Kyle looked up at the theater marquee in surprise. “Oh look honey, we’re back at the theater.”
“Imagine that.” Grace smiled at Penny as she lightly patted Kyle’s chest. “You have to forgive us. We’re honeymooners.”
Alex Wright, the cruise director, suddenly came barreling around the corner. He slid to a stop as soon as he spotted Penny. “Where is Bruce?”
Penny’s eyes narrowed on the small red bruise at the side of his mouth. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” he snapped. “Where’s Bruce?”
Penny’s eyes flashed. “How should I know? Ask the ghost. He probably knows.”
Grace and Kyle exchanged confused looks. “Ghost?” Kyle asked.
Taking Penny’s arm, Alex led her away.
Grace and Kyle exchanged a look before casually following them to a small alcove near the elevator. They walked to a nearby monitor where they pretended to be interested in the activities scheduled for tomorrow.
“Bruce can’t do this to me, Penny,” Alex said. “Not now. Not in the middle of the cruise.”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Do what, Alex?”
Alex’s eyes bugged out of his head. “You don’t know?” When Penny shook her head, he practically shouted, “He quit!”
Penny froze. She made no movement for a good long minute, as Alex hyperventilated around her going on about breach of contract and lawyers and disappointed passengers.
When she finally blinked, she said in a strangely eerie tone, “When did he quit?”
“A few minutes ago,” he said, anger dripping from his voice. “By email. The jerk didn’t even bother telling me in person. You’ve got to talk to him, Penny.”
Penny suddenly smiled. She pressed her hand to Alex’s arm. “Relax, Alex. It’s just Bruce’s way of letting off steam. I’m sure everything’s fine. I’ll go and talk to him right now. Don’t worry. He’ll calm down by morning.”
Alex’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you, Penny,” he said patting her shoulders. “You’re a life saver.”
Penny nodded absentmindedly as her gaze shifted to stare straight at Kyle. “Everything’s going to be fine, Alex. You’ll see.”
Alex gestured to the elevators. “Let’s talk to him now, please.”
Her gaze still riveted on Kyle she said, “Sure, why not?”
“That was weird,” Grace said, watching as the two disappeared into the elevator. “I wonder why he quit.”
“He’s always been temperamental,” he said leading her back to the theater. “If it was an accident, he might be afraid Tucker was going to get him fired so he just decided to go ahead and quit,” he said opening the door.
Grace walked down the aisle and onto the stage while Kyle turned on the lights.
“Let’s see,” he said joining her on stage, “the locker was here.” He took two small steps back and extended his arms. “Tucker would be standing here.” He dropped his arms and glanced over his shoulder. “The backstage door was directly behind him.”
Grace stepped behind one of the rolling waves spaced out on the stage in front of the ship. She stood on her tiptoes and looked over the top at Kyle. She walked down the length of the wave coming to stand directly behind Kyle. “Wouldn’t Bruce and Penny have noticed someone hiding back here though?”
“Not necessarily. Their focus was on the audience and making sure the swords went in correctly. The way the locker was positioned, someone could have snuck out of the secret door, hid behind one of those waves, and then when Penny and Bruce were focused on the audience, they could have reached forward and stabbed Tucker.”
“That’s risky.”
“It wouldn’t take long. Just a few seconds. He couldn’t spare more than a few seconds, which is why he didn’t stick around to finish the job.”
“But why? Why would someone want to kill Tucker in the middle of a magic show?”
He paused thoughtfully. “What if Bruce was right? What if someone was trying to sabotage his trick?”
“Who would want to do that?”
“What about Leo Rycroft? I don’t buy his whole innocent bemused act. He knows what he’s doing. Did you see how quickly he took Bruce’s place at dinner?”
“And Tucker’s the one who got him fired. That’s a pretty big motive,” she said as they made their way to the theater. “If he killed Tucker during the act, he’d get revenge on all three of them at once. Tucker for getting him fired, Penny for cheating on him, and Bruce for taking his place.”
“In more ways than one. Talk about killing three birds with one stone. It’s kind of diabolical if you think about it.”
She turned to the secret door. “There’s just one problem,” she said pushing the door open. “Someone tried to kill Tucker on the stairs tonight.”
Kyle sighed. “Oh, that’s right.”
“Kind of ruins your three birds with one stone theory.” She glanced over her shoulder, checking to see if he was following her. Memories of being grabbed and dragged into the underbelly of the fake ship was still fresh in her mind. It didn’t matter that it was Tucker who had grabbed her. The incident still gave her quite the fright. “If killing Tucker and framing Bruce and Penny for the murder was the killer’s plan all along, he wouldn’t have bothered pushing Tucker down the stairs before dinner.”
He took her hand as she passed the spiral staircase and pulled her back. “This way,” he said leading her back to the stairs.
Lifting the hem of her dress, she followed him up the steps and up to the top of the ship. “What are we doing up here?”
“I’m looking for something,” he said walking over to the cannon.
“What?”
He knelt next to the cannon and began running his hands over the side and top of the cannon. “This,” he said removing a cylindrical portion of the cannon. He pointed it at her. “Smile for the camera.”
“How did you know that was there?”
“I spotted a camera on the stage during the show and started looking for more.” He returned the camera back to the cannon. “Let’s just hope it was recording and pointing at the back of the locker,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back to the staircase.
Once in the workshop, they walked over to a laptop lying open on a hutch in the corner of the room. Kyle opened the hutch to reveal a TV monitor and four DVD players. While he turned on the monitor and DVD players, Grace watched as the computer screensaver displayed pictures of Bruce.
She tilted her head as a picture of Bruce standing next to Davy Jones’ locker came up on the screen. “Hey, look at this?”
Kyle glanced down at the computer just as the picture morphed into another close-up of Bruce’s face. “What am I looking for?”
“There was a picture of Leo Rycroft on Bruce’s screensaver.”
He turned back to the monitor. “Why would Bruce have a picture of Leo Rycroft? They don’t seem like the best of friends.”
“It was actually a picture of Bruce on stage. Leo just happened to be in the background performing. Leo’s lost a bit of weight,” she remarked, leaving him to play with the video equipment as she wandered around the workroom. She glanced back as he blew out his breath in disgust. “Problem?”
“The video from the top of the cannon is missing.”
“Maybe they forgot to turn it on.”
He closed the hutch. “And maybe they didn’t want a video of them assaulting Tucker.”
She glanced into the dark dressing room. An eerie feeling passing over her as she peered into the darkness. “Are you sure we’re alone?”
“The lights were off.”
Grace turned around and did a double take, surprised to find the locker right side up. “Bruce must have come back at some point and picked up the locker. I hope he doesn’t come back and find us going through his things.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll leave soon,” he said as he went through the hutch’s drawers. “I was really counting on that video. If only we could find
a nice big clue before we leave.”
Grace opened the locker door and looked inside. She gasped.
“Grace? What’s wrong?”
“I think I found your clue,” she said backing away from the locker and pointing at Bruce Pritchard’s dead body.
Chapter Ten
Grace stepped out of the elevator. She gestured to the theater doors. “Just follow me,” she said to Officer Drew Mulligan, the rail thin young man with a bushy mustache and mocking know-it-all manner, who was trailing along behind her. “Bruce Pritchard’s body is in his workshop.”
Kyle took her elbow as they hurried down the corridor. “I don’t think he heard you,” he said as they came to a stop in front of the theater doors.
She glanced behind her to see if Mulligan was still following. In the ten-minute trip from his office to the theater, he had either gotten distracted by teenagers chasing one another through the ship, crewmembers who wanted to chat, or the walkie-talkie at his waist. None of which was quite as pressing as a dead body in her opinion, but Officer Mulligan clearly disagreed. She sighed when she noticed the guard chatting with a pretty blonde by the elevator. “Officer Mulligan!”
He looked up with an annoyed expression on his face.
She gestured to the theater doors again. “Please.”
With an expressive roll of his eyes, the guard reluctantly said goodbye to the pretty blonde and ambled his way towards them. “All right, I’m here. Where’s the body?”
“Backstage,” Grace said. “We found him lying in his locker.”
Officer Mulligan speared her with a patronizing smile before adding with an air of authority, “Ma’am, Bruce is a magician.”
Grace’s brow furrowed when no further explanation came. “And?”
“Well, they’re weird,” Mulligan said with a shrug.
“Well, right now he’s dead,” Kyle said.
Mulligan snorted in amusement. “He probably just caught you two back there and decided to play a little trick on you.”
“He doesn’t have a pulse,” Kyle said. “I checked.”
Mulligan laughed. “He’s a magician,” he said as if that explained everything.
“Yet, he’s still dead,” Kyle pointed out.
Mulligan blew a raspberry. “It’s a trick. That’s their stock in trade.” He regarded them with amusement. “Serves you right for going into places you don’t belong. You’re lucky that’s all he did.” He shook his finger in their faces. “You could be in a lot of trouble. Just because we’re on a ship in the middle of the ocean doesn’t mean there aren’t rules to follow.” He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Now I know you two paid a lot of money,” he said reaching for the door handle, “but that doesn’t give you carte blanche to go where ever you want. I’ve been—” His smile fell as he turned the theater doorknob and opened the door. Tilting his head to first one side then the other, he knelt down to examine the lock.
Grace and Kyle exchanged a look before joining him at the doors searching for hidden clues that they had somehow missed. Not that they had been looking for any on the double doors. After finding Bruce’s body, they had only hung around backstage long enough to find a phone to call security. When that endeavor devolved into a long explanation as to what they were doing in the theater after closing, they had abandoned the phone and gone straight to the security office where they found Officer Mulligan.
“What do you see?” Grace asked her eyes narrowing, searching for any scratch, scrape or smudge that had captivated the security man.
Mulligan wrinkled his nose. “It’s unlocked.”
Kyle’s eyebrows rose. “Of course it’s unlocked. That’s how we got in,” he said leaving out that he was the one who unlocked it in the first place.
Mulligan straightened. Testing the doorknob, he said, “These cheap locks they installed…sometimes they don’t latch properly.” He closed then opened the door. Repeating the action several times. “Nope, seems to be latching okay. They must have forgotten to lock it.”
“Yeah, that must be it.” Grace pointed to the stage. “The dead body is just back here. If you could follow us.” She backed up towards the stage hoping to encourage the man to follow her. When he finally tore his attention from the doors and strolled towards her, she turned and hurried up the stage steps after Kyle.
They waited as patiently as they could for Mulligan to mosey up to the stage. “I still don’t understand why you were even in the theater to begin with,” he said picking up a brochure lying on the floor.
“I told you,” Kyle said as he pushed open the secret door. “My father is a magician and Bruce is an old acquaintance of ours. I just wanted to pay my respects.”
“Uh huh.” Mulligan looked around the stage. “And how much have you two had to drink tonight?”
Grace gave him an insulted look. “Absolutely nothing.”
He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “I heard there was some trouble in your cabin tonight.” He sniffed loudly as he looked around. “Broke one of the champagne bottles.”
“That was an accident,” Kyle said holding the secret door open. “Neither one of us is drunk.”
Mulligan leaned forward and looked behind one of the fake waves. “Uh huh.”
Grace flung her hand to the door. “The body is just this way,” she said through clenched teeth.
Mulligan made a guttural sound in his throat. With a shrug of his thin shoulders he walked along the length of the wave and then finally through the secret door and into the workshop. He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and in a bored tone of voice, he said, “Okay, where’s it?”
Grace hurried to the locker, still sitting in the corner of the room. “It’s just . . .” She let her arm fall as shock rippled through her. “Kyle, did you shut the door?”
“No.” He jerked his chin towards the dressing room door, now backlit by light which spilled out from underneath and around the door. “I also didn’t turn on the light in the dressing room either.”
Grace felt her shoulders sag. Could Mulligan be right? Could it have been some sort of nasty trick? She wouldn’t put it past Bruce.
No, she thought to herself, if it was a trick she was confident Kyle would have seen through it. Bruce was dead. There was no doubt about it. The question was who came in after them, closed the locker door, and then turned on the dressing room lights?
Suddenly in a hurry, Mulligan shifted on his feet restlessly. “Okay, where’s this dead body that you dragged me down here to see?”
Grace bit her lower lip. “It was in the locker,” she said with a sigh, now certain the body had been moved.
With annoyed sharp movements, Mulligan flung open the locker door.
And just as Grace expected, it was empty.
“Wow!” Mulligan did a quick series of hand waves in front of the locker. “Abracadabra! Hocus-pocus! And voila!” He stepped back. “And look, the body’s disappeared.”
“Very funny,” Kyle said dryly, his gaze fixed to the dressing room door. “There was a dead body inside there forty minutes ago. If you all had listened to us when we called, it would still be here.”
Mulligan stuck his head inside the locker. He rapped his knuckles against the back. “Wow, this locker is much bigger than it looks. How do they do that?”
“What is going on in here?” Penny flung open the dressing room door, her eyes flashing in righteous anger. “How dare you! None of you belong in here!” She stamped her foot. “Get out right this instant!”
Mulligan wilted under her fury. He held out his hands protectively in front of himself, quickly backing away from the locker as she simultaneous strode forward. He stepped behind Kyle, taking one of his arms in both of his hands. “These two just got a little carried away with the magic show tonight, Mrs. Rycroft. We were just leaving,” he said tugging on Kyle’s arm.
Kyle didn’t budge. “Where’s Bruce, Penny?”
“I have no idea.” Penny slammed the locker shut. “Wh
at do you want him for?”
“He’s dead,” Grace said as gently as she possibly could. She wasn’t sure who killed Bruce or who had moved the body, but she knew Penny and he had some sort of relationship which demanded some sort of sympathy for her loss.
Penny whirled around. She stood there staring at Grace with a wary look in her eyes for a moment. Nodding softly, she took a deep breath before folding her hands in front of her. “Where’s his body?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Kyle said.
Penny’s gaze hardened and her upper lip curled in disgust. “What sort of trick is this then? If you don’t have his body, how do you know he’s dead?”
Mulligan dropped his hand from around Kyle’s arm. Glancing from Grace to Kyle, he tipped his hand up to his mouth as though he was taking a drink.
“Oh, I see,” Penny said with a hard smile. “Had a bit too much to drink then?”
“He is dead,” Grace insisted. “We found his body inside the locker and now it’s gone.”
Penny raised her hands. “Gone where?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said shortly. “It disappeared.”
Penny chuckled. “Honey, Bruce isn’t that good of a magician.”
“Kyle, tell them . . .” Grace glanced around for her husband, surprised to discover he had disappeared as well. “Kyle!”
Kyle stepped out of the dressing room. “It’s all right. I’m right here.”
Mulligan threw back his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “Okay, that’s enough.” He grabbed Kyle’s arm again and tugged. “Let’s go.”
Kyle walked with him up until they reached Penny. He came to a stop in front of Penny, causing Mulligan to stumble. “Where’s the video of tonight’s show?”
Penny arched an eyebrow, her gaze flickering to the hutch.
Kyle shook his head. “One’s missing.”
She snorted. “So what? Are you saying Bruce died while on stage?” she asked her tone clearly mocking. She lifted fingertips to her mouth. “Oh no, and I didn’t even notice he was walking around here dead. My, you’re so clever to have figured it out.”
The Body in Davy Jones' Locker Page 10
