“Nice speaking to you.” Tony mopped his brow again with the towel. “Have a great day.”
I stared after Tony as he swaggered away on thick, muscular legs. He hadn’t sounded guilty. He wasn’t walking like he was guilty—I wasn’t sure what that would look like, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t doing it. And Tessa seemed so nice.
I pulled out my phone and checked the schedule for the night before. There had been a magic show the previous evening, but it hadn’t finished until ten thirty, just after I was attacked. I’d easily be able to verify whether their alibi checked out.
But I had a feeling it would.
Tessa and Tony just didn’t strike me as murderers and nighttime assailants.
But he did have the right build.
The thing was, he wasn’t the only one with a body like that on the ship. Not by a long shot. In fact, I could think of two more names right off the top of my head with similar physiques.
But I’d get to them later.
Someone else had caught my eye.
Sitting up at Hemingway’s bar, enjoying what looked to be a morning cocktail, was Darren, the fiancé of Brenda the former bartender who had worked with Bruno.
I had heard Brenda’s side of her story. Would Darren’s be the same? She had assured me he knew all about Brenda and Bruno’s past and wasn’t the slightest bit jealous. But he might tell me something different.
I walked up to the bar and sat on the stool next to Darren’s without acknowledging him.
“Usual, please!” I called to the tropical-shirt wearing bartender.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and immediately began preparing my fresh-squeezed orange juice. I’d sat up at this counter so many times, the barkeep knew just what to make me.
As if only now noticing him, purely by chance, I turned in Darren’s direction and smiled.
“You got checked in!” I said, harking back to the frantic arrival on the ship with their missing printout of their details.
“Yes, the check-in people were really helpful. We got it all sorted out in the end.” He took a sip of his brightly colored drink and then nodded down at it. “Tequila Sunrise. I figure that’s a morning drink, right?”
“I guess anything with ‘sunrise’ in the name must be.” The bartender put my juice down in front of me. “Virgin screwdriver. I’m on the clock.”
“Virgin screwdriver? That’s just orange juice. It must be frustrating seeing all the passengers having fun while you’re working.”
“It’s better than you think. We get to live vicariously through the passengers. When they’re having fun, I’m having fun.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. It’s like being a bartender I guess—they get to hang out with people having fun all night. Speaking of which, Brenda was a bartender, wasn’t she?”
This seemed to amuse Darren more than it should have.
“What?”
“She was a bartender. And I guess there must be something to what you said—she did that job for fun.”
I took a sip of my juice.
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t need the money. Her family’s wealthy. She only worked that job because she enjoyed it. I mean, I’m sure the extra cash was useful, but she didn’t need to do it. And when she got bored with it, she quit!”
“Huh. Neat.” I wanted to say it must be nice not to need the money, but I didn’t want to sound jealous. I put on a little frown and switched to a sympathetic tone. “Is she coping okay?”
“With what?”
“Surely she mentioned it to you? You know, Bruno?”
“Ohhh,” said Darren. “Yeah, sure. She’s fine. That’s ancient history.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Not really.”
The way he said it made me think he had met Bruno. After all, he could have simply said no.
“But you did meet him once, right?”
Darren stared at me, wondering why I was prying.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m actually helping the security team figure out what happened to him. I’m trying to get a handle on what he was like, who he knew, his personality and so on. Don’t worry—you’re not in trouble. I just want to hear what he was like.”
Darren didn’t say anything for a moment, considering whether he wanted to help me or not. Finally, he gave a little nod, more to himself than me.
“I met him once. Brenda and I were having a brunch date when he just showed up. This would have been a little under a year ago, when we hadn’t been dating that long. I didn’t know who he was, and when Brenda said she needed to talk to him in private for a minute, I said of course. She and Bruno went away, not for long, maybe two or three minutes. When she came back, she seemed unhappy.
“I asked her about it, but she just said he was an ex and he was being a bit unpleasant. He seemed more bitter about the breakup than she did. I offered to go after him, but she just laughed and said it wasn’t worth it, to drop it. He was gone and that’s all that mattered.”
“I guess you didn’t like him much then.”
“I didn’t really know him. But he upset my girl, so of course I wasn’t a fan of the guy. Anyway, as I said, he was ancient history. I guess it’s kind of sad that someone whacked him. But we’re not losing any sleep over it. He could be kind of abrasive, and some people found him creepy. It’s not that surprising, you know?”
If everyone who was kind of abrasive was murdered the world would be a very, very messy place I thought with a shudder.
“Did you notice anyone else on the ship who might have known him, or had an issue with him?”
“Nope. Barely even saw the guy. Only from a distance. I think Brenda said a few words to him when we boarded, but that was it. I don’t know who he annoyed on the ship, but I bet that’s what happened to him. He finally wound someone up who wouldn’t put up with him. Then boom. No more Bruno.”
“I guess that must be what happened.”
I slurped down the rest of my orange juice. I wasn’t sure if I’d learned anything from Darren, but it filled out my picture of Bruno just a little bit more. People loved to hate the guy. Or at least loved to dislike.
There was one, slight little nagging thing about what Darren had told me though.
Brenda had told me she and Bruno had only had a fling and then been friendly with each other after they broke up. But Darren hadn’t made it sound like that at all.
“Addy? Got a minute?”
Putting thoughts of Darren, Brenda, and Bruno aside for a moment, I smiled and turned around. Ethan’s white uniform was positively glowing in the brilliant sunshine.
“Sure thing. I’ve just finished my juice.” I turned to Darren. “Thanks for your time and your help. Enjoy the rest of your vacation.”
Ethan and I strolled away from the bar.
“Escaped the captain?”
“Just about. Who knows how long my freedom will last? I told him I had to get on with some of my own duties. Which I do. Have you learned anything new?”
I filled Ethan in on my two most recent conversations and my thoughts about who my possible assailant might have been.
“Well then,” Ethan said sternly, “I think it’s about time we talked to Scruff and Ravine again.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
First, we checked the schedule and saw that the Beauty Forever experts were taking a break today for the trip ashore. That meant the models wouldn’t be doing any modeling.
“What do you think?” Ethan asked. “They’ve probably gone ashore.”
“Let’s check to see if they’re in their cabins just in case.”
Ethan started walking toward a bulkhead door leading inside the ship and I followed along.
Tuff and Canyon were registered as sharing a twin room together, an internal one with no balcony or sea view. I guessed their manager was trying to keep their expenses on a tight budget.
When we arrived, I rang the doorbell and waited. I was gra
teful that Ethan was with me, because if it was them that had attacked me, going straight to their cabin would have been very foolish indeed.
When there was no response, Ethan pressed the doorbell again, holding the button down for a long ring.
“Maybe they’re sleeping,” he said. “This’ll wake them up.”
“They’re not sleeping,” a young female voice said.
We turned and saw a housekeeper who had just emerged from a neighboring stateroom.
“Where are they?” I asked the girl.
“They’ve gone ashore. They were really excited. They’ve never been to another country before.” While she spoke, she pulled her cleaning cart out of the cabin she’d just emerged from. She looked young, like Cece, and when she told us where the models were it was with the confidence of someone who definitely knew where they were. They attracted no shortage of admirers, no matter how dumb they were.
“Do you talk to them a lot?” I asked her.
Her cheeks flushed. “No. I just try to be friendly with all our guests. You get better tips that way.”
“Uh-huh. Thanks for your help.”
The housekeeper held up her keycard against the next cabin along. When the door had whirred open, she pushed her cleaning cart inside.
“One other thing,” Ethan called after her, “I don’t suppose you know where they were last night? Around ten-thirty?”
The girl was halfway into the room by then but she stuck her head back out. “Yeah, right. I wish.” Laughing, she disappeared inside.
“Now what?” I asked.
Ethan pulled out a card from inside his pocket and gave me a mischievous look.
“Now we see if Nurse Jessica’s Phytox supply is in here. Or the empty vials.”
“No luck on the bag check then?”
“No, unfortunately not. Just dozens of passengers annoyed at the intrusion.” He frowned at the memory. “I would have kicked myself if we hadn’t tried, though.”
Ethan unlocked the door with his master keycard and we entered the small cabin. There were two single beds with a nightstand between them, a desk which had been covered in beauty products, and doors to the closet and the small bathroom.
“At least it won’t take us long to look around in here,” I said. “Not like the VIP mega suites.”
“I’ll start in the bathroom. You look in here.”
I began by examining the desk. The surface of it was covered in all kinds of lotions, creams, and unguents, as well as tweezers, cotton pads, cotton balls, and more. I lifted the larger containers up to see if they rattled—none did—and opened up the single drawer underneath to see if the Phytox vials had been shoved in there. They hadn’t.
“Anything?”
“Nope. Not yet.”
I lifted up the mattresses of the two beds to see if anything was pressed underneath them, but there was nothing. I dropped to my knees and tried to peer under the beds, but the bedframes went all the way to the floor so there was no way to hide anything underneath.
Next, I walked around to the closet to see what I could find in there. Inside, I began to go through the drawers, the only remarkable thing was how many clothes they brought with them for a week-long cruise. Maybe they needed a wide range of outfits for their line of work. Or just loved clothes.
“I didn’t find anything in the bathroom,” Ethan said behind me, “apart from the ship’s biggest selection of body washes, shampoos, and conditioners.”
We would be done in a moment; there wasn’t much else left to check. I pulled out Canyon and Tuff’s four suitcases from the bottom of the closet and tossed them onto the bed.
“Check in those. See if they rattle or feel too heavy. I found a secret compartment in a suitcase once.”
While I didn’t like to make a habit of searching through people’s belongings, it was something I ended up doing a few times since I started working aboard the cruise ship.
These things sometimes just had to be done. Especially when you were trying to solve a murder.
While Ethan went through the empty suitcases, I finished up in the closet. After I’d checked the last drawer and the pockets inside the models matching leather jackets, I stood back with a frown on my face.
“Anything?” I asked Ethan.
“Nope.”
“One last thing…”
I crouched down and pulled the bottom drawer inside the closet open as far as it would go. Then, I lifted the front and wiggled it a little, and pulled it free. I stuck my hand in the space that had been below the bottom drawer, seeing if I could feel anything, though not expecting to.
My fingers first slid along the smooth wooden surface of the bottom of the drawer. Then my fingers brushed against something soft.
“There’s something here.”
I leaned forward a little more, stretched out my fingers, and grabbed it, pulling it out.
“Look!” I said triumphantly, holding it up.
“Is that…”
“It sure is,” I told Ethan.
I was holding up a housekeeping dust mask.
Just like the one my assailant had been wearing the night before.
And just like the one that the person who had messed with Nurse Jessica’s door lock had been wearing.
Coincidence?
I didn’t think so.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I crouched there for a moment, holding up the mask while Ethan and I both stared at it.
After a brief discussion, neither of us could think of any valid reason for Tuff and Canyon to have one of those, especially not one hidden away in the very bottom of their closet.
And so, when the tour groups who had gone ashore returned to the ship, Ethan and three of his security team were waiting for the two models.
I was standing with Ethan and his team, of course, watching and waiting as everyone filed aboard. I waved and greeted Tessa and Tony, as well as Brenda, and Miffy and her three friends.
Kelly came through like a whirlwind. “Hi, Addy! Can’t stop—so much to do! Have you seen the captain? No, never mind—see youuuu!” And she was gone with me staring after her in amusement. I hadn’t even opened my mouth except to smile.
After another couple of dozen passengers, Tuff and Canyon arrived. They were both wearing matching khaki shorts, brown sandals, white short-sleeved button-up shirts, and dark aviator sunglasses. When Ethan’s team stepped in front of the pair to stop them, both halted in their tracks, and in matching movements they both lowered their sunglasses.
“If you two would like to come with us, we’d like to talk to you both about something.”
They shoved their glasses back in place over their eyes and faced each other.
“What do we do?” Tuff hissed.
“I don’t know!” Canyon said.
“They’re onto us!”
“Shh, don’t say that. They’re listening.”
“But I didn’t say what we did!”
“Idiot! Be quiet!”
Ethan stepped up close to them.
“Come with us now, please. Single file. Canyon, you go in front, Tuff, you’re behind with me.”
The two models were separated to stop them from conferring further, each of them with a guard either side of them.
I wandered along behind, staring at their backs trying to judge whether they looked similar to the back I’d seen fleeing from Keith and me the night before. It was hard to tell. While I followed, a new thought occurred to me.
Before I’d arrived at the Pool Deck that evening, during my walk over, I heard someone whispering, shh. Now that I thought about it some more, I realized something—a person acting alone wouldn’t have shushed themselves. It had to be someone working together with someone else. Even though only one person actually assaulted me, there was definitely someone else with them in the shadows.
It could have been Tony shushing Tessa, but I would have bet dollars-to-International-Buffet-donuts that it was one of these two airheaded hunks.
/> Ethan had the pair of them taken down to the security office in the depths of the ship. Canyon was made to sit on a bench outside while Tuff was brought into a small makeshift interview room.
Ethan sat Tuff down on one side of a simple wooden table, while he and I sat on the other. When we were all seated, Ethan began.
“Take off your sunglasses, please.”
“Do I have to?” the model complained in a whine that didn’t match the toughness of his name.
“Yes.”
Tuff did as he was told, folding in the arms of the dark glasses and placing them on the table in front of him. He looked down at the glasses instead of meeting our gaze, and his hands trembled.
“Where were you last night, between ten and eleven in the evening?”
“Nowhere.”
I had to stop myself from snorting with laughter at that.
“Nowhere? You had to have been somewhere. Do you mean you were in your cabin?”
“No, I was nowhere.” Tuff frowned a moment. “I mean, yes, I was in my cabin. That’s where I was. In my cabin alone.”
“Alone? Canyon wasn’t with you?”
“No! He was with me. We were alone in our cabin.”
“Let me guess, you were doing nothing?” I asked him.
He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Nothing.”
“I saw you on a security camera at a little after ten o’clock. Both of you. Walking together.”
Tuff’s eyebrows shot up.
“You did?”
“Yes. How is that possible if you were in your cabin?”
Tuff’s mouth opened and closed like a confused fish.
“Maybe your camera got the wrong person?”
Ethan shook his head at Tuff.
“No.”
“Did you go to the pool deck, Tuff?”
“Pool deck?” He rubbed his chin. “Pool… deck…” Tuff repeated the words several times as if they were new to him, and he was experimenting with how they sounded. “Pool… deck…”
“Your memory isn’t very good, is it Tuff?” Ethan said.
He shook his head. “Oh, no. It’s terrible. I can’t remember anything. Maybe I did go for a walk, and that’s why you saw me. But not to the pool deck. Definitely not.”
Lethal Cruise: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 9) Page 15