Dirk seemed less impressed. “He seemed kinda weird.”
“He seemed okay to me. How would you act if you’d just been told that you had to do autopsies on bodies in that condition? How many murders do you suppose he deals with annually in a peaceful little place like this?”
“The more likely question is, has he ever investigated a homicide?”
She groaned. “Now you’re just trying to cheer me up.” She held her arm up and sniffed her shirt sleeve. It reeked of the accident. “I need a shower,” she said, “and a change of clothes.”
“I need to eat. It’s hours past my lunchtime.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? Seriously? You could eat after seeing, smelling . . . that?”
He returned her look with equal astonishment. “Well, yeah. Duh. I see a gruesome sight and now I’m never going to eat again? Get real.”
Shaking her head at the never-ending source of wonderment that was her husband, she said, “Let’s head back to the ship. We’ll round up the gang and see if anybody’s come up with anything new.”
“And break the bad news to them.”
“Yes. Bad news is always best delivered in person.”
As though some form of telepathy was at work, her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and said, “It’s Ryan. Maybe he has some news that’s better than ours.”
“Wouldn’t take much.”
“No kidding.” She answered the phone with a cheerless, “Hello, Ryan.”
“Hi,” he replied in a hushed voice. “I’m calling to give you the latest report on Bellissimo.”
“Let ’er rip.”
“We just thought you might like to know that for the past hour, John, Richard, and I have been following him up and down Main Street. Leapfrogging. I’m watching him in a store right now. I’m about twelve feet from him. You’re not going to believe what he’s doing.”
“At this point, I’d believe about anything. What’s he up to?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“As a matter of fact I am. Lemme have it.”
“He’s shopping for a diamond engagement ring. That’s what he’s been doing all afternoon so far. We’ve followed him in and out of half a dozen shops. Now he’s back at the first store he visited. Looks like he’s got one picked out. A pretty big rock, too. She must be a really special girl.”
“She must be an especially dumb girl if she’s marrying a hoodlum like that.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, and Ryan said, “Are you okay, Savannah? If you don’t mind me saying so, you sound a little droopy, not your usual bubbly self.”
Savannah sighed. “To be honest, I’ve had better days. Like when I was eight years old and had the measles. Like when I broke my foot, tripping over a cat.”
Dirk nudged her and whispered, “Cleo or Diamante?”
“Naw, a stray cat. I was chasing a pervert flasher down a dark alley. It was before you and I met.”
“Who are you talking to?” Ryan asked.
“Nobody. Just Dirk,” Savannah told him. “Why don’t you, Moe, and Curly find your way back to the ship and wait for us near the Visitor Center? Leave our buddy there, Franky the Most Beautiful, to pick out his girl’s ring in peace. We’ll meet you in twenty minutes or so.”
“Then you’re going to tell us what’s the matter, right? ’Cause you know John and I worry when something’s up with our girl.”
She smiled a little, feeling the love. “Yes, darlin’. I’ll fill you in on all the gory details. See you soon.”
She hung up and looked at Dirk. He was wearing his weird, crooked, little smile. It was the one he wore when absolutely nothing was funny.
“Gory details? Truer words were never spoken.”
“Let’s just get back to town,” she said, staring out the passenger window at the dark, misty, and mysterious forest. “I think I’ve had about enough of the Alaskan wilderness for the time being.”
* * *
It took Savannah and Dirk a bit longer than she had anticipated to reach the town’s waterfront area. Plus it was at least five minutes before they found a parking place for Larry’s multicolored Bronco.
By the time they made their way to the Visitor Center, Ryan, John, and Richard were there. So were Granny and Dora.
“Let’s go get a bite to eat over at that little outdoor café,” Savannah suggested.
Dora was horrified at the idea. “But why? If we eat on the ship, the food’s better and, even more importantly, it’s free!”
“Yes,” Savannah admitted. “But if we sit at one of those outside tables, we’ll be able to keep an eye on everyone coming and going on the ship’s gangway. If we go aboard, we’re not going to be able to eat in the atrium, and that’s the only place where we’d be able to—”
“Okay. Okay. I got it.” Dora held up her hands in surrender. “It’s just that when you’ve got a week’s worth of free meals available, it seems like you’re flushing good money down the toilet when you . . .”
Richard had taken his wife by the hand and was leading her toward the café whose billboard advertised two-dollar beers and one-dollar hot dogs. “Don’t worry about it, honey. I brought a few extra shekels along, just in case.”
“Just because you have them, doesn’t mean we need to spend them, you know. A penny saved is a penny earned.”
Savannah glanced over at Dirk to see if he was embarrassed by his mother’s behavior. But if he was, he certainly didn’t show it.
She turned to John, who was watching the entire exchange and grinning broadly beneath his silver mustache.
“’Twasn’t a windy day when that acorn fell from the tree,” he whispered to her as he nodded toward Dirk and then Dora.
“What? Oh, right,” Savannah replied. “We use that down South, too. But we say when that ‘nut’ fell from the tree.”
“Truth be told, that’s how we say it, too. I was attempting to be kind, love.” He laced his arm through Savannah’s and escorted her toward the café, while Dirk, Granny, and Ryan brought up the rear. “I heard earlier that you’re the sad one today,” he said. “Any particular reason that you’d care to share?”
“I will, as soon as we’re settled at a table,” Savannah replied. “Have you heard anything from Tammy and Waycross?”
“Not a word. I shudder to think of the mischief they’ve created aboard ship in our absence. They may be under the chief security guard’s lock and key as we speak.”
She laughed. A little. The last time she had seen Tammy and Waycross, neither looked like they had the energy or gumption to create any sort of havoc. “One can only hope,” she said.
When they were all seated at a large table, with some extra chairs and a clear view of the gangway. Savannah took her cell phone from her purse and called Waycross.
“Hi, Sis,” he said, his voice as sad and listless as she had ever heard it. “What’s up?”
“We just sat down here at the café beyond the gangway. We can see anybody who’s coming or going. So you two are off duty now. Come on down and join us for a bite to eat.”
She heard Waycross muttering something to Tammy, and although Savannah couldn’t discern her actual words, her friend’s lackluster tones said more than enough.
“Uh, if you don’t mind, we’re gonna pass this time. Tammy’s kinda tuckered out. We’re fixin’ to go up on the top deck and set a spell. They’ve got comfy chairs up there with cushions and everything.”
“Okay, I understand,” Savannah told him, wishing that she truly did understand. She had a pretty active imagination and it was working overtime, coming up with new possibilities that ranged from inconvenient to horrific.
“By the way, we haven’t seen anybody come in or go out, except for that Patricia Chumley gal, the editor. She just came back to the ship about five minutes ago. She had a whole heap of shopping bags with her and looked pretty happy with herself and what she bought.”
“That’s
great, honey. Good work. You tell Tammy I appreciate it. Are you sure you won’t join us?”
“No. Thanks. My girl’s got her heart set on those deck chairs and some peace and quiet.”
Although Savannah’s mood was pretty low, she felt it plummet even further. Since when did that otherwise amiable and cheerful couple decline a social invitation?
More than anything, she wanted to jump up from her chair, rush aboard the ship, and find out what was wrong with her chickadees. But at the moment Mama Hen had more urgent issues to attend.
“Okay, pumpkin,” she told him. “You guys just relax and kick back. We’ll meet up with you later.” Then, because she had a feeling he might need it, she added, “I love you.”
“We love you, too, Sis,” he said.
She could swear she heard tears in his voice.
As Savannah tucked her phone back into her purse, Dirk asked, “Is everything okay with those two?”
“No,” Savannah said. “I’ll have to give them a good talkin’ to later and find out what’s up.”
Granny leaned close to Savannah and said, “I noticed Tammy seemed a bit puny myself, and we can’t be havin’ a lady who’s expecting in a state. If you need any help with that ‘talkin’ to’ business, you just let me know.”
“I sure will, Granny. Heaven knows, you are the best at it. Always have been.”
“No, I haven’t. It’s a gift that comes with age.” Granny took the glass of sweet tea that the waitress handed her and gazed into its depths like a fortune-teller studying a crystal ball. “The years bring a lot of gifts, if you’re lucky enough to be alive to receive them. Arthritis, lumbago, bunions, to name a few. But some of them are worth havin’ and pretty much make up for the rest.”
“Like what, Gran?” Ryan asked, intensely attentive to her every word.
“Oh, like peace of mind, acceptance of your own faults and those of others, faith that all things happen for a reason. I reckon the best of all is the confidence that you can get through anything, ’cause you’ve already been through most of what life can throw at a body. Even if some of it knocked you down, stomped on you, and squashed you flat as a flitter, you still manage to get back up.”
Savannah nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, Gran. We’re going to tell you what happened earlier this afternoon. And if you can, I’d sure appreciate it if you could explain to us how it happened for a reason, and how it’s gonna work out for the best in the end. Because right now I just can’t see it.”
Chapter 15
By the time Savannah and Dirk had related their sad story, the mood of the Moonlight gang was far less festive. The seeming nonstop flow of sweet tea—with nary a beer, in honor of Granny and their work ethic—and hot dogs galore had done nothing to raise their spirits.
“Where does this leave us?” Ryan asked.
Dirk leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s pretty straightforward,” he said. “We have a double homicide with only one suspect—”
“Who, we’re pretty sure,” Richard inserted, “is more interested in proposing to his girlfriend than doing a hit on a degenerate gambler.”
“He could do both,” Granny suggested. “You young folks seem to think highly of what you call ‘multitasking.’ Though I think it should be called ‘doing more than one thing, and not doing anything all that good.’”
“When did you fellas pick up his trail?” Savannah asked.
Ryan, John, and Richard conferred for a moment. Then John said, “About half-one, give or take ten minutes.”
“That was about the time we heard about the accident,” Dirk noted. “So he could have had something to do with it, after all. At this point, as far as we know, he doesn’t have an alibi for the time someone would have done their dirty work.”
“Whatever the ‘dirty work’ was that they did,” Ryan offered.
“If any dirty work was done at all,” John added.
“There was!”
Savannah realized, the moment the words left her mouth, that she had shouted them, and she felt terrible about it. The group had every reason to doubt that foul play had been done, just as the trooper at the scene had.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, I am. I’ve just . . .”
“Had a terribly difficult day,” John offered. “We understand, love.”
“No, that isn’t it.” She wiped her hand wearily across her forehead and paused a moment to find the right words. “I don’t know how I know the Van Cleefs were murdered. I just know, as stupid as that may sound.”
Gran leaned over and grabbed Savannah in a tight, grandmotherly embrace without a thought for the rest of the diners who were now watching to see what might happen next.
“You’ve had an awful shock to your system, Savannah girl,” she said. “Your feelings are strong on this subject, as one well might expect under the circumstances. But you’ve got to figure out if what you’re feeling is ol’ unreliable emotions, born of some sort of misplaced guilt, or true intuition. It’s mighty easy to mistake one for the other at a time like this.”
Savannah tried to absorb what her grandmother was telling her, but her wits were too scrambled. “What does my guilt have to do with it?”
“Guilt’s a powerful thing,” Gran told her. “It’s a good thing if we genuinely did wrong and need to make amends and learn from our errors. But when it’s false guilt, it lies to us and makes us think all sorts of awful things about ourselves that ain’t true. Lies like that don’t do nobody no good.”
“Listen to your granny, babe,” Dirk said. “She’s telling you the truth. Whatever happened to the Van Cleefs, it’s on them, not you.”
“It is,” Richard agreed. “What kind of person hires a team of people to guard them, then tells them to stay away? Then they leave the safety of the ship and go driving around in rural forests without their protectors?”
“That’s true.” Savannah looked into her grandmother’s face. “What does your intuition tell you, Gran?”
“My intuition ain’t saying much. Sometimes, unlike my mouth, it’s quiet. But common sense tells me there’s reason to suspect the worst.”
“Me too,” Dora jumped in from the other end of the table. “Especially considering what we saw today, while we were out and about.”
Granny grinned broadly. “That’s right. Us gals have something to report, even if all you fellas came up with is a guy shopping for an engagement ring.”
Savannah experienced the first positive emotion she had felt since entering that empty suite hours ago. She was about to hear something good. Emotions or intuition, she just knew it.
“You ladies are holding out on us?” Ryan asked.
“Let’s hear what you discovered,” John said.
“As it happens,” Gran said, swelling with importance, “us more mature ladies didn’t exactly spend our afternoon sightseeing. Although, that isn’t completely true. We did see us some sights, didn’t we, Dora. One in particular.”
“We sure did.” Dora giggled. “We saw that dark-haired woman with the black glasses. She was shopping like she was afraid they were going to sell out of T-shirts with grizzly bears on them and those little Inuit dolls with the fur coats. Why, we saw her buy ashtrays with the map of Alaska and—”
“That’s not the important part, Dora,” Gran snapped. “Stop with the chitter-chatter and tell ’em what we saw. Tell ’em the part that mattered, or I will.”
Savannah half expected Dora to fly into a huff, but she was too excited to take offense.
“We didn’t know for sure what we were seeing,” Dora continued, “because we had no idea what you were going to tell us about the car accident and the fact that you smelled gas and that you think—”
“Okay, that’s it.” Granny drew a deep breath. “That dark-haired editor gal wasn’t doing nothin’ but shopping, but that other one, she was up to no good.”
“Which other one?” Savannah asked. “The blonde? Olive, Ms. Van Cleef’s personal a
ssistant?”
“That’s the one. We spotted her driving past in the backseat of a taxi cab. She had a serious, up-to-somethin’ look on her face, for sure. So we kept an eye on her.”
“That’s right!” Dora was practically bouncing up and down on her chair. “Then we saw that she was waving the cab driver to pull into a service station. There’s one right there by the place that’s got those grizzly T-shirts five for twenty dollars. I thought about buying some, but I don’t know five people who’d wear a bear on their chest like that, especially a—”
“When the driver stopped,” Gran interjected, “this Olive gal jumped out of the cab and ran into the service station. A couple of minutes later, she came out with one of them gas cans that you keep in your trunk. You know, for in case you run out of gasoline.”
Savannah felt her heart begin to pound. Her brain started to race with this small but tantalizing amount of information.
“Then,” Gran continued, “she looked like she was talkin’ all sweet to the fella that works there at the station. Sidlin’ up to him, she was, friendly like a female hound dog who just met a male hound dog that she’s taken a likin’ to. The next thing you know, he’s pumpin’ gasoline into that can of hers.”
“Then she paid him,” Dora added. “I couldn’t see how much she paid him, but you’ve just gotta know that she was way overcharged. Probably paid too much for the can, too. They know they’ve got you at their mercy in a little place like this. They’ll just gouge you any way they can.”
Richard leaned close to his wife. “What. Happened. Next?” he asked her. “What did she do once the can was filled and she paid him too much money?”
“She carried the can over to the taxi and tried to get into the backseat with it,” Dora said.
“The cab driver made it clear, even to us, as far away as we were,” Gran said, “that he wasn’t havin’ none of that. The two of them argued for a while. Then the cabbie got out, opened up the trunk, and let her stick the can there in the back.”
“Then they took off, and we couldn’t see them anymore, so we don’t know what happened then.” Dora picked up her glass and drained the last of her tea.
Every Body on Deck Page 12
