Black Cat Mystery Magazine #9

THE JERICHO TRAIN, by John M. Floyd-1

THE JERICHO TRAIN, by John M. Floyd“Are you sure it will stop there?” Paulina asked.

“It’ll stop.” Victor Connely lowered the binoculars and glanced at his watch. “In about ten minutes.”

She held up a hand to shade her eyes from the midmorning sun. The tiny cluster of buildings in the distance looked like dark pebbles on a yellow-gold carpet.

“How do you know?” she said.

“Because I grew up in these parts. It’s been stopping at that station for thirty years.”

“I grew up here too. But I do not know the train schedules.”

Victor didn’t reply. He just gave her a look that said I make it my business to know things. After all, he had been raised on the twenty-thousand-acre Connely Ranch and had married the daughter of the late copper baron Alex Larrimore. Paulina was born dirt poor and on the other side—both literally and figuratively—of the tracks. It was a difference they both understood but never talked about. He saw her face harden, and he suppressed a smile. Paulina’s fiery temper, never far below the surface, was one of the things he liked about her.

But he didn’t need an argument right now.

“Calm down,” he said. “In ten minutes—nine, actually—my life’s going to get a lot better, and yours too.”

Their eyes locked. “And what proof do I have?”

“Of what? That our lives are about to improve?”

“That you will marry me afterward, as you have promised.”

He spread his hands. “What more proof do you need? What I’m doing today is for you.”

“I thought this was about you getting richer.”

“You’ll be richer too. In a few minutes I’ll become the sole owner of Larrimore Mining, and after you and I are married you’ll have everything you ever dreamed of.”

Which probably wasn’t all that lofty a goal, Victor thought. Six months ago, when he’d suggested to his wife Audrey that they hire Paulina Barros for their household staff, Paulina was a day laborer in a bean field north of town. Victor’s foreman, Leonard Ellsworth, had spotted her at one of the markets and pointed her out to him, and Victor had wasted no time making his move. Paulina became Victor’s live-in mistress on the same day she became his and Audrey’s live-in housemaid. Paulina was young and gorgeous and sultry and had been a wonderful secret companion to Victor these past few months, but—unlike his wife—she was dumb as a fencepost. Victor figured he’d soon be planning how to get rid of her too, and long before he fulfilled his promise to make her the second Mrs. Victor Connely. Right now, though, he had to keep his mind on Audrey. Getting rid of her was what they had come here for, today.

Paulina grunted a curse in Spanish. Awakening from his thoughts, Victor looked over to see her trying to adjust the straps of her backpack.

“I do not see why we have to wear these things,” she said.

“Because they’re a disguise, that’s why. I doubt anybody’ll see us here, but if they do, we’ll look like hikers.” Besides, his own pack contained extra water in case they had any trouble with the truck. The bottles were heavy, yes, but he didn’t want to be stranded out here in the middle of nowhere and die of thirst. He’d loaded all his gear the night before, as he always did, whether it involved backpacks, suitcases, briefcases, or what, and then put it out of his mind. Victor had never been a Boy Scout, in either name or actions, but he believed in being prepared well beforehand. He added, “This won’t take long, anyway.”

That seemed to satisfy her, at least for the moment. But as he raised his glasses again she said, in that flat, bored accent of hers, “Did you not tell me you own some of this land?”

“My wife’s company does,” he said. “Just east of here.”

“Then maybe you can answer this.” She nodded toward the station. “The railroad line goes all the way to Tucson. Why do they call it the Jericho train?”

“Jericho was a mining camp, not far from here. A booming place, according to Ellsworth. The first rails they laid went only from town to there, and back. I guess the name stuck.” Victor squinted again through the binoculars. “Nothing good happens here now, that’s for sure. It’s just desert. Rocks and dirt. And Tucson’s not much better.”

Paulina gave him a dark look. “My parents live in Tucson.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“There are many things you do not know, Victor. About me, my family, my past—”

“The past doesn’t matter. I’m interested in the future. Yours and mine.” He grinned at her and said, “A future without Audrey.”

They both fell silent then, watching and waiting. Five minutes to go. The wind whistled and moaned. Ten feet away on the ridgetop, a spotted lizard scurried beneath a rock.

Victor listened hard for the first sounds of the train, approaching from the mountains to the west. Mountains he and Paulina had driven through in his truck two hours ago, while Leonard Ellsworth headed into town in the Lexus to drop Audrey and her luggage off at the main train station. Audrey’s plan, suggested by Victor several days back, was to visit her cousin in Tucson for a week. Victor’s plan for her was a bit different. When Victor told his foreman about the role he’d be playing in all this stealth and deception, Ellsworth had smiled and replied, I’m secretive by nature.

“I still do not understand,” Paulina grumbled, “how this is supposed to work.”

Victor turned to study her profile. She was staring at the faraway buildings, hands on her hips, long black hair rippling in the dry wind, her own pair of binoculars hanging forgotten from her neck. She seemed completely unaware of her beauty, which to Victor made her even more appealing.

“Then you weren’t listening when I told you,” he said. “Two nights ago Ellsworth drove to the station there”—he pointed into the distance—“and planted an explosive device at the spot where the passenger car’ll be, during the stop. It’s hidden in a little opening underneath the rails, on this side of the tracks. While the train’s taking on new travelers bound for Tucson—nobody ever gets off at Jericho Crossing, just on—I’ll take out the remote, aim it like I’m about to change a channel on my TV, and push a red button. And BOOM, that’s the end of Audrey, the train, the station, and everything else within fifty yards. The blast’ll be big enough to see from five miles away, and the smoke from ten times that. Except that you and I’ll probably be the only ones to see it, because all around us is nothing but mountains and desert.”

He saw her brows knit together in thought. “Fifty yards?” she said.

“So I’m told. Ellsworth knows his explosives. He used to work for Audrey’s father, in the mines. He said the MSD for this device—Minimum Safe Distance—is two hundred yards.”

“And you are sure it can be done from here?”

“Triggering it, you mean? Yes. Remember what I told you, about our location? Doesn’t matter how far away we are, as long as there’s a clear line-of-sight. Modern technology.”

“If it is so modern,” she said, “why could you not push the button while we sit at home, or in the truck?”

Victor closed his eyes. She really could be irritating, at times. “It’s line of sight, Paulina. That’s the way it works.”

“What if somebody parks a car between us and the…”

“Bomb?”

“Yes. Between us and it.”

He shook his head. “They won’t. No vehicles allowed on this side of the tracks.”

“What if somebody happens to be standing there? In the way.”

“Then I’ll wait till he moves. Don’t worry.” He patted the right-hand pocket of his vest. “Ellsworth placed the device so I’ll have a clear shot at it from here.”

“What if the wind blows sand over it?”

“It won’t, there in the railyard. And even at great distances, the beam from this thing—think of it as a beam—wouldn’t be bothered by a layer of sand. Only thing that can stop it are rocks, or steel, or a brick wall.” He paused and said, “Just relax.”

Paulina went quiet then. Victor thought he could hear it now: a faint but steady rumble, miles away. The train was still hidden by rolling hills and spiky gray peaks. High above, he saw a hawk riding the thermals, and the straight white contrail of a jet heading east to west.

“What I really do not understand,” she said, without looking at him, “is why all those other people must die.”

He snorted. “You’re getting softhearted, now? I seem to recall you shooting a stray dog last month because he peed on your flowers.”

“He will not pee on any more flowers. But these are not dogs we are talking about.”

Victor sighed and answered, “This is the only safe way to do it. Audrey’ll be one person in a crowd, one of many.” He thought, but didn’t say, A lot of them’ll be Mexicans anyway.

“But afterward, the Law will certainly find, how do you say…”

“Evidence?” he said.

“Yes. Evidence of an explosion.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Terrorism’s everywhere, these days. And Ellsworth planted the bomb late at night, when nobody was around. No cameras, no witnesses. And there’ll be no markings to find, afterward. Nothing to tie the device back to him, or to me.”

Silence. Then: “Can you be sure this explosive is in place? At this moment?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Because Mr. Ellsworth told you it is there?”

“Yep. He’s been with my family twenty years. I trust him.”

“And where is this remote thing? This remote that will cause the explosion?”

“It’s right here.” He touched his pocket again, felt the hard outline of the little cylinder he’d buttoned inside the pocket late last night.

“Show it to me,” she said.

“Why?” He picked up the glasses again, scanned the barren flats at the foot of the mountains. The train would appear any second now. Overhead, the hawk was gone, and the track of the jet had faded to feathery white streaks against the blue sky. “Why do you want to see it?”

She hesitated, obviously deep in thought. Finally she said, with narrowed eyes, “Because I am worried. Who else could know about this?”

“What? No one. Just you and Ellsworth.”

“I do not mean who have you told, Victor. I mean who else could know?”

“Nobody,” he said again. “I don’t see what you’re—”

“I know when and where you told me,” she said. “But when and where did you tell Mr. Ellsworth?”

He frowned. “At home, downstairs in my den. The other night, after I left your room.”

“You talked about the station, and the explosive, and how and where he would place it?”

“All of that. Why?”

“I will tell you why. What if Audrey overheard you? What if she heard everything?”

Victor blinked. What?

“Sometimes you are not as smart as you think you are. Audrey was also downstairs during this meeting between you and Mr. Ellsworth three nights ago. Did you know that?”

“No.” Victor and his wife had separate bedrooms, and rarely saw each other at night. Hell, they rarely saw each other at all, which was fine with Victor. Probably with Audrey too; he had long suspected she was having an affair of her own.

“Even more important,” Paulina said, “she was gone for three hours last night.”

That got his attention. “What time last night?” He’d been at his office until after eleven.

“She left around seven o’clock. In the Lexus.”

“And?”

“And I watched her from my window,” Paulina said. “Before she left, she put something in the trunk, something long, wrapped in a cloth. But one end of the wrapping fell loose, while she was loading it.”

He stayed quiet, waiting.

“It was a shovel.”

Victor stared at her. A shovel?

“I thought nothing of it, at the time,” Paulina said. “Audrey and her country-club friends sometimes do garden things, so this could be—how do you say?—understandable. But at night? And hidden from sight? Now, the more I think about it…”

Victor swallowed. He felt a chill shimmy down his spine. He heard a distant whistle, and was dimly aware that the train had now steamed into view and was pounding east toward the station. Digging out the device wouldn’t require a shovel—but would Audrey know that?