Murder on the Orient Espresso(51)

TWENTY-ONE





Grace/Greta’s copy of Murder on the Orient Express in front of us, we surveyed the chapter headings of ‘PART II – THE EVIDENCE.’

‘Let’s see, first witness.’ I looked at Pavlik. ‘Pete the bartender is playing the role of Pierre Michel, the fictional “Wagon Lit conductor.”’

‘I can’t imagine he has anything to tell us,’ Pavlik said. ‘He’s been behind the bar in the club car most of the time. Besides, he’s not one of the people we want to keep occupied.’

‘Good point. What about Engineer Hertel? Should we call him to the stand?’

‘I’m not sure we can keep the natives from getting restless out there while we get an encyclopedic lowdown on Wild Kingdom – The Everglades Franchise.’

Another good point. Hertel was probably more a bizarre Marlin Perkins than a carnivore’s Euell Gibbons.

‘Still,’ the sheriff said. ‘I do have one thing I need to clarify with him before we talk to anyone else. So yes, bailiff, please bring in the first witness.’

I grinned and got up.

Pavlik’s hand stopped me before I could get any farther. ‘I know this hasn’t been exactly what you expected when I asked you to come along.’

I smiled. ‘You mean when I invited myself?’

‘Yeah, since you mention it.’ His blue eyes flashed. ‘But I’m glad you did. Even now, and maybe especially now, given what’s happened. You were truly stand-up brave following me off the train when I know you were scared.’

‘Try terrified.’

A grin. ‘Yet when we confronted that goliath of a snake, you were nigh-on to heroic.’

‘Just “nigh-on”?’ I teased, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. ‘And there’s no one else I’d rather be with, either. Especially stuck in the Everglades with a murderer onboard.’

His hand stopped me again. ‘That person is still here somewhere, Maggy. The only other possibility was that he – or she – bailed into the Everglades.’

I remembered what I’d been thinking earlier. ‘Do you want me to take a head count and compare my tally to Zoe’s passenger list?’

‘Already done.’

‘By whom?’

‘By me, just now, when everyone was seated in the passenger car arguing with you. Nobody’s missing.’

I shook my head. ‘What a mess.’

‘You’re telling me. And God knows whose jurisdiction we’re in. We could be on federal park land, the Seminole Indian Reservation or just county, state or private land.’

‘Aren’t you going to get in trouble with whoever the authorities are?’ I blushed. ‘I mean, you’ve scolded me often enough for sticking my nose in and mucking things up and now you’ve …’

‘Become functionally you?’

‘A civilian,’ I tried.

‘Technically, but I’m still law enforcement. And I’m the best we’ve got or will have until we can contact someone both official and local. I’d like to get what we can down on the record before people start swapping – and blending, and embroidering – their individual stories.’

‘Like they probably are, as we speak.’

‘Which suggests …’ He gestured toward the door.

Got it: bring on the engineer.

‘Well, golly, that’s a real good question.’ Engineer Theodore B. Hertel, Jr was sitting across from us, pulling on his earlobe. I hoped, for symmetry’s sake, not the one he’d been dragging down out on the railbed with Potter and the python.

He stopped and then went to his chin. ‘What’s this?’

I set down the camera/phone and leaned across the table. ‘Looks like you missed a spot,’ or three, ‘when you shaved.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said. ‘Thought it was a hairy mole. Those puppies can turn into cancer, you know?’

I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to know. Not now and preferably not ever, especially from this master of disaster.

‘Back to the question,’ the sheriff prompted.

‘Which was?’

A trained interrogator, Pavlik didn’t roll his eyes, though I feared I might be rolling enough for the both of us. ‘Given that we found Laurence Potter’s body on the opposite side of the flooded track from where we sit now, can you tell me when we passed through that area on the way out into the Everglades?’

I thought I knew where Pavlik was going with this.

‘Before we reversed direction to go back east, you mean?’ He was back to tugging on the lobe, but the one on the other side of his head.