Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 06 - Cruise Millions

by A. R. Winters

  “Something the matter, Stan?” I called.

  “This is a farce. Contestants aren’t allowed to collaborate, and one of the collaborators is dead!”

  “If she’s dead, then we’re not collaborating anymore, are we?” pointed out Cece.

  “You can’t sell her product!”

  “And why’s that, Stan?” I asked, earning another glare from Helen.

  “Because… Because…”

  “Because you stole the recipe from Lesley, didn’t you?”

  “What!?” Stan stood up, outrage on his face.

  “Don’t worry about it. The security office is already searching your cabin right this minute for the stolen recipe. Face it. You’re busted, Stan.”

  While I was speaking, I was watching him intently for a clue—and I got it. As soon as I mentioned the stolen recipe, he stared down at the manila folder in front of him. It was the same manila folder I’d seen in front of him when we spoke at Hemingway’s. He’d closed it straight away then so I couldn’t see what it was. But now I knew what it was.

  Not letting on yet, I walked toward the judges.

  “Stan stole the recipe and it’s hidden in his cabin. That’s why he won’t invest in any cleaning products, despite it being his industry.”

  “No!” he yelled as I approached.

  “Look,” I said, pointing to the wall behind the judges. All three of them turned, and as they did so I reached forward and snatched the folder from in front of Stan.

  Realizing that they had been tricked, they all whipped their heads back angrily. Stan was the most furious of all.

  “Give that back!” He leaned over the desk, trying to grab the folder from my hand.

  Almost enjoying myself now, I jumped back a few paces and opened the folder. Just a couple of pages in, I found what I was looking for.

  “Look. Here it is. Platinum Power Recipe,” I read.

  I couldn’t believe I was right. For once, I was right! Stan had stolen the recipe, and my gambit of tricking him into revealing where it was had paid off.

  Stan sat back down, slumping down in his seat. Paul and Helen looked at him as if expecting an explanation.

  “Well?” said Paul.

  “It’s true. I took her recipe. But Cece can’t produce it. I already have it under production—I sent it to my team right away. We’re launching it in under a month.”

  Paul Parker whistled. “Well, well, well.”

  “Sorry,” mumbled Stan.

  “Genius. That’s the reason you’re an investor, unlike the schmucks out there,” said Paul waving his hand toward the waiting area outside. “Well done, Stan. Well done.”

  “What do you mean well done!?” I shouted. “He killed Lesley and stole her recipe!”

  Paul looked back at Stan again. “Wait, you killed her? That’s going a bit far…”

  Stan stood up, a panicked look on his face. “I didn’t kill her! Look, I admit I took the recipe, but I didn’t kill her! I’m a businessman, I make money—and lots of it—but I don’t murder people. Really!”

  After his quick confession to stealing the recipe, this outrage at the accusation of murder seemed strange. But the crime of murder was a lot more serious than corporate espionage or whatever cleaning-product-recipe-stealing was classed as.

  “Lesley was killed with cleaning chemicals. You’re the only person on the ship who’d know how to do it.” I was reaching a little with the final sentence, but I wanted to get a confession out of him quickly before he had time to think.

  “No! I’d never do that. Cleaning is my life! I don’t want people thinking cleaning products are deadly, do I? I want people to think they’re safe!”

  The room fell silent. Paul Parker darted glances between Stan and me, wondering what we were going to do next. Helen’s mouth was squeezed shut, and she seemed to be deep in thought as she watched the proceedings, trying to determine who she should be supporting.

  Then, there was a knocking at the door.

  “Hello?” called a feeble voice from outside.

  The door opened, and in walked Milton McPherson, an inflatable air mattress awkwardly tucked under his left arm.

  “Hello! My name is Milton McPherson, and I’m here to tell you about my revolutionary travel pillow. Unfortunately, I lost my prototype, so you’ll have to use your imaginations.” Milton swung the air mattress up into the air, and grinned at it.

  “Not now,” said Stan, standing up. “In fact, not ever. I’m not going to be investing in anything. I’m done.”

  Paul flashed a quick glare in Stan’s direction before smiling at Milton.

  “Does that… does that mean I won’t get paid?” Milton addressed his question directly to Paul and then bit his lip with worry. “What about the champagne party?”

  Everyone, including Stan, looked at Paul Parker, who now looked very uncomfortable. He squirmed in his seat and ran his hand through his slicked-back hair.

  “What do you mean, Milton?” I asked, walking toward him.

  “Paul had lots of champagne the other day. It’s for the Claim Your Million Final party.” Milton looked down at his shoes. “I love champagne.”

  “Don’t worry. It was fake champagne anyway,” Cece said to him in her twisted way of providing comfort.

  “When did you see the champagne, Milton?”

  “Paul had three bottles the other morning. Oh, and on the first day he had a bottle too, didn’t you?”

  “What?” said Paul, tossing his head left and right in denial. “You’re confused, Milton. That was my French sparkling water you’re thinking of.”

  Milton tilted his head in thought and started nodding before he came to a sudden stop. “Oh, no, Paul. Remember, it was made in California? And you told me I could have some at the final party?”

  “No, Milton, you’re wrong—” Paul turned to address the rest of the room as if Milton wouldn’t be able to hear. “He’s a bit slow.” He turned back to face Milton again. “You’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”

  There was silence while we all waited to hear what Milton would say next. He almost seemed lost in thought until his face lit up again.

  “Don’t you remember? I lost my first travel pillow overboard and I was coming to you for advice. We met in a hallway. You said you were too busy to help me because you had to talk to the cruise staff about champagne for the final event. For tonight! That was it—I’m sure of it.” Milton seemed delighted at having recovered the memory, and he sat down next to Cece with a satisfied smile on his face.

  Paul slowly rose to his feet. “Milton, Milton, Milton,” he said, walking over to the man and putting his hands on his shoulders.

  “Don’t you go anywhere!” I said to Paul. While things hadn’t gone exactly the way I’d planned, it was all coming together now. I’d been partially right about Stan. But he was no murderer.

  Paul Parker was the killer.

  As if taking my order as a command to do the exact opposite, Paul grabbed Milton by his shoulders and yanked him and his chair back.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!” screamed Milton as his chair toppled. His arms flailed, one of them sending the air bed flying into the remaining two judges the other catching Cece on the chin.

  Paul, meanwhile, used the distraction to open the door to the room and sprint out of it.

  “Stop him!” I yelled as I ran after him.

  At about the same time as Milton and his chair crashed into the floor, I was out of the room, chasing Paul Parker past the waiting area of confused looking competitors waiting to give pitches that would never be heard.

  If Swan ever decided to hold a marathon running event, I’d have more practice than anyone else on board.

  “Come back here!”

  Chapter Thirty

  If Paul Parker had known how many times I’d run across the Swan of the Seas in pursuit of one person or another, he might have given attempting it a second thought.

  But since he didn’t know, I had to chase him.


  “Call Ethan!” I yelled over my shoulder, hoping that Cece would hear. It wouldn’t matter if she didn’t; she would know to do it anyway.

  Paul Parker ran for the outside deck, and I was right behind him. As soon as he was in the open air, he turned to the left.

  “Come back here!” I yelled.

  “No!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Never!”

  Paul stuck out his arm as he ran, tipping over a small tree in its planter onto the deck in front of me. With the seasoned skill of a regular hurdle-jumper, I leaped over it and carried on.

  Passing a stack of sun loungers, Paul yanked them over with a loud clatter of plastic slats and legs banging into each other. I couldn’t jump over this, so I skirted behind where he’d pulled them from. This momentary delay allowed him to pull ahead.

  “Stop him!” I yelled at oblivious tourists.

  People stared as he ran by with me in hot pursuit, but none of them did anything except step backward carefully out of the way and shake their head in disapproval.

  I take that back. One person did something. A tech-savvy grandfather held up his phone to film us running by, a delighted grin on his face.

  Paul sprinted along the edge of the pool, and I saw someone who finally might be able to help.

  “Shawn! Stop him!”

  The pool boy who had a crush on Sam stared at me—and then looked behind me. The idiot was looking to see if my friend was following. “Stop him!”

  Paul sped by Shawn before he even moved to react. When he did, it wasn’t what I expected. Instead of chasing him, Shawn picked up the plastic life ring that was attached to his lifeguarding chair, and launched it into the air after the fleeing murderous millionaire.

  Amazed, I watched as the ring landed right over Paul’s head. A perfect ring toss.

  “Yeah!” shouted Shawn, jumping into the air and raising a fist.

  I didn’t cheer. At first, I was elated, but soon my hopes were dashed. To Paul Parker, the ring was nothing more than an annoyance. He raised his right arm, and flicked the ring back over his head, letting it bounce to the deck.

  “Idiot,” I muttered as I passed Shawn, trying to pick up speed.

  Paul looked over his shoulder at me, glared, and faced forward again. He was only a few yards from the edge of the pool area now, and then it would just be a short distance to the closest gangway to the Key West dock.

  Lying the last sun lounger before Paul was home free was a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt. A Hawaiian shirt with purple flowers on it. Was that…

  The man sat up, hopped off the side of the sun lounger, and before Paul Parker knew what hit him had extended his leg.

  “Argh!” shouted the killer as he tripped, flying forward and crashing into the rail on the edge of the ship.

  The man in the shirt brushed his hands off, and before I could even say a word, he had started his own sprint away from the scene.

  “Why is everyone always running…!”

  Even if he’d just done me a favor, I wasn’t going to let the fake housekeeper get away again. Trying to speed past Paul, who was still huddled on the floor, I went to chase the man in the Hawaiian shirt again.

  “Ya!” shouted Paul, and just as I passed him, he snatched my ankle with his hand.

  “Argh!” I screamed as I fell to the deck beside him. I pushed myself up. “What’d you do that for?”

  Paul Parker pushed himself up into a seated position. “It’s all your fault! You’ve ruined everything!”

  “There they are!” came a distant voice.

  Cece and Ethan were running toward us. There was the sound of frantic scrambling next to me.

  Paul Parker was trying to get to make a break for it again, but as he did so I returned the favor by grabbing at his ankle and yanking him back down onto the deck.

  “Don’t move!” shouted Ethan with such force that I found myself freezing immediately, even though the order wasn’t directed at me. I felt Paul Parker freeze as well.

  “Why couldn’t you all just leave it alone?” said Parker, before slumping down until he was lying flat on the deck, his eyes closed and hands over his head.

  I clambered to my feet.

  “You’re right,” I said to Ethan. “It wasn’t Helen.”

  Leaning against the rail, I found myself enveloped in hugs. Cece from the back, and Ethan from the front, squashing me between them like I was some kind of Nebraskan sandwich.

  I didn’t mind, though.

  Not a bit.

  The only thing missing was Sam.

  “Got room for one more?”

  I peered behind Ethan’s shoulder and grinned. Like magic, there she was. “Get over here.”

  “What about me?” said Shawn the pool boy.

  “Grab… Parker.”

  And so I found myself being hugged by my two best friends, and the man who was rapidly becoming a very special friend indeed.

  Even when cruises turned into disasters, they still had their moments.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cece, Sam, and I were waving off the last of the Claim Your Million passengers. All of them were going to be issued full refunds, which I hoped they would invest in something more worthwhile than Paul Parker’s scam of an event.

  “Is that the last of them?” asked Sam.

  “Ahem!” said Cece.

  Sam and I both grinned at her. “You don’t count.”

  “What do you mean I don’t count? I’m a paying passenger!”

  “You’re not paying a dime. You’re getting a full refund,” I said, poking her arm.

  “Oh yeah. And I got my vacation pay too. Not a bad deal really, was it?”

  “Next time you take a vacation, try not taking it on this ship,” I told her.

  “But the staff is so nice. And hot. Especially in housekeeping.”

  Sam and I rolled our eyes at her and she leaned against the railing, giggling at herself.

  “So are you guys going to tell me what I missed?” Sam was idly waving at the pink-haired woman as she asked. The former wannabe millionaire was rolling her suitcase off the ship.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Paul Parker was a fraud. This whole event was just a cash grab, and he didn’t intend to help anyone at all.”

  “But what about the investors? Surely someone could have benefited from them?”

  Cece took over. “Nope. Alejandro wasn’t an investor. He was a fake—literally, he was an actor. That’s how Lesley and he knew each other, and that’s why she called him Alex. That was his real name. They met in acting classes. When Paul Parker realized Lesley was figuring out this whole thing was a sham—whack—he killed her.”

  Sam shuddered. “Stan Westbrook was an actor too?”

  “No, he’s the real thing,” I said.

  “A real scumbag,” said Cece. “He didn’t intend to invest in anything or anyone. Paul Parker offered him a free cruise and his pick of any of the ideas or products that the contestants came up with—without having to invest a thing.”

  “And look at that guy,” I said, shaking my head sadly.

  Milton McPherson was slowly making his way off the ship. He had the large, still-inflated air mattress tucked under one arm and a rolling suitcase he was trying to maneuver with the other.

  “Why didn’t he let the air out?” asked Cece.

  “Because he’s not too bright,” answered Sam.

  “Which is why Paul Parker hired him,” I explained.

  Both Cece and Sam stopped staring at the clumsy man making his way off the ship and stared at me instead. Neither of them knew this part.

  “Milton was a stooge as well. Parker planned for him to ‘win’ the competition. In return, he was going to get a hundred bucks.”

  “Wait. A hundred bucks. That’s it?” Cece couldn’t believe it.

  “Yep. That’s it. People are cheap—or they can be, anyway.”

  “Well, I’m not cheap,” said Cece.

  “Yeah? How much for you?” Sam asked in an amus
ed tone.

  “Like… At least one twenty,” said Cece.

  I laughed for a moment, but then my face fell as I thought about Lesley. She hadn’t deserved happened to her. Nor had Alejandro.

  “I was thinking… Maybe we should contact Lesley’s family. Make sure they get the recipe for her cleaning product, and let them know that Stan stole it.”

  “Good idea,” said Sam. “I’d hate for him to profit off all her hard work.”

  “How come Stan and Milton aren’t being arrested?” asked Cece.

  “They weren’t involved with the murder,” I explained. “Not directly. They were part of the scam, and they’ll need to talk to the police, but they didn’t do anything illegal, and they probably won’t get into trouble.”

  We lapsed into silence for a moment.

  It was broken by the person who had surprised me more often than anyone else on this trip.

  “Thank you,” announced Helen Johannsen.

  We all stared at her. I didn’t trust her for an instant. Was she really thanking me? Or was she being sarcastic? I examined her face and her words seemed to be genuine.

  “You’re welcome?” I said tentatively.

  “I know I said I would sue you, but I think I’ll let you off.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said to her.

  “A hundred and eight thousand, thanks to you.”

  I squinted at her. Was she talking about what I thought she was?

  “What, followers?”

  “Yep. And you did play a small part in that, so thank you. We’ll call it even. I shouldn’t think I’ll have any problems now making my coffee mug virile.”

  Sam gave me a quizzical look.

  “Go viral,” I translated for her. I turned back to Helen. “Thanks, but I’m not sure I know what I did?”

  Helen reached out and patted me on the shoulder. “You really are hopeless, aren’t you? Goodbye.”

  Annoyed and confused, I watched as she disappeared down toward the dock and back to wherever she’d sprung from.

  “What on earth was all that about?”

  “No idea,” said Sam.

  Cece remained silent. We both looked at her.