Terns of Endearment

by Donna Andrews

  “A way out of what?” I asked after a brief pause.

  “Plot problems. I’ve created the perfect murder.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “It’s not a good thing. I’ve painted myself into a corner. I have no idea how my detective is going to solve the case. I did it to myself with the last book, and the only way I could figure out to end it was to have my bad guy confess. Completely lame—I can’t do that again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Normally I love our writers’ retreats,” she went on. “But normally we go in the winter, and I’m already working on the draft. We moved it up to fall to get more affordable rates, and it’s turned out to be the worst possible time for me. I have to finish my synopsis this week so I can stay on schedule. I thought I could just hide in my cabin and research online while we were here, but when I tried it just now the ship’s Wi-Fi was so slow it might as well not exist. I really hope that’s just some glitch from being in port. But besides, the Internet is a poor substitute for what I really need—a doctor or a CSI, someone I can talk to for however long it takes to sort this out. It’s hopeless.”

  Hmm.

  “Hang on,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She nodded and went back to staring into her glass.

  I’d already noticed that in spite of his enthusiasm for helping Grandfather, Dad had not yet made it out of the dining room. I crossed the room to where he was having a lively conversation with a couple of our fellow passengers. Although as I got closer I realized that the couple didn’t seem to be enjoying the conversation nearly as much as Dad. When I came within earshot I realized why.

  “Now the symptoms of Ebola are completely different,” he was saying. “For a start—”

  “Dad!” I grabbed his elbow and turned to the ashen-faced couple he was talking to. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “Oh, that’s fine,” the wife murmured.

  “Please don’t feel you have to apologize,” the husband said.

  “I was just telling the Sandburgs about the differences between Ebola and dengue.” Dad was beaming with enthusiasm. “Did you know—”

  “Fascinating, I’m sure,” I said. “But you’re needed elsewhere—if that’s okay with you,” I added, turning to the Sandburgs.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Mr. Sandburg said. They had both begun gently backing away.

  “A medical emergency?” Dad perked up, as he always did at the prospect.

  “No, but someone has need of your medical knowledge.” I pulled him away from the Sandburgs and began to guide him across the room toward Angie.

  “Amazing how little the average person knows about the more fascinating tropical diseases,” Dad was saying. “Especially since, thanks to the explosion in travel, we’re much more likely to encounter them these days. And—”

  “Angie,” I said, tugging Dad into place beside her table. “This is my dad, Dr. James Langslow.”

  Angie’s frown eased a little.

  “An M.D.?” She looked cheerful at the possibility.

  “Not only an M.D., but a medical examiner,” I said.

  “How wonderful!” Angie exclaimed. “Do sit down.”

  “Angie writes mysteries,” I added, turning to Dad.

  “Angie Weyburn,” Angie said, holding out her hand.

  “Mysteries? Marvelous!” Dad shook her hand with genuine delight. “I’m a total mystery addict—but, um … what was your name again?”

  “I write as A. J. Weyburn,” she said. “Since—”

  “Blood Factor!” Dad exclaimed, so loudly that at least a dozen people nearby looked up, and one poor woman spilled her drink. “That was excellent! And Dire Warning!”

  Angie was beaming.

  “Thank you!” she said.

  “I admit, I do have a bone to pick with you about the autopsy scene in Deadly Reaction,” Dad said. “When you had the medical examiner talking about petechial hemorrhaging—”

  “Oh, God, I know,” Angie said. “I didn’t find out I got it wrong until after it was in print—the doctor who helps me with my research is a podiatrist, so he hasn’t actually seen all that many autopsies.”

  “Dad can help with that,” I said. “Nothing he likes better than talking about autopsies. Dad, Angie has figured out a particularly ingenious murder—and she needs help figuring out how her sleuth can solve it. Do you think—”

  “What fun!” Dad sat down on the chair next to Angie. “Tell me all about it. And if I’m stumped, of course, we can call in Horace.”

  “Horace?” Angie echoed—clearly wondering what other treasures were in store for her.

  “My cousin Horace Hollingsworth, who’s a trained CSI,” I said.

  “He’s here, too?” Angie asked. “On the cruise?”

  “He’s probably on deck five playing miniature golf.” And, I suspected, wouldn’t mind taking a break from that before long.

  “Does he know anything about DNA?” Angie looked on the verge of fainting with delight.

  “He’s crazy about DNA!” Dad was almost bouncing in his seat. “And blood spatter—those are his favorites.”

  “This is amazing,” Angie said. “Because I’ve got this scene—”

  I left them to it. I strolled away a few paces and pulled out my phone. I texted Horace, saying, “Can you drop by the main dining room when you finish your next game? Dad could use your help with something.” I caught Mother’s eye and nodded in the direction of the boys, who were having their Pastime bingo cards signed by the still anxious-looking Sandburgs. Mother nodded back to say that she’d keep her eye on them. So I picked up my margarita, made my way back to the boarding lobby, and stood in front of the elevator. I pushed the up button. Which, since we were on deck one, was the only button available.

  Of course, I hadn’t yet decided where I was going. I suspected I’d have plenty of time to decide. I’d already noticed that the elevator—just the one, according to the map—was molasses slow. Impatient as I was, I’d probably end up racing up and down the stairs more often than not.

  At the moment, though, I could use the time to plan my course.

  As I was thinking, and watching for the elevator, I noticed something. Since this was deck one, the stairs ended here—at least I’d thought they did. There was a door under the stairway that I’d assumed was a closet built into the vacant space under the stairs. But now the door was open, revealing steps going down.

  Down? Weren’t we already on deck one?

  I strolled over and peered downward. A half flight of steps went down to a landing, and then more stairs continued out of sight.

  Unlike the stairs going up, these were narrow and utilitarian. I didn’t need the CREW ONLY sign over the door to tell me passengers weren’t welcome here.

  “Sorry, but that’s off-limits to passengers.” The first officer had appeared behind me.

  “I can read,” I said. “I found the door hanging open. You might want to check to make sure none of the passengers have wandered down there by mistake.”

  “Um … thanks.” His smile was a little frayed, as if he was overdue for a break. He paused, obviously torn between going down to check for straying passengers and continuing on to wherever he’d been going when he spotted me. While he was hovering by the doorway, I decided to ask a question.

  “By the way, just what do you call it down there?”

  “I beg your pardon?” He looked puzzled—almost startled.

  “Well, we’re on deck one, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So what do you call that deck?” I pointed at the stairs leading downward.

  “Deck zero, of course.”

  He finally made up his mind and went down the stairway toward deck zero, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Leaving me with another question: Was there anything below deck zero? Other than the ship’s hull and a whole lot of water, of course.

  I made a mental note to ask if I ever ran into a crew
member with more time to answer. Or maybe I could ask the first officer again, when he was looking less harried.

  Just then the elevator arrived, which meant I had to decide where I was going.

  The rest of my family were all happily occupied. Now would be a wonderful time to find a deck chair and read or just sit and think. And if I were out on deck, I could keep an eye out for when we set sail, which was supposed to happen in an hour or so. I could notify Michael and the boys when the time came, so they wouldn’t miss it.

  Having settled on my destination I punched the button for deck six, the top and smallest of the decks. It covered only about half the length of the ship, and contained nothing but two large awnings to provide shade in the daytime, a scattering of deck chairs, in both sun and shade, and—better still—a line of recliners. A peaceful place to watch and listen to the waves—especially with so many of the passengers down in the main dining room enjoying the complimentary beverages and playing cruise bingo

  I stepped out onto deck six and took a deep breath. Heavenly. And almost deserted. At the aft end of the deck, a young couple I’d already pegged as honeymooners were lying in side-by-side recliners, holding hands. In the forward end, an older couple stood, taking turns inspecting the shore through a pair of binoculars.

  I strolled over to the side of the ship and stood gazing out over the water.

  “Amazing, isn’t it,” a voice said behind me.

  I turned to see Janet lounging on one of the nearby recliners, martini in hand.

  “Amazing is right,” I said. “Great way to start the journey. We’ll have a front row seat to watch the ship leaving the harbor.”

  “Which I’m hoping to do.” She sighed. “I should be down there talking Angie through her anxiety. And I’ll work on that—tomorrow. Maybe even later tonight. Right now I just want some peace and quiet.”

  “Don’t worry about Angie,” I said. “I introduced her to my dad, the medical examiner, and my cousin, the CSI. I left them trying to sort out her insoluble plot problem.”

  “Are you serious?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re a lifesaver.” She raised her glass in salute. I took this as an invitation to take the adjoining recliner.

  “I was planning to do nothing at all until it was time to watch our ship leave the harbor,” she said. “Now I can do it with a clear conscience.”

  I nodded, settled back, and sipped my margarita. We were on the left—correction, port—side, looking out over the busy Baltimore harbor. From below we could hear, faintly, shouts and thuds that probably indicated that some last supplies were being loaded onto the Wanderer. The harbor was full of vessels, everything from relatively tiny tugboats and modest Coast Guard cutters to huge cargo ships and tankers. I even spotted another cruise ship, this one a Carnival ship that dwarfed the Wanderer.

  Watching everyone else working hard was strangely relaxing.

  We sat in peaceful silence for a few minutes. Then curiosity overcame me.

  “You can tell me to mind my own business if you’d like,” I said. “But we’re all going to be shipmates for the next week, and I’d like to avoid putting my foot in my mouth when I talk to you and your friends. Exactly what happened with your friend Nancy and Desiree the Diva?”

  Chapter 6

  “A fair question.” She took another sip of her martini, leaned back in her recliner, and frowned slightly, as if trying to decide where to begin.

  “Nancy was a very good writer,” she said finally. “Versatile, too. She could write anything from Regencies to erotic paranormal romantic suspense—who knew that was a thing? But for all her talent, she never really had a very successful career. She wasn’t good at asserting herself. Sticking up for herself.”

  Not, I suspected, a problem Desiree shared.

  “And she had bad luck,” Janet went on. “Once, she sold a book to an editor who loved it and was pushing to get a lot of promotion and marketing behind it. Then three weeks later the editor got hit by a car and was out on medical leave for months and months, and the book got reassigned to an editor who hated everything Nancy wrote. Made her rewrite it five or six times and finally rejected it. Things like that kept happening to Nancy. And probably as a result, she developed a classic case of writer’s block. Lasted for … oh, six or seven years. We were all trying to encourage her, but it was as if she couldn’t face ever showing her work to an editor again. Which was kind of a big problem, because after her divorce she was drowning in debt, and writing was the only thing she really knew how to do. She only just barely managed to keep her head above water by doing a lot of thankless freelance writing projects that ate up most of the time she wanted to spend on her fiction. But she finally had a breakthrough and finished a fabulous new manuscript, and her agent was getting offers from two or three different publishers—good offers, for serious money. Then it all fell apart.” She fell silent and took another swallow of her drink.

  “Fell apart how?” I asked.

  “I’m not even sure I understand how it happened,” Janet said. “But apparently Desiree accused Nancy of plagiarism—claimed she’d actually written the manuscript Nancy was trying to sell. Somehow the publishers all believed her. They withdrew their offers. Her agent dropped her. I guess she didn’t want to go on. She killed herself.” Janet just stared out over the waves for a while.

  “This was recently?” I asked.

  “Five months ago. Still pretty raw for all her friends.”

  I nodded. I wanted to ask how she’d killed herself, and how soon after the editor rejected her book, and whether she’d been going through any other personal difficulties at the time. And—apparently Dad had rubbed off on me—whether they were sure it was suicide. But I suppressed the questions. Not really any of my business, and what difference did it make anyway? They’d lost their friend. So I waited for Janet to break the silence.

  “I’m not paranoid enough to think Desiree’s after any of us,” Janet said finally. “But do I think she took this cruise on purpose? Yes. Hell yes.”

  “But why? I mean, I can see why you’d dislike her, but not why she’d have it in for you. Does she have some kind of a grudge against your group?”

  “She might. Kate and Tish haven’t exactly made it a secret that they blame her for hounding Nancy to her death. And the romance writers’ community is pretty close-knit. Everyone knows how they feel.”

  “Do you have any idea how Desiree convinced people that Nancy plagiarized her?” I asked.

  “In other words, did Nancy really do it?”

  “I wasn’t thinking that.”

  “Why not?” Janet shook her head. “I’ve been thinking it. Not that it makes any sense that she would. She was a good writer—hell, she was a Rita winner once, and a finalist another time or two. That’s kind of like the Oscars for romance writers. She was a damned fine writer, and Desiree was a hack. Nancy was depressed about being dropped, and depressed about her writer’s block, and depressed because her husband dumped her once the kids went to college—which was nine years ago, but she was still depressed, probably because she was still in the resulting horrible financial situation. But I can’t imagine her plagiarizing someone.” She laughed hollowly. “Then again, I couldn’t imagine her killing herself, either, and that definitely happened.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Plan?” She looked startled. “Plan for what?”

  “Coping with Desiree. Because no matter how much the crew may already want to put her back ashore, I think we’re stuck with her.”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Not sure we really need a plan. Me, I just plan to pretend she’s invisible.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “The best plans are always the simplest.”

  She nodded. Then she leaned back in her recliner and closed her eyes. I did the same.

  I hoped she was able to forget Desiree and relax. And I felt slightly guilty that I was feeling so cheerful when clearly Desiree was blighting m
y newfound friends’ enjoyment. I hoped they’d find a way to put her out of their minds and relax, as I was hoping to do once the trip started. I took some more of the relaxing deep breaths Rose Noire was so keen on, and they worked a lot better than they had on the dock. Getting everyone ready for the trip had been surprisingly hectic. But now we were safely aboard. Let the relaxation begin!

  After about half an hour of mostly silent enjoyment of the harbor scenery, Janet got a text and went off to join her writer friends. Eventually Michael and the boys joined me in time to watch the ship cast off and leave the harbor. Apparently Josh and Jamie were under the impression that we were sailing out of New York’s harbor, and were disappointed that Baltimore did not also boast a Statue of Liberty. But the Chesapeake Bay had plenty of interesting sights to amuse them—especially after Grandfather arrived, bringing several small telescopes for them to scan the shoreline with. The first two hours of our trip flew past.

  “It’s almost time for dinner,” I said. “Although I’m not sure the boys will want to be dragged away from all this.”

  “And I suspect once we get out in the ocean there won’t be nearly as much to see,” Michael said. “Why don’t you go down and get us a place? If the boys don’t want to leave their telescopes, you can see if there’s any way to get their dinners to go.”

  “Will do.”

  So I went down to the dining room by myself and looked around for a promising table.

  I passed by the one where Dad and Horace were deep in discussion with Angie.

  “They might look all the same at first,” Horace was saying. “But the more you look, the more the differences jump out at you. Watch this.”

  He dipped his fingers into his glass of tomato juice and flicked some of the red liquid on the tablecloth.

  “Notice the slightly oval shape. But if I simply let the drops fall…”

  He dipped his fingers again and held his hand over another clean area of the tablecloth.

  “I see,” Angie said. “But what if you see both?”

  I left them to it.

  Desiree the Diva was sitting by herself at a table for four, waggling her designer shoes at the world and glaring at anyone who even glanced hopefully at the empty chairs beside her. Grandfather, Caroline, and the photographers were eating at a table for six—I could have joined them, but I suspected they would be deep in plans for this evening’s lecture.