“Show’s over, folks,” Jack said.
“Wow, you were right. It was a show. There must be a new Perroquet movie coming out,” the enthusiastic teen said, buzzing with delight.
“They don’t look like bad guys, but if Perroquet was trying to stop them, they must have been up to something.” There was more discussion as the small group disbursed, but the conversation was lost amid laughter as they departed.
“Are you sure you're okay?” Maggie cried out as she hurried toward us, dodging passengers as the last members of that gathering drifted away. As she approached, I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of Paolo, without his chef’s hat, and heading away from us. When I looked more closely, I couldn’t see him.
“Better than if I’d gone over the side of the ship from here,” I quipped. “I might be in worse shape too if I’d hit the deck when that bird slammed into me. Jack must have grabbed me before that could happen.”
“You must not have been so lucky, huh, Jack?” she asked. “Or did you get those from punching that parrot?” Maggie pointed to the knuckles on Jack’s right hand that had scrapes on them. “You must have hit your head too,” she added. A trickle of blood was slowly making its way down the right side of his face.
“Nothing major. When I tried to catch myself before I hit the ground, I missed the first deck chair and scraped my knuckles. My head, too, I guess. Don’t worry, you two. My tetanus shot is up to date.” The doctor handed Jack a wipe of some kind, and he swiped at the blood on his face.
“What was it, Jack, if it wasn’t an accident?” I asked. I took a second wipe from the doctor and carefully cleaned the knuckles on his hand. Those tears were threatening to appear again. How close had my one-week-husband and I come to having one of the shortest marriages on record? I wondered.
“Another Marvelous Marley World character has gone rogue. Most likely intent on delivering a message for us to get out of the way and quit snooping. We must be getting closer to discovering what’s going on for someone to take that risk. A man who’s already killed two people probably isn't thinking too rationally. A couple of Bill’s guys are after him. I doubt he can get far with that bum knee you gave him.”
“Being whacked with a deck chair couldn’t have felt good either. What an idiotic idea to come after us in that parrot get up. It can’t be that easy to move, even uninjured, dressed like that and wearing those big, floppy feet!”
“You’d both better follow me and let me check out that bump on your head, Jack. Just in case. Bill Tate messaged me that he wants us to meet him there, anyway.”
“She’s right, Jack. Let’s go.” Jack just nodded as we followed Maggie. When I moved, I got a quick reminder that I was no spring chicken, either. Somewhere in the fracas, I must have twisted awkwardly or worked a few muscles that hadn’t been put to the test lately. A sharp pain shot up my leg and into my back. “I could use an aspirin if you don’t mind, Doc.”
“No problem. It’s the least I can do,” Maggie replied. Fortunately, we only had a short distance to walk before we arrived at an elevator that could take us below to the infirmary.
As we waited for that elevator, a seabird cried while soaring above us. A gust of air carried a bit of salty spray with it. As the sun moved closer to the horizon, it was taking on that golden hue like the late afternoon sun in California. Normally, that would have been pleasurable. Now it stood in stark contrast to Jack’s words. A killer was on the loose and still intent on wreaking havoc, presuming that’s who had launched the parrot attack. Time was running out, if it wasn’t already too late for Passenger X as Jack’s comment about two murders implied.
“Maggie, was that Paolo I saw in the crowd?”
“Yes, it was. When I got the call that there was trouble up on deck, Paolo and I were in the infirmary. He’d dropped by to give us a sample of his hair so we could rule him out as the owner of the strands we've taken into evidence.”
“How’d that happen?” Jack asked.
“Bill asked him to do it and he agreed.”
“Does that mean he knows about the murder?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. Paolo said he wasn’t sure why Bill wanted it, but he had nothing to hide and was ‘happy to be of service.’ Even gave me one of those snappy little bows he does. No peroxide, by the way.”
When we arrived at the infirmary minutes later, Bill Tate was there. Maggie brought me a couple of aspirin and a glass of water. Then she checked that scrape on Jack's head before handing him aspirin and water, too.
“Hey, what about me?” In a corner, a half-man-half-bird sat with a dejected look on his face. On the floor, not too far from where he was cuffed to a chair, the top half of his costume gaped at us with huge vacant eyes above an enormous beak. I had a strong urge to start kicking again.
“Meet Justin Michelson, who’s in need of some medical attention. He says you took out his knee cap Georgie, as though that was a bad thing.” Justin’s head snapped up, and he glared at Bill. Jack took a step toward him, and the young man shrank back.
“He’s lucky I didn’t get to him sooner, or he’d be swimming for it. That’s assuming all that padding in his bird suit would have broken his fall when he hit the water from 120 feet up. My wife wouldn’t have had that going for her if you’d pushed her overboard as you tried to do, birdbrain.”
“No way, Man. That’s not what happened. Nobody told me… I mean, I’d never do that.” Justin might have had more to say, but Jack took another step toward him, and the squawking stopped.
“How do you like that, Jack? Justin is changing his story already,” Bill said. “He told us he grabbed that suit on a whim and was just out for a lark. Running into you was a terrible accident, right, Justin?” Justin didn’t make eye contact but nodded. Bill turned to us and spoke before Justin could say a word.
“We got a report a little while ago that a costume last seen in a rehearsal area near the Sea Nymph stage was missing. No one saw anyone take it, so they figured a stagehand had returned it to the costume room below. When it wasn’t there, they reported it stolen.”
“Ow! I need some help here. Your wife almost broke my leg, Mister.”
“Shut up and sit still, so I don’t cut you,” Maggie snapped, holding up a pair of scissors. She must have yanked his leg a moment before when she removed the second oversized parrot foot that went with the bottom part of his costume. That left Justin's legs covered in a pair of tights. Rolling a chair close, she began cutting away the material around his knee.
“I was trying to keep you from shoving me overboard, like you did to that man this morning, Justin. It’s not Mister, by the way, it’s Detective,” I said in an indignant tone.
Justin’s eyes widened when he heard the word detective tagged on at the end of my accusation about shoving someone off the ship. “Whoa, you can’t pin that on me. I was sound asleep when that guy went over the side. I heard somebody pushed him, but it wasn’t me, uh, Detective.”
“I hope you can prove it. We have a witness, and you fit her description of the guy who did it pretty well,” Jack said in a voice at least as angry as mine. Jack was right! My heart rate sped up as I scanned the young man more carefully.
“Dark hair, dark eyes, a t-shirt rather than a baggy sweatshirt, but Jack, he’s even wearing glasses. Justin must be the third man!” I found it hard to believe, looking at the disheveled, belligerent 20-something slouching in his chair.
“Our witness is checking out his passenger photo as we speak. We already have a positive I.D. from the steward who filed that incident report. Meet one of the two men involved in that drunken brawl on Deck 6,” Bill commented in a rather offhand manner.
“So, what? That guy tried to stiff me for drinks. That doesn’t mean I shoved anyone overboard.”
“Well, it does put you near where the trouble occurred this morning. I guess we now know who paid the bar tab. Have you been able to make any connection between him and our dead man in the morgue?”
“Mor
gue? Dead man? Are you talking about the guy that went into the water or another one? Ouch! That hurts, Doc!”
“Sorry, but if you keep moving, I can’t examine your knee properly.” Maggie had cut the tights off both legs and was gingerly checking his knees. “I can take an x-ray to be sure. At this point, I believe our Perroquet impersonator is going to have some ugly bruises, but nothing feels out of place or broken. There’s no difference when I compare the two knees, except that the one you kicked is a bit sore and starting to swell.” I don’t think Justin was paying much attention to her words or I’m sure he would have objected to that “a bit sore” part of her diagnosis. Dead man and morgue still seemed to have his attention.
“What is this? The steward can tell you that the guy with me wasn’t dead. We had a few drinks that I charged to my account since Martin didn’t have his I.D. with him. More than a few. I’ll admit we were pretty wasted. Martin said he had cash in his cabin, but the first cabin he took me to wasn’t even his. Then he says he's lost. I thought the loser was jerking me around and told him to stop it or I’d report him to the ship’s crew. That’s when he took a swing at me. I wrestled him to the ground and was about to help myself to a ring he had in his shirt pocket when that steward broke it up.”
“Ring?” I asked. “What kind of a ring?”
“An engagement ring for his girlfriend. The reason he brought her on this cruise was so he could propose. The drinks were to work up his courage to do it.”
“At that hour? Did you believe that? What was he—a midnight Casanova?” I blurted that out before I could stop myself.
“I didn’t say I believed it. In fact, it sounded like a crock to me. That's why I decided to take the ring—just until he paid me the money he owed me. Before I could do it, that busybody steward butted in and pulled me off him. Yesterday, when I went to the cabin number he gave to the steward, this woman answered. I figured I found his girlfriend, but she acted like she didn’t know who Martin Santo was or what the heck I was talking about when I brought up the engagement ring, so I gave up.”
“I’ve only had a chance to glance at the items in the report you gave me about the stolen jewelry, but there was an engagement ring on that list as I recall,” Jack commented.
“Yes. One of the first pieces that disappeared soon after we left Papeete. The woman who reported it missing didn’t even call it theft. She thought it slipped off her finger in the spa or pool area and called lost and found. It was only after the other thefts that we added it to the list.”
“Stolen jewelry? Dead guys? I need a lawyer, don’t I?” Justin asked.
“Unless you want to give up the lame story you told me about going on a spree in that Perroquet costume like a frat boy on spring break. What were you really doing?” Bill asked. Justin looked at Bill then at Jack and back to Bill, avoiding me altogether.
“The lady paid me to do it—the one in the cabin who said she didn’t know Martin Santo. She tracked me down today at that bar where Martin and I met. Then she asked me if I knew where he was. I told her I had no clue. That made her cry. Then she showed me that ring. It turns out, they got engaged after all, but she was too upset to tell me about it when I knocked on her door earlier. That's because Martin had ditched her for some other woman—a rich, married one.” His eyes bored into me as he spoke. “I woulda’ done it for nothing, Jezebel or Georgie or whoever you are.”
“Me? Jezebel?” I gasped.
“Yeah. That’s what she called you when we watched you walking along, laughing and talking with that man.”
“What man?” I asked, incredulous.
“That chef with the high hat,” he replied. “Must be lots of men if you can’t even figure out who I mean.”
“I’m on my honeymoon, Justin!”
“I know that—another reason you suck. I would have done you a huge favor if your wife had gone overboard when I plowed into her.” I grabbed Jack’s arm as he lunged toward the young idiot. Jack stopped, of course, and in a calm, steady voice said,
“You’ve been played for a fool, Justin. Your damsel in distress is no victim. Didn’t you hear what we just said about that ring being on a list of stolen jewelry?” Justin blinked a couple of times before some of the dots in his head must have suddenly connected to create a different picture. “Here's more for you to consider. If you didn’t push that passenger overboard and you didn’t kill the guy lying in the morgue, that means there’s still a killer running around on this ship. The murderer and his girlfriend are setting you up as a patsy to take the fall for all the trouble on board. Or you’re next on the hit list since you got a good look at Martin and his girlfriend.”
“I’d listen to Jack. It’s no fun being framed or targeted for murder. I’m speaking from experience.” Confusion reigned on the young dolt’s face. “What was the woman’s name?” I asked in a softer tone. I wasn’t yet able to feel sorry for him, but I could understand the fear that must be surging through his addled brain.
“Tina,” he said. “That’s all I know. She didn’t give me her last name. She was so upset, I decided to walk back to that cabin with her. The parrot costume was already in there. I didn’t steal it from the rehearsal room, she did.”
“Lucky for you, if that’s true. That costume costs a few thousand dollars—more if it’s tricked out with some electronics,” I said. “Clearly a felony, right Jack?”
“Oh yes, and that’s before you add assault charges. Attempted murder, too, if our friend here meant it when he said you should have gone over the rails.”
“That’s not what I said. All Tina paid me to do was teach you a lesson about minding your own business and staying away from men who aren't yours. I got into that costume and waited until someone called her and told us where you were. I was having second thoughts, but then she started crying again, so I tore off and did it.”
“You have the cabin number Martin Santo gave the steward who broke up the fight. Is the occupant of the cabin named Tina?” I asked Bill.
“Tina Marston,” Bill answered after pulling up information about that cabin. “Sounds like we need to have another talk with her. While you patch him up, Maggie, I’m going to get that sketch artist to come down here as soon as Wendy Cutler and David Engels have finished describing the man they saw. Maybe with a drawing based on Justin's description, we can identify Martin Santo and figure out if he's the man overboard, since his name’s not on the passenger manifest. I’d hate to believe we have two unidentified passengers on this ship—or did—since at least one of them is swimming with the fishes.”
I sucked in a breath of air. There was no humor in that reference to Passenger X in the past tense. Bill must believe Passenger X was dead.
“There could be two, though, Bill. Since we still don’t know who helped Jake Nugent push Passenger X overboard, why not nominate Martin Santo for that role, too?” I asked.
“Why not? Maybe this ship is crawling with stowaways!” Bill responded. “I admit, it’s hard to believe Justin’s the third man. Just in case, I’ll find out what Wendy Cutler and David Engels say about it after checking out Justin's passenger photo.” I had to agree that Justin hardly fit the part of a skilled slasher. As he reached out for the aspirin Maggie offered him, I knew for sure.
“Not our slasher,” I muttered as Justin reached for it with his right hand. Jack heard me and nodded in agreement. My spirits took a nosedive for a moment, forcing me to realize how disappointed I was that the wretch in that Perroquet costume had not been the ruthless “third man.” Was it Martin Santo? Was he the one who had called Tina and given her the signal to turn Justin loose in that stupid outfit? Did Tina Marston know who he was and how to find him?
8 Patty, Patsy—Whatever
Jack and I waited for Bill to round up Tina. When they got to her cabin, minutes later, there was no sign of her. Surprise, surprise! She must have been intelligent enough to realize any guy willing to fall for her jilted female routine wasn’t too bright. I doubt she had count
ed on his ability to elude shipboard authorities, even if he’d been able to use the escape route she suggested. Hobbling, and with security on his heels, he hadn’t removed that stolen costume and ditched it overboard as she had instructed him to do.
There was also no indication that Martin Santo or any other man had been in Tina’s cabin. Her getaway was much more successful than Perroquet’s. She had cleared out her stateroom and then invited housekeeping to clean it. The only good news, apart from the fact that I was still shipboard, was that the sharp-eyed doctor had spotted another of those blond hairs. Not in Tina’s cabin but elsewhere.
She found this one stuck to a Velcro flap exposed as Justin sat there wearing only the bottom half of that costume. A quick comparison with the two collected earlier from Jake Nugent’s body led Maggie to conclude it was probably a match.
“Without better equipment, it’s impossible to be sure,” Maggie had cautioned us. Still, I felt buoyed by the prospect that we had found another tangible link to a person involved in more than one of the incidents that had occurred today. That, along with Justin’s claim that he had seen Tina in possession of the stolen engagement ring, also tied the events to the jewelry thefts.
“Was the woman who paid you to run her errand a blond?” Jack asked Justin after Maggie found that hair. The photo Bill had obtained from Tina's profile portrayed her as an attractive brunette.
“Nah, Tina’s a brunette, with a cute smile and a great body from working out. That Martin Santo’s a crazy man to ditch her. I guess he thought he was going to get a woman with money…”
“Are you going back to that again?” Jack asked.
“A box of rocks,” Maggie murmured under her breath.
As in “dumber than,” I presumed without asking. “Any reason we can’t turn Justin around to face the wall while we make him sit in the corner?” I asked.
“What difference is it going to make to a box of rocks?” Maggie retorted.
Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Box Set Page 44
