Shattered at Sea

by Cheryl Hollon

  “You are not at home, Miss Webb.” Officer Gaffney opened a notebook and then asked Savannah, “How long have you known Ian Morris?”

  “I met him on Saturday morning when he picked us up from Heathrow Airport in London.”

  Officer Gaffney laboriously wrote in his notebook for a good two minutes.

  Savannah frowned. He is completely unqualified to carry out an investigation. He’s merely a security guard. I should feel sorry for him except that he’s got Edward.

  “Where were you on the first night of the cruise?”

  “After my glass demonstration, I spent the night with Edward.”

  Officer Gaffney looked up from his notebook. “That’s not allowed!”

  “Maybe not, but it gives Edward an alibi, doesn’t it?”

  “He says he was alone that night.”

  “That’s being British—my statement is that we were in his cabin all night. So, unless you’re also going to lock me up, I’m done with your questions. Can I see Edward?”

  They refused to let her see Edward or even talk to him. The boulder of fear threatened to explode out of her stomach like in the Alien movie. She returned to her room and clicked the icon for her e-mail service. As soon as it refreshed, Savannah saw a message from Nicole Borawski, Edward’s bartending manager.

  Dear Savannah, For some reason, Edward isn’t answering his e-mail or even responding to his phone’s voice mail. There’s a slight problem here at Queen’s Head. The commercial dishwasher has flooded the entire pub. It happened after we had all gone home so it had hours and hours of time to flood the place to a depth of four inches.

  I’ve closed the place for at least a week. I found a service to replace the dishwasher and another recovery outfit to remove the water. After that we need to dry out the walls, replace some of the supplies that were stored on the floor.

  Luckily this was a gas station in its prior life and the floor is painted concrete, so no real damage there. The touch-up painting can wait until after the pub is open again.

  It’s useless to tell Edward not to worry, but there’s nothing he can do from there. The credit card has almost enough reserve to cover everything, but the closure is the killer. Will work as fast as possible to get us even partially open.

  Sorry for the bad news,

  Nicole Barowski

  Savannah let her forehead fall to the surface of her tiny desk.

  Is the bad luck curse of that broken teapot haunting me? Things can’t possibly get worse.

  Chapter 17

  Thursday, at sea

  Savannah responded to Nicole’s e-mail with as much positive encouragement as possible. She knew that Edward would be responding to Nicole’s messages if he wasn’t buried deep in the depths of the ship in an interview room. She sincerely hoped he wasn’t in a jail cell. She tried not to let her imagination run toward a dungeon with clanking chains and growling inmates with tin cups. She failed.

  She shook her head, then glanced at her watch. “Rats! I’m about to be late again. Eric is going to be annoyed.”

  She took a quick shower, changed into her Hot Shop shirt, shorts, and dockers. She ran as fast as she could to the elevator without knocking anyone down. It was clear from the smiles and chatter that everyone had returned from a great day in Florence.

  When she opened the stage door on the demonstration set, she found Eric pacing with his hands behind his back. “There you are. I was beginning to think this would be a solo performance.”

  “Sorry, but I’ve been dealing with family issues.”

  “At least you’re here. Have you seen Alan?”

  “Not since he left the ship to do his laundry. That was this morning.”

  “Laundry? He never does his laundry in port.”

  Savannah started pulling out containers of royal blue and powder blue frit for the team colors of a Tampa Bay Rays baseball fan. “That’s what he told me on his way off the ship. He had a large duffel-type backpack.” She continued to perform the start-up tasks. “Have you called him?”

  “Good idea.” Eric pulled out his cell and she could hear the ringing tone followed by the voice mail message. Eric punched the end call button so hard she thought it might break the screen.

  The audience was beginning to get restless on the crowded benches. Savannah waved a little hi to the two sets of twins in the second row behind the row of children. She felt sorry for Ian’s parents, who had found a couple of bar stools at the back of the seating area. They looked pale and there were dark circles under their eyes.

  Eric tried to reach Alan again, but this time the call went straight to voice mail. He punched the phone even harder. “I’m going to call the cruise director’s office and have them page him in the crew area.” He spoke into his phone for a few minutes, then put it on silence mode. “Let’s get everything ready to give him as much time as we can.”

  They both finished the start-up tasks and Eric selected three graduated shades of orange and a final shade of red. “I’m going to try an ombré look with this platter.” His eyes widened and his brows shot up. “I’ve managed it twice out of the last ten times.” After that he stood with his hands on his hips. “We’ll have to get started without him.” Eric looked out to the audience for the first time and slapped his forehead. “This is children’s day. I completely forgot.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The first row is reserved for the children from the six-to-nine age group who have made a drawing of something they would like to see us make. The child gets to take home the one I choose to make.” He sighed heavily. “This is my most challenging demonstration of the entire cruise. I hope I can pull out an easy drawing this time. We need to stay simple since there are only two of us.”

  Savannah looked out into the audience. There were about fifteen children and each had a sheet of paper with a colorful drawing. Their counselor collected them and she waved Eric over to the side of the stage and handed him the stack.

  “Good luck with your choice,” said the cheerful counselor. “The children have been truly creative on this cruise.”

  Eric quickly shuffled through the drawings and after he had paged through to the last one, he looked over to Savannah and dropped his voice to a whisper. “These are great drawings—not a simple one in the bunch.”

  He walked over to the stainless-steel marver table and signaled for Savannah to follow. “I’m eliminating the ones that are impossible.” He separated them into two stacks. Then he spread out the remaining six drawings and studied each one. He placed his hands on his hips and finally picked out the drawing of a beautiful little giraffe. “I can do this one—I think. I made a giraffe last year, so at least this won’t be my first. I had trouble with the spots last time, but I think I can do better.” He put the remaining five on the stack and returned them to the counselor.

  Using the drawing as a color reference, he picked out his frit containers and placed them against the back edge of the stainless-steel marver table beside Savannah’s. He explained the children’s program to the audience and requested that the owner of the giraffe drawing stand up.

  “It’s mine!” said a little, pale redheaded girl. She stood and raised her hand as high as it would go. Eric asked for her name. “Colleen!” she shouted, then turned around to the rest of the audience. “That’s my drawing.” Everyone laughed and applauded as Eric handed over the microphone to Savannah.

  Savannah began narrating Eric’s creation of the little giraffe. It was difficult since this was a freelance creation and Eric was trying to recall how he approached it last year. He took his time. After each step, he would show the entire first row of children his progress. It was refreshing to see how interested they were. When he finished the last step before separating it from the punty, he held it up high for everyone to see. The audience loved it and clapped their delight.

  Each demonstration piece was difficult for both Savannah and Eric. It took longer without a dedicated assistant, which meant more oven reheatin
g. It required more concentration on Savannah’s part to talk about the glassmaking while also assisting to create their pieces.

  It was Savannah’s turn next and she now regretted her plan for a complicated vase. However, the production went well. Eric seemed irritated at interrupting his patter with the need to assist Savannah during the creation of her fluted vase. She was pleased when it turned out to be the best so far. The vase would surely garner an auction bid of at least a thousand dollars.

  Their final piece of the day was Eric’s ombré platter. There were multiple frit pickups on the stainless-steel marver table. Savannah narrated calmly and was soon comfortable with just the two of them in front of the audience. She shared Eric’s relief in completing the beautiful platter and placing it safely in the annealing oven.

  “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” said Eric at the end of the demonstration. “The little giraffe will be ready for Colleen to pick up at tomorrow afternoon’s demonstration. Thank you.” There was a large wave of applause and the usual lingering around to ask questions.

  Finally, they were alone.

  “Whew! That was the most difficult demonstration I’ve done at sea.” Eric wiped the sweat from his forehead and stood under one of the air-conditioning vents to cool down. He lifted his T-shirt away from his body to let the air get to him.

  “No one would have known. You looked calm.” Savannah began the cleanup tasks. “That giraffe is perfectly adorable. Colleen is a lucky little girl.”

  “Do you mind doing the cleaning up? I’m going to try Alan’s room as well as his phone again.” Eric pulled out his phone and stood near the stage door, so he wouldn’t be overheard.

  Savannah put the frit containers back on the shelf, wiped down the stainless-steel marver table, and swept the glass debris from the deck.

  Eric returned with the clipboard in his hand. “No luck at all from his cell, but cell phones are not reliable at sea. It sometimes drives me crazy, but Alan didn’t want to carry around a walkie-talkie. Honestly, neither did I, but I may rethink that since he missed this demonstration.”

  “Do you think it’s because of his memory?” asked Savannah.

  “I sincerely hope not. If he can’t remember to show up to the demonstrations, he will definitely lose this job.”

  They finished the shutdown checks, then Eric hung the clipboard back on its hook.

  “I’m going to call security about paging Alan. They don’t like it—but he hasn’t given me much choice.” He opened the access panel near the stage door, picked up the phone receiver, and dialed security. He spoke in a clipped voice. “My name is Eric Barone. I’m the supervisor of the glassblowing team. Please page Alan Viteri. He needs to report to me up at the Hot Glass shop.”

  There was a long pause.

  “What?” said Eric, straining his soft voice. “Say again,” he said even a bit louder. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  Another long pause. “Okay. Well, here’s the thing. I’m on record as Alan’s supervisor and I should have been informed as soon as you knew that he hadn’t checked in. A call, a voice message, or a handwritten note under my door. I will be reporting this to the corporate office in my weekly report.”

  He turned around and slammed the receiver back in the cradle.

  “What is it?” Savannah didn’t like the grim look on Eric’s face.

  “Security knew that Alan didn’t return from our Florence port.”

  “They knew?”

  “Yes. They knew and didn’t seem to think it important enough to let me know.”

  “That seems odd. They’ve been preaching at me to the heavens about proper procedure and protocols.”

  “Well, this is an absolute fail. If I hadn’t called, who knows how long it would have been before they finally notified me that he missed the boat.”

  I wonder why you didn’t call security before the demonstration. It only took a minute.

  Chapter 18

  Thursday, at sea

  Savannah was exhausted. She could feel the tired muscles protesting every move toward her cabin in the crew section of the ship. After powering up her laptop, she clicked the icon for her e-mail. While it was loading, Savannah moved onto her bunk and thought she would just rest for a moment.

  The e-mail ping woke her up. “No!” Savannah looked at her watch. It indicated that two hours had elapsed. She sat up and groaned. The last few days of strenuous demonstrations had taken a toll. Every single muscle in her body complained at the unfair demands the glassblowing exacted on rusty skills. Savannah staggered into the bathroom and took two Excedrin. She turned on the hot water tap and wet the washcloth, then put it over her eyes until the tension in her temples relaxed.

  The e-mail was from Amanda confirming that the glassblower Alan Viteri attended the same school as Edward and Ian before the Morris families moved to St. Albans. She managed to track down Alan’s family origins to a small neighborhood in Rome.

  Delving into the newspaper records of Rome, Amanda found accounts of a counterfeiting ring associated with one of the powerful families. The reports of the articles were dated during Edward’s and Ian’s London dockland days.

  Amanda reported that the accounting system was up and running perfectly now that Kurt had taken over the support contract. She reported that Kurt stopped by every few hours to make sure that the new system continued to work. He has also been showing Amanda some of the financial analysis tools that were embedded in the application.

  After signing off there was another message:

  Hi Savannah,I found a few obscure bits of information for you about Alan Viteri and the Moretti family. His father’s side of the family and Alan dropped that name and simplified it to his mother’s maiden name with no middle initial after they emigrated to London. His father’s relations are connected to a centuries-old family organization that has been operating various scams in the neighborhood that surrounds the Trevi Fountain. Alan’s parents moved to New York at about the same time as the Morris family moved to St. Albans.

  It looks like whoever was running that operation had a lot of turnover.

  On a personal note, I thought you might like to know that I have selected a hospice facility for my mom and will accompany her on the transfer to the new place tomorrow. I will not be in the shop for the rest of the day after my class leaves.

  Jacob is going to take over. He will close both the Webb’s Glass Shop and Webb’s Studio at the end of the day. Jacob is becoming my rock. He’s proving that he can take on more responsibility without having an anxiety crisis.

  It was a difficult decision to move Mom, but she needs specialized palliative care that her current place cannot provide.

  Mom will probably rally to keep everyone in high spirits and take her usual wise adviser role to all the nurses and aides.

  The staff at the Abbey Rehabilitation Center is throwing her a going-away party today. I’m going to take Rooney in to see her for the last time. This is sad, but things must change, as her care needs change. Although, given the pleasure Rooney brings on his visits, I think we’ll need to get Rooney trained as an ambassador for the residents.

  Jacob says to tell you that he has finished with the nautical charts from the library and after reading about the effects of wind and tide on the day that Ian vanished, he is confident that the body would have turned up on the eastern side of Britain within twelve hours. He has scanned the chart and put an X on the location. I have attached the chart.

  He says to also tell you that he’s been studying for his driver’s license written test and he thinks he will get a score of one hundred percent. The officials have assured him that he will be given an untimed test along with access to a proctor if he needs a question to be explained. He certainly has been studying diligently for the exam.

  He’s also had me print out the deck plans of your ship. He hasn’t shared why he wants them, but I’m sure he’s going to help you in some way.

  Let me know if you need more research.

>   Say hi to Edward. Stay Safe!

  X O X O X, Amanda

  Savannah changed into her jeans and put on a fresh white shirt. She gave her face a quick wash and, for good measure, applied her brightest color of lip-gloss.

  She took a deep breath before opening the door to the security office.

  “Miss Webb. We’ve been expecting you,” said Officer Gaffney.

  Savannah felt a pinch between her shoulder blades. “How nice. I want to talk to Edward. You have no official reason to keep me from talking to him.”

  “Mr. Morris has been explaining your connection with the local police department in your hometown.”

  “He has?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It appears that we have our very own Nancy Drew aboard our ship.” Officer Gaffney’s eyebrows drew together in doubt.

  The door from the inside compartment opened and Security Chief LuAnn Dalessio stepped beside Officer Gaffney. “Yes, Miss Webb. I’ve contacted your hometown and . . .” She looked down at the writing on a small tablet. “. . . a Detective David Parker highly recommends your skills for investigations that do not follow normal patterns.”

  Savannah stood still for a moment, taking it in. “And you want me to join your team in the investigation of Ian’s disappearance?”

  “Yes, we do,” said Chief Dalessio. “As you can appreciate, we are more familiar with petty crime, drunkenness, lost children, and, sad but true, suicides.”