Mayhem at the Orient Express (10 page)

“Yes!” Mariah’s voice floated from what sounded like a long way off, and I realized
she must be in the bathroom with the door closed. I unlocked the bedroom door and
stuck my head inside. The rest of me followed fast enough when the other ladies pushed
into the room behind me.

“I’ve got clean towels,” I called out to Mariah. I had to do it loudly. She had opera
playing in the bathroom, and at that moment, the music crescendoed and some woman
with a voice like a startled hawk joined in, holding a particularly high note for
an incredibly long time. The resulting racket floated out to us along with the overpowering
scent of flowery bubble bath. “I’ll just leave the towels here on your bed,” I called.

To which Mariah didn’t answer at all, but I did hear splashing.

Before I even set down the towels, I realized the other ladies had wasted no time.
They were already taking a quick look around.

“Nothing here,” Chandra whispered, pointing to the empty suitcase that stood open
near the closet. I recognized it as the one Mariah had risked her life to retrieve
from her car after lunch.

“And nothing much here, either,” Kate said. To my horror, she had a dresser drawer
open and was poking around in it.

I made a frantic
shut-it
motion for all I was worth. “She might come out at any minute,” I hissed.

“And if she does, she sure won’t want to find us with these.” I turned to find Luella
holding up a package of condoms.

More splashing from the bathroom.

Was Mariah an enthusiastic bather? Or was she getting out of the tub?

I didn’t want to take the chance of finding out.

I set the towels on the foot of the bed and signaled to Luella to put the box of Trojans
back where she found them, and we hightailed it out of there.

Out in the hallway, our whispered voices washed over each other.

“What does it mean?”

“Could it be that she’s meeting someone here?”

“She didn’t smuggle a boyfriend in with her, did she?”

I shushed them all. “It probably means she’s not as much of a stranger here as she
pretends to be.” I wasn’t sure of it, but I offered the theory. “Maybe she came here
to meet somebody.”

“Oh, an assignation!” Like it was suddenly too hot out there in the hallway, Chandra
waved a hand in front of her face.

“Or it could mean she’s as much of a stranger as she says she is,” Kate added. “Maybe
she’s just hoping to get lucky.”

I gave my ponytail a tug. “Maybe.”

“Maybe, what?” Chandra asked. “Maybe she knows someone? Or maybe she was hoping for
a wild and crazy weekend?”

My shrug said it all. “Maybe.”

While I was busy pondering this, Luella had already moved on to Suite #1, where Amanda
was staying.

This suite was at the front of the house and got soft light all day long. As least,
when there weren’t snowstorms in progress. I’d had it decorated in a pretty cream-colored
wallpaper dusted with flowers in shades of mauve, pink, and purple.

“Make it fast,” I said, unlocking the door and standing back so the others could go
inside while I kept an eye on the stairway. “She’s right downstairs, and if she hears
us—”

Chandra poked her head into—and out of—the closet. “She’s got pretty basic taste when
it comes to clothes,” she announced.

“And pretty basic habits when it comes to cosmetics and toiletries,” Luella said from
the bathroom. “Nothing fancy there.”

Kate looked over the secretary desk in the far corner of the room where Amanda had
set out a paperback with a dark cover I recognized even before she held it up and
I saw the title
Evil Creeps
in red letters that ran like blood.

“Hey, look!” She waved the book. “Amanda’s reading FX O’Grady. And you were too scared
to even try a book from the master of horror, Bea.”

“You’ve got that right.” I sought to prove exactly how much I didn’t care that I was
a weenie by scooting into the room so I could take a quick look around.

Just as the ladies reported, Amanda’s possessions were pretty basic. In fact, aside
from the wonders I’d accomplished with the help of dozens of lacy doilies, three pretty
little oil landscapes in gilt frames, and the assistance of a decorator who charged
an exorbitant amount, there was nothing distinctive or unusual about the room at all.

I had just told the ladies this and stepped aside so they could exit the room before
me when something caught my eye, a single sheet of paper lying facedown on the floor,
one corner of it sticking out from under the frilly bed skirt. I would have ignored
it altogether except for two things: I feared my cleaning crew might be getting a
tad careless, and we’d just found what might be a clue—that menu from the Orient Express—in
Ted’s room.

With Kate, Chandra, and Luella already out in the hall, I stooped to retrieve the
paper, flipped it over, and read the message that had been cobbled together from a
mish-mash of matte newspaper headlines and glossy magazine pages.

Y
OU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS.
I
’LL NEVER FORGET.

I
SWEAR
I
’LL MAKE YOU PAY.

I read the message under my breath. But then, it’s hard to find anything in the way
of a voice when you feel as if you’ve been punched in the stomach.

Eager to see the note, the other women scudded back into the room and gathered around
me.

“‘You’ll never get away with this. I’ll never forget. I swear I’ll make you pay.’”
From over my shoulder, Kate read the message and pointed to the block letters with
one finger. “Bea, this sounds like—”

“The note I saw at Peter’s.” I nodded. “It’s exactly the same. The paper . . .” As
if it would reveal some secret to me, I turned over the note in my hands. “The lettering . . .”
I flipped it back the right way and reread the threatening message. “It’s all the
same.”

Chandra’s voice was choked. “What does it mean?”

Carefully, I put the paper back where I’d found it and ushered the ladies out of the
room. “It means . . .” I closed the door and faced them in the hallway. “It means
Amanda is receiving threatening notes, too,” I said, my stomach souring. “And that
means . . .” The terrible reality of the situation settled over me like a scratchy
wool blanket. “It means Peter wasn’t the only one whose life was in danger.”

10

S
o what did we know at this point?

Well, for one thing, I knew for certain that I never wanted to have to deal with this
kind of snowstorm again.

No sooner had this thought occurred to me than my right boot got stuck in a snowdrift
nearly as tall as me that had piled up at the bottom of my front steps. I gritted
my teeth, yanked, and hoped that when my foot came out of the icy mound, my boot would
still be on it. The snow had lessened from driving-downhill-with-foot-on-accelerator
to something more like coasting. Teacup-sized flakes whirled in the sky above me,
lacy Frisbees, then plopped to earth to add to the eighteen inches of wet, heavy snow
already on the ground. It was bitterly cold, and I hunkered down inside my jacket,
my eyes on the prize that was Chandra’s vintage Volkswagen van idling in my driveway.

What was I doing outside?

Wondering if I needed my head examined, for one thing.

For another . . . well, the answer was really quite simple, even if it wasn’t all
that smart.

First thing that Wednesday morning over steaming mugs of coffee and the oatmeal breakfast
cake Meg had rustled up seemingly out of thin air, Hank Florentine had informed Ted
that the cops were done with the Orient Express and he was free to get back into the
building.

Don’t think Chandra didn’t glom on to that little nugget of information like a vampire
hanging on to the neck of a swooning victim.

Remember, she was itching to do a cleansing at the restaurant. Truth be told, I was
on the fence about that part of the plan. Might not help, but I guess it couldn’t
hurt.

And it really didn’t matter. See, I knew an opportunity when I saw one. And this was
an opportunity for us to get a there-might-not-be-a-second-chance look at the scene
of the crime.

To anyone who might have happened to peek out their window that morning, we must have
looked like a peculiar line of bundled-up ducks. Chandra had offered her van, insisting
that, like the Little Engine That Could, it would surely be able to plow through the
snow and get us to our destination. She led the way, her purple coat a bright slap
of color against the white landscape.

Kate followed behind, her arms firmly wrapped around herself against the cold. Luella,
on the other hand, seemed impervious to the weather. Unlike the rest of us, her head
was bare and she wasn’t wearing gloves. When she looked over her shoulder to make
sure I’d gotten my foot safely out of the snowbank, her cheeks were burnished red,
like pomegranates.

Ted was behind me, huffing and puffing just like that Little Engine. He’d insisted
on coming along, and since the building belonged to him, it was a little hard to say
no. He’d returned safely from his foray into the storm the day before, and he was
confident he could negotiate the nearly impassable streets one more time. One look
at Chandra’s van painted in an array of bright colors with a brilliant yellow hippie
peace sign airbrushed on the side, and I could understand his decision to drive his
own vehicle and meet us at the Orient Express.

Chandra got behind the steering wheel and Luella climbed into the front passenger
seat. Kate and I piled into the backseat of the van, and one by one, we exhaled sighs
of contentment. The heater was making a sound that reminded me of the pained squeal
of an old dump truck’s hydraulic system, but thank goodness, it spit out plenty of
heat. There couldn’t have been more than thirty feet between the house and the van,
but it was a thirty cold feet. The warmth was heavenly!

Chandra’s driving skills, not so much.

“Watch out for the lamppost!”

“You’re going to end up in that drift if you don’t turn the wheel. Now! Now!”

“If you try to go that fast, your tires aren’t going to get any traction and you’re
going to slide!”

Our backseat driver advice didn’t help matters.

Chandra held the steering wheel in a death grip, yanking it first one way, then the
other, trying to negotiate a driveway none of us could see. When she finally got out
onto what we took on faith was the road and straightened the van, I imagined two whispered
prayers of thanksgiving. I didn’t have to imagine my own, that one was real enough.

“Slow now,” Luella advised. “Take it slow. We’re not in any hurry.”

We inched along.

Fortunately, it was a pretty straight shot into town, and by the time we were halfway
there, I finally felt the knot of tension in my stomach loosen.

“I was thinking about Peter last night,” I told them.

“You mean, about our case.” Chandra looked over her shoulder at me and I curled my
fingers into my palms.

I think the way I also clenched my teeth sent the proper message: I wasn’t going to
say another thing until she turned around and kept her eyes on the road.

She turned around and kept her eyes on the road.

“I was just going over it all in my head,” I continued. “Trying to get things straight.
Trying to figure out what we know.”

“We know Ted might have lied about the peanuts,” Luella said.

“And that it looks for sure like he’s the killer,” Chandra added, though I was pretty
certain we’d actually never come to that conclusion.

“We know our Princess has got a wild side,” Kate said, grinning at the thought of
that box of condoms in Mariah’s room.

“And that Amanda might be in danger.” This was me, giving voice to the thought that
had kept me tossing and turning all night. “You don’t suppose . . .” Was I letting
my imagination run away with me? It wouldn’t be the first time. I took the chance
of looking foolish. “You don’t suppose she’s just been pretending, do you? I mean,
about being sick. Maybe after she got that note—”

“She’s hiding out! From the person who killed Peter!” Chandra was so sure she’d hit
the proverbial nail on the head, her hands flew to her mouth.

The van did a fishtail slide from one side of the road to the other, barely missed
a huge stone planter at the end of somebody’s driveway, and swooped so close to a
big old oak tree, I swear if I’d had the window open (and if I weren’t so busy screeching),
I could have reached out and grabbed a piece of bark.

Beside me, Kate was plastered against the backseat, her mouth hanging open and one
hand clamped to her heart. Chandra, it should be noted, still had her hands off the
wheel, the better to throw them in the air while she howled like a banshee.

Yet even through my panic and the scenes of my all-too-short life flashing through
my mind, I registered the fact that Luella kept her head. She turned slightly in her
seat, her voice calm and so quiet, it was a wonder Chandra could hear it at all above
her own demented squawking.

“Turn into the spin,” Luella advised, her eyes on Chandra in a way that reminded me
of a trainer trying to get through to a Jack Russell. “Both hands. Come on, Sandy,
deep breaths. There you go. Hands on the wheel. Turn. A little more.”

We slowed down. We stopped sliding. One by one, all our spines went from scared stiff
to slack.

Something told me no one was more relieved to see the Orient Express come into view
than Chandra. Maybe a little too much so. No sooner were we outside the building that
housed the restaurant than she slammed her foot on the brake. The van wobbled, righted
itself, and skidded another thirty feet. It came to a stop inches from the front of
the grocery store and the big square cooler that sat just outside the door, the word
Ice
written on it in red letters accented with blue frost.

Irony if I ever saw it.

“We’re here.” Chandra might have been smiling, but her voice bumped along to the same
rhythm as my heart.

“My stomach’s still back there,” Kate said under her breath and with a look over her
shoulder.

We tumbled out and into the snow, automatically gathering close together in hopes
of keeping warm. We were still pressed into a tight little knot in front of the Orient
Express when Ted pulled up in his SUV.

Not as dramatic an entrance as Chandra’s, but I gave him big points for being careful.

A cold wind picked that particular moment to come whistling around the corner of the
building and smack us in the face, and as one, we turned away and waited for it to
die down. When it did and we turned around again, Ted had the door open and he was
standing back to let us inside.

Cold. Snow. Knees still rubbery from the adventure that was Chandra’s driving.

And still, we hesitated.

It didn’t take my overactive imagination to know why.

“The last time we were here . . .” Chandra’s voice reminded me of the drawn-out, mewling
sound the wind made through the branches of a nearby tree.

“It was the night we found Peter.” Luella, so brave in the face of the danger so short
a time ago, eyed the door of the restaurant as if it were a snake, reared up and ready
to strike.

Kate took a step back. “We could—”

“This was your idea.” I glanced around at them all so they got the message that the
your
was plural. Ted was already inside, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I hissed out
a whisper. “You’re the ones who wanted to investigate. That means we’re going to go
inside and—”

If Luella’s laugh hadn’t stopped me, the friendly hand she clapped on my shoulder
would have. “Look who’s braver than the rest of us. The woman who won’t read a scary
book!”

“Maybe.” How’s that for a weenie way to respond? I knew if I didn’t make the first
move, they’d stand there forever, so I pushed open the door and went inside the Orient
Express.

That morning, it looked the same as it always had, and something about the mere fact
that nothing had changed made anger boil up inside me.

Everything had changed!

Didn’t the Universe recognize that?

There in the restaurant with its red paper lanterns hanging above the three tables
near the windows, and its Chinese calendar on the wall, featuring a gorgeous young
woman in traditional clothing, everything was different.

It wasn’t just the Orient Express anymore. Peter had died there.

A chill snaked its way up my back. I chalked it up to the storm, and when I felt Kate
step up behind me in the doorway, I ventured a few steps farther inside.

“So . . .” Ted already had his coat off. He stood behind the front counter and rubbed
his hands together, and I couldn’t tell whether he was anxious for Chandra to get
started or just plain nervous. “You sure you want to go ahead with this, Chandra?
It isn’t necessary. Not as far as I’m concerned. But if you’re ready to get started . . .”

She was.

Oh, how she was!

Chandra had brought a tote bag in with her from the car, and now, she hoisted it up
on the counter and dug through it. In less than a minute, she had three bundles of
herbs and a white candle set up in the space between the cash register and the takeaway
packets of soy sauce and hot mustard. Chandra slipped off her coat and handed it to
me. I tossed it on the nearest chair and, curious, stood back to watch.

When Chandra took a few deep breaths, lit the candle, and mumbled something about
the energy of the light washing over her, I guess Ted had had enough.

“I’m just going to . . .” He poked a thumb over his shoulder and disappeared into
the kitchen.

With Ted gone, Chandra engrossed, and Luella pretending to be paying attention, I
made my move. Kate stood on my right, and I poked her in the ribs with my elbow and
motioned to the stairs that led up to Peter’s apartment.

We were in luck; the door at the top of the stairs wasn’t locked. We went right inside.

“The woman’s off her rocker. You know that, don’t you?” Kate grumbled as soon as we
had the door closed behind us. “I think this pretty much proves it. Maybe I should
go back down and record the show with my cell. Then maybe Alvin could see what I put
up with all summer. The chanting! The weird rituals!” She shivered. “You’ll see once
the weather gets nice and she starts burning smelly things in her garden. Then you’ll
know what a saint I am for putting up with it all these years.”