“So who owned these?”
“Back then? All the great railroad tycoons first. Leland Stanford, J. P. Morgan, Archer Dalton.”
“Archer Dalton, of course,” I said, thinking of the case we had just worked in Central Park, with miniature antique silver trains as clues in the long-ago murder of Dalton’s only grandchild.
“Then the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and Meriweathers. I’ll take you on a tour when the next exhibition comes along.”
“And now?”
“Think of them as yachts on rails, Alex. Beautifully restored and as lavishly outfitted as you can imagine.”
“Then this car is here for a reason, right? Someone can tell us who brought it here.”
“They’re all regulated by Amtrak. Won’t be hard to do.”
Rocco and Mike were at the foot of the steps that led up to the platform at the rear of the car. It looked as if a couple of federal agents had staked out the railroad car itself as their turf. Men from the NYPD and Metro-North security were gingerly walking around the tracks on either side, carefully avoiding the intense orange paint that highlighted the electrified third rail.
I jogged the last few yards so that neither Mercer nor I would miss any of the conversation.
Rocco was climbing the ladder of the train. As I approached, Mike took one step up, then glanced back and held out his hand for me.
I looked down the exterior length of the bright-red car. Painted along the side, in burnished black letters almost two feet high, were the words BIG TIMBER.
“What’s Big Timber?” I whispered to Mike.
“Some little paradise in the middle of Montana. We’re about to find out how kinky the rich dude who owns this must be.”
The agents led the way into the car as we tagged along behind them. We had been so close to Grand Central that we beat Crime Scene and the morgue team to the body.
I had never seen anything quite like the interior of Big Timber. It was decorated exquisitely, with a Western theme and strong masculine influence. There was a bar against one side-heavy with Noah’s Mill and an assortment of other fancy bourbons-which was part of a lounge area, as if we were in an elegant country home. There were brown leather sofas-intentionally distressed to look as if they had some age on them-several armchairs, and between each of the windows an attractive array of black-and-white photographs, including some brilliant Edward Curtis images of Native Americans that were probably originals.
“Nothing looks even out of place here, does it?”
“No, ma’am,” one of the agents said.
“Any signs of a struggle? Anything broken or damaged?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Can you cut the ma’am thing for a change?” Mike said, passing out gloves to each of us. “Makes her feel old. Just treat her like one of the guys. She gets off on that.”
“Then I hope she’s ready for the scene in the bedroom,” he said, turning his back to us and moving forward.
A door to our right separated the lounge area from a large bathroom-large enough to hold a stall shower, set up with a bench for steam treatments.
“Looks like some blood in the sink,” the agent pointed out to Mike.
They passed by the bathroom without going in. Three feet beyond was another door, the entrance to the bedroom.
The scene of Corinne Thatcher’s murder had been repeated in this plush boudoir. This time, a girl who looked even younger than Thatcher-barely twenty, I guessed-was laid out across the queen-sized bed. Her throat, too, had been sliced from behind one ear almost to the other. She was naked, her legs spread apart. It was a sight I had hoped dearly never to see again.
“Crime Scene?” Mercer asked.
“They’re on the way,” the second agent said.
“Either of you touch anything?” Mike said, starting a meticulous visual scope of the room.
“We took Homicide 101, Chapman. I know that surprises you, but we both passed.”
“Touch the girl?”
“No need to. I know dead when I see it.”
“So how’d you get into the car?” Rocco asked.
The second agent picked up the narrative. “We’re part of the New York office. Often help out the Secret Service when there’s a presidential visit. When the orders came in with the change of plans from heliport to train station, we drew the short straw. Checking out this area. The White House on steel wheels is supposed to dock two tracks over in just about seventy-two hours.”
“How did Big Timber get here and when is she supposed to leave?” Mike asked.
The room was perfectly appointed. Forest-green curtains, again accented by Western décor-everything except deer antlers-and a slightly warmer shade of green on the upholstered headboard and blankets.
Dressers were built against the wall, under the windows on one side of the room. Mike opened the drawers and then the closet. There was a man’s leather jacket and some corduroy slacks hanging up but nothing out of order.
Only the bed looked as if it had served as an abattoir for the same butcher who had taken the lives of Corinne Thatcher and Carl Condon.
“Seems there’s this whole association of people who own railroad cars. This one belongs to a cattle baron from a town called Big Timber in Montana.”
“Long way from home, isn’t it?” Rocco said.
“Planned the trip a year ago. Got all the clearances from Amtrak and-”
“I don’t get it,” Mike said. “The damn thing’s got no engine. How does it move?”
“The owner pays, Detective. Not only a couple of bucks a mile to ride on Amtrak’s rails, but they get coupled up to long-distance trains by a switch engine and crew. Takes an arm and a leg to finance. Then they get charged fees for parking at sidings at major facilities.”
“And this cattle tycoon, he did all that?”
“His office is faxing over the paperwork to prove it. The Northeast Corridor-anywhere in the run from Boston to DC-that’s the most restrictive route. And he’s had A-plus clearance all the way.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s a good customer. Been here before and follows the rules,” the agent said, looking at his notes. “Like you can’t carry propane into New York, on account of all the tunnels in the city and under the rivers. They know this guy. He’s not a risk.”
“Have you talked to him?” Mike asked. “Maybe he’s got a rough side they don’t know about. Maybe he’s got train tracks branded into his cattle.”
We were all thinking about the distinctive marks on the bodies of the three victims.
“He was expecting to be here this week, like I said, but flew down to a cattle auction in Texas at the last minute,” the agent said. “Big Timber is parked here legally until Saturday. Been in town about ten days.”
“So now we’ve got to talk to all the engineers and conductors and security team and track workers to see whether anyone’s come and gone from this machine,” Rocco said. “Without pulling detectives off the Waldorf and the work on the first two homicides. Scully better come up with some manpower.”
“And the blood,” I said. “There’s so much blood. Could it all be from this poor girl? I keep thinking of that speck on the curtain at the Waldorf.”
“We should have a result on that Waldorf DNA by tonight or tomorrow. It would be great if it isn’t Thatcher’s. Maybe something in this bathroom sink belongs to the killer,” Mike said.
“You have any movement on the Thatcher toxicology?” Rocco asked.
“You’re kidding, Loo, right?”
“We’ll have to do the same here, of course,” I said.
The analysis of biological tissue for toxicological purposes-the detection of drugs-was a lengthy process. Solvents had to be used first to separate the drug from the actual tissue. Then the purification of the drug was carried out by more extraction procedures, which used alkaline and acid solutions. The work was slow and time-consuming, and even when a positive identification of a specific drug was achieved, it couldn’t be reported without confirmation by a second method of analysis.