“First, I had some breakfast. I had eggs and I was thinking about how you told me they’re a good source of protein, and then I started wondering what you were doing!”
“Hello!” said a welcome, welcome, welcome voice. I didn’t care who it was.
I swallowed as fast as I could while looking up to see who was there. It was Louise. She’d do. Anyone would do. Geraldine would do.
“Ah! Just the person I wanted to see. Excuse me, excuse me,” I said, shoving Scott in the side to get him to budge out the way.
“Is it?” said Sam with a frown. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay with Scott and me? Or would you like to join us, Louise?”
I shook my head to answer for her. “No, Louise and I are going… over there…” I waved my hand outside the door.
“We are?” she said. When she saw the look on my face she corrected herself. “We are.”
Scott slid out of the booth, and I made my escape. Sam forgot about Louise and me in an instant, going back to her dull as ditchwater conversation with Scott immediately. I am sure she was glad we were gone.
“What’s up?” asked Louise when I’d wheeled her outside and confirmed my escape.
“I don’t know. I just had to get away from those two. They’re just starting to date and I was the third wheel. They were driving me up the wall.”
Louise giggled, holding her hand up to her mouth as she did so.
“Sorry to hear that. I was walking by and saw you through the window. I thought I’d just say ‘hello’. What you uncovered about Alex and his extortion schemes was amazing. Well done, you.”
And she didn’t even mention the embarrassing part where I accused two people of murder! With a spring in my step we continued to walk, entering the Grand Atrium and approaching the big fountain in the center.
“Thanks. I’m sad about one thing though.”
“Oh?”
I nodded. “I never got to try Alex’s desserts properly. I doubt he’ll give me any of his samples now though. But I keep hearing how good they are.”
Louise laughed.
“Really? You want to try one of his desserts?”
“I’m not asking him for one though. Not now. No way.”
“No need. I managed to snag a little tray full of them. Why don’t we have a little pavlova party?”
“Yes!” I shouted a little too loud. A couple of passersby looked at me curiously. “I mean, that would be nice.”
“I’ve got them stored in a refrigerator. Why don’t we meet in, say, thirty minutes? We’ll gobble them all up! I’ve got six of them!”
“That sounds like a plan.” My eyes swung around, looking for somewhere good to eat them. Here was no good though.
“Do you know where Hemingway’s bar is, by the Lagoon Pool?” I suggested. “We could meet there? The bar’s closed now that it’s quite late at night, but we could sit at one of the tables!”
“Sounds like a plan. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my evening anyway. Thanks, Addi, you’re a star.”
Pleased, I watched Louise until she disappeared, and then headed outside. When I got to Hemingway’s, I pulled out a pair of bamboo chairs from a table and took a moment to stare up at the night sky.
With the stars blazing overhead, I thought to myself that maybe things weren’t going too badly after all. With six desserts coming, how could they be?
It was quiet outside, now that the pool and bar were closed, but the fresh air felt good. Despite the fact it was now night, I was feeling more awake than ever. Sleeping all day clearly did me some good.
With nothing better to do, I decided to make a start on the articles I had planned to write that day, before my extended nap gobbled all the daylight hours up.
I unzipped my laptop bag, pulled out the computer, and then blinked in surprise. A whole sheaf of papers had come out with it. Then I remembered, they were the ones I’d taken from Alex’s booth in the Vendor Hall. They contained the proof of his extortion attempts, so they should probably be handed over to someone, though I wasn’t sure who yet.
If the Chair of the B&B association hadn’t implicated herself already, I’d give them to her. Instead I’d probably end up handing them over to the police when we got back to port, I thought.
Opening the computer, I began to type. For twenty minutes I pounded away at the keyboard, introducing the various shops of Mahogany Bay. With most of the text done, I sat back in my chair to think for a bit. What I’d written was fine, but it still need pepping up.
Idly, I picked up the papers and began to flick through them. At first I thought it was all accounts, and my eyes were glazed over, not paying attention to any of it. Then I realized it wasn’t actually all just boring numbers.
Roberto the Plumbing Wizard was written at the top of one page, and I realized it was in fact a bill. A very substantial bill, in fact.
At first, I was just surprised by the sheer expense. I was vaguely aware that plumbing could be expensive, but this bill was for over ten thousand British pounds. That was almost thirteen thousand US Dollars.
I stared at it some more. Then I looked at the address. Then, I slowly placed the stack of papers back on top of the table, the bill on top.
And just like that, I knew who the killer was.
Chapter 26
The plumber’s bill was the key, but what was underneath was almost nearly as damning. After a moment’s thought I’d picked the papers up again and looked through the rest of them. The next two pages were surveyor’s reports.
The plumber’s large bill was for the fixing of a major leak, along with the cleanup for a massive amount of water removal.
The surveyors reports were worse. The first one had a heavy warning that the building had suffered severe water damage, and would need effective and expensive treatment for mold.
The second one, however, painted a completely different picture. The second one said that the building was in fantastic condition, needing only minor ongoing maintenance.
That was the key.
The second surveyors report was a fake.
But the person it had been presented to didn’t know that, not until it was too late. And it had driven them to murder.
“Here I am!” announced the killer.
Forcing a smile onto my face I greeted Louise.
“Hello.”
She was carrying a cardboard box and two plastic forks she’d acquired from somewhere in the ship. She placed the box down on the table, and sat down in the chair opposite me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I started to pull the papers together, but Louise reached out and grabbed my wrist.
“What are those?”
“Just some… stuff…” I said lamely.
Louise clearly recognized them.
“These are for my B&B.” Her voice had changed. The friendliness was gone, replaced by a robotic, emotionless coldness.
“Oh, are they?” I said innocently. “I must have picked them up somewhere by mistake.”
“By mistake? Picked them up? Somewhere?” Louise shook her head. “No. No, I don’t think so. That’s not what happened.”
I slowly pushed my chair back and made to stand up.
“Sit!” she said loudly, and I did.
“What’s the matter, Louise?”
“You know. You know what happened to me.”
I shook my head. “No, not me. I don’t know anything,” I professed. “I really don’t.”
“You do. You know. You have the proof right there. You know Geraldine sold me a water damaged building.” She paused, then tilted her head at me. “And you know about the mold! You heard that phone call I had with my customer. Oh you’re a clever one. At least you think you are, don’t you?”
“Me? Clever? No, I don’t think so.”
The night air seemed to turn colder, and the pleasantly dim night time lighting suddenly seemed too dark. It was too easy to hide. Too easy for something bad to happen.
“I came out here for dessert…”
I reached forward and lifted the lid on the cardboard box. Inside the mini-pavlovas stared up at me, begging me to eat them. Or maybe I was imagining things.
Louise reached out and slapped my hand away from the box.
“No dessert for you! You’re a traitor! I thought you were my friend but you’re just like Geraldine. Lure me in and then trap me! She trapped me in a moldy, water-damaged B&B and now you’ve trapped me out here. Where are they? In the shadows?”
Louise turned around in her chair, staring into the dark, looking for hidden guards that didn’t exist.
“I told you, I didn’t know any of that. I just saw those papers for the first time. I’ve just been sitting out here typing up an article. It was only just before you arrived that I figured it out.”
“So no one knows you’re here? And you haven’t told anyone?”
Oops.
“Err, I mean, I texted my boyfriend right away. He’s head of security. He’ll be here any minute.”
“Liar!” Louise shot to her feet.
I pushed my chair back and stood up warily, making sure to keep the table between us.
Louise took a step to her right, so I took one to my left.
“Being tricky, huh?”
I shook my head. “Not tricky. Not me. Why don’t we go inside, Louise?”
“Sure. That’s a good idea. Come on.”
Louise turned and started to walk away. I stared after her, not quite trusting her. And I was right not to. After three or four steps, she span around again, and sprinted back toward me.
“Argh!” she shouted, and launched herself over the table, catching me unawares.
Her body landed on the table, but her hands grasped my shoulders, pulling me toward her and down. I lost my footing, and fell into the table toward her. Louise rolled over, knocking the box of desserts onto the floor and pulling me with her.
Scratching and yanking at her hands, I managed to get them off me, and then I was up and running away from her, not caring where I was going, just wanting to put her as far behind me as I could manage.
But she was fast. Too fast. Just as I reached the edge of the Lagoon Pool, she caught up with me, grabbing me by the shoulder again and yanking me so that I span around to face her.
“Stop running!” she shouted.
I stepped back, warily.
“Hey!” came a shouted voice. The pool’s closed!”
While I was seemingly distracted, Louise launched herself at me again. But it had been a ruse on my part. I’d been in similar situations before, and I knew she’d try and use the distraction of the yelling. The moment she made her move I made mine — a quick step to the side.
“Argh!”
With a loud splash, Louise fell into the water with a heavy belly flop.
“I said the pool’s closed! Get out!”
Footsteps ran toward me, and it was with relief that I saw who it was: Shaun Anderson, one of the ship’s lifeguards and hopeful future customer liaison.
He skidded to a halt in front of me, and then looked down into the pool. Louise was standing up in the water, completely drenched, a furious look of cold anger on her face.
Shaun nodded to himself.
“Figures. Every cruise. I hadn’t seen much of you this cruise, I thought maybe you’d give it a miss. But nope.”
“What’s he talking about?” said the bedraggled murderer from the pool.
Shaun crouched down by the edge and stuck out an arm in her direction. He used his other hand to point a thumb over his shoulder in my direction.
“Every cruise she tosses someone into the pool. It’s like a… thing. She just can’t help herself. Isn’t that right, Addi?”
I glared at him.
“Shaun. She’s a murderer. She killed Geraldine.”
Louise had been reaching for Shaun’s hand, but as soon as I told him what she was, he jerked to his feet. Louise toppled over in the pool as the hand she was reaching for was withdrawn and she lost her balance. Louise’s head disappeared under the water again for a moment, before returning, the look on her face angrier than ever.
“She’s a murderer?” he said, staring down as she resurfaced again. “Her?”
“Yep, her,” I said with a nod.
There was the sounds of more footsteps, and I heard a quiet voice saying, “… but I don’t want to talk to him.”
I recognized it right away. It was Sam. I turned in the direction it was coming from but couldn’t immediately spot her.
“Sam?” I called.
She slowly appeared from behind a piled-high stack of sun loungers, Scott right beside her.
“Here,” she said.
Scott started walking toward us.
“What’s going on? Late night dip? Can we join?”
“No, Scott, you can’t. That,” I pointed in the water, “is a murderer. Now could one of you call security? We’ll leave her in there until they get here.”
“I might freeze to death!” came a plaintive voice from the water.
“That’s highly unlikely,” said Scott. “In this weather, in a heated pool, it’ll take a while for hypothermia to set in. No, you’ll be ‘right for an hour at least. If you keep moving you’ll be fine indefinitely. Here, I’ll show you.”
Scott stepped up to the side of the pool, and while the rest of us looked on in bemusement, he began to get Louise to follow an exercise routine to keep herself warm.
“Right, lift your hands up above your head and CLAP your hands.” He clapped energetically himself. “And, one, two, three. And twist to the left. And twist to the right. And hands above your head, and CLAP, CLAP, CLAP.”
I turned to stare at Sam, she gave me a shrug, and then shifted her gaze back to Scott, a vacuous smile on her lips.
He was still going five minutes later when Ethan and the security team arrived.
“And one, and two, and one and two, and…”
It was the strangest apprehension of a murderer I’d ever seen. And I’d seen a lot.
“Hold on. And now the cool down…”
Chapter 27
Finally.
Finally, the cruise was at an end. Or at least a stone’s throw away from it. The ship was sailing up the last mile of river before we returned to port, and the remaining B&B association members — the ones not dead, imprisoned or hiding in disgrace — were getting ready to depart.
I was standing by a railing with Cece and Sam. Cece didn’t have any cleaning that duties that morning, and Sam and I were working in place. If customers needed liasoning, they could come to Sam directly, and I had my phone in hand so I was technically working. I snapped a picture of the approaching skyline to make my work truly legitimate.
“Excuse me? Addi?”
It was Jake Cheltenham, and he was holding his hand out in front of him for me to shake, which I did.
“Hi, Jake, I bet you’re glad to be getting back to land, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. This was my first cruise, and it’s been just brilliant. Apart from, you know, the early unpleasantness.”
“But didn’t that ruin the whole thing?”
“Oh, no, not at all. I think we all enjoyed it, actually. It was much more interesting than visiting yet another English country village I can assure you.”
“Really?” said Sam, clearly suspecting him of not being entirely genuine. “Do you think they’ll be back?”
“Oh yes, I already heard the new committee members talking about it. Once a new Chair is chosen, they’ll make the final decision. But I think this trip was a hit.”
It was hard to believe it, but he seemed in earnest.
“We’ll be happy to see you back again. All of you.”
“The ones that are left!” Jake chuckled at his little joke. “I’ll bid you farewell for now, but hopefull
y not forever. Fingers crossed we’ll be back next year!”
Jake walked off to make his final disembarkation preparations, but a moment later another B&Ber was there.
“Hello,” said Anthea, “it seems we made it.” She nodded her head toward the shore. “What with the murders and near-poisonings I wasn’t sure any of us were going to make it back for a while there.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your cruise, perhaps if you write to corporate HQ they can offer you some kind of compensation.”
Anthea gave me a funny look. “What do you mean? I thought it was wonderful. A real step up from the usual death traps they put us up in. I mean, I still don’t really see the point in it, but the ship was nice.”
“You don’t see the point in what?” asked Cece.
Anthea pointed to the back of the ship. “The ocean. Back there. All that water. Nothing in it. All seems a bit pointless to me. Give me hills and moors, valleys and marshes. That’s the proper stuff. The sea’s no good.”
“The sea is… no good?” Sam was trying to process what she’d said.
“Nope. But the ship was lovely. See you next year! Ta-ra for now!”
Leaving us all confused, Anthea marched away with a miserable smile on her face. I think she secretly enjoyed not liking the ocean.
“Cece!” called a voice.
We all smiled at Ryan as he came over.
“Hey,” she said in a friendly but somewhat guarded tone.
“I can’t stop, I’ve got to get ready for the… removal.” Ryan pointed down at the deck of the ship toward his sickbay and makeshift morgue. “But I was wondering, my parents just called. They’re going to be in New Orleans for a short stay. Do you want to meet them at their hotel?”
Sam and I both looked at Cece to encourage her. I raised my eyebrows just slightly. Sam gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Sorry, I wish I’d known. But I’ve already made plans.”
“Oh?” said Ryan, clearly startled. This was the first he was hearing of the plans by the looks of it.
“Addi and I are going to stay at my aunt’s B&B, she’s got everything ready for us. I can’t let her down, she’s getting old.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. A real shame, Cece. But if those plans are locked in…”
Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 10 - Bed and Breakfast and Cruises Page 16