“And I need my ship’s sewage to be treated in compliance with international waste regulations. Unfortunately, your room is located directly above the treatment unit.”
“Crap.”
“Precisely.” He flipped around to face me, his muscular forearms resting on the smooth polished oak railing. “Sorry. That’s actually a cabin we don’t use except in emergencies, for that exact reason. I’d be happy to provide you with some excellent ear plugs, though.”
That would have to do. Couldn’t exactly turn off the poop pump.
“It must be hard keeping this boat—sorry, ship—up and running,” I said. “Especially with such a small crew.”
“Definitely a full-time job,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the smooth wood. “But worth it.”
Again, I was struck by the fact that everything on this boat was so orderly, so well taken care of, other than the out-of-date décor. Which cost money to replace. It was probably difficult to compete with the mega liners.
They were in the same position I was in with my wedding planning business, dependent on word-of-mouth. Of course, I’d just found out that that word-of-mouth ran both ways. But I tried not to think about that too hard lest I retch over the railing.
I’d learned the hard way about the two-way street of publicity. And like my abandonment at the altar, news of Bebe’s murder onboard wasn’t the kind of publicity this cruise line was after.
Then again, if Bebe’s video-taped tirades had gotten out, that wouldn’t have been the kind of publicity they were after either.
And then there was the whole fact that Bebe had even come on this trip. It must have been one of her dead husband’s prescribed activities to get her stipend. I still didn’t fully understand the unlikely connection that the two families had with each other, though.
“I don’t mean to pry,” I said. Wow. That was a bold-faced lie. Prying was exactly what I meant to do. “But I must admit that I haven’t met too many female cruise ship captains.”
I neglected to mention the fact that I hadn’t met any other cruise ship captains, period.
“How did that come about?” I asked.
“My mom gets a lot of questions about that. My dad died eight years ago, and it had always been their dream to own a bed and breakfast in the Caribbean and take people out on scuba excursions and deep-sea fishing on a commercial sailboat when he retired from the Navy. Mom decided that the bed and breakfast was a bit much to take on by herself, but she wanted to at least pursue the boat. Then when she was researching boats six years ago, this one came up for sale.”
“So she went to buy a sailboat and bought a cruise ship instead?”
“Yep.” He shook his head like he still couldn’t believe it. “It was being auctioned off for a rock bottom price. It’s about as small as you can get without being classified as a yacht or a charter. Sea-worthy, but in rough shape, aesthetically speaking. So she thought, why not combine the sailing with the bed and breakfast? The auctioneer convinced her a boutique ship was the hottest rage in cruising, and here we are.”
“Really?”
“Mom can be a little … impulsive.”
“Yeah, sailboat to cruise ship. That’s quite a jump in scale.”
“Tell me about it. But Dad was career Navy, and Mom says there’s saltwater flowing through all our veins. I can’t help but wonder if she’s right. I’m definitely more relaxed out on the water.”
I shuddered to think how uptight the guy was on dry land.
“Mom went through a year of maritime training, and I was supposed to take a few months off from corporate America to help her get things up and running, but that turned into a year then morphed into … this.”
“Hmm.” I leaned next to him against the railing. Heat radiated from him, a sharp contrast to the cool night breeze.
“I’m curious,” I said, “how did your family become close with the Bosleys?”
“That’s”—he let out a sigh that would have lifted the sails of any schooner—“a much longer story.”
I waited for him to elaborate.
“None of us ever actually met Bebe’s husband before his death, but Winston’s son—Preston’s father—was one of my dad’s commanding officers in the Navy. They served together in the Persian Gulf War, and my father saved his life when he landed a malfunctioning helicopter. Preston’s father died a few years before my dad. He asked Winston to support my dad’s retirement dream.”
“So he asked Winston to invest in your cruise line?” I asked.
“Not quite. He gave us the priceless gift of passengers when we were brand new.”
“I don’t follow.”
“He was too frail to travel by the time we sailed our maiden voyage, but he was our first booking. And he reserved a whole floor of rooms, sent along his family and used it as an incentive for workers at his company. He died soon after that. But he had it put in his will that members of his family had to book vacations with us. Twice a year. Every year. An entire floor of rooms. I think it was with the expectation that they’d invite their friends, but it’s become more of a formality than anything. Again, I don’t understand all the legalities of the Bosley family’s situation, but they’ve always honored it. And in a way that was investing. With all those reservations pre-booked, we’ve been able to do things like upgrade the carpet and buy dining room chairs, paint and repaint. And repaint.” He chuckled. “It never ends. Five years later, and I still wonder what the heck my mom was thinking.”
“So Bebe’s been a guest on your cruise ship twice a year, every year, since you opened?”
“Yes.” He kept his tone neutral. His shoulders sagged, like those voyages with Bebe pressed on him with a physical weight.
It fit with what Preston had said about his grandfather not believing in charity. He’d found a way to give to this family who had meant so much to his son, but not with a handout. He’d let them work hard on their dream, and he’d supported their business without outright giving them cash. Generous in its own way. But that generosity had come with the awfully steep price tag of Bebe’s constant demands and outrageous behavior.
I’d witnessed with my own eyes how much her dead husband’s restrictions chafed on Bebe. She’d railed on and on in her video diary about how much she loathed this ship. It was hard to tell if she genuinely disliked it as much as she claimed or if she simply resented being controlled by her dead husband. Either way, she’d seemed bound and determined to give the cruise line a bad name.
If this were a huge ship in a fleet of many, one B-list reality star’s ranting might not have been a big deal for them. But this was a mom-and-pop operation if I’d ever seen one. A mom-and-pop operation that had kind of, sort of, maybe grown on me.
No one gave a hoot what Piper Monroe, ex-bride wrangler of the greater Atlanta metro area thought, but a whole lot of someones might care what Bebe Bosley thought. Enough someones to sink this ship’s fledgling business.
I didn’t bother to ask Silas who he thought might have committed the crime, other than Tammi. He wouldn’t say a peep. Even if he wanted to discuss the case, there was no way he would speak ill of his guests, especially the Bosley family.
He struck me as a man who valued facts and evidence. The necklace had shown up in Tammi’s room, therefore Tammi was the most likely suspect, even if her motive was flimsy at best.
He radioed Jenna to let her know I’d meet her at the info desk to pick up the promised earplugs then excused himself. When I got to the desk, Jenna was typing away on a laptop, her brow pinched in concentration, and didn’t notice me approach. I leaned over the counter to say, “hi,” and she jumped, slamming the laptop shut. A blush bloomed across her cheeks.
“S-s-sorry.” She reached out to straighten a hideous fake fern that she’d knocked askew. “You startled me.”
“Sorry about that. Silas said you had some earplugs for me.”
“Oh, yes, I laid them out then got caught up in, umm … ” She trailed off and bit
her lip.
“Caught up in … ?”
“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” She handed me the foam earplugs. “Sorry again about the noise.”
“Don’t worry about it. And thanks for the earplugs.”
I only wished they made bird-sized earplugs. My little stowaway feathered friend had started squawking when he heard the sound, and I didn’t want him waking other guests and getting caught. Which reminded me to run to the buffet and get some more fruits and veggies for Elton before he became mutinous.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Here, birdie, birdie, birdie.” I whistled, a peace offering of broccoli and carrot shreds in hand.
Elton was nowhere in sight.
It wasn’t like my glorified closet of a cabin offered many hiding places. I slipped into my pajamas and checked the bathroom. He had shredded a little pile of toilet paper and left droppings on it, but otherwise, nothing. At least he was as tidy as he was smart.
Maybe he’d escaped and moved on to the next unsuspecting guest. I tried to summon a whoosh of relief, but instead in its place came a twinge of sadness.
It was for the best. I didn’t have the money to pay for the pet care fee on board. And what would I do with him when I got home? Home? What was I saying? I didn’t even have a home.
Yes, for the best.
All right then.
Good.
“Squawk!” It came from directly outside my room in the hall. I dashed out to check where Elton was, and he was balancing daintily on the top of a light fixture.
Not good.
He’d already been declared a public nuisance at the pool. I either needed him to find a perch out of the way on the upper reaches of the ship or stay tucked away in my room.
Otherwise, I was afraid the cruise line would impound him or … worse.
“Squawk! I love you.”
“Okay, yeah. That’s sweet. Whatever. You can’t stay out here.”
He hopped around, twittering, like the two of us were playing a game.
I glanced up and down the hall, terrified one of the doors would open at any moment. I cared about this little ball of fluff, and, like it or not, I felt responsible for him. I supposed that made him my pet, whether I could afford the fee or not.
I cleared my throat and put on my most serious voice. “Get back in here, mister.”
“Squawk!” He was just out of my reach.
“Mister, mister,” he mimicked me.
“Stop that.” I held a floret of broccoli high, hoping to tempt him inside. Oh, who was I kidding? Broccoli had never tempted anyone.
“Squawk.” He hopped to the edge of the fixture, giving me hope, then flapped over to one a little farther down the hall.
Dang it.
“You need to work with me here, Elton,” I said, impressed if not highly annoyed. “I have no idea how you escaped the room, but we’re in the middle of nowhere, and if you get caught, things will not go well for you, my friend. Right now, I’m the best option you have.”
“The best … squawk!” He flapped his wings in triumph and skirted through the stairwell door.
I didn’t want to think about how silly I looked, barefoot in my pajamas as I zipped through the doorway after him. I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I ran headlong into Tony. He’d changed into a maroon silk brocade dressing gown worthy of Hugh Hefner. It would have been almost comical if it weren’t for the fact that he’d caught Elton and now held the bird in a not-too-gentle grip.
“Searching for something?” he asked with an oily grin.
“Oh, umm, thank you,” I said, reaching out to take Elton from him. But Tony just stood there, stroking Elton’s head with his thumb.
“You seem worried about your sweet birdie here,” he said. Even though that sweet birdie was, in fact, swearing a blue storm at Tony, calling him every name in the book in multiple languages. “Is your little pet contraband?”
The way Tony said it, I was certain he’d been standing there listening for a lot longer than the last couple seconds.
“My pet? I don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant even as I winced at how tightly he gripped Elton.
“Hey,” he said. “I don’t want trouble, but I do want to make sure we’re in agreement about things you might have seen around here the last few days.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Ahh. Playing coy. I’m talking about that minor misunderstanding I had with Bebe by the pool.”
“Minor misunderstanding?”
“Of course. You saw how ecstatic she was about our engagement.”
“Of … of course.” I also saw her throw that engagement ring into the pool.
As if he could tell exactly what I was thinking, Tony said, “Bebe was fiery. We both were—hot and cold—but our love was strong.”
“So you made up after your fight, er, misunderstanding?”
“Of course. Right before dinner.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t remember whether Bebe had had her ring on at dinner or not. She might have.
Or she might not.
One thing I did remember was that Tony hadn’t come to dinner.
“Bebe had no reason to stay mad at me,” he said. “I was her ticket back to fame.”
“How so?”
“She’d lost the contract on her reality show, but we had big plans in the works. I was a key part of those plans. She was filming her own segments, and she was going to post the videos online. It would only be a matter of time until a producer made an offer. It was going to be a big comeback.”
“What was her hook going to be? If her show had been cancelled, it seems like something would need to change in her life in order for the network to change their minds.”
“Exactly.” Tony puffed out his chest. “She was going to marry me.”
“How would that be different?” I said. “You guys had been dating since the show began, hadn’t you?”
“When we got married, Bebe would have had to give up her stipend from old man Bosley’s will. But she was all set to do it. She was going to choose love. A classic rags to riches to rags story.”
“And people would want to watch her … be poor?”
“Are you kidding? It was an incredible pitch. Watching Bebe clip coupons. Figure out how to clean her own bathroom. Give Mimsy haircuts. And then, of course, once the show caught on, it would be a return to riches. I came up with the idea. It was brilliant.”
If what Tony said was true, then it muddied his possible motive. He had a vested interest in Bebe staying alive and staying in love with him.
He loosened his grip on Elton, and the parakeet dive-bombed over to the safe perch of the crook of my arm. Tony brushed off the palm of his hands, and I couldn’t help but notice that his nails were filed into a short but impeccable French manicure. A quick glance of his feet showed that his toenails were picture-perfect pedicured as well. That was a man that knew his way around a bottle of nail polish. Which meant he also knew his way around a bottle of nail polish remover.
Maybe Tony was simply tired of being Bebe’s arm candy, her second lap dog. She had thwarted his plans of becoming a reality star in his own right when she broke off the engagement. Maybe he flew into a fit of rage and killed her. I only had his word that they had reconciled.
And that reality show comeback plan was a long shot at best. It was far more likely that Bebe would ultimately dump him and choose the safety and security of the Bosley fortune.
Tony hadn’t come to dinner that night, so he would have had plenty of time to sneak into the dining hall and pour the deadly chemical into Bebe’s martini glass before arriving on the deck to throw his dramatic scene over her body and slip the ring on her hand.
“So we’re in agreement then?” Tony said, his voice smooth and slick as a snake’s underbelly. The way he scrutinized me, it was like he could see the doubts playing in my brain.
“Umm … ” I took a few steps toward
my room.
“About what you saw between Bebe and me at the pool. It was nothing. Right?” His tone wasn’t the only thing that reminded me of a viper. His eyes had the same razor-like glint as a snake about to strike. He edged over to my side and grabbed my forearm so tightly I winced.
I shifted away in an attempt to break his grip, but he moved in closer.
“I’d hate for something to happen to you or your bird here.”
His hot breath blasted against my face in short, violent puffs like he was attempting to billow a dying fire back to life. Every instinct in me screamed to get away from him, to find something to use as a weapon, but tendrils of fear curled over my limbs like the first wisps of smoke from a flame and held me to the spot.
Just then, the door across from mine popped open. Lance shuffled out and bumped into Tony and me, knocking Tony’s lamprey-like hold on my arm loose.
“Oh, hey, Pipesqueak,” he said glumly.
“Lance.” I practically leapt into his arms. “So good to see you.”
“It is?”
“Yes!” Lord forgive me for uttering these words, but I’d never been more thankful to see the lying scumbag in my life. Because at least Lance was my lying scumbag. Well, my ex-lying scumbag. But a lying scumbag who had not murdered anyone, which was more than I could say for Tony. He’d just moved from possible suspect to prime.
“You should tell Tony here that fascinating story, Lance,” I said.
“Fascinating story?”
“About the thing.”
“The thing?”
“The thing!” I shoved Lance toward Tony while I wiggled around them into my own cabin. My heart and breathing only slowed to normal after I had deadbolted the door behind me and shriveled onto my bed in the fetal position. Elton nestled under my chin doing his best impersonation of a purring cat. In that moment, I decided that I didn’t care what I had to do, I was keeping the bird.
Or maybe he was keeping me. Hard to tell.
Claustrophobia set in as the ship undulated in the endless ocean swells. I’d never felt so small, out here bobbing in the middle of nowhere.
I replayed the scene with Tony over and over, trying to figure out a way to interpret his actions and words as anything but an overt threat. But try as I might, I couldn’t. The only reason he would have to threaten me is if he were lying about getting back together with Bebe. As I lay there, fear receding, another emotion rushed in.
Death In A Deck Chair Page 12