“Then get on with it. Roger will help you in any way he can.” He started to walk away, then turned back around and stepped in way too close. In almost a whisper, he said, “If this points back to an employee of mine, I want to be the first to know, not the last.”
“Yes, Captain,” Roger said.
I nodded non-committally.
When he left, he didn’t bother slamming the door, because the door had a mechanism preventing it. I laughed to myself, knowing he’d have preferred to bang his way out the same way he banged his way in.
11
Mimi
Charles and Roger went their way after handing Kendra a key to the stateroom three doors down from ours on the ninth floor. But I wasn’t ready to let her go. I walked her to her new cabin.
“I’d like to talk for a bit if you don’t mind,” I said.
She hadn’t cried, broken down, or even asked any questions. I thought this odd.
“I’m really not in the mood to talk. I’m tired, hungover, and I have no idea where my husband is. Has anyone checked the little whore’s room?” Her voice faded on the last sentence instead of sounding angry.
“I’m sure there will be a boat-wide search, if it isn’t already underway. Roger probably checked the activity on his room key.”
Kendra’s head turned so fast, I thought she may have heard a noise I didn’t. “No, his key was in the bedroom. Didn’t you see it? I picked it up off the floor. I found it on the far side of the bed, under the nightstand.”
Really? Under the nightstand, and she just happened to find it. This raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “Where did you put it?”
“I placed it back on the nightstand, not thinking about it. But this means he was in the room. He never left.” Kendra sat down on the corner of the bed. “He might really be gone. And the last moments I spent with him were the worst.” She dropped her head.
I could hear her breathing heavily, but it didn’t sound like crying.
“You want to take a shower and get out of that dress? I’ll make some coffee.” I helped her stand.
“Would you add some Bailey’s to that coffee?” Then she said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
She couldn’t have had much to vomit up. From the kitchen, it sounded like dry heaves. Poor woman. And yet, even with last night’s makeup smeared on her face, dressed in the previous day’s clothes, and dry heaving, she looked pretty. Pretty in a way that didn’t indicate grief. I’d definitely put Bailey’s in the coffee and get her talking.
Kendra got out of the shower and came back to the bedroom just as the steward dropped off the bottle of Bailey’s I’d ordered with Kendra’s room card. I twisted the cap on the bottle and poured a generous amount into her coffee cup and handed it to her.
She wore a mini skirt and loose-fitting tee, both a pastel yellow. Her legs looked better in the mini skirt than they had in the dress she wore the night before. Long, tanned, and toned. Her arms sported nice definition and absolutely no loose skin. I almost lifted my arm to flip the flab, but resisted the urge.
I poured myself a cup of black coffee, then at the last second added a splash of Irish cream. I’m not a black coffee kind of girl. Picking up my cup, I said, “You want to sit outside and get some fresh air?”
She took a generous sip of her coffee. “Perfect. And yes, I need some air.”
The sun had peeked over the horizon, saying a hearty “good morning” to the world. I longed for sunglasses, but instead, turned my chair.
“I’m fine, really. You don’t even know me; you don’t need to be here,” Kendra protested.
“But I do need to be here. I need to know what’s going on with you and Alan.”
She held her coffee cup with both hands, her elbows tucked tight to her sides. “Nothing is going on. And now, nothing ever will be.”
“You’re awfully stoic about this,” I said.
“Nothing to be stoic about. We don’t know if anything has happened to Alan. This is all speculation. And I learned long ago not to fret over something you can’t fix.”
I sipped my coffee. “Okay.”
For a few moments, we sat in silence.
“Look, if I’m being honest, Alan and I had no chance of making it. Things had gone wrong a long time ago. He purchased the cruise tickets for our anniversary, hoping to get back in my good graces.”
“What did he do to fall out?” I asked.
She blew her bangs with a full breath of air. “What didn’t he do? We hadn’t even been married a year when I found out he had a mistress, the hostess at a previous restaurant he was partners in. He sold his part of the business, then took some time off. But he kept spending money like we had it coming in. We fought all the time. The stress was just too much and I finally packed a bag and left.”
“You left him?”
“I’m weak. It didn’t even last three days. He lured me back in with promises. I wanted it to work, but Alan always made promises he couldn’t keep. He’s an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler. The combination is lethal. His loyalties are only to himself and whatever makes him happy. Booze, gambling, women…and the restaurant. I begged him not to partner in another restaurant and he promised he wouldn’t. The strain on our marriage couldn’t handle the hours he worked.”
“But you agreed to the cruise?” I didn’t understand.
“I did. I told you, I’m weak. And if I’m being honest with myself, I like the life of luxury. We had things I could never afford on my own. Then the money was good, it was great, but then Alan would fly to Vegas and not tell me until his plane landed. Our credit cards were close to being maxed out, and he drained our checking and savings. But then he said he had a windfall, and he wanted to go to rehab. This was his last-ditch effort to save us.”
“He went to rehab?” It didn’t stick if he had.
“No, this was his last hurrah.” She put her coffee cup down and put both hands over her face. “I’m so stupid. Who goes on a gambling, drinking, and whoring spree right before rehab? He said this cruise would be like starting over.” She put her hands down and looked at me. “We met on a Caribbean cruise. And even though this was a short Mexico cruise, I saw it as fate. It was our second chance.”
I wanted to feel sorry for her, but how many times does a man have to show his true colors before she sees it? “Do your sister and brother-in-law know about your troubles?”
She choked out a laugh. “They do now. That girl at the table, she let everyone at dinner know, didn’t she?”
“So they knew all about the drinking and gambling?”
She shook her head. “No. I never told anyone, not even my best friend. Everyone thought Alan was the best husband. Everyone told me how lucky I was. I just smiled. I never agreed, just smiled. How could I tell everyone how wrong they were? And you know how I justified it to myself?”
I shook my head.
“I told myself, ‘At least he’s not beating me.’”
Ouch. “There are other kinds of abuse other than physical, Kendra.”
“And worst of all, I still love him. He was my knight in shining armor.”
I didn’t know how that could be, but who was I to judge? So many things I never knew about my dead husband. “If it makes you feel any better, I was completely duped by my husband, too. It’s a long story I’m sure you don’t want to hear, but just know, I understand your pain.”
“Please tell me, I could use the distraction right now.”
I needed to unload on someone who didn’t know me, so I told her everything. The good, the bad and the deadly. And then I told her about Nick, and how we’d reunited. I did this while we drank three more cups of coffee. Kendra had loosened up quite a bit.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she said.
“What?” I thought it would be related to my story.
“I didn’t sleep in my sister’s cabin last night. I slept on the floor outside our cabin. I couldn’t have roamed the halls if I wanted. I was so tired and so dru
nk. I’m not even sure it was our cabin. A few hours later, I woke up, and I found my key in my bra.”
“So you’d already seen the trashed cabin? Why didn’t you call security?”
I didn’t know what to think. She withheld vital information. But I needed to stay calm, chat like we were old buddies. She did make me feel better about what Dominic did to me, and told me how lucky I was to have Nick. We were bonding. I couldn’t screw that up now.
“I didn’t think about it. I thought maybe he’d come back to the cabin, got pissed off because I wasn’t there, then trashed the place. He had a bit of a temper when he drank. Never toward me, but he could lose it in the blink of an eye. And when he wasn’t there, I assumed he went out drinking again.”
“Lose it how?”
“Look at his arrest record. Somehow, thanks to having a mother who’s an attorney, the charges never stuck, or he’d plead it so far down, it would be a misdemeanor. I’m lucky he loved me, I guess, because he never laid a hand on me. Though he did break a few dishes, and a lamp or two.” She drained the last of her coffee. “Want some more?”
I did want more, but I had to pee. “No, I’m good. Thanks for being a good listener. And I’m sorry about Alan. About all of it.” I stood. “I’m going to use your bathroom.”
As I walked into the cabin, I heard her say, “Well at least now I get all of it, not just half.”
There was no way in hell this woman loved Alan Daly. There was a lack of pain in her voice as she talked about their problems, and a lack of empathy over his disappearance. Two and two didn’t equal four in her equation.
When I returned from the bathroom, Kendra was gone.
12
Charles
Alan’s key opened the door of the cabin at eleven, and then again around one in the morning. I needed to see the CCTV, but Roger said it wouldn’t be available to me. I had to have a warrant to get it, and that was beyond his control.
Even though it pissed me off, I understood. When I had a chance, I’d go back to our stateroom and see if I could hack the system. I hadn’t brought the kind of equipment I needed to do it easily, but I thought it could still be done. Until then, I’d work the old-fashioned way: I’d knock on doors and ask questions.
“Do you know what the guys with Alan were drinking?” Roger asked as he typed on the computer at his desk.
I didn’t know how these people lived like this. Every room so small. The cramped space barely held Roger’s desk and chair and a couple of filing cabinets. I leaned against the door, because there wasn’t another chair, and no wall space to lean against.
“If I remember correctly, they were drinking beer,” I said.
“Bottle or draft?”
“Bottle. I’m pretty sure one was a Corona.”
Roger clicked, typed, and clicked again. “I can’t find any cabin with only three people. There are a few families, and half a dozen with four people, but none with just three.”
“Look at the ones with four people. Any of them in that bar?” I pushed off the wall and walked to his desk. Putting my hands on the desk, I leaned over to get a look at his screen. “That’s a lot of information.”
“No more than your cell phone gathers about you every day,” he said, moving the screen out of my line of vision. “Okay, none of the cabins with four people have a tab at that particular bar, but there’s a cabin with five people, all males, and they purchased beer in the exact time frame we’re looking at.”
“Bingo. What do you know about the passengers?”
“Not a damn thing, other than their names. You want those?”
As Roger gave me the names, I tapped the keyboard on my phone, entering them exactly as he spelled them. “What about cabin key activity? And while you’re at it, their cabin number.”
Roger told me the activity on the keys, which didn’t make sense until I realized there were other people in that room, not just the guys Alan played cards with. “What about the Wallis couple? I’d like to talk to Georgia about her sister.”
Roger gave me the cabin number for Mr. and Mrs. Wallis.
I had the names, but I couldn’t put faces to them.
“I’m going to head back to my cabin for a bit. I need to check on Mimi, and get my bearings. If I find out anything, I’ll let you know.” I opened the door, but hesitated in case he had something else he wanted to share.
“I just got a message from my captain. Our attorneys have advised that I have no further contact with you. You’re on your own. Good luck.”
As I let the door close behind me, I said, “I don’t need luck. You apparently don’t know much about me.”
I opened the door to our cabin, wondering if I could override the system, so they wouldn’t know when I came and went. After fumbling around with the door handle for a few minutes, I decided to tape my credit card over the hole on the door frame. This way the door wouldn’t be able to lock, and all I’d have to do to get in is push the door open. God save the person who decided to enter our cabin and rob us.
After testing the door several times, I sat down at the office area of the room and opened my laptop. After setting up a secure and encrypted session, I looked up the names Roger had given me.
It didn’t take much more than a search of social media to find out about their lives, but I wanted to know more, so I used the database we accessed for the detective agency to get credit history, criminal records, and addresses.
They weren’t as young as they looked. Was I getting to the age where twenty-something seemed so young?
Kennard (Ken) Jensen: 25, brown hair, brown eyes, 6’2”, 170 pounds. Graduate of Ohio State University, but originally from Hubbard, Iowa, studied business and graduated with a 3.5 grade point average. Six speeding tickets, two public intoxication citations, no other criminal history. Currently unemployed but had applied for several management positions with online career services. Middle class family, proud of their son. He didn’t look familiar.
Marvin Lynch: 24, blond hair, brown eyes, 5’11”, 165 pounds. Graduate of Ohio State University, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. Master’s of Business Administration. Currently living in San Francisco, California. Good for him. He’d changed his life around, or so it seemed. Lower income family, filed for bankruptcy in order to not have to pay student loans. Someone should have told them student loans aren’t forgivable under bankruptcy. During his undergraduate days, he’d been arrested for petty larceny, breaking and entering, and check fraud. I recognized him; he’d been drinking the Corona.
Calvert (Cal) Lambert: 22, blond hair, blue eyes, 6’, 180 pounds. GED from his high school in Cincinnati. Still living in Cincinnati. His sheet was too long to detail, but included theft, drug possession, possession with intent to distribute, and assault. Not a very nice guy, but he looked like a complete angel in his photos, and on his Facebook page. I bet he was his mommy’s favorite.
Because of Cal’s history, I decided to look into his family history. Cal happened to be a cousin of Marvin Lynch. Interesting, but I wasn’t sure why. The apple didn’t fall far from the tainted tree. Cal’s father had been incarcerated for the last ten years on drug trafficking charges. His mother was an on again, off again recovering addict. Cal hadn’t held a job for more than six months at a time, and all of them minimum wage. This pattern worked with his drug habits. Maybe he held legit jobs to justify where his money came from. I really wanted to have a chat with this guy.
Shawn Cantrell: 25, brown hair, brown eyes, 6’1”, 168 pounds. Graduate of Ohio State University, but originally from Tampa, Florida, studied business and played football. Go Buckeyes. He’d moved back to Tampa, where he worked in the family business. His family owned a plastics manufacturing company outside Tampa, and Shawn could have afforded Ohio State even without the football scholarship. I didn’t recognize him from the bar.
Clay Hodgson: 24, black hair, brown eyes, dark skin, 5’9”, 200 pounds. Attended Ohio State University at the same time as the others, but failed to g
raduate. Still lived in Columbus, working as an assistant manager at a convenience store. From the looks of it, his student grants and loans ran out, and he didn’t have the grades for scholarships. His criminal record showed nothing more than a few traffic tickets. He’d been the loudest at the blackjack table, sitting right next to Alan.
Now I understood what they had in common. Other than Marvin’s cousin, they’d met because they all pledged the same fraternity. I’m not going to name the fraternity, because I don’t think such stupidity should be given credit.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the whole fraternity/sorority thing, it’s just not the greatest environment for some people. From the photos on social media, it looked like a few of these guys used the fraternity as an excuse for some of their antics. I didn’t have to go all that far back in their feeds to see the barely legal ridiculousness.
And then there was Shawn. He lived for football. Barely a photo about fraternity life, but he showed up in the background of a few where he’d been tagged. Never posted any himself, though. All his images and posts revolved around Ohio State football, even though he only saw the field if a special teams player was injured. Still loyal, but no NFL career for him. I wondered if he resented that.
The door pushed open, and Mimi nearly fell into the room. “Our lock is broken.”
“No, it’s not. Come in and I’ll explain.”
Mimi pushed the door closed and jiggled the handle.
“Leave it. Come sit down,” I said.
She pulled a chair from the dining room table, turning it to face the desk where I worked. “What’s going on now?”
“They can track our movements from our key cards. I don’t want them knowing when we come and go. As far as they are concerned, we are in our room, and haven’t left. Unless they look for us on CCTV, they won’t be able to track us. If you want to eat, you’ll have to order room service, at least until we are finished questioning the people who knew, or talked to Alan.”
Mimi shrugged. “What are you working on?”
I printed out the information I’d gathered on the guys. Yes, I’m that guy. I travel on vacation with a laptop and portable printer. Handing the paper to her, I said, “They really aren’t that young.”
Love is a Many Splintered Thing Page 7