“Tell me about those forty.”
“Half of them are refrigerated cars coming out of Nebraska. Packed to the gills with chickens. Or rather, packed to the wattles. Also, we have fertilizer. And paper and lumber all the way from Canada. A few empties.”
“Box or flat?”
“Box.”
I perked up. I’d mentally eliminated the refrigerator cars—they would be sealed by plug doors, which required special equipment to open. And while the cars with fertilizer and the other commodities deserved a look, they would likely be too full to accommodate an injured woman. Or a corpse.
But the empties were another matter.
I made my voice soft and sweet. “Sergei.”
“Whatever it is, the answer is no.”
“You have a few track laborers or repair guys you can spare?”
“Look at these bags under my eyes. Do I look like I have anything to spare?”
“Next two rounds at Joe’s Tavern are on me.”
He eyed me. “You would make a good Russian. In the mother country, everything is barter.” He set down his cup. “The crew that was on the line earlier is coming in, probably holding their dicks in one hand and their lunches in the other. I can start them on the far end.”
“Tell them to focus on the empties.”
“And that we are looking for Jimmy Hoffa?”
“Who?”
“A corpse.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Or someone hurt. Or signs of either of those. Basically, tell them to look for anything that doesn’t look like it should.”
He picked up the phone, yelled something to whoever answered about checking out the train with their lazy, fat heads and not their lazy, fat asses, threw in some Russian to make it sound intimidating, then hung up and gave me a honeyed smile that was completely at odds with the vitriol he’d just been spewing.
“No problem,” he said.
“What’s your favorite vodka?”
“I hate vodka.”
“You’re Russian.”
“Vodka is the opium of the masses. It explains everything that happened after the revolution. I can’t even look a potato in the eye. In a manner of speaking.”
“Single malt, then. Cheers.”
His grin transformed his face. “Na Zdorovie.”
I found my old boss down in the yard. Deputy Chief Jim Mauer had pulled coveralls over his DPC uniform and now walked alongside the train, rattling handles and peering underneath the carriages.
“I am too damn old for this,” he said when I approached.
“A little exercise is good for you.”
“What’s good for me is trains that run on time. Much better for my blood pressure. Did you know I have high blood pressure?”
“I suspected.”
“And that you’re a big part of that?”
“Think of me as your inducement to start an exercise program.”
“Bah.”
Mauer and I had a long history of him applying the brakes to my runaway train. A Chicago boy, he had adapted well to Denver and established himself as a good boss and even better mentor. It had been Mauer who encouraged me to stretch myself by going into homicide.
By that measure, he was only getting what he deserved.
Mauer scratched a willing Clyde behind the ears, then reached into the pocket of his overalls and came up with a doggy biscuit. Clyde’s eyes lit up.
“Softie,” I said.
Mauer tossed the biscuit, and Clyde snatched it out of the air.
“He looks thin. You been feeding him?”
“Vegan kibble.”
Mauer narrowed his eyes at me before recognizing the sarcasm. He scowled, planted his hands in his lower back, and leaned into the arch of his spine. He stared down the length of the train. “Couldn’t stay away, could you?”
“I knew you’d miss me.”
“You have any idea what this is costing?”
“Almost exactly.” I kicked at the gravel with my fresh-out-of-the-box sensible pumps, now stained with grass and mud. My new job dictated a wardrobe of somber-colored pantsuits and equally somber blouses, shoes, and belts. Somber as a fashion statement was right up my alley. But I missed my steel-toed boots and the mindless consistency of a uniform.
I said, “Sergei’s pulling in some crewmen to help.”
“Good.” Mauer finally took a good look at me. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Surprised by the suit, I suppose. He said, “You’ll get filthy in that getup. Go back inside and find yourself some coveralls. Then why don’t you and Clyde take the far side?”
Twenty minutes later I’d broken two fingernails while pulling myself up to examine something on the side of a car, and turned my ankle when I stepped off the ladder in my sensible pumps.
All for nothing. By the time Mauer and I caught up with the repair crew working their way toward us, my heart had clawed its way into my throat and put up a no vacancy sign.
“Anything?” I asked the men as they approached.
“Nothing but train,” said a man with a red bandanna tied around his neck. He appeared to be the lead of the three-man crew.
I said, “You looked in every empty?”
“That’s what we were told to do. That’s what we did.”
“You see anything at all?”
“Graffiti. Two empty liquor bottles and a beer can. That any help?”
They were pissed about using their break for a snipe hunt. I wondered if they’d complain to the union.
“What about the flatbeds? Any chance that—”
“Tight as a drum. No movement.” He glared. “Okay with you if we take our break now?”
“One second.”
I felt Mauer’s gaze on me. I didn’t look at him—I couldn’t take either his pity or his anger.
“And the refrigerator cars,” I said. “Those were sealed?”
“Sure,” said the man.
“You checked?”
“Didn’t have to. You can’t have a plug door that ain’t sealed.”
Modern-day refrigerator cars used plug doors. Heavier than normal doors, the plugs were designed to roll shut either vertically or horizontally along a track and then move inward to form a tight seal. It was a violation to move plug-door cars with the doors open—the cars were checked by the shipper and the crew before the train departed. And on the off chance that a door was left open, the motion of the train would almost certainly close
