Death on the Diversion

by Patricia McLinn

  Running shoes in white, black, beige, one pair of red. Two pairs of practical black sandals. A tiny pair of white sandals that reminded me of some I’d had as a kid. Petronella’s practical close-toed flats. One pair of sandals. Four inches, but steady with a steadying wedge, unlike—

  Shoes. Stairs. A cane … A cane stuck through the opening, even for an instant — as long as it was the right instant — would trip anyone. Especially anyone wearing absurdly high-heeled sandals.

  But why?

  Had Leah encountered Coral before?

  That confrontation outside the elevator last night…

  …Better change your tune toward me fast—

  —worst cabin onboard seems like a palace compared to a prison cell—

  —was in your way when the cruise started, but sure wasn’t when it was over.

  Had Leah tried to get rid of Coral, then threatened her … only to have the other woman kill her?

  If so, Leah knew some secret about Coral. But—

  I jerked upright.

  “What is it, Sheila?” Petronella grasped my arm. “Are you dizzy? Sick? Faint?”

  “What? No. I’m fine. I, uh… maybe the earring’s in the pocket of what I was wearing before. No sense anybody looking more until I make sure. Thank you all for your help.”

  I thanked more, they said I was welcome more, while Petronella fretted about my emotional state.

  What actually straightened me up was realizing the security video did eliminate one person. Someone wearing a cast that would be impossible to miss even in grainy footage.

  In a millisecond Coral spun from hot suspect as the probable victim of Leah’s cane trick, to eliminated. Maybe I was a little faint.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Dinner was strange.

  Quieter in one way with the Marry-Go-Rounds’ table empty. Though the Valkyries and guys indulged in their usual boisterous drinking and eating.

  The overall turnout was lower than most nights, but many found a reason to stop by our table and try to find out what it feels like to find a dead woman.

  Bob fended off most with able assistance from Catherine. She called the head waiter over. After a whispered exchange, he stood subtle guard.

  Once again, we were among the last to leave. Tempting music came from the atrium stage, past the banks of elevators. The guitarist and violinist — Pyorte and Anya, I now knew — were playing again.

  “Good many people in there,” Bob said, from his advanced scouting position.

  I ducked in, enough to see he was right. Also enough to catch sight of someone walking past on the next level up. The opening for the stairs revealed only the bottom third of the female, wearing a skirt like one Odette had worn to dinner last week. But that was unlikely, since the Marry-Go-Rounders appeared to be mostly staying in their cabins.

  I grimaced over the crowd, not wanting more questions about finding Leah.

  “Upstairs?” Catherine suggested. We all agreed.

  Petronella’s seat was the only one with a view down to the stage area, which was fine with me. Listening to the music eased tightness between my shoulder blades. My eyes closed. No distractions.

  Relaxation evaporated in an atmospheric disturbance as Petronella flailed next to me. My eyes popped open. “What?”

  “I don’t— I couldn’t— A mistake, must be a mistake.” As if blown back by a blast, she was splayed in the upholstered chair.

  “What must be?”

  Catherine and Bob craned forward, looking over the railing. Catherine looked back at me and shook her head that she had no information.

  “What happened, Petronella?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “You must know.”

  “There was a man. Going toward the elevators. I know he held up his hand. Like he was waving?”

  Why was she asking me? “Someone waved to you?”

  “Oh, no, not to me.”

  “Who was waving?”

  “I couldn’t be sure. But the way he looked…” She clasped both hands to her heart.

  “How did he look?” Catherine asked.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly…”

  Open-ended questions didn’t work on Petronella. We needed to narrow this down.

  “Drunk?”

  Head shake. “Though he held a bottle of wine, I think.”

  “Angry?”

  Head shake

  “Happy?”

  “Maybe. He … smiled.” She gave a small shudder. “Like a pirate.”

  “Bloodthirsty?” Bob asked with relish.

  Petronella shrank deeper into her chair. Her hands now clutched the material over her heart.

  To pull her back from the brink of considering bloodthirsty pirates’ smiles, I asked, “Why couldn’t you be sure who it was?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? He was upside down.”

  “Upside…?”

  “The mirrors,” Bob said. “Must be the angle.”

  Catherine and I leaned over and saw what he meant. Mirrored planes tipped in such a way that people reflected upside down.

  I shifted around for different angles.

  Upside down and … backward. Sort of. Looking in one mirror, you saw the reflection of a reflection. As I watched, people advanced and retreated, sometimes the same person appearing to do both at the same time.

  I focused on one upside down figure, waiting for her to come out by the elevators. She didn’t.

  She’d been going the opposite direction. Heading toward the part of the ship where cabins lined the passageways.

  Had the man Petronella seen been doing the same? Or had she been looking at a single reflection?

  And what the heck did it matter?

  After that, we were unanimous in making it an early night, even though it was one of the time-change nights, which meant an extra hour of sleep.

  As Aunt Kit said, one of the true joys of these western-bound transatlantic cruises.

  After getting ready for bed, I tried reading for a while, but found my mind returning to Leah.

  Pulling out my phone, I sent Aunt Kit a stream of texts about finding Leah and what I knew of the investigation.

  While I waited in hopes she’d answer immediately, I re-read her texts from yesterday.

  Twice.

  By the end of the second time through, I knew there’d be no rapid response tonight.

  Then I had an inspiration.

  I tried the internet.

  It worked.

  Forget those warnings about pre-bed screens, I was making internet hay while most of my fellow passengers slept.

  Skipping email again, I went directly to the reviews written by Leah under the name Dee North.

  Look at her history. Patterns. Aunt Kit had written.

  As I scrolled deeper into Dee North’s reviewing history, I saw that over the past six months she rated nothing higher than two stars, while the past two months were all one-stars. Before six months ago, she’d had more twos, an occasional three, and even a four. Then, rolling back further in her history, revealed another, deep dip into vitriol and all one-stars.

  I went to the start and scrolled backward through the history again, jotting dates for the one-star extravaganza periods, bracketing the times when the nastiness was more virulent than usual.

  I saw a pattern.

  The darkest periods came a little less than four and a half years ago, a little less than one and a half years ago, and for the four months leading up to this month.

  After each of those first periods came a break with no reviews at all, then an interval where she became relatively benign.

  The breaks were from late October to mid-November. Exactly the timing of this cruise. It appeared the pattern was a virulent patch, cruise, honeymoon period, before the nastiness ramped up again.

  The break four years ago coincided with the great spouse swap.

  But what about the break a year ago? That’s when she and Wardham cruised without the others.r />
  The cycle from relatively benign for the month or two after last year’s cruise to the nastiest of all reviews before this one had accelerated from previous cycles.

  I wrote an email to Kit asking if that was the pattern she’d meant, as well as recounting more of what I’d seen and heard.

  Who knew when I’d get an answer. Maybe when we reached land. I flopped back in the desk chair.

  What was I doing, anyway?

  The Diversion’s Chief Security Officer struck me as a very capable man.

  On the other hand, you have access and insights he can’t ever have.

  That was Aunt Kit’s voice. Great. No texts or emails, but plenty of direct delivery into my head.

  Do you know what I’d give to be in your shoes? At the center of a real murder investigation, seeing it all from the inside? You better stay involved. I expect a blow-by-blow account and I’ll have opinions on everything.

  I wrapped my light robe around me and went on the balcony, enjoying the sea-dampened breeze pushing at me. The ocean was rougher tonight, the rocking of the ship more pronounced. I found it soothing.

  My chin rested atop my folded arms settled along the railing, I looked out to darkness pitted by the stars and their reflections into immeasurable depth that contradictorily seemed close enough to scoop up by the handfuls.

  When my chin slid of my arms I knew it was time to get into bed.

  Where I dreamed of ups and downs of nastiness, ebbings and flowings of vitriol, all in time to the rocking ship.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Heading for breakfast, I opened my door to the hallway and nearly screamed.

  Petronella stood right in front of me, her face a frozen mask as she looked down the hallway.

  “Petronella? What’s the matter?”

  “Wh—? It doesn’t make sense.”

  The murder? Not yet it didn’t. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t. Maybe, even, that I’d make sense of it.

  Petronella, however, did not look as if she had confidence in that. More like she had heartburn.

  I leaned out and turned my head to see what she was looking at. A door well down the hallway toward the front of the ship slid closed.

  “Did you see someone? Who?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” she mumbled. “It’s strange. Like last night.”

  “But you must have seen—”

  “He came out for a second, then he turned back and… and kissed her. And… Oh, he wore his clothes from yesterday.” She jerked her head from side to side. “No, no, no. We won’t speak of it. I came to be with you because after the horrors you faced yesterday, you need support, protection. Then… Then I saw.” She fluttered both hands in the direction of that closed door. “But, it couldn’t be— Because, you know.”

  Know? Not even a glimmer.

  “Petronella—?”

  The cabin door that had closed a moment before, opened and a man came out, propelled by a woman’s hands. Not in anger, but determination, and with a mix of emphatic words and chuckles. They were too far down the hall to make out the words.

  But not too far to recognize the people.

  Wardham.

  Odette.

  He wore his clothes from yesterday, Petronella had said. But they weren’t the clothes he’d had on when he entered the security chief’s door.

  Odette wore a negligee. An honest to goodness negligee with lace straps and—

  I shook my head. Dislodging irrelevant details.

  I grabbed Petronella and yanked her inside.

  “Wha—?”

  “Shh.”

  I closed the door — quietly, not alerting them they’d been spotted — with us inside.

  “But that was… was… In her cabin. But … Why?”

  I wasn’t getting into that.

  “How do you know those are the clothes Wardham wore yesterday? When did you see him?”

  “I… I don’t know.

  “Was Wardham who you saw in the mirrors last night with the pirate smile?”

  “I don’t kn—”

  “You must have recognized him. Even upside down. Was it Wardham?”

  Her hands covered her mouth, but she nodded.

  Had he gone straight to Odette’s cabin from when Petronella saw him last night, with a bottle of wine, waving, and smiling like a pirate? And had I recognized Odette’s skirt? It was a straight shot to the front of the ship, then the secondary stairway and a short walk to Odette’s cabin. At that hour they’d be unlikely to be seen.

  However Wardham got there, he was with Odette this morning, not yet twenty-four hours after his wife was discovered murdered. He was wearing last night’s clothes. She was in a negligee. There’d been kissing — heaven knows Petronella wouldn’t make that up.

  The other woman. Classic motive for murder, anyone? The twist was this time the other woman was the ex-wife.

  He wants to go back to his first wife now that she’s inherited that pile of money.

  He jumped because she had gobs more money before that inheritance came in. Or else he had no choice, because she roped him in and that was that.

  The roping could fit Leah and Wardham.

  Had Odette inherited money since their divorce? That would mean the motive daily double — the other woman and money.

  But could someone as ineffectual as Wardham pull off a murder? Unless he wasn’t as ineffectual as he seemed.

  Or.

  He was not the brains behind the crime.

  I eased out a long breath. “Let’s keep this between us, Petronella.”

  “I would never — never — talk about this to anyone.”

  * * * *

  I consumed breakfast, apparently making appropriate responses to Petronella at the table for two the maître d’ kindly procured for us, but my brain was elsewhere.

  It kept repeating, Odette is so nice.

  I considered that. Did her astringency disqualify her from niceness? Possibly with a lot of people. I liked her all the more for it.

  Aunt Kit’s voice sounded in my head. Your liking someone does not preclude that individual from being a murderer.

  She’d proved that in mystery after mystery she’d written in the years we’d lived together. I swear she did it on purpose. Though whether she decided a character was the murderer after she realized I liked the character or whether she made the murderer likable from the start or whether she used both methods, I hadn’t yet pinned down.

  I might have a better grasp on why she did it.

  She thought I was naïve about people.

  She had some cause for that.

  I wondered sometimes if Aunt Kit’s people-watching was entirely about creating fictional characters or if some of it was intended as a post-graduate course for me. If so, I was grateful, because it sure beat the trial by fire learning method.

  Back to Odette.

  She was nice. With just enough lemon to be entertaining.

  That doesn’t mean she didn’t kill Leah Treusault. Approach this rationally. Aunt Kit’s voice was nearly as bossy as the rest of her.

  Didn’t mean she wasn’t right.

  I sighed. As I ate a chocolate brioche, I asked myself what I knew that could count as suspicious against Odette.

  Answers came all too easily.

  Odette was the reason they were all here. She’d said as much herself. There’d been no group cruise last year, but she’d brought them together this year.

  Leah had stolen her husband.

  Odette hadn’t said it that dramatically, but that’s what it amounted to.

  Plus, Odette had been the source for all my information about Maya and Ralph beyond my observations. How much of my instant suspicion of Maya was from observation and how much from Odette’s take.

  But Leah dumped him for Wardham.

  Even so, that wouldn’t mean she’d be ready to see him recover immediately with the bereaved Maya.

  Was that the moment I’d started wondering if Maya’s first husband m
ight have met with foul play?

  Or was it when Leah asked if Maya was trying to kill another husband?

  Oh, you are a sharp one. Do you know, I never once considered that.

  Was that true? Or had Odette skillfully led me to that point?

  She considers she’s beaten me.

  Not that Leah had beaten her by taking Wardham away. But that Leah considered it that way.

  Because to Odette the contest wasn’t over?

  Because Odette had been playing a different — and more final — game?

  Petronella’s voice penetrated before an answer to that vital question surfaced.

  “Did you hear me, Sheila?”

  “Uh-huh.” I must have heard her in order to respond. Even though I didn’t know what she’d said.

  “I’m glad you agree. I don’t want to be rude in saying you look tired, but a nice nap and a quiet morning — or even the whole day — in your cabin will be the best thing for you. I’m going to do the same thing.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I said enthusiastically.

  It was a great idea — for Petronella. Not for me.

  Once she was in her cabin, I continued down the hallway, turning toward the front stairway to get out of her line of sight if she happened to poke her head out.

  With that danger past, I paused.

  Imka.

  She had more to tell me. I was sure of it.

  You might be wondering why I didn’t confront Odette.

  I wasn’t ready. I needed time. Or nerve. Or both.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Can you believe it? Another chip.”

  The receptionist couldn’t believe it. But with no one else lined up for a nail appointment, she couldn’t stop Imka from escorting me to the private room.

  I set up the phone, playing Carol of the Bells.

  “Badar is still held.” Tears stood in her eyes.

  “Imka, I can’t promise you I can help him. But I will try to find out more about what happened. If he didn’t do anything wrong—

  “He didn’t, he didn’t.”

  “—then finding out what happened will help him.” My brain was churning with what to ask first, how to approach it. A Vulcan mind meld sure would save time. “But to do that, I need to know many other things.”