by C. A. Larmer
“It’s like he was framing himself,” said Missy, and Alicia nodded fervently.
“That’s exactly what it’s like! It’s too perfect. Like Poirot says in my book, there are just too many bloody clues. I mean, the evidence is all there in his room.”
Anders was shaking his head, a small smile on his lips. “Dare I say it again, Alicia? This isn’t fiction. Sometimes the crooks are stupid, sometimes they slip up, and sometimes the cops just get it right. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill Dame Dinnegan. It was a spontaneous thing. Maybe she confronted him in the gym, he stabbed her and didn’t get a chance to get rid of the evidence back in his room.”
“But he did have a chance! Instead of rushing back to his room like any normal killer would do, he calmly goes next door to the library—where there is at least one witness—and sits around for half an hour, bringing attention to himself until the body is discovered. How bizarre is that? It’s like he was paralysed or hoping to get caught.”
“Maybe he was,” said Missy. “You know the police often look for suspects at the crime scene. Apparently they like to be in on the action.”
“You have to remember too, Alicia,” said Anders, scowling at Missy impatiently, “if it wasn’t for Groot checking out the gym, she may not have been found until after 10:00 a.m. when it officially opens. Maybe he just went into the library to get himself an alibi, not expecting Groot to go looking for his wife. Cheyne’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.”
“Either that, or he’s a true psychopath,” said Perry. “How creepy is that? You’ve just stabbed your dear old wife, then you calmly walk into the library and wait to be discovered.” He cringed.
“Nope, I’ve got my money on the Dumb and Dumber defence,” said Anders, placing his cup on the table and standing up. “I’ve got to get going. The captain’s holding another staff briefing in ten minutes.” He turned his eyes to Alicia. “We did good work here today, yes? Stop overthinking things. You can now give yourself the next—” He consulted his watch. “—twenty-six hours off.”
“Great, more shuffleboard,” she said drolly.
Lynette was watching her watch him go, and when the sisters’ eyes met, Lynette’s narrowed suspiciously. “You’re not heading to the shuffleboard court, are you?”
Alicia held her palms out. “I’m just saying there’s still a lot of loose threads.”
Perry sat forward on his deck chair and clapped his hands. “Go on then, this certainly beats deck games. Tell us, what else have you got?”
Alicia smiled and tried to gather her thoughts. It wasn’t just Dame Dinnegan’s death that seemed out of kilter. Several mysteries were still floating around unanswered, like who stole Corrie’s kaftans? Where were the kaftans now? And who was the mysterious woman in green?
“Oh, Alicia, Anders is right, you’re overthinking everything,” said Claire when Alicia voiced these questions. “It’s like I said earlier. It must have been Corrie all along. We were so busy chasing our tails we couldn’t see clearly. Human beings have a dreadful tendency to do that.”
“But it can’t have been Corrie, surely! I had just seen her up on deck with Jackson.”
“She could have done it,” countered Lynette. “That first night on board, you were gone from the bar for a good fifteen, twenty minutes, Alicia. Corrie would have been cutting it fine, but she could have made it.”
“Then let’s do the maths.” Alicia turned to Perry. “Let’s try to think clearly back to that first night on board. Lyn and I had just left the Grand Salon and saw Mrs Jollson going into her cabin with the woman in green at around, what? Eleven-ish? So when did you last see Mrs Jollson in the bar?”
“Um, let me think.” He placed a finger at his temple. “I first noticed Mrs Jollson when she was dancing straight after dinner. I remember that. She had fabulous pins. Then, hmmm, let me think, let me think… Yes, I saw her after that, at the bar when I began doing shots with Ramond and a couple of the guys. That’s right, she was talking to someone.”
“Who?” squealed Alicia and Missy at the same time.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Perry gave his head a bit of a shake as though trying to knock his memory up a gear. “You know, I’m not sure I even recognised them, or if I did, it didn’t stick. But I do recall that they were drinking, because it was something orange and I remember thinking, ‘Oh that looks tasty! Maybe we should do a few shots of that!’”
“What was it?” asked Lynette, and Alicia held a hand up.
“Not important now, Lynny, although it may be down the track, because it’s likely that’s where the drug was administered.” She squished her lips to the side. “But just to be clear, Perry. That definitely wasn’t Corrie she was sharing an orange drink with at the bar right?”
“Absolutely not. I’d have recognised her.”
“Even if she’d changed into a bright green kaftan?”
“Hey, that woman would stand out in beige, honey, it wasn’t Corrie I can assure you of that. Besides, Ramond tells me Corrie was on the wagon. So she wouldn’t have been doing shots.”
“She could have fallen off,” said Lynette. “Or she might have been faking it.”
“Ramond would’ve noticed, Lynette. He seemed absurdly interested in that woman’s drinking habits for some reason.”
“Right, so here’s where we’re at,” said Alicia. “We’re expected to believe that Corrie was chatting to Jackson up on the promenade deck one minute, then raced away, somehow changed into a green kaftan—bright green I might add, so you’re not likely to forget it—and then raced into the bar, convinced Mrs Jollson to come do shots with her, somehow managing to sneak a drug into one shot glass without anyone noticing, including our nosey barman, then walked her out of the bar via the dance floor, which is the only way out, and to her room, all just before Lynette and I reached the elevator? And all without a single witness noticing it was the captain’s loud and vivacious wife?”
Several of them began looking as sceptical as Alicia but not Lynette.
“It was pretty busy in the bar, ’Lis. Everyone was tipsy and having fun. Maybe she just slipped past. Sorry, but you might just be grasping at straws.”
“No, I take it all back. Alicia’s right,” said Claire, catching them all by surprise. “Why would Corrie change outfits? I mean, Cheyne may be an imbecile, but Corrie seemed cunning as a fox to me. Think about it. If you want to disguise yourself, you’d put something different on, wouldn’t you? Something you didn’t own, that wasn’t your trademark look, and certainly not lairy green.” She wrinkled her button nose. “I’d put something very ordinary on to blend in with the crowd. Like a boring black frock, perhaps.”
Alicia’s eyes lit up again. She just remembered who had a penchant for wearing ‘boring black’.
Chapter 7
Anita Monage was not at the smoking bar when Alicia went to look for her. Nor was she in the main bar, the restaurant or on any of the decks. She did spot a group of familiar faces by the shuffleboard court, however, and strode across to join them.
“Hi guys,” Alicia called out. “Has anyone seen Anita?”
Billie Solarno looked up with a start and then smiled and waved Alicia over. “How are you my dear?”
“Good, thank you. I’m just looking for Anita. Have you met her? She was Corrie’s—”
“Oh we know who Anita is!” said Dermott, his body spread out on a deck chair as if basting in the afternoon sun. “I haven’t seen her. Ladies?”
He looked around the group of which there were seven or eight, and they all looked back blankly.
Tillie Solarno was not there, laid low with a migraine as it happened, but the rest of them were lying on deck chairs, leaning against the railing or perched around a large table watching a group play Shuffleboard.
“We’re sitting this one out in honour of the Dame,” Billie told Alicia as she approached.
Alicia nodded and watched the game for a few minutes before her eyes wandered across the de
ck and down to the sea below. It was impossible not to think of Corrie whenever you looked out into that vast expanse of water. It was impossible not to feel a shudder.
“I just hope she went quickly,” said Millie, sensing where Alicia’s mind had drifted.
“She would have, of course she would have!” said her sister, not sounding at all convinced.
“She looked pretty athletic,” Alicia pointed out. “Strong arms and shoulders. She may have kept swimming for a while. May still be swimming now, clinging to hope that someone will find her.”
They all seemed to shudder then.
“So Dermott tells us you were enlisted to help the undercover policeman with his enquiries,” Billie said, and she nodded. “We just wish it hadn’t gotten that far. I mean, we knew that hideous Smith man was trouble, but we never suspected he’d wreak such havoc. First he steals from all the innocent passengers, then poor Cecilia is drugged and killed, now poor Dorothy, destroyed by her husband’s shameless greed. Just dreadful.”
“And poor Gunter being the one to find her!” added an American man in green to one side. “What bad timing for him to be there right when it happened.”
Dermott scoffed. “Well that’s hardly surprising, Frank. Gunter’s always in the library at that hour. Hell, he’s holed away in there most of the day, the poor bugger. You would be too if you were married to you-know-who.”
“Now, now, Dermott,” scolded Billie, and he sniffed.
“Sorry, but the way that woman nags him is unconscionable. It’s not enough that he takes her on cruises?”
“Why does she nag him all the time?” asked Alicia.
“Oh she’s just cranky because they have to slum it in the lower decks instead of the staterooms where she thinks she belongs. She has airs and graces that one.” He sniffed again. “At least she doesn’t have to dance for her supper!”
“Still,” the man in green persisted, “I feel bad for Gunter having to come across Mrs Dinnegan’s body. That must have been damn shocking. I hear she was naked as a jaybird when he found her.”
The Solarno sisters frowned, but Alicia shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Not that I heard anyway.”
“I’m not sure which is worse,” said a redheaded woman who’d wandered over from the shuffleboard court. “Being stabbed in the back or holding on to hope out there in the ocean.”
“Both don’t bear thinking about,” said Billie.
“And to think it was that lovely lad Cheyne!” said the redhead. “I never would’ve guessed. He was always so utterly charming.”
The eye roll that comment received from Dermott and Millie was not lost on Alicia. Meanwhile, Billie was watching Alicia closely.
“How are you all, really?” she asked. “Have we ruined your taste for cruising now?”
She shook her head. “It was hardly your fault, and no, I don’t think so. Well, maybe Claire might take some convincing in future. I think it’s been a real shock to her to see this exquisite ship so tarnished.”
“I believe it was already on the way to being tarnished, what with those two carrying on right under everybody’s noses,” Millie said.
“Millicent,” purred Billie.
“Oh, Bertha, I hardly think it’s news to anyone anymore.”
“Did you guys know about their affair before all of this happened?” Alicia asked.
“It was obvious to me,” said Dermott, but the rest of the group were shaking their heads, and this surprised Alicia.
She said as much. “It’s just that Corrie was so flirtatious. I only met her once, but that’s the vibe I got.”
“Yes, but she was so open about it all I think we all just assumed that was her personality, dear,” explained Millie. “I don’t think we thought for one moment that she’d cheat on the captain. And such a great catch! I can’t imagine why she would do such a thing.”
“How long had she and the captain been married?”
“Three years in August. Together just six months before they were wed. She was pregnant then but they lost the baby. Or so the story goes. Now, well, you have to wonder if there ever was a child. Perhaps she made the whole thing up, just to snare the captain.”
“Wouldn’t put it past her,” said a man in a loud Hawaiian shirt to Millie’s right.
“Did you also hear they were planning to jump ship together in Auckland—Corrie and Cheyne?” Alicia asked, and Millie nodded.
“What an ungrateful fool she was after everything Tonio did for her!”
“Oh?”
Millie blushed. “He… well, he helped her with the drink, didn’t he?” She glanced at her sister. “I don’t think that’s news to anyone.”
Dermott was nodding. “It’s true she was a chronic party girl when they first met, on this ship’s maiden voyage, you know? She was only supposed to join the ship for the Sydney to Fremantle run, but he fell hard, didn’t he, ladies? So he invited her to stay aboard for the return to London, and well, the story goes: when they got to London, he dusted her off, put her through rehab and married her—all within six months. Your classic Pygmalion story. She owed him everything, really.”
“She owed him her life,” said Millie, shaking her head sadly.
“The Captain sounds like an amazing man,” said Alicia. “I haven’t really had a chance to meet him yet.”
“Oh you would have if it wasn’t for this terrible business,” said Billie. “He would have invited you to his table— sought you out and seen how you were going. He’s just… well, it’s all been terribly distracting.”
“And you don’t think he could have had anything to do with any of this?”
They all stared at her now as if she had just asked if the earth was flat—their lips were open, their eyes were wide, their brows high.
“Never!” said the American man.
“He wouldn’t have it in him!” said Millie.
Dermott added, “Even if he had wanted to throttle his undeserving wife—and who could blame him if he did?—he would never have done that to his ship. He knows the danger of bad publicity. Once enough rumours get around on a ship, the whole ship starts to sink with the stink. He would never do that to his beloved boat.”
“Why are you asking this?” asked Billie. “I thought they had all the evidence. I thought that dreadful gigolo has confessed to everything.”
“Well, I’m not sure he’s confessed, but yes it’s true, the evidence does stack up. It just seems so, well, convenient, you know?”
Billie scoffed. “He’s obviously a very, very stupid man.”
Yes, thought Alicia, and how fortuitous that was for everybody on the ship, including Captain Van Tussi and his cheer squad.
By the time Alicia extricated herself from the cheer squad, she realised it was time to get dressed for dinner, so she begrudgingly abandoned her search for Anita and headed back to her cabin. It was only as she made her way down the long, thin passageway that she noticed the woman in black perched on the floor by her cabin door.
Anita seemed so shrunken now, like the horrors of this voyage had left her diminished somehow.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said, scrambling to her feet as Alicia got closer.
“Really?” Fancy that.
“Can I come in?”
Anita indicated the cabin, and Alicia hesitated, remembering why she was looking for Anita in the first place. Hadn’t she wondered if Corrie’s best friend had been the woman in green? Was it really so clever to lock herself into a tiny cabin with a potential criminal?
Yet she couldn’t be the woman in green, her logical brain told her. She’d only just joined the ship in Sydney! The thefts started earlier than that.
Unless it was unrelated to the thefts, of course…
Anita watched Alicia’s brain wrestle with itself and gave her a pleading look. “Please, Alicia, we really need to talk!”
Yet again curiosity won out, and she said, “Excuse the mess” as she opened the door.
But of
course there was no mess. Valeno had seen to that. Even Lynette’s clothes had been neatly stashed away in the cupboard, their beds already turned down for the night, a towel swan resting on each of their pillows.
Anita headed straight for Alicia’s minibar and plucked out a miniature bottle of red that was just on top of the fridge. “You don’t mind, do you?”
She waved her on, thinking, Great, there goes the budget.
“You want?” Anita called back, and Alicia said no as she took a seat on her bed, waving Anita onto Lynette’s.
“So, what did you want—?”
“They’ve got it all wrong!” Anita burst out.
“Sorry?”
“I’ve just been talking to Tonio, and he said the police guy, that cute barman bloke, has nabbed Cheyne for killing Corrie and his wife.”
“Yes. I thought you suspected him too.”
She ignored that. “Tonio says they think Cheyne and Coz had a thing going, stealing other people’s jewels.” Alicia nodded. “Well it’s rubbish! Corrie wouldn’t steal the complementary toiletries from your bathroom over there.”
Alicia frowned. “I didn’t think you liked her much.”
“What’s that got to do with the price of eggs in China? Sure, Coz could be a pretty crappy friend, and she was no poster child girl for marriage, but she wasn’t cheap and she certainly wasn’t a thief.” She cracked the bottle open and slugged a mouthful of wine. “She could have had anything she wanted—Tonio gave her the earth. She only had to ask, and it was hers. Why would she steal other people’s shit?”
“The theory is she was doing it for a laugh. They seem to think she might have been a kleptomaniac, and everyone knows ‘kleptos’ don’t steal because they need stuff. It’s a mental health disease.”
Anita snorted. “Corrie might have had a few sexually transmitted diseases, but there was nothing wrong with her head.”
“How can you be so sure?”