Dark Waters

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘Why’s that?’ I asked.

  Again with the laser smile. ‘Because Lyssa and I found this box—’

  ‘How did you get in the room? It was locked.’

  ‘Dad, is that really relevant at this time?’ my son said.

  I gave him a look, but Janna plowed on. ‘In the box we found a key card to that room where we’d seen Mrs Weaver and that man – Chief Heinrich, it turns out! – and one of those cheapo cell phones? But this one was used a lot for texts and one thing I know how to do is to find a text history!’

  I noticed her parents exchange worried looks. ‘And most of the texts were between Josh and Mrs Weaver! And they were gross!’

  ‘We gave both those things over to the Galveston police,’ Mike said. ‘Last I heard, the police had done some digging, and it looks like Heinrich and Cry— I mean, Lizbet, have done this on other ships, with other cruise lines. She marries these old geezers and demands a honeymoon on a cruise ship, which Heinrich can accommodate. She targeted Vern at a bar, then Heinrich got them on the boat. Who knows if any of her marriages are for real – even the one to old Heinrich? He didn’t know she’d been screwing young teenagers to get them to roll drunks for cash for quite a while, it seems!’

  ‘So who actually killed Josh and why?’ I demanded.

  ‘Heinrich,’ my wife said. ‘According to him, he walked in on his wife in bed with the kid, and when she saw Heinrich standing there she yelled rape and Heinrich grabbed poor Josh around the neck—’ Jean stopped and looked at the kids. ‘Well, anyway,’ she said. ‘Josh died.’

  I squeezed her hand and sighed. Josh’s crazy behaviour suddenly made a whole lot more sense. I could only imagine how Mike must be feeling.

  ‘But what did any of that have to do with Lance Turner?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Mike said. He grinned at Esther. ‘Your turn!’ he said.

  Esther sat down on the edge of my bed. ‘Well, the steward came to me and asked me to gather up Lance’s stuff since he showed no next-of-kin on his paperwork. So I did. And I found a videotape. I’d brought a small player with me so Lyssa could watch a tape before bedtime, which she likes to do to fall asleep, and I played it.’

  She turned to the kids. ‘I wonder if there’s a soda fountain on this floor?’

  ‘By the elevators!’ Johnny Mac said.

  Esther reached in her purse and brought out several one-dollar bills. ‘Take orders and it will probably take all four of you to bring them back, right?’ she said, the ‘right’ aimed at the adults. So they all ordered soft drinks, except me because I wasn’t allowed.

  When the kids were gone, Esther said, ‘The tape showed two men – one was Mr Connelly and the other I discovered was his son, Rose’s late husband, Baker Junior. Anyway, Junior was saying, “I know what you did, Dad, and I think it’s disgusting!” Or words to that effect. And Mr Connelly was denying it vehemently. It turns out that Junior saw his father hitting on Rose at a dinner party the night before and Junior was threatening to tell his mother if his dad didn’t step down from his position at the firm and retire.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘What’s the big deal? Was Lance blackmailing Connelly Senior over this? Hardly seems worth it to Connelly.’

  ‘It must have been pretty much worth it. I showed the video to Rose and she saw the date of the recording, and said the next day was when her husband had his fatal car accident. His brake lines were cut.’

  ‘Jesus!’ I said. ‘Connelly Senior killed his own son?’

  ‘And brought Rose and her kids into his home!’ Esther said.

  ‘Has he been messing with her?’ I asked.

  ‘Rose said when she first moved in with them he tried, so she moved into a room with her boys and he stopped. She said she was very careful not to ever be alone with him.’

  ‘I gotta get up!’ I said, pulling on the needle sticking out of my arm, through which crap went into my veins. ‘We can’t have this guy running loose—’

  ‘He’s not, Milt!’ Esther said, pushing one of my shoulders down on the bed while my wife pushed the other. ‘Rose and I went to the Galveston police with the tape while they were on-board ship, and they questioned him extensively. And that’s when I remembered he had opportunity.’

  ‘Pardon?’ I asked.

  ‘Remember us all wondering how in the hell somebody got cyanide into Lance’s wine? Well, you know the Connellys didn’t join us that night, but Senior did drop by the table, remember? Lance went to the bathroom, and Connelly Senior came up to me and leaned down and whispered in my ear that he thought I could do better than Lance and that he felt that Lance was not a good person. He was between me and Lance’s wine at the time so I didn’t see him drop anything in and with all the trauma of Lance’s dying, I totally forgot about it. But he admitted it. With all the evidence piling up – the tape and me remembering him at the table and the death of his son – he just up and confessed. Seems he worked with the CIA during his thirty years in the Air Force and had been issued the cyanide tablet that you hear about? Well, according to him it’s true, except it was a capsule. He’s been keeping it in a small vile on his key chain ever since.’

  ‘So he’s been arrested?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, and by the way, Milt, you might have mentioned that Lance was actually a sleazeball whose name wasn’t even Lance! I think I might have been able to get over him a little quicker!’ Esther said accusingly.

  ‘Something else to put at Heinrich’s feet,’ I told her. ‘It was his call. But how did Lance get that tape?’

  ‘According to the old man, Lance worked for him in the mail room and, being an opportunist, I suppose, managed to put a nanny-cam sort of thing in Mr Connelly’s office. He saw the very heated discussion between father and son – the door, I presume, was closed, but the walls, according to Rose, are glass. So anyway, the next day Baker Junior has his fatal accident, and Lance gets interested in the conversation the two had had the day before, and gets his nanny-cam back.’ She shrugged. ‘A lot of this is conjecture. Rose and I trying to fill in the blanks. Most of it, however, came from the old man’s statement.’

  ‘So why was Lance, or whoever, on the ship in the first place?’ I asked. ‘And why the hell did he have the tape with him? And he’s been blackmailing Connelly for three years? Rose said her husband died three years ago! That’s a lot of blackmail!’

  ‘The old man said Lance followed him a lot. He didn’t work at Mr Connelly’s company anymore,’ Esther said, ‘but he always seemed to know where he was. He showed up at parties, at the old man’s golf course, at the car wash. And the price had been going up and up every month, according to Mr Connelly. He said, and I quote, “He was bleeding me to death!” And then Lance just showed up aboard ship. He found the old man and threatened him with the tape. Oh, and he said Lance only latched on to me so he could stay close to him. The asshole,’ Esther said.

  ‘Who, Lance or the old man?’ I asked.

  ‘Both,’ she replied.

  ‘You said that Rose’s husband’s brake line had been cut. Didn’t the investigators notice this when he died?’

  ‘No, they probably didn’t check since it was “an accident,”’ Esther said. ‘But the old man confessed that he cut his son’s brake line.’

  I take it the old man didn’t know about Lance’s past, or the fact that he wasn’t actually Lance, before he hired him?’

  ‘No, and he didn’t know until the Galveston police told him. He was shocked,’ Esther said.

  ‘How’s Rose’s mother-in-law holding up?’

  ‘According to Rose, she’s still shell-shocked. But Rose said all the money in the family is hers, an inheritance from her father, so if she becomes convinced that Senior killed her only son, he’s going to have a hard time hiring an attorney.’

  ‘So, Milt,’ Mike said. ‘You only solved the one murder – with the help of some small friends. You gotta give the other one up to Esther and Rose.’

  ‘With honors,’ I said.

&nb
sp; EPILOGUE

  Milt – Two Months Later

  I’m doing much better. I’ve lost forty pounds, had to buy new pants, and am not allowed to eat anything at the Longbranch Inn except a new dish now on the menu called ‘The Milt.’ It’s a grilled chicken breast, liberally basted with picante sauce, and comes with a corn and black bean relish and a green salad. And Loretta is totally in on it – she won’t bring me anything but the Milt. One day, just for kicks, I ordered French fries with cream gravy – and got a green salad. Chicken-fried steak? The Milt. It’s a conspiracy. I wouldn’t really eat any of the bad stuff now anyway, but it makes Jean and Loretta feel like they’re contributing to my well-being and that they’re in control. You gotta give the women a little something every now and then. Personally, and don’t tell Jean this, I kinda like the way I look in my new duds. Very studly.

  Emmett’s nick in the neck from Reba Sinclair shooting at him turned out more serious then he thought – he didn’t get it looked at right away and he got sepsis – something that’s not good. He was on antibiotics for a whole month and still has to go see the doctor a lot. What with my heart and his neck, we were both out of commission for a while, which meant Jasmine, who was next in line after Dalton in seniority (Dalton said he didn’t want it, which was good, ’cause I wasn’t gonna give it to him) was in charge for about six weeks. It was not a good six weeks for slackers who liked to jaywalk, kids who wore their pants down showing off their Calvin Klein’s, or mothers who turned the wrong way in the pick-up lines at the schools. She also managed to arrest two burglars and a car-jacker. I’m thinking about turning in my badge and letting her run the show. Or maybe not.

  Emmett and I went by the shop one afternoon, just to see what was going on, and saw a female there we didn’t recognize, although she was sitting in Holly Humphries’ chair.

  ‘Hey, guys!’ she said with glee and waved, and sure enough it was Holly. But her hair was dark brown all over, all the shiny things were gone from her face, her make-up was normal, and she was wearing a regular dress almost to her knees, with panty hose and kitten heels. She twirled for us.

  ‘What happened to our Holly?’ I asked her.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, she’s still here. It’s just that I’m going to Dalton’s house for dinner to meet his mom for the first time. You know, first impressions.’

  I nodded. ‘Makes perfect sense,’ I said.

  Shortly after that meet with Dalton’s mama, the two announced their engagement and Holly started showing off an engagement ring that wasn’t exactly normal. I was flabbergasted when Holly told me Dalton had picked it out on his own. The wedding will be in the fall, after Dalton’s mama and his aunt get back from their pilgrimage to Israel, and he’s asked me to be his best man. I’ve accepted. I’m also walking Holly down the aisle, so it will be a hectic day for me, but I think I can man-up for it.

  Summer’s upon us and Johnny Mac’s been bugging his mom and me to go to sleep-away camp. This particular camp is in Texas, in the Dallas area, a Methodist church camp, where Mike and Lucy Tulia are sending Janna for two weeks. Jean heard from Esther Monte that Lyssa’s been bugging her about the same camp, and we got a call from Early’s mom that he’s been asking about the same thing. So it looks like we might do it. All of us drive there – Esther would probably fly in from Atlanta – go out to dinner, take in a show or something. It’ll be fun seeing the old gang again. Tell you the truth, except for a couple of murders, that cruise wasn’t all that bad.