Murder Times Two

by Diana X Dunn

  “Hey.” Genifer made even that single word sound like a proposition.

  “Hey.” The man looked around uncomfortably.

  “Do you like the boat?” Genifer cooed.

  “It’s nice, I guess.”

  “You know my daddy owns it?”

  The man looked down and muttered a reply that was lost on Suzy.

  “Maybe I could give you a tour?” Genifer suggested, licking her lips.

  The policeman turned bright red and looked desperately at the next nearest officer for help. The older man grinned and studiously avoided meeting the desperate youngster’s eye.

  “My cabin is enormous.” Genifer was undeterred by the man’s obvious discomfort. “Maybe you could walk me back there after my chat with the boss and I could show you all of its amenities.”

  The man stammered and blushed and looked desperately around the room for help.

  “Oh, give it a rest, Genifer,” Randy called from his seat. “You’re obviously terrifying the young man. Clearly you aren’t his type.”

  Genifer turned toward Randy, her face showing amusement. “Does that mean you think you might be?” she smirked.

  Randy waved a hand. “I doubt it,” he told her, “but I wouldn’t come on to him like a sledgehammer, even if I thought I might be.”

  Now Genifer frowned. “I was just playing,” she pouted. “You know you shouldn’t be so mean to me.”

  Randy sighed. “Now you’ll complain to Max and Max will make me apologize and on and on. Let’s just say I’m very sorry if I was mean in any way and let it go, shall we?”

  Genifer tossed her head and sighed dramatically. “I’ll try to let it go,” she said in an overly injured voice. “This is all just so hard on me.”

  Suzy bit back a snort of disgust at the spoiled woman’s attitude, forcing herself to keep her mouth shut. Randy looked as if he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself from commenting, but he was saved as a buzzing noise from the door signaled that Luke was ready for the next witness. Genifer was called and she swept out of the room with yet another dramatic head toss. After she left, the room fell silent again.

  An hour and a half later Marta, Randy, Henry and Peter had all had their turns with Luke, and Captain Grayson had just been sent in for his interview. Only Suzy remained waiting, with three policemen to watch over her. She was passing the time by recalling every identity she had ever used, starting with the training ones she had adopted as a young child and working through until she got to Diana Jackson, her current identity at home in New York. She mentally tallied them in her head and discovered that she had been well over a hundred people in twenty-nine years.

  Eventually the buzzer sounded and it was Suzy’s turn. The office he was using wasn’t a large room, and a wooden desk that took up at least half of the space dominated it. Luke was sitting in a chair behind the desk and he motioned for Suzy to take one of the two chairs across from it. She sat down and carefully composed herself. It was likely that she had been left for last because her statement had some of those discrepancies that Luke had been talking about, but she wasn’t about to let him detect any nerves from her.

  Luke studied her silently for a minute before rubbing a hand over his face and the blowing out his breath. “I’m exhausted,” he told Suzy.

  Suzy raised an eyebrow. The comment had been unexpected.

  “Look,” he said, resting his chin in his hands and staring into her eyes, “we aren’t on the record yet, so I’m going to make a suggestion here. Just be completely honest with me, and we can get this done quickly. Then we can both get a good night’s sleep, okay?”

  Suzy frowned at him. “I don’t have any intention of lying to you,” she told him.

  “You left things out of your earlier statement,” he challenged. “You claimed to be drunk when you were using neutralizers.”

  “I’ve explained that to you,” Suzy reminded him. “I took neutralizers to try to stay in control in spite of the amount of drinking that everyone does on this ship.”

  “But you didn’t mention that you had taken them,” he stated. “You tried to tell me that you were too drunk to notice things, when you weren’t.”

  “I was drinking all day,” she told him. “Yes, I took a few tablets to try to counter that. There were times during the day when I was feeling quite drunk and times when I felt better as the tablets kicked in. I can’t remember exactly when I took the tablets or how much I drank before, during or after. It simply didn’t seem important at the time.” She waved a hand, trying to explain away her behavior.

  Luke frowned. “Never mind,” he snarled as he hit the on button on the official recording device in the center of the table. “Off we go then.”

  He carefully took her back through the previous day yet again, checking and rechecking where she was and what she did and said from breakfast through to the discovery of the body. When she was done he frowned.

  “I suppose I can’t accuse you of lying if you’ve simply left something out,” he told her.

  “What have I left out?”

  Luke scanned back through his electronic copy of her first statement. “You went back to Mr. Hart’s room for a drink and at some point Chrystal came to see him, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Suzy kept her voice calm.

  “And Mr. Hart essentially told her to go away?”

  “I can’t remember the exact words that were exchanged, but my feeling at the time was that Chrystal was shocked to find that I was still there and basically she and Max just said good night to each other and she left.”

  “And you didn’t think it was important to mention that when she arrived you and Max were in a state of undress?”

  Suzy raised an eyebrow. “No,” she replied simply, wondering who had shared that bit of information with Luke.

  “But you can confirm that you were nearly naked when Mr. Hart opened the door to Chrystal?”

  Suzy laughed and shook her head. “I was nowhere near naked,” she told the man. “I had my shoes off and the zipper on my dress was about half-way down. Max’s shirt was partially unbuttoned, and that was all.”

  “Really? You can be so sure that that was exactly as far as the heat of your passion had gotten? Because when I’m with a beautiful woman I don’t tend to notice exactly how undressed either of us are at any one point in the action.”

  His eyes smoldered into hers and for a second she wondered how much effort it would take to get him into bed. Then she forced herself back to the conversation at hand.

  “You might remember rather more clearly if you were interrupted,” she suggested. “Anyway, the undressing part was fake, which is why I remember. Max didn’t feel like seeing her, so we set it up to look like we were just about to fall into bed, so that she would go away. Surely Randy told you that we were both respectably dressed when he arrived a few minutes later?”

  Luke kept his head down, scanning through the various interviews that he had conducted. After a minute that Suzy timed in her head to keep herself from speaking, he looked up.

  “I’m not here to answer your questions,” he told her, “but I will say that what you have just told me contradicts things that other people have told me.”

  Suzy groaned in her head. Either Randy or Max must had said something different. “Look,” she said, “I can well imagine that Max wouldn’t want to admit that we were just play acting. He has a certain image that he wants to uphold, but what would I gain from lying?”

  “If you and Max were lovers, you have a much stronger motive for getting rid of a rival,” Luke suggested.

  “If Max and I were lovers, I would have spent the night with him and not found the damned body until morning.” Suzy was annoyed to hear the frustration in her voice, but it was, no doubt, in keeping with her character’s feelings as well as her own.

  “I don’t like it when witnesses disagree on key points,” he told her, switching off the recorder.

  “And I don’t like the suggestion that
I’m lying,” Suzy answered.

  Luke nodded and stood up. “I think we’d better just leave things there for tonight.”

  Suzy was grateful for the chance to escape the claustrophobic office. She was hugely frustrated as she contemplated a long night stuck in her room. An anonymous officer in yet another crumpled and ill-fitting uniform walked her to her new cabin and watched as she let herself in. She figured that there was a good chance that he would be stationed outside of her door all night.

  In her cabin she paced back and forth, trying to figure out a course of action. If she had her M-ped she would have been able to access the police records to see exactly who had said what. That would have given her a huge advantage in dealing with Luke Nolan and the SunInc Police. Of course, Michael had all of the necessary information at his fingertips, but he was currently out of reach.

  She sighed deeply. There was a good chance she could solve the murder if she could see the statements that everyone had given. Luke was stuck trying to figure out who was lying, while she knew exactly what had happened. She thought briefly about taking Luke into her confidence as to her real identity. Once he’d verified her status, he would be able to share all of the information with her. On consideration, however, the risks were just too great. Once one person knew who she really was, the chances were great that that knowledge would spread. She stopped herself in the middle of another deep sigh. This wasn’t helping anything.

  She got ready for bed and, after a moment’s hesitation, took a sleep aid from the stock that the ship’s doctor had given her to help her deal with the trauma of finding the body. She wanted to be fully rested in the morning. Whatever was coming next, she was sure she was going to need to be at her best.

  Seven

  Suzy breakfasted alone in the kitchen as usual. Henry was sometimes up early as well, but he never came to breakfast. It seemed that he preferred to spend his morning haunting the corridors of the ship, trying to catch Max as soon as he was awake. Peter had quickly learned that, Max didn’t usually didn’t surface before noon. That seemed to suit Peter. He hadn’t made it to breakfast since his first morning on The Mirage. Genifer rarely rose before lunch, and since Marta had shown a willingness to take her lunch to her on a tray, she often didn’t appear before dinner. Randy might sometimes make it to breakfast, when he didn’t spend the night with Max, but when that was the case, he was also grumpy and difficult, so Suzy didn’t miss his company when he wasn’t around.

  Marta and Captain Grayson were both early risers, but they were both working by the time Suzy had her breakfast. After clearing her plans with the officer who was stationed outside her door, Suzy spent a quiet hour pounding away on one of the virtual reality exercisers that were spread throughout the spacious gym on board. She had never seen anyone else use any of the equipment and always found that the machine she favored still set in the exact same place as when she’d left it. She powered up her workout to level nine and worked up a great sweat to try to get rid of a few of the extra pounds that Marta’s cooking had added to her usually perfect body.

  When she returned to her cabin, she found a whole new wardrobe of casual and eveningwear as well as a stack of swimsuits had been delivered. After a shower, she pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and after checking with yet another officer, made her way up to the deck. She hadn’t had a chance to take a look at SunInc the previous evening when they’d arrived, so she stood on the deck now, staring at the paradise that stretched out from the dock.

  At first glance everything looked bright and sunny, a perfect year-round destination for lovers. Suzy studied the rows of houses and hotels, each painted in different bright colors that seemed to sparkle in the sunshine. She could see horse-drawn carriages making their way through the streets as pedestrians dodged the sparse traffic. No personal transports were allowed on the island. Only a handful of corporate bosses and government officials were allowed their own transports. Otherwise, everyone relied on an extensive public transport system. It ranged from a modern subway system that whisked guests and staff between the two small cities that made up the bulk of the island’s settlements to gently rolling sidewalks that transported people between the hotels and resorts and the endless sandy beaches.

  The more Suzy studied the view, however, the more she began to notice cracks in the fancy façade. More than one of the tiny houses that were scattered around the dock area needed of a fresh coat of paint. Large billboards were spread out across hills just outside of the port city and Suzy could see that many hotels were advertising vacancies and special deals, presumably aimed at any passing ship that might be considering a stopover. The more she stared, the tackier the entire place began to appear and she was almost glad that she was confined to The Mirage for the time being.

  A row of public communication stands drew her eye. If she could figure out a way to get to them, she could make a quick call that would sort out the complications in her life. As she stood pondering her options, she watched a private transport making its way down the narrow road to the docks. As it got closer she recognized the markings on the side of the vehicle. She was unsurprised when she saw Luke Nolan climb out of the transport once it had parked.

  Having nothing else to do, she walked down to meet him in the main lounge, where she’d spent so much unproductive time the previous evening.

  “Good morning.” She smiled at him, trying to convey that she had no hard feelings about the way he’d treated her yesterday.

  “Good morning,” he smiled back.

  “I think I’m the only one actually awake at this point,” she told him. “Aside from the staff, I mean.”

  “I’m here to get a better look at the scene of the murder, not to talk to anyone,” he told her.

  Suzy looked at him, considering her words carefully. “Maybe I could help,” she suggested. “It was my cabin, after all. Maybe I could tell you what should or shouldn’t be there for instance.”

  “I think that would break about half a dozen rules in my manual,” Luke told her, his soft chuckle as he spoke leaving Suzy wondering what he was really thinking.

  “Does that mean no?” she asked softly.

  Luke studied her for a moment. “If I let you come have a quick look, you have to promise not to touch anything,” he said finally.

  “I promise,” Suzy agreed easily. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t think I might be able to really help.”

  “I’m hoping you’re right,” he said. “I’m taking a big chance letting you do this, so I’m hoping you might spot some clue that we’ve missed up to this point. It’s hard to identify what might be evidence of the murder when we don’t know what is normally in the room.” Suzy knew he was trying to justify his actions to himself as much as to her, but running through the argument now might come in handy if his boss challenged him about the decision later.

  Suzy giggled. “I feel like Sammy Smith,” she grinned, referring to the fictional teenage girl detective who had been popular when she’d been a child.

  “I never read her or watched her on video,” Luke replied. “I was a huge fan of Steve Smith, though.” Steve was Sammy’s equally fictional older brother, and he’d had a series of his own where he tracked down criminals who were a bit more dangerous and slightly scarier than the ones that Sammy chased, as was appropriate for his older audience.

  Suzy and Luke grinned at each other, the shared love of childhood fiction adding another bond to their slowly developing friendship. Not for the first time in Suzy’s life she felt a pang of regret that her life was so transient. If she was really who she was pretending to be, she would enjoy getting to know this man better.

  Her mind flashed up a picture of another man that she had recently wanted to get to know better. Alex Knight was now presumably back in New York. She couldn’t let herself get off-track thinking about him for the time being, though.

  Luke’s hand settled into the small of her back as they made their way down the corridors of the ship. She let h
im steer her toward her old cabin, forcing herself to remember that she wasn’t investigating, she was just observing. And she was only doing that because Luke was being nice. She had no official status here, at least not yet.

  Outside the door to the cabin, Luke paused. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “I know seeing Chrystal’s body was upsetting. I don’t want you to get unduly upset again.”

  Suzy looked hard into his eyes. “I want to do everything that I can to help solve this murder,” she insisted. “If I can spot something out of place or something missing, maybe it will help. It’s scary thinking that there is a murderer walking around this ship.”

  Luke frowned. “We have officers stationed outside every occupied cabin on board,” he reminded her.

  “And that was reassuring last night,” Suzy admitted, “but I’ll feel even better when the murderer is behind bars.”

  “Won’t we all,” Luke muttered as he tapped in the security override code for the police lock on the door. A few taps on the security panel on the door itself and the door swung open. Luke reached around and tapped the light panel.

  Suzy took a step forward and then slowly backed up a few steps as if overcome by emotion. She reached out to steady herself, grabbing on to Luke’s arm and leaning toward him. He quickly swung her around and pulled her close, supporting her as she took a few shaky breaths.

  “I thought this was a bad idea,” he muttered as he tried to shuffle her out the door.

  “Just give me a second,” Suzy pleaded, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t even like Chrystal but...” she trailed off, looking guiltily at him.

  He didn’t say anything, just stared intently into her eyes.

  She drew another shaky breath. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she whispered quietly.

  “From what I’ve heard,” Luke answered, “she wasn’t a particularly likeable woman.”

  Suzy managed a wobbly grin. “I think that’s a fair assessment.” She pushed away from the man slowly, breathing deeply and visibly steading herself. As she took a half step away from Luke, his arm stayed around her, so that his hand again rested in the small of her back.