Baked Alaska

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Can we go to the ship now?” Breanna said. “I’m actually getting hungry, which I wasn’t sure was possible since I feel like all we’ve done is eat since we left Seattle.”

  Really? Sadie felt like all she’d done was worry since leaving Seattle. “Breakfast does sound good,” she said.

  But Sadie still wanted to help her boy. So, what could she do without taking things too far?

  Shawn had said he hadn’t sent the e-mails last night because the Internet was down and the computer center was closed when he returned. Sadie could possibly verify that information. She was also supposed to meet with security to tell them what she knew about the gift tag. Maybe she could even learn more about the man who’d died last night. Mary Anne hadn’t seemed to think it was strange for someone to die on the cruise; maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she could find enough information to either alleviate her worries about a connection between his death and Lorraina’s poisoning, or to support those concerns. Either way she’d feel better, more confident, because she’d be making an informed decision rather than jumping to an emotionally driven conclusion.

  Knowing there was something she could do gave her a sense of purpose and immediately Sadie felt better.

  She had direction.

  Breanna’s phone chimed. She handed Sadie the bag of lime popcorn and dug her phone out of her back pocket; Breanna hated purses. She frowned at her phone and stopped walking. Sadie stopped too, holding a bag of popcorn in each arm.

  “What? Is it Pete? Did Maggie admit to something?”

  “It’s not Pete,” Breanna said without glancing up from her phone. “It’s Liam. We talked earlier, and he said he was going to talk to his mom about the cake.”

  “Did it not go well?”

  “I am so sick of this stupid wedding,” Breanna said with uncharacteristic bitterness. She started typing a response. “Apparently, his mom broke into tears.” She paused, sighed, and then turned to Sadie. “What do I do?” She shook her head without waiting for an answer. “I’m sorry. It’s stupid to be worried about a cake with everything else going on.” She waved a hand toward the police station.

  “It’s not stupid,” Sadie said. She worked hard to focus on this aspect of Breanna’s life for the moment, pushing aside Shawn. “Do you want me to call her?”

  Super-controlling-freak-out-mom.

  “Thanks, but I need to do this on my own,” Breanna said, going back to her phone with a more determined look. She started typing. “And I need Liam to understand it and back me up—like we talked about last night. I assumed that’s what he was doing, but she cries, and now he’s wondering if we’re making too big a deal about this. By we he means me, though.”

  Sadie shifted her weight back and forth over the next few minutes as Breanna continued texting. Based on Breanna’s sighs and groans each time a text came in, the conversation wasn’t going well, but she didn’t pause long enough to fill Sadie in. Finally, she pushed a number and put the phone to her ear. “Sorry. This might be a minute. Can we just meet back at the ship?”

  “Sure,” Sadie said. “I still need to talk to security anyway.”

  Breanna nodded and turned to walk to a wrought-iron bench a few storefronts away. “Liam,” Sadie heard her say just before she went out of range. After that, all Sadie could see was Breanna’s expression, which was intense as she tried to explain something.

  Sadie headed back to the ship, though other passengers were still coming ashore in droves. Most people headed for the train station; Skagway was famous for its White Pass and Yukon Route Railway.

  For Sadie, going up the gangplank with a bag of popcorn in each arm and a bag of souvenirs in each hand while a hundred passengers were coming down was like swimming upstream, but she was pondering on which task to tackle first once she got on the ship and so she wasn’t too anxious about making good time. The first thing she needed to do once she got back to her cabin was make a list of everything she needed to do!

  She was struggling to shift the popcorn she was holding so she could get her ship-card from her purse when she heard a familiar voice.

  “Do you need a hand?”

  Sadie looked up and smiled at the cute mom she’d attended classes with on Monday. “Hi, Jen,” she said. She nearly dropped one of the bags of popcorn, but Jen quickly stepped up and took it from her. “Thanks,” Sadie said, feeling silly. If she’d known she was going to make any purchases, she’d have brought her reusable nylon shopping bag that folded up to the size of a deck of cards.

  Sadie showed her card to the security officers who scanned it, verified she matched the picture that came up on the computer, and handed it back. Sadie reached for the popcorn once she’d put away her ship-card.

  “Are you going to your room? I can carry it for you.”

  “I can get it. Aren’t you on your way into town?”

  Jen nodded, but didn’t hand over the popcorn. “I have a few minutes to help you to your room.”

  “You’re a sweet girl,” Sadie said. “Thank you.” They headed toward the stairs, and Sadie asked about Jen’s day in Juneau yesterday—her family had gone up the tram, which the kids had loved—and Jen asked Sadie if she’d seen Mary Anne recently.

  “I did this morning,” Sadie said. “Did you hear about the guy who had a heart attack at the buffet last night?”

  Jen looked surprised. “Yes, that’s what I wanted to talk to her about. I heard he was from our dining room.”

  Our dining room? “What do you mean?”

  “We have the same dining room time as Mary Anne. Frank’s parents stay with the boys so we can have that one time a day together. Frank went to the gym this morning with another guy from our table who told him Ben was from our dining room. I wondered if Mary Anne knew him. She said he had a heart attack?”

  Sadie’s brain had stopped at “Ben.” “Wait, the guy who died was named Ben?”

  Jen’s eyes went wide, and she stopped walking. “He died?”

  Mary Anne had said he died, hadn’t she? “I guess I don’t know that part for sure,” she said. “Mary Anne thought he did. But you’re sure his name was Ben?”

  “That’s what the guy Frank talked to thought his name was. We were trying to figure out who it was, and I wanted to ask Mary Anne about it. Not that it’s important or anything. I guess we’re just curious is all. If it’s who we think it was, he’s a young guy—close to Frank’s age. I feel so bad for his wife.”

  Jen bit her lip, and Sadie felt sure the young mother was wishing there was something she could do to help—Jen struck Sadie as that kind of woman.

  “That’s just horrible,” she said, but her mind was racing. The gift tag on the wine bottle had been for a “Ben” and now a young man name Ben had had a heart attack? Sadie couldn’t ignore the wine bottle connection any longer—not that she’d ever dismissed the idea entirely.

  They reached Sadie’s room before she could figure out how to pick the conversation back up. “Thanks for your help,” Sadie said after opening her room, depositing her things on the floor, and taking the caramel corn from Jen. “I appreciate it. If I see Mary Anne around, would you like me to tell her you want to talk to her?”

  “That would be great,” Jen said. “I’m in room 991, though we’ll be on the train most of the afternoon. There’s no rush; in fact I could probably just wait until I see her in the dining room tonight—unless she’s eating in town.”

  “Well, I’ll let her know if I see her.”

  “Thanks,” Jen said. “If it didn’t look like you’d already done your shopping, I’d invite you to come to town with me. Frank took the boys to the game room so I could have an hour or so to myself—I didn’t get any shopping done yesterday.”

  “That would be fun,” Sadie said, thinking on any other day but this one. “And if you do find Mary Anne and figure out if this Ben-guy is the one from the buffet last night, I’d love an update.”

  “I’ll let you know what I find out.” She looked at Sadie’s door, then t
yped Sadie’s room number into her phone.

  They said their good-byes, and as soon as Sadie was alone, she grabbed her notebook and wrote down everything from her conversations with both Jen and Mary Anne. Jen thought the heart attack victim was named Ben; he had the same dinnertime in the same dining room as Mary Anne. Sadie thought hard on what Mary Anne had said, then added “7:30 Chandelier dining room.” That’s what Mary Anne had said was her standard dinner reservation, and why she’d gone to the late show last night, which put her in the buffet at the time Ben died. She hadn’t mentioned recognizing the guy as being from her dining room, though. Maybe she hadn’t seen him up close.

  And maybe the dining room had a list of the people scheduled for each seating.

  So maybe Sadie could figure out who Ben was—and whether or not he was married to a woman named Tanice!

  Chapter 24

  Plans on finding out more about Ben began instantly downloading into Sadie’s brain, but she put a stop to it as soon as she remembered that she was supposed to meet with security about the gift tag. It was the perfect opportunity to talk to them about what she’d discovered today. A possible poisoning and a sudden heart attack had felt like too much of a coincidence before learning the man who died—assuming he had died—was named Ben.

  She took the stairs to deck eleven and followed the signs to the security office. She passed the place in the hall where she’d first seen Lorraina and Shawn talking, and shivered slightly. How different would things have been if she’d confronted the two of them right then?

  The hall jogged to the right and she followed the bend, finally reaching the curtain that separated the cabins from the security office door.

  “Hello,” Hazel said a few seconds later, smiling. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m supposed to come by and talk to security,” Sadie said. She glanced at the clock; it was almost eleven o’clock. “I’m Sadie Hoffmiller.”

  “Okay,” Hazel said in her lilting accent. “Officer Jareg isn’t available right now. Would you like to set up an appointment for later?”

  “Um, sure,” Sadie said, disappointed not to be able to talk to him right now, when all her thoughts and concerns were at the forefront of her mind. Was he not available because he was in Skagway, working with the local police to question Shawn?

  They set an appointment for four that afternoon—five hours from now—and Sadie headed back to her cabin. Once there, she spent several minutes updating her notes and rewriting a couple of earlier pages of notes that didn’t seem as clear as she’d like them to be. She wrote out a to-do list and tapped her pen on the three bullet points she’d written down:

  • Verify that the computers were down last night

  • Learn more about “Ben”

  • Meet with security

  She couldn’t meet with security until later, but the other two items on her list were doable right now. Having not taken the time to put on her makeup this morning, she decided to take a few minutes to make herself presentable. The steward had made up the beds but hadn’t washed the mirror—probably because he thought the note was important. She attempted to clean off the lipstick but made a mess of it in the process and finally gave up.

  The computer lab was located on deck five, in a little office behind one of the lounges that offered live entertainment every night. Sadie was halfway through the cruise, and though she’d seen the shows in the theater, she hadn’t visited any of the other entertainment venues on the ship—such a waste.

  There was a sign next to the door that said the computer center’s hours were 8:00 a.m. to midnight. Shawn was right about them closing, though she wondered why he hadn’t noted the closing time when he checked in the first time.

  She had to scan her ship-card to get into the room, where a staff member sat behind a desk.

  “Are you here to use the computers?” he asked with barely a hint of an accent, though his name tag said his name was Henry and he was from the Philippines—a lot of the staff was from the Philippines, Sadie had noticed. The next most common country of origin was Indonesia.

  “Um, no, not really,” Sadie said as she approached. No one else was in the computer center, which she was glad of. It was always better to interview someone in private. “I’m wondering if you can tell me if the Internet was working last night. Were you here by chance?”

  “I wasn’t here last night,” he said, shaking his head slightly and furrowing his brows.

  Sadie could tell he was wondering why she needed such specific information. Surprisingly, she could be perfectly honest about her reason. “My son was supposed to use the computers last night to get some information for me, and he claims they weren’t working. I just need to know if that’s true or not.”

  Henry smiled and sat back down at his desk, turning so he could work on the computer set up on one side. “I don’t like to ruin the trips of teenagers,” he said with a sly grin in Sadie’s direction that told her she’d found a friend in Henry. “But I hope to put your mind at rest. What is his name? I have a record of who entered the center, which computer they used, and how long they were logged on.”

  “Shawn Hoffmiller,” Sadie said. Even though she knew it was impossible, she worried for a moment that Henry would recognize the name as the man being questioned by police.

  “Room number?” he asked, showing no reaction to Shawn’s name.

  “Seven forty-nine.”

  He typed for a minute, and then leaned closer to the screen. He glanced up at her with a blank expression that made her stomach clench, then he smiled, showing bright white teeth—the front two had a small gap between them. Henry turned the computer screen toward her and used a pen to point at a line. “He entered the room at a quarter to eleven but never logged into the computers.”

  “Oh, good,” Sadie said, but she still had questions. “Can you tell for sure that the Internet was down? Could he have come in, but then not tried to go online?”

  “You are a very suspicious woman,” Henry said with a smile Sadie was sure was intended as a joke. But she was suspicious, and fearful for her son. Henry typed on the computer for a few more seconds, then sat back. “Ah, you will be glad to know that last night’s attendant noted that the Internet was down from nine o’clock until midnight. The system must have reset itself during the night, however, since everything was working fine when I opened this morning.”

  Sadie felt like she’d lost ten pounds of dead weight off her shoulders with the news. “Oh, good,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, closing out the screen and settling back into his chair. The page that came up on the monitor looked like a textbook. He caught Sadie looking at it and gave her a sheepish grin as he turned the screen away from her view.

  “Are you going to school?” Sadie asked.

  His cheeks turned pink. “The Internet is working now if your son would like to come in.”

  “I’m not going to get you in trouble,” Sadie said, assuming that studying on the job was likely against the rules. “I’ve been an advocate of education all of my life. I was a teacher for many years.”

  He just smiled at her, and she understood that he didn’t want to discuss it at all.

  “Good luck to you,” she said. “And thank you so much for your help. I appreciate it very much.”

  “You’re welcome. Have a nice day.”

  Sadie let herself out of the computer center, relieved to know that Shawn had told her the truth. She pulled her phone out of her bag and frowned when she saw there were no text messages. Why hadn’t Pete sent her an update? She’d left Skagway over an hour ago.

  It’s not about me, it’s not about me, it’s not about me, she chanted as she typed out a text, telling him that she’d verified Shawn’s story about the Internet last night. She hit send, hoping for a quick answer, but after a full minute of waiting, she put her phone back in her bag and tried not to think too hard about why no one seemed to want to tell her what was going o
n. Was Breanna still hashing things out with Liam? Was Pete still talking to Maggie?

  She shook off her anxiety and frustration about the lack of communication and moved to the next item on her list. Until her appointment with Officer Jareg later that afternoon, all that was left for her to do was find out more about Ben. It was actually rather perfect. If she could find more about him, and maybe even uncover some connections between him and the suspicious wine bottle, she could take that information to security when she met with Officer Jareg, making his job easier and speeding up the process with Shawn so that he could leave sooner rather than later.

  Sadie knew exactly where to start her search for more information about Ben—the Chandelier dining room. From there she hoped to learn his wife’s name, maybe even his room number. It was tempting to let her thoughts spiral forward from there to what she would do with that information, but she tried to keep her focus.

  She texted Breanna to see where she was.

  Breanna: Almost back on the ship.

  Sadie: I need to do a little investigating. Want to help me?

  Breanna: Can I eat first?

  Sadie frowned; she wanted to execute her plan right now. And yet, food was important too.

  Sadie: Sure. Let’s meet at the buffet.

  When they met up for their late breakfast/early lunch, Sadie asked Breanna how her conversation had gone with Liam.

  “I think he’s frustrated,” Breanna said before taking a bite of her sandwich. “He’s trying hard to stand up to his mom, but I think his heart isn’t really in it. He just doesn’t care about all the fluffy stuff—that’s what he calls it.”