Cake Tastings and Killers

by A. R. Winters

  The hesitation didn’t last long. I’d left home to start a new life and become a new person. Why not start by casting off my goodie-two-shoes image? With a grin, I sat next to my new friend.

  “These things never start on time,” she said, shaking her head and sighing. I checked the time. It was 4:30 p.m. exactly, the time the meeting was supposed to start.

  We were still waiting five minutes later when Samantha arrived, tapping me on the shoulder from behind and then squeezing past me to sit down.

  She didn’t look great. Her normally calm face seemed to be trying to decide whether it wanted to be red or green.

  “Did you get him back to his cage?” asked Cece with a smirk.

  “Yeah, just about.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t look it.

  “Yeah… I’m fine,” she said, though her tone was so subdued she might as well have had a neon sign above her head flashing DEFINITELY NOT FINE.

  “Testing, testing, one, two, one, two. Can you hear me at the back?”

  We responded that we could indeed hear the lady at the front who I knew to be Sylvia Diaz. She was the cruise director and my immediate boss, who I’d met several times during the interview and training process. While I hadn’t fully made up my mind about her, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t ever be friends; we were as compatible as toothpaste and cheese.

  “Right. The meeting agenda is up on the screen and you should all have been emailed a copy. Please pay attention. It’s not just for my benefit. It’s also a legal requirement that you are fully informed about all safety procedures…”

  And so, the meeting, and my new career, began in earnest.

  Chapter Two

  The next day, with the memory of the interminably long meeting still at the forefront of my thoughts (did you know that if a passenger falls overboard, we’re not supposed to strip off and dive in right after them? And that if there’s a fire, we’re supposed to pull the alarm? And that stealing from a passenger’s room is a big no-no?), it was time to get to work.

  After Sam and I had finally finished chatting last night, I’d dozed off to sleep listening to the ship’s engines. The crew quarters were close enough to the engine rooms that the ship’s power plant provided a constant background hum that, although alien to a farm girl like me, was not unpleasant.

  I had tried not to look too excited when I parted with Cece and Sam as they headed to their respective jobs after breakfast. It didn’t seem fair that they would be cleaning and dealing with fussy passengers while I basically got to do what I wanted, wandering around the ship, taking pictures of the most interesting things, and writing posts about them. But hey, life’s not fair, I told myself with a grin when I thought no one was looking.

  The first thing I did was take a few pictures of people boarding: #CruiseLife #Cruising #FirstDayCruise. Most of the VIPs had boarded the day before for an extra exclusive night, but the regular passengers—non-vips, as Cece called them—were being welcomed aboard today.

  The Swan of the Seas was apparently a minnow in the world of cruising, though it felt like a floating city to me. The population on board was at least triple that of Cornridge, Nebraska, where Sam and I hailed from and it felt to me just as monumental as if I’d moved to Chicago or New York.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see who it was.

  “Adrienne, darling?” said Sylvia the cruise director, who had sidled up behind my prime location looking down on the gangway below.

  “Oh, hi!” I said and immediately felt guilty.

  It’s a bit of a weakness of mine; whenever I’m doing something fun, I feel like I should be doing something not fun instead. And this job was definitely fun so far.

  “Good work so far, but I’m going to need you to think about a bit more pizazz in your work, do you see?”

  “Pizazz?” I asked, scrunching up my nose.

  I’d only started a few minutes before. It didn’t seem exactly fair to accuse me of being boring, which is presumably what my pizazz-lessness was.

  “Yes, get out there, mingle. Meet the customers. I know you’re not a customer liaison, but in some ways, you are the ultimate customer liaison. Do you see?”

  Do you see seemed to be a verbal tic of hers and I was already tempted to answer no.

  “Uh-huh,” I sounded. “I was thinking of interviewing some of the cruise regulars. Since I do have a background in journalism, after all.”

  Sylvia nodded at me. “Yes, that might work. But make sure they’re positive. If they have any complaints, make sure you edit them out. Your job is to provide a positive spin, not to ‘report’ on problems, do you see?”

  “Yes, I see,” I said, hiding a frown. I was being censored already and I hadn’t even reported anything yet!

  “Remember, you’re our social media tsarina, our publicity princess, our picture poster, and our Twitter tweeter. You’re not Bernstein and Woodward. Do you see?”

  I gritted my teeth and forced my finest fake smile. “Absolutely. I’m going to be so positive I’ll pop.”

  “Fantastico! You can ask some of the other staff members who the regulars are for your interviews, but remember, keep them short and sweet and fun. And make sure you’re Tweeting and Instagramming hourly!”

  Hourly? Goodness. Perhaps this work wasn’t going to be quite as laid back as I thought it would be.

  “Yes, boss,” I said and saluted her with my smartphone.

  She beamed back at me and went off to harass some other poor staff members. Looking below me, I could see that the gangways had been lifted and removed, and the last of the ship’s moorings were being untied.

  Beyond, I caught my last glimpses of the most fun city I’d ever had the pleasure of visiting: New Orleans. After nearly a month there, I’d come to the conclusion that there was more excitement in one night in New Orleans than in an entire month in Nebraska. Not that Nebraska is dull, you understand, but… no, scratch that. Nebraska is dull. But almost anywhere would be compared to Nola. Speaking of which, I’m not supposed to say Nola, because apparently it makes me sound like a tourist.

  I was on a deck called The Constitutional, so named because it provided a pleasant path to stroll the circumference of the ship at a leisurely pace, with a few cafés dotting the path and a liberal sprinkling of benches, chairs, and sun loungers placed every hundred yards or so in case you needed a break in your exercise. Another deck had a running track for those wanting something a bit more active, and I hoped to get a few interesting shots there later.

  I was just about to head back inside when an idea stopped me dead in my tracks.

  Patrick Murphy!

  Cece had said that he was a cruise regular, exaggerating that he went on a hundred or so a year. Not that I’d normally choose to focus on a rude drunk, but Sam had seemed quite upset when she’d come back from escorting him to his room the day before. I wanted to know more about him—and now I had an excuse.

  The previous night, Sam and I had spent a couple of hours studying the layout of the ship, trying to memorize the location of every point of interest. It wasn’t just for our own edification of course; it was also a job requirement. Unlike Sam though, I had the opportunity to wander the ship as I pleased—in fact, it was my duty to visit all the interesting parts—and so memorizing the location of everything was going to be a lot easier for me.

  It was about a ten-minute walk from my spot on the constitutional deck to the VIP section, in which Mr. Murphy’s stateroom was located. When I arrived, I immediately made my way to the nearest crew station, where I found a printed list of passengers and their cabins for this section. His room was designated VIP-12.

  Pleased at my own cleverness, I sauntered down the hallway with confidence, only to realize that particular corridor ended at VIP-10.

  Confidence deflated, I returned to the crew station and made another attempt, this time successful.

  Outside the cabin door was a sign reading “The Stateroom of Mr. And Mrs.
Patrick Murphy.” Although the sign was of course only temporary, it looked like a permanent fixture and no doubt made the passengers in this section feel like they actually were Very Important People. Perhaps some of them really were.

  Next to the door was an ornate lion’s head doorbell that, although undoubtedly made in China for pennies, looked like it had been borrowed from an Edwardian mansion. If there weren’t dozens of identical ones throughout this section of the ship, it certainly would’ve fooled me.

  I pressed the button and was mildly disappointed that it rang with a normal ding-dong rather than a roar.

  I waited patiently for five seconds, impatiently for another fifteen, and then I rang it again.

  After my third attempt at ringing, I decided to change my tactics before giving up and finding someone else to interview. This time, I rapped on the door with my knuckles, regretting it as soon as I realized the ornate white door was actually painted steel. Banging your hand against a steel door is much more painful than doing so against a wooden one. My knocking produced less noise than the ouch I let out in painful surprise.

  What I did notice, though, was that the door was not, in fact, fully shut. It was open just about an inch. I stared at the crack between the door and its frame. Was it open when I arrived? Or had it just opened?

  I gave it a tentative push and the heavy door slowly began to swing inward.

  “Hello?” I called through the crack.

  There was no answer. I pushed the door a bit harder and it swung all the way open.

  Peering inside, my eyes went wide with shock.

  “Oh my…”

  The room was so much nicer than mine it didn’t seem fair. While of course I understood that I was just a member of staff and this businessman was paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a night, seeing the difference left a kind of gnawing jealousy inside me.

  I’d never be able to afford a room like this. Not in a hundred years.

  The floor was laid with marble, and the walls were simply but tastefully decorated with a number of abstract art pieces.

  And the lighting! Mine and Sam’s room had no windows and a single too-harsh fluorescent bulb that made the room achingly bright if it was on, or left us in pitch blackness if it was off. But here, there were large sliding windows which let in all the natural light to bounce off the brightly painted walls and copious mirrors spread throughout.

  “Hello?” I called. “Mr. Murphy?” I put my head right in through the door but I didn’t yet step inside. “Is anyone there? The door’s open…”

  I didn’t get a response. Quickly checking over my shoulder to make sure no one else was watching me, I stepped inside.

  “He-llo!” I called, much louder than before, but in a friendly sing-song voice. I didn’t want to sound like a burglar—not that I knew what burglars sounded like.

  I took another step inside and something caught my eye. Up ahead, I could see a rather expensive-looking leather sofa, but more importantly, behind it was a shoe sticking out.

  The problem was… it didn’t look like it was just a shoe. I thought I could see it attached to a sock. But I couldn’t see any further due to the sofa and my current line of sight.

  I took another step forward, moving slightly to the right to get a better viewing angle.

  Oh, how I wished I hadn’t.

  The shoe was most definitely attached to an entire leg, and presumably the rest of a person beyond.

  “Are you sleeping!?” My voice was loud and high pitched, almost yelping. Calm down, I thought, calm down. I took three deep breaths.

  “Are you passed out drunk on the floor?” I began to walk forward with nervous little steps. “Please be passed out drunk on the floor. Mr. Murphy! Mr. Murphy…”

  Squeezing my hands into tight little fists, I forced myself to keep going. With another couple of steps, I could see right over the sofa and what it had been hiding.

  “Oh… no.”

  Patrick Murphy was laid out on the floor, a reddish-brown stain surrounding his head. From the angle of one of his arms, it was clear he wasn’t sleeping—not even a very drunk person could sleep at that painful angle.

  Patrick Murphy had gone from dead drunk yesterday to actually dead today.

  Click here to continue reading…