Kristy and the Mystery Train

by Ann M. Martin

  “No kidding,” I said. I slipped away and tried to act casual as I made my way back to the observation car.

  It was empty. Somehow, that made me nervous. I had to force myself to examine every inch of the car, inside and out.

  Nothing. Nada. A big, fat blank.

  Until I reached the observation platform and caught a glimpse of a white scrap of paper caught in the railing.

  A clue, I thought. I bent forward and took it carefully between my thumb and forefinger to minimize the chance of messing up any incriminating fingerprints.

  Then I saw what I’d found: a page from the script of Night Train to Charleston. Page 37, to be exact.

  Was this a clue?

  I looked up at the stars and thought hard. Were the nasty incidents and the threatening notes related to the crime I had witnessed? Was this some kind of extreme and horrible publicity stunt planned to promote a movie — or a star’s career? Or was a jealous ex-husband behind it all? But I couldn’t come up with any answers. Only more questions.

  For instance, who was missing?

  And why?

  “I saw a movie,” said Karen. “It was about a party at a beach. It had a beautiful lifeguard and a handsome surfer and there was this monster —”

  “A beach party,” Jessi said quickly. “Now, that sounds like fun.”

  Hannie said, “I wish we could have a beach party.”

  Glancing toward the lifeguard who had appeared for the afternoon shift, and who was as good-looking as the lifeguard who’d worked the morning shift, Claudia said, “Well, we have the lifeguard. All we need is the beach.”

  To celebrate the opening of the Greenbrook summer season, Nikki had laid out a scrumptious lunch for the adults in the more formal dining room, while the kids had been given free hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza in the snack bar. The pool had been closed to prevent anyone from being tempted to go swimming too soon after eating.

  Now a large group of kids had gathered around the edge of the pool. The Three Musketeers were back, along with Jackie; Ben; Stephen; Jessi’s sister, Becca; Charlotte Johanssen; Luke Martinez; and the same group of four- and five-year-olds who had been practicing swimming earlier. They were all dangling their feet in the water, kicking impatiently and watching the large clock by the entrance to the snack bar. It wasn’t quite time for the pool to reopen.

  “We could go play in the maze,” Stephen suggested. He was referring to a real maze, with old-fashioned high hedge walls and fake exits and dead ends that stood on the grounds of the club. “We could play hide-and-seek.”

  “It’s too hot to run,” said Becca. “And I haven’t even been in the pool yet.”

  “Me, neither,” agreed Charlotte. “We’d roast in the sun.”

  “If I roasted, I’d puke for sure,” Ben said.

  “Eeeeewww,” shrieked Nancy.

  “Ick,” cried Hannie.

  Luke, Ben, and Jackie immediately began to make gagging, barfing noises, which made the Three Musketeers shriek even more.

  At the suggestion that someone might puke, Jenny had yanked her feet out of the pool and scooted backward until she was almost under the umbrella where Mal was enthroned, reapplying sunscreen.

  “How about some more Old Bachelor?” Stephen said to Jenny. “You liked that.”

  Jessi looked over her shoulder and realized that Stephen was the only one, except Mal and now Jenny, who wasn’t poised on the edge of the pool, ready to plunge in the moment the lifeguard signaled them.

  Stephen was sitting next to Mal. But he didn’t need more sunscreen. Jessi knew that for sure because she had put some on him herself, right after lunch.

  “Mal?” said Stephen.

  “Thanks, Stephen. But I’m going to go swimming. Your mother just loaned me some new sunscreen. It has a protection factor of sixty and it’s totally waterproof. I figure that should keep me from getting sunburned. Or from getting any more freckles.”

  Karen ceased shrieking abruptly to stare seriously at Mal. “If it’s totally waterproof, how are you going to get it off? It could be stuck on you forever. You could turn all pale, like those things that live in caves and never go out in the sun. Then you’d shrivel up and —”

  “Soap,” said Mal. “It washes off with soap, I’m sure.”

  “But if it didn’t, wouldn’t that be interesting?” Karen asked.

  “Very,” said Mal dryly.

  Mary Anne was staring at the lifeguard. Suddenly she said, “A party. We have the lifeguard, we have the water. We don’t have the beach, but we do have a pool.”

  Instantly Jessi said, “A pool party. We could have a pool party.”

  “Excellent idea!” cried Claudia. “At night. So you wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn, Mal. And the pool has lights, and we could string lanterns around the pool.”

  “And have races,” cried Ben.

  “Games,” suggested Luke. “Lots of games.”

  “With prizes,” added Charlotte.

  The idea was an instant success. The kids peppered the four baby-sitters with suggestions. Finally, Jessi said, “Wait. First things first. We have to clear it with Nikki and figure out a good time —”

  “I don’t think pool parties are allowed,” said Stephen suddenly.

  A disappointed silence fell. Jessi studied Stephen. He wasn’t looking at anybody. He was staring down at his feet. It was the posture of someone who isn’t quite telling the truth.

  “You don’t think pool parties are allowed?” she said gently. “But you’re not sure.”

  Stephen shrugged.

  Mary Anne jumped to her feet. “There’s only one way to find out. I’ll go ask.”

  Of course, pool parties were allowed. When Mary Anne returned a few minutes later and gave us all a thumbs-up as she walked (not ran) to us, everyone burst into noisy cheers.

  “She thinks the day after tomorrow might work,” Mary Anne said. “That’ll give us time to plan it, and she’ll make arrangements for a lifeguard to be on duty.”

  “Excellent,” said Jessi, glancing toward the guy on the stand.

  The party plans were in full swing when the lifeguard blew the whistle. But that didn’t stop the entire group of kids from hurling themselves into the water when they heard it. A sheet of water went up like a tidal wave.

  Even Mal, who was still under her umbrella, got drenched. Claudia, who had stayed by the steps with the beginners, burst out laughing.

  So did everyone else.

  Everyone except Stephen. As Mal stood up and headed for the pool, saying, “I guess I won’t have to get used to the water,” Stephen rose slowly.

  “I’ll go find a towel,” he said.

  “Just come on in the water,” said Jessi.

  Stephen shook his head. He turned away.

  Impulsively, Jessi hoisted herself out of the pool and followed him.

  “I can do it myself,” said Stephen. “I’m not a baby.”

  “I know that. I just thought you might like some company,” said Jessi.

  “I may not come back to the pool right away,” said Stephen. He stopped at the side of the clubhouse.

  “Where are you thinking of going?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go hit some tennis balls.”

  “By yourself?”

  He shrugged again. Then he said, “Unless you want to come with me.” He glanced hopefully at Jessi.

  “I’m not much of a tennis player, and it’s the hottest time of the day,” Jessi replied. Then she said, “Don’t you want to play in the pool with us?”

  Stephen stopped. He lowered his head to stare at his feet again.

  Jessi stopped, too. But she didn’t say anything. She waited.

  “I-I can’t,” Stephen said, so softly Jessi almost couldn’t hear him.

  Jessi kept quiet.

  Stephen burst out, “I can’t! I can’t. I can’t.”

  “You can’t play in the pool with us?”

  Putting his hand up over his
mouth, as if he’d like to catch the words even as he spoke them, Stephen said very, very softly, “I can’t swim. I try and try and I keep sinking. I’m afraid I’ll drown.”

  So that was it.

  Stephen took his hand down from his mouth and looked at Jessi with panicked eyes. “You won’t tell, will you? I don’t want them to laugh at me!”

  “No one’s going to laugh at you,” said Jessi.

  “Yes, they will. And then they won’t be friends with me,” Stephen said. He looked as if he were about to cry.

  Gently, Jessi laid one hand on his shoulder. “I won’t tell. And they’ll never find out. Because I’m going to give you one of my super-duper special secret swimming lessons.”

  “Secret?”

  Lowering her voice and leaning forward, Jessi said, “Meet me by the pool steps at five forty-five after everyone has left. Deal?” She held out her hand.

  Stephen shrugged. But he held out his hand and shook hers. “Deal,” he whispered.

  * * *

  At 5:47, Stephen was hip-deep on the bottom step at the shallow end of the pool. Jessi handed him a kickboard. “Rest the upper half of your body on this,” she said. “And kick across the pool next to the wall here. You can’t sink because you have the kickboard. If you get scared, just put your feet down.”

  Stephen got scared, several times. But with Jessi’s encouragement, he kept going.

  At 6:01, he’d made it across without once putting his feet down.

  He looked more hopeful. He did it again. And again. And again.

  He did it so many times that it became easy — and a little boring.

  At 6:15 he said, “I want to try something else.”

  “Okay,” said Jessi.

  By the time the lesson was over, Stephen had managed to dog-paddle across the shallow end, next to the wall. Then Jessi showed him how to sink to the bottom of the shallow end and hold his breath.

  He floated to the top, every time.

  “When you fill up your lungs with air,” Jessi explained, “it’s like turning yourself into a big beach ball. And beach balls never stay underwater.”

  “Cool,” said Stephen.

  He’d clearly had lessons before. But somehow he’d just never been able to put together everything he’d learned.

  At 6:45, Jessi said, “We have to go.”

  “Will you give me another secret lesson? Tomorrow?” Stephen asked.

  “You bet,” said Jessi. “And you know what? If I give you two more secret lessons, I think you’ll be able to swim with everyone at the pool party.”

  Stephen thought about this. Then he nodded and grinned. “Me, too,” he said.

  For one thing, I wasn’t sure I believed her story about receiving a note to meet someone at the observation car. Maybe she had, maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d written the note herself. Maybe she’d written all the notes — including the ones in our programs — herself, to stir up a good story.

  But why would she throw someone from the train? And if she had, how could she have returned to the sleeping car so calmly? She hadn’t even been breathing hard.

  Everyone had been allowed to stay up late, and Derek had had to stay up extra late to do some publicity at the last scheduled stop for the evening. “I’m so sorry, Derek,” Anne said as she shepherded him out of the sleeping car, where everyone else was getting ready for bed. “But we’re running late.” She shot me a mean look. I glared back at her.

  I definitely didn’t like Anne now as much as I first had.

  Beside me, Abby murmured, “Didn’t someone say any publicity is good publicity? I think I’m going to keep an eye on her.”

  I whispered, “I think we all need to do a little post-bedtime detective work.”

  “Whatever you say, Agatha Kristy,” Abby replied, grinning, and I groaned.

  After everyone was in bed — including Derek — we’d had a quick emergency meeting with Stacey and agreed to get up extra early to search for clues. “Anne could be doing all this for publicity,” I said. “Or she and Rock could be in it together.”

  Stacey said, “Publicity stunts are one thing. But murder is a little extreme.”

  “What about Elle’s ex, the stuntman?” asked Abby. “He’s got some major motivation. Or Jane — she could have staged the whole thing.”

  True enough, I thought. Maybe that’s why she’d been so calm afterward. She’d had it all planned. We had plenty of suspects, but not enough clues.

  Which is why, while almost everyone else on the train was still in bed, I was in the dining car.

  Earlier, Jane had commandeered a booth in one corner of the car, where she could keep an eye on everyone who came and went. To make it clear that this was her place and no one else’s, she’d spread out paper and pens and even left her laptop on the white tablecloth in front of her place, turning the booth into a sort of makeshift office. But she wasn’t there now.

  I slid into the booth and sorted through the papers. And I found the note slid beneath Jane’s laptop: IF YOU WANT SOME REAL NEWS, MEET ME IN THE OBSERVATION CAR AT 8 PM SHARP. DON’T BE LATE.

  So she had received a note, I thought. A note typed exactly as all the other notes had been typed, on a small sheet of white paper.

  The laptop was still on, plugged into a special outlet and attached, I noted, to what looked like some kind of phone wire. Ms. Atlantic was ready to send a hot story in at a moment’s notice. If it was on, she was up already, and using it. She could return at any moment.

  Quickly, I touched a button and the screen saver, an Arrow logo, disappeared. I found myself staring at a schedule. I scanned it and saw that Ms. Atlantic’s appointments for the previous day did not include any kind of a meeting between seven and nine P.M.

  No alibi. Not that writing someone on your schedule is a good alibi.

  I stared at the screen. Maybe, I thought, Ms. Atlantic hadn’t received the note after all. Maybe she had sent it to the victim, and then grabbed it back after pushing him off the observation deck. She could have typed this note, and all the others, if her laptop had one of those built-in printers.

  I heard the sound of cutlery being sorted from the far end of the car and realized that the staff was about to start putting out place settings for breakfast. I leaped to my feet and made myself scarce.

  Abby was ready and waiting when Anne Arbour slipped out of her sleeping compartment that morning. Anne might have been an early riser, but Abby was earlier. She shadowed Anne to the club car.

  In a grumpy voice Anne demanded coffee, then slumped down over the cup. After a moment, she took out her pocket organizer and began to punch things into it.

  Abby asked for orange juice and smiled innocently at the publicist while she waited.

  Ms. Arbour frowned.

  This helped. Abby didn’t feel so bad about what she planned to do next.

  She returned to the sleeping car and slipped into Anne’s room. She was surprised to find the door unlocked — until she saw Anne’s room.

  The first big discovery? Anne Arbour was a major mess maker. Clothes, shoes, makeup, and papers were carelessly scattered everywhere. So it wasn’t surprising that she would forget to lock her door. After recovering from the shock, Abby decided that although the chaos would make checking out her room difficult, it would also mean that Arbour probably couldn’t tell if anyone had been there. So she didn’t use a lot of caution as she sifted through the debris.

  Abby then discovered that Anne was a compulsive list maker. Every scrap of paper seemed to be covered with lists: She found two packing lists, a list of books to read, a list of emergency phone numbers, a list of important birthdays, a list of names that I think were pet names (Bowers? Spotto? Whiskerkins?), and a list of stocks. She also turned up a coffee-stained copy of the script with the word FINAL stamped on the cover in black, and, finally, a printed timetable.

  Abby reasoned that since Anne spent valuable time logging things into her handheld organizer, she could be careless with thes
e other lists because they were just backup.

  The last list Abby found was actually not on the floor but wedged under a bottle of perfume on the edge of the sink. It was a list of guests on the train. It had a row of checks on it — and everybody was present and accounted for except one person. A reporter from New Jersey had been scratched off. In parentheses a note read, “Missed train!!!!”

  Other names were of reporters who had been granted “travel privileges.” They had been allowed to board at various points and ride the Mystery Train to conduct interviews and so forth, until reaching the next stop. But each reporter was checked off for both boarding and departure points.

  Jane Atlantic was the only reporter allowed on in Boston and scheduled not to depart until everyone else did, in Charleston.

  Abby frowned as ferociously as Arbour had earlier.

  Everyone was present and accounted for.

  Who had gone overboard? And where had the person come from? Was there — had there been — a stowaway on board?

  Abby stuffed the list back where she had found it and went back out into the corridor, more mystified than ever.

  A voice growled, “Leave it, leave it, leave it, willya?” The waiter didn’t knock again. He set the silver-domed tray down, lifted the lid briefly (to make sure it was just fruit, eggs, toast, bacon, and coffee, with no body parts), then walked away.

  Stacey leaped to the door, picked up the tray, and knocked softly again.

  “All right,” the voice grumbled.

  Benjamin Athens opened his door. He did not look good in the morning. He had a heavy beard, bags under his eyes, and — Stacey took a step back — bad breath.

  “Sleep well, sir?” Stacey asked, trying to sound like a waiter.

  She needn’t have bothered with the disguise. Benjamin said, “No. Trains make me seasick.” He took the tray, shoved a quarter into her hand, and closed the door.

  Stace looked at the quarter. A quarter? A quarter from a rich, famous guy like Benjamin?

  “Thanks,” she said, loudly and sarcastically. She shoved the quarter in her pocket and wondered if Elle knew what a cheap creep Benjamin was.