A Pass With No Seat

The white card was in Lockhart's fingers before I understood what he was doing.

He had reached past me, slid it from the brass slot, and now he held it up to the amber lamp and read it out. "ROONEY, D." He turned it over. The back had a printed strip and a punched notch. "This is the door record for Roomette 4. Occupied, Rooney."

"A benefits batch would have cleared it," the woman with the cane said. She had not moved from her doorway, but her voice had found its place in the room. "A release entered by hand at a desk wouldn't touch the door at all."

Lockhart studied her. She met it, level. "Lenora Whitfield, retired from the federal bench in the spring. Nobody should be alarmed. The word 'batch' has been used in front of me many times by people who were lying."

The woman in the camel coat laughed, a light little laugh. "Your Honor, I'm a traveler, the same as anyone."

"Then you'll have no trouble," Whitfield said, "showing the conductor your ticket."

Lockhart's mustache moved. It was very quiet for a second. "Ma'am."

She reached into her handbag and came out with a small folded sheet of pale green paper. She held it out at the tips of two fingers. Lockhart read it, and I watched him read it twice.

"This isn't a ticket," he said. "This says SPACE AVAILABLE, EMPLOYEE RIDE. No room assigned. It's good only if a room is open when the train leaves."

"That's what I told Paulette," she said, still smooth. "It's a courtesy."

"Then how do you come to be sitting in Roomette 4?" Lockhart said.

Paulette's voice came thin. "She told me the room was released, Conductor. She said the desk had cleared it and asked me to put her in."

"And the lanyard," Whitfield said, mildly. "The one that was inside your coat when you came aboard."

For a long second the woman didn't move. Then, out of other options, she drew out a plastic card on a blue cord and let it fall against the camel wool. A photo. A name band I could not read from where I stood. Above it, in white on blue, two words I could: STATION SERVICES.

Lockhart's face went very still.

She was not a passenger. She was a rider who had needed a room to be empty.