Destination Murder

Table of Contents

 

 

It did seem as though we were traveling at a snail’s pace, although this wasn’t a sudden phenomenon. I’d noticed since leaving North Vancouver that the Whistler Northwind was not about to set any speed records. But that was the whole point—wasn’t it?—a leisurely three-day journey on a classic train with every possible comfort, much like a luxury cruise ship, taking in the beauty and majesty of British Columbia. To go any faster would violate the very premise of the trip. And there were other passengers in the coaches up front, passengers who were unaware of the tragedy that had taken place in the car reserved for the members of the Track and Rail Club. Speed wouldn’t help Al Blevin, not anymore. Still, I knew what Callie was feeling. I’m sure we all shared her desire to reach Whistler and get away from the train, away from the dead body in the club car. . . .

Manhattans & Murder
Rum & Razors
Brandy & Bullets
Martinis & Mayhem
A Deadly Judgment
A Palette for Murder
The Highland Fling Murders
Murder on the
QE2
Murder in Moscow
A Little Yuletide Murder
Murder at the Powderhorn Ranch
Knock ’Em Dead
Gin & Daggers
Trick or Treachery
Blood on the Vine
Murder in a Minor Key
Provence—To Die For
You Bet Your Life
Majoring in Murder
Dying to Retire

SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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First Signet Printing, September 2004

Copyright © 2003 Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. Murder, She Wrote is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios.

Excerpt from
A Vote for Murder
copyright © 2004 Universal Studios Licensing
LLLP. Murder, She Wrote is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios.

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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eISBN : 978-1-101-01069-3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to
naturaltraveler.com
’s founder, and friend,
Tony Tedeschi
, for suggesting that the story be set in Vancouver and on a train into British Columbia, and for paving the way.

 

Cathy Thomson
and
Bruce Stephen
, and their top-notch staff, at Vancouver’s wonderful Sutton Place Hotel.

BCRail’s
Jean Cullen
and
Elaine Drever
and PR counsel
Nora Weber
.

Annabel Hawksworth
, publicist for the splendid Top Table Restaurant Group.

Detectives
Rob Faoro
and
Sean Trowski
and Sergeant
Bob Cooper
of the Vancouver Police Department’s Homicide Squad.

The Vancouver Tourist Board’s
Laura Serena
and
Kate Colley Lo
.

BC Tourism’s
Mika Ryan
.

Whistler’s
Danielle Saindon
and
Michelle Comeau
, and
Monica Hayes
for her courtesies at the ski resort’s spectacular Westin Resort and Spa.

Patrick Corbett
, owner of Hills Health Ranch.

Some liberties were taken for the sake of the story. All errors are ours.

Vancouver guidebooks claim that the corner of Robson and Burrard Streets has more foot traffic than any other intersection in Canada. From what I observed, that isn’t an overstatement. The streets were chockablock with people, overwhelmingly young. The city’s large Asian population was very much in evidence, although every ethnic group was abundantly visible in the shops that lined both sides of the street and in the mix of eateries with outdoor dining patios. There seemed to be a Starbucks on every corner, testimony to the Pacific Northwest’s love affair with coffee, and lots of candy shops, too.

Vancouver, British Columbia, is one of my favorite cities in the world. Poised on the tip of a peninsula, with the Coast Mountains smiling down on the advancing spires of skyscrapers under construction, it has all the eagerness and energy of a frontier town, which it was once and in a sense still is. It’s the launching port for myriad cruise ships that ply the inland waterways leading to an even newer frontier in Alaska. And it’s both the terminus and departure point for locomotives chugging their way through the mountain passes, exposing millions of tourists to the rugged beauty of Canada’s western provinces. I’d fallen in love with the city and its citizens’ sense of adventure and pleasure in nature two years earlier while on a book promotion tour and kept trying to find the time, and an excuse, to revisit it. Reggie Weems gave me that excuse.

Reggie had a successful insurance agency back home in Cabot Cove. He also had a hobby—trains. The large basement in his home was devoted to an elaborate model train layout, considered the finest in all of New England, and he was an active member of the Track and Rail Club, an organization of railroad buffs that held its annual meeting in different cities around the world. This year’s site was Vancouver, and when Reggie invited me to join the group on its journey, I readily accepted.

But it wasn’t just the lure of Vancouver that made up my mind. Each of Track and Rail’s annual meetings centered around a trip on a historic train. The highlight of the week would be a three-day journey on the famed Whistler Northwind from Vancouver up into the British Columbia interior, passing through and over glacier-carved canyons to the famous Whistler resort, then following the Cariboo Gold Rush Trail and Fraser River Canyon to a town called 100 Mile House, and finally arriving at Prince George, with overnight stays in hotels at each stop. I’ve always loved traveling by rail and am dismayed at how we’ve allowed train travel to founder in our country.

I walked for an hour along Robson Street, taking it all in, occasionally popping into a store to browse but leaving empty-handed. I was to meet Reggie shortly at the chocolate buffet in the Sutton Place Hotel, where we were staying. I considered pausing for a snack. It was six-thirty local time, nine-thirty back home according to my circadian clock. But I’d had a big meal on the plane, and the contemplation of facing twenty types of chocolate desserts in an hour was enough to stifle that urge.

I was on my way back to the hotel when the only unpleasant moment of the afternoon occurred. As I turned into the driveway, following a small group of people, a limo—black windows concealing its occupants—came around the corner and drew up to the hotel’s entrance. An elegant couple emerged from the car’s darkened interior, and the woman peered in my direction. A man walking in front of me did an abrupt about-face and slammed into me, almost knocking me off my feet. I kept myself from falling by grabbing the shoulder of a woman standing nearby. I had a brief glimpse of the man’s face because our collision caused him to come to a momentary halt. He was deeply tanned, with piercing, almost black eyes, sharp features, and shaggy, shoulder-length coal-black hair hanging over his ears. If I expected an apology, I was to be disappointed. He hurried away; all I saw was the back of him as he pushed through people coming out of a side door to the bar and disappeared around a corner.

“Jerk!” said the woman whose shoulder had kept me from falling.