by Blake Pierce
“Well,” the conductor continued, “now that you’ve come and seen, is it quite all right if we continue on our way? We’ll have to head back to the station. The experience is more pleasure than business and as I’m sure you’re aware it’s not easy enticing new travelers after such a failed expedition.”
Adele blinked in the face of this flood of rapidly communicated words. She winced and said, “I’m sorry Mr. Granet, but until the investigation is over, I can’t allow—”
He coughed, cutting her off, his eyes responding to her unfinished sentence with a flash of annoyance. “Come now,” he said. “Surely you wouldn’t bankrupt us just for some old lady!”
Adele raised an eyebrow and he coughed again, pulling at his neck skin once more. “I mean…” he stammered, “there are so many others who would be missing out.”
Adele shook her head. “Sorry, Mr. Granet. The train stays in the station until I say so. Good day.”
Then she turned and stepped off the lounging compartment, following John and gesturing for Officer Allard to fall into step
“Which hospital is the witness staying at?” Adele called over her shoulder.
“The General Hospital Ille de France. It’s not far.”
Adele nodded but didn’t reply, thinking about the conductor. He had seemed mighty rushed to get moving, and hadn’t seemed particularly bothered by a passenger dying. This didn’t point to guilt, but it might point to neglect. As for his desire to keep going, Adele couldn’t care less. That wasn’t her job. Neglect on either side would allow a guilty party to skate by unnoticed.
It was Adele’s job to make sure this didn’t happen. First step: interviewing the witness to the death itself.
CHAPTER SIX
The hospital was surprisingly small, no more than two stories, looking more like a converted paper supply company than a medical facility. John and Adele followed Officer Allard into the first floor, through glass doors that didn’t slide so much as reluctantly allow themselves to be pushed along a track.
A young woman sat behind a low, dusty counter with peeling varnish strips revealing a plastic frame for what was pretending to be wood. The woman glanced up, peering through her glasses and adjusting a row of pens which she’d stacked neatly on the calendar in front of her. “Can I help you?” she asked, glancing back down at her pens and rolling a couple into somehow preferable positions.
“We’re here to see Ms. Dubot,” replied Allard. “Is she okay to speak?” He spoke with actual concern in his voice.
The woman smiled as she seemed to recognize Allard, some of her focus shifting now toward the chipper policeman. “Oh, hello!” she said. “How are you?”
Allard leaned against the faux wooden counter, beaming as if he were talking to a long-lost sister. “Wonderful,” he said. “How are you doing today, Adrienne? I certainly hope they’ve cut back your work hours.”
Her smile notched up a bit more, as often happens when someone remembers your name. She began to reply, but John stepped in, cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t mean to intrude on this little reunion, but could we see Ms. Dubot?”
Adele resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her partner. Allard glanced at John and quickly shook his head. “Reun—no, no, we only just met yesterday. But how about it, is Ms. Dubot up for some company?”
The woman behind the counter had a somewhat cooler gaze as she glanced at John. But then, instead of buzzing an intercom or calling for a nurse, she walked around the counter and began to stroll down the small, simple hallway of the tiny hospital. “Come,” she said. “We’re understaffed so I’ll have to show you. If she’s asleep, though, I’m not allowed to let anyone in.”
Adele waved away the concern and broke into a quick stride next to the receptionist. They passed one room, which had an empty bed against a bare wall. Then reached a second. The woman pushed open the door, a bit of flaking paint spinning to the tiled ground, and then stepped into the hospital room.
This area was cleaner than the first room had been and smelled faintly of cleaning solution and sanitizers.
A slight woman sat upright in a reclining bed, not quite wide enough for anyone besides the small frame of the woman who Adele decided must be Ms. Dubot, seeing as she was the only one wearing a hospital gown in the room.
The woman’s eyes widened as the four figures all entered, and she seemed to startle all of a sudden. One frail hand darted up to her chest, but then fell just as quickly as she seemed to recognize the arrivals. “Hello,” she said quietly. “You must be the police.”
Adele glance at the woman who’d led them here, waiting for a sign of approval, but she didn’t receive so much as a nod, so she took the initiative to step further into the room, saying, “Ms. Dubot, hello. We are with DGSI. Do you think you’d be up to answering a couple of questions for us? If anything is too alarming, we can stop at any point you’d like.”
The small woman had curling hair and porcelain features, with a slight red flush to her pale skin. The curls seemed natural and bobbed as her head tilted a bit, reclining against the three pillows she’d used to prop herself up.
“Do I have to?” she said. “It was all so horrible.”
Adele winced in sympathy but drew nearer to the bed, holding a hand out behind her to indicate the others should remain back.
She stood at a respectful distance, but came to a halt near the foot of the bed. “Ms. Dubot,” she said, “we don’t mean to take up much of your time. Would you be able to give me a brief recounting of what you saw, though? You don’t have to do anything you’d rather not, but it could certainly help if you did.”
The woman took a shuddering breath, her eyes still wide in their sockets, as if strained from the inside. She closed her mouth and swallowed, and then, with a quiet murmur, she said, “It was so awful… Her hand… it was cold. She grabbed me…”
Adele frowned. “The victim grabbed you? Were you fighting?”
The young woman shook her head adamantly, her curls shifting and bouncing across her pale face. “No, nothing like that. She wouldn’t even talk to me, in fact. I left, but forgot my purse. As I came back, I saw her sitting on the couch, but she looked alert all of a sudden.”
“And then?”
“I went to get my purse…” Here Ms. Dubot started breathing heavily, staring off into the distance over Adele’s shoulder as if she weren’t quite present in the room. “One moment Ms. Mayfield was fine… The next…” A soft sob escaped Dubot’s lips.
John and the others had stayed back by the door, following Adele’s quiet motions with her hand to stay put. Now, though, Agent Renee broke from the pack and stalked further into the room. The tall agent’s shadow cast across the floor and he paused, looking down at the young woman. “Did you know Ms. Mayfield?”
For a moment, Ms. Dubot seemed disoriented as she glanced from Adele to John and back. As her eyes landed on the tall, scarred Frenchman she gave a little gasp and sat up a bit more. Adele hid a smirk. Then Ms. Dubot, covering her reaction, cleared her throat. “No,” she said, weakly. “Not at all. I’d never met her before in my life.”
“But you were there when she died,” John said. “Was anyone else in the room?”
The young woman hesitatingly shook her head. “No one. I didn’t see anyone there…”
“Just you and the deceased,” John said skeptically.
The woman seemed to be realizing his inference and her eyes widened all of a sudden. “Wait a moment,” she protested. “It wasn’t like that! Not like that at all!”
“John,” Adele murmured, “careful…”
He just shrugged though, and glanced back at Ms. Dubot. “How did she die? In your words.”
“If it’s not too hard to talk about,” Adele said, trying to be a comforting reprieve from the brunt of John’s personality.
The woman closed her eyes now, and for a moment seemed as if she might have fallen asleep. Then, her eyes still closed, in a shaky voice, she stammered, “I-I went back fo
r my purse. She was just sitting there, drinking her coffee and looking out the window. Then she suddenly jolted, she gasped and tried to grab my arm as if reaching for help…” The woman winced, but, to Adele’s admiration, she pressed on. “Then she fell, jerking a bit, and went still. That’s when I screamed and the conductor was brought to the compartment, and the police were called.”
After she’d finished, her shoulders slumped a bit, as if she’d just shed some heavy load. Adele nodded in gratitude, and John looked like he wanted to press for more, but couldn’t seem to think of what else to ask. “You’re sure no one else was in the compartment?” he said at last.
The woman just shook her head, but then opened her mouth to speak. “Not when she died, but… but before, I did see someone pass by. Didn’t get a good look at them. And, well, it’s a train. A lot of people pass by…” She dwindled off for a moment, and her eyes began to widen. Adele leaned in, hesitant, concerned, and then Ms. Dubot started shaking and trembling, her body jolting.
“Out! Out!” called the receptionist turned nurse. The woman swept into the room, making shooing motions and pressing a red button over the bed, calling, “Dr. Delafosse! Room two! Dr. Delafosee, now!”
The witness continued trembling as if she’d just been dumped into an icy river, and at another angry look from the nurse, Adele and John beat a quiet retreat. A doctor came rushing out of a side room, walking steadily but quickly, passing the agents without so much as a sidelong glance, and then entered into the room, speaking quickly and approaching the patient. “Shock,” the doctor was saying. “It’s a panic attack, nothing more. Ms. Dubot, you’re going to be fine. Can you hear me?”
Then the door was shut and Adele, John, and Allard were left out in the hall. Adele sighed, turning away and glancing up at John. “You didn’t have to go so hard,” she said, frowning.
John sniffed. “She seemed fine enough. We needed more,” he said. “We don’t have anything new to go on. For all we know, if it was murder, Ms. Dubot is the guilty party. She was the last to be seen with the victim alive, by her own admission.”
Adele resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and was aided in catching the gesture by a sudden ring tone from her pocket.
She fished out her phone and recognized the number. Instantly, some of the acerbity she’d been feeling melted like ice. With a quick glance at John, she began walking up the hall back toward the somewhat-sliding doors to the hospital. Once she was a safe enough distance away, she answered.
“Agent Leoni,” she said, smiling and turning to conceal the expression from the two men behind her.
“Adele, how are you?” said the voice on the other end.
In her mind’s eye, Adele pictured the Italian agent’s perfect jaw line, the superman curl of stray hair resting against his forehead. She pictured his immaculately maintained vehicle and the precision in the way he dressed and acted.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked.
Normally, Agent Leoni was easygoing enough, but there was an edge to his tone that caused her to perk up as he said, “I hear you’re on the other end of the train deaths.”
“I was assigned to the case,” she said, slowly. “There was one in Italy, too.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m heading up things over here… and I looked into the first death.”
“And?”
“I don’t believe it was natural,” said Agent Leoni in a clipped, somber tone. “Our coroner seems to agree, and is working feverishly to get a toxicology report, but that could take a few days.”
Adele’s mouth felt dry all of a sudden and she glanced back to where John was pretending not to watch her. She frowned slowly. “We don’t have a few days. If this is a serial killer—then they’ve already struck twice. Only with one day separating them.”
“Exactly,” said Leoni. “Which is why I’m calling. If I’m right, we don’t have a few days for a tox report—the killer will strike again. Most likely tomorrow.”
Adele sighed, huffing a breath and shaking her head. “All right,” she said at last. “Thanks for the heads-up. We don’t have any confirmation on our end of a murder, but we only just got here.”
“You do what you think is best, but—”
Adele cut him off. “If you say something is off, then I believe you. What are the odds that two heart attacks on two train lines within two days aren’t linked? We’ll treat this like a proper investigation. Don’t worry. Keep me posted.”
“Of course.”
“Good luck.”
“You too. One other thing,” he said. “Victim one was overheard in an argument with the bartender on the LuccaRail the same night he died. We’re still looking into it. Obviously, a bandying of words isn’t damning evidence, but it is worth noting.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” said Adele.
“And Adele,” Leoni said, chuckling in that confident, understated way of his. “It is a pleasure to be working with you again.”
Adele tried to suppress the threat of a grin, but failed somewhat. “And you,” she said, simply, thinking of the Italian for a moment, remembering how he’d looked, his smile. She shook her head, forcing herself to think of something besides the handsome Italian’s jaw line.
After bidding a final farewell, Agent Leoni hung up, leaving Adele standing in the old hospital with a rising sense of uncertainty in her gut. She frowned after a moment, then glanced back at John. Raising her voice, she said, “We need to get a list of all the first-class passengers on the train at the time. Staff as well.”
John nodded once. “Who was that?”
“Another agent,” she replied, curtly. “From Italy. He’s confident this was murder.”
Then she turned and exited the hospital, not bothering to look and see if John was following.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Adele paced the small, cramped room back in the Bourthes Precinct, scrolling through the documents on her phone. John sat on the floor, beneath a window, a laptop open on his legs as he also scrolled through the same information.
Adele sighed, but didn’t speak. Again, a strange, awkward silence had filled the space between them. By now, it was irritating enough that Adele half felt like addressing it then and there. But what could she say that wouldn’t simply make things worse? She shot a sidelong look over at where John continued to stare at his laptop screen, his face illuminated in glowing blue light from the device and also the bright white glare from the naked, tube ceiling bulbs.
As Adele considered what she might say, a staccato knock on the door echoed out in a playful rhythm, then the door opened and a smiling face popped into view.
“Everything all right?” Officer Allard said, glancing from Adele to John in the small space he’d managed to set aside for them back at his precinct.
“Fine, fine,” Adele said, forcing a smile. She looked back distractedly at the phone, reading and rereading the names she’d been provided by Normandie Express.
“Anything to drink?” Allard asked.
Adele shook her head, and John just grunted.
“Well… I’ll be just out here if you need anything,” he said, as if hopeful they might take him up on the offer.
Another shake of the head, another grunt.
The affable agent dipped back out and shut the door again behind him. Something about this brief interlude shifted the atmosphere enough that Adele struck up the courage to glance at her surly partner and murmur, “See anything standing out?”
John kept staring at his screen, frowning. “Joseph Dupuy—the first victim—was a young man in his thirties…”
“I noticed that too.”
“I thought both would be old. Pretty rare for a thirty-year-old to have a heart attack.”
“What does it say—he was a tech entrepreneur, yes?”
John finally looked up. “You think money is a motive? Bad business venture?”
Adele shrugged. “I’m not ruling anything out. Ms. Mayfield cert
ainly came from wealth. I wonder if she had investments of a type. I’ll request that information.”
John grunted again, returning to the screen. “Don’t know about investments. But it looks like most of her money was inherited from her late husband. She’s involved in dog shows and is a breeder.”
“Not exactly a tight connection with a tech engineer,” Adele murmured. “They’re both rich, both were in first-class compartments on their respective trains… but otherwise they couldn’t be more different.”
John shrugged now, seemingly deciding he had nothing further to add.
For her part, Adele’s brow creased into a frown. “Maybe…” she said, slowly, “maybe they knew each other?”
“One was from London, came here on a cruise,” said John. “The other was an Italian coder. Doesn’t exactly seem like they would have had any reason to connect.”
“Well… still worth looking into.”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
John shrugged again.
Adele’s eyes narrowed. “You know…” she said, testily, “we might not have left things the best, but there’s more at stake here than just—”
He cut her off mid-sentence. “You see the staff list?”
Adele gaped at him, hesitant, having been stopped mid-flow. For a moment, she felt like lashing out again, but then she breathed a couple of times, exhaling through her nose, and said, “What about it?”
“Both trains were from the same company. Normandie Express and LuccaRail are funded by Lockport Enterprises.”
“I’ve heard of them before. They’re involved with buses and ferries too, if I remember. You don’t think they’re involved, do you?” Adele’s tone softened a bit now that John was actually contributing something.
