Cruise to Mayhem

by David P. Remy

  “My God, Kris, don’t keep me on pins and needles, tell me. Were you able to read what was on the paper? What did the newspaper story say?” Maggie had both hands on Kris now.

  “It was a story which would have revealed the godfather behind the whole Mayhem shipyard affair during the Great War. Were you ever taught that detail in the history of the war?”

  “Not really. We only studied the bigger picture about those things when I was in school. But, what do you mean ‘would have revealed the godfather behind the affair’?”

  “Well, as best as I can remember my history lesson of that era, the person fingered as responsible would never reveal the mastermind behind the enslavement of the employees of the shipyard. The Nazis needed the resources of the shipyard to build and maintain their naval forces. They also needed cooperation from the highest levels of the shipyard. The person accused of the scheme was a high level manager and he was found guilty and sent to prison for life.

  “But, as I said, he wouldn’t reveal the name of his senior, the one who masterminded the scheme, so the prosecution for the state ran into a dead end. Now I’m fairly certain that the one they caught was released from prison for some reason and was on board as a guest during this cruise.”

  “Was on board? On board this ship with us? You’re not making any more sense now than before about the newspaper story thing.”

  “Yes, Maggie, ‘was’ on board. Because, now we all know that the man who fell, or was pushed, overboard was Sam…Sam Stydd…Breath’s patient. At least, that was the name we knew him by. His name, given in the smuggled newsprint article, was actually Rolf S. Stuttgar. He used his middle name, Samuel, as his first name and changed the spelling of the family name to Stydd. The name he use with us as his identity on board. He was Sam Stydd, the granddad of our Chief Engineer, Hans Stydd.”

  Well, if Maggie were a fuzzy seed on top of a dandelion, she would have been blown away. “I’m not sure this helps me understand what is going on. It all seems so muddled and confused.”

  “Yes, I agree. But, I do think it gets us closer to the one responsible for Sam becoming a victim of being pushed overboard.”

  “Pushed!”

  “It’s as clear as your beautiful face is to me that Sam couldn’t have gotten himself down to the side rail along the promenade and willingly jumped overboard. Sam could hardly sit upright in his wheelchair. He had to have help.”

  “Kris, please don’t tell me anymore. Now, I’m really scared. How could we have been so dumb as to cooperate with this damn business of the Van Gogh?”

  Kris pulled Maggie into his arms and hugged her tightly. “Listen, this is what I think happened. Hans Stydd brought his granddad on board to get him out of the country that hated him for what he had done during the war. Somehow, and this is where I still can’t quite figure, he wanted the painting smuggled on board with the newspaper article. But, did he know that there was more to the Van Gogh than just bunches of yellow flowers? If he did, then, instead of facing the harsh reality of the revelation found in the article, he decided to rid everyone of the person who was able to verify the article, Sam Stydd, his granddad. He pushed Sam overboard knowing that he would never be found in the frigid waters of the Atlantic.”

  “How could he do such a horrible thing to his own grandfather?” Maggie stuttered.

  “Because, as we now know, he had planned on committing suicide after he helped Sam to his certain death. His death was no heart attack. His guilt ate him up.”

  “So, Hans Stydd was the murderer and then offed himself? Committed suicide?”

  “That makes the most sense to me.” Kris offered his conclusion like it was a well proven theorem.

  So, went the faulty reasoning of an amateur sleuth.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After Kris had laid out his thought pattern to Maggie about the crimes committed against Sam and Hans Stydd, they went to bed. Kris had placed the yellowed piece of newsprint on his desk with the intention of handing it over to the chief of security, Sanjay Mehta, first thing the very next morning. Maggie had convinced him that he needed to come clean with their involvement with the smuggled work of art before matters took an even worse turn. Kris concurred.

  Exhausted from the ordeal, they both slept soundly with the comforter pulled over their heads. Unfortunately for our budding sleuth and his fiancé, not everyone was sleeping. The door of their cabin was opened silently. The intruder crept in without a sound helped by the carpet cushioning the footsteps. The faint light from the cracked open cabin door allowed enough light from the outside passageway for the thief to see what was necessary. It didn’t take long to discover the object for which the intruder was searching. The cabin was small and the desk was relatively close to the door. The piece of newspaper was furtively lifted from the desk and placed inside the thief’s uniform pocket. Then, the intruder, just as quickly and quietly as with the entrance, exited Kris and Maggie’s cabin.

  ****

  “Let me repeat this so that I have it perfectly understood.” Chief Security Officer Sanjay Mehta was sitting behind his desk with Kris Sanders braced in front of him.

  “You say that you helped our Chief Engineer smuggle a painting by Van Gogh on board? Then, per the chief engineer’s request, you helped take it to his stateroom and hung it on the wall for him?”

  “Yes, I’m ashamed to admit it. It’s all true as I told you. I just felt I was helping in a minor matter of no consequence, but all of this has gone entirely too far. First, a man lost overboard and now, the unexplained death of our chief engineer. The very person I helped with the picture.”

  “Of course, Kris. So, you then decided to break into Hans Stydd’s cabin and investigate for yourself about the painting?” The security chief plodded along with his questioning.

  “Well, not exactly ‘break in’. I have a master key card.” Kris stammered.

  “We’ll pass on that bit of semantics for the moment. I need to understand the rest of the story, which is? You found a piece of newsprint that identifies a certain person who was responsible for a terrible happening during the Great War so many years ago? And, you think that this news article proves your conclusion that Hans Stydd is the murderer of his grandfather, Sam Stydd, and afterwards he committed suicide? Would that be a fair rendition of your story, Kris?”

  “Yes, Sanjay. Don’t you think that all the facts add up and it is extremely incriminating of Hans Stydd?”

  “Yes, the facts. Well, not quite so fast, Kris. It usually isn’t that easy or clear cut. We will need all the pieces to the puzzle before the picture becomes perfectly clear. Ok, Kris, could you show me the piece of evidence, the newspaper article?”

  “Well, that’s going to be a problem, Sanjay.” Kris bowed his head over his embarrassment about the disappearance of the single piece of evidence he used in his argument to incriminate Hans Stydd.

  “Problem?” Sanjay tapped his fingers on the desk.

  “You see, someone came into our cabin last night while we were asleep and stole the newspaper article.”

  “I see. Now, that is a problem. Not having the key piece of evidence which backs up your claims. So, it comes down to your telling of the story as you see it. You would admit that may not be seen as being very conclusive?” Sanjay was disappointed that the hard evidence was not available. Hearsay is not considered worth the paper it’s printed on, to mix the metaphor, he surmised.

  “Kris, we are at sea, as you are aware. So, I won’t lock you up. I’m not concerned that you will run out on us, unless you have learned the skill of walking on water.” He posed a childish smile.

  Following the gathering of a few minor details of information, Sanjay dismissed Kris from his office. Sanjay knew that Kris was incorrect with his conclusions about Hans Stydd. He had been given the report from the medical officer earlier in the day. With a simple test of a blood sample taken from the deceased, it was almost certain that Chief Engineer Hans Stydd had died from a dose of a potent poison. A po
ison potent enough to kill. The same poison found in the almost empty bottle of Hans’ reliable friend…JW red scotch.

  ****

  Led had been filled in by Kris with all the fast moving events of the case. It was a real live nightmare walking. For Led’s part, Lucky had always been his “go to” for advice. Once again, this was true as he finished relaying the entire account to Lucky.

  Lucky felt the weight of the confessed secret somewhat lightened since Hans was dead. Would it be that the responsibility could be erased as easily as marriage vows were, by”till death do us part”. Sadly, it couldn’t. The keeping of the seal was not broken even by death. In fact, the seal was even more sealed since the one who owned the secret could, if willingly so, release the confessor from the seal. Now, that person, Hans, was dead. There would be no release given. Lucky was forever stuck with the secret.

  Led looked at Lucky with the usual expectation that he would receive the guidance necessary to save him from another messy situation into which he had glibly gotten himself. “So? What’s the solution?” For a change, Led was all ears.

  “Huh, well, Led, sometimes there isn’t a really good one word answer to a problem. However, I think we are getting somewhere with this whole affair.”

  “Somewhere? What’s that suppose to mean?” Led’s frustration was showing.

  “Well, we are eliminating suspects. The less people involved helps put the spotlight more readily on the guilty party.” Lucky needed to use truisms to lessen any possible suspicion by Led that he knew more than he let on to knowing.

  “I guess that’s true. It still comes down to motive, method and opportunity.” Led had picked this up from the innumerable TV crime shows he liked to watch.

  Just as Lucky was about to continue his litany of truisms in response to Led’s questions, the phone rang in their cabin.

  “Hello, this is Father Lucky.” He had already taken note of the phone ID readout: Chief of Security Office.

  “Sir, this is Sanjay Mehta, Chief of Security. Would it be possible for Mr. Daley to come to my office immediately?”

  ****

  With the lapse of time since Sam’s alleged falling overboard and Hans’ purported suicide, Jan Becker was beginning to unwind her confusion. She knew that Sam couldn’t have simply fallen overboard. Sam was infirmed. She also knew that Hans had not suffered a heart attack. She had been in his bedroom that night. She saw and felt Hans. Though she couldn’t prove what had killed him, she knew that it hadn’t been a heart attack. She had no doubt that both Sam and Hans’s deaths were murders. Clear and simple…murders.

  Also, she was absolutely sure of another fact: she was not the murderer. Her relationship to the Van Gogh smuggling, strangely enough, might even prove her innocence, if need be. Her involvement in all of this came about via a rather serendipitous happenstance and revolved around a contact back in their port of origin.

  The contact was a retired member of the local newspaper and had suffered alongside the outrages which the Nazis control of the shipyard had put upon them all during the war. It was not a huge city and most everyone was either related or knew of each other. It was truly surprising, that during the trial following the war, that there had been the one big secret about the mastermind behind the enslavement of the shipyard workers. A case of a community hiding its monster?

  As a reporter for the paper, he was abreast of the daily goings on in most every parcel of life in their community. It was he who had done the investigative work and had discovered the mastermind behind the supervising manager, Rolf S. Stuttgar. He wrote the alarming news breaking story and had presented it to the editor of the paper.

  For an unknown reason, the story was squashed. It never left the editor’s office and he had been severely warned to stop his investigation. He was told that he was wrong and that he was interfering with a much more serious investigation by the police…an investigation with national repercussions. At the time, he accepted this. The editor was the boss and his mentor as a junior journalist. At that time, in his naiveté, he still trusted the government.

  He had stuffed a copy of the story of the shipyard discovery into his file and kept it there all these years. Jan Becker had a relative also living in the same retirement home as the newspaper man. When she was in port, Jan would occasionally fulfill her family duty and visit with her relative.

  Eventually Jan and the reporter were introduced. Little by little, over several visits, the immensity of the investigative results contained in his article was revealed to Jan Becker. He assured her that his story was the truth. Though his superior had forbidden him to publish the article, he knew that he had been correct all along. When she read his article, so did Jan Becker. Since, the once journalist was destitute, when Jan offered him enough money, she obtained his long prized treasure. A double treasure for Jan Becker since it would bring down the Master of the North Star and an even more important personage from the past.

  She had contrived the smuggling of the Van Gogh copy only to serve as a vehicle to get the article aboard, safely and secretly. She would take no chances that the article would be lost or found on her person or in her quarters on the ship. She knew that the crew was sometimes a bit too noisy about the baggage or cleaning her stateroom…offenses punishable by immediate discharge from employment…nonetheless, it went on anyway.

  Hans Stydd was the convenient choice to assist her. They were involved in a long standing love affair. Maybe, more accurately described as a mutually agreed upon adult lust affair. With his position as chief engineer, he controlled much of the activity on the docks and the lower decks and could easily get an object aboard without any question. He agreed, not knowing about the real article being smuggled aboard which was safely nestled inside the Van Gogh. Poor boy. He ended up paying the ultimate price for his indiscretion.

  This still added up to a ton of questions in Jan’s mind. “Who did off Sam? Who poisoned Hans? And, even more to the point…why?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Breath was uptight and kept out of sight. There was no way that she wanted to blow it now. She decided to keep a very low profile. Continue to play the part of the mourning nurse, overcome, having lost the first patient in her life as a professional caregiver. She did it well. Everyone was fooled, including the love struck Led.

  Breath had a personal secret. In fact, she had more than one. The first one involved her nursing practicum at a retirement home. Lo and behold, the very same retirement home in which the newspaper man and Jan Becker’s relative both resided. During her training days at the home, Breath had cared for them both. Thanks to Jan Becker’s aunt, Breath became aware of the reporter’s story and was also aware of the visits by Jan Becker to her aging aunt.

  During her nursing care of Jan’s aunt, the aging soul would relate the stories of Jan’s visit to her. Breath became aware of Jan and Hans Stydd’s relationship thanks to the gossipy aunt. Who could blame the poor aunt? She had no one, other than Jan, who visited her. She loved to tell Nurse Breath every detail of the coveted visits with her beloved niece.

  Along with those tidbits of information from the aunt, Breath also came to know the life story of our news reporter. He had once showed his lovely nurse, Breath, his prized old clipping. It was his investigative reporter’s pride and joy. He actually had forgotten about revealing it due to his suffering from the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

  When the ad for the Stydd job came across her computer screen that night long ago following her graduation, she was more than prepped for the opportunity to accomplish her deed. In non culpable ignorance, the grandson, Hans Stydd, had opened the door to her mission and ushered her right in. She now had a perfectly legitimate reason for being in Sam’s presence, as his duly hired caregiver. The end result being that she would be able to rid the world once and for all, of the keeper of the family secret, the Rolf S. Stuttgar of history…the present day Sam Stydd.

  Just as the bottom line is always mathematically inevitable
…just as blood is always thicker than water… Breath would make certain that the family secret would continue to remain just that, secret.

  Ever since the divorce of her parents when she was a child, Breath used her mother’s family name, Olsen. As a protector of the secret, now she would live up to her coveted family name, Breath Olsen…Andersen.

  This was Breath’s second secret.

  ****

  The Captain’s quarters were off limits to almost everyone. There were only a select few of the most trusted and experienced members of housekeeping who were allowed inside the digs to maintain the large and lavish spaces. Furniture was spread throughout the grandiose living room.

  Breath sat nestled in one corner of a sprawling semi circular couch. Her father, Captain Norse Andersen, Master of the Northern Star, sat firmly embedded in his favorite leather lazy boy reclining chair.

  “This is what it was all about, Breath. All our planning and need for secrecy.” Norse Andersen was holding the yellowed piece of journalism. “This ancient piece of damnable journalism. The only possible shred of evidence connecting grandfather with the Nazis and the Mayhem shipyard affair.”

  “It has to be all lies, father. I’m convinced that that now decrepit newsman had fabricated the whole business. And, to think that I cared for that fabricator.”

  “Well, Breath, let’s say our family feels better thinking along those lines. I have no desire to stand up in a court of law and try to defend the thesis. I’m afraid the scripture may prove correct in our case: the sins of the fathers will be visited upon their children.”

  Both Breath and Norse Andersen were startled by a sharp knock on the Captain’s cabin door. It was almost unheard of to interrupt the Master unless one either phoned ahead or had a prior scheduled meeting. Norse looked at Breath and lifted his arms in a show of bewilderment. He then slowly raised himself from the sleek leather recliner and stepped to the door. He looked through the spy hole and opened the door.