No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (39 page)

“I don’t know,” I replied. I
thought about that.

“It was a trap, kiddo. You
were supposed to confront the passenger in Cabin 657A.”

Bob was waiting for us in
one of the larger cubicles. We sat at a long table in wooden arm
chairs with casters.

“I don’t understand,” I told
the security man as he grabbed his notepad and a pen from the desk
behind the table. “Why was it a trap? What is so special about
Cabin 657A? Why would the thief expect me to go to that
room?”

“Because he left you a
message you didn’t get.” Bob took the card from Mr. Bufumo. He
looked at it closely before handing it over to me.

“Notice anything?” he asked
me. I peered down at the tropical design of the card. I could see
the room number printed on the front. Flipping it over, I saw the
handwritten message in permanent black marker.

“‘
Meet me in the room if
you want to know about Henri.’” I read those words and felt an
unexpected chill. “Mr. Bufumo said it was a trap.”

“It was. Do you know what’s
special about Cabin 657A, Mariem?”

“No.”

“It’s one of the few
unoccupied cabins we have on this cruise and it just happens to
have a balcony. It looks like the man who attacked you last night
is determined to finish the job before we reach Bermuda.” No longer
was Bob trying to reassure me that everything was under control.
His face was grim. That’s when it dawned on me.

“How did he get a hold of
that room key?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

“Probably the same way he
avoided showing up on the security camera in the Sanctuary. He’s a
professional and he knows our security arrangements.”

“A professional what?”
Neither Bob nor Mr. Bufumo answered that question. Stunned by the
news, I sat in the chair, wondering why someone was going to so
much trouble to get at me. When I voiced that thought, Mr. Bufumo
spoke.

“Funny, we were wondering
the same thing. If I didn’t know you were a widow, I’d think your
husband did it.”

“Angelo was a homicide
detective in St. Louis for fifteen years,” Bob explained. “He
always thinks it’s an inside job.”

“Spouses are always trying
to whack each other,” he shrugged. “It’s the nature of the beast.
Did your husband have a mistress?”

The question hit me hard, in
the gut, like an unexpected punch from a prizefighter. I sucked in
a breath as the emotional blow landed.

“I don’t know. I never
thought about it.” The idea of Henri having another woman in his
life was a concept I had never confronted. Looking back, there had
never been any reason to suspect he was having an affair. There
were only business calls late at night. I never came upon him
whispering romantic things into the receiver. If anything, Henri
was probably the least romantic Frenchman alive. He was cold,
unemotional, and uninterested in other people’s
feelings.

“A guy like that’s likely to
have more than one,” Angelo decided. “The colder they are, the
meaner they are, especially when they’re mobbed up. They toss out
their women like used tissues. They’re real bastards.”

“The question is why is this
guy so bent on killing you? Who benefits from your death?” Bob
wanted to know. I didn’t have an answer for him. “Do you have a
will?”

“Declan just told me last
week I should revise it, but I didn’t have time to sit down and go
over everything, especially since I still don’t know what happened
with Maura’s handling of the insurance money.”

“How much did you get after
Henri died?” Bob asked. He whistled when I told him about the
two-million dollar policy.

“I didn’t even know that my
husband had done that. And then, when Maura’s advice was sour on
Prevenue, I transferred a lot of the money into gold and other
precious metals, even though she insisted that wasn’t a good
idea.”

“You overrode her advice to
you?” Bob looked at me with fresh interest.

“Yes. Declan told me these
things often happen when you’re dealing with that much money, but I
was afraid I would lose even more if I didn’t have a safe
investment. I didn’t really care if there wasn’t much of a return
on it.”

“How much of the two million
did you put into precious metals?”

“About $650,000. All
together, Henri’s estate was worth about three and a half million,
with the sale of our home. I didn’t think it was a big deal to put
some money aside for a rainy day, just in case my other investments
went bad.” Angelo folded his arms and gave me a big
whistle.

“Hedging your bets because
you don’t trust your financial planner. Interesting.”

“I only used Maura Trelawney
because Declan recommended her.”

“Did she have access to that
investment?” Bob made some notes on his pad. I saw him draw dollar
signs for emphasis after he scribbled a word I couldn’t
read.

“It wasn’t part of the
portfolio she was managing for me,” I told the men. “I’m the only
one authorized to handle it.

“Independent. Did you also
buy your new place yourself?” Angelo inquired.

“Yes, I did. Declan actually
didn’t think it was such a great idea for me to move to New
Rochelle. He argued against it. He wanted me to move into his
place, but I felt like I needed something of my own. My plan was to
get back to work as an artist, and I needed studio
space.”

“So that’s not part of any
kind of trust?” I shook my head and Bob went on asking me
questions. “Do you have a mortgage on the place? And are you the
owner of record?”

“I paid cash for it and yes,
it’s in my name.”

“How much did you
pay?”

“A little over half a
million dollars. It’s a two-bedroom, two bath place with a
den.”

“So, out of about three and
a half million dollars, you’ve got control over a little more than
a million of it directly, with the rest in the hands of the person
managing your finances?”

“Yes.”

“Who took over from Maura
Trelawney, after she was murdered?” I could tell Bob’s interest was
whetted.

“Her replacement at Oracle
was Lorena del Gatos.”

“And you sat down with her,
to go over your financial situation?” Angelo was equally
curious.

“Actually, she canceled the
first meeting we scheduled because her mother was sick in Miami and
she had to fly down there. Then, we had a second meeting set up,
but she said it would be best to wait, because there were three
major stocks in my portfolio that were undergoing transition
because the corporations were being reshuffled.”

“What kind of stocks were
these?” asked Bob.

“Two were banks and one was
a telecommunication company.”

“So? When did you meet with
her?”

“I didn’t, actually. When I
tried to schedule a third meeting, after the first two were
canceled, she told me she had to be in Hong Kong for a conference,
but she would be in touch when she returned. That was three weeks
ago. I got busy with the cruise, so I haven’t gotten back to her
yet. But she’s sent me monthly reports on the account. I’m making a
little profit with most of the stocks. She actually suggested I
turn in the precious metals now and consolidate the portfolio at
Oracle.”

Chapter Six --

“Is she married?” Angelo
asked. “Is she good-looking?”

“I never saw her. I couldn’t
tell you anything about her, other than she’s been at Oracle longer
than Maura.”

Bob and Angelo exchanged a
glance that seemed to convey something important without actually
sharing a word. I wondered what that was all about, but I hesitated
to question them. Bob wrote a couple of things on his pad before he
looked up at me.

“How are you at handling bad
news?”

“What kind of bad news?” My
throat suddenly felt dry.

“Ange, go get a copy of the
note and we’ll let her take a look.” Bob and I waited in the
silence during the minute Angelo was out of the cubicle. Bob didn’t
seem to be in any rush to explain the details of the note I was
about to see.

“Here it is, boss.” He
reached over me and handed it to Bob, who took one long look at it
before he handed it to me.

“We found this in Cabin
619B.”

I took the piece of paper
from him with hands that shook. From the expression on their faces,
I knew this was not good news. I got through the first paragraph
before I recoiled.

“But this is a suicide
note!” I cried. “I didn’t write this. Surely you can’t believe I
did!”

“Keep reading,” Bob
instructed me, his eyes fastened on my face. I went on. The letter
said that I was taking this cruise as a final fling because I was
now penniless, having lost everything through bad decisions made by
me and by Maura. It went on to say that after Maura’s death, I
insisted on handling my own finances, and that’s where I ran afoul
of the banks holding the notes on my loans.

“But I don’t have any
loans!” I insisted, tears of frustration and dismay welling up in
my eyes. “I got an allowance from Oracle to cover my monthly
expenses. Everything else was invested to provide a
return!”

“Did you also have an
accountant?” Angelo asked me.

“No. I paid my monthly bills
on time.”

“Did you know your condo is
on the market?” Bob took a piece of paper out of the folder he had
on the table and slid it across to me.

“What?” Numb, I sat there,
unable to absorb what I was hearing.

“Your house is listed as
being for sale. The asking price is $499,000.”

“Where did you get
this?”

“It’s my job to keep on top
of this kind of thing, Mariem.”

“But you never said a word
to me! How could you not tell me this?” I was incredulous at the
level of deception.

“Look at it from our point
of view,” Angelo suggested, shifting his bulk in his chair. “We
find a suicide note after someone tries to toss you overboard.
We’ve got a potential killer on the Beauty of the Seas. And when we
start digging for information on you, our security people in New
York find out that you’re being robbed blind while you’re cruising
to Bermuda. By the way, you and Declan got married two weeks ago in
Westport. The paperwork was filed last week. Not only is he your
spouse, he’s claiming that he’s been trying to salvage as much of
your money as he could, but you just owe too much to too many
creditors. Interestingly enough, the creditors seem to own
companies that only exist on paper.”

“In other words, you’ve been
swindled,” said the former homicide detective. “And if you don’t
die, they’re going to get caught with their weinies in the hot
coals.”

“This can’t be happening. It
just can’t be. Why would they steal from me this way? Why would
they do this?”

“It took the insurance
company a while to release that money, correct?”

I glanced at Angelo. His
eyes were razor sharp and I was grateful that he was on my side,
because I got the sense he was onto something really
big.

“There was a question about
Henri’s body. It took a couple of months to wash up on shore down
in Miami.”

“Was Declan a witness to
Henri’s disappearance?” I nodded slowly.

“Maura was there, too. They
were at a financial conference on investment strategies for the
next century. The boat was taking them for a sightseeing
sail.”

“Who was Henri’s physician?
Who was his dentist?”

“Dr. Klaus called me after
the news broke that Henri had fallen overboard and told me that he
would be happy to cooperate with dental x-rays, but Declan told me
that Henri’s dentist was a Dr. Su Mi Chin and that Dr. Klaus had
recently retired. By the time Henri’s body was found, Dr. Klaus
really had retired, so I just assumed that Dr. Chin had Henri’s
dental records.”

“You know what I find really
odd?” Angelo stood up to stretch his legs. He took a couple of
steps and came back to me. He towered over me for a moment, his
hands on his hips.

“Your husband went
overboard. Someone tried to throw you overboard. Seems to me you’re
not safe as long as you’re at sea.”

I glanced at Bob. He was
watching me. I remembered the conversation we had this morning in
my cabin, about that trip to Myanmar.

“Pattern,” Bob said. “Not a
coincidence.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,”
Angelo agreed. I wasn’t sure what passed between them, but
something changed.

“Mariem, you said Declan
Dowd suggested you take this cruise because the United States
attorney’s office was investigating connections between you, Maura,
and Henri?” Bob looked at me expectantly.

“Right.”

“We called Assistant U. S.
Attorney Megan Plourde. She had no idea what we were talking about
when we asked if you were about to be called to testify. Not only
is Maura Trelawney’s file closed, the man who was suspected of
killing her was himself murdered in Honduras two months ago, during
a shoot-out with the cops down there.”