1 Shore Excursion

Camel Press

PO Box 70515

Seattle, WA 98127

For more information go to:
www.
c
amelpress.com

www.
mariemooremysteries
.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, charac
ters, places, brands, media, and incidents are e
ither the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover design by Sabrina Sun

Shore Excursion

Copyright © 201
2
by
Marie Moore

ISBN
:
978-1-60381-874-2
(Trad
e
Paper)

ISBN:
978-1-60381-875-9
(eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number:
2011945214

Pr
oduced
in the United States of America

The thank-you list for a debut novel is of necessity very long because all the bits that
comprise
the
imagination of the writer have been molded to a greater or lesser degree by so many terrific people. Then, once a book is finished, the more difficult task of bringing it into the hands of the reader begins, a task made f
ar more daunting when the novelist
is new to the business and dependent on the kindness, generosity and patience of a whole new set of friends.

I can never
thank each one
enough
.

The publication of Shore Excursion and the further adventures of Sidney Marsh would never have happened without the tireless efforts of my patient and skilled agents, Victoria Marini and Jane Gelfman, and would have been completely impossible if my dear friend Kathryn Altman had not recommended my book and me to Jane in the first place.
M
y since
re thanks also go to
Catherine Treadgold
,
Publisher at
Camel Pres
s, not only for her work
in the
editing,
production and promotion of this book, but also for her faith and advocacy of me and Sidney from the acquisition process forward.

For their endless reading, re-reading, advice,
criticism,
support and love I want to thank my precious daughters, Marie and Susanna, my brother Leslie and mother, Doris, and also Teri Tobias, Beverly Massey, Frances Gresham, Linda Seale, Diane Hawks, Grace McLaren, and Everette Stubbs, wise counsel, faithful cheering squad, and good keepers of The Secret.

And, of course, my deepest gratitude will al
ways and ever be to my husband,
Rook, for without his love
, encouragement,
and support, the
publication of Shore Excursion would only be this little
dream that I once had and not a book
at all.

For Rook

H
eading
home from
work
on
Monday afternoon
I
had
that
creepy-cr
awly feeling
, like
I had walked through a spider’s web and had invisible threads sticking to my face.

Ever get that feeling? Like
maybe
someone is watching you?

Ever worry about being followed?

Ever think
—while
you
’re
walking down the sidewalk in your own neighborhood, minding your own business
—
that someone big and bad might just
grab
you
or
snatch you into the nearest alley?

Ever wonder if you’re going nuts?

That’s how I felt all that week before
I left
for
my
cruise. Jump
y. Real
jumpy.

I was noticing
sounds
I hadn’t really noticed before, staring at people on the street, listening for steps behind me, wondering if delivery guys were as harmless as they seemed.

Jumpy.
Real
jumpy.

I’m sure f
olks in my hometown
would
say that it
’
s normal, even smart to feel that way if you
a
re
a
single
girl
and living alone in any big city, let alone New York City. But I had never felt that way before.
I
had
never
been
afraid before that week.
No,
afraid is
not the right word.
Not afraid,
exactly
, more like uneasy.
Creeped
out.
You know what I mean.

Jumpy.

T
he odd
thing about the homeless guy who stumbled into me
after work on Tuesday at the
Prince
Street station was that
t
he
man
didn’t look homeless at all, just rumpled and weary. I’m sure I looked the same to him.

Leaving the agency,
I
’d
walked past
some
furniture
store
windows
on the way to the train
and
almost didn’t recognize my
reflection
in the
display mirror
s.
W
ild black hair, blowing in the wind
,
swirl
ed
around a pale, pale face above a black cowl-neck sweater.
Pretty s
pooky.
My makeup was a mess by the day’s end
and t
he smudged mascara
under my eyes
made
them
look even bigger than usual.
I tried to wipe it off with my finger but it wouldn’t budge
so I gave up and hurried down into the subway
. So much for the claims of the
“smudge-proof”
makeup!

It had been a long day. A million phone calls
;
then I
power-
shopped through lunch
,
snagging some great silver shoes and a knockout of a dress on
a half-off
sale, the only one left on the rack in a size 6.
I ran into one of my clients,
Miss
Ruth Shadrach, at Macy’s
One Day Sale. She was
buying some nylon nightgowns and a little red traincase
for our
trip.

I was tired, standing on the platform waiting for the express train, clutching my packages.
I wasn’t exactly on top of my game.
I wasn’t alone
.
The uptown platform was jammed with tired commuters.

Peering
over the heads of some Chinese ladies
, I thought I saw
the
lights of the
train coming
.
T
hat was when the man bumped
into me. He was big,
almost
a head taller than I am
, and I’m 5’8
”
.

He was
muttering something
—
I guessed some
sort of
apology
—
but I couldn’t hear
over
the shrieking noise of the approaching train
. The mass of people surged forward even as the train stopped, and in the mad rush to board I lost sight of him.

It was only later
—
when I saw
that same shabby guy
on the street
at
the park
near my building
, making his nest
with
all these
cardboard sheets and
l
ittle plastic bundles
—
that I kne
w he was homeless
.

I
t was two days later
—
when I met him again in Union
Square
and then later
on my
street
—
that pity changed to fear.
He stared at me and shoute
d
, waving his arm
, trying to stop me,
as I hurried into my entryway
. I was
grateful
—
no
t for the first time
—
for the extravagance of a doorman building.
I looked out from the window of my castle, drawbridge up, but
the doorman had done his job.

The homeless man with the
gutter
-gravy-colored eyes
was
gone.

I told my super about
the homeless man
between wash
-
loads in the basement Thursday night. He dismissed my concerns with an elegant Polish shrug.

“
It is because you are from the s
outh of the United States.
From a small willage.
You do not understand what it is to live in New York.
I have fifteen years in this country.
When you have fifteen years, you will know how it is in New York
,
and you will not be afraid.
Or maybe you will be more afraid.
I do not know.
You understand?”

I did not understand.
But then, there
’s not much
of Janusz’s worldview that I do understand.

Janusz is a good man.
He has a round, round head with round blue eyes, and an impossible haircut.
He can lift anything
—
probably even a refrigerator
—
by himself, and fix just about anything when he wants to, which is not very often.
Crumbling plaster, locks, washing machines, window air conditioners, the furnace, anything.
He has a courtly manner of speaking except when he is screaming in Polish at his helper, Pieter.
Pieter does all the nasty stuff in the building
...
takes out the trash, unstops toilets, mops the basement, kills rats.
Pieter leads a dog’s life.

I fed seven quarters into the dryer, scraped the lint
off the
trap, cursed all of the cat people in the building, and pressed the start button.
The monster roared to life,
blotting out
all but shouted conversation.

Waving goodbye to Janusz, I hiked back up the steps to 4F.
We have a
n e
rratic
elevator, so when I don’t have a load, it’s quicker to take the stairs.
In the spooky stairwell my thoughts returned to my dumpster-diving friend.

Homeless people are a fact of life in New York. New York
City
spends
vast
amounts of money to house and
feed
them
,
and tons of private charities and religious groups do their best to help, but it is never enough.
M
ore people liv
e
in New York’s homeless shelters than the entire population of my home
town, and that number doesn’t include the hard cases who live on the street
.

New York
ers
begin to recognize the regulars in
thei
r neighborhood
s
:
the guy who sleeps on the church steps, the Asian woman on the sidewalk
near
the Duane Reade drugstore, the mutterer
on the corner.
You can spot the transients who drift
out of
town in late summer
when the weather turns
cold farther north.
You know which ones
deliberately
choose a cardboard
sheet
on the street over
a warm bed and a sermon
—
the same ones who
balk when told to go to the shelters
even on record-cold days of winter,
who linger in the subway
entrances
until the transit cops move them out.
You sense the difference between the drugged, the alcoholic, and the desperate.
You know that some are basically good people who just
caught
a few
bad breaks
or ran out of luck.
Y
ou
know that some are cons
and others
are sick, or mean, or just plain nuts.
And
you also know, deep inside you, that there
are those who
are very dangerous.

I didn’t know which category my new pal fell
into
, but I knew that I was afraid of him.

On
Friday at work
I was too busy getting
ready for my old folks’ cruise to
Scandinavia and Russia to
think about
creepy feelings or
the homeless man or Janusz or anything else except nametags and dining preferences
and shore excursions
.

I am a travel agent, a dying breed.
I
was amazingly lucky to be
hired
for the summer
after my f
reshman
year of college by
a New York agency,
It
chy Feet Travel (IFT)
.
My friends couldn’t believe I was actually headed to
work in Manhatta
n.
I never looked back.
I
fell in love with
the
travel
business
and New York and
managed to talk Itchy into a permanent job as a frontline agent
.

“You are
what
?” my mother said, during the fat
eful
phone call
to Mississippi
that August
.
“
You’re really staying
in New York, giving up college and
sorority
rush and everything to work for a travel agency?
I can’t believe it. I don’t know what your father will say.
Sidney Lanier Marsh, are you
crazy
?”

Maybe. But
I worked hard, took all the training
I could get, and was
soon
promoted to a
special
group
agent
, a job I have
now
held
for
almost
six
years.
I’m not getting rich, that’s for sure, unless you count getting to travel the whole world for free.

For
the last
several trips, I have been in charge of
a group called
the High Steppers
.
Don’t be put off by the name.
This is not some dance troupe
trying to knock off the
Rockettes.
The High Steppers are senior citizens, God love
them
, and I am their
shepherd
.
My
colleague and best friend
, Jay Wilson,
is the co-leader on most of my trips
.