Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “Voila! The pig! We’ll cook up some pork roasts, beef ribs, and teriyaki chicken, too, to make sure that we have enough for the turnout we expect on the last night of a cruise,” Gerard stepped into the walk-in fridge. When I followed him inside, he let the door slam shut behind us.

  “About your earlier question, Georgie. I’ve had my suspicions that something odd is going on.”

  5 Shipboard Extravaganzas

  “Odd? How?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I found items shoved around down here, and no one was willing to admit they did it or knew what had happened. A few things turned up missing or damaged. Nothing expensive. That’s part of why this seemed so odd. The pricey stuff like caviar, truffles, foie gras, and expensive bottles of wine or liqueur I use for cooking I keep in a safe in my cabin.”

  “Could someone have been looking for something?”

  “That’s possible, but what? When no one claimed to know anything, I checked the log and accounted for entries and exits as well as I could. They checked out—for the most part.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There is so much coming and going even during the late shifts, it’s hard to be entirely sure who was where when. Crew members are supposed to keep their keycards with them always, and they are not allowed to share them with others. I couldn’t prove it, but I suspected not all galley staff were following those rules. It’s not surprising that in the middle of a rush one employee might ask another to run down and pick up something. Why lend out your keycard? Things happen, I guess,” Gerard said.

  “Did you report any of this to Bill Tate?”

  “Not directly, but I filed incident reports—twice—when I couldn’t get to the bottom of the matter on my own. After one of those incidents, items down here weren’t just out of place, but oil had been spilled on the floor as though there might have been a shoving match and stuff got knocked down. Flour too. I threw out the dented, leaky can I found on a shelf and a bag of flour that had split open. I could tell someone had made a stab at cleaning it up. In fact, a member of the commissary kitchen staff eventually admitted he’d cleaned up the spills but swore he found it that way. He was so uncomfortable about it. Why, if he didn’t do it? Maybe he was just embarrassed that he'd been so clumsy and made such a mess. It didn’t seem like a big enough deal to write the guy up, so I left his name out of the report I filed. We’re talking about a few dollars’ worth of ingredients—no big deal.”

  “Gerard, why are you so wary?” Even in the privacy of the walk-in that was now growing rather cold, he did a quick side-to-side scan and lowered his voice before going on.

  “Because the next morning after I had filed the second report, I found a raw duck on a cart outside my door. It had a note stuck to it with a knife. ‘Chef Gerard, you don’t want to run ‘a fowl’ of the wrong people. Quit giving your staff the 3rd degree over nothing.’ I laughed at first, figuring it was a practical joke. I have been known to do such things myself, Georgie. Then when that guy went overboard this morning after a fight of some kind, it didn’t seem so funny anymore.”

  “You heard there was a fight?”

  “Yes. I was out on deck when the screaming and shouting began. Women were screaming, and one was shouting ‘he pushed him over the rail,’ or something like that.” A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the frigid temperature of our surroundings.

  “Are you saying that more than one person was shouting and screaming?”

  “Yes. I heard at least two distinct women’s voices.” Gerard seemed puzzled. “What do you know that I don’t, Georgie?”

  “You cannot tell anyone else about this, Gerard, except Bill—and Jack. Before I asked Bill to track you down so we could meet, there was a report that a fight contributed to that passenger falling overboard. That report came from one woman who screamed and alerted the crew—not two.” Gerard stared at me with a penetrating gaze, almost like my super-perceptive Siamese cat, Miles. Under pressure, I gave away more details. “She mentioned that fight didn’t end well for another passenger, either.” Gerard’s eyes widened. I changed the subject, hastily. Why add to his fearfulness with details about a murder on Deck 6?

  “Gerard, why didn't you report your concerns about the previous incidents to security today, or tell them what you heard when you were up on deck?”

  “I assumed they heard the screaming and that anyone that upset would have gone to the nearest staff member right away. Maybe the dead duck thing was a prank, Georgie. I don’t want to get a reputation for being a whack job. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least, to suspect the people around you of being up to no good without any real proof.”

  I flashed on my reaction when there had been a murder at Catmmando Mountain. It had been inconceivable to me that anyone with whom I worked could have done such a thing. Even when someone tried to frame me for the murder, I had a hard time seeing my coworkers as villains.

  “I get it. You do need to share this with Bill, Gerard. He needs to go over all of this with you, starting at the beginning. He speaks highly of you, and will not consider you a whack job, especially under the circumstances.”

  “Well, if that duck prank wasn’t a prank, it’s more than a little scary, isn't it?” I nodded in agreement.

  "Even more reason to get this on the record with Bill. Who knew you had filed those incident reports?”

  “I questioned members of the galley kitchen staff who had been on duty on the occasions when I noticed a problem down here. The commissary kitchen staff, too, that had late night shifts. They all knew I was going to file an incident report. I asked the guy who had tried to clean up the mess to come to me, first, if it happened again so he wouldn't get mixed up with whatever had gone on. Paolo was there. He can tell you who all was in the room. Since he does more direct supervision than I do, he should have a better idea about kitchen staff who have had problems on the job.” I shivered. This time from the cold. Gerard noticed.

  “Let’s get out of here before you freeze to death. Let me finish showing you around. Then, I have a surprise for you in my cabin.” Gerard said raising both eyebrows, morphing back into clown mode as we stepped out of that walk-in fridge. The storage room that was also cool felt balmy by comparison to that meat locker.

  “What kind of surprise?” I asked. “I’m well-aware of your practical jokes that aren’t always so funny, by the way. Like when you lit that poor buffet runner’s apron strings on fire on his way out to the dining room.” Gerard whooped.

  “He made a quick turnaround, didn’t he? I had no idea the guy could move that fast!”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get kicked out of your internship at Marvelous Marley World for that. If guests in the dining room had seen those fiery apron strings, you could have created an uproar. Or worse—a panic with people screaming ‘fire’ and running for the exits!”

  “I know, Georgie. I do have some bad-prank-Karma coming to me, don't I? I’m way more mature now than I was when we were in our twenties. It’s not that kind of surprise, promise. Besides, passengers seem plenty upset about the missing man. I’m not interested in doing anything to rock the boat!” I rolled my eyes at the corny use of that phrase.

  “Ha ha, Gerard. No one wants to make this situation worse. It’s not pleasant to think about some poor man floating around out there—if he’s still alive.”

  “Certainly, not the sort of thing you want to deal with on your cruise to paradise. Many of the conversations I’ve overheard have been dreadful. Not always oozing with concern for the missing man, I might add. You’d think they’d notice that their kids are standing there with eyes as big as saucers and their mouths hanging open, listening to the nasty tone and offensive language. Some of those parents ought to have their mouths washed out with soap.”

  “Their kids won’t blush as easily as I did as a newbie in the kitchen, huh?” Gerard burst into laughter again.

  “Hopefully our luau will rekindle the aloha spirit. We’ll have enter
tainment, too. Perroquet and Penelope will sing their little ditty on a mock beach since the real one will be off limits.” Then Gerard sprang into motion swinging his hips in a kind of hula meets the twist. He belted out the first line of that duet by a mermaid and a parrot:

  “We live a tiki-tiki life in a teeny-tiny hut

  On a strip of sandy beach near a brightly-colored reef!”

  At that point, Gerard pointed to me. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know the routine. We had done it many times years before as coworkers during our internship at Marvelous Marley World. I took my cue, stepped next to Gerard, and went into action. Dancing and singing my part.

  “It’s an easy-peasy life full of fish and coconut

  By lagoons of blue-green water where work is always brief!”

  “Brief? It’s almost nothing atoll—atoll—get it?” Gerard retorted adding a bit of squawk to his voice.

  “Yes, I get it Perroquet!” Standing there with my hands on my hips like Princess Penelope, I abruptly ended our little routine with a question.

  “Be honest, Gerard. Do you hate this song as much as I do? The idea of an oversized parrot and a petite mermaid dancing on a French Polynesian beach just irks me somehow.”

  “The tune does stick with you long after you wish it would leave your head. However, that is absolutely information you should not have divulged, Georgie Shaw. I now know how to torment you anytime I please. Not to mention blackmail! What would Mad Max say if he knew how you felt about Penelope and Perroquet’s tiki-tiki song?”

  “Oh, go ahead. Do your worst,” I said, putting my hands back on my hips. “I grew up with three brothers, so it won't be easy to torment me! And, I don’t mind telling Max to his face that he missed the mark with that little ditty. Can you imagine having to play that tune, over and over, for a five-year-old smitten with the idea of Princess Penelope from Neptune’s Enchanted Underwater Kingdom? Where’s that parrot come from anyway? There aren’t any parrots on atolls!”

  Gerard was laughing at my rant as we headed across the storage space and through a pair of swinging doors into the commissary kitchen. Unlike the empty storage area, this room was buzzing with activity. The staff was busy working on large stainless steel tables. On one near us, a young man was cracking eggs into a large container, holding two eggs at a time in each hand. Crack, open, empty. Grab four more eggs and repeat! Prep work I had done many times to have enough eggs ready to scramble for a buffet. Others chopped fruits or vegetables. A man washed heads of lettuce in a large stainless steel sink, while a young woman wearing plastic gloves wrapped bacon around water chestnuts or pineapple chunks, stuck them with a toothpick, and then placed them on a large sheet pan.

  “Yum, rumaki,” I mumbled realizing that I was getting hungry.

  “Only one of the many 'pupus' for our luau. We’re having those little barbecue ribs, coconut scallop ceviche, beef teriyaki skewers, chicken mango kabobs, crispy prawns, and...”

  “Please, stop! I take back what I said about being able to withstand your torment. Not that you’re playing fair. One of the things I wanted to ask you about was whether you'd considered creating a spectacle of some kind for tonight. You know, something extra for passengers who are disappointed about the change in itinerary and distressed about the missing passenger? Now I’m too hungry to talk about food. Besides, that luau you have planned for tomorrow night is going to be a fabulous way to end the cruise on a happy note.”

  “Georgie, have no fear! I’m way ahead of you when it comes to cooking up a diversion for tonight. This way!” I followed Gerard into another preparation room in the commissary. I could tell the moment we entered the space that this was the pastry shop. Not just by the sights that assailed us. The air was laden with sweet aromas of coconut, spices, and my favorite—chocolate.

  “Behold! A sea of desserts to take their minds off reality and remind them that they came on this cruise for fun and fantasy.”

  “Oh, my goodness! It’s like a scene from that episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel are set loose in a candy factory,” I exclaimed. Trays and trays of mouth-watering truffles were set out before us on one of the surfaces in this room. A rack was already laden with trays full of them, too.

  “Peek in here,” Gerard said as he opened the door to a walk-in. Olly-Olly Octopus beamed his wicked smile in a grand display of chocolate. Below him, a smaller, marzipan rendition of Princess Penelope sat among rocky chocolate boulders, her mermaid tail at the edge of a blue-green sugary lagoon. Candy starfish and seashells along with a treasure chest filled to overflowing with gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins surrounded her.

  “Now that’s a spectacle! The kids are going to go wild.”

  “Mostly Paolo’s handiwork. We were going to use this at the luau tonight if cruise events had gone as planned. Divine, don’t you think?” Gerard sighed, and then went on speaking before I could reply to his question. “The kids can devour Olly-Olly Nemesis of the Deep with impunity. We’ll give them little Neptune’s Warrior Tridents to use instead of forks. They can dig in and serve themselves while wearing a crown—King Neptune’s or Princess Penelope’s—as they choose. Hopefully, this will make the evening memorable for other reasons than being stranded at anchor while searching for a man overboard.”

  As he spoke, Gerard walked me through a wonderland of sweet treats. Staff members, who were busy piping decorations onto cakes of every shape and size, greeted us with friendly nods or hellos as we made our way around the space. Pies and tarts were cooling on racks. Cupcakes and cookies were being iced and turned into fanciful creations.

  “All that sugar ought to create quite a buzz. I’m not sure about those pointy tridents, though. I can imagine kids stabbing each other with them once they’ve had their way with Olly-Olly.”

  “There’s certainly plenty of room to run off that sugar buzz in the kids’ areas near where we’ll set this up. It’s a good idea, though, to have them trade in those tridents for foam rubber toys or blow up pool toys or something like that. I’ll make sure the Activities Director has a supply on hand.”

  “They ought to sleep like babies when that sugar drops them like a rock later,” I said. We walked back through the spaces we had traversed to the swinging double doors that led into the storage room. Then to a second set that would return us to a bank of elevators, including the one we had used earlier.

  “Let’s hope so. Time for the surprise in my cabin. I’ve got a splendid lunch set up for us. You can invite Jim Rockford if you like.”

  “Carol’s been talking to you, hasn’t she?”

  “Since I didn’t go to the wedding, I had to get the scoop somehow. So, yes, I called your assistant and pumped her for info.”

  “Jack and I invited you,” I said.

  “I know. Life at sea is a demanding one. My itinerary is set a year ahead. Now that I’ve met him, I understand what Carol meant about Jack being a man of action. The way he looks at you, I can believe he was in a hurry to make that walk down the aisle. He does look like James Garner, doesn’t he?”

  “I think so. Let me call and see if Jack can get away. Bill, too! Be prepared, though. It’s going to be your turn to get pumped for information. You have to tell them everything!”

  “Tell who everything about what?” Gerard and I both jumped at the sound of the voice that asked that question. Paolo swept in through those swinging doors.

  He was no longer wearing that chef’s hat and his appearance was even more startling without it. His blond hair that hung straight to his shoulders set off his bright blue eyes.

  “Gerard has lunch for us. I want him to tell my husband, Jack, all about the spectacles you two have planned for passengers,” I lied as fast as my lips could move. It wasn't a complete lie. What I had said was true, just not the whole truth. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell him more. How long had he been down here? How much had he heard already? I wondered.

  6 A Dodgy Perroquet

  Stuffed after that lunch with Gerard, Jack se
emed quiet but relaxed. I felt wired. When we left Gerard, he was still meeting with Bill Tate going over details after sharing his concerns about the odd things he had noticed in the kitchen and storage areas.

  Jack had taken that “fowl play” episode with the duck, as more than play. Less concerned than I had been about scaring the heck out of Gerard, Jack told him to keep his guard up for the duration of the cruise. Gerard agreed and then asked both Bill and Jack what that meant. I don't know about Gerard, but urging him to take precautions had raised my level of anxiety.

  “Hearing Gerard’s story a second time gave me the heebie-jeebies,” I said once we were alone and on our way to a wraparound promenade on an upper deck. Jack smiled.

  “The heebie-jeebies? I haven’t heard that term in ages! It's from an old song I can barely remember. Where did that come from?” Jack asked.

  “Probably from singing Max’s retro-sounding tiki-tiki song with Gerard,” I mumbled.

  “Singing? Georgie Shaw, what other talents have you been keeping from me?”

  It was my turn to smile. With Jack grinning at me, skin-tingling heebie-jeebies weren’t all that zipped through me. Snap, crackle, pop, and the anxiety fled. Before I answered him, I grabbed his hands and pulled him close.

  “We’ve only been married one week, Jack Wheeler; surely you don’t believe you’ve learned everything there is to know about me, do you? I’m your mystery woman, remember?” The elevator door slid open behind me. I stepped out, still holding onto one hand, pulling him along with me.