Murder on the Orient Espresso (19 page)

Pavlik interrupted. ‘Let's call what lies in front of the train – to the east of the locomotive – the flooded track. We don't know there's an actual break or that the tracks are washed away, rather than merely covered.'

‘So stipulated,' I said, though if I clenched my teeth any harder, I'd need to wear a mouth guard to spare my molars. ‘But my point is that Potter's body was on the opposite side of
the flooded track
from where we sit right now. Remember? We had to wade through water to get there?'

Pavlik was writing. ‘The
snake
was encountered on the opposite side, east of the flooded track.'

‘With Potter's body
in
him.'

‘Mostly.'

‘Thank you.' I was one heartbeat away from—

‘Maggy, you think I'm nitpicking, but this kind of detail is important.' Pavlik read from his notes: ‘The snake was encountered on the east side of the flooded track, opposite the train's stopped position. The lower portion of the victim's body was protruding from its mouth.'

‘The
African rock python
was encountered,' I corrected. Two could play this game.

‘We have only the engineer's opinion that it was a python, and only,' the notes again, ‘Markus's belief that it was, indeed, a rock python.'

I threw up my hands. ‘Hey, maybe it isn't even a snake. Why don't you just say a really big worm with teeth dwarfing a great white shark's? Want me to go out and count them?'

‘Sarcasm rarely becomes you, Maggy.' Pavlik was writing again.

‘I was going for “facetious.”'

‘Well, you missed the target.' He still didn't look up.

I sighed. ‘OK, I'm sorry. Obviously, this detecting is more complicated than I realized.'

‘The record-keeping is tedious and using the same terminology to identify something may seem repetitive, but believe me, it reduces ambiguity and makes the detecting, as you call it, easier and conviction much more likely.' He raised his head and smiled. ‘Apology accepted.'

I cocked my head. ‘Aren't you going to tell me what word I should use instead of “detecting”?'

Head down again. ‘I'm trying hard not to.' A beat. ‘But “investigating” might be a good choice.'

Pavlik was just too cute and I laughed, genuinely. ‘“Investigating” it is, Sheriff. Now tell me what difference it makes to the investigation to say that both the snake and Laurence Potter's body were on the east side of the flooded track, versus the
snake
was on the east side of the flooded track with Laurence Potter's body inside it. Mostly.'

‘Happily.' Sheriff Jake Pavlik, out of his jurisdiction or not, made steady eye contact. ‘The difference is how Potter got there.'

‘A
re you saying Larry Potter didn't necessarily exit the train as we passed this spot on our way west?'

‘Exactly,' Pavlik said. ‘The—'

I interrupted. ‘Do you know if pythons eat … dead things?'

‘Carrion? If you're asking whether they're scavengers or consume only what they've killed themselves, I don't have a clue.'

‘We'll have to ask somebody.' My kingdom for Google. ‘I'm sorry, I interrupted. You were saying?'

‘Just that the snake could have retrieved the body – or Potter, still alive, if that's the way it went down – from another location.'

‘Retrieved?' The word made the thing sound more like a loyal hunting dog than a repulsive, slithering man-eater. But then foxes probably weren't so fond of hounds, either.

‘Yes. Retrieved the body and conveyed it to where we found them both on the east side of the flooded track. That means Potter needn't have exited the train on the
east
side of the flooded track, but anywhere in the vicinity.'

‘And the time?'

‘According to the engineer, he didn't see the snake – and Potter – until he'd brought the train, now eastbound, to a stop and climbed down to investigate,' notes again, ‘“a mite before ten.”'

‘So, this “mite before ten” would be the latest Potter could have exited one of the cars, and the start of Zoe's speech the earliest.'

‘Agreed.' Pavlik wrote it down and gestured toward Grace's tattered copy of
Murder on the Orient Express
. ‘Who's next?'

‘“The secretary, MacQueen,”' I read. ‘That would be Markus.'

‘Have Zoe send him in,' Pavlik ordered. ‘But first, and I should have thought of this earlier, grab some bottled water and a rack of clean glasses.' He hooked his finger to the club car behind us.

I stood up, too tired to question. ‘Will do, boss.'

‘Oh, and Maggy?'

I stopped and turned around. ‘Yes?'

‘Glass glasses, not plastic. And use a towel when you take them out of the rack.'

I got the glasses and, on Pavlik's orders, poured the water into three of them. One for him, one for me and one prepared for our next witness. And that witness's fingerprints. Then I went to the far-end door and slid it to access the vestibule.

The train was eerily still without the clatter of the tracks passing below. I pulled open the door of the passenger car, half-hoping the whole lot of them would be asleep. If so, Pavlik and I could follow suit. It had been a long day.

But alas, Zoe was still awake and seated in the front row, with Prudence now next to her. The latter looked up.

I stepped in. ‘Is Markus—'

‘Here,' a voice said, and he stood up.

‘See?' Grace popped up from the seat behind Prudence and Zoe. ‘I told you we'd be called in the same sequence as the characters in the book were.'

‘That means I'll be very nearly last,' Rosemary Darlington, aka Mary Debenham said. ‘Wouldn't you rather go alphabetical? Perhaps start with “A” for Arbuthnot?' She hooked a finger toward the young man seated next to her. Danny had finally snagged an audience with the great lady.

‘Andrenyi comes before Arbuthnot,' Carson, aka Count Andrenyi, pointed out. ‘I should go first.'

‘I think we'll stick with the book's order.' I turned to Zoe. ‘Is the only railroad staff on the train the engineer?'

She shrugged, as if it didn't matter, and called out, ‘Missy?'

The first Mrs Hubbard half-rose from a seat next to Pete the bartender about three-quarters of the way back. I had to hand it to Missy, she certainly was being sought out by the young men on the train. But then we only had three passengers under the age of thirty – it shouldn't be surprising that they'd seek each other out.

Even from this distance, I saw Missy blush. ‘Maggy, we had a very tight budget, you know.'

Which had managed to put us in a very tight spot. ‘And …'

‘And, well, the train people said we had to have a conductor and I told them we did.'

‘Don't tell me,' I said. ‘Pierre Michel?'

The line between fact and fiction was quickly blurring. Although for these people maybe they were the same thing.

‘Yes.' She plopped back down in her seat and added miserably, ‘They wouldn't let us go otherwise.'

‘With good reason, Missy,' Markus said, not unkindly. ‘The conductor is the person in charge.'

‘Really?' I asked. ‘I always thought they just took tickets.'

‘Uh-uh.' Markus was shaking his head. ‘My mother worked at Amtrak's headquarters in Washington, and my brother Kevin is an engineer. The engineer runs the locomotive and reports to the conductor, who communicates with dispatchers and oversees the train and its passengers.'

And
our
‘conductor' was a kid whose real name was Brandon and worked at an Olive Garden. Lovely.

‘Then you're it, MacQueen,' I said to Markus, gesturing for him to go ahead of me.

As we entered the dining car, Pavlik looked up from his notepad and stuck out his hand. ‘Thanks for your help out there. And for keeping the particulars of the situation to yourself.'

Markus shook and slid in on the opposite side of the semicircular booth. ‘Not a problem. Zoe came to almost as soon as Missy and I began helping her back to the train. None of us was eager to spend more time out there with that Jules Verne creature split open on the opposite bank.'

Pavlik shifted over so I could sit next to him and passed the smart phone to me. ‘Do you mind if Maggy tapes us? It'll help the investigators if we can get everyone's initial impression.'

‘Not at all,' Markus said, his open face curious. ‘Are you going to read me my rights?'

‘You're not a suspect.' Pavlik gave him a friendly smile. ‘At least, so far as I know.'

I raised the phone and through it, saw Markus's gaze waver. ‘Well, no. Of course not. But I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Not that I necessarily can.'

Pavlik raised his hands. ‘Understood. First off, could you state your full name and home address for me?'

Markus complied, giving an address in Washington, D.C.

‘Just for the record,' Pavlik continued, ‘could you detail your movements after you boarded the train?'

‘Let me think.' Markus picked up the glass of water in front of him, then set it down again. ‘I saw Maggy here,' he nodded at the camera/phone, ‘when I was in line for a drink. From there I made my way back through the train, stopping to talk to people here and there until I reached the passenger car.'

Pavlik, who had been studying his notes, looked up. ‘We do know that Mr Potter was in the dining car until Zoe Scarlett welcomed everyone over the speaker system. Would you know about what time that was?'

Markus pulled out a handkerchief – not the dainty square of initialed cambric in
Murder on the Orient Express
, but a big honkin' one – and mopped his brow. ‘I remember thinking it was later than I'd expected. When Missy asked me to speak after Zoe welcomed everyone, I assumed it would be right after we left the station, which was just past eight, as you'll recall.'

This last was directed to me and I nodded encouragement.

‘I remember checking the time at nearly nine and thinking they thought it best to let people chat and get liquored up before they had to sit and listen to me talk.' A self-deprecating smile.

‘From what I recall from the previous time I was at this conference,' Pavlik said, ‘people come from all over and may not have seen each other for quite a while during the interim.'

‘Exactly.' Markus was nodding. ‘Everyone wants to catch up. Find out who got published. Who found an agent. Or even was lottery-blessed by receiving a film option.'

‘So you looked at the time and it was nearly nine, you said. What time exactly?'

‘Eight fifty-five, maybe?'

‘What did you do then?' Pavlik asked.

‘It suddenly hit me that perhaps the sound system could only be heard in the dining car and, for all I knew, the program had begun and they were looking for me.'

‘Not true, though.'

‘Correct. As I went forward to check, I heard Zoe greet the gathering.'

‘Did you see Laurence Potter?' I asked from behind the phone/camera.

‘Come to think of it, we did cross paths in the dining car. He was going toward the back of the train as I was moving to the front.'

‘Did you pass him before the cake?' I asked.

Finally, a roll of the eyes from Pavlik. Unfortunately directed at me.

Markus looked confused. ‘Are you asking if I saw Larry before I went past the table with the cake on it?'

I glanced at Pavlik. When there was no response, I nodded at Markus.

‘We were coming from opposite directions,' the librarian said, ‘but as I recall we crossed paths about halfway through the dining car.'

‘So you'd already passed the cake, but he hadn't reached it yet,' I summarized.

‘Correct.'

‘Did you notice the cake as you went by?' Pavlik followed up.

‘I did.'

My turn. ‘Was the knife still in it?'

This time I got a glare before Pavlik turned to Markus. ‘Can you describe the cake?'

It was only then I remembered that Pavlik had been seated on the banquette at the front of the dining car for most of our ride. Except for going to the club car – the opposite direction – to get my second espresso martini, he hadn't left the table and therefore hadn't seen the cake before it was hacked apart. Nor the knife, until we discovered it in Potter's body.

‘Umm,' Markus glanced nervously at me and then back at Pavlik before answering. ‘I don't know … shaped like a sleeping man? Blanket pulled up to the neck. Covered with icing, of course.'

‘Of course.' This time Pavlik seemed to purposely not look my way. ‘And did you see the knife?'

‘Sure. Stuck in his chest.'

Pavlik did a double-take. ‘You saw the knife in Potter's
chest
?'

Markus's eyes grew wide. ‘Oh, no. No, no. It was in the cake's – I mean the “man” depicted in the cake's – chest.' He looked back and forth between us. ‘You saw it, right?'

I turned to Pavlik. ‘The cake knife was stuck in the frosted body's chest.'

‘Explains the white goo,' Pavlik said to himself. ‘Any idea where Potter was headed when he passed you?'

Markus shook his head. ‘Since the bar was the other way, I assumed he was going to the bathroom or to see someone in the passenger car. Tell you the truth, I didn't even realize the sleeping car was there.'

‘You've told us you knew you were to speak next. Did you also know Potter was about to be introduced?'

‘Are you asking why I didn't stop him?' Markus asked. ‘Believe me, Potter did pretty much whatever he wanted and no one had the nerve to mess with him. Or they'd pay.'

Pavlik's eyes rose. ‘First-hand experience?'

‘Me?'