Deadly Cruise: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 7)

by A. R. Winters

  But now we were here, at the beach where Susan Shelly had filmed a forgettable slasher flick in the early eighties. At least the passengers seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  Susan was projecting her voice as she walked through the sand backward, talking to the group trailing behind her.

  “This area was called Blue Crescent Cove in the movie, and later became known as Killer Cove, after the movie. I believe some people still refer to it as that today.”

  They didn’t. I’d been there several times on previous cruises and never once heard it called that.

  Susan stretched her arms up over her head and yawned dramatically.

  “I’m going to let you all explore and relax a little now. Maybe you can imagine what it was like all those years ago when we had a whole film unit here working together.” She lowered the pitch of her voice, though she managed to maintain a loud volume so everyone could hear. “If you close your eyes, you may even hear the whispering ghosts of the victims of Killer Cove!”

  The non-existent victims, I thought to myself. Unless something had really gone wrong during filming.

  The beach had pristine white sand and along the shoreline were swaying palm trees. It really was a beautiful spot and I figured that I, like Susan, was lucky to have been brought there for work.

  Polly Stratton was carrying an undecorated, plain white canvas bag with her today, which matched the white bikini top and shorts, white flipflops, and white shawl she wore over the top. I was near her, snapping pictures of the scenery when I saw her approach Susan. Thinking they would make quite a photogenic pair due to dressing with a lot more chicness than the average tourist, I tagged along behind.

  “Susan! I’m loving your tour. It’s really interesting.”

  Susan herself was wearing a replica of the red bathing suit she had worn on the poster for Killer Cove, along with bejeweled sandals and a black-and-white sarong. If you closed your eyes and squinted, you could imagine how the movie star had looked back in her prime.

  “Why, thank you. I do my best,” she said modestly.

  Polly lifted up the white canvas bag she had on her arm, out of the top of which was sticking a rolled-up towel and a bottle of water.

  “How do you think some of your old movie posters would look on here?” She waggled her eyebrows at the actress and tapped the side of the bag.

  Susan reached out and fingered the fabric, running her hand over the front of the bag.

  “It would look good, wouldn’t it?”

  Just as the two women were circling the idea of talking about business, Kirk Field appeared.

  “Susan!” he shouted, stepping in front of Polly as he did so.

  “Umm, excuse me?” Polly stepped to the side and gently took Kirk’s elbow to guide him a step or two back. He yanked his elbow out of her hand and refused to be budged. Polly put her hands on her hips, staring at him.

  “Yes?” Susan gave Kirk a friendly smile. She was clearly enjoying the attention. Perhaps it had been a while since two people were fighting over her at once.

  “I thought you might be thirsty.” Kirk thrust out his hand in which was grasped a cold bottle of water, condensation dripping from the outside. “I got you this!”

  Susan broadened her smile even further and took it out of his hand.

  “Thank you. That’s very kind of you. Very kind indeed.”

  “So,” said Polly, half-stepping in front of Kirk, “what do you think about the bags? And I don’t just do bags. There’s—”

  “It’s cold!” said Kirk loudly, pointing at the bottle Susan was holding.

  “It is cold, isn’t it? Sometime, I really should tell you about the remarkable man who used to sell refreshments here when we were filming.” Susan turned her head toward Polly. “I think I might be interested. We’ll have to—”

  “I got it from the kiosk over there! They don’t just sell water. They’ve got gum. And chips. And soda. And…”

  After taking a few pictures of the little group, I left them to it, worried I might start laughing at them all competing with each other if I hung around any longer.

  Not too far away, Judd Cohn was sitting on a rock, staring out to the ocean. It was a wonderful pose for a picture. With the right filter, it would look great with some kind of inspirational quote next to it. Or a marketing one. Discover the Wisdom of the Ancient Oceans with Swan Cruises or something like that.

  “Do you mind?” I said, waving my phone in front of Judd.

  “Sure, go ahead. It’s not usually me who people want to take pictures of in my business.”

  After I’d taken a couple of pictures, I noticed he had the movie script sitting beside him.

  “You’re still interested in that movie?”

  “Yes. I was thinking about Susan for the role of the mother.”

  “The role Zoya would have been offered?”

  “The very same. She suggested it to me this morning at breakfast just before you arrived. In some ways, she might be better than Zoya—she’d certainly be easier to work with.”

  “How exciting! To think that movie deals might be made during our movie cruise!” Actually, that isn’t what I was excited about. What was more interesting to me was the fact that Susan’s competition for the role had been eliminated with Zoya’s death.

  “Movie deals get made all the time. In restaurants, in bars, the back of limos, and yes, even cruise ships.” He leaned forward on his rock, a playful smile on his lips. “Sometimes, they even get made in movie company offices!”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Even Judd had his moments.

  “Well, good luck with that.”

  I strolled a little further along the beach. A lot of our guests had taken the opportunity to sit down on towels and enjoy the beach. It was a change from sitting on towels in the sun on board the ship.

  “Hey.” The voice came from a beach towel laid out nearby, where a woman was sitting up, knees pulled up in front of her.

  I hadn’t immediately recognized who it was, since she had a large sunhat over her head and big sunglasses. But as soon as I saw the black-and-blonde hair peeking out from underneath and heard her voice, I realized it was Patsy.

  “Hi,” I said, intending to keep on going as fast as I could.

  “I see you took it off then. Good idea.”

  “What?” I said before realizing what she meant and self-consciously lifting up my hand.

  “He didn’t even get on one knee. You’d be lucky to get that toaster. You made the right choice.”

  “I don’t care about a toaster!” Anyway, I could think of worst gifts. I had an aunt who received a clothes iron once. At least toast was yummy. “He was not proposing to me! He was just showing me a ring and I tried it on, okay?”

  “Okay.” She lay back down on her towel, as if bored with me. “If you say so.”

  “I do say so.” I stomped my foot ineffectually in the sand. It didn’t make any audible sound and her eyes were closed so she couldn’t see me do it.

  “Uh-huh.” Patsy yawned and pulled the brim of her hat down over the top of her sunglasses.

  Glaring at the woman, I stomped down the beach to take some more pictures. Her giving advice about men was ridiculous, anyway. She had a terrible fight with her own husband or whatever he was the night before, and they clearly still hadn’t made up since he wasn’t present on this shore trip.

  Maybe he’s practicing his dance moves with Ginger again, I thought with a snicker.

  There was a loud shrieking whistle. It was Kelly, who had a sports whistle between her lips, trying to get everyone’s attention.

  “We go back to the ship in thirty minutes! That’s thirty minutes left to enjoy!”

  Enjoy. I hadn’t been enjoying this shore trip at all so far.

  Still, it was nearly over and soon I would be able to get back to the ship and explain to Sam about the mix-up.

  Stretching my arms out over my head, I strolled along the coast, hoping to get some relaxation to eas
e my tension before we were back on board.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When we were all back on board, I headed toward Ethan’s office. As I was walking along the constitutional deck, I saw Patsy Prince’s husband sitting on a bench.

  His shoulder-length hair looked a little greasy, and his eyes were bloodshot. Like he hadn’t slept well.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Prince.”

  He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You can call me Jimbo.”

  “You didn’t join us for the excursion.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. I was feeling a little seasick.”

  I almost laughed. Almost. If he’d been seasick, he should have jumped at the chance to go ashore instead of staying on the ship. He and his wife must have still been bickering and she hadn’t allowed him to come with her.

  “That’s a shame. We have a sickbay, you know. I’m sure they could give you some medicine.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. I’d better go back to my cabin and see how Patsy enjoyed the trip.”

  “Yeah, good idea.” I waved at him as I left him to it. I bet he was going to the bar or the pool instead.

  When I got to Ethan’s office, the young orderly outside made me wait while he checked whether I could enter. According to him, Ethan was with someone else already.

  When I was given the all-clear, I pushed open the door to the wood-lined office to see who it was with Ethan. I found him sitting behind his large desk, and in one of the two chairs for guests was Tom Devlin. He turned and gave me a quick glare when I entered before turning back to Ethan.

  “I am going to be expecting compensation, you know,” said Tom, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  “You’re welcome to contact Swan headquarters. They have a complaints department who will be happy to assist.” Ethan’s tone was neutral, but if I wasn’t entirely imagining it, I was sure there was an undertone of ‘and they’ll tell you where to get off.’

  The good thing about being an experienced, competent first officer is that the company tends to have your back in any disputes.

  “I will be doing that. In fact, I’ll probably pay them a visit in person. Now, unless you have any further plans to harass me, I’m going to be on my way.”

  “Enjoy the rest of your cruise, Mr. Devlin.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  The movie critic stood up and walked out of the room, his shoulders tense and a dark look on his face as he passed me without any acknowledgment.

  “What happened?”

  Ethan threw his palms up in the air.

  “Turns out one of my security team actually used to be an MP—that’s military police—before he was discharged. I got him to take a look at the prints on the knife.”

  “They didn’t match? He’s innocent?”

  “Nope. Even though there were fingerprints on the knife handle, he said they were too smudged to be of any use to us. It’s impossible to tell whether they’re Tom’s or someone else’s.”

  “So you had to let him go.”

  “Yep. I did wait until the shore excursion was over, though. The ship’s about to cast off so we’ll have another couple of days with him at least, so if any more evidence turns up linking the death to him…”

  “We can nab him!”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Did you find out anything else about the knife?”

  “Yes and no. It’s definitely one of the knives that’s used in our kitchens, but there’s dozens of them aboard between all the kitchens, the catering department, and the ship’s stores. I asked Greg Washington to see if he could work out where exactly it came from, but he didn’t seem confident of getting anywhere on that front. He’ll let me know, but I’m not exactly hopeful.” Ethan rested his arms on the desk and leaned forward. “How was the shore trip? Any more news since last night?”

  I filled Ethan in on what I had learned, and that now we should probably keep an eye on Susan Shelly as well. She was going to benefit from the death of Zoya if she got the role in the movie Judd Cohn was considering producing.

  “We’ve now got a few people with reason to want Zoya dead.” Ethan drummed his fingers on the table. “Sorry again about last night, by the way. That couple just wouldn’t stop fighting. It took me forever to even get them back to their cabin. We’d walk a few feet and they’d be back at it again. I couldn’t leave them out in public.”

  “They’re a pretty awful couple.” I considered telling Ethan about the embarrassment that Patsy had caused that morning. But I didn’t want to keep talking about us being engaged. It might look like I was dropping hints, which I definitely wasn’t. Though, one day…

  There was also the small matter of me wearing the ring in front of the captain. Ethan hadn’t wanted me to do that without him present. The captain had seemed oblivious to it anyway, paying more attention to his phone than to the guests or me or the ring.

  “Speaking of which, do you have the ring on you? Maybe we should just put it back, for safekeeping.” He nodded his head toward the picture his safe was hidden behind.

  “I locked it up in my room safe, just in case. If you’re in the mood for a walk, we could go and get it?”

  Ethan pushed his chair back and stood up.

  “I could stretch my legs. Let’s go.”

  “It’s a bit…” Ethan waved a hand in the air, but its flight was halted as it crashed into the frame of our bunk bed. “…cramped in here, isn’t it?”

  We were in the cabin Sam and I shared, and since we were both standing there wasn’t much room left. If Sam had been there as well, one of us would have needed to have been on the bed.

  “It’s cozy.”

  It was both cozy and cramped, but since we spent so much time out of our rooms it wasn’t as big of an inconvenience as it would have been had we worked normal nine-to-five jobs. We had the whole rest of the ship to relax in, too.

  “I’ll try and have a word with HQ, and tell them that as a department head you should get something a bit more spacious.”

  He’d mentioned it before, but nothing had come of it yet. I wasn’t sure whether there were actually any bigger cabins free in the staff quarters. Cruise ships, despite their large size, try and use their space as efficiently as possible—and that meant keeping the staff packed in like sardines.

  After sliding the door of our closet open, I crouched down and worked the dial on the safe.

  “Here we go,” I said as I swung the door open.

  My hand was halfway inside before I stopped, my arm hovering in the air.

  Inside, I could see Sam’s and my passports.

  The ring had been placed between them.

  “What the…”

  “What’s wrong?” Ethan crouched down beside me, his warm shoulder pressing against mine.

  I extended my index finger and pointed inside the safe.

  “The ring. It was in there. I put it in there this morning before I went ashore. Right there. Between the passports.”

  Ethan stared where I was pointing. Thankfully, he wasn’t like my mother, who would have asked, ‘Are you sure you put it in there?’ He trusted me.

  “I just watched you unlock that safe. It was definitely sealed.”

  He stood up, hands on his hips, staring down at the safe as I rose to join him.

  “You don’t think Sam might have borrowed it for some reason?”

  While she seemed mad that I hadn’t told her about my ‘proposal,’ she wasn’t the kind of person who would snag the ring and fling it off the ship in a rage. Or even take it from the safe. No way.

  “Nope. I mean, I’ll ask her as soon as I see her, but no way. I couldn’t imagine any reason she’d do that.”

  “Then it looks like we’ve got a jewel thief on board.”

  With no other reasonable explanation, I had to concede he was right.

  I’d been burgled.

  As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.

  Chapter Sixteen />
  Once Ethan had gone back to his office, I put my thinking cap on. It looked like my plan had worked a little too well.

  That morning, I had been sure the captain hadn’t even noticed the ring, but it must have just been an act. With Patsy talking about it, and me waving it around while I took pictures, he must have noticed it but managed to maintain a poker face.

  Then, when we were all ashore, he must have let himself into my cabin with one of the master keys and opened the safe. I knew the company had the ability to open the safes for when guests forgot the codes they had input, so that must be what he did.

  My plan had backfired spectacularly.

  I knew I should tell Ethan what I’d done, but I wanted to try and fix it first. And I knew just how to do it.

  I found Cece and, finally, Sam sitting together in the staff canteen, side-by-side at one of the orange picnic tables which were firmly bolted to the floor in the low-ceilinged room.

  “So, were you going to elope, or do we get to be bridesmaids?” said Sam as soon as she saw me, her eyes focusing on my hand. A look of confusion appeared on her face. “What happened?”

  “I told you! Or I tried to tell you earlier. That woman got completely the wrong idea. That ring was not an engagement ring!”

  “See? Told you,” said Cece with a smug look at Sam.

  “I knew it!” said Sam, beaming up at me. “And remember, when you do get engaged, I’d better be the first to know unless you want me telling Hot Stuff about that time we were thirteen and at the city pool and—”

  “Hey!” I cut her off. “We swore that would be our deathbed secret. Besides, you won’t believe what really happened.”

  I sat down with them and explained what was going on. Then, I told them how my terrible plan had backfired, and how I was going to fix it.

  “So, Cece, I need you to get me into the captain’s cabin.”

  The smug smile on her face disappeared.

  “I can’t.”