by Janet Dawson
“I can’t believe it,” Dan Vennor said, shaking his head. “I’ve known Wade for years. I trusted him.”
“Your trust was misplaced,” Tidsy said. “This scheme of theirs went on undetected for a while, since Hardcastle was the man in your financial department responsible for auditing the Pierson company books. Then you promoted Kevin Randall. Was it because he was planning to marry Margaret?”
“That was only part of it,” Vennor said. “Kevin deserved that promotion. He was a good worker, honest. I could count on him.”
“When you promoted him, the jobs in the financial department got shifted around,” Tidsy said. “Kevin got the task of auditing the Pierson books. He found discrepancies. When he brought them to Hardcastle’s attention, he got put off. At some point he must have told Hardcastle and Pierson he was going to tell you, Dan. If I were you, I’d do a top-to-bottom housecleaning. I’ll bet this wasn’t the only place Hardcastle was cheating you.”
Helen Vennor had been sitting quietly, holding her glass with both hands. “So all this business about a ghost and a séance, what you said at the party, that was just to make Hardcastle nervous.”
Jill and Margaret exchanged looks. When they had spoken the night before, Jill had told her everything about what happened in the roomette, the real reason she had been able to break away from the men who were trying to kill her. There was no need, they decided, to tell Aunt Helen about the séance at Tidsy’s apartment.
“That’s true,” Margaret told her aunt. “We wanted to see what Hardcastle would do. Jill said he went white as a sheet. We made him nervous. And as Tidsy put it, nervous people make mistakes.”
“You could have been killed,” Mike said, squeezing Jill’s hand. “But knowing you, I’m not surprised you did it.”
Lora McLeod shuddered and got up from her chair. “I don’t even like to think about it. Enough of this talk about ghosts and murder. Now, I’ve got a chocolate cake in the kitchen and I think we all need a piece.”
Jill stood as well, heading for the kitchen to help her mother. Before she left the living room, Tidsy intercepted her. “You did good. You could even be a government girl.”
———
Margaret called Jill on Monday morning, providing a welcome interruption from the laundry and ironing that were Jill’s tasks when she returned from a trip. “I talked with my friend who works for Western Pacific. The Silver Gorge is still in the rail yard.”
“So it hasn’t been put on a consist yet.” Jill sat down on the hall chair and twisted the telephone cord around her fingers.
“I want to go visit the car. Before it leaves the yard. Just to say good-bye.”
“I understand. At least I think I do. Can your friend get us into the yard?”
“He should be able to,” Margaret said. “After all, he works for the freight department.”
“And I know several brakemen,” Jill said. “I’m sure one of them would do it. Tidsy will want to come with us, of course.”
All it took was a couple of phone calls. On Monday evening, as the sun dropped below the San Francisco skyline and turned the bay copper and gold, Jill, Margaret and Tidsy got out of Tidsy’s convertible and walked toward the siding where the Silver Gorge and several other sleeper cars waited for their next journey. They were in the rail yard south of the Oakland Mole. It was never really deserted here, as there were railroad employees in the yard. But it was different from the crowds of people that Jill would have seen at the Mole on a morning when the California Zephyr was about to depart. They were surrounded by rail cars and equipment.
“This won’t take long, will it?” the brakeman asked. He’d let them in the gate and now he was lowering the steps that led to the vestibule. “I could get into trouble doing this.”
“I know. And I really appreciate it. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t. And it won’t take long.”
Jill had worn dungarees, a shirt, and a pair of sturdy and comfortable shoes. Margaret and Tidsy were similarly dressed. Jill climbed into the vestibule first, then turned to help Margaret and Tidsy. They entered the deserted Pullman car. Jill led the way past the porter’s compartment and stopped at the doorway to roomette four. Margaret went inside. She was carrying a deep red rose clipped from a bush in the Vennors’ garden. She held it to her nose, breathed in the fragrance, and set it on the seat. Then she stood looking out the window at the utilitarian, industrial landscape, shadowed now as the day moved from dusk to darkness.
Tidsy had gone into roomette three, across the corridor. She, too, looked out the window, at a freight train moving slowly south on a set of tracks about fifty feet away. Jill leaned into the roomette. “I’m glad you came with us. I didn’t think you believed in ghosts. I’m not sure I do either, not entirely, but after what happened, I’m hedging my bets.”
Tidsy smiled. “I said good-bye to my husband, Rick, after I got that telegram from the war department. It’s been eleven years since I saw him last. But every now and then, I think I see him, out of the corner of my eye.”
“I don’t see Steve. I think of him, though. Especially now, with the Armistice ending the war in Korea.” It had been nearly three years since Steve died at “Frozen Chosin.” If he was a ghost, he wasn’t haunting her. Except with the occasional memory. It really was time to move on and she was doing that. “I said good-bye to Steve when I wrapped his engagement ring in a handkerchief and put it away in my jewelry box.”
Margaret was saying good-bye to Kevin now, here in the roomette where he had died. She hoped her new friend would be able to move on as well.
It was getting dark and there was no electricity operating in the car. By now it was dim in the roomette, and even darker in the passageway. “We should go,” Jill said.
Margaret turned from the window. With one last look at the rose she’d left on the seat, she stepped out of the roomette. Her face was composed and she smiled. “I’m ready.” She went down the corridor to the vestibule. Tidsy followed.
Jill stood for a bit longer, taking one last look around roomette four. She could smell the strong scent of the rose on the seat. Then she shivered. Now that the sun was going down, it was chilly in here.
Or was it something else?
Jill saw the shimmering light at the same time the knocks began. Long and short. Morse code.
She had brought a pad and a pencil, for some reason, force of habit, perhaps. Or maybe because she thought this might happen. Now she pulled them from the pocket of her dungarees and wrote down dashes and dots. There was silence, then the sequence repeated, and she wrote it down again. The same sequence.
“I’ve got it now,” she said, her voice sounding strange and quiet in roomette four.
She would translate the Morse code when she got home but she had a feeling she already knew what it said.
— ···· ·— —· —·— ···
Thanks.
Afterword
All three of the California Zephyr mysteries are the result of much research. I took train trips, I interviewed people, I read books, and I climbed around on old railroad cars. I even drove a locomotive.
When writing about a historical period or a particular subject, I strive to be accurate in conveying information. I worked hard to make this book as accurate as possible, though I may have tweaked facts from time to time for the sake of plot, characters, and a good story. Any errors are my own.
My heartfelt thanks go to two of the Zephyrettes who worked aboard the historical streamliner known as the California Zephyr. Cathy Moran Von Ibsch was a Zephyrette in the late 1960s and rode the Silver Lady on her last run. The late Rodna Walls Taylor rode the rails as a Zephyrette in the early 1950s, the time period of the book. I greatly appreciate their generosity in answering my many questions. I couldn’t have written this book without them.
In 2010 I was a passenger on a special train to and from Portola, California via the famous Feather River Route, which gave me the opportunity to see what the passengers of the origin
al CZ saw on their journey through the Sierra Nevada. This route has been primarily traversed by freight traffic since the old CZ ceased operations, so traveling the canyon on a passenger car was a treat. My accommodations for that trip were aboard the Pacific Sands, a 1950 Budd 10/6 Pullman sleeper built for the Union Pacific, a car very much like those that traveled on the CZ. The car is owned by Doug Spinn of LA Rail. I met several people on this trip and we called ourselves the Pullman Pals, taking a subsequent trip on the Pacific Sands from Los Angeles to San Diego. It was on this trip that Doug Spinn mentioned the ghost. He reported that, at various times, passengers aboard the car would report hearing voices during the night. At other times, the porter call button in a particular roomette would ring, but no one was there. A haunted roomette? That’s music to a writer’s ear. From such stories, novels arise. Thanks for the story, Doug.
Many thanks to two of my Pullman Pals, Roger Morris and Glenn Stocki, both railfans and both generous with answers to my many train-related questions. A special thanks to Roger, who has created the cover art for all three of the California Zephyr mysteries.
Here’s a link to LA Rail, with information on its trips and articles about them, including one by Roger Morris:
http://www.larail.com
Here’s a link to Plumas County’s Seven Wonders of the Railroad World, which describes some of the sights on the Feather River Route:
http://www.plumascounty.org/documents/Spec%20Tour%207.pdf
On another note, my brother plays bass guitar and he loves the blues. He plays a song I like, “Mercury Blues,” that I’ve used in this novel. I researched the date the song was written, to be sure Jill’s brother, Drew, would know the song in 1953. “Mercury Blues,” originally “Mercury Boogie,” was written by bluesman K.C. Douglas and Robert Geddins, musician and record producer. Both men came to Oakland, California during World War II, Douglas from Mississippi and Geddins from Texas. Douglas first recorded the song in 1948 and in the past 60-plus years it has been covered by many musicians. Geddins had a recording studio on Seventh Street in Oakland, which used to be called the Harlem of the West. The thoroughfare, and its side streets, were lined with nightclubs, including the famous Slim Jenkins’ Supper Club. The clubs were patronized by customers of all races, as described in the novel, who came to listen to what was called race music, the term for blues and rhythm & blues.
Do a search on “Mercury Blues” and you’ll find all sorts of YouTube videos of musicians performing the song. Here’s a link to K.C. Douglas’s 1952 recording of the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsTfCITzISM
For more information on Seventh Street in Oakland:
https://localwiki.org/oakland/Harlem_of_the_West
http://7thstreet.org/category/sources/other
http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/jenkins-harold-slim-1890-1967
In writing about the 1950s I find myself doing research on a variety of things, such as appliances (yes, dishwashers were used), movies and television programs, books, music, cars, hairstyles, and clothes. Especially clothes. It’s important for me, and my readers, to know what clothes Jill McLeod and the other characters in the California Zephyr books are wearing. A book titled Everyday Fashions of the Fifties as Pictured in Sears Catalogs, edited by JoAnne Olian, proved invaluable. The book is published by Dover Publications, which also publishes books for other decades, a terrific resource for anyone writing historical novels.
The Key System was a privately owned transit company that was vital to transportation in the East Bay, with streetcars that were replaced by buses in the late 1940s. As described in the book, employees did go on strike on July 24, 1953. The strike lasted a record 76 days, dealing a crippling blow to public transit in the East Bay. At one point, California Governor Earl Warren (who eventually headed the US Supreme Court) called a special session of the legislature to discuss the possibility of a government seizure of the system. The strike was a factor in the eventual demise of the system, which was replaced by AC Transit in 1960.
The internment of Japanese American citizens and their families is a sad chapter in the history of the United States. People lost their livelihoods and properties. In some cases, as discussed in the novel, their neighbors stepped in to run farms for families who were interned. As also mentioned in the book, Italian residents of California who were not citizens were also scrutinized and restricted by the US government.
We are fortunate to have railroad museums to preserve the remaining artifacts of this country’s rail era, particularly the streamliners like the California Zephyr. Both the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento and the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden have excellent research libraries as well as rail cars and locomotives. The Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California, is a treasure house of rolling stock.
I recommend the California Zephyr Virtual Museum, at: http://calzephyr.railfan.net. Here I found old timetables, menus, and brochures, as well as information on the Zephyrettes.
The Amtrak version of the California Zephyr is not the same as the sleek Silver Lady of days gone by. But it’s great to ride a train through most of the same route, getting an up-close look at this marvelous country. The journey may take longer, but the scenery is spectacular and the relaxation factor is 110 percent.
The California Zephyr story, and that of railroading in America, is told in books and films. Some of them are listed below, along with other sources I used in writing the California Zephyr series. Many of these books are full of photographs and firsthand accounts of working on and aboard the trains.
Publications about the California Zephyr, rails, and rail travel in the United States
Portrait of a Silver Lady: The Train They Called the California Zephyr, Bruce A. McGregor and Ted Benson, Pruett Publishing Company, Boulder, CO, 1977. Full of beautiful photographs, lots of history and technical information, and firsthand accounts of what it was like to work on this train.
CZ: The Story of the California Zephyr, Karl R. Zimmerman, Quadrant Press, Inc., 1972. Excellent overview of the train’s history, with lots of old photographs.
Zephyr: Tracking a Dream Across America, Henry Kisor, Adams Media Corporation, 1994. An account of Kisor’s journey westward on the Amtrak California Zephyr.
Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service, James McCommons, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2009. A thought-provoking account of the author’s travels on various Amtrak routes and his interviews with passengers, employees, rail advocates, and people in the railroad business, with discussions about the future of passenger rail in the United States.
A Guidebook to Amtrak’s California Zephyr, Eva J. Hoffman, Flashing Yellow Guidebooks, Evergreen, CO, 2003, 2008. There are three volumes: Chicago to Denver, Denver to Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City to San Francisco. I discovered these courtesy of a railfan while riding the Amtrak CZ. A detailed milepost-by-milepost guide to what’s outside the train window, with history and anecdotes thrown in. A useful resource for finding out how far it is from one place to another and how long it takes to get there.
Rising from the Rails, Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class, Larry Tye, Henry Holt & Company, 2004. There is also a PBS video. The book discusses the history of the Pullman Company, African Americans working on the railroad, and their legacy.
The Pullman Porters and West Oakland, Thomas and Wilma Tramble, Arcadia Publishing, 2007. A look at the lives of porters in Oakland, CA. Full of wonderful photographs.
Films
The California Zephyr: The Story of America’s Most Talked About Train, Copper Media, 1999
The California Zephyr: Silver Thread Through The West, TravelVideoStore, 2007.
The California Zephyr: The Ultimate Fan Trip, Emery Gulash, Green Frog Productions, Ltd., 2007.
American Experience: Streamliners: America’s Lost Trains, PBS Video, 2006
Promotional films from the CZ and other trains are viewable on YouTube.
; The original California Zephyr appeared on film in the 1954 movie Cinerama Holiday, as well as the 1952 noir Sudden Fear, starring Joan Crawford and Jack Palance. During the train portion of that movie, a Zephyrette comes to Joan Crawford’s bedroom to tell her it’s time for her dinner reservation. That Zephyrette is Rodna Walls, whom I interviewed.
I hope you enjoy The Ghost in Roomette Four. Now go ride a train!
About the Author
Janet Dawson has written twelve books about Oakland private eye Jeri Howard, including Kindred Crimes, winner of the St. Martin’s Press/PWA contest for Best Private Eye Novel, and a nominee for several Best First awards. Her most recent Jeri Howard book is Water Signs. The Ghost in Roomette Four is the latest in her California Zephyr series of historical mysteries. In addition, Dawson has authored a suspense novel, What You Wish For and several award-nominated and -winning short stories. A past president of Northern California Mystery Writers of America, Dawson lives in the East Bay region. She welcomes visitors and email at www.janetdawson.com and on Facebook.
Mystery fiction by Janet Dawson
The Jeri Howard Mystery Series
Kindred Crimes
Till the Old Men Die
Take a Number
Don’t Turn Your Back on the Ocean
Nobody’s Child
A Credible Threat
Witness to Evil
Where the Bodies Are Buried
A Killing at the Track
Bit Player
Cold Trail
Water Signs
Short Stories
Scam and Eggs
Suspense Fiction
What You Wish For
California Zephyr Series
Death Rides the Zephyr
Death Deals a Hand
The Ghost in Roomette Four
