“I doubt adventure would have come to mind if we’d met in my office with me sitting behind my desk reviewing budgets or writing mundane memos.”
“I’ve been in your office when more than that was going on. An adventure there too.”
“Hmm. That is true,” I had said. “Maybe we should skip dinner and dessert and hang a do not disturb sign on the door. We’ve had plenty of adventure for one day, don’t you agree?” My kiss had been convincing if I say so myself.
Jack’s a man of duty, however. An alert on that laptop had stolen the moment, so to speak. I had opened an email from Bill containing a photo of Marsha Steven’s necklace, and then leapt from Jack’s lap. Not at the image of that necklace, but at the price tag on a claim form she filed with Captain Andrews along with the incident report. I moved out of the way so Jack could see the information on that laptop screen, too.
“Wow! My eye for pricey shiny things is even better than I realized. Why would anyone bring such an expensive piece of jewelry on a cruise? Although, I’m not sure where else you would wear it—a ball at Fort Knox or the crowning of a king. What could she be thinking?”
“I asked her that when I interviewed her.”
“When did you do that?” I asked.
“While you were lounging in the tub. I told you I had a couple of loose end to tie up.”
“Writing reports is what I heard.” I shrugged. “So, what did she say?” I asked.
“This probably won’t surprise you in the least. ‘If you’ve got it, darling, flaunt it. Besides, it’s insured.’ It’s not a museum piece, as she also pointed out when I pressed her on its value—which she hemmed and hawed about, I might add. Maybe, because I wasn’t alone.”
“Oh, so that ‘darling’ wasn’t for you?” I had been teasing him a little when I used a vamp voice on that word darling, but I had also felt a bit relieved. “You’re pretty smart, copper, not to venture into that moll’s lair all alone.”
“Adam took the original report from her, so it made sense to take him with me.”
My Jack is a man of logic. The relief I had felt earlier washed over me again as I stood there waiting for this latest episode in our adventure to be over. I’m not sure why it had bothered me that he might have met with Marsha Stevens alone. I had known before I married him that my one-week-husband was a savvy, seasoned detective, not easy prey for vamps or villains.
What is my problem? I wondered as I stood idly by watching the other three people in the room work. Have I suddenly become a jealous woman? I’ve never thought of myself in that way before. Maybe not all the changes that go with love and marriage are good ones. Jack is a man of integrity. Then again, I hope I’m as trustworthy as he is, and yet Paolo’s flirtation had bothered him. Jealousy goes with the territory in matters of the heart—even at our age.
Under the right—or wrong—circumstances, jealousy can be lethal. Maybe that story of infidelity Tina made up casting me in the role of Jezebel hadn’t been a complete fabrication. Had Martin Santo betrayed Tina with Abby?
“Can you imagine being a member of this team of thieving rogues? How would you ever be able to trust each other? Two very attractive women and the men who love to steal stuff with them. Only barely believable as the plot for a movie. Real life is stranger than fiction, though, isn’t it?” I asked, still wondering if the betrayal among these thieves was about more than business. Maggie’s thoughts must have been moving along the same track.
“Yeah, but you forgot to add a line about ‘Until something goes terribly wrong and their love turns to hatred.’ Even harder to believe, I know, but something has set this pack of wild dogs loose on each other,” Maggie commented. “I hope we can find them before they kill again—even if it’s one of the wild dogs in the pack who’s at risk.”
“There’s no honor among this bunch of thieves,” I added. “Why not add two-timing to double-dealing as a motive for murder and mayhem? Maybe Tina tore this room apart looking for proof that Martin Santo had been in here. What if she found the mate to that shoe and took it with her? It’s not in here, Jack.”
“Whether this is about greed or love turned to hatred, Maggie’s right that we need to catch up with them. So far, they’ve managed to keep a step ahead of us. How hard can it be to figure out where they’re hiding on a ship at sea?”
“Before you ask, Jack. Yes, we reviewed footage from the video camera in the corridor near Tina’s room. She left this morning, at the crack of dawn, wearing workout gear, and so did Abby. If the report you got from the spa is correct, they never made it there.”
“Yes, that’s true, but Justin says Tina was back in her cabin a couple of hours later with that parrot costume. From what Kayla told us at the spa, Tina was capable of lugging that thing to her cabin from wherever she stole it. A woman carrying around a huge parrot costume is going to stand out. Surely that got picked up on a camera somewhere.”
“You must have some idea, Jack, of how much footage that is. We can’t possibly go through all of it in a short time, so we pick and choose what to review based on location and timing. What we found is a snippet of film showing a man wheeling away two large, bulky sacks near an exit from that theater. We assume the costume was in them. They could have passed for garbage bags if anyone had even noticed. It could be Martin Santo, but the man is wearing sunglasses and a hoodie, keeps his head down, and then steps out of range of that camera as soon as he can. Whoever it is seems way too careful to be box-of-rocks-Justin.”
“Sounds like someone who’s familiar enough with the surveillance system to play games with you, Bill.”
“It gets worse, Jack, when it comes to playing games. We don’t have any more video of Tina Marston later in the day because someone covered the lens on the camera in the corridor near her cabin.”
“Don’t you get an alert when a camera goes offline?” Jack asked.
“Technically, it wasn’t offline. It was still recording, but blocked because someone put peanut butter on it.”
“Peanut butter?” Jack and I asked almost at the same time. Bill nodded.
“I thought I caught a whiff of peanut butter in the corridor on our way here. Does that mean we have no video of what went on here, either?” Jack asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. The ship's relatively new, and it's the first time we’ve had to put the video equipment to the test. There was a housekeeping cart in the hall on Deck 7 not long before someone monkeyed with the lens. We spoke to the steward on duty then who says she cleaned Tina’s cabin, but never saw Tina or Justin or anyone else hauling a big, bulky sack down the hall.”
“Nothing on any of the images from cameras in the elevators or aimed at public spaces nearby on Decks 6 and 7?” Jack asked.
“No,” Bill replied. “Lots of passengers and crew come and go, but none of our culprits and no one hauling garbage bags on or off an elevator.
“How is that possible?” Jack asked. He was clearly frustrated at the thieves' ability to elude detection. There was more than a little irritation in his tone.
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” Bill replied, in an equally irritated manner.
Silence fell over us again. I didn’t want to add to the uncomfortable feeling that had settled in amidst that silence, but another unresolved issue bubbled up in my mind.
“Just so I’m clear about this. If Martin Santo is the third man Wendy Cutler and David Engels spotted this morning, he’s our killer and not Passenger X. So, in addition to Martin Santo who's a passenger on board using a name that’s not on the manifest, there’s still the matter of an unidentified man overboard. That means there are two passengers unaccounted for on that manifest. Any progress figuring that one out?” I tried not to hyperventilate as I imagined Max asking that question. Maybe the cabin fever that struck in here is contagious, I thought as I tried to calm myself down.
After more than twenty-five years of Max’s tantrums, I was more afraid for him than I was of him. I’d play the retirement card the moment he
got out of line with me. Jack didn’t work for him so good luck pulling that Ari’i nui routine with Detective Wheeler.
No, what I dreaded was the melodramatic scene he would make. I did not relish the prospect of watching Mad Max’s face turn ashen with excessive grief, smacking his head in disbelief at his team’s failure.
“Why, why, why me?” he had lamented on more than one occasion. As he paced in circles, I had braced myself for that moment when he would rend his garments in anger and despair. It hadn’t happened yet, but two unidentified passengers—one overboard and the other a slasher roaming loose on his newest, top of the line cruise ship—just might do it. Oh yeah, there was also the matter of stolen jewelry and two women who were on the passenger manifest but have since vanished.
Worse even than Max’s woe-is-me victim act was this awful shade of purple he turned when he got in touch with his inner Rumpelstiltskin. His eyes wild and bulging, his fists balled up, writhing, and jumping up and down, he bore an even greater resemblance to Olly-Olly. Not a healthy thing for a man in his seventies, who worked eighty hours a week and consumed way too much junk food.
“Max wants answers, guys. What am I going to tell him?” My question hung like an ax waiting to fall in the silence that filled the cabin. “Would it be wrong just to ignore the message and pretend I didn’t get it until morning?” I wondered aloud. A resounding round of “nos” broke the silence.
I wanted to believe them. The theme from Jaws pounded in my head, though, as I imagined Max closing in on our ship like a Great White or a giant squid. By morning, he’d be in Tahiti—way too close for comfort. Why put off my encounter with the Big Chief? I began to compose a message to Max as I waited for Jack and the others to finish their work. I reminded Max about how good Jack is at his job, but he had to give him and the others involved in the investigation more time. Max had been so grateful that we’d solved the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his leading lady in the remake of The Lonely Swan Prince. The actress portraying Princess Christiana seemed to have vanished into thin air from her dressing room at Max Marley Studios. When I had put that into a message, I hit send.
IT’S ALL-HANDS-ON-DECK. INVESTIGATION STILL ONGOING. YOU KNOW HOW WELL JACK HANDLED CHRISTIANA’S DISAPPEARANCE. GIVE THE DETECTIVE TIME TO WORK HIS MAGIC. BESIDES, HE HAS ME AT HIS SIDE. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT? SEE YOU IN TAHITI.
I sighed when I heard that whoosh sound. Suddenly, an image of a coffee cart in the hallway near the vanishing actress's dressing room resonated with what Bill had said about a laundry cart in the corridor near Tina’s cabin.
“Bill, could the costume have fit into that laundry cart left outside Tina's stateroom?”
“Probably, but there’s still no sign of Tina or that hoodie-wearing man we picked up on video earlier near the theater exit. We looked for him. Lots of people are coming and going, but none of the ones we’re looking for.”
“Where does that cart go when they’ve finished cleaning the cabins?” I asked.”
“The Stateroom Stewards use dedicated elevators that take them down to the laundry where they can dump the soiled linens and towels or drop off personal items guests leave in the small laundry bags found in each stateroom.”
“Are those elevators under surveillance, too?”
“Yes. Not on CCTV like the access points to more sensitive restricted areas. We’ve reviewed the recorded footage from those cameras. There's no sign of passengers forcing their way onto the crew elevators or stewards allowing members of this pack of wild dogs onto them.”
I relented. Still, I couldn’t let go of the idea that the wild dogs appeared to have the run of the ship. The thieves knew their way around the kitchen, the theater, and were familiar with the location of surveillance cameras. It takes moxie to tamper with those cameras and craftiness to get away with it unless they had help from the crew.
Max is going to have to wait until tomorrow to hear this from me, I thought. I was glad I had already sent him a message before I hit bottom as Jack and Bill had done when they got caught up in that stressful interaction. Who could blame them?
13 Pearls in a Bottle
Jack and I escorted Maggie back to the infirmary with the evidence collected from the devastation in that cabin. Maggie checked the blond hairs and concluded they were a good match for those obtained from Abby’s locker. Little else seemed to be of immediate value, other than that overshoe and the gem Maggie had found.
Photos on Maggie’s computer of the fake necklace confirmed that the gem was one of those missing from the bad copy of Marsha Steven's expensive piece of jewelry. Another photo revealed the sole of the shoe was a perfect match to the markings in that print found near Jake Nugent. Maybe the fingerprints they had also collected would turn out to be of value. Who knew?
Dog-tired, we headed back up to Deck 2 toward the adult end of the ship where The Captain’s Table was located. Nearby, was the Pearls in a Bottle Lounge—the bar where Justin claimed to have met Martin Santo for the first time.
“We still have a few minutes before dinner. Feel like having a toast to surviving day 8 of our honeymoon, Jack?”
“Why not? That is something to celebrate, isn’t it?”
Hawaiian music was playing softly in the background as the hostess led us to a secluded booth toward the back of the beautifully appointed bar and lounge. The room glowed with backlit glass tiles in various shades of aqua lining the walls in wavy strips. Above them, milky white tiles mimicked the frothy waves that rolled onto the nearby beaches. The wall behind the bar was lit too, with tiny bubbles floating upward, accenting bottles on glass shelves.
The bubbles appeared to be moving through real water, unlike a similar display on the walls in our suite. Ella had been happily chasing bubbles rather than fish when we returned to our suite yesterday. Our ingenious cats had not only figured out how to activate the images on that wall but had changed them.
The butler who had introduced us to the “Marveling Wall" when he demonstrated the technological wonders of our suite, assured us that he had not changed the video display. I hid the remote but left the motion-activated sensors on. Ella enjoyed it so much. Miles got a break, too, if Ella ran herself ragged chasing things that moved on the wall rather than him.
Maybe Ella knew what she was doing. Those bubbles were mesmerizing. It could have been that my brain was turning to mush after the day we’d had. Or maybe I was just grateful that the décor in here was so pleasant and relaxing and devoid of Marvelous Marley World characters.
“Here’s to no sign of Penelope, Perroquet, or Olly-Olly anywhere,” I said. Not waiting for our champagne to arrive, I used the water our hostess had poured after seating us to make that toast.
“No tiki-tiki song playing in the background, either. Cheers, one-week-wife!”
“What a day, one-week-husband. Any idea what is going on?”
“I’m working on it. No sign of the murder weapon, although there could be a fillet knife missing from the kitchen. As you suggested, Adam and I checked.”
“Don’t tell me. While I was in the tub, right?” I asked.
“Yep,” Jack replied.
“And you called me unstoppable,” I said. “Could be a knife missing—what does that mean?”
“I don’t need to tell you what goes on in a busy kitchen. Gerard and Paolo’s personal knives are easy to track down, and we’ve accounted for them. The poissonnier—fish chef—was insulted that we even thought his knife could be missing. It didn’t help that I’d never heard of a fish chef before. When he cooled down, he admitted that he wasn’t sure how many fillet knives were in his area of the commissary kitchen. Most kitchen staff don’t use them elsewhere, but with so many kitchens on this ship, who knows? Sometimes less well-trained kitchen staff grab the wrong knife and take off with it.”
“Does Gerard back him up on that?”
“Yes. Gerard said he couldn’t be sure where the knife had come from that had been used to stab that raw duck left outside his
door. Most likely, a knife from the commissary since it was a boning knife, but he agreed that knives ‘migrate’ from one place to another on board.”
“Well, that's a lot of potential suspects if not only commissary kitchen staff but crew members in the galley kitchens were able to get their hands on the knife used to kill Jake Nugent.”
“Not just kitchen staff, Georgie, but anyone who passed through those areas, like waiters, expediters, stewards picking up room service items,” Jack shook his head. "It's discouraging to get information that widens our search rather than narrowing it.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I get your point. It's like the proverbial needle in a haystack to pick out the thieves' accomplices from among the crew when there are hundreds to choose from.”
“Too many cooks and crooks in the mix for the time being. All our primary suspects like to shop, too. That plastic we found could have come from several shops on board. So far, purchases from Tina, Abby, Jake, and Justin have all turned up at stores that use bags made from that plastic. The only oddity that stands out is that Jake Nugent’s purchases included a few items more likely to be found on a woman’s shopping list than that of a single man on a cruise alone. Maybe he had something going on with one of his thieving partners as you suggested when we were in Abby's trashed stateroom.”
“What sort of items?”
“Nail polish, nail polish remover, and a nail-mending kit. Cotton swabs and baby powder—stuff like that.”
“Was it clear nail polish?” I asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“Clear nail polish can be used for all sorts of things. In high school, we used it to stop a run in our stockings from getting worse. I’ve used it to prevent an eyeglass screw from falling out of my sunglasses. I don’t know if Jake could have used it to keep those loose gems in place on that necklace, or maybe there’s an adhesive in that mending kit that could have done that. My mom used to put clear nail polish on her costume jewelry to keep it from tarnishing, I don’t know if it could have secured loose gems.”
Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Box Set Page 48
