Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 02 - Cooks, Crooks and Cruises

by A. R. Winters

  “Isn’t that Ethan Lee’s job?” asked Sam.

  I shrugged. “I guess. Speaking of which, what’s the time?”

  “Time for you to get to the ball,” said Cece with a grin. “Come on, we’ll be your fairy godmothers. We’ll walk you there.”

  “What? No carriage?”

  “Hon, I already told you, we need more exercise. You’re walking. Now come on.”

  Sam and Cece both stood up, each of them offering me a hand. I actually did feel like a princess, just for a moment, as I took both of their hands and they pulled me up straight.

  We chatted as we walked, but not talking about the murder. Or accident, if that’s what it was. We didn’t want any of the guests to learn about it by overhearing our casual conversation.

  By the time we left the cabin, I’d almost forgotten about the strange postcard, until something made me remember it. We were walking by the Lagoon pool, when I noticed a young male pool attendant staring at us. At first, I thought he was just admiring me and my fabulous dress. But then for a moment our eyes met each other, and he quickly looked back down at the sunbeds he was rearranging, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Something felt a little off about him.

  I nudged Cece and asked in a low voice. “Do you know who that is?”

  “Of course. Don’t you know?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, I figured you would. He started at the same time as you. That’s Peter Song. A bit young for you though, don’t you think?” she said, giving me a poke in the side.

  I giggled and smacked her hand away. He didn’t look much older than twenty. Much closer to Cece’s age than mine.

  “Do you want me to introduce you?”

  “No, I was just curious. He was looking at us like he knew me.”

  “No, he was probably just staring at me.” Cece raised her chin and began to swish her hips as she walked, a pouty look on her lips.

  “Yeah, right,” said Sam as she started to blow kisses into the air. “He was staring at me.”

  “Come on. One of us has a date to get to,” I said with exaggerated cockiness.

  They both rolled their eyes at me, then, arm in arm, they walked me forward.

  Chapter 10

  I waved goodbye to Cece and Sam before entering the VIP section of the ship. They were going to head back down to the staff mess for their dinner. I was so nervous I almost envied them.

  Almost.

  I felt anxious and out of place as I approached the restaurant. We were to eat in the Captain’s Club, which was reserved only for the VIP guests. After all, the captain couldn’t be expected to dine with everyone aboard the ship.

  The greeter at the door was dressed in a tuxedo, and he gave me a smile as I approached.

  “Good evening, ma’am. May I see your pass?”

  “Ah, I’m staff. I’m meeting someone.”

  The young man visibly winced. “The staff mess is in—”

  I glared at him. “I know where the staff mess is. I’m not looking for that. I’m here because I’m meeting—”

  “—me.” And was I ever grateful to hear that deep, rich timbre of first officer Ethan Lee’s voice.

  “Of course, sir. My apologies, ma’am.”

  The greeter stepped back, allowing us entry.

  “You look great. Better than great,” said Ethan. He had taken a step backward to admire me, and I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed, like I was on display.

  “Thank you,” I said after a pause. My first instinct had been to reject the compliment, but my grandmother had always told me, “Never reject a compliment, Adrienne. They stop coming soon enough, you mark my words.” So it was with her in mind that I graciously accepted. “And you look very nice yourself.”

  He did. As usual, he was wearing his first officer’s uniform, though this was the most formal of the ones I’ve seen him in.

  Every part of the uniform seemed to be tailored exactly to his frame, which was a finely-shaped one indeed. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, freshly shined shoes, and white pants that only a sailor could really pull off. Anyone else would look like an escaped 1970s pop star.

  “Shall we?” He extended his arm.

  With our arms interlocked, we entered the Captain’s Club, for what was my first time there. It had the vibe of an upscale French restaurant on land, though with a few nautical twists: anchors, ships’ wheels, and paintings of various sailing vessels along the walls, and all the chairs were decorated with a gold braid that reminded me of a naval uniform. The room was filled with the aroma of delicious, fresh-cooked food, which competed with the comforting scent of recently polished old wood.

  Ethan led me to a table near a window, which was a very traditional looking shiny, brass-rimmed porthole. As we made our way across the room, I glanced about nervously, feeling out of place. “Shoulders back! Look like you own the place,” I heard my grandma whispering from the past.

  At the far end of the room at a large table for twelve was the captain, with a number of guests already seated around him. There were just a few places left for the latecomers.

  There were a number of other tables at which officers were hosting guests. Right in the center sat a table for fifteen or so, which had a number of nervous looking guests sitting at it, though no one was at the head of the table yet.

  “Here we are,” said Ethan as he pulled out a chair.

  With a nervous but grateful smile I sat, allowing him to push in the chair as he did so.

  “I’ve never been in here,” I said with a nervous laugh.

  “Yeah, it’s a bit pretentious, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head with a laugh. “I mean, I’ve never been invited. And it’s not exactly open to riffraff like me.”

  “You’re anything but riffraff, Adrienne,” said Ethan smiling at me. My cheeks felt hot.

  The restaurant served a set menu that evening, a tomato soup to start, a choice of steak or grilled fish for the main course, and the Captain’s Tiramisu for dessert. Despite the name, I wasn’t entirely convinced that the captain had any hand in the making of it though.

  For a first real date, there are good topics, and there are bad topics. I’m not sure whether it was my nerves, or just the rather unique day that we had both had, but I settled on possibly the worst topic for a first date: murder.

  “Any news?” I said, sipping some tomato soup. “About, you know...”

  A spoon laden with soup hovered in the air, as he thought for a moment. Instead of finishing its journey to his mouth, he lowered it back to the bowl.

  “It probably wasn’t the best day to do this, was it?” he said with a little sigh. He didn’t seem annoyed with me, but possibly at Hannah for having such lousy timing by dying on the day of our big date. “But of course, it really is the elephant in the room. But no, no real news.”

  “Do you think it was… deliberate?”

  Ethan tapped his spoon thoughtfully against his bowl several times before answering.

  “I talked to the doctor. We both think that it’s unlikely a young, seemingly healthy woman of her age would trip over with enough force to bash her head and—” he grimaced “—die.”

  I nodded slowly as I took another sip of the soup.

  “I meant to talk to you earlier, but I just got so caught up in everything.”

  I frowned, not sure exactly what he meant.

  “My schedule didn’t exactly have a giant window for death of a passenger in suspicious circumstances penciled in,” he continued, “and I got so caught up in everything I didn’t get around to speaking to you again today.” He frowned, embarrassed. “I know it’s not exactly the best time or place, but could I ask you a few questions?”

  Wow. First, I bring up the topic of murder, and then he decides to conduct a witness-interview. Some first date!

  I reached out and placed a hand on top of the one he wasn’t holding a spoon with. “No, please, go on. I think I’d struggle to ta
lk about anything else today, anyway.”

  We both laughed softly. It was a little surreal to be so dressed up, in such a nice place, but talking about something so ghastly as death.

  “When you arrived, where was the…” he quickly changed how he was going to phrase it. “I mean, what was Hannah’s position? And Beverly’s?”

  I closed my eyes as I thought back, picturing the scene again in my mind, and trying to suppress a shudder.

  “Beverly was kneeling on the stage. I could see her hands had,” I lowered my voice, conscious of the other diners, “blood on them.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, as if he was taking mental notes.

  “The body, I mean Hannah, was lying face up, but she had been moved. You could see a patch of,” I stared down at my bowl of bright red soup and then flicked my eyes up at him, unable to bear to look at the soup anymore. He gave me a sympathetic look. “I mean, there was a patch of blood to the side, next to the table. Beverly said she moved her. That’s why she had the blood on her hands, and the patch was to the side of the body.”

  Ethan nodded slowly. “If they weren’t such good friends, it would have looked suspicious, right?”

  I nodded nervously. “I suppose so. But as you say, they were good friends. And Beverly looked really shaken up.”

  I pushed my three-quarters empty bowl of soup forward, moving it out of my direct line of sight. For now, that was enough. I tore off a small hunk of bread roll and popped it in my mouth instead.

  Something caught Ethan’s eye, and he stood up, his chair sliding back.

  Looking up, I saw the captain was approaching.

  I stood up awkwardly, not having been formally introduced to him, and not really sure of the protocol. It was the first time I’d really seen him up close.

  He looked to be in his forties, wearing a friendly smile on his bearded face. Like his first officer, he was also dressed in his full uniform. I supposed the customers liked to see the actual sailors in their official outfits. I knew I certainly did. Well, one of them anyway.

  “Good evening, please, sit down.”

  Ethan did not sit down, instead standing up ramrod straight. So even more uncomfortably I continued to stand, hands resting on the table somewhere in-between standing and sitting.

  The captain gently touched my shoulder, indicating that it was okay for me to sit down properly, and I was grateful for the guidance. I probably would’ve ended up hovering in between the chair and the table the entire time he was there otherwise.

  “Just dropping by to say good evening. Doing my rounds,” he laughed as he said it. “Everything in order, Ethan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re not upsetting the young lady by talking about the... unpleasant incident, I trust?” said the captain with what I thought was an inappropriately, amused smile on his face.

  “Well, actually, I was killing two birds with one stone, as it were. I was asking Ms. James about what exactly she had seen today.”

  Killing two birds with one stone? Couldn’t he have thought of a better analogy?

  “Oh, well, I see. Do try not to bore her. Ha ha!”

  Ethan didn’t answer that comment, but continued to stand up straight. Once the silence had dragged on into its third second, I decided to end it.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, sir,” I piped up.

  I was remembering that first day aboard the boat, when Sam and I had seen the captain talking to Hannah before the other passengers had even boarded.

  “Beg pardon?” said the captain with some surprise.

  “I mean, I saw you talking to her before the other passengers were aboard. I thought you might have known her better than most of us,” I said meekly, my cheeks now a rosy red in embarrassment. I should have just stayed quiet.

  “No, no. I don’t remember ever talking to her.” The captain was frowning and shaking his head. “Right, I’ll leave you to it. Lots more people to see.”

  As the captain left, Ethan sat down again across from me. I watched the captain as he headed toward the large table, which I now saw was being hosted by Vince and Meredith, who had arrived after us. I remembered what was going on; there was a large group dinner for the first dozen people to have bought tickets for the cruise. It certainly wasn’t as intimate as the competition I had arranged, at which one lucky winner and their partner would get to dine with Vince and Meredith alone.

  When the captain approached the table, something rather curious happened.

  All of the other guests who were to join Vince and Meredith had settled into their seats, though one still remained open.

  I knew instinctively whose it was. It couldn’t be anyone else’s but Hannah’s, could it?

  But while the captain was addressing the table, all eyes, even Meredith’s, upon him, Olivia walked in, crossed the room with more poise and confidence than I could ever manage, and sat down in the empty seat.

  Meredith’s eyes flicked toward her and she glowered, but no one else at the table seemed to notice anything wrong. Olivia immediately began to spoon soup into her mouth from the bowl that was already sitting waiting, while the captain said something that made everyone else chuckle.

  A waiter came and took our soup bowls away; neither of us had finished our portions.

  “How are you getting on with your new captain?” I asked.

  “Fine.”

  I could tell immediately that he didn’t want to answer honestly, and so had settled for a non-answer instead. One of his more admirable traits was that he didn’t like to talk badly about other people. It was also one of his most annoying traits when you were trying to learn his true opinions about someone.

  The waiter brought our main courses, grilled sea bream, new potatoes, asparagus, and carrots.

  “You know what? I’m glad we didn’t choose the steak,” said Ethan, eyeing the food.

  “I know. I don’t think I could handle that right now.”

  After seeing Hannah lying on the stage that morning, I wasn’t sure I could eat anything red—or that leaked red juices—for quite some time.

  “My apologies. I shouldn’t have brought up the whole Hannah thing. It was silly thinking on my part.”

  “Don’t worry about it. If you hadn’t, I would have. I can’t get it out of my head.” I didn’t feel the need to point out that it was me that had broached the subject first; he’d obviously been intending to too.

  “I guess we will always remember this day though,” he said with a wry smile. I couldn’t help but laugh, just a little, even if the topic was dark.

  “So, let’s change the topic. Why don’t you tell me about when you were a journalist?”

  With a smile, I gratefully agreed. And I began to tell him about all the thrills and excitement of small-town Nebraska life.

  Hannah hovered over the whole meal though, a ghost that neither of us could really shake. We pretended to focus on the mundane aspects of our lives, but we both knew that we were both thinking about the dead girl.

  Still, the meal went well, with no further interruptions from crew, staff, or guests, and I think we both had a nice time. I know I did, at least.

  After dinner, he offered to walk me back to my cabin, and we went the long way around, taking a walk along the constitutional deck. Up above us the stars were just as bright as they were back home, unlike in New Orleans where the ship was based. There, you could barely see them.

  We managed a complete circuit along the walking path that tracked almost the entire circumference of the ship, without talking about death again a single time.

  Instead, I bored him with tales of me and Sam growing up in farm country, while he amused me with some of the funnier anecdotes from his time in the military. I could tell that underneath there were darker stories he had to tell, too, but a first date was not the time or place.

  Eventually it was time to call it an evening, and gentleman that he was, he walked me back to my cabin.

  “I’ve enjoyed this evening, Adrien
ne, very much so. Even if...”

  I laughed and squeezed his arm.

  “I know. I know. Me too. I had a great time. Even with all the craziness of the day.”

  With him standing beside me, the hallway outside my room felt smaller, narrower than usual.

  He filled it like a looming, comforting presence. He seemed to hover over me, and then he gently placed one finger under my chin, raising it. I looked up at him, our eyes met, and he gave me the briefest and tenderest of kisses.

  “Good night, Adrienne.”

  And with that, he was gone. I watched him striding down the hallway for another moment or two, his black shoes sending rings echoing down the corridor.

  Breathlessly, I opened my door, stepped inside, and almost crashed into the two girls hovering by the door while being deafened by their two equally loud screams.

  “He kissed you!”

  Chapter 11

  I t was just after breakfast and Vince DeLuca, Meredith, and around twenty guests were at the first of Vince DeLuca’s cooking classes, along with the ship’s amazing social media manager to document it.

  We were all inside a converted conference room. The standard rows of desks had been removed, and instead Vince had a small stage at the front while his audience had been set up to stand behind ten plastic events tables. Vince had spent some time practicing before the guests had arrived, so the room already smelled of garlic and butter and herbs.

  Unlike the demonstration that was supposed to have taken place the day before, this time the guests got to participate as well, and they even got a special gift for taking part. I helped Sam by handing out the Vince DeLuca branded cooking aprons that every student was being given as their participation gift.

  When the aprons had all been distributed and proudly worn, I got everyone to stand together with Vince and the un-detachable Meredith, getting a pretty spectacular group picture to post online.

  After the picture was done, and everyone was getting settled at their various cooking stations, Meredith approached me.

  “Smart work, Adrienne.”