Death on the Aegean Queen

by Maria Hudgins

  “Possible, but unlikely.”

  “Or they could be alibiing each other. One of them could be protecting the other.”

  “Possible,” Letsos repeated. “We’ve collected blood samples from the deck and we should be able to get a sample of Gaskill’s DNA from at least one of the personal items we’ve taken from his room. Drinking glass, hairbrush, razor, and such.”

  Demopoulos, still standing in the corner, cleared his throat and held up one finger. “Excuse me, sir. The hair?”

  “Oh, yes. Where is it?”

  Demopoulos drew a plastic bag off the top of the filing cabinet beside him and handed it to Letsos. Inside the transparent bag was a stringy black mass large enough to clog a sink drain.

  Letsos grimaced as he took the bag from Demopoulos and held it up. “This was pulled out of the water this morning by one of the Mykonos police boats. They began at the stern of our ship and continued on a course one hundred eighty degrees from the course we were steering last night. In other words, they were trying, as nearly as possible, to retrace our path. When they got to a spot that was approximately where we would have been at one o’clock this morning, they stopped and looked around for a while. This is all they found.” Letsos looked embarrassed, as if he expected the others to laugh.

  “What is it?” Bondurant asked.

  “It seems to be a part of a wig. Like a man’s hairpiece,” Villas said. “I was on the boat when we found it.”

  “Did Gaskill wear a hairpiece?”

  “Why was it floating? If it’s hair, shouldn’t it have sunk?”

  Letsos squeezed the bag, rose, and passed it across the desk to Bondurant. Bondurant held it up to the overhead light. He mashed it and said, “It’s greasy. It’s got so much hair oil on it, it must’ve been like a duck. Couldn’t sink! Too much oil on its feathers.”

  Marco and Bondurant laughed.

  “Our friend from the Carabinieri, here,” Letsos said, jerking his head in Marco’s general direction, “sat with Kathryn Gaskill at dinner this evening. He tells me she had a rather violent reaction when the name of one of our ship’s dancers was mentioned.” He paused, and then said. “Would you tell them, Captain Quattrocchi?”

  Marco described the dinner table scene and filled them in on the story Dotsy had told him.

  “We’d better talk to this Brittany Benson,” Bondurant said.

  “I intend to,” Letsos said as if he resented the implication he wouldn’t have thought of that himself. “She’s on stage at the moment.”

  “Could a woman have done this?”

  “Sure. A young, physically fit woman? A dancer? Versus an over-the-hill car salesman who’d had at least five drinks?”

  “It would be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it? Rapist and victim meet on a ship halfway around the world from the crime?”

  “The charge may have been false,” Marco said.

  “In which case, the young woman would have no reason for revenge. It would be Mr. Gaskill who would harbor a grudge.” Bondurant glanced around at the other four, a deep furrow between his eyes. “Could either of them have known the other was on the ship?”

  “You mean before the cruise started? Not likely. But they could have bumped into each other at any time after that,” Letsos said, taking the plastic bag containing the hairpiece back from Bondurant. He held it up and, by way of dismissal, said, “We’ll see if Mrs. Gaskill can identify this tomorrow morning. She’s probably asleep by now. And we’ll try to catch Miss Benson when she leaves the stage.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A note from Marco lay on the floor inside my door. I’d forgotten he said he would wait for me in the Zeus Deck bar. I was so absorbed in the book Dr. Girard had given me, I’d found a seat between the outside doors and the stairway and sat there looking through it for some unknown period of time, unaware I hadn’t actually gone to my room. When I finally did make it back to my room, it was well after eleven, and I was dead tired. Of course I was tired! I’d been up since three a.m., with less than two hours’ sleep.

  I recognized Marco’s squared-off style of printing. I opened the note and read: “Dear Dotsy, Where are you? I am tired of drinking by myself. I am going back to the bar for a few more minutes, but I am going to leave at midnight. Marco”

  I looked up the number for the Zeus Deck bar on the telephone info card, dialed it, and left a message for Marco saying I was crashing and I’d see him in the morning.

  * * * * *

  I slept the sleep of the righteous until seven the next morning, dressed, and scanned the day’s activities in the “Oracle,” the flyer the cabin steward shoved under my door each night. We were to visit the island of Patmos today. Patmos is the traditional site where St. John the Evangelist wrote the book of Revelation. Apparently, our ship would have to anchor outside the harbor and we would need to take a small launch to shore. It was too early to wake anyone else up, so I breakfasted alone and rode the elevator up to the Zeus Deck, the top level and one I hadn’t seen yet. Except for the bar/lounge on the bow, now closed, the Zeus Deck was dominated by a large gymnasium covered with bubble-shaped skylights. The ship’s smokestack rose above the forward end of the gym. I felt a twinge of guilt when I looked at the doors to the bar. That was where I’d have met Marco last night.

  Aft of the gym, I found a small sun deck with chairs and tables scattered around. Two people sat at one table drinking coffee. With a small shock, I saw one of those people was Kathryn Gaskill and the other was the man I’d noticed in the debarkation line yesterday and pegged as “trying too hard to look casual.” I paused, turned to the rail and gazed across the water. It was blinding in the morning sun. Don’t be silly, Dotsy. Go over and talk to them, I told myself. I walked over.

  “Dotsy, this is Nigel Endicott. He’s from Vermont.”

  Nigel Endicott rose and shook my hand. A man of indeterminate age, his skin said “fifty-something,” but his hair, the gold ring in one ear, and the tattoo on one arm said “thirty-something.” He wore black-rimmed glasses and his hair, scrunched up with gel into the tousled style the young men all wore, had a sprinkling of gray mixed in with the dark.

  “Are you traveling alone, Nigel?”

  “Yes. I was just telling . . .”

  “Kathryn,” Kathryn prompted.

  “Kathryn, that since my retirement I’ve been renovating the farmhouse I bought a couple of years ago and I needed a break. I plan to spend my retirement there, ‘far from the madding crowd,’ as they say.

  “Oh, but surely you’re too young to retire.”

  “Not really retire. I’m just retiring from the rat race. I want to do organic farming and sell the results of my labor. My farmhouse is on ten acres of land.” Nigel had a trace of an English accent.

  I felt as though I shouldn’t bring up anything to do with George because I had no way of knowing whether Kathryn had told Nigel Endicott about it. It seemed logical that, unless she was deliberately avoiding the subject, she would have mentioned it the very first thing. “My husband was murdered on this ship yesterday.” Hardly the sort of thing that would slip your mind, but it occurred to me Kathryn might be in need of a break because the tension for her must be unbearable. I could see myself, in her place, heading for a deserted deck with my morning coffee. If someone did join me and want to talk, I’d stick strictly to small talk. Quite natural, I thought.

  I left them and took the stairs down three levels to the stern of the Poseidon Deck. This was where Lettie and Ollie had been heading last night for music and dancing in the area around the pool. The deck was abandoned now, so I grabbed a chair and, looking up, saw Kathryn and Nigel still sitting where I had left them. The pool area was open to the sky because the top three decks only went back part way. I moved to a chair that was closer to the bulkhead until I could see none of the upper deck, so Kathryn and Nigel wouldn’t think I was watching them.

  I hoped Ollie and Lettie had had a fun evening. Poor Ollie. This was the first vacation he’d had in
ages, the first time he’d ever been out of the States, and here he was, a murder suspect. I didn’t need to waste a single minute wondering if he was guilty. The very idea was ludicrous.

  I wanted to know more about Leclercq and Stone, the other suspects. Why were they so anxious to get their hands on that krater of Brittany Benson’s? Why had they been so hospitable in offering their suite for a poker game with two total strangers? Ollie said they had been generous with the drinks and they had the poker table all set up when they got there.

  Antiquities. That’s what Leclercq was shopping for, wasn’t it? Funny how this was becoming a recurring theme. Leclercq, looking for ancient Greek relics to furnish a client’s new home. Stone, an antiques expert. Luc Girard, world-renowned archaeologist and authority on antiquities. Sophie Antonakos, poor girl from central Greece who, nevertheless, can pick up an antique diadem and immediately spout a scholarly discourse on it. Brittany Benson, showgirl from America, who runs around Mykonos hugging a prize antique krater.

  And the Aegean Queen, cruise ship with a theme. It flaunted genuine antiquities in showcases all over the ship.

  Okay, but was any of that connected to the murders of George Gaskill and Nikos Papadakos, our late photographer? Were the two murders connected to each other? I thought about it for a while and decided I needed to talk to my son, Charlie.

  * * * * *

  Charlie, my next-to-eldest, was principal of a high school in northern Virginia, a most trustworthy boy and an absolute straight arrow. I knew I’d have to word my request carefully because Charlie wouldn’t violate the law or even bend the rules, and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what I wanted him to do was ethical. Or legal.

  I couldn’t call him now because back home it was three a.m. but I recalled passing a sort of computer room on my way out. An Internet café. It had been closed when I walked past, but now my watch said 9:05 so I decided to check again and, lucky me, it was just opening. A woman behind a desk surrounded by computer stations explained the rates to me but they all sounded expensive. You paid by the minute to access the Internet from one of their computers, and she warned me that pages took some time to download. Assuming I’d have to mess around a good bit before I managed to even get into my own email, I could see this costing a bundle.

  Then she made me a more reasonable offer. For a few dollars (added to my bill) I could send one email to one address. If I got a reply, it would cost me a few dollars more. I sat down with pencil and paper to compose my message to Charlie.

  Meanwhile a large woman with an American accent barged in and asked about using a computer. She looked like the woman who’d been batting her eyelashes at Marco last evening in the lounge. The attendant explained things to her, reciting the same spiel she’d given me.

  “Why is it so slow?” the American woman groused. “Don’t you have cable?”

  “Oh yes, madam,” the attendant answered with a straight face. “But it’s a very long cable. Goes all the way back to Athens. It’s elastic.”

  The woman stomped out, and I sent my message to Charlie’s email box at work:

  Hi Charlie,

  We’re having a great time, but I have something I want you to do for me. Find out all you can about a man named George Gaskill. He was principal of a school in Pennsylvania about ten years ago. I know it’s not much to go on, but you could maybe pretend you’re thinking about hiring him. If you find the right George Gaskill, they’ll tell you not to hire him because he’s a registered sex offender, but go on anyway and find out all you can.

  Also, find out about a former student, Brittany Benson, who attended the school at which Gaskill was principal and who was complainant in a court case charging him with sexual abuse. I’m not making this up! I know students’ records are sealed and employees’ records are confidential, but I’ll bet you can find a way. You could check court records, news coverage, and stuff like that.

  Also, Brittany Benson was a cheerleader and George Gaskill now lives in Elkhart, Indiana, and he works at a used-car place. This is important, Charlie, otherwise I wouldn’t ask.

  Love, Mom

  * * * * *

  I left the Internet café and took the stairs down to the Osgoods’ room. Lettie was there but Ollie, she told me, had been called to the security office by Special Agent Bondurant.

  “Marco called a while ago,” Lettie added, “looking for you. He said to tell you to come to his room.”

  I noticed Lettie had pulled out one of the dresser drawers and one of the sofa cushions. Both were on the bed now, the squarish cushion crammed inside the drawer. As she was talking, she yanked two huge mesh bags full of sponges out of the closet, an avalanche of shoes following in their wake.

  “I’m afraid to ask,” I said.

  “I’ve figured out how to get these silly things back home without going over on the number of bags they allow you to take on the plane. Watch.” Lettie held up a couple of large space-saver bags. “I brought these in case we needed more room in our luggage, and guess what? We do.”

  She stuffed one bag with sponges and ran her fingers across the open end. “These have a special seal so you can squeeze air out but it can’t go back in. Sponges are mostly air, so . . .” She put the full bag on the bed, put the drawer with the cushion inside on top of it, and sat on the cushion. Sat hard and bounced a few times. Air hissed out from under the drawer. When she stood up and lifted the drawer, I saw the vacuum bag was flatter, but not by much.

  “They’re too stiff, Lettie. A sponge has to be wet to be squishable.”

  “But I can’t take wet sponges on the plane. Oh, hell.” She stood, staring at the problem with her left fist poised thoughtfully under her chin, then snapped her fingers and took one sponge into the bathroom.

  I heard water running.

  “Ta da! Look.” Lettie returned, holding out two fists. “Pick a hand.”

  They looked the same. I felt ridiculous but I pointed to a random hand.

  She opened both of them anyway, and a sponge ballooned out of her right hand. The left one, of course, was empty. “They don’t have to be really wet. Just damp. See?” She snapped the sponge downward so if there had been any extra water in it a spray would’ve streaked across the carpet. “I wet it and wrung it out in a towel. When they’re damp, you can squeeze them down to nothing.”

  “So what are you going to do? Wet all of them?”

  “Yep. And wrap them all in big towels and get as much water out as possible, then I can squash them really flat!”

  “I’d better go see Marco,” I said.

  * * * * *

  Marco opened the door and, without a word, turned and walked back into his bathroom. I closed the door and stood awkwardly in the middle of his bedroom, enjoying the man-smell of aftershave and soap. Except for the brush and towel on his bed, his room was neat. I’d wondered if Marco was a neat freak or a slob, and here was my answer. Neat. On his desk lay a small, clear tube with cotton stuffed into the open end. Without touching it, I bent over and looked closely. The cotton swab I’d given him yesterday lay inside the tube, the cotton on one end stained a dark red-brown.

  “Is this a sample of the blood from that pool on the deck?” I called out, loudly enough that he could hear me over the noise of water running in the sink.

  “Yes. Do not touch it.”

  “Why did you put cotton in one end?”

  No answer. I was getting the silent treatment. I looked at the tube again and recognized it as a complimentary shampoo vial. I had two in my room, one with shampoo, one with conditioner. Police, I knew, had special containers for storing collected samples but obviously Marco hadn’t brought any with him so he’d improvised.

  He emerged from the bathroom swiping his face with a hand towel and shot me a cold look. “I put the cotton in to keep dust out. I did not want to put the cap back on because the tube is not sterile and sealing it with moisture inside would make the bacteria grow.”

  “Marco, I’m sorry I didn’t go to the bar
last night. Did you get my message?”

  “Yes. It is okay.” But his voice was still cold. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

  I said I had, but I’d sit with him and have a second cup of coffee while he ate. I stopped off at my room on our way to the stairs and picked up the LAMBDA book Dr. Girard had let me borrow. At the showcase on the stairway landing, we paused to look at the Cycladic fertility figure and I flipped through the book. “They’re all so similar, these little marble women,” I said. “But I don’t see anything in the book that looks exactly like this one.”

  “That is good.”

  While Marco waited for his breakfast to be brought to the table, he studied the LAMBDA book. Whether because he was interested in the stolen Greek antiquities or because he didn’t want to talk to me, I couldn’t say. His croissant and fruit arrived and he finally looked at me and smiled. My heart did a little bounce.