Ethan emerged again, this time with Doctor Ryan. But it wasn’t just the two of them. They were carrying a motionless Lesley between them, Ethan carrying her by the arms and Ryan by the legs. Once they were in the hallway, they paused while Ryan closed the door before walking briskly in my direction.
The security guard and I both stepped out onto the deck, making sure the door was wide open for the approaching men.
As soon as they were outside, they laid Lesley out onto the deck. They removed their masks and lowered the hoods of their hazmat outfits to reveal their reddened faces.
“She’s dead,” said Doctor Ryan, shaking his head.
I peered down at her. It wasn’t the first body I’d seen and I was no longer as squeamish as I used to be. Lesley’s skin was ashen, her eyes were closed, and on her lips was the slightest of smiles. My stomach did a turn, and I had to stop my thoughts from heading down a dark direction. Instead, I forced myself to notice that she seemed to have died somewhat peacefully.
“Ryan, let’s see if we can get her down to sickbay without attracting too much interest,” said Ethan. “I’m going to clean out that room and get rid of the gas. We’re going to have to keep this area closed for the next couple of hours at least.”
“What on earth happened?” I asked.
“Sulfur dioxide,” said Ethan, wiping his forehead. The suit must have been hot because there were beads of sweat on his skin before he wiped them away.
“How? And how did you know?”
Ethan had been crouching next to the body, and he now stood up.
“Meet me in my office in half an hour. We’ll see if we can figure it out.” Ethan pulled the hood back over his head and reattached his gas mask. “Be back soon.”
I watched Ethan as he went back into Lesley’s cabin, his broad shoulders still lacking some of their usual swagger.
It looked like Ethan and I had another mystery to solve. With the death and the Claim Your Million team aboard, this was going to be anything but a relaxing cruise.
“Buckle up, Adrienne,” I said under my breath. “Looks like stormy seas ahead.”
Chapter Ten
I met up with Ethan and Ryan in the first officer’s cabin a little over half an hour later. They had both removed their hazmat suits and had the tousled hair and rosy cheeks of men who’d been exerting themselves.
The three of us sat down together on a pair of sofas around a coffee table on one side of Ethan’s office. He usually used the big desk for formal meetings, and this area for more relaxed discussions.
Like when you’re talking about dead bodies.
“Sulfur dioxide, right? That’s what you said?” I asked him once we were all settled. I’d done a quick search while I was waiting for them, but all I had learned so far was that it was a deadly gas you definitely didn’t want to be around.
Ethan had the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up. When he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his strong forearms flexed as he clasped his fingers together.
“That’s right. It was definitely sulfur dioxide. There was a case a few years ago, on another line’s cruise ship. Several crew members were killed by a sulfur dioxide leak from the ship’s sewage system. I learned all about it at a training session—the smell of rotten eggs is the big giveaway. As soon as you told me that on the phone, I knew this was going to be serious.”
I understood, but I didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense to me. “But why in the world do we have sewage lines running through our passenger cabins?”
Ethan shook his head at me, lips pressed together in a serious expression.
“That’s the thing. We don’t. Neither did that other ship—the crew members who were affected were in a restricted area without proper protection. But unlike in that case, what we’re dealing with here isn’t a gas leak.” Ethan paused to let his next words really sink in. “The sulfur dioxide was made in the passenger’s room.”
I blinked in surprise. “Wait, what? In her room? She did this? How?”
“Doctor Ryan?”
Ethan turned to the doctor, who clearly knew more than Ethan about the production of the deadly gas. He was dressed in his white coat, and every now and then he used the sleeve of it to wipe at his forehead. He must’ve still been hot from the rubber suit and the exertion of hauling a body down to the sickbay.
“We found the ingredients in the bathroom. When I saw them, it clicked. I read about it in a medical journal a couple of years ago. There was a wave of suicides in Japan using sulfur dioxide. It’s really easy to make—you just add sulfur bath salt and toilet cleaner together, and boom! Enough sulfur dioxide to kill a football team.”
My mouth had fallen open in shock. While Lesley had been annoyed at the theft of her products and notes the day before, she hadn’t seemed suicidal over it. Murderous, maybe, but certainly not suicidal.
“I’m sure she didn’t kill herself,” I told them.
Doctor Ryan nodded at me. “I don’t think she did either. From what we saw, it looks like someone did this to her.”
Ethan and I exchanged knowing looks. It seemed we had yet another murder to deal with.
“Ryan, why don’t you think it was a suicide?” asked Ethan.
“While I can’t completely rule it out, there are several reasons. First, outside of Japan, it’s not a common suicide method. It’s unlikely Lesley would even have known about it.
“Second, there was a bump on the back of Lesley’s head where she was either struck by something or had her head bashed against a wall. While that could be a coincidence, it certainly points to foul play in my book.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said with an unhappy grimace. “That particular bath salt isn’t available on the ship. Where would Lesley have got it from? Why would she bring it on board?”
“Maybe she used it to make her cleaning supplies?” I asked.
Ryan looked skeptical. “Maybe, but it would have been a useless ingredient, and not a common one either. I find it unlikely she would have been using it for that purpose. I don’t buy it. All the signs point toward murder.” Ryan paused. “There’s something else too.”
“What’s that?” Ethan leaned even farther forward from his position perched on the edge of the sofa.
“I grabbed the hazmat suits and gas masks from housekeeping—there are more down below in the engine compartment, but housekeeping was closer—and there were only three gas masks. There should have been four.”
“Someone took one?” I asked
“It sure looks like it to me. We’ll check the logs. If it was removed for legitimate reasons, there’ll be a record of it. But if that was the case, it should have been replaced. I’m pretty sure I know what we’ll find. It was stolen.”
“So you think someone took the gas mask, put it on, and then killed Lesley in her cabin by making the gas?” asked Ethan, confirming our current theory.
“That’s what it looks like to me, yes.”
“Seems a bit elaborate,” I said.
“Yeah. If it were a suicide, it would be just as elaborate, wouldn’t it? Speaking of which, there was no note either. That’s also uncommon. No, I think she was killed by someone else. Someone who didn’t like to get their hands dirty, or maybe just someone who thought they were being clever.”
That kind of made sense. Killing someone with gas is less messy than with a gun or knife or blunt instrument. If you were going to have to kill someone, maybe gas would be a preferable way to do it. At least for some people.
On the other hand, given the fact that Lesley was promoting her cleaning products, the killer may have thought they were being clever by using cleaning products as their weapon.
“Okay,” said Ethan, pushing himself up straight. “Do we have any suspects? Do we know of anyone who didn’t like Lesley?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, and both Ethan and Ryan looked at me with mild concern.
“Sorry. It’s just that she did
n’t exactly… go out of her way to win people over. She thought she was a comedian, but her jokes fell flat with some of the other Claim Your Million participants.”
“Tell me what you know,” said Ethan.
“First, there’s Helen Johannsen. Lesley mocked her invention more than once, and they had that big fight yesterday, which led to you having to talk to Lesley in here. Helen wanted us to throw Lesley overboard.”
“Right. That’s who I was thinking of. Anyone else?”
“During that same incident, another contestant’s product got thrown overboard. He was very upset by it. He probably blamed Helen just as much as Lesley, though.”
“Who was that?” asked Ethan.
“His name’s Milton McPherson. He had an inflatable travel pillow that looked like… well, the design was ugly. It was his only prototype, and he was distraught over its loss.”
Ethan nodded, and although he wasn’t writing it down, I knew he had memorized the name. “Anyone else?”
“Umm…” I said, as if I couldn’t think of anyone else. I could, of course. But I didn’t want to say it.
“What about someone with access to the housekeeping supplies?” asked Ethan.
I looked at Ryan, who appeared to understand my reluctance. We both knew someone who fit that description.
“She obviously has nothing to do with this. She’d never hurt anyone.” Actually, that wasn’t technically true. The person who I was thinking of probably would hurt someone if they gave her a good reason to, but I was trying to help things, not make them worse. “But I guess Cece has access to the housekeeping supplies.”
“But she had no reason to dislike Lesley, right?”
Ryan let out a short sigh before continuing for me. “Lesley mocked Cece too. And they both had similar products that they were pitching—natural cleaning supplies. It probably looks like Cece had a good motivation to go after Lesley, but I know she’d never do anything like that.”
“Yeah, there’s no way she’d go to all that trouble to kill Lesley. If she was going to do it, she’d probably have whacked her over the head with a hammer.” I tried to lighten the mood but no one laughed. Nor should they have, probably. My dear friend was a suspect in a murder case. I shouldn’t be joking about her being a killer.
“I’m going to have to speak to her,” said Ethan flatly. He clearly didn’t relish the prospect.
“Do you really need to?” asked Ryan. Cece and he had been dating for some time now, and he was completely enamored with her. He knew as well as I did that there was no way she did it.
“I’m afraid so, for a whole host of reasons. What would the other suspects say if I didn’t even speak to her because of her personal connections? What would it look like to HQ in my report if I said I didn’t speak to a suspect because she was the girlfriend of our doctor and friends with someone I’m close to?”
“She’s not going to like it.” I could see on Ryan’s face that he was already imagining her outraged reaction. I know that’s what he was thinking, because I was thinking the exact same thing. She was going to be furious.
“I’m not thrilled about it either,” said Ethan. “She’s going to hate me.”
I forced myself to say, “I’m sure she’ll understand.”
Even as the words came out, they didn’t sound convincing in the least.
We lapsed into silence for a few moments. It was broken when Ryan pushed himself up to his feet.
“I’d better get back to my den. I’m going to look at the blood samples and see if I can learn anything else. We don’t have a proper lab aboard, but maybe I can figure something out.”
Ethan nodded. “Thanks for all your help today, Doctor. Let me know what you find. I guess I’ll start by talking to Cece. Wish me luck?”
Ryan and I both laughed.
He would need it.
Chapter Eleven
I visited Cece to give her the bad news myself. It was actually two pieces of bad news.
First was the fact that one of her fellow competitors had been murdered. The second was that she was one of the prime suspects.
While there had obviously been no love lost between the two women, Cece would never have wanted her dead. What I was surprised by, though, was her reaction.
We were both sitting side-by-side on the bed in her guest cabin. Cece had somehow managed to sneak an upgrade to one with a balcony and sea view. While it was no VIP suite, it was lightyears better than what we were used to down in the crew quarters way below.
“I guess it makes sense that he’d have to talk to me,” she said, kicking her heels back against the frame of the bed below.
“What? Really?” I asked in disbelief.
“Sure. I’ve got a motive, don’t I? And you know I had the opportunity to grab that gas mask with my magic key card.” Cece was smirking while she spoke. She had a keycard that opened seemingly every single locked door on the ship, though she had never explained to me why or how she had it.
“Yeah, that’s exactly right,” I agreed. “Ryan and I figured you would be mad, though. Even Ethan was worried.”
Cece turned to look at me, her eyes narrowed. “Has Ryan been telling people that I have a bad temper?”
“No! Of course not!” In a way, he had. It wasn’t so much that Cece had a bad temper, but when she was riled up, she got really riled up. “He thinks the world of you.”
Her beaming smile returned. “Good. And he’d better keep thinking the world of me if he knows what’s good for him.” She hopped up onto her feet. “Guess I’d better get this over with.”
Together, we walked over to Ethan’s office. I said my goodbyes outside, leaving her to go in alone.
“Good luck. I’ll be outside on deck when you’re done.”
She punched me on my upper arm. “You sound more nervous than me. I’m the one who’s about to be accused of murder.”
“Ethan isn’t going to accuse you of murder! He’s just got to do everything by the book.”
“I know. I was kidding. See you in a bit.”
I watched until Ethan’s office door closed behind her. Then, I said a brief farewell to the orderly outside his office and headed out to the deck.
One of the good things about my job was that I could do it anywhere. I’d taken a ton of photos of the breakfast event that morning, but I hadn’t gotten around to posting any of them online yet. Leaning against the rail, breathing in a cool sea breeze, I worked my phone with my thumbs.
Though I didn’t like writing long articles with my phone, a few tweets, updates, captions, and hashtags were fine. So that’s what I did, tapping away at my phone until I’d sent out a whole stream of feel-good fluff posts to make Swan proud and give our guests and other followers the warm fuzzies.
After spending twenty minutes on that, I turned around and leaned my back against the rail, looking at the door that led to Ethan’s office. I thought Cece would’ve joined me by now. What did Ethan have to talk to her about for so long? Had Cece forgotten that I was waiting for her outside and left without me noticing?
I began to type out a message to send to Cece’s phone, and then deleted it. If she had decided she didn’t want to join me, she would have sent me a text. She really must still be in that meeting.
“Adrienne!” The call didn’t come from the door leading inside, and it wasn’t from Cece. Turning to my right, I saw the cruise director, Kelly Cline, and the chief Spider himself, Paul Parker, walking toward me.
I asked Kelly in a deliberate attempt to be vague, “Do you…?”
I didn’t know if Paul Parker had been informed yet. Or even if he would be at all. It was the ship’s policy to keep deaths hidden from the public. It wasn’t exactly in Swan’s best interest to publicize that sort of thing.
“Yes. And I told Paul Parker about the suicide as well,” she said with a tight half-smile in his direction.
“Suicide?”
Kelly nodded at me, her eyebrows raising. “You do know, right?”
“I know. It was me who found her. Well, pretty much. It’s just that…” My words trailed off. It wasn’t my place to tell Paul Parker what we suspected had happened.
“You’re not saying it wasn’t a suicide, are you?” said Kelly with her hands on her hips.
“I’m not sure I’m supposed to—”
“You are!” Kelly stamped her foot down onto the deck. “I thought it was a suicide? She killed herself by mixing chemicals together? Did I get it wrong somewhere? Oh, shoot—” she scrunched up her face while she was talking, and I could tell she was about to have a mini breakdown, something that seemed to happen to her at least once per cruise.
“No, no, you’ve got that right,” I said, interrupting her before she could get carried away. “It was done with chemicals. But Ethan and the doctor think Lesley might not have done it to herself.”
Both Kelly and Paul looked shocked.
“Are you saying… one of my contestants was murdered?”
I peered around to make sure no one seemed to be listening in. “I’m afraid so.”
“Oh no, I can’t have that,” said Paul, looking grim. “Think of the damage it could do to my reputation! And the event—you’re not going to cancel it, are you?”
“No, no, there’s no need to cancel the event,” Kelly said in a very emphatic manner. “Swan likes to say, ‘The show must go on!’”
More like the money must keep flowing, I thought to myself.
“Well, that’s something at least. But let’s try and keep this under wraps, right?” said Paul Parker, clearly worried about the impact this would have on him and his business.
“No need to worry on my end. I can assure you I’m not going to be putting this on social media.”
“We’ll try and keep it as hush-hush as possible,” said Kelly, chewing on her lower lip. “I’m sure it will be better for all concerned.”
“And she was killed with cleaning chemicals?”
Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 06 - Cruise Millions Page 7