Lethal Cruise: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 9)

by A. R. Winters

  “Oh.”

  “Oh.”

  “We saw you leaving the cocktail bar with a passenger named Miffy last night. A… mature lady. Would you like to explain what you were up to?”

  Tuff smacked Canyon on the leg. “I told you we’d get caught!”

  Canyon jerked his head in our direction. “Shh!”

  “Guys? We’re right here,” I said to them. They both looked at me with some annoyance as they realized we heard their conversation.

  “Should we tell them?” Canyon asked.

  “Yes,” Ethan and said I unison, with such firmness the two models jerked in their chairs, sitting back suddenly.

  “We met Miffy at the cocktail party. And one thing led to another and we went for another drink with her later…”

  “…We didn’t mean anything by it,” Canyon said. “She just seemed nice…”

  “…yeah, nice and rich,” finished Tuff.

  “So you were after her money?” I asked them coldly.

  “No-oo—” Canyon looked around as if he were about to get in trouble. Which he was.

  “Yes,” Tuff said with a guilty look.

  “Well? Which is it?” Ethan’s patience was beginning to run thin.

  “We weren’t going to rob her if that’s what you think. We’ve just heard from some other models that sometimes older ladies can be generous.”

  “And fun. She seemed fun, y’know? Maybe we could earn some pocket money. Have some fun. It was all harmless.”

  “We wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I asked them.

  “Oh yes, definitely.” There was a brief pause. “Has something happened to her? We didn’t hurt her—I promise!”

  “Nope, she’s fine. It’s not her. Last night, you were following Miffy to her cabin.”

  “You saw that too?” Tuff asked. “Not just the cocktail bar?”

  “We know almost everything,” Ethan said slowly, right in front of their faces so they wouldn’t be tempted to try and lie further.

  They both gulped.

  “We didn’t do anything! We didn’t even get to her room.”

  “Because…” I said, raising my eyebrows at them.

  “That guy appeared. Bruno. We didn’t want him seeing us going into Miffy’s room. He would get the wrong idea.”

  “Are you sure he wouldn’t get the right idea?”

  “That’s even worse!” Canyon moaned.

  “So after that, you just ran away?”

  “We were so shaken up at nearly being caught that we went to bed early, didn’t we, Tuff?”

  Canyon’s friend nodded.

  “What were you doing this morning, around 6:30?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nope.”

  Ethan stood in front of the two models, staring down at them while they huddled together on the bench.

  “Nothing? Are you sure about that?”

  I wasn’t sure if Ethan was bluffing or if he discovered some new information that he hadn’t yet shared with me.

  Ethan leaned down over the men, giving them a very serious look.

  “You were seen running near the pool deck.”

  “It’s only exercise!”

  “We have to stay trim!”

  “We didn’t know it wasn’t open yet! We didn’t mean to break the rules.”

  It was time to let them know the real reason we were talking to them.

  “We’re not worried about you visiting the pool deck outside of the opening hours.” I turned my gaze back and forth between the two dreamy sets of eyes. “We’re wondering why you were running away from…” They both leaned forward to see what I was going to say next. “A dead body.”

  They both sat upright on the bench, backs hitting the wall behind them, faces turned to each other both in open-mouthed shock. Slowly, they turned back to face me.

  “A dead body?” Canyon asked.

  “We didn’t see anybody!”

  Ethan stared down at the two men, a stern look on his face as if he were a high school principal talking down to two delinquents.

  “The dead body of Bruno, who interrupted your little liaison with Miffy last night, was found at the pool deck this morning, shortly after you were spotted running from the scene.”

  “It was only exercise!”

  “We have to maintain!”

  “We weren’t there because of the body, honest! We were just running circuits!”

  “You don’t know anything about the body?” Ethan asked.

  They both shook their heads.

  “What about Bruno? Is there anything more you can tell us about him? Did he talk to you about anything in particular last night?”

  “Not really. We talked a little bit at the party, but just getting to know you stuff. Where are you from, what’s your waist size, that kind of thing.”

  “Nothing more?” I checked.

  They both shook their heads. While they may have been after some of Miffy’s wealth, I didn’t think they were connected to the death of Bruno.

  “Okay, guys, I think we’ve kept you from your beauty treatments long enough.” Ethan pointed a thumb back in the direction of the room we’d come from.

  “Thank you, sir!” Canyon said.

  “Right away, sir!” Tuff said.

  The two models rushed to their feet and scurried away from us.

  “I don’t think they’re cunning enough to get away with murder,” I said with an amused shake of my head.

  “They did seem a little slow.”

  “How did you know about them running by there this morning?”

  “Oh, that? I’ve been spending a lot of time with the security cameras. Unfortunately, they’re not very good at picking things up in the dark. I was only able to catch the vaguest outline of the murderer dragging the body there. Can’t even tell whether they were a man or a woman. But I fast-forwarded through the video until I could see again, at sunrise. Those two meatheads were the first people on the scene, jogging past early in the morning.”

  “You knew it wasn’t them that did it.”

  “I was pretty sure. It could have been one of them that dragged the body there, I suppose. I just wanted to see how they would react.”

  “You were toying with them!”

  “No, no. I wanted to see how much they would lie to us. To see if we could trust what they told us about Miffy and Bruno. I’m still not sure about everything they said. There’s a chance Bruno might have tried to blackmail one of them.”

  “Yes, maybe,” I conceded. “But I think they would have let something about the blackmailing slip. I don’t think they’re really clever enough to hide that.”

  “You’re probably right. But let’s keep an open mind until we’ve got this solved.”

  “Yep, will do. Do you want to come and watch someone get their face injected with toxins now?”

  Ethan laughed. “Phytox?”

  “Yep. I think it must be nearly the last of Jessie’s supplies. I need to take pictures while I still can, before they’re all gone.”

  “I’ve got to get back to the captain. He had a million and one things for us planned, and he wants to be kept fully informed of our investigation.”

  “Good luck with that. Dinner tonight?”

  Ethan shook his head apologetically. “Can’t. Got an evening shift. You have fun though.”

  Since there was no one around, we snuck in a kiss and a hug before setting off in our separate directions.

  It was time to see Nurse Jessica in her element: sticking people in the face with a needle full of poison. Though I’d try and make it sound just a little more glamorous than that when I wrote about it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nurse Jessie had one of the smaller rooms in the conference center. It had been converted into a temporary beauty studio, with half of it partitioned off to provide privacy during treatments, and the other half set up as a waiting area, complete with comfortable sofas, a television and a
customer liaison officer working as a receptionist and assistant.

  When I arrived, Nurse Jessie was behind the partition working away with her final stocks of Phytox, while on the waiting side was Tessa, the woman I’d met at breakfast the day before. The temporary receptionist seemed to be quite busy having a nap at her desk, so I decided not to interrupt her rest and greet her.

  Excellent, I thought when I saw Tessa. Maybe I could figure out what it was Bruno had said to her that had got her looking so pale.

  “Hello again!”

  Tessa looked up from her smartphone, and when she saw it was me, she gave a friendly smile. Like the day before, she was dressed in tight-fitting exercise clothes and I guessed it was her standard daily attire.

  “Business or pleasure?” she asked me.

  “Business, I’m afraid.” I made a point of looking at her face. “I can’t imagine the Phytox is going to do anything for you. Your skin positively glows already. And not a wrinkle in sight!”

  “I do my best. I hope it doesn’t come across as too arrogant, but after Nurse Jessica’s first presentation, I figured why not get some as a preventative measure, even if I don’t actually need it yet? Stop aging before it starts?”

  “I could take a picture of you right now and they could use it as an ‘after’ shot rather than a ‘before.’”

  Tessa enjoyed that compliment even more than the one before, and she took it with grace.

  “I’m sure you could too. Do you want to take some pictures?”

  “Sure.” I whipped out my phone and got some pictures of Tessa and the studio. By the time I was done, Nurse Jessica had appeared from behind the partition and sent her previous client on her way already.

  “I’m just here for some pictures,” I said to Jessie. “Nothing else to report, I’m afraid.”

  Tessa gave us curious looks but didn’t ask what it was I was referring to. Jessie didn’t push the point either; she understood we were still largely trying to keep what had happened a secret.

  “When you’re done, Tessa, could I speak to you for a bit?”

  Of course she agreed, and a moment later Nurse Jessica had her whisked away behind the partition. I didn’t think there was any particular need to get photos of the needles actually going into the customers’ faces. There were enough of those on the Internet already if people were truly interested in that.

  When she emerged, Tessa’s cheeks were rosy.

  “I didn’t think I’d notice anything, but I do! What do you think?”

  After examining Tessa closely, I had to concur.

  “Your skin was already wonderful, but it looks… tighter? Is that the word? More vibrant too.”

  “Thanks. Should I smile?” She stepped back and put her arms out with fingers pointing toward her face in a series of excited poses while I got the pictures.

  “Fantastic, Tessa. Do you think we could chat outside now?”

  A few minutes later, we were sitting on a pair of chairs affixed to the deck of the ship outside, the gentle wind and the noises of the ship masking our conversation from any but the closest of eavesdroppers.

  “I wanted to ask you a few questions about another passenger. His name’s Bruno.”

  Tessa slowly nodded at me. “The guy from breakfast.”

  “That’s the one. There’s something you should know about him.”

  “He’s a bad guy, isn’t he?”

  “I think he was, yes. He—”

  “Was?”

  “That’s right. He was found dead this morning.”

  “Oh my goodness. I got bad vibes from him—I’m sensitive like that—but I didn’t realize it was because he was going to die!”

  “You couldn’t have known,” I said, somewhat bemused at her disappointment in a failed premonition.

  “What was it that he was talking to you about at breakfast? You didn’t seem too pleased.”

  “I…” She paused. It was the kind of pause someone makes when they’re trying to think up a convincing lie. Or a way to skirt around the truth. Her usually square shoulders slumped down. “He was just creepy.”

  “Someone else said that, too. You’re not wrong. Was it something specific he said, though?”

  Tessa’s mouth stayed shut for just a little too long.

  “Tessa?”

  “He… he said he knew where I worked.”

  “Where do you work? Are you a fitness instructor?”

  I was guessing she was either that or a model, or more likely both.

  “Fitness instructor? Oh no, I do a little personal training, but that’s more of a hobby. I’m a kindergarten teacher.”

  Although initially surprised, it made sense. She had an air of kindness that would put children at ease.

  “He just freaked me out a bit. He said to me, ‘I know you work at Sunny Faces Study and Play,’ and gave me this real creepazoid smile. That’s probably why you thought I looked shocked.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  She shook her head quickly. A little too quickly?

  “No, no. That was enough. When a guy you barely know says something like that, it really sends a shiver down the spine, you know?”

  I could imagine it would. I knew from personal experience how upsetting it was when a stranger knew details about your life that they didn’t have any right to know. At least she knew who the stranger was. I hadn’t yet found the person who had been messing with me, and it wasn’t looking likely that Keith was the guy.

  “Well, you weren’t the only person he upset. That’s why I’m talking to everyone—I’m helping the security team.”

  “Oh… oh, are you… am I a suspect? Please, I had nothing to do with it!”

  Tessa looked genuinely distraught and as tears welled in her eyes. I put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

  “Hey, it’s okay. I’m just talking to everyone who met him.”

  “If this got out… I mean, I’d lose my job, wouldn’t I? No one wants a suspected killer looking after their little ones.”

  “It’s not going to get out that I talked to you. I may be the social media director on this ship, but I can assure you this conversation is strictly off the record.”

  “Thank you.”

  The thanks didn’t stop me from feeling guilty about upsetting her.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about Bruno? I know you only spoke to him for a moment, but anything at all might be helpful.”

  Tessa sniffed and scrunched up her face.

  “Not at breakfast, but I did hear him talking to another woman later on. It was a bit of a strange conversation too.”

  If I’d been a dog, my ears would have pricked up. But since I wasn’t, I just said, “Oh?”

  “There was a woman who I think he knew. I was waiting at the bar by the pool for a sparkling water—”

  “Hemingway’s? By the Lagoon Pool?”

  “That’s the one. He went up to talk to this other woman, and he called her the strangest thing—he called her ‘his old wife.’”

  “Wife? Like he was married to her?”

  Tessa sniffed and gave a little shake of her head.

  “I mean, that’s what the word means, but I got the impression it was something more like a joke? She just laughed at it. I think they knew each other, so maybe you could talk to her?”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “No. But she was wearing a pink bathing suit, and she had a tattoo of a dragon on one of her arms that went right up the arm and around on to her chest. It was pretty cool.”

  A woman with a dragon tattoo on her arm? I met someone just like that during boarding. It was Brenda, who I’d already been planning to talk to.

  “Then what happened?”

  “My water arrived, and I walked away before he could talk to me again. I wouldn’t even have gone up to the bar if I’d realized he was standing there.”

  Tessa shuddered at the thought of talking to him again and then wiped at the corners
of her eyes with two balled up fists.

  “Thanks for that. It could be very useful. I’ll track the woman down and see what she has to say.”

  “Is there anything else? I think I need to go work out.”

  “Work out?”

  “Yeah. When I get upset, I go and work out so hard I can’t remember what it was upsetting me by the time I finish.” She gave me an embarrassed smile, though it didn’t seem to me to be anything to be embarrassed about. It was admirable, in fact. “What do you do?”

  “I guess I do something similar, like going for a walk.”

  Or eating way too much ice cream. But I didn’t want to say that to someone like her.

  “It’s the best way.” Tessa stood up. “Thanks for keeping this a secret. Good luck finding out who did it!”

  After she’d gone, I remained sitting in the seat a little while longer staring out to the sea beyond. The wind was whipping up light, refreshing sprays of water. The salt on my lips began to make me feel hungry.

  And it had given me another idea for my real job, something I worried I’d begun to neglect again.

  Murders had a habit of doing that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was a hidden motive in my next plan, of course. Although I’d talked to Keith already, I wanted to have another crack at him if I could, to really push the question about Arizona again. And I had just the way to do it.

  I arrived at just about the perfect time. The lunch rush had ended, most of the clean-up had been done, and there was a lull in the kitchens before the dinner rush began in earnest.

  The kitchen seemed much emptier than when I’d been there earlier, and I figured a lot of the chefs were on breaks. But I knew Greg wouldn’t be—he usually used his free time to work on new dishes, or improving ways to present existing ones. He lived for food.

  “Addy! Addy, Addy, Addy!” he called when he saw me.

  I was particularly pleased when I saw where he was. He was at the dessert prep section, and he was there with Keith.

  “Hi, guys! Greg, I thought about what you said earlier, and I decided I could do a piece on you right away—but with a different angle than Keith’s.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  “Midnight snacks!”