Terns of Endearment (Meg Langslow Mysteries)

by Andrews, Donna

  And why attack Aarav? Did this have anything to do with Desiree’s or Anton’s deaths?

  We’d have to ask Aarav when he came around. At least I hoped he’d come around.

  I threw the push bar inside the closet, shoved the door closed, and hurried after Hal. I’d come back later to clean up the wine storage closet. With backup.

  Time to see what Caroline was doing. I returned to the stairs and found Janet standing just outside the entrance to the library lounge with her hands cupped over her eyes.

  “Headache? I’ve got aspirin and acetaminophen, and my cabin’s just down the hall.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve already taken some,” she said. “What I really need to do is escape the source of my headache, but that doesn’t seem very likely. We’ve been checking out some of the aspiring writers who surfaced after our lecture on getting published.”

  “Any good suspects?”

  “Not really.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I can’t imagine Desiree hiring any of these people to replace Nancy. On the other hand, if you’re looking for someone guilty of murdering the English language, we’ve got a hot prospect in there. Speaking of which, I shouldn’t leave Kate to deal with her solo for much longer. I just had to take a break.”

  “Courage!” I said, and began climbing again.

  I found Caroline and Grandfather on deck six. Caroline was sitting under the sun shade, tending all the solar devices—Delaney’s along with the ones she and Grandfather had brought. Grandfather was leaning against the stern rail with the resident tern sitting on his shoulder. Occasionally he’d fish something out of his pocket and feed it to the bird—presumably dried fish of some sort. Both Grandfather and the tern looked curiously pleased with themselves. A few other people, including Angie and Tish and a small flock of elderly ladies, were seated nearby, either using electronic devices that were tethered to solar chargers or watching devices that were charging.

  “How are things going down below?” Caroline asked when I joined them. “Your dad ordered me to come up and take a rest—says it’s mainly a cleanup job now.”

  “The kitchen is clean, the rest of the ship will be soon; the stoves are propane, which means we’ll be having a hot lunch; and Dad’s reasonably sure none of the crew are going to die.”

  “So when’s the cavalry coming?” Grandfather asked.

  “If you mean the Coast Guard, I don’t know,” Caroline said. “Call me paranoid, but I get the distinct feeling that the captain or the first officer has already been in contact with them and poisoned the well.”

  “Poisoned the well?” Grandfather echoed.

  “Convinced them that we passengers are uppity and entitled and making a big thing out of a small delay,” I explained.

  Caroline nodded.

  “Well, that’s complete bull—er, bull manure.” Grandfather had glanced around and hastily changed course upon seeing the nearby gray-haired ladies. “How can they possibly think that?”

  “They’re probably inclined to take the captain’s word,” Caroline said. “I mean, he is the captain. Eventually they’ll figure out he was, shall we say, shading the truth?”

  “But eventually is not good enough,” I said. “We need to do something now.”

  “I’ve talked till I’m blue in the face, and all I get is that they’re aware of the situation,” Caroline said.

  “A picture’s worth a thousand words,” I said. “And we don’t just have pictures—we have video. So we’ve decided to make a documentary.”

  “An excellent idea!” Grandfather said. “But won’t that take some time?”

  “Not if Wim and Guillermo have been doing as I asked at the beginning of the day and documenting what’s going on here,” I said. “By now they should have plenty of video of how horrible conditions had become before we stepped in to take care of things. And we can ask a couple of the writers to help us with a script.”

  “Excellent,” Grandfather boomed.

  “Do we know where Wim and Guillermo are?” I asked.

  “No, but given how long they’ve been gone, they’ll be showing up to recharge their camera battery packs anytime now.” Caroline was glancing at her watch.

  “I think we need to confront the captain,” Grandfather said. “Ask him some hard questions about what he’s doing to resolve the crisis.”

  That figured. Grandfather was fond of confronting people he believed were responsible for the environmental and animal welfare problems he battled. Any number of his documentaries featured such confrontations—with poachers, dogfight organizers, CEOs of polluting corporations, and officials of regulatory agencies he deemed too lax. Angie and Tish were occupying recliners near the stern—although instead of lying down they were both sitting up and tapping away busily on their laptops. And staying close to the sources of solar power. I strolled over to them.

  “I have a project for you, if you’re willing,” I said.

  “Will it help us get out of the Bermuda Triangle?” Tish asked.

  “We hope so. We’re going to make a short documentary about what’s happening here on the ship, which Delaney will then try to send to the outside world in the hope of stirring up sympathy.”

  “The hell with sympathy—we want action!” Angie said.

  “If we get enough sympathy, the action will come,” I said. “We need someone to write a script for Grandfather’s voice-over that will fire people up.”

  “Ooh, like in all those nature specials. ‘Here we see the alpha male defending his territory.’” Angie did a pretty good imitation of the typical whispered voice-over.

  “Grandfather will purr like a kitten if you can manage to call him an alpha male,” I said. “But I think it’s more likely to be a description of the reeking toilets and the puking crew. Depends on what kind of footage Wim and Guillermo have captured.”

  “Count me in,” Tish said.

  “I’ll go find Kate and Janet.” Angie jumped up and headed for the stairway.

  “They’re in the library lounge interviewing aspiring writers,” I said. “So they will probably love being rescued. And if you see Wim and Guillermo, send them up.”

  Within minutes, Caroline and the writers were all hard at work with laptops and the hard drives on which Wim and Guillermo stored their video footage. Hal, the town crier, came by, announcing that lunch was served and taking orders from those unable to make it to the dining room. I volunteered to fetch lunch for the production team. By the time I returned, Guillermo and Wim were back, doing something with the video. Assembling into a whole the segments Caroline and the writers liked, I gathered from the bits of conversation I overheard.

  Only Grandfather was unoccupied, and thus restless. He bolted his soup and salad with a distracted air while looking over Wim’s and Guillermo’s shoulders.

  “Shaping up nicely,” he said. “But I think it’s time we tackled the captain. He’s the missing piece. Who’s with me?”

  Wim and Guillermo exchanged a look.

  “You keep on with the edits,” Wim said. “I’ll do this.”

  Wim hefted his shoebox-sized camera and followed Grandfather to the stairs, filming all the way. Caroline and I fell in behind him. I suspected she was going along to keep him in line if necessary and figured she might need some help.

  We trooped down to the third floor and marched along the corridor toward the bow of the ship. Grandfather was striding at the head of our procession—to my relief he seemed to be handling all the stairs reasonably well and was only slightly short of breath.

  At the far end of the passageway, I could see Bart Evans, part of Delaney’s tech crew, standing in the open door to the navigation bridge. He waved, and turned to say something to someone behind him. When we arrived at the end of the corridor, Delaney met us.

  “Looking for me?” she said.

  “No, actually, we are looking for Captain Detweiler,” Grandfather boomed.

  “Good luck.” Delaney gestured at the door of 302. “As far as
we know, he’s in there.”

  “Start filming, Wim,” Grandfather said.

  I took a few steps back to make sure I’d be off camera, but I stayed around to watch. Grandfather, obviously an old hand at this kind of thing, stepped aside so Wim could focus on the door, with the nameplate front and center. Then Grandfather stepped into the picture and knocked on the door.

  “Captain Detweiler! We need to speak with you.”

  No response.

  “Captain Detweiler! It’s Dr. Blake! I need a word with you!”

  Grandfather stood by the door with his arms crossed, glowering at it, making his impatience visible. I had to hand it to him—he was a ham. His body language made the wait seem twice as long. Then he turned to the camera.

  “Unfortunately, I’m afraid this will turn out like most of our efforts to get answers from the captain—or his crew. In fact—”

  Just then the door swung open and Captain Detweiler appeared in the doorway.

  “Wha’s the prollem?”

  Chapter 31

  Captain Detweiler stood in the doorway, swaying slightly. I almost didn’t recognize him. He was hatless—I’d never seen him without several pounds of white canvas and gold braid on his head—and his graying brown hair was uncombed and sticking out in all directions. He was still wearing his uniform trousers, but they were badly wrinkled, and he’d shed his jacket, revealing a stained white sleeveless undershirt. One foot was bare, the other bore a white sock with several holes in it. He didn’t seem to have shaved for a day or so, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  Grandfather allowed his surprise to show, but didn’t say a word for quite a few seconds—he just let the camera take in the captain’s disreputable appearance.

  A pity the camera couldn’t also capture the pungent reek of alcohol the captain gave off.

  “Captain, we need to speak to you about the state of affairs aboard the Pastime Wanderer!” Grandfather boomed, causing the captain to wince visibly.

  “S’all unner controw,” the captain mumbled. “Go ’way.”

  He tried to shut the door, but Grandfather’s foot prevented him.

  “Captain!” Grandfather exclaimed. “You appear to be in a state of intoxication.”

  “Go ’way.” The captain batted feebly and uselessly in Grandfather’s direction.

  Sensing, no doubt, that Wim had the footage they needed, Grandfather withdrew his foot. The captain shoved the door shut. We heard a few crashing and clinking noises.

  Grandfather turned to face Wim’s camera. He stared at the camera for a few seconds, shaking his head.

  “We are beginning to understand the real reasons for the dire plight of the Pastime Wanderer’s passengers and crew,” he said, in his most sepulchral and disapproving voice. He held his pose for a few seconds. “Or words to that effect,” he added, in a more normal tone. “If those writers come up with something snappier, we can splice it in. Let’s head back up to deck six.”

  They trooped away, already absorbed in a conversation about how to work in the Detweiler footage. I stood in the corridor, watching them go, and musing. I was starting to wonder if the captain’s failure to investigate Desiree’s suicide was really standard cruise ship operating procedure, as Ted Lambert seemed to think. Maybe another captain would have investigated—a captain whose hold on sobriety wasn’t already threatened by the difficulties of the journey, setting sail with fewer crew members than he really needed, and then seeing those crew members begin dropping like flies.

  And First Officer Martin must have been trying to do both his job and the captain’s for a while now. I glanced over at his door. I heard—or imagined I heard—a noise inside.

  On impulse, I knocked on his door. Maybe it was time to talk to Martin. Tell him we know what he’d been dealing with. Try to enlist his help. He must know things that could help us deal with this crisis, if we could only gain his trust.

  He didn’t answer the door. I knocked again, waited a little while longer, then gave up. The noise I’d heard probably came from the captain’s cabin anyway. So I left and headed for Michael’s and my cabin.

  When I stepped out into the fourth-floor corridor, I spotted Martin at the other end. His back was to me. I instinctively ducked back into the stairwell, and then wondered why. A few minutes ago I’d been eager to talk to him. Why had I changed my mind so quickly?

  Maybe because I was curious about where he was going and what he was doing. The only other time I’d seen him on deck four was when he and the captain had inspected the scene of Desiree’s suicide. I peered out and saw him disappearing through the door at the end of the corridor, the one that led out onto the stern sun deck. Interesting. Maybe the suicide was still on his mind, too. Of course he could have some other reason for visiting the deck. Still—interesting. So instead of going into our cabin, I continued to the end of the corridor and peered out through a window that gave me a view of the deck.

  He was just standing there, leaning against the rail right outside the door. He held his hat in one hand, and without all that gold braid and starched fabric he looked not only less official but a lot younger. And smaller. And not nearly as self-confident. In fact, he looked pretty awful—he had deep bags under his eyes, and his jaw was clenched in a way that suggested pain more than tension. As I watched, he took out a handkerchief and mopped his face and forehead. Then he held the heel of his hand to his forehead. Looked as if he was also nursing a headache.

  Okay, he was annoying, but clearly the trip was taking a toll on him. And now we knew at least one reason why. I felt a twinge of guilt—I’d probably added to his stress. Then I reminded myself that however stressed he was, he’d at least partly brought it on himself. He probably thought we were treating him very badly. Maybe we had, but we wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been behaving like such an officious twit.

  Maybe I’d apologize to him later.

  He eventually took his hand away and glanced down at his watch. He frowned and shook his head. Was there somewhere he wanted to be right now—someplace on Bermuda, perhaps? If not for the breakdown, we’d be in the middle of our first day on shore. Or maybe he was just shaking his head in dismay that we’d been stranded so long.

  Should I go out and talk to him?

  Maybe later. Right now, he didn’t look like someone who wanted company. He leaned his elbows on the rail again and put his face in his hands. I got the impression he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  For that matter, he was stuck on the ship like the rest of us, and thanks to Anton Bjelica’s card key, he couldn’t hide on deck zero anymore. I’d have a much better chance of hunting him down when I was ready to talk to him. Once I’d had a chance to plan what I’d say.

  I headed back to deck six.

  I found the whole video team huddled over Caroline’s monitor.

  “Good!” Caroline said. “You’re just in time. Roll it, Wim.”

  “Of course it’s still rough,” Wim said.

  “And it can stay rough,” Caroline said. “We want it a little rough, to underscore the authenticity.”

  The video began with a short clip of Grandfather on the Baltimore pier, holding forth on the purpose of our journey, followed by a short montage of happy shipboard life. Passengers waving to whoever was on shore when we sailed. Passengers in the prow of the ship smiling as the breeze whipped their hair about, in a deliberate echo of the famous scene from Titanic. Mother and Aunt Penelope sipping tea together. The boys playing miniature golf. Passengers clinking wineglasses over dinner.

  “All that changed the following morning,” Grandfather’s voice-over intoned, as the camera slowly moved in a complete circle, showing nothing but the flat, calm, empty ocean in all directions. “The ship was motionless … and a passenger was missing.” A montage of my shots of Desiree’s shoes and shawl, ending with a shot I must have taken—although I didn’t remember it—of the captain as he turned his back on the scene of Desiree’s suicide and walked back into the ship. “Did well-kn
own romance writer Desiree St. Christophe actually commit suicide?” Grandfather asked, as the camera appeared to close in on the shoes and shawl. “Or was it murder? So far, Pastime has not even begun an investigation, and it may be too late to ever learn the truth.” My picture of the shoes and shawl gradually faded into a video of the same spot of deck, empty except for a tiny little bit of down that rippled slightly in the almost nonexistent breeze.

  “Awesome!” “Much better!” “Now that works!” various other people exclaimed.

  Shots from yesterday—passengers gazing balefully at the meager buffet … passengers sniffing the food suspiciously … elderly passengers fanning their sweat-sheened faces … passengers creeping around in the dark by the light of their phone screens … and a close-up of a toilet or two. Hints of outrage crept into Grandfather’s tone.

  And then shots from today—the passengers cleaning the kitchen, complete with close-ups of rotting food. Passengers nursing sick crew members—thank goodness they hadn’t shown any actual retching. Michael and the boys hauling up bucket after bucket of water. Delaney and her crew hard at work on something mechanical—the backup generator, I assumed—that looked to have about a hundred thousand pieces, all of them spread out individually on the floor.

  “Who is to blame for the disaster aboard the Pastime Wanderer?” Grandfather asked. “Management has been unresponsive.” Somehow Wim and Guillermo had managed to capture half a dozen short clips of the captain or the first officer rapidly exiting whatever room they were in. They followed that up with the footage of the inebriated Captain Detweiler. And then the video cut to Grandfather, standing here on deck six, leaning against the stern rail.

  “We’ve been told help is on the way, but it’s been over twenty-four hours since our journey was interrupted, and we’ve heard nothing from the outside world. Conditions are difficult; elderly passengers and those with medical conditions are at increasing risk. Why hasn’t Pastime done anything? What are they trying to cover up? How much longer will this ordeal last for the passengers of the ill-fated Wanderer? This is Dr. Montgomery Blake, somewhere … in the Bermuda Triangle.”