Jaine Austen 8 - Killer Cruise (12 page)

She got up now and began pacing, angered at the memory.

“At that moment I knew he’d never marry me. He played me for a fool, just like he was playing Emily for a fool. I lost it then and told him what a miserable creep he was. Then I ripped off that stupid pendant he gave me and threw it in his face.”

“And they found the pendant when they found his body?”

“With my fingerprints all over it.” She nodded glumly. “Not to mention my initials engraved on the damn thing.”

I gulped in dismay.

“And it gets worse.”

How was that possible?

“They’ve got an eyewitness who saw me. Eddie Romero, one of the other Gentlemen Escorts.

“Oh, Jaine,” she cried, “what am I going to do?”

“I’ll help you, Cookie.”

“What can you possibly do?” She looked up at me, mascara flowing down her cheeks in tiny rivers.

“I’ll investigate.”

“Investigate? As in private investigator?”

“I’m not exactly licensed,” I confessed, “but I have solved a couple of murders in my time.”

(And it’s true. For those of you unfamiliar with the titles listed in the front of this book, I solve murders as a hobby—in between writing assignments and my main job, catering to Prozac’s every whim.)

Cookie blinked in amazement.

“Somehow I can’t picture you as a private eye.”

I get that reaction all the time. A woman in a chenille scrunchy and
I
My Cat
nightshirt doesn’t exactly scream Philip Marlowe.

“I’d be happy to help if you’d like,” I said.

“That would be wonderful.” She managed a feeble smile. “How can I ever thank you?”

“It’s the least I can do after all you’ve done for me,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder. “Just try not to worry. They’ve done studies that show that ninety-nine percent of the things people worry about never happen. It’s a scientific fact.”

(No, it wasn’t, but I had to say something to get that suicidal look off her face.)

But wouldn’t you know, just then, in the Bad Timing Department, there was an ominous banging on the cabin door.

I opened it warily and saw one of the ship’s officers, a strapping Scandinavian, looking a bit like old Thor about to let loose with a thunderclap. Flanking him were the same security goons who’d hauled Cookie away last night.

“Cookie Esposito,” Thor intoned solemnly, “I’m arresting you for the murder of Graham Palmer.”

So much for made-up statistics.

I returned to my cabin, my mind reeling at the thought of Graham stabbed in the heart with an ice pick. I didn’t believe for a minute that Cookie was the killer. Why make a big scene in a public place if she intended to bump him off?

I could think of two far more likely suspects at my own dinner table: Kyle Pritchard and Leona Nesbitt. Both had juicy motives to see Graham dead. Kyle, to keep control of Emily’s finances. And Nesbitt, to keep her job. Graham had threatened to fire them both. I remembered the murderous look in Nesbitt’s eyes at the cocktail party last night, and Kyle’s threat to stop Graham from marrying Emily “no matter what it takes.”

What if “what it takes” was a stolen ice pick? Kyle said he knew from the get-go that Graham was trouble. What if he swiped Anton’s ice picks to nip that trouble in the bud? Then when Emily announced their engagement, Graham’s doom was sealed.

Same with Nesbitt. She’d loathed Graham on contact. I could easily picture her hacking her enemy to death and then stopping off at the buffet for a veggie plate.

And what about Robbie? Was he my killer? True, he seemed to like Graham, but that could’ve been an act. Was it possible he’d knocked off the charming Gentleman Escort to protect his inheritance? My stomach sank at the thought. No, it couldn’t be Robbie. I mean, the guy smelled like baby powder.

Shoving the idea of Robbie as a homicidal surf bum to a dusty corner of my mind, I stepped into the shower and began planning my investigation.

“I need to speak with the captain.”

I was at the main desk in the ship’s lobby talking to one of the clerks, a deeply tanned dude with dark hair glossed back Armani style. His name tag read Franco.

“Captain Lindstrom is unavailable right now,” Franco said, beaming me his official Holiday Handbook employee smile. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Nope,” I replied firmly. “I need the captain.”

“May I ask what it’s regarding?”

“Graham Palmer’s murder.”

“Please keep your voice down,” he hissed.

He glanced around to make sure none of the other passengers had heard me, then scurried over to whisper with a puffy blond dame I could only assume was his supervisor. She looked up at me in alarm, then got on her phone.

Minutes later, Franco was escorting me to the captain’s office.

“How did you find out about Graham?” he asked as we walked along.

“My cabin’s right next door to Cookie Esposito’s. I was there when they arrested her.”

“You’re down on Cookie’s deck? That’s usually for employees.”

“Yes, I’m one of the ship’s lecturers.”

“Well,” he said, all traces of formality gone now that he knew I was a hired hand, “you’d better keep your mouth shut about the murder. It’s all very hush-hush. The last thing the Holiday honchos want is a dead body splashed in the news. None of the passengers know except for the old lady he was engaged to. And her family.”

“But what about Graham? What are they going to do with his body?”

“They’re keeping him in cold storage till we get to L.A.”

By now we’d reached Captain Lindstrom’s office. But when Franco opened the door to let me in, the captain was nowhere in sight.

“He’ll be with you in a minute,” Franco said. And then, in a gossipy whisper, he added, “They’re having trouble freezing the body.”

I stifled a shudder. A little TMI for moi.

Franco trotted off to resume his duties at the front desk, and I took advantage of my alone time to gawk at the captain’s impressive digs: Gleaming teak furniture. An entire wall lined with nautical photos. And a scale model of the
Festival
mounted on a stand.

I checked out the model ship, locating the Dungeon Deck mere inches from the bottom, all the while trying not to think of Graham’s body decomposing somewhere nearby.

Then I wandered over to Lindstrom’s desk, where I saw a framed photo of his family (a smiling wife and four towheaded kids) along with the usual desk accessories.

But what really caught my eye was a plastic bag in his in-box. Inside I could see a wallet, a man’s watch—and a half-a-heart pendant with the initials
G.P.
engraved in the center. The same pendant Graham had worn around his neck as a token of his “commitment” to Cookie.

Clearly I’d stumbled upon Graham’s personal effects.

I eyed his wallet, dying to snoop inside. Did I dare? Lindstrom could walk in on me any second.

Oh, what the heck. Adrenaline racing, I pulled out the wallet and began rummaging through it.

Graham had the standard collection of credit cards, along with a not-so-standard business card from an establishment called the Hoochie Mama Lounge. When I checked the billfold I was somewhat surprised to find two thousand dollars in cash. Very interesting. Maybe Emily had been showering him with money as well as diamonds.

I was just about to put the wallet away when I noticed a security compartment hidden under the credit cards. I ran my finger inside and felt a piece of paper. Eagerly, I pulled it out. It was a faded newspaper clipping. Just a few paragraphs long—about the arrest of a bank robber known as the Butterfly Bandit, so called because of a large tattoo of a butterfly on his chest.

What was an old crime clipping doing in his wallet? Could Graham have been the Butterfly Bandit? He’d been a lowlife, for sure; was it possible he had a criminal record?

Or was the Butterfly Bandit someone else on board ship? Had Graham found out about this guy’s criminal past and cashed in on his discovery with a little blackmail? Maybe all that cash in his wallet wasn’t from Emily, but from his blackmail victim.

All very interesting questions, none of which I had time to ponder, because just then I heard voices in the hallway.

I frantically stashed the wallet back in the plastic bag, just milliseconds before Captain Lindstrom came striding into the room.

A rosy-cheeked guy who looked like he’d had one too many Swedish meatballs at the midnight buffet, he spoke with the merest hint of a Scandinavian accent.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said.

“No problem,” I replied from the chair I’d hurled myself into.

He settled behind his massive desk and glanced over at the plastic bag.

Oh, Lord. Could he tell I’d tampered with it? Maybe he could see that the objects inside had been moved. I broke out in a cold sweat, wondering if I’d soon be bunkmates with Cookie in the brig. But no, he simply adjusted the picture of his wife and kids and turned his gaze back to me.

“So, Ms. Austen. Apparently you know about Graham’s death.”

“Yes, my cabin’s right next door to Cookie Esposito’s. I was there when they arrested her. And I think you’re making a grave mistake.”

“Oh?” His pale brows lifted in surprise. “Why is that?”

I quickly filled him in on the angry sparks that had flown between Graham and my two leading suspects, Kyle and Ms. Nesbitt.

“Graham threatened to fire them both. Which means they had motives just as strong, if not stronger, than Cookie. You should be searching
their
cabins for the missing cuff links.”

He smiled a jolly Santa Claus smile and heaved himself up from his desk.

“Come here, Ms. Austen. Let me show you something.”

He led me over to the wall of framed photos, most of them ships in the Holiday arsenal. In several of the pictures, Captain Lindstrom was standing with celebrities. Among others, I saw the good captain with Bill Clinton, Jay Leno, and Paris Hilton (who had inscribed her photo,
To Captain “Lindy”—You’re Hot! XOXO, Paris
).

But the captain hadn’t brought me there to gawk at celebrities.

There was someone else he wanted me to see.

“Take a look at that one,” he said, pointing to a faded black-and-white picture of a young woman standing on the deck of a ship, a gangly girl in vintage 1950s attire—a shirtwaist dress, locket, and penny loafers.

“That young woman,” he said, “is Emily Pritchard.”

I took a closer look. Omigosh. It
was
Emily! I could see it in her sweet smile. Standing next to her was an austere older man in a three-piece suit. Probably her father, who’d introduced her to cruising all those years ago.

“Emily has been sailing with Holiday Cruise Lines ever since that picture was taken, more than fifty years ago,” the captain said, breaking into my musings. “She’s one of our most loyal customers, and I am not about to accuse one of her party of murder.”

He crossed his arms over his substantial chest and glared at me, all traces of Santa Claus vanishing up the chimney.

“Is that understood?”

I had been intending to wow him with my credentials as a part-time unlicensed P.I., but somehow I sensed this was not the time.

“Understood.” I nodded sheepishly.

He was heading back to his desk when he stopped in his tracks.

“Wait a minute.” He turned to peer at me. “Jaine Austen. Aren’t you the one who’s teaching the memoir-writing class? The one whose students are getting a divorce because of an essay they wrote for you?”

Damn that Paige. She’d ratted me out.

“Yes,” I confessed, “but surely you can’t blame me for an innocent essay assignment.”

Oh, yes, he could.

He proceeded to ream into me with all the cordiality of Simon Legree chatting with an uncooperative plantation hand.

Finally, he wound down his harangue.

“You’ve done quite enough damage on this cruise, young woman. Until we dock in Los Angeles, I expect you to keep your mouth shut and mind your own business.”

Moi? Mind my own business?

The good captain clearly didn’t know me very well.

Chapter 11

I
gnoring Captain Lindstrom’s warning, I set off to have a little chat with Eddie Romero, the eyewitness who saw Cookie fighting with Graham.

Luckily he picked up the phone when I had the ship’s operator connect me to his cabin. I told him I had a matter of utmost importance to discuss with him, and minutes later I was trotting over to his digs, not far from mine on the Dungeon Deck.

He came to the door, a low-rent version of Graham.

On the one hand, he was tall and craggy with a thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair. The kind of silver-haired smoothie the ships love to hire to dance with the single ladies. But he had the slightly flattened nose of a street fighter, and when he opened his mouth to talk, it sounded like he’d spent his formative years hanging out with
The Sopranos
.

Right away I wondered if he was the Butterfly Bandit. I could certainly picture him posing for a mug shot.

Looking down, I saw that his feet were bare, his pants rolled up to his calves.