by Cathy Ace
“Yeah-chi-da,” I repeated loudly.
The Croppers giggled as they tried to make the guttural noise required by the greeting. “That’s a hoot,” said Laurie.
“A hoot an’ a half,” added Derek, winking.
I said, “‘Get it down your neck,’ will do in a pinch,” which garnered more laughter.
“Go on then,” said Derek, tipping up the base of my glass, which was poised on my bottom lip. Within seconds, the entire drink was swilling about inside me, rather than the crystal vessel in which it had been served. I noticed, with dread, that I’d also drunk all the glitter, which I suspected could lead to interesting consequences.
“Good girl,” said Derek, relinquishing his own glass, and giving me a round of applause. “That husband should be proud of you. Where is he, by the way? Thought you guys were inseparable.”
“He offered to pop back to the room for something I needed,” I lied.
“You gals,” said Derek, unsteady on his feet, “just like my little lady. Always something you need to go back to the room for. Laurie’s forever leaving me at the tables to do something in our room, then she never comes back.” He squinted at his wristwatch. “Hey, speaking of tables, time for a bit of a flutter, I think. You coming?”
Derek’s gaze was so unfocused that I wasn’t sure who he was talking to—me or Laurie.
“If you’re off to the casino, I’ll go and give Bud a call. Ask him to join us there,” I said, spotting a way to escape and connect with Bud at Ezra’s office.
“Sure,” said Derek. Laurie smiled impishly and steered him toward the elevators.
“Come on, honey, let’s not risk the stairs,” I heard her say as they wobbled away.
I grabbed the nearest house telephone and dialed Ezra’s number. When he answered, I asked for Bud, whose voice sounded crisp, alert, and businesslike, especially when compared with Derek’s.
“Hi, are you done yet?” I asked.
“Nope. And you need to come here—Ezra and I have managed to dig up a lot you need to know. Can you come back to his office now?”
I sighed. “I’ll find the Croppers in the casino and tell them we can’t join them after all, then I’ll come right down, okay?”
The casino was heaving. I wondered if it was the dinner jackets, or the long gowns, but either way, the place had an unexpectedly manic edge to it. Noisy, busy, waiters holding trays of drinks above their heads, people shouting at the craps table as though their lives depended on it, the flashing lights, the constant ringing of slot-machine bells—it was a little overwhelming. I realized, almost too late, that the drink I’d swallowed whole had gone straight to my head. I felt quite faint, and had to be given a stool beside a poker table to rest on.
I put my head into my hands for a moment, and tried to recover my composure. Someone bumped into my back, and I heard a man’s voice say, “They say he turned blue, then collapsed. I heard he was holding aces and eights. Dead man’s hand.” The good old rumor mill in overdrive.
I turned and saw two men’s backs move away from me. They greeted Laurie Cropper, who was standing beside Derek at the casino bar. Looking toward the men, she saw me and waved. I needed to ask her who the men were, so I pulled myself together and weaved my way through the throng.
I finally made it to the bar, but this time I was more firm about declining a drink.
“Who were those chaps?” I asked Laurie, waving toward the backs that had departed. I felt I should elaborate. “One of them was quite dishy,” I lied. Who knew? At least their backs looked fine.
Laurie looked toward the men in question. “Just nodding acquaintances from the gym,” she replied, a little too casually. You’re hiding something—but from me, or Derek?
I was just about to tell the Croppers that I was going to join Bud “back at our cabin,” when a young man who looked to be in his thirties jostled Laurie’s arm, causing her to almost spill her drink.
Spinning to apologize, the man’s expression changed when he saw Laurie. “Hey, Laurie! Gee, I’m sorry. It’s kinda full here tonight. Didn’t mean to spill your drink.”
Laurie smiled. “It’s quite alright, my dear, I didn’t waste a drop.”
The young man leaned in close to Laurie’s ear; they were both close enough to me to catch their low tones: “So, I guess it’s a non-starter at your place tonight?”
“Of course,” she murmured.
An affair?
The man smiled pleasantly, winked, and rejoined his group.
“Busy in here tonight,” I said.
Laurie looked around. “I guess,” she replied calmly. “I’m not usually here this late. I like to get my beauty sleep. But tonight? Well, I think Derek might need a little help to get back to our place.”
Derek swooped upon us, having heard his wife’s words. “Don’t need no help, but you’re welcome to stay,” he all but shouted. “Join me for my last hurrah, why don’t you?”
His words carried a meaning for me I knew they didn’t for his wife.
“Of course I’ll stay, honey. Now, you’re not going to play, tonight, are you? Not in this state?”
Derek grinned. “I’m perfectly fine, honey mine. Just you watch me take ’em for everything they’ve got. Coming, Cait? And where’s my buddy Bud?” Derek burst out laughing at his own joke. “Ha! My buddy Bud! Did you hear that, honey? My buddy Bud.”
Laurie put down her almost-untouched drink and stuffed her evening purse right up under her armpit. “Come along now, Derek Cropper, I’m taking you home.”
“I really must join Bud,” I said, as I slipped away, leaving the Croppers to work out who was going to win the battle of the wills.
Passing the tables, I noticed just how many chips were in play. They looked jolly, almost like children’s toys, with their vivid hues and the Stellar logo printed in the center. I wondered how many thousands of dollars they represented.
Backs against the Murder Wall
I COULD FEEL MYSELF BEGINNING to tire as I made my way, yet again, toward Ezra’s offices. It was almost one in the morning and I wondered when I was going to get to bed. I was cursing the heels I’d chosen to wear, and internally cursing Derek Cropper even more for making me knock back that drink.
I was ushered to Ezra’s door by one of his minions, who took the chance to whisper in his boss’s ear. The response Ezra gave him was clearly the one he’d been hoping for because he grinned, nodded, called to two colleagues, and left the place before Ezra had even locked his office door behind me.
“Those chaps seemed happy to leave,” I said. “Long day?”
“Yes, and tomorrow will be too. They begin at 6:00 AM sharp, guarding the sales, and then they’ll be on late shift overseeing the baggage collection.”
I understood the need for there to be security oversight where guests’ bags were concerned, but had no idea what Ezra meant about sales. As I settled myself in front of the redecorated Murder Wall, and accepted a glass of fizzy water with great relief, I asked, “What sales?”
Ezra shrugged. “At 10:00 AM tomorrow, the stores on Deck 5 have their blow-out sale. It’s always a feeding frenzy.”
“And your staff will be guarding the stock? I must say, I’m surprised. Surely you don’t get much shoplifting onboard?”
Ezra’s look spoke volumes. “You have no idea,” he said with a heavy sigh.
Sipping my fizzy water and looking around the room, I spotted a couple of discarded pizza boxes on the floor in the corner of the tiny office.
“Rachel came to give me this,” said Ezra, holding up a sheaf of papers. “She thought I might be hungry, so she brought something from the pizza kitchen on Deck 14 for us to share while she talked me through her findings.”
I didn’t have to wonder why an email and a phone call weren’t sufficient.
“And what are those findings?” I asked.
Ezra looked frustrated. “I suppose we should be pleased that she hasn’t been able to detect anything unexpected in any of t
he foodstuffs from the Games Room. She wasn’t able to perform any tests for all of the potions, pills, and potential carriers of poison on the items taken from Tommy’s room—like his toothbrush or razor. But that wasn’t her priority; her responsibility is the living souls on this ship, so that’s where she spent her time.”
“Coffee grounds on the victim’s hands?” I asked.
Ezra shook his head.
“Hmm, I thought not. And I assume the white substance on the carpet in the Games Room was salt?”
Bud tutted, and Ezra nodded.
“Thank Rachel for all that work,” I said. “So we’re all much more comfortable with the conclusion, if ever there was any doubt, that this wasn’t an accidental killing of Tommy by a person happy to poison something anyone could have ingested.”
“I am relieved to agree,” said Ezra. It was clear to me that this was a worry that had continued to plague him until Rachel’s reports had arrived.
“The approach we’ve been taking has been appropriate—that of trying to discern who set out to kill one man, that man being Tommy Trussler, so let’s get to it,” I said. “I’ve been reading your updated Murder Wall as I’ve been sitting here.”
Bud cleared his throat. “As you can see, we’ve been busy, and productive,” he said proudly, waving at the notes on the wall.
The mounted photographs were now accompanied by fresh information, which I continued to read through.
“I see from your updated notes that Tommy’s military record shows he was shot in the abdomen—am I right?” At Ezra’s nod, I continued. “That explains the ‘appendectomy’ scar.” I noticed a puzzled glance from Bud, but went on. “Let’s move on to Nigel Knicely. You have identified him as the man who bought three pairs of diamond earrings in Maui, yes?”
“I managed to get hold of the store manager, who checked, and he emailed me a video file,” said Ezra. “We have a positive ID of Nigel buying the earrings. He was alone and paid cash.”
“Good,” I said. “That supports my theory. And what about seeing him on camera on the ship, close to an encounter between Frannie Lang and Tommy Trussler?”
“Again, yes,” said Ezra brightly. He swigged coffee as he passed me a pile of stills from a digital recording. I wondered how many gallons of caffeine he’d drunk that day. He seemed pretty wired.
I looked at the series of photographs of a man who was identifiably Nigel Knicely, standing close to the front of the ship, in a position where it was likely he’d have been able to overhear a conversation between two people who were equally identifiable as Frannie and Tommy. At that spot on the ship you had to shout to be heard, and I knew how sound could travel on the stiff breezes—sometimes being better heard at a distance than by someone right next to you.
“We know several things,” I said. “Frannie was lying about not seeing more of Tommy than she let on, and Janet told the truth about seeing them together. And while he divulged the truth about overhearing Frannie and Tommy arguing—because that’s what it looks like to me in these photos—Nigel Knicely lied to his wife about his whereabouts at that time. Did you manage to find any shots with Janet in them?”
Ezra shook his head.
“Ah well, you can’t always have everything you want,” I noted. “What about Nigel’s employment record?”
“It’s odd,” replied Bud. “If we believe what she said to us, he’s told his wife that he retired from the pharmaceutical company he worked for, and they hired him back to run training programs. But they didn’t.”
“When did they fire him?” I asked.
Bud sighed and rolled his eyes. “You just want us here to dig up the facts that back up your theories, don’t you?” he said indulgently. “They got rid of him about four years ago, long before he’d have retired. I pulled a few strings to get another piece of information you might like.”
I smiled. “What did they think he’d stolen?” I knew that was where Bud was going.
Ezra watched us as though at a tennis match, his head turning, watching each point play out.
“Very good,” said Bud, as though congratulating a puppy who’d just learned how to sit on command. “The company he worked for is most famous for the pills it makes to address the problem of erectile dysfunction. They suspect, though they cannot prove, that he somehow spirited away a couple of million dollars’ worth of the stuff.”
I was surprised, and almost impressed. “That much? I suppose shipments went missing over a long period of time?”
Bud nodded. “They investigated him for a couple of years, but couldn’t get him for anything specific. Seems a couple of the accounts he handled turned out to be nonexistent, though he swore he didn’t know, and no one was able to trace the missing product. The British cops haven’t given up, though.”
“Good,” I replied. “And I can see from the wall that you located two more addresses with Knicelys at them, as I suspected. Did you get names? Particulars? Photos?”
Bud and Ezra exchanged a glance. “With the help of various UK agencies, we discovered several Knicely households in the UK, but whittled them down to these three,” said Bud. “Nigel’s known address outside Bristol, where he lives with Janet, his wife. There’s another home just outside Birmingham, and another just outside Sandwich in Kent. These are the only ones that match your criteria. We were very lucky it was an uncommon name. Oddly, all the men have the first initial, N, but no real details other than householder names yet, and no photos either.”
“As I suspected. They are all Nigel.”
“But no,” said Ezra, jumping in. “One is our Nigel, one is Norman, and one is Nate. We know that much. And that they’re family homes, not apartments.”
“Okay,” I replied, “we know Janet is fifty, and I’m going to suggest that one other Mrs. Knicely is in her early forties, and one is in her late thirties. They’ll probably have a couple of kids each. Nice homes, not fancy. Housewives watch the kids and run the home, husband out at work. Travels a lot.”
Both men looked puzzled. “Why do you say all this?” asked Ezra.
“Look, I will bet you anything that, if you get the drivers’ licenses of the three male householders, they will all look exactly like Nigel Knicely, because they are Nigel Knicely. The man’s a bigamist, with three families on the go, none knowing about the others. Furthermore, I suggest you get back to your police contacts in the UK and tell them to try to find another address where a single male householder with the initials NK has lived since just before the time the pills started to go missing—you know, the time the company thinks he started to steal from them. I would suggest somewhere around Cambridge. That would give him a location to stash his stolen goods at the top right-hand corner of the grid where he lives his life. Janet, bottom left near the sales office, another wife bottom right, near the company HQ, another family top left, near the training center, and his secret place top right.”
Ezra fidgeted. “I don’t know the UK very well,” he said, “but why would anyone live their life the way you described? It’s most peculiar.”
“I’ll use myself and my life to illustrate what I mean,” I answered. “Most of us live and work in one small part of the world. I used to have my route to and from work, a shopping area I used habitually, regular places for entertainment, eating out, takeaway, activities, and so forth. In other words, we all know and feel comfortable in our own ‘neck of the woods,’ however we might define that for ourselves. As I said, I know I always have. Now, with Bud and I having bought a new home in a more rural area, I am feeling a certain discomfort at having to rebuild my own geographic life framework. It was a cop from Vancouver, Dr. Kim Rossmo, who developed the process of geographic profiling, and it’s now widely accepted. Indeed, it’s a process I often use when building a full profile of a victim. I can see a pattern in Nigel Knicely’s life, largely dictated by the three corporate hubs of the organization he used to work for, and allowing him to keep three families apart. This triangle would comprise his general ‘
comfort zone,’ so he’d likely move outside it to secrete something he wanted kept apart from the life he had with his families. Possibly unconsciously, he’s most likely to have chosen the ‘fourth corner’ of the rough square I have described. I would suggest, therefore, that if he wanted to keep the pills hidden, and at a safe distance from his three other lives, the area around Cambridge would be his general choice. It’s also a big enough place that he could use various means to hide his distribution methods. I lived in Cambridge for some years. I happen to know it’s not only an ancient seat of learning, and a very attractive tourist center, but also a pretty popular base for companies wanting to distribute products across the UK, and even to continental Europe.”
“You got three wives from three pairs of earrings?” asked Bud, bemused.
“No, not just three pairs of earrings. I got it from multiple cues; his peacock style, his desire to be the center of attention, his utter disdain for his wife, his love of the romance of a wedding. These all speak of a man with narcissistic tendencies. But there’s more in his case: he has deep rooted misogynistic traits and also some control issues. His desire for the ‘perfect life’ might well lead him to not just fantasize about being irreplaceable—to his family as well as his employer—but might lead him to act out such fantasies. My next question is about—”
“But wait,” said Ezra, jumping from his seat. “If it is as you say, then we have Nigel Knicely with multiple wives, multiple homes, a criminal background, and a possible source of illegal income—to keep his three families going—from stolen pills. However, we don’t have a reason for him to kill Tommy Trussler. I’m pleased we might be able to help the British police find stolen goods, and even prosecute this man, but what about my case?” He sounded quite cross.
I sat forward in my terribly uncomfortable chair. “Nigel lied to his wife about where he was, when we know he was very close to Tommy on the morning we were in Hilo. Why was he where he was? I believe he was due to meet Tommy, because Tommy had stolen the earrings he’d bought for his two other wives. Nigel couldn’t report them as stolen, because he couldn’t explain two extra pairs of diamond earrings to Janet. Tommy obviously knew from whom he’d stolen them. What would you think if you found a man had bought three pairs of earrings, and his wife was wearing one pair to our first formal dinner? Tommy wasn’t a stupid man—obsessed, yes, but not stupid—he might have talked to Nigel about the other diamonds. We know Tommy and Nigel had a run-in in the Games Room, after Tommy made a remark about Nigel knowing how to look after his wife. Frannie Lang told us about it, and I believe, on that occasion, Frannie was telling the truth. I suggest to you that Tommy was goading Nigel about the earrings, and about how his wife only had one of three pairs. I wouldn’t put a spot of blackmail past Tommy. I can’t be sure, of course, but it fits. I’d like to put that to Nigel, to see how he reacts.”
