Death Train to Boston (4 page)

WELL, I NEVER!" said Edna Stephenson, tossing her head with such a jerk that her tightly wound curls bounced. She was a tiny woman who stood not much higher than the waist of the very tall son beside her. "It's not
nize,
that's all there is to that."

A hint of a smile flickered across Michael's lips at Edna's consternation, which was as typical as her putting a "z" in the word "nice." But he immediately suppressed any hint of amusement, which in the circumstances was not hard to do.

"What Mama means—" Wish began.

"I don't need an interpreter, Aloysius," Edna interrupted, glaring up at him, then turning her small but piercing eyes on Michael. "Mr. Kossoff knows just ez-zactly what I mean. Right? Right."

"Let's continue this conversation in the kitchen," Michael suggested, "over a cup of coffee."

"I didn't make it yet," said Edna with a hint of satisfaction in her voice.

Michael deduced that their secretary and office manager was quite angry with him. But he suspected her anger was the kind a parent displays when a child, lost through his own adventurousness, finds his way back home. He said, gesturing with his good arm, "In that case, I expect I can manage a coffeepot one-handed. It will be good practice. After you, Edna. You too, Wish."

Darting one last glare Michael's way, Edna took off in her tottery gait, aiming for the archway that led from the J&K Agency's front office into the conference room, which had once been a dining room, and on into the kitchen.

Wish—as he was called by everyone except his mother—rolled his eyes at Michael, then turned to follow her. Wish was by nature a quiet, thoughtful man of great integrity. He made an excellent private investigator due to his police training and his passion for justice. Michael and Fremont had been quick to snap him up and add him to their team at J&K. Yet Wish's temperament also worked against him; there was always the question, at least in Michael's mind, of whether experience would toughen Wish or break him. The young man had been through one of those make-or-break experiences over the summer, and as Michael followed him through the archway, he thought the verdict was not yet in. Wish had survived, but he still seemed a bit tender, perhaps fragile. In the present situation Michael knew he'd best bear that in mind.

Michael fixed his face in the expression that Fremont described as "enigmatic." He did not want either Edna or Wish to know how worried he really was, or how physically debilitated he felt. His shoulder ached. His eyes burned as if he had not slept at all the previous night, his first back in this house that he and Fremont shared on San Francisco's Divisadero Street.

It was a large, double house, in the Italianate Victorian style. He owned one side and Fremont the other— hers was the side that had the J&K Agency's offices on
the first floor; her own living quarters were on the second and third floors. Therefore he now paid her rent corresponding to his half-ownership in the business. Their financial arrangements had become rather complex since, on her twenty-fifth birthday a few months back, Fremont's father had given her a large part of the estate she'd expected to inherit only on his death. And most particularly since she would not marry Michael— which would have greatly simplified everything. At least to his way of thinking, though Fremont vehemently disagreed.

Michael sighed. Their not being married bothered him now more than ever. Yet perhaps she was right. Perhaps it did not really matter and he was only being a hidebound traditionalist. If they had boarded that fateful train as man and wife, would it have changed a single thing? Anything at all?

No,
he admitted to himself as he sat down at the kitchen table, forgetting he'd said he would make the coffee,
probably not.
They would still have been working together as partners, as equals, each with an aspect of the investigation to conduct. They would have been traveling incognito, would have gone through the same charade, played the same enticing game of pretending to be strangers who'd met in the club car. Fremont would still be missing.

Michael sighed, unconsciously, as once again the vivid picture of Fremont as he'd last seen her flooded his mind. A piece of paper and a wedding ring—on this trip she would have worn it on a ribbon around her neck rather than on her finger—would not have made Fremont turn around that last time he'd seen her and, with her eyes, invite him to follow. That was the only thing that could have made a difference: If he had been walking right behind her at the very moment of the explosion, most likely they would have been thrown off the train together. Only that, having her by his side no matter what happened, could have prevented this never-ending pain in his heart, this cold fear in his gut that he might never see her again.

"Michael," said Edna in a voice so soft she did not sound like herself at all, "I'm sorry. You're not the one I should be mad at. I wasn't thinking. Just . . . it's easier to be mad than sad, y'know?"

"What?" He emerged from his thoughts to realize the corners of his eyes were wet. He squeezed the bridge of his nose with his fingertips and leaned his head back, as if his eyes were only tired, but Michael doubted he was fooling Edna. The woman was not much bigger than a child, and had certain mannerisms that were child-like, but in truth she was both wily and wise. And incredibly efficient.

"What I'm sayin'
izzz"
—she drew out the "z" sound —"the railroad's gotta be held accountable for every single person as was on that train.
They
gotta satisfy
you,
not the other way around. We'll make 'em find Fremont!"

"Mama," Wish said from the long drainboard next to the sink, where he was doing the task that Michael forgot, "I'm sure Michael has thought this all through. I for one would like to hear the whole story of what happened, from the time of the explosion ten days ago to when he decided to return to San Francisco and got on the train in Salt Lake." Wish put the coffeepot on the gas stove and turned on a burner, which he lit with a long sulphur-headed match. Then he turned to join them at the table.

Michael sighed again, this time caught himself at it, then nodded and cleared his throat. In the hope that a relaxed posture might lead to a more relaxed mind-set, he crossed his right leg over the left and slouched as best he could, considering his tautly bandaged left side, which he needed to keep immobile for the sake of the mending collarbone. Then he began:
"The force of the explosion threw the back half of the train off the tracks. That's where I was, still in the dining car. Fremont and I had finished the midday meal only minutes before. I was debating between going to the club car for a smoke and going back to my compartment to read, when it happened."

He paused, his mind going again over territory it had covered a million times by now, or so it seemed. "I cannot be sure exactly how many minutes passed from the time Fremont left the dining car to when the explosion occurred. Also, it's not possible to know whether she was delayed along the way, for example by someone temporarily blocking the corridor; or if she might have stopped to admire a pet, such as the silky little terrier belonging to that woman. . . ."

Michael's voice trailed off as he became lost in the memory of Fremont so foolishly and atypically taken with the tiny dog—what had it been?—a Maltese terrier. The only sounds in the kitchen were the measured tick of the Regulator wall clock and the hiss of the coffeepot coming to a boil. After a moment he gave his head a quick shake and resumed: "At any rate, the exact timing is impossible to know, and essential if we're to determine Fremont's fate with any hope of accuracy. We do know, it has been established, that one of the two train cars that fell to the bottom of the gorge and burned was the one in which Fremont's compartment was located. The other, directly in front of it, contained my compartment. Both these cars had burned completely by the time anyone was able to get down into the gorge and begin a rescue."

Again a silence fell, as Michael deliberately paused before speaking all that was in his mind. He had a suspicion that seemed bizarre, yet he could not let go of it: that those two train cars might have been targeted; that someone had wanted not only to blow up the train but also to do it in such a way as to maximize the chances
of harming him and Fremont. Yet who had known, aside from the Director of the Southern Pacific, who had hired J&K, that they would be on the train?

The coffee began to perk, and Wish got up to adjust the flame under the pot. Michael waited for him to return to the table, then focused his eyes on the younger man's lean, sensitive face, as if by directly addressing Wish, the pain of what he had to say might become easier to bear.

"The trainmen—conductors they're called—who had put themselves in charge of things, wouldn't allow me to go down there. I had no identification to prove that I was working for Southern Pacific in the capacity of private investigator, nothing to suggest I might have any authority or any special skills to contribute. So I was forced, along with the other ambulatory survivors, to get onto the rescue train that was sent along up the tracks—I don't know how much later. I lost track of the time. They took us to Provo for medical attention and booked us into hotels. Fremont was not on that rescue train. She was not booked into any of the hotels. She was not kept in the infirmary at Provo or sent on to the big hospital in Salt Lake City. Her body was not among the dead."

Here Michael's voice cracked. "At least, not the visually identifiable dead."

"Oh!" Edna exclaimed, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. She'd made the sound involuntarily.

Wish frowned and blinked. He said, "My God."

Michael nodded gravely. "Yes. Many bodies were burned beyond recognition. Hers may have been among them. We can only know through dental records, and so one thing we must do is to send Fremont's dental records to the morgue in Salt Lake without delay. However, here is where the timing becomes so important: If Fremont had not yet reached her compartment at the moment of the blast, it's far more likely that she would
have been thrown from the train. The people who burned to death were trapped inside the cars."

"But," said Wish, still frowning, "in that case, she would have been among those rescued, as you were. Wouldn't she?"

Michael winced, then raised his right hand to run it hard through his hair—a habit of his when distressed.

"Now, now, son," Edna said, recognizing the significance of the gesture and nodding, "you let the man go on tellin' this his own way. He knows where he's goin' with it. You go on, Michael."

"Thank you, Edna. But yes, Wish, that's a logical assumption and I'm getting to that very point. I stayed on in Provo until all the bodies and all the bones from the charred wreckage were brought out. They did a head count. At least one person was missing."

Edna and Wish looked at each other. Then they both looked back at Michael.

"I think Fremont survived. I think she was hurt and confused, and wandered away into the wilderness. Head injuries will do that to a person. It may be days or weeks or months, or maybe never, before someone with that kind of injury regains knowledge of who she is, where she is, what has happened."

Just then the coffeepot began to perk vigorously, as if in affirmation.

"I believe Fremont is alive," Michael said, getting up with a sudden surge of strength and striding over to adjust the flame beneath the bubbling coffee. "She may even find her own way home. Or, there is another possibility: Meiling and I will find her."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them.

"I beg your pardon, sir," I said nervously, one hand splayed at the throat of that too-large nightdress, "I
should have begun by thanking you for saving my life. Thank you very much indeed." I bowed my head deferentially, thinking,
But where is Michael?

"I was directed to you," said the man called Father, advancing toward the bed and growing bigger with every step—or so it seemed. "I do not know who Michael is, but I was not directed to him. Only to you."

Now I remembered him, though his name did not immediately come to me: the religious fanatic. The
dangerous
religious fanatic, who had hovered over my naked body, it seemed like a century ago.

"I am very sorry to hear that," I said.

"Who is this Michael? You have called for him loud and long."

"He is . . . my business partner." That was true enough, but somehow the lie on the tip of my tongue felt more like the truth. I wanted to say
He is my husband,
but then I thought better of it. Further explanation seemed required, so I said, "We were traveling together on business. On the train that blew up."

Now the religious fanatic stood at my bedside. The five women had advanced along with him and fanned their semicircle out around the foot of my bed.

"So you've remembered," he said.

"I remember some things, yes. I do not recall your coming to my rescue, or very much since I've been here —it's all a jumble, I'm afraid." I looked at the women and smiled. I had not smiled for the man, nor did I want to; there was something about him I did not like at all, although I was not quite sure what. To the women I said, "I don't know how many of you took care of me, aside from Verla"—I found her eyes with mine and nodded—"but to all who did, I give my most sincere thanks. When I'm home again I'll want to see that you're all rewarded."

"You
are
home," the man said. "This is your home now."

Verla came to the other side of the bed and took my hand, saying, "You're one of us now."

I snatched my hand back, too shocked by what they'd said to care about rudeness. I exclaimed, "I beg your pardon!"

No sooner had I reclaimed one hand from Verla than the man took hold of my other—so firmly that I quite got the point: He did not intend to give it up.

"Carrie," he said in a low voice that might have been rather thrilling under different circumstances, "do you not recall the promises I have made you?"

"I can honestly say, sir, I do not even recall your name."

He dropped my hand, straightened up to his full height, and with a severe expression said to Verla, "Set this right, wife."

"Yes, Father," Verla replied.

He turned his back and walked away, rather dramatically I thought, to stand at the window all alone while the women came closer still and huddled around the bed. They seemed curious as kittens. Well, so was I. If Verla—who looked as if she might be a few years older than the man, or perhaps she was just worn out—was the mother and he the father in this household, then these other females should be the daughters. I scanned their faces; only one of the remaining four appeared young enough to be their child.

"Carrie, we are the wives of Melancthon Pratt. I am first wife. Next to me here is Sarah, she came second." Verla was introducing them counterclockwise around the bed. "Norma is third wife, then Tabitha is number four, and this is our youngest and most recent, Selene. Selene, like you, came from far off."