this way between the garden and the Common or straight ahead. Your call.”
Judith shrugged. “I don’t know the difference.” Hearing a familiar voice, she turned around. “Here come Renie and Bill.”
Joe waved. “He must’ve gotten sprung from his lunch meeting. Thank God I’ve got a couple of hours before my three-thirty interview at Bullfinch Life & Casualty. Hey,” he said as Renie and Bill joined them, “want to walk the walk with us?”
Bill looked at Renie. “Are you wearing shoes?”
Renie stuck out a brown-suede-shod foot. “Yes. I told you, I wouldn’t give up wearing shoes until we got home.”
“Good,” Bill said. “Where to?”
“Past the Common and then over to Beacon Street?” Joe suggested. “We can see the Frog Pond.”
“Look at that gold dome on the statehouse!” Renie exclaimed.
“But watch for cars. They don’t favor pedestrians—and pedestrians don’t favor cars. Lots of jaywalking and going against the lights.”
“We’ve noticed,” Joe said. “Say, we haven’t had a chance to hear about your train trip. I assume you both got to relax.”
“Oh,” Judith said, avoiding any glance at Renie, “yes. So much interesting scenery. Good food, too. Pleasant traveling companions. It was great.”
“I was kind of envious,” Joe said. “Bill and I’ve both been on the go ever since we got here. This is really the first free time we’ve had. I haven’t even seen the sports page since I got here.”
Bill nodded. “For all I know, the TV in our suite doesn’t work. The last thing I want to do at the end of the day is hear more blah-blah.”
“Really,” Renie murmured.
“You probably haven’t missed much,” Judith said.
“True,” Joe agreed. “Current events pale in a city like this. Look—there’s where the Freedom Trail starts.” He pointed to a Visitor Information sign at edge of the Common.
“I hope we have time to do that. It hits the highspots all the way across the Charles River to the USS Constitution Museum and Old Ironsides.”
“That’s a must,” Bill said.
“Can we take a cab?” Renie asked.
Joe chuckled; Bill looked askance.
“Where are all those old cemeteries?” Judith asked, changing the subject.
“Two or three of them are around here,” Joe said. He shot his wife a baleful glance.
“Good God, can’t you stop thinking about dead people for a couple of weeks? It’s a wonder you didn’t find a corpse on the train.”
“Don’t be silly,” Judith said. “Look—people are riding on horseback across the Common. Is that the Frog Pond? What street are we on now?”
Renie grimaced. “Tremont. We’re right where Madge Navarre and I stayed when we came to Boston in 1962.”
“Why the fearsome face?” Bill asked. “You’ve always told me the two of you had a wonderful time.”
“We did.” Head down, Renie walked a little faster. “It was great.”
Judith’s curiosity overcame her. “Come on, coz, fess up. Don’t tell me you’ve been keeping a secret from me all these years.”
Renie stopped in her tracks. “I haven’t. That is, I thought I told you—or Bill—or somebody.”
“What?” Judith asked.
Renie’s shoulders slumped. “Madge and I were coming back to our hotel late one night. Our hotel was nice enough, but old and kind of…creepy. The next morning we found out that something terrible had happened a few doors away on Tremont Street.”
“What was it?” Judith coaxed.
“A murder,” Renie replied quietly. “The Boston Strangler had struck again.”
The foursome was silent for what seemed like a long time. Then Joe and Bill burst out laughing.
“Hey,” Bill said, “that was then and this is now. History won’t repeat itself.”
Joe grinned at Bill. “And my wife was three thousand miles away.” He gave Judith a hug. “I assume you don’t feel left out?”
“Oh, no,” Judith asserted. “Why would I?”
Joe shrugged. “Just kidding. Let’s move on. How ’bout those cemeteries?”
“Right,” Bill said, taking Renie’s hand. “Boppin’!”
Author’s Note
The descriptions of some Empire Builder features, including the sleeper accommodations, have been altered for the sake of narrative. These details are minor, but train travel is still the best way to go.
About the Author
MARY RICHARDSON DAHEIM is a Seattle native with a degree in communications from the University of Washington. Realizing at an early age that getting published in books with real covers might elude her for years, she worked on daily newspapers and in public relations to help avoid her creditors. She lives in her hometown in a century-old house not unlike Hillside Manor, except for the body count. Daheim is also the author of the Alpine mystery series and the mother of three daughters.
www.authormarydaheim.com
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Credits
Jacket design by Ervin Serrano
Jacket illustration by Bill Mayer
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LOCO MOTIVE. Copyright © 2010 by Mary Daheim. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclu
sive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Daheim, Mary.
Loco motive: a bed-and-breakfast mystery / Mary Daheim.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-135156-3
1. Flynn, Judith McMonigle (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Bed and breakfast accommodations—Fiction. 3. Travelers—Fiction. 4. Railroad travel—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3554.A264L63 2010
813’.54—dc22
2010011922
ePub Edition © August 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-197845-6
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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