Destination Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  Benjamin, who seemed to realize he’d gone too far in baiting his mother, stumbled after her, wineglass in hand. “Guess I blew it this time,” he said, flashing the guests a wobbly grin.

  “That poor woman,” said Erica, who sat to my right. “What a hellish thing to go through, seeing your husband murdered and then to have your son so disrespectful . . .”

  “You have to give it to her,” Harvey said. “She’s made of steel.”

  “She’d have to be,” said his wife. “First losing Elliott. And now Al.”

  “You all knew Mr. Vail?” I said.

  “Oh, yes, very well,” James, the Blevin family accountant replied. “You’ve heard, I assume, of the circumstances of his disappearance.”

  “Yes, I have,” I confirmed.

  “I expect to see his story on one of those TV shows that explore unsolved mysteries,” Erica said. “It gives me the chills, thinking of poor Elliott falling from that train and being consumed by wild beasts.”

  “He was never found, though, was he?” I said.

  “No, never.” The accountant glanced at the door, lowered his voice, leaned into the table, and said, “Some people say he never died.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded. “They say—well, you know, they say he might have faked his death for the two and a half mil in insurance money.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Nancy Flowers, who sat across from me. “How would he collect?” She was a rail-thin woman I judged to be in her late forties or early fifties, someone who obviously spent a considerable amount of each day in a gym or spa. The skin was stretched taut across her cheekbones and forehead, and her bare arms were sinewy, slender but muscled.

  “Make a good murder mystery plot for you, wouldn’t it, Jessica?” said James.

  “It would if the murderer were identified,” I agreed. “The murderer is always revealed at the end of a good mystery.”

  “The one I feel sorry for is Benjamin,” Nancy Flowers said.

  “Does he live here with his mother?” I asked.

  The accountant’s laugh was smug and not especially pleasant. Again, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level as he said, “Ben moved out the day Teddy married Al. Has his own apartment in town.”

  “They didn’t get along?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t treading too deeply into forbidden territory.

  “That’s an understatement,” Ms. Flowers said as Theodora suddenly reentered the dining room. I had the feeling she hadn’t missed much during her absence.

  “Benjamin is feeling a little under the weather,” she announced. “He’s lying down. He asked me to make his apologies for him.” She surveyed the dishes on the table and rang a little bell that stood next to her water glass. “We’ll have dessert now,” she told the uniformed woman who responded to the signal.

  We retired to the living room after a course of bread pudding and raspberry sauce. There was good-natured banter about the old tradition of cognac and cigars for the men, tea and inane talk for the ladies after a dinner, being a ritual no one missed. While the others settled on chairs and love seats that formed a conversation area in one corner of the large room, I ended up standing in front of the fireplace with Nancy Flowers.

  “I love family photos,” I said, slowly taking in each framed print. “It’s too easy to lose touch with the past and the people from it.”

  Nancy agreed and moved along the elongated mantel with me, identifying people in the photos.

  “That’s Elliott in front of the locomotive,” she said about one.

  “Is it?”

  I adjusted my glasses and looked closer at the man in the picture. He appeared to be shorter and not as broad-shouldered as Alvin Blevin, nor was he as classically handsome. His face was oblong, his hair a mousy brown, nose fairly prominent, the bones of his eyebrows jutting forward over eyes that were intense and surprisingly dark for a man who was fair-skinned. I must have fixated on it for too long because Nancy said, “Anything wrong?”

  “What? Oh, no. It’s just that after knowing the strange circumstances surrounding his disappearance, seeing him for the first time is compelling.”

  “Like an Elvis sighting?” she asked, adding a small laugh.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Benjamin looks like him.”

  “Yes, he does, although Elliott never gave the kid the time of day,” she said as we were invited to join the others.

  The gathering broke up a half hour later. Theodora said she’d arrange for her driver to return me to downtown Vancouver, but Nancy Flowers insisted she’d drive me to the hotel. “I live downtown,” she said. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

  Nancy and I were the last to leave. As Theodora bade us good night, she held my hand for what seemed an unnecessarily long time and said, “You will keep in touch, Jessica. Somehow, I feel as though we’ve known each other a very long time.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” I said. “Thank you for including me tonight.”

  I walked down the steps to the gravel drive and turned to wait for Nancy, who was rummaging in her purse.

  “I’ll be right there, Jessica. I think I left my keys inside.” She disappeared back into the house.

  The sky was still light and I wandered toward the remaining car parked at the side of the house next to a line of cypress trees.

  “Mrs. Fletcher?”

  Benjamin’s face was pale and perspiration sheened his brow. “I don’t want her to see me,” he said, moving back into the shadow of the trees.

  He’s suffering from his overindulgence, I thought. “You don’t look very well, Benjamin.”

  “I—I—I need to tell you something.”

  “What is it?” I asked, taking a few steps toward him.

  “It’s all my fault. She didn’t do it. She could never do something like that. I’m the bad one,” he said in a raspy whisper. “You believe me, don’t you? Tell the detective.”

  A noise distracted him and he glanced up the driveway toward the front door. Light reflected on the stairs indicated it was open. I followed his gaze.

  “Good night!” Nancy called, descending the steps.

  I turned back to Benjamin, but he had slipped away. What did he mean, it was all his fault? Was he admitting his complicity in the murder? Or was he regretting his dinnertime indiscretion, which implicated his mother? Unlike Theodora, Benjamin was only barely in control of his emotions. I had thought his brooding demeanor on the train was the immature role-playing of a young man determined to be dissatisfied with everything life had dealt him. Now I wondered if the weight of premeditated murder had shaped his disposition as well as his actions.

  On the ride into Vancouver Nancy turned more talkative than she’d been at the dinner. She seemed anxious to have me know how close she was to “Teddy,” how much she knew about the family, including Theodora’s first marriage to Elliott Vail, his disappearance, and the events that led up to a court declaring Vail legally dead. I didn’t say much in response. I took in what she said, interested of course, but not learning anything I hadn’t already heard.

  Until we pulled up beneath the canopy at the Sutton Place.

  “Al wasn’t the nicest of people, you know,” she said.

  I didn’t react to her statement.

  “I don’t care how he dealt with adults in his life, but what he did to his child was, as far as I’m concerned, inexcusable.”

  “He had a child?”

  “Sure. A little girl. You didn’t know that?”

  “No, I didn’t. Where is she?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody knows. He abandoned her when he divorced the mother, his first wife.” She turned in her seat, smiled, and said, “I have a feeling you’ve already figured this out, Jessica.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Figured it out. Al’s murder.”

  I shook my head. “You give me more credit than I deserve,” I said. “No, I haven’t figured anything out. Care to be more specific?”

  “I probably should
n’t, but I will. Don’t misunderstand. Theodora has been a friend for many years, although it’s been a friendship that’s had its rocky moments. You know, a one-way friendship. Her way or the highway. She’s a very calculating person, but I suppose you’ve already noticed that.”

  “She is sure of herself,” I said. “Frankly, I was surprised to have been invited to the dinner and even more surprised she had such an evening so soon after her husband’s death.”

  “Not unusual for Theodora. Most wives wouldn’t even think of entertaining after the death of a beloved spouse.”

  “But?”

  “But . . . Al wasn’t a beloved spouse. He was a scoundrel. I doubt Theodora suffers even a twinge of regret that he’s dead.”

  “How sad.”

  “And telling. Don’t you agree?”

  “Are you suggesting that—?”

  “That she killed him? I’d never do that, not to a friend.”

  Some friend, I thought. I’d hate to have you as an enemy.

  “Nice meeting you,” she said. “I’ve never read any of your books, but I’ll make a point of it now. Enjoy the rest of your stay in Vancouver.”

  I watched her drive away and turned to enter the hotel.

  “Pleasant evening?” my favorite doorman asked.

  “Well, it was interesting,” I said.

  I sat up and did what is second nature to me, made notes of what had been said during the evening, augmented with my own observations. I was about to stop and head for bed when what had been rattling around in my brain suddenly came to the forefront. The photo of Elliott Vail on the mantel. Although I couldn’t pinpoint why or where, I had the nagging feeling I’d met him before.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “ . . . And so between 1850 and 1860, there was enormous growth in the creation of railway networks within the United States. It was characterized by an expansion of east-west routes, rather than what had been an emphasis on north-south routes. But there were plenty of problems to be solved, particularly in the continuing development of the steam engine.”

  The speaker, a tall, gaunt man with horn-rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket with string tie and cowboy boots, was a history professor at the University of British Columbia. It was pointed out during his introduction that his area of historical expertise encompassed transportation in North America, particularly the advent of the railroads. His voice was pinched and he spoke in a slow monotone, which didn’t help what appeared to be a drowsy audience that morning.

  I’d taken an informal head count after settling into a seat in one of the hotel’s smaller public meeting rooms. Everyone from the Whistler Northwind seemed to be accounted for, with the exception, of course, of Theodora Blevin and Benjamin Vail—and to my surprise, Hank Crocker. His wife, Deedee, was present, however, and sat in the back with Maeve Pinckney, whose husband, Junior, was in a front-row seat taking pictures of the professor’s slides as they appeared on a screen.

  I sat with Reggie Weems, who at breakfast that morning had expressed shock that I’d spent the previous night at a dinner party at Theodora Blevin’s home.

  “She called and invited you?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Yes. I was as surprised as you are.”

  “Why did you go? I mean, didn’t you feel awkward, a little strange?”

  “Of course. I went because . . . I went because I was curious. After talking with the lead Vancouver detective, I—”

  “You talked with the lead detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?” I saw that my friend was hurt.

  “I hadn’t planned on it, Reggie. I received a call from him. What’s wrong?”

  “I just figured that since we worked together with Detective Marshall, we’d keep doing it.”

  Reggie felt as though I’d deliberately left him out of things. I hadn’t realized how much he’d enjoyed being asked by Detective Marshall to participate in the investigation, if only tangentially.

  “I’m sorry, Reggie,” I said. “It never occurred to me that you’d be disappointed.”

  He gave me a wan smile. “I just liked being in on the action,” he said. “It’s not the usual kind of excitement I see in the insurance business.”

  “But you are in on the action.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We need insurance information. Have you heard back from your contact at Merit Life?”

  “Not yet, but I should hear something later today,” Reggie said, perking up. “So, what did the detective say?”

  “He pretty much confirmed what Detective Marshall said, that he wanted, um, us to keep our eyes and ears open. They’re under a lot of pressure because of Mr. Blevin’s position in the Vancouver community.”

  “And last night?”

  “What about it?”

  “What did you pick up at Theodora’s house? Was Benjamin there?”

  I described the evening, including my reaction to the photograph of Elliott Vail on the mantel.

  “You think you knew him, Jess?”

  “I keep thinking I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

  “When could that have been?”

  I’d asked myself the same question and found no answer. “It probably never happened. Just one of those strange moments, I suppose.”

  “I know what you mean. As I get older, all faces begin to look familiar. I see someone and think I graduated from high school with the guy, or I know him from somewhere else. I even stopped a man on the street once, sure I’d met him before. He had no idea who I was. I was really embarrassed. Maybe that’s what you’re experiencing.”

  “It could be,” I said, “but I’m usually pretty good with faces.”

  “Who else was at the dinner?”

  I described the guests and added, “One of the women at Theodora’s drove me back to the hotel. Her name is Nancy Flowers.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “She’s no friend of Theodora, although she portrays herself as such.”

  I told him what Ms. Flowers had said about Theodora.

  Reggie listened intently. “That wraps it up as far as I’m concerned,” he said, slapping his hands together.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve figured Theodora killed him all along, Jess. Al had a reputation as a womanizer, big-time. Theodora must have found out about one of his affairs and got even. You know, the woman scorned. Cherchez la femme. Look for the woman in the case. Right?”

  “Sometimes,” I said, “and maybe you’re right in this case.” I took a last sip of coffee, and we went together to the lecture room. “Oh, by the way,” I said, “did you know that Blevin had a daughter from his first marriage?”

  “No. Where is she?”

  “That’s what I asked Ms. Flowers. She said he walked away when he divorced her mother.”

  “What a lousy thing to do.”

  We took seats in the back of the lecture room.

  Reggie leaned over to whisper in my ear. “You know that may change things.”

  “What things?” I whispered back.

  “Depends on Blevin’s will, of course, but there’s always the possibility, if there’s another heir, that we won’t get to keep the rooms for our club.”

  Our lecturer finished his seminar with tales of the problems early steam engines presented, especially the tendency of their boilers to explode. “It happened with alarming frequency,” he said, “mostly caused when the water level in the boiler dropped low enough to no longer cover the firebox, also known as the crown sheet. One of the more horrific examples happened in 1875 in a freight yard outside Boston. The force of the explosion was so great that a metal fragment weighing two hundred pounds was blown through the wall of the freight house more than twenty feet away. Another piece of the boiler, weighing more than thirty pounds, was found a quarter mile away. Of course, things got safer as engines were refined and heavier-duty materials were used.

  “Thank you
for your kind attention. I’ll entertain questions now.”

  Junior Pinckney jumped to his feet and asked a highly technical question that the professor answered in numbing detail.

  Winston Rendell, who had been taking notes during the lecture, raised his pencil in the air. “Professor, we all know that passenger trains are going out of business left and right. In fact, there are rumors that we may have been on one of the last passenger trips offered by BC Rail on the Whistler Northwind. What’s your prognosis for rail travel in North America?”

  “With the exception of local commuter trains, passenger rail service has been shrinking for many years, and the reasons are many,” he replied. “During the Second World War, there was an urgent need for rolling stock and lots of it. Since the whole system was built for steam, the U.S. government froze construction of diesels—except by General Motors—lest companies abandon manufacturing steam engines before they were proficient at building diesel ones. However, after the war, instead of bankrolling diesel development, federal money was dumped into the interstate highway system spearheaded by President Eisenhower. Plus, the advent of jet aircraft certainly contributed to the decline. And, of course, railroad companies found that hauling freight was considerably more profitable than hauling passengers. I’m sure, as railroad passengers, you’ve all been on a train shunted to a siding to wait while a freight train with priority was allowed to take over the main track. Sadly, I don’t see much of a future for passenger rail travel. Next?”

  Reggie and I left the meeting room together and were headed for the lobby when Maeve intercepted us.

  “I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” I told Reggie.

  “Now that we’re not seatmates, ah miss seeing you,” she told me. “It was exciting sitting with a celebrity. Oh, doesn’t that sound terrible? Of course, that’s not important. I just enjoyed your company.”

  “Thank you, Maeve. I enjoyed yours as well.”

  “Will I see you at the club this afternoon? Junior’s going to the board of directors’ meeting, and I thought I’d go and see this famous train layout they’re always arguing about. It must be impressive since Alvin spent so much money on it.”