Murder and Misconception Read online

  “Lead me home, Myrtle.” I call her Myrtle. This is not her given name. Her given name is Debrah Sue formerly Cane, now Time. She has studied long and hard and now is officially Dr. Time.

  She tells her students, “Call me Dr. Deb.” We’ve been married for some thirty years, and we dated seven years before we married. We met when she was fifteen. According to her parents I robbed the cradle. We have two daughters. The younger is married, and much to everyone’s surprise I love our son-in-law. I don’t feel outnumbered by women when he is around. Our oldest is single and lives in Oklahoma. We do not see her as much as we would like to. We are now empty nesters, and my wife reminds me that this affects her much more than it affects me.

  When we arrived home, she sent me off to bed and went on with her mysterious life. Or so I imagine. What does she do with all her time? I wondered as I nodded off.

  I felt her shaking my arm. “Ben, Ben, wake up. It’s the railroad calling.”

  I couldn’t quite come out of it and shook my head like a wet dog, a groggy wet dog, and took the handset.

  “Hello,” I mumbled.

  “Mr. Time, you have the W369 at 2100.”

  “Who is my conductor?” I asked.

  The male voice responded, “Evans.”

  I heard the click and thought, Here we go again.

  I hated this train, and so did all the others. We stop and pick up cars in Effingham, get pulled into sidings often to let the van trains pass by or any other old freight train that is out there. Then we put the power away in St. Louis. It generally takes all twelve hours and more. We call it the “Bone Crusher.”

  Still confused despite the shower, I left the house with several sandwiches of homemade meatloaf Myrtle had made in hopes we could have dinner together. But not tonight, not again. I wondered if Lurch would be speaking to me tonight. Maybe the half-sub made some inroad.

  At the yard, I heard the normal complaints. Crews had waited hours at Cadillac Road, just outside the yard, and in Illinois there was a signal giving a false positive and turned from clear to stop without an approach signal. The final complaint was that Indiana came in threatening everyone in his path. He was still hot over his long delay.

  Lurch deftly retrieved our paperwork, and we were off again. Seemed like we were never released from duty.

  Our train left on time. A good start, once again in the black of night. For a long time we were silent, except for the normal obligatory railroad speak.

  Eventually Lurch said, “The Mad Russian was Indiana’s conductor. He told Old Joe that Indiana was ready to pummel George the Tyrant at the yard. The Mad Russian had to hold him back. He said he was sick and tired of George himself, but was getting more sick and tired of trying to keep Indiana cool. Said he would like to let Indiana go ahead and pummel George, but that he would get pulled out of service with Indiana if Indiana did his dirty work and pummeled George. The Russian said that he couldn’t afford to get pulled out of service. It seems the guys are getting short on self-control.”

  I replied, “It’s been this way before, too much work, too little rest, and egos that are too big. Someone will probably get pulled out of service. That decreases the number of available workers and increases stress from lack of rest. Tempers just get hotter. Not a good cycle. George pushes the wrong buttons and continues until he breaks someone. He has done it before. Right now it’s Indiana’s turn.”

  Lurch sighed. “I hope he doesn’t turn on me. Don’t know what I would do.”

  I just nodded and continued to peer into the black night as we got ready to pull into the first siding for the evening.

  Ten hours later we were sitting at the signal ready to yard our train in St. Louis. We had the signal, but we needed permission to enter the yard. We called the yardmaster several times, but nobody answered. I gave a clear warning into the radio that we would soon be dead, outlaw, because we were getting close to the twelve-hour time limit set by the government. Usually that warning got our train moving, but not today. Just silence.

  Lurch asked, “Wonder what’s going on? Usually George would be yelling at us by now.”

  “I know. Well, I guess we just sit and wait. I think I will get some sleep, I’m exhausted,” I replied.

  We both closed our eyes. We woke abruptly when we heard pounding on the engine door. They had sent a van for us. I checked my watch. It had been twelve hours and fifty-three minutes on duty. I was surprised we slept without radio interruption.

  “Hi Betty,” I half mumbled. “What’s going on?”

  Betty, today’s limo driver, was seventy-three years old. Puffing on a cigarette, she leaned against the door of her van. “I have no idea. I was ordered to come and pick you guys up, and two other drivers were ordered to go get two other crews. We’ll find out soon enough.” She stubbed out her cigarette on a nearby tree and got into the van.

  Lurch and I were both foggy and attempted to make sense out of being placed in a van without further radio talk on the train. We discussed this new development with few words. Soon we spotted the railyard in the distance. As we got closer, we spotted flashing lights. Slowing as we approached, we could see a firetruck, ambulance, and two police cars. Lurch and I got out of the van much more quickly than we climbed in and entered the yard office. I spotted Jonesy and Ty.

  “Hey! What’s going on?” I asked.

  Ty responded, “Looks like they found George the Tyrant dead by a switch in the yard.”

  “Do they know what happened?”

  Ty shook his head. “Haven’t heard.”

  Hearing footfalls, I turned to see Jesse, the yardmaster, running from the back of the building toward the front. Several more officials seemed to be arriving. I thought they must be railroad suits. One of them shouted at us to clear the way. At that moment, a stretcher with a body narrowly passed us in the hallway. We four all stood smashed against the dingy wall and looked at one another, quite unsure what to say or do. Several firemen and EMTs passed by us as if we were all invisible.

  Finally, Lurch looked at me and asked if he should go to the computer and finish up our time slips and paperwork. With lack of expertise in such a circumstance, I just shrugged. Jonesy and Ty seemed equally unsure of their next move.

  Two more crewmen walked in. It was obvious that dispatchers were still dispatching trains. It was becoming a real circus, but no one was in the ringmaster’s seat. I still felt quite dazed. This all seemed to be one big, very bad dream. Finished with our paperwork, Lurch punched my shoulder and mumbled, “Let’s go to the van.”

  I followed him with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach—not sure if it was from lack of rest, the homemade meatloaf, or the sight of the body on the stretcher, covered with a white sheet.

  Once inside the van we told Betty what we knew. She replied in her gruff, cigarette-smoking voice, “I know a brakeman who was killed by a switch about fifteen years back . . .”

  Her story seemed to descend into the muted trumpet sound on the Charlie Brown cartoons, “Wha Wha Wha,” as I began to nod off once again. At the hotel, Lurch and I got our room assignments and headed our separate ways. Maybe I could make more sense of this event after some sleep.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SAINT LOUIS,

  NOV. 8, 1030 EST

  The next morning I awoke with the memory of the stretcher covered in white, and remembered that George the Tyrant was no longer here on this planet, no longer with us. I wondered about his family. I believed that he was divorced, but not entirely sure. I wondered if he had children. How old were they? I wondered if George had any relationship with the Lord. He was here one day, seemingly determined to make our lives miserable, and gone the next. I thought of my own mortality, and I spent some time in prayer with the Lord.

  The ringing phone interrupted as usual. I answered, “Big Ben here.”

  Surprisingly, it was not the automated “Railroad calling.” It was Lurch. “Hey, Big Ben, come downstairs. We have a table for six for breakfast.”

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bsp; I hurried and showered, packed my grip, just in case we were called out soon, and descended in the elevator.

  I spotted the guys—Lurch, Jonesy, Ty, the Mad Russian, and Indiana—all deep in conversation in the far corner of the dining room. As I approached the table I realized that the topic for the morning gripe session would not be the usual.

  “Hi guys!” I greeted everyone.

  Somebody replied, “Hi Ben.” This response was unusual. I usually got “Hi Fat Boy,” or “Hi Big Ben and getting bigger,” or other similar remarks.

  I ordered coffee and Eggs Benedict and joined the conversation. “I am surprised to see you guys here. Did they cancel your train?” I asked Jonesy.

  “We waited at the yard office for three additional hours, watched the railroad suits move back and forth without a word, and watched Jesse get interrogated, but we couldn’t hear a thing they were saying. They finally sent us back to the hotel. We heard that trains were backed up all the way to Effingham. They were trying to get Tim, the second trick trainmaster, to come in when we left. Chuck brought us back to the hotel.”

  Indiana said they were deadheaded, brought the whole way here by van rather than train. He and the Mad Russian just checked into the hotel. Indiana added, with a loud voice, that George got what he deserved and that was all he was going to say about the whole business. The Mad Russian just sat there looking sullen. Maybe he was exhausted, or maybe he was just living up to his name.

  Lurch asked if anyone knew how the accident happened. Ty thought he had heard one of the EMTs say there was blunt force trauma to the head.

  “Why do you think George was out at that switch anyway?” I asked.

  Indiana, not keeping his word to be silent on the subject, jumped in. “He was probably setting the switch up for a test to create a failure—to pull a crew out of service. You know he was like that. Always trying to set us up to pull us out of service.”

  “Well, he might have been checking car numbers on the adjacent track,” I responded.

  Jonesy said, “I heard that a crew had a hazardous material car that wasn’t on their train consist [order of cars on the train] but was located within the six leading cars. A big failure. So George was probably out checking the train consist.”

  Indiana piped up again, “Yeah. George was probably ready to pull the conductor of that crew out of service for that one.”

  Lurch said he had reported to the yardmaster that there was too much tension on the switch one month previous. He nearly received a jaw kick on that rainy night from the old Mason-Dixon switch. He added that maybe some other crew reported the switch as well. George may simply have been checking the switch.

  “Well, maybe Jesse, the yardmaster, can shed some light on the accident. She was there.”

  Suddenly, the familiar ringtone “Don’t Worry Be Happy” sounded, and all the guys realized that I was getting my call to go to work.

  I answered, “Roger, 1030 for re-crew and deadhead home. I’ll let Evans know. He’s here with me.”

  Lurch leaped up from the table. “Wow! We’re in the money this trip!” Shouts of “Two trip tickets!” —better known as a “double dip call”—came from all around the table.

  Chuck picked up Lurch and me at the hotel and took us to the yard office. Chuck was seemingly aware of George’s death since he had been shuffling crews around most of the morning. The whole yard was a tangle of yesterday’s delays and bad news. Bad news travels faster than the trains.

  “You two pulling in a train from the east side of the yard?” he asked.

  I nodded and asked how his wife, Shirley, was doing.

  He responded, “She is not handling this new chemo well. Sick most of the time. But the doctor said she might go into remission once the treatments are done. I hope so. It has been rough.”

  “You guys are in my prayers, Chuck,” I replied as Lurch and I left the van and headed into the office for our paperwork.

  The yard office was quiet, eerily so. Lurch looked at me with a confused frown, shrugged, and headed for the printer. I shook my head and walked to Jesse’s office to offer my condolences. I knocked and found that she was not on duty. Leo was holding down the fort, and he was busy.

  Without further contact, Lurch and I left the building trying not to disturb the silence. We climbed back into the limo with Chuck and headed for the train, the W211 that never made it in yesterday. We relieved the exhausted crew almost as silently as we left the yard office. This was a strange day. We made our preparations to move the W211 in. Thankfully, it didn’t take long. The dispatchers were anxious to get things moving again.

  Lurch dismounted and strolled into the yard office. I lagged behind, then dismounted. Curiosity usually gets the best of me, and questions were whirling in my head around that switch that supposedly killed George. It wasn’t far to the culprit, the Mason-Dixon switch, so I moseyed over to take a look. The same switch that Lurch reported last month. Too much tension can make the armature swing up when you release the switch stand keeper. Excessive tension can break the conductor’s jaw or even kill him. I decided to check the switch myself. First I moved the switch from right to left then from left to right. The Mason-Dixon seemed to have the proper tension. However, if it were not working properly when George was out here . . . well, they would have fixed it by today.

  When I entered the yard office I spotted Andre, another yardmaster. He nodded when he saw me and said, “Hey Ben. I guess you weren’t expecting to see me. I was supposed to be off for two weeks but got called in for today. Apparently Jesse got very upset over the George thing and asked off. She seems to get about any time off she wants. Must be nice being female.” Andre seemed absorbed by papers he was aimlessly shuffling, as I saw Lurch coming in behind me.

  “Have you heard anything more about what happened to George the Ty . . . I mean George?” Lurch chewed his lip.

  “Well, they said the switch arm came up and hit him right in the temple and killed him dead. The railroad suit said that they looked over the switch, and it had excessive tension on the switch stand lever. When George put his foot on the dog [switch stand keeper], the switch stand lever sprang, and the switch stand lever ball caught him on the right temple. Jesse found him dead near the Mason-Dixon.”

  “That switch has been reported by more than one crew. What a nightmare! What a way to go,” replied Lurch.

  Lurch was probably thinking that it could have been him lying there dead yesterday.

  I was pondering that we really don’t know the length of our days. That line of thinking was taking me nowhere, so I frowned and said, “Lurch, let’s head for home.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SAINT LOUIS,

  NOV. 8, 1800 EST

  We climbed in the van with Chuck and soon were both snoring. This often happened when we were being deadheaded. Our bodies know when to get caught up on sleep, which is any time they get the chance.

  It seemed that only moments had passed when we were awakened as the van bounced over the Indianapolis tracks. Chuck must have noticed our movements in his rearview mirror.

  “We’re home again, boys. You’ve got your second ticket, second pay for the trip. Wish I got that benefit,” he said. “Apparently you both have caught up on your beauty sleep. Although more sleep probably couldn’t hurt if you really want to be beautiful.” He chuckled to himself.

  We began to come back to life, grabbed our grips, and headed for the Indianapolis yard office. While the paperwork was being done, I called my wife to let her know I was back. She didn’t answer. I was not even sure what day it was. That’s the thing about having no schedule. Days, nights, how many days have passed? It’s all a blur. Then I remembered it was Monday evening—church board meeting night. Deb always took the minutes. She wouldn’t be home until nine o’clock or after.

  It was lonely walking into an empty house—no kids, no dog, no wife. Once home I opened the refrigerator just out of habit, a bad one, and looked for the makings of a meal. I wasn’t sur
e which meal to search for—breakfast, lunch, or supper—but I felt pretty sure I had missed one. There in the left corner was a container of meatloaf. Meatloaf sandwiches again. I made a plate and sat down to watch a little TV. I had had some rest, and I began to think about George. I had not reclined long when my cell rang.

  “Ben,” Indiana hollered into the phone. As I held the phone further from my ear, I thought my wife was correct—all trainmen are hard of hearing, and they all yell into their phones.

  “It’s me,” said the voice.

  “What do you need, Indiana?” I responded, not at all happy to hear his loud voice.

  “The cinder dick has called me into the yard office to interrogate me. He’s asking all kinds of questions: Where was I at the time of death? What was I doing? Why was I mad at George the Tyrant? Et cetera! I told him I hated the son of . . . Oops, I won’t say that to the chaplain. Anyway, I told him why. I asked him why he was asking me all these questions when George got himself hammered by the Mason-Dixon switch? And he just said he was fact-finding. I don’t like being interrogated, Ben. What does it mean? I was off that day, at home. You know that.”

  “Indiana, maybe he was just fact-finding like he said. I’ll call a friend in the railroad police department and ask a few questions. You know the railroad has its own police and claims departments that investigate all accidents on property.”

  “I knew that I could count on you. A brother in the same union and a chaplain to boot. Thanks, Ben.” Click. Dial tone.

  What a change of tune. Indiana usually hated me for my chaplain views. His life was one of continuous chaos—womanizing, gambling, and drinking whenever possible. He was loud, selfish, and obnoxious. However, I did wonder why they were questioning him, when it appeared that George’s death was accidental. So I dialed John, my friend in the railroad police department, a cinder dick.

  “Hi John. This is Ben Time. It’s been a while since I’ve run into you. How’s it going in the policing business?”