Boats and Bad Guys

by Diana Xarissa

  “Yes, dear, of course I want you to be happy,” he said softly, patting her hand.

  Sherry smiled faintly and then suddenly stood up. “I need to stretch my legs,” she said, glancing around the room. She’d only take a handful of steps when the door swung open again.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Proper, if I could talk to you next, please?” Daniel said from the doorway.

  Nick and Brenda exchanged glances and then got up wordlessly and followed Daniel out into the corridor. Sarah looked over at Fenella and shrugged.

  “I wish I knew if it was better to be left for last or not,” she said.

  “As we haven’t a choice, it might be better not to think about it,” Fenella suggested.

  “The inspector’s awfully good-looking,” Sherry said. “If I weren’t happily married, I’d be trying to get myself arrested.”

  Sarah smiled at her. “He is rather handsome,” she agreed. “I didn’t notice the other day. I was too worried about Robert, and then once I was told that he was dead, I was too upset to pay any attention to anything. But you’re right, the inspector is quite handsome.”

  Fenella felt a pang of jealousy, which she knew was totally misplaced. Sarah was a new widow and certainly not looking to replace her husband so quickly, and Sherry was married. Neither of the women were a threat to her relationship with Daniel, which was only a friendship anyway. She had no business being jealous no matter what. She was just done reminding herself of all of that when the door opened again and Sherry and Harry left for their turn with the inspector.

  “That just leaves us,” Sarah said to Fenella.

  “Yes, perhaps he’s simply saved the best for last,” Fenella suggested.

  Sarah smiled. “I cried so much when he tried to interview me last time, I suspect he’s left me until he can get in a supply of tissues.”

  “You had every reason to be upset,” Fenella told her.

  Sarah nodded. “Robert and I weren’t always the happiest couple on the planet, but we were bumping along, doing our best.” She got up from her seat and sat down next to Fenella.

  “Do you think he might have been involved in something criminal?” she asked in a whisper.

  “He was your husband,” Fenella said, surprised by the question. “Surely you’d be in a position to know.”

  “He was paid well,” Sarah said, almost talking to herself. “Maybe too well for what he did, or what he told me he did. And he worked a lot of odd hours, late nights and early mornings and whatnot. I never thought anything of it. I work all sorts of hours myself. That’s nursing for you. I keep wondering about this holiday we’d won, though.”

  “What about it?” Fenella asked.

  “I don’t know, it was just odd,” Sarah said. “I never win anything, for one thing. And we only just found out about it last week and had to go right away. That isn’t much good as a prize. What if I couldn’t have found someone to cover all my shifts? Robert kept insisting it was all wonderful, but I thought it was strange.”

  “It does sound a little odd,” Fenella agreed. “Did you talk to Inspector Robinson about it?”

  “He was going to talk to Robert’s supervisor,” Sarah replied. “But I don’t know what he found out. I don’t imagine he’ll tell me, either. The police never want to share anything.”

  She glanced at the constable by the door and then blushed. “I mean, I know they mustn’t talk out of turn, but I feel as if I have a right to know if my husband was doing something illegal, don’t I?”

  “Maybe once they’ve arrested someone for the murder, they’ll be able to tell you more,” Fenella said.

  “I certainly hope so,” Sarah replied.

  A moment later, it was Sarah’s turn to leave with Daniel. Fenella was left alone with the police constable.

  “Am I allowed to use my phone?” she asked the woman.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” the constable told her. “I wouldn’t want you to accidently see something in the news that the inspector doesn’t want you to know.”

  Fenella nodded. “I was just going to play a game,” she said.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” the constable said.

  “So, do you like being a police constable?” she asked the woman.

  When Daniel came back into the room several minutes later, Fenella and the constable were sitting together and chatting about cats.

  “I moved her food dish twenty-five times before I found the perfect spot for it,” the constable was saying as the door swung open.

  “I haven’t had that problem with my kitten,” Fenella told her. “She seems happy with her dish wherever I put it.”

  “You were smart, getting a kitten,” the woman replied. “When you adopt older cats, you get all of their quirks.”

  “I hate to interrupt,” Daniel said. “But I really do need to question this witness.”

  Constable Richards blushed. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, standing up straight.

  “It’s not a problem,” he said easily. “I know Fenella is easy to talk to.”

  Fenella found herself blushing as the constable gave her an appraising look.

  “You can let the woman at customer service know that I’m done on-site,” Daniel told the constable. “I’ll talk to Ms. Woods at her flat, as I’m more than ready to get away from the Sea Terminal.”

  “Yes, sir,” the woman said.

  “Are your ready?” he asked Fenella.

  “Definitely,” she said quickly. After picking up her handbag, she followed Daniel out of the room and then through the building.

  An unmarked car was parked in the “no parking” zone right in front of it. Daniel smiled ruefully as he pulled the parking ticket out from under his windshield wiper. “I forgot to put my police card in the window,” he told Fenella as they both buckled their seatbelts.

  “Will you have to pay the fine?” she asked.

  “No, but I’ll have to make a dozen phone calls,” he told her. “It would probably be easier to just pay the fine, but that brings up its own set of problems.”

  Fenella thought about asking, but decided against it. Daniel seemed distracted, and she wanted to let him focus on driving them the short distance to her apartment building. He pulled up in front of the building and sighed. “I’ll probably get a ticket here, too,” he said.

  “Can you park in the underground lot?” she asked.

  “Not without a resident’s card,” he told her.

  “Would mine work?” she wondered.

  He grinned at her. “We could try,” he said.

  He put the car back in gear and drove to the entrance to the parking garage. When he put his window down, Fenella handed him her keycard. He waved it in front of the black box by the gate, and after a moment, the gate slowly opened.

  “Will I have to come back to let you out?” she asked him as he pulled into a parking space that was marked “visitors.”

  “No, there’s a button to push on the inside,” he told her. “I know someone who rented a flat here for a few months. He got into some trouble because he used to have parties and invite several dozen friends. He’d stand at the gate and let them all in on his card.”

  “How many visitors’ spots are there?” Fenella asked.

  “Not enough,” Daniel chuckled. “That’s why he got into trouble. His friends usually just parked wherever they found a space, and then when the residents who owned the spaces came home, they weren’t able to park. I believe owners are limited to a single guest parking space at a time now, thanks to my friend.”

  Fenella smiled. “That won’t be a problem for me,” she said. “Nearly all of my friends live in the building.”

  When the elevator opened on the sixth floor, Fenella led the man down the corridor to her door. “Merow, merowwww, mmmmeerrrooowwww,” greeted them as Fenella pushed the door open.

  “Katie?” Fenella called. “Where are you?”

  A round of unhappy sounds followed. Fenella stood very still in the center of her living
room and tried to work out where the sounds were coming from.

  “I think she’s in the bedroom,” Daniel said after yet another loud cry.

  Fenella crossed to the master bedroom and pushed the partly shut door open. She took one look at the mess on her floor and briefly considered not looking for her pet. As Katie had been unable to get into the bathroom, she’d obviously amused herself today by helping herself to every tissue in the box that was next to Fenella’s bed. There were tissues everywhere, most of them shredded into tiny pieces.

  “Meeroww,” Katie called from somewhere.

  “She’s under here,” Daniel told Fenella as he looked under the bed. “She’s seems to be tangled up in something.”

  With Daniel’s help, Fenella pulled Katie out from under the bed. “She must have jumped inside the tissue box once she’d emptied it,” Fenella said as she rescued the kitten. “And then she managed to get herself tangled in the plastic sheet that keeps the tissues in place.”

  “She seems to have had a pretty good fight with it,” Daniel said, chuckling.

  The kitten had managed to shred most of the tissue box, leaving herself wrapped in bits of plastic with only two corners of the box still intact. Fenella gently unwound the plastic that was around Katie’s neck. “I hope you’ve learned a lesson,” she said sternly. “Stop playing with my things.”

  Katie stared at her for a moment and then tossed her head and walked out of the room.

  “I don’t think she’s learned anything,” Daniel said with a laugh.

  “Would you like a kitten?” Fenella asked as she surveyed the room.

  “Maybe, but not that one,” Daniel told her.

  Fenella sighed. “I’m starting to see why her previous owner didn’t come looking for her,” she complained.

  “It isn’t that much to clear up,” Daniel told her. He started rolling all of the tissues into a large ball. Fenella went to get the vacuum, and only a few minutes later the bedroom was clean again.

  “See, that wasn’t so bad,” Daniel said.

  “I’m so sorry,” Fenella told him. “I’m sure you have better things to do than clean my apartment.”

  Daniel shook his head. “I’m counting that as a break,” he told her. “My brain needed to shut off for a few minutes, and clearing up after Katie’s mischief was the perfect tonic. Now I feel ready to talk to you about the murder.”

  “Coffee?” Fenella asked.

  “Can’t hurt,” Daniel winked at her.

  He sat at the counter in the kitchen while Fenella started a pot of coffee. She found some cookies in the cupboard and handed them to him.

  “They’re chocolate-covered,” she said. “They’ll help, too.”

  Daniel didn’t speak until he’d had a few sips of coffee and several cookies. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s been a very long day.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fenella said. She glanced at the clock. “It’s time for lunch,” she exclaimed. “Would you like a sandwich?”

  Daniel opened his mouth and then shut it and shook his head. “You’re still a suspect, at least on paper,” he said. “Coffee is just about okay, but I can’t let you make me lunch.”

  Fenella sat down next to him with a frown on her face. “How can I be a suspect? I don’t even know who’s dead.”

  “Have you ever met a man called George Mason?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Fenella said. She sipped her coffee and tried to think. After another minute, she shook her head. “It doesn’t ring any bells. I’m assuming you mean here on the island. It seems a common enough name that I might have met someone in the US with that name.”

  “Yes, I did mean on the island,” Daniel agreed. “I know you haven’t been here that long and you’ve not met that many people. The name isn’t familiar to you?”

  “I’m sorry, but it isn’t. Is that who died?”

  “Yes, he was found in his flat this morning,” Daniel told her.

  “And he was murdered?” Fenella asked.

  “He was,” he confirmed. “Where were you last night between midnight and six this morning?”

  Fenella blinked at him. “In bed,” she said.

  “Alone?”

  She knew she was blushing as she replied. “Yes, alone.”

  Daniel nodded and then pulled out a notebook. He wrote in it for a moment and then looked up at her. “Please think back to Saturday. Do you remember speaking to any of the ferry crew?”

  “So he was someone from the ferry,” Fenella exclaimed.

  Daniel sighed. “Constable Richards told me that you and the others had worked out that much,” he said. “Yes, he was an employee of Isle of Man Ferries. Do you recall speaking to him?”

  “I may have said a few words to the security people as I went through the gate,” she said. “But the only other person I remember speaking with was the woman at customer service.”

  “Mr. Mason was working on the car decks, so it’s unlikely you would have encountered him,” Daniel told her. “But I had to ask.”

  “And I’m still a suspect, as I don’t have an alibi,” Fenella said.

  “You’re fairly low on my list,” Daniel told her.

  “Why do you think that someone from one of the other cabins killed Robert Grosso?” she asked.

  “I can’t tell you that,” Daniel replied. “And that’s only one possible angle that we’re investigating.”

  “What can you tell me?” Fenella demanded.

  “About the investigation? Nothing,” he said. “Even if you weren’t involved, I can’t talk about open investigations with anyone.”

  “Well, I find it odd that you suspect the cabin passengers,” Fenella said. “They all seem like perfectly ordinary people.”

  “And most of them probably are. But I have reason to believe that one of them is hiding a secret.”

  “What sort of secret?” Fenella asked.

  Daniel smiled at her. “I wish I could tell you everything that I know,” he said. “But satisfying your curiosity isn’t worth my job.”

  “Shall I tell you what I think?”

  “Go ahead, then,” he said.

  “I think Robert Grosso was involved in all the burglaries that have been taking place in the area recently. I think he was using his connections through his job to sneak stolen objects onto the ferry and get them across. He must have had an accomplice on the ferry, which is probably where poor George Mason fits in. I’m guessing he also had another accomplice and that’s who killed both men.” Fenella sat back and took a sip of coffee, watching Daniel closely.

  “That’s certainly one theory,” he said. After a moment he sighed. “And it makes excellent sense,” he said. “If we could identify the third man, I think we’d be well on our way to solving the two murders.”

  “Or woman,” Fenella suggested.

  “Yes, of course, or woman,” he agreed. “Or couple,” he added.

  “You think it’s a married couple that are in on it together?” Fenella asked.

  “I’m not ruling anything out,” he said. “A number of the suspects are married. In my experience it’s hard to hide secrets in a marriage, and being involved in a burglary and smuggling ring is a pretty big secret to try to keep.”

  “Stanley and Florence March seem to have a lot of money,” Fenella said speculatively.

  “Stop,” Daniel held up a hand. “I’m not going to discuss the suspects with you,” he said firmly. “Rest assured that we are looking into the finances of everyone who had a cabin booked.”

  “Even mine?”

  Daniel hesitated and then nodded. “I’m sorry, but we have to be thorough.”

  “And I did just come into a large amount of money,” Fenella said.

  “Lucky for you, your advocate can account for every penny of it,” Daniel told her.

  “So Aunty Mona wasn’t smuggling stolen property across the Irish Sea?” she asked.

  “Certainly not,” Mona sounded indignant from across the room. />
  Fenella glanced at her and then bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  “While her source of income is something of a question mark,” Daniel said, “we’re fairly certain she wasn’t doing anything criminal.”

  Not wanting to press that particular subject any further, Fenella got up and topped up her coffee. “Would you like more?” she asked Daniel.

  “I’d better not,” he said, sounding sorry. “I need to get back to the station and wade through all of the paperwork from today’s interviews. I’ll need you to sign your statement. Can I stop back later today?”

  “If you stop around six, you can share my dinner with me,” Fenella invited him.

  He nodded. “If I were to accidently interrupt your dinner, I suppose it wouldn’t be breaking any rules if I were to have something to eat,” he said.

  “Excellent, I’ll make enough spaghetti for two,” Fenella told him.

  “I’ll be back around six,” he said. “And Katie,” he added, “see if you can be good until then.”

  Katie was sitting on her favorite chair. When she heard her name, she looked up, and when Daniel finished speaking she gave him a soft “mew” as a reply.

  “Time for us to solve these murders,” Mona said as soon as Fenella had shut the door behind Daniel. “I’m starting to worry about you. What if the killer thinks that you saw something you shouldn’t have?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Fenella snapped. “There wasn’t anything to see.”

  “There’s something that makes Daniel think that the killer was one of the other cabin passengers,” Mona pointed out. “Maybe he or she is worried that something else was left behind as well.”

  “If something had been, the police would have it now and the killer would be behind bars,” Fenella said.

  “Unless the killer thinks you’ve taken it,” Mona said. “Maybe he or she is waiting for you to try to blackmail them.”

  “That’s crazy. I can’t blackmail anyone because I don’t know who they are, and if I did know who they were, I’d tell the police.”

  “Yes, but you don’t have a criminal mind. Whoever is behind these murders is probably running some sort of massive burglary and smuggling operation. If they found evidence that someone had murdered someone else their first instinct would probably be blackmail, not to ring the police.”