The Passenger (20 page)

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he was in a wrinkled shirt, his tie at half mast, and his collar frayed and yellow, the way a man's collar gets when there's no woman around to tell him that he needs to buy a new shirt. I decided he was a salesman. They need to travel in suits, and they're skilled at driving a conversation until it crashes and burns at the bottom of a cliff. My cursory gaze provided all of the information I needed. The Salesman kept his money close to his chest—in his breast pocket to be precise. If it had been in a more accessible location, I might have engaged in conversation. As it was, he was no use to me.

The Salesman hadn't ordered his drink before he asked his first question. “What are you reading?”

I tried ignoring him, keeping my newspaper up like a riot shield.

He cleared his throat. “What are you reading?” he said again.

“Newspaper,” I said. Sometimes being laconic will force your opponent to match your conversational style.

“My name's Howard.”

“Uh-huh,” I said because sometimes when you ignore people, they just repeat themselves.

“You got a name?”

I lowered the paper and looked him dead in the eye. “As a matter of fact, I do not.” This
had
to be one of the greatest conversation stoppers that ever was.

But Howard would not be thwarted. “You reading anything interesting?”

“Nope.”

The bartender approached the salesman and took his order. Whiskey from the well. The Salesman downed his shot and tapped the bar, his glass refilled just moments after it was drained. He cleared his throat again and turned to me.

“You got a whole newspaper—no, two newspapers—and you're going to tell me that there's nothing of interest in them?”

The laconic method was obviously failing. “You could get your own newspaper and find something of interest for yourself,” I said, holding my gaze on the fuzzy black-and-white print.

“I was just making conversation, honey,” the Salesman said.

“But I'm not interested in conversation,” I said, “so this transaction seems pretty simple to me. You want to talk. I don't want to talk. I win,” I said.

“Women these days,” the Salesman said. “They don't have any manners.”

“No, they don't. That's what the women's movement was all about. Not equal rights, but the right to be rude. We don't have to make polite conversation anymore. So you might as well find another way to keep busy,” I said as I dropped the newspaper in front of him and left the bar.

In my brief reading time, I found no mention of me, but domestic crimes only get copy space when there's a new development. I had to get to a library one of these days and check on the inquiry into Frank's death.

I strolled under the grand arches of Union Station for an hour or so, stretching my legs in anticipation of the cramped journey ahead. Eventually I found a bench occupied by a teenager bobbing his head to the beat of whatever was blasting out of his earbuds. I sat down next to him. You can always count on the youth of the day to mind their own business.

T
RAVELING
at close to eighty miles an hour made it feel like the train was doing the running for me. I couldn't risk using Virginia's credit card again, so I had purchased only a regular seat on the Lake Shore Limited.

I found my way to the café car sometime after the lunch crowd dispersed. I ordered a turkey sandwich and found a table by the window, facing the cab. I looked around to see if anyone might give me trouble. I saw a teenager transfixed by her phone, a small family with children they were trying to quiet, and a stately, plump gentleman in an impeccable tweed suit who was snoring so loudly that the woman sitting across from him began to gather her belongings. She was an older lady, maybe seventy-five, tall, thin, but probably once a real beauty, judging from her bright blue eyes and pronounced cheekbones. Her hair was completely white and cut plain and short, probably by her own hand. The wrinkles on her face were heavy around her mouth and eyes, as if she got them all from smiling.

She gazed in my direction and rolled her eyes at the snorer. I smiled; she smiled. She approached my table.

“Do you mind if I sit?” she said.

There were other free tables in the vicinity, but more passengers began to file into the car. On first glance her company seemed preferable to that of just about anyone else on the train, and I wasn't in a position to take my chances. I still had another ten hours to go.

“Please,” I said.

She slid into the booth across from me and winked. On her it worked.

“For forty years I listened to my husband saw wood eight hours a night, seven days a week. I missed him when he died. I did not miss that sound,” she said.

“Where are you headed?” I asked.

“Erie. You?”

“Buffalo,” I said. It was the stop right after. I'd asked her first, so I wouldn't have to unnecessarily give away my final destination. Besides, if anyone had a Debra Maze or Tanya Dubois sighting and they said I'd landed in Buffalo, the general consensus would likely be that I'd hopped into Canada. Which was not a bad idea at all, if I could find a trunk in a car that would have me.

“Are you going on vacation or returning home?” I asked.

“Neither,” she said drolly. “I'm babysitting my grandchildren for the weekend. My son and daughter-in-law think it's a vacation. But I've been to Paris. I know better. And you?”

“I'm visiting a friend,” I said.

“A vacation?”

“You could call it that,” I said. Sometimes I'd take in the landscape and try to trick myself that I was on a holiday. It never worked.

“My name is Dolores,” she said. “Dolores Markham.”

By providing a last name, Dolores was suggesting that I too should provide a last name. If I didn't, it would seem unfriendly and perhaps suspicious, although my heightened sense of paranoia might have been playing tricks on my sense of social conventions.

“Hi, Dolores. I'm Emma Lark.”

I'd had the name in my back pocket if I needed to use one, but I was trying to stay as anonymous as possible on this journey. I'd never practiced saying it, so when I did, I paused. It was a brief pause, a split second, but I could tell from the shift in Dolores's gaze that she'd caught it.

“You look very familiar, Emma.”

“I must have that kind of face.”

“Maybe. Where are you from?” Her eyes locked into mine, scrutinizing, yet somehow kind. Her open smile didn't waver, but she was reading me as I answered her questions.

“Outskirts of Seattle. You?”

“Madison.”

I was in trouble. Madison is just thirty minutes from Waterloo, where Tanya Dubois was a wanted woman. My mug must have been all over the papers there. If I had to guess, Dolores Markham knew exactly who I was. My travel itinerary through the Midwest was clearly a lapse in judgment. My brain had been misfiring ever since I killed Jack.

“Madison,” I said, as if it were the first time that word had rolled off my tongue. “I've heard good things.”

“You've never been?”

“No. Never,” I said.

I could change my hair, even my eyes, but you can't change your bones. Anyone with a good eye for faces would be able to pick me out of a lineup. I held onto Dolores's gaze, even as I felt my heart beating a hole in my chest. I kept my expression steady and warm as I tried to figure out a plan.

“Maybe one day,” I said.

“That probably wouldn't be a good idea,” said Dolores.

“Why is that?”

“You're the spitting image of a woman wanted for murder there.”

The car seemed to have heated up ten degrees in the last five seconds. My brain felt like a corn maze. Each corner I turned, I'd find another dead end.

Dolores was forcing me to rethink all of my plans; I wasn't too keen on her at that moment. Still, killing Dolores was out of the question.

“How unusual,” I said.

“Well, she's a person of interest. Husband was found at the bottom of the stairs and then the wife disappears. Why would she run, if she were innocent?”

“Maybe the real killer kidnapped her.”

“There was no sign of a struggle, and she took her purse and at least one suitcase.”

As far I could tell, Dolores was having herself a jolly good time chatting with a potential murderer. Well, a real one now. But did Jack really count?

It would have been suspicious and most certainly rude if I got up and left, so I let the conversation run its course.

“That is suspicious, indeed,” I said.

“Interesting that you look just like her,” Dolores said.

“They say everybody's got a doppelgänger,” I said.

“I'm not convinced that the woman was guilty. Maybe he had it coming,” she said.

“Maybe he just fell down the stairs,” I said.

The loudspeaker whined before the conductor's voice cracked the rhythm of Dolores's educated interrogation.

“Next Stop: Erie.”

Dolores sat perfectly still.

“That's you, isn't it?” I said.

“It is,” she said, slowly gathering her purse and coat. “It's been nice chatting with you, Tanya.”

If I had been standing, my knees would have buckled. “Emma,” I whispered without any conviction. What was the point?

Dolores detrained, but I figured it would be a matter of minutes before she called the police with a Tanya Dubois sighting. I watched her walk along the platform into the station. I raced down the aisle and jumped off the train right before the doors closed.

I didn't dare go into the station until I was sure Dolores had departed. I strolled to the end of the tracks and sat on a bench for a half hour, breathing slow and steady, trying to calm my nerves. Then I walked into Erie's Union Station, bought a baseball cap and a pair of oversized black sunglasses, and left, strolling down Peach Street until I saw a sign for a motel that looked like it would take cash and forgo that pesky ID check.

Room 309 of the Dragonslayer Inn was about as medieval as my mother's bedroom circa 1985. If I had to hazard a guess at the age of the carpet and bedspread, I'd go with ten to fifteen years. The walls carried the grime of what I gathered was a Smoking Only policy, and the faucet in the bathroom sink was so caked with rust I tried to recall my last tetanus shot.

Yet, it felt good to be alone for a night, to have time to think. When I tried to count back, I realized I had been a killer for only four days, but it felt like forever. I took off my clothes, shucked the ancient duvet off the bed, and crawled between the scratchy sheets. I slept for as long as my mind would let me.

M
Y CONSCIENCE
gave me only a three-hour reprieve. When I woke, the flip clock by the side of the bed read 9:09 p.m. I figured I might still have time to find an open drugstore, so I threw on my clothes and left.

Certain purchases can seem highly suspect. For example, if I worked in a hardware store I'd be inclined to call the cops on a customer who purchased only rope and duct tape. However, if that same customer purchased rope, wood glue, lumber, hinges, a leveler, and duct tape, I wouldn't think much of it. At the drugstore I picked up scissors, hair color, a disposable cell phone, an assortment of makeup, and a scarf, and added mixed nuts, a new toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, and a multivitamin to my cart to throw the cashier off. It's quite possible I was overthinking the endeavor; the cashier didn't give me a second glance.

Back at the Dragonslayer Inn, I gazed into the mirror and thought about what I could do to make myself unrecognizable. I took the scissors from the plastic bag, grabbed a chunk of hair, and sliced it off right at the scalp. Then I sliced off another chunk and another chunk, until my head was the texture of badly mowed lawn. I had saved those blue contact lenses, just in case, and put them back in. I left the hair color alone. You never know when you might need another layer of camouflage. When I looked in the mirror I resembled a cancer patient, maybe one you wouldn't want to mess with. I figured I could roam safely looking like this, until I found a new place to land.

I cleaned up my shorn locks off the linoleum floor as best I could, having more sympathy for the hotel maid than your average guest. I set the alarm and went to bed.

I woke an hour later with my conscience in a vise. Domenic had seemed mostly okay when I left him, but head injuries are unpredictable. I began to fear that I had done more than just incapacitate a man who was probably pretty decent, on the whole.

I found his card in my wallet, took out the cell phone that I'd bought in Denver, and called his number. He answered on the third ring. At least, I was fairly certain it was him. I probably should have hung up, but I couldn't.

“Domenic?”

“Yeah, who's this?”

“How's your head?”

“Debra?”

“Don't call me that anymore.”

“Okay, sweetheart. Just tell me where you are. Denver?”

“I'm not in Denver,” I said. “What's your condition?”

“Concussion. Did you call to check up on me?”

“Yes.”

“I'm touched. Where are you?”

“Do you have any other injuries?”

“A few stitches. Tell me where you are, sweetheart.”

“As long as you're all right. Bye, Domenic.”

It was three a.m. when I left the hotel. I dropped the phone in the bin and the keys in the slot at the front desk so no one would see me. I returned to the train station and bought another coach fare with my own cash on the Lakeshore Limited to Albany. I boarded the train at seven fifteen a.m.

As far as identities were concerned, Emma Lark turned out to be a layover. Even with the copy of her ID and passport that I'd stolen from the records room at JAC Primary, I wouldn't get any use out of her. I'd managed to chew her up and spit her out in less than three days, thanks to a sharp old dame named Dolores Markham. I wouldn't last long without a name, so I got straight to work.