by Mary McHugh
“I wish he’d get this over with,” I said, and went back out on deck again.
“Are you almost finished with me, Inspector?” I asked. I forced my voice to remain steady.
“Just a few more questions, Ms. Powell.” He looked down at his notebook and then asked, “What do you know about Tatiana? Is she a friend of yours?”
“I met her on this cruise and she’s a very fine person. She’s a professor at the university in Moscow and highly respected in her field.”
“But it is my understanding that she was responsible for getting Mr. Allgood into trouble.”
“No, she just helped Heidi get a new chef when Mr. Allgood disappeared. She knew one of the sous-chefs and recommended him.”
“Hmmmm.” The inspector wrote three pages of notes. They were in Russian, of course, so I couldn’t even read them upside down. I was getting nervous. Now it looked like I had implicated Tatiana and maybe Sergei in the chef’s murder.
“This German woman—Heidi?” the inspector asked. “She wanted to get rid of the chef too?”
“Well, she wanted to replace him,” I said, “not get rid of him. It looked like Sergei would be a good replacement, since he knows the restaurant business. His father owns a restaurant in St. Petersburg. He knows how to cook Russian food.” My babbling wasn’t helping anybody.
“We have reason to believe that Miss Gorsuch was once a man named Gunther. Do you know anything about that?”
“I heard something about it, but I don’t really know whether it’s true or not. Look, this is only our third day on this ship. We don’t know any of these people well.”
“What about your friend Barry Martin, the American tourist? Would he have any reason for wanting the chef dead?”
“Of course not! He’s a highly respected lawyer in New York.”
“Did he threaten Mr. Allgood when he found him attacking you on deck?” the inspector asked.
“He just told the chef to leave me alone,” I said.
“Or—?” the inspector said, and he obviously knew the answer.
“Or he’d break both Allgood’s arms,” I mumbled, looking down at the deck.
Inspector Gregarin took more notes. I wished Peter were there. Or at least Columbo.
The inspector looked up. He cleared his throat.
“What about your friend, Alex Boyer, the bureau chief for the The New York Times? I understand that he intervened in a quarrel between one of the waitresses and the chef. He told Ms. Gorsuch that the chef should be fired.”
“A lot of people said they wished the chef would be fired after eating his food, but that doesn’t mean they would kill him. Everyone hated that man.”
Gregarin glanced at his notes again and changed direction.
“We have reason to believe that Mr. Allgood was a homosexual. Was that your impression?”
I was getting exhausted, so I answered more angrily than I meant to.
“You can’t tell if a person is a homosexual just by looking at him,” I said. “I have no idea whether he was homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, or no-sexual. What kind of a question is that?” I stood up and started to walk away.
“Sit down, please, Ms. Powell,” he said, and wrote furiously in his notebook. I sat down on the edge of the deck chair. Another ship passed us going in the other direction and gave two loud blasts of its horn to greet us.
The inspector frowned at the interruption, then said, “The bartender said Mr. Sheldon had a drink at the bar with the chef, Mr. Allgood, two nights ago, and they left together. What do you know about Mr. Sheldon? Did you ever see him lose his temper, make angry gestures, threaten anyone?”
“No, of course not. He is a very mild-mannered, gentle person.”
I stood up again. I’d had enough. “The only angry person I’ve seen on this whole ship was Mr. Allgood,” I said. Now, if you have no further questions—”
“Not right now,” he said, “but please let us know if you hear anything about Mr. Sheldon. We haven’t been able to locate him. You may go.”
I stumbled back to the bar and collapsed at one of the tables. My friends surrounded me.
“Are you all right?” Janice asked.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I haven’t done anything, but I feel guilty of something. I’m not sure what.”
“I know what you mean,” Janice said. “That man makes you feel like you must have committed some crime, or at least you know who did it.”
“Who did what?” Alex asked, joining us again.
“The inspector sounded like he thought Brad was the killer,” I said. “I know you think he is too, but I still don’t believe it.”
“He certainly seems to be a prime suspect,” Alex said. “Let me talk to the inspector and see what I can find out. I might be able to pry something out of him. I’ll be back.”
A loud voice broke into our conversation. “I’ll have that man fired,” Barry said. “He talked to me as if I killed that stupid chef. I don’t know who he thinks he’s talking to, but I’m calling the State Department. He can’t get away with this.” His voice got louder as his anger mounted.
My friends looked at me. He’s your problem, their expressions said, do something about him. I got up and put my hand on Barry’s arm.
“He made all of us feel guilty, Barry. As a trial lawyer, you must know that’s his job. To find out information. To get us to say things we don’t want to say. Try to calm down and get some lunch. I’ll see you later.”
“He won’t get away with this.”
He walked away, his face angry and red. There was a long silence. Then Pat said, “Tina?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m trying to get rid of him as fast as I can.”
“Too bad,” Mary Louise said. “He does look like Harrison Ford.”
“Harrison Ford or not,” I said, “he’s got to go.”
Tina’s Travel Tip: Always travel with Lysol.
Chapter 14
Surprise Party!
After lunch, I walked down the stairs and along the corridor to my room. As I put the key in the lock, I heard the door of one of the cabins open behind me. For some reason, I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. I turned to see who was there. A hand covered my mouth and I felt a hard object against my back.
“Quiet,” a deep voice said, “or you’re dead.”
I felt myself being shoved into my cabin and pushed down on Mary Louise’s bed. My assailant slammed the door and grabbed my wrist with a gloved hand. The grip was so strong, surely this was a man, and a powerful one. His face was completely covered with a brilliantly colored Russian scarf—except for his eyes, which were darkly menacing. He was pointing a gun at me.
“We leave ship now,” he said, his voice muffled by the scarf. His accent could have been Russian or almost anything else. His voice was gutteral, harsh.
“You my . . . how you say?—hostage.”
I tried to stall him. “Why me?”
“You famous. They let me go if you with me.”
“No, no, I’m not famous. They won’t care. You’ll never get—”
“Shut mouth,” he said, jabbing my rib cage with his gun. “Get up. We go.”
I felt something hard underneath me on the bed and realized it was a spray can.
Hearing a noise outside the cabin, he looked away for an instant. That was all the time I needed to pull out the can of Lysol I had been sitting on and spray it in his eyes. He yelled and fired the gun but missed me. I sprayed again and tugged frantically at the door of the cabin. It wouldn’t open. I kept spraying. He shot again but he couldn’t see. I crouched down so he would miss me.
The door opened suddenly, and I ran out into the arms of a Russian police officer. He must have heard the gunshots. The officer grabbed me away from the line of fire as my assailant kicked the door closed.
The policeman shot through the door with a volley of bullets. Hearing no answering gunfire, he flung open the door. The window was smashed and the gu
y was nowhere in sight. The inspector appeared, gun drawn, and found me sitting on the floor of the corridor, shaking.
“You are all right?” he said.
“No,” I said, gasping for breath. “I’m . . . I’m . . .”
“Who was it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He had some kind of accent. A Russian accent maybe but I’m not sure.”
“Was it Brad Sheldon?”
“No—Brad Sheldon is American. I told you this man had a Russian accent. And he was bigger, stronger, I think.”
“You did not recognize his face?”
“It was covered with a scarf.”
“What kind of scarf?”
“Bright colored,” I said, struggling to talk.
“Like Russian women wear. Red and orange and yellow and blue.”
“Could you see his hair?”
“No. That was covered too.”
“But his voice was high, or deep or . . . ?”
“His voice was deep and he had this accent and . . .” I was shaking all over.
My friends came running in, crowding the hallway.
“Oh, Tina, what happened?” Mary Louise said. “We heard shots. Are you all right?”
“Your Lysol saved my life!” I exclaimed, drawing worried looks. My friends thought I had lost my mind until I filled them in.
“Inspector,” Gini said, “did you catch him?”
“No, he escaped, but we will find him. He cannot get off this ship.”
I couldn’t stop shaking. “It was . . .” I couldn’t talk. “He was . . .” I took a deep breath. “He said he was going to use me as a hostage to get off the ship because he thought I was famous. I don’t know where he got that idea. I’m not even famous on this ship. No one has ever pointed a gun at me before—I was sure he was going to kill me, and you know what I thought?”
“What, honey?” Pat asked.
“I thought, I’ll see Bill again.” Tears flooded my eyes.
My friends hugged me. Once again, I wondered what I would ever do without these women.
“I’ll always be all right as long as I have you four,” I said, sniffling.
“Let’s get a drink,” Pat said. “I think we all need one.”
This time I had to agree with her. “Great idea,” I said, and I tottered off to the bar with my friends holding me up.
Tina’s Travel Tip: If you don’t know what else to do, tap dance.
Chapter 15
One Desperatador, Please
The Skylight Bar was full of people who had heard several different versions of my story. They asked if I was all right, if it was true that I captured the guy by myself, if I had been shot in the shoulder but not badly hurt, if the police had taken the murderer off the ship.
I told them what really happened.
“You mean the killer is still somewhere on the ship?” Sue asked.
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “But there are police everywhere. They’re checking every inch. They’ll find him.”
My teeth chattered. I didn’t really believe what I had just said. Just in time, the bartender handed me a tall glass of pink, fizzy liquid. I lifted it and took a tentative sip. It was sweet, soothing . . . I took another sip.
“Ms. Powell,” a man said to me, “I am a doctor. One of the passengers on this ship. I heard you were hurt. May I have a look at your wound?” He opened his medical kit.
“Oh, I’m not shot,” I said. “He missed me. I’m fine—just a little . . . uh . . . gun-shy.”
I convinced him I was not bleeding anywhere, and he left.
“Tina, tell me everything that happened,” Alex said, sitting down next to me. “Are you all right?”
“Not really, Alex. Having a gun pointed at you is definitely not fun.” I told him the whole story. He said I would be on the front page of The New York Times the next day.
“I’ve always wanted to be in the Times—but for something I wrote, not for Lysol spraying an assailant,” I said.
Heidi ran up to me and took my hand. “Ms. Powell, thank Gott, thank Gott,” she said. “I’m glad you’re all right. You are so brave.”
I took another gulp of the cocktail and felt the room tilt a few degrees.
“Good heavens, what’s in this?” I asked.
“Tequila, triple sec, grapefruit juice, honey, and—vat is that other thing?—oh, ja, grenadine,” Heidi said. “Ve call it the Desperatador.”
“Please to listen, ladies and gentlemen,” said the Russian inspector’s voice over the loudspeaker. “We ask everyone to stay in the Skylight Bar until further notice. We will tell you when it is safe to leave.”
“This is an outrage,” a loud voice said. “I have an important phone call to make from my cabin. They can’t make us stay here.”
“I’m afraid they can, Barry,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t try to leave here if I were you. You might be the next one at the wrong end of a gun.”
“They’re a bunch of incompetents. They couldn’t find that killer if he fell on them,” Barry said. I was embarrassed for him. I looked away, not wanting to make eye contact with him.
The bar continued to fill up with passengers until it was crowded. Through the window, we could see the police running past outside. My friends and I huddled together. I noticed that Pat was drinking something pink in a martini glass.
“What is that? Another of their lethal specials?” I asked her.
“It’s a Shirley Temple,” Pat said, smiling. “I decided to lay off for a while. A Shirley Temple seemed really appropriate.”
“Good for you, Pat,” I said. “We could probably all drink less.”
I put down my Desperatador, waved to the waitress, and pointed to Pat’s drink and then to myself.
“How did you have the presence of mind to spray Lysol at him?” Mary Louise asked. “I would have been paralyzed. What if he hadn’t missed when he shot at you?”
“You’d be surprised at what you can do when someone is pointing a gun at you,” I said. “It’s like every cell in your brain concentrates on surviving. It still hasn’t hit me yet. I’ll probably fall apart later.”
“Is there any Lysol left?” Mary Louise asked teasingly. “I want to spray every surface that creep touched.”
“I’ll buy you a new can,” I said. “And I promise, I’ll never call you a germ freak again.”
An hour later, the inspector’s voice came over the loudspeaker again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. We have searched the ship. The assailant is not on it. We think he was able to slip ashore on one of the supply boats and we are transferring our search to St. Petersburg. You are free to leave the Skylight Bar and return to your regular activities. Unfortunately, you will not be able to tour St. Petersburg today, but we hope that will change tomorrow. Your cruise director has asked me to announce that dinner will be served tonight, though it may be a more informal meal than you are used to.”
“I’m not sure I believe that everything is all right,” Alex said. “I’m not convinced that the murderer got off this ship. How could he, with everyone looking for him? I’m going to stay here and try to find out more.” He put his arm around Gini. “And I want to be sure all of you are all right. We can’t have anything happen to our favorite entertainers.”
Gini looked relieved. “I’m so glad you’re staying,” she said.
“Oh, Alex,” I said, starting to shake again. “Do you really think he’s still on this ship? I don’t want to run into the man with the gun again. I’m all out of Lysol.”
“I’m sorry, Tina,” Alex said. “I shouldn’t have said that. If the police say he’s not on board then he isn’t on board. Anyway, we’re not letting you out of our sight. Are you actually going to dance tonight after what you’ve been through?”
“I don’t know if Heidi wants us to dance tonight,” I said. “I’ll see what she says. And then I’ll see if my feet will obey my brain.”
People were milling about t
rying to decide what to do, where to go.
“Ms. Powell, Ms. Powell,” said the familiar voice of Heidi. Since learning about her transgendered past, I now saw her as a strong and serious presence. I thought she was incredibly brave to do what she did. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful her life must have been before she changed from a man into a woman. But did she kill Allgood to keep people from knowing about it?
“Ms. Powell,” she said, “I don’t know how to ask you this.” She stopped, uncertain whether to continue or not.
“It’s OK, Heidi,” I said, knowing what she was reluctant to ask. “I’ll be all right by tonight. Don’t worry. I think I’ll be able to dance. In fact, it might help. Dancing always helps.”
She looked relieved.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “You haf been through a terrible experience, so I vould understand if you didn’t feel up to it. I could ask the captain to give his little talk about channels and weather conditions and how the locks in the river work.”
My friends and I looked at each other. Locks in the river? The weather? We shook our heads.
“I’m all right, Heidi,” I said. “We’ll dust off our tap shoes and knock their socks off.”
“That vould be gut.”
“Heidi,” I said, “will Sergei be cooking for us again tonight?”
“Yes, he will be the chef for the rest of the cruise. Everyone was pleased with the meal he prepared last night.”
“It was fantastic,” I said. “He’s a truly talented cook.”
I gathered my group around me and told them we’d be dancing that night. “I think we should travel in packs,” I said. “Alex is worried that the murderer might still be on this ship, and I’d just as soon not run into him again.”
Tina’s Travel Tip: There probably won’t be a murder on your cruise, so follow Caroline’s ten rules of life and have fun.
Chapter 16