Super (8 page)

There in the doorway of a drawing room stood Conductor Hammond. If this squat fiftyish man of bulldog authority had a real first name beyond “Conductor,” Pryor had never heard it.

Hammond stepped aside for Pryor to see what there was to see.

Mr. Otto Wheeler lay in his bunk, the sheet and dark blue Super Chief blanket pulled carefully up around his chest, his hands and arms lying comfortably to either side. His face wore a smile, his eyes wide open.

“He’s dead,” said the conductor. “When Ralph couldn’t wake him to get ready to get off in Bethel I took a look, felt for some pulse, there wasn’t any.” Then, as if to anticipate what the detective might say, he added, “No, I didn’t touch anything else, although as sick as he was, he probably put himself out of his own misery. Look at that smile on his face.”

Jack Pryor said nothing. He turned back toward the narrow
doorway and saw Harry Truman and A. C. Browne sharing it, both gazing at the dead man. Charlie Sanders stood behind them.

“Sorry, gentlemen, but I must ask that you return to the lounge,” said Pryor to Truman and Browne. “Mr. President, it appears we have had a death on this train.”

“What kind of death?” asked A. C. Browne.

“A suicide is what it looks like,” said the detective. “But I’ll keep you informed, gentlemen.”

The editor-publisher of the
Strong Pantagraph
and the former president of the United States did as they were told and walked away.

And the Super Chief rolled to a smooth stop.

“We’re in Bethel,” said the conductor to Pryor. “Five minutes is all we’re supposed to have here. We’re already running two minutes late …”

Jack Pryor reached over to close the window blind. But he stopped. “There’s an ambulance … no, it’s a hearse, it looks like … out there and it’s moving right up here to the train—to this car. How could that be?”

“Detective, I’d say somebody was expecting a dead body to come off the Super this morning, that’s what,” said Conductor Hammond.

Back in the lounge, Truman and Browne took seats where they could keep a watch on what was happening out on the Bethel station platform.

“A hearse is already there,” said Truman. “Now that’s called efficiency. I can’t believe the Santa Fe had a hearse standing by just in case somebody died on the Super Chief. I hope to holy hell it wasn’t me they were thinking about.”

Browne laughed. “I hardly think that, sir. Your good health and heartiness are well known—even to the Santa Fe.”

“You Brownes really must be close to the Santa Fe if they’ll stop a train in Strong for you.”

“Yes, sir. The railroad’s always been a part of our lives. Dad used to have a Santa Fe pass and a Fred Harvey pass that meant he and the rest of us in the family could ride and eat free of charge on any Santa Fe train anytime we wanted.”

“‘Used to have’?”

“No more. It was a form of bribery—bribery of the press, pure and simple. The railroads had Kansas newspaper editors in their political pockets. Some were Missouri Pacific papers, others Frisco or Union Pacific, Santa Fe and whatever. Dad was a Santa Fe man but he jumped off the train, so to speak, editorialized against it and raised so much hell everyone else stopped it.
Reader’s Digest
paid for my ticket on this train, if that’s what you’re asking. How about you, sir? I would think
you former presidents could ride for free on just about anything you wanted.”

“My ticket was paid for by the political people sponsoring my speech,” said Truman. “I don’t take bribes either, Browne!”

Even in the weak light Browne could see red in Truman’s cheeks, anger in his blue eyes.

“Sometimes you talk like you’re writing a goddamn editorial, Browne.”

“Sometimes you talk like you
are
an editorial, Mr. President.”

“Your dad really didn’t cuss?”

“That’s right. He believed a man who cusses is a man who—”

“Don’t finish the sentence. If I wanted to hear a sermon with my bourbon I’d go to a church, not to the lounge car on the Super Chief.”

They fell silent, both watching while the hearse was backed closer to the train and a group of men, including the Santa Fe’s Pryor and Sanders, held a conference.

“Our detective friend Pryor appears to have a problem out there,” said Browne.

“I think you’re right,” said Truman. “You’d think a suicide would make it a simple situation.”

“I have never, even for a split second, thought about taking my own life. Have you, sir?”

Truman looked truly appalled—stunned at being asked
such an idiotic question. “My god, no! It’s not even an option for people like me.”

“Former presidents?”

“Nope. People who came from absolutely nothing to being absolutely something. Besides, the Bible says it’s a sin.”

“What if Dewey had beaten you in forty-eight?” Browne accompanied the question with a smile.

“I might have considered putting a gun to
his
head but never to mine,” said Truman. “If a man’s failures were reasons for suicide we’d have nothing but women and children left in our country.”

“I guess that means you didn’t appreciate
Death of a Salesman?”

Truman growled, “I’d never go to a play about a salesman killing himself. I was a salesman. We’re optimists. Optimists don’t kill themselves.”

“Tell me again, who you are, sir?” Jack Pryor asked.

“Paul Pollack. I am Mr. Wheeler’s assistant.”

“How did you know to meet this train with a hearse?”

“Mr. Wheeler told me to do so. I do what Mr. Wheeler says.”

“Did he tell you he was going to be the deceased?”

Pollack, clearly not used to being talked to in such a direct
and confrontational manner, looked away. He had to think about this for a second.

“No, he did not,” he said finally.

“But you knew he would be the dead man?”

Pollack glanced down at the ground this time before speaking. “I knew he was very sick and that he was in a lot of pain.”

“You knew that he was going to die on the Super Chief sometime between seven o’clock last night when it left Chicago and this morning when it arrived at Bethel?”

“I didn’t say that, sir.”

“Did Mr. Wheeler have medicine with him—pills of some kind—that would kill him?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Would you have known if he had?”

“Who knows what anyone would know?”

Jack Pryor was losing patience. Sternly, he asked, “Let me ask you directly, Mr. Pollack. Did Mr. Wheeler kill himself on the Super Chief?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you know if he planned to do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you know or not?”

Pryor motioned to another man, obviously with the hearse crew, to step into the circle. The thin, smiling man in his early forties, named Helfer, did not necessarily resemble the standard appearance for an undertaker. He seemed lively enough to have been a banker—even a Santa Fe assistant general passenger
agent, thought Pryor, seeing him next to Charlie Sanders, who had been silently following the detective. They matched.

“Who asked you to show up here and meet this train with this hearse?” Pryor asked him.

“Mr. Pollack did that. He called us.”

“What did he say you were to do?”

“Pick up a deceased and prepare him for a funeral and burial—details to follow.”

“What name did he give?” Pryor asked.

“Otto Wheeler. I know him. Everybody knows Otto Wheeler. As Mr. Pollack can tell you, Mr. Wheeler was a Super Chief lover—the word was that he won and then lost his true love on a Super Chief ride to Chicago. Probably not so, but everybody believed it and everybody was afraid to ask. Better for the story not to know, what do you think?”

Pollack frowned. Jack Pryor read it as an unambiguous signal for the undertaker to shut up about Mr. Otto Wheeler.

“Is there a next of kin for Mr. Wheeler?” Pryor asked both of the Bethel men.

“No, not really,” said Pollack.

“Most of the Wheelers left Bethel years ago and left Otto here pretty much by himself,” said Helfer. “Can we take possession of the remains now? Is he in there on the last car—the observation car? Quite a train, this Super Chief. Too rich for my blood.”

Jack Pryor was now joined by Conductor Hammond, who
was making a big point of looking at his pocket watch. Jack knew he had a really big decision to make—and he knew it was liable to turn out to be the wrong one no matter what he did. The Santa Fe was a great place to work, but it was full of people who made careers out of making others pay for not following rules.

Pryor knew the railroad’s procedures called for removing dead bodies from Santa Fe trains as soon as was “practical and in accordance with the laws of the state in which the death occurred.”

“We gotta go, detective,” said Conductor Hammond, interrupting Pryor’s concentration. “The Super Chief waits for nobody—not even dead suicides.”

Yes, a suicide, Pryor thought. That’s what it appeared to be. And, by all signs, it most likely occurred near Bethel, but there was no way to know that for sure. Not yet. That brought to mind the Santa Fe’s additional backup rule stating the FBI had jurisdiction if the death “appeared to be the result of an action that occurred while the train was involved in interstate commerce.” Since the Super Chief was by its very Chicago–Los Angeles operation always involved in interstate commerce it came down to a judgment call—by Jack Pryor.

Pryor simply raised his right hand toward Conductor Hammond. Hold it! was the message. Pryor had the authority to override Hammond or anyone else in such an emergency. He could keep The Train of the Stars right here in Bethel as long as he thought necessary.

Pryor’s mind continued to race. Should he at least go back on the train, take a closer look at the compartment where Wheeler lay dead before allowing the Super to leave? But, as all the signs clearly indicated, it was most likely a simple suicide …

Pryor told the undertaker to follow the conductor onto the train and do his work of removing the body.

The sheriff here in Bethel—his name was Ratzlaff and Jack Pryor knew him—could sort out exactly how Otto Wheeler took his life.

That was Pryor’s decision, which he quietly reported to Charlie Sanders, standing close by.

“Mr. Wheeler obviously made a personal decision to die on the Super Chief,” replied Sanders. He successfully fought off an urge to add something smart about how that could be turned into an advertisement for the Super Chief as “the train of choice on which to die.”

He and Pryor watched as Helfer and his men came down on the step stool from the observation car carrying a stretcher with the blanket-covered remains of Otto Wheeler.

The engineer sounded the howl of the Super Chief. Pryor looked at his wristwatch. It was still only six ten. Good morning, citizens of Bethel, Kansas!

“All aboard!” yelled Conductor Hammond.

“It could be that Otto didn’t use pills to take his own life,” said Helfer as he and the others placed the stretcher into the rear of the black Packard hearse.

“What do you mean?” said Pryor.