Murder, She Wrote: Murder on the QE2

by Jessica Fletcher

  The dice had just been passed to Judge Solon. He blew on them as craps players are wont to do, implored the dice in his hand to be good to him, and energetically tossed them to the opposite end of the table, where they ricocheted off the ridged rubber surface, spinning and tumbling on the green felt, then coming to rest. There was an eruption of excitement; I assumed the judge and his fellow gamblers had won on that toss.

  I was going to drift away to renew my search for Mary Ward when I noticed a player at the other end of the table, the older actor who played Morris McClusky. in my play. And, to my surprise, wedged in between him and a corpulent male passenger, his round face flushed with the excitement of the game, was my newfound friend from North Carolina, Mary Alice Ward.

  Shooting craps? When would she stop surprising me?

  She saw me, broke into a grin, and waved for me to join her. It wasn’t easy navigating the knot of players at the table, but I eventually made it to her side.

  “Mr. Ryan here is teaching me how to play dice,” she said.

  “Oh,” was all I could come up with.

  “Craps,” he corrected.

  Ryan, whose first name was Ron, was a wonderful-looking, stooped older man, with a craggy face that reminded me a little of the actor Walter Matthau. He hadn’t fallen victim to male pattern baldness, but his hair had turned a uniform white. He glanced at me and said, “She’s my good luck charm for the evening,” referring to Mary.

  “I hope she brings you good fortune,” I said.

  The stickman, the casino employee at the table responsible for moving the dice to the proper player, used his long stick to push them back to Judge Solon. I looked down at the table in front of Ryan. He’d placed dozens of chips on a narrow band marked PASS. I didn’t know how much the chips were worth, but I assumed they represented quite a bit of money. I checked the piles of chips in front of other players. Mr. Ryan’s bet was at least triple anyone else’s wager.

  Solon again rolled the dice. When they came to rest, one read three, the other four. Again, an enthusiastic response from those at the table. Of course, I thought. Three plus four equals seven, which my friend had told me was always a winner unless... unless it occurred at another point in the game; I couldn’t remember what that rule was.

  Mary said to me, “This is so exciting. I’ve never seen this game before.”

  “Did you win any money for your friends, playing the slot machine?” I asked, having to speak loud over the noise from the vocal players at the table.

  “Oh, yes. I put in three quarters in a machine over there,” she said, pointing, “and got one hundred back.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, tempted to add that she should take her winnings and leave the casino.

  The judge rolled a nine. That seemed to change everything. The casino employees shifted chips to various marked areas of the table. On the next roll the dice came up with a six and a one. There were loud moans as the employees scooped up chips from virtually everyone and put them in the casino’s coffers. Now, I remembered. A seven was always a winner unless a different number had been rolled. Then, seven became a loser.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Ryan,” Mary Ward said, her voice heavy with dejection.

  “No problem,” he said, placing a new supply of chips on the PASS line. “I have a feeling my luck is going to run good tonight.”

  I had to smile at his comment. It’s what every gambler I’ve ever known says when they’re losing. I had the distinct feeling that Ryan perhaps had a gambling problem. That might have been an unfair judgment on my part, based only upon watching him for a few minutes at a gaming table. But you pick up a sense of those things if you’ve been around enough people, and are in the business of observing human behavior in order to create believable characters in books.

  Rip Nestor had told me Ron Ryan virtually begged him to play the role of Morris McClusky on this crossing. The character I’d created wasn’t a major one, although he did play a pivotal role toward the end of the play. I didn’t imagine Nestor paid his actors and actresses very much, depending upon the lure of a luxurious five-day North Atlantic crossing to England as a compensation for a lack of hard cash.

  Why would this actor beg to be in this play? Obviously, because he was like most actors, always looking for the next job.

  Although I wasn’t a participant in the game, I found myself mesmerized by it, and stayed there as the dice passed from hand to hand each time someone threw a seven after another number had been rolled.

  The stickman, not realizing I wasn’t a player, pushed the dice to me. I shook my head. He moved them on to Mary, who looked to me, and then to Ryan.

  “Go ahead, toss ’em,” Ryan said. “For me.”

  Mary took a deep breath, picked up the two dice as though they were hot, looked at them in her hand, and asked, “Now?”

  “Now!” Ryan said.

  She reached as far as she could over the table and tentatively threw the dice to the opposite end. They came up eleven, a winner; along with a seven, eleven was a winning number when a new game was commencing.

  The table went wild as players collected their winnings and put down additional bets. The pile in front of Ron Ryan was even higher now. For an actor begging for a role, he seemed to have a lot of money to back up his play. At least I hoped he did.

  Ryan encouraged Mary Ward to continue tossing the dice. Each time she did, the numbers came up seven or eleven, winning for all the players at the table, with the exception of one sullen-looking gentleman in a tuxedo who had decided the odds were against the players, and who was betting with the casino, losing on each of Mary’s rolls.

  After six consecutive winning rolls, she threw a six, which prompted a flurry of betting activity. Now, everyone would win until she “sevened-out.” She rolled five consecutive numbers before coming up with the dreaded seven.

  It was a happy table. If news of Marla Tralaine’s murder had reached everyone, no one in the casino reflected it. The mood was boisterous and upbeat.

  “Here,” Ryan said, pushing a pile of chips in Mary’s direction.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t accept that,” she said.

  “Hey, you were what I thought you’d be—my lucky charm. Buy yourself a pretty dress with it.”

  She shook her head and said, “That’s very generous, Mr. Ryan, but I’m quite content helping you win some money. I won money too, at a slot machine. My friends back home and I will share it. But I think it’s time for me to leave. I’m feeling sleepy.”

  “It’s tiring just trying to keep your balance in this storm,” someone else at the table said.

  Amazing, I thought, how easy it was to forget the roll and pitch of the giant ship when you were focusing on other things. Now that he’d mentioned the storm, I was very much aware of it, and grasped the edge of the craps table to steady myself.

  I followed Mary through the throngs of people in the casino. She stopped once at a slot machine, and I saw a twinkle in her eye.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “It is tempting once you’ve won some money, isn’t it?” she said sweetly. “I suppose that’s how people become addicted to gambling.”

  We left the casino and passed the Chart Room, one of three new lounges created during Cunard’s $45-million refit, the most extensive refurbishing of the ship in its history. A young man in a tuxedo played popular show tunes on an antique piano.

  We stopped, and Mary looked into the bar. “That’s the same piano that was on the Queen Mary,” she said brightly. “I read about it.”

  “So did I,” I said. “It’s a lovely lounge, isn’t it?”

  “Would you like to join me for a nightcap before I go to bed?” she asked.

  “That would be nice,” I said.

  “Nothing alcoholic,” she said. “But I’m just not ready to go to my cabin.”

  “Then let’s take that vacant table there.”

  She ordered a cup of tea; I had club soda with lime.

  The music w
as soothing, although it was disconcerting to see the piano moving in lockstep with the ship’s movement. I wondered how difficult it was for the pianist to keep hitting the right notes. I assumed he was used to it.

  “Well, Mary,” I said, “you’ve had quite an evening. Ever gambled before?”

  “Never at a gambling table like that.”

  “Maybe you have natural luck,” I said. “Mr. Ryan was certainly pleased to have you at his side.”

  “I suppose he was,” she said, sipping her tea. “Funny, but while I was there, I kept thinking back to something I read many years ago.”

  “Oh? What was that?”

  “Poor Ms. Tralaine. To be without clothes and dead in a lifeboat. It makes me shudder just to think of it.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s a grim contemplation. What did being at the craps table remind you of?”

  “Do you remember when Ms. Tralaine’s husband was murdered in Hollywood?”

  “Yes, but not with any clarity. It was in all the headlines, as I recall. I read a few articles about it before coming aboard.”

  “Yes, it certainly was in the news. I followed the story with some interest. I suppose I have a natural curiosity about such things, like most people. It must have been very difficult for her not only to lose her husband that way, but to be accused of killing him.”

  “Was she actually accused, or was that just rumor?”

  “Oh, no. The authorities at the time were convinced she was behind it. But I suppose they couldn’t come up with enough proof, so they dropped that line of inquiry.”

  “You have a remarkable memory,” I said.

  “Only about certain things. Other things go right through my brain like a sieve. No, what I remembered while I was standing at that table was a headline that was in one of those dreadful newspapers you see at all the supermarket checkout counters.”

  “The tabloids,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  “And what was the headline that you recall?”

  “Evidently, Ms. Tralaine’s husband—I think it was her fourth or fifth—was a very heavy gambler. Some journalists said he had connections to the Mafia in Las Vegas.”

  “I don’t recall any of that,” I said. “But I’m listening.”

  “He was a very big gambler. The headline I remember said, ‘Cops Crap Out In Tralaine Case.’ ”

  I laughed. “A colorful headline.”

  “It certainly was. I can see that front page as clearly today as I did back then.”

  Where was this leading? I wondered. I waited for her to continue.

  “Yes, I can see that front page as though it were on this table in front of me. It had that ’colorful headline’ as you say, a picture of Ms. Tralaine’s husband being wheeled out of the house on a stretcher and covered with a sheet, a picture of her, and a picture of a man with whom they claimed she was romantically involved.”

  “And?”

  “I think we were standing with that man at the gambling table tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Ryan.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “No. I could never be sure of something like that.” She turned, looked at me, and narrowed her pale blue eyes. “But I think I’m right.”

  I sat back and exhaled, allowing my mind to focus on a few bars of the song being played. It was from one of the popular musicals—Phantom of the Opera? I had trouble keeping themes from contemporary musicals straight, although I never have trouble with songs from older shows.

  After a few seconds, I returned my attention to what Mary Ward had just told me.

  Was she right? Was one of Maria Tralaine’s former lovers on board?

  If so, that would make two gentlemen from her past present on this crossing when she was murdered—me old actor now functioning as a gentleman escort, and the actor in my play who, I reminded myself, had begged Rip Nestor for the part.

  I sat forward again and said, “I think I have some telephone calls to make. I’m going to call someone in New York and see if she’ll fax me clippings from when Tralaine’s husband was murdered. I assume she can do that using the ship’s satellite communication system. I’ll ask her to locate the front page of the tabloid you mentioned.”

  “You’ll do that?” she asked. “I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble based upon what might be my faulty memory.”

  “No, Mary, I think it’s very important that I do this. Now, let me tell you about someone else on this crossing who goes back a long way with Marla Tralaine.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  We walked to our cabins.

  “Have a good sleep,” I said.

  “You too, Jessica. I’m happy you shared with me what you discovered about that gentleman I danced with.”

  “It may mean nothing,” I said, “but I feel we’re ... how shall I put it? ... I feel as though we’re in this together. Sort of like partners.”

  “And I’m very flattered to be considered in that light by someone like you. Will you be at breakfast?”

  “Probably, although don’t hold me to it. I may eat in my cabin.”

  “I might do that, too,” she said.

  “We’ll catch up. Good night.”

  I locked my cabin door behind me and went to the porthole. I don’t know whether it was my imagination or not, but the seas seemed to have calmed.

  I took the small telephone book I always carry with me from my purse, found the number I was looking for, and called the ship’s operator.

  “Yes, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Two things,” I said. “First, I need to know how someone back in New York can send me a fax while we’re at sea.”

  “No problem,” the operator said, reciting for me the numbers to use.

  “Second,” I said, “I wish to place a call to New York.”

  After asking me for the necessary information, the familiar voice of Ruth Lazzara came on the line with remarkable clarity.

  “Ruth?”

  “Yes?”

  “Jessica Fletcher.”

  “Oh, hi, Jess. What a pleasant surprise.”

  “I’m calling from the QE2.”

  She laughed. “Why?”

  “Why am I calling from the QE2?”

  “No. Why are you on the QE2?”

  “That’s a long story that I will be happy to relate to you at another time. I need a favor, Ruth.”

  “Sure. Just ask.”

  Ruth Lazzara was a researcher who worked for a variety of authors, primarily in academic fields, but who also lent her considerable talents to fiction writers like me needing solid factual information for a novel.

  “A number of years ago, Ruth, there was a sensational murder case out in Hollywood. Remember the actress, Marla Tralaine?”

  “Of course. I read recently that she’s negotiating to make a comeback. A made-for-television movie, I think, for the Teller Network.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said. “She was ... she’s on the ship.”

  “That must be interesting. Is she nice?”

  “She’s... she’s noncommunicative at the moment.”

  “Another Marlene?”

  “Something like that. One of her former husbands was murdered in Hollywood a while back. It was pretty sensational stuff, was in all the papers.”

  “I remember that, too, Jess. A huge scandal. Didn’t they try to pin the murder on her?”

  “I believe they did, although they weren’t successful. Ruth, what I need—and I need it yesterday—are some of the clippings about that case. There’s one in particular, a supermarket tabloid. I don’t know which one. But the entire front page was devoted to the case. It had a picture of her dead husband being wheeled out of their house, a photograph of Marla Tralaine, and another photo of a man purported to be her lover.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Ruth?”

  “I’m making notes. Sorry. Okay, you want that tabloid story. Others?”

 
; “Send me whatever you can come up with on such short notice.”

  “But how do I get these to you out in the middle of the ocean?”

  “Easy. What a marvelous technological age this is. You can fax them to me.” I gave her the information I’d received from the operator about how to fax things to a passenger on the QE2. “Keep a record of any expenses. I’ll reimburse you the minute I get back.”

  “The last thing on my mind. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Actually, there is. There’s a interesting assortment of people on this trip. I wonder if you could dig up some background on a British actor.” I grabbed the video of Dangerous Woman I’d watched and scanned the list of credits on the box. “The actor is named Sydney Worrell, Ruth. Never made it big, I presume, but was in a film with Marla Tralaine called Dangerous Woman.”

  “Got it. What else?”

  “You mentioned the Teller Network. A number of people who appear on that network are also on this cruise ... I mean crossing. If you can come up quickly with scuttlebutt having to do with that network, I’d appreciate it. You know, gossip column pieces about Sam Teller and his young wife, Lila Sims. I understand a serious conflict exists between Sam Teller and Marla Tralaine over the film she was to make.” I named the other lecturers. “Anything on them, too, that’s juicy.”

  Another laugh from Ruth Lazzara, this time louder and with more meaning. “I didn’t know you were a fan of juicy journalism, Jess. I seemed to remember you telling me once that tabloid journalism was boring.”

  “It is, unless it’s wrapped up in real murder.”

  Her tone turned serious. “Real murder? Has there been a real murder on the ship?”

  “As a matter of fact, Ruth, there has been. I have a feeling you’ll hear all about it tomorrow. Tune in James Brady’s television show.”

  “I hate it when you do this to me, Jess, dangle something in front of me and then leave me guessing.”