Read Online Murder on the Orient Espresso by Sandra Balzo - Free Book Online

– than Boyce had already mentioned.
    The coffee man cleared his throat, probably eager to get rid of me. ‘Did you say you were going to the passenger car?’
    I nodded.
    â€˜Dining is next,’ he said, pointing toward the sliding door opposite the one he was standing in, ‘and the passenger car beyond that.’
    We were standing in a vestibule, kind of an airlock with a metal floor and a sliding door on each of the four walls. Two of the doors – the one Boyce was standing in and the slider he’d indicated I should use – led to the adjacent train cars. The other two were exits to the platform on both sides of the train.
    The dining car was through the slider, just as Boyce had promised. Eight white-clothed tables with C-shaped banquettes faced the aisle, four on each side. At the far end of the car, another table held a sheet cake frosted to look like a man sleeping. A knife protruded from his chest and red decorating gel with sparkles had been used to simulate other slashes.
    I paused to admire the effect. The knife was real and had a brown staghorn handle, reminding me of a three-piece set that my grandmother had passed down to me. I pulled the knife up a bit and, sure enough, there was the same ‘Hollow Ground Stainless Steel’ stamp as the blade of my set. I’d managed to trace those knives back to the fifties. Well after the era of the book, certainly, but nonetheless, I thought it was a nice touch.
    More tapping, increasing in insistence. I replaced the knife, but then turned back to swipe my finger across the cake frosting on the culinary victim’s foot, where nobody would notice. I plopped the sweet icing in my mouth. It had been hours since Pavlik had bought me lunch and I was starving. Needless to say, with our last-minute hanky-panky under the blankie, we hadn’t had time to grab a snack from the newsstand as he’d suggested.
    Believe me, I wasn’t regretting it. I’d take Pavlik over a granola bar anytime. Even a sandwich.
    Through the next vestibule, I found a regular passenger car with rows of seats. At the end of that car was a restroom. Stopping just short of it, I slid open the window.
    â€˜Sorry,’ I called out to Missy. ‘I stopped to introduce myself to Boyce.’
    She passed me the rope. ‘No need to apologize. You’re helping, after all. And as a guest, you should be relaxing. I’m sorry I got a little impatient with you before.’
    The girl obviously had no idea of the heights – or depths – I’d seen true impatience reach.
    I caught a glimpse of Pavlik walking toward the platform with Zoe, each carrying something in one hand. Behind them was a gaggle of what I guessed to be writers, probably eager to pick the sheriff’s brains about gore and mayhem. I told myself that wasn’t the part of Pavlik I was most interested in.
    At least not this weekend.
    â€˜It’s nice to have something to do, since I’m a little out of my element here.’ I opened the next window and tied the rope around the post between them with a double knot. It wouldn’t get me a merit badge, but it should hold. ‘How’s that?’
    â€˜Genius,’ Missy said. ‘Will you be able to close the window, or at least nearly so? I’d hate for it to get too hot in there.’
    What a difference a few hours and fifteen hundred miles can make. In Wisconsin on the first day of November, you’d slam the window to keep out the cold air. Here it was the opposite.
    â€˜Good idea. That way the rope will be more secure anyway.’ I slid down one of the windows to prove it. ‘Is that far enough?’
    â€˜Perfect,’ Missy said.
    I moved a few rows forward and tied the other end of the banner the same way. By the time we had the banner secure people were already boarding the train, which made the point moot, when you thought about it. I mean, once everybody was on the train and we