1 Shore Excursion (28 page)

There were so many possibilities, so many variables in this thing, that I had stopped counting.
Not to mention,
of course,
the
literally
thousands
of other passengers and crew
men
.
The culprit
could have been anyone.
It could have been someone in the church or the town, someone totally unrelated to this whole
deal
.
It could have been a kid, playing a prank.

I was sick and tired of worrying about every
thing and everybody.
This crazy cruise
was making me
crazy, and I
decided that for once, Jay was
absolutely
right.
I did need to cool my jets.
Nothing really
bad
had
happened to me in the church, but it sure could have.
A night off relaxing at a beautiful ballet with a
great-looking
man was just
what I needed
. A
n evening with Fernando
might also
exorcise any lingering feelings I had for the captain. Fun! It would be fun! And f
or tonight, at least, no more Sherlock Holmes.

I
have to admit that Jay
had been
right about something else, too.

The Mariinsky Theatre may have been the famed home of Pavlova, Nijiinsky and Barishnikov, but at the ballet that
evening
Fernando
spent more time watching my neckline than he did watching the ballerinas.

At intermission he
ordered
a glass of champagne for me and an iced vodka for himself, and we stood on the same balcony where czars and princesses had stood, overlooking the moonlit square.

He raised his glass.
“To you, Sidney.
You are beautiful, you know, you really are, and especially tonight.”

He kissed me then
.
T
hree more champagnes
led to
a lot more kisses
. W
e stayed out in the moonlight long
after
the chimes signal
ed
that intermission was over.

“You don’t really want to see the rest of the performance, do you?” he asked.

Suddenly I felt woozy. I did want to see the rest of the performance, but I wasn’t sure I could stay awake for it.
I shook my head and we started down the steps toward the exit.
In front of the theate
r
, Fernando
whistled
and
a car instantly appeared
. H
e helped me into the backseat.

I needed help.
I don’t know whether it was the booze or the man, but by th
at
time I was more than a little wobbly.
The car left the square and sped us away down a broad avenue.

He kissed me some more and then pulled a silver flask from his coat pocket
,
insist
ing
that I have a drink.
I don’t like vodka, so I shook my head.

“Oh, come on, my darling,
one
drink.
It will relax you.
Take a little sip.”

He held me tighter, put the flask to my mouth, and tried to pour some of the vodka between my lips, while at the same time unzipping the back of my dress.
He said something to the driver in Russian; the driver laughed and the car accelerated.

I pushed the flask aside but he
forced
it right back up to my lips, spilling
a few drops
down the front of my dress
. H
is grip on my arms tightened. Alarm bells were going off big time in my head, with the word
roofie
flashing neon in my brain.
Was
the vodka drugged
?
My magical evening was going to hell in a hurry.

To make matters worse, I suddenly realized that the car
, which
had been steadily accelerating
,
was heading
away
from the ship, not
toward
it.

He pulled me even closer, nuzzling my neck, and whispered into my ear,
“Sidney, darling, where is the red bag?”

Those five little words scared me so bad
ly
that I almost wet my pants.

“Sidney Lanier Marsh,” I told myself, “get your young ass out of here
now
.”

I kissed Fernando
hard on the mouth.
“Fernando
,” I purred, breathing into his ear, gently prying his hand from its lock grip on my wrist and placing it squarely on my breast, “Can you get the driver to pull over real quick
and tell him to take a walk
?
I just really, really want to be alone with you, and I don’t think I can wait another minute.”

Fernando
shouted something to the driver, who immediately braked and swerved into a da
rk side street.
Ortiz
was so busy getting his pants down that he didn’t realize for a minute that I had bailed.

I hit the ground running, cutting across the backyards of two houses so they couldn’t
chase me with the car.

Feet,
I prayed,
don’t fail me now!

He
was out of the car then
, running down the alley behind me, screaming my name.
His needing to pull his
pants back up before he could
chase me
had
given me
a tiny head start
,
and I needed every second of it.
I had kicked off the silver sandals before I jumped out or I would never have made it.

I cut through the back yards of some dilapidated apartment buildings, dodging clotheslines, rusted out cars and garbage bins, going as fast as I could without falling over anything.
My feet were hurting
, running barefoot through the night, but they could take the abuse if I didn’t step on glass or
any
thing.
I’m a Southern girl
and
go barefoot all the time.

I ran silently, staying in the deep shadows and praying that no dogs
would
give me away.

Fernando
sw
ore
and shout
ed
to the driver, and the car’s engine roared.
Then a car door slammed and the black Mercedes began to cruise slowly up one street and down the next, lights on bright, searching for me.

The Neva River was in front of me then, and to go any f
a
rther I somehow had to get across it. The bridge was impossible
—
too exposed, too much traffic.
I couldn’t sw
im the river.
Fernando
and his pal were
right
behind me.

I crouched down in the shadows, desperate for an escape plan.

I was trapped, just as they had known I would be.
My only option was to hide somewhere until they
gave up
looking for me.

Having
gr
o
w
n
up a tomboy in the rural South,
I had
no trouble shimmy
ing
up the first good tree I saw.

And there I sat, treed like a coon in the moonlight, being hunted down by a lying, sneaky, dangerous son of
a bitch
whom
just one hour before
I had found attractive.

I must have been out of my mind. Jay
had been
totally right about this dirtbag. What was I thinking?
My mother is right. Like all my aunts,
I clearly have no brains at all when it comes to men.
The Marsh Curse strikes again!

W
hen I finally decided it was safe to come down out of that tree, t
he eastern sky was
starting to
lighte
n
.

Limping back toward the
port
, barefooted, exhausted
, my good dress torn,
my hair full of
twigs and leaves,
I didn’t even feel sorry for myself.
B
efore all
of
this mess, I
had
thought of myself as a sophisticated, street-smart, worldly-wise New Yorker.
Not.
I was a dumbass from the sticks.

I traded my silver necklace to a
truck
driver for a ride back to the ship.
I think he stopped for me because he thought I was a hooker winding up
a
night’s work, maybe willing to
turn one last trick cut-rate.
Maybe he just recognized me as
a crazy American
. He didn’t have much English but I managed to communicate where I needed to go. “Tourist? Ship? Da!”

Whatever.
His wife would love my necklace, and I was more than happy with the deal.

The sun was just beginning to come up when the
truck
turned into the port. Its light illuminated the ship, and also police cars and an ambulance and Jay, in his polka dot pajamas. Two burly policemen had him by the arms.
Edgar was talking to the cops at the end of the pier.
God knows what Jay and Edgar had done, I thought.

“Where
the hell
have you been, Sidney Marsh?” he screamed at me.
“Just where the
hell
have you been?”

“Don’t yell at me, Jay.
I’ve had a rough night.”

“Yeah, I c
an see that.
You look like crap
.
Well, I’ve had a rough night, too, sweetie
...
not that you care, of course
. W
hile you out having a bl
ast with your Latin lover
,
I tried and tried to call you, but you wouldn’t answer your phone. Then I heard your purse ringing in the closet.
You left your cell in the cabin on purpose, didn’t you Cinderella, so I couldn’t call you when I needed you!
Well, welcome back, Sidney, welcome back.
I have a little bad news. There’s been another emergency. And guess what?
I’m being arrested.
They think I did it.”

Sylvia Klein hadn’t left Abe and the ship in Stockholm, after all.
She was still on the ship, floating
naked in the hot tub in the red glow of the sunrise, my new pink scarf
knotted
securely around her throat.

“Wait a minute,” I said for the fourteenth time, to the Russian detective.
“You can’t arrest him. He had nothing to do with Mrs. Klein’s death.
How could you even think such a thing?
There is no proof.
This is ridiculous!”

“Not ridiculous at all, Miss Marsh
.
Mr. Wilson has not yet been charged, but we are taking him to headquarters
for q
uestion
ing
and I must say that things look very bad for him. He was in the hot tub with Mrs. Klein
just after midnight
.
He was the last person seen with her before she was found dead.
And the scarf that was used to strangle her
is
your
s; it
came from the cabin where Mr. Wilson
is
residing
.
I have nothing further to say to you at this time.
Call your employer.
Call your embassy.
They may be willing to
intervene
.
Or they may not.”

And then they stuffed Jay in
to
the car and drove away, leaving me absolutely powerless to help him.

Two of the High Steppers, Hannah and Ethel, along with about half the other passengers, had watched my walk of shame from the deck and then
viewed the entire spectacle
of
Jay’s arrest.
With breakfast being served and the entertainment over for the moment, the crowd quickly dispersed,
all
except Hannah and Ethel. They remained standing silently along the rail, in their bathrobes and plastic hairnets, or rain bonnets, or whatever those things are, like a pair of marabou storks, staring as I made my way up the gangway.

Then they confronted me, interrupting each other as the words spilled out.

“Where were you all night, Sidney?”

“We were so worried. We have been looking for you.”

“The most terrible thing has happened.
Did they tell you about Sylvia?”

“Where is Jay going in his pajamas?
Why is he leaving with those men?”

“You must come with us now to our cabin.
We have something to show you.”

“Yes, you must come right now.
We need to talk with you right away.
We’ve been waiting.”

“Ladies,” I said. “I’m very sorry to have caused you any
more
distress and I know how upsetting all of this is for you, but I can’t come to your cabin now.
I have to shower and change clothes so I can make some important phone calls
and try to straighten
things out.
I’m dreadfully sorry, but this will have to wait until
later
, perhaps this evening.”

They both shook their heads emphatically,
gray
curls bouncing inside the pink plastic
rain-bonnets.

“No, no, no, Sidney, it can’t wait.
We’ve waited too long already.
You must come.
Promise us you will come, just as soon as you can. We need to speak with you in private.”

High Steppers are always urgently needing to speak with me in private.

“Please,” Hannah said.

That got to me.
Hannah is one of my favorites and without her I might still
have
be
en
in that crypt in Stockholm.

But Jay’s freedom came first.

“O
kay
, ladies
, okay
.
But just let me grab a shower first and make a few phone calls.
I’ll be there within the hour. I won’t be able to stay more than a few minutes, but I’ll be there.
Later, I promise, later.”

Through the walls of the glass elevator on my way to my cabin, I could see Russian officers all over the ship.

This time things
would
be very different. This time, we were not at sea.
We were docked in a Russian port, and it was apparent that the Russian officials were fully in charge.

I headed to the cabin to shower
and
change
.
Then I was going to call Itchy and the embassy.
Poor Sylvia! And poor Jay!
And what
had
Sylvia even
been
doing on the ship in Russia?
Her luggage had been unloaded
in Sweden
. Where had she been hiding all this time?

Finally clean, I resisted the urge to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head for the next couple of years.
I
swallowed two aspirin and
chugged
some
water, pulled on a pair of black knit pants and a
sweater
, brushed my teeth, and swi
rled
on some mascara and lipstick.

Hearing
a loud, insistent knock on
the cabin door, I
threw the lock,
snatched it open
,
and found
Muriel Murphy standing
there,
hands nervously clutching her coat
and pulling it tight around her
.

“Good Lord, Muriel!
What a knock! Is something wrong?
Do you need
any
thing?
I was just on my way out.”

She moved
toward me
into the room and was about to speak when Rahim rapped on the open door
behind her
, entered and said,
“Miss Marsh, pardon for interruption
.
Captain says you
must
come, come now to bridge please.”

A flash of annoyance crossed Muriel’s face.

“I’m sorry, Muriel, but you heard Rahim.
I must go now. We’ll talk later.”

“Samurai!”
Rahim said, his eyes wide.

“What?”

“Samurai!” he repeated, pointing at Muriel.

She had a large steel knife in her hand
.

“Th
is is
what I wanted to show you, Sidney
,” she said, giggling.
I found
it
on one of the deck chairs by the hot tub, under the cushion
.
”
H
er eyes
were
dancing, as if she had found the golden egg. “I think it’s from the kitchen, like the ones we saw on the galley tour.
And this, too!”

From the pocket of her coat, she pulled
the top of a leopard print bikini, neatly sliced in two, strings dangling.

“Muriel!
Where
exactly
did you find
this—the
bikini and the knife
?”

“On the table in the lounge,
Sidney,
where they had the cooking demonstration.”

“
But you just said you found them on deck, near the hot tub.
Two different places?” I paused, as the truth dawned on me. “
You don’t know where you got them, do you?
You don’t really remember, do you?”

She shook her head, smiling.
“No.
But it doesn’t matter, does it?
I get to keep them.
They’re mine now.
I can keep them, can’t I? Finders keepers.”

“Muriel.
You know you can’t keep that knife.
Even if you could, how would you get it home on the plane?
Now, please, give those things to Rahim and he will take you and both the items to the Captain so you can tell him all about it.”

Pouting, s
he gave the knife and the sliced-up bikini to Rahim.
H
er lower lip stuck out
like a child’s
.

“Thank you very much, Muriel. You’ve been very helpful.
Rahim, please tell the Captain that I will be there as soon as possible.”

I walked them to the elevator
and
let Muriel push the button
. T
hen
I
waited until the door closed before bolting
up
the stairs to Hannah’s cabin.

Now e
veryone on the ship was clearly sh
a
k
en
up.
Word
that something was terribly wrong
had spread
, even to those who
had never heard of the
High Steppers, and who had been blissfully unaware of
what was
happening all along.

Passengers, stewards, and crew
members
stood in clusters, whispering, all over the ship, and the line at the guest relations desk was very long.

I knocked on Hannah’s door.
“Hello, Hannah,
it’s Sidney.
I’m here.”

I heard
noises from
the other side of the door and knew she was looking through the peephole.
I smiled and waved.

She opened the door.
“Oh, thank goodness, Sidney. Please, come in.”

She pointed at the table and simply said,
“Look.”

And there it was, on the table.

The
red
train
case
.

Ruth Shadrach’s missing bag.

Still bright red, but not as shiny as it had been when she brought it home from Macy’s One Day Sale.

“Where did you find it?” I asked.