MURDER ON THE LEAVENWORTH EXPRESS
  By Patricia Harrington


Published on the Web by NEFARIOUS - Tales of Mystery 
http://www.thewindjammer.com/nefarious/

Henry was dead. Shades of Agatha Christie! Clarabelle opened Henry's windbreaker and checked again. A pearl-headed hatpin protruded from his chest; a small bull's eye of blood stained his shirt.

Clarabelle Gilly, retired Army nurse, was resident manager of Bingham Senior Apartments in Tacoma. She and the residents had spent the day in the tourist town of Leavenworth, in Washington's Cascade Mountains, where her group had dozed through a seminar on "Power Dynamics for the Golden Ager." They hit the gift shops after lunch and now were homeward bound -- Henry Bowles and 28 women. According to gossip, he loved the ratio.

Henry was the only "eligible" man in Bingham's clucking hen house (as Clarabelle sometimes thought of the place). He was 75, looked 65, and acted 18. His white hair had an unruly lock that fell into his eyes like a naughty school boy's.

Just yesterday, Henry's next door neighbor, Lillian, had fluttered up to Clarabelle and whispered, "I think Henry is entertaining women in his room. There are certain sounds . . . ."

Later, Clarabelle asked her friend Rose what she had heard on the grapevine.

"Henry may not be able to see well," Rose supplied, "but I hear it doesn't affect his performance. The twins, Gwendolyn and Bernadine, are both sneaking into his room at night. Separately, thank goodness. And Heloise visits him every afternoon, carrying that devotion book of hers to read to him."

***

Henry had elected to sit by himself in the last row on the bus. Clarabelle, keeping a watchful eye on her group, saw each of Henry's three lady friends stop and chat with him as they returned from the lavatory at the rear.

After a couple of hours, just outside of Everett, Clarabelle moved next to Henry, ready to give him a good talking to about his nocturnal activities. That's when she discovered he was dead, but decided not to report it. Not yet. No sense getting stuck in a strange town, answering questions from a podunk sheriff.

Now she eyed Henry, his head resting on a pillow wedged against the window, his face relaxed as if he were enjoying a good nap, an open bottle of pills in his hand.

She peered at the bottle, without touching it. Two pink pills among the white ones caught her attention. She read the label and recognized the prescription: heart medication. "Take 1 tablet two hours before eating." Again she examined the small circle of crimson on Henry's chest. Then she stared out the window, thinking hard. Finally, she nodded briskly and rose from her seat.

***

Ignoring the curious looks from her fellow passengers, Clarabelle marched Gwendolyn, Bernadine and Heloise to the back of the bus. She sat them across from Henry. Locking eyes with each woman in turn, she said, "I want no fuss and no hysterics. Henry's dead, probably done in by one of you."

Three pairs of eyes darted to Henry and back to Clarabelle. Heloise laced her fingers together, Gwendolyn puckered her mouth in a pout, and Bernadine stuck out her chin, dewlaps quivering. She hissed, "You've no right to say such a thing."

No one's surprised, Clarabelle thought. Then she addressed the trio again. "We don't have much time before the bus reaches Tacoma. I have no intention of letting the police badger the other ladies and maybe setting off a string of heart attacks. So we're going to settle this right here."

Gwendolyn started to get up, but sank back when Clarabelle glared fiercely, a look that had made colonels backpedal out of her ward when they tried to pull rank on her. She said, "Henry was . . . ." Clarabelle stopped, glanced at Heloise and cleaned-up her next words. "He was bedding all of you. What'd he do, kick one of you out?"

Her words fell like stones in water. She waited, watching for their rippling effect on the three women's faces. Gwendolyn's ringed fingers waved in anger. "He was going to marry me. He didn't care a fig about the others."

Bernadine leaned over and spat. "He didn't love you; you forced him to say that."

"Just how, Miss High and Mighty?"

Bernadine pointed a finger. "You were blackmailing him -- about income he wasn't reporting."

Clarabelle shushed them with a gesture. "Well, one of you was mad enough to use something like a hatpin to stab him." She sat back, observing their reactions.

Heloise's eyes widened in puzzlement and Gwendolyn looked genuinely surprised. Only Bernadine's face tightened with fear.

Clarabelle spoke quietly, "At least it would have killed him -- Bernadine, if he hadn't been dead already."

Bernadine gasped and covered her mouth.

Clarabelle continued, "That's right. He would have bled more if he had been alive at the time you stabbed him. I guess that let's you off the hook."

Clarabelle stared at Gwendolyn for a long moment before turning to Heloise. "The way I figure it, Henry was already dead because he took the wrong heart pills. Heloise, you knew his afternoon routine by heart like those verses you quote all the time. You knew he'd take his medication on the bus before we got home at dinner time. Henry couldn't see his hand before his face, and that made it easy for you to slip the other pills into the bottle. Maybe you even poured them out for him."

Tears began washing down Heloise's cheeks. She sobbed, "He . . . he wasn't a nice man. I tried to help Henry. I gave him my love, but he didn't want me anymore." She gave Clarabelle a pleading look. "I just couldn't let him go on taking advantage of women. Could I? I thought he'd be better off dead than committing more sin."

Clarabelle patted Heloise's knee, stood up and gruffly ordered the twins. "You two keep her company. Looks like she did you both a favor about that man. I'll have the driver call ahead to have the police meet us."


Patricia Harrington writes short mysteries featuring a variety of sleuths. Clarabelle Gilley, her senior sleuth, will be in the fall issue of Mystery Readers Journal ("They Don't Make 'Em That Way Any More" ). Pat's other mysteries are online at mysterybooks.about.com (search on her name to quickly find them), and her mystery clerihews have appeared in Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine (MIMM) and will be out in Crimestalkers Casebook. Her debut mystery novel, DEATH STALKS THE KHMER, featuring Bridget (Bridg) O'Hern, will be released in early 2001 from AmErica House Publishers.

Copyrights (c) 2000 Patricia Harrington