Deception On the Danube

by D'arcy Kavanagh

  At 10, dinner was largely over, but the party continued. A few people had gone outside for an evening stroll or departed for their cabins, but most were still enjoying themselves in the dining room. There was even some dancing going on with music piped through the ship’s sound system.

  Burke had spread himself around, chatting with plenty of people. As for alcohol, he kept to just two glasses of wine.

  He decided to check the bikes for the next day’s 45-kilometre ride to Tulln. He knew if he didn’t, he would lose sleep worrying if something was wrong that he couldn’t fix on short notice in the morning. It wasn’t a time-consuming job. He’d need only a half hour at most to check the bikes in the shortage area at the stern of the ship.

  When he reached the storage compartment, Burke noticed the lock to the door was undone. Had he forgotten to lock the room earlier? He doubted it. Nor could he imagine any of the crew going in there; only bikes were in the room. Then again, he thought he must have forgotten. Or maybe the lock had stopped working and somehow slipped open; it was a piece of junk that a kid could probably open with a hairpin or pocketknife. In any regard, he doubted any bikes would be missing. It would be virtually impossible for a stranger to steal a bike from the area and escape unnoticed.

  He flicked on the light. The bikes stood gleaming before him.

  Then he noticed something to the side.

  He took a step forward and stopped.

  Bennett Blake was stretched out on the deck, his shirt front covered in blood with his face contorted in terror, his dead eyes staring at the ceiling.

  “Shit!” Burke said.

  And then he threw up.

  Chapter 17

  Once he had emptied his stomach, Burke knew he had to tell someone – and quickly. He spotted an intercom phone a few steps away and rushed over. He lifted it and punched the CALL button. A moment later a crew member answered and Burke asked if the ship’s captain, Oliver Keller, was nearby. He was and Burke told him what he’d found in the storage compartment.

  “Stay where you are,” Keller said. “I’ll be right there.”

  Burke hung up and looked around. Who had killed Bennett Blake? And where was the murderer? If the killer was still on board the Sunna, no one was safe. Burke’s heart started thumping faster.

  A minute later, Keller showed up, dressed sharply in a light grey uniform. He looked into the storage compartment and instantly recoiled from the scene. “Christ! What the hell happened? Did you see anyone?”

  Burke said he hadn’t.

  Keller went to the intercom phone and told the person at the other end that he wanted three crew members at the storage area immediately. Then he hung up and pulled out his cellphone and punched in a number. Burke listened as the Sunna’s captain explained to the Krems police about what they had found on board.

  Keller ended the call and turned to Burke. “They’ll be here in five minutes. We’re not to enter the storage compartment or let anyone else go in either. You need to stay here. The police want to speak with you as soon as they arrive.”

  A moment later, the three crew members, a young woman and two equally young men, appeared, looking puzzled. Keller explained the situation and the trio exchanged worried looks.

  There was a killer nearby.

  Keller turned to two of his crew. “I want you, Anna, and you, Heinrich, to keep everyone but the police or 1st Officer Lueger from coming down this passageway. If anyone asks, including other crew, just tell them there has been an incident that requires privacy. They’ll find out the truth soon enough, but right now we don’t need any panic or anyone disturbing what’s in that room.”

  The two crew members jogged to the end of the passageway and took up their positions. The third crew member, a husky, short-haired fellow about 25, started to move toward the storage compartment for a closer look. Keller stopped him with a hand. “You don’t want to look in there, Tomas. It won’t do you any good.” The young man nodded and backed away.

  Moments later, Burke, Keller and Tomas were joined by the Sunna’s 1st Officer, Martin Lueger, a pleasant, 40-ish fellow who often mingled with guests with the aplomb of a talk show host. Keller explained what Burke had found. Lueger took a quick look into the room and then flinched. When he turned around, his face was ashen. “My God! We’ve never had this happen before. It’s unimaginable. You’ve contacted the police?”

  Keller nodded. “They’ll be here any minute. We need to maintain order. No panic.”

  Lueger nodded. Burke said nothing. And Tomas kept away from the entrance to the storage compartment.

  “Thank you for notifying us in a quiet and orderly fashion, Herr Burke,” Keller said. “Other people might have panicked and created all kinds of trouble.”

  Burke didn’t know how to respond so he just nodded.

  Lueger noticed the vomit on the deck. “Whose is that?”

  “Mine,” Burke said. “I’ve seen death before, but not like this.”

  “I can’t blame you. It’s a terrible scene to encounter.”

  Keller asked if Burke had seen anyone along the passageway when he had come to check on the bikes.

  “No one,” Burke said.

  “Did Herr Blake come to the storage compartment often?”

  “Just once with me on the first day of the trip. Otherwise, he had no access until I opened the compartment door so people could bring their bikes out. After the ride each day, I’d lock the door so the bikes would be safe.”

  Keller nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  Burke wondered what had prompted Bennett Blake to visit the bike storage area, but he could produce no reason.

  Then they heard approaching vehicles. No sirens, though. They all looked out to the dock. Three police cars stopped and six officers in uniform hopped out.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 18

  Burke watched as two of the police stopped at the gangplank linked to the dock. Their job seemed obvious: Prevent anyone from coming and going. Two other officers joined the Sunna’s crew in blocking the passageway to anyone curious about what was happening. The two remaining police marched down to Burke, Keller, Lueger and Tomas who introduced themselves with Keller providing a shorthand summary of events.

  The two officers looked into the storage compartment without stepping inside. The older cop turned back to the small group. “We need to notify our superiors immediately,” he said in heavily accented English. “And we need you to stay right here.”

  He went half way down the passageway, pulled out his phone and talked rapidly for a few moments. When the call was over, he returned and announced that a crime scene squad was being summoned. It would likely arrive within a half hour. Until then, no one was to enter the storage compartment or come down the passageway.

  The officer then had a brief word with his partner who went and stood before the storage-room door as a guard. No one was getting inside. Then the senior officer asked what Burke what he had seen. Burke replayed what he had encountered.

  “And you don’t have any idea why he’d be down here at night?” the officer said.

  Burke shook his head.

  “Does Herr Blake have any family with him on board?” the officer said, looking at the faces around him.

  “He has a wife,” Burke said. “The last time I saw her, she was having dinner in the dining room. That was about an hour ago.”

  “So, she doesn’t know what’s happened?”

  Burke shrugged.

  Then he heard someone calling his name and saw Thierry Delisle waving from behind the police at the far end of the passageway. His boss may have been drinking and celebrating with his guests, but he had still noticed something amiss.

  Burke told the officers beside him who Delisle was. The senior flic thought for a moment and then motioned for his officers to let Delisle get through. A moment later, looking anxious, Delisle got an explanation from the officer about Blake’
s presence in the storage compartment, his tanned face turning pale as he heard the basic information.

  “When was the last time you saw Herr Blake?” the flic asked Delisle.

  Burke’s boss said nothing for a few seconds and then looked at the policeman. “An hour ago, more or less. He was enjoying his dinner, visiting with the others and generally having a good time. Do you know who killed him?”

  “I can’t say anything about that now, Herr Delisle. It’s officially a crime scene and we will have people coming any minute to investigate.”

  “But what do we do with our people? What do we tell them?”

  Burke was wondering the same. By now, most passengers probably knew something wasn’t right. When the crime scene people showed up, everyone would know something truly bad had occurred.

  The mood aboard the Sunna was going to change for the worse.

  Especially, Burke thought, when people started wondering if Bennett Blake’s murderer was still on board.

  Chapter 19

  The chaos started 10 minutes later.

  That’s when an oversized police van showed up, followed by two other cars, one clearly a police vehicle, the other an unmarked car. Four people dressed head-to-toe in white plastic smocks climbed out of the van. Two uniformed officers, including Karl Plaschke, joined them from the police car. Two men in street clothes got out from the unmarked vehicle.

  One of the new uniformed officers joined his colleagues on the gangplank. The others came on board, making their way to the end of the passageway, now crowded with curious passengers. Burke watched as the police struggled their way through the crowd and started marching toward the group by the storage compartment. He glanced back at the scene on the dock. Two dozen passersby, obviously out for a late-evening stroll, had stopped, their curiosity alerted by all the police vehicles. A couple were already snapping photos or video.

  Quiet Krems wasn’t so quiet anymore.

  Burke spotted Claude appear between the shoulders of the officers at the end of the passageway, a puzzled look on his face. When their eyes locked, Claude raised his eyebrows as if to ask what was happening. Burke nodded toward the storage compartment, grimaced and shook his head. Maybe that would give his friend a clue.

  The newly arrived police, with Sergeant Plaschke in the middle, went up to the first responders who provided an overview of what had happened. The new arrivals peeked into the storage compartment. Then they turned and looked at Burke who felt his heart skip a beat. He had done nothing wrong, but, on the other hand, he was the one who had discovered Bennett Blake. Didn’t that make him a suspect, maybe even the main one? Did the flics think he had called for help, hoping to distract them from what he had done to Blake?

  The older plainclothes cop, who was maybe in his late 30s, introduced himself as Inspector Christian Martin. “You found the victim, correct?”

  Burke nodded.

  “Did you touch him or anything in the storage compartment?”

  “No. As soon as I saw Herr Blake, I left the compartment and called Captain Keller on the ship intercom. He came immediately and then he called the police.”

  “Did you see anyone nearby at the time?”

  “No one.”

  “And what do you think Herr Blake might have been doing in the storage compartment?”

  “I don’t know. It was usually locked at that time.”

  “And he didn’t talk to you beforehand about getting access to it?”

  “No.”

  “You have a key to the storage room, don’t you?”

  Burke knew the danger in the question, but he also knew he had nothing to hide. The truth would protect him. Or so he hoped.

  “I do,” he said. “The crew also have access to the storage compartment.”

  “Did you notice any weapon nearby?”

  “No.”

  That’s when Sergeant Plaschke leaned toward Martin and whispered a few words. The inspector looked back at Burke. “Sergeant Plaschke tells me you’ve been involved in murder investigations in France. In what way?”

  Burke could feel everyone’s eyes staring at him. “I’m a blogger and columnist for a newspaper chain along the French Riviera. I was involved in one case because I knew two of the victims so I just started asking questions. The second case involved a series of vintage bicycle races that I was covering. Some bizarre things happened and two people were killed. I was curious and started looking into what had occurred. In the end, the police made several arrests.”

  “But you helped them, right?”

  “I just did my own little investigation with the help of a couple of friends and discovered some links that helped the police arrest the ones who killed those people.”

  Martin turned to Plaschke and nodded. The sergeant took a step toward Burke. “Come with me, Herr Burke. I need to go over your witness account one more time in greater detail.” Then Plaschke led Burke down the passageway, past dozens of puzzled faces.

  When Burke got close to Claude, he leaned toward his friend and whispered: “Bennett Blake’s been murdered – and I found the body.”

  “What?”

  Then Burke felt Plaschke grab him by the elbow to increase the speed of their exit. “We have no time for conversation, Herr Burke,” Plaschke growled at Burke as they bumped their way along.

  Burke nodded.

  The night was only going to get longer.

  Chapter 20

  Plaschke grabbed one of the other uniformed officers and went down another passageway to the crew’s wardroom which had a large table, four chairs and two stand-alone computers sitting on a small desk. He stationed the other flic at the door and then ushered Burke inside, closing the door behind. Once they were seated in the cabin where the Sunna’s three officers met, Plaschke took out a notebook, and a small recorder, and told Burke to lead him through his story.

  Burke began, recounting how he had just been following his routine of checking the bikes every evening to ensure no problems the following morning. As he talked, he could see Bennett Blake’s bloodied body crumpled on the deck and he started to feel queasy again. He hoped he wouldn’t vomit in front of the flic.

  As he talked, Plaschke interrupted him several times with questions. Did Burke hear any sounds? Had the bikes been moved? Did Burke show up at the storage compartment at roughly the same time each evening? Did anyone else have access to the compartment besides Burke and the crew? Did Blake indicate to Burke that he wanted to check on his bike that evening?

  Burke answered the questions, but knew he wasn’t providing information of much value. He hadn’t seen anything unusual until the moment he found himself staring at Blake’s shredded body. And then all he saw were gaping wounds and blood, so much blood. As for the killer, he didn’t have a clue.

  “Did Herr Blake have enemies?”

  “I can’t really say. I didn’t know him other than to ride with him.”

  “But you must have some impression of him from those occasions. After all, the participants in the team-building exercises totalled only 15. With that small a group, it’s difficult to hide from each other.”

  “I don’t know if he had enemies although getting murdered probably says he had at least one,” said Burke, telling himself not to get too flippant with the officer. In his experience, the police didn’t appreciate humour during an investigation.

  “Yes, but I still want you to give me your impressions, Herr Burke.”

  Burke nodded, surprised why Plaschke had moved away from simply asking for facts. “I think he liked the sound of his own voice and to make sure everyone understood how smart he was.”

  “And was he smart?”

  “I think so. He was fairly high up in the company and I don’t think you get there without having brains. And he also knew a lot about a lot of things. But he wasn’t so great with people. He could be rude and a bit of a bully.”

  “So, he had a large ego and could be unpleasant.�
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  “Some people would probably say that.”

  “How did he get along with the others on the rides?”

  “He did well, but he could be overly competitive and maybe a little harsh when someone didn’t measure up,” Burke said. Then he told the flic about the near-crash earlier in the day and Bennett’s role in it.

  Plaschke nodded. “Now I’d like you to provide me the names of the police officers you worked with on those cases in France, Herr Burke.”

  Burke was surprised at the request and said so.

  “The names, please,” Plaschke repeated, his pen poised over his notebook.

  Still curious about the request, Burke identified Inspector Jean-Pierre Fortin and Sergeant Sylvie Côté of the Nice police force, and Inspector Julien Sauvageot of the Arles force. From his angle, Burke could see the Krems cop had no problem correctly spelling the names.

  Plaschke started to put away his notebook. “One final question, Herr Burke. Your friend, Claude Brière, has served time in prison, correct?”

  Burke hadn’t expected Plaschke to know his friend’s criminal record. But then he told himself he shouldn’t have been surprised since Plaschke seemed competent and detail-oriented, had been with the group for two days and would have likely checked into people’s background as part of the investigation into Wilson Talbot’s death.

  “That’s true,” Burke said, wanting to come to his friend’s defence but knowing it was better at that moment to simply answer the questions. Besides, he knew Claude couldn’t possibly be involved.

  “Did Herr Brière have any dealings with Herr Blake?”

  “Just in preparing food for Blake and the others.”

  “You share a cabin on the ship with Herr Brière, right?”

  “We do.”

  “Has he ever mentioned Herr Blake in any way?”

  Burke thought it was a case of guilty till proven innocent when you’re an ex-prison inmate. “Not really.”

  “Not really? Explain.”

  So Burke provided Claude’s theory about people’s eating styles being indicators of their personalities. He studied Plaschke, expecting the flic to dismiss the idea, but instead the officer asked for details and, specifically, for Claude’s assessment of Bennett Blake. Burke supplied the information, adding it was the only time he and Claude had discussed Blake.