Go in. This’ll only take a few minutes.
Obeying my command, I pulled my phone from my back pocket and tapped the flashlight feature. With my cells sizzling, I entered an old-fashioned sitting room that reeked of shoe polish and pipe tobacco. It was sparsely furnished with faded green armchairs, end tables, and a couple of steamboat paintings.
Goosebumps erupted on my skin. I was standing in the room where Agnes Frump and the crewman had burned to death.
And I wanted to get out, quick.
I crossed the room and my lungs ceased to function as I methodically inched my way into the adjoining bedroom.
It was empty.
Apart from a twin bed, there was a writing desk against the far wall, and above it another portrait of Mark Twain. I didn’t know whether the captain was a killer, but he was definitely a Twainiac.
I went to the desk to search for the cards. A scroll was held open by two of Marian’s horrid krakens. I wrinkled my lips and shined my phone light on the brittle, yellowed paper. It was a map of the ship, and the images of the boat had been hand-drawn in black ink—except for two red x marks on the library and the backstage area in the dining hall.
I ran my finger over the x’s. Either the captain believed in the legend of Galliano’s gold, or he was looking for something else—perhaps related to the Scalinos.
I raised my phone to snap a picture.
And the calliope started to play.
My body jerked, and I pressed the camera button. The flash went off as the phone fell from my hand, and the white light seared my eyes. Half-blinded, I groped my way to the sitting room while the spooky steam-whistle music continued. I got to the exit and froze.
Fear licked my limbs like a fire that threatened to consume me, and I began backing up.
In the doorway was a shriveled face surrounded by flames.
The ghost of Agnes Frump.
10
A scream escaped my lips that was loud enough to drown out the calliope. I took another step backward and stumbled into an armchair.
Agnes Frump’s flaming ghost head extended a gnarly hand and…
Switched on the light?
A lantern lowered.
To reveal Ruth Walker’s lined face.
I let out another scream, more bloodcurdling than the first. Because she certainly wasn’t wearing her Fun Meter button. The only thing she had on was a super-short T-shirt with the cast of the TV show Night Court. Not only that, she wasn’t wearing her glasses or her omnipresent bun, which exposed an unsettling resemblance to Kermit the Frog—with Miss Piggy hair.
“Stop your caterwauling, you big sissy,” she hissed. “And tell me what in the twain you’re doing on the Galliano in the middle of the night.”
Something was off about that sentence. “Do you mean dickens?”
“We’re to replace that term with twain, per captain’s orders.”
I gave an eye roll. The guy had literary issues. “What about you? Why are you on the boat—dressed like a TV court tramp?”
Ruth’s gaze went half-mast, and she opened her mouth like a frog about to shoot its tongue at an insect.
The calliope reached a crescendo of terrifying tooting.
“Damn freak show music.” She threw up her arms. “I can’t get a word in edgewise.” Her fists clenched, and she stomped into the bedroom.
Confused, I rose and followed her. “What are you doing?”
“Shutting off the power to that blasted calliope.” She flipped a breaker near the captain’s desk, and circus-free silence filled the room.
“Did you turn it on?”
“Not on purpose. I bumped into the damn thing while I was investigating what I thought was a prowler.” She shot me a look worthy of the real ghost of Agnes Frump. “It came on by itself and scared me so bad I broke the safety chain on my glasses.”
“How’d you know about the breaker…in the captain’s bedroom?”
She raised her Kermit chin. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
“In my defense, you are wearing that slinky Night Court shirt.”
“As the cruise director, I’m in charge of entertainment. So the captain showed me where the switch was.”
I smirked. “I’ll bet he did.”
She sucked in enough air to make her neck balloon like a frog’s. “You watch how you talk to your steamboat superior, Missy. Now I’m not done with you, so you park it while I run and get my spare glasses from my cabin.”
My aching eyes popped. “You’re living on the steamboat?”
“Captain Vandergrift let me move onboard early to save on rent.” She twisted a graying brown lock of hair. “The man is a saint.”
“Uh, correction—he’s a murder suspect with a gambling problem.”
“Not everyone’s strong enough to be vice-free like me.” She picked up the lantern and swung it in my direction. “You plant your rear in that chair until I get back.”
I sat at the desk and rubbed my eyes as she left the room. The Agnes Frump scare and the sight of Ruth in the court-themed nightie had given me something akin to sinus pressure.
A couple of minutes passed, so I used the time to rummage through the desk drawers. Pens, tacks, blank envelopes. I opened a bottom drawer, and a slipper-clad foot kicked it shut on my hand.
“Oooowwow!” I howled and leapt up.
Ruth scowled at me from behind red horned rims with gold chains. “You take Captain Vandergrift off your suspect list.” She tightened the belt of the terrycloth robe I was thankful she’d put on. “You’ve already cost me two jobs, and if you cost me one with free housing, I’ll throw you overboard to the gators.”
I shook out my hand. “That might be less painful than what you just did. And incidentally, I can’t change the fact that the captain might’ve killed Nick Pescatore.”
“You can by focusing on that shady chef.” She began winding her hair on top of her head. “You’d be doing society a favor getting a mobster off the streets, so see to it that he’s guilty.”
“As an avid watcher of court TV, you of all people know that justice doesn’t work like that.”
“As your cruise director, I know justice on this boat works however I want.” She snapped an elastic band over her bun. “So if you don’t start investigating that Scalino brother, I’ll tell the captain who you are and get you fired for a change. That’ll be a bigger hoot and toot than the calliope can produce.”
I thought about threatening to tell the captain that she had fire onboard his matchstick steamboat, but Ruth was in judge-and-jury mode, so I didn’t stand a chance at a fair sentence. “I was planning to investigate Scalino tonight. But I’ll need your help because Wesley Sullivan is the detective on the case, and he’s out to get even with me for solving a couple of his homicides last year.”
Ruth’s gaze went from froggish to hawkish. “He’s that uppity Irish Romeo that split up you and Bradley and led to me losing my bank job.”
I nodded.
“No problemo. I’ll bind his hands and feet and make him walk the plank.”
Ruth had gotten her boats mixed up. “Um, we have a paddlewheel, not a plank. And what I meant was, I need your help in the galley to investigate the chef’s lemons.”
Her mouth puckered like she’d bit into one. “Have you been hitting the casino bar?”
I hadn’t, but I would’ve bet she had. “It has to do with the Mafia. They hide things like cash, drugs, and weapons inside everything from gutted fish to coffins.”
She pointed to the map. “Is that why you marked that up? To check for hidey-holes?”
“No, it belongs to Captain Vandergrift. I think the red x marks have something to do with Captain Galliano’s gold.”
Ruth ripped the map from the desk. She lowered her horned rims, and her chains started vibrating. And the flames I thought I’d seen around her head sprouted from her eyes. She turned and sprinted from the room.
I hurried to the deck and saw her charging full stea
m toward the pilothouse at the front of the boat. “Hey! What happened to helping me with the investigation?”
“Screw you, woman,” she shouted without looking back. “I’m going for the gold, and I sure as hell ain’t talkin’ about no lemon juice.”
I gave a frustrated arm flail. “But there’s a murderer on the boat.”
“There’s also a mobster, but I can’t worry about them. That missing Civil War gold is my ticket to cruise-ship retirement in my golden years.” She entered the pilothouse and slammed the door.
So much for recruiting her for my ragtag army.
I returned to the captain’s bedroom and finished my search. His quarters were clean, which wasn’t surprising since he hadn’t moved in, but I was fairly certain I’d find some dirt in the galley on the chef.
To avoid the calliope, and the risk of it playing spontaneously, I took the mid-ship stairwell to the main deck. I entered the dining hall through a side door and turned on the lights. With Ruth living on the boat, there was no reason to sneak around in the spooky dark.
I pushed open the galley door, flipped the switch, and gave a shiver. And it had as much to do with Pat the Sea Hag’s phlegm rag as it did Nick Pescatore’s frozen body.
Nick.
Whoever had killed him was colder than the deep freeze I’d found him in, and quite possibly the most dangerous killer I’d investigated. As I walked past the pantry and down the narrow hall to the walk-in, I wondered whether I should consider Veronica’s offer to hire a PI to take over the case.
But I couldn’t let Luigi down, especially not after he’d left me the winepress. And I had a war to win against Sullivan. Because if I didn’t beat him once and for all, he’d keep coming at me for more rounds, and my and Bradley’s relationship could get taken out in the process.
Resolute, I passed the chef’s desk and yanked open the walk-in.
The lemons gleamed in their crates. Like orbs of gold.
I hesitated before going inside. I’d gotten locked in a walk-in at a restaurant over Christmas, and I didn’t want to repeat the chilling experience. So I bent over and picked up a couple of lemon crates to prop open the door.
A faint scream came from one of the upper decks.
And a solid splat.
My stomach dropped, and so did the crates.
Was that the ghost sailor falling into the paddlewheel?
Or Ruth?
My feet ran up the mid-ship stairs, but my stomach had stayed in the galley. And my brain was in overdrive trying to downplay the horror of the scream and splat.
Ruth is fine. It’s that sailor ghost scam.
There’s no murderer onboard. What you heard was a recording.
Like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.
Or the Haunted Mansion?
“Leave it to my brain to screw me over,” I whispered.
I exited the stairwell onto the Texas deck and hooked a right to the rear of the boat—and that creepy calliope. Meanwhile, I tried to control my huffing and puffing. If a killer was on the steamboat, I didn’t want to out myself, nor did I want to inhale the acrid river smell.
With the stealth of a ninja, I made it to the captain’s quarters. I pressed my back against the wall and peered around the corner.
All clear.
I crept toward the calliope, willing it not to play.
Ever.
I reached the unsettling instrument and shot a nervous glance at the keys.
Still. Like the night.
I took another step.
A whoosh of air rushed past my ears, and something struck the middle of my back so hard that I would’ve sworn it had knocked the lungs from my body. Pain radiated across my shoulders and down my spine in the shape of a red-hot crucifix.
I made like a plank and face-planted on the deck.
And I waited for a fatal blow to the head.
“What’re you doing sneaking around like that?” Ruth’s outrage cracked above me like a lightning bolt. “Trying to scare me?”
The blow to the head I’d been expecting was metaphorical—the realization that I’d been struck by her and not a killer. I struggled to reply between waves of pain. And rage. “I came…to save you…from a killer.”
“Hmph.” The paddle of an oar touched down on the deck. “Looks to me like you’re laying down on the job again.”
I rued the day I’d met Ruth.
She raised the oar. “Let’s hop to it, shall we?”
I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to scream, EASIER SAID THAN DONE YOU OAR-WIELDING LUNATIC. I couldn’t risk alerting a possible killer to our presence, or another whack from Ruth.
I pulled myself to my knees and felt my lower back with the hand that still ached from the drawer slam. I wasn’t sure, but I thought Ruth had knocked the curve from my spine.
I got to my feet and glared at the oar. “You didn’t have a weapon when I came up here before.”
“Sure I did. The lantern. I’d planned to toss oil and fire on you.”
At least I’d avoided that. I rolled my shoulders to make sure my arms still worked. “Did you see anyone or hear anything before the scream?”
“I was in the pilothouse, remember? But I tell you, it’s like it came out of nowhere. And I’ve already circled the deck, and I didn’t see anyone.”
I scanned the row of crew cabins. Searching them would’ve been pointless. If someone had been onboard, they could’ve already left the boat or gone to another deck. “This might sound weird, but is there any chance it could’ve been a recording?”
“Now that you mention it, yes, it could’ve been.”
I gazed at the gold wheel, and then at the river. The normally brown water was as black as the night. And almost as still. “It’s also possible that whoever was on the boat fell into the paddlewheel.”
“Suppose we should call the authorities?”
I turned and headed for the mid-ship stairwell. “You live here. That’s up to you.”
She hurried after me. “Where are you going?”
“Down to the main deck to take a look at those lemons,” I said over my shoulder, “then I’m getting off the boat. If you do call the police, I don’t want to be here to deal with Sullivan.”
“You’re just going to leave a defenseless woman onboard with a killer?”
I turned and eyed the oar. “You can come down with me and then wait on land until the cops come.”
“What’ll I do after they leave?”
I sighed. “You made the decision to move on the Galliano. So, as they say in the industry, batten down the hatches.”
Ruth’s eyes went Puss in Boots behind her horned rims.
And Catholic guilt hit me like the oar. I didn’t know much about her, but I’d gathered that she had no money and no family. As much as it pained me—oh so literally—I couldn’t leave her alone on the steamboat. My jaw tightened, trying to prevent me from saying the words that I was about to utter. “You can stay with me at Veronica’s apartment. But you’re sleeping on the couch.” I pointed at her legs. “In pajama pants.”
“Oh, goodie.” She did a jig. “It’ll be like a slumber party.”
I rolled my eyes and headed down the mid-ship stairs.
“What say we pop by the library and have a look around?”
I grabbed the railing and spun on her. “Do you really think a killer is going to stop and read Tom Sawyer?”
She put a hand on her hip. “I meant we should look for the Civil War gold.”
My face went flat—like my back. Ruth was a bigger gold digger than my mother. “You live on the Galliano. Do your treasure hunting when we’re not potentially onboard with a murderer.”
She pulled the sad act again.
“That worked once. It won’t work again.” I turned and jogged down the stairs. I couldn’t let her see that despite my tough act I was kind of a sucker.
We entered the galley, and I led her down the hallway to Alfredo Scalino’s lair. I was on
high alert for the killer, but I was on higher alert for the oar Ruth wielded behind me.
We made it to the walk-in and took in the scene. One of the crates I’d dropped had split open, and lemons littered the floor. And so did what looked like packages of Pez candy.
In gold.
My back throbbed, so I dipped at the knees to retrieve one of the bags. The candy-sized items said GOLD on one side and 199.9 mg on the other.
I knew what Nick Pescatore’s text had been about.
“Are those baby gold bars?” Ruth asked, a note of hope in her tone.
“That’s what they’re made to look like, but they’re some kind of illegal drug.” I knelt and examined the crates. They had false bottoms. “And I’ll bet every crate in the walk-in is full of them.”
We stared at the drugs in silence, and I wondered whether Nick had tried to steal them or even report them to the police. Because something had gotten him silenced—in the freezer.
Footsteps sounded in the galley.
And I imagined them wearing spats.
I got a blast of adrenaline that rocketed me to my feet.
“It’s that mobster chef or his brother.” Ruth stripped the belt from her robe. “I’ll whack him, and then you jump on him and choke him with this.”
My look was wry despite our dire circumstances. “I would, but you cracked my spine. Remember?”
The footsteps came closer.
Ruth raised the oar and took a practice swing in my direction.
I ducked just in time.
“Franki? Are you back there?”
I rose, surprised. “Bradley?” I motioned for Ruth to stay back. He didn’t know she was on the boat, and this wasn’t the time for him to find out. I ran into the galley. “What’re you doing here?”
He stood by the island. “I’ve been trying to call you, but your phone went to voicemail. It finally occurred to me that you might be on the Galliano, and I got worried.”
I noticed he’d made no move toward me, and an uneasy feeling settled in my heart. “Has something happened?”
Galliano Gold (Franki Amato Mysteries Book 5) Page 12