by Sandra Balzo
She gave her husband a rather over-the-top adoring look. ‘And you were surprised, weren’t you, my love?’
There was something about the woman that reminded me of an early Katherine Hepburn. Even when Hepburn played a softer role, you sensed her strength.
‘I certainly was,’ Potter said, putting an arm around her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. ‘You are my rock, and I must say you’ve gotten into the spirit of the occasion beautifully.’
‘My outfit, you mean? Well, thank you. Even if you don’t read your emails,’ she surveyed her husband’s lack of costume, ‘I do. Though apparently,’ she gestured toward Missy, who hadn’t moved, ‘is it …’
‘Missy.’ The girl nodded.
‘Yes, well, apparently Missy and I had the same idea.’ Audra shrugged out of her coat, revealing a period dress of deep blue silk chiffon, the waist cinched in and defined by crisscrossed ribbons. The skirt fell from a low inverted ‘V’ into what we now call a handkerchief bottom, but I had a feeling this was, like Rosemary’s, a genuinely vintage dress. ‘Coming as the fabulous Mrs Hubbard, that is.’
Missy gulped. ‘I … we did. Can I make you a nametag?’
‘No need,’ Audra said. ‘I won’t be mixing much, and the only people I care to know of my presence have already been informed.’
‘All right.’ Missy drew herself up. ‘Zoe? Would this be a good time to talk about the program?’
‘Program?’ Zoe, on Potter’s right, looked a bit adrift.
For his part, I wondered how Potter felt about being sandwiched between his ‘rock’ and a potential new ‘hard place.’
‘Yes.’ Missy seemed undeterred by her boss’s marked lack of enthusiasm. ‘I know you’ll want to welcome everyone. You can use that intercom.’
She pointed toward the vestibule at the front of our car. ‘After that, Markus – not as ‘MacQueen’ – will give a short talk on Agatha Christie’s body of work and loads of lore. Once everybody’s absorbed that, Mr Pavlik – sorry, I mean, Jake – Zoe will give you a signal. That’s your cue to sneak into the first roomette on the left in the sleeping car at the back of the train. Oh, and assume the position of corpse.’
She giggled and I joined in to support the events woman, since you could cut the tension – or maybe bored disinterest was more accurate – with a blunter instrument than Missy’s cake knife.
My stomach chose that moment to growl and Rosemary Darlington helped out by dropping her head on my shoulder. As the beret fell off her head and into my lap, our female guest of honor let out a snore.
‘Oh, dear,’ Missy said. ‘It must be the Dramamine.’
‘With a booster shot of my espresso martini.’ I was craning my neck to confirm, indeed, that the illustrious author was drooling on my sundress.
‘Perhaps Rosemary should take a little nap,’ Missy suggested.
‘Perhaps Rosemary already is taking a little nap,’ Laurence Potter mimicked.
‘Now, now, Larry. Be nice,’ Audra Edmonds scolded her husband. Then, to Missy: ‘Is there anything we can do?’
‘Not really,’ Missy said. ‘If Maggy will just help me with Rosemary?’
‘Of course.’ I picked up Rosemary’s hat and slid out, careful not to let her topple face-first into the banquette seat.
Our female guest of honor roused. ‘Huh?’
‘Dramamine and vodka apparently don’t mix,’ I said to her. ‘Why don’t we go and let you sleep it off?’
‘Okey-dokey.’ The woman slid out and stood up, albeit swaying. As I clamped on her left arm, a gust of wind hit the side of the train, driving rain against the windows.
‘Storm’s here,’ I said, stating the obvious while trying to stabilize Rosemary.
‘Oh, dear.’ Missy had grabbed Rosemary’s right arm. ‘Laurence, if you could just lead everyone back to the sleeping car after Jake has been gone five minutes?’
‘Why would I do that?’
Missy blinked. ‘Well, because you’re Hercule Poirot. You don’t need to do much – just stroke your mustache as you solve the crime. I brought a fake one,’ she dropped what looked like a woolly caterpillar on the table, ‘but you don’t—’
‘Solve the crime?’ the critic repeated. ‘Who among us hasn’t read the novel, after all? We certainly don’t need to reenact it. Don’t you think that’s a little childish … is it Melissa?’
For the second time on the trip so far, Missy looked like she was going to cry.
I slid the mustache toward Pavlik. ‘It’s Missy, Larry. And if you’d prefer – and it’s all right with Missy, of course – I’m sure Sheriff Pavlik would be happy to play the part of Poirot. You might prefer the role of Ratchett.’
Potter’s eyes narrowed. ‘The victim? I think not. Besides, I’m happy to pay homage to Dame Christie. She stood the test of time without prostituting herself. Unlike some writers any of us could mention.’
I felt Rosemary Darlington stiffen. ‘And what do you mean by that?’ was what I thought she said, though it came out more ‘Mmmmoooomeeedat.’
‘I’m sure Laurence didn’t mean anything, Rosemary,’ Missy said quickly. ‘He—’
‘I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself,’ Potter overrode her. ‘Your new book, Rosemary, is not only pornography, but badly written, ineptly imagined pornography at that.’
‘Larry!’ This from his wife, of all people. I wondered how much of Potter’s outburst was to convince Audra that he was no longer interested in Rosemary Darlington.
‘I can’t help it, my dear,’ Potter said. ‘This woman has – or had – talent, and she’s gone and flushed it down the toilet.’
Rosemary shook off Missy and me, grabbed her beret and replaced it on her head. Almost.
‘You know what happened to me, Larry? You did. Your criticism destroyed my confidence. I won’t ever let anyone – and especially you – do that to me again.’
And with that, Rosemary Darlington stalked alone, and unsteadily, toward the back of the train.
TEN
Missy Hudson, cheeks flaming, followed Darlington.
Zoe Scarlett cleared her throat. ‘Well, well. If you can let me out, Larry and Audra, I need to welcome our attendees and introduce the players.’
Whatever she was taking to stay so calm, I wanted some. I eyed my martini glass, which only served to remind me that it had been drained earlier by our female guest of honor in absentia.
Audra Edmonds stood up in the aisle, followed by Potter, who snagged the matchbook as he did so. Our hostess emerged and went to the front, where she slid open the vestibule door, amplifying the track noise, and appeared to push a button on the wall.
‘Hello, mystery writers!’ came through the sound system as I retook my seat and Audra Edmonds slid back in across from us. ‘I’m Zoe Scarlett and I am so pleased to welcome you all to the first event of our glorious weekend, “Murder on the Orient Espresso.”’
Applause, though sparse and, to my ear, jaded.
‘As those of you who are Floridians may already have noticed, we are not heading north to Palm Beach nor south to Miami, but west on the new excursion spur into the Everglades. So much spookier, don’t you think?’
As if the heavens had heard, there was a crack of thunder. Everyone applauded again, this time more enthusiastically, except for me. I shivered.
‘Of course, the extra bonus,’ Zoe continued, ‘is that we won’t be sharing our route with the Tri-Rail commuter train and Amtrak. No, no, we have these tracks all to ourselves. That’s important, you see, because we have a murder to solve.’
Cue dramatic music, literally. The guy in the checkered jacket who had been seated behind us in the bus piped up with the Dragnet ‘Bmmmm, bmp-bmp-bmp’ from the table next to Zoe.
‘Thank you for the accompaniment,’ she managed with a forced smile. ‘I’d like to introduce our featured players for the evening, which you’ll also find on your playbill.’ She held up Missy’s sepia-toned handout. ‘And do feel free to ask partic
ipants to sign them as a remembrance of tonight’s inaugural event.’
Heads nodded in approval of what I suspected was Missy’s good idea. I feared, though, that given the number of people attending and the players listed, there weren’t many fans/audience members on the train beyond the cast itself.
‘First,’ Zoe continued, ‘as Mary Debenham, our guest of honor, Rosemary Darlington.’
Genuine applause, even though Rosemary Darlington was nowhere to be seen. Wherever she was, though, I trusted she was snoring and drooling blissfully.
Zoe plunged on. And not a bad strategy, since people listening to her in the other cars would assume Rosemary was in ours and vice versa.
‘And, as Hercule Poirot, our second guest of honor, mystery reviewer and critic extraordinaire, Laurence … Potter.’
Applause, this time more tepid.
Not that it mattered. Potter/Poirot was nowhere to be seen, either.
‘This is going well,’ I whispered to Pavlik. I kept my voice down so Audra, the un-Mrs Potter across our booth, couldn’t hear. I probably didn’t need to worry, since Edmonds was pushing buttons on her phone and looking frustrated. I hoped she’d forgotten to charge it.
‘What do you expect?’ Pavlik asked in my ear. ‘This isn’t a “Maggy Thorsen” production.’
‘For which I’m very grateful, since this threatens to become a train wreck.’ Maybe I really had jinxed Missy’s event with my earlier thoughts on enjoying train wrecks. ‘Not literally, of course,’ I added, hoping to undo any psychic damage.
Pavlik gave my shoulder a squeeze. ‘Don’t lose hope. The evening’s young yet.’
At ‘yet,’ we hit a dip, sending me bouncing up off the banquette.
Zoe Scarlett droned on. ‘… our other players. As MacQueen, please welcome our Agatha Christie expert, Markus, um …’
A roar went up and Markus waved from the table next to us. Zoe went on to introduce, sans last names, Grace as Greta Ohlsson, the Swedish Lady, germaphobic literary agent Carson as Count Andrenyi, Prudence as Princess Dragomiroff, somebody named Big Fred as Foscarelli, and Harvey – the guy in the loud sports jacket – as Hardman.
I noticed that besides not knowing her longtime conference attendees’ last names without the aid of the badges she’d harangued Missy about, Zoe didn’t bother introducing the help: Boyce as Bouc, the director of the railroad, and Pete the bartender as Pierre Michel, the conductor depicted in Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.
Missy slid into the seat next to me, wiping her hands on a paper towel. She also looked like she’d put on lipstick and combed her hair for the occasion.
‘Is Rosemary all right?’ I asked.
‘Sleeping like a baby,’ Missy said, head directed toward the towel in her hands. ‘It’s probably for the best.’
‘The best for your event. No question.’
‘And now,’ Zoe was saying, ‘a special and heartfelt thank you to someone who has gone above and beyond for us. As Mrs Hubbard, played so elegantly by Lauren Bacall in the movie, I give you …’
Missy’s head jerked up, her face shining. She slid over to the aisle and dropped the paper towel on the table, preparing to be introduced.
‘Audra Edmonds!’
‘You had to have seen that coming,’ Pavlik said as I nursed the new espresso martini he’d brought me as Markus took over for his talk on Agatha Christie. ‘Nothing has gone right for poor Missy.’
‘Through no fault of her own,’ I pointed out. ‘And what did go well will be ignored anyway. That’s the plight of the special event planner.’ I sighed and gazed into my whipped cream.
‘Poor baby,’ Pavlik commiserated. ‘Good thing you’ve left behind the drudgery for the exciting new world of coffee.’ He nodded toward my martini. ‘How is that, by the way?’
‘Delicious, thank you. And your wine?’
‘Awful, but if I switch I’ll be sleeping it off next to Rosemary Darlington.’
‘Ah, no, you won’t, actually,’ I said, swiping a finger into the whipped cream and offering it to Pavlik. ‘That woman knows too many moves.’
‘So I hear.’ Pavlik licked the cream off my finger.
Engagingly slowly.
I gave a little shiver. And, happily, not because I was either cold or scared. In fact, it might be raining cats and dogs, alligators and pythons outside, but inside the train it was comfortable and I was here beside my sheriff.
Life was good. I sighed.
‘Something wrong?’ Pavlik asked.
I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. ‘Not a thing.’
I should have known it couldn’t last.
ELEVEN
‘Excuse me,’ a voice said.
I opened my eyes to see Danny/Col. Arbuthnot’s name badge sidle into sight. Tilting my head, I saw the tousled dark head.
‘Danny.’ I sat up and self-consciously slid the spaghetti straps of my sundress back onto my shoulder like we’d just been caught making out in the back seat of a Chevy. ‘Have you met Sheriff Pavlik?’
‘Jake, please,’ Pavlik corrected.
‘Jake,’ I repeated. I wasn’t used to all this first-name stuff. In fact, given Pavlik’s position as Brookhills County Sheriff, I made a real effort to use his title when addressing him in front of others, especially his deputies.
‘Thank you, Jake.’ Close up, the young man looked older than I’d thought earlier, maybe mid-twenties. ‘And please, call me Danny.’
‘Danny it is.’ Pavlik turned to me. ‘And, obviously, you two have already met?’
‘I don’t believe so.’ Danny’s matte brown eyes showed no recognition.
‘The coffeehouse owner?’ I reminded him.
He squinted at me.
‘I told you I wasn’t a writer?’ I tried.
‘Oh, yes.’ Danny turned back to Pavlik. ‘Well, it’s a real honor to meet you, sir. I’m looking forward to your workshop tomorrow on “How to Kill Realistically with Guns, Knives and Bare Hands.”’
‘That’s the name of your panel?’ I asked Pavlik.
‘They edited it. My title was longer.’
Figured. So many weapons, so little time.
‘And it’s a workshop, not a panel,’ Danny corrected, this time. ‘“Hands-on,” the program says.’
‘I’ll be calling up volunteers and demonstrating some techniques,’ Pavlik said, looking pleased by the younger man’s enthusiasm.
For my part, I was imagining myself – a convenient ‘volunteer’ – being tossed around like a crash-test dummy. Maybe I’d sleep in tomorrow morning. Catch Pavlik’s second panel. ‘What’s the other one you’re doing?’
‘“The Ins and Outs of Firearms,”’ Danny supplied eagerly. ‘All about guns and ammunition. And entrance and exit wounds, of course.’
Even better. The hotel probably had a nice pool. I’d hide there.
‘You’d be surprised,’ Pavlik said, ‘at the number of mistakes in books – or in television and even movies, too. And it’s not complicated stuff. Simple terminology, or the difference between a semi-automatic and a revolver.’
Danny was nodding. ‘The protagonist of the last book I read – or tried to read, I should say – put a silencer on a revolver.’
Pavlik looked skyward. ‘See what I mean? That’s as bad as a having a revolver that ejects brass.’
‘Everybody knows that it’s semi-automatics not revolvers that eject casings.’
‘And, of course, that revolvers can’t be silenced.’
The two men – and I bestow that mantle of maturity loosely – cackled at the stupidity of it all.
‘I understand you’ve written a book,’ I said to Danny, trying to participate in the conversation. ‘What’s it about?’
‘I’m afraid it’s much too complicated to describe at a gathering like this,’ he said, dismissing me again.
‘Well, then it’s much “too complicated” to sell, as well.’ Zoe Scarlett slid onto the bench Audra Edmonds had abandoned af
ter her introduction. ‘If you can’t describe your book, how do you expect publishers to categorize it and wholesalers and booksellers to display and sell it?’
‘Then I’ll publish it myself,’ Danny said. ‘Ebooks and on-demand publishing have changed the world for authors.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Zoe said. ‘But with something like a quarter of a million books being self-published a year, how is anyone going to find yours?’
‘Because I’m good.’ Danny’s face was sullen, like a five-year-old who’s been told he can’t have a cookie before dinner.
‘Yeah, you and two-hundred and forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine other authors who think the same thing.’
Disheartening words, I thought, from someone whose own conference was dedicated toward teaching people to write and, presumably, get published.
‘But there obviously are success stories,’ I pointed out. ‘I’ve seen books on the New York Times bestsellers list that are obviously self-published. The authors’ names and the publishers’ names are the same.’
‘Sure, it can happen,’ Zoe said. ‘But lightning has to strike. Even today, with all this opportunity, books become bestsellers the same way they always have. One person likes a book and tells somebody else. The only thing that has changed is the medium used to have the conversation.’
Pavlik grinned. ‘Zoe does a panel on changes in the publishing industry.’
‘And another thing,’ she continued her rant. ‘Even if you self-publish, you need to come up with a pithy hook. One sentence that sells your book in the time it takes us to scroll on by. What’s yours?’ She stabbed a finger at Danny.
The boy’s eyes widened. ‘Well, I—’
‘That’s what you’ll learn this weekend,’ Zoe finished triumphantly. ‘Now, go do your homework.’
‘You’ve got a tough-love approach to promoting your conference,’ I said, watching Danny slink, chastened, toward the passenger car.
‘Can’t coddle these writers.’ Her head was swiveling like a lighthouse beacon. ‘If you want something, you have to go out and get it.’
