1 Shore Excursion (14 page)

Dreaming of Dixie, I was
caught by surprise
when two strong arms slipped around me and pinned me against the rail, and someone started nuzzling my neck.

“Ok
ay
, Jay, ok
ay
.
Give it up
.
I know you
love me, but don’t overdo it. A High Stepper might be watching and get the wrong idea.
”

“Ah, but it is not Mr. Wilson who holds you close, not this time
,” Captain Vargos said
in
his deep
voice.
“
I missed you at dinner.”

I turned to face him,
swallowed once more in the depths of
his
blue
eyes. He
pulled me close and
I knew he
was just about to kiss me when something began buzzing
at his waist.
Releasing
me,
Vargos
snatched his cell
phone from his belt and snarled into it
,
“Vargos.”

As I w
atch
ed
him
listening
intently to whatever the caller was saying, my
doubts were fading, melting away
in the moonlight
.
I no longer believed he was lying about the wife.
Zoe
can be a cat, and her
informat
ion must have been wrong.
And
,
if
he wanted to keep his day job, he
did
have to answer to Empress.
Instead of escaping while he was distracted by the phone call, I waited, in the curve of his arm, for him to finish his conversation.

It wasn’t much of a conversation.
He just stood there
listening
, holding the phone to his ear,
jaw clenched,
looking grim.

Finally, whoever was on the other end finished speaking.

“I’ll be right there,” Captain Vargos said
.
“
She’s
with me now
.
I’ll bring her.
Send someone to find Wilson.”

He looked down at me, his eyes troubled.
“We have an emergency, Sidney,” he said
quietly
. “
There’s no
time for explanations.
Just c
ome
along
quickly
,
if you will.
Follow me
. T
his way
, please
.
”

R
eleasing me, he jerked open the
heavy door marked
“Authorized Personnel Only”
and
bolted
down the port stairway.
I
followed
.
I had no choice
.

Muriel Murphy wouldn’t get her first
B
aked Alaska
that night after all.

Al Bostick
lay
naked
on top
of all
those exotic desserts
in the freezer, frozen solid
, a plastic trash bag knotted around his throat.

Vargos took off his coat and wrapped it around me.
I
shook
uncontrol
lably from the cold, the shock
, and the horror that had been Al Bostick.

“Come out of here.
You’ve seen enough
,
”
he said.
He turned to a busboy.
“
Please bring
her some coffee.”

Vargos
took me up one flight of stairs
,
sat me down in the executive chef’s office
,
and gave me his handkerchief to blow my nose
.
I
t seemed so s
trange to me
—
sitting there
looking through the glass door
—to be
watching the evening meal in motion, as if
on
a normal evening.

Waiters and busboys
hustled
heavy trays,
and
chefs, cooks an
d kitchen help all worked
together
like
one
efficient machine
. Meanwhile, o
n the level below us, two burly Asian deckhands stood
guard
in front of the door of the frozen food locker.
I stared in f
rustration
at the captain, tears rolling down my cheeks, wiping my nose with his handkerchief.

“There is no reason for you to
look at me like that,
Sidney
.
I didn’t kill him.”

“Maybe not, Captain Vargos, but if you hadn’t tried to hide Miss Shadrach
’s
murder
,
if you had ordered a full investigation immediately,
hadn’t gone along with the cover-up,
this may not h
a
ve happened.
Al Bostick might still be alive.
”

He pulled me to my feet then, strong hands gripping my shoulders,
and I looked up into those dark
blue eyes.

His voice was deep and gentle.
“Sidney
,
I am not an evil man, and I am not unfeeling.
I only did what I
had to
, what I was told to do, that is all.
There is no cover-up.
No conspiracy. T
he
cruise
line
sincerely
regrets Miss Shadrach’s unfortunate death and has
just
been
trying
very hard
to keep things pleasant for the
sake of the
other
thousands of
passengers
until this voyage is completed
.
You know how important that is.
Please be reasonable.
T
oday’s
unfortunate tragedy will have to be investigated thoroughly, too
, until an explanation is
reached and the
culprit
is found.
Please t
ry to understand.”

“All
I know
, Captain, all I understand,
is that
my High Steppers are getting killed
, and every official
connected with
this ship, including you, is acting as if it
’s not happening, as if it
doesn’t matter
.
”

He removed his hands from my shoulders, walked around the desk
,
and spoke briefly into the telephone
.

“Someone will be here in a moment to escort you to your
stateroom
, Miss Marsh.
For your own
safety
, p
lease don’t attempt to leave it again this evening.
I will have a tray with your
evening meal
delivered to your cabin
,
and when I
wish
to speak with you again
, I will send for you.”

And with that he walked out
of
the door, slamming it behind him.

The door opened again and a husky Russian in a cook’s helper uniform motioned for me to follow.
When I didn’t move on my own, he grasped my upper arm in a firm grip and
,
without a word
,
marched me
past the pastry rack
s, out through the double doors
and
down the passageway
,
in
to
the staff elevator and up to
my cabin.

He waited for me to open my door
with my key
,
then
motion
ed
for me to enter.
Despite my protests,
he closed it firmly
,
and I heard the master lock above the knob click into place.
I immediately tried to open the door, but it was firmly bolted.

I
was infuriated
and insulted
. Here I was,
locked in my cabin and treated like a child. I tried the rest of the evening to escape, first by beating on the door until the big guy opened it, then pleading and finally shouting at him. Nothing worked.
My guard
just folded his arms like a big genie, shook his head, and closed and locked the door again.

My room phone wasn’t working; it obviously had been turned off. My cell phone said
“N
o
S
ervice.
”

I broke my best hairbrush when I threw it at the door.
After that, and a good cry, I felt better.

About 11:00 p.m., to my great relief, a knock on th
e door brought a steward with a
dinner tray, and hot on his heels, Jay.

You would think that in such a crisis I would have no appetite, but the opposite was true.
I was starving.
I tore into the dinner tray, blessing the chef.

“Really, Sidney,
it’s as if you spent the last week on a diet of bread and water.
W
here are your manners?”

I didn’t answer for a minute.
I was too busy chewing.

“
Funny, Jay, really funny.
To hell with manners, Jay, and to hell with you, too,” I said when I could. “You can’t cr
iticize me.
You had your meal
.
You weren’t starved.
You weren’t a prisoner.”

“Oh, come on, Drama Queen.
Give
Vargos
a break.
He may have had your best interest
s
at heart
,
trying to keep you
safe
until a few things could be
sorted out.”

“My.
Best.
Interest
s
?”

“Calm down, Sidney, calm down and listen.
Just hold on a minute.
Listen to me.
Everything’s
okay
.
It’s all
okay
.
It turns out that Bostick’s death is not even connected to Ruth or the High Steppers or us or anything after all.
They’ve already caught the guy
who
did it
—
some Chilean deckhand.”

“What do you mean, Jay?”

“Well, see, it seems like this guy, this deckhand, had a thing going with some dancer from the cabaret, and when he found out that she had shacked up with Bostick, he lost it
.
T
hat was the end of old Al.

“All they have to do now,” he continued, with this happy little smile on his face, “is figure out the police jurisdiction
—
which is kind of complicated, of course
—
and we’re on our way.

I
stared
at him without saying a word
, but he refused to
meet my eyes.

He continued babbling.
“Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that I already called Diana from the bridge
.
S
he’s
okay
with everything.
So just chill out, sweetie, everything’s fine. Everything’s cool.
And look!
I brought you a chocolate martini!”

“How do they know for sure that the deckhand is the murderer, Jay, or that
this death has
no connect
ion
to Ruth or the High Steppers?”

“They’ve got it in black and white, Sidney.
Black and white.
The guy wrote a confession, see, in a note, right before he jumped overboard.”

“Jumped overboard. Is that what you said, Jay?
Jumped overboard?
He wrote this handy dandy confession and then jumped overboard?
He was overcome with remorse, I suppose.
His poor little old heart was just broken all to pieces
?
”

“Right.
So now we don’t have anything to worry about, do we?”

I climbed into my bed, switched off my light, turned my face to the wall, and pretended to sleep.
Not because I didn’t have anything to say or anything to worry about.

Because there was no point in continuing a conversation with
someone
who
deliberately refu
sed
to use his brain.

I was
scarfing down
poached egg and toast
in the dining room
when we sailed into Copenhagen.

Normally, I
try
my best
to
be
at the rail
for the sail-in
when we enter a port
.
I
love sail-ins and I
truly
love Cope
n
hagen,
but I’d
had a tough
time falling asleep,
overslept
and
barely had time for breakfast.

Copenhagen is terrific
and I
was
really
rushing because I
didn’t want cause any delay for my group
or myself
in going ashore.
Shore time in a city and country you love is precious indeed.
Choosing
the buffet
on the Lido deck
would have allowed me to see
the sail-in,
but I didn’t want to
risk an encounter with a certain ship captain
. He was n
ever in the dining room at breakfast, certainly not
when nearing a port
.
After the horrible events
and bitter words
of the previous evening, I needed space
and time to think
.

The High Steppers had been shocked, of course, with the news about Al Bostick but not overly saddened or even too surprised.
He had not been at all
popular
.
Many
of them
were repulsed by his mannerisms
and his dress
. H
e had insulted most of the women
, loudly
and
regularly
referring to them as “old bats
.
”

“That’s tough about Al,” Angelo said, when he heard the news. “But
that rascal
was playing
way out of his league. A
man his age
, coming between some hot-blooded guy and his girl
…
Well,
I ain’t saying he had it coming
or nothing
, but he was asking for it, messing around like that.
I had no problems with Al, kinda liked the guy. But my wife, man, I can tell ya, he sure
wasn’t
her
cup of tea,”

Angelo’s assessment was the nicest I heard.
N
o one
proposed
a memorial service.

I thought t
he day
onshore
, off the ship,
would be good for everyone
.
We all needed a breather.

In this port,
I was
scheduled to
escort
the
all-day
City and C
astles
Tour through the
shining metropolis
of
Copenhagen and
on to
magical Northern Denmark
and two of its magnificent castles
.
I had been looking forward to it
. I had done the same tour once before and knew that both t
he castle
s and the scenery are lovely.

Before leaving the cabin, I put some serious money
, a credit card,
and my passport in the little pouch I wear
around my neck
and
under my shirt
while
on excursions
. My ship’s card, a few euros for drinks and snacks, and a little string bag for purchases went in my left pocket.
I stashed m
y compact camera and
cell
phone in my right.

I always try, with varying degrees of success, to get my c
lients
to
store their valuables wisely
.
In areas where pickpockets work, the lack of a purse keeps you from being a target. Plus, sightseeing
is a lot more fun and less tiring if you don’t weigh yourself down with a
n extra
thirty pound
s.

Jay was gone when I
woke
—
not too unusual
,
because he often ran on the
jogging track
early in the morning
—
but this morning he
’d
probably
gotten an
early
start
to avoid talking to me.

That suited me just fine, because I really didn’t want a lot of conversation with him either until his moral compass
had
swung back to normal.

Before I finally slept, I had thoroughly
dissected
that incredible fable that
Jay
had spun for me in the light of my deep and intimate knowledge of
his
psyche
. I
concluded that
—
while our
clients
might want to
fully accept, even welcome the
convenient
explanation of Al Bostick’s untimely demise
—
he couldn’t possibly expect me to buy it.

Jay
is
not a simpleton.
Far from it.
So there was no way that he could possibly believe that
(a) Bostick’s death was not connected to everything else
;
or
(b) that the deckhand/alleged m
urderer
—
if he even existed
—
could be
any
thing
other
than another
innocent victim of whatever awful thing was
wreaking havoc
on the Rapture.

My group had somehow become deeply entwined in this terrible and dangerous mess, whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, and no one seemed to be inclined to want to face up to it or do anything about it but me.
I had asked Jay to go with me to Bostick’s cabin to look around for any clues, but he told me the cabin had been
immediately
sealed by the ship’s
purser and was being guarded against unauthorized entry until the investigation was completed.
I could tell that he was glad
of that fact, which meant
he wouldn’t have to deal with it. He was
totally
shrugging
off
Bostick’s death.

Jay
is
a decent man
, the best friend I ever had,
and
he is no dummy,
but sometimes he
strays
from high moral ground in favor of expediency.

Someone had tossed him this ridiculous story about the deckhand, and he
had
grabbed it with both hands because
that
was
the
easier
option
.

“Sidney, Sidney, there you are!
Aren’t you going with us on the tour to Hamlet’s Castle?
I need my sticker, and they have already called
some groups
to assemble on the Continental Deck gangway
.
”
Gertrude Fletcher
pounced on me like a duck on a June bug, glaring down at my breakfast through her bifocals.

“Oh, my goodness, yes, Mrs. Fletcher.
I’m
so
sorry
,”
I
said,
hurrying to finish.
“
I’m afraid I overslept.
I’ll be right there.”

I rose, grabbed my bag and sunglasses, and followed her out of the dining room.

“Well, you’d
better
hurry, or we’ll be left,” she sniffed.
“
Jay
Wilson
’s tour has already gone.
I guess
he
managed to get up on time, no matter
what
the two of you
did
last night!”