The Corpse with the Diamond Hand

by Cathy Ace

“Can I leave the both of you to it while I try to track down Frannie Lang?” I asked, knowing the response I’d get.

  Bud was on his feet, and the two law enforcement professionals were ready to go. Hello there, Commander Anderson.

  “Sure,” they said in unison.

  I stood and smiled. “Well then, I’ll be on my way,” I said. “Though I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Come with me,” said Ezra. He led me out of his office through the reception area and into a room full of video monitors, each of which displayed the views from four security cameras.

  “I had no idea there were so many cameras on the ship,” I said.

  “We keep a good eye on things,” he said. Then, to the operative he said, “Frannie Lang, location.”

  “Starz Theater, sir,” said the young man without looking away from his monitors. “Went in on Deck 5, portside. Been watching her, as requested.”

  “Are you watching us all?” I asked.

  Ezra didn’t answer; instead he looked at his watch. “The show will let out in ten minutes, or thereabouts. You might be able to intercept her as she leaves. Most people use the exit nearest their seat.”

  “Thanks. And one more thing: How long do you keep records of what these cameras capture?”

  “Why?” asked Ezra.

  “I believe that Frannie Lang and Tommy Trussler had some sort of encounter on the top deck, near the basketball courts, on the morning we were docked in Hilo. It would have been early, before disembarkation time. I also believe that Nigel Knicely was in the vicinity. I can see you have a couple of cameras in that area; could you check, please?”

  Ezra nodded. “I can make that a priority.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Now I’d better run to the theater to catch Frannie, if I can.”

  “Good luck,” called Ezra.

  As I left, I was delighted that the men were taking charge of the data gathering, freeing me to dig for information in my own way. Moving quickly, I got to the theater in time to hear the cruise director making his announcements about the disembarkation process we’d soon undertake; he also described the packages everyone would find in their staterooms, which would contain instructions on what to do with our luggage the next night.

  I lounged on a comfy seat, listening to him talk as people began to drift out of the auditorium. I felt as though the spirit of Don Ho himself was stalking me on the ship, because his blessed song was playing in the background yet again, this time an instrumental version performed by the string quartet in the grand foyer below me. Honestly! Can’t they give it a rest?

  To distract myself from the all-too-haunting melody, I decided to give some thought to my first encounter with Frannie, back before we’d set sail from Honolulu.

  Humuhumunukunukuapua’a

  AFTER WE’D EMBARKED THE Stellar Sol, we’d taken the Pukuis’ advice and had headed for the Sundowner Bar. I’d been surprised by how quickly time had passed that afternoon, and we’d been lucky enough to find our bags outside our stateroom by 3:00 PM. I’d taken the chance to change my clothes and, after we’d unpacked and put everything away in its designated spot, we decided to head into Honolulu for an early dinner and a delightful evening, this time at Duke’s on the beach. We’d arrived back at the ship around ten o’clock, continued with our exploration of the beautiful vessel we were calling home, then spent our first night afloat—albeit with the ship in port.

  The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, we met Frannie Lang. We’d decided to walk as far as the Falls of Clyde, the only surviving iron-hulled four-masted full-rigged ship, and the only surviving sail-driven oil tanker in the world. It was only a short way from the pier where our own ship was berthed.

  Looking up at the rusty hull of the ship that had once done its part to change the world, I noticed a little machine that dispensed fish food. Curiosity drew me to it, and that’s where I first set eyes on the woman who introduced herself to me as Frannie Lang.

  Our initial conversation had been about how tricky it was to get the money into, and the food out of, the little machine. Eventually we both managed it, right before we were joined by Bud. More introductions followed, and Frannie seemed to be genuinely delighted to meet two more Canadians who’d be sharing her journey.

  Her enthusiasm bubbled as she said, “I met a whole multi-generation family from Vancouver at the breakfast buffet. I wish I could have had my boys with me, but they work so much, they couldn’t possibly get the time off. But I’m happy to talk to complete strangers. It’s surprising how pleasant people are.”

  We hardly noticed the commotion in the shallows while we stood on a little road-bridge, chatting about Canada and dropping tiny pieces of food over the rail into the waters below. A splash drew our attention, and we were all amazed to see the host of fish that had been drawn to the tasty tidbits. From minute to massive, the creatures were every shape and color imaginable. Gobbling, splashing, fighting each other for the food, they were delightful and utterly fascinating.

  “Do you think any of them is a hummer fish?” asked Frannie.

  “A hummer fish?” said Bud.

  “You know—it’s a really long word.” Frannie sounded a little embarrassed.

  “You mean the humuhumunukunukuapua’a?” I asked.

  Frannie’s face lit up with glee. “That’s it! Can you say it again, more slowly?”

  “Hoo-moo hoo-moo noo-koo noo-koo a poo a a,” I repeated.

  Frannie and Bud said it with me, eliciting giggles from the Canadian woman whose spare frame, lank blond hair, and dark, soulful eyes were almost the antithesis of my own shape and coloring.

  Small talk about the Falls of Clyde followed, though Frannie didn’t seem to be terribly interested, or to share my enthusiasm for the role the ship had played in nautical history. She seemed much more interested in talking about the fish and Hawaiian culture. I’d done a fair amount of reading about the history, culture, and mythologies of the people who inhabited the islands, so I was able to satiate her desire for knowledge. She seemed to be especially interested in the ways in which the Hawaiians thought of life after death, which puzzled me at the time. She seemed to be trying to make sense of some deep emotion. We parted company with her seeming eager to visit the Polynesian Cultural Center, which I felt a little guilty about, because Bud and I had already decided that the only cultural activity we were going to partake of that day was to attend SPAM Jam festival in Honolulu that evening. Not exactly Polynesian.

  Recollecting that day, I felt I’d met a woman who was well balanced and happy to be on vacation alone, though there was an air of sadness about her. On the day before we first met her, Frannie must have been out looking for the spot where her sister died. That might have explained her interest in a mythology that speaks of spirits being able to re-enter dead bodies if they can be called back from the underworld.

  But now, all these days later? There was something else there—more than just sadness because her sister had died some time ago. The Frannie Lang who’d spoken so angrily about her ex-husband—and lied about where and when she’d met Tommy Trussler—was not quite the same person that Bud and I had met and fed fish with. I wondered what had happened to change her.

  Starz Theater Bar, Deck 5, Forward

  “HI, CAIT. WAITING FOR BUD?”

  I must have looked startled, because Frannie Lang laughed aloud as she added, “Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump.”

  I stood up from the comfy chair I’d been lounging in, and felt cross with myself that I’d become so lost in reverie that I could have missed my quarry. “It’s okay,” I replied, a little flustered. “I was just distracted. Listening to the string quartet,” I added by way of a non-explanation.

  “I hate that song,” smirked Frannie. “Now.”

  “Me too. Overkill, right?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Fancy a drink?” I said recklessly.

  “Oh—you’re not waiting for Bud?” Frannie asked. She sounded puzzl
ed.

  Quick, Cait, think!

  “He’s gone back to our room to try to find some indigestion stuff. I couldn’t fit anything into this little thing,” I held up my tiny evening purse, “and couldn’t remember where I’d left them. I think I overindulged a bit too much tonight at dinner.” I smiled and patted my tummy.

  Looking at my midsection, the slim Frannie gave me a pitying look. “You’d think you’d be used to it,” she said.

  Thank you very much! I’m just a bit bigger than average—not a stick insect like some I could mention. I kept my thoughts to myself and laughed politely instead. “Don’t worry, he’ll find us. So, can I get you something before we’re killed in the rush from the theater?”

  I realized as I spoke that I could have chosen a more appropriate turn of phrase, but Frannie didn’t seem to notice.

  “Good idea,” she replied. “Where do you fancy? There are so many bars on this ship, it’s hard to choose.”

  “How about the Starz Theater Bar, just here, around the corner? There’s a good pianist there and some lovely armchairs, and I bet most of the folks coming out of the performance will just keep going until they find another spot.”

  “All right, then,” she replied. We began to walk, just as the house lights came up in the theater and the crowds began to congregate behind us.

  Finally settled with a couple of drinks, I listened as Frannie talked about how she’d enjoyed the trip. She mentioned Kaanapali Beach, where Laurie had told me she’d seen her with Tommy; she mentioned walking the deck in the early mornings, where Janet had told me she’d seen her with Tommy; she even mentioned nibbling her way around the SPAM Jam festival, where I knew Tommy had been—but she didn’t mention Tommy at all. To be fair to the woman, not even I had recognized Tommy in his clown getup at the SPAM event, so I decided to let that one slide; still, I knew she was lying—it was written all over her. I’m excellent at reading people’s body language and expressions, and Frannie Lang was a woman trying to lie her way out of a tumultuous situation. What was most interesting was not that she was lying about when she’d encountered Tommy Trussler for the first time on our trip, but why she would do that. Was it because she wanted me to focus on them being together in Hilo?

  Frannie Lang’s face told me I’d hit her with a bolt out of the blue when I asked, “When did your sister die, Frannie?” I’d expected her to be shocked, so I followed up with, “As I told you, my parents died in a car accident. It was more than ten years ago, but it seems as bad as if it were yesterday—especially if something happens to make me think of them, or of the circumstances of the crash.” I felt pretty bad using the loss of my parents as a device to winkle information out of a suspect. It wasn’t the first time I’d needed to play the “empathy” card, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  Frannie’s expression softened as she saw in me the fellow grieving family member I was portraying myself to be. “It was 1995, in May. But you’re right, it seems like just yesterday.”

  I noticed her touching the locket at her throat again, and decided to go for it. “Your sister’s always close to you?”

  Frannie drew her fingers from the piece on her neck and looked guilty. “Do you think that’s weird? My husband said it was. Said I couldn’t let go of her. He always used to hurl that one at me whenever we had an argument. Like it was a bad thing. Back in the day, he didn’t mention it. He said he liked the locket. I guess a lot changed as the years passed.”

  “Except your feelings for your sister,” I said gently. “You were close?”

  “Very. Two peas in a pod, they said.”

  “You were twins?”

  Frannie nodded. When Frannie had first told me about her sister she’d referred to her as her “kid sister,” and I’d assumed a real difference in age. “Far apart?” I asked.

  “Ten minutes,” she said, almost proudly. “But it’s a big difference when you’re little.” She smiled warmly. I wondered what visions of youthful joint birthday celebrations might be playing on her internal home-movie screen.

  “I have a younger sister,” I said, again trying to empathize with Frannie, “but she and I are years apart. I was a bit too old to want to play with her when we were growing up. It must have been lovely to have a true companion.”

  “Fay was the light of my life,” said Frannie. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get over her death.”

  “You said it was on O’ahu, I believe.”

  “Yes. Dangerous roads, not like back home.”

  Personally, I was happier on roads that wound and climbed rather than those covered in snow for half the year, but I supposed it all depended what you were used to.

  “Was she driving?”

  Frannie shook her head. “Her boyfriend was, but he survived.” She took a deep breath. “No seatbelt. He told us in a letter he sent to Mom and Dad that she refused to wear one because it would have creased her dress. How dumb is that? I never thought of Fay as dumb, or particularly worried about how she looked, but maybe she’d changed.”

  “So you and she hadn’t been in contact for some time before she died?”

  Frannie’s micro-expressions told me she was having an internal dialogue, trying to make a decision. Finally, she squared her shoulders, and had clearly made up her mind so she jumped in, feet first. “Fay and I both became nurses, but she ended up working surgical, whereas I stuck with general. She was very good. I preferred dealing with patients who were conscious; she preferred them out cold. At least, that’s what she said. More technical than me, you see. She married a guy from New York. A doctor, of course. They met when he was visiting the hospital where she worked in Toronto for some sort of training thing. She was very young. It was before I got married. It didn’t last. She followed him as he moved up the pecking order in different hospitals, and finally got her Green Card. So, by the time they split, she was an American, living near Virginia. Met a guy there, this boyfriend, and they went to Hawai’i on vacation after they’d been together a fair time. We were in touch, you know, but I hadn’t seen her in a while.”

  “So you never met the boyfriend?”

  “I never did,” she said. Then, surprising me, she seemed to change tack. “Were you married to anyone else before Bud?”

  “No—Bud’s the only man I’ll ever marry.”

  “Lucky you. Trust me when I tell you that divorce can change a person. It did me.” I noted a spark of anger in her eyes as she spoke. “So maybe she’d changed a bit, after hers. There weren’t any children, but there’s no such thing as a non-messy divorce. When I went through it, it was like being ripped apart.” She gave me a piercing look as she added, “It’s terrible to realize you’ve been a fool. That you’ve given your life to someone, only to have them throw it back in your face as though you’ve done a bad thing.” She paused and composed herself slightly. “But Fay wasn’t like me in some respects. She was always … more forgiving. I don’t think she’d have changed deep down in that way, so maybe she was able to ‘move on,’ as they say. She always loved a laugh and a joke. Like I said, she was the light of my life.” She looked into the distance. “Maybe she was the only real light in my life.”

  “It must have been tough for you, when she died.”

  “Yes. It was bad enough she was gone—but for it to happen so far away was devastating. Mom and Dad made all the arrangements to get Fay back home. The boyfriend didn’t attend the funeral. In hospital in Hawai’i. Pretty banged up, I heard.”

  “And what was his name?”

  Frannie looked confused. “B … no, K … no, Michael. That was it—Michael, um, Craft.”

  Odd.

  “Did you try to get in touch with him on this visit, or did he return to the Virginia area?” I was curious.

  “Why would I do that?” snapped Frannie, immediately angry. “Why would I want to meet him face-to-face?”

  I could think of a several excellent reasons, but—for once—I managed to press my internal “edit” button because I did
n’t want to show my hand. I contented myself with, “So, Fay Lang died in Hawai’i, and you had a chance to visit the spot.”

  “No, Fay Banks died in Hawai’i,” replied Frannie. “She kept her ex-husband’s name. Big mistake. Stuck with it forever, now, because we had to use her legal name on her headstone.” Frannie gazed into the middle distance, and back across the years. “Funny things, names,” she added.

  “They certainly are.”

  “I can’t get my mouth around most of the Hawaiian place names at all,” she said, almost sounding bright. “But they look pretty on the signs. Very exotic.”

  “Hey, there you are,” called Laurie Cropper, as she tottered out of the ladies’ restroom. “Derek and I thought we were meeting you and Bud for a drink after the show. We’re back at the same spot as before. Why don’t you come along too?” Laurie’s naturally hospitable nature showed in her warm smile, but Frannie was immediately on her feet, fussing with her lightweight shawl.

  “Oh no, it’s very late, and it’s been a long and emotional day. I’m off.” With that, she strode out of the bar area and toward the elevators. I had little choice but to accompany Laurie—which wasn’t a bad thing.

  Bar Hopping

  DEREK’S WELCOMING HUG FELT ODD; being greeted by a dying man made me feel uncomfortable. I knew I’d have to work hard to disguise my emotions, so I began by adopting an overenthusiastic, slightly tipsy persona.

  “I’m not sure I should have another,” I announced, giggling, as I extricated myself from Derek’s embrace.

  “Too late,” he said, “I saw you two gals sashaying over, and put Simon to work immediately. Ah, there it is—your favorite.” I don’t have a single sashaying bone in my body.

  I balanced the brimful martini glass very carefully, and wondered how I was going to manage to drink another large dose of pure alcohol—albeit with vapor and sparkles.

  “Whadda ya Welsh guys say?” slurred Derek.

  “Iechyd da,” I replied.

  “I didn’t get that,” said Laurie.