Mystral Murder (Julie O'Hara Mystery Series)

by Hanson, Lee

  She stood up. “I’ll pick up around here while you finish shaving.”

  “Okay. I’m starved; let’s go to the buffet first.” He looked at his watch, “It’s only seven-thirty. We’ve got plenty of time. We can stop by Clyde’s office before I go to AA.”

  Julie heard him singing in the bathroom and smiled.

  ***

  They were in Horizons, their trays loaded with fresh fruit, bagels and omelets and Julie was teasing Joe. “What? No grits?”

  Declining help from the waiter at the end of the buffet, they looked around for a table by the floor to ceiling windows. The restaurant was packed, especially the window seats where diners were watching the US Coast Guard cutter, which was still accompanying the Mystral.

  Then Julie spotted Jon Reece, eating his breakfast and simultaneously typing on his laptop. With all his gear, he’d managed to hold down a window table for four, unchallenged.

  “Hi, Jon. Mind if we join you?” Julie asked.

  Clearly, he did, but it would have been bad form to refuse. “Not at all,” he said, closing the laptop and setting it on the chair next to him. “Please, sit.”

  “I saw you cancelled our interview, Jon?”

  “Not me, Julie. The Captain. Val Gilman, the Cruise Director, caught me before I left my cabin. You probably have a message on your phone, too.”

  “My publisher will be disappointed,” Julie said. “No offense, Jon, but I’m just as happy to have the day free.”

  “None taken. I was just restructuring my piece. There’s nothing preventing me from using guest interviews. I’m going to do a few more and write a story anyway.”

  Their conversation paused as a passing waiter poured coffee and asked if anyone wanted juice, which they all declined.

  “Will you write about the Man-Overboard?” Joe asked.

  “You bet! Conde Nast won’t want it, but I don’t care. I can sell this story anywhere. It’s all anyone’s talking about; who thinks she fell, who thinks she jumped. One guy I spoke with swears he heard a ‘thud’ on his balcony. Security checked, but they didn’t find anything out there.”

  “It’s tough to investigate when the crime scene floats away,” said Joe.

  “That’s a good line; can I quote you?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “No problem.”

  “So who will you sell it to?” Julie asked.

  “Newspapers. News magazines. There’s plenty of mayhem on cruise ships, among passengers and crew. What else would you expect with thousands of people onboard? Rape and robbery are the most common problems, but the industry keeps a tight lid on all of it. The cruise lines only report what they absolutely must and not one word more.

  “A ‘Man Overboard’ is one of those things that have to be reported, but the incidence is downplayed. It happens more often than people think. Passengers get drunk and take risks, usually stupid things. They fall overboard playing games on their balconies or climbing somewhere dangerous with a camera.” Jon took a sip of his coffee and lowered his voice. “The MOBs involving the crew are different, but even more hush-hush. You never hear about the crew member who deliberately jumps ship when he gets to a certain port, or the staff member who commits suicide, like the Indian girl that jumped from another HCL ship last year.

  “Their missing person reports are notoriously incomplete. When anyone tries to get more information, the cruise line stonewalls, claiming to ‘protect the family’ of the deceased. Meanwhile, the authorities consider the ship’s information ‘voluntary’, so they don’t push it. Really, how can they?”

  “What if a passenger is murdered?” Julie asked.

  “Then I’d have an even better story. Do you think it’s a murder?”

  “I think it could be,” Julie said.

  “Next to impossible to prove,” Joe said, munching on a bagel.

  I don’t know about that, Julie thought. “Do you have a cell phone, Jon?”

  “You bet!”

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 25

  The Mystral’s Security office was on Deck 1, just below the conference room where Joe would have to be in a half-hour for his AA meeting. Clyde Williams welcomed them and escorted them into his inner office. He took his seat behind his desk wearing a look of frustration that Julie was beginning to take as permanent.

  “Glad you have a moment to see us, Clyde. How are you?”

  “Good as I can be, Joe. What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to see you because I remembered what happened the night Adrienne Paradis disappeared. The details started to come back to me this morning. I’ve been remembering more and more about it. She and I walked out of the Top Hat club together. I wanted to look for another bar, but she didn’t want to do that. She said she wanted to ‘go for a walk out on the deck’. I remember that I couldn’t get the elevator to work and we went to the stairs.”

  Joe looked down momentarily, then at Julie, and continued. “There was an exterior door there by the stairs. Adrienne threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. She said ‘good night, darling,’ or something dumb like that. I just turned and headed down the stairs. That was the last I saw of her, Clyde.”

  “I got off at Deck 5, but I couldn’t find a bar that was open. Everything on the Promenade was closed with the gates pulled down, so I went back to our suite and raided the mini-bar. And that’s it, I swear. I finished my binge and I went to sleep.”

  “I believe you, Joe. We don’t have cameras on the elevators, so the only record we had of you and Ms. Paradis was a video of the two of you exiting the Top Hat club together. But yesterday we went over all the ship’s video from that night and one of the 360 degree cams over the Promenade had you in front of Barrister’s Pub alone at two-thirty. You were looking as if you wanted to go in. The pub, as you said, had the security gate pulled down. I’m inclined to believe that you did go back to your cabin from there.”

  Julie was relieved. She said, “What about the video from Deck 12? Anything new show up there?”

  “No. As I said, the bridge-mounted cameras pan the port and starboard flanks. We’ve studied the railings on all the video and, other than you walking along, there’s simply no one there after one in the morning. She had to have jumped around two-fifteen, immediately after she left you, Joe, and just after the camera passed, otherwise we would have caught her somewhere along the walkway by the railing.

  “The ceiling mounted cameras on the outside lower decks didn’t pick up much of anything that morning; it was too dark and foggy. The video shows the walkway and five or six feet past the railings…period. If anyone fell beyond that perimeter, the cameras couldn’t pick it up because the visibility was near zero. We spotted a few passengers along the lower railings between twelve and one, and then no one after that. Not surprising, what with the fog and ninety percent cloud cover.”

  Julie was stunned. It sounded to her as if the investigation was over.

  “Then you’re assuming that she was alone and that she jumped?”

  “It looks that way, Ms. O’Hara.”

  “Call me Julie. I find that hard to believe, Clyde. Adrienne Paradis was self-assured and forward thinking when I first met her. And later, when she was intoxicated, I’d have to describe her as happy-go-lucky. What I’m saying is, drunk or sober, I don’t see Adrienne Paradis jumping to her death off this ship!”

  “She could have fallen overboard accidentally,” Joe said, trying to stem the tide of anger he saw rising in his partner. But Julie would not be sidetracked.

  “I don’t think an ‘accident’ makes sense, Joe.”

  She turned back to Williams. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but someone accidentally falling would be close to the ship, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t some part of that person’s body pass through the lower decks’ cameras in that ‘five or six foot perimeter’ as they fell?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. In this case, apparently not,” he said, his eyes downcast and his face turned slightly away
from them.

  It was obvious to Julie that Williams was shutting them out. Was Jon Reece right? Had word come down from HCL headquarters to let it go, to ‘sweep it under the rug’?

  Before she could say anything else, Joe stood up, placing his hand under her arm. “C’mon, Julie. I’ve got to go. Thanks for seeing us, Clyde. Good luck with your investigation.” Julie smiled and mumbled a hurried “thanks,” as Joe steered her out of Williams’ office.

  As they climbed the stairs to the next deck, Julie said, “Good luck with your investigation? What investigation? Jon Reece was right, Joe. They’re dropping it!”

  “Maybe we should, too, Merlin.”

  “Over my dead body…”

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 26

  The Art Auction in the Odyssey Lounge wasn’t scheduled until late in the afternoon of Day Six, but the artwork was on display all day for potential buyers. Always an art lover, Julie decided to calm down and pass some of the morning there while Joe was at his AA meeting. She’d taken a quick tour through and was sitting at the bar sipping an iced tea.

  Julie’s best friend, the late Marcus Solomon, had been an accomplished artist and a good teacher. Under Marc’s tutelage, Julie had learned what to look for, and she had acquired a small collection of fine art, some of which had appreciated nicely.

  That was never going to happen with any of the overpriced artwork in the Odyssey Lounge, which was definitely not investment quality, as the brochure implied by referring to its “inheritance” value. As a collector, she had heard that such was the case in these “at-sea” auctions. Unfortunately, Julie could tell that most of the passengers admiring the art didn’t know much about it. They’re duping some of these older folks with this crap. Retirees on fixed income, thinking they’re doing their children a favor by leaving them fine art. The only “fine” that applies here is the amount they should levy on these auctioneers.

  “Oh, look, Phil. It’s Julie!” Alice Kent led her husband through the crowd toward Julie. Her hands were full of materials kindly supplied by the scam artists running the auction: a brochure, a small pad of paper and a pencil. Julie saw that Alice’s pad was full of notes.

  “Hi, Alice, Phil. Are you going to the auction?”

  “Yes, I think it will be fun,” Alice said. “We’ve seen a few things we like.”

  “I do a little art collecting; would you like a couple of tips?”

  “Please,” Phil said.

  Julie had to restrain herself from smiling. Phil Kent’s relief was written on his face. Clearly, he wasn’t the art lover Alice was.

  “Okay. Number one: Slide your hand under the corner of a frame. No matter how nice it looks from the front, if you feel staples, it’s junk. No one puts a valuable piece of art in a cheap frame, especially at an auction. Number two, get all the info: The name of the artist and the title, of course. Also, words like, ‘hand-touched’ or ‘embellished’ and ‘signed’, which is common, or ‘autographed’, which isn’t. Take your list to the Internet Café, look them up and compare prices. And remember, it’s much easier to return something you buy locally, on land.”

  “That’s good advice,” Phil said, nodding at his wife.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” Alice sighed. “Come on, Phil. I think I’ll check the frame on that Thomas Kinkade lithograph.”

  Probably one of the priciest here, since Kinkade died last month.

  “Okay, see you guys. Good luck!”

  Julie turned back to her iced tea, smiling.

  “That was good advice,” the bartender said in an aside, as he wiped the bar.

  “I had dinner with them the other night,” Julie said. “They’re nice folks.”

  “So are you. Julie O’Hara, isn’t it?”

  Julie looked at him quizzically. A tall fellow with sandy hair, he was wearing a name tag …but she wasn’t.

  “Paul Gilman,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m the Head Bartender on the ship. I worked this lounge during your seminar. My wife bought your book, Clues.”

  Julie shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Paul. Your wife is onboard?”

  “Yep. Valerie Jean Gilman, she’s the Cruise Director.”

  “Oh, yes! Val Gilman,” Julie said, remembering Jon Reece’s comment about Val calling him to cancel their interview. “I didn’t know married couples could do that, work and travel together on a ship.”

  “There aren’t a lot of us; most of the crew is single. You have to interview and be hired separately, but as long as neither of you is subordinate to the other, there’s no problem.”

  “Well, I guess that leaves the Captain out,” Julie said laughing.

  “Heh…guess you’re right,” he said, moving to the other side of the bar to wait on a customer.

  Uh-huh, what have we here? A nice little cluster: a fake laugh, a tilted nod and a half-smile. The Head Bartender knows about Captain Collier’s affair with Dr. Sinclair…and most of the crew does, too, I’ll bet.

  Julie saw Joe passing through the Photo Gallery on his way to meet her. She took a last swallow of her iced tea and said, “Good to meet you, Paul. See you later.”

  “Bye, Julie. Nice talking to you. Have a good day.”

  Julie met Joe before he got to the Odyssey. She took his arm and turned him around, heading for the elevator at the front of the ship.

  “Joe. We’ve got to go back to our room and work out a new plan. We’ve left a very big stone unturned.”

  “Oh, no,” he groaned. “I knew it. I knew you weren’t going to let this go. What big stone?”

  “I mean there’s a whole other world on this ship. There are a thousand people in the crew who are single and married and live out of sight beneath the passenger decks. People who live in very tight quarters.”

  “So?”

  “Gossip, Joe. Gossip…”

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 27

  “I see two problems, Julie.” Joe said, stepping into his bathing suit. “First, how are we going to get crew members to open up? Why should they talk to us? And second, we’ve only got a day and a half left!” He slipped his feet into his topsiders and pulled a white tee shirt over his head. “There are four-thousand people on this ship. How can we possibly find a killer in that time? It’s a needle in a haystack.”

  “Okay. The ‘four-thousand people’ thing is bull, and you know it. Most of the passengers on this ship didn’t know Adrienne from Adam! And I don’t think any of her pampered clients wanted to kill her. So that narrows the list down to her husband, her friends and any crew members she had dealings with.

  “Look, I just can’t believe that Adrienne jumped off this ship. And the crew sees things, Joe. The security cameras are in some places, but the crew is everywhere, all the time. They’re taking care of plants, washing floors, polishing glass and brass, day and night. The restaurants have people in and around them, either cooking or cleaning, day and night. And the poor cabin stewards! Miguel is always somewhere in the corridor; I think he sleeps on a pallet out there.”

  Julie had pulled on a pair of faded avocado shorts over her white tank-top bathing suit. She was looking around for her tennis shoes and saw them out on the balcony.

  Joe followed her out. While she sat tying on her shoes, he leaned on the railing. The Mystral was moving at a good clip over a choppy gray sea, salt spray hitting the lower decks. Fluffy gray and white clouds raced past the summer sun, but out on the far horizon the clouds were heavy and dark. “Looks like rain.”

  He was thoughtful as he watched a pair of gulls, squawking and swooping as they followed the ship. “Getting information out of the crew isn’t going to be easy, Merlin. They’re trained not to talk to passengers about ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. I’d need to find someone who cares about doing the right thing, someone who would trust me to keep their information anonymous.”

  He looked at her for a moment.

  “There are crew members in AA. I could go to the four o’clock meeting.”

/>   “That’s a great idea. And I want to see Val Gilman.” Julie had told Joe about her conversation with Paul Gilman, the bartender in the Odyssey Lounge. “I’m sure she’ll be too busy to talk to me on the pool deck, but I’m hoping to set up a time to meet her later. It’d be great if we could do it while you’re at AA.”

  Julie went inside, remembering that Val was supposed to have left a message. She looked over at the phone and the light was flashing. She picked it up and pushed the message button, then “speaker”:

  “Julie, it’s Val Gilman, the Cruise Director. I’m sorry, but your interview with Jon Reece has been cancelled. It’s nothing to do with you; we’re delighted to have you onboard the Mystral! Everyone loved your seminar, including me! I’m told it’s a question of space limitations. We have an art auction today and we need the Odyssey Lounge for preview space. Looks like you’ll have more time to kick back and relax. Bye!”

  “Well, that was a crock,” Julie said.

  “Might be a help. She may feel obligated to meet with you. C’mon, we should get a little pool time in while we can,” he said, opening the cabin door.

  He let go of the door to grab his card key off the bar. A gust of wind whipped through the open balcony door, slamming the cabin door with a solid thwack! “Whoa! What did I tell you? We’re going to get a storm tonight!”

  “You were expecting smooth sailing?”

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 28

  Around noon, they went through the buffet in Horizons and took their sandwiches and iced tea out to the pool. It was much easier to find a table and deck chairs than on previous days, the sun-tan crowd having been thinned by the passing clouds and breeze. Another surprising change was the pool, where the salt water was rolling and sloshing quite dramatically.

  “What’s making it do that?” Julie asked.

  “The Mystral is actually rolling; the water is staying horizontal.”