Killer Aboard: A John Otter Novel

by Sean Blaise

  John took a large plastic sheet the vessel used when painting and taped it over the entire lower bunk entombing the print and whatever other evidence there was, underneath it. He then did the same for the entire wall beside her bunk. If the person had leaned, or briefly touched the wall it would be behind the plastic for the police to find.

  John closed the door and locked the door with the deadbolt. Once they had removed Jennifer’s body and placed it into the freezer, he intended to seal the room shut with foam so that it simply couldn’t be opened until they were in port. Not by him and not by Jennifer’s killer. John passed through the watertight door into the Galley.

  “How is it going Captain?” Lubanzi asked. The Galley was empty except for the two of them. It was time to see what Lubanzi had to say about the discrepancy, John decided.

  “Just preserving the evidence in Jennifer’s room. I want to catch the killer,” John said looking at Lubanzi carefully.

  “Me too.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your story.”

  “My story?”

  “You told me that you ran forward from the Galley when Monica screamed. Is that right?”

  Lubanzi panicked. He knew the lie would be a problem.

  “I think that’s what I said. It was so confusing; it’s a bit of a blur.”

  “Are you sure? Because Monica says you were already forward in the students’ quarters when she opened the door and found Jennifer.”

  “She must be mistaken.”

  “She’s lying?”

  “I’m not saying she’s lying but it was a very stressful night, and she could have gotten confused. I can’t imagine how she’s dealing with it.”

  “Lubanzi, let’s assume she is right, why were you in the students’ quarters? It’s a simple question. You weren’t due on watch until 10am. Why were you up, at all?”

  “Captain, I don’t know why you are asking me this. You can’t believe I did this to Jennifer!”

  “You’re lying Lubanzi, and I need to know why. Did you have something going on with Jennifer? Was she giving you money?”

  “What?” Lubanzi responded, confused. Then it dawned on him. “Smith told you about my past, didn’t she? What a friend.”

  “I forced her to. Why did you want this job?”

  “John, I have had problems in the past, I don’t deny that. I have betrayed family. That’s all true. But being a gambler doesn’t make me a killer.”

  “I just want the truth, Lubanzi.”

  “I won’t play this game with you when it’s my life at stake. I will let the authorities figure it out.” Lubanzi left the galley and returned to his cabin.

  John knew Lubanzi was lying and Monica had told the truth. Lubanzi had been up forward the night of Jennifer’s murder, and he was lying about it.

  Chapter 47

  Two hours later John wolfed down some water in the Chart room while they waited for the ice totes to freeze. Smith walked down the companionway and made her way to the logbook.

  “How long before they start looking for the ship?” Smith asked.

  “I assume you mean the school. Well, we lost coms last night. They won’t be surprised if we don’t get the daily report off tonight, considering the storm is bearing down on us. They know heavy weather can affect the Loran C upload. Without word by tomorrow morning, there will be concern. At that point, they will probably try to call the SAT phone. When that doesn’t work, the emergency will sound.”

  “And how does that work exactly?”

  “First the school would call the U.S. Coast Guard.”

  “Why? We are nowhere near the U.S.”

  Lubanzi stepped down the companionway out of the rain and into the chart room. John looked at him carefully. Until he got answers, John couldn’t trust Lubanzi.

  “Smith please, step into my office,” John said.

  Smith followed John inside and Lubanzi knew why John wanted to talk out of his earshot. He had lost the captain's trust, but he just couldn’t come clean about the gun. Not until he found out who had it.

  Smith sat down on John's bunk. She looked haggard and tired. He was sure he looked the same. They weren’t fond of each other, but they had a common goal, to get the students to shore safely. And now they had a common enemy, the murderer.

  “You’re not going to lecture me again about my position on board, are you?” Smith asked.

  “No. You asked how this is going to go down and I want you to know. Once we don’t check-in and the school can’t reach us, the first thing the school would do is call the U.S. Coast guard and declare us missing. The Coast Guard then liaises with the closest national rescue system nearest our position. They would then send out a bulletin to ships in this area to keep a lookout for us.”

  “And will they launch a rescue?” Smith asked. John saw her eyes looking hopeful and he knew he was about to dash that hope.

  “No. First, they have to find us, and we are in the middle of one huge piece of ocean. They have our planned route which is good, but we’ve been blown down quite a bit by this storm, so we won’t be on the float plan I already sent the school before we departed. Thankfully, our radar and GPS aren’t on that same electrical circuit the communications were on, so we still have those. And we aren’t a small radar target, so if someone starts looking, they will find us.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “I really don’t know. The problem is Brazil isn’t America or the UK, they aren’t going to spend a fortune sending out ships randomly. I wouldn’t expect them to do much of anything until we are spotted. Even then, since we are still underway and the ship is sound, they will most likely meet us maybe a day from the port if we are lucky.”

  “I haven’t checked yet on this watch, how many days till shore?”

  “We picked up a bit of speed since your last watch. I’d say about four if the wind holds. I’m considering raising more sail to increase the speed, but I don’t want to add unnecessary risk.”

  “We are past that point John; we need to be running full tilt to shore. There is a goddamn killer on this ship, and we can’t wait for them to kill again.”

  John looked at her. Smith had a point, they had to speed up and they had to make sure his body count was just one. But pushing the ship too hard could end in a disaster.

  “We have to have the ship’s safety remain the number one priority. We can’t put up too much sail, it's too risky in this storm. Best case is we spot a commercial ship and flag them down. We might be able to communicate with shore via the ship and at least get a basic message of what has happened to the shore, so they are ready.”

  “Fire a flare?”

  “That and we also have the SART.”

  “I forgot about that.”

  “You and the killer apparently.”

  The SART was a search and rescue transponder. It worked via radar. When turned on any radar beams that pinged the SART from a distance, would see an emergency display on their radar scopes.

  “But its range is very limited. Only about 8 miles or so. So, we have to find a ship on our radar, get close, fire the flare, and keep the SART on, and hopefully, they stop.”

  “If they do?”

  “If we can transfer safely, I say we get Jen’s body off. We also get all the students off, and the crew get this vessel to shore by ourselves. That’s the best case. The problem is with this storm our window of opportunity for that is closing fast. We have maybe another 12 hours where a transfer would be possible. After that, there is no way we could get anyone off in 15-foot seas.”

  “Worst case?”

  “We sail all the way to shore and try to keep the killer from striking again.”

  Smith leaned back against the bunk wall her hands folded in her lap. “This is a nightmare.”

  John looked at his hands, realizing he had to share with someone what he was thinking.

  “There is one other thing, Smith, that we have to figure out.”

  “What’s that?�
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  “Why did the killer kill the communications?”

  “I don’t understand the question, to hide the murder obviously.”

  “But they knew once the body was discovered, we would still have days to get to shore. What difference would it make if we could tell shore we had a murder on board sooner? Even if we had communications, we would still be on the same course we are right now trying to rendezvous with some rescue ship. They had to know that.”

  “So, why did they do it?”

  “Because if we had communications, we could give the rescuers our precise location, which means some navy or commercial vessel could be with us in a lot less time. The only thing I can think of is they wanted more time.”

  “Why? She’s already dead? What does buying themselves a few days accomplish?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? It buys them time to do something else. Maybe something worse.”

  “God, I hope your wrong!” Smith exclaimed, her face turning white.

  Chapter 48

  The students removed the large plastic totes from the freezer and put them face down on the galley counter. With a sharp slap, the ice blocks fell out of the totes and onto the counter.

  Rosie handed an ice block to Lubanzi who put it into the cooler on the floor.

  “Why are we doing this again?” Rosie asked.

  “To keep our food cold,” Ben responded.

  “But why? The fridge works fine, why don’t we just leave it in there?”

  “You can’t be that dumb,” Jack said. “Isn’t it obvious that we are going to put…” Jack felt a sharp stab of pain as Lubanzi squeezed his shoulder hard.

  “Jack, please go on deck and tell the Captain we are ready.”

  Lubanzi’s iron grip released Jack who rubbed his shoulder hard. He mumbled something under his breath but did as he was told and made his way to the helm.

  Lubanzi completed the cold food transfer to the coolers with the large blocks of ice now keeping the food cold. It would last maybe two days. The school had gone cheap with Igloo coolers instead of something fancier and they didn’t have the insulation for long term storage.

  John came down into the Galley.

  “Alright, students return to your cabins,” Lubanzi announced to the students who had been helping him with the food.

  “Why, can't we,” Rosie began.

  “Please, do as you are told. You are restricted to your cabin until we tell you otherwise. Restricted, means do not come out for any reason,” John commanded.

  There were more mumbles of dismay, but the group obliged. It was hard for John to look at the students anymore. Any one of them could have killed Jennifer.

  He avoided eye contact with Lubanzi as well. The ship's crew was shattered, and he knew it couldn’t stay that way for long. He had to eliminate more suspects if he had any chance of maintaining order.

  Once the students were in their cabins, John and Lubanzi proceeded to Jennifer’s cabin. They picked up her body bag and moved her into the galley. The horror of what they were doing hit John all at once. A dead student was in his hands! Possibly a pregnant, dead student.

  Even though she was tiny, John felt the weight of Jennifer’s life and death in his arms. He suddenly felt fatigued, as if her body were made of lead. He knew he was sweating and didn’t feel well. He was barely moving with her now.

  “Captain, are you OK?” Lubanzi asked.

  “Not by a long shot,” John muttered as he picked his side up again.

  Jennifer fit into the freezer perfectly, almost like she had been made for it. John closed the hatch and placed a lock into the lid. The last thing he wanted was a student looking for a cheese stick to end up seeing their dead friend. There was no doubt, they knew where she was being kept, but not knowing for sure helped them not think about it.

  He set the freezer temp up to 25 degrees. John wasn’t sure what bodies were supposed to be kept at but he knew that if he froze her solid, they wouldn’t be able to get her out of the freezer due to the angle of the unit. John clicked the compressor on right away. She had already been dead for over ten hours and he didn’t want the decay to continue.

  “You know, I didn’t do this,” Lubanzi began.

  “Lubanzi, that’s not how this works. You don’t get partial trust. You are hiding something from me, and that makes me not trust you. If I didn’t need you, you’d be confined to quarters.”

  “What I….”

  “Lubanzi I don’t have time for this. Man the radar, and find us a goddamn ship so we can end this nightmare.”

  Lubanzi walked back to the bridge. He knew he should just come clean about the gun. Lubanzi knew that if John didn’t trust him now, he would trust him less knowing he snuck a weapon onto his ship. He had to find the gun now.

  Chapter 49

  John knew that there was also another problem he had to address. He still had a killer on board, who could strike again at any moment. He had a decision to make on how best to keep the remaining students safe.

  There were only two choices that John could see. He could have them locked in their cabins unable to move about when off watch, or he could move them all together so there was always someone watching.

  Locking the students in their cabins presented a host of problems. One was safety. If anything happened to the ship they would be pinned in their cabins, unable to escape. Plus there was no way to regulate how they went to the bathroom, so it was a nonstarter.

  John briefly contemplated posting a crewmember to watch the cabins at all hours. He could do it himself. But he knew he lacked the personnel to keep it going long, before exhaustion set in. He also wasn’t sure his crew weren’t involved so there was only one option left.

  “What? Are you insane?” Smith shouted at John when he suggested it. Charlie just shook his head, while Lubanzi seemed to know it was the only way.

  “Look, we don’t have enough crew to post a watch on deck and a cabin watch at the same time. We can’t lock them in quarters for safety reasons, so how else do we prevent the killer from striking again?”

  “Who says they will? Why are you assuming that?” Charlie asked.

  “I have no idea what they will do next. They know every second that we get closer to land and the real investigation. If they are planning anything else, they are running out of time.”

  “How would we even implement what you are saying?”

  “We remove the tables in the galley and put all the mattresses on the floor. One person at a time is allowed to go forward to the heads and showers. One only. This way at any given time there are multiple students in the same open place at the same time. It would be impossible for the killer to do anything without someone else seeing.”

  “There are privacy issues you are violating. It's turning into anarchy,” Smith said.

  “Listen to me, Smith, I am God on this ship. No one can overrule me, including you. I am saying for the safety of my ship and crew, privacy can go fuck itself. I want to arrive onshore with the nine students I still have left. Lubanzi, let’s go break the news.”

  Chapter 50

  The news that the students had to move into the galley went over like a lead ballo0n.

  “We have to do what?” Greg asked.

  “Everyone is moving into the galley, until this storm is over,” John said.

  “Why? This makes no sense,” Jack said.

  John stopped, looking for the right words.

  “It is the Captain’s orders, do it,” Lubanzi boomed.

  “No wait, I demand an explanation. Why are you forcing us to move? Is the ship at risk?” Rick asked.

  “No, I just want everyone in the same room until we reach the shore.”

  “For what reason?” Amanda asked. John could feel the suspicion growing, and he knew the room was slipping out of his control. It was rapidly becoming toxic.

  “Because I said so!” John shouted. He instantly regretted taking the tough approach, but it was too late now. He had made a decision and h
e had to stick with it.

  To change course or give in would be to give in to the chaos of a leaderless ship. If there was one place on earth where democracy could not rein, it was a ship. It was better to be decisive and wrong, than indecisive.

  “I do not expect to be questioned again. Do as I say now. Moving forward, only one student at a time will be allowed forward to the head and showers. One at a time. A violation of this rule will mean missed meals. We are just a few from shore, and then this is over.”

  “This isn’t about the storm, is it?” Rosie asked. “It’s about her.”

  “What do you mean?” Rick asked.

  “Enough, go get your mattresses now,” Lubanzi said taking the lead and pushing the students forward toward their cabins.

  John turned to see Smith with her hands crossed, watching him.

  “I don’t even want to hear what you are about to say,” John said pushing past her to the Chart Room.

  Chapter 51

  John woke with a start. It felt like the storm had finally arrived. He got his shirt on and made his way to the Chart Room. Checking the chart, he saw they had picked up two knots of sea speed since when he went down. He checked his watch and was surprised to see he had gotten almost four hours of sleep.

  He checked the radar screen. The radar was flooded with sea clutter now, the large ocean waves reflecting its beams back to the Beagle. John turned the clutter control up, and radar screen went blank. There was not a ship in twenty miles.

  John grabbed his rain jacket and made his way up the companionway to the bridge. Charlie was on the helm.

  “How goes it?”

  “Picked up quite a bit, Captain. Blowing steady thirty now.”

  John walked to the helm and gazed down at the GPS receiver that still worked. Nearly ten knots. They were flying.

  “How is she handling it?”

  “Bit of a weather helm, Captain, but nothing I can’t handle.”