The Alaska Railroad Caper

The attendant’s station stood beside the galley, empty except for a silver coffee urn rattling in its cradle. She pressed the call button. Nothing happened. She pressed it again.

A man in a dark railroad vest emerged from the connecting door.

“Can I help you?”

“Where’s the attendant assigned to this car?”

“Which attendant?”

Mara glanced at his name tag. “Mr. Bell?”

“Bell is working Car 2.”

“Then who was handling the service compartment when we boarded?”

The man’s expression tightened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your name?”

“Dale Haskins.”

“Mr. Haskins, a sealed freight crate was stored beside that door.”

He looked toward the service entrance, then back at her. “Passenger luggage doesn’t go there.”

“It wasn’t passenger luggage.”

“Then it wasn’t supposed to be in this car.”

“That doesn’t answer where it went.”

The train lurched. Haskins caught the edge of the counter, and the coffee urn clanged hard enough to draw glances from nearby seats.

Mara stepped closer. “Who had access?”

“Crew.”

“Which crew?”

“Conductors. Attendants. Maintenance, if there’s a problem.”

“And private contractors?”

His eyes flicked toward the vestibule. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because an object disappeared from a locked train.”

“It wasn’t locked.”

“The service door was latched.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Who opened it?”

Haskins rubbed his jaw. “I didn’t.”

“Did you see the crate?”

“No.”

Mara studied him. There was a pale strip around his left wrist where a watch had recently been removed. His right sleeve carried a smear of black grease. He kept one hand near the radio clipped to his belt but did not touch it.

“Look at the floor,” she said.

“I have.”

“Those scratches weren’t there twenty minutes ago.”

“Maybe they were.”

“No.”

His mouth flattened. “You should speak to the conductor.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“No, you’re questioning me.”

“Then give me his name.”

“Conductor Voss.”

“And where is he?”

“Forward.”

“Thank you.”

She turned, but Haskins caught her arm.

Not hard. Hard enough.

“Miss Ellison,” he said, “leave it alone.”

Mara looked at his fingers on her sleeve. “You know my name.”

“It’s on the passenger list.”

“Most people don’t read passenger lists.”

His grip loosened. “The train is moving through rough country. We have procedures.”

“So do thieves.”

For a second, the noise of the train seemed to narrow around them. Haskins released her.

Mara walked toward the forward vestibule. She felt the woman in the green parka watching her again. When Mara stopped beside a window, the woman lowered her gaze and began tightening the strap on a canvas satchel.

The connecting door opened before Mara reached it.

A broad-shouldered man in a charcoal coat stepped through, carrying no luggage. His face was weathered, his silver hair cut close. He held the door for a young couple, then looked straight at Mara.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Are you crew?”

“No.”

“Then keep walking.”

A faint smile touched his mouth. “That’s not very welcoming.”

“This isn’t a hotel.”

He moved past her, but his shoulder brushed hers. Something hard pressed briefly against her ribs through the coat. Not an accident. Mara turned sharply.

The man was already halfway down the car.

“Hey.”

He did not stop.

Mara followed. Seats and knees crowded the aisle. The man slipped around a service cart just as the train rocked into a curve. A glass tipped from a passenger’s tray. Mara caught it before it fell, then saw the man vanish through the rear door.

By the time she reached it, the vestibule was empty.

A gust of cold struck her face through the door seal. She looked through the narrow window. The next car stood behind them, its lights shivering in the dark gap between compartments.

No man in charcoal.

Mara checked her coat. The hard pressure had left no mark, but the inner pocket where she kept her phone was open.

She pulled it out. Still there.

Her fingers found something else beneath it: a strip of rough paper.

She unfolded it. The ink had bled at the edges, but one line remained legible.

NORTHSTAR HOLDINGS ATTN: ELIAS VALE

Below the name, a fragment of a red border matched the seal she had seen on the crate.

Mara’s pulse quickened. She tucked the paper into her palm and turned back toward Car 3.

The woman in the green parka stood in the aisle.

“Looking for someone?” the woman asked.

“Maybe.”

“Train staff can help.”

“They haven’t.”

The woman’s gaze dropped to Mara’s closed hand. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Do you know Elias Vale?”

“No.”

“Have you seen a wooden crate in this car?”

The woman’s face did not change, but her hand tightened around the canvas satchel. “I’ve seen luggage.”

“This wasn’t luggage.”

“Then perhaps it belongs in the baggage car.”

“There isn’t one on this train.”

The woman looked toward the windows. Outside, mountains rose in the darkness, their slopes cut by strips of moonlit snow.

“Perhaps,” she said, “it belongs somewhere else.”

Mara stepped into the aisle. “What’s in the satchel?”

“Personal things.”

“Open it.”

The woman laughed once, without humor. “Are you railroad police?”

“No.”

“Then you have no authority.”

“Neither does the man who took something from my pocket.”

The woman’s eyes sharpened. “Did he?”

“You tell me.”

For a moment, neither moved. Then a uniformed attendant called from the forward end of the car.

“Miss Ellison? Conductor Voss wants to see you.”

Mara kept her eyes on the woman in green. “Tell him I’m coming.”

The attendant shifted uneasily. “Now, please.”

When Mara looked back, the woman had returned to her seat. The satchel rested beneath her boots.

Mara slipped the torn label into her pocket and headed forward.

Conductor Voss stood in the first-class lounge, one hand braced on a polished table as the train swayed. He was tall, narrow, and clean-shaven, with a silver railroad pin fixed to his collar. A black telephone receiver hung from the wall beside him.

“You reported a missing item,” he said.

“A sealed crate.”

Voss glanced at the attendant, then closed the connecting door. “What makes you think it was missing?”

“I saw it beside the service door.”

“When?”

“After boarding.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was inside?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you cannot identify it as railroad property.”

“I can identify an absence.”

His eyes hardened. “You were not assigned access to that compartment.”

“I didn’t need access. It was visible.”

“Miss Ellison, trains carry hundreds of objects that passengers mistake for something important. Cleaning supplies. Equipment. Private shipments. If a crate was moved, it may have been moved lawfully.”

“By whom?”

“No one on my crew moved a crate.”

“Haskins said crew had access.”

“Haskins is not authorized to speak for me.”

“Who was working Car 3?”

Voss folded his hands behind his back. “The passenger service attendant was reassigned before departure. A relief attendant covered the car until Talkeetna.”

“Name?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to establish who could open the door.”

Voss’s gaze shifted to the small paper clenched in her hand. “What are you holding?”

Mara did not answer.

He took one step toward her. “If you have evidence of a theft, surrender it.”

“Evidence of what?”

“A theft.”

“You just said nothing was missing.”

Voss’s jaw flexed. “You’re making a serious accusation on a moving train.”

“Someone reached into my coat.”

“Perhaps you dropped the paper.”

“Perhaps someone wants me to find it.”

A low chime sounded overhead. The train began to slow, brakes whining beneath the floor. Outside, a cluster of yellow lights appeared through the trees, blurred by snow.

Voss turned toward the window. “We’re approaching a maintenance siding.”

“Then stop the train.”

“I cannot stop a passenger train because you believe a crate disappeared.”

“Then let me search Car 3.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are a passenger, and because you are disturbing other passengers.”

Mara stepped between him and the door. “Someone removed a sealed crate from a compartment on your train. Either you know where it went, or you don’t know what’s happening aboard this train.”

Voss’s voice dropped. “Be careful.”

The warning carried no concern for her. It was meant to protect something else.

The train shuddered as it passed the siding. Snow streaked the windows. Somewhere behind them, a door slammed.

Mara’s attention snapped toward the sound.

Voss saw it. “Stay here.”

She ignored him and opened the connecting door.

The passage behind her was empty. At the far end, the service door of Car 3 stood ajar.

Mara ran.

The train rocked violently as she crossed the aisle. Passengers shouted when she struck a seatback. The woman in green rose in her path, blocking the narrow space.

“Move,” Mara said.

“You should listen to the conductor.”

Mara shoved past her.

The woman seized the back of Mara’s coat. Fabric tore with a sharp rip. Mara twisted, drove an elbow into the woman’s arm, and broke free. The canvas satchel dropped, hit the floor, and burst open.

A small metal case skidded beneath a seat.

The woman lunged for it.

Mara reached it first. She caught the case by its handle, but the woman’s fingers closed around her wrist. The train swung into another curve, throwing them both against the seats.

“Give it to me,” the woman hissed.

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know what you’re carrying.”

“That makes two of us.”

The woman yanked hard. Mara’s shoulder slammed into the window. Cold glass struck her cheek. She drove her boot down on the woman’s foot.

The grip broke.

Mara snatched the case and shoved it inside her coat. By the time she looked up, the woman had vanished through the rear vestibule.

A conductor’s whistle shrieked from the next car.

Mara reached the service door. The latch hung crooked. Inside, the compartment was cramped and dark, lit by a single red bulb. A coil of rope swung from a hook. A mop bucket rolled on its side, spreading gray water across the floor.

The crate’s steel straps lay cut beside the wall.

Mara crouched and ran her fingers over the scratches. Beneath the damp canvas, something caught against her glove.

Paper.

She pulled free a torn shipping label, its corner ripped away. The red border was the same as the scrap in her pocket. The remaining ink read:

NORTHSTAR HOLDINGS ELIAS VALE PRIVATE RECEIVING

A shadow crossed the narrow window in the door.

Mara stood.

“Miss Ellison,” Voss called from the other side. “Open this door.”

She held the label against her coat.

“Did this crate exist?” she asked.

“No.”

“You’re looking at its straps.”

“Open the door.”

“Who is Elias Vale?”

Voss’s silence lasted one beat too long.

Then he said, “There has never been a crate in Car 3.”

Mara stared through the glass at his composed face. Behind him, Haskins stood near the aisle, and farther back the woman in green watched with one hand pressed to her bruised arm.

The train gathered speed, carrying them deeper into the Alaskan night.

Mara folded the torn label and closed her fist around the name. She had wanted proof that something had vanished.

Now she had proof that someone aboard the train was willing to deny it.

End of chapter one. 32 more chapters in the full book.