“You really didn’t do it?” said Kelly, looking up at me hopefully.
I shook my head in a no gesture as rapidly as Kelly walked when she was in a hurry.
“She said she didn’t do it,” said Kelly across her desk to the couple.
They were not impressed.
“You call yourself a social media manager? If you were doing your job properly, this story wouldn’t exist! It’s your job to fix this. Got it?”
This seemed incredibly unfair to me. The newspaper didn’t come under the remit of social media, and how was I supposed to fix it? I was almost tempted to point out that most of the story actually looked to be factually true—even the veiled accusations of Diana’s murder didn’t seem unreasonable to me. At least with regards to Rolf.
“I will see what I can do?” I said in a small voice.
The couple glared at me some more. Kelly gave me an apologetic wince, while Sam squeezed my shoulder in support.
“You’d better see what you can do. And it’d better be some magic. This story, it’s...” Autumn was lost for words, and she just shook her head in apparent despair.
“Umm, can I help you guys with anything else?” asked Kelly.
“I’ve got to go and help get the talent show practice stage ready,” said Sam.
Kelly called an end to the acrimonious meeting, and after Sam had hurried off to get to work, I trailed Rolf and Autumn keeping some distance behind. I didn’t think walking together with them was on the menu.
As they walked ahead of me, Autumn seemed to be giving Rolf the cold shoulder. It was hardly surprising after what she’d learned the day before.
Side by side, but with some distance between them, they walked in silence. That was until Autumn, still somewhat drunk from the night before, tripped over her own feet. She was saved from toppling over by Rolf giving her a steadying hand.
She slapped it away.
“Don’t you touch me! This is all your fault! Everything!”
“Can’t we just talk? Let’s go for brunch and I can explain, you don’t under—”
Autumn slapped at his hand again, though this time it was already by his side and wasn’t anywhere close to her.
“Leave me alone! Just... go! I’m going to the cabin and I don’t want you there. Go for a swim in the ocean or something!”
As we were currently sailing between ports, a swim in the ocean was not a friendly suggestion on her part.
Rolf stopped walking, and Autumn angrily stomped away ahead of him, muttering curses under her breath as she went.
With Rolf stopped, I soon caught up to him. I tried to have another go at apologizing for something I didn’t do.
“Rolf? I’m really sorry about that article. Truly. I didn’t do it. Honestly. I’ll do whatever I can to fix it though—overwhelm the world with positive stories about you guys.” I didn’t think that would really be possible. Once news was out, it tended to stay out, and negative stories trumped positive ones every time. There was no such thing as a good news newspaper; every attempt at one had rapidly gone bust. But I would do my best.
“It really wasn’t you who leaked all that trash?”
I nodded then shook my head then nodded again, confused as to which bit I was agreeing with. But he got the point.
Rolf sighed sadly. “Join me for a drink?”
That wasn’t what I had been expecting to hear. After the berating I’d just suffered in Kelly’s office, it was the last thing I thought I would be doing immediately after.
But I did want to speak to him. After what I’d learned from Autumn the night before, Rolf was now one of my top suspects. I didn’t want him to know that though.
“Sure. How about Mimi’s? It’s a lovely café outside on—”
“No, after the night and morning I’ve had, I mean a drink drink.”
I’d just finished eating breakfast!
“Umm, the bars are closed,” I said with a frown, thinking of the fancy cocktail bars inside the ship. Not being a day drinker—pretty sure that would be a fireable offense—I wasn’t too up on where to go for a Bloody Mary or whatever it was he was after. Then I remembered somewhere. “Oh. Except Hemmingways, by the Lagoon Pool. That’s open from breakfast until the pool closes.”
“Hemingway’s, huh? He knew how to drink. Sounds perfect. Lead on.”
When we arrived, it was a beautiful, sunny morning with blue cloudless skies overhead. The Lagoon Pool was surrounded by happy families and older couples, while several children played around with pool noodles, smacking each other playfully with them.
Hemingway’s was a tropical-themed bar, where everything was made from bamboo or decorated with palm fronds. There was a bamboo bar, with stools made from the same tubular poles, and a bunch of bamboo tables and chairs scattered about for those who wanted to sit more comfortably.
Rolf immediately headed to a stool up by the bar, so I joined him on the one next to him.
I was quite pleased we had ended up here, because if he was, as I was beginning to suspect, a killer, he wouldn’t have much chance to threaten me here if he realized I was on to him. I had learned from hard-won experience that getting stuck alone in a secluded place with a murderer was not a wise thing to do. Most people didn’t have to learn that particular lesson the hard way. But I had.
“It’s good to have someone to talk to,” I said when we were both sitting. I was going to try and encourage him to open up—tell me about his worries, his fears, his murders, that sort of thing.
“Hey! Two mimosas!” he called across the bar. There was a young blond man bartending, in a Hawaiian shirt that was halfway unbuttoned down his tanned brown chest. He recognized me, and through the psychic communication ability of customer service and hospitality staff the world over, a little gentle shake of my head was enough to let him know I wanted mine alcohol free. So basically a glass of juice.
I knew that if my friend Cece had been in my position she would have done the opposite—probably asked for it double strength. Sam, I wasn’t sure about. That would depend on her mood. But for me, breakfast was not the time for cocktails. Especially when I was supposed to be working.
The bartender quickly and skillfully prepared our drinks, turning away as he poured in the champagne so that Rolf couldn’t see that my drink was being made alcohol-free. When they were done, he set them down in front of us, two tall flutes set on white paper napkins.
“Enjoy.” The barman flashed us a brilliant white smile and headed down the other end of the bar to serve someone else.
Rolf stood up and peered over the counter. Then he reached across with his right hand, and when it returned he was holding a pink curly straw.
“Want one?”
“No thanks.”
He plonked the plastic straw into his glass.
“You know, I thought it was all over and done with. All in the past. That it would never come up again,” said Rolf sadly. He leaned forward and wrapped his lips around the curly pink straw and took a noisy, slurping sip.
“You and Diana?”
He nodded, then released the straw from his mouth and sat back on the stool.
“It was so stupid. It was years ago. Years and years ago. Autumn and I dated for a while, and then we broke up. Well, we were on a break. You know how it is.”
I knew exactly how it was. But from TV sitcoms, not experience.
“You were on a break with Autumn, and you had a brief fling with Diana?” I said, nodding along while I sipped at my alcohol-free drink.
“Yep. But Diana was never the one for me. She was too... intense. The pageant world is everything to Autumn, but for Diana, it was more than everything. The only thing she had room for in her life. I couldn’t stick with her. I don’t know how anyone could,” He shook his head sadly.
If she was that intense, maybe that was why he had to kill her.
“So our fling was brief. Just a couple of weeks. But I did give her that bracelet, back then. That’s why I denied knowing abou
t it. I didn’t want it to come back and haunt me, all these years later. When I saw Diana wearing it, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think she would even still have it after all these years. But she did, and then she started wearing it nonstop, once she was aboard. I didn’t know what she was doing. Was it to taunt me? To try and get back together with me?”
“Wow,” I said, trying to seem sympathetic. “It must have been very stressful for you.”
“It was! It was stressful for me,” he said, rapping his palm on the wooden counter of the bar as he said it. He noisily sucked up some more mimosa through his pink straw. “So stressful. And you know, I can’t say it, but it was Autumn’s fault. It’s her fault she’s dead, I guess.”
“Really?” Now this was getting really intriguing. Subtly, so as not to attract his notice, I started the voice recorder app on my phone. If he was going to give me a confession, I was going to make sure I recorded it.
Rolf nodded slowly and sadly. “I told her not to invite Diana. I did. I really tried. I reminded her of all their old rivalries, about how they used to hate each other.”
“But she didn’t listen?”
“No. I think as the years passed, Autumn softened. She mellowed. She forgot how intense it used to be when they were young, when they were actually competing against each other instead of just coaching. But I hadn’t forgotten, and nor had Diana. That’s why I warned Autumn. Over and over again, I said, ‘Don’t invite her, don’t make her a judge.’ But Autumn just laughed and tossed her hair like she does—have you noticed that? I love it—and she said that she had to invite Diana. She was one of the greats. And having her as one of the judges for this competition would just add that extra pizzazz that the event needed.”
So much for his confession—at least not yet, anyway. I let the phone keep recording though, just in case.
“When we saw her, I knew things weren’t going to go well. I could tell. There was this glint in her eye. I knew she’d be up to trouble.” Rolf sighed again wearily. I wondered if he meant to tell me so much, or whether the alcohol was already loosening his lips.
“Bartender?”
The blond man caught Rolf’s eye, and my companion held up his near-empty glass. The bartender nodded and immediately began to prepare a replacement, and as he did so, Rolf greedily sucked down the rest of his current drink. I wondered whether I was going to have to manage Rolf the same way I had Autumn the night before. I hoped not.
“Diana hadn’t forgotten me. She still... it might seem arrogant for me to say it, but I’ve still got it, you know? Look at me—” he ran his hands over his torso and I did as I was told. He did indeed look okay for his age. He was fit and put-together, but a little too much so for my taste. And even though his makeup was very light, I preferred Ethan’s more natural, makeup-free look. And of course he was much older than Ethan.
“You’ve sure looked after yourself well,” I said to him kindly.
He nodded in agreement.
“She wouldn’t let me go. She wanted me back. I was worried she was going to hurt Autumn, and so I even planned to tell her. There was nothing between Diana and me now, of course, but I was going to tell her about the fling from years back—and that Diana was after me again. Just so that she would know.”
“But obviously you didn’t. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been so upset last night.”
“Right. I was going to, but then Diana died. So I figured, why upset Autumn by telling her? Best let sleeping dogs lie.”
Best let dead beauty queens lie, I thought idly.
“But how did you get that bracelet?”
Rolf took a gulp from his new drink, eschewing the straw this time.
“I... I took it from her room,” he said quietly. “After she died. I wanted it gone. I was going to throw it overboard. But I lost it, and then you found it, and then Autumn heard about it…”
Just as I had suspected.
“But how did you get into her room?”
“The morning Diana died, she put her keycard under my door. I guess she knew I was always up before Autumn. Of course, I pocketed it right away. I couldn’t let Autumn see it. Then, after we found out she was dead, I let myself into her room and I took it.”
“She put her keycard under your door? What, like with a note or something?”
“No, just the card.”
If a keycard suddenly appeared under my door, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to even begin to guess where it came from. Since they were all reusable, they didn’t have the actual cabin numbers on them; any keycard could be programmed to open any door. Or every door, in the case of Cece’s card.
“How did you know it was hers?”
Rolf looked down guiltily.
“On the first night, when we ate dinner with the captain, and that awful woman ruined it with her meat dress, she propositioned me. She kissed her keycard and left an imprint of her lipstick on it. Then she tried to hand it to me. Of course, I pushed it away and told her to drop it. When the keycard came under the door, I knew it was from her.”
“Wow. Brazen.”
I slowly sipped my drink and thought about it. I couldn’t ever imagine doing something like Diana did.
“That she was. You could never call Diana Penn shy and retiring. I just wish she hadn’t acted like that. If she could have just forgotten about our past, thrown away the bracelet, and not come on to me… then Autumn and I wouldn’t be in this mess with the newspapers.”
BUZZ.
I pulled out my phone, it was Cece. She didn’t normally call me while she was working.
“Excuse me a moment.” I pressed the button to answer the call. “What’s up?”
Cece’s voice came through a little bit muffled, like she was in a cupboard.
“Adrienne? I’ve found something you should see. I’m in the housekeeping laundry. You should get here right away.”
“What is it?”
“Just come.”
The line went dead as Cece disconnected the call. Whatever it was, it must be important.
“Rolf, I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to go. I’m still on duty, I’m afraid.”
“I understand. If you see Autumn… tell her I’m here. And I miss her.”
“Right, will do,” I said as I slipped off the barstool. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”
I left him in Hemingway’s, gesturing for another drink from the bartender for him. As I hurried away, I almost actually felt sorry for Rolf. What he’d told me sounded true. It felt true. If he was lying, he was very good at it.
I didn’t think he had killed Diana. I couldn’t prove he hadn’t, but it just didn’t feel right to me anymore.
I needed to look at some of the other suspects again.
But not until I’d seen whatever it was Cece wanted to show me.
Chapter 23
“Yo, yo, come see this,” said Cece, waving me toward her as I approached the housekeeping department’s laundry rooms.
“What is it? What have you got for me?” I was intrigued, and also a little hopeful. After Rolf had made me fall for his sob story, I was worried my investigation was going off the rails. I was hoping Cece had found something I could use.
Cece waved her hand in a final beckoning motion and disappeared through the door. I quickly followed, inhaling the scent of fabric softener, starch, and laundry detergent as I did. While I hated the sound laundry machines made, I found the scent of freshly washed clothes quite soothing.
The room was big but crammed full of stuff. From the rows and rows of laundry carts, which the housekeeping staff filled up as they worked the ship, to the giant industrial-sized washing machines up against the far wall, which were always in motion. The washing never ended.
“Where is everybody?” I asked her. It seemed odd that she was the only person present.
“It’s their morning break time. They’re off drinking coffee and smoking. That’s why I wanted you to hurry. Otherwise they’d be asking what you were doing here.”
“What am I doing here?”
“Shush. Come here.”
Cece turned to the right and we walked down a narrow passageway, between laundry carts on the left and shelves up against the wall on the right. We went straight to the end, where the shelves almost, but not quite, met the far wall.
“Here, take a look.”
Cece stuck her arm into the gap between a shelf loaded with detergents, softeners, and bleach, and the right-hand wall of the room. When she withdrew it, she was holding a laundry bag that had been stuffed down the gap.
“Wow,” I said. “You found some laundry!”
“Ha ha. Shut up. Check this out.”
Cece began to empty the bag she was holding by pulling out its contents, one after the other. The first thing she removed was a tuxedo. As she did so, she dropped the laundry bag on the floor and used both hands to open up the jacket so that she could show me something.
“See that?” She jabbed her finger at a name tag. It read Rolf Monteith.
The laundry bag she had pulled out had been deliberately hidden in that small space. So why was did it contain a tux with Rolf’s name on it?
“I sure do. How do you think that bag got down there? Did it like… fall?”
Cece snorted and shook her head. “Fall from where? Heaven?”
I could see what she meant. There was no way that laundry bag had accidentally been stuffed down the side of some shelves. It had been put there deliberately.
“I was just with Rolf. I thought I’d heard all of his secrets.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not all. Look.”
She picked up the laundry bag again, removing items in quick succession. One after the other, she pulled out various ship’s uniforms. There was a pool boy’s polo shirt, a Hemingway barman’s Hawaiian button-up, a junior officer’s white and gold uniform, and finally a male housekeeping uniform.
“What do you think Rolf’s up to with all this stuff?” asked Cece.
“Do you really think it is all his stuff?” I asked with a frown. “The only thing with his name on it was the tux. What if someone else assembled this bag of stuff—and they helped themselves to Rolf’s tuxedo for their full bag-of-disguises?”
Beauty Queens and Cruises: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 4) Page 16
