by Diana X Dunn
Suzy put her hand on Alex’s arm. “Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” she questioned, trying to tell him to be quiet with a look.
Alex grinned at her. “Maybe a beer,” he agreed. “Something to take the edge off.” He turned back toward Luke. “Sorry, if I were you and I had to pick someone in this mess to trust, it would definitely be Suzy for me, too. There is just something about her….”
Luke nodded. “And it’s always nice talking to her since I’m getting very little cooperation from anyone else. At least she doesn’t threaten to get me fired every time I ask a question.”
“Is that just Max, or everyone?” Suzy asked as she handed Alex his drink.
“I think, by now, just about everyone had threatened to get me fired,” Luke responded. “Max has been the loudest and most frequent, but even Randy suggested that he has more influence than I realized tonight. Peter and Henry both keep telling me that they have to go, and that if I don’t let them they will cause trouble.”
“Could they?” Alex queried.
“Anyone could,” Luke shot back. “They’re both successful businessmen who could bring a lot of money into SunInc if they wanted to. My boss is well aware of that. His background is in public relations, not police work. Yeah, they could get me fired. So could Captain Grayson or Marta if they pushed at Max at a little bit. It’s like walking a tightrope with no net.”
“I haven’t threatened you,” Suzy grinned at him.
“I wouldn’t even know how to get you fired,” Alex told him.
“You could figure it out,” Luke said glumly. “You’re in the same social circle as Max. You definitely could manage it if you wanted to.”
Alex grinned.
“We were trying to figure out what to do next,” Suzy reminded Luke.
“Yeah,” Luke agreed, “but I don’t think we should talk about it in front of a suspect.”
Suzy laughed. “Alex isn’t a suspect,” she told Luke. “He barely knew Genifer and he couldn’t possibly have killed Chrystal.”
“Everyone is a suspect,” Luke replied gloomily, “and I can’t talk to either of you.” He stood up. “On that note, I guess I’d better go.”
Suzy frowned. She had been hoping to get a lot more information out of him before he left. “Stay, we can talk about other things,” she suggested, a bit desperately.
“I’ll check in with you in the morning,” Luke answered her. “I expect I’ll be up early, either to do some more investigating or to start looking for a new job.”
Suzy stood up and took his arm. “Getting fired from here wouldn’t be the worst thing that’s ever happened to you,” she reminded him. “Stop by any time, I’ll be up early. I always am.”
Luke nodded and headed toward the door. “Good night, then,” he told them both. “Not that it’s been a good night.”
On that note, he was out the door and down the hall before Suzy reached the door. She closed it gently behind him and rested her head against it for a moment. He was a good person and he was being treated very badly by Max and his friends. There wasn’t much she could do about that right now, however. Not without blowing her cover.
"I suppose I shouldn't have interrupted," Alex said, sounding defensive.
"It doesn't matter," Suzy sighed. "He's stuck in an awful position. I don't think he would have opened up to me any further."
"Does he really think I'm a suspect?"
"He has to think of everyone as a suspect. You had the best opportunity."
"But no motive."
"Maybe you already knew Genifer and brought a motive with you." Suzy waved a hand as Alex looked angrily at her. "I know you didn't have a motive, but Luke doesn't know you at all, and his job is to look at everyone and consider every possibility."
"I'm glad it's not my job," Alex frowned.
"Me too," Suzy agreed. "I hated all the classes we had to take in investigation. Give me a job where I have to go in, do something, and get out. My temperament isn't suited to long drawn-out investigations. I tend to work more on instinct, anyway."
"So what do your instincts tell you about the murders?"
Suzy punched up a glass of wine from her drink machine. She slipped back onto a couch and took a sip before turning to Alex.
"Firstly, they tell me the murders are connected," she told him. "I'm not a big believer in coincidence and I don't, for one minute, believe that there are two different murderers running around."
Alex nodded.
“My instinct is also telling me that Chrystal’s murder had a real motive. Someone wanted her dead. I think Genifer saw or heard something that gave her an idea of who killed Chrystal and she was trying to use that in some way against the murderer.”
“You think she was dumb enough to try to blackmail a murderer?” Alex challenged.
“I don’t think she was dumb,” Suzy responded slowly. “I think she was convinced that no one could hurt her. She was Genifer Hart, only child of multi-billionaire Maximilian Hart. In her mind, she was untouchable.”
Alex nodded again.
“So I’m certain that we have a very limited pool of suspects,” Suzy continued. “We can eliminate Max for sure, because he couldn’t possibly have killed Chrystal. That leave Randy, Peter, Henry, Captain Grayson and Marta as possibilities.”
“Is that all?”
Suzy frowned. “Technically no,” she admitted. “Max has a huge staff on The Mirage and, really, any of them could have killed Chrystal. Motive would be a big question mark, though. Chrystal was enormously annoying, but not all that much more so than Max’s usual guests. Any of the staff could have had some history with her, of course, but that is the sort of thing that the police usually find out quite quickly. They’ll have been checking the staff to find places where their pasts might have crossed with Chrystal’s. I haven’t heard anything to suggest that anyone’s did.”
“Of course Luke might just have not mentioned it,” Alex muttered.
Suzy grinned, amused by his jealousy of the other man. “He might not have mentioned it,” she agreed, “but I think he would be less miserable if he’d found a clear motive for someone from the supporting cast. Let’s face it, if whoever did it is from our list, that is going to make Luke’s life difficult.”
“How many of the crew from The Mirage were at the party tonight?” Alex questioned.
“That’s the other part of it,” Suzy told him. “I’m pretty sure that everyone apart from Marta and Captain Grayson stayed on the ship. Luke will know for sure, but I doubt he’s had time to think about it, yet. Certainly none of the staff would have been invited to the party. Whether any were asked to come in and help out, I don’t know.”
“Did you recognize any of the wait staff tonight?” Alex asked.
“No, certainly none of the waiters who I saw were staff from The Mirage. Luke mentioned that Randy got a doctor for Max quite quickly. I’m not sure if it was the ship’s doctor, though, or a local one. Regardless, the ship’s doctor didn’t seem like he had anything to hide. I spent a lot of time with him, just after Chrystal’s murder, and he seemed to be exactly what he appeared to be.”
“I saw Marta running all over the place tonight,” Alex remarked.
“She was officially in charge of organizing the whole thing,” Suzy said. “I’ve no doubt she was going crazy trying to keep all of the obnoxious rich guests happy at the same time. I saw her talking to Genifer more than once. I suspect she was trying to keep her from fighting with Max.”
“Did you see her in the room after Genifer left?”
“Not that I specifically remember,” Suzy answered. “She was in and out so much that I stopped paying particular attention to her comings and goings. I know she wasn’t in the room when I got your message, though. I did a complete visual scan of the entire room and I know exactly who was there and who wasn’t.”
“So which of our suspects were in the room when I messaged you?”
“That’s just it,” Suzy sighed. “I di
dn’t see any of them in the room at that point. Henry and Peter both left, separately, not long after you followed Genifer out, and Randy and Max had disappeared even earlier than that. The field is wide open.”
Alex nodded. “What about Captain Grayson? And does he even have a first name?”
Suzy laughed and sipped her wine. “His first name is John,” she told Alex, “but I’ve never heard anyone call him anything other than Captain Grayson. Even Max always refers to him by his title, and Max owns the boat.”
“So where was he when Genifer left?”
“That is a very good question,” Suzy frowned. “I never actually saw him at the party. I was surprised to see him when I was watching the end of the party on the live feed in here. I didn’t even know he had come in off the boat.”
She got up and headed to the desk in the corner of the room. She had left her list of guests and room assignments there. “He isn’t on the list of guests,” she told Alex after she spent several minutes studying it. “Marta is, but he isn’t.”
“So maybe he came in with the ship’s doctor or something like that,” Alex suggested.
“It is as good a guess as any,” Suzy shrugged. “Or he could have been here the whole time and he could be the murderer.”
“What was his motive?”
Suzy shrugged again. “He seemed weirdly attached to Chrystal. Maybe she turned him down and he was mad.”
“Mad enough to kill her?”
“I’ve seen stranger things,” Suzy told him. “It’s a possible motive, anyway. I would really like to know where he suddenly came from, just as the party was breaking up.”
“While we are talking about the help, what about Marta?”
Suzy shook her head. “I can’t see Marta killing anyone,” she stated. “While Chrystal was trying to get everyone away from Max, even she had to realize that she would never get rid of Marta. Marta has been a fixture in Max’s life for many years, and she has outlasted a ton of bitchy horrible women who’ve wanted to get rid of her. Chrystal was no more of a threat than any of the others, at least as far as I could tell.”
“But Chrystal was a threat to Genifer, wasn’t she? I mean, you said that Chrystal wanted to get rid of Genifer. Would Marta have killed her to protect Genifer?”
“I can’t see it,” Suzy said after thinking for a moment. “I don’t think Chrystal was a real threat to Genifer and I think Marta’s loyalties ran more deeply with Max than Genifer anyway.”
“Do we have motives for Henry or Peter?” Alex asked, changing the subject. “They both seem like long shots in all of this.”
“They are both very shrewd businessmen, even if they aren’t exactly coming across that way at the moment. And they both seem desperate to close deals with Max. Chrystal was a complication that neither wanted to deal with.”
“I think I’m glad I didn’t get to meet her,” Alex remarked.
“She was challenging,” Suzy admitted. “Henry was dealing with her by ignoring her and Peter was trying to get to be her best friend. I’m not sure which method was working the best, but if I had to guess, I would say that neither were impressing her and that she wasn’t planning to do anything to help either secure their deal.”
“Nice,” Alex shook his head. “That boat must have been a lot of fun.”
“It was more interesting than normal,” Suzy told him. “Normally I just sail around for a month or so, drinking and partying with dozens of horrible people.”
“Why do it?”
“Keeping track of Max’s business interests in a very quiet and discreet way is important to my organization,” Suzy explained. “He really is that important to international commerce. As a citizen of the world he doesn’t have to report anything to any government and that makes it impossible to keep tabs on him in the normal ways.”
“So being a citizen of the world lets you do whatever you want?” Alex questioned.
“It is a very complicated status,” Suzy tried to explain. “And it is a very expensive one, too. You have to buy the status from any and all governments that might claim you as their citizen. And then you have to make sure that you don’t stay too long in any one country, because most countries would love to claim some super rich person as their own. The United States is particularly stringent. If Max spends more than twenty nights in any year on any part of U.S. soil, he immediately regains his U.S. citizenship with all of the tax implications that go with it.”
“No wonder he travels so much,” Alex remarked.
“He spends over three hundred nights a year on The Mirage. When he does go ashore, he sticks to very strict limits. It has wonderful tax advantages for him, but I can’t imagine being that peripatetic.”
Alex nodded. “I love to travel,” he told her, “but I love to come home, too.”
Suzy grinned. “I travel almost constantly and my home is almost always changing, but even I don’t think I would like the restrictions that come along with that sort of lifestyle. Still, I don’t have billions that I want to hold on to, either.”
“I don’t have billions, either. Millions maybe.” Alex grinned.
“Money isn’t really something that I have to think about,” Suzy told him, with a shrug. “Whoever I am, the agency foots the bill. I do know a few agents who have gotten into trouble over extravagances, but I’ve never had a problem.”
“What about Randy?” Alex switched the subject back to the murders. “How strong was his motive and where was he when Genifer died?”
“I’ve told you before that I like Randy,” Suzy answered. “I’ve been trained to be totally objective, though. He had a very strong motive for killing Chrystal. She was determined to get rid of him and I suspect that she might have managed it, given a bit more time. Max has always had a short attention span. Really, Randy has already lasted longer than most.”
“So he would get my vote for best motive for Chrystal’s murder,” Alex told her.
“Yes,” Suzy agreed reluctantly. “Randy’s life will change dramatically when Max does get tired of him. But he has to be expecting it, and I’m sure he is very well prepared, no matter what he might say.”
“What do you mean?”
“Randy has spent his entire adult life moving from one relationship to another. And he has always ended up with a financial payoff and a richer new boyfriend.”
“That’s, well, distasteful.”
Suzy laughed. “That’s life,” she told him. “Randy is a very good looking man with the right education, perfect manners, and, I’ve been told, a lot of skill in the bedroom. As nice and sweet as he seems, he is an expert at manipulating and using very rich men to further his own success.”
“So he’s a prostitute,” Alex suggested.
“I suppose you could call him that,” Suzy shrugged. “I’m sure he would call himself a serial dater who has just been lucky in dating men who want to spoil him. He’s been fortunate so far, dating attractive and intelligent men who are happy to thank him at the end of their relationship with a gift. Some people would, undoubtedly, consider it buying his silence.”
Alex winced at the harsh words. “I thought you liked Randy,” he protested.
Suzy laughed. “I do, but I also recognize the reality of his life. My point is, I don’t think that he had enough motive to kill Chrystal. He has to know that his time with Max is limited and I’m pretty sure he has plans for what happens when it ends. While he and Max had been talking about marriage, I’m pretty sure that was just a fantasy. Max isn’t the settling down type. If nothing else it would complicate his tax situation. While Randy certainly hated Chrystal, I don’t think he would have bothered to kill her.”
“What about Genifer? If she did see or hear something she shouldn’t have and was blackmailing Chrystal’s killer, would any of the suspects have hesitated to kill Genifer?” Alex asked. “I’m specifically thinking of Marta now.”
Suzy nodded. “That is a great point,” she told him. “There is no way that I can see Marta ki
lling Genifer. She was almost a second mother to Genifer when her parents first died. For that matter, I can’t see Genifer trying to blackmail Marta. If Marta killed Chrystal, I think Genifer would have just been happy and kept her mouth shut. As far as I know, Marta doesn’t have any money, either, at least not enough to be a real candidate for blackmail by Genifer.”
“So we can, at least tentatively, cross Marta off the suspect list.”
“I guess,” Suzy agreed, “but all this talking isn’t getting us anywhere. We need a plan and we need it very quickly. Max and Randy are sailing on Monday. My instincts also tell me that if they leave before the case is solved, it will never be resolved.”
“I would definitely agree with that,” Alex answered. “So what is the plan?”
Suzy sighed. “I’ve been playing with an idea in my head,” she told him, “but I’m not sure it will work, and I’ll need your help.”
“Go on then, tell me. We can decide together whether it will work or not and if I think it will, obviously I’m happy to help.”
Suzy nodded slowly. Trapping a killer was well outside of the scope of her normal job, but this assignment had already taken her there. This was just one more step along the way.
Thirteen
“Okay,” Suzy told him. “This might be a great idea or it might be really stupid. I think I’ve gotten too close to the whole situation to be a good judge.”
“Good thing I’m not that close,” Alex grinned. “Can I please help myself to another drink before we start?”
“Of course,” she answered, but then she got up and got him the refill herself. She topped up her own glass as well, aware she was dragging her feet, but she was still turning her idea over in her head.
“Okay,” she said as she settled next to Alex on the couch where he was sitting. “It’s a pretty simple plan, I think. All I have to do is track down all of the suspects and tell them that you found something that you think might identify the murderer, but that you haven’t given it to the police yet. Then we just have to wait and see which of the suspects tries to get into your suite. It seems simple and might just work, but it might also be crazy,” she laughed.