Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 07 - Deadly Cruise

by A. R. Winters

  “Yeah. Pictures and movies like that should stay in history.”

  “Oh, it’s just a bit of fun, Sam. Most of our passengers are going to be from that era or earlier, anyway.” I stared at the poster a little longer. The coloring and style were actually well done, even if the main subject was cheesy trash. The title of the movie, Penultimate Victim, was scrawled in dark red at the bottom of the picture just above Zoya’s name, and it contrasted well with her skin.

  “Prop it up against the wall and we’ll set up a location for pictures with it later,” said Kelly. “Maybe by the pool deck, where we’ve got the drive-in movie theater.”

  “Dive-in,” said Cece.

  “What?” Kelly peered at Cece.

  “Nothing,” said Cece as Sam and I giggled.

  “I’ll leave you to it! Don’t forget to be there to greet the guests when they arrive!”

  “Yes, Kelly,” we said in unison like a group of school children.

  Of course we would be there to greet the guests; we always were.

  I did hope they were friendly this time, though, unlike the money-obsessed millionaire wannabes from our last cruise.

  With the mystery of the giant box solved, there were only a billion others to sort through.

  We got back to work, while Zoya’s poster watched us from the side.

  CHAPTER TWO

  T he check-in area was exceedingly busy, because almost every single passenger decided to arrive at once.

  Usually, the regular, non-VIP guests dressed in oversized T-shirts or brightly colored Hawaiian numbers along with ill-fitting shorts or jeans. But not this time.

  It looked like I’d wandered into a Hollywood extras warehouse: a place where they stored all their spare bit-piece actors from every genre of movie.

  There were people dressed as cowboys and butlers, chambermaids and police officers, vampires and werewolves, thirties gangsters and the old-fashioned detectives who hunted them down.

  “Wow,” I said to Kelly, who was standing beside me. “They’re really into it.”

  “Yep. Gilt and Gold told them all to dress up for the cruise—so they did! Exciting, isn’t it?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  People who cared enough about something to dress up in costume tended to be a little obsessed. And obsessed people could be difficult customers.

  The idea of a whole ship full of them made me wary, but given the last few cruises, I felt like my nerves were justified. Sometimes, people’s obsessions led to really bad consequences. Even death.

  “Oh, look!” I nudged Kelly and pointed. I’d just seen a woman with a white-handled bag slung over her shoulder. What really caught my attention though was the print that decorated it.

  “Back in a minute!” I left Kelly behind. I wanted to talk to the woman with the bag right away.

  I stepped around a large green-skinned man dressed as a 1920s Frankenstein’s monster and approached the woman who’d so grabbed my attention.

  “Hello, Adrienne James, social media manager. I love your bag!”

  The woman was slender and appeared to take great pride in her appearance. She wore a white dress that accentuated her dark skin and a tasteful array of silver jewelry. There was a spark in her dark brown eyes that lit up as soon as I mentioned her bag.

  “Thank you! Do you like it? Bet you can’t guess where that picture is from.” She held out the bag for me to inspect.

  “Actually, I know exactly where it’s from. Zoya Maxwell’s 1976 movie Penultimate Victim, right?”

  The woman dropped her head back and laughed, happy that I recognized it. “Are you a fan of old horror movies?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. It’s just that I unpacked the full-sized version of that image earlier. We’re going to set up that poster so people can take their pictures with it. But you’ve already got it on your bag!”

  The woman couldn’t contain her grin. “That’s fantastic! I’m an entrepreneur, and I design and sell products with images from all kinds of classic movies, from the Golden Age right up to around when this was made.” She stroked the image on the bag with obvious affection. “That’s fantastic luck with the poster. I should be able to get a few more orders for bags like this, right?”

  “I’m sure you will. Can I get a quick picture of you for our social media streams?”

  “Of course. I’ll share them with my followers too. You don’t even need to ask—as an entrepreneur, I need to promote myself all the time. Take pictures whenever you want!”

  What a great start to the cruise, I thought to myself as the woman posed for me while showing off her movie-poster bag.

  “Polly Stratton,” she said, holding out a delicate hand after I’d taken my pictures. “Don’t forget me!”

  I shook it and laughed. “I won’t forget. See you around, Polly.”

  Kelly was motioning for me to go back and join her again. I stepped around a pair of John Waynes, complete with what I hoped were replica six-shooters, and found myself at Kelly’s side again.

  “Look, that’s Zoya Maxwell herself over there. Go and ask her if she’ll pose with the poster.” Kelly jerked her head across the room.

  I recognized her immediately—though maybe recognize wasn’t the right word. On the movie poster, we hadn’t been able to see Zoya’s face, and of course her body wasn’t the same as it had been in the seventies either.

  I was able to distinguish her from the other guests because she had that air about her that some people can create—a kind of aura of celebrity or importance.

  Zoya was talking to a middle-aged man, and she had a blue headscarf tied around her still-blonde hair. She wore oversized heart-shaped sunglasses that covered a large portion of her face. A few pieces of expensive luggage sat beside her.

  The guests around her kept glancing in her direction, and it was with practiced poise that she was ignoring them.

  Making sure my ID badge was properly positioned on the chest of my blue Swan uniform blouse, so that she could see I was staff, I approached her with a smile.

  The man she was talking to had a closely cropped light gray beard and didn’t seem to be dressed in any kind of costume. He was casual but stylish, dressed in maroon corduroy pants and a white shirt that was unbuttoned one too many notches. He had a dark California tan, and I immediately assumed he had something to do with Hollywood.

  “… does sound fascinating, Zoya. You’ll have to let me look at it,” said the Hollywood guy.

  Sensing a brief lull, I decided to hop in. “Hi!” I said as brightly as I could.

  I think it was a bit too enthusiastic, because both Zoya and Hollywood took half a step back.

  “Adrienne James, social media manager. Zoya, right? I wanted to talk to you about taking some pictures.”

  I gave her my best customer service smile and waited for her gracious response.

  I did not get it.

  Zoya raised a hand to her face and pulled her sunglasses down a fraction of an inch to examine me. She eyed me the same way someone might examine the corpse of an unidentifiable insect that landed in their cereal bowl.

  “Excuse you, I’m talking.” She pushed the glasses back into position and turned back to Hollywood.

  My mouth fell open. How do you respond to something like that? I sure didn’t know.

  Luckily, someone else saw my bewilderment. A gentle hand gripped my arm just above the elbow, and with relief I turned to someone who would deign to speak to me.

  “I shouldn’t worry about her,” said the newcomer with a pointed glare in Zoya’s direction. “She thinks she’s so important other people should pose for pictures for her. You can take one of me instead if you like.”

  Although I couldn’t see Zoya’s eyes behind her sunglasses, her brow twitched for a fraction of a second. The newcomer’s words had annoyed her. I turned my attention back to my new friend.

  “Adrienne James,” I said, offering my hand and a smile. The woman graciously accepted my hand and we exchanged a
light handshake.

  “Susan Shelly.”

  Ah-ha. That was it. I recognized her name from the guest list too. She was another one of the Hollywood actresses from the past.

  Like Zoya, Susan had the vague air of celebrity about her.

  She was probably about Zoya’s age, but like Zoya she carried it well. She wore tight jeans and a midriff-baring T-shirt, and she had her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Although she must have been in her sixties, she could have easily passed for someone in her forties. From the relatively wrinkle-free face, I could tell she had some surgical assistance to maintain her youthful appearance, but it had been done well and she looked good.

  “A pleasure.”

  I held up my phone to take a picture, and she posed for it with a real movie-star smile.

  Before we could continue our pleasant conversation and photography, some of the other guests began to notice the more famous actress.

  “Zoya, Zoya!” said a man, pushing through the crowd toward us.

  He was about my age, dressed in what appeared to be vintage ‘70s clothing, including a blue shirt with oversized cuffs and collars and shiny white leather shoes.

  A grimace fell across Zoya’s face before she forced it back into a smile. She seemed to have more time for fans than she did for staff members by the looks of it.

  “I saw the poster of you, and then I saw the real you!” The man jerked his head toward the wall, where the framed poster from Penultimate Victim was leaning. Although it had been dragged up from the Grand Ballroom, it had not yet been put in position outside on the pool deck.

  “You’re a fan?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m Kirk Field. I’m your biggest fan. I have a website all about you. And a blog. And a Facebook group. A scrapbook too. And—”

  “That’s fascinating,” said Zoya, managing to make the word ‘fascinating’ sound exactly the opposite of its dictionary meaning. “I am truly honored. Unfortunately, I am a little busy right now, but I’m sure at one of the events…”

  “I’ll be at all the events. Even when there isn’t an event, I’ll be there!” He beamed at her, completely oblivious to the fact he’d just said something creepy. Susan squeezed my arm and gave me a tight little smile, amused by the fact that Zoya seemed to have a rabid fan.

  “Shall I sign an autograph for you?”

  “Oh, yes! Here’s my travel itinerary—sign that, please! I’ll find better stuff for you to sign later on, too.” Kirk shoved a sheaf of papers into Zoya’s hand.

  “Will you? That sounds wonderful. Do you have a pen?”

  Kirk was thrusting an old blue ballpoint pen into her hand before she’d even finished speaking.

  “You can keep it if you want!”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of it. It looks like it’s served you well over the… decades.”

  Zoya turned the travel itinerary over, and with big, flourishing strokes she signed her name. The entire signature was completely dominated by the massive Z she led with. I couldn’t help but imagine it had been inspired by Zorro.

  “Nice signature,” I said.

  “It’s not my signature. It’s my autograph,” Zoya corrected me like a schoolmarm to a slow student. “My real signature is nowhere near as elaborate.” She handed the papers back to Kirk, along with the pen. “Here you go. I hope that satisfies you.”

  “Oh, it’ll do for the moment! I’ll get my pictures for you to sign too! But we can do that later. Thank you so much!”

  “It’s been a delight. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” Zoya shifted her attention away from her fan so that she could continue talking to Hollywood.

  But Kirk didn’t take the hint. He continued to stand right next to her. Before I could encourage Kirk to move on, Kelly was on the scene, like a hot-pink pixie appearing between us.

  “Photos! I heard photos, right?” Kelly carried on at her usual high speed without waiting for confirmation. “Zoya, I’m Kelly Cline the cruise director. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure.” From her intonation I wasn’t sure that she was sure.

  “We’re hoping you’ll have time to take some photos in front of the poster? We’re going to set it up in our very own drive-in movie theater, and our guests would love to have their pictures taken with you.”

  “I’m… sure something along those lines can be arranged, for a small fee from the customers. Let’s talk later.”

  “Fantastic! I’ll call you later and we’ll confirm the details!”

  “I’m intrigued by this drive-in theater. You have cars aboard?”

  “No, not real ones,” said Kelly, sounding a little sad. Then, her face brightened. “It’s like a set! Just like the movies!”

  “Yes, just like it, I’m sure. What do you think, Judd?”

  She turned to face the man with the killer tan she’d been speaking to earlier.

  I remembered the name Judd from the VIP guest list I had seen before. He was Judd Cohn, a movie producer who’d been in the business since the late sixties and showed no signs of retiring yet.

  “I’m sure it’s a wonderful set,” he said diplomatically. “Now I’ll have to love you and leave you. I need to get to my cabin. We’ll talk more later, Zoya.” He turned away from the actress whose expression had darkened at his mention of leaving. “Goodbye,” he said to the rest of us before disappearing through the crowd, towing his wheeled suitcase behind him.

  “I’m still here!” Kirk Field was indeed still there, standing just a couple of inches away from Zoya. “I’m first in line for the photos!”

  “Umm, I don’t think we’re doing them here. And not now, either,” I said to him. I glanced around, looking for someone to drag Kirk away. I didn’t see anyone for that particular task, but I did see someone else who could do something just as helpful.

  A few yards away, Sam had just finished helping out a customer and was sending him on his way with a jaunty wave.

  “Sam!” I called to my friend.

  A moment later, my smiling blonde-haired friend was standing among us. “Zoya, our customer liaison officer would be glad to escort you to your VIP suite, if that would be all right?”

  Zoya darted a glance toward Kirk and nodded. Despite the fact she’d been rather rude to me initially, I still hoped to win her over, and this good deed should give me a start.

  “I’ll see you later!” Kirk shouted after Zoya as she walked away with Sam.

  “Was that Zoya Maxwell?” said another new voice in my ear.

  I looked and found a man dressed in a mismatched sweatsuit standing beside me. His sweatpants were gray and the top was black, and both seemed shabby and threadbare.

  “It was, are you a fan?”

  “Ha!” he shouted. It wasn’t a laugh; it was a one-syllable exclamation of disbelief. “A fan? Of her? I find it hard to believe that she has fans.”

  “Of course she has fans! She’s the greatest actress in the world!” said Kirk, as if he was stating a fact as plain as the sky being blue or the ocean being wet.

  “The greatest actress in the world? I can assure you, as a professional, that she is not, in any way, shape, or form even a passable thespian. She has the talent of a dead gnat and the charisma of a cooked goose.”

  My hackles went up. Worried that Kirk might go to great and unhealthy lengths to defend her honor, I decided to intervene.

  “A professional? You’re an actor too?” I asked him, carefully stepping between the two men so that Kirk was blocked out.

  “Ha!” said the man again, with just a little less derision this time. I wasn’t surprised though.

  He didn’t look like an actor. Even if he hadn’t been dressed like a sports-loving hobo, he had the kind of face that could only ever be that of a character actor rather than a leading man. His eyes were a little too far apart, his nose looked like it had been—unsurprisingly—broken more than once, and his hair didn’t seem to know whether it wanted to be brown, gray, or white.

 
; “No, I do not tread the boards myself. I’m a critic. A movie critic. Tom Devlin. You’ve probably heard of me.”

  “Afraid not.”

  “I have!” said an outraged voice from behind my shoulder. Kirk stepped around me to face the critic. “You wrote that awful review! Zoya’s career still hasn’t recovered yet!”

  “Yet?” said Tom with a little chuckle. “Ha!”

  “Tom, why don’t I show you to your cabin?” I said, shifting so that Kirk was stuck behind my back again.

  It wasn’t my job to show people to their cabins, but I didn’t want Kirk laying into the critic. Most of the guests hadn’t checked in yet. A murder in arrivals wouldn’t be the best way to start a cruise.

  “Sure. It’d be nice to have a bit of peace and quiet. That’s my bag.”

  Tom kicked a tattered duffel bag with an off-white sneaker. The sneaker looked several years old, and I suspected it was off-white from use rather than by design.

  I stared down at the bag. I had never carried a customer’s bags for them before. That definitely wasn’t my job.

  What would be the most diplomatic way to explain to Tom that I wasn’t going to carry his bag?

  “You need to write an article apologizing to Zoya!” Kirk growled.

  I grabbed the heavy duffel bag and managed to sling it over my shoulder.

  “Ha!” Tom said to Kirk in what seemed like his version of a farewell.

  Somehow, I didn’t think he was going to write the article.

  Huffing and puffing, I led the caustic movie critic to his cabin. It looked like this cruise might turn out to be even harder work than usual.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sam and I were in our shared cabin, almost ready to head out for the day. I was staring at myself in the mirror.

  “How do I look?” It was a genuine question. I wasn’t fishing for compliments.

  “Like, umm, a spunky dame.” Sam cocked her head at me. “Is that right? I’m not good at old-timey slang.”

  I shrugged. “Neither am I. I figure by the end of this cruise we’ll know all about it though.” I peered at myself some more. “Should I lose the duster?”