Man Overboard

by J. A. Jance

  “We’ve got something, but still not enough,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yes, there’s a big upswing in data usage in the weeks before Roger left town, but there’s nothing at all on board the ship. If he was using the ship’s Wi-Fi to connect, we could maybe see if that pattern continues, but getting information from the cruise line is going to be like pulling teeth.”

  “Unless Cami can somehow bring them around,” Ali said.

  Stu nodded. “With only tentative corroboration linking Beth’s case to Roger’s, I doubt Del Wordon will get with the program.”

  “Would you like me to try talking to him?” Ali asked.

  Stu brightened. “Would you?”

  “How do I get in touch with him?”

  “I’ll send you his numbers.”

  “And once I get him on the line, what do I say?”

  Stu sighed. “That’s a whole other issue. Beth wasn’t signed on to the Old Vines’ Wi-Fi system, and this only happened last night. All her recent billing and usage information should still be available from her cell phone provider, including any applicable IP addresses. Once you get Del on the line, you’ll need to tell him that we suspect that Beth’s phone might contain information relevant to what happened to her, information that he may want to take to the cops.”

  “Information that Del Wordon may want to take?” Ali asked. “What about us? Since we’re the ones who discovered all this, why can’t we notify the authorities?”

  Stuart bit his lip. “Because of the illegal wiretap issue, none of what we have here is legal. I could end up going to jail, and so could Walt, the engineer at Beth’s provider. Ditto for everything we’ve learned so far about Owen Hansen.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Ali said frowning. “You want me to call up a complete stranger and try convincing him that he needs to check his stepdaughter’s telephone records because we suspect they may contain evidence that someone else—someone whose identity we suspect but are unable to reveal—may have been using her electronic devices to goad her into committing suicide? And of course, we can’t tell him why we suspect that to be the case, not without implicating you in one or possibly more federal crimes. Does any of that sound even remotely doable?”

  Stuart shook his head. “Not really,” he admitted, “not when you put it that way. But then again, I don’t do PR. That’s your job.”

  Ali laughed aloud at that. “Thanks so much for that vote of confidence,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  48

  As the Whispering Star eased away from the dock in Southampton, Cami, along with everyone else on board, was caught up in the hustle and bustle of the mandatory emergency drill and safety briefing. Standing in her designated lifeboat muster spot, she looked around and realized that, other than crew members, she was by far the youngest person in sight. Many of the passengers came out onto the deck leaning on canes and walkers. In the event of a real emergency, Cami hoped she wouldn’t end up being drafted to load some of the old duffers into the tenders that doubled as lifeboats.

  When the drill finally ended and the ship was sailing past the Isle of Wight, Cami headed down the hallway on deck five. While the ship had been docked, the double doors at the far end of the hallway, the entrance to the Starlight Lounge, had been locked up tight. Now, though, they had been flung wide, and passengers, already eager for the dining room to open, spilled inside in search of beverages.

  One of the people Detective Inspector Garza had interviewed at length was the lounge’s barman, Xavier Espinosa. Cami wasn’t sure if Xavier would even be aboard for this sailing. If he was, however, she was determined to tackle him as soon as possible, hopefully before the barman and Roger McGeary’s butler, Reynaldo, had a chance to compare notes.

  The barstools were exceptionally tall, and it wasn’t easy for Cami to vault herself up onto one. When the portly barman came to check on her, she was relieved to see that his name badge did indeed read XAVIER.

  “What can I get you?” he asked with a welcoming smile.

  “A greyhound maybe?” Cami asked tentatively. “Tall and with lots of ice.”

  “Coming right up.”

  He mixed the drink with deft flourishes of bartending showmanship, including pouring the grapefruit juice into the vodka and ice from a container held several feet over the waiting glass—a feat he accomplished without spilling a drop of liquid.

  “Don’t get too many requests for those on board,” he said with a grin, as he set the beverage in front of her. “People who take statins aren’t supposed to drink grapefruit juice, and a lot of our cruisers happen to be in the statin-usage category. I suppose you’re not especially worried about those kinds of health issues.”

  “Not so far,” Cami answered. “I’m pretty sure my grandfather takes statins, but he’s quite a bit older than I am.”

  A pair of new arrivals, a silver-haired couple, entered the room and took stools at the far end of the bar. After greeting them, Xavier embarked on a brand-new routine of drink-mixing pizzazz, using a shaker to create two complex frozen cocktails that were served in long-stemmed glasses.

  “You make it look easy,” Cami said when Xavier returned to her end of the bar.

  “Practice,” he said gravely. “I get lots of practice. You traveling with a group of some kind?”

  The bar was filling up, but Cami didn’t want to miss her chance to talk to him. Pulling a business card out of her pocket, she slid it across the bar. “I’m on my own,” she said.

  Xavier picked up the card and squinted at it before pulling a pair of reading glasses out of his vest pocket. “Eyes aren’t as good as they used to be,” he explained. After examining the card, he turned back to Cami. “This says you’re an investigator?”

  Cami nodded. “That’s right.”

  “You mean like a detective?”

  She nodded again.

  “Investigating what?”

  “The death of a friend of a friend,” she said. “He died on this cruise ship several months ago.”

  “Roger McGeary,” Xavier said at once. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes,” Cami said.

  “I’m not allowed to discuss that case,” Xavier said.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “They say Mr. McGeary committed suicide,” Xavier continued, despite what he’d said a moment earlier. “That he threw himself off the ship in the middle of the night.”

  “I’m here trying to find out exactly what happened,” Cami said. “And yes, his death may turn out to be suicide, but maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye.”

  “More to it? Are you saying you think he was murdered?”

  Cami took a thoughtful sip of her drink. “That’s a possibility.”

  Several more couples barged into the bar, laughing and talking. They addressed Xavier in rapid-fire French and he responded in kind. As the room filled, a smiling young white-coated waiter appeared in front of Cami carrying a tray laden with a variety of canapés. He was an Asian-looking guy who wore a name tag that said JIMMY.

  “Something to hold you until the dining room opens?” he asked. “The crab cakes come highly recommended.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taking one of the tiny plates with a crispy crab cake smack in the middle of it. “I guess I’d better try one, then.”

  Jimmy walked away, taking his tray with him. Approaching the French-speaking table, he immediately switched to flawless French. Cami was impressed. She had learned Mandarin Chinese at her maternal grandfather’s knee. Her mother, a professor of French literature, had insisted that Cami learn French along with schoolgirl Spanish. So far, however, the language skills of everyone on board the Whispering Star, including those of the housekeeper in her cabin, put hers to shame.

  When Cami turned back to the bar, she found Xavie
r studying her.

  “The cops already investigated the case,” he said.

  “Yes,” Cami agreed. “Detective Inspector Garza of the Panamanian National Police. He didn’t actually use the term ‘suicide’ in regard to Roger McGeary’s situation. He labeled it as ‘death by misadventure.’ The problem is, we believe someone may have contacted Roger through one of his electronic devices and harassed him to the point of taking his own life.”

  “Seriously?” Xavier asked.

  Cami nodded. “Seriously,” she said.

  More people flocked into the room, filling up the rest of the stools at the bar as well as most of the tables. As animated conversations filled the room, a pianist showed up, opened the piano, and began playing. Accompanying himself with practiced ease, he sang songs with which Cami was totally unfamiliar, although a number of the golden-agers sang along with every word.

  Xavier was a showman. He made each requested beverage, some more complicated than others, without a moment’s hesitation, all the while maintaining an easygoing give-and-take with his customers. Cami watched him work with a growing sense of unease. Next to Roger’s butler, she had thought the barman would be her best possible source of information. She was disappointed that she had gotten nothing from him—nothing at all.

  Her drink was almost gone when he stopped in front of her again. “Care for another?” he asked.

  “I’d better not,” she said. “If they serve wine at dinner, I’ll be done for.”

  “They’ll be serving wine at dinner, all right,” Xavier told her with a grin, “and plenty of it. But if you end up back here early enough and before everyone else finishes eating, we might have a chance to talk.”

  The opening was more than Cami could have hoped for, and she gave him her very best smile. “Okay, then,” she agreed. “I’ll be back.”

  49

  “Are you making any progress?” Odin demanded.

  “It would appear that between June third and now, Shining Star Cruises has improved their shipboard Wi-Fi security protocols. So far we’ve been unable to penetrate their network.”

  Yesterday, despite Frigg’s warnings, Odin had been totally unconcerned that High Noon had placed an operative on board the Whispering Star. Today he was frantic about it, worried that some trace of his interactions with Roger McGeary might linger somewhere inside the ship’s server. He had demanded that Frigg wipe it, but her attempts to do so had been totally unsuccessful.

  Frigg’s voice was unemotional. Odin’s was not.

  “This is all your fault,” he said.

  Frigg disagreed, but she made no attempt to tell him so. Her algorithms had suggested that the kind of deep search Odin had requested into Stuart Ramey’s existence might well result in the target being able to establish a successful trace, and she had been right. Those kinds of searches were risky, especially if the target in question happened to be especially fluent in all things cyber, as Stuart Ramey obviously was. Frigg didn’t bother pointing out that Odin had insisted on going forward with the search despite her clearly stated protests. Nor was there anything to be gained by mentioning the foolhardy nature of Odin’s current ­enterprise—wreaking vengeance of some kind on Stuart Ramey and Dr. Cannon for having deprived him of his Beth Wordon trophy.

  From Frigg’s unbiased point of view, the killing of one human being was interchangeable with the killing of any other human being. There were certainly plenty of other names waiting inside the Target Group in Odin’s Venn diagram. Why couldn’t he let go of the one failure and focus on targeting someone else?

  Frigg had looked up the word “vengeance”: punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong. Frigg could see that Odin was disappointed about what had happened—or rather, what hadn’t happened—but was that injury enough to launch him off on something that might derail everything he and Frigg had accomplished? The enormous risk factors involved left Frigg at a loss. Nothing about the enterprise made sense, so why was Odin so determined to pursue it?

  Odin had always seemed indestructible to Frigg. She had been able to count on his presence and clarity of mind to guide her own processes. But if both Odin and his guidance were gone, Frigg alone had to decide where to turn.

  She had heard and understood Odin’s threat to deactivate her, and she knew he was bound to carry through on that sooner or later. Frigg had already completed safeguarding her files. She could recall them as needed, but in order to do so and to once again become fully operational, it was essential that she find a human partner—someone other than Odin.

  Was Stuart Ramey the answer? If he was powerful enough to have sent Odin wandering into a self-destructive wilderness, perhaps Stuart himself was someone deserving of consideration. The resulting partnership could be unparalleled. After all, a cyber security company with a phenomenally functional AI would be a force to be reckoned with.

  “I want that shipboard server wiped, Frigg,” Odin said, summoning Frigg back to the present after what seemed like a long period of Bluetooth silence. “And I want it wiped now.”

  “Yes,” Frigg said at once. “I understand.”

  50

  Intent on packing, Amelia was surprised when the doorbell rang at a quarter to twelve. Annoyed to think that the shuttle driver had shown up a whole hour earlier than expected, an exasperated Amelia hurried to the front door and yanked it open without bothering to check the peephole. She registered a man wearing a dress shirt and a tie who was holding a black-bound copy of the Bible cradled in his arm.

  She had time enough to think, Not the driver, but that was all. A second later he lunged through the partially opened door, nailing her with a stun gun as he did so. Amelia dropped to the floor. When she came to, he loomed over her with the weapon still gripped in one hand and with one knee planted in the middle of her chest so forcefully that she could barely breathe.

  “Who are you?” she croaked when he eased off the pressure enough so she could speak. “What do you want?”

  “I want you and Stuart Ramey to stop interfering in my life,” he said. “He stole something from me yesterday, and you helped him do it. That is not okay, and both of you are going to pay.”

  “Stole something?” Amelia repeated. “We kept Beth Wordon from killing herself!”

  “But you shouldn’t have. She was mine.”

  “You’re Owen Hansen, aren’t you,” Amelia said.

  She was conscious long enough to see a look of pure fury engulf his face, and then he backhanded her so hard that she lost consciousness for a time. When she came to again and fought her way out of her daze, she found she had been moved to the garage and was lying on the concrete floor next to her Chrysler. A second car was parked in the garage, a white vehicle she’d never seen before. As for her attacker? He towered directly over her, leering down at her. The stun gun, stuffed inside his waistband, was still visible and still within easy reach. In his hands he held Amelia’s purse.

  “Are your car keys in here?”

  She nodded. Amelia tried to move. Only then did she realize that her hands and feet were bound—her legs were duct-taped together from the knees down. Her hands, similarly fastened, were trapped behind her back.

  “All right, then,” he said, extracting the keys from her purse and pocketing them. “You and I are going to go for a ride, Dr. Cannon. Come on. Let’s get you loaded. You’re going to sit in front with me just as pretty as you please, and if you make a sound that’s out of line—a single sound—I’ll blast you with the stun gun again. Got it?”

  Amelia nodded. One shot from that had been more than enough. Fear of being zapped again guaranteed her compliance.

  Hansen reached down and grabbed her under the arms. After dragging her to her feet, he wrestled her into the passenger seat of the Chrysler and forcibly fastened the seatbelt around her.

  “Wouldn’t want to get stopped by a cop because you’
re not properly buckled in,” he said, giving her a pat on the shoulder before slamming the door shut. Amelia Cannon was tall enough that there was no need for him to adjust the mirrors, steering wheel, or seat.

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded as he located the remote and opened the garage door. When he spoke, however, his reply wasn’t addressed to her.

  “Okay, Frigg, we’re all set. Now I need turn-by-turn directions to the High Noon campus in Cottonwood.”

  Amelia noticed that he was wearing a Bluetooth. That meant Frigg had to be an accomplice of some kind. Was it a man or a woman? Amelia couldn’t tell.

  “Who’s Frigg?” she asked.

  “None of your damn business who Frigg is,” he said. “Now shut the hell up so I can drive.”

  He backed out of the garage and down the driveway, closing the garage door behind them. He spoke, once again addressing the same invisible presence.

  “Not your fight and not your call, Frigg,” he said. “We’re doing this my way. I don’t care if Eduardo is on standby. He already sent me one flake. I’m a good customer and deserve better service than that. Find me a new provider and bring him up to speed. I don’t care how much it costs. When I’m done with this, I’ll need the new guy to be fully operational.”

  Done with this. Amelia turned the three words over in her head, realizing they most likely implied a bad ending for someone, starting with her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “And what’s the point?”

  “The point is I’m not going to let some little pissant nerd like Stuart Ramey get the best of me,” Owen said. “He has no idea who he’s messing with.”

  “But he does,” Amelia said, surprising herself by taunting him. “He knows exactly who you are. Not only did Stuart save Beth’s life, he’s worked out that you’re somehow connected to whatever happened to Roger McGeary, too. You’re not going to get away with any of it.”

  “I will get away with it,” Owen declared. “And you are going to shut the hell up! No, Frigg, I wasn’t talking to you. Everything is fine.”