Railroaded 4 Murder

by J. C. Eaton

  My mother must have been thinking the same thing because she grabbed my wrist and whispered, “Maybe it’s that H/O part of the club with all those gold diggers and trollops.”

  I was barely seated in my chair when she gave me a nudge. “When the meeting’s over, you take one side of the refreshment table and I’ll take the other. Find a way into conversations and see what you can dig up on Wilbur. Try to be discreet.”

  “Try to be discreet?” Look who’s talking.

  The person who chaired the meeting, a tall, dark-haired man in his late seventies or maybe even early eighties, spoke briefly about the loss of their president and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding it. He told the club members they were now “up for community scrutiny” and needed to be circumspect in their words and actions.

  “Good advice.” I gave my mother a look and hoped she’d figure out the reference to being circumspect.

  The meeting moved on with a brief comment about the vice president taking over until the election in November, and discussion about an expansion plan for the G-scale track.

  “I wonder if that’s the expansion project Aunt Ina told me about,” I whispered to my mother. “Wilbur got into an argument with a club member about it and threats were made.”

  “Shh. I know. Your aunt told me. It was one of Louis’s musician friends.”

  Next on the agenda was some potluck dinner they were planning for May and a mind-numbing essay someone wrote about train layouts. If the meeting lasted any longer, Myrna wouldn’t be the only one with a sore butt.

  Finally, the meeting was adjourned and everyone headed straight for the refreshments.

  “I’ll take the right-hand side.” In an instant, my mother was off. Meanwhile, I bent down to pick up my bag as the gentleman sitting next to me beat me to it and handed it to me.

  “Welcome to the G-scale crew. It’s nice to see new faces around here. I’m Bob Burdock.”

  “Sophie Kimball. Phee. Everyone calls me Phee.”

  “Good to meet you, but this is my last meeting until next year. My wife and I leave for Edmonton next week. Probably just in time, too.”

  “In time? Oh, Edmonton. Canadians. I know you’re only allowed to be out of your country for a certain number of months if you want to maintain your health insurance.”

  “Oh, that’s not it, but you’re right about our health insurance and the time limitation in the States. What I meant was the murder. Wilbur Maines. Things are going to get awfully messy around here, eh?”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Everyone’s talking under their breath and pointing fingers. Personally, I didn’t have a problem with Wilbur, but I was in the minority.”

  “If so many people had issues with him, why was he president of the club?”

  “Because no one else wanted to do all the grunt work. Late-night repairs when the outdoor track wasn’t working, trips to Hobby Bench for supplies, phone calls to vendors . . .”

  “I get it.”

  Bob darted his head left, then right. “Granted, the guy was a bit of a snoot, but I can’t imagine anyone killing him for that reason. It had to be something much more personal. I plan to tell that to the investigator I’m meeting with tomorrow. Nate Williams, from Glendale. Ever heard of him? Doesn’t matter. Seems everyone I know in the club is being questioned. I’d be mighty surprised if it turned out to be one of us. Eh?”

  “I, um . . .”

  “Oh no. Bart and Eugenie are elbowing into the far end of the table. That’s where the good brownies are. Excuse me, will you? Nice meeting you, Sophia.”

  Sophia. Well, close enough.

  I stood and walked to the left side of the refreshment table, glancing at the crowd to determine where and what my mother was doing. Apparently, it hadn’t taken her very long to join two other women and a man. They were off to the side, chatting in a small circle. I selected a butter cookie from one of the trays and listened to the conversations going on behind me. Wilbur’s unexpected death was the hot topic. I would have been surprised if it wasn’t.

  “You never know about marriages,” someone said. A man’s voice. “One minute it’s all hunky-dory and the next minute there’s a corpse on the living-room floor with a butcher knife in the chest.”

  “That’s not what I heard.” This time it was a tall, pencil-thin woman with short, gray hair who spoke.

  “I’m just saying, Evelyn, that’s how these things happen. We all know Wilbur’s body was found at our railroad exhibit.” The man again.

  Then, another man’s voice. “Think the wife got tired of his running around?”

  I couldn’t very well stand in front of the refreshment table like a statue, so I turned around. The minute I did, all conversation stopped.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “The whole community’s talking about it. Um, at least that’s what my mother tells me. She lives here. I’m visiting. She’s the lady with the burgundy top, off to the right.”

  “Why, that’s Harriet Plunkett!” the woman exclaimed. “I’ve gabbed with her a few times at the dog park. Before her dog got put on probation. Anyway, I love that radio show of hers. Especially when she and that other lady have to share air time with that fisherman. I didn’t know Harriet was interested in model trains.”

  Oh, you’d be surprised at what’s she’s interested in. “She, um, well, she’s always checking out new endeavors.” And scuttlebutt. “What a shame about your club’s president.”

  “Personally,” she said, “I don’t think it was his wife. It would have been much easier to poison him at home. Although she probably had good reason. The man was one step away from being a hoarder. What woman’s going to put up with that?”

  Suddenly, I remembered the conversation at the Mexican restaurant, when Lyndy and I were cajoled into joining my mother and her friends. The women had mentioned Wilbur being a pack rat.

  “He didn’t hoard stuff in their house, Evelyn,” one of the men said. “I’ve been in there. On club business. It was around Halloween. As I recall, Grace was there, too, along with Montrose Lamont. You can ask them. Besides, Wilbur had at least four storage units in Surprise. Behind Sam’s Club. That’s where he kept his railroad stuff. I’ve been there, too.”

  I was shocked. Four storage units? That must have cost the guy a fortune. When Marshall and I made our move, we rented a temporary storage unit, and that was costly enough.

  “All those storage areas for railroad stuff?” I asked.

  The man nodded. “The guy was a collector. What can I say? He had railroad memorabilia, as well as extra tracks and circuits, you know.”

  I didn’t know, but I still nodded vigorously, as if I had a clue. “Maybe someone wanted something and he didn’t want to part with it.” Then I was sorry I’d opened my mouth. In less than three seconds, I had joined the Let’s-speculate-about-Wilbur-Maines’s-death club. I was supposed to pick up gossip, not spread it around like manure.

  “Could have been those Trane motors and control boards he had in there,” the taller of the two men said. “My guess is, they were worth at least a few thousand dollars. But if that was the case, whoever killed old Wilbur would have done it by the storage units. Not out in the open.”

  Then Evelyn spoke. “Why kill someone over old circuit boards and motors?”

  Then both men spoke at once.

  “Maybe he sold someone a rotten board.”

  “My money’s on the wife. The news said they found a tap shoe at the scene. None of us are dancers, that I know of. And don’t those tap shoes have heavy metal cleats on the bottom?”

  Evelyn let out a loud breath, reached past me, and grabbed a snickerdoodle. “Wilbur was a player of the worst sort. Dallied around with some of our own Choo-Choo Chicks, from what I’ve heard.”

  “WHAT?” both men exclaimed in unison.

  Then the shorter one spoke. “Look around. The women in the G-scale are all old enough to have been his mother.”

  Evelyn was nonplusse
d. “I’m not talking G-scale. When was the last time any of you went to an H/O meeting? Those are the women I’m talking about. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he made a promise to one of them and jilted her. Nothing like old-fashioned revenge.”

  Then she looked at me. “Sorry. I’m afraid we’re not making a very good impression. I’m Evelyn Watross. Why don’t you find your mother, and I’ll give you a quick tour of our railroad museum? It’s in the alcove off to the left.”

  “I, er . . .”

  “Oh look! Harriet’s headed this way. Just wait until you see the special memorabilia we’ve got on display. You’ll be speechless.”

  Trust me. I already am.

  CHAPTER 11

  The model railroad museum consisted of a few showcases and wall-to-wall posters of model train exhibits from all over the world, including a dazzling display from a model railroad club in Japan.

  Showcased were old circuit boards, old motors, and even older train tracks, in addition to dioramas of train layouts. Housed in between the displays were photos of club members going back to the mid-1970s.

  “Fascinating,” I said.

  My mother bumped my shoulder and mouthed, “Did you find out anything?”

  At that moment, Evelyn, who was standing across from us in front of another showcase, let out a scream that sent at least five or six men from the other room into the museum area.

  Given the decibel level of Evelyn’s shriek, I was surprised the entire club didn’t empty into the room. “It’s gone! It’s gone! Our precious replica of the Golden Spike is gone! Someone broke into our showcase and stole it!”

  My mother and I rushed to the other showcase to see what Evelyn was bellowing about. I figured there had to be broken glass and wondered why we didn’t spot it when we entered the room. The showcase was intact, and to the untrained eye, everything looked fine. There were old photos of the Transcontinental Railroad interspersed with headshots of former Sun City West Model Railroad Club presidents dating back to 1979.

  In the center of the showcase was an empty space where I imagined the Golden Spike replica had once been. I tried to take a closer look but got jostled by the five or six men who had rushed into the room.

  Suddenly, one of them shouted, “You scared us for a minute, Evelyn. Look at the edge of the showcase. There’s our Golden Spike. It’s resting against the wood frame. That’s why you didn’t see it. Damn near gave us a heart attack. That thing is irreplaceable.”

  I bumped my mother on the arm. “You don’t think it’s gold-plated or anything, do you?”

  She shrugged. “How should I know what these clubs spend their money on?”

  “The Golden Spike should not be resting on its side against the wood frame,” Evelyn said. “Someone must have moved it and didn’t put it back properly. See for yourselves. It rests upright with those tiny tacks holding it in place. It didn’t wind up against the showcase by itself.”

  “Who would want to move it?” Bob Burdock from Edmonton asked. “Unless someone took it out for a closer look, or maybe to show it to someone else. Quite the piece of memorabilia, that spike. Eh?”

  My mother pulled me aside while Evelyn and the men continued to discuss the spike situation. Thankfully, my mother kept her voice low. “Memorabilia? You’d think they were in possession of the real Golden Spike. Didn’t that thing wind up in a museum somewhere?”

  “Uh-huh. The Cantor Arts Center in Stanford, California.”

  “How on earth would you know that?”

  “Kalese’s seventh-grade history paper on the Transcontinental Railroad. I’m also quite familiar with the last days of Pompeii, if you’re interested.”

  “Honestly, Phee.”

  At that moment, I turned to see Evelyn put her hands on her hips and glare at the men. “That showcase is kept under lock and key. No one’s supposed to go near it.”

  “Give it a break,” one of the men said. “The key’s taped to the bottom of the showcase and everyone in the club knows it.”

  To prove his point, the man bent down and moved his hand under the showcase. “It’s here. I can feel the key under the tape. Might as well unlock the showcase and put our spike back where it belongs—in the center of the display.”

  With that, the man pulled the key out from under the showcase and waved it in the air. The showcase had to have been built at the same time the original Golden Spike was pounded into the ground. It was one of those ancient wooden showcases where the lock was built into the frame.

  It took the guy all of five seconds to release the mechanism and lift the glass front. “Anyone want to take a close look at our bad boy before I put it back?”

  “Nah,” someone else said. “We all know what’s engraved on it.”

  “Our newcomers don’t know.” Evelyn took a step toward my mother and me. “Our Golden Spike is made from heavy-duty steel with twelve-carat gold plating. Of course, it’s much smaller than the original spike, but it’s quite formidable, and the shape parallels the original, right down to that little flattened curve on the top. And like the original, our spike has names engraved on it: all the club’s past presidents. When one president retires and another one takes office, we bring it to the jeweler to be engraved with the name of the last president. It’s a tradition that—Oh dear! Oh goodness! The spike . . . We need to have Wilbur Maines’s name engraved on it.”

  The man who held the spike placed it back where it belonged in the showcase. “We’ll let the finance committee know at our next full meeting. It is the finance committee that handles those sorts of things, isn’t it? Can’t remember who took care of it last time. Wilbur’s been president for God knows how long.”

  A grumble of “Yeah, yeah, finance committee,” was clearly audible as the man locked the showcase and reached under it to reaffix the key. “Tape’s still good. Hmm, one would think it would have been all dried up, but I guess the glue on it was good.”

  Evelyn and the men continued to chatter about related topics, including bargain transparent tape versus a brand name and who was in charge of the finance committee.

  “Now would be a good time for us to leave,” I said to my mother. “I think we’ve seen and heard enough.”

  “True, true. We’ll pick up more scuttlebutt on Thursday, when the H/O scale meets.”

  “Huh? What? What do you mean we? I’m not coming back on Thursday. Myrna’s Epsom salt soaks should have worked by then, and how many bird presentations can Louise give? Bring one of them. Herb, too, for that matter. They signed up for Operation Agatha, not me.”

  We thanked Evelyn and started to exit the building when the greeter lady, Grace Something-or-other, stopped us. “Don’t you want to stay for workshop time?”

  Suddenly, I felt a frog in my throat. “Workshop time?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Once the meeting and the refreshments are over, our club members move into the workroom behind that door to your left. That’s where they work on their models and attend to any repairs that need to be made. And, of course, our evening will conclude with the running of the trains.”

  I wondered why I hadn’t noticed that door before, but, in all fairness, it had been closed when my mother and I first entered the club room.

  My mother took a step toward the exit before turning to the woman. “It certainly would be interesting to watch the club members work on their models and run the trains, but I can’t leave my dog alone in the house for too long.”

  Unless there’s a giant sale at Sher’s Clothing.

  “Oh, I completely understand,” she said. “We once had a terrier that would gnaw on the legs of our kitchen table if we left him alone for more than an hour. Wound up having to hire a pet sitter for him. Of course, that was years ago and back in Iowa.”

  “Thank you again for your hospitality,” I said.

  The woman smiled. “Don’t forget, the H/O scale meets Thursday. I won’t be here, but they’ll have their own greeter to welcome you. Please consider joining us and becomin
g a Choo-Choo Chick.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I couldn’t close the door behind me fast enough. My mother was already four or five feet in front of me and moving across the courtyard, as if we had to catch a train, not look at models of them.

  “Why the sudden rush?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m not in a rush. I just needed for us to get out of hearing range. Tell me, what did you find out?”

  “Not a whole lot that we didn’t know before, but I did learn Wilbur had a few storage units in Surprise for his memorabilia and heaven knows what else.”

  My mother motioned for me to move closer and whispered, “I’ve got you beat. I found out he was planning on leaving Roxanne for one of those fly-by-night Choo-Choo Chicks in the H/O scale group. This is horrible. It gives poor Roxanne an even stronger motive for murder.”

  “Which Choo-Choo? I mean, woman. Which woman? Did you get a name?”

  “No. Only a vague description. The club members who told me about it heard it secondhand.”

  “Secondhand? More like third or fourth hand.”

  “Only one way to find out—at Thursday’s meeting.”

  “Good! You, Myrna, and Louise can have a wonderful evening playing Miss Marple. Maybe Herb can even dress up as Hercule Poirot. I intend to sit at home, watch TV, and eat popcorn.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER 12

  I should have known there were no absolutes in this world. Especially when it came to sleuthing and my mother. However, in this particular case, I couldn’t blame her. Nope. That particular pleasure was reserved for my fiancé, who thought it would be a good idea for me to go to that H/O scale meeting.

  “That’s incredible, hon,” he said when I got home later that night. “You found out more information snooping around that club meeting than Nate and I could extract from the club members during our interviews. Face it, when people are off guard, or feel as if they’re in a safety zone, like their club’s meeting room, they’re more likely to divulge information. Imagine what you’ll find out the day after tomorrow.”