“Are you on any medication?”
“Sometimes,” he said.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes I take it; sometimes I don’t.”
“Oh.”
He said nothing but kept his gaze fixed on me. Doesn’t he ever blink? Don’t his eyes dry out staring like that? I decided to play the stare game.
He won; I blinked and turned away.
I picked up my shoulder bag and got up. He pushed away his chair and stood up next to me. He held out his arms to embrace me, and he did it in such a way as if he expected me to fall into them. That gesture felt strange to me.
Instead I took both his hands briefly. “Thank you for opening yourself so fully to me.”
“It’s because I like you.”
“That sounds like my kind of smart-mouth speaking,” I said. He didn’t get it, so I added, “Thank you.” I had no idea why I was thanking him, but I thought, You figure it out, big dude.
I walked away from him and headed back to my room. I didn’t turn around, but I listened carefully. He hadn’t followed me, and I relaxed.
Everything about Jon confused me. No, that’s not quite accurate. I had already done a quickie professional analysis—that’s one of the hazards of my occupation—and I admitted to myself that it’s dangerous to make immediate judgments. But in my thinking, he fit the profile of a man with unstable personal relationships, a self-image that is not well formed, and poor impulse control. His amorous attempts were totally out of context. He had no awareness of me or of my reaction. For lack of a better label, I’d have called him a borderline personality.
He’s a little creepy, I thought. He’s a handsome man, but good looks are no insurance against being creepy. I decided to see if I could look at Twila’s file on him when we returned to Georgia.
If he’s so strange, Twila certainly knew it. She would have picked that up in about ten seconds. So why did Twila invite him? He must be one of those who needed her. Is he someone capable of killing her? I had no idea.
But for now, there were forty-six passengers on the ship. By eliminating Burton and me, we had forty-four possible-but-remote suspects. If we stayed with the ten who were in the fourth Zodiac, that cut down the task of finding the killer considerably. But Jon had gone to the island on the fourth Zodiac, so I decided to make him number eleven.
“He’s slightly nuts,” I said aloud. “He’s probably not dangerous, but he’s still nuts.”
“Julie, no professional talks that way,” I said to myself.
“Okay, he’s at least a borderline personality—”
“Julie!”
“Okay, without further tests, I’d classify him as a person with a borderline personality disorder. We call that BPD.”
“Now you sound professional,” I said.
“I’d probably also sound crazy if anyone else heard me.”
I walked along the outside deck. It was getting colder, and I pulled my heavy jacket tighter.
“He may be BPD, but that doesn’t make him a killer.”
Eighteen
I went back to the room and found Betty Freeman awake and in her usual chattering mood. She was nearly dressed but couldn’t make up her mind whether to wear slacks or her running suit. She started to talk and I gave her only one-word answers, but that didn’t stop her.
Finally I gave her nothing but nods. Still she persisted.
“Julie, I heard that you and Burton have received permission to act like detectives and solve this terrible—terrible thing.”
That opened me up. “Who said so?”
“I don’t know. Gossip among the passengers. Maybe somebody overheard—”
“Or maybe someone was eavesdropping.”
She blushed. “Well, I wasn’t really, Julie. I mean, I didn’t intend to eavesdrop. I was only—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I wanted her to shut up so I could have peace and quiet.
For thirty seconds, she said nothing. I stretched out on my back on my bunk and closed my eyes.
“Julie, I suppose you’d like to take a nap or something.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to disturb you, Julie. I tried to read but couldn’t keep my mind on it, don’t you know? I get bored walking around on the deck.”
I didn’t reply.
“I have a question. Please, Julie, don’t take offense if I ask, okay?”
“So ask.” I sighed loudly, but I knew she wouldn’t get the message.
“Burton. Is it over between you two? You know, romantically over?”
“Why do you ask?” That’s always a safe question to find out the reason behind the question.
“Uh, well, Julie, I—I’m just, uh, you know, I’m a little curious.”
“And available.”
“Well, yes. And he is so cute, isn’t he?” Betty was about half a foot shorter than me. She was about my age, maybe a year or two older. I’m thin and willowy with almost no fat—okay, I’ll translate that. I’m not rounded in the right places. Most women complain about their rear ends being too large. I’m so flat everywhere I can wear boys’ clothes.
“I mean, dear Julie, if I—if I—”
“He’s unattached as far as I’m concerned,” I said. I hope I said it with more conviction than I felt. I also wished she’d stop using my name with almost every sentence, so I could tune her out.
She talked on and on. I think it was something about the man she almost married when she was in college. Or maybe it was one of her music professors. I didn’t care, and I didn’t want to hear.
Most of all, I didn’t want to talk about Burton. I wanted to grieve over Twila—and I wanted to think. I finally figured out the only way to do that was to feign sleep. I turned over on my stomach and lay still.
A few minutes later, Betty said, “Well, Julie, you’re sure you don’t mind?”
I did mind, but I didn’t answer. If she could entice him, that was fine. No, it wasn’t fine, and I admitted I loved him.
“Aren’t you going to breakfast?” I asked to change the subject.
“Sometimes a girl has to watch her figure,” she said. “Do you think I’ve gotten too big in the hips? Maybe I should lose ten pounds. What do you think?”
It was much simpler to pretend to be asleep.
After that she painted her fingernails and toenails. I think I heard her brushing her hair about five hundred times. But I soon pushed her out of my mind.
I missed Twila. I didn’t know how I’d function without her friendship. Even though we’d become close only within the last year, it felt as if we’d always known each other.
To distract my own grief, I thought about the book of lectures she had written. I hadn’t finished reading my portion of the chapters before Jon interrupted me. I wanted to read more, but if I made the slightest move, Betty would start talking to me again. I thought of going to the lounge, but I assumed other people would be there at this time. Except for mealtime, the others could be almost any place on the ship.
My mind stayed on the book. That had to be the answer. Her death. The room searched. The wrong cover on the book—and because I knew Twila, I knew she had not done that mindlessly.
The killer had to be one of the people mentioned in the book. The more I played with that idea, the more sense it made. But she carefully altered the identities, so I don’t see how anyone could know he or she was one of the people written about in the book. Twila would never, never knowingly hurt anyone.
As I lay in the almost-quiet room, I vaguely recalled weeks earlier when Twila talked to me about her lectures at Clayton University. She told me that she had disguised the case studies enough so that the individuals wouldn’t recognize themselves. She didn’t tell me she had written them in a book form.
She told me something else about the case studies. I couldn’t quite remember. . . . What was it?
I hadn’t paid much attention, because it didn’t seem important then. I
kept trying to replay that moment inside my head. I was actually surprised that I remembered any of it. As I lay on the bunk, I noticed the waves outside weren’t yet rough. The gentleness must have rocked me to sleep.
When I awakened, I rolled over onto my back. Betty was gone. She probably decided breakfast was more important than losing ten pounds. I lay quietly for perhaps a minute, allowing my mind to go where it chose.
“What about the legal issues?” I didn’t hear a voice, but the words were so loud, I sat up abruptly.
“Yes! Yes, that’s what I was trying to remember,” I shouted. Twila had said she’d changed enough minor facts that she could disguise the subject without distorting the truth of the case. She had assured me of this when I reminded her of a case I had read about in California. A psychologist did some weird therapy like making everyone scream like a bird or an animal. A writer who documented his practice changed names and places in her article, but the psychologist recognized his treatment style, sued her, and received a huge cash award.
“I have their signed permissions,” she said that day.
I snapped my fingers. “That’s it!” That’s what I had been trying to remember. She told me that she had given each person a copy of their particular case study and asked her or him to read it and to make any changes they chose to make it more accurate. She explained that she wanted to present each one of them as a case study to grad students at the university.
Had she gotten everyone to sign? I couldn’t remember if she mentioned it, but I assumed she had. Surely Twila wouldn’t have gone ahead without their written agreement. If she had their signatures, why would there be a problem? Perhaps one of them may have changed his or her mind. Was that possible?
Or maybe the case studies didn’t contain the story of the person who murdered her. Maybe the murder was unrelated and something totally different.
What else is there? Why else would anyone hurt that wonderful saint of a woman?
Nineteen
I was still lying in my bunk when Betty came back into the cabin. I tried to think of anything else about Twila and her lectures. Nothing more came to me. The subject hadn’t seemed all that important at the time.
Maybe it wasn’t important. But if it wasn’t, why the searching in her cabin? Why had she put a different cover on her own book? That seemed strange—almost as if she suspected someone. Had she been threatened? These were people she had chosen to travel with. Surely Twila was too astute to—
A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. Before I could sit up, Betty was at the door and opened it. “Oh, did you come to escort us to breakfast?” she asked. “I’m not quite ready.” She actually posed and flipped her hair with one hand. “But it will only take a second or two.”
“I thought you had breakfast,” I said to Betty.
“I did have a bite,” she said, “but only a little toast and black coffee.” She smiled at Burton. “A girl has to watch her figure, you know. But I could sit and enjoy another cup of coffee and listen to you talk.”
“I think the dining room is closed by now,” I said.
“Oh no, no,” she said. “It should be, but it isn’t. The others have just started to come in for a late breakfast—a very late breakfast.” She draped one arm over the closet door as if posing for a photo shoot. I didn’t know if that was her way of being cute. No, I decided she was definitely flirting with Burton. I had watched her bat her eyes a few times at men before.
“Uh, well, you see, I came—”
“I’m ready,” I said. I grabbed my bag and hurried out before Betty had a chance to say anything more.
“See you later, Betty,” Burton said.
He closed the door behind me.
“Thank you for saving me,” Burton whispered once we were away from the cabin.
“Oh, did you need saving?”
“You didn’t see how she came on to me?”
“Did she really? Oh, surely not,” I said and hid my smile.
“Okay, Ms. Smart Mouth, you almost had me there.”
“She was a bit obvious,” I said and walked on ahead of him.
We sat down at the far corner of the first table, where I could see everyone who entered the room. Although there were no reserved places, by the second day, most of us had established our seating preferences. I purposely moved to a different place for each meal so that I could disrupt the orderliness of always sitting in the same place. I used to love it at church when someone would say, “Excuse me, but you’re sitting in my pew.” I would smile as innocently as I could and say, “Oh, you’re welcome to sit here with me. There’s plenty of room for all of us, don’t you think?” They usually declined my invitation.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best behavior. Twila once asked, “Is that an act of kindness? You make them uncomfortable. For some people, the one place where they can come and everything is as it should be is church. They like to sit in the same pew, and they want to see the same people each time.”
She could have elaborated, but that was Twila. She knew she had made her point. I embraced her and thanked her. She was right, of course. Despite my inclinations, I didn’t do it again. Even so, I thought of it almost every time I went to church. My actions were a little ahead of my good intentions.
I did it other places, however, because I wasn’t yet a totally nice person. I was also still new in the Christian faith. At times, I resented being a believer. When I was on my own, I could make my decisions based on how I wanted to behave. Now I had to consult the Lord on everything.
In some ways, I’m a very, very slow learner.
Twenty
We had barely gotten seated in the dining room before the waiter brought out our meals. He was also the Zodiac driver for the first boat that went out to Brown Bluff. Most of the crew, I observed, had more than one job aboard ship.
As usual, the food was absolutely delicious. They served the usual oatmeal, cold cereal, scrambled eggs, and bacon. But they always offered something a little unusual. Today it was strawberry crepes. I wondered why some first-class restaurant hadn’t hired the chef.
Something else was interesting in the dining room. Every single one of those individuals paused and bowed their heads. Their lips moved, so I assume they thanked God for their food. I had never done that on my own. At one time I lived with a religious nut of an uncle who did geographic prayers before every meal—he prayed around the world in six minutes. (I timed him, and his shortest prayer was three minutes and forty-nine seconds. He must have been hungry that day.)
Captain Robert walked into our dining room. “Please continue to eat,” he said. “I hope you have found the cuisine to your liking.”
Several people said yes. One woman clapped, and that brought about a spurt of applause.
“I wish to make one announcement. I have nothing new to report to you.” I half expected him to say something obvious, such as “Someone here killed Mrs. Belk.” He didn’t, but he did say, “I have spoken to each of you. You are all Americans, and we have been informed that delegates from your fine country will meet us at Ushuaia. They will continue the investigation.”
“Is there nothing you can tell us?” I recognized Mickey Brewer’s voice.”
“I can tell you nothing—”
“Or you won’t?”
“—at this point,” he said as if Mickey hadn’t interrupted him. “However, I have given unofficial permission to the Rev. Dr. James Burton and Dr. Julie West to act on my behalf until we reach our destination. If you know anything or have any suspicions, please to talk to them.”
He gave us the pep talk about how delighted he was to have us and that in his eighteen years, this was the first time he had known of such a sad occasion. He bid us bon appétit and gave us a kind of salute before he left.
At first everyone around me whispered. Finally, Heather, who sat across from me and four seats down, asked, “Well, Julie, do you have any clues yet?”
“I’m waiting to find out what you know.
”
“Me? Why should I know anything?”
I smiled and focused on my eating. I had meant it as a smart-mouthed remark. As I reviewed the words in my head, I realized they hadn’t come across as flip and cute.
The shock on her face made me wonder if I had spoken intuitively. What if she does know something?
It took about twenty minutes for us to get through the meal. Some stayed for coffee, but not many. Within another twenty minutes, only a handful of us remained in the dining room.
I got up, and Heather called my name softly. I looked up. She was sitting between Mickey Brewer and Donny Otis with Jon Friesen across from her. “Can I—can I talk to you for a second? Alone, I mean?” She turned and smiled at the three men. “Excuse me, guys.”
“Sure, we can talk,” I said. I stopped by Burton’s chair—he sat at the other end of the same table. Betty sat across from him and was in the middle of a long story about how she had gotten lost for two hours in Amsterdam, or maybe it was Tel Aviv. Just to irritate her, I bent over and whispered in Burton’s ear, “See you later.”
He smiled. “Okay, I’ll join you—”
Oh, now he wanted to play my game. “Give me ten minutes.” I whispered in his ear, “The lounge.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Come alone. Danger lurks.”
He burst out laughing, and I hurried out of the room.
I walked slowly up a flight of stairs. Heather caught up with me and led me to her cabin. “I don’t know how much good this is,” she said, “but on Brown Bluff, I saw two people walking over toward a small hill or whatever you call it. It was just high enough to walk around and get out of sight. Maybe it’s nothing, but . . . I thought you ought to know.”
My intuition had been right, but I also sensed that wasn’t everything. “What else can you tell me?”
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