Murder on the Orient Espresso (7 page)

At least until the pythons ran out of rabbits, deer and alligators.

‘I
f you want to get technical,' Missy Hudson snapped me out of my snake-themed reverie, ‘pythons don't really eat their prey so much as crush it so they can swallow it whole and digest it.'

Lovely. ‘And this differs from “eating” in what way?'

Missy looked up, apparently startled by the edge in my tone. ‘Well, no chewing, of course.'

‘Oh.'

‘That's nothing, though. You want to know something really scary?'

I hadn't realized that what we'd already been talking about didn't qualify. ‘Sure.'

‘They've found a number of African rock pythons in the Everglades. Including a pregnant one.'

‘And that's worse than a Burmese python?' Or tens or hundreds of thousands of them?

‘Oh, yes. The rock pythons are Africa's largest snake – over twenty feet long. And the fact one was pregnant means they're reproducing here.'

‘And not-too-tightly-wrapped people kept those things as pets, too?'

‘Yes, can you believe it? The herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville said the species is so aggressive they come out of the egg striking. His theory is that breeders didn't expect them to be so vicious – and hence so unmarketable to consumers – that they released them into the wild, too. The fear is the African rocks will mate with the Burmese and spawn a large and powerful population of hybrids – like a kind of Super Python.'

Just gets better and better. ‘You sure seem to know a lot about these creepy-crawlies.'

‘Well, most Floridians who live near the Everglades have heard the news reports, or at least should have. Knowledge is power. Besides,' Missy was back to picking at the tape, ‘I needed to research them for
Breaking and Entering
.'

‘There's a snake in the book?' Other than the trouser variety, I meant.

‘Well, yes. Rosemary wanted Kat, the umm, heroine to have an, umm … encounter with one. Or was it two?' The corner of the tape came loose. ‘Damn.'

The subject of our conversation had gone from bad to worse. It was one thing to exchange views with someone my own age, but Missy couldn't be more than six years older than my son Eric, who was in his second year of college.

‘Why don't I hop up into the train and open the window?' I suggested. ‘You can hand me the rope and I'll secure it to something.'

‘That's a wonderful idea! This is the passenger car, so—'

In my haste to get away from the images in my own mind, I didn't wait to hear the rest of Missy's instructions.

Entering the train, I turned right and nearly ran into a broad-shouldered man. He was wearing a boxy three-piece suit with a gold watch chain, presumably leading to a pocket watch in the vest. ‘Can I help you?' he said, holding open a sliding door into the next car.

‘Oh, I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I was just looking for the passenger car.'

‘This is the club car,' he said, hiking a thumb behind him. ‘I'll be serving coffee and espresso drinks in a few minutes.'

‘So our Orient Espresso will really have espresso?' I asked, spotting a brewer on one of the bars.

‘That's the plan. Though it's not ready yet.'

‘Oh, not a problem. I'm actually working on setting up myself.' I glanced out the window and saw that Missy was sorting out the ropes on the banner. ‘I'm Maggy, by the way.'

The big guy wiped his hand and shook mine. ‘Boyce. Or,' he pointed to his badge, ‘M Bouc – the head of the railroad.'

Ah, Boyce/Bouc. ‘I understand you run the coffee concession at the hotel. I own a coffeehouse in Wisconsin and there's no way I'd have the nerve to try to serve espresso to this many people at once. I'm impressed.'

‘Don't be. I'll have brewed coffee, but I sure can't do hot espresso to order, given the space restrictions and the fact there's also a full bar next to me.'

‘So, the espresso machine is just a prop?'

‘Not at all, though I have to admit I considered it,' Boyce/Bouc said with a wry smile. ‘But Missy was so excited about the
Murder on the Orient Espresso
theme she came up with that I knew I had to work something out. My plan is to pull shots ahead and let them cool down for espresso martinis.'

‘Pulling a shot' was our trade expression for grinding espresso, tamping it into a small filter and then brewing the shot.

Boyce was looking a bit embarrassed. ‘Not ideal, I know, quality-wise. But …'

‘Hey,' I said, waving off his professional discomfort. ‘I think it's brilliant.'

‘Thank you. Where did you say your coffeehouse was?'

‘Brookhills, Wisconsin. It's near Milwaukee.'

‘Oh, sure, I know the area. I went to college in Madison,' he said, referring to the University of Wisconsin's flagship campus in the state's capitol. ‘And my parents still live in Milwaukee. Maybe I've seen your place. Where is it, exactly?'

‘Originally in Benson Plaza on the corner of Brookhill and Civic. These days we're in the old train depot.'

‘Brookhills Junction? Great area, but I remember it being pretty much abandoned.'

‘It was, but we've rehabbed the station, which is the westernmost stop for the new commuter train to Milwaukee.'

‘Sweet,' Boyce said, recognizing the value of being able to serve five-dollar cups of coffee to bleary-eyed workers before they were fully awake. ‘How long have you been open?'

‘About two years.'

‘Two locations in two years? I can't imagine having that kind of energy.'

‘Believe me, it wasn't by choice. Our first place kind of collapsed.'

‘Collapsed?'

‘Yes, but we already knew we needed to relocate. Our landlord had decided not to renew our lease. That was before he had the run-in with the snow blower.'

‘Snow blower?' Boyce repeated. ‘What did he run into it with?'

‘His head. But we think he was already dead.'

Boyce's eyes narrowed. ‘Wait a second. Don't tell me you own Uncommon Grounds.'

‘Oh,' I said, surprised. ‘So you
do
know it.'

‘Only through my parents. Wasn't one of the owners found dead in a pool of skim milk the morning you opened your first place?'

‘Well, yes, but—'

‘And, just recently, a body in the basement of the new location?'

‘Under the boarding platform, technically, but—'

I was interrupted by tapping from outside the train.

‘I'm sorry,' I said, grateful for the interruption. ‘I promised to help Missy hang the banner. Do let me know, though, if I can pitch in later with your espresso brewing or anything.'

‘You bet.' He said it automatically, though his expression was more in the vein of,
Right about when hell freezes over.

‘Great.' I was all too aware that trying to explain would only make matters worse. The truth was that Uncommon Grounds had more skeletons in its closet – and other environs – than Boyce had already mentioned.

The coffee man cleared his throat, probably eager to get rid of me. ‘Did you say you were going to the passenger car?'

I nodded.

‘Dining is next,' he said, pointing toward the sliding door opposite the one he was standing in, ‘and the passenger car beyond that.'

We were standing in a vestibule, kind of an airlock with a metal floor and a sliding door on each of the four walls. Two of the doors – the one Boyce was standing in and the slider he'd indicated I should use – led to the adjacent train cars. The other two were exits to the platform on both sides of the train.

The dining car was through the slider, just as Boyce had promised. Eight white-clothed tables with C-shaped banquettes faced the aisle, four on each side. At the far end of the car, another table held a sheet cake frosted to look like a man sleeping. A knife protruded from his chest and red decorating gel with sparkles had been used to simulate other slashes.

I paused to admire the effect. The knife was real and had a brown staghorn handle, reminding me of a three-piece set that my grandmother had passed down to me. I pulled the knife up a bit and, sure enough, there was the same ‘Hollow Ground Stainless Steel' stamp as the blade of my set. I'd managed to trace those knives back to the fifties. Well after the era of the book, certainly, but nonetheless, I thought it was a nice touch.

More tapping, increasing in insistence. I replaced the knife, but then turned back to swipe my finger across the cake frosting on the culinary victim's foot, where nobody would notice. I plopped the sweet icing in my mouth. It had been hours since Pavlik had bought me lunch and I was starving. Needless to say, with our last-minute hanky-panky under the blankie, we hadn't had time to grab a snack from the newsstand as he'd suggested.

Believe me, I wasn't regretting it. I'd take Pavlik over a granola bar anytime. Even a sandwich.

Through the next vestibule, I found a regular passenger car with rows of seats. At the end of that car was a restroom. Stopping just short of it, I slid open the window.

‘Sorry,' I called out to Missy. ‘I stopped to introduce myself to Boyce.'

She passed me the rope. ‘No need to apologize. You're helping, after all. And as a guest, you should be relaxing. I'm sorry I got a little impatient with you before.'

The girl obviously had no idea of the heights – or depths – I'd seen true impatience reach.

I caught a glimpse of Pavlik walking toward the platform with Zoe, each carrying something in one hand. Behind them was a gaggle of what I guessed to be writers, probably eager to pick the sheriff's brains about gore and mayhem. I told myself that wasn't the part of Pavlik I was most interested in.

At least not this weekend.

‘It's nice to have something to do, since I'm a little out of my element here.' I opened the next window and tied the rope around the post between them with a double knot. It wouldn't get me a merit badge, but it should hold. ‘How's that?'

‘Genius,' Missy said. ‘Will you be able to close the window, or at least nearly so? I'd hate for it to get too hot in there.'

What a difference a few hours and fifteen hundred miles can make. In Wisconsin on the first day of November, you'd slam the window to keep out the cold air. Here it was the opposite.

‘Good idea. That way the rope will be more secure anyway.' I slid down one of the windows to prove it. ‘Is that far enough?'

‘Perfect,' Missy said.

I moved a few rows forward and tied the other end of the banner the same way. By the time we had the banner secure people were already boarding the train, which made the point moot, when you thought about it. I mean, once everybody was on the train and we were in the Everglades, nobody would be able to appreciate the legend on the banner. And I didn't think the alligators and pythons – whether they were Burmese or African rock – would need help identifying us as boxed-car lunches. Or dinners, adjusting for the time of day.

‘I have to take tickets,' Missy was saying through the open window, ‘and hand these out.'

She held up a playbill, sepia-toned, so as to seem older. ‘See? The cast of characters is on this side and,' flipping it, ‘here's the diagram of the train.'

I took the playbill through the window. ‘Very clever. If I remember right, the book had a diagram, too.'

‘Correct. I'm not sure how readers could have kept the plot straight without a cheat sheet. Our diagram shows this little train, of course, not Christie's Orient Express. I've put “Murder on the Orient Espresso” here, see? I think the playbill will make a nice keepsake, don't you?'

‘I do,' I said honestly. Missy had pulled out all the stops to make tonight a success. I hoped, for her sake, people took notice. I offered the playbill back to her.

‘No, no – you can have the very first one.'

‘Thank you.' I smiled and tucked the souvenir in my non-python skin handbag. For the first time in a long while, I had a hankering to do events again. Even if you're not on Broadway, opening night of anything presented to the public is a rush. ‘But can I help you with the tickets and all?'

‘Oh, no, I'll be fine.' Missy said, waving me off. ‘But thank you so much and please – after you close this window – do mingle and enjoy yourself. These are fun people. And, who knows? Maybe by the end of the weekend you'll decide to kill someone.'

My face must have betrayed my thought.

Missy Hudson giggled, suddenly realizing. ‘Fictionally, of course!'

M
aking my way up to the front of the train, I found Pavlik already in the dining car, sitting in one of the C-shaped booths. Zoe, naturally, was butt-to-buns next to him.

‘Join us,' he said, waving me to slide in on his other side.

I was about to when I noticed that they both had drinks in front of them. ‘Wait, where'd you get the wine?'

‘There's a bar next door to the station,' Pavlik said. ‘I'm sorry – did you want a glass?'

Did I want a glass of wine? Exactly how long had this man known me?

‘Not a problem,' I fibbed. ‘Do I still have time to hop off and get myself one?'

‘Certainly,' Zoe said, before turning back to Pavlik and ignoring me. ‘That's fascinating. As county sheriff—'

I didn't bother to hear more, despite my fascination with her sucking up. Instead I tried to thread my way to the nearest exit through the gaggle of people still boarding.

‘You're not helping things, swimming against the tide like that,' Princess Dragomiroff, aka Prudence said. She was pushing up the bracelets on her sleeves like she wanted to sock someone. I hoped it wasn't me.

‘I'm sorry.' I gave up and allowed myself to go with the flow. ‘I just wanted to jump off and grab a glass of wine before we leave.'