Set Sail for Murder (29 page)

Tim looked at Dr. Girard and shook his head. “I’m appalled
that you don’t have better security on this ship,” he said as he and Placenta moved toward the door. Feigning outrage, Tim added, “The captain better have made an inventory of Laura Crawford’s possessions. If there’s anything missing, I’ll personally see to it that her estate sues his butt! By the time the attorneys are through with Kool Kroozes, Laura’s niece will own the whole damn ship company!”

Dr. Girard leaned against the doorframe. He looked directly at Tim. “Is that a cell phone in your pants, or are you just happy to see a sexy doctor?”

The phone had slipped down to Tim’s upper thigh. He unconsciously reached down to adjust it. He looked up and said, “Sexy doctor? Where?”

Dr. Girard offered an arrogant smirk. “In all my time aboard this ship, I’ve never had passengers—with the possible exception of Faye Dunaway—who are as beastly as you and your mother and her showbiz friends.”

“Polly Pepper is far from beastly!” Tim demanded. “And Faye is a pseudo family friend. She may be a witch to some, but to Polly she’s always been more of … well, more like a flea that can be eradicated with an application of
Frontline.
”

“Beastly? Quirky? Bizarro? Whatever word you chose, Polly Pepper is still a nut,” Dr. Girard insisted. “She and that Cori Berman dude should do a nightclub act together.”

Nurse Smalley added, “There’s a pathetic duo.”

“Cori Berman?” Tim repeated. “Why bring up his name? What’s he got to do with anything?”

Dr. Girard looked annoyed. “That has-been came in a few days ago begging to say good-bye to Laura’s body. I told him to get his Hollywood hiney out of the infirmary. He pleaded with me to at least allow him to spend time in here talking to the dead celebrity’s spirit, which he insisted occupied every object in these boxes. More Hollywood mumbo jumbo.”

Nurse Smalley said, “Must have worked because he left on cloud nine.”

Dr. Girard looked at the nurse. “How would you know?”

Nurse Smalley swallowed hard. “Um …”

“Damn it!” Dr. Girard wailed.

“He was only here for a few minutes.”

“When?”

“Wednesday. Just before Tina Louise, and right after Scott Baio.”

Tim looked at Placenta and said, “Cori and Laura didn’t even get along. Why the heck was he here?”

Nurse Smalley said, “Everyone’s turning religious on this cruise. Rosemary, the masseuse, wanted to pray at the box shrine of Laura Crawford too. They only knew each other for a few minutes. As for the others, Lainie Kazan, Rip Taylor, William Katt, and Joan Van Ark, I figured they’d worked with Laura and just wanted to pay their respects. Noncelebs didn’t have a chance with me.”

Dr. Girard was in shock. “When were
they
here?”

Nurse Smalley shrugged. “Throughout the week. I’m a sucker for people who are grieving, okay? Plus, they’re kinda like stars. Or used to be. Celebrities are harmless.”

Tim and Placenta laughed. “Not counting the tantrums of Christian Bale, Alec Baldwin, and Roseanne Barr,” Placenta said.

“I figured it couldn’t hurt to let ‘em say a prayer over Laura Crawford’s boxes of junk, for crying out loud.”

Tim looked at Placenta. “Laura worked with all of ‘em, but I can’t imagine why they’d care enough to make a point of paying any sort of tribute to her,” he said.

“Maybe to make sure she was really dead,” Placenta chuckled.

Dr. Girard bellowed, “Out! All of you! As for you, Smalley, this is your last cruise.”

Nurse Smalley instantly stopped in her tracks. “You’ve never liked me,” she said to Dr. Girard. “I’m an excellent
nurse. I have everything President Obama would appreciate: compassion and
empathy.
And, I pretend to be stupid about your unethical practices. Taking pictures of the dead! You should be ashamed!”

Dr. Girard crossed his arms and gave Smalley a look of contempt. “You’d better be careful of any attempt at character assassination.”

“Character?” Nurse Smalley sniggered. “You don’t have any. As I said, I’m stupid about a lot of things. On purpose. However, my IQ goes up and down, on an as-needed basis. I sense a 130 coming on. When it reaches 175 I’ll have figured out why I saw you taking pictures of the dead actress.”

“I suggest that you not expose our valued passengers to your delusions.” Dr. Girard cocked his head toward Tim and Placenta.

Dr. Girard stood as close to Nurse Smalley as possible without touching her. “Your IQ is smaller than a gnat’s. Now, get out,” he said. “You’re off duty. Forever.”

Tim stepped in. “Nurse Smalley isn’t any more of a thief than you are.”

“Or you!” Dr. Girard said, turning to look at Tim.

Placenta said, “Is everyone on this ship a liar, a cheat, and a potential killer?”

“Who’s talking about killing?” Dr. Girard said.

“I didn’t even know the woman!” Smalley shouted. “But everyone who has come to see about viewing her remains, and or seeing her stuff, were at least acquaintances.”

“Point taken,” Tim said. “But you said you turned some people away. Who were they?”

“Fans?” Nurse Smalley suggested. “Looky loos? Some people just like to check out other people’s misfortune. If they didn’t have a Google entry, I sent ‘em back to the all-you-can-eat fried mayonnaise balls bar.” Smalley thought for a moment. “There was one …”

“One what?” Tim said.

“The one who said he was Laura Crawford’s brother.”

“Except for a niece, Laura’s family are all dead,” Placenta said.

“I know,” Smalley continued. “I checked out her bio online. This sucker was way too assertive, too. First he wanted to visit the body. I told him to come back when he had a better story.”

Nurse Smalley stopped and looked at Dr. Girard. “I told you about that guy.”

Tim looked at the ceiling. “You didn’t get his name, but the surveillance cameras would have captured the scene.”

Placenta said, “Isn’t there a law against impersonating a dead person’s family? Even if there isn’t, anyone claiming to be kin to a murder victim has to be up to no good.”

Tim heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head. “Let’s start over. We don’t like each other. But can we call a truce for our last full day at sea?”

Dr. Girard and Nurse Smalley looked at each other. Slowly, they shrugged and nodded. “Sure,” Girard said.

“Whatever,” Smalley agreed.

Tim reached out his hand to shake Dr. Girard’s and Nurse Smalley’s. “We need to get the video surveillance tape from the day that
Mr.
Laura Crawford came in.”

“I think I can arrange that,” Dr. Girard said. “But I’ll have to get Captain Sheridan’s permission.”

Tim said, “Not if you go to Officers Stephen Ronson and Marc Garner. They hate the captain’s guts. Tell ‘em Polly Pepper personally asked for their help.”

Placenta looked at her wristwatch. “The sun will be coming up soon. This is our last full day on ship. We’d better move fast if we’re going to get this guy and find out what he was really after.”

As Tim and Placenta began to leave the infirmary, Tim turned to the doctor. “I’m sorry I took your memory card. I’ve left it on the floor in your office.”

Dr. Girard offered a stern shake of his head but then gave Tim a sly smile. He reached into his pocket and withdrew Tim’s memory card and handed it back to him. “I’m keeping the pool shots of Jessica Alba and Cameron Diaz. Oh, and Aaron Eckhart and Ryan Reynolds, too.”

Tim gave the doctor a knowing look as he and Placenta left the infirmary.

B
y the time Tim and Placenta returned to Polly’s veranda suite, they found her sound asleep in her evening clothes. “You strip her, and I’ll get her PJs,” Tim said. Polly was in a deep sleep and didn’t stir when Tim and Placenta laid her out on the bed and covered her with the silk top sheet. As they quietly left the stateroom, early risers were beginning to step out of their cabins to start their final full day at sea.

As Tim and Placenta walked down the corridor, he saw a carafe of coffee outside another cabin door and picked it up as if he were homeless and had found a half-empty can of beer on the street. “Get a couple of hours’ sleep,” he encouraged Placenta. “I can hang on. I’ve got java and Laura’s cell phone to keep me occupied. Figuring out who she last spoke to will keep me busy.”

When they arrived at Placenta’s cabin, she said, “Your mama will be pissed if we let her waste the last day sleeping.”

Tim agreed and wandered off toward his own cabin. In the quiet of his room, Tim drank a cup of coffee and then another and another. Finally getting a second wind, he looked at Laura’s cell phone and carefully studied the features.
He turned it on but found that the battery was dead. Plugging the charger into the wall, he inserted the head of the cable into the charging port. Knowing it would take a while to have enough juice to function, Tim stretched out on his small bed and promptly fell asleep.

A loud knock on his door brought Tim back to consciousness. The knock grew louder as Tim got up and reached for the door handle. “Who?” he called.

“Doo-doo! We’re in a heap of it!” It was Polly.

Tim opened the door to find his mother and Placenta standing outside, both looking disheveled, as though they hadn’t had any sleep for days. “Oh, my gosh! What happened?” Tim said. “We’ve wasted so much time!”

“Damn right,” Polly said. “God, I’d kill for a Bloody Mary!”

Placenta looked at the cell phone being charged. “What’d you find?”

“The battery was dead. I closed my eyes for a second. Which became hours.”

“Let’s have a look,” Polly said, picking up the phone.

“Careful!” Tim cautioned. “Don’t make any calls.”

“Like to who?” Polly said. “I’m never speaking to J.J. again, and I don’t have Brad Pitt’s number, so it looks as though I have to spend an hour of my last precious day on ship at that dumb art auction I agreed to go to with Dorian.”

Tim removed the phone from Polly’s hands and pushed the On button. As it went into activation mode, the phone made the glissando of a harp. “All charged,” he said. “Let’s go into Laura’s call log.” As Polly and Placenta looked over his shoulder, Tim pressed a few more buttons and found Laura’s call history. He looked at the time stamps. “She talked to the same number, one, two, three …” He counted six entries, beginning early the day of embarkation up until just before the time that Dr. Girard suggested she was killed.

“That number belongs to the murderer!” Polly said, and
pulled the phone out of Tim’s hands. “I’m going to call the son of a bitch right now!”

Tim instantly retrieved the phone. “You can’t do that!”

Polly attempted to snatch the phone away, but Tim held it high above her head. “He’s got to know that we’re on to him!” Polly pleaded. “I want the killer to know that we have his number. Literally.”

“Tim’s right. You can’t just call someone up and accuse them of murder,” Placenta said. “Although we’ve done a pretty good job doing just that to a few innocent people this week.”

“Allegedly innocent,” Polly reminded. “But we don’t have any time to waste! We dock tomorrow morning and we still don’t have Laura’s killer. This may be our final chance!”

“And what would you say if someone answers?” Tim asked.

Polly thought for a moment. “That I’m the ghost of Laura Crawford and I’m back from the grave to seek revenge for taking away my life.”

Placenta harrumphed. “That was dialogue from your Mexican movie,
Crawling Eyeball II: The Vision Returns.”

Polly stuck out her tongue at Placenta. “Can you think of something better?”

Tim shook his head. “Just because Laura spoke to the same person a half a dozen times that day, doesn’t mean that she was speaking with her killer. She could have been on the phone with her real estate person. You know she’s been trying to unload her dump of a condo in North Hollywood. She could have been chatting with anyone. A new boyfriend …”

“Ha!” Polly sneered.

“Her agent. Maybe she was up for a part?”

“She would have bragged to me,” Polly scoffed.

“Drug dealer. Cat sitter. Computer tech support person in New Delhi. Who knows!” Tim said. “We just can’t presume that the call was made to her killer.”

Placenta nodded in agreement but added, “I’m not saying that Laura was chatting all day long with a madman, but we do have to take that possibility into consideration. Does her caller log show the same number on other days?”

Tim scrolled through the list and made a face. “Yikes! She made and received calls to and from the same number as far back as three months ago,” he said. He looked at Polly. “What was going on in her life back then?”

Polly shrugged. “Laura was always having one problem after another. Three months? Hmm. I remember she called to tell me how much fun it was watching me as a judge on
I’ll Do Anything to Become Famous.
I know she was incredibly envious. She went so far as to say, ‘The rich get richer.’”

“She was also having financial problems,” Placenta said.

“The woman lived way beyond her means,” Polly added. “I bailed her out as often as possible, but I had to put an end to being ‘Pepper Savings and Loan.’ Accent on ‘loan.’” Polly slipped into deep contemplation. “Do you remember when I bought her Warhol?”

“Years ago,” Tim said.

“Laura was having another financial meltdown then. I felt a little bad about buying her precious pieces for such low prices. It was Placenta’s bright idea to have a high school art student make an exact copy as a gift to Laura,” Polly said.

“The same with her Hockney and Bachardy,” Placenta added.

“I vaguely recall that Laura called me up about three months ago and asked how much her old originals had increased in value. I made up a low figure. She’d die … well she did anyway … if she knew what they were really worth. I pretended that if she’d kept the paintings, she’d have enough dough to see her through until she could collect Social Security.”

Tim looked confused. “Why’d she want to know the value of artwork that didn’t belong to her? It could only make looking at her copies intolerable.”

Polly thought back and said, “I remember joking that the copies were so good she could probably palm them off as genuine. That is, if she found a rich sucker who didn’t know any more about art than I do about hip hop music, and they just wanted to fill their home with expensive things. Hell, put a high enough price tag on anything and people jump to the conclusion that it’s worth every cent. How else can you explain the amount of money that Charlie Sheen gets for his TV show?”