Terns of Endearment (Meg Langslow Mysteries)

by Andrews, Donna

  And that would mean more stairs. And more miniature golf. Possibly a lot more. Not how I’d hoped to spend the day, but if it kept the boys entertained and prevented them from worrying about how long we’d be stranded here in the middle of the ocean, I could manage it.

  “But surely you have some idea how long it’s going to take to fix it,” someone was asking the captain.

  I slipped out of my seat and made my way to the door.

  As I walked down the long passageway toward the elevator lobby, I decided to make a pit stop along the way—there was a lavatory near the boarding lobby end. And if the toilets really weren’t flushing, the sooner I visited one the better.

  I stepped inside, realized the lavatory had no windows and thus no light, and turned on my cell phone’s flashlight feature. I was just locking the door when I heard running feet outside.

  “Captain! Captain!”

  Curious, I opened the door and peeked out.

  A uniformed crew member was disappearing into the dining room.

  “Captain! Come quick to deck four! The lady jump! The lady jump!”

  Chapter 11

  A clamor of voices arose in the dining room, and I wasn’t surprised to see the captain and another officer hustling the hapless employee out into the corridor. I pulled the door almost closed, leaving enough of a crack that I could see and hear what was happening.

  The officer had shut the dining room doors, muting the clamor inside.

  “Vaclav, never do this again!” the captain snapped.

  “But is emergency!”

  “I don’t care if the ship is on fire—you don’t come running in and alarming the passengers. Now what’s this about a lady jumping?”

  “Off stern of deck four.”

  “You saw this?”

  “No, I only find her things. Shoes and silk shawl. And note.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “I do not know. Handwriting very bad.”

  “I don’t think Vaclav’s reading comprehension is very strong,” the officer said. “Not with English, anyway.”

  “What did you do with the things—the shoes and the shawl?” The captain was visibly trying to keep his temper.

  “I leave them there. Benigno guard them.”

  “You go back in and see if you can calm down the passengers,” the captain said to the officer, “while Vaclav shows me what he found.”

  The officer disappeared into the dining room. I pulled the bathroom door all the way closed as the captain and Vaclav passed.

  The stern of deck four. Not very far at all from the two cabins Michael, the boys, and I shared. Damn. Odds were they’d rope it off as a crime scene. Why couldn’t our suicide have chosen some other deck? What if it freaked out the boys?

  Then again, thanks to Dad and his habit of regaling us all with crime and autopsy stories, there was probably more danger that the boys would develop a slightly morbid fascination with the place. The boys and Dad.

  And should I feel guilty that my first response to learning that someone had committed suicide was to worry about what effect it would have on my sons?

  And just who was the suicide? I did a quick inventory. Apart from Trevor, I’d seen everyone in our party this morning. And while Trevor was admittedly eccentric, and arguably the sort of tightly wound person that I could all too easily see committing suicide, if he took the leap I didn’t think he’d leave behind a silk shawl and a pair of ladies’ shoes. Then again, what did I know of Trevor’s personal life?

  On impulse, I strode to the elevator lobby. I dashed up the stairs, fumbling in my pocket as I went for my Pastime card so, if need be, I could pretend to be going to our cabin. But by the time I reached deck four no one was in the corridor, so I hurried out onto the stern deck.

  There on the port side of the ship, and right beside the stern rail, was a small heap of things with a uniformed crew member standing guard over them. A pashmina shawl had been neatly folded and placed on the deck. On top of it were a small object that looked like a tuft of gray and white feathers tied up with a bit of string, and a note.

  And beside the shawl, a pair of shoes. Red shoes with ridiculously high heels and fussy scalloped trim around the edges. One was standing up and the other had fallen over on its side to reveal the shiny red sole.

  “Those are Desiree’s shoes,” I exclaimed.

  The captain jumped, but to my relief he didn’t try to chase me off.

  “You know the owner of these?”

  “Desiree St. Christophe,” I said.

  “A friend of yours?”

  “No, only a passing acquaintance. I never met her before we came on board. But she’s rather memorable—tall, with purple-red hair. Came on board wearing a long flowing orange caftan.”

  “I know the passenger you mean. Vaclav—ask Mr. Martin to join me.”

  Vaclav seemed happy to leave. The crew member who’d been standing guard—presumably Benigno—looked envious.

  “How can you be sure these are Ms. St. Christophe’s shoes?” the captain asked.

  “They’re Christian Louboutin shoes.” I could see this rang no bells for him. “Hideously expensive designer shoes. I saw her wearing them in the Starlight Lounge yesterday, shortly after we boarded, and then again last night at dinner. And she wasn’t just wearing them, she was waving them around so we could all see the red soles. That’s how you know they’re real Christian Louboutin shoes—the shiny red soles.”

  The captain was looking at me as if he doubted my sanity.

  “Look, I don’t get it, either,” I said. “I’d just as soon stick my toes in a blender as wear heels that high, but fashion-conscious women pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for shoes like that. Ask any woman on the ship—most of them will have noticed. And besides—”

  I leaned over so I could see the note—and since I was holding my cell phone in my hand, I sneaked in a picture.

  “See—that’s her name at the bottom of the note.”

  I didn’t touch the note, but I pointed at the signature, scrawled in a loopy, feminine, but untidy hand. Desiree St. Christophe.

  “Did she seem depressed last night?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I didn’t talk to her.”

  “Do you know anyone who did?”

  “Not really.” I shrugged again. “I think she was traveling alone. Some of the other writers knew her, but not very well.” I was about to add that none of them liked her very much, but decided not to. For one thing, they’d probably make that clear enough on their own. And there was also the fact that suicide investigations had been known to mutate into murder investigations all too quickly. I had no desire to finger any of the writers for a murder.

  The captain turned back to the small collection of possessions and stood for a moment, frowning down at it. I took the opportunity to take a couple more pictures from various angles. Probably a good thing for whoever would be investigating this, since it quickly became obvious that the captain had no understanding of how to preserve a crime scene.

  As I watched, he leaned over, picked up the note with his bare hand, and read it.

  Horace would probably have protested. I wanted to, but after all—this was the captain. Presumably he was the authority who’d be overseeing the investigation into Desiree’s suicide.

  The first officer stepped out onto the deck and joined us. Without a word, the captain handed him the note. The first officer read it—rather more quickly than the captain had—and shook his head.

  “What a terrible tragedy.” He handed the note back to the captain. “Vaclav told me what happened, so I checked her cabin and sent several crew members to do a quick check on all decks.”

  “No one reported hearing anything?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “So we have no idea when it happened.”

  The first officer shook his head.

  “It had to be sometime after four thirty-five A.M.,” I said.

  They both tu
rned and frowned at me.

  “How do you know this?” the first officer asked.

  “We’re in cabin 422—that’s just inside that door.” I pointed at the door that led back into the ship. Not that I needed to tell them the location of cabin 422, of course. They could probably find any cabin on the ship in their sleep. “I woke up at four thirty-five and noticed the ship wasn’t moving. I thought maybe we’d arrived at Hamilton.”

  “There would be no possibility of that,” the captain said. “It takes—”

  “A day and a half,” I said. “I know. But remember, it was four thirty-five and I was half asleep. Anyway, all I could see from the cabin window was ocean so I came out here to find out if I could spot land from the starboard side. I still saw only ocean. And by that time I was awake enough to realize we couldn’t possibly be in Bermuda already. So I stood here for a little while, wondering why the ship had stopped, and eventually I went back inside and fell asleep again. And that stuff wasn’t there when I came out here.” I pointed at the shoes and shawl.

  “You’re sure? It was nighttime.”

  “Yes, but it was also cloudless, and the moon was very bright. And I was standing almost exactly where Desiree left her belongings, leaning against the rail. Believe me—the stuff wasn’t there then.”

  The captain frowned.

  “The note is dated tomorrow,” he said.

  “Clearly she was not in a rational state of mind when she wrote it,” the first officer replied.

  They stood, frowning down at the note for a few more moments. I raised my phone, trying to be as offhand and unobtrusive as possible, and took a few more photos, of them and of the crime scene.

  “Well, this seems to be pretty straightforward,” the captain said. “Regrettable, but straightforward. Have one of the stewards collect these items and put them back in her cabin. Once we’ve got communications back, I’ll notify the home office.”

  “And the note?” The first officer held it up.

  “I’ll take charge of that.” The captain folded it up and put it in his uniform jacket pocket.

  “Is that all you’re going to do?” I asked.

  They both turned my way again. They didn’t look pleased.

  “We’ve already scanned on all sides of the ship to see if her body is still floating nearby.” The captain sounded annoyed. “If by some chance she changed her mind and wandered off rather than jumping, my crew will spot her soon. Would probably have spotted her by now, in fact. Is there something else you think we should be doing?”

  “Search the whole ship!” I exclaimed. “Maybe she’s playing a practical joke and hiding someplace.”

  “Not a lot of places to hide on a ship this size.” The first officer’s tone clearly showed that he thought he was humoring me. The captain’s face just as clearly showed that he didn’t think humoring anyone was necessary.

  “What if she was about to jump, got cold feet, and ran back to her cabin, forgetting that she’d left her note and her shoes here?”

  Okay, it did sound pretty far-fetched. At least they didn’t actually roll their eyes.

  “As I said, I inspected her cabin,” Martin said. He turned back to the captain. “And will do so more thoroughly when I supervise the return of her belongings to it. And make sure it’s locked so none of her things disappear.”

  “Good.” Captain Detweiler strode off. I got the feeling he was deliberately not looking at me. The first officer pulled out his cell phone and punched a few buttons. After a moment he swore under his breath.

  “Benigno,” he said. “Gather up that stuff and take it to cabin 411.” He pointed to the shawl and shoes.

  Benigno didn’t look as if he wanted to touch Desiree’s belongings—maybe he thought it was bad luck—but he complied, draping the shawl over his left arm and holding both shoes by the long narrow heels in his right hand. The first officer led the way back inside. As he held the door open for Benigno, he gave me a brief smile before disappearing inside. A rather pained and morose smile.

  “That’s it?” I muttered.

  I hadn’t liked Desiree, and wasn’t broken up about her demise, but still—this was cold.

  Just then I noticed that they had left something behind. The little feathered thing. A faint breeze blew over the deck, picking it up and moving it a few inches. I went over and retrieved it before it could blow overboard.

  It was mostly a little puff of feathers—white and gray ones. Gull feathers, probably. Or tern feathers, or petrel feathers—after seeing Grandfather’s lecture last night, I’d accepted the fact that I’d probably never be able to identify most of them, not if they landed on the ship’s rail beside me and obligingly turned in slow circles so I could identify all their markings. Figuring out which species these feathers had come from would probably be beyond even Grandfather’s powers.

  The feathers were tied up not with string, as I’d first thought, but with a narrow bit of ivory-colored satin ribbon. And stitched to the ribbon or threaded onto it were several tiny shells in tones of beige, white, and ivory.

  I’d once held—very briefly—a tiny bundle of leaves, feathers, and oddments that was supposed to be the instrument of a voodoo curse. Not one aimed at me—and I wasn’t sure I really believed in curses anyway—but still, it was a nasty little thing. I could almost feel the malice radiating out of it. Which didn’t necessarily mean there was anything to the claim that the bundle was cursed. More likely it meant that one too many glasses of Rhum Barbancourt punch had made me more suggestible than usual. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t put it down soon enough, and I found myself drawn to wash my hands rather more often than usual for the next day or so.

  But this little thing—call it “the gull feather charm” for want of a better name—had rather the opposite effect. Looking at it made me think of gulls wheeling freely in bright skies over gentle seas. I lifted it to my nose and took a cautious sniff. It smelled only of sea salt. A good luck charm, maybe.

  Although clearly it hadn’t helped Desiree.

  Still. I tucked it in my pocket. I could ask Grandfather what kind of feathers it contained. And I could show it to Rose Noire, who claimed to be able to read auras. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed in auras—I tended to believe that Rose Noire was merely a good judge of character, and how could a little bundle of shells and feathers have character? But it would please her to be asked, and anything that would distract her from fretting about how we were marooned in the Bermuda Triangle would be a good thing.

  Just then someone came out onto the deck. Léonie, carrying a mop and a pail of water. She nodded at me and smiled, then looked around, puzzled.

  “I was sent to clean the deck,” she said. “You did so already?”

  “There’s really nothing to clean,” I said. “The captain wanted someone to swab the part of the deck where Ms. St. Christophe jumped. I have no idea why. There’s nothing to see.” Just part of his attempt to pretend nothing had ever happened.

  She started slightly, and clutched at her throat, murmuring something that sounded like “mon dieu.”

  “I’d say pour your bucket of water over in that corner, and be done with it.” I pointed to the empty space where the shawl and shoes had rested.

  Léonie nodded, and a matter-of-fact, practical look returned to her face. She poured a small amount of water by the rail, sopped it up with a few brisk swipes of the mop, and returned inside, bidding me “bonjour” as she passed.

  I found myself all alone in what I couldn’t help thinking of as a crime scene. Well, technically suicide was a crime, wasn’t it? Back in Caerphilly, the whole area would be cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape, Horace would be hard at work doing his forensic thing, and Chief Burke would have long since chased me away—even if the chief was all but certain it was a suicide, and not a murder cleverly arranged to look like one. The captain hadn’t even given a moment’s thought to that possibility.

  Then again, perhaps Dad, with his book-a-day mystery-rea
ding habit and his passionate enthusiasm for detecting real-life crime, was having a little too much influence on my way of thinking.

  Well, there were worse influences.

  Although I wasn’t looking forward to hearing what Dad had to say about the second suicide—alleged suicide—in the writers’ circle.

  I pulled out my phone and opened up the photos. It occurred to me that while I’d seen Desiree’s signature on the bottom of the note, I hadn’t taken the time to decipher the rest of it. Which wasn’t that easy, especially on my phone’s tiny little screen—her handwriting gave the first impression of being flowery and feminine, but it was actually surprisingly bad. After a great deal of peering and enlarging various parts of the note, I finally made it out:

  Farewell! I can no longer bear the calumnies and unkindnesses of this all too cruel world! I want you to know that I have forgiven you—all of you—even those of you who have treated me so cruelly! When we meet again—as I hope we will—it will be in a better place!

  “A little melodramatic, but otherwise pretty generic,” was my assessment. In fact, it was like something out of a bad movie. Or, perhaps more accurately, a bad novel. My new writer friends hadn’t seemed to think she was a very good writer. Maybe I’d show them this note, too.

  But first I’d go and see what the family was up to.

  Chapter 12

  I stopped by our cabin. Which was empty, but Michael had left a note.

  “Power still out, so Horace is bringing breakfast up to the miniature golf course,” it read. “Join us when you have a chance.”

  As I headed for the stairs, I wondered if news of Desiree’s suicide had already made it to deck five.

  “Mommy!” Jamie greeted me. “I’m ahead!”

  “Quiet, everyone,” Josh ordered. “I need to concentrate on my shot.”

  I held my tongue until Josh had finished, and then, while Horace was taking his shot, I pulled Michael aside and filled him in on what was happening.

  “We should probably break the news to the boys before they hear it from someone else,” he suggested. When I nodded, he called out, “Guys! We have something to tell you.”