“I thought we agreed that the scam wouldn’t work without help from inside?” Maggie asked.
“There has to be something we’re missing, a key relationship. I wish I knew more about how the system works. ’ll talk to my sister tomorrow, but we might have to wait until we get back to investigate at the bank. But, since we’re here, we might as well have a little bit of fun.” Mike reached across the table and slid the large notebook in front of him.
“You sing?” Maggie asked.
“Only in the shower.”
Mike smiled as Maggie raised an eyebrow.
Wednesday
Chapter 14
Breakfast Buffet
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Ebola virus?” Maggie asked as they exited the elevator on Deck 10.
“You mean coronavirus,” Mike said, reaching his hand under the hand sanitizer dispenser. Maggie followed suit, but it wasn’t the germs she was afraid of; it was the sea of people they were facing.
“All I know is it’s wrong to eat at the buffet on a cruise ship. Look there.”
Maggie pointed to an older man who picked up a bagel, put his nose close enough to smell it, then put it back on the pile.
“Don’t eat that bagel,” was Mike’s advice.
“I seriously cannot eat here. Remember, I don’t like crowds, and we have a personal chef in our room perfectly willing to make up some eggs Benedict.”
“Eggs benedict?”
“Or pancakes, waffles, whatever we want. The poor guy is probably bored to death. We haven’t used much of his services since we boarded. He probably thinks we don’t like his cooking.”
“Seriously, Maggie, I don’t think he cares, but we’re not here to enjoy ourselves. We have a job to do, and all I know is that John said he was headed to the buffet this morning. In our business, there are times you have to stray out of your comfort zone to get the job done. Well, let me rephrase that. More often than not, our job requires us to stray far from our comfort zone. It’s called being adaptable.”
“Well, there’s our mark.” Maggie pointed to the far corner of the vast dining hall.
“Our ‘mark’?” He shook his head and smiled as he looked where Maggie was pointing.
“That’s him,” Mike said, “I wonder who he’s sitting with?”
They could only see the back of the man’s head, but they could tell he was tall, bald, and wore a ship’s crew uniform.
“It looks like the bartender from the casino. I remember I had to do a double take. I saw John talking to him, and I remember thinking they could be brothers. We should go sit by them,” Maggie said.
“Good idea.” Mike picked up a plate and handed it to Maggie. “Fill this up and meet me at the table behind John, facing the man. Try to blend in.”
Maggie took the plate and looked around. A crowd of passengers occupied every square foot of space. To get any food on the plate, she would have to elbow her way into an enormous circular station piled with toast, scrambled eggs, diced potatoes, and what looked like grits. They must know there are Southerners on board, she said to herself. There was another circular table piled high with mixed fruit, various types of melon, yogurt, cottage cheese, and granola. She should have made herself stay at that table but watched a kid dip his finger into the strawberry yogurt and put it in his mouth.
“I definitely can’t do this,” she said aloud but to no one in particular. She looked around and spotted Mike on the other side of the room, next to the waffle station. “Okay, Maggie, buck up,” she said, again to no one. She decided to get in line for a spinach-and-mushroom omelet. At least she could watch the cook prepare it. The line wasn’t too long, but where she stood was right in front of several grey bins that held silverware tightly wrapped in red cloth napkins. People either said excuse me or reached past her to grab their roll.
At first, a few deep breaths settled her nerves, but the line didn’t move, and she felt her body start to shake. She stepped out of the line and bumped into more people. She headed to where the plastic glasses were stacked so she could get some water for her dry mouth.
Unfortunately, this was another popular gathering spot as people continued to reach past her for a glass. Her body began shaking uncontrollably, and her knees were weak. She turned to look for the nearest exit, but tears blurred her vision. Then the world went black.
The next thing she remembered was Mike leaning over her. His blue eyes were full of concern. She was on her back, looking up at him.
“Where am I?” She tried to sit but felt dizzy.
“You passed out,” he said. “You also got a pretty good gash in your head.”
Maggie reached up to the side of her head and found a huge lump that was painful to the touch. Her hand was sticky; when she looked at it, it was red with blood.
“I told you I had panic attacks,” she said.
“Honestly, I thought you were just being dramatic,” Mike said. “If it makes you feel any better, I believe you now.”
“Gee, thanks, Mike.” Maggie smiled but felt like crying. Her head hurt, and she was humiliated. It seemed as if all the hurt she ever felt was bottled up. A crowd formed around her until two crew medics arrived, pushing people aside. They checked her vitals and asked her a few questions that she answered correctly, but they still lifted her onto a gurney then rolled her through a sea of people.
They took her to an unfamiliar hallway. The sound of the crowd faded the farther the medics rolled her. One of the medics continued to check her vitals as they waited for the service elevator. She didn’t even feel the cuff going around her arm until it squeezed so tight she thought her arm was going to burst; then it let up. The two medics were both calling numbers out but didn’t seem to be too concerned. She quickly wiped the single tear that had escaped the corner of her eye, so Mike, who stood dazed, wouldn’t notice.
“Sir, you can meet your wife in the infirmary in a few minutes,” one of the medics told him.
She saw Mike’s face as the large elevator doors shut. She tried to smile to reassure him, but it just hurt too bad, and her smile became a wince instead.
The medics settled her into a hospital bed in a wide-open space. It looked like an oversized doctor’s office. A young brown-skinned woman came to the side of the bed while the medics waited nearby. She was wearing a white officer’s uniform with the caduceus stitched on the lapel. “I’m Dr. Rialto,” she said smiling, “I heard you had a bit of a fall.” She had a beautiful British accent. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Maggie.”
“Can you tell me your full name and the year you were born?”
“Margret Anne McFarlin, nineteen sixty-three.”
“Okay, good.” She smiled.
“Can you tell me what year it is?”
“Twenty twenty?”
“You sound like you’re not sure,” Dr. Rialto said, concerned.
“No, I’m sure. I’m just not sure why you are asking me all these questions.”
“I’m making sure your memory is intact. You may have a concussion, but we’ll keep an eye on you for a few hours. I don’t want you to sleep. Can you stay awake for me?”
“I guess,” Maggie said.
“Well, it’s vital that you do. I’m going to keep you here in the infirmary for a few hours to monitor you. You did an excellent job on that head. Does this hurt? She set her fingers to Maggie’s face and pressed gently near her eye socket.
Maggie winced. “Yeah, a little.”
“It’s probably just a bruise,” she said then examined the cut on Maggie’s head. “I don’t think we need to stitch that, but go ahead and seal it,” she told one of the medics who had brought her here.
“Seal it?” Maggie said as the doctor walked away.
Dr. Rialto stopped to wash her hands at an oversized sink, using a foot pedal to turn the water on and off. “I’ll check on you in a while,” she said.
Maggie turned to one of the medics. “What did she mean when she said, ‘seal it’?
”
The medic smiled. “It’s kind of like superglue.”
“Gee, I’ll bet that’s going to be a flattering hairstyle.”
“Well, it’s a pretty good-sized cut, and the head tends to bleed a lot.”
Maggie became busy with the bed controls, trying to find the most comfortable position. She noticed the blood on her brand new shirt just as Mike walked in.
“I brought you this.” He handed her a bag marked with the ship’s logo. “I decided to buy you a new shirt instead of rifling through your clothes.
Maggie accepted the bag. “You didn’t have to do that.”
The medic came over to the side of the bed with a rolling tray lined with a white linen covering. The tray held what looked like several medical instruments and a bowl with water and soap. He dabbed Maggie’s head with a soapy gauze pad. She winced the first few times he placed the soiled, red-stained pads in a brown paper bag taped to the side of the tray.
Mike, too, winced at the sight of the pads. “Yikes, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him until the medic took a pair of blunt-tipped scissors and clipped her hair.
“Seriously?” Maggie complained.
“Just a bit. I don’t want it sticking to the closure.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Okay.” Mike smiled.
“The doctor said you need to stay awake and hang out here for a while,” Mike said, sliding a white plastic chair to the side of her bed. “I’ll keep you company for a little while.”
“You seriously don’t need to do that,” Maggie said. “You need to stay with the group.”
“I’m staying here.”
“Well, let’s not waste this opportunity, let’s go over what we have so far,” Maggie said, “even though it’s not much.”
“Great idea.”
Mike pulled a small spiral notebook from his front pocket. It was the same kind that he had used when she first met him. That seemed like years ago rather than months.
“Why don’t you just use the Notes app on your phone?”
“I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy, I guess. Plus, I have a system. It works for me.”
“Okay, where should we start?”
“David.”
“My gut says no,” Maggie said.
“Your gut? Okay, but he’s so quiet anyway. The quiet ones always have secrets.”
“How about Kimberly?”
“Boy, she doesn’t like you,” Mike said.
“I know. I don’t get it. Everyone likes me.”
“What’s her motivation?” Mike asked, not expecting an answer.
“John is my favorite,” Maggie said.
“There’s something he’s hiding, but he was a marine. Marines have a deep-seated sense of duty and are committed to honesty and loyalty.”
“You mean they’ve been brainwashed during boot camp,” Maggie said, gently touching her head and wincing when she did.
“It’s not brainwashing. It’s a method that works. The drill instructors break you down to build you up,” Mike said defensively. “He was Special Forces, that’s a whole other personality type: those dudes have to make it through the hell their instructors put them through. If John did it, it was with a more elaborate purpose than simply greed.”
“He did spent a lot of cash at the casino,” Maggie added. “But he doesn’t have access to the computer systems, does he?”
“He’s the head of security, so he has access to everything. He’s the first one at work and the last to lock up,” Mike said. “Joanie said he works twelve hours a day, five days a week.”
“How long has he worked at the bank?” Maggie asked.
Mike flipped through the pages of the small notebook. “Over five years.”
“What we are missing is that motivation,” Maggie said.
“Money can’t be the only motivation,” Mike said. “There are plenty of ways to get money other than taking it from an old woman.”
“Maybe we should use the scientific method instead of our gut,” Maggie said.
“Impressive, Maggie.” He held up his little book. “Document. Sort. Analyze.”
“It just seems so hard to form a hypothesis until you identify the motive.” Maggie pushed a button on her control panel to sit up farther.
“Sometimes, I have four or five hypotheses. The thing is that the guilty party is obvious. It’s exactly the person you suspected in the first place. It hardly ever is a mystery, but this one is one of those times, I don’t even have a gut feeling. The key to these kinds of cases is to keep an open mind.”
“Especially if you know the people involved,” Maggie said. “Like your sister.”
“My sister?”
“Maybe you’re too close to the people involved to have an open mind.”
Maggie pushed her legs around and stood up from the hospital bed, feeling a little shaky, her head pounding. She picked up the bag Mike had brought her and opened it to find a bright pink shirt with two green palm trees with a hammock hanging between them. The words Island Life were written in script.
Some detective you are, Maggie thought. I hate pink.
“Is the size correct?” he said, ignoring her last comment.
“Perfect,” she said, measuring each step to the bathroom. She pulled off her white shirt, now stained with blood, careful not to touch her head. She wadded it up and threw it into the trash bin. She pulled the tags off the new T-shirt Mike had given her, not caring if she ripped it. She wouldn’t be keeping it.
She pulled the new shirt over her head, again careful not to touch her bump. She looked in the mirror, expecting to be offended by the pink color, but instead she fell back when she saw the stranger in the mirror. Her left eye was bloodshot and a rose-colored patch marked the skin just above her cheek. Dried blood coursed down the side of her face and caked down on to her neck. Her blonde hair stuck to her head where the blood had dried: it was standing straight up where the medic had cut it. Mike had been sitting out there the whole time, acting like everything was normal. What is wrong with him?
She came out of the bathroom feeling like Car Crash Barbie.
“You okay?”
Mike stood, sensing a change of mood since she went into the bathroom.
“Do I look okay?” Maggie tipped her head.
“Well, you look like you were run over by a truck, but other than that, the shirt looks great on you.”
“Oh, brother,” Maggie said. “Where is my phone?”
“Oh yeah.” Mike retrieved her phone from his back pocket. “You dropped it when you passed out. I think you might have cracked the screen a little.”
Maggie looked at her phone. The crack in the bottom right corner had been there before she passed out, but there was another small cobweb crack on the opposite side.
“Oh well,” she shrugged, sitting back on the hospital bed. “Thank you for keeping me company, but honestly, I feel like being alone.”
“Are you sure?” Mike stood. Maggie nodded her head. “I completely understand.”
Maggie leaned back and pretended to type on her phone while Mike walked out the door. She felt him pause in the doorway, look back, and then close the door softly behind him. She put the phone in her lap and let all her vulnerability wash over her.
She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself, but the last bit of control she had walked out the door with Mike. Tears fell uncontrollably. She couldn’t push them back any longer. The memory of another life crept into the corners of her brain, threatening to punish her for past sins. She knew if she didn’t get control, she might never come back. When she closed her eyes, she saw the bright red stain on the white couch and the memory of examining both wrists, but no cuts, no blood. Relief washed over her, finding the tipped glass and empty bottle of red wine. That was the hardest night of her life. Maggie had been hoping she wouldn’t wake up, but when she did, she packed a bag and left Seattle for the last time.
Just as she brushed the tears away with the b
ack of her hand, a slight knock on the door—and the small brunette head peeked in.
“Maggie?”
Joanie moved through the door and gently closed it as if she was sneaking into a place she wasn’t supposed to be.
“Hey Joanie.” Maggie grabbed a tissue from the table near the bed and blew her nose.
“I came to see how you’re doing. I heard you had a bad fall this morning.”
Maggie turned toward her. “You can say that.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Joanie stepped back. “You look horrible.”
“It looks worse than I feel.”
Joanie sat down in the chair and looked at Maggie with some concern. “Have you been crying?”
“Just a little pity party. My head hurts,” Maggie said. “I’m better now.”
“That’s good.”
Joanie leaned back in the chair and put her feet up on the lower rail of the bed.
Maggie felt awkward alone with Joanie. They had never actually been alone without Mike filling in the distance.
“Was Mike here?” Joanie asked.
“He just left,” Maggie answered. “I’m surprised you didn’t pass him on your way in.”
Joanie stayed silent for a long time, looking around the room.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Maggie said.
“I know,” Joanie said.
“So, why are you here?” Maggie decided to ask.
Joanie put her feet back on the floor and turned to face Maggie. “I had another reason to come down here.”
“I have to say that’s not a surprise,” Maggie said.
“I just thought I should tell you I heard Kimberly and David whispering, and I think they may be involved with the scam.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They were talking about money and hiding it,” she said.
“What specifically, word for word, did they say?”
“I don’t know. I was too far away to understand everything. I just know it has to be those two.”
“Did you tell your brother?”
“No, I didn’t want him to dismiss me. I wanted to tell you.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to your brother, and we can investigate.”
Undercover Cruise (A Maggie McFarlin Mystery Book 2) Page 12