“Drugs,” was all he said as his eyes fluttered open and then shut again. The cats were tugging at their leashes, straining to reach a coffee cup that lay on the ground. There was a stain on the rug where some of its contents must have spilled when it fell to the floor.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I said pulling the cats back toward me. Ella went back to bothering Gerard, trying to wake him up. I was about to push her away when she gurgled a sound I recognized as a happy one. Miles was at her side in an instant as we watched her pull my missing necklace from Gerard’s shirt pocket. A gasp escaped my lips before I could stop it.
“Here you go,” Ray said, thrusting that damp cloth my way. “What’s that?”
“Thanks, Ray. That happens to be my necklace. Ella has developed a fondness for it.” I probably should have been wearing those latex gloves, but no way was I going to let Klepto-Kitty run off with the evidence. She was a good sport as I took it from her. “Can you hang onto these guys for a second while I see if I can get Chef Gerard to wake up?”
“Wow, when Paolo said Chef had a bad night, he meant it!” Ray took the leashes and backed off with the cats in tow.
“So, true, Ray.” I used that cool rag to wash Gerard’s face and spoke to him again. If we hadn’t searched the restaurant this morning, and put together our own story of how my necklace had vanished, I might have reacted to Ella’s find in a much different way. If I had to guess, I’d say Gerard was supposed to have been found in a near stupor with that necklace on his person. Another "patty," as Justin would have said.
“Gerard, I need you to wake up. What was in the coffee? Do you know?” Gerard’s eyes opened again. This time he kept them open long enough to see it was me. “Drugs in my coffee, Georgie. Paolo’s got the pig.” Gerard grabbed hold of me and tried to sit up.
“Hang on, Gerard,” I said. “Take it easy.” A rush of noise in the corridor made my heart skip a beat. The knock on the door that followed set my heart racing until I heard Adam Drake’s voice.
“Georgie, it’s me, Adam. I got here as soon as I could.”
“Let him in, will you, Ray?” Ray did as he was asked and opened the door.
“Adam, something’s happened. Can you help me get Gerard up into a sitting position so he can tell us the whole story?”
In another minute, we had Gerard upright and leaning against the edge of the couch in his sitting room. He sipped water holding the cup in shaky hands.
“Where’s the pig?” Gerard asked.
“I’m fairly sure it’s in the tender on its way to shore. Paolo, Bill Tate, and another member of the kitchen staff are with it.”
“You’ve got to stop them, Georgie. The stolen jewelry is inside it. They had it in my safe—the one I told you about where I keep the expensive items we use during the cruise. Paolo came for his secret stash this morning. He had a crew member with him. Paolo calls him Marty.”
“Was it Martin Santo, Gerard?” I glanced at Adam who nodded as though he understood who I was asking about and why.
“Yes, that’s him. He works in the kitchen but picks up a few shifts in housekeeping, too. Now I understand why he was always hanging around Paolo and why Paolo covered for him when the guy showed up late or missed a shift.” Gerard drank more of the water from that cup. “I figured they had something going, Georgie—something personal.”
“Adam, when was the last time you saw Bill?”
“He had Paolo Vannelli in custody after locating him in the commissary kitchen.”
“Vannetti,” Gerard corrected Adam.
“No, Gerard, it’s probably Vannelli,” I showed him that photo on my phone.
“How is that possible? When was he in Vegas? That wasn’t even on his resume.”
“I’m betting he had good reason to hide that part of his life from you. Right now, I need to sort things out a bit so we can stop that pig. How do you know the jewelry is in the pig?”
“Paolo laughed about it. He made me sign a requisition asking for the use of the tender to go ashore with that pig so it could be cooked someplace I never heard of before. The order said Paolo and his assistant were going along to ensure proper cooking and handling of the product.”
“Bill Tate would never have allowed Paolo Vannelli to do that,” Adam remarked. “We had picked him up for questioning as a suspect in the thefts and murders on board this ship!”
“Whoa,” Ray murmured from behind us, as he backed up and sank into a chair.
“So, Gerard, Bill had Paolo in custody. Then what happened?”
“Paolo was squawking that he’d injured himself in the scramble to cuff him. Bill agreed to stop by the infirmary so Maggie could check him out. I haven’t heard from Bill since then. With the arrival of the FBI by helicopter…”
“FBI? No way!” Ray muttered before Adam could finish his sentence.
“I figured Bill was tied up, filling in the agents and transferring authority to them.”
“He may be tied up all right,” I muttered. “I’m going to call my husband, Detective Wheeler, and try to explain all this to him. I figured Paolo had to have help from someone with authority on board. I had to be sure that it wasn’t Bill.”
“I’ll get Gerard some more water. Should I call Maggie and have her come check on Gerard?”
“No!” I said more loudly than I meant to do. “She’s busy with Captain Andrews and the FBI team doing what you thought Bill was doing.”
I placed a call to Jack. “Dang, it!” I said a few seconds later when the call didn’t go through.
“Can you get a call through to Jack Wheeler on your phone, Adam?” He gave it a try.
“No, there must be something blocking our reception down here. We should have better luck up on deck.”
“Gerard, sit tight. Ray, you’re in charge until we get back with more help. Shut the door behind us and don’t let anyone in here unless you’re certain it’s us. Got it?”
“Murder, thefts, drownings, FBI—don’t worry. I’ve got it.”
“Come here, Baby,” Gerard said. Ella was in that ‘can’t-see-scary, scary-can’t-see-me’ position again. I picked her up, gave her a smooch, and placed her in Gerard’s arms.
“Mama will be back soon.”
Adam and I were on the upper deck in two minutes. My phone still didn’t work. Adam had no luck, either. I could see that tender was much closer to shore now. The whole episode locating and reviving Gerard hadn’t taken more than fifteen minutes. Still, we had no time to lose. I took off running with Adam at my side. When we got to the foot of those steps leading up to the bridge, I stopped and composed myself.
“Are you authorized to take us up there, Adam?”
“Yes.”
“Once you get me through security, I want you to get out of sight. Maggie’s in that room. I don’t want her to get away.”
“Maggie?” It was as if an electric shock shot through Adam. The light bulb came on, and he nodded.
“She’s cool as a cucumber, but I doubt she’ll stay that way if she sees you with me. It also wouldn’t surprise me if she’s armed in some way, just in case her plans to keep everyone busy in that room long enough to get the loot ashore came undone. She must be expecting to get a signal of some kind once Paolo’s on shore and in the clear. Then I guess she’ll excuse herself from that meeting. If that happens, you and your security chums grab her, okay?”
“We won’t let her get away. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to play mental telepathy with my husband of a week or so and see if we can’t stop this before that tender reaches the shore.” I’d try to use a little more than thoughts to get my message across. I composed a short message and texted Jack. That whooshing sound made my heart sing.
I kept that message open on my phone again just in case he didn’t get it or read it. Plan B was to sit next to him and pretend to show the proud papa baby pictures of his happy cats.
MAGGIE’S BAD NEWS. MAYBE ARMED. BILL TATE HOSTAGE ON TENDER NEARING SHORE. JEWELS I
N PIG. IDEAS?
“Hi, I’m back!” I said in a cheery voice. “Please go on with your conversation. I’ll just listen in until I catch up.” Maggie smiled, but by the wariness in her eyes, I’d say her antennae were up. I smiled back at her and walked to my seat, trying my best to do as I told Adam I intended to do—read my husband’s mind. His phone was out on the conference table, face down. Had he received that message and read it? There was no way to know for sure by his expression or demeanor.
“Baby pictures,” I said as I sat down, handing my phone to Jack. He said nothing but smiled as though happy with what he was seeing. I breathed a bit easier, knowing that if he hadn’t already done so, Jack was working on the problem now. That’s when Max threw a monkey wrench into the entire process.
“Baby pictures?” he asked, just as Maggie seemed like she was about to start speaking again. “We’ve been looking at horrid pictures. Show us something pleasant, Georgie.”
“Yes, why not? Let’s take a moment to stretch. You all have been going at this for nearly an hour,” Maggie said. Agent Jennings and his partner from the FBI looked askance. Jack stood and stretched, then took my phone straight to them, and shared that photo. An almost imperceptible jolt ran through them.
“What a cute child,” Jennings commented. Monkey wrench number two flew from Max.
“Child? What are you saying? I thought you were talking about the cats. Let me see that!” He reached for that phone, and almost had it in his grasp when Jack let it fall.
“Oops,” he said.
I glanced out of the corner of my eye, trying to discern Maggie’s next move. She bent down as if to scratch her leg. I saw her palm something and caught a flash of metal as she stood.
“Max,” she said. As he moved toward her, I panicked. The chairs around that table were on wheels. Before Max could make a move, I shoved the chair next to the one in which I was sitting, hard, using both feet. That sent it careening into the one next to her. That one slammed into her, and her body bent sideways. I hoped she would fall, but no luck.
As Maggie regained her footing, she turned toward me with the most vengeful look on her face I had ever seen. Wielding a small knife above her head, she lunged in my direction.
Max was the closest person to her. His fists balled up and his face turned the scary purplish color that signaled he was in full-blown tantrum mode. His eyes bulged, and spit flew as he screeched.
“How dare you!” Hurling himself after her, he launched himself like a rodeo cowboy onto the back of a bronco. She shrieked and bucked him off. As he fell, he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her backward. All the other men in the room flew into action as Maggie stumbled again but still did not fall. Captain Andrews shouted above the noise.
“Stop right where you are, or I will shoot you.” Maggie instantly transformed from raging Valkyrie into a simpering Gollum.
“Please, please, don’t shoot,” she pleaded as the scalpel in her hand dropped to the floor. Her head down and hands up, tears flowed. Adam Drake came bounding into the room.
“I know you said to wait, but I heard shouting.”
“It’s okay, Adam. Maggie’s disarmed.” I said. “Who brings a knife to a gunfight?” I asked as I stared at the guns in the room pointed at Maggie. Jennings and his partner were armed, as was Captain Andrews and his second mate.
“Someone with a ‘psycho’ logical problem,” Jack retorted. “Do we have anyone who can meet and greet a party heading by tender to Bora Bora? Georgie tells me Bill Tate’s on board, possibly in a compromised situation.” All eyes turned to me as Jack shared that information.
“I know this is hard to believe, but Paolo Vannelli and a coworker, Martin Santo, have absconded with a pig full of stolen jewels. Martin Santo happens to be a she and not a he, by the way. He’s on board as a crew member. She’s on board as a passenger—Tina Marston. They’re on the ship’s tender not far from shore. There are other crew members on that launch. I don’t know how many or if they’re in on the scheme.”
“We’ve got this,” Jennings replied, putting his gun away and pulling out a satellite phone. His partner put Maggie in a chair and cuffed her to it. Jack and I spent a few more minutes explaining what we understood so far about the bizarre situations we had encountered on this ship.
It became apparent to me as we spoke that there were still plenty of blanks to be filled in by talking to Paolo, Tina, and Maggie. I would have nominated Paolo as “culprit most likely to sing like a canary,” beaming that Pavarotti smile as he spilled the beans. After seeing Maggie decompensate into a simpering heap before us, she now went to the head of the line. A lot depended on who could pin the murders on whom. As far as Max was concerned, the blanks that bothered me were minor details. Footnotes to a story already written.
“Well done, Georgie. Excellent work, Jack. I knew you two would have this dustup settled in no time.” He beamed at the two of us. “Of course, you did have a little help from me this time, didn’t you?”
“Yes, you’re a man of action,” Jack responded.
“A demon on wheels,” I added. Mad Max was on the move again, before I got those words out.
“How soon can we get that tender back here? How many others do you have available, Captain? What sort of timetable are we on at this point? Let’s order lunch.”
“We’ll be back,” I hollered to a room that was buzzing with sound and motion. “Let’s go check on the kids,” I said. “No one’s going to miss us for a while.”
“Too many cooks, crooks, and cops!” Jack took my arm as we slipped out the door. “Now tell me about this business with the pig.”
“An interesting new wrinkle in our adventure, isn’t it?
19 Maui Bound
On the plane to Maui with the cats asleep at our feet, everything was quiet. After the frenetic activity of the past couple of days, it felt almost as if we were motionless, suspended in time and space among the clouds. Once the FBI had freed Bill and taken Paolo and Tina into custody, the rest of the day was spent wrapping up loose ends. Mostly, that effort fell to Jack.
The shock of what had gone on in that meeting room finally reached Max and he straightened up his act, relinquishing his effort to hijack control of the ship and its itinerary. When Max gets down off his high horse, he can be quite resourceful. Gerard was well enough to oversee preparation for the luau, but he had lost a Sous Chef and a kitchen assistant, along with his pig.
Max found another pig and had it delivered to the ship. He also found Gerard another helper in the kitchen—me. So, on my honeymoon cruise, anchored offshore Bora Bora, arguably one of the most romantic destinations on the planet, I suited up in kitchen whites. Max promised to make it up to Jack and me, by suggesting we stay a few extra days at the bungalow he had reserved for us in Maui. To be honest, I felt comforted by carrying out old, familiar cooking tasks, but took Max up on the offer anyway. That turned out to be a very good idea. By the end of the day, I was even sorer than I had been after my tango with Perroquet. Max owed me those extra days.
My discomfort was worth it. The luau was delightful. Spirits were high as Bora Bora came to us. A swarm of canoes surrounded the ship. Singers and dancers in traditional dress boarded the ship. They were loaded down with flower leis and gifts from the islands. The spirit of Polynesian hospitality on their lips and in their smiles, they sang their goodbyes hours later as their canoes returned to shore set against a blazing sunset.
This morning Jack and I lounged as long as we dared before packing. Then it was a scramble to disembark and catch our flight for Maui. We had exchanged a few updates, but had not spent much time processing the misery that had occurred on board. All that had gone on in the last couple of days seemed inconceivable as I considered it again in the womblike calm of the seats Max had arranged for us in First Class.
The calm after the storm, I ruminated. A storm at sea, courtesy of lost souls, bent on destroying each other—over a bauble. I drifted back to that moment when Jack had spoken w
ith such wisdom about my lost pendant: “It’s only a thing.” So true. Then again, it is, and it isn't. The shiny things we love so often become symbols of the more intangible objects of our desire—love, safety, security, esteem, and escape from the drudgery and uncertainty of everyday life. How many lose their lives, I wonder, searching for the intangible in the tangible? I reached out and covered Jack's hand, lying on the armrest between us.
“Why do you suppose Maggie didn’t just flee from that meeting?” I asked.
“Where could she go once the jig was up? She was well past thinking clearly about anything by that point. The discovery of Abby's body and the imminent arrival of the FBI left her with less room to maneuver or escape. Getting the jewels off the ship along with the evidence she had helped gather and stored with such care might have gone a long way toward covering her tracks if the plan had succeeded. Too bad for her that you spotted that pig."
"Those last two days had to have been spent in a state of desperation. Maggie never showed a bit of that until the very end with that ridiculous effort to attack Max and me."
"Her whacked out ‘psycho’ logic drove her to take one last crack at leaving more suffering in her wake. Why not make Max or you pay the price even though she’d painted herself into that corner? You can't rely on reason to understand irrational behavior, Georgie. Don't get me wrong. Anyone can stumble across the line into crime through ignorance, by giving into a moment of passion or weakness, or by being misled—like Justin. Willful, deliberate planning to live on the other side of that line is another matter. I see it all the time but don't even try to understand it anymore. My job is to stop it if I can.”
“I hear you, Jack. Maggie would have been left to her own devices even if Paolo and Tina had made it to Bora Bora since they had no intention of keeping their rendezvous with her.”
“What can you expect from partners committed to a dishonest enterprise? Especially when one of those partners is as disturbed as Tina Marston."
"Martina Vannelli, you mean. I almost feel sorry for Paolo. If what he says is true, he's been bailing her out, literally and figuratively, since their parents died and left them to fend for themselves as teenagers."
Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Box Set Page 53
