“You’re not the conductor,” Ansel blurted out after a few awkward moments.
The man looked amused. “You’ll go far with a mind like that.”
“What are you trying to pull?” Haley demanded. “You didn’t just lie to a marshal for no good reason.”
“But I didn’t lie – technically, I am a conductor. I took some correspondence courses back home and I am a minimally qualified one. I can pull a train into a station with only a few casualties. Anyway, I just realized I forgot to introduce myself – name’s Ian Hunter. And you are…?”
“About to arrest you,” Haley said curtly.
Ian shrugged. “Okay, but don’t accuse me of being rude because I forgot to give my name.” He looked over Haley’s shoulder and saw the body tied to the pole. “Is that the last person who tried cracking jokes around you?”
“That’s right, it is,” Haley snapped. “And just keep cracking those jokes of yours.”
Ian wasn’t nervous at all. With a little smile, he said, “Don’t waste your breath questioning our friend here over the murder of Sheldon McKenna. We’ve all lost enough today. I, for one, lost my lucky penny.”
“What makes you think all that?” Ansel wondered out loud.
“Well…it’s obvious, isn’t it? Why else would you be questioning Mr. Coburn in the same room as a corpse that would have more use as a punching bag?”
“It got results, didn’t it? We got him to confess to the crime. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into here. Now, get out of here before we get some secrets out of you,” Haley said roughly before pushing Ian hard in the shoulder.
But the thin man didn’t move. Insulted, Ian said, “I don’t know? I know more than you do. I know that Mr. Coburn is innocent of the charges. He lacks motive to kill the man, and he stands to lose his wife – who is really all he has left in the world – if he’s convicted. Am I truly the only one who sees the discrepancy here?”
The marshals laughed, causing the hairs on the back of Ian’s neck to ruffle with indignation. Haley scoffed, “What do you know? You’re just some vagrant by the looks of it. You probably can’t even afford intuition.”
“You know, a poor man once told me that those who have nothing see everything,” Ian said. “They learn to appreciate all of the things they can’t have. I’m so poor I can see into another plane of existence.”
“Come in out of the cold,” Ansel said, beckoning Ian to step closer. He was finding this stranger to be more curious with every passing moment. He ordered Haley, “Close the door before the rest of us die.”
As the door closed heavily behind Ian, Ansel said, “You have a compelling theory there, Mr. Hunter. But your talk about motives is just conjecture. We’re going to need proof that’s a bit more solid than your word.”
“You’re right – otherwise, I’m just wasting your time, aren’t I?” Ian said. “Which reminds me…Mr. Coburn, what time is it?”
Caught off-guard, Martin could only look dumbly at Ian for a few seconds before finally reaching into his pocket to retrieve his watch. What was usually an instinct now felt foreign to him. The watch just felt wrong in his hand. He said thickly, “It’s a few minutes after 10.”
“Really? That’s odd,” Ian said, surprised. He pulled out his own watch to compare. “Because my watch is saying 11.”
“And I’m sure somewhere in the world, someone’s watch is reading 7,” Layton said, rolling his eyes. “Where are you going with this?” Unlike Ansel, the rest of the marshals were beginning to lose their patience.
“The reason why his watch is an hour faster than mine is because he wound it to match the new time. The time zone changes when you enter western Nebraska. If my calculations are correct – and they are always correct – we entered that area during Mr. Coburn’s disappearance and just before the derailment had occurred. The only way he could have realized the shift in time zones was by going to the front of the train, where the crew’s quarters are and where they have clocks for every time zone in the country. I’m sure the conductor – the real conductor – would vouch for this man being at the front of the train during that time. Now, how could Mr. Coburn be at both the front and back of the train at the same time?” Ian paused and looked at Martin with pity. “That has to be most boring alibi I’ve ever heard. No wonder you admitted to killing the poor bastard – at least it makes for a better story.”
“But that’s the problem,” Ansel said. “He did admit to the murder. What’s your reasoning for that?”
“I’m not so sure about that, to be honest. My current theory for that is it has something to do with love, which I am no expert on. But then again, Mr. Coburn here is just a newlywed, so I doubt he knows more than me on the subject. How close am I, Mr. Coburn?”
“Closer than I wish,” Martin said. He was afraid to look up at the faces he knew would be judging him. “When I was in the dining car with my wife earlier, I went to pay for our meal when I realized that I was almost out of the money I had stolen from my father. I’ve lived a life of privilege. The only thing I know how to do is spend money. How am I going to take care of my wife and I a week from now, when I’m officially broke?” He continued with a crackling voice, “And when I heard that I was facing life in jail, with a guarantee of food and shelter, I thought to myself that was my only out. It’s either that or going back home and admitting to my parents that they raised an incompetent boy.”
Silence fell over the men like snow. Ian was the first to speak. “I suppose we should also consider the fact that a spoiled young man would have no idea how to break into a refrigerated car, not when there are men guarding the front and back doors and the side doors are completely sealed. He wouldn’t think that a refrigerated car of this size would require such a large quantity of air, or that so much air would require a large vent to match.” He pointed up at the vent system above their heads. “But even if he had the mechanical aptitude to dismantle his way through the vent and kill your prisoner, there is still the problem of his circumference, which I’m sure you can calculate based on the blueberry pie he had earlier today. Unless he broke the laws of both man and physics, there is no possible way for him to squeeze through the vent and slip into this car.”
“You seem to know a lot about how these vents work,” Ansel said slowly. He looked Ian up and down. “And you seem scrawny enough to fit through a vent if you wanted to.”
“I must obviously be the killer then,” Ian, throwing his hands in the air in a gesture that was both frustration and surrender. He waited impatiently for the marshals to grasp what he was implying.
“That’s not a confession, I hope?” Ansel said, praying that such a smart man couldn’t be so stupid.
“It depends: do I look like the kind of person who would murder someone?”
Then, as one, the marshals hurriedly drew their guns and aimed at Ian’s heart.
“Lay down!” Ansel ordered. “Put your arms behind your back! We have some questions for you.”
“Well, that wasn’t the response I was expecting,” Ian said, disappointed.