Cooks, Crooks and Cruises: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by A. R. Winters

  Meredith was no doubt on her way to the cooking demonstration early like us, perhaps to check for hidden stalkers and scare off anyone who looked to be too much of a fan of her husband. She didn’t look like she was on her way to a cooking demonstration though; she looked like she was going to a high-class cocktail bar. She was wearing a tight black dress, black heels, and what appeared to be an emerald necklace. No comfort morning clothes for her on the job.

  We just about managed to pull ourselves together before she reached us. I straightened up my blouse and tried to look at least somewhat serious.

  Meredith was shaking her head and smiling as she approached. “Good morning ladies. Something funny?”

  We both shook our heads. “Oh, we’re just messing around,” I said cheerfully. “But don’t worry, we’ll be on task before work begins.”

  Meredith actually reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “I know you will. Shall we walk together…?”

  “Sure,” said Cece and I at exactly the same time.

  Meredith couldn’t help but laugh at our synchronized reply. “You two are cute together, aren’t you?”

  Laughing again, we strolled down the deck together. It was only about another hundred yards before we rounded the corner to the event space that had been set up the night before the demonstration. This small area at the front of the ship was used as a multi-functional space. It could be sealed off for private parties and events, or left open for everyone to enjoy. On cruises where it wasn’t being used for hosting purposes, it was filled with lounge chairs to give the sun worshippers another place to bask.

  As soon as we rounded the corner though, we all froze. The mirth and hilarity from our earlier giggling fit evaporated as if it had never been there at all.

  Straight ahead of us was a small raised stage, only about a foot above the rest of the deck.

  On the stage, Cruise Director Beverly Jax was kneeling down, mouth agape and shoulders shaking. And with good reason.

  Right next to Beverly was another person, a woman, lying down. Unmoving.

  “Oh my…” said Cece.

  “What in the—” said Meredith, beginning to trot forward, her strappy high heels clip-clopping across the deck.

  For a few long moments, I just couldn’t move.

  I stood there staring, taking in the scene. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.

  Giving my head a little shake, I took another step forward. Then another. I shook my head again, squinted, and then finally had to admit to myself that I was indeed seeing what I was seeing.

  My boss, Beverly, with bloody hands, was kneeling over what appeared to be a dead body.

  I hurried after Meredith and Cece, reaching the stage just after them. Beverly Jax had turned to face us. Her skin was as pale as a ghost’s and her whole body seemed to be trembling.

  As I got closer, I finally saw the face of the body.

  It wasn’t a stranger.

  It was Beverly’s friend, Hannah Menard. Her face was frozen in rictus, smeared with blood that came from a nasty looking head wound.

  She wasn’t moving at all.

  Hannah Menard was dead.

  Chapter 8

  What do you do when you find your boss kneeling over the dead body of her friend? For me, sadly, this wasn’t my first experience with finding a dead body aboard the ship. I knew what I had to do: call the head of security, First Officer Ethan Lee.

  “Nobody touch anything,” I said loudly to draw everyone’s attention. “I’m going to call security.”

  Meredith was standing, silently, hands at her sides, almost impassive as she looked on at the raised stage area. Beverly was standing up now, staring down at the body below her. Cece was by my side, following my lead. I hurried over to the nearest crew-phone, which was located by a bulkhead door leading inside.

  I punched in the number for the security office. “I need Ethan Lee—now,” I said as soon as someone picked it up.

  “Yes, ma’am,” came the simple reply. The security officer on the other end of the phone had heard the seriousness of my tone, and the way I had known exactly who I wanted to speak to, and didn’t put up any kind of fight or argument.

  I only waited a few seconds before he answered.

  “First Officer Ethan Lee.” The rich, deep voice was immediately calming. He’d fix this.

  “Hi. It’s Adrienne.”

  “Is everything all right? My officer said it sounded urgent.”

  “It’s serious. You’ve got to come up to the top deck event area right away. There’s been an… incident.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “Someone’s died. And it doesn’t look like an accident.”

  There was silence from the other end of the phone for several seconds, before he finally answered. “I’m on my way. You know the drill. Make sure no one touches anything.”

  “He’s on his way?” Cece had her hands balled up into fists and was holding them under her chin, a strained expression on her face.

  “Yep. Come on, let’s make sure they don’t mess anything up.”

  Cece and I hurried back to the event stage.

  “Beverly, what happened?” I asked.

  Beverly was crouching down now, her hand hovering just above Hannah’s head. Now that I was closer, I saw a small pool of semi-dried blood just to the left of Hannah’s head. “Did you move her?”

  Beverly first shook her head and then, as if remembering something, nodded. “I found her. I turned her over to see if she was all right.”

  I bit my lip. “But she wasn’t...”

  “She’s… I can’t believe… what happened?”

  Beverly’s hand slowly dropped down onto Hannah’s head again, and I noticed that it was stained with still wet blood.

  “Beverly, step away. You don’t want to keep looking. Get down from there.”

  Beverly slowly rose to her feet, her expression half vacant. She was either in shock, or doing a pretty good impression of a person suffering from it.

  “Cece, can you take Beverly and—”

  “On it,” Cece interrupted me and I didn’t even have to finish my thought.

  I was pleased to find out that Cece was someone I could rely on in a crisis. The giggling, teetering girl from just a few minutes before had transformed into someone you could depend on for support.

  Suddenly, Sam appeared by my side. “What do need me to do?”

  “Work with Meredith and Vince and try and sort something else out. The guests are going to be very disappointed. I’ll send out messages on social media in a couple of minutes, but see if you can find out who has access to the ship’s PA system. Beverly will know, if you can get anything out of her. We’ve got to tell everyone that this morning’s demonstration has been moved. Canceled. Make something up. Just make sure they’re not heading here. Ethan should be here to seal off the area in a minute, but let’s try and stop the guests before they arrive.”

  “Adrienne!”

  Speak of the devil. First Officer Ethan Lee must have sprinted the whole way up from the security office. He was striding toward me, three more breathless security officers behind him, struggling to keep up.

  I filled him in as quickly as I could, while we walked over to the body. He peered down at it, a serious but calculating look on his face.

  “It’s been moved.”

  “Beverly thought—hoped—she might be alive. She turned her over, so I’m afraid the scene has been spoiled somewhat.”

  He stared for a moment longer before whipping into action.

  “Mendez!” he said to the man closest to him. “Seal us off. Put security tape over the doors leading to this whole area, and don’t forget the stairs. Block this floor in the elevator control panel. Lock any nearby doors you can without breaking the fire regs. The rest of you, help him.”

  The three security officers quickly hurried away to follow his instructions.

  He looked around for someone else to give commands to and they
fell on the person closest to me.

  “Cece, get the doctor up here from sickbay. I want him to examine what we’re working with right away. Talk to him in person and keep it quiet. For obvious reasons.”

  “Sir!” Cece’s response was so sharp I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been in the military herself.

  “Adrienne, I want you to work with the customer liaison team and come up with some kind of excuse as to why this event has been canceled, and get it out on social media.”

  I nodded curtly. “Already on it.”

  “Good. Perhaps together with Beverly and Sam you can find something else for the passengers to do. And let’s try and keep this as quiet as possible.”

  I nodded. It was pretty much what I expected. I was going to have to spend the day putting out as many happy, inspiring, and cheerful messages and pictures as I could on our social media streams, and trying to cover up any rumors that might get started. Luckily, none of the guests had arrived here yet, but they soon would, unless we could stop them first.

  “As of now this area is off-limits to everyone. If you see anyone heading this way, deflect them.”

  Ethan stepped up onto the stage, and slowly began to circle around the body, taking several pictures as he did so. I gave him a concerned half smile and a wave. He gave me a tight smile in response.

  I began to walk to the back of the event area. It had been set up with a number of tables and chairs for the guests to sit at while they watched the demonstration. Just before I left, something caught my eye underneath one of the tables near the back.

  I crouched down. Well, that was interesting. Underneath the table was a pair of sunglasses. A rather unique pair. One that had two kitchen spatulas for arms.

  They were Olivia’s sunglasses, or another pair just like them.

  I stood up again and was about to yell at Ethan, but he was crouching down over the body and seemed to be focusing very hard. One of his team was approaching him. I decided to leave it alone for now.

  I snapped a picture of the glasses, and left them there. Ethan would find them when he was investigating. I didn’t want my fingerprints on them, that was for sure.

  After exiting the area, I pulled out my phone. I had work to do.

  Due to unforeseen circumstances, Vince’s morning demonstration has been postponed. But don’t worry! An even better event will be announced shortly to make up for this loss. Make sure to “FOLLOW” us to keep up to date!

  After posting the message, I headed off to find Sam—and Beverly, if she was able to work.

  It was going to be another long day.

  Chapter 9

  I spent the entire day tweeting, Instagramming, Facebooking, and blogging, trying to flood the ship’s social media streams with uplifting, positive images, blog posts, and commentary. I didn’t leave our cabin. We had a small metal desk attached to one wall and a single chair, and I spent almost the entire day glued in place, typing and editing and applying filters to photos before sending them out in a constant stream to all the ship’s social media channels.

  I wasn’t shy about recycling pictures from my last cruise either.

  There didn’t seem to be any rumors going around about the death yet, but when they did start, I wanted to drown them out with a tsunami of positivity and loveliness.

  Ethan Lee had sent me a message earlier, saying that dinner was still on, and that it would take our minds off of things. I had been a little surprised, having expected him to cancel the date for rather obvious reasons.

  But nope.

  Not even dead bodies could keep us apart, as Sam had so beautifully put it.

  I selected my only little black dress from my rather minuscule wardrobe. Neither Sam nor I had brought all that much stuff with us, because we spent most of the day in our uniforms. But I had one or two other pieces. I spent an hour or so getting ready, and when I was done, I was quite pleased. My hair was healthy and shiny, my makeup applied with a reasonable amount of skill, and much to my relief, the dress still fit. Luckily, my job kept me pretty mobile, so even though I hadn’t actually joined and used the staff gym—which I totally would get around to doing at some point—I wasn’t putting on weight, either.

  With the final last check of my eyeshadow (which was amazing), I exited our small bathroom back into the only slightly bigger cabin.

  Something had changed. Immediately, I saw what it was. There was something on top of my pillow—something that hadn’t been there before I’d started to get ready.

  It was a postcard.

  I picked it up. On the front was a desert scene, with the slogan Greetings From Beautiful Arizona underneath. I slowly turned it over. On the back, it said “Wish You Were Here” in handwritten block letters.

  I stared at it, turning the postcard over and over in my hands, looking for any kind of clue as to who could’ve put it there. The only clue I had was one of absence, rather than of existence.

  The postcard had no return address, no stamp, and no delivery address. It had been hand-delivered, not sent through the mail. That narrowed down the list of possible senders from the entire world to the current population of the Swan of the Seas.

  I sat on the bed, with the postcard resting on my knees.

  This had to be connected to last summer. It just had to. I had no other connection to Arizona.

  First, there had been the note left behind under my door after the first trip, which had simply read “I know what you did last summer” in cut-out magazine and newspaper headline letters. Now I had this too. It meant that whoever was leaving these notes was on the ship. Someone who had been on the first cruise as well.

  “Hey!” came a voice from outside.

  “Come in, come in.” I said trying to sound cheerful rather than shocked. First the body, and now the postcard.

  Cece entered, with Samantha right behind her.

  “One, wow, and two, I’m jealous.” Cece stood with her hands on her hips staring at me.

  I looked up at her with a questioning look.

  “Wow, because you look ah-maze-ing, and I’m jealous because you got mail. I’ve been on this dang boat a year and I never once got any mail. It’s not fair.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that this mail was an unwelcome surprise.

  “Oh, it’s nothing interesting. Just something from an old friend. “I tossed the postcard into the back corner of the bed and stood up. “Do I really look all right?”

  “You look fantastic,” said Sam, pushing past Cece and squeezing my shoulder.

  “Yeah, don’t even ask again. You look like a million bucks.”

  I put on a fake frown. “Just a million?”

  Cece sat down on the chair by the small desk that was attached to the opposite wall.

  “Fine, ten million.”

  “That’s more like it.” I felt my spirits begin to return.

  “He didn’t cancel, then?” asked Sam.

  “Nope. He said we need something to take our minds off of the death.”

  “Oh, I can think of ways for the both of you to get your mind off the death,” said Cece, arching her eyebrows at me.

  I swung out with the pillow and whacked her on the knee.

  “Speaking of men and dead bodies, did you speak to Dr. Dreamy?” I asked nudging Cece.

  She frowned. “Nope, not really. I mean, I saw him. I told him about the body and—poof—he was gone. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.” Cece whacked her palm down on the desk causing it to rattle. “Can you believe it? He’s more into a dead chick than me.”

  It was probably wrong to be laughing so soon after Hannah’s death, but I couldn’t help it. There was something about Cece’s mock outrage at the doctor being more interested in a corpse than her that had me giggling like an idiot.

  When we had composed ourselves, Sam tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I wonder whether he’ll find anything out. It looks pretty obvious what happened. She hit her head.”

  We were all silent for a moment.<
br />
  “The question is, how did she hit her head?” I mused.

  “Yeah,” said Sam, leaning forward. “Did she hit her head…?”

  “… Or did someone hit it for her?” finished Cece.

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill a nice young girl like her. But how could she have hit her head there? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Yep. It’s mighty suspicious. Young people don’t normally hit their heads and die, not just walking around on the ship. They have to at least fall off a bike or a skateboard or something.”

  “Was there anything that would’ve made her slip up on that stage? A slick spot? A roller skate? Anything at all?” asked Sam after a pause.

  “I don’t think so,” I told her, shaking my head. “The floor was dry so she shouldn’t have slipped. I mean, it’s possible she somehow tripped over her own feet, but it wasn’t exactly a dangerous situation.”

  “You didn’t see any clues?” asked Cece.

  I remembered something. “Oh, wait. Take a look at this.”

  I grabbed out my phone from the small black clutch I was going to use that evening and pulled up the photo I had taken that morning.

  “What is it?” asked Sam impatiently.

  When the image was on the screen, I showed it first to Sam, who let out a low whistle, before passing it over to Cece.

  “Sunglasses,” said Cece with a questioning look.

  “But not just any sunglasses,” said Sam.

  I was pleased she had noticed whose they were too.

  “Then whose sunglasses are they? And where did you take this picture?”

  “I found them underneath one of the tables near the stage. And the sunglasses belong to Olivia Porter.”

  “The stalker?”

  “Yep” said Sam and I in unison.

  We had told Cece about our meeting with Beverly, and how we were supposed to be on the lookout for Olivia and to make sure that she didn’t harass Vince.