The Ghost in Roomette Four

by Janet Dawson

  “There was a new passenger in roomette four the second night out,” Jill said. “The next morning, she told me she had trouble sleeping, because she heard voices during the night. She said it sounded like two men arguing. I supposed it could have been two passengers. But the porter didn’t hear anyone, and the people in the roomettes around her were woman.”

  Margaret’s eyes sparked with interest. “Could she hear what those voices were saying?”

  “No. But they were loud enough to wake her.” Jill shook her head. “The more I tell you, the crazier it sounds. But I saw and heard something strange and eerie. Something I can’t explain.”

  “Ghost stories,” Margaret said. “How very odd.”

  They sat in silence for a moment as a man and a woman approached, walking slowly along the path, holding hands and laughing at some joke shared just between themselves. Margaret looked at them, as though seeing two other people, herself and Kevin Randall. When they had passed, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a small photo album bound in honey-colored leather. She didn’t open it right away. “Let me tell you about Kevin. He was born right here in Oakland and he went to school at the university in Berkeley. Just as you and I did. Yes, I went to Cal, the same time as you did, since I suspect we’re the same age.”

  “I’m twenty-six,” Jill said. “Class of nineteen fifty. I have a degree in history.”

  “Same here, but I majored in English literature. So we were on campus at the same time,” Margaret said. “Kevin majored in business at Cal. He would have graduated in nineteen forty-four, if it hadn’t been for the war. He finished his degree in ’forty-seven and went to work for a company in San Francisco. Then three years ago, he took a job in the financial department of my uncle’s company. We met two years ago this month. Every summer, Aunt Helen and Uncle Dan give a party. They invite their friends and Uncle Dan invites people from his company. Kevin was there. We talked and discovered that we had so much in common. He asked me out that afternoon. We dated for a year, and last fall he asked me to marry him. Our plan was to get married this summer,” Margaret added, her face shadowed.

  “Mr. Randall was thirty-one, according to his driver’s license,” Jill said. “That’s very young for someone to have a heart condition.”

  Margaret nodded. “Kevin had rheumatic fever when he was a child. It weakened his heart. He was four-F during the war, because of it. Although he served in other ways. He worked in the Red Cross Administration Corps during the war, and didn’t go back to college until the war was over.”

  “Who else knew about his heart?” Jill asked. “If he was murdered, whoever did it had to know about his heart condition.”

  “He never made a secret of it. But he didn’t broadcast it either. He told me about it, not long after we met. Here, I’ll show you some pictures of Kevin.” Margaret opened the album that she had been holding in her lap. Her index finger traced a line around the edge of the first photo. “My friend Alice took this picture. The four of us—Alice and her husband, Will, Kevin and I—were on a picnic at Tilden Park, near the Botanic Gardens,” she added, mentioning the large regional park in the hills above Berkeley.

  Jill leaned closer and looked at the snapshot. She remembered Kevin Randall as she’d seen him on the train two months ago, in a gray pinstriped business suit, white shirt and tie. Here he wore dungarees and a short-sleeved shirt, his arm around Margaret, who was dressed in a blouse and full skirt. They sat at a table that had been spread with a checked cloth, a basket at one end of the table. Margaret turned the page. The next picture showed Margaret and Kevin in more formal dress, standing with an older couple on a patio that had been decorated with flowers and streamers.

  “That’s my Aunt Helen and my Uncle Dan,” Margaret said. “Uncle Dan is my father’s younger brother.”

  She kept flipping through the photographs in the album, pointing out her cousins, Chuck and Betty, who were younger, still in their teens. Most of the pictures, though, showed Margaret, Kevin, or the couple together. Here were several shots taken at Margaret’s engagement party, held at the nearby Bellevue Club, which looked out at Lake Merritt. In the photo, Margaret wore a deep pink taffeta dress with a draped neckline and a bow at her waist.

  “He gave me an engagement ring last fall,” Margaret said, touching the ring that now hung from the chain on her neck. Margaret lingered over the photos of the party, then she turned the page. Here was a picture of the engaged couple standing arm in arm at the end of a California Zephyr dome-observation car.

  “That’s the Silver Solarium,” Jill said.

  “Yes, it is. We rode the Zephyr to Colorado last year, with Uncle Dan and Aunt Helen. They have friends in Glenwood Springs. We stayed at that beautiful old Hotel Colorado, the big sandstone building that overlooks the hot springs and the river. A few months later, we took the City of San Francisco to Truckee. Kevin loved trains. He particularly liked the Coast Daylight, because it runs with steam engines instead of diesel.”

  “Then he’d know train signals,” Jill said, a speculative look on her face.

  “You mean the warning whistles the engineer blows? Yes, he did. He explained them to me.”

  “How about Morse Code?”

  “Yes, he did. He mentioned it once. Said he learned it in the Boy Scouts. Why do you ask?”

  “Those four taps that I heard in roomette four,” Jill said. “I was talking with a friend yesterday, about the possible ghost. I wondered about those four taps I heard. I told her it might be a train signal. Four short blasts on the whistle means a request for a signal to be given, or repeated.”

  Margaret tapped her finger on the photo album. “What would four short taps be in Morse Code?”

  “I looked it up. It’s the letter H.”

  “That’s very interesting.”

  “Did Kevin know someone whose first or last name started with an H?” Jill asked.

  “I expect he did. We all know someone with an H in their name.”

  “You must have some theories about who killed Kevin. Tell me what you know.”

  “I don’t know much,” Margaret said. “I just have suspicions. Right before he died, Kevin seemed preoccupied, worried. When I asked him what was wrong, he put me off. He said it was business and he’d sort it out himself. He’d gotten a promotion a few months before, more responsibility. He was very conscientious and always wanted to do his best.”

  “What exactly did he do for your uncle’s company?”

  “My uncle’s firm is growing,” Margaret said. “Over the past couple of years, he has been buying smaller companies. All sorts of companies, manufacturing, retail, shipping. Once they are under the big company umbrella, Uncle Dan and his executives go over their operations. Kevin’s job involved reviewing business procedures and finances for several of those companies. When he went out of town, as he did a few times a month, he’d go to wherever that company was headquartered, to meet with the people in charge. He would look at their books, make recommendations, then report back to his supervisor. He traveled all over this part of California.”

  Jill thought for a moment. “He got on the train in Portola and told me he was on a business trip. He must have been visiting a company in Plumas County. I wonder, what sort of company, and where it’s located? In that part of the Sierra Nevada, it could be mining, I suppose, or lumber. And it’s a big county. Did Kevin ever mention any details? My theory is that something was going on with one of those companies. He never told you anything more specific about what was bothering him?”

  Margaret shook her head. “No. I wish he had. That would give me something to go on. All I remember is Kevin saying he needed to have a serious talk with Uncle Dan when he got back from this particular trip. Instead, you found him dead in his roomette. Jill, I’m sure he found something off at that company, wherever and whatever it was. He must have been killed to prevent him from revealing whatever he found out.”

  Jill leaned back on the park bench. “If that’s true, ho
w do we prove it?”

  Margaret shut the photo album and put it in her bag. “I’ll start riding the train back and forth to Portola,” she said, her voice frustrated. “If Kevin’s ghost is haunting the California Zephyr, maybe he’ll tell me what happened.”

  “You might have to ride the train farther than Portola,” Jill said, “if the ghost only haunts the roomette at night. And if it only haunts roomette four on the Silver Gorge, you’d have to made sure that car is on the consist, traveling on that particular train. Seriously, Margaret, doing something like that makes people think you’re unable to get past Kevin’s death, that you’re taking grief too far.”

  Margaret tightened her lips. “I am having a hard time getting over Kevin’s death. My aunt and uncle are understanding, of course, but other friends and relatives tell me I have to move on and stop dwelling on it. I know they mean well, but I have difficulty with that. I have to grieve in my own way, and in my own good time. I know he was murdered. I don’t tell people that, of course. I’m sure they’d look at me like I’m crazy. But you don’t. You believe me, don’t you?”

  Jill nodded. “I do.”

  “So I don’t really care what people think. I can’t move on until I find out who killed him.”

  “I understand,” Jill said, remembering those weeks after her fiancé had died. “There’s always a séance.” Suddenly Tidsy’s crazy idea of the day before sounded as though it might be useful. “It’s not really my idea. A friend of mine came up with it, when she and I were having lunch yesterday. Grace Tidsdale. She knows your aunt.”

  “She does. My aunt calls her Tidsy. They’ve known each other since college, according to Aunt Helen. A séance?” Now Margaret looked thoughtful as she considered the idea.

  “I told her yesterday I thought it sounded ridiculous.”

  “Maybe not,” Margaret said. “At this point, I’m willing to try anything, if it will help me find out who killed Kevin.”

  Chapter Nine

  When Jill returned home after her meeting with ­Margaret Vennor, she changed clothes, hanging the sundress in the closet. She put on an older shirt and a comfortable pair of worn dungarees, suitable for digging in the dirt. She had promised to help her mother, who was pulling weeds in the backyard garden. First, though, she called Tidsy, from the upstairs phone extension, just in case someone might overhear.

  “So she’s amenable to a séance,” Tidsy said. “Good. I say we go ahead and do it. I’ll scout around and find a medium. Today’s Thursday. It might take a few days to set this up. What does your schedule look like over the next week or so?”

  Jill twisted the phone cord around her fingers. “I’m going out with Mike, Friday and Saturday nights. Then we’re going to Oroville on Monday, to visit his relatives up there. We’ll be back Wednesday.”

  “Keep Sunday evening open,” Tidsy said. “I’ll get to work and let you know. And I’ll call Margaret myself. By the way, four taps in Morse Code is the letter H.”

  “I know. I looked it up, too.”

  After Tidsy hung up, Jill got her address book and called the Western Pacific Railroad office in San Francisco to find out when she was due to leave on an eastbound run. Next Friday, according to the schedule. She made a note on her desktop calendar. Then she went downstairs and out to the garden. She and her mother spent an hour pulling weeds that had sprung up between the tomato plants and the other vegetables. They also picked ripe tomatoes and squash. Finally Mrs. McLeod took off the straw hat she’d been wearing and wiped her sleeve across her face, which was damp with sweat. “That’s enough for now,” she said. “I’m hungry. Let’s get some lunch.”

  They left their garden tools and hats on a bench outside the back door and carried their garden bounty into the house, washing up at the kitchen sink. Mrs. McLeod made a batch of tuna salad. Jill set out bread and condiments. They constructed sandwiches and poured glasses of lemonade from the pitcher in the refrigerator, then sat at the kitchen table to eat.

  “Delicious,” Jill said after she swallowed a mouthful. “And these bread-and-butter pickles you canned last summer are just perfect.”

  “Not bad if I do say so myself,” Lora McLeod said. “I do love pickles, and these turned out so well. I hope we have a good crop of pickling cucumbers this year. Your sister baked sugar cookies yesterday. I think there are still some in the cookie jar, if your brother hasn’t eaten them all.”

  “That’s a distinct possibility.” Jill wiped her hands on a napkin and got up. The cookie jar was shaped like a fat cat, painted to resemble a gray-and-white tabby. She carried it back to the table and took off the lid. “There are still cookies.”

  “Good. Speaking of your brother,” her mother said, “when you talked with him yesterday, did he say anything about what’s been going on with him?”

  “He did. But he’s going to have to tell you himself.” Jill took two cookies from the jar, one for each of them.

  “I wish he’d get on with it, then.” Mrs. McLeod took another bite of her sandwich.

  The phone rang. Jill went to the hallway to answer it.

  “Jill, it’s Big Milly. I need a favor.”

  Big Milly, a fellow Zephyrette, was really Angie Miller. Shortly after Angie, all five foot ten of her, had been hired, another young woman, Annette Miller, joined the dozen or so Zephyrettes riding the rails between the Bay Area and Chicago. Annette was only five two, so Jill and her coworkers bestowed nicknames, calling the pair Big Milly and Little Milly.

  “What kind of a favor?” Jill asked.

  “I need to trade runs with you,” Big Milly said. “You’re scheduled Friday, a week from tomorrow, and I’m scheduled the Sunday after that. I’ve got a family event that I really want to go to, but it’s happening during the time I’m supposed to be gone. If I could take the earlier run, I would be home earlier. That way, I can go to my family thing, and everything would all be copacetic.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  “Great. I’ll call the office and take care of it on that end. Thanks, Jill, I really appreciate it.”

  Jill hung up the phone. She went upstairs to note the change of schedule on her calendar, then came back down, joining her mother in the kitchen. “Good news. I get an extra couple of days at home before I have to go out again.”

  Her mother smiled. “I’m always glad to have you home. That way I can get more work out of you, unlike your sister, who always seems to be out these days.” The last was said with a twinkle in Mrs. McLeod’s eyes. They both knew she was kidding. “Now, finish your sandwich. We have to deadhead roses and weed that border next to the house.”

  ———

  It was just after four o’clock when Dr. Amos McLeod came through the front door of the house on Union Street. He was in his mid-fifties, a fit man who walked to and from his medical office located at the Alameda Hospital, a few blocks away on Clinton Street. His brown hair had grayed at the temples and he had laugh lines on his face around his pleasant blue eyes. He took off his suit jacket and draped it on the back of the chair next to the hall table, where the day’s mail had been left on a painted wooden tray, next to the telephone and the bowl that held car keys. He loosened his tie and sorted through the envelopes, pulling out three addressed to him, along with a medical journal.

  “You’re home early.” Jill had been in the kitchen with her mother, spreading frosting on the chocolate cake she had baked after they’d finished with their garden tasks. She greeted her father with a hug.

  He smiled at his elder daughter and kissed her on the forehead. “I had a couple of canceled appointments and I was caught up on my paperwork. So I decided to get an early start on my evening.”

  He walked down the hall to his study. Jill followed, watching as her father stood behind his desk, using a letter opener to slit the envelopes.

  “Dad, is it true that someone who has had rheumatic fever has a weak heart?”

  Dr. McLeod looked up from the envelopes. “What prompts that question?”r />
  “It’s about Mr. Randall, the young man whose body I found on the train, back in May. I’m not sure what caused his death, though the doctor who looked at his body there at the train said it might be natural causes. I found a prescription bottle for Digoxin near the body. Today I talked with his fiancée, a young woman named Margaret. She told me he’d had rheumatic fever and that it damaged his heart.”

  Dr. McLeod didn’t ask why Jill had been conversing with Margaret, though a curious look flickered over his face. He set down the letter opener and moved to one of the upholstered chairs near the bookcase, motioning for Jill to join him. She took the other chair, leaning forward to listen as her father began to talk.

  “Rheumatic fever can develop as a complication of strep throat or scarlet fever,” he said. “Both of those diseases are caused by an infection with streptococcus bacteria. The fever can have serious effects on the heart, including damaged valves and heart failure. How old was the young man who died?”

  “He was thirty-one. Margaret said he’d had the fever as a child.”

  “Rheumatic fever is common in children ages five to fifteen, or thereabouts,” the doctor said. “Though it can develop in younger children and even young adults. Do you remember my cousin Lorena, the one who lived in Fort Collins? You were about ten years old when she died.”

  Jill nodded. “I do. We drove up there for the funeral. I remember Mom saying she had a bad heart. At that age, I wasn’t sure what she meant. So Cousin Lorena had rheumatic fever?”

  “She did,” the doctor said. “Lorena was a few years younger than me. When she was fourteen, she got a serious case of scarlet fever, and it turned into rheumatic fever. It left her with a badly damaged heart. She was in her early forties when she died. She also took Digoxin, as I recall. What happened with the man on the train is probably a similar situation. We military doctors saw a lot of recruits during the war who’d had scarlet fever and sometimes rheumatic fever. Scarlet fever is not as common now as it was before the war, thanks to some of the new antibiotics. And I’m certainly hoping this new Salk vaccine has the same effect on polio.”