Set Sail for Murder (8 page)

“Nuh-uh! Not this time!” Placenta instantly countered. “I know what you’re going to suggest. I won’t become a spy. The man who tickles my ivories, er, plays the eighty-eights, isn’t anywhere close to being a natural-born killer! So what if he’s held a grudge against Laura? Who hasn’t? Her picture on the dartboard in his cabin means nothing!”

“Dartboard?” Polly said eagerly.

“He gave her devil’s horns and a mustache and blacked out her front teeth.” Placenta giggled.

Tim chuckled. “When I designed Garry Windsor’s last big party, his personal assistant told me that one of the important rules at the house is that whenever Garry returns from his
Gold on Ice
figure skating tours with that Austrian harridan, Helga Bruder, a fresh photo of Helga has to be on his dartboard. He’d love to kill her, but of course he wouldn’t.”

“See! Punctured pictures mean zilch,” Placenta said.

“Polly Pepper never judges anyone, lest she herself be judged,” the star said. “I’m simply suggesting that both of your new friends have had unpleasant encounters with Laura Crawford, and both have semiplausible motives to eliminate her. I want you both to keep an open mind about your paramours. Let your beaux spill their guts, and get confessions out of ‘em!”

“The only confession I want from my Lawrence is that he can’t—as the song says—smile without me,” Placenta said. “If I play my cards right, he might take me away from Hollywood. I’d kill to have a normal life!”

Polly took a small sip from her glass, and gave Placenta a serious look. “Darling. Honey. Look around. This ship is ground zero for
normal.
Would you really consider giving up being one degree of separation from Jennifer Aniston’s latest mating mash-up? She needs your double chocolate
fudge brownies whenever she gets dumped. And what about all those fab invites to Ellen and Portia’s anniversary parties? You’d miss those for sure. And what about the fun of getting firsthand and completely unethical but totally reliable trashy dish from Dr. Hooper?”

“Only the really dumb stars still go to that scurrilous shrink,” Tim said. “But the stories about Rob and Julia and Ben and Adam are too bizarre not to be true! He’s more fun than
Access Hollywood, E!
and
TMZ
all rolled into one gossip convention.”

“You couldn’t give up living at Pepper Plantation either,” Polly continued. “Or having Barry Manilow over for drinks at lush hour, and playing Texas Hold’em with Wanda Sykes twice a month. Could you conceive of a life in which a manufactured Disney vacation satisfied your spirit of adventure?”

Placenta hesitated. “I once knew someone who was normal.”

“Once? That’s quite enough, dear.”

“She seemed happy,” Placenta continued. “Mary worked for an insurance company. She had a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath townhouse in downtown Detroit.”

“What good is half a bathroom?” Polly pooh-poohed.

“She married her fitness trainer … even though he had a wandering eye….”

Polly screeched, “The bum!”

“No. He really had an eye that wandered all over the place,” Placenta corrected. “You’d talk to the man and couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t looking over your shoulder, or at your chest, or at a bit of something lodged in your teeth. His left eyeball just sorta randomly moved, like a glob of that stuff in lava lamps.”

Tim crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “I hate to say it, but Polly’s right. You wouldn’t last a week if we reintroduced you back into the wild. You’ve lived among eccentrics for too long. You’re one of us now.”

Polly clicked her tongue. “Everyone thinks that beds are warmer on the other side of Beverly Hills. Trust me, that’s only because
normal
people are bored with their lives. They use sex and drugs and porn and these pseudocelebrity cruises for escapism from dreary jobs and kids who they may love but don’t necessarily like. They’d kill to be in your shoes, as much as you think you’d kill to be in theirs.”

Placenta rolled her eyes then stopped a waitress who was passing by with a tray of smoked oysters. “We’ll take those off your hands, dear,” she said.

Tim said, “‘Normal’ people don’t like smoked oysters!”

Placenta looked at Polly, whose vacant eyes now seemed to be staring into the abyss of Madame Destiny’s domain. “Daydreaming about a shipload of suspects?” Placenta asked, after she’d swallowed two oysters.

Tim waved his hand in front of his mother before she blinked and returned to the moment. Polly suddenly bolted upright, picked up her champagne glass, and knocked back the remaining bubbly. With a river of adrenaline gushing through her system she gloated, “I’m brilliant! I should get one of those Genius Awards! I’ve been waiting for an amazing idea to come to me, and it just did! I know where to get the name of the killer!”

I
n the next moment, Polly and her troupe were racing out of the lounge and tearing along the Upper Promenade Deck to the glass elevators. As Polly impatiently jabbed at the call button, Placenta nervously tapped a foot and Tim cracked his knuckles. “You’d think this was the Sears Tower instead of a twelve-story ship,” Polly complained. When the car finally arrived, they smiled to conceal their irritation as they waited for the packed car of ancient passengers to shuffle out and argue about whether or not they were on the correct deck.

“You’re an idiot,” said one old man to another.

“It’s this way.”

“You’re turned around.”

“I have a sixth sense.”

“It’s called dementia.”

Just as one old man with more liver spots on his bald head than bruises on an overripe banana peel convinced the others that indeed they had gotten off too early, Polly, Tim, and Placenta slipped into the glass box and frantically pushed the button to close the door. One of the women in the group tried to step back inside. “What goes down, must come back up. Like heartburn,” Polly trilled as she nudged the lady
out and pushed away the flailing arms of a dozen octopuses trying to keep the door from closing. The elders looked on with dumbstruck faces as the door panels slipped across the threshold and cut them off from Polly.

Swiftly dropping to the main deck, Polly, Tim, and Placenta exited past another queue of withered old-timers eager to ride up to the casino or dining rooms. Polly’s son and maid were in lockstep behind the star as she flew past the Armani, Cartier, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo, and Mont Blanc boutiques. Ordinarily, each of these shops would have lured Polly away from whatever appointment to which she may have been en route. But not this time. Halfway down the main concourse, Polly came to an abrupt halt in front of the All Bound Up bookstore. “This is it,” she said.

There, in the display window was a giant poster of the famous Hirschfeld caricature of Polly with her exaggerated large eyes and lashes, and prominent overbite. Below the poster was a pyramid of boxed sets of
The Polly Pepper Playhouse
collector’s edition DVDs. Polly smiled.

As they entered the store, Polly instantly spied a young woman wearing the uniform of the ship’s employees. The girl was leaning her elbows on the counter as she read a book. Polly sized up the clerk and figured she looked nerdy enough to perhaps have been friendless as a kid, and therefore may have had time to watch reruns of
The Polly Pepper Playhouse
instead of being chased by boys. Polly placed her hands on her hips, tilted her head to a forty-degree angle, smiled brightly, and cheerfully called out in her well-known Polly Pepper falsetto, “I’m hee-er!”

The startled employee recoiled. When she recovered she instantly recognized Polly. “Oh, my stars! It’s … um, you … from the DVD box! Wow! Your hair really is that color! Does Bozo mind?”

Despite her annoyance, Polly maintained her famous and infectious smile and moved into the store. She reached out to shake the young woman’s hand. “I’m a terrible guest on
this adorable little boat of yours. I should have dropped by sooner to introduce myself. I’m Polly Pepper, of course.”

“Tiffany-Amber. Of course.”

“Is Tiffany-Amber responsible for taking such good care of my babies?” Polly pointed to the large display of DVDs. “They look dusted and as fresh as the day they came out of the factory.”

“They don’t require much care and feeding,” said Tiffany-Amber. “Anyway, nobody touches ‘em. In fact, we’ve just slashed the price—again. You’d think there’d be at least a little interest. ‘Specially since that actress who got sliced and diced in the spa is the star.”

Tim and Placenta simultaneously reached out to steady Polly.

“You’ll think I’m an empty-headed, vain, and ego-driven legend, but I’m simply dying to know who is gobbling up my precious body of work,” Polly said.

“As I said, the fish aren’t biting.” Tiffany-Amber closed her copy of
Killer Cruise.

“Still, I must thank each and every person who purchased my collection. They’ll naturally want my autograph, for sure,” Polly said. “Would you be an incredible doll and provide me with a list of all the passengers whose journey I’m helping to make extraspecial by their selecting this amazing and historic bit of television memorabilia?”

Tiffany-Amber paused. “Gee. Um. Cashless cruising is how it works on board, so we probably have a record of the sales. But I think passengers’ purchases are like confidential or something. Like ATM PIN numbers or sins you confess to a priest.”

Polly surreptitiously nudged Tim. He reached out to Tiffany-Amber and introduced himself. Instantly, his blue eyes, deep dimples, and warm smile cleaved Tiffany-Amber’s rapidly pounding heart. “Hey ya,” he said in his most seductive voice. “Listen. Here’s a grand scheme. Mom—Polly Pepper, I mean—is giving an intimate private cocktail
soirée tomorrow night in the Lusitania Lounge,” he lied. “Just a bunch of used-to-be-semifamous and now totally forgotten has-beens hanging out and wondering what happened to their lives and careers. It’d be cool to be with someone like you to keep me from slitting my wrists when they start counting who had the most guest appearances on
The Love Boat.”

Tim had Tiffany-Amber’s heart at first drool. Not only did she eagerly accept the invitation but she decided that she could indeed call up an inventory of purchases from the store’s database. In moments she accessed the Excel document on which the names of every passenger who purchased Polly’s DVD collection were entered. She printed out a copy and handed it to Tim, who folded the paper and gave Tiffany-Amber a warm smile and a thank-you that practically melted her plastic name badge.

Tiffany-Amber reluctantly took her eyes off Tim for a moment and looked at Polly. “You won’t get writer’s cramp signing from this list. If you start now, I’ll bet you finish before the flavor’s gone from my gum.” She snapped a wad of Bazooka.

“I’ll give it my best shot,” Polly said, trying to suppress her irritation at both Tiffany-Amber, and the 2,000 plus passengers’ apparent lack of interest in buying her DVD collection. As the trio left the store, Tim backed out slowly, smiling and maintaining eye contact with Tiffany-Amber. As he blasted her with enough megavolts of sexual energy to keep her awake with an all-night fever, Polly teased her son. “Heartbreaker!”

“Every girl needs a platonic bff.” Tim smiled.

Soon, the trio was back in Polly’s cabin and Tim was unfolding the passenger information. Looking at the short list, Polly’s eyes instantly went to the column on the far right-hand side and shouted, “$29.99?! The bonus booklet alone, with never-before-published photos of me with Cher and Bette and Rock and Barbra should cost more than that!”
When she finished being indignant she focused on the names listed on the sheet. Polly called out, “One. Two. Three. Bingo! Look at that. The last name on the list.”

“Lawrence Deerfield!” Tim said.

Placenta grabbed the piece of paper and looked at the name. Her heart sank. “The date of purchase was the day we set sail,” she said. “I will not believe that a man who finds me desirable is Laura Crawford’s murderer!”

“Maybe you’re next!” Polly said. “What if this nut job is a celebrity serial killer?”

“Lawrence is not a nut job. And I’m not a celebrity.”

“You’re practically radiant with my reflected glory!”

“Any radiation from me is the stored-up heat of finally canoodling with an attractive and talented man!”

Tim wrapped his arms around Placenta. “Heck, even the other two names here don’t mean anything—yet. They could all simply be people with the sophisticated sense to own Polly’s classic DVDs.”

“Sophisticated? On this boat?”

“I’m going to the captain!” Polly announced.

“Why?” Tim said.

“There’s a killer on the loose!”

“He knows that.”

“But he doesn’t know who committed the crime!”

“Neither do you!”

“It’s probably Lawrence Deerfield.”

“Probably?” Tim countered.

“Where’s your evidence?” Placenta added. “A dartboard with Laura’s tattered picture? A piano accompanist who said he didn’t much care for Laura Crawford because she was responsible for getting him fired from a job? A purchase of DVDs at the bookstore? Unless you find something in Lawrence’s cabin with Laura’s blood or DNA on it, you’d better think twice about potential slander.”

“I’ll bet he saw Laura and then flipped out,” Polly said. “He’s at the piano. Laura Crawford walks by and doesn’t
acknowledge his playing—like most everyone else. It’s another insult from her. He decides that the ship is too small for the two of them. Anticipating being afloat for a full week with the shrew in close proximity was way too much for him to handle.

“Under a spell of animosity, he planned the best way to get rid of his nemesis. He considered throwing her overboard. But cameras are everywhere. He’d have been videotaped and quickly arrested. He’s been on this ship long enough to know that there aren’t any cameras in the spa. Oh, and to make the murder especially symbolic—like the Zodiac Killer—he bought the DVDs specifically to slash her with a disc on which she appeared.”

Tim said, “Your ideas are far-fetched, to say the least. For one thing, he’s playing piano almost nonstop.”