Murder on the Toy Town Express

by Barbara Early

  I nodded, mainly for her benefit, not because I believed her excuse.

  Dad stepped up. “How long have you known Craig?”

  “Since I started working for him three years ago.”

  “He can’t be an easy man to work for,” I said, noticing he’d stopped the cart a few rows down to chat with another vendor. Somehow, he didn’t seem to be in such a hurry anymore.

  “He’s okay once you get to know his moods,” she said, following my gaze. Her smile drooped a little. “And I like the work. At first I thought I was daft to apply for a job in a comic book store. I mean, what did I know about them? And Craig was probably just as daft to hire me, but they’re more interesting than I thought. Soon I was reading them on my breaks and borrowing them to take home. Anything that can get teen and preteen boys to read can’t be all bad, right?”

  All I could think was, That poor woman. But since that was inappropriate to say aloud, I didn’t.

  “I think of all those boys who hang around the shop as my own.” She looked down at the stack of comic books still in her hand. “Sounds silly, I bet.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sure they all appreciate you.” My next slightly snarky thought was that Craig probably didn’t, but I felt guilty for jumping to that conclusion. I was determined to do my best to extend the proverbial olive branch, even if I still thought the hulking boy I knew from school was a total jerk-face and would probably grab the branch out of my hand and end up hitting me with it.

  But Maxine seemed nice, so when she struggled to unroll some of her signage, I rushed over to help. Once the balky banner was set up, I found myself staring at a full-size image of Lexi Wolf.

  “Are you selling this?” It might make me a nerd or a geek, but I was a major fan of Commander Lexi Wolf. Earthship Feronia only ran for six episodes (fewer even than Firefly), but I’d seen each of them about twenty times when I was in college, and at least once a year since. I could picture this banner in my bedroom—as long as nobody knew about it.

  “No, sorry,” she said. “Well, maybe after the show. Right now it’s just advertisement. She’ll be here at ten.”

  “Lexi Wolf is coming here?” I tried to keep my voice cool as Maxine nodded. After all, it was probably just some look-alike cosplaying as Lexi Wolf. The real actress, Tippi Hillman, was likely wowing the crowds at Comic-Con somewhere.

  “Who is Craig dressed up as, anyway?” Dad asked. “I thought I was up to date on all my superheroes, but I don’t recognize the costume.”

  Maxine’s lips drew into a mischievous smile. “You can’t guess?”

  Dad turned to me. “Have you seen it before?”

  “You know more about superheroes than I do,” I said.

  “The old ones, maybe,” he said. “But you get out to the movies more than I do, with your fellas.”

  “Fellas?” Maxine asked, her emphasis on the plural.

  I punched him playfully in the shoulder. “Quit making me sound like a flirt. They’re friends.”

  “Oh, so you’re not engaged or steady with anyone?” Maxine asked.

  I shook my head and was momentarily confused when Dad sent me a warning look.

  “You know, Craig is on the market,” Maxine said airily.

  “Oh, I . . . uh . . . I should probably make up my mind soon,” I said, spewing Cathy’s words. “It’s not right to string two men along. Besides, I’m not getting any younger.”

  Dad came to my rescue yet again. “So, what superhero is he?”

  “That,” Maxine said, “is Mr. Inferno.”

  No hint of recognition lit Dad’s face, and I’d never heard of him either. “Is he new?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “What universe?” Dad asked. “DC? Marvel?”

  She shook her head, then ran an imaginary zipper across her lips. “Be around at ten for the big announcement, and you’ll learn everything!”

  Chapter 2

  Dad checked his watch. “Since the public won’t be in for another half hour, how about I look at the trains?” He wasn’t exactly asking permission, because he was already walking toward the train layouts as if hypnotized.

  I smiled, my natural expression when gritting my teeth. “How about I go with you?” Allowing Dad to roam these aisles freely could very well put us on the fast track—no pun intended—to bankruptcy.

  The model trains were already chugging away. Some put out little puffs of smoke. Others clanged and blew whistles. They pulled coal cars, sleeper cars, diners, and cabooses through tunnels, across bridges, and past stations and towns and farm dwellings, some with fine details, moving parts, internal lights, and tiny people in various tableaus, all to scale and all for sale. We’d come out better if someone picked Dad’s pocket right now.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my old chief.”

  Dad spun around slowly. I didn’t recognize the man in the stiffly pressed security guard uniform, but Dad did. I could see it in my father’s polite but not-quite-genuine smile.

  “Lionel,” Dad said, offering a tentative hand. “I didn’t know you were working here.”

  The guard looked at Dad’s hand for a moment, as if he were considering not shaking it, but then took it briefly. “Head of security,” he said. “Been working here since . . . but that’s water under the bridge. No hard feelings.”

  Dad nodded, his solemn expression telling me something serious had gone down between these two. He didn’t introduce me, but the guard’s full name was on his badge: Lionel Kelley.

  “I actually like this kind of work,” he said. “The hours are great, and there’s something different all the time coming through here. One week it’s livestock. The next, gardening. The gem, fossil, and mineral show was a real hoot. Rock on!”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, but Dad seemed to take him at face value. His expression became less pained and his smile more genuine. “Good to hear it.”

  “This is the first time we’ve had the train and toy show.” He stuck his thumbs in his belt. “I’d like to think our ramped-up security proposal had something to do with it. Can’t be too careful these days.”

  “Scary times,” Dad said.

  “Speaking of which,” Kelley said, gesturing to the cavernous space, “I should get back to checking the vendors before we open the doors. I take it all your tax info is in order. Nothing . . . illegal . . . in your inventory?” He stressed the last question, probably referring to that unfortunate lawn dart incident.

  “Nope. We’re good to go,” Dad said.

  “Good,” Kelley said. “I wish that was the case with all the vendors. I’ll be back to double-check with you, but I think we both know who our troublemakers are going to be this year.” He gave a nod in the direction of Craig’s Comics. “Don’t worry. I got it under control.”

  As he walked away, Dad took my arm. “Somehow that doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “He was briefly in my employ, right after he graduated from the police academy.”

  “I’m afraid to ask why you parted company.”

  Dad wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, one of his favorite stalling tactics. I’d seen it often when growing up, whenever I’d asked for an advance on my allowance or an extension on curfew.

  “That bad?”

  “Lionel was a nice enough young man. Took his job seriously. Was responsible to a fault. He just tended to be a bit . . . overly exuberant, that’s all.”

  “Out to save the world, was he?”

  “And by the book,” Dad said. “Every page he could muster, even the parts that were contradictory or obsolete. No common sense required. I don’t think a day went by without a complaint about him.”

  I glanced over to Craig’s Comics, where Lionel was thumbing through their selection. “Any chance he mellowed out over time? See, he’s just looking at the comics.”

  While Dad hesitated to answer, Lionel pulled out a comic book and thrust it up to show
Maxine. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the discussion appeared heated, with Lionel gesturing forcefully to the book and Maxine’s cheeks flaring pink.

  While they were talking, Craig swooped in on the conversation. Lionel took a step back, maybe recoiling from the look of Craig’s costume or perhaps the volume of Craig’s words, which I could hear. The background noise had subsided a bit since many nearby had stopped talking and were also watching the argument.

  “That’s absurd.” Craig paced like a lawyer making his case, except with that cape swirling behind him. “Has anyone complained? Who would have a problem with that?” He may have included an expletive or two in the diatribe that followed, thrown among terms like “First Amendment” and “censorship.”

  “Just fix it.” Lionel tossed the book to Maxine and turned on his heels. The look on his face as he walked away wasn’t one of anger, but smugness.

  Craig’s red face and flashing eyes suggested he had surpassed anger and bordered on wrath. He exercised his First Amendment rights once again to send an epithet or two in Lionel’s direction, then stormed off.

  Maxine looked ready to break. I rushed over.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Let me catch my breath first.” Maxine put a hand on her chest and forced a few breaths in and out. “That’s never happened before. Apparently some of our stock violates some old decency law, which is weird because we’ve sold the same things in the shop all the time and never had a problem. Why would it be legal there and not here?” She held up the comic Lionel had tossed out. It showed quite a bit of cleavage, midriff, and thigh of a busty female superhero. The outfit wasn’t something I would wear, even to a costume party, but I wasn’t sure I’d consider it pornographic, either.

  Maxine looked at her fully stocked table. “Now we have to pull out any ‘similar images’ before I can open. I’d hate to know how many of them there are.” She blanched and pointed.

  I trailed her gaze to the Lexi Wolf banner.

  “What are we going to do about that?”

  The banner was positioned to get attention from the aisle, and Kelley probably hadn’t seen it at all. “Well, he didn’t mention it directly . . .” I hedged. After all, the buxom commander of the Earthship Feronia, with those fishnet stockings and absurd cleavage peeking from the leather corset, was perhaps the epitome of what Lionel Kelley was just raving about. “How long is she going to be here?”

  “Just an hour. Shaking hands and signing pictures and comic books.” She pulled out one of the tie-in comics with Lexi on the cover. “I don’t know if we have any Earthship Feronia without Lexi on the cover.” She chewed a cuticle. “Maybe we could brown-bag them like the convenience stores do to Playboy.”

  “I don’t know about that, but . . .” Since the banner was adjustable, I rolled up part of the poster, leaving only Lexi’s shoulders and that amazing head of curls exposed.

  Maxine raised thankful hands to the heavens. “That’s a start!”

  “I can give you a hand sorting through the books too.” I bent over a stack of comics and started pulling out all the busty superheroes—and villains and victims—I could find, about one in every three or four of their books in stock. Dad joined in, and we placed all the “offending” comics in the boxes stored under the table skirt. We’d gone through all but the last two bins when the doors opened.

  Maxine lifted the remaining displays off the table—strong woman—and shoved them underneath. “I’ll go through them during the lulls,” she said. “Thanks so much for all your help!”

  Dad and I went back to our booth. With the doors open, the sound of the crowd still waiting for tickets was a roar, amplified by the hard floors and walls and high ceilings. But the show started with a whimper rather than a bang, since even preticketed attendees all had to show their tickets and get their hands stamped upon entering. As the public trickled in, they made their way first to the large central train layouts, which would soon be so congested that only the persistent and the extremely tall would be able to see. Only when they were three deep would we likely see a customer.

  “Mind if I grab a coffee,” I asked Dad, “before it gets busy?”

  “Get me one?”

  “You got it.” I pulled a few bills from my purse and made my way, against traffic, toward the concessions area. I didn’t get that far.

  “Liz!” Jack Wallace headed straight toward me. He was dressed casually in jeans and a crisp navy polo, visible under his open jacket.

  “Hey, Jack. What are you doing here?”

  “I stopped by the shop, and Cathy told me about the show. I decided to check it out.”

  Interesting, since I’d mentioned the show to him. And it stuck in my craw, just a little, that he hadn’t remembered. Not that I was sure what a craw was or where one might find one in the human anatomy.

  “We got trains and we got toys. What’s your poison?” I’d known Jack since high school, and I can’t say I’d ever seen him obsessing over either. Except for that unfortunate hacky sack fad.

  “Well, we could look at comic books,” he said. “If anyone here has them.”

  “We?”

  He glanced toward the men’s room, where another man, bearing more than a little resemblance to Jack, was heading in our direction.

  Jack and his older brother could’ve been twins. But where Jack’s expression was congenial and he looked a bit outdoorsy—even though he barely got a chance to venture out of his restaurant—his brother’s face was harder and his complexion paler. Then again, I’ve heard that prison can do that to a man.

  I smiled and offered my hand as he approached. “Terry. Good to see you.”

  He took my hand but pumped it weakly. “Good to be seen.”

  “Liz was just saying there are comics here too,” Jack said.

  “Right next to our booth.” I glanced at the growing concession line. “I was about to grab a coffee. Care to walk with me?”

  “Sounds good.” Jack shrugged off his light jacket and tucked it under his arm. “They’re going to have to turn on the air today, I think.”

  “I hope,” Terry said, falling in behind us.

  “Maybe we could all grab dinner after you’re done for the day,” Jack said.

  “Uh, the show closes at six, and I have a feeling I’m going to be dead on my feet by then.”

  “Bite of lunch, then?”

  “Lunch is our busiest time. I couldn’t leave Dad alone. We usually just grab fries or something during the lulls.”

  “Well, if you don’t have time for me . . .” Jack stuck out his lip like a four-year-old who just missed the ice-cream truck. A little annoying, but there was something endearing about it at the same time. I wiped the phony pout away with a brief kiss.

  “Get a room, people,” Terry said.

  When Jack glared at him, Terry just put his hands up. “Or get me a girl too. I’d be happy either way. Just don’t want to be a fifth wheel here.”

  “This looks like a great show,” Jack said as we joined the end of the queue of the concession stand. “I’m surprised you didn’t mention it.”

  “I did. If I recall correctly, you responded by telling me you thought you needed a new seafood distributor.”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess I’ve been a little distracted lately. That new seafood restaurant that’s opening next week is getting great press.”

  “The reporter from the Advertiser apparently likes those sea bugs,” Terry said, scrunching his nose.

  “Sea bugs?” I asked.

  “They’re putting in a three-hundred-gallon lobster tank,” Jack explained, “right near the entrance, so people can pick their own lobster while they’re waiting for a table. It could really eat into my business. Now that Mom retired to Florida and the restaurant is solely under my management . . .”

  Terry let out a loud, staged sigh.

  “Well, Terry’s helping, of course,” Jack said.

  “I have the crucial job of
bussing tables,” Terry deadpanned.

  “It’s where I started,” Jack said.

  “When you were sixteen,” Terry said.

  “Part of me wishes I were still bussing tables,” Jack said, flashing his best disarming smile. “Now, all the bucks get passed to me. I only wish that meant dollars. I had to turn my cell phone off to ensure I wouldn’t get called in. First time in three weeks.”

  “Trust me. I know about the challenges of running your own business.” I shrugged. I may have been a bit distracted myself. I remembered Jack saying something about Terry returning to East Aurora when he came up for parole again, but I hadn’t thought it would be this soon. Since Terry had already been sent back for parole violations once, for failure to check in, Jack had encouraged his brother to move to the village where he’d have more support.

  “Just enjoy the day, you two,” I said. “There’s a lot to see, and if you’re around during a lull, maybe we can grab a sandwich or something.” I reached up to straighten Jack’s collar.

  As I did, Terry sighed, then the people behind us in line got frustrated with the snail’s pace and left. Maxine moved up.

  “How did you get sprung?” I asked, then introduced her to Jack and Terry.

  “A lot of people are stopping to talk to Craig—excuse me, Mr. Inferno. He’s already hoarse, so I said I’d pick him up something to drink.” Her face brightened. “I got a peek at your tables on the way over—you have some lovely things. Not that glowy Santa, though. That looks like a bad Christmas Eve over Chernobyl.” She leaned toward me. “I think you underpriced the 1986 Plastic Man. You could get double for it, especially mint in box like that.”

  “Double?” I’d thought it was pretty pricy to begin with. “I’ll let Dad know.”

  “And if someone else should get there first?” Terry asked. “Like maybe a lowly busboy looking for a discount?”

  “Terry . . .” Jack warned.

  I chuckled. “The lowly busboy can have it at the price it’s marked. It’s still fair, and, frankly, that long-necked freak gives me the willies. I wouldn’t mind taking a loss if that meant it went away.” I faced Maxine. “I guess you know the superhero figures from working in the comic shop.”