Death Deals a Hand

by Janet Dawson

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” Jill said. “This is Mr. Fontana. He’s been shot.”

  “I can see that. It looks like he’s lost a lot of blood.” Dr. Ranleigh leaned over Mr. Fontana, her fingers opening the robe and the pajama top to reveal Mr. Fontana’s chest. Now Jill could see the entry wound, just below the man’s heart. “It’s bad. This man needs a hospital. Can we get him back to Salt Lake City?”

  Before Jill could say anything, Mr. Dutton, the conductor, entered the drawing room, followed by Mr. Winston, the Pullman conductor, and Mr. Clark. “Miss McLeod, the porter says one of the passengers has been injured.”

  “He’s been shot,” Dr. Ranleigh said.

  Mr. Dutton looked aghast, momentarily at a loss for words. Then he narrowed his eyes and addressed the middle-aged woman at the bedside. “Who are you?”

  “Doctor Ella Ranleigh,” she said in a no-nonsense voice.

  “She’s a passenger from Denver,” Jill added. “I sent for her.”

  Mr. Dutton moved to the bed and stared down at Mr. Fontana. “Good God, what a mess. How bad is it?”

  “Very bad,” the doctor said. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital or he won’t survive.”

  On the bed Mr. Fontana moved again and his eyes opened. He grabbed Jill’s wrist, twisting it painfully as he tried again to speak. Then he sighed, the air leaving his lungs in a long, gusty exhale.

  That was the last sound he made.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jill loosened her hand from Mr. Fontana’s grip. “Too late. He’s gone.” She stepped away from the bed. Dr. Ranleigh reached for the man’s throat and felt for a pulse. The room was silent except for the familiar rhythm of wheels on rails.

  Then the doctor nodded. “He’s dead.”

  “Son of a bitch,” the conductor said. “Sorry, ladies. What happened? I want the whole story.”

  Jill raised a hand. “If I might suggest, sir. There are too many people in here. We should go to the lounge at the back of the car, where we won’t be heard by the passengers in the other bedrooms. Besides, we need to seal the drawing room and preserve whatever evidence is in here. For the murder investigation.”

  “Murder investigation.” The conductor shook his head and motioned to the others. “Yes, I guess it is. Mr. Winston, you’ve got the porter’s key. Lock that room. We’ll go back to the lounge.”

  The Pullman conductor nodded. They all walked back to the end of the car, which was dimly lit. Mr. Clark turned up the lights.

  “Who found him?” Mr. Dutton asked.

  “I did, sir,” the porter said. “After we left Salt Lake City, I went up to the Vista-Dome. I like to go up there after everyone’s gone to sleep, to look at the stars. It was quiet, everybody was in their berths, and there wasn’t a soul in the Dome or the lounge. Like I told Miss McLeod, I didn’t see anything or hear anything, certainly not a shot.”

  “What time was this?” Mr. Dutton asked.

  “I closed the buffet at ten,” Mr. Clark said. “That was right as we were getting into Salt Lake City. There wasn’t anyone else in the lounge. I finished cleaning up. I was done by the time we left Salt Lake. We left on time, so that was ten twenty-five. I went upstairs to the Vista-Dome. I like to look at the stars, when it’s good and dark and I can pick out the constellations. It took a little while for the train to get far enough out of town. I sat up there for a while, then I came downstairs. But I’m not sure what time it was. Maybe about eleven o’clock.”

  “And that’s when you found him?” Mr. Winston asked.

  The porter nodded. “Yes, sir, it is. I was headed toward my own compartment when I saw the door to the drawing room was open a bit, like someone shut it and it hadn’t latched. I looked in, and there was Mr. Fontana on the bed, lying on his side. I thought maybe he’d had too much to drink or been taken sick. You see, he was in the buffet earlier, drinking quite a bit. I’d say he was fairly drunk when he left the buffet and went to his room.”

  Mr. Clark paused and went on. “I looked in on him because the door was open. I called his name and he didn’t answer. He was breathing kind of strange. I didn’t like the sound of it. I figured he must have been taken sick for sure. So I went looking for Miss McLeod, asked her to bring the first-aid kit. I thought maybe she could help.” He stopped and shook his head. “I didn’t have any idea the man was shot. I didn’t see any blood. Guess that was because he was on his side. That, and the color of his robe.”

  Jill continued the story. “I went to bed after we left Salt Lake City. It was a few minutes after eleven when Mr. Clark came to my door. I came back to the car as soon as I got dressed. Mr. Fontana was on his right side. I moved closer, to see what was wrong with him. When I touched his shoulder, he rolled onto his back. That’s when I saw the blood and realized that he’d been shot. I sent Mr. Clark for the doctor, and you, Mr. Dutton.”

  The conductor consulted his watch. So did Jill. It was eleven-twenty now. The train was nearly an hour out of Salt Lake City.

  “This is a hell of a note,” the conductor said. “We’re in the middle of the Great Salt Desert and we’ve got a killer aboard.”

  “Back in December we had an incident, another murder,” Jill said.

  Mr. Dutton nodded. “I heard about that. You found the body.”

  Just like now, Jill thought. Though technically Mr. Clark found this body and Mr. Fontana wasn’t dead at the time.

  She got back to the situation at hand. “On that trip, we had someone aboard who had been a military police investigator. He took lots of pictures of the crime scene. We need to do that now.”

  “One of the passengers surely has a camera,” the conductor said.

  “I’m no photographer,” Dr. Ranleigh said, picking up her medical bag. “But my niece is. She has a camera back in our compartment. I’ll get her.”

  Mr. Dutton frowned. “You sure she’ll be all right, taking pictures of a body?”

  “Of course.” The doctor swept past him.

  “We have an investigator aboard the train,” Jill said. “My uncle is a retired Denver police detective. He’s traveling in bedroom C of the Silver Quail.”

  “Fine. Please get him.” The conductor ran a hand over his jaw. “We’ll have to make an unscheduled stop in Wendover. That’s another hour from here, maybe more. Right now we’ll have to stop the train and let the brakeman tap into a telegraph wire to report this to Dispatch.”

  He turned to the Pullman conductor. “Mr. Winston, when the doctor gets back with her niece and that camera, have them wait until the detective gets here. He can tell them what pictures she should take.”

  Jill and the conductor walked forward through the sleeper cars. In the Silver Quail, they passed the porter’s seat, where Joe Backus was sleeping. He woke up, startled to see them. He spoke to Jill in a whisper. “Miss McLeod, what are you doing up so late? Is there a problem?”

  “Yes,” Jill said. “In another car.”

  Mr. Dutton kept walking forward, going in search of the brakeman. Jill stopped at the door to bedroom C. She knocked. No answer. She knocked again. “Uncle Sean? Wake up, please.”

  The door opened and he peered out, bleary-eyed with sleep. “Jill? What’s the matter?”

  “We need you in the dome-observation car. There’s been a murder.”

  “What?” He shook himself and the sleepy look disappeared. “Who?”

  “Mr. Fontana.”

  While her uncle was digesting this news, another door opened toward the front of the car. Dr. Ranleigh stepped into the corridor, followed by Rachel, both of them in bathrobes. Rachel carried the camera case.

  As they reached Jill, she said in a low voice, “This is Doctor Ranleigh and her niece Rachel, who’s a photographer. They’re going to take pictures.”

  “Wait for me before you do that. I’ll get dressed and be right there.” He closed the door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

  Sean Cl
eary stood in the doorway of the drawing room, his mouth twisted in a bitter smile as he looked at the body on the bed.

  “You knew Mr. Fontana?” Dr. Ranleigh asked.

  “Our paths crossed, years ago. I even arrested him a time or two.”

  The doctor and Rachel were in the corridor. Now the doctor said, “Really? I understood that Mr. Fontana was a businessman from Chicago, a liquor distributor.”

  Sean laughed. “Oh, he distributed liquor, all right. He was a bootlegger.”

  “Prohibition was repealed nearly twenty years ago,” Dr. Ranleigh said. “Even if he was a bootlegger back then, he was a legitimate businessman now.”

  Sean didn’t look convinced. “That depends on how you ­define legitimate, Doctor. Well, Miss Ranleigh, let’s take those pictures.”

  Jill stepped aside as the others entered the drawing room. Rachel took a quick breath at the sight of the corpse, then she fought down the shock and raised her camera. With Sean’s direction, she took the first photo, shutter clicking, flashbulb flooding the drawing room with light.

  Jill looked at Mr. Clark and Mr. Winston. “We’re in the way here.”

  In the lounge at the rear of the dome-observation car, the Pullman conductor and the porter conferred in low tones. Jill paced between the chairs, going over things in her mind, moving people around like pieces on a chessboard. When she had come back here to the Silver Crescent, after the train left Provo, she’d found Doug and Miss Larch in the corridor, kissing. Then they’d gone into Miss Larch’s bedroom. Mr. Fontana and Mr. Geddes had been in the buffet. Then Geddes left. Then Fontana left the buffet, followed by the two women who’d been playing cards. Back here in the lounge there had been three people—Rachel Ranleigh, Cora Grant, and Avis Margate. Rachel had been the first to leave, carrying the book she’d been reading and saying she was going to bed. Jill had left after that, with both Miss Grant and Miss Margate still here in the lounge. What time had they left? Perhaps Mr. Clark could tell her.

  Jill looked up as Rachel, the doctor and Sean joined the others in the lounge. Rachel had finished photographing the scene. Now she removed the roll of film from her camera and handed it to Sean.

  “I’ll lock the drawing room,” Mr. Winston said. The Pullman conductor walked forward, heading for the corridor in front of the bedrooms.

  “Where’s the conductor?” Sean asked.

  “He went forward, to get the brakeman,” Jill said. “They’ll stop the train and send a message to Dispatch.”

  Even as Jill said the words, the California Zephyr slowed, coming to a gradual stop. It would take a few minutes for the brakeman to climb a telegraph pole next to the tracks and tap into the telegraph wires to send a Morse code message, and a few minutes more to get a response.

  Sean looked at Jill. “So the porter found him and came to get you. Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

  Jill and Mr. Clark repeated their stories, each of them answering questions from her uncle during the telling. As they were talking, the train started moving again. But Jill noticed that the California Zephyr wasn’t traveling as fast as it had been before. Was there a problem up the line?

  A few minutes later, the conductor arrived, a troubled frown on his face. He held out his hand to Sean. “Bill Dutton, the conductor. You must be the detective.”

  “Sean Cleary. I retired last year, after thirty years on the Denver police force. My niece and the porter were just telling me how they found the body.”

  “Cleary,” Mr. Dutton said. “Did you have some sort of confrontation with Mr. Fontana in the lounge car earlier this evening? The last conductor told me it was a passenger named Cleary, when he briefed me in Salt Lake City.”

  “That was my son Douglas,” Sean said. “He was upset about something Fontana said to the young lady Doug was with.”

  “I see,” the conductor said. “So you’ve taken photographs of the scene?”

  Sean nodded. “Miss Ranleigh took the pictures. She’s given me the roll of film. My niece tells me the train is going to stop in Wendover. We can turn the film over to whoever’s going to handle the case.”

  “The brakeman sent a message to Dispatch,” Mr. Dutton said. “And we got a response. The dispatcher is contacting the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office. We’ve been in that county since we started across the Great Salt Desert. But there’s a problem. A freight train derailed east of Wendover and there’s some damage to the tracks. Dispatch isn’t sure how long it’s going to take to get that cleaned up. That’s why the train is moving so slowly. It will take us longer than expected to get to Wendover.”

  Jill turned to her uncle. “You said you’d crossed paths with Mr. Fontana in the past, and you’d even arrested him. Can you give us some background?”

  Mr. Dutton nodded. “Mr. Fontana has a criminal record? I would like to hear about that.”

  “Might as well sit down,” Sean said. He sat down in one of the lounge chairs, leaning forward as he talked. “Fontana was born in Walsenburg, in southern Colorado. It’s coal country. His parents were immigrants from Italy. A lot of Italians that came over to this country around the turn of the century wound up working in the coal mines in that part of the state, places like Walsenburg, Trinidad, Pueblo. And Ludlow, where those people were killed during that coal miners’ strike back in nineteen-fourteen.”

  He paused and ran a hand through his unruly gray hair. “Right after World War One, Fontana went to work for the Pueblo mob. First the Danna brothers, then the Carlinos. Both of those families, and their gangs, were hijacking stills and trucks, and killing each other over their bootlegging operations. The Carlinos won, if you can call it that. They killed off both the Danna brothers.”

  “Good Lord, what an unpleasant bunch of people,” the conductor said.

  “Unpleasant doesn’t cover it. All through the twenties, Fontana was running hooch and holding up stills in southern Colorado. Then he moved to Denver and joined up with the Joe Roma outfit. After Roma was gunned down in ’thirty-one, a couple of guys named Charlie Blanda and Joe Spinnuzi were in charge. Then the Smaldones took over the Denver crime operation.”

  “The Smaldones,” Dr. Ranleigh said, nodding. “Three brothers, I believe, and various cousins and nephews. I’ve read about their escapades in the Denver newspapers. One of them was arrested in a gambling raid several years ago.”

  “More than one. And more than once,” Sean said. “Clyde and Eugene Smaldone are the older brothers. They call Clyde ‘Flip Flop,’ and Eugene’s nickname is ‘Checkers.’ Clarence is about twenty years younger than his brothers. His nickname’s ‘Chauncey,’ and he’s just as bad. All three of them have done time, for all sorts of crimes. The Smaldones run gambling operations all over northern Colorado. Liquor is legal now, but that just means the bad guys who used to sell booze and hijack stills moved into other things, like gambling, bookmaking, and loan-sharking. Vic Fontana may have called himself a legitimate businessman these days, but back then he was a hood. With his track record, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved in illegal operations in Chicago.”

  “He may have been. At least there were rumors about that.” Jill looked at the porter. “Mr. Clark, please tell Mr. Cleary what you told me.”

  The porter looked reluctant to say anything. But he finally nodded. “I’m from Chicago, and I’ve heard talk about Mr. Fontana. Heard that he was a bootlegger way back when. And that he was involved in the policy game.”

  “Numbers racket,” Sean said. “Gambling. That’s interesting, but not surprising. Once a hood, always a hood.”

  Mr. Dutton cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, Mr. Fontana is dead now. He’s been murdered, and whoever killed him is aboard this train. My train, the one I’m responsible for. Mr. Cleary, I need you to set aside your personal feelings about this man and take a look at this crime. It would help the sheriff’s ­office in Wendover if we could report some progress when we get there.”

  Uncle Sean met the conductor’s gaze before
answering. “I’ll do what I can.” He turned to Dr. Ranleigh. “Doctor, any ideas as to the gun?”

  Ella Ranleigh shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t be sure. Not until there’s an autopsy and the bullet has been extracted. I see one entry wound. Close range, of course. And it looks like the pillow was used to muffle the noise of the shot.”

  “I would guess that Fontana was carrying a gun,” Sean said. “He always did in the past.”

  “Assuming he was carrying a weapon,” the doctor said, “do you think someone else could have gotten it away from him and shot him?”

  “Possible. It’s also possible someone on the train had a gun and came looking for him. We have to explore all the avenues. And find out whether any of the other passengers is carrying a gun.”

  Pamela Larch, Jill thought. Miss Larch had a gun, tucked in her train case. And Miss Larch knew how to use it, or so she said. Though she claimed she always left the gun unloaded and simply carried it at her brother’s insistence.

  Would she have shot Victor Fontana? He had bought her a drink the first night out, and tonight, when he wanted to do the same thing, that had led to the quarrel with Doug, who’d come to Miss Larch’s rescue, like a gallant knight. But try as she might, Jill couldn’t reconcile the picture of the young woman from Mississippi, who seemed to be quite taken with Doug, shooting Mr. Fontana because of his unwanted attentions.

  Who else would have a reason to be angry with Victor ­Fontana? Who would be angry enough to kill him? Jill turned the questions over in her mind. Was Fontana’s murder the result of something that had happened during the current journey? Or did it have something to do with Fontana himself, something that had happened in the past?

  “Anyone could be carrying a gun,” the conductor said. “We don’t check people’s luggage before they board. We just expect the passengers to behave with common sense and not shoot each other.”

  Mr. Winston, the Pullman conductor, harrumphed. “If you’ll excuse my saying so, Mr. Dutton, the porters have seen many passengers behave without a shred of common sense. Of course, usually they don’t talk about it.”