Death on the Bella Constance (A Jesse Watson Mystery Series Book 6)

by Ann Mullen

  Savannah writes about killers, but it was apparent that she found it difficult to be a part of the scenario in real life. Her stories, according to my mother, were vivid and enthralling. But when it came to witnessing the actual carnage, she was like a beaten pup. She was scared, withdrawn, and timid. Unlike me, whose fear kicked in the adrenaline, Savannah dealt with her fear by retreating.

  “Maybe we should call it a night,” McCoy said after seeing the distressed look on his wife’s face. “This is a little much for Savannah. Besides, there’s nothing we can do.”

  “I write fiction,” she said. “This is all too real for me. I’ve had my brush with a psycho, and I don’t ever want to go there again. You guys do stuff like this for a living.” She looked at Billy and me. “You can handle it, but I can’t. I don’t even know if I could use a gun if I had to.”

  We all knew what she was talking about. She didn’t want to be put in a situation where someone else other than herself had control over her life. Not so long ago, she had been held captive by a man with misplaced affection, and who knows how that would’ve ended if it hadn’t been for Billy and me. I didn’t even want to revisit those memories, so I know she didn’t either. The happenings on this cruise, I’m sure, brought it all back for her. So, instead of trying to convince her she could handle it, I let it go. I looked over at McCoy, and said, “Savannah’s right. This cruise has been a real roller coaster ride, and it’s time to take a break from all the fun.” I looked at Savannah and smiled. “Enough is enough. Go to bed, get some rest, and if anything important comes up, we’ll let you know.”

  “If Dorothy Berdinski dies while I’m asleep, please don’t call me with the bad news,” Savannah said as she and McCoy walked over to the door. “I don’t want to know.”

  Their exit was swift. Whatever information we could’ve exchanged, if any, would have to wait until morning. I turned, looked at Billy, and said, “Let’s go to bed, too. I’m done. I don’t think I could take much more excitement.”

  “Go to bed? Are you serious? Trouble is escalating. It’s time to go on alert. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen soon. Tomorrow is our last day on the island. We’ll be putting to sea early the morning after. The killer is running out of time.”

  Go on alert. I knew what that meant. Billy was ready for action. He wants to dig in and find the bad guy. “What can we do, except skulk about the ship all night?”

  He turned, walked over to the computer setup behind the dressing screen, and said, “Isn’t that what we do best?”

  I thought about it for a minute, and then said, “Yeah, I guess it is. I guess I better get out of this evening gown if we’re going to lurk around in the shadows.”

  “Good idea,” he called back to me. “I’ll have a look at the computer and see what everyone’s up to.”

  I changed into casual clothes, choosing a simple pair of dark slacks and matching T-shirt of the same color. Dark clothes were always the chosen apparel of private detectives. How else could they go unnoticed by others, or blend into the scenery? “I’m ready,” I said after changing clothes. I walked over behind the screen to Billy and peeked over his shoulders. “Have you found anything interesting?”

  “Not so far.”

  “What about the captain? I never did get to ask you about him. Where did he go when he got called away from dinner?”

  “There was a small kitchen fire he had to attend to,” Billy said as he pecked away at the computer keyboard. “Then he went to his quarters for about half an hour. He must’ve gotten a call about Dorothy, because he left his room and rushed to the scene. He went to the Med Center next, and then I lost track of him. Why?”

  “I was just wondering. I thought maybe he was doing something he shouldn’t have been.”

  “Like trying to push Bertie down the stairs? No, he’s in the clear on that one as far as I can tell. Let’s see what he’s doing now.” Billy pecked at the keyboard, but couldn’t find the captain.

  “That’s odd. I can’t find him anywhere.”

  “Maybe he has left the ship.”

  “The captain never leaves the ship, unless…”

  “Unless it’s sinking. I know. And he’s the last one to leave.”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to go, but the ship isn’t sinking, and the captain is not anywhere to be found. Oops! I take that back. Here he is.”

  I looked down at the split-screen and smiled when I saw him standing in the hallway on deck five talking to Nell. “Isn’t that ironic? I put him high on the list of suspects, and her somewhere in the middle. What do you make of it, Billy?”

  “You really believe the captain is involved?”

  “Up to his eyeballs! I sure wish we could hear what they’re saying.”

  “That’s not an option. We don’t get sound in the hallways.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just the way the system is set up.”

  “Can’t you change that?”

  “I might see what I can do.”

  “Just don’t do it now. I want to go for a long walk.”

  “Why not? I’m game. How else are we going to find out anything? You never know what we might pick up in the wee hours of the morning.”

  Billy didn’t change out of the clothes he had worn to the so-called poker game. His pants and shirt were dark, so why bother? And he already had his gun strapped to his ankle. I grabbed my black windbreaker, stuffed the snub-nosed .38 in the inside pocket, and was ready to follow his lead.

  Two hours later, after scouring the whole ship and finding nothing of importance, Billy and I decided to visit the ship’s bar before we called it a night. As soon as we walked in, I saw Maura Rodrigus having drinks with a man I assumed was her husband. She waved to us and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” I waved back, smiled, and then nodded my head in agreement as Billy and I continued to look for a table. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lara Sweeney sitting in a booth by herself getting sloshed. I could tell she’d had way too much to drink because she was crying, talking to herself, and her Long Island Ice Tea glass was empty. A server was headed her way with another. I looked at Billy, discretely pointed to Lara, and said, “We can’t leave her by herself. She’s either intoxicated or getting that way fast. Sometimes bad things happened to drunken people on a ship, especially if they’re alone and depressed. They could fall overboard, accidentally or not. In Lara’s case, it might be no accident if it happened to her. A little intervention might not hurt.”

  Billy agreed. He suggested we go over to her booth, and in a nonchalant way, see if we could get her to go back to her stateroom. We approached her hoping she would invite us to join her, and she did. However, our task proved to be less easy than we had expected. She refused to give up the drink placed in front of her, almost to the point of getting belligerent. And it turned out that the more she drank, the more she cried. We know, because she said she had several drinks and was getting more depressed by the minute. Then she continued to cry.

  There’re three kinds of drunks: happy, mean, and crying drunks. The happy ones are the kind who get silly and laugh until you feel like you want to scream. They want to hug and kiss anyone in sight. The mean drunks are loud, angry, and they poke at you, sometimes actually coming to blows with a person. But… the crying drunks, in my book, are the worst. The more they drink, the more they cry. It’s sad, because this kind of drunk is usually very unhappy and can’t cope with their sadness. And alcohol just intensifies their misery. Many times they will cry themselves to sleep or they pass out. Lara Sweeney was no doubt a crying drunk.

  We finally convinced her it was time to leave the bar, and Billy and I would see to it that she got to her room safely. I grabbed up her clutch purse and stuffed the items that had spilled out back into it.

  “You’d do that for me?” she asked as she leaned on me and stumbled her way to the exit. She looked around, and then said, “I have to pay my bill. I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “
Don’t worry. Billy’s settling up your tab.”

  “That’s so nice of him. No one has ever cared about me, except my mom and dad.”

  “That’s not true, Lara. We care about you.”

  Billy walked up to her other side, took her gently by the arm, and said, “Yes, we do, Lara. And we’re not the only ones. Bella and Loukas care about you, too.”

  “They won’t for long when I tell them what I know about their daughter. They’re not going to like what I have to say. Trust me.”

  Billy and I stared at each other when Lara said those two words. Trust me had great meaning to us since it was a phrase Billy had used many times, and with conviction. When he said it, I knew I could bank on it to be true. Could it be true with Lara? Did she have some dirt on one of Loukas and Bella’s daughters? We had to find out.

  As soon as we reached her room on deck five, she tried unsuccessfully several times to get her keycard in the slot to open the door.

  “It won’t work,” she said, and then started crying again. “My father was a good man. He didn’t deserve…”

  Billy politely took the keycard from Lara, slipped it into the slot, and then opened the door. “Here you go, Lara. These cards are tricky sometimes. They’ll drive you crazy.”

  I looked at Billy and smiled. He always could handle people so well. He knew the right thing to say at the right time… a quality I loved about him… among many.

  “I’ll help you get ready for bed while Billy waits outside the door,” I said as I laid her purse on the dresser. I gave Billy a nod; he laid the keycard on the dresser, and then walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  I turned and watched as Lara kicked off her high heels as if she was trying to make a basket at a basketball game. The shoes flew high into the air, bounced off a wall, and then one landed in a chair while the other one flopped down on the table knocking off a vase of flowers. Water poured from the vase before I could get to it in time.

  “Oops!” Lara giggled. “I’ll… get… a tawol.”

  “No,” I said calmly. “I’ll get it.” I ran to the bathroom to grab a hand towel and was shocked at what I saw. A bloody, double-edged razor blade lay on the counter by the sink… out in the open for anyone to see.

  I recognized the sign. She was a mutilator. She would cut herself because she felt that she deserved to be in pain. The more pain she could inflict upon herself, the better she would feel. The truth of the matter is, she didn’t need to cut herself, her pain ran so deep that she would probably hurt for the rest of her life. I felt a sickness in my stomach that I knew wouldn’t go away. She needed help—the professional kind—not the kind I could give her. But I made up my mind right then and there that I would not forget about her. I would do my best to see if I could get help for her. I would talk to Bella. Bella was the champion of all champions when it came to helping people. She would know someone who could help Lara, or she’d find someone, but for now, first things first. I grabbed the hand towel and rushed back over to the table. I soaked up the water, and then sat the vase and flowers back upright. They would need more water, but that was the last thing on my mind. I walked back and tossed the wet hand towel in the bathroom sink, and then turned back to Lara.

  “Thanks,” she managed to say. She squinted at me, her eyelids almost closed, and then added, “I don’t… feel so… gud.”

  “Hang in there, Lara, until we can get you out of this lovely gown. I’d hate to see it get ruined because of a little alcohol.”

  “I had… more than… a widdle.”

  “It would seem so,” I agreed nicely so as not to irritate her. People who get plastered have a tendency to turn on you in a minute if you disagree with them.

  I helped Lara out of the evening gown she still had on from dinner. When I unzipped it from the back, she let the dress fall off her shoulders to the floor, and then stepped over it. She walked over to the side of the bed and stood there as if she didn’t know what to do next.

  I didn’t see any signs that she had cut herself on her upper body, but when I scanned her silk half-slip, I saw a speckling of blood on the hip. She had chosen a place where no one could see. That’s what they do.

  I bent down, picked up the evening gown, and then walked over to the closet to hang it up.

  “So, you think one of Bella’s daughters is involved in the plot against Loukas, huh?” I asked her in a coaxing way, hoping to get any piece of information out of her that I could.

  “I… know… she wis,” Lara replied, slurring her words. The alcohol was really kicking in. “Everybooty thinks she’s… so wice… but she ain’t. She’s a wake.”

  “A what?”

  Still standing there in her undergarments, she looked at me befuddled as if she couldn’t understand why I didn’t understand what she was saying, and then she slowly repeated her words intentionally. “She’s… a… fake! A… liar! “

  “Who is, Lara?”

  Lara pulled back the covers on the bed, and then crawled in. She grabbed the blanket, pulled it up to her neck, and a second later, was snoring as loudly as a foghorn.

  I stared down at her wondering if it would be futile to try to wake her up to get more information, and then after watching her for a brief minute, I decided it would be useless. She was out cold. But the little devil sitting on my shoulders gave me a nudge. I bent down and whispered into her ear, “Is Nell a bad girl?”

  Lara only snored. She was oblivious to my presence.

  I tried again. “Ruby is bad, isn’t she?”

  Not a word came from her lips.

  “I bet Jena is evil.”

  Still no response.

  I gave up, and turned to leave. I glanced over at the counter in the bathroom, and had an urge to go scoop up the razor blade and any others I could find, but quickly decided against it. I figured it would be an invasion of her privacy, and I didn’t want her to know that I knew about her problem just yet.

  Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea. I would invite her to the beach with us tomorrow! Bella wouldn’t mind, especially after I told her about Lara’s problem. She would be glad to help. I walked over to the nightstand and rummaged through the top drawer until I came up with a Bella Constance complimentary writing tablet and pen. I scribbled an invitation for tomorrow, asking her to please join us, and placed the note in plain sight. I closed the door after I walked out of the room, and then gave it an extra tug.

  “She’s out of it,” I said to Billy. “Once she crawled into bed, it was over. You know how people are when they get drunk.”

  “Did you whisper into her ear?”

  “You sneaky person!” I giggled. “Of course, I did. She probably won’t remember a thing tomorrow, but I did leave her a note inviting her to join us for a day at the beach. She probably could use a few friends right about now. She needs professional help, too. She cuts herself, Billy.”

  “That’s not good. She has many demons inside her trying to get out. The chief could help her. He is very wise.”

  Billy has a good heart. I knew where he was going with this.

  “Yes, he is.” I looked up at Billy as we turned and headed down the hallway. “So, you’re saying we should take her home with us, let her live in our house, get Chief Sam to work his magic, and then what?”

  Billy stopped walking, turned to me, and said, “I didn’t think of that, but it’s a good idea. Not about the living with us part. I could get mom and the chief to let her stay with them.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “You’re the one who’s always trying to fix everyone’s life. I thought that’s where you were going. I was waiting for you to pull out your sympathy card.” He put his arm around my waist and smiled. “Let’s take the outer walkway. It’s a beautiful night.”

  We talked as we walked, until we met up with Maura and her husband. She stopped us, introduced her husband, Joe, and then thanked us profusely for capturing the pickpocket.

  “
Thank you so much for finding my father’s wallet,” Maura said

  “To be honest, we stumbled onto the pickpocket by mistake,” I said. “We were looking for something else.”

  “Yes, I know. You saved Teresa Anderson’s life. You are the real heroes in this world.”

  “I don’t know if I’d say that, but thank you anyway.”

  “Thank you, Jesse.” She looked at Billy. “Thank you, Billy.”

  We shook hands, and then parted.

  The stroll along the walkway was pleasant. The stars were out, and the sea was calm. A warm breeze floated through the air.

  “Do you think we could talk her into it?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Lara Sweeney.”

  “You really want to do this?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. The idea came out of left field, but when it comes right down to it, it’s a good idea. What’s she got planned for her life after this cruise. Nothing, I bet.”

  “All we can do is ask her.”

  “I will,” I said. “At the right time.”

  “I’ll leave it up to you. Just tell me when you want me to speak up.”

  I laughed and said, “Since when do I tell you what to do?”

  “All the time.”

  We stopped our stroll and looked out at the sea. We soaked in the beauty of the night, and then shared a very romantic kiss. Once inside our room, we shared another romantic kiss. Only this time, the kiss led to another, and then another. A little while later when I was about to doze off, I sensed Billy slipping out of bed.

  “Where’re you going?” I whispered.

  “I’m going to get on the computer for a while,” he replied, trying to make as little noise as possible. “I’ll try not to be too loud.”

  I rolled over and snickered. “I know you’re a warrior and a god, Billy, but even gods need their rest.” I could hear him laughing on the other side of the dressing screen. “Wake me if something major happens.”