Destination Murder (24 page)

“Thinking about falling?” she asked, and flung her body against the opposite side of the bridge, causing it to rattle and groan as the force of her action made the suspended walkway swing violently.

“It would be so easy, wouldn’t it?” she said in a singsong, little girl’s voice. “Just let the bridge dump you over into the abyss.”

“Cut it out, Samantha,” I said. “This is not funny. You’re endangering others as well as ourselves.”

“Scared? Don’t you like the feeling? I let you ride once before.”

So it was Samantha. “
You
released the latch on the train door. You might have killed me.”

She shrugged. “I saved you, didn’t I? Swinging is fun. Daddy used to like to go on the swings with me,” she said, bending her knees and pushing up, as if she were pumping on a swing in a playground. “Daddy? Wanna go on the swings again?”

“Samantha, stop fooling around.” I used my sternest tone. “We have to go now.”

“Up we go. Down we go.”

“Samantha!” Marilyn’s voice, calling from the end of the bridge, held a note of panic.

“Look down, Jessica. See the rocks? If we jumped down there we’d be dead, just like my daddy. Then I could see him again.” Although she was losing her hold on sanity, she looked at me with such sadness in her eyes, it broke my heart.

“Samantha, you couldn’t have saved him. His heart wasn’t strong. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have been there,” she wailed. “I could have helped him.”

“Please, Samantha,” I said, holding out my hand. “Come back with me. Hurting yourself is not the solution. Come on now.”

She started to sob; then abruptly, her misery became rage. “I could have helped Blevin, too, but I didn’t want to. He killed my father. Let him die.”

“Did you poison Alvin Blevin?” I asked.

A hysterical laugh erupted from her lips. She rocked the bridge again, hurling herself against the metal barrier, cackling and hooting. The violence of her action and its reverberation through the footbridge threw us both down on the wooden boards. Samantha panted, holding her side. “Oh, I wish I had,” she said fervently. “Thank you. Thank you, whoever killed him.”

On the cliff, Marilyn’s pleas to her daughter were faint over the rising wind.

Samantha collapsed against the mesh sidewall, tears and rain dripping down her cheeks, but the mad look was gone from her eyes.

I appealed to her. “Your mother is calling for you. It’s time we went back.”

She pouted like a petulant child and folded her arms. “Tell her to come and get me.”

“You know she can’t. She won’t walk on the bridge. She’s terrified of heights.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do,” I said, refusing to let her play out her misbehavior. “I’m tired of your games, and I’m tired of getting wet out here.” Maybe without an audience Samantha would pull herself together, I thought. If I didn’t indulge her theatrics, she might stop acting out and follow me back to where her mother was waiting.

It was a calculated move. As wretched and sick as she was, I was betting that Samantha didn’t really want to die. She was distraught and irrational. She had wanted to save her father and in her mind’s eye had failed. Now she grasped at ways to control the world around her—and I might have died when she’d played out that need on the train. She was desperate for help. And she wouldn’t get it until we were both off the bridge.

Struggling to my feet, I prayed it was the right decision. “I’m leaving now. I think you should come, too,” I said, walking away from her as quickly as I dared. She rose and followed me, but with little grace. My arms snapped out to grab the cable as I lurched to one side of the narrow bridge, then to the other, my hair flying in the whipping wind and my knees buckling every time Samantha purposely stomped on the suspended walkway. I made it back to the side of the bridge we’d started from and was relieved to climb onto the fixed steps to the platform, and from there to solid ground.

Marilyn’s face was wet with tears, but she didn’t look at me as I passed her. Instead, her eyes were fixed on her child. She held out her arms and Samantha fell into them.

I went to the concession stand and bought a cup of tea. All I knew at that moment was that I was more than happy to be off the Capilano Suspension Bridge. I was still unsteady on my feet and my hand shook as I brought the Styrofoam cup to my lips.

Samantha Whitmore was a mentally deranged woman. I hoped Marilyn would get her daughter immediate medical attention. As a loving mother, it would be painful for her to admit her child to a mental institution, but Samantha needed treatment urgently, and putting it off might imperil others. Samantha had come close to killing us both today and had been the author of my harrowing experience on the train. When might she cross the line again? And would her next victim emerge unscathed?

I remembered the scene in the club car before Alvin Blevin succumbed to the poison. I had thought to hold Samantha back from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but realized now that that had never been her intent. She’d wanted to see Blevin die, certain he was responsible for her father’s death. But I believed her when she said she hadn’t poisoned him. She might have withheld her assistance, but she wasn’t his murderer. Now I had to find out who was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bumped into Reggie on the elevator and we rode down together, hurried across the lobby, and climbed into the back of a taxi hailed by the doorman. Reggie gave the driver the address of the office building owned by Alvin Blevin, headquarters for the Track and Rail Club.

“Can’t believe you went to the bridge,” Reggie said. “Most people who’d signed up opted out because of the weather.”

“They were wise,” I said, and gave him a capsule history of what had occurred.

“Now I understand why she’s on a medical leave. You’re okay, right?”

I assured him I was. It might be a while before I stepped onto any suspension bridges again, but the incident was in the past, and we had a lot to do going forward.

We were on our way to the board of directors’ meeting that Maeve had mentioned. It had been shoe-horned in before our final evening aboard the Pacific Starlight Dinner Train. Reggie had explained that it was imperative to elect new officers, in light of Blevin’s death. I had given him more to think about when I’d told him Blevin had a daughter. He was worried that the club would lose its headquarters as well as its president.

As we headed across town, my thoughts went to the model railroad setup Blevin had built at club headquarters. I’d seen Reggie’s layout back in Cabot Cove and had been impressed with its size and attention to detail. But the way others had described Blevin’s model, it would put Reggie’s to shame. I was eager to see it.

“You never gave me the details of your conversation with the reporter from the
Vancouver Sun,
” he said. “How did that come about?”

“He tracked me down at the hotel. Did you know that Benjamin was arrested a few years ago for attacking his new stepfather?”

“No. The reporter told you that?”

“Yes. But we talked mostly about Elliott Vail and his disappearance.”

“Why?”

“This reporter—his name is Driscoll, Gene Driscoll—is convinced that Vail’s disappearance and Blevin’s murder are connected.”

“Why would he think that? Both men were members of the Track and Rail, yes. And they both died on the Whistler Northwind. But the tragedies occurred years apart, and they died under very different circumstances. Where’s the connection?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Did you get hold of anyone at Merit Life?”

“Yes, an old friend who’s pretty high up there. He didn’t seem keen on talking to me about an ongoing investigation, but he said he’d get back to me with what information he could release. He’ll call me at the hotel. Why do you want to know the name of the investigators, Jess?”

“Just to fill in some pieces. Do you have your cell phone with you?”

“Sure.”

“May I?”

I took the phone from him and dialed the number on the card Gene Driscoll had left with me. I caught him as he walked into the newsroom.

“Mr. Driscoll, Jessica Fletcher. I was wondering if you’ve done any background checks on Al Blevin’s former marriages.”

“No, I haven’t. Why?”

“It occurs to me that any of his former wives or children might be able to shed light on Mr. Blevin, the way he lived, his business dealings, things like that. I’d also like to know what sort of settlements he made with them.”

Driscoll paused before asking, “Are you suggesting that one of his ex-wives might have killed him?”

“It never crossed my mind,” I answered. “Can you get me that information?”

“Sure. Marriages, births, and divorces are all public record—unless you’ve got a judge in your pocket who closes the records. How soon do you need the information?”

“Whenever you can do it. I’m on my way to a meeting, but I should be back at the hotel by five.” I glanced at Reggie, who nodded. “I have a dinner this evening, but that’s not until—”

Another glance at Reggie, who held up his hands, five fingers extended on one, one on the other.

“The dinner is at six. I’ll be in my room until I leave for it.”

I clicked off the phone and handed it back to Reggie.

“So,” he said, “what’s this sudden new interest in Al’s previous marriages?”

“I told you the woman who drove me home from Theodora’s said he had a daughter from his first marriage.”

“Yes. And I know why that information is important to the club, but why is it important to you?”

“I’d just like to know how old the daughter is and where she’s living now.”

He started to ask questions, but I held up my hand. “That’s all I know at this point, Reggie. Let’s wait until I hear back from the reporter and you hear from your contact at Merit Life. Right now everything is pure speculation.”

“Knowing you, Jess, I doubt that, but I’ll follow your lead.”

We pulled up in front of a sleek modern office building, its walls reflective glass that mirrored the buildings across the street and anyone walking by. A sign above the revolving doors said BLEVIN BUILDING.

“Here we are,” Reggie said as he paid the driver and held the door for me. The rain was coming down hard now, and we raced for the cover of the building’s overhang. As we pushed through the revolving doors, we saw Deedee Crocker and Junior and Maeve Pinckney waiting for the elevator.

In the marble lobby was a newsstand, behind which an elderly Asian man prepared to close up. A store specializing in travel items occupied another space. And there was a small luncheonette behind floor-to-ceiling windows and an open glass door. A few people sat at the counter.

A chime indicated the elevator had arrived, and I entered the cab and faced forward. As the doors closed, I looked across the lobby through the windows of the luncheonette. There was a familiar figure sitting at the lunch counter—Detective Christian Marshall of the RCMP. Was he there because of interest in the Track and Rail board meeting, or was the luncheonette a favorite spot of his? I didn’t know where he lived, but I did know his office was on the other side of the city. Was it a coincidence that he was there on that particular afternoon? I doubted it.

People milled about the fourth floor as we exited the elevator. Directly across from us was an open door leading to a small boardroom in which some people were seated around a table. Another open door at the far end afforded a distant view of the club’s controversial model railroad layout. Reggie saw me straining to see it and suggested I take a close-up look before the meeting started. Junior had already preceded us into the room.

What I was able to see from my vantage point near the elevators represented only a small portion of the room. Once inside, its enormous size became obvious. The room was almost completely consumed by the model railroad.

“This is remarkable,” I said, walking slowly into a maze of narrow passages between scenic mock-ups, over which ran a variety of trains.

“If you come over here,” Junior called out, “you’ll see the Whistler Northwind.”

I followed his voice till I came to the part of the setup that reproduced our trip.

“Watch this,” Reggie said. He stationed himself at an elaborate control panel connected to a maze of wires running up to a series of beams that provided conduits for the wires. He flipped some switches and pushed some buttons, and soon sounds erupted from the layout in front of me: “All aboard!” A yard-long steam engine began pulling away from the model of Vancouver station. Steam belched from its smokestack as it started up an incline.

“See the firebox,” Reggie said, pointing to a red glow inside the engine. “Just like the real thing,” he said proudly.

“I’m impressed,” I said. “Al Blevin built this himself?”

Reggie laughed. “No. He brought in a company that specializes in building high-end layouts. There’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in this benchwork, Jess. The engine alone cost two thousand. There’s fifty thousand in the model trees. There’s over a thousand feet of track; you can run fifteen trains at the same time.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the sheer pleasure written all over my friend’s face as he manipulated the trains. I’d seen the delighted faces of children on Christmas mornings when they came down to see a small layout beneath the Christmas tree, and Reggie’s expression was no different.

“Hey, come on,” Hank Crocker said from the doorway. “Let’s get the meeting started.”

Reggie closed the switches and we went to the boardroom. The walls of the room were covered in what appeared to be brown leather; chairs were upholstered in the same masculine material. A large plasma-screen TV and assorted audiovisual equipment occupied one end of the room. Another wall held framed photographs of Blevin with politicians and entertainers, all of them signed to him. Opposite the door was a curtain glass wall affording a view of Vancouver’s impressive harbor, where cruise ships awaited their Alaska-bound passengers.