Death of an Aegean Queen (2 page)

Marco slipped up behind me and blew in my ear. I jerked around, prepared to slap somebody, then smiled when I saw him, but I didn’t like the way he looked in a life jacket. My virile, fearless Florentine cop looked a bit silly in an orange jacket and with no beard.

“Can you believe they have an actual Cycladic fertility figure on a cruise ship? Isn’t this dangerous?”

“Dangerous?” Marco looked baffled. “Do you think it is going to promote too much conception among the passengers?”

“No, silly. I mean this is so valuable. Priceless! Irreplaceable! How can a cruise line afford to buy such things? Who would let them buy such a thing? The ship might sink! The figure might get swiped or broken.”

“Dotsy, if you knew the conditions thousands of these—what you call them?—priceless objects are in right now, you would realize this little woman is very lucky. There are Etruscan antiquities hidden in warehouses that are fire-traps. There is Minoan pottery painted black by smugglers who try to pass it off as cheap souvenirs at border crossings.” Marco’s eyes took on an intensity I’d only seen in him once or twice before, as if a dentist’s drill had struck a nerve.

We climbed the stairs together, joining the throng of passengers heading for the deck. At the top of the stairs, Lettie and Ollie passed us, and I had to choke back a laugh. A puffy orange life jacket, its straps let out to the fullest extent, on
Frosty the Snowman
was like water wings on a blimp. Ollie looked as if he’d certainly float without any help. In fact, he looked as if you could unstack him and save several smaller, denser folk.

“The lifeboat drill is required by law,” Marco told me, “but they have another reason to do this. It helps them find stowaways.”

“Stowaways?”

“Certainly. Anyone who is still inside or who does not have a properly numbered jacket is not supposed to be here.”

“What would they do with a stowaway?”

“They would make him walk off the plank. Have you not seen the pirate movies?”

* * * * *

I wasn’t sure how dressed-up to get for dinner. The men would be wearing suits, or at least ties, I thought. I settled on my black dress with red poppies and, since the dress had a scoop neck, a black onyx necklace and earrings.

We four had elected the first seating for dinner and were joined at our large, round table by George and Kathryn Gaskill, of Elkhart, Indiana. After introductions all around, we exchanged the basic information: what do you do, how many children, is this your first cruise, and so on. As usual, I took top honors for most children. Ollie and Lettie had two, Marco, two, the Gaskills, none—they had apparently married late—and me, five. Our children, grown now, we were all empty-nesters including, I suppose, the Gaskills, whose nest had never been full.

The Gaskills made an unassuming little pair. Kathryn was a small, round woman with short black hair and a rather vacant face. George had a goatee and wore his hair slicked straight back. A round, flesh-colored Band-aid bobbed on the curve of his jawbone below his left ear as he talked.

“He cut himself shaving this morning.” Kathryn said. I must have been staring at his jaw.

“I sell cars,” Gaskill said, in response to Ollie’s question. “Used cars.”

George talked with a slight whistle. His prominent front teeth made him look like a beaver. His dark hair plastered to his skull, his goatee twitched as he talked. Make that a wet beaver. When he reached for his wine glass, I noticed the sleeves and collar of his white shirt were frayed.

He asked Marco about the Carabinieri. “What is it? Is it like our police?”

“It is the military police in Italy. We also have police. La polizia. But we, the Carabinieri, we have nicer uniforms,” Marco said, glancing around the table as he said it.

I knew he was testing to see who had a sense of humor.

“If someone gets mugged,” Kathryn asked in a small, squeaky voice, “does he call the Carabinieri or the police?”

“He can call either one. Our duties, unfortunately, are not clearly . . . different. In spite of the fact that our government has tried to unite the two and to spell out the responsibilities of each, we still do many of the same things.” Marco paused and glanced around the table again. “But the Carabinieri do it better.”

Lettie giggled and put her napkin up to her mouth.

Ollie said, “How’s the car business, Gaskill?”

“Slow. Very slow. Normally, I wouldn’t take a vacation in June like this, but sales are so slow it didn’t seem to make any difference whether I left or not.”

“It’s the economy,” Lettie said. “Money is so tight.”

“Speaking of money . . .” George Gaskill turned to acknowledge the waiter who was attempting to maneuver a lobster cocktail between George’s and Kathryn’s shoulders. “I see they have a casino on the Poseidon deck. Anyone for a wager or two after dinner?”

“I’ll join you,” Ollie said and looked at Marco.

“No, thank you. I want to see the show,” Marco said. “The Greek dancers. Dotsy, will you come with me?”

I nodded.

“Does anyone else want to go with us?” he asked.

Lettie indicated she’d rather see the show than gamble, but Kathryn said she needed to go to their room and finish settling in.

* * * * *

The show lounge was on the Dionysus deck. The
Aegean Queen
’s decks were all named after Greek gods. The top one was called the Zeus deck, an appropriate name since Zeus was the king of the gods, and below it, the Hera deck where we had just eaten. Then in descending order, the Apollo, Poseidon, Dionysus, Ares, Athena, and Demeter. My stateroom was on the Athena deck.

Marco, Lettie, and I grabbed a table for four near the round stage. A waiter took our order immediately, but we had no more than sampled our drinks when Kathryn Gaskill slipped in and joined us.

“Settling in didn’t take as long as I thought it would.” She gave the waiter her order and looked around. As the lounge filled up, we checked out our fellow passengers. “That’s a lonely-looking man over there,” Kathryn said.

She nodded toward a lean, angular man with chin-length hair, a goatee, and black-rimmed glasses. At a table in the corner, he sat, slouched, with his chair pushed back against the wall, one finger running idly around the rim of his glass.

I knew him.

“What is it, Dotsy?” Marco asked.

“I know that man, but I can’t place him. Oh, who is he?” By whatever process the mind goes through when it tries to recall a person, a particular face, I realized he wasn’t anyone I’d ever actually met. He was someone whose picture I’d seen. Surrounded by dirt. Pith helmet. Khaki shirt. Trowel.

“Got it!” I said. “That’s Luc Girard. He’s a famous archaeologist. French, I think. I saw him in a documentary about Minoan civilization I showed to my students last year.”

Lettie faced Kathryn. “Dotsy teaches ancient and medieval history at a junior college back in Virginia. She knows all sorts of stuff about times past.”

It was as good a summary of me and my current life as I could have done myself. “What’s he doing here?” I said. “This is excavation season; why isn’t he out digging or something?” The four of us looked at Luc Girard until he glanced up and we all turned our heads, guiltily, in one direction or another.

The lights dimmed and the dancers, in traditional Greek rural costumes, entered and ran down the aisle. One of the girls tripped on the edge of the stage and began her performance with a three-point landing.

Chapter Two

Ollie Osgood punched the button on a slot machine for a few minutes, won the token equivalent of $20, then attempted to join George Gaskill at the blackjack table. Smoke swirled thickly through the casino, the clinks and the rinky-dink carnival sounds of the machines assailed the ears, flashing lights dazzled the eyes. The blackjack table was full, and several onlookers stood behind the players, waiting for their own chance to play.

Ollie drifted to the bar, ordered a beer, and struck up a conversation with two men who soon introduced themselves.

“Malcolm Stone, London,” said the gray-haired one with black eyebrows, extending his right hand to Ollie.

“Willem Leclercq, Antwerp,” said the other. Younger, probably in his early thirties, he was dressed casually in a knit shirt and jeans. He greeted Ollie with an intense stare from his pale blue eyes.

The three men exchanged small talk while they scanned the action at the blackjack table. Stone and Leclercq told Ollie they were on a reconnaissance/buying trip for a wealthy client of Leclercq’s, a client who wished to remain anonymous and for whom Leclercq was designing and furnishing “one helluva house,” the Belgian said, in a French-sounding accent.

He explained further. “I have asked Malcolm to come with me on this trip because he’s an antiques appraiser in London. An expert in classical Greek and Mediterranean artifacts.”

“I take it your client wants his helluva house furnished with real antiques,” Ollie said.

“No fakes.”

“Not for this bloke.”

The two men mentioned they had a suite on the Apollo deck, where it was quiet and the air was clean. Ollie, Leclercq suggested, might like to join them there for a few hands of poker.

“I’m here with a friend.” Ollie indicated the blackjack table with a jerk of his head. “I’ll check with him.”

Ollie lumbered across the room and delivered the invitation. George Gaskill raked his chips off the table and all four men bought a supply of chips from the cashier after mutually agreeing that a pot with dollars, pounds, and Euros would exceed their combined mathematical skill. Before they left the casino, George phoned his stateroom and got no answer. “Kathryn may have gone to the show after all,” he said.

Stone and Leclercq led them up one deck to a suite Ollie imagined might be the largest and most luxurious on the ship. Two bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchenette surrounded a large living room with a conversation area, a round dining table with four chairs, a fully stocked bar, and a wall of glass doors opening onto a softly lit balcony.

“Being American, I suppose you blokes are familiar with Texas Hold 'em poker,” Malcolm Stone said, slapping a new deck of cards on the round table.

Ollie gave a little start at the sound of that down-home phrase rendered in a British accent. “Absolutely! Gaskill? Okay with you? Leclercq?”

“Belgium is not on Mars,” Leclercq answered. “Isn’t it called world-class poker?” On hands and knees, he dragged a white dealer button out from under the table and handed it to Stone. “We have television in Antwerp.”

Malcolm Stone slipped off his tie and dinner jacket and tossed his cuff links onto the glass-topped coffee table. Ollie and George followed suit, making themselves comfortable, while Leclercq pulled a beer from the small refrigerator under the bar.

“Who wants beer?” Leclercq asked.

“I’ll take one,” Ollie said. “Do I see a Heineken in there? That’ll work.”

“Not for me. I’ll have a gin and tonic,” said Stone, rolling up his starched sleeves. “Can’t abide this American custom of serving beer ice-cold. Gaskill?”

“Thank you. I’ll have a gin and tonic, too.”

While Stone assembled the drinks, the other three chose places at the round table. Leclercq took the chair nearest the bar, George to his right, and Ollie opposite Leclercq, with his back to the balcony doors. Stone brought George his drink and took the empty seat to Leclercq’s left.

Stone dealt the first hand. No limit, Texas Hold ’em. A type of poker in which each player makes his best five-card hand from the two in his hand and the five cards, which, interspersed with several rounds of betting, are dealt, face up, in the center of the table. Of the four players, only George needed a refresher course in how the betting went. Stone explained it.