Anne stowed her coat in the overhead bin and sank gratefully into the worn plush of her seat. A broken-down car at one end of the road and an appointment at the other meant, gloriously, a train journey. She loved train travel, even the modern version; loved the glimpses of country life; loved the lights on the remote farmhouses in the darkness.

This train, the Lake Superior, travelled between Sudbury and White River three times per week. Comfort class. Until recently it served no food. Strange comfort, she thought, but the windows were large and the seat spacious, so Anne was happy.

Four other travelers sat at remote intervals. Going to be a long quiet ride, she thought as she pulled her laptop from its leather bag. She was going to meet a man in White River who promised to show her papers on the De la Ronde family, ancestors on her father’s side. She worked at her family database for a few hours

The conductor stopped to tell her there would be a boxed lunch in a few minutes: smoked turkey breast on a croissant, salad, and pudding. Anne looked around at her fellow passengers and then called out, “Would anyone like to join me for lunch?” Her seating for four could form a little lunch group.

Two men and then a woman lurched down the car to her seat. The fourth man hesitated, and then took a seat across the aisle from them.

“Dave Barker,” the man introduced himself as he sat.

“Anne McPhail,” she replied, smiling up into the lined face of the elderly latecomer.

A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman of about forty-five perched on the edge of her seat, clutching a large artist’s carrying bag. Her name was Giselle Cloutier she said. Harrison McDonald, a redhead with an engaging grin introduced himself and enthusiastically pumped Anne’s hand and told her what a great idea this was to eat together. The last man of the foursome settled back into a seat across from Anne. He gave his name as Parsons and his immediate attention to the view out the window. A thin, almost wasted man, he looked as if a good meal was a rare event in his life.

“You on your way to White River, Anne?” McDonald asked as he peered at the screen of her laptop.

“Yes,” she replied as she closed the cover.

“I noticed that you had family names on the screen, there. You one of those people who go round looking at tombstones and such?”

Curiosity defines this guy, Anne thought as she answered with a laugh. “Yes, I am, but all I have to look at in White River are diary pages.”

“Kinda waste of time, ain’t it?” commented the man across the aisle.

“Depends on your point of view. Mr. Barker, is it?” Anne replied. “I’m retired and have always been interested in history, my own included. Gives me a reason to travel and meet people, too.

“Hey, each to his own.” The man put up his hands in a back-off gesture, to Anne’s irritated tone, not her words. “No offense.”

“Sorry, Mr. Barker. I get that “waste of time” comment a lot.”

The train slowed, and then stopped. No station that Anne could see, just two men standing at the track side.

“What’s going on?” Anne asked.

“Didn’t they tell you?’ Parsons turned his head back towards her. “This train will stop anywhere along the track to pick you up so long as you arrange it ahead.”

“You mean the people on the train now, aren’t the only ones who will be on it?” No one could miss the fear in Giselle’s voice.

“That’s right. Usually hunters or canoeists. There’s a car for canoes. Load your own.”

As he spoke the car door opened and a bearded man dressed in the padded work-shirt and pants and orange vest of a hunter ambled down the aisle and sat in the row behind Anne.

Lunch came and they ate in a companionable silence. One after another the passengers walked to the washrooms at the other end of the car. Giselle scurried down the aisle, peering back at them before she disappeared through the narrow door.

Anne discovered that her wireless connected her to the Internet, even here. It must be included in the ticket, she thought. She worked until she realized she had looked at the same birth certificate three times. She closed her laptop, put her seat back a little and closed her eyes. She had just drifted off to sleep, or so it seemed, when someone called her name.

“Dr. McPhail. Could you help me?” the conductor was asking.

“What’s wrong?”

“The other lady seems to have been in the lavatory a very long time. Could you come and see. I get no answer.”

“Certainly.”

The conductor stood in the corridor between the two washrooms. The door to one was blocked from the other side. He pushed it open enough for Anne to see in.

“She’s lying on the floor with her feet against the door. If you give me a little wider opening, I think I can get in there.”

The conductor pushed steadily on the door until the opening was wide enough for her to slip through. Moments were all it took for her to be sure the woman was dead. Blood congealed around a wound in her chest. Stains in the sink suggested a killer who took the time to wash up. Blood on his hands or his weapon, Anne thought.

“Dr. McPhail.” The conductor was calling her.

“Push open the door again,” she instructed. “She’s dead,” she whispered to the conductor. “Please look in so you can see her too. I don’t want to move her. She’s been murdered.”

Anne took some pictures of the woman, the floor around her and blood in the sink before squeezing out of the claustrophobic space.

“How long until White River?” she asked.

“Three hours.”

When Anne returned to her seat, McDonald asked what had happened.

“Giselle is dead.” Anne watched shock play over the faces of the other passengers.

“Did she have a heart attack or something?”

“Someone attacked her heart with a knife or a gun,” Anne replied.

Then the others were all talking at once.

“Someone killed her?”

“What the hell?”

“We’re the only ones on the train.”

Only the sound of the train itself filled the car as the passengers fell silent, each looking suspiciously at the other.

“I didn’t go to the washroom,” Anne said. “Did everyone else?”

Everyone else had.

“So now we have a dead woman and four of us who could have killed her. Great,” said Barker, smashing his fist against the seat arm.

“More than four,” Anne said. “Trainmen have lives too.”

The latecomer in the hunting clothes asked, “Who are you people? What do you do?”

Anne answered, explaining that she was a retired doctor. Barker worked for the government - Natural Resources, he said. McDonald was a real estate agent. No surprise there, Anne thought. Parsons just said he lived in the bush, did some guiding.

“And you?” Anne asked.

“I work for the city of Toronto. Name’s Drucker. Just out here on vacation with my buddy.”

“Where is he?”

The conductor had news for them. No one was to get off the train until they got to White River. The OPP would meet them there.

“But I live an hour before,” protested Parsons.

“You have to stay on this time, Tom. We’ll send you back, no charge,” he reassured him.

Another one eliminated, Anne thought. Not too likely a guy who lived in the bush would be involved in murdering a random passenger on a train.

A few minutes later, Drucker left his seat.

“Where are you going?” McDonald demanded.

“Washroom.”

McDonald’s suspicious gaze followed Drucker down the aisle, watched him try the door to the other car and fail to get through.