by Laura Levine
I quickly filled him in on the angry sparks that had flown between Graham and my two leading suspects, Kyle and Ms. Nesbitt.
“Graham threatened to fire them both. Which means they had motives just as strong, if not stronger, than Cookie. You should be searching their cabins for the missing cuff links.”
He smiled a jolly Santa Claus smile and heaved himself up from his desk.
“Come here, Ms. Austen. Let me show you something.”
He led me over to the wall of framed photos, most of them ships in the Holiday arsenal. In several of the pictures, Captain Lindstrom was standing with celebrities. Among others, I saw the good captain with Bill Clinton, Jay Leno, and Paris Hilton (who had inscribed her photo, To Captain “Lindy”—You’re Hot! XOXO, Paris).
But the captain hadn’t brought me there to gawk at celebrities.
There was someone else he wanted me to see.
“Take a look at that one,” he said, pointing to a faded black-and-white picture of a young woman standing on the deck of a ship, a gangly girl in vintage 1950s attire—a shirtwaist dress, locket, and penny loafers.
“That young woman,” he said, “is Emily Pritchard.”
I took a closer look. Omigosh. It was Emily! I could see it in her sweet smile. Standing next to her was an austere older man in a three-piece suit. Probably her father, who’d introduced her to cruising all those years ago.
“Emily has been sailing with Holiday Cruise Lines ever since that picture was taken, more than fifty years ago,” the captain said, breaking into my musings. “She’s one of our most loyal customers, and I am not about to accuse one of her party of murder.”
He crossed his arms over his substantial chest and glared at me, all traces of Santa Claus vanishing up the chimney.
“Is that understood?”
I had been intending to wow him with my credentials as a part-time unlicensed P.I., but somehow I sensed this was not the time.
“Understood.” I nodded sheepishly.
He was heading back to his desk when he stopped in his tracks.
“Wait a minute.” He turned to peer at me. “Jaine Austen. Aren’t you the one who’s teaching the memoir-writing class? The one whose students are getting a divorce because of an essay they wrote for you?”
Damn that Paige. She’d ratted me out.
“Yes,” I confessed, “but surely you can’t blame me for an innocent essay assignment.”
Oh, yes, he could.
He proceeded to ream into me with all the cordiality of Simon Legree chatting with an uncooperative plantation hand.
Finally, he wound down his harangue.
“You’ve done quite enough damage on this cruise, young woman. Until we dock in Los Angeles, I expect you to keep your mouth shut and mind your own business.”
Moi? Mind my own business?
The good captain clearly didn’t know me very well.
Chapter 11
Ignoring Captain Lindstrom’s warning, I set off to have a little chat with Eddie Romero, the eyewitness who saw Cookie fighting with Graham.
Luckily he picked up the phone when I had the ship’s operator connect me to his cabin. I told him I had a matter of utmost importance to discuss with him, and minutes later I was trotting over to his digs, not far from mine on the Dungeon Deck.
He came to the door, a low-rent version of Graham.
On the one hand, he was tall and craggy with a thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair. The kind of silver-haired smoothie the ships love to hire to dance with the single ladies. But he had the slightly flattened nose of a street fighter, and when he opened his mouth to talk, it sounded like he’d spent his formative years hanging out with The Sopranos.
Right away I wondered if he was the Butterfly Bandit. I could certainly picture him posing for a mug shot.
Looking down, I saw that his feet were bare, his pants rolled up to his calves.
“Excuse my feet,” he said, following my gaze. “I’m soaking them.”
Like me, he had only one chair in his cabin, and he plopped down into it, easing his feet into a bucket of steaming water.
I perched primly on the only other available seating in the room—his bed—and noticed a much-thumbed issue of Hustler on his nightstand.
“What a night I had last night,” he moaned. “Got stuck with the world’s worst dancer. The woman squashed my toes like a steamroller.”
He added some Epsom salts to the water and stirred them with his feet.
“I don’t know why I keep wasting my time working these damn cruises. The pay stinks and the cabins are from hunger.”
At least you get a spare pillow, I thought, eyeing the two pillows on his bed.
“So what is this matter of utmost importance you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Graham Palmer’s murder.”
He barely blinked at the mention of Graham’s grisly demise.
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” he said, sloshing his feet around in the water. “It was only a matter of time before some dame popped her cork and let him have it.”
“Captain Lindstrom tells me you saw Cookie out on deck with Graham last night.”
Notice how I carefully omitted the fact that the captain also told me to mind my own beeswax?
He looked up from his feet, curious.
“What are you, some kind of detective?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” I said, flashing him a badge I’d picked up at a flea market for just such occasions as these. From across the room, he couldn’t see that it said USDA Meat Inspector.
“Wait a minute.” His brow furrowed. “I thought you were a writer. The one whose students are getting a divorce.”
For crying out loud, did everybody on board ship know about the Shaws’ divorce? Was it the front-page headline in the Holiday Happenings?
“My writing is just a cover for my detective work,” I lied. “A lot of ships like to have a detective on board for situations such as this.”
He thought over this whopper and fell for it.
“Very interesting,” he said, gazing at me with newfound respect.
“So about Cookie and Graham…?” I prompted.
“I saw them together, all right. I’d just spent two hours hauling Mrs. Two Left Feet around the dance floor, listening to her yap about what a saint her late husband was. The husbands are all saints after they die. It’s while they’re alive that their wives can’t stand them.
“Anyhow, I was sacked out on a deck chair wondering if I’d ever be able to move my toes again when I heard Cookie screaming at Graham. It sounded like it was coming from the deck below, so I looked over the railing, and sure enough, there she was, throwing that half-a-heart pendant in his face.”
He took his feet out of the water now and began drying them with one of the ship’s threadbare towels.
“What a scam those pendants were. Graham bought ’em by the gross. Gave them out like lollipops at a dentist’s office. I’m telling you, the guy had more fiancées than a bridal registry.”
He opened a jar of Mineral Ice and began slathering his feet, the sharp aroma of menthol filling the air.
“God, this feels good,” he sighed. “Want some?”
He held out the jar.
I shook my head no, opting to stick with my preferred perfume, Eau de Cat Spit.
“What happened after Cookie threw her pendant at Graham?” I asked, getting back to the subject at hand.
“I have no idea. It started to rain, so I went back to my cabin.”
“So you didn’t actually see Cookie stab Graham?”
“No, but I wouldn’t blame her if she did. He treated her like crap.”
“Can you think of anybody else he treated badly?”
“Take a number.”
“Didn’t Graham have any friends?”
“No,” he said, with a wry smile. “No friends. Just victims.”
I couldn’t help wondering if Eddie had been one of them.
“You
ever hear of the Butterfly Bandit?” I asked.
I watched his reaction closely, looking for signs of guilt or shock. But I saw nada. If he was indeed the Butterfly Bandit, he’d learned how to hide it well.
“Nope,” he shrugged. “Can’t say I have.”
“I found a newspaper clipping about this Butterfly Bandit in Graham’s wallet, and I think he might be on board ship. Do you know anyone on the crew who might have had a criminal past?”
He shook his head.
“The only one I can think of is Graham. It wouldn’t surprise me if the guy had a record. And it would be just like him to carry a clipping about himself around in his wallet. His fifteen minutes of fame.”
I had to admit, he had a point.
“Yeah, what an egomaniac,” he said, kneading his toes. “I’m surprised he didn’t have the clipping laminated.”
Then he picked up a pumice stone and began scraping the dead skin off his calluses.
Definitely my cue to exit.
After leaving Eddie, I strolled around the ship hoping to run into one of the Pritchard clan, but the Festival was fairly deserted. We’d docked at Puerto Vallarta that morning, and most of the passengers had already left for shore excursions.
I checked the pool deck and the jogging track and the gift shop—okay, and the buffet, too, where I nabbed myself a banana—but there was not a Pritchard to be found.
So I wandered over to the computer room and read my e-mails, cringing at the thought of my paint-spattered floors. If you ask me, people should be required to get background checks before they’re allowed to buy paintbrushes. And by “people,” of course, I mean Daddy. Oh, well. I’d just have to cover the mess with an area rug. Best to forget it and get some work done on Samoa’s god-awful manuscript.
Back in my cabin, I found Prozac hard at work clawing my bedspread. Yet another charge to be tacked on to my all-expenses-paid cruise. But it was hard to be angry with her, cooped up as she was in this tiny cabin. She had to do something to keep herself amused.
I slumped down in my chair and stared at Samoa’s manuscript towering ominously on my night table. I tried to pick it up, but in the end, I simply could not face the thought of another afternoon wrestling with his tortured prose. Not when I was in Puerto Vallarta, one of the world’s prettiest resorts.
With a rebellious cry, I leaped up and grabbed my purse and passport.
I’d made up my mind. I was going ashore. True, all the Puerto Vallarta excursions listed in the Holiday Happenings were a tad too pricey for me, but I didn’t care. I’d hang around the port and at least set foot on Mexican soil. Maybe I could walk over to one of the sandy white beaches and let the ocean lap at my feet.
“See you later, kiddo,” I said to Prozac. But she was too engrossed in attacking evil aliens from Planet Bedspread to look up.
Minutes later, I was disembarking the ship. It was a bright sunny day, with no trace of the rain Eddie had seen last night. I skipped down the gangplank with a song in my heart, eager to wiggle my toes in the sand.
The song in my heart gurgled to a halt, however, when I looked around. Where was the beautiful resort I’d seen in the brochures? The one with the sandy beaches and colorful hillside houses?
All I saw now were a few warehouses and some jerry-built jewelry stalls for the gringo touristas. Weaving among those tourists were several local tour guides, touting their excursions.
Okay, so it wasn’t paradise. But anything was better than Do Not Distub.
I wandered around the jewelry stalls and was gazing at a genuine $29.95 “sapphire” when I was approached by a short, wiry local dressed in Good Humor whites. The only spot of color in his outfit was a bright green parrot perched on his shoulder. A parrot who seemed to be sound asleep. Either that, or dead and stuffed.
“Buenos dias, senorita.”
The little Mexican man smiled broadly, exposing a mouthful of what I suspect were store-bought teeth.
“Pepe will show you Puerto Vallarta in a luxury air-conditioned limo. Only fifty American dollars.”
“Sorry.” I shook my head. No way was I spending fifty bucks to tour Puerto Vallarta with a dead parrot.
I wandered over to another stall, but Pepe was hot on my heels.
“For such a pretty senorita like you,” he grinned, “thirty American dollars.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, twenty.”
Twenty dollars? That was more like it.
“I show you all the sights. Old Town, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, a genuine pottery factory, and the most famous cantina in all of Puerto Vallarta.”
That sounded pretty good, but I still wasn’t sure I wanted to add another twenty bucks to my ever-growing vacation tab. On the other hand, the sun was getting awfully hot, and the thought of a nice air-conditioned limo was pretty darn tempting.
I was standing there considering Pepe’s offer when I heard someone screaming:
“You should be ashamed of yourself! Ashamed of yourself!”
What on earth was that all about?
I turned and saw David and Nancy Shaw coming down the gangplank, separated by a gaggle of relatives. Nancy was weeping into a hanky, while David shouted at the top of his lungs, red faced with rage.
To my utter mortification, I realized he was shouting at me.
The next thing I knew he was marching over to where I was standing with Pepe, a Greek chorus of relatives trailing behind him.
“This woman destroyed my marriage!” he announced to the crowd that was forming around us.
“If it weren’t for you,” he screamed at me, “I’d be renewing my wedding vows!”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Shaw, I had no idea—”
“Forty years down the drain because of your stupid essay!”
By now everyone in port was looking at us. Even Pepe’s parrot had opened his eyes. So he wasn’t dead after all. Just napping.
“What have you got to say for yourself?” David shouted, his furious face mere inches from mine.
There was only one thing to say at a time like this.
My exact words, if I recall, were, “Okay, Pepe. Take me to your limo.”
David’s curses echoed behind me as I followed Pepe down the pier.
Where the heck was his darn limo, anyway? All I saw were some pickup trucks and an old hearse.
“Here it is!” Pepe said.
My god! He was pointing to the hearse.
It had been converted into a tour bus, the words Pepe’s Puerto Vallarta Excursions sloppily hand painted on the doors.
“This is your limo?”
“A nineteen fifty-nine Cadillac.” He grinned, opening the door with a flourish. “I call her Black Beauty.”
Black Hole was more like it. I couldn’t possibly get into this thing. But then I turned and saw the Shaws, still waiting for what I assumed was their airport transportation. No way was I going back there to face them.
With a sigh, I forked over a twenty-dollar bill and climbed inside the hearse, where I found four rows of threadbare seats lined up behind the driver’s compartment.
All of them empty.
It looked like I was the only tourista foolish enough to have signed on for Pepe’s tour.
Brushing away a few stray parrot feathers, I took a seat in the last row, trying not to think of the corpses that had ridden in Black Beauty before me.
Meanwhile the sun was beating down on the hearse, and it was about three thousand degrees inside. I was counting the seconds until we got going and Pepe turned on the air-conditioning.
At last he climbed in the driver’s seat and turned to give me another store-bought grin.
“You all set?”
“I can’t seem to find my seat belt,” I replied, searching for one in vain.
“No seat belts,” Pepe happily informed me.
Why was I surprised? I was lucky it had wheels.
“Senorita doesn’t need a seat belt. Pepe is a very safe driver. Isn’t that
right, Desi?”
The parrot yawned in reply.
“Vamanos!” Pepe was just about to turn the key in the ignition when there was a knock on the tinted window.
His face lit up in delight.
“Ah!” he cried. “More suckers!”
Okay, so what he really said was, “More passengers.”
He jumped out of the car and raced around to the passenger side.
“Hola, senoritas!” I heard him saying. “Climb aboard.”
Dammit. It was Rita, the Mary Higgins Clark fanatic from my class. I stifled a groan as she and two pals in floral capri pants sets climbed on board and plopped themselves down in the front row.
The minute Rita saw me in the backseat, she began whispering to her friends.
I considered making a break for it, but by then Pepe had jumped back in the car and taken off in a barrage of backfire.
Are we having fun yet? Desi the parrot squawked.
Oh, well. All I could do was sit back and hope for the best. After all, I was going to see Puerto Vallarta. How bad could it be?
I’ll tell you how bad: Think Donner Party, with parrot poop.
For one thing, Pepe’s “air conditioning” consisted of a battery-operated fan on his dashboard. That, together with the fact that the windows on the hearse opened about an average of three inches, made for mighty toasty motoring. I do not exaggerate when I say I’d been in saunas cooler than Black Beauty.
True to his word, Pepe took us to many of Puerto Vallarta’s tourist attractions: Old Town, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, and the house where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton once lived. What he did not do, however, was stop the hearse and let us get out to see the darn things.
It was like The Travel Channel on fast-forward.
I expected Rita to raise a stink and start yapping about the fabulous, much better excursions she’d taken on previous cruises. But Rita didn’t seem to care that we were being short-changed on our sightseeing. She was having too much fun gossiping about me. Occasionally snippets of her conversation drifted back to me:
…They were supposed to be renewing their vows, and now they’re getting a divorce! All because of her!
…She calls herself a writer, and she hasn’t even published a book.
