Cruise Chaos

by A. R. Winters

  “Here, this is the winner,” I said showing the card to Edward. “Look, she figured it out on the second day.”

  He frowned down at it, a look of annoyance on his face.

  “But how’s that possible? Surely there weren’t enough clues given by then. It must have been a guess.”

  I shrugged. “Even if it was a guess, the rules are the rules. The perpetrator and the motive are right—even if it’s a guess, it’s still a winner.”

  Edward muttered under his breath at the injustice of it. He’d worked so hard (I assumed) to put all the clues together, and this person had just jumped ahead and figured it all out without needing all the hints.

  “Shall we?” I said, indicating the door to the game room.

  “Yes, let’s get it over with, then we can really relax for the rest of the cruise,” said Harley.

  “I couldn’t agree more!” I suspected I wouldn’t be given free time after our event was over though. Ethan or Kelly or the captain would no doubt find something for me to do, even if it was just reprising my old role as social media manager.

  We headed back inside. We’d set up a small stage at the back of the room, and I led Edward over there.

  First, I stepped onto the stage, looking out at the expectant amateur-sleuths. Everyone was there. Even the confused little old lady, Gladys, who thought she had solved ‘both’ murders. She and everyone else waited with excited smiles or quietly chatting.

  “Good morning, everyone!”

  They all chanted good morning back to me, like they were students and I was the teacher. It felt quite empowering.

  “Have you enjoyed the murder mystery?”

  “Yes!” shouted everyone.

  Well, almost everyone.

  “No!” said one man.

  I peered out and saw that it was Oliver McGinty. I’d forgotten about his books again. But while I was standing on the stage wasn’t the time to deal with it, so I pretended he’d been joking.

  “Ha, ha, ha!” I said with a fake laugh, which was enough to get the crowd actually laughing at Mr. McGinty. His face blushed and I immediately felt guilty. But the show had to go on.

  “I’d like you all to offer a big round of applause for the famous—and famously talented—bestselling author, Edward Dane!”

  He climbed up onto the stage next to me and bowed to the audience.

  “Not only did Edward write the script for our event, but he also participated. I know you all enjoyed his performance as the detective just as much as I did!”

  The crowd applauded him, and with just the smallest hint of jealousy, I noticed that his applause was louder than mine had been. I didn’t let it show, though.

  Edward beamed at the crowd jovially. “You all did a wonderful job, just spectacular, solving my little mystery. I’m afraid you’re all too clever for me.”

  There was happy laughter at his little joke. The crowd liked being complimented.

  “But there is only one winner. One lucky individual who solved the mystery before anyone else.”

  I noticed that he said ‘lucky’ rather than clever. He clearly didn’t approve of how quickly they’d reached the solution.

  “And the winner is...” Edward made a show of opening an envelope, withdrawing the name, and opening his mouth in surprise, as if he didn’t know who it was already. It was all part of being a showman.

  “... Miss Mary Mead!”

  The crowd erupted into cheers and enthusiastic applause once again.

  “Mary? If you’d like to make your way forward?” I said to the crowd. I spotted her near the back, with a big smile on her face. She began to push her way toward us with a repeated string of sorry and excuse me.

  Edward and I waited on the stage while the applause continued, until Mary finally made her way through the throng and stepped up onto the stage to join us.

  She smiled at us, and then turned to face the crowd and beamed out at them too.

  “Well done, Mary!” I waited for the next round of applause to die down. “You’ve won a fabulous Swan cruise, which you are welcome to enjoy anytime within the next twelve months.” The crowd clapped wildly and Mary beamed out at them. “Could you say a few words to the crowd, and let us know how you figured it all out so quickly?”

  “Wooooooo!” came an exceptionally loud scream.

  I stared out, and when I saw who it was, I couldn’t help but laugh. Kelly Cline had just arrived at the back of the room and was already getting into the swing of things.

  Every day I saw our acting cruise director she seemed to be dressed in a different brightly colored outfit, and this time was no exception: she was wearing a hot pink dress, with a matching headband and heels. She was clapping her hands enthusiastically like it was the best show she’d ever seen.

  “Thank you everyone, thank you,” Mary said to the audience. “I must confess, I had an advantage over the rest of you...”

  She had everyone’s attention, and I could see a few of them were actually looking at her with suspicion, as if she was about to admit that she had cheated.

  “As some of you may have learned, I’m a mystery writer myself. I’ve lived, breathed, eaten, and slept mystery stories for years, and now I write my own.”

  There were more oohs and aahs from the crowd. Edward gave her a sideways look, as if he rather resented her stepping on his toes. After all, he was the writer around here, not her. She hadn’t even been published yet.

  “And that’s why,” continued Mary, “I think I was able to solve it so quickly. It’s in my blood.”

  “I knew it!” shouted the old lady, Gladys, happily. “I knew it was you!”

  Mary smiled down at her.

  “I’d like to thank the Danes for being wonderful hosts and scriptwriters. And I’d like to thank Swan cruises—and their wonderful staff—for all that they’ve done for us.”

  Mary looked at me when she thanked the staff, and I basked in another round of applause.

  “Even though some things had to be re-jiggled due to some unforeseen events, everything worked out splendidly. Thank you, sleuths, and thank you Swan!”

  Mary Mead gave a triumphant bow to the crowd, and then hopped off the stage and melted back into it.

  “Thank you, everyone! I’ve had a blast and I know you have too!” I told them. “You’ll find a table near the door, and Edward Dane will be doing signings and offering you all a free book. Isn’t that right, Mr. Dane?”

  “That’s right! See you all soon! And keep buying my books!”

  There was a great deal of laughter and finally Edward and I got down off the stage. While he went to manage his book signing, I went to snag a coffee from the food cart.

  I felt a smart sting on my arm and looked across to see Cece’s fist and grinning face.

  “Awesome work!” she congratulated me.

  “Thanks,” I said, rubbing my arm. “It all worked out okay in the end, didn’t it?”

  “It sure did. Cocktail time?”

  “Cece, it’s not even lunchtime yet, let alone cocktail time.”

  She let out a sad sigh. “Yeah. And I’ve got to work anyway. Tonight?”

  I nodded at her. “Okay, tonight it is.”

  Finally getting my coffee, I sipped at it while I observed our guests. They’d arranged themselves in a neat line while they waited for Edward to sign their books. I was pleased to note that none of them looked miserable, and from my careful eavesdropping, I didn’t hear any serious complaints.

  Despite the upsets, the event had gone off really rather well.

  Mary Mead was standing near the door, nervously fiddling with her necklace while she examined her freshly-signed Edward Dane masterpiece. Or piece, anyway. I wasn’t as much of a fan of his work as some of the guests, and wasn’t sure any of his books really deserved the term masterpiece.

  Harley was next to Edward, helping him by passing over the books and handling some of the conversation. She was a much better talker than him.

  My eye
s flicked across them. Mary. Edward. Harley. Then back again, Harley, Edward, Mary.

  Something was nagging at me.

  Something about what Gladys had said, about figuring it out.

  Something wasn’t right.

  But it took me a while to figure out just what it was.

  Chapter 32

  Most of our mystery group had become friendly with each other, and they took the opportunity to use the pool deck, which was still booked for our use, to watch together as we sailed toward port.

  The final stretch up the winding Mississippi River was always an amazing sight, and many of the passengers liked to enjoy it standing outside.

  “Hi!” said in a loud, high voice.

  I smiled at Kelly. She may have made a few goofs during the cruise, but she was a big improvement on the last two cruise directors we’d had. I kind of hoped she was actually going to stick around, even though I’d applied for the job myself.

  “How did you get on during the cruise?” I asked her.

  She shook her head and threw her hands up in the air. “I have no idea! I’ve still got four trillion things to do, but I made it! Yay!”

  I grinned at her. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Will you be in the same position next cruise?”

  “I have no idea!” she said with such enthusiasm that I was almost envious of not knowing anything. “I should be going back to head office, but who knows? I go where I’m told!”

  “Well, you certainly worked hard on this trip,” I said to her. Actually, I wasn’t sure what the trillions of things she had to keep doing actually were, but she’d certainly managed to seem insanely busy the entire time,

  While Kelly was talking to me, I’d been watching Edward and Harley out of the corner of my eye. They were standing near a railing, looking toward the bank of the Mississippi as we sailed up it, occasionally exchanging a few words with each other.

  “Aha,” I said to myself as I spotted someone.

  “What?” asked Kelly.

  I shook my head. “Oh, nothing. I’ve got to go and talk to a couple of the guests now. See you later, Kelly.”

  “Bye!” she said with a somewhat manic grin, before trotting off around the pool.

  I’d spotted the other person I wanted to talk to: Mary Mead. She’d just exited from the interior of the ship and was staring out at the pool.

  When I reached Mary, I gave her one of my best oh what a lovely surprise smiles, even though I’d been deliberately tracking her.

  “Hi, Mary. Congratulations again!”

  “Thank you. I very much appreciate the prize,” she said.

  “No problem. You did very well to win it. It was very clever of you to piece it all together so quickly. Almost unbelievable.”

  She smiled and nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Oh, look, I think they want to talk to you, Come on.” I linked my arm with Mary’s and before she knew what I was doing, I was leading her over to Edward and Harley. When she realized where she was going, I felt the briefest pull on my arm, as if she wanted to escape but couldn’t think of a good enough reason to leave.

  “Edward, Harley,” I said as jovially as I could. “You know, Mary was telling me the other day that you were going to introduce her to your agent!”

  Edward gave me a sour look. I could feel Mary shifting uncomfortably next to me. I relished in the awkwardness. I’d created. Only Harley seemed at ease.

  “Yes, Edward, you must. I told Mary you would and you simply must introduce her.”

  Edward looked to his wife, and then to me, and then to Mary. He knew he was trapped.

  “Yes... we’ll arrange something when we return to port.”

  “That’s in about twenty minutes,” I offered helpfully. Edward did not appear to welcome my help.

  “Thank you,” he said gratingly. Harley gave him a funny look but then shook it off.

  “So I heard you finished a book on this trip, Edward. That’s amazing. What’s it about?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details. It’ll be better to wait and read it.”

  “Nonsense. We won’t be bored,” I said to him with a smile. “We’d love to hear about it.”

  “Tell them, Edward! It’s so good!” said Harley, rubbing her husband’s hand in encouragement.

  Harley didn’t wait for her husband to begin explaining, instead deciding to do it herself.

  “It’s about this goddess, who’s actually a policewoman. Or was it the other way around? And anyway, this—”

  There was a sudden jerk on my arm but I’d been ready for it. The game was up.

  “Let me go!” shouted Mary.

  “No!” I shouted back at her.

  But I couldn’t keep my word. Mary suddenly kicked me in my left shin.

  “Ow!” I screeched and bent down to grab my leg. As I did so, Mary started to run away but I reached out and grabbed her ankle causing her to tumble over onto the deck.

  “What on earth…?” said Harley, staring down at Mary and me. She hesitantly reached out a hand, but then withdrew it, not knowing which of us to help.

  “Stop her!” I shouted. But she wasn’t going anywhere with me holding onto her ankle.

  Mary twisted and turned over, and then used her free leg to kick at my hand. She connected hard, and I yanked back my own hand. Mary stood up and I scrambled to my feet as well.

  I held out my arms like a wrestler. If she went left or right, I’d intercept her. And she couldn’t go backward. There was only the railing and the sea behind her.

  She went backward.

  Mary, seeing that she was trapped, began to climb up onto the railing behind her. Peering over her shoulder, she winced. There was no escape route.

  I closed in on her, my arms still outstretched. I was half-worried she would jump right on top of me and squash me. She didn’t. She climbed one rung higher so that she was on the third of the four parallel horizontal railings, with just one more bar above her.

  “Aieeeeee!” came the loudest, most high-pitched scream I ever had the misfortune to hear in my life. Ear-splitting didn’t cover it, but head-splitting was close. Reflexively, we all whipped our hands up and slapped them against our ears to stop the sudden pain of the screech.

  Slap went my hands against my head.

  Slap went Harley’s hands against her head.

  Slap went Edward’s hands against his head.

  And slap went Mary’s hands against her own head, but she did it with such sudden enthusiasm and force it knocked her off-kilter.

  She began to topple backward, and as she did so, she pulled her hands off her ears to reach for the rail to steady herself.

  But the screamer, upon seeing her topple, let out another even louder shriek.

  “Aiiiiieeeeeee!” it went.

  And then, so did Mary.

  Toppling backward, she was over the railing, cartwheeling into the sea below.

  “Oh, shoot,” said the screamer.

  “Kelly! Use your radio. We need to sound the man-overboard alarm, now.”

  While Kelly called it in, I ran to the railings and peered down, fearing the worst.

  I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Mary treading water down below, staring up at me with a face full of rage. The look of anger wasn’t helped much when a life-ring crashed into her head. For a moment, she disappeared under water, then she was back, in the middle of the ring, one arm holding onto it and the other now clutching at her head.

  “Oops,” said Cece who had appeared next to me. “I was only trying to help.”

  Kelly’s radioing was successful. Just as Mary grabbed the ring, the siren indicating a missing passenger began to ring out.

  It looked like Mary was going to be saved.

  “Was that my fault?” asked Kelly.

  I gave her an encouraging smile and shook my head. “No. It was hers,” I said with a nod down to the Mississippi below. “And his,” I said with an angry nod toward a rather pale loo
king Edward Dane.

  He did not reply.

  All that remained was to explain to Ethan, and everyone else, just what exactly it was that I had figured out.

  Chapter 33

  The next morning, after all the hubbub of the day before was finally over and done with, Sam, Cece, and I finally had a chance to catch up.

  We were shoreside, eating the best breakfast in New Orleans: the Landlubber’s breakfast in the Rusty Anchor Restaurant, a popular haunt for sailors, crew, and cruise ship staff whenever they had shore leave.

  “All right,” said Sam, “you’re going to have to explain it to me one more time. I don’t get it.”

  I grinned at her. I was, unsurprisingly, feeling rather full of myself. Not only had I solved the murder, but I’d also been instrumental in the capture of Mary Mead. And no one else had figured it out, not completely, anyway.

  “What happened was that Felicity Bull caught Mary doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. She stole the script for the murder mystery from the Danes’ cabin, and that led to all the rest of it.”

  “But why would she even do that? What’s the point of participating in a murder mystery if you’re just going to cheat?” she asked.

  “Oh, you sweet summer child,” said Cece with a laugh. “You must not be very competitive. People cheat all the time just so that they can say they won.”

  I nodded at Cece. “That’s true, but there was more to it than that. Mary Mead had other reasons for wanting to win the competition too.”

  “For the free cruise?” asked Sam.

  I shrugged. “Maybe that was part of it, but the real reason was because she wanted to impress Edward Dane. She was hoping that if he saw her solve the mystery, he’d be so impressed that he would use his influence as a famous writer to help her get a book contract.”

  “Huh.” Sam had a look of mild surprise on her face. “She must have really wanted to be a writer.”

  “Yep,” I confirmed. “She really did. But she hadn’t counted on either Felicity Bull or Edward Dane.”

  “Edward? What did he do?” asked Cece with a frown.