Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 09 - Lethal Cruise

by A. R. Winters

“We’ll find them!” Kelly announced, smacking her palms down on her knees with determination.

  Ethan and I exchanged a look, perhaps not being quite so optimistic as the cruise director.

  “We’ll do everything we can to track them down,” said Ethan with a touch less commitment than Kelly.

  “Did you have any visitors today? Did anyone come to visit your room?”

  “No.” Jessica paused. “Oh, just housekeeping with the complimentary chocolates.”

  Interesting. I was pretty sure that the VIPs provided one complimentary chocolate per guest on their pillows each day, but this would be done at the same time as the cleaning, not in a separate delivery.

  “Can I see the chocolates?”

  Jessica walked over to a bookshelf and lifted up a large golden box. She handed them to me.

  “That’s not from housekeeping,” said Kelly.

  “I don’t recall them giving out boxes like this either,” I said. “Did you get the name of the person from housekeeping?”

  “No…” Jessica rubbed at her chin. “I don’t know at all. They just came in and put them down. They didn’t say anything at all, actually. You know, I went to take them out of their hand at the door, but they shook their head and walked all the way inside to put them down here.”

  “What did they look like?” asked Ethan.

  Jessica frowned in consternation, then anguish seemed to overcome her. “I don’t know! They had on a uniform, you know, with the hat, and the mask and—”

  “—Hat and mask?” interrupted Kelly.

  “They have special dust masks they use sometimes, but they don’t wear them most of the time,” I explained. “They shouldn’t be wearing one if they’re delivering chocolates, that’s for sure!”

  “How tall were they? Male or female? Any distinguishing features?” asked Ethan.

  Jessie slumped against a counter.

  “I’m sorry… but I don’t know. I was busy thinking about the day’s activities and I didn’t really pay any attention. I just waved them in and they were in and out in an instant. I was pretty rude, actually. I’d say they were maybe about average height? I don’t remember them being particularly tall or short. I would have noticed that. But I wasn’t paying attention to them! It might’ve been a woman.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  She nodded. “But they didn’t go into the bedroom, and they didn’t go in the closet, I know that.”

  This supposed housekeeper had definitely been up to something. We just had to figure out what it was they did if they hadn’t stolen the Phytox right away.

  “Hold on.”

  I went to the door of the suite and pulled it open. I crouched down to stare at the lock. Although the rooms were opened with electronic keycards, there was a physical mechanism inside each of them. Staring at the lock, I couldn’t see anything wrong, but I didn’t know what I was looking for.

  I ran my hand down the flat edge of the door, over the indent where the bolt lived.

  “Ethan… come here a minute.”

  Ethan walked over, and so did Kelly, scurrying after him.

  “Feel this.”

  Ethan ran his hand down over the bolt.

  “It feels a little sticky.”

  Ethan frowned at it, slowly pulling his fingers over it again. Then Kelly stuck her hand on it, rubbing it quickly.

  “It is sticky,” she said. “Do you think they put tape on it? I think they put tape on it, so it wouldn’t lock properly.”

  “Jessie, do you know if your door locked when you left, after the housekeeper?”

  “I don’t know? I mean, I was in a hurry, I was running late. The door closes by itself, right, so I’m pretty sure I just let it do its thing.”

  The door would certainly swing on its hinges to shut itself, but if the actual bolt was blocked from locking then anyone could have come back later and pushed the door open again. If they’d removed the tape after their second visit, no one would ever know.

  No one would know unless they were looking out for something suspicious—like me.

  “Well done, Addy. That was some good thinking,” said Kelly. “Now, what would anyone want with a load of Phytox?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Jessica said sadly.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s not uncommon for people to try and steal Phytox or Botox. The actual treatment has to be performed by someone qualified, like me, and it’s not cheap. Some people figure if they can just get their hands on it themselves, they can save hundreds or thousands of dollars by injecting themselves and their friends. I didn’t think that would be an issue on a cruise ship though! I have security alarms at my own practice, but I thought my cabin here would be safe enough.”

  “It should have been,” said Ethan. I could tell he was partly blaming himself. “We’re going to check the cameras, and the logs, and find out who stole your Phytox.”

  “And get it back!” Kelly clapped her hands together for emphasis.

  “And try to get it back,” said Ethan somewhat more calmly.

  “Thank you.” Nurse Jessica let out a sad sigh. “Once I finish off my remaining supplies, I guess all I can do is try and drum up business for my practice and take some bookings. I don’t know how many people on the cruise are local to New Orleans though.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to help,” said Kelly. “I’ll find you plenty of customers. Don’t you worry.”

  I gritted my teeth when I heard that. As long as Kelly didn’t try and get me to do it for her. I’d have to try and skirt around that topic for the next few days.

  “We’ll do everything we can,” I said. “Try and relax, and if you think of anything that can help us, please let us know. Kelly, maybe you could arrange a complimentary dinner for Nurse Jessica while Ethan and I review the security tapes.”

  And so, a new plan for the evening was made.

  Restaurant night had become movie night, though movies of the dullest kind.

  K elly took Jessica out for dinner while Ethan and I grabbed some sandwiches and took them to his office.

  “You look very nice, by the way,” said Ethan as he tapped away at the computer, pulling up the security feeds from Jessica’s hallway.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to wipe some mayonnaise off my chin before he saw that my niceness was in danger of going off the rails.

  “Here we are…”

  Ethan got the video to fill the screen, and we watched while someone dressed as a housekeeper wheeled a cart down the hallway, not going into any rooms, simply stopping outside Jessica’s.

  “There’s the chocolates,” I said pointing at the box the person was holding. “Can’t make out their face at all though. Do you think it’s a woman?”

  “Probably a woman or a man below average height. The shoulders don’t seem broad, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

  “Do you think it could be Bruno?”

  “Hmm. Maybe?” said Ethan tentatively. “It wouldn’t surprise me after last night, but I’d say the person in the video looks smaller.”

  “Posture and body language can make a big difference. The person in the video is all hunched, like they’re making themselves look small.”

  “Yes. Or maybe they’re nervous. People do hunch up and bend over when they’re anxious.”

  On the screen, the person disappeared into the room with the chocolates, and then a few minutes later, as they were exiting, Ethan froze the video.

  “Look!” He tapped his finger at the door. “They’re doing something. Putting your tape on, or maybe some kind of glue or something.”

  It was a fast, subtle movement. If we weren’t paying attention, we would have missed it.

  “Let me check the logs…”

  Ethan switched the screen to an incomprehensible looking program that overwhelmed with the amount of information it showed on the screen. There were lists of hundreds of numbers in dozens of columns.

  “Aha… here we go.” Eth
an dragged the computer mouse to highlight something. “Look. The door to this room was unlocked for more than two hours. Usually the door is unlocked for just a few seconds when people exit in or out, or up to about half an hour if the housekeeping crew prop the door open with one of their carts.”

  I read the numbers he’d highlighted on the screen, ignoring the other columns. It said, *V2214 093015 114278.

  “What do the numbers mean?”

  “Oh, the first is the code for the room. VIP section, second VIP level, cabin number 214, and then the next two columns are the time. It includes the seconds as well, that’s why it looks a mess.”

  “I see! So if we go to the video feed at 11:42, we should see the thief again?”

  “Yep. Let’s have a look.”

  When we pulled up the video for the next part, we were disappointed. The person on the video was just as hard to make out as they had been earlier. They were still wearing the face mask and hat and didn’t look up in the direction of the cameras at all.

  “I think they knew the cameras were there.”

  “I think so. They weren’t a complete amateur at this, that’s for sure. They didn’t look up even once.”

  “What now?”

  “Maybe you could talk to some of the other beauty practitioners. See if any of them have had anything stolen, or had customers asking suspicious questions. I’ll go through some more video footage and see if I can find out where they came from.”

  “Good idea. Maybe you can track them back to before they put on the mask or something.”

  “Yep, that’s the plan. But I suspect I’ll find they go to the Grand Atrium or the International Buffet or some other crowded area where we lose them. I’ll see what I can do, though.”

  “Hey, you know what?” I said to Ethan with a grin.

  “What?”

  “This beats having to track down a murderer.”

  “Sure does!” Ethan stretched out his hand and rapped his knuckles on the desk. “Knock on wood!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  T he next morning, I was taking a slow stroll along an outside deck, heading toward the International Buffet for another mega-breakfast. I’d been thinking about food and botulism all night long—or at least beauty treatments derived from the deadly food toxin.

  The mystery of the missing Phytox was bugging me because I didn’t know where to look. I wasn’t optimistic about getting any useful information out of the other beauticians, and beyond that I wasn’t sure how to go about looking for the missing vials. We couldn’t exactly search every cabin on the ship.

  I was also thinking about food. I’d neglected something when preparing my mega-plate the day before: cereal. The ship had a range of a dozen cereals, and I was thinking that I could just sprinkle a little of each on top of the plate, to make my record-breaking meal even more record-breaking. I hadn’t contacted the record authorities yet, but I figured adding another dozen foods to the forty or so I’d managed the day before would help my chances of a new world record.

  There was another food-related issue though, and that was one Keith McDonald, our possible suspect connected to my kidnapping. After making some discreet inquiries with Greg Washington—and getting him to swear he wouldn’t say a thing—I had arranged a meeting with him. After breakfast, I was going to go into the kitchens to take a few pictures, and Greg had assured me that he would introduce me to Floyd. We were going to use the excuse of a staff interview for the ship’s blog and newsletter.

  The air that morning was cool enough to be invigorating without being cold enough to need anything more than the light Swan t-shirt I was wearing. The atmosphere was tinged with the scent of sea-salt, which was being whipped up along with minuscule splashes of ocean water by an excitable morning breeze.

  “Addy!” called a vaguely familiar male voice.

  I looked up from my ponderous stroll to see pool boy Shaun Anderson standing in front of me.

  “Is Sam with you?”

  I looked over first my left shoulder, and then my right.

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. Say, would you help me with something?”

  This is the point where someone smarter than me would have said no. But I was a Midwesterner who’d been raised to always help those in need. Sometimes I wished I was a city girl so I could just say no, spin on my heels, and grump away. Not really. I wouldn’t wish rude manners on anyone.

  “What do you need, Shaun?”

  Contrary to my expectations, it wasn’t a request that involved me setting him up with Sam for once. He actually wanted my help with some work.

  “Look at this mess. Someone’s been moving the sun loungers around and whoever was on duty last night didn’t tidy them up.”

  Looking behind him, I could see what he meant. In my mindless strolling, I’d arrived at the pool deck, the second-largest swimming pool on board, and behind him the sun loungers were in some disarray.

  It wasn’t my job to deal with it or to help Shaun. But nonetheless I set to it.

  “Just line them up, right?” I asked.

  “That would be fantastic if you could! You start on the front row, and I’ll start on the second.”

  Just as I approached the edge of the pool, Shaun had a change of heart.

  “Wait!”

  “What is it?

  “I think we’d better swap places.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously.

  “Why?”

  “You know… in case you fall in. Or push someone else in.”

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest and frowned. Then I giggled. He did have a point. On several occasions on previous cruises, people in my presence had ended up flying into the pool.

  “If you say so.”

  We walked past each other so that he was near the edge and I was one row behind. We began straightening up the loungers and soon the air was filled with the sound of dragging plastic as we pulled them this way and that.

  “So,” said Shaun.

  There it was. He didn’t just want help.

  “Yes?”

  “How is Sam? I haven’t seen her yet this cruise.”

  “She’s fine. Busy, busy, busy. You know how it is!”

  “I guess. I was thinking of asking her out for a drink again. I really want to speak to her. What do you think?”

  “Do you really want to?”

  I didn’t want to get his hopes up. But I didn’t want to be involved in Sam’s love life either, at least not dealing with the male end of the equation. I was happy to lend her an ear or some advice, but not the men too.

  “What’s this doing here?” Shaun said with some annoyance. I glanced over to see he had his hands on his hips and he was glaring down at a big blue tarp that was scrunched up in a heap between some loungers. His manner reminded me somewhat of a homemaker who’d found a pair of shoes under a sofa instead of where they belonged. He let out a dramatic sigh and bent over to deal with it.

  “She’s like an angel, isn’t she?” Shaun commented as he dragged the tarp.

  “Sam? Like an angel?” I asked, bemused. She’d been called the opposite of that in school, at least by the teachers. While she was my best friend and I loved her to bits, ‘angelic’ would definitely not be in the first one hundred adjectives I would come up with to describe her. “I don’t think so,” I said with a chuckle.

  I was shocked by Shaun’s apparent reaction to my comment.

  He let out a long shriek that almost scared me to death. “Arrgh!”

  I turned to see him open-mouthed in apparent shock at my comment.

  Wow.

  Looked like Sam was dodging a bullet with this one.

  Then, Shaun did something even weirder. He took one step back, then another. The first one went fine, but he ran out of ground with the second one and was attempting to step onto the surface of the swimming pool.

  If Sam wasn’t an angel, nor was Shaun, because he did not manage to walk on water. Instead, he toppled
back with arms windmilling through the air before entering the water with a splash.

  That cheered me up.

  So much for me being the clumsy one pushing people into pools. It seemed Shaun was just as bad. Amused, I watched him re-emerge from the water, wet head bursting up from the surface.

  “You’re supposed to take your clothes off before you go for a swim,” I said, laughing down at him.

  “Addy! Help!”

  “What?” I took a step closer. I was pretty sure he could stand up where he was, even if for some reason he’d suddenly forgotten how to swim.

  Shaun raised one arm out of the water and pointed. I turned my head to follow. He was pointing at the blue tarp.

  “What?” I asked again.

  “Under the tarp…”

  Rolling my eyes, I crouched down and lifted up the edge of the tarp. What was I going to find? A spider?

  “Oh, cornstalks!”

  There, staring up at me with lifeless eyes, was Bruno.

  There was a clambering sound behind me, and a moment later the dripping pool boy was standing next to me.

  “Is he… dead?”

  Being somewhat of an expert on dead bodies, I confirmed it for him.

  “I’ve never seen a dead body before,” he said in a small, quiet voice.

  “At least you can only see the face.”

  There was a chattering, clicking noise behind me, and I realized that Shaun was shivering violently. The cool morning, fresh pool water and shock of the dead body clearly weren’t agreeing with him.

  “Why don’t you get a towel?”

  “For the body?” he asked wide-eyed.

  “No, not for the body. Don’t touch it. In fact, try and step back carefully—without falling in again. This is a crime scene and we can’t touch anything else. The towel is for you. You’re shivering.”

  “Am I?” There was a half-second pause. “I am!”

  Stepping back carefully, I pulled out my phone and put in a call to Ethan.

  It looked like we would have more to deal with this cruise than just the missing Phytox and checking out Keith McDonald.

  Doctor Ryan arrived with Cece, and Ethan arrived with four of his security team who immediately got to work sealing off the area and documenting everything they could. This wasn’t their first rodeo.