Murder, She Wrote: Murder on the QE2

by Jessica Fletcher

  “You, Mr. Dancer, also have a relationship with the deceased that goes back a number of years.”

  “That is correct.”

  “You appeared with Ms. Rivers in one of her films, Dangerous Woman.”

  “Right again, Detective.”

  I looked out over the audience to where the real Sydney Worrell continued to stand. Then I shifted my attention to the position where Sam Teller had been standing. He was gone. I shortened my focus. Lila Sims, Tony Silvestrie, and Peter Kunz were still at the front table.

  “You were in love with Veronica Rivers, weren’t you, Mr. Dancer?”

  “Yes. Deeply in love.”

  “And you still are!”

  The actor raised his chin. “Yes. I have loved her from the first day we met on the set.”

  “But she spurned you,” said Lackman. “For all these years you’ve carried a torch for her that was not reciprocated. And when you sent up a note to her penthouse on this crossing, she ignored it—ignored you.”

  “She—”

  “Enough!” Lackman snapped. “It’s time for Billy Bravo to solve the murder of Veronica Rivers.”

  The audience erupted in applause and cheering.

  “First,” Lackman said, “let me review what we know. We know that Veronica Rivers was found naked, and dead in the lifeboat.”

  “Go get ’em, Billy,” an audience member offered.

  “Go, Billy, go! Go, Billy, go!”

  “Second, we have agreed that she was in her birthday suit because she was interrupted by her murderer while engaging in—hanky-panky!”

  “Right on, Billy,” a woman shouted.

  “Now,” Lackman continued, “who might have been her partner in hanky-panky?” He asked various members of the audience for their suggestions. They were many and varied, including every male character.

  “It’s my contention that Veronica Rivers was killed because she played hanky-panky with the wrong man,” Lackman continued. “We have to decide which partner in hanky-panky would be someone who would make someone else mad—mad enough to murder.”

  Again, suggestions flew from the audience.

  “The men sitting up here would not fall into that category. Who would care whether Bob Manager, Sal Biceps, Joe Gigolo, or Dan Dancer played hanky-panky with Veronica Rivers? No one!”

  “What about him?” a man shouted, pointing to the actor playing Troy Radcliff, a.k.a “Roy Climber.”

  Lackman faced Climber. “What about you, Mr. Climber?”

  The actor said in a deep baritone, “I didn’t play hanky-panky with Veronica Rivers. Besides, no one would care if I did. She wasn’t married—anymore.”

  “True,” said Lackman, following the script. “That no one would care. But you did have an intimate relationship with Veronica Rivers.”

  Roy Climber gave out a theatrical sigh and sat back.

  “Which leaves,” Lackman said, “only you, Mr. Stan Mogul.”

  The actor playing Mogul displayed a smug smile, saying nothing.

  “Only you would have upset someone by playing hanky-panky with Veronica Rivers.” Lackman shot the audience a knowing smile. “Because you have a young wife who would be v-e-r-y upset finding you in a compromising position with your former lover.”

  Stan Mogul jumped to his feet. “Are you suggesting that—?”

  “I am not suggesting anything, Mr. Mogul,” Lackman said. “I am saying without hesitation or reservation that Veronica Rivers was killed because of her sexual relationship with you.”

  Mogul started to say something else, but Lackman interrupted. “Not only that, sir, you were happy to see her dead because of the threat she held over you head.”

  Mogul, who’d sat again, guffawed. “What threat?”

  “The threat of revealing that you and Veronica Rivers had a son together, a son neither of you have acknowledged. Veronica threatened to reveal that the young man was the result of a union between the two of you many years ago.”

  “Let’s say everything you say is true,” Mogul said. “But that doesn’t prove I killed her.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Lackman said. “But you know who did.”

  A silence fell over the large crowd.

  Lackman surveyed them with raised eyebrows. No doubt about it, he was a wonderful actor, completely in control of his role and his audience.

  “Excuse me,” Suzie Starlet said, standing. “I have somewhere else I must be.”

  Lackman spun around. “Getting hot in here, Ms. Starlet?”

  I looked to the table where Lila Sims, Tony Silvestrie, and Peter Kunz had been sitting. Ms. Sims abruptly stood. Mary Ward, who sat at an adjacent table, also stood.

  I watched Sims snake her way through the tables and head for the hallway. To my amazement, Mary Ward followed.

  “Mary,” I said in a voice loud enough for her to hear.

  “What?” Lackman said, looking at me.

  Mary started to pass the table where Lila Sims had been sitting, but Tony Silvestrie stood and blocked her way.

  Mary looked up at him and said, “You are a very rude young man.”

  Lackman realized what was happening and barked into the microphone, “Ms. Sims. Please don’t leave.”

  The crowded room had made it difficult for her to reach the hallway. She stopped at the sound of her name, turned, and looked at Lackman.

  “Please, sit down, Ms. Sims,” Lackman said, forcing charm into his voice. “The play isn’t over yet.”

  Mary Ward had almost reached Sims. There was a hush in the audience. Mary said, “Why not stay, dear? Mrs. Fletcher has worked hard on the play. It’s impolite to leave before it’s over.”

  I suppressed a smile. Lila Sims didn’t seem to know what to do. She looked to where Silvestrie and Kunz stood at their table. They, too, appeared confused. Every eye in the audience was on Sims. Slowly, she threaded through the crowd and returned to her table. So did Mary.

  Lackman said, “Good. Now I can get back to solving this unfortunate, fictitious murder. Where was I? Oh, yes. I was saying that Veronica Rivers was killed because she’d engaged in hanky-panky with Stan Mogul. Mr. Mogul’s young wife, Suzie Starlet, discovered them together. Must have been a shock, a real kick to her ego.”

  “She did it!” an audience member shouted. “Suzie Starlet.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Lackman said, returning to the script.

  “How do you know?” another person in the crowd asked.

  “Two reasons,” Lackman said. “I admit it taxed my superior deductive powers. But as usual, I overcame all obstacles. Suzie Starlet couldn’t have done it because she doesn’t have the strength. Veronica Rivers was strangled. And her body was removed to the lifeboat.” He turned to Starlet. “This little wisp of a woman couldn’t have done either.”

  “She had an accomplice,” the audience offered.

  “Exactly!” said Lackman.

  “Who was it, Billy?”

  I looked around for Rip Nestor. He’d been standing next to me throughout the play. He no longer was.

  “The hardest part for me was coming up with Suzie Starlet’s accomplice in murder,” Lackman said, still consulting the script, but ad-libbing his way through it. “I have to admit that even the great Billy Bravo was stymied for a while. But only for a while.”

  He turned to Roy Climber, in real life mountain climber Troy Radcliff. “You, Mr. Climber, gave me my answer.”

  “Me? How could I have done that?”

  “By giving your life.”

  The audience gasped.

  Lackman continued: “You see, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Climber, despite his advanced age, continued to enjoy intimacy with beautiful women. Unfortunately, this penchant for female companionship caused him ...” He spun around and directly faced the actor playing Climber. ”... caused you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  All attention focused on Climber.

  A literal-minded member of the audience yelled, “How come he’s s
itting there if he died?”

  “Aha,” said Lackman, finger pointed in the air. “An excellent question. In the interest of theater, it was necessary to resurrect Mr. Climber for purposes of this performance. The truth is, Mr. Climber did, indeed, give his life—and in doing so, he has given us the answer to that perplexing question of who killed Veronica Rivers, at Ms. Suzie Starlet’s behest.”

  “Who?” a dozen voices asked.

  “Elementary, my dear audience. The answer is captured on videotape. You see, the excellent crew of this magnificent vessel saw fit to install a video surveillance camera at the precise spot where Mr. Climber lost his life.”

  “They did?” The question was asked loudly by Sal Biceps.

  I looked to the table where Tony Silvestrie sat with Sims and Kunz. The physical fitness trainer reacted like a trapped animal. He stood. So did Lila Sims.

  “Shall we, as they say, roll the tape?” Lackman asked. “It’s quite revealing. Mr. Climber had to be eliminated because he knew who’d killed Veronica Rivers.” To Mogul: “Did he threaten to tell the authorities, Mr. Mogul?”

  Silvestrie and Sims pushed people out of their way and headed for an exit. The actor and actress playing them also stood and began arguing. The audience didn’t know who to watch, the departing real-life duo, or the actor and actress on stage.

  Lackman said, “So, my devoted fans, the murder is solved. Stan Mogul was caught in the act of hanky-panky with Veronica Rivers by his nubile wife, the lovely Suzie Starlet. She enlisted the aid of Ms. Rivers’s personal trainer, Sal Biceps, in strangling Rivers and removing her naked body to a lifeboat on the Boat Deck, where she was discovered by a health-conscious passenger walking off a big breakfast.”

  Stan Mogul proclaimed, “That’s right. That’s the way it happened.”

  Lackman confronted him on-stage. “But you knew all about it, Mr. Mogul. In fact, you condoned it, were relieved that your lover was now out of the way.”

  “Why would I feel that way?” Mogul asked.

  “Because Veronica Rivers was blackmailing you into starring her in movies for your cable network. And what did she have to hold over your head?”

  “Yeah! What was it?” the audience asked.

  “That son born to Veronica Rivers and you many years ago. A son that you, Stan Mogul, refused to acknowledge as your own.”

  I looked at James Brady, who sat at a table in the middle of the room, making notes. He glanced at me, smiled, made the okay sign with his fingers, and resumed writing.

  Mary Ward smiled and nodded smugly. She seemed extremely satisfied.

  But the play wasn’t over.

  Lackman picked up where he’d left off, directing his next comments at Joe Manager. “You, Mr. Manager, were also happy to see your boss, Veronica Rivers, dead.”

  The actor replied, “Why should I be?”

  “Because it gave you leverage with Mr. Mogul. You now knew that his wife, Suzie Starlet, and Ms. Rivers’s physical fitness trainer, Sal Biceps, had killed Rivers. And that makes you an accomplice to murder.”

  Everyone waited for Bob Manager to deliver his line from the script.

  Instead, the answer came from Peter Kunz, seated alone at the table formerly occupied by him, Lila Sims, and Tony Silvestrie. “I tried to stop them, damn it, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  “He’s in the play?” a wife asked her husband.

  “Who’s he?” someone else asked.

  Kunz stood. “I’m not taking the rap for anybody.” With that, he almost knocked over audience members, toppled two chairs, and ran from the Grand Lounge to the loud boos of the audience, which still assumed he was part of the show.

  Security Chief Wallace Prall, who’d been standing at the foot of the stage, leaped up to where I stood. “If I read this right, Mrs. Fletcher, the play reflects what really happened to Marla Tralaine.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said. “Thanks to that lady there.” I pointed to Mary Ward.

  “We don’t have any arrest powers,” he said, “unless passenger safety is in jeopardy.”

  “I don’t think that’s a problem, Mr. Prall. No one can go anywhere until we reach Southampton. I would suggest that Mr. Kunz be provided round-the-clock security, and be segregated from others. He’s obviously willing to talk, which will help turn speculation into hard evidence.”

  “I’ll take care of that right away.”

  “I’m glad we didn’t have to show the videotape of Mr. Radcliff being tossed overboard by Mr. Silvestrie.”

  “I am, too.”

  “Any word on Scotland Yard flying in?” I asked.

  “It looked this morning as though the weather would delay that. But we’re out of the storm. Captain Marwick says it’s clear sailing in sunshine right into Southampton.”

  “How symbolic,” I said. “Will you excuse me?”

  “Of course.”

  I joined Mary Ward at the table.

  “That was wonderful, Jessica,” she said. “I truly enjoyed it.”

  “So-did I—in a strange way.”

  “What will you do for the rest of the day?”

  “Start enjoying this ship, and the short time we have left on it. Besides, I have a special friend who’ll be arriving by helicopter any minute.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Captain Marwick hosted a private cocktail party that evening for the Scotland Yard team, led by George Sutherland. The captain’s surprisingly large and handsomely furnished and appointed apartment was the perfect setting for the intimate gathering.

  Besides George and his four-person team, and me, there was Mary Ward, Rip Nestor, James Brady, Jerry Lackman, Pamela Fiori and Michael Cannon of Town and Country, the British journalists, and a few other specially invited guests. The captain, looking splendid in his dress-whites, and his beautiful wife were the perfect host and hostess, roles in which they’d obviously found themselves countless times.

  It lasted an hour. Following it, George and I escaped to a quiet comer of the Chart House Bar.

  “Your arrival couldn’t have been better timed,” I said after our waitress had put down a dark ale for him and a glass of white wine for me.

  “Let’s toast to that,” he said in his deep voice, tinged with the Scottish brogue of his ancestry.

  “I told the security director that there wasn’t a problem because no one could leave the ship. But I feel a lot more comfortable having Sam Teller and his crew in your custody.”

  “I share your feelings. You might have been in jeopardy had they been free to roam the ship. That young fellow, Kunz, is the sort of man I dislike intensely,” George said. “No backbone, no character.”

  “But helpful to have someone like that around in times like this,” I said. “He’s corroborated everything Mrs. Ward and I conjured in the play.”

  “Yes, it is handy having a spineless member of a criminal group to tell all. This actor, Lackman, intrigues me. A former member of the Los Angeles detective squad turned private investigator—and actor.”

  “We had trouble figuring him out, George, until I cornered him and wrung it out of him.”

  George laughed. “I’ve seen you at work before, Jessica. You’re a born interrogator.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t that difficult. Once I knew—once Mary Ward and I knew—he’d been one of the detectives investigating the murder of Marla Tralaine’s husband years ago, it just made sense to assume he wasn’t on the ship only as an actor in the theatrical troupe. But I was surprised he’d been hired by Sam Teller to build a case against Marla Tralaine as having murdered her husband. According to Lackman, Teller wanted that in his pocket as a tool in negotiating with her. His failing was his inability to keep his libido in check. If he hadn’t ...” I laughed. “If he hadn’t engaged in hanky-panky with her, things would have turned out different. What a wonderful term that is. Mary Ward came up with it to, as she put it, ‘present sexual indiscretions in a more genteel manner.’ ”

  “Quite a lady.”


  “Certainly is. I’ve never met anyone quite like her. She picked up on every subtlety, every nuance, and created a scenario that proved to be true.”

  “Back to Lackman,” George said, sipping his ale. “You say he signed on with this Teller fellow to build a case against the actress.”

  “Yes. That’s one murder that will never be solved.”

  “What happened once she was killed?”

  “He decided to retreat from Teller, finish the crossing as an actor, and forget about it. But when he tried to get paid by Teller, and Teller balked, Jerry became angry. Once I told him of what we suspected in Tralaine’s murder, he was more than happy to cooperate. He’s wonderful on stage, George. A real talent.”

  “I’d like to see him in action.”

  “You can. The final act of the play—the original play I wrote—is tomorrow afternoon.”

  “But I have to fly back in the morning.”

  “Can’t you stay until we reach Southampton? It’s only an extra day.”

  “I suppose I could. The other chaps can take Mr. Teller and his crew back themselves.”

  “Will you? Stay?”

  “Yes. I think I shall.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Shame about that mountain climber, Radcliff. I’d seen his show on the telly back home. Amazing specimen for his age.”

  “I thought he’d taken his life because of the terminal illness he had. Not the sort of man to do that, though. According to Peter Kunz, Radcliff had been with Marla when Teller said he wanted to see her. Radcliff tried to leave, but Teller was at her door too fast, so he hid in one of the huge closets in her penthouse. He was there when Teller virtually raped Marla, and when Lila Sims burst in. Must have been quite a scene. Silvestrie and Kunz heard the commotion and followed Lila into the penthouse. Kunz says Silvestrie hated Marla, and attacked her without provocation by Lila Sims. But you say that Silvestrie told you during your initial interrogation that Lila told him to kill her.”

  “That’s right. He said Lila screamed, ‘Get rid of the bitch.’ And he did.”

  “She had considerable power over him.”