Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 12 - Calmer Cruises

by A. R. Winters

  “We had a business arrangement,” Petal continued then shook her head. “No, not even that. We would have had a business arrangement if he hadn’t changed his mind at the last minute. Back in the early days when I was just starting to get Breathe Light yoga off the ground, Rock Holliday expressed interest in becoming my business partner. He wanted to provide funding that would have helped me expand my program at that crucial time.”

  She paused, and I waited for a moment before asking, “What happened?”

  “I guess he changed his mind.” She gave another shrug. “Who knows? He never really said, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask once he broke the news to me that he had decided to go in a different direction.” She gave a rueful smile. “It’s obvious now that someone else got to him before he could fully commit to my vision.”

  “That had to hurt,” I observed. “I think I would have felt like I’d been strung along in that situation. He went back on his word.”

  Truthfully, I’d never been in a situation like that. I’d never started a business or had to seek out financial backing for anything. I couldn’t honestly say how I might have felt if it had happened to me, but that wasn’t the point.

  I needed to hear from Petal, in her own words, how she felt. And since it was obviously still a sensitive topic, I knew it would only take a little encouragement to get her to tell me about those feelings.

  “Of course I was hurt at first,” she admitted. “I was disappointed. My dreams were crushed. I was worried that I wouldn’t be successful, even though I knew in my heart that I had a valuable, viable business on my hands.”

  “But you never talked to him again?” I prompted, hoping to keep the conversation focused on Rock specifically rather than her business in general. “Even after you found out he’d invested in a competitor’s business?”

  She smiled. “The program he invested in is not my competition. We serve two very different needs within the same community. That’s why I never had a reason to speak with Rock again. If he felt more closely aligned with that other group, it was for the best that he wasn’t associated with mine.” Petal opened her arms as if she was about to reveal something important. “You see, everything happens for a reason. Rock and I never would have been a good fit. He would have tried to push me in a direction that I wouldn’t have wanted to go. That became obvious once I was able to gain some of the clarity that comes with time and distance from a situation.”

  “So, you’d say you’re happy with the way things turned out?” I asked.

  She nodded. “More than happy. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  “And the rumors of bad blood are—”

  “Just that,” she interrupted with a delicate wave. “Nasty, jealous rumors. I don’t give that kind of negative energy any space in my head. So no, I never wished anything but the best for Rock Holliday, and I’m truly saddened to hear of his passing.”

  I nodded, but Tomek spoke up again before I could say anything else. “I think that’s all the time we can spare for now,” he insisted, pushing past me to stand next to Petal. “We have a full schedule today, I’m afraid.”

  She smiled and nodded but didn’t contradict her assistant. “Take love and light with you when you go.” She nodded toward the door. “And spread it around. It seems there are people on board this ship who may need a bit of extra positive energy today.”

  “Thank you.” I nodded as I turned to go. “And thank you for your time. I’ll let you know if I have any other questions.”

  I was pretty sure she had stopped listening, though. As I walked out the door, I could hear Tomek apologizing for the ordeal and asking if she was okay.

  A few moments later, I was standing out in the ship’s corridor, shaking my head. I’d learned a few more details from Petal, but was any of the new information going to be helpful at all?

  I wasn’t sure.

  And I didn’t feel like I was any closer to finding Rock Holliday’s killer. There were still too many suspects and too many motives.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I needed a little bit of time to sit down and process everything I’d seen and heard over the past several hours.

  Rock’s death.

  Our talk with Babs.

  Our talk with Shakti.

  My encounter with Petal and her assistant.

  I’d been wandering aimlessly through the ship’s corridors, smiling and nodding absently to the guests I passed. How many of them had heard about Rock? What were people saying? Did they think it was suicide? Murder? An unfortunate accident?

  It was just past lunchtime, so the news had undoubtedly started to spread. As long as a majority of the passengers didn’t start to panic—or better yet, remained unaware of the whole situation—we were going to be okay. But if word got out that there might be a murderer loose on the ship?

  I shook my head and tried to push that thought aside. I didn’t even want to consider how bad the fallout might be if that was the headline.

  Stopping to look around and get my bearings, I realized I was pretty close to Sam’s office. A couple of quick flights of stairs later, and I was peeking my head inside her office door and motioning for her to go with me.

  “What’s up?” she asked, looking around self-consciously. “Did you come up with any other information?”

  “Come on.” I motioned again. “Let’s talk about it over a cup of coffee.”

  For a moment, I thought she might refuse, but after another hesitant glance toward her supervisor’s office, she stood up from her desk and hurried out the door with me. “Okay,” she whispered. “But I can’t be gone for very long. I still have a lot of work to do.”

  I didn’t doubt her. Sam’s job as a customer liaison, a sort of roving ambassador for the ship, was a never-ending and often thankless round of shaking hands, listening to feedback, and doing her best to make everyone’s life on board the ship a little bit better. It wasn’t uncommon for her to work from sunrise to sunset and still have a to-do list that was a half-mile long waiting for the next day. That was just the nature of the customer service business, particularly when there were hundreds or sometimes thousands of people who needed assistance.

  Which was why I often took it upon myself to make sure Sam took at least a couple of breaks every day. Because while my job was demanding in its own way, keeping the ship’s social media feeds updated with fun photos and a slice of what life was like in the middle of the ocean pretty much required me to be on the move and not tied down to a desk.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked as we automatically started walking toward the international buffet dining room. “Or do you just want coffee for now?”

  Sam frowned as she looked at her watch. “I should only have a quick cup of coffee. But if I don’t eat something now, I’m not sure if I’ll get another chance until dinner.”

  “That settles it,” I said, nodding toward the dining room doors as we approached. “We’ll just run through the buffet, and I can bring you up to speed with everything while you eat.”

  Once I’d poured us both a cup of coffee and Sam had prepared a plate that included an eclectic mix of foods from the four corners of the globe—a few pieces of sushi, a generous helping of lasagna, a spring salad, and a small slice of apple pie—we sat down at our usual table and started to discuss the morning’s events.

  “So how did Petal’s class go?” Sam asked between quick, small bites of her salad.

  “Hold on.” I gestured toward her plate as I grabbed my phone. “Let me get a picture of that food before you start eating.”

  She grimaced. “I would have made my plate a little prettier if I’d known the paparazzi were waiting.”

  I grinned. “No worries. I’m just going to zoom in on that sushi. And then maybe the shrimp.” I took a photo, then another. “Oh, and maybe the apple pie, too.” After a few more pictures, I set my phone aside and took a sip of coffee. “Now, where were we?”

  “Petal?” Sam prompted.

  “
Oh, right. Petal.” I took another sip then sighed. “Her class was just as relaxing as I’d expected it to be, and she nearly got away before I could talk to her, but I sort of pushed past her assistant when he tried to shut me out of the conference room she was using to make her escape.”

  Sam laughed. “You make it sound like there was some sort of high speed chase going on.”

  “Well…” I snorted at the mental image. “No, it definitely wasn’t that. More like a slow-motion, awkward meeting with forced good manners on both sides.”

  “Yeah.” Sam nodded. “That sounds a little more accurate. And she agreed to talk to you once you had her one-on-one in the conference room?”

  I thought back to the surprised look on Petal’s face and the way her assistant, Tomek, had tried his best to keep her from saying too much. I assumed it was probably part of his job to keep the press and general public at arm’s length from his boss, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he took that part of his job description a little too seriously sometimes.

  Then again, it didn’t seem that Petal had minded the intrusion too much. I felt at the time that her answers were mostly truthful, even if they were obviously a little biased in her own favor.

  “I think she was so surprised by the news of Rock’s death at first—” I paused mid-sentence to look around, belatedly realizing that I’d just loudly and carelessly spilled the secret that we’d been trying so hard to keep from the other passengers. Thankfully, the dining room wasn’t terribly busy, and the people who were at the nearby tables didn’t seem to be paying any attention to my conversation with Sam. “Anyway,” I continued in a quieter voice, “she genuinely seemed shocked—and even a little sad—to hear the news.”

  “Sad?” Sam raised a brow. “I thought Shakti said Petal and Rock weren’t on good terms.”

  “No, and she confirmed—more or less—what Shakti told us. She’d had some kind of falling out with Rock over a broken promise to fund her business back before she became successful. But you know how she preaches all of that light and love stuff. It would be pretty off-brand if she’d done some sort of victory dance when I told her about his death.”

  Sam seemed to mull over the details of my conversation with Petal for a few bites then asked, “So you don’t think she had anything to do with the murder?”

  It was the question I’d been asking myself all morning. I still wasn’t any closer to an answer, though.

  “I wouldn’t place her at the top of my list of suspects.” I frowned. “But I wouldn’t completely take her off the list, either. Not until we talk to Ethan again and hopefully get the autopsy results from Dr. Ryan as well. Plus, she didn’t offer much in the way of an alibi, and her assistant seemed overly anxious and irritable the entire time Petal and I were talking.”

  “Speaking of the assistant…” Sam’s eyes went wide as she nodded toward the buffet line. “Isn’t that him over there?”

  I turned and looked, nearly spitting out the coffee I’d just sipped. “That’s definitely him. And he sure is taking a lot of food, considering that he seems to be alone over there.”

  “A lot of not-very-healthy, non-vegan food, from the looks of it,” Sam added. “I can see at least two cheeseburgers from here.”

  She was right. As he turned to walk across the dining room, I could see cheeseburgers, a hot dog, nachos… and not a vegetable in sight.

  “Look,” I whispered, not taking my eyes off Tomek as he crossed the room and set his tray down on a corner table. A table that was already occupied by someone who was wearing a big, floppy white hat, dark sunglasses, and who seemed to be using a newspaper as a shield to keep prying eyes away. “Do you think that’s—”

  “It has to be her,” Sam interrupted with a quiet laugh. “But does she really think she’s fooling anyone with that get-up? It’s almost comical, like the kind of thing you’d see in a cheesy movie.”

  I leaned in and gave Sam a conspiratorial smile. “We should go take a closer look.”

  “What do you have in mind?” She nodded toward an empty table a few yards away. “Should we move over there? They’ll definitely see us if we do.”

  “I’m thinking of something even more obvious.” I looked over at Sam’s plate. “Whenever you’re finished eating, of course.”

  “I don’t know what you’re planning.” She laughed, popping the last piece of sushi into her mouth before pushing her plate aside. “But I’m all in. Lead the way.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. One of my favorite things about Sam was her willingness to follow me into most of the spur of the moment situations I seemed to get us into without a second thought.

  Well… she sometimes had second thoughts, but she almost always ended up going along with my plans anyway.

  “Come on.” I motioned as we stood up and started walking toward Petal’s table. “Let’s just go say hello. No harm in that, right?”

  Tomek spotted us before Petal did and did his best to shield his boss with the newspaper again. His quick thinking wasn’t quite quick enough to completely block our view of Petal taking a big, seemingly eager bite of her cheeseburger.

  “Good afternoon,” I called out with a little wave as she practically threw the burger down onto the plate and belatedly ducked behind the newspaper Tomek had been trying in vain to cover her with. “I didn’t know the buffet had started offering vegan burgers.” I looked over at Sam, who was barely stifling a laugh. “Did you know that, Sam?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure those are real burgers made from real cows. Definitely not vegan-approved.”

  “Please,” Petal hissed, reluctantly peeking around the side of the newspaper. “Please keep your voices down. I can’t even tell you how important it is that nobody recognizes me while I’m here.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure your trainees would be pretty unhappy to see you here like this—especially when you just talked about spreading the vegan lifestyle along with all of that light and love just a little while ago.”

  Tomek huffed out a short breath and finally set the newspaper aside. “I think that’s enough. You’ve both had your fun at Petal’s expense. Would it make you happier to see her beg for forgiveness? This whole thing has been taken out of context, and I don’t appreciate that you’ve barged in on our lunch to… to prove some kind of point.”

  He ended his indignant speech with a flourish, throwing his arms up in the air in a move that even seemed to take Petal by surprise. “That’s enough of that,” she muttered, placing a restraining hand on his arm. “Can we please just get out of here without causing an even bigger scene?”

  She turned a pleading look to Sam and me. “Please? I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression earlier. I do believe in modeling a vegan lifestyle, and I think it truly is important.”

  “Just not for you?” I asked.

  Petal stiffened a little then slumped back into her chair. “Fine. Yes. That’s right. I’ve tried and tried, but I just can’t help it. I have these cravings.” She took her sunglasses off and looked into my eyes. “Please promise you won’t tell anyone, though. I’d be ruined if this got out. I’d be a laughingstock. And Shakti…” She shook her head. “I don’t even want to imagine the pleasure he’d get out of this whole ordeal.”

  I looked at Sam and did my best to suppress a smile. I honestly felt some sympathy for Petal—I certainly couldn’t blame her for wanting to enjoy a cheeseburger every once in a while. But was it really all that serious? Her reaction had been a little over the top on its own, but the venom in Tomek’s tone had seriously been too much.

  Still, they were both paying passengers, and at the end of the day, it was up to me and Sam to make sure all of the passengers had a nice time on the ship. Even the difficult and dramatic passengers.

  “Your little secret is safe with us,” I assured her. “We wouldn’t want to see your reputation ruined over something as harmless as a cheeseburger.”

  “Thank you so much.” Petal exhaled
as she gathered her things and pushed Tomek to his feet. “We’ll be leaving now, but I appreciate your discretion.”

  Sam and I watched as they hurried out of the dining room. She finally turned to me with a bewildered look. “Did that really just happen? Is this real life?”

  “Right?” I shook my head. “It wouldn’t have even been that big of a deal if Tomek hadn’t completely lost his temper. That was just uncalled for, in my opinion.”

  “He’s pretty creepy.” She crinkled her nose. “And just between the two of us? I don’t trust him at all. I don’t know what Petal even sees in him.”

  I wasn’t sure, either. Loyalty, maybe. Fierce, aggressive loyalty. And I definitely agreed with Sam that he was more than a little creepy. But after being on the receiving end of that aggressive loyalty twice in one day, it made me wonder what else he might do to win his boss’s approval or to keep her image safe.

  He obviously didn’t mind yelling and causing a scene. Would he turn violent if he thought Petal was being threatened? Or worse…

  Would he kill?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A s I walked Sam back to her office, we were still talking about our run-in with Petal and Tomek. It had definitely been one of the strangest parts of an already bizarre day.

  Sam gave me a look that was half bewildered, half amused. “I just don’t understand why her assistant got so angry. He was actually almost yelling at us.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I think if we hadn’t been in such a public place, he would have really been shouting. But the crazy part is that the whole vegan thing wouldn’t have been a big deal at all if Petal hadn’t focused so much on it in her classes. I thought I was being funny by pointing it out, but… I guess they didn’t really find the humor in it.”

  “It’s the hypocrisy of the whole situation that gets to me,” Sam continued. “If Petal has these cravings—which I totally don’t blame her for, by the way—then why can’t she just tell her trainees the truth?”