Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101)

by Jance, Judith A.

  After that, I crawled into bed. Gradually water and wind got the best of me and I drifted into a sense of peace—the first real peace I had felt in months. Lying in bed, I could easily imagine that I had left the world of murder and mayhem far behind. In actual fact, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Murder was alive and well two decks down, in a mini-suite at the end of the corridor where, although nobody knew it yet, Mrs. Margaret Featherman had gone missing and would soon be presumed dead.

  6

  BEVERLY AND LARS JENSSEN must have been up and taken their phone message at the crack of dawn, since they returned it shortly thereafter. They were upstairs in the buffet and finished with breakfast by the time I showed up. Naomi appeared a few minutes later, and I made introductions all around. Once Naomi and I brought our coffee and food to the table, Beverly had her daily planner opened and laid out on the table. She was ready to roll.

  Beverly had taken the whole idea of this cruise as a serious challenge. She wanted to see as much as possible without wearing Lars or herself out. She had pored over the shore-excursion options, narrowing down the choices to what she thought the two of them couldn’t afford to miss and what they could do without. In Juneau she wanted to take the cable-car ride up the side of a mountain overlooking the city. For someone who lives in downtown Seattle, calling Juneau a city is using the term loosely.

  I have to say I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the idea. I didn’t see much point in riding up through trees and looking down on a bunch of ragtag buildings, but I didn’t object. After all, my whole purpose for being there was to see that Beverly and Lars saw and did what they wanted. I did my best to go with the flow and keep my mouth shut. Naomi, on the other hand, gave every appearance of enjoying the outing.

  In the process of standing in line for the cable car, Beverly and Naomi struck up a conversation with another pair of Starfire Breeze passengers. Beverly’s new friends, Claire and Florence Wakefield, were a few years younger than my grandmother—somewhere in their seventies, I’d say. They were retired spinster schoolteachers who hailed from New York City. As they were happy to tell us, this was their first trip “out west.”

  Despite my preconceived notions, the cable-car ride was actually a pleasant surprise. The sky overhead was a clear, limitless blue. The air was cool and surprisingly brisk. The few deciduous trees that were visible were already alive with beginning hues of fall color.

  The line for tickets was relatively short at that early hour of the morning, and the trip up and down the mountain didn’t take nearly as long as I had anticipated. As a consequence, we were finished with that and ready to return to the ship long before the Starfire Breeze’s shuttle was due to come collect us. In the interest of preserving energy, our traveling companions were lobbying for a speedy return to the ship, so I flagged down a passing cab. Fortunately it was a lumbering old station wagon that’s probably put into service only during cruise-ship season—and we all clambered into that. Lars and Beverly sat in front and the Wakefield sisters took the middle seat while Naomi and I scrambled into the far back.

  “So,” Florence Wakefield said to me once we were settled. “You live in Seattle?”

  I nodded. “That’s right,” I said. “I live in a downtown condo.”

  “We’re planning on staying in the city for several days after the end of the cruise,” Florence continued. “Where would we have the best view of the pin?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. “The what?” I asked.

  “You know,” she said impatiently. “The pin. Seattle’s pin.”

  “You mean the Needle?” Naomi asked, trying to suppress a smile. “You want a view of the Space Needle?”

  “That’s it,” Florence said. “Where’s the hotel with the best view of the Space Needle?”

  “Don’t tell us,” Claire interrupted. “Once we get to town, we’ll catch a cab and have the driver take us around until we find someplace that suits us.”

  Juneau isn’t all that big, and by then we were back at the cruise-ship dock. As we approached the gangplank, I was surprised to see Marc Alley down on the dock at the base of the gangplank. He was pacing back and forth. As soon as he caught sight of Naomi and me, he seemed overjoyed to see us.

  “She’s gone!” he announced.

  “Who’s gone?” I asked.

  “Margaret Featherman. Dr. Featherman and the first officer came to my cabin early this morning. They pounded on the door so hard I thought there might be a fire or something. When I opened it, Dr. Featherman pushed his way inside, demanding to know where she was, since her room attendant had reported that Margaret hadn’t been in her room at all overnight. I told them that I had no idea where she was. I told them I hadn’t seen her since the night before last, when I walked her back to her room. I don’t think they believed me. They said something about doing a room-to-room search of the entire ship. What should I do, Beau? Whatever’s happened to her, they seem to think I had something to do with it.”

  Naomi was standing beside me. I heard her sharp intake of breath when Marc first announced Margaret was gone. As for Marc, he looked so upset and agitated that I felt sorry for the guy. And all the while he spilled out his tale of woe, Beverly, Lars, and the two Wakefield sisters hung on every word. As tactfully as possible, Naomi and I herded the others up onto the ship, then we came back down to where Marc stood waiting.

  By then Naomi seemed to have recovered somewhat from the distressing news that her friend was missing. “Did all this happen before or after the ship docked?” Naomi asked.

  “After,” Marc replied. “At least by the time they came to my cabin and woke me up, we were docked.”

  “So maybe it’s all right then,” Naomi said reassuringly. “My guess is they’re just pushing panic buttons. I know it says in the book that we’re all supposed to swipe our room key cards as we get off and on the ship. But I can tell you Margaret Featherman has been breaking rules all her life. Or maybe they just missed hers somehow. She’s probably off in Juneau spending an armload of money.”

  “Have you seen either one of your dance partners from last night?” I asked.

  Marc nodded. “I tracked down both Virginia and Sharon before they got off the ship to go into town. Dr. Featherman had been by to see them, too. They told him they hadn’t seen Margaret since the night before last, either. In fact,” he added miserably, “it sounds as though I may have been the very last person who did see her.”

  “Not true,” I told him, hoping to ease his worries. “Naomi and I both saw Margaret yesterday morning. We were upstairs in the buffet, and Margaret was on her way to the exercise room.”

  Marc heaved a sigh. “Well, that’s a relief anyway.”

  “Don’t worry,” Naomi said. “Just wait. Margaret will turn up at the last minute. Since she’s always late, it’ll probably be just before they raise the gangplank. My guess is she’ll arrive with a new coat or some piece of artwork. The galleries around Juneau are supposed to be great, and Margaret wouldn’t be above buying a new fur coat if she wanted one. She’s been a fan of fur for as long as I’ve known her. I’ve always said that if any of those anti-fur protesters outside Benaroya Hall ever tried to take on Margaret Featherman, they’d end up getting far more of a fight than they bargained for.”

  Smiling grimly, Marc Alley allowed himself to be led back up to the top of the gangplank, where we were all very careful to make sure our room key cards were properly swiped by the crewmen waiting there. Once on board, Marc said he was going back to his room. Naomi and I repaired to the Sea Breeze Bar for more of their dreadful coffee. We sat there without speaking for a fairly long time. And the longer we didn’t speak, the lower Naomi’s spirits seemed to go. She may have been able to lend Marc Alley some calming reassurance when he needed it, but she wasn’t able to accept any of that comforting solace on her own behalf. She had successfully convinced Marc that Margaret Featherman was off enjoying herself on a shopping spree. Naomi herself didn’t beli
eve that for a moment.

  “What if something bad really has happened to her?” Naomi asked at last.

  That’s how people in America talk about the unthinkable. We don’t say, “What if she’s dead?” We say, “What if something bad’s happened?” Maybe if we don’t actually mention the word “death” or “dying,” we can somehow dodge the bullet and keep death from happening to us or to the people we care about. After spending almost twenty years on the homicide squad, I’m not much good at using euphemisms. I’d rather have all the cards—even the worst ones possible—out on the table.

  “You mean, what if Margaret Featherman is dead?” I asked bluntly.

  Naomi bit her lip and nodded.

  “Then the cruise line calls in the FBI to investigate,” I told her.

  That news seemed to jar Naomi more than I expected it would. “The FBI?” she asked. “Really?”

  I nodded. “In the past several years, cruise lines haven’t exactly been forthcoming about unpleasant incidents on board their various ships. There were instances of theft and sexual assault and at least one mysterious death that were all ‘under-reported,’ I believe is how they termed it. In other words, they tried to sweep their problems under the rug in hopes of sparing themselves any bad publicity. If it didn’t happen, there was no need to report it. Finally, there was enough of an uproar that the feds stepped into the breach. My understanding is that if a ship visits American ports or if American citizens are involved as victims, then the FBI is called in to investigate regardless of where the problem occurs.”

  After that, frowning and lost in thought, Naomi Pepper seemed to drift far away from me. “Look,” I said finally in an effort to bring her back. “I’m sure you’re worried about Margaret. That’s perfectly understandable. But I’m also sure that she’s fine. It’ll probably turn out to be exactly the way you said it would. She’ll come back on board tonight having failed to swipe her card as she disembarked. Or else she’s stowed away in somebody else’s cabin right now, screwing her brains out. Eventually, though, she and her current Lothario are going to have to come up for air or food or both. Unless I’m mistaken, the ship’s security tapes will probably be able to lead us to wherever she’s holed up.”

  “Security tapes?” Naomi asked. She looked shocked—even more so than she had appeared earlier when I mentioned the FBI. “You’re saying this ship has security monitors?”

  Something that continues to amaze me about women and men is the difference in what they observe. Ubiquitous ceiling-mounted security cameras had been one of the first things I had noticed after coming aboard the Starfire Breeze. Naomi Pepper had missed them entirely.

  “How could you not notice?” I asked. “Little video cameras are everywhere on this ship—in all the corridors and all the public areas. In fact, we’re probably showing up on somebody’s monitor even as we speak.”

  This time when Naomi raised her eyes, the look on her face was one of pure panic. “You mean everything that happens on board is on tape?”

  “Most likely.”

  At that point, all color drained from Naomi’s face. Her breathing sped up. For a moment I thought she was going to hyperventilate.

  “I saw Margaret later,” she admitted softly. “I mean, I saw her after you and I ran into her upstairs in the buffet. I was with her again late in the afternoon.”

  I’ve spent a lifetime asking questions. It’s one of those old work habits that’s virtually impossible to break. “Where?” I asked.

  “I went to her cabin. If that shows up on the tapes, then they’ll probably come looking for me as well, just like they did with Marc. They’ll be looking and asking questions.”

  “Of course they will,” I agreed. “That’s the way investigations work. If the worst happened and if Margaret Featherman does turn out to be dead, the authorities will be in touch with everyone who talked to her or had any contact with her in the past few days. That includes you and me and everyone else at our table. There’s no reason to be upset about it.”

  “But I am upset,” Naomi returned. “What if they want to know what Margaret and I talked about?”

  “That’s simple,” I replied. “You tell them. End of story.” Naomi said nothing. “So what did you talk about?” I asked finally after another long pause.

  Naomi grimaced. “It was . . .” She paused. “It was very unpleasant.”

  Talk about being slow on the uptake. That was when I finally realized that Naomi and Margaret must have had some kind of quarrel. Whatever the topic of discussion had been, it was something Naomi didn’t want to share with me any more than she wanted to tell it to some note-taking FBI operative. And that’s when I had the first tiny glimmer that maybe Naomi Pepper knew far more than she was pretending to about Margaret Featherman’s unexplained absence. That would explain her obvious reluctance to discuss it. It would also explain her virtual panic at my mention of security cameras in the ship’s corridors.

  Those thoughts entered my mind, but I immediately pushed them aside. If she was involved in what had happened to Margaret, I didn’t want to hear it. After all, Naomi Pepper and I had spent several very pleasant hours together in the course of the last few days. She was someone I was comfortable with; someone whose company I could see myself enjoying; someone I could like. Surely I couldn’t be that unlucky. Surely lightning wouldn’t strike me twice in exactly the same way. Cops—even ex-cops—aren’t supposed to become involved with people who turn out to be homicide suspects—or worse.

  As I said before, questioning people is a hard habit to break. Even though I didn’t want to know the answer, I couldn’t keep from asking, “How unpleasant was it?”

  We were sitting in the Sea Breeze Bar on the Promenade Deck. Throngs of people came and went, talking and laughing. Naomi’s gaze settled into one of those distant thousand-yard stares that excluded me and left her blind and deaf to everything going on around us.

  “Naomi?” I prompted.

  Her eyes strayed back to me. “It happened such a long time ago,” she said in a strangled whisper. “Why would anyone want to bring it up this many years later?”

  “Bring what up?”

  “My daughter,” she said. “Missy.”

  “What about her?”

  For the longest time Naomi averted her eyes. Once again she bit her lower lip and didn’t answer.

  “Missy is Harrison Featherman’s daughter,” she murmured finally in little more than a strangled whisper. “She’s Harrison’s and mine.”

  That got me. With those few words, my opinion of Naomi Pepper plummeted several notches. Dr. Majors is forever telling me that feelings aren’t right or wrong. They simply are. At that point, I had no reason to feel betrayed—certainly not the way Margaret Featherman must have felt betrayed when she learned about it. And, as far as I’m concerned, maybe betrayed is the wrong word. Disappointed might be closer to the mark. I had thought Naomi Pepper to be a better person than that.

  “You’re telling me you had an affair with the husband of one of your best friends? That the two of you had a child together?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Naomi said quickly. “Not an affair. It wasn’t like that at all.”

  Right, I thought. And the moon is made of old green cheese. “Just how was it then?” I asked.

  “We were all friends back then, Beau, good friends. By that time everyone else had managed to have their kids. Gary and I kept trying and trying, but nothing happened. I wanted a baby so badly that it broke my heart every time I saw a pregnant woman in a grocery store or at the mall. It seemed like everyone in the whole world could get pregnant at the drop of a hat—everyone but me. Finally, Gary and I went to see a specialist—a fertility expert—to have ourselves tested and to find out what the problem was. The doctor told us straight out that Gary’s sperm count was so low that we’d probably never have kids.

  “I was so upset by the news that I didn’t know what to do. I went into a state of total depression—clinical depressi
on. It was all I could do to get out of bed in the morning. I spent all day every day lying there like a lump watching one useless television program after another. Gary would come home from work at night and I’d still be in my nightgown and bathrobe. The previous day’s dirty dishes would be in the sink and there’d be nothing cooking for dinner. Gary tried what he could to get me to snap out of it, but nothing worked. I just kept sinking deeper and deeper.” She paused.

  “And then?” I prompted.

  “Finally, one Saturday afternoon, the four guys were all out playing golf together. They got together a couple of times a year, for old times’ sake. Dick Metz and Leonard Carson were in one cart, and Harrison and Gary were in the other. It was at a time when I was really low, and I’m sure Gary must have been at the end of his rope. He wound up telling Harrison about what was going on with us. He asked for advice—not as a doctor and patient, but as a friend. Harrison told him we could either blow twenty or thirty thousand bucks on a fertility expert and try artificial insemination, or we could get someone else to help us out.”

  “Meaning Harrison Featherman was offering to stand stud service?”

  Naomi blushed in the face of my indelicate question. She blushed but she answered all the same, meeting my eyes as she did so. “So you see, it wasn’t an affair at all. We only did it that one time, and that’s all it took. It wasn’t because of me that we couldn’t get pregnant. It was just like the doctor said. So you see, it was Gary’s problem and Gary’s solution.”

  “I’m assuming you never got around to telling your good friend Margaret about any of this,” I offered.

  Naomi nodded. “Right. I never told anyone. Gary knew, and so did Harrison, of course, but they wouldn’t have told her. And I wouldn’t have either. Didn’t.”

  “But she did find out.”

  “Somehow, but not until yesterday.”

  “Who told her?”

  “I have no idea. I was alone in the room in the afternoon, taking a nap. She called and lit into me on the phone. How could I have done such a thing when all this time she thought I was her friend? She was screaming and ranting and raving so loud I’m surprised the whole ship didn’t hear her. Fortunately, I was the only one in our cabin at the time. I tried explaining to her that what happened had nothing to do with our friendship. She demanded that I go to her cabin right then to talk about it, and so I did. I didn’t want Sharon and Virginia to come into the room and hear what was going on. After all, it was bad enough Margaret knew my awful secret. I didn’t want the rest of the world to know about it as well, although now I’m sure word will get out anyway.”