Chapter 7
According to Malcolm’s wristwatch, their situation was hopeless.
They’d never make the train on time. But Pax didn’t give up so easily.
He drove the hearse faster than was respectable or even advisable, arriving at the station three minutes prior to their train’s scheduled departure.
The train rested at the platform, looming and grumbling, and a few latecomers scurried toward it, ushered aboard by a white-mustached conductor.
The hearse whipped past the station and turned into the train yard. A gate stood partway open, and Pax laid on the horn, the trumpeting of which undermined the somber dignity that typically accompanied the arrival of a hearse.
“This doesn’t bode well,” Violet said, shifting in her seat, uncomfortably trapped between Malcolm and the undertaker.
But Pax honked again, and this time, the gate swung rapidly open.
As they drove through, the undercarriage scraping on a dip in the pavement, Malcolm saw the stooped, gray man who had opened the gate.
The undertaker waved to him, and the man rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a pointed statement—he expected money for his services.
“You arranged all of this in advance? The man at the gate, the Irishmen?” Malcolm asked.
“I told you. I didn’t arrange anything; it was all your mother. She left me money to pay whatever it cost. When it’s done, anything left is to be split between you and your brother and sister.”
Violet huffed. “Whatever’s meant to go to Elias, you’d best give it to me. He’ll have gambled it away an hour after it’s in his hands.”
“I’ll follow my instructions to the letter,” the undertaker replied, but didn’t say precisely what those instructions had been.
The train shunted forward slightly as the engineer released its brake.
Pax swore and hit the horn again as they drove up alongside the train.
They raced past the coaches, the dining and lounge cars, then the sleeper cars, before Pax hit the brakes and skidded to a halt beside the baggage car.
With its windows, it might have looked like another coach from the outside were it not for the broad sliding door that looked as if it belonged on a freight train.
Three porters stood beside the thrumming train, smoking and laughing together.
Pax struck the horn again, and this time, two of the men whipped around in surprise.
When they spotted the hearse, realization seemed to dawn on them.
One of the porters raised a hand and waved urgently at the engineer, then rushed to the baggage car and unlatched the door.
The other two porters hurried to the back of the hearse while the first slid apart the baggage car’s doors. As Malcolm helped Violet step out, the porters hefted the crate containing his mother’s remains.
“I’ve got you,” Violet said quietly, and Malcolm realized that maybe it was her helping him, rather than the other way around.
Pax turned off the engine and hopped out. “Get your bags.”
Malcolm blinked. Normally he’d have bristled at being told what to do, but in that moment, he was grateful for some direction. He took his valise and Violet’s suitcase out of the back of the hearse. Violet linked arms with him, and they walked toward Pax and the porters, who were arguing.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the younger porter said, “passengers aren’t allowed to ride in the baggage car.”
“We’re going to miss the train!” Violet snapped.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the porter repeated, ignoring her and speaking to Pax. Some men would never give a woman the dignity of a direct reply.
Maggie’s crate had already been loaded into the baggage car. The first porter waved to the engineer again, as if to indicate that the delay had passed and they could get going.
“Hang on!” Malcolm called.
“If you don’t have tickets, you can pay on board, but you’d better—”
Malcolm shook loose of Violet’s arm and darted over to stop the bespectacled porter from closing the sliding door.
He pointed at the crate. “That right there is my mother’s body.
She’s barely been dead long enough to get cold.
If Mr. Keates says we’re cleared to ride with the baggage, then we’re riding with the goddamn baggage. ”
“It’s not exactly first class,” Violet added. “We’re not eager.”
“It’s the rules, miss,” the first porter said.
Paxson Keates walked toward him like he was running for mayor. “My friend, I’ve found that there are no rules so firm that a bigger payoff won’t soften them. Now, I’ve paid well for these fine folks to ride in the baggage car instead of the comfort of a sleeper. If we had the time—”
The train whistle shrieked.
“If we had the time,” Pax went on calmly, “your boss would confirm that. Instead, you’ll have to take my word for it.”
The first porter began to argue, the other two rushing over to do the same, but Paxson put a twenty-dollar bill in each man’s right hand. The trio exchanged a curious look, and then the bespectacled man pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.
“Better not get us fired,” he said. “I need this job.”
“You have my word,” Pax replied.
The train whistle screamed again. The porters shrugged in unison and even helped to lift Malcolm and Violet—the latter in the most gentlemanly manner possible—up into the baggage car. Pax handed up their traveling cases.
The train seemed to sigh, then began to roll slowly forward, as if breaking free from polar ice.
Malcolm stared at Pax Keates and realized he might not see the man again, that he might not see Elkhart again.
This had all happened so quickly, and it only now occurred to him that fate might not bring him home.
He opened his mouth without any idea how to put what he felt into words.
“Thank you,” he managed. So many questions, but no time for anything save gratitude.
Pax reached inside his jacket and withdrew a cream-hued envelope, then handed it up to him. “I don’t know what she wrote to you, but I guess it’s important.”
Malcolm almost laughed.
Violet grabbed his arm as the train lurched twice, bumping them against one another, and then began to pick up speed.
The younger porter walked alongside the moving train. “Careful you don’t fall right out.”
Malcolm and Violet supported one another, as they’d done for the past year in various ways. He looked out at Elkhart, wondering if he would miss the place, and his breath stilled in his lungs.
The Oldsmobile 88, maybe black or blue or gray, skidded to a stop at the steps of the station.
Violet hadn’t seen it, and neither had Pax, and Malcolm didn’t want to draw attention to it.
The raven had been shot in the leg, maybe worse, but somehow, he’d gotten the upper hand on the Hannigan brothers.
He inhaled sharply, glanced at Violet and then at Maggie’s crate.
What could Pax Keates do for him now? Not a damn thing.
The crate was too unwieldy to move quickly, and even if they got it back into the hearse, where would they go?
He didn’t own a vehicle in good enough condition to make it all the way to Shediak, Maine, in two days.
The Oldsmobile’s doors opened, but instead of the raven, both Hannigan brothers climbed out.
Joe had been in the passenger seat, holding a bloody handkerchief to his face.
Alfie had been driving, but now he dropped the keys into his brother’s open palm.
Alfie cupped one hand behind Joe’s neck and shook him, as if he meant to knock some sense into him.
Whatever the brothers said to one another, they were much too far away to be overheard.
Alfie ran through the station. As the train continued to pick up speed, he raced onto the platform. Hatless, his orange hair seemed almost gold in the sunlight.
“Looks like Mr. Hannigan’s keeping us company on this journey,” Violet said.
Malcolm settled back on the floor of the baggage car, leaning against the crate. “They were driving the other fellow’s car. I don’t think we need to worry about him anymore. But I’m glad to have Alfie along. I’ll rest a little easier, I guess.”
“I won’t,” Violet said.
“Why not?”
She stood by the open window of the baggage car, looking out at the ominous gray sky. Cold wind whipped her hair back. “People with nothing to fear don’t need a man like Alfie Hannigan to look out for them.”
Malcolm gave a last wave to Pax Keates. As they left the platform behind, he saw no trace of Alfie, which meant he’d managed to board the train.
Back in front of the station, Joe Hannigan leaned against the grille of the Oldsmobile.
He’d lowered the bloody handkerchief, but even at this distance, Malcolm could see red smeared all over his face.
Violet settled beside him, the two of them leaning against the crate. She laid her head on his shoulder and exhaled heavily. “Well, this is going to be cozy.”
The click-clack of the train over its tracks filled the awkward silence that followed her remark. Had the joke referred to how terribly uncomfortable they would be during these days in the baggage car, or about the intimacy that had been thrust upon them?
Maggie had died.
Elias might be anywhere else, but he wasn’t here with his wife and his brother.
Malcolm and Violet had shared a thousand wordless moments. Propriety had constrained them, these two who had been lonely and felt abandoned.
Until now.
He leaned against her, shoulder to shoulder. “Here we are again, the two of us and Maggie.”
She laughed softly. “I’m afraid she’s no longer a suitable chaperone.”
“Don’t worry. You’re safe.”
“I’m not sure I want to be.”
Neither of them dared say another word. They sat quietly, relying on each other. Malcolm slowly became aware of how cold the crate felt against his back. As chilly as it already was inside the baggage car, the wood of the crate was colder.
He began to hear a sound quite out of place in the baggage car, a soft tinkling as if a trunk or suitcase contained glass that chimed with the rocking of the train. Or perhaps not glass. It seemed more to Malcolm like muffled, distant notes plucked out on a piano keyboard.
Familiar notes in the key of F, played bright and clear.
With the rumble of the train and the way the tinkling came and went, he might have been so exhausted that he was imagining the whole thing—linking those sounds together and turning them into music. A piece by Sammy Fain, made famous by Billie Holiday, beloved during the Second World War.
“I’ll Be Seeing You.” Maggie Wise’s favorite.
Malcolm closed his eyes, drained by grief and fear and exertion.
Sleep waited for him with open arms and an offer of brief comfort.
The way Violet’s breathing had deepened, he thought she might already have fallen asleep.
The music continued, those notes he refused to believe actually amounted to “I’ll Be Seeing You. ”
As he began to surrender to sleep, he wondered if it might be a music box jostled by the train’s motion. It might be inside any of the trunks or cases in the car around them. Any one of them.
He allowed himself to be satisfied by this thought.
But he didn’t put his ear against the outside of the crate that held his mother’s body.
No, he wouldn’t do that. There were enough mysteries this morning.
As he thought of mysteries, he remembered the cream envelope Paxson Keates had given him. He reached into his jacket, assured himself the envelope remained folded into his inside pocket, where he’d placed it during the moments he believed the raven was about to catch up to them.
The last words his mother would ever give him were in that envelope, but he couldn’t open it now.
This task she’d set before him was enough for the moment.
His eyes were so heavy, his thoughts so fuzzy.
He would sleep for an hour, and then he’d open that envelope and figure out how far this train would take them, where they had to change, and how soon they could reach their destination so he could put his mother into the ground.
He dreamt of a piano, of thin fingers playing familiar notes, and of a man with the head of a raven. In his dream, it was not a mask.