Death on the Diversion

by Patricia McLinn

  Even before there was a murder.

  Which would mean….

  I shuddered. Could I be so wrong about a person?

  Yes.

  She certainly hid things — don’t we all? She could have any number of secrets. Including, possibly, that the rub between her and Leah wasn’t solely competition? That she wanted revenge against Leah for stealing Wardham? That she still loved him? In fact, she’d had no reason to confide in me what she had confided.

  Was that confiding, by itself, suspicious?

  I needed to talk to Odette.

  Then I remembered my first thought on finding Leah, Did Maya finally crack?

  I needed to talk to Maya, too, if I could get past Ralph.

  Maybe asking Maya about Leah’s troll reviewer role would open that door.

  I didn’t necessarily see Leah’s Dee North persona as a motive for murder. If Aunt Kit had been aboard, maybe, considering her view on those who treated reviewing as a blood sport.

  As it was, it would have made more sense for Leah to kill Maya for giving away her secret.

  How could I—?

  A second text came in. This time from Imka.

  Constantine would end his shift at the poolside bar in half an hour.

  * * * *

  I called room service and had three chocolate desserts delivered anonymously to Petronella’s cabin.

  I was poised when the waiter arrived with them. From a crack in my door, I watched her answer and follow the waiter back inside with the tray. That’s when I bolted out of my cabin and down the hallway the other direction.

  The elevator doors opened almost immediately. I was a bit out of breath when I said, “Hi,” brightly to the redheaded Valkyrie, alone in the elevator.

  Her “Hi” conveyed considerably less enthusiasm.

  “I’m glad I ran into you.” That at least got her to look at me. “Is Coral really hurt? Or is the cast for show?”

  Elevators don’t leave time for subtlety.

  “Why should I tell you anything?”

  I debated with myself for less time than it took her to turn away. “Because of our mutual friend, Jason.”

  She stopped turning and looked at me. “You’re friends with Jason?”

  “Not the way you are. Our bond is over champagne and tips. Yours is much more … personal. The kind of bond a husband might be interested in—”

  She stopped my first attempt at blackmail with a vulgar and vehement word.

  I interpreted that as a change of heart about my questions. “Is Coral’s injury real?”

  “How the hell would I know? I’m not her nurse.”

  “Have you seen anything that made you speculate or wonder if she isn’t as badly injured as she’s said?”

  “I don’t have to speculate. She makes a big deal over a scratch. So, yeah, she’s not hurt as bad as she’s crying about.”

  “What about the cast? Is that real?” She stared. I kept on. “Could she possibly take it off?”

  “Take it off? It’s not like a bracelet or something, you know.”

  I did know. Darn it.

  It would be so much easier if she wore a walking cast that could come off in a pinch. A brace would be even better. But she had an old-fashioned cast.

  I wasn’t ready to give up, though.

  The ding announced we’d reached the top deck.

  “If you have any reason to think she could take that cast off, text me immediately.” I wrote my number on the pamphlet with the day’s activities stacked in a holder.

  She took it, but as the doors opened, she growled, “Right.”

  “Give my regards to your husband.”

  She sent back a gimlet glare. I smiled.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  At the poolside bar I ordered a Virgin Mary from Constantine and tipped him generously.

  He noticed. Enough to remember me.

  He was the young bartender who’d had scotch splashed on him by Mr. Grandpa’s Sailboat on the Label.

  I didn’t want to hang at the bar. I drank up, then retired around the corner to the soft ice cream machine. From there I could see Constantine. Ice cream after all that tomato juice was a bit strange, but I could live with it.

  His replacement arrived and I followed Constantine from the bar to the storage closet with the tunics.

  When he came out, he spotted me immediately. He also looked concerned immediately.

  Poor kid. Had he been stalked before? But my intentions were entirely pure. I wanted his mind, not his body.

  “Imka said you could help me with information to find out what happened, to help, uh, anyone who’s innocent.” I didn’t want to mention names or murder in public.

  “I can’t talk to you, ma’am. If I’m seen—”

  I retreated toward a corner. He hesitated. I dumped the contents of my bag on the deck.

  He took an automatic step toward me — or toward the mess, because he was that well trained — then his mouth rounded slightly in an oh of comprehension.

  “Let me help you, ma’am.” He had a slight accent, but showed complete comfort with English.

  “Thank you. Constantine?” Checking in case his nametag wasn’t right.

  He nodded.

  We both scooched down.

  “Imka told me to talk to you.” I spoke fast and low. “She says you’re friends with Badar.”

  “We’re roommates and hang around together.”

  A distinction, which might make him less likely to fudge the truth and therefor more valuable.

  “Did you see him the night before last?”

  “Yeah. We were in our cabin. We played, uh, a computer game.”

  He was lying about something. But did the hesitations mean consumption of alcohol or illicit substances? Something else? Or that Badar had no alibi.

  “How late?”

  “Late, but I don’t remember exactly. We weren’t watching the clock.”

  I reached for a mini-packet of tissues that hadn’t gone far, then asked on impulse. “Who else was there?”

  “How’d you—? Nobody.”

  My heart rose for Badar — an alibi. My heart sank for Imka — was his alibi another woman?

  “Too late, Constantine.”

  He looked around again. “It’s nothing. Playing music — computer games. That’s all.”

  Then why try to cover the mention of music? And why did the word music tickle the hairs at the back of my neck.

  I followed the tickle.

  “Anya?” There were a lot more musicians on board, but that’s came to mind.

  His eyes widened. “No.”

  “Pyorte?”

  “I’m not—”

  You already did, Constantine. As long as he was flustered… “Did Badar ever talk to you about the passenger who was killed, Leah Treusault? I mean before she was killed?”

  He was relieved to move away from Pyorte. “Just that she was a b— That she wasn’t nice. We all knew that. Same way on a cruise a year ago. She nosed around, asking about other guests, even sneaking into the crew area. But that’s no reason for him or anybody to do that to her. If we killed people anytime one wasn’t nice…”

  “There’d be few passengers left,” I filled in.

  “Or enough crew to run the ship.”

  I opened my bag for him to drop in a towel clamp and container of sunscreen. “They had trouble on last year’s cruise? She and her husband?”

  “She had trouble with everyone last year. At least this year she was occupied with other guests. Mostly occupied. A year ago, she was yelling at every crew member, except—” He veered away from discussing who Leah didn’t yell at — presumably the steward she’d harassed — but his face reddened. “Badar gave her back some of her own, and that made it worse.”

  “Could she have gotten him fired?”

  He leaned away, retrieving a tube of lip gel. “Probably not. Another guest maybe could. But she’s known by everybody. Top officers, too.”

&nb
sp; “You said she yelled at every crew member except. Except who?” On last year’s cruise it probably would have been the young steward Imka told me about. This cruise, Pyorte.

  He looked hunted. He rubbed his thumb over the tips of his fingers on his left hand. The fingertips were reddened with two showing skin flaking away from blistered areas.

  My mouth opened, making a record-setting standing broad jump from Leah not yelling at Pyorte to a new conclusion long before the rest of me caught up.

  “Pyorte is the one Leah Treusault never yelled at. And he’s teaching you guitar.”

  “Me? How— I never said…”

  “It’s true, though, isn’t it? And from the state of your fingertips, you’ve been practicing recently. I’m sure crew members who have cabins near yours will confirm you have been. So, have you?”

  His head dropped, severing eye contact. Fib alert! “Yeah, we played that night. More Pyorte than me, because my fingers hurt. And because he’s so good. We played, Badar played video games. There’s nothing wrong about that.”

  I watched him listlessly pick up my spare sunglasses and place them in my bag.

  “The guitarist Pyorte was with you the night the passenger named Leah died?”

  Why on earth try to keep that a secret? But I bet Badar hadn’t shared this with Edgars, or the Security Chief would be looking at a wider field. And Badar had told Imka his honor prevented him from saying what he was doing that night.

  Huh?

  “We weren’t doing anything wrong,” Constantine said. “No matter what—”

  Uh-huh. His defensiveness said otherwise. But my money was on a rules infraction. Though, I supposed all three could be involved in killing Leah. Or one of them and the other two protecting him? Or Badar and Pyorte involved in the killing with Constantine covering?

  But Badar told Imka it wasn’t his secret… If he’d told her the truth.

  “—the snitch next door is always saying. He wants absolute silence all the time.”

  I needed a moment to regroup. “Constantine, you could get in a huge amount of trouble. If your friends did something and you’re providing a false alibi…” I shook my head. “So think carefully before you answer this: Are you saying you, Badar, and Pyorte were together all night?”

  “Yeah.” He answered right away. “But I crashed. They were still going — Pyorte’s used to staying up late and Badar was wound up.”

  With Constantine asleep, it wasn’t the best alibi for those middle-of-the-night hours, but it was better than they’d had before.

  The comment about the occupant of the cabin next to his wanting absolute quiet reminded me of something…

  Had it. Jason at the Wayfarer Bar the night I’d listened to Anya and Pyorte there, griping about Pyorte showing displeasure at Jason talking over the music.

  “Do you know Jason, the bartender in the Wayfarer?”

  Whoa.

  I had not expected that.

  Not that Constantine exploded or grimaced or anything overt. His micro-expression, though, told me more than he’d ever intended.

  His reaction to Jason was revulsion.

  Revulsion is strong stuff.

  I certainly hadn’t had that reaction to the champagne-pouring bartender.

  Although, had he actually been generous? Or had he used the ship’s resources in the form of good champagne to ingratiate himself to me?

  That scuffed up any gloss on Jason.

  All that passed through my head before I added quickly enough that it seemed natural.

  “How do he and Pyorte get along?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you hang out with him?”

  “No. He doesn’t mingle with the likes of Badar and me.”

  I gambled. “I suppose not, because he likes mingling with passengers, doesn’t he? Especially young, female passen— Wait a minute.”

  His reaction already confirmed my guess.

  “I think that’s everything, ma’am.” He accompanied that statement in a loud voice by dropping my half-empty water bottle into my bag. Then, quieter. “I already said too much. I can’t tell you more.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  We stood, me with my disorganized bag hooked over my shoulder.

  He walked away.

  I went the other direction.

  Presumably looking thoughtful.

  That’s sure how I felt. He’d given me lots to think about.

  Including the fact that to whatever extent this alibi covered Pyorte and Badar, it left Anya and possibly Imka unalibied.

  In the meantime, before Badar was carted off, I needed to soften the spotlight on him, considering I’d focused it there.

  As long as I was still in the neighborhood, I swung back by the soft ice cream machine.

  Hey, it had been a tough day. I deserved a second cone.

  Low clouds filtered the sunlight, but passengers filled most of the deck chairs around the nearby outdoor pool, relaxing. I waved to three people I’d met on excursions, but didn’t see any of the Marry-Go-Rounders or anyone else I connected with Leah.

  I made sure to wipe any vestiges of ice cream from my mouth before my next stop.

  * * * *

  Gerard Edgars came out of a room next door to his office.

  It had taken less effort to get through to him this time, but his reception wasn’t as welcoming.

  “This way, Ms. Mackey.” He stood aside, his bulk in front of an open doorway, his extended arm directing me down the hallway.

  It was courteous. It also was meant to divert me from the fact they were playing video in the room he’d come out of.

  When the door opened, I’d heard conversation about adjusting contrast levels and using a degraining filter. Looking in as I passed the door, I saw a slice of a monitor showing a dark scene of lined-up deck chairs.

  Once again, Edgars directed me to the solitary guest chair in his office, while Henri leaned against the wall.

  “You said to come back if anything else occurred to me. And it has. It’s the question of how badly injured is Coral, the woman who fell down the stairs and was treated at Gibraltar.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I didn’t get an answer, but the question might have helped anyway.

  “You see a connection between these two events?” he asked.

  “Has to be considered, don’t you think?”

  “I am curious why you might think it.”

  I didn’t answer directly. “Do you know Coral insists something tripped her on those stairs? She says it felt as if she stepped on something rounded and hard, which caused her foot to go out from underneath her, pitching her backward.”

  A flicker in the gaze pinned on me. “She said this to you?”

  “Yes. But that doesn’t mean a lot. From what I can tell, she’s said it to anybody who’ll listen and those who’d rather not. She must have said it to you or your staff.”

  “As it happens, she did.”

  “But you dismissed it as a vain, silly woman who didn’t want to admit she’d tripped on her own vain, silly shoes.”

  Impassive silence.

  I got it. He wouldn’t acknowledge that about a passenger to a passenger.

  “One thing Coral knows is shoes. She says she’s been walking in heels since she was a baby. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t fall over on those upside-down Eiffel Tower structures, but it might mean it’s worth listening to what she said about a specific aspect of her fall.”

  This time I followed up with impassive silence.

  Another flicker — amusement, maybe? — then he asked, “A specific aspect of her fall?”

  “That it felt as if she stepped on something round and solid that rolled under her foot.”

  “That conveys significance to you?”

  “Leah’s cane fits Coral’s description and what I saw the day we boarded.” I described Leah stopping on the stairs after the muster drill, raising her cane, staring at the configuration that
would allow her to slide the cane onto a step in the next half-flight up, causing anyone stepping on it to almost certainly fall.

  “Why would Mrs. Treusault do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know. But Coral probably does. If she’ll tell us— You. You need to question her. Also, this has to raise enough questions in your mind to change your plans.”

  “In what regard?”

  “You have a morgue. You can take the body to Tampa and turn the case and all the suspects over to U.S. officials. There are too many possibilities to hand over Badar as the only suspect to authorities in the Bahamas.”

  Chief Security Officer Edgars’ gaze flickered again.

  Did it mean he didn’t want to turn the case over? He preferred to deal with authorities in Tampa?

  “We will confer with officials in the next port the Diversion is berthed at.”

  The flicker had fooled me into momentary hope that I had more time. So much for that.

  “And turn over your prime suspect?” I accused. “I don’t think he did it. I think you’re wrong. But if you turn Badar over to the officials tomorrow morning without them having access to all the other people involved, without any way of knowing the interactions on board, the connections and rivalries and histories, they can’t have a fair investigation. All the other possible suspects will sail off and they won’t have anybody but Badar to blame. That’s not right.”

  “What proof do you have that Badar did not kill her?”

  “What proof do you have that he did?” I shot back. “When I gave you the hint about him, I didn’t think you’d latch onto the first suspect and not look any further.”

  He sat back. “Ms. Mackey, when you told us of the animosity between Mrs. Treusault and a crew member at the towel stand, we were already aware of the incident. We had reviewed the video and spoken with the crew member shortly after it.”

  “Good grief. You review all the video every day?”

  “A passenger acting threateningly toward a crew member is notable,” he said dryly. “As it happens, the crew member reported the incident to his supervisor.”

  I jumped on that. “See? Would someone do that if they intended to kill her?”