Title Wave (8 page)

It was
only a little after eleven when Tricia finished reading her library book and started another on her e-reader, but two hours into it she didn't feel the least bit sleepy. She kept eyeing the box on the dresser that contained the sweater. The idea that someone on board was keeping tabs on her made Tricia feel uncomfortable, as well as apprehensive. So much for her relaxing vacation. Still, she turned out the bedside lamp and settled down, but despite her best efforts, the trip to dreamland seemed to be delayed by more than just a couple of hours.

Maybe she shouldn't drink alcohol so near bedtime. More likely it was thoughts of her upcoming renovation that kept her from drifting off to sleep. She tried to banish such considerations, but the idea of making what she had often thought of as temporary digs into her real and true home was rather exciting. One entire wall of her new living room would accommodate all her favorite vintage mysteries. Perhaps
she'd have someone design a special climate-controlled cabinet to hold the most fragile and valuable tomes in her collection.

The ideas kept circling and circling through her brain and wouldn't stop. Often, at times like that, she'd get up and make a cup of hot cocoa. She wasn't fussy. The instant kind from a packet was just fine.

The ship boasted twenty-four-hour room service, but Tricia didn't want to be served. The truth was, it sometimes took so long for the food or drink to make it from the kitchen that it just wasn't hot enough to satisfy.

Tricia threw back the duvet, turned on the bedside lamp, and got out of bed. Stuffing her feet into her complimentary
Celtic Lady
slippers, she donned her new sweater over her sweats, grabbed her keycard, and quietly left the stateroom.

The lights in the long corridor blazed twenty-four/seven, and if the suite hadn't included a large picture window, she was certain she might never have known if it was day or night. The doors to all the other rooms and suites were closed as she headed for the Lido Restaurant. The only sound was the ever-present thrum of the ship's powerful diesel engines belowdecks.

Tricia pressed the
UP
button and stood before the lift, waiting. She looked around her, feeling a little unnerved. Was it safe to roam the decks in your pj's? What if the person who'd sent the gifts was waiting somewhere to pounce?

The lift doors opened, and Tricia made sure the car was empty before she stepped inside, pressing the button for Deck 10. Would it be safer to walk back down to her stateroom, or was she just being paranoid? Then again, that kind of exercise might just get her blood churning and she'd never get to sleep.

A few other night owls sat at tables, reading or quietly conversing, and Tricia helped herself to a mug, tipping cocoa mix into it and filling it with hot water. She stirred until the powder was completely
dissolved and took a tentative sip.
Ouch!
Much too hot. She poured a little out and added a little milk, then stirred again.
Ahh
. This time the temperature was perfect. She took enough sips so that she could comfortably walk the corridors without spilling her drink, and set off back to her stateroom.

Like her trip to the Lido Restaurant, Tricia met no other passengers or crew on her way back down to her cabin, but something was different as she approached her suite. The door to one of the staterooms was ajar, which was odd. The heavy cabin doors needed a wedge to stay propped open, and the door hadn't been open some ten minutes before when she'd left the deck.

“Hello?” Tricia called quietly. “Is anyone inside?”

The room was dark—which meant no keycard sat in the slot that powered the stateroom.

“Hello?” Tricia called again, wondering if anyone was inside, and if so, should she disturb them? She glanced up and down the corridor. Still nobody in sight. She sipped her cocoa, which had quickly cooled. It made no sense. Why prop open a door and then leave the stateroom vulnerable to theft or vandalism?

Curiosity got the better of her, and Tricia pushed the door fully open. “Hello.”

No one answered.

She took out her keycard, slipped it into the slot just inside the door, and instantly the lights came on. The double bed looked like it had been slept in, the covers thrown back in an untidy jumble, but the room appeared to be unoccupied. Tricia used her foot to replace the wedge in the door. Had the stateroom's current resident been like Tricia and felt the need for a soothing cup of cocoa? She glanced around the lounge. The room's small desk was clear of clutter, and the loveseat was piled high with clothes that looked vaguely familiar. She tiptoed into the bedroom, where lights blazed. The complimentary
slippers with the
Celtic Lady
emblem, like those she wore, sat beside the bed. On the bedside table was a pill caddy and a half-empty glass of water.

Light spilled from the opening at the bottom of the suite's bathroom's door. “Hello?” Tricia called again.

Still no answer.

She knocked on the door.

Again, no answer.

She tried the handle. It wasn't locked.

“Is anybody in there?” she called before poking her head inside.

Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of EM Barstow, dressed in a long flannel nightgown, eyes bulging, her tongue lolling, with a colorful scarf around her neck, hanging from the marble shower's rainfall fixture.

Tricia turned away from the terrible sight, squeezing her eyes shut.

Oh, crap. Now I'm the
Celtic Lady
's jinx at sea!

*   *   *

“Just what
were you doing in Ms. Barstow's stateroom at two in the morning, Ms. Miles?” asked the
Celtic Lady
's chief of security, Ian McDonald. He was a good-looking man, probably in his early forties. Tall, a little beefy, with a close-cropped ginger beard that Tricia might have found intriguing under other circumstances, he spoke with a slight accent, which was also rather appealing.

Tricia squirmed on the uncomfortable straight-backed chair in McDonald's tiny office. “As I've explained to you at least three times, I'd gone to the Lido Restaurant to get a cup of cocoa.” She held up the empty mug she still had. “When I returned, I saw the door to Ms. Barstow's suite had been wedged open. I thought it odd and I went inside to see if everything was all right. It wasn't.”

“
What
made you go inside?” he repeated gently, but firmly.

“I—” she began, about to tell him that she'd found more than her fair share of bodies since opening her mystery bookstore, but then thought better of it. “I have an insatiable curiosity about things. Maybe I'm just nosy,” she offered with a shrug.

McDonald was not amused.

Tricia let out a sigh. “Did Ms. Barstow leave a note?”

“You're assuming it was suicide?” McDonald asked.

“Well, yes.” Wasn't it obvious?

“And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“You mean besides the fact she was found hanging?” He nodded. Tricia shrugged. “I guess it was the pills.”

“Pills?” he pressed.

“I saw a pill container on the desk, and a glass with a little water in it. I just wondered if she'd taken an overdose and then decided to make sure she carried out her attempt.”

McDonald continued to stare at Tricia. He had the warmest gray eyes she'd ever seen.

“What is your occupation, Ms. Miles?”

“I'm a bookseller.”

“Did you know Ms. Barstow?”

Tricia hesitated. “We'd met. She came to my store in Stoneham, New Hampshire, for a book signing several years ago.”

“What was your opinion of the woman?”

Bombastic blowhard. Obnoxious. Insufferable
, were the first descriptors that came to Tricia's mind, but she didn't wish to speak ill of the dead. “She wrote a good thriller.”

His stare intensified. “That's it?”

Tricia nodded.

McDonald frowned. “That's not particularly helpful.” He scrutinized her face. “So, you admired her?”

Again Tricia hesitated. “Not necessarily. I read her work and have
customers who wouldn't want to miss her upcoming books. I'm sure they'll be disappointed to hear of her loss.”

“But you won't?” McDonald guessed.

Tricia shrugged.

“Officer, my shop does sell some new releases, but I'm primarily interested in vintage mysteries.”

“So you didn't like Ms. Barstow?”

“I honestly didn't know her. I dealt with her one time at my store, and I observed her here on the
Celtic Lady
, but other than that, she was a virtual stranger.”

“Do you know of anyone who would want to see Ms. Barstow dead?”

Did McDonald think the thriller author had been murdered? Why? Because there was no note to support suicide? And then Tricia remembered the cozy authors' panel she'd attended in the ship's theater earlier in the day. Diana Lovell had joked that the big-name author's backlist had obliterated all chances for midlist authors to hit the bestsellers list, but it
had
been a joke. She'd hosted Ms. Lovell at signings at her own store and had found her to be not only elegant, but charming, and she loved the Perfect Posies Mysteries. Sara and Julien were two of her favorite characters. And Tricia had no doubt that while the other authors on the panel may have cursed the timing of their book releases in relation to other, bigger-name authors, they pretty much had to suck it up and accept it, hoping that when their next release debuted they might fare better. They were the victims of poor timing, like hundreds of other authors, but nothing more.

Tricia gave herself a mental shake. The woman had committed suicide. Unhappy people did it every day, leaving devastation in their wake, although she was sure that may not be the case in EM Barstow's death. Oh, sure, her publisher and a million or so readers would mourn her passing—mainly because they weren't going to get any more
Tennyson Eisenberg thrillers—but those people EM had abused on a regular basis might not grieve at all.

And then there was Arnold Smith. “I did overhear a rather unpleasant conversation between Ms. Barstow and one of her readers earlier in the day in the ship's library.”

“Oh?”

Tricia related what she'd heard while searching for something new to read. Should she mention what Fiona had said about the man, or was it better to let McDonald do his own sleuthing and form his own opinions on Smith?

She decided the latter.

“Anything else?” McDonald asked.

“Have you spoken with Ms. Barstow's assistant?” Tricia asked.

“I didn't know she had one.”

“Her name is Dori Douglas. She's a passenger on this voyage. Perhaps she can tell you about Ms. Barstow's emotional state.”

McDonald turned to the computer on his desk and began tapping on the keyboard. “Here she is. Stateroom 7045. I believe I'll have a chat with her, too.”

“Will you wake her up to do so?”

He shook his head. “Until I know otherwise, Ms. Barstow's death will be treated as a suicide. Talking to her associate can wait. I'm sure she'll be extremely upset.”

“Maybe not,” Tricia said offhandedly.

McDonald frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It's no secret that Ms. Barstow treated her assistant abominably.”

“And you have this on good authority?”

“I witnessed it more than once on this trip—and so did many of the other passengers.”

McDonald frowned. “Perhaps I will go speak with her now. How do you think she'll take the news?”

Do a jig?
Tricia wondered. “I really couldn't say. I've only spoken with the woman a couple of times.”

McDonald nodded.

“What will happen to the body?” Tricia asked.

“We'll store it in our morgue until we get some direction from the family. It may be that it travels with us until we return to New York. That
is
where Ms. Barstow was to disembark.”

Tricia nodded. Unless they kept the body well refrigerated, it could be quite ripe by the time the ship made it back to that port. That was the hazard of dying in an inconvenient place.

“May I go back to my cabin now?” Tricia asked, not that she thought she'd ever go back to sleep after finding the author dead. She had a feeling that when she closed her eyes she'd see EM Barstow's startling eyes, her mottled skin, and had there been an abrasion under her chin? She'd have to think on that. She was sure the ship's doctor and McDonald would have noticed it.

McDonald stood. “You're free to go. If I have more questions, I'm sure I'll be able to find you.”

Tricia rose from her chair. “Thank you.”

“Good evening,” McDonald said.

Tricia glanced at her watch. Evening? Good morning, more like. It was nearly five o'clock.

Tricia returned
to her stateroom and again attempted to go to sleep, but instead of visualizing her new living quarters, her mind's eye kept revisiting the terrible image of EM hanging from her shower. Still, she must have dozed for an hour or two, she realized upon hearing noises in the lounge outside her room door. She glanced at the bedside clock and found it was after eight. Rats! She'd probably missed Fiona's interview on the ship's TV channel. Hauling herself out of bed, she put on her robe and entered the suite's common area.

Angelica stood near the stateroom's door, looking out the peephole. She turned. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you.”

“I think I got about two hours of sleep all night,” Tricia said, and took her accustomed seat.

“Oh, no! You must be exhausted. Is anything wrong?”

“Well, kind of . . .”

“No one is stalking you,” Angelica said with authority.

Tricia shook her head.

“Perhaps you're finding it hard to sleep without Miss Marple near your feet. I know you miss her terribly. I miss Sarge, too. That's the problem with taking a trip like this. We have to leave our beloved fur-babies at home.”

“They're being well taken care of, but, hang the roaming charges, I'm calling Pixie when we get into port to check up on them. I'm sure Miss Marple isn't happy sharing her home with Sarge, but I hope they have at least called a truce.”

“I don't think we could have left our pets with anyone more qualified than Pixie. She loves them both.”

“Yes, she does,” Tricia agreed.

A knock at the door caused them to look up. “That'll be the continental breakfast I ordered last night.”

Sure enough, Sebastian had arrived with a cart draped in white linen. “Good morning, ladies,” he said. “May I pour you some coffee?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you,” Angelica said.

Sebastian poured and handed them each a cup. “Please let me know if I can get you anything else.”

“Thank you,” the sisters said as he left the lounge, heading for Tricia's room to make up the bed.

Angelica sipped her coffee. “Is there anything else on your mind that's keeping you awake?”

“Besides my”—she did not say
stalker
—“admirer and upcoming renovation?” Angelica nodded. “I did have a little adventure overnight.”

“Oh?”

“It started when I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about the reno, and then I thought I'd go up to the Lido Restaurant for some cocoa. And when I came back down to our deck, I saw an open stateroom door.”

“And you investigated,” Angelica said with a frown. “I thought you told me you weren't going to do that anymore.”

“Yes, and I meant it. But I kind of found EM Barstow hanging in her shower.”

“Oh my God!” Angelica cried. “Please tell me you're fooling!”

Tricia shook her head.

“Suicide?”

“That's what the ship's security officer seems to want to believe.” And if it was, then she was off the hook for being a jinx at sea. Still . . .

Angelica had noticed her hesitation. “But you don't?”

“I don't know. There was a suspicious mark under her chin.”

“What do you think it was?”

“It looked like a rug burn.”

“You think someone dragged her across the carpet and then strung up her body?”

“I've read a lot of mysteries over the years. Maybe I'm just the suspicious kind.”

“Can you imagine the speculation that's going to go on for the rest of the trip?” Angelica asked.

“There are at least ten or fifteen mystery authors aboard. I'm sure there are going to be a lot of theories tossed around.”

“What's yours?”

Tricia shrugged, got up from the couch, and examined the breakfast cart. Angelica had ordered pastries, including a couple of croissants, and two containers of strawberry yogurt. Aching to buck her usual routine, Tricia almost reached for one of the croissants. How she would have liked to set it on a plate, cut it into several sections, and then gouge some sweet butter from the small ramekin, spreading it on one of the pieces before popping it into her mouth. Instead, she grabbed one of the yogurt containers and a spoon.

“Do you think Dori Douglas could have killed EM?” Angelica asked.

Tricia shrugged, peeling off the lid. “That would be rather obvious, wouldn't it?”

“Many times it is. If EM
was
murdered, what jurisdiction would investigate, and if they discovered who did the deed, what would happen?”

“That's a good question.” Tricia took a spoonful of yogurt and swallowed. “You know, sometime ago I read that Congress held hearings on just that subject. As I recall, the cruise industry didn't come out looking very good. They claim that crimes, such as theft, sexual assault, and even murder are few and far between. They claimed the odds of such things happening to a passenger were akin to getting hit by lightning.”

“That's no comfort when Mother Nature has nearly electrocuted you,” Angelica said. “You've found more than your fair share of dead bodies. Do you think it's a credible supposition to believe EM
was
murdered?”

Tricia thought about everything she'd seen in the author's stateroom. “Yes. And that doesn't make me feel very secure. It means there's a murderer running around the ship. There's nowhere to go to be safe, except perhaps locked here in our suite.”

“Maybe we ought to employ the buddy system and stick together as much as possible.”

“It couldn't hurt,” Tricia agreed.

Angelica's brow furrowed. “Oh, dear. Ginny and the baby are vulnerable. I'm going to tell Antonio not to leave their sides.”

“Then again, we could just be paranoid,” Tricia pointed out.

“I wanted them to accompany me on this trip. I wanted the five of us to have a wonderful family vacation, and now I've put all of you in terrible danger,” Angelica cried.

“No, no! Ange. I could be all wrong. I've been wrong plenty of times. There could be any number of reasons why EM wanted to kill herself. Things that wouldn't be obvious to any of us. Maybe she was
unhappy with her life in general. Goodness knows she sure came across as totally miserable. She may have suffered from debilitating depression. Perhaps she had a terminal disease and didn't want to succumb from it. There could be dozens of motives for her to want to end her life.”

“And what if there weren't?”

“We may never know,” Tricia said. “But we shouldn't jump to any conclusions until we have more information.”

“You just said the cruise industry as a whole tries to cover up crime. Do you think the Celtic line is better or worse than any other?”

“I have no idea. I guess we have to believe their PR and hope that passenger safety really is their top priority.”

“And if it isn't?”

Tricia could only give an uncomfortable shrug.