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

by A. R. Winters

  Miffy beamed at me. “Can you tell? I just had it done!”

  I looked closely at her, and she did seem to have even fewer wrinkles than she had before. Not that she’d been plagued with them to start with.

  “You all look fantastic. Can I get a group picture? It might be interesting to put it side-by-side with the one of you all when you arrived!”

  “Hide the wine bottles!” Bitsy said to her friends.

  The four women all looked around guiltily and placed the bottles and their half-full wine glasses onto the floor at their feet. The only remaining sign of refreshments on the table was a large, sober pitcher of water.

  “Worried your mothers will see?” I asked with a grin.

  “Worse than that—the ladies at our church!” Chastity said loudly.

  After I’d taken a couple of photos of the ladies looking happy, but not too jolly, I asked to speak to Miffy alone. The two of us left the table while the remaining women retrieved their prohibited drinks from the floor. Miffy and I headed toward the coffee and tea station.

  “What is it, dear?” Miffy asked.

  “Was what you told me about Bruno and his blackmail threat actually the whole truth?”

  Miffy let out a long, guilty sigh.

  “I’m busted, aren’t I?”

  Busted? For what? Was she confessing to—

  “What I told you before was the truth, but not all of it. I was scared of word getting out. While Bruno did threaten me with telling the historical society, and I did laugh it off, he also threatened to tell my church group. And that one I couldn’t laugh off.”

  “So you…”

  She gave me a quizzical look.

  “So I what?”

  “Well, he threatened you, and then he died…”

  “Oh!” Miffy laughed and grabbed at my elbow as if for support. “Goodness no, no, I didn’t kill him. How could I? He was much bigger than me! No, what happened was that I agreed to pay him a sum of money. But…” she shrugged and threw her palms up.

  “But he died? And you didn’t.”

  “Yes! And the brute deserved it, didn’t he? Bruno the brute, that’s what he was. Speaking of men, have you seen Tuff and Canyon? They completely disappeared after our little trip ashore yesterday.”

  “Yes, I have seen them. And they are not in my good books.”

  “Oh?”

  I explained to Miffy what they had done. After her confession that she had been planning to pay Bruno a significant sum of money, I wasn’t entirely sure she was as innocent as she claimed. Would she let something slip? Would her face give her away?

  “Oh, dear, I am sorry. So, so sorry.” She sounded genuinely remorseful, her voice losing its chirpiness and cheer, and falling to a deeper, more nature pitch. “I never would have guessed they would do something like that. I knew they weren’t exactly entirely honest—they were going to try and ‘take advantage’ of me, of course. But sometimes that isn’t so bad, when you’re my age. But what they did to you is shocking! Absolutely shocking. I won’t have anything more to do with them. I can promise you that.”

  She was pretty convincing.

  “They’re locked up now anyway,” I said with a shrug. “They won’t be spending time with anyone else this cruise.”

  Miffy nodded. “Shame, though. They were pretty.”

  And I couldn’t help but agree with that opinion.

  Despite Miffy now having what seemed, on the surface, to be a good motive for killing Bruno, I didn’t think she did it. It just didn’t feel right.

  We headed back to her table, where a newcomer had joined the other ladies. It was Brenda, Bruno’s old co-worker.

  “There she is!” Bitsy said as we returned.

  “The Phytox thief!” Chastity shouted, then her hand whipped up and flew across her mouth. She lowered it again. “I don’t mean thief thief. I mean she got the last booking!” she explained.

  “Hello,” Brenda said to Miffy with a smile. “You look great, did you manage to get Phytox before it ran out?”

  Miffy nodded at the younger woman. “I did. One of the lucky few. And thank you for the kind words, dear.”

  “No problem. I just wanted to talk to someone about it. I was thinking of making a booking for when we got back to New Orleans. So, you recommend it?”

  “Absolutely. If they’d had it when I was your age, I’d still look your age!”

  Brenda laughed. “That’s what I’m hoping for. To stop time, if not roll it back a few years!”

  “You look great,” I told her. “You barely look a day over thirty.”

  “I am thirty,” she said to me with a forced smile.

  Luckily the other women around the table laughed so I only felt very embarrassed instead of mortally so. The late nights and hard living of being a bartender hadn’t been that kind to Brenda.

  “And you’ll stay thirty forever with Phytox!” Miffy said happily. “I sound like an ad for it don’t I? Well, I don’t care. Phytox is wonderful!”

  Miffy’s friends all laughed at her enthusiasm.

  “Do you think it’s risky though?” Brenda asked, still not convinced.

  “Risky? No, surely not. Nurse Jessica’s very good. Why do you think it’s risky?”

  Brenda laughed nervously.

  “I’m probably being silly. I made the mistake of looking it up online—it’s my own fault!”

  The women made clucking sounds of disapproval. They all knew the dangers of looking up anything medical-related online. I watched on, to see what Brenda had found out.

  “And I read a story, about a woman in Florida—”

  “—Florida?” Bitsy said with amused contempt. “I wouldn’t believe anything that happened in Florida. It’s full of crazy old coots spinning yarns.”

  “Like us,” Chastity said.

  They all giggled again.

  “What did you read, dear?” Miffy asked.

  “Oh, just about how one poor woman actually died from Phytox. But it was a few years ago now.”

  “Died from it? I didn’t even think that was possible.”

  I was pretty sure it was possible. After all, Phytox, Botox, and the rest of them were dressed-up versions of deadly botulism. I suppressed a shudder. This talk of another Phytox death—apart from the one on our very own ship—made me never want to try it. Good luck to those people who did want it; I wasn’t one of them.

  “I guess it isn’t if the practitioner knows what they’re doing. I’m probably silly to be nervous. The story as about a nurse who injected the customer with too much Phytox.”

  Miffy took Brenda by the hand. “It’s always good to be careful, especially when it comes to your health. But do your research properly. If it’s only one person out of thousands or tens of thousands or millions, then the odds are very slim. I’m sure it was just an allergic reaction or something unpredictable like that.”

  “I guess you’re right. Thanks for talking to me—and it does look good on you. Maybe I will make that booking.”

  “You’re welcome, dear. You can come to us for advice anytime. Can’t she, girls?”

  “To us for advice?” Esmerelda said with amusement. “We’ll get her in all sorts of trouble!”

  Brenda offered her thanks again and said her goodbyes while the women all continued to laugh.

  After getting what I’d come for, I made my own excuses and left after Brenda. The new revelations about Miffy and Bruno’s attempt to blackmail her had given me a lot to think about.

  But was it really possible that Miffy could have done it?

  Just like most of my other suspects, she just seemed too nice.

  I was going to keep digging until I had irrefutable proof of someone killing Bruno. No matter how nice they seemed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Yo!” a familiar voice called from a sun lounger.

  The girl lying on it lowered her sunglasses and sat up. Cece had been using her work uniform as a makeshift pillow while she’d stripped to
the bathing suit she wore underneath. I’d been walking past the Lagoon Pool area and was glad to have run into my friend. I needed someone to bounce ideas off of.

  The sun was almost down, but she’d been catching the last of the rays before the day was over. It would get dark quick; it always did when you were near the equator.

  “Siesta time?” I asked with a grin.

  “Yep. And don’t give me that look. I got my whole section done already.”

  “What look? That wasn’t a look.”

  “Just messing. What’s up? Find your murderer yet? Was I right? Was it Tessa?”

  “She had an alibi. She was watching the magic show when it happened. So no, no murderer yet. But keep your voice down!”

  Cece sat up straight and then reached behind her to adjust sun lounger to support her back. She pulled her tanned brown legs up onto the lounger and crossed them in front of her.

  “You’re sure of that? Her alibi?”

  I shrugged. “Not confirmed yet, but I’d be surprised if it was a lie.”

  “Hmph. What else is new?”

  “I just saw Miffy and her friends again. She got one of the last Phytox shots.”

  I must have been making a face because Cece tilted her head at me and gave me a questioning look.

  “You don’t approve?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not anymore. I heard from Brenda that it’s actually dangerous.”

  Cece snorted. “Yeah, right. It’s safe. Everyone knows that.”

  “Nope. There was a death, in Florida. Someone died from it. It’s put me off. And you shouldn’t consider it either.”

  “No way. It’s safe. I think you misunderstood,” Cece insisted.

  “I did not misunderstand. It’s very simple. It’s dangerous. I mean, it’s botulism—which is a deadly poison—of course it’s dangerous. It’s only logical.”

  “I don’t believe you. They wouldn’t allow it if it wasn’t safe. I’m sure Brenda was just confused.”

  I glared at her. I hadn’t been looking for an argument.

  “Whatever. Search if you like. I’m sure she wasn’t making it up. Why would she?”

  “Maybe one of the other old women had an appointment, and she wanted her to cancel so she could get it.”

  “Nope. It’s all gone now, there’s nothing left. No more appointments for anyone.”

  Cece pulled out her phone and began tapping away at the screen.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want to know why you and Brenda are wrong. I bet she had the story confused.”

  I sat down beside her on the sun lounger and held my hand up over the screen to block out some of the sunlight. We’d see who was right.

  Irritated, I realized I was now putting my faith in Brenda, a former bartender. Was it possible she misunderstood what she’d read? Or maybe she had confused it with another beauty treatment?

  “Huh,” Cece said dejectedly. “Would you look at that…”

  On the screen was a headline from a Miami newspaper. “Face Deadening Injection Kills Beauty Wannabe.”

  “Ha! See? I told you it was dangerous!”

  “Hold on. Lemme read it.”

  Amused and pleased, I closed my eyes and leaned back on my elbows while Cece read about how wrong she was.

  “Listen to this!”

  She didn’t sound depressed about being wrong.

  “What?” It sounded like she found something. But surely the article wouldn’t contradict the headline. Would it?

  “‘The normally safe injectable became deadly in the hands of an out of control nurse. The practitioner, Nurse Jasmine Willow, was reportedly under the influence of a narcotic substance at the time of the incident. Instead of injecting the customer with a single vial, in a trance-like state she injected the unfortunate victim with over a dozen shots…’ See! It’s safe. It was just a crazy nurse.”

  My skin was tingling, and it wasn’t from the sun.

  “Cece, do you remember when Nurse Jessica was introducing herself on the stage?

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Do you remember Bruno’s question?”

  Cece looked up as she recalled the memory.

  “Oh! Bruno must have read about that crazy nurse too. That’s why he asked the weird question about overdosing on it.”

  “Maybe… can you find anything else out about the nurse?”

  “The article says she’s dead. She fled in the night the morning before the police were coming to arrest her, and she crashed her car into a tree. There was a fire that incinerated her.”

  “Oh, how awful.”

  Cece gasped. “Or not.”

  I leaned over to see what she’d found now.

  “Look! This is a picture of the nurse! Look at her.”

  Staring down at the screen, my mouth dropped open. There was a familiar woman staring back at us. The woman who had killed her customer with a Phytox overdose, Jasmine Willow, was none other than Nurse Jessica.

  “What in the…”

  “Did she fake her own death?” Cece asked. “She must have! And she killed Bruno because he found out! Bruno knew who she was and was trying to blackmail her, but she was a killer.”

  Cece and I both stood. We had to go. But where? My friend began tugging her uniform back on in a hurry.

  “We’ve got to tell Ethan!” I decided it was best to go to him first.

  I sent him a quick message.

  Where are you?

  His response came almost immediately:

  Office

  Be right there!

  “Come on!” I grabbed Cece’s arm and began to yank her away just as she got her last shoe back on.

  Cece’s earlier research into Tessa may have been a bust, but not this time.

  She had uncovered that Nurse Jessica had a killer reason for wanting Bruno gone.

  Everything was falling into place.

  Now all we had to do was arrest her.

  Simple.

  At least, it should have been.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Cece and I hurried through the ship to Ethan’s office, while I tried to figure out everything that had happened along the way.

  “She faked stealing the Phytox!” I said to Cece as we rushed through the Grand Atrium. Cece just nodded, not wanting to waste her breath on a response.

  “And she tried to trick us all by claiming she’d run out of it! It was a good… cover… story!”

  Sensibly for Cece, she again saved her breath for running instead of talking.

  “…and… she… sent… letter… to models…”

  I had to stop for a moment, leaning with my hands on my thighs to catch my breath. When she realized I’d stopped following Cece turned around with a displeased expression on her face.

  “Stop talking and we’ll get there faster! We’ve figured it out—now hurry up!”

  We took off again, running up a staff-only staircase, out onto the hallway where Ethan’s office was, and then sprinting up to the door.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” the orderly stationed outside the door said. He was looking at me and shaking his head.

  “He knows I’m coming,” I said testily as I went to open it.

  “But he just left. The captain came and dragged him away for some emergency.” From the way he said it, the orderly was clearly not convinced that the so-called emergency was as serious as the captain made it sound.

  My hand fell off the door handle.

  “What now?” Cece’s face had an excited, rosy flush and her eyes twinkled with a spirit of adventure that I didn’t share. I’d been in enough situations like this to know that worry was a much more appropriate reaction.

  “We’re just going to have to catch her ourselves, before it’s too late,” I said. “Come on!”

  Leaving the bewildered orderly in our wake, we rushed back down the hallway the way we’d come. Before we got to the staircase, Cece grabbed me by the elbow, pulling me to a stop.

 
; “Yeah, but, where are we going?”

  Good question. I’d been busy retracing our steps without thinking about where we were actually going. Where would she be?

  “She said she was done for the day—and the cruise—so we’ll try her cabin first!”

  “Let’s go!”

  We began our madcap dash back through the ship, and as we were passing through the Grand Atrium again, someone fell in beside us.

  “Exercise time?” It was Sam, and of course she was kidding.

  “Catching… a … murderer!” Cece said.

  I just nodded confirmation.

  There were a whole bunch of people waiting outside the International Buffet, blocking our way.

  “We’ll go around! Outside!”

  We ran outside. The sun had just dropped below the horizon and the sunbathers had headed inside. Only those who wanted to watch the last remnants of the sunset were still out.

  We passed by the pool deck along the way. Shaun Anderson was just finishing tidying up the sun loungers for the day, and he now had them all neatly stacked in piles.

  “Hey, guys!” He shouted with excitement as we passed him running at full tilt.

  We didn’t stop.

  “Are you okay!? Do you need help?” he called after us. None of us answered him. We didn’t have time to explain to a slow pool boy what was up.

  We darted back inside, down a couple of flights of stairs, and entered the passenger cabin section where Nurse Jessica’s room was situated. I still remembered where it was from when Kelly had called me there, as well as reviewing the tapes with Ethan.

  Something about the security recordings was bugging me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

  We screeched to a halt outside Nurse Jessica’s cabin.

  “What’s… going… on?” Sam asked between panting breaths. She’d followed us the whole way but she still didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing, other than it had something to do with a murderer.

  Heavy footsteps sounded down the hallway, and then Shaun appeared. He grinned at us widely as he arrived. Turns out he wasn’t so slow after all. At least not on his feet.

  “What’s up?”

  I was tempted to send him packing. But since we were about to be dealing with a murderer, I realized it would be best to have as much help as we could get. An extra body—a big, strong one at that—could be useful since we hadn’t found Ethan.