***
“So, what did you see?” Ian asked a little too eagerly.
Again, the two found themselves pressed together in the claustrophobic bathroom in coach. There was a part of Nellie that felt obligated to be concerned. What would the other passengers think if they spotted the two of them stepping out of the bathroom together? If Ian was worried about such an embarrassing situation, he certainly didn’t show it.
Nellie began her story with a sigh, and then she went on to describe the massacre with as much detail as possible. Where others would have been sickened by such a tale, Ian had never been more attentive. Ian had even apologized at one point for interrupting her to ask a question about how Clark was found on the couch. If Nellie had known Ian for any longer than a day, she would have appreciated just how rare it was when he remembered his manners. Nellie supposed, though, that someone had to listen to her story, because she certainly didn’t want to. As she spoke, she could feel the tide of sick rising inside of her. She could barely get the last of the words out before her throat clenched up. She felt as if Ian was strangling the words out of her, and she was beginning to understand just how deep someone could hate Ian Hunter.
But finally the story was done, and Nellie sat down on the toilet lid, putting her face in her hands as if in prayer. It was obvious that Ian wanted to pace, to burn off the electricity that was bleeding through his body. But in a space so small, Ian had to resort to putting his head against the wall and hammering his fists lightly against the paint.
Nellie looked up and stared at Ian, vaguely curious. “What are you doing?” Nellie asked.
“The hand the lady held the gun in…did you get a good look at the hand?”
“As best as I could. I was across the room, after all. I wasn’t about to go walking through their blood.”
Ian stopped pounding his hands against the wall and sighed dramatically. “If you want to investigate something, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty – or your feet for that matter.”
“Thanks,” Nellie said sarcastically. “I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever want to become a reporter. And her hand was fine – my mother could only wish I kept my hands like that. She likes to say that I have my father’s hands.”
“And her gunshot wound, you believe it was somewhere behind her ear, towards the back of her head almost?”
“I would go as far as to say that, yes.”
Ian looked away from the wall and at Nellie. “You have the two most important clues in your hands, and you’re somehow just rubbing the sticks together without making a fire.”
“Then make me a fire,” Nellie said, getting impatient.
“Well, you described her as having delicate hands,” Ian began. “Yet she was able to hold a revolver behind her ear and pull the trigger.” With one hand, he mimed holding a gun to his head, in the same spot he was describing. “At the very least, this is an awkward position to hold. At the most, you find out just how weak your arm is. Mix that together with the powerful kick to a revolver, and you’re looking at the very real possibility of bruising or even fractures. And yet, there’s no sign of trauma on her wrist, not even a bump.”
“Are you a doctor or something?” Nellie asked, incredulous that a vagrant like Ian could be so knowledgeable about so much.
Ian ignored her as he continued, “And you mentioned that her left leg was stretched out. Now, it’s not definitive, but there is some correlation between handedness and footedness as one would imagine. So we can reasonably conclude our femme fatale was left-handed, sinister in more ways than one. But if she was left-handed, why did she hold the gun in her right? Things aren’t adding up. You mentioned that the window was open?”
“By just a hair, but that’s just enough in weather like this.”
“Even if the room was stuffy, the cold out there is a wolf that can kill a man in seconds. And there is nothing outside that they can see beyond a few feet. So there was no point for the people inside to open the window…”
Ian paused, and then his face brightened. “You’re going to like this.”
“I probably won’t, but continue.”
“Well, what if it wasn’t someone inside? What if it was someone outside? So here’s my theory: our killer crept up to the window, unseen in the blizzard, and opened the window and opened fire. When he was done, he reached through the window and planted his gun in the woman’s hand. It explains everything: the awkward wound behind the lady’s head, the gun not being in her dominant hand, the window being open in a snowstorm. It explains everything…”
“Except for a motive,” Nellie interrupted.
Ian hesitated. “Well, yes, but if we knew the motive, we would know the killer’s identity. That would just be too easy. It’s just a shame that the wind is blowing so hard out there. Otherwise, we could decipher the boot prints the killer left behind. I once identified a killer based on the indentations his footsteps made in the sand.”
“You must enjoy teasing people, saying things like that,” Nellie said.
Ian ignored her, though, and said to himself, “But there’s more than one way to find a name. Sometimes, even, the name speaks for itself.”
Chapter 11