Terns of Endearment

by Donna Andrews

  I suspected what mattered for him was the party, not the journey.

  “I’d have a talk with my travel agent,” I said. “She definitely didn’t do you any favors this time.” And she hadn’t done the rest of the passengers any favors, either. I was almost positive he or one of his buddies was responsible for the puddle of beery vomit I’d found outside the main dining room after Grandfather’s lecture. It had definitely been one of the Stooges who’d badgered Léonie. And I wasn’t optimistic that either transgression was a one-time thing. If he wanted help killing his travel agent, I might just volunteer.

  “And what’s with the crew, anyway?” he said. “Have you ever been on a cruise where the crew all ran away when you asked them something?”

  “This is my first cruise,” I said. “So I have no basis for comparison.” And maybe he hadn’t heard that at least one crew member had every reason to avoid him and his friends. Although he was right—the crew didn’t hover. I wasn’t sure this was such a bad thing. I’d once read an online review that complained that a store’s sales clerks had left the shopper completely alone the whole time she’d been there. To me, that sounded like a selling point, not a shortcoming.

  “It wasn’t so bad last night,” he went on. “But this morning it’s like they’ve ordered them not to talk to us any more than they have to.”

  He did have a point. I hadn’t seen the captain since his token appearance at the briefing. And I hadn’t seen another crew member since I’d left what I still thought of as the crime scene.

  “Maybe a lot of them don’t speak English all that well,” I suggested. Like poor Vaclav, who’d come to report Desiree’s suicide. Although Léonie and Serge were pretty fluent. Maybe they were the exceptions. “It’s a pretty international bunch, from what I’ve seen of the name tags.”

  “That’s typical—the international part. Every cruise I’ve been on, it’s like the United Nations or the Olympics or something. Crew members from all over the world, and most of them really young. I guess working cruises gets old after a while. But they all spoke English just fine. Better than me sometimes. Never had them hide from me before.”

  I nodded. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if it was all the Pastime crew members who were avoiding him or just the women.

  “Whatever’s going on with the ship is probably causing them a lot of extra work,” I said.

  “I guess.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  Another question occurred to me.

  “You said you and your friends snagged two unsold double staterooms,” I said. “But I’ve only ever seen three of you. Is there a fourth?”

  “Yeah, our buddy Barry.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting to see him. He’s never taken a cruise before and it turns out he gets seasick.”

  “Really? In this weather?” I waved my hand to indicate the cloudless blue sky and glassy smooth water.

  “I know,” he said. “Doesn’t make sense to me, either. We’ve tried Dramamine and Bonine and Benadryl and ginger and green apples and an acupressure wristband and every other seasickness remedy we know of. He just lies there moaning and pu— Um, you know. Driving the porcelain bus.”

  I nodded and returned to my book. Curiously, when I’d started reading, I’d had trouble focusing on it, but at the moment, I found myself looking forward to getting back into it.

  “Hal,” he said. “Hal Burkhart.”

  I glanced up to see that he was holding out his hand.

  “Meg,” I said. I ignored the hand, and I didn’t see any reason why he needed to know my last name.

  “Say, would you like to—never mind.” He got up so quickly that he half stumbled over the recliner. “I can see you’re really interested in that book of yours.”

  He fled.

  Apparently I was getting very good at giving people what my brother called “the Mother look.” I hadn’t even been trying.

  But when he was talking about his friend Barry, I found myself wondering how Trevor was getting along. Dad would probably know. Out of habit I pulled out my cell phone.

  Which had no signal. Of course.

  I heaved myself out of the recliner and headed for the stairs.

  As I descended, I made a mental list of the most likely places to find Dad. I got no answer at 501, the cabin he was sharing with Mother, or down the hall at 508, which was Grandfather’s cabin. I went down to deck four and lucked out—he was in the Starlight Lounge, conferring with Grandfather, Caroline, Wim, and Guillermo.

  Then again maybe lucking out was the wrong expression.

  Chapter 15

  “There you are!” Grandfather sounded as if I’d forgotten to show up for some important appointment. “We could use your help. We have a problem.”

  “Only one?” It probably came out a little more sarcastic than I’d intended. “So far there’s the ship being stopped in the middle of nowhere, all power and communications being out, the crew not telling us the first thing about what’s happening and when it will be fixed, the captain not doing even a token investigation of a passenger suicide—”

  “Alleged suicide,” Dad corrected.

  “Alleged suicide, if it makes you happy.” I turned back to Grandfather. “Were you talking about any of that, or is there more?”

  “I can’t find Trevor,” he said. “I’m beginning to wonder if the blasted man’s fallen overboard, too.”

  “Okay, that’s also a problem.” If no one in this room had seen him … I shoved down a twinge of anxiety. More than a twinge. “When did you last see him?”

  Grandfather pondered.

  “When I sent him to fetch my ginger beer.”

  “That’s a why, not a when. Was this sometime today?”

  “Yesterday. Before the ship set sail. I told him to find out if the ship stocked ginger beer and, if it didn’t, to go and get a couple of cases pronto.”

  “Ginger beer?”

  He obviously sensed the mix of puzzlement and disapproval in my tone.

  “I need it for my throat! I’m going to be doing a hell of a lot of talking with all these nightly lectures. Ginger beer’s how I keep my voice in shape.”

  Or was it Grandfather’s equivalent of Van Halen’s legendary “no brown M&Ms” clause? Although I’d read that Van Halen’s clause was actually intended to reveal whether a venue had actually read and complied with all the complicated technical requirements in their contract. Maybe when Grandfather was out of earshot I’d ask Dad if ginger beer really was good for a speaker’s voice—because I suspected either the effect was psychosomatic, or maybe Grandfather just liked ginger beer.

  But that could wait.

  “This was after boarding began?” I asked.

  “Yes, but quite a while before we sailed,” Grandfather said. “He’d have had plenty of time to find the ginger beer and get back on board.”

  Plenty of time? I’d handed over luggage duty to him less than half an hour before boarding ended. Then again, it was Trevor’s job to be a miracle worker, and he was very good at it. Or maybe he’d already completed the ginger beer errand before taking charge of our luggage.

  “Perhaps you underestimated the difficulty of finding ginger beer on the Baltimore docks,” I said aloud. “And if ginger beer is so essential to the success of the expedition, why isn’t it on your supply list?”

  “It will be next time.” Grandfather scowled, as if planning a few harsh words with whoever had imperiled the strategic ginger beer supply.

  “Remind me, who’s Trevor rooming with?” I asked.

  “We got him a single room, remember?” Dad said. “We thought it would be better for the efficiency of the expedition.”

  Yes, I remembered now. And it was not so much for the efficiency of the expedition as the sanity of whoever got stuck with him as a roommate. Horace, who’d been originally tapped to share with him, had flat-out refused. The same persistence, attention to detail and, well, persnicketiness that made him such a natural for the role
of Grandfather’s assistant made him less than popular as a roommate. Then there were his allergies, his sensitivities, his hypochondria …

  “Has anyone seen him since the ship sailed?” I asked.

  They all looked briefly at one another and then shook their heads.

  “I asked who could tell us if he’d gotten on board,” Caroline said. “And they told us the first officer.”

  “Oh, great,” I muttered. “I think the first officer has a few other things to occupy him.”

  “Well, he seemed to be sorry he couldn’t help us, but all the data is in the computer. If Trevor left the ship in search of ginger beer, he’d have been marked as on shore, and if he returned they’d have marked him as on board.”

  “And if he wasn’t back by sailing time—well, they did warn us that the ship waits for no one,” I said. “But until the computers are back up, they can tell us nothing.”

  She nodded.

  “I didn’t see him at the mandatory safety session,” I said. “Which might suggest that he wasn’t in their computer as having boarded.”

  “But it could just mean that they checked his cabin, found he was prostrate with seasickness, and gave him a rain check.” Caroline looked annoyed. “I asked several crew members if that’s possible and got a different answer every time.”

  “I’m impressed that you’ve actually found crew members to ask,” I said. “They’ve been thin on the ground this morning. Let me see what I can find out.”

  “I knew she was the one to tackle it,” Grandfather said. “Let’s go see what we can figure out for tonight’s lecture.”

  He strode out, followed by Caroline and the photographers.

  I sat back, took a deep breath, and shook my head briskly. Sometimes that helped clear the cobwebs.

  “Can I help you with something?” I looked up to see Aarav, the bartender, hovering, with an easy smile on his face. “Margarita? I can’t do frozen at the moment, and it won’t be all that cold, but it will taste good anyway.”

  “I see you have me pegged. Maybe later. But tell me—do you have any idea how I could get in touch with a crew member named Gianpiero Mulder?”

  “Don’t think we have anyone by that name.” He looked puzzled. “I think I’d have noticed.”

  “He’s one of the porters.”

  “Ah, the porters.” Aarav’s puzzled look vanished. “They don’t come on board. They’re not part of the crew.”

  “You mean they don’t work for Pastime?”

  “They work for Pastime, but they’re not part of the crew. Shoreside employees. Plus they’re Teamsters.”

  He said the word “Teamsters” with a faint shudder and an expression that was a curious mix of distaste and envy.

  “The crew belongs to a different union? Or do you just not like the Teamsters?”

  “I’m fine with the Teamsters,” he said. “I’d love to join them. Theoretically all crew members have the right to join a union, but it isn’t hard to figure out that they’re happier with you if you don’t. Which is why they discourage fraternizing with the porters. So I can’t say I’ve ever met this Mulder fellow.”

  “Damn,” I said. “We’re looking for one of the passengers—my grandfather’s assistant. Guy named Trevor. We haven’t seen him since the ship sailed, and we’re beginning to worry that Grandfather sent him on an errand that took him so long that he didn’t get back in time for our departure.”

  “You didn’t notice him missing until today?”

  “We thought he was locked in his cabin suffering from either seasickness or hypochondria. But he’s still not answering his door, and we’re getting concerned. The worrywarts are even fretting that maybe he fell overboard. The last time I saw him he was going on board with our party’s luggage, so I thought maybe Gianpiero the Teamster might have more of an idea where he went. Wait—what about the young woman who checked people on board—I don’t know her name, but she’d have had to check him out if he’d gone back off the ship, right?”

  “Yes.” The bartender nodded. “And she’d have logged him out on the system, so normally you could just have the first officer check the system to see if he’d come back on board. Only with the systems offline…”

  “I know. But maybe the crew member who logged him out would remember—because it must have been annoying, having someone either cut it so close to the sailing time or miss it entirely.”

  “She probably would, because there’s always a bit of a fuss if someone misses a departure. But she’s not crew, either. Shoreside employee, and so not on board.”

  “Damn.”

  “Sorry. I wish there was something I could help you with.”

  “Maybe there is.” I had to laugh. “It’s not important but—well, you’re a crew member.”

  “Just don’t ask me to splice the main mizzen or anything nautical like that.”

  “No, you’re doing just fine here with the margaritas,” I said. “But I have a weird question I’ve been wanting to ask a crew member.”

  “Yes, ma’am?” The look on his face suggested that I’d have a hard time coming up with a question so weird that Aarav hadn’t heard it before.

  “What’s below deck zero?”

  “Below deck zero?” He frowned. “Um … mostly water. After you get past the ship’s hull, of course.”

  “So it’s the lowest deck—no deck minus one or zero two or anything like that.”

  “No, ma’am. Deck zero is it.”

  “And getting back to our missing party member—would I be correct in assuming there are not a lot of possible hiding places down there on deck zero?” I went on. “I mean, if Trevor got into a snit about Grandfather taking him for granted and decided to hide to make us all worry—”

  “He’d stand out like a sore thumb on deck zero.” He grinned ruefully and shook his head. “Most of the crew’s packed four to a small cabin when the ship’s fully crewed. Not quite as bad when they’re under full strength like this trip, though the cabins are still pretty tiny. Two to a cabin for a few of us who are senior—I bunk with the head chef. And every corner’s packed with storage bins and lockers and supplies. Pretty much zero chance he could hide on deck zero. And not a whole lot of opportunity for hiding anywhere else, for that matter. Have you checked his stateroom?”

  “We don’t have a card key for it.”

  “Ask one of the stewards who service that deck,” he said. “Or the first officer. If there’s a genuine reason to be concerned about his well-being…”

  “Thanks. I’ll try that.” Assuming I could talk a crew member into realizing I had a valid reason for snooping in Trevor’s room. I stood. Time to go looking for a gullible steward. “Oh, one more thing—”

  I paused, trying to figure out a way to ask him about the curious invisibility of most of the crew, when the door slammed open.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about!” First Officer Martin strode in, looking cross and harried. “You’re the engineer, not me. Just fix it.”

  “Easy for you to say.” A burly crew member had followed him into the Starlight Lounge. “But if—”

  He spotted me and stopped. The first officer had regained his composure and was smiling at me. Or trying to. I could tell he was both busy and in a bad mood. Understandable, actually.

  “May we help you?”

  “I was trying to find out how to get into a cabin someone’s locked out of.” I was about to reel off the explanation of Trevor’s seasickness, but he cut me off.

  “Any of the stewards can let them in,” he said.

  Clearly not the moment to bother him. And the employee who’d entered with him was dressed not in a Pastime uniform but a grease-stained coverall. Not a steward, obviously.

  “Thanks.” I got the definite feeling that he was waiting for me to leave to continue his somewhat heated discussion with coverall guy, so I made my exit.

  I headed back to our cabin. Caroline and I each had a file with all the paperwork for all the memb
ers of the combined Blake Foundation/Langslow family contingent. Trevor’s room was on our manifest. With luck I could use that to talk a crew member into letting me in. I could even say I was doing what the first officer had told me to.

  Back in the room, I pulled out the file. Trevor was in—well, supposed to be in—room 210, which was right next to the elevator lobby on deck two. I headed for the stairs.

  And on my way down, I lucked out. I ran into Léonie on the landing between deck four and deck three.

  “Bonjour,” she said, with a smile that was a lot more genuine than I could remember seeing from anyone else on the crew today. Well, apart from Aarav, the bartender, for whom smiling was almost a job requirement.

  “Bonjour,” I said. “Is there any chance you could tell me who to ask about getting something done?” I explained about Trevor’s cabin.

  “Pas de problème,” she said. “I have access to the staterooms on that floor. If you would follow me, please?”

  When the door to 210 swung open, we saw two bags in the center of the floor. I had the fleeting, irrational impression that they felt abandoned and were huddling together for comfort. The bed was perfectly made.

  “It does not appear that he has been here,” Léonie said. “If this were one of the singles cruises, I would not concern myself—passengers on those sometimes spend very little time in their own staterooms. But on this cruise … I think you are right to be worried. Let us hope that monsieur merely missed our sailing.”

  “Because if he went overboard, the captain’s not going to do much.”

  “Eh bien, to do him justice, there is not much he can do. If a passenger falls overboard, we can throw him a life preserver and lower a boat to rescue him. If we see him, of course. If we do not see him until he is underwater, what can we do? We do not carry a diving team. There is also the fact that company policy discourages anything that makes the news or upsets the passengers or interrupts the ship’s schedule. But even so, believe me, if there was anything the captain could do to find Madame St. Christophe or your friend, he would do it. Losing even one passenger does not look well on his record. Losing two on one voyage—mon Dieu! Even leaving one behind would be a black mark.”