“Sounds interesting,” said Sheila.
“We’re looking for teachers,” Theresa said. She was a very thin woman and reminded Sheila of a bird. Kind of a droopy, long, skinny bird. She had long jowls and sad, long eyes. “Would you be interested in joining us as a faculty member?”
“Where would this academy be located?”
“Actually, there will be a headquarters at our offices in Houston, but it will all be online. Isn’t that exciting?” Theresa’s hound dog eyes lit up momentarily with excitement.
Sheila shrugged. “Maybe. I think that in-person classes are so much better. I’d miss the interaction.”
“But you’d interact online. And a few times a year go to conferences to teach,” Theresa said, then took a bite of her pasta salad.
“That does sound better.” Sheila didn’t want to cut off any opportunities, but she was really hoping for a freelance design job from home. Maybe she could do both. “I’ve designed this scrapbook-journal, which I entered the contest with. Did you see it?”
“Loved it,” the woman said, now intent on picking something out of her salad. “I loved the color scheme.”
“I was wondering about getting something like that published or made into my own scrapbook line.”
Theresa looked up from her food. “Ambitious. I like that.” She held up her champagne glass as the waiter poured first in her glass and then Sheila’s.
“To ambition!” Theresa said, and clinked Sheila’s glass.
“Here, here!” Sheila said, and sipped from her glass.
“I’d like to take another look at that scrapbook-journal.”
“Well, I have photos, but I don’t have the book. Someone borrowed it last night and—”
“Okay, I’ll take a look at the photos after tonight’s crop. How’s that sound?”
If she had really remembered the book, why did they need to meet again? Hmmm. Sheila wondered if Theresa was blowing smoke up her ass.
“Well, okay,” Sheila said, trying to seem enthusiastic, but she had a bad feeling about this.
Later, she met her friends back at the crop table. Deeply involved in scrapbooking, none of them paid much attention to her entrance. Randy finished a few pages and Paige was agog over them. “Who knew?” she said, and shrugged her shoulders. “My son!”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Vera said. “He’s a pastry chef. So artistic.”
His pages featured several of his desserts and journal entries about them: how he came up with the ideas, what had inspired him, and how many tries it took to get the dessert to the perfection he needed.
“Makes me hungry,” Sheila said.
“How was your lunch?” Vera asked.
“Okay. Theresa and I are going to meet later. She wanted to see the book I designed, but I told her I only have pictures. I’ve no idea when I’m getting that back. It’s so frustrating. But I have another meeting tomorrow with David’s Designs. I’m hoping to have my scrapbook back by then.”
“That’s the one you’re most excited about, right?” Randy said.
“I love David’s Designs. They do all kinds of things. I had a friend who had furniture that was David’s Designs—to die for. I love designing and I love their work. But Life Arts offered me a job,” she said, and then explained about the offer.
As she did so, the ship listed to the side, sending papers, glue, cutting instruments, glitter, and every kind of embellishment imaginable reeling over the sides of tables. Sheila grabbed on to what she could while trying not to fall over herself. Sounds of screams, gasps, and curse words filled the air.
“Please remain calm,” came a voice over the intercom.
“This is your captain. We’ve run into an unexpected turbulence. We’re cutting back the engines.”
The ship slowly righted itself.
Paige was on the floor, with Randy helping her up. She was covered in glitter and growling about it as she spit it out of her mouth and tried to brush it off her clothes.
Vera and Eric huddled together on the floor before making their way to the table.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain again. We’ve cut engines until we get the weather all-clear from the Coast Guard. As you were. Have fun cropping.”
Easy for you to say, Sheila thought. What a messed up day—topped off by being on a cruise ship with a killer.
Could this cruise get any worse?
Chapter 12
Pancakes and eggs would be served for supper. The boys loved breakfast for supper, Annie mused. Tomorrow night would be brisket, from a recipe of her grandmother’s.
While she was stirring her pancake batter, the phone rang.
“Hey, DeeAnn,” she said.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“I’m about ready to start supper. You?”
“Taking a bit of a break at the shop. I saw an e-mail from Paige. What the hell is going on with that cruise? Someone was killed? We need to get them off that ship!”
“Calm down, DeeAnn,” Annie said. She pictured DeeAnn’s face red with worry.
“They are on the ship with a killer,” DeeAnn said. “And guess what? I just saw a weather report that one of those freaky storms is heading for the Mexican coast. Right where they are supposed to be in two days. Oh Lawd, Beatrice was right. They should have stayed home.”
Annie’s heart raced a bit. “Did you say a storm is heading for them?” She stirred her batter harder.
“No, it’s heading for the coast where they’re going,” DeeAnn said.
“I’m sure the cruise people know that,” Annie said. “I mean, they need to be watching the weather, right? That’s part of what they do. Don’t worry about that.”
DeeAnn sighed. It was a long and heavy sigh. “I just wish . . . if they had to go we could be there. We could at least provide some sanity. Sheila has a concussion. Vera and Eric are all disgustingly love struck, evidently, sneaking off to their room all the time. Are any of them paying attention?”
“C’mon. They know a killer is on board. But they are still trying to have a good time. Especially Sheila. Think of the opportunities,” she said.
DeeAnn was silent. “Poor thing.”
“I’m sure Vera and Eric will take care of her. And there is a doctor and medical facilities on the ship. There’s nothing we can do for any of them from here.”
DeeAnn took a sharp breath. “I suppose you’re right. I’ve got work to do. I guess I better get off the phone. Got in an order for twenty loaves of lemon poppy seed bread. Thank God people don’t bake anymore. Keeps me flush, but it’s exhausting. I’m starting to hate Christmas.”
Annie laughed. “Are we still getting together tomorrow night?”
“Absolutely!” DeeAnn said. “We’ll crop till we drop in Cumberland Creek while our friends are on the high seas.”
After they hung up, Annie spooned the pancake batter onto her griddle and listened to the hiss, smelled the grease and butter as they came together.
She missed her friends—and that surprised her. They had only been gone four days. They had flown to Miami, hopped aboard the Jezebel, and headed for Saint Thomas. Their next stop was Mexico, where Sheila was expected to lead a scrapbooking-photography class.
She had thought about joining them, but she and Mike had made a commitment to spending the Jewish holidays at home with their boys. It was something Mike had when he was a boy and wanted to continue with his children. Annie’s home life as a child was not as constant. Giving up a cruise with her friends was worth the harmony that she felt at home. There would be plenty of time, later, for travel. Though maybe not a cruise. She was sort of with Beatrice on this one. Cruises were low on her priority list.
She flipped the pancakes over and listened as her boys excitedly discovered that breakfast was for supper.
Later, boys in bed, her phone rang. It was Beatrice.
“How do?” Beatrice said when Annie answered.
Annie heard Christmas music in the background.
“I’m fine.”
“What do you think about all this nonsense on the cruise?”
“It makes me a little nervous, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Then Beatrice told her about the FBI agents visiting her, which infuriated Annie.
“Honestly! One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. And how could the ship’s security make such a huge mistake?” Annie felt the hair on the back of her neck prick. Was it her reporter’s intuition? Or a simple fear for her friend’s safety?
“I agree. It’s egregious. If they were paying for the cruise, I’d demand their money back,” Beatrice said. “But it’s all free for all of them with Sheila’s prize tickets—except the guys, I guess.”
“How’s it going with your bazaar?”
“Good. I hope you come by. It’s next Saturday. Hopefully, they will all be home by then. Lizzie misses her mama.”
“I bet. She can come over here tomorrow afternoon if you want.”
“Nah. her Dad’s taking her for the weekend. Thank God he’s finally getting it together and is not running around with young women anymore.”
“It’s finally over with Kelsey?”
“She’s back in jail. And I don’t think he cares to see her.”
“I hope so,” she said, remembering what a blow that was to Vera and how disturbed the young woman was.
But then Vera had found love again with Eric, which was driving Sheila a bit bonkers. Say what you will for Vera’s first husband, Bill, but he didn’t hang around all the time like Eric did. He’d even come to some of their weekly crops—until it had become sacred “women” time. No men allowed.
It didn’t bother Annie at all when he came along, but Sheila huffed and puffed and rolled her eyes behind their backs, which was interesting. Sheila and Vera had grown up together and had been friends their whole lives. Annie envied their relationship—most of the time.
“How’s the new book coming along?” Beatrice asked.
“It’s going well, except for the nightmares.”
“Nightmares?”
“It’s hard to write about this kind of murder without having bad dreams. She was abused for years. That’s hard. And then she took an ax to her abuser, who happened to be her dad. Really difficult to wade through in any meaningful way, trying to get beneath the surface of all of it,” Annie said, and then paused a beat. “You want to say ‘good for her’ on the one hand, but on the other . . . well, wasn’t there another way?”
Beatrice was silent. Unusual. Then, “I guess it is hard to relate. But sometimes you are so isolated—or feel that way—that you can’t think of another thing to do.”
“I don’t think she was thinking. I believe some strange thing happened in her brain. She just snapped,” Annie said. “And for me, losing control is the most frightening thing of all.”
Chapter 13
After her conversation with Annie, Beatrice realized she was hungry. A snack before bedtime, that’s just what she needed. She padded her way into her kitchen and fixed herself a plate of molasses cookies and a glass of milk. She took her snack with her to the computer, where Jon was sitting, the blue of the screen reflecting on his face. Something about his posture gave Beatrice a chill.
“What’s wrong?” she said, setting her plate down on the desk.
“I’ve been reading about the woman who was killed on the Jezebel,” he said. “The story is out. She was involved in a messy divorce. Sounds awful. Children involved. Money.” He clicked his tongue.
“So her soon-to-be-ex-husband would be a suspect,” Beatrice said.
He nodded. “Oui.”
“Do they know how she was killed?”
“They say it was poison. They think ricin, from the look of the body. But the medical facilities are limited on the ship, so they can’t be certain yet.”
“Ricin,” Beatrice said. “Where would she get a hold of that?”
He shrugged. “That would seem to be the million-dollar question. Evidently, when a murder happens on the high seas, it is very, very difficult to investigate.”
Beatrice bit into her spicy cookie. Damn, it was good. “Mmm-mmm. That’s one of the reasons I hate cruises. All kinds of disappearances. Rapes, and stuff. And people get away with these crimes because the law is so tricky. But when something happens to an American citizen, usually the FBI gets involved.”
“As we know,” Jon said, and smiled. “But by the time they get to the scene, what will have happened to the evidence?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she said, then smacked her lips together. “Though I guess the ship’s security will step in and keep it safe, right?”
Jon let out a huge sigh. “I am sorry, Beatrice, but the more I look at ship security, I wonder why these cruises bother at all. The security people are not concerned with justice. They work for the cruise lines. When something happens, the first people they call are the lawyers—the ship’s lawyers—to see, how you say, how liable the company is.”
Beatrice swallowed the last bit of her cookie. “Oh my, you have been researching.”
“It is troubling. So many people go missing from ships, too. Maybe they fall over? Maybe they are kidnapped?”
“Kidnapped?”
He nodded. “They disappear. At least one person disappears from a cruise every three weeks, worldwide.”
A shiver rippled through Beatrice’s body. “Land sakes, I’ve always known about cruises and the risks, but I never knew the extent of it.”
Beatrice looked over Jon’s shoulder as he read.
“‘Allison Elizabeth Monroe, age forty-three, died today on the Jezebel, while attending a scrapbooking cruise. Monroe, who was a headliner at the event, was perhaps one of the wealthiest scrapbook designers in the United States. The mother of three daughters, she started her business fifteen years ago in the basement of her home.’”
“That’s odd,” Beatrice said. “What a coincidence. The same as Sheila. Only she has just been selling the supplies, not designing. Yet.”
“Didn’t Sheila say this woman took an interest in her or something?” Jon said.
“Yes, they had been e-mailing back and forth and Sheila was hoping to work for her, I think,” Beatrice said. “Maybe she was a role model for Sheila. Poor Sheila. To trip over her body like that.”
“‘She built her scrapbooking design business into an empire of fifty lines of scrapbooking supplies and recently launched a digital line, with a Web site that has six million unique visitors every month,’” Jon read aloud.
“Good Lord, that’s a lot of people,” Beatrice said. “No wonder she was rich.”
She scanned the article further. But there was no mention of her being murdered. Typical.
“It says that the cause of death is unknown,” Jon said, as if reading her mind.
“Hmph,” Beatrice said. “They have a couple of thousand people on a ship in the western Caribbean and there’s a killer among them. I’m sure they don’t want to set off a panic.”
“I hope Vera is careful,” Jon said after a few minutes. “All of them. I hope they mind their own business and do not try to get involved.”
“I would say they probably have had enough involvement, with Sheila tripping over the body,” Beatrice said. “They probably don’t want to think about the murder too hard. I know I wouldn’t.”
“But still, remember the last time they got involved with a murder?” Jon asked.
“How could I forget? Though every time they’ve been involved the murder affected them somehow. Last time, Vera was a suspect,” Beatrice said. “She was dragged in whether or not she wanted to be.”
Jon clicked on another site. “I love this,” he said. “We can track the Jezebel as it travels. It’s a very classy program they’ve designed for family members and friends. There’s a newsletter and photos of people. Really nice. I love this tracker.”
The screen went blue; the islands of the Caribbean appeared, then an icon for the ship, which wa
s standing still.
“Hmm, last time I checked, the little boat was moving,” Jon said, and refreshed the page.
“Probably something wrong with the page,” Beatrice said, and took a drink of her milk.
He clicked on the boat and a notice appeared on the screen:
Due to a tropical storm front moving in to Mexico, the Jezebel’s passage is changing. We are currently awaiting further instructions from the US Coast Guard.
Beatrice nearly choked on her milk. “Hand me the phone, Jon.”
But try as she might, she was unable to reach her daughter.
Chapter 14
The announcement came over the intercom about Allie Monroe’s untimely death while the croppers were at an evening session on card making. There was no mention of murder.
“They said it was an accident,” Vera said. “Didn’t they tell us she was poisoned?”
The woman who was behind Vera at the next table over twisted her head and looked at her. She was also getting the evil eye from Sheila.
Eric put his arm around Vera and whispered into her ear. She nodded.
Even though “murder” and “poison” weren’t mentioned in the announcement, it still sent a hushed chill over the room as the crafters folded their card stock and sought out stamps and stickers, buttons, and other embellishments. Christmas music played softly in the background. Lights twinkled as the sun began to set.
“I’ll be meeting Theresa soon and I really wish I had my scrapbook. I don’t understand why they are insisting on keeping it,” Sheila said. “My scrapbook didn’t kill her.”
“Do you have the photos?” Vera asked.
“I do,” Sheila said. “But it’s not the same thing as having the scrapbook to show.”
She placed a paper daisy in the center of her card and held it up to eyeball it. “I really like making cards. I’ve often thought of starting my own line. I’m not good at the words part though.”
“You and Annie should go into business. She writes beautiful poetry sometimes,” Paige said.
“Really? I had no idea,” said Vera.
A Crafty Christmas Page 5
