The Ghost in Roomette Four

by Janet Dawson

  Later in the afternoon, when she had walked past the roomette, Mr. Randall had his glasses off. Without the spectacles, his face looked exhausted, drawn, as though he was under some sort of strain. He was rubbing his temples. A headache, perhaps. She was about to offer him some aspirin from the first-aid kit in her quarters. Before she could say anything, he took a small bottle from his pocket and removed the cap. He shook a couple of pills into his hand and popped them into his mouth.

  Then he put on his glasses and looked up, as though startled to see her. “Didn’t see you standing there, Miss McLeod. I’m as blind as a bat without my glasses.”

  “Are you all right, Mr. Randall?” she asked. “Can I get you anything?”

  He shook his head and managed a smile. “No, thanks. Just a little tired. I’ve had a couple of long days on this trip. I’ll be glad to get home.” He gestured at the papers. “I’ve got to finish what I’m doing, though. It’s important.”

  Now he was asleep. Those long days had caught up with him. His neatly folded suit coat was in the open briefcase on the floor.

  Jill knocked on the bulkhead. “Mr. Randall, we’ll be at the Oakland Mole in a few minutes.” He didn’t respond. “Mr. Randall?”

  She moved closer and called his name again. The train eased around a curve and Mr. Randall slumped to one side. His glasses slipped off his nose and fell to the floor as his head thumped against the window. Alarmed, Jill leaned forward and touched his hand. It was cold. She reached for his wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none. Then her fingers moved to the man’s neck, searching again for a pulse. Again she felt nothing.

  “We’re coming into the Mole, Miss McLeod.” She looked up at the porter. He frowned when he saw her face. “What is it?”

  “Mr. Randall. He’s dead.” She stepped back, feeling a pang of sadness. He was so young, and he had seemed like such a pleasant man.

  Now Frank Nathan moved into the doorway and leaned over. He, too, felt Mr. Randall’s wrist. He shook his head as he straightened, confirming what Jill already know. “He’s dead, all right.” The porter looked past her as the train slowed, coming into the Mole. “We’re here, and I’ve got to get these passengers off.”

  “Go ahead,” Jill said. “As soon as they’re off, I’ll find the conductor.”

  Frank moved quickly to the vestibule, straightening his cap and his jacket. Jill reached for the roomette’s door, intending to shut it so the other passengers couldn’t see the body. Then she noticed something on the floor, just the other side of the open briefcase. It was the bottle she’d seen earlier, when Mr. Randall took those pills. But now she realized it didn’t have the rounded shape or the brown metal cap she associated with a Bayer aspirin bottle. The cylindrical glass bottle had a plastic cap and a label from an Oakland pharmacy. She read the typed words below the patient’s name.

  Digoxin. Jill’s father was a doctor. She knew that Digoxin was digitalis. It was prescribed for people who had heart conditions. That’s all she knew, though. She shook her head. Poor Mr. Randall. He had appeared to be in good health. Except… She remembered how he had looked earlier in the afternoon. He had mentioned how tired he was. And he’d taken two of these pills. Perhaps he wasn’t in good health after all.

  As she straightened, her hand caught the edge of Mr. Randall’s suit coat and pulled it away from the briefcase. She glanced at the contents underneath. Funny, she didn’t see the ledger or notebook he’d been working on. The train was slowing for its arrival at the Mole. She pushed the coat back to its place in the briefcase and backed out of the roomette, shutting the door.

  When the train stopped, Frank Nathan unlocked the doors and lowered the steps, setting the step box on the ground. He helped Mrs. Wolfe down to the platform and pointed her toward the ferry. Once the other passengers had gotten off the train, Jill stepped down to the platform and looked for the conductor, Mr. Bailey. The big, gray-haired man was standing up by the dining car, talking with the brakeman, Carl Loring. She hurried toward them.

  When he saw her, Mr. Bailey raised the watch he held in his hand, the gold links on the chain glittering in the late afternoon sun. “Miss McLeod, back at home in Oakland. An on-time arrival after another uneventful journey.”

  “Not entirely uneventful,” Jill said. “I’m afraid one of the passengers is dead. He’s in roomette four on the Silver Gorge.”

  “Good Lord.” The conductor slipped the watch into his vest pocket and turned to the brakeman. “Carl, get a doctor and an ambulance. I’ll go with Miss McLeod and see for myself.”

  The brakeman took off, heading for the Mole, while Jill and the conductor walked to the sleeper car and boarded. The conductor surveyed the scene inside the roomette, shaking his head. The doctor and the ambulance arrived a short time later.

  The doctor checked Mr. Randall’s body, then he picked up the prescription bottle and examined the label. “Well, a prescription for Digoxin tells me he had a heart condition of some sort.”

  “That’s digitalis, right? For the heart?” The conductor, standing in the passageway, held Mr. Randall’s wallet. “His driver’s license says he’s thirty-one years old. That’s awfully young to have a heart attack.”

  The doctor shrugged. “This wasn’t a heart attack. That’s different. This man probably had a weak heart, due to some underlying medical condition, even as young as he was. So I would guess this is heart failure.”

  Jill gestured at the prescription bottle. “I saw him take a couple of pills from this bottle. Earlier in the afternoon. I thought at the time he was taking aspirin, for a headache. But once I saw the bottle—”

  “He probably took too much.” The doctor shook the bottle and the remaining pills rattled against the glass. “An overdose of Digoxin can be fatal. It happens from time to time. Patients forget how many pills they take, or they take too many in a short time. We’ll transport the body to the coroner’s office for an autopsy. I’ll hand the pills over to the coroner’s office as well, just to make sure this is really Digoxin. The medical examiner will determine the cause of death.”

  “We need to notify his next of kin,” Jill said. She turned to the conductor. “Is there a business card in his wallet? Or his briefcase? He got on the train in Portola and he told me he’d been on a business trip, that he was returning home to Oakland.”

  Mr. Bailey rifled through the wallet. “Yes, here’s a business card. Kevin Randall, Financial Department, Vennor Corporation. It’s on Broadway here in Oakland. And here’s a picture of a woman.”

  Jill peered at the photograph. It showed a young woman with dark brown hair in an ear-length bob, swept away from her oval face, wearing a pale yellow dress. She was quite pretty and Jill felt a pang for her. Was she Mr. Randall’s sister? A girlfriend? Either way, she was going to get some bad news. Jill, who had lost her fiancé in Korea three years ago, knew how awful that news would be.

  “If you don’t mind,” the doctor said, “we need to get this body out of here and into the ambulance.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Bailey gave the wallet, the photo and the business card to Jill. He picked up the briefcase and lifted Mr. Randall’s suitcase from the rack, handing it to the porter who was waiting in the corridor. “Miss McLeod and Mr. Nathan, take these things to the office. It’s after five but we can certainly call this Vennor Corporation and see if anyone is at Mr. Randall’s place of business.”

  Jill followed Frank Nathan off the car. From the vestibule, the doctor beckoned to the two attendants who waited by the ambulance parked on the platform. Most of the passengers had left the Mole, by car, by bus, or on the ferry that was now heading toward San Francisco, dwarfed by the pilings of the Bay Bridge. The dining car crew, cooks and waiters, was unloading supplies and the baggage man was steering a cart with several boxes on it toward a truck. A couple of Red Caps, one of them seated on a battered wooden chair, shared a bottle of Coca-Cola and talked.

  Frank Nathan was already walking into the Mole, carrying Mr. Randall’s suitc
ase and briefcase. Jill followed but she’d only taken a few steps when she heard a woman’s voice. “Pardon me, miss.”

  Jill turned and her stomach lurched. She looked down at the photograph in her right hand, where she held the business card and the wallet. Then she looked up again. The young woman in the picture now stood in front of Jill, the same dark hair and oval face, a slim figure in a wide-skirted dress of green and white piqué, with a small white handbag that matched her shoes. A diamond engagement ring sparkled on her left hand.

  “I’m here to meet a passenger. I’m afraid I’m late.” The woman smiled. “I don’t see him anywhere. Maybe he got tired of waiting for me, and took a cab.”

  “What’s the passenger’s name?” Jill asked, dreading the answer.

  “Kevin Randall,” the woman said.

  Jill took a deep breath. “Miss— What is your name?”

  “Margaret Vennor.”

  Jill hesitated, unsure of how to break the news. “Miss Vennor, I’m afraid…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “It appears Mr. Randall was taken ill.” There was just no getting around it. Jill signed and began again. “I am very sorry to tell you that Mr. Randall has passed away.”

  The young woman looked at her as though Jill had suddenly sprouted wings and a tail. Then she turned her head and took in the sight of the ambulance on the platform, its rear doors open to reveal the interior. She swayed. Jill reached for her. The Red Cap who’d been sitting jumped up and lifted the chair. Together he and Jill got Miss Vennor seated on it.

  Now Margaret Vennor began to cry, harsh sobs shaking her body as tears ran down her face. Jill held her hand. “Is there someone I can call? Someone who can come and be with you?”

  The young woman reached into her handbag for a handkerchief and used it to blot her eyes. She took several deep, ragged breaths and fought to control her tears. “My aunt, Helen Vennor. In Oakland.” She rattled off a phone number and Jill wrote it in her notebook.

  The doctor and conductor appeared on the vestibule. Jill waved at Mr. Bailey, who stepped down to the platform and quickly joined them. “Sir, this is Miss Vennor. She’s here to meet Mr. Randall. I’ve broken the news to her. She’s given me her aunt’s phone number.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” the conductor said. “Go to the office and make that call.”

  As Jill moved away, one of the ambulance attendants came into view, holding one end of a stretcher. The conductor took Miss Vennor’s hand and moved so as to block the young woman’s view of the stretcher and the ambulance. “If you’ll come with me, Miss Vennor. We’ll go to the office where you’ll be more comfortable.”

  In the office, the conductor pulled out a chair and steered Margaret Vennor toward it. Jill moved to the nearest phone. She glanced at her notebook, then dialed the number. The line rang twice, then a woman answered.

  “Mrs. Vennor? My name is Jill McLeod. I’m here at the Oakland Mole with your niece Margaret. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Chapter Three

  Jill woke when the train reached Salt Lake City at 5:20 a.m. She sat up in bed and turned, raising onto her knees, so she could look out the small window above her pillow. On the platform she saw a tall man in a business suit, holding a suitcase in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He had black horn-rimmed glasses, just like Mr. Randall.

  Again she thought back to that day when she’d found his body. Poor Miss Vennor. She’d waited with the young woman until her aunt had arrived. Then Jill had finished her trip report, adding the information about Mr. Randall. After she submitted it, she called home. Her younger sister, Lucy, drove to Oakland in the family car to pick her up. Later, she had inquired at Western Pacific headquarters, and was told that the Alameda County Coroner’s Office would do an autopsy. She never heard anything else about the incident. Life moved on and she hadn’t thought much about it since, until Mr. Doolin’s words last night brought it all back. Now she recalled Miss Vennor’s stricken face when Jill told her that her fiancé was dead.

  A ghost. Surely not. But Jill wasn’t the only one who had seen something strange outside roomette four, according to Mr. Doolin. She would talk with the porter again, to find out what he’d seen—and heard.

  The California Zephyr would sit here in the Salt Lake City station for twenty minutes before leaving at 5:40 a.m. This was a crew change stop as well as an equipment change. The three Western Pacific locomotives that had pulled the train over the Sierra Nevada mountain range and across the Great Basin were exchanged for five Denver & Rio Grande Western diesels. The extra engines were needed to pull the California Zephyr over the Rocky Mountains. Jill snuggled back under the covers. Sleep overtook her in a few minutes. She woke again when the CZ reached Provo at 6:32 a.m. Might as well get up, she thought. As the train pulled out of the station after its brief stop, she got out of bed and pulled the sink down from the wall. A shower would have to wait until she reached Chicago. She made do with a sink bath, put on her uniform, and headed for the dining car.

  The diner no longer had a ghostly look. Several other early risers occupied tables, drinking coffee or looking at menus. The dining car steward, Mr. Tallent, stood at the curved counter in the middle of the car, greeting her with a cheery, “Good morning, Miss McLeod. Take any seat you like.”

  Behind the steward, the kitchen with its shiny stainless steel counters and cabinets vibrated with activity; the white-uniformed cooks moved about, juggling pots, pans, and serving pieces. In addition to the steward, chef and three cooks, the dining car was staffed by six waiters. Jill settled into a window seat at a table for four. In addition to the crisp white cloth, the table bore thick white napkins and was set with heavy silverware and china bearing the violets-and-daisies pattern. Each table held a full water bottle, a bud vase with a fresh carnation, and a heavy silver stand that held the menu and the meal checks, which passengers used to mark their menu choices.

  A white-coated waiter appeared with a silver-plated coffeepot. “Good morning, Mr. Lewis,” Jill said as he poured her first cup and set the pot on the table.

  “Good morning, Miss McLeod.” The waiter had traveled with her before and he knew what she was going to have, even as she reached to mark the meal check. “French toast,” he said with a smile. “Bacon, crisp, not burned. We’ve got you covered, Miss McLeod.”

  Jill poured cream in her coffee and sipped, relishing the first jolt of caffeine. The dining room was filling up and a moment later, an older couple joined her at the table. She had met Mr. and Mrs. Patterson the day before when they boarded the train in Sacramento. They were traveling in one of the sleeper cars, headed for Omaha, Nebraska and a visit with their son and his family.

  “Did you sleep well?” Jill asked as the waiter brought more coffee.

  “Oh, yes, we always do on the train,” Mrs. Patterson said, stirring sugar into her cup. Mr. Patterson pulled the menu from its stand. “What are you having for breakfast, Miss McLeod?”

  “I’m partial to the French toast.”

  “And I’m partial to corned beef hash and eggs,” Mr. Patterson declared, handing the menu to his wife.

  Mrs. Patterson perused the offerings. “That’s a bit heavy for me. I think the poached eggs on an English muffin sounds good.”

  They marked their menu checks, which were collected by Mr. Lewis, who had returned with Jill’s breakfast. A fourth person joined them at the table, a man who introduced himself as Mr. Dayton, from Elko, Nevada. He was traveling in coach, heading for Grand Junction, Colorado. After he ordered an omelet, the four of them talked. Mrs. Patterson was looking forward to seeing the spectacular scenery as the train went over the Rocky Mountains. Since it was July, it would be light later in the evening, which meant the passengers would be able to get a good look at Gore and Byers canyons, deep in the mountains. Both canyons were carved by the Colorado River, and the train would run alongside the river for over two hundred miles.

  Jill looked out the window and saw that the train was nearing Soldier
Summit, a pass in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. She excused herself and got up from the table, moving to the train’s public address system, located near the dining car steward’s counter. She picked up the mike and began her first announcement of the day, telling passengers about some of the sights they’d see on this second day out. That done, she hung up the mike and headed forward through the train, to start the first of many walks through the CZ. She walked all the way to the first passenger car.

  The consist—the railroad term for the list of cars that made up the train—began with the powerful locomotives that pulled the train. Immediately in back of these was the baggage car, the Silver Coyote, followed by three chair cars for coach passengers, each with a coach attendant to see to the passengers’ needs, and each with a Vista-Dome, an upper-level compartment rising from the car’s roof, with seating for coach passengers. Curved glass formed the front, rear and side walls of the Dome, providing unparalleled views of the scenery, for which the California Zephyr was famous. “Look up, look down, look all around,” was the line used in the CZ’s advertising. Under the dome was a depressed floor, lower than the rest of the car, with steps leading down to the men’s and women’s washrooms.

  On this trip, the chair cars were the Silver Dollar, the Silver Rifle, and the Silver Bronco. Next came the Silver Roundup, the buffet-lounge car where Jill’s compartment was located, and then the Silver Banquet, the dining car. At the rear of the train were the Pullman cars—the six-five sleeper, the Silver Crane; the ten-six sleeper, the Silver Gorge; and the Silver Larch, the sixteen-section Pullman, where at night seats were converted into upper and lower berths. Then came the transcontinental sleeper, another ten-six car called the Silver Rapids. This car would be detached from the train when it reached Chicago, then attached to a train from the Pennsylvania Railroad, its ultimate destination New York City. The very last car on the train was the dome-observation car, the Silver Horizon, which had four Pullman accommodations, a buffet that served food and drink, and an observation lounge. Above the café was another Vista-Dome.