Murder on the Oregon Express Read online

  “Oh my God, what do we do?” Cat hissed as everyone in the gallery began to run away from the snakes.

  “Run!” I shouted, joining the crowd as we stampeded toward the exit. The snakes were slithering around the floor, I looked back to see one coming toward us as we hit the bottleneck in traffic.

  “This way,” Peaches said, motioning for us to go in a different direction than the crowd was taking, away from the snakes.

  “Can’t we just magic them away?” I asked as we stayed against the far wall, trying not to attract attention. It sounded like someone had fallen toward the front of the doorway, causing the delay in getting everyone out of the room.

  “No,” Cat replied. “There are too many non-magical folk in here.”

  “I think they’d forgive us,” I replied, but I knew Cat was right. Witches weren’t allowed to use magic in front of non-magical folk, unless it was a life-or-death situation. I knew that rule well, I’d had to use magic just over a week ago when a murderer had tried to kill me.

  Suddenly, Peaches let out a small cry. At some point, she’d split up from Cat and I, and was now surrounded by three snakes. They weren’t being threatening, they were just slithering around near her, but I also had no idea what kind of snakes they were or what they would do next.

  “What do we do?” I asked, grabbing Cat.

  “I don’t know. You’re the one from the south, there are snakes there, you tell me.”

  “There aren’t any snakes in downtown Miami,” I hissed back.

  Suddenly, one of the snakes began to slither even closer toward Peaches. “I think this counts as life-or-death,” she shrieked, pointing at the snake.

  “Peaches, no!” Cat and I both cried out in unison. It wasn’t that Peaches was a bad witch, it was just that her spells had a tendency to do, well, something other than what she hoped for.

  I wasn’t completely sure what spell Peaches had been trying for. My assumption was that she was simply trying to move the snakes to the other side of the room so we could get out of there.

  Unfortunately, Peaches’ spell moved them all to the rafters. Only, we didn’t notice straight away.

  “Where did they go?” I asked, looking around.

  “It worked!” Peaches cried out triumphantly. “I did it! They’re gone!”

  Suddenly, a snake dropped from the ceiling and onto the floor about a foot from Cat, who let out a blood-curling scream.

  I looked up in horror as the snakes began to fall from the rafters and back onto the floor.

  “Run!” I shouted, grabbing Cat and Peaches and launching toward the exit. I had no idea if the snakes were coming after us or not. I wouldn’t have really blamed them if they had; it couldn’t be comfortable to fall from that kind of height.

  The three of us sprinted toward the door, and as soon as we made it outside, we slammed it shut behind us. We were the last three to leave.

  “Are they still in there?” someone asked.

  “Of course, they’re still in there,” Cat replied. “And they’re terrifying!”

  “How on earth did they get into the art gallery?”

  “I’m heading home right now. This is all too much for one night.”

  One of the men I recognized as being a manager was on the phone, and a minute later he gathered everyone into a group. His face was pale; evidently the attack of the snakes wasn’t something he was expecting either.

  “I just got off the phone with the owner of the pet shop next door. He’s coming over now; he has no idea how some of his snakes could have gotten out of their cages and into our part of the building, but that seems to be the most likely scenario. We’ll be keeping the gallery closed for the rest of the night.”

  “Oh my God, you guys,” Peaches said when the man finished talking. “I can’t believe this happened.” Tears began to well up in her eyes.

  “Hey, it’s ok,” I told her, giving her a quick hug. “None of this is your fault, it was just a freak thing, and we’re all ok, and that’s what’s important.”

  “I made it worse by sending them to the ceiling. I panicked! I thought I had actually done the spell properly!”

  Cat laughed. “Well you did the right thing, we managed to get out of there,” she replied. “Although I also know I’m never, ever going in there again.”

  “Fair enough,” Peaches nodded. “My art’s in there and I’m not sure I ever want to step a foot in that place again either.”

  “One of the trains leaves for Sapphire Village in two hours,” Cat told me. “Do you want to meet at the station? I know a few people in town that I’d like to say hi to, but it’ll probably be pretty boring for you.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’d like to explore the city a little bit anyway.”

  We said goodbye to Peaches and Cat and I headed off in opposite directions. I ended up grabbing an Uber to Washington Park, where I wandered through the gardens–the Japanese one was incredible–simply enjoying the scenery for a little while before having to head back to the train station.

  At one point, however, I felt a cold chill, as though the temperature suddenly dropped twenty degrees. I looked around, but no one else seemed to be noticing anything.

  Confused, and a little bit worried. I looked at my watch. It was time to head back to the train station. I hurried away from the park and quickly grabbed another Uber; I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry.

  When I was finally back in Portland itself, I put that weird moment behind me. It was probably nothing, after all.

  Three

  With the sun setting, the train began to speed away from Portland, taking us back to Sapphire Village. I was looking forward to enjoying a nice, relaxing evening after the excitement of the afternoon in the gallery. Cat and I settled ourselves into a set of comfortable seats, and relaxed while we waited for the train to slowly pull away from the station.

  About half an hour into the trip, my stomach began to grumble.

  “I’m a bit hungry,” I told Cat. “I’m going to hit up the snack car. Do you want anything?”

  Cat nodded enthusiastically. “Oooh, yeah, if you could get me a coffee that would be awesome. I have to head back to the cupcake shop after this and make a bunch of cupcakes for tomorrow; I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass out in the batter if I don’t get some caffeine in me soon.”

  “Sure,” I nodded as I got up off the seat and made my way through the train. Cat and I had been sitting in the car at the very front of the train, and the snack car was at the back. As I made my way through the four carriages, I noticed that while there were only about fifteen people on the whole train, almost everyone on it was from Sapphire Village. It seemed that this new train service was already popular with the locals.

  Denise Williams, the retired bookkeeper for the hotel, nodded firmly at me. She wasn’t the biggest fan of my biological family and had openly accused Cat of killing her best friend Edith a couple of weeks ago, but her frosty demeanour had thawed somewhat when it was revealed that I was responsible for finding her friend’s killer.

  There was Karen, the owner of Pickles’ pizza, with her laptop out and a notebook on her lap, jotting down notes about something while chatting on her phone, and two of the cashiers from the grocery store, who were obviously out on a date together.

  There were a few other people I recognized by sight but didn’t really know, like a blonde woman I’d seen around town holding hands with her husband, and a couple of obvious tourists taking a million photos out the window–I definitely didn’t blame them.

  When I opened the door into the final car, I was met by the warm aroma of roasted coffee beans. I smiled as I made my way past the small round tables that made up this car, with little round stools for sitting on, rather than the plush, comfortable seats on the rest of the train.

  Behind the counter was a plump, nice looking woman who smiled at me. “What can I get for ya?” she asked with a bit of a southern drawl.

  I looked at the row of candy bars align
ed in a small wicker basket, and noticed the small printed menu that was taped to the ordering counter included muffins.

  “Can I please get a carrot-raisin muffin and two lattes?” I asked, deciding Cat’s caffeine idea was a good one.

  “Coming right up,” the lady answered, reaching down and handing me a plastic-wrapped muffin, then making her way over to the coffee machine. As she worked on my coffees, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation between the only two people in the car—a man and a woman, and they were obviously arguing.

  They looked to be in their mid-forties, the man had brown hair that was just starting to grey at the edges, and the woman’s thin, narrow face was lined with anger.

  “You’re not just cheating me. You’re cheating your children,” she hissed loudly at him.

  “I told you, Isabella, I can’t afford it right now,” the man hissed back. “You think I’d do this on purpose?”

  “You could afford to take your new plaything to Mexico just a few weeks ago,” the woman named Isabella shot back.

  “You’re being irrational,” the man replied.

  “Oh yes, just call me irrational rather than address my point. Great work. Why did I ever waste five years of my life with a cheating scum like you? These are your children you’re ripping off. I hope you die,” the woman spat at him, getting up off her stool and storming off into another car.

  I turned and focused my eyes on what was going on outside of the train, trying to make it seem as though I hadn’t noticed the embarrassing public blow-up. A minute later, the man slammed his coffee cup down on the table and stormed back out into one of the other train cars.

  It didn’t take long before the lady working the counter handed me the two coffees. I paid her and made my way back to the far car where Cat and I had been sitting.

  The man was now sitting in the car next to the cafeteria car; he was the only person in it. He seemed to be stewing with anger, sunk deep in his seat, and I made an effort to avoid eye contact, slipping past him and into the other cars.

  “Mmm, this is actually good coffee for a train,” Cat said as she sipped her drink. I did the same, greedily unwrapping the muffin and unflatteringly stuffing a good quarter of it in my mouth in one bite.

  “Agreed,” I said with a full mouth, and Cat grimaced at me.

  “Wow, that’s incredibly elegant,” she said, and I laughed as I swallowed the muffin.

  “Yeah, well, I was hungry.”

  Suddenly, a muted scream came from elsewhere on the train. A moment later, the harsh squeal of the brakes came on as the train began to slow. Cat and I looked at each other.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, and Cat shook her head.

  “No idea.”

  We got up from our seats and made our way toward the back of the train. It seemed we weren’t the only curious ones; the other two people in our car, the two cashiers from the grocery store, were doing the same thing.

  There were shouts coming from the third car, the one where the man I’d seen arguing had been sitting by himself.

  “Someone call 9-1-1!”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Oh my God, he’s been shot!”

  Cat and I looked at each other as we made our way with the group of others toward the commotion. When we reached the car in question, all fifteen or so people on the train were huddled around the man, still sitting in the same seat as when I’d passed him a few minutes earlier.

  The difference now was that the man was leaning back in the seat, a small hole in his forehead the only indication that he was dead. His eyes stared lifelessly toward the ceiling.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen, please, stand back,” I heard a commanding voice say. The train’s conductor had come out to see what the commotion was all about. As soon as he saw the body, he paused, but only for an instant.

  “Has anyone called 9-1-1 yet?” he asked.

  “I have,” the blonde woman I recognized by sight replied, her face ashen white. She was still holding her phone in her hand. Her husband’s arms were around her shoulders protectively, his face grim.

  “Good. I’m going to have to ask every one of you to leave this carriage and go to the front of the train while we wait for the police to arrive.”

  Slowly but surely, all of us started to walk back down to the other end of the train. I looked around at the other faces around me. Isabella, the woman who had told the man she hoped he died, was looking a little bit pale and worried. The two kids who worked at the grocery store looked excited; this was obviously the first dead body they’d ever seen. The tourists were completely stunned, and I saw them whispering to themselves, asking if they should cancel their vacation if this was really such a dangerous area.

  We all settled into our separate seats, and were surprisingly silent. No one spoke. We’d all seen the body. We all knew the man on the other side of the train was dead. Suddenly, my blood ran cold as I made a realization: someone in this train carriage had to be the murderer.

  I leaned over to Cat and whispered in her ear, “Someone in this car has to be the killer.”

  Cat nodded glumly. “I know. I think that’s why we’re all avoiding each other,” she replied, also in a whisper. My heart sunk. I was only a few feet away from someone who had literally just murdered another human being. It had to have happened in the last ten minutes or so, since I’d seen the man, alive and well, as I’d left the snack carriage.

  Then it hit me: I might have been the last person–apart from the murderer–to see him alive.

  Before I had a chance to really come to grips with that thought, however, the door to the train opened and Chase Griffin, the chief of police in Sapphire Village, walked in. His ruffled brown hair had that just-got-out-of-bed look, and even through the shirt he was wearing it was obvious he spent a lot of time working out. His blue eyes, which twinkled nicely when he was happy, were currently all business as he looked around the car.

  “As I’m sure you’re all aware, Brian Armistead has been killed on this train tonight,” he announced. “I want to thank you all for remaining calm during this emergency. I’d like to start by interviewing all of you individually, in the next car over, please. The first person I’d like to speak to is Denise.”

  “She’s the one who found the body,” I heard the person in the seat behind me whisper as Denise got up unsteadily from her chair and followed Chief Griffin out to the next train car. He looked over all of our faces once more before following her.

  It felt like an eternity passed before Denise came back. Slowly, one by one, Chief Griffin called everyone in the car. Some people took longer than others. Finally, he came back and made eye contact with me.

  “Alice,” he motioned, I stood up, taking a deep breath and following him into the other car. Despite my protestations that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, Cat and Peaches–but especially Peaches–were always trying to hook me up with Chief Griffin. I had to imagine this wasn’t quite the circumstances either one of them wanted us meeting in.

  Four

  “How are you holding up?” was the first thing he asked me, flipping open his notebook.

  “Ok,” I said. “It’s kind of nerve wracking, I guess. After all, not only is there a dead man over there, but one of the people in that car has to be the murderer, right?”

  Chase nodded. “It’s the most likely scenario at this time. Denise went to get a coffee, found the body, screamed and pressed the emergency strip between the windows, which automatically activated the emergency brake.”

  “And since the train hasn’t stopped since we left Portland, it means that someone who was on the train killed him, and that person is still on the train,” I finished. Spelling it out made it really seem real.

  “In all likelihood, yes. The first thing I did was have my deputy check all the doors; the main doors to the train aren’t designed to be opened manually except in an emergency, and the windows can only be opened by breaking them. Deputy Porter tells me none of the d
oors have been opened.”

  “Great. Well, at least your suspect pool is only fifteen people or so. The downside is, I’ve just spent God knows how long in a train carriage with a murderer.”

  A grim smile played on Chase’s lips. “Yes. You know, you’ve been in Sapphire Village for two weeks and this is the second body that’s popped up. I’m starting to think maybe you’re bad luck.”

  “Well, as long as you don’t think I killed him,” I replied, allowing a smile myself.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you didn’t know the guy.”

  “That would be right,” I replied, nodding. “Although I did overhear a conversation he had with a woman named Isabella, who sounded like his ex, a few minutes before he was killed.”

  “Oh yeah?” Chase asked, his eyebrows rising and his hand automatically pressing his pen against the paper. I recounted the whole story, making sure not to embellish, and trying to remember the conversation exactly how it happened. After all, she had said she hoped he died. I was pretty sure that was just a turn of phrase, but given what had happened moments later, I couldn’t be sure.

  “When I left with my coffee the murdered man was sitting in the seat where he was killed. I tried to avoid eye contact, you know, since we both knew I’d seen the blow-up between he and his ex,” I explained. “He was definitely still alive though. I saw him move, I thought he was shaking his head as I went by.”

  Chase’s face was grim. “Thanks for all of this information,” he told me. “Isabella and Brian were married for years. He owns a business in town with a partner, they run an adventure tour company here in Sapphire Village. Brian and Isabella got divorced about five years ago.”

  “And now he’s not paying her child support, and apparently has a piece on the side.”

  “Yes. Well, I’m sure you’ll hear the gossip around town, but that’s not exactly new territory for Brian, and is the reason their marriage broke up. Although if there’s a current girlfriend, I don’t know about it.”