“Maybe Mrs. Cow went to rearrange the books again while we were sleeping.”
“Do you think she did?” I said with alarm. “If she did, we might have a real murder scene on our hands.”
We hurried down the hallway, giggling at the thought of how angry Mr. McGinty would be if his books had been moved again. Although Cece hadn’t been there, Sam had given her a much funnier, more exaggerated version of the events along with a sterling impression of Felicity Bull, huffing and puffing as she threw the books around.
As we approached, I caught the scent of freshly heated pastries and coffee wafting toward us. Catering had beaten us there.
“Right here we are,” I said as we arrived outside the conference suite.
I was pleased to see that the door to the library was already open. Hopefully, Greg or one of his colleagues was setting up the morning’s breakfast bar with (corn-free) pastries, juices, and coffee.
“I’m about ready for second breakfast,” I said to Cece as we arrived.
“Sign me up for that too,” she said. Cece pushed the door open with a gentle kick as we arrived. “Greg! Where are those pastries?” Cece’s voice dropped an octave and her tone switched to serious in an instant. “What in the…”
I entered the room just after Cece. It’s amazing how quickly you can go from laughing and playing around to having the bottom fall out of your stomach in shock.
It happens to me every time I find a dead body.
In the middle of the room, Greg Washington was standing over a large body lying on the floor. Next to it lay a large brass candlestick.
“Whew!” I said with a grin. “I got the wrong idea for a moment there.” It took me a moment to realize this was simply the body for today’s part of the murder mystery. It was to start with the discovery of a body in the library, killed by a candlestick.
“Did Kelly have the dummy brought in?” I asked. “When did she do it? She must have been up early.”
Cece nudged my arm. “I don’t... I don’t think that’s the dummy.”
Walking forward, I approached Greg who was staring at me open-mouthed. The dummy was much bigger than I thought it would be. In fact, I didn’t know they made dummies that big.
“Adrienne,” said Greg, his voice low and sad and serious, completely unlike his usual manner of speaking. “That’s not a dummy.”
I stepped in closer and leaned over it. “Oh, sh—”
“Shoot?” suggested Cece.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot,” I said, shaking my head.
The three of us gathered around. Below us was the body of Felicity Bull. Next to it was the candlestick that was supposed to have been used in our murder mystery event to ‘kill’ the victim.
“Is she... dead?”
“I checked. I just found her. She’s dead.” Greg blew out a long stream of air from puffed up cheeks, shaking his head as he looked down at the corpse.
My eyes flicked over from the body to the cook. Greg was standing with his hands behind his back, staring down at the body. Greg wasn’t the kind of person who stood with his hands behind his back. Usually they were flying this way and that as he spoke, like a caricature of a particularly expressive Italian.
“Greg?”
“Yes?” he said. When he answered, I saw his shoulder and upper arm twitch, as if he’d been about to move his arms but stopped himself.
“Are you hiding something behind your back?”
As soon as I said it, an even worse thought occurred to me. Maybe he wasn’t hiding something behind his back. Maybe his hands were actually covered in blood.
“No,” he said, shaking his head and walking backward.
“Greg,” said Cece sternly, stepping toward him. “Hands, now.”
He shook his head. “No! I don’t want to!”
Cece and I walked after him, while he continued to walk backward until he crashed into the writing desk in the corner.
“What is it?” said Cece, glaring at him. “Did you kill her? Have you got blood on your hands?”
“No!” he shouted. “No! I just found her. Please, leave me alone!”
As we both closed in on Greg, Cece feinted left and then twisted around to the right, snatching behind his back. Her hand returned triumphant, holding a notebook. Greg reached after it, but Cece jumped backward, and Greg gave up, slumping against the desk with a moan.
“What is it?” I asked him. “Why were you hiding that notebook?”
Greg was silent for a moment, then finally he raised his chin, a calm, stoic look on his face. “That woman,” he said lifting his chin in the direction of the body, “she was a corporate spy. A secret shopper. And that’s her notebook.”
“But why were you trying to hide it? It could be valuable evidence.”
“Yeah. It could. That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Greg, shaking his head to himself sadly.
“Whoa,” said Cece. She had her head buried in the notebook already.
“What is it?”
“It seems Mrs. Cow didn’t think much of any of us.” Cece looked at Greg. “Though she has a special sour spot for you. What’s up with that?”
Greg just scrunched up his face, raising both hands to cover his eyes. His shoulders started to shrug as he began to weep. I assumed it was for himself, rather than the dead body in the middle of the room.
Cece came toward me and handed the notebook over. Great, I thought as I took it, all three of us have our fingerprints on it now. That one bit of evidence was now probably going to be useless.
“Someone better call the first officer.”
Greg and Cece both looked at me.
“Fine, I better call the first officer.”
Chapter 10
While we were waiting for Ethan Lee to arrive, I carefully read through Felicity Bull’s notebook. It revealed not just that she was our corporate spy, but that she had been looking into all of us.
And not a single one of us was up to her standards.
I didn’t know if we were really all that bad, or whether she just had rather unrealistic expectations.
When I read what she wrote about me, there was an element of truth to it. I pretty much was in over my head, but the vitriol with all of its dark, scribbled underlining was too much in my opinion.
“She had it in for all of us,” I said to Cece with a shake of my head.
“Yeah, well, I was right. She was a cow.”
“We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” I said, but my heart wasn’t really in it.
There were thumping footsteps from outside, and a moment later, Ethan Lee and Dr. Ryan Wilson arrived together, quickly followed by several other members of Ethan’s security team.
“What happened?” was the first thing they asked.
“She was killed in the library with a candlestick,” said Cece, pointing at the corpse and the heavy brass candlestick that was sitting next to it.
Ethan gave her a dark look, but I could see the doctor was struggling to contain a smile despite the gravity of the situation. He’d had a crush on Cece as long as I’d known the two of them, and apparently it extended as far as finding her least funny and most inappropriate jokes amusing.
The handsome young doctor knelt down next to the corpse and began to examine her, while Ethan carefully examined the room. He gave instructions to his security team to seal off the area.
“Adrienne,” he said as he approached me. “Any idea what happened?”
“Apart from the obvious—” my eyes flicked over the body and back to Ethan “—I don’t know. Greg was the first on the scene, and then Cece and I arrived.”
“Mr. Washington?” Ethan called across the room. “Could you join us for a minute?”
Greg mumbled an affirmative and left his position leaning against the desk to come and join us. Greg was normally a noisy, boisterous, emotive, and flamboyant guy, but today he was quiet and lethargic. It must have been the shock. I hoped it was the shock, anyway.
And not guilt.
<
br /> “Tell me exactly what happened this morning, prior to the ladies’ arrival.”
Sometimes being called a lady can make you feel old, but the way Ethan said it didn’t make me feel that way; instead, it made me feel important. It may have partly been because of the fancy gown I was wearing as well, but mostly it was his tone. It cheered me a little inside.
“I came in here with the breakfast cart,” he pointed to the trolley which was near the back of the room, close to the desk, still laden with pastries and big urns of hot coffee.
The smell of the coffee still filled the room, masking other unpleasant scents which no doubt lurked underneath. I stared at the food cart a little too long before my gaze went back to the chef.
“Of course, when I entered, I saw the body right away, but I thought it was a mannequin. I knew the body drop was this morning, and I figured someone else was here before me to do that.”
Ethan looked at Felicity’s body skeptically. He didn’t seem convinced that anyone could mistake it for a dummy.
“When did you realize?”
“Well, first I found the notebook on the desk. I picked it up and took a quick peek. I thought it was a clue for the mystery. But it was filled with notes about us.”
“Us?”
Cece and I nodded confirmation.
“All of us,” I said.
Ethan still looked somewhat confused.
“She was the person hired by corporate to spy on us, and she was. Spying, I mean. I had a look at the notebook, and there’s notes about everyone here, including you.”
“Me?” said Ethan in disbelief.
“Yep. You, me, Cece, Sam, Greg, Dr. Ryan, some pool boy. Oliver McGinty too.”
“She was thorough, then. Any idea who might have wanted to kill her?”
I snorted. “Yeah. All of us. The stuff she wrote in her notebook wasn’t very nice. Even about you, Ethan.”
“I see,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t really believe it.
“Take a look,” I said and handed the notebook over.
He took it out of my hands and then winced. I knew what he was thinking.
“I know. It won’t be any good for fingerprints now, I’m afraid. Greg had already picked it up before he realized she was dead, and then Cece had it, and then me.”
“Right,” he said, flicking it open.
One thing I liked about Ethan was he didn’t cry over spilled milk. I could imagine a different person in his position giving us all a pointless lecture about how we shouldn’t have touched the book, but he didn’t do that. We all knew that ideally it wouldn’t have been touched, but he didn’t belabor the point now that the mistakes had already been made.
While Ethan was examining the notebook, Cece and I wandered over to the door where I thought I could hear the beginnings of a commotion.
“I work here,” I heard Sam saying from outside.
“No one is to enter,” said one of the security guards.
“Hi?” I said, to get their attention from behind. “It’s okay. She’s allowed in.”
The brown-haired security guard who was closest to the door reluctantly nodded and waved her through.
“I can’t believe you started without me!” she said when she saw the body. “And the guests aren’t here either. What’s going on?”
“That’s not the body for the murder mystery.”
Sam cocked her head at me. “Umm, it clearly is. Unless you’re telling me that there’s been a…”
She stopped speaking when she saw the looks on mine and Cece’s faces. And when she saw Dr. Ryan kneeling on the floor next to the body.
“Are you sh—”
“It’s true,” blurted out Cece, interrupting her. “Someone murdered old Mrs. Cow right where the murder mystery body was supposed to be found. There’s even a candlestick next to it, just like in the story.”
“Oh no,” said Sam, shaking her head. “What are we going to do?”
That was a good question. I didn’t have an answer to it, unfortunately. It was above my pay grade.
It’d be up to Kelly, Ethan, and I supposed the captain to make any big decisions regarding our murder mystery event. And of course the real murder mystery we’d been left with.
“Greg?” called Ethan.
We all turned to look.
Greg was back leaning against the desk again, while the first officer was still holding the notebook. He’d obviously found something of interest.
We all sidled over, curious.
“Did you know Felicity Bull before this cruise? She had your name circled multiple times, and underneath it says, ‘Do they know his history?’ Can you think why that would be?
Greg let out a sigh so dramatic I thought he was back to his old self for a moment. But when he started speaking, it was the slow, sad, almost monotonous tone that was so uncharacteristic of him.
“Yes, I knew her. You may not know this, but before I worked on the ship, I had my own restaurant. Just a small one.”
We all leaned in to listen.
From the expression on Greg’s face, we knew this wasn’t going to be a happy story, but it sure sounded like it was going to be interesting.
“They were filming a reality TV show. You know, one of those ones about restaurants. When they asked if they could film at my place, I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn’t? Being on television, in the spotlight, having my restaurant featured? I thought it would be great for business.”
We were all nodding along by then. It sounded like a great opportunity for Greg.
“But I didn’t count on one thing. Felicity Bull.” He shook his head at the memory he was dredging up.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but she was part of this reality television team. Only she was undercover, like she was here. But she wasn’t there to get at the truth. She was there to make the show more interesting. I never found out if it was the TV producers or just Felicity working on her own nasty initiative, but she messed things up for me. She messed everything up.”
He looked up at the ceiling as he recalled the difficult memories. With a shrug of his shoulders, he carried on.
“She pretended to find a hair in the food, and then claimed that when we brought her fresh food it was too cold. It wasn’t. When the cameras were off, she antagonized my waitress, and then when they were focused on her again, she invented some story about how the waitress had been rude to her. By that time, the waitress had had enough and ended up throwing a glass of water over her and quitting on the spot. It was awful.”
Greg raised a hand to his eye and wiped away a tear. “She started a fight with another table of regulars and deliberately dropped her main course on the floor to see what we would do to correct the situation. I tried to kick her out. But she refused to go. The television cameras loved that. In the end, she was sitting at a table all by herself while we refused to serve her anymore. I called the police on her.”
“Wow,” I said.
Cece whistled. Ethan and Sam just nodded their heads, urging him to carry on.
“When the show finally aired, they cut out everything good about my restaurant—and it was a good restaurant, really—and they only focused on the drama and nonsense made by that woman. It was a hit piece.”
I worried he was going to spit on her corpse when he was finished. “It ruined my restaurant. No one would come after it aired, and Felicity had upset my staff and regular customers. I looked into suing them, but I didn’t have the funds. I had to shut down within three months. I lost everything. Everything. That’s why I came to work on the cruise ship. I didn’t expect to ever see her again, but here she is. Or was, rather.”
He stared down at the body with vitriol in his eyes. “Can’t say I’m sad. Not a bit. She was a horrible, horrible person, and I think we’re all better off without her.”
There were murmurs of agreement, but mine wasn’t one of them.
It wasn’t that he was wrong to hate her. The problem was that the more he talked ab
out how he didn’t care that she was dead, the more likely it made him a suspect.
I knew Greg. I’d known him for quite a while now. I didn’t think he was capable of murder. But after the story he’d just told us, I was beginning to have second thoughts.
“Greg? Maybe tone it down a bit on being happy she’s gone?” I suggested.
He shrugged. “No. She was a cow and she deserved it. I bet I’m not the only one she hurt.”
“Umm, right. But you know, you were the one who found her, and you’ve got the most motivation to have killed her. It doesn’t look good.”
He blinked in realization. “Oh! Right. Darn. You have to believe me—I had nothing to do with it. I’m not sad, but I didn’t do it. Really and truly!”
He was looking around in alarm now, as if the FBI were about to jump out and grab him.
That wasn’t how it worked on a cruise ship though. If Ethan really thought Greg did it, and there was sufficient evidence, he’d be locked away in the brig. But I didn’t think that was likely to happen. While there was certainly a motive, it didn’t seem that there was any direct evidence to link Greg to the murder. Yet.
There was of course the matter of him trying to hide the notebook from Cece and me. But it was understandable given his history with her. I decided not to mention it to Ethan, unless I began to suspect Greg had more to do with the death than he had let on so far.
“Hey, I found something interesting,” said Dr. Ryan, standing up and holding something.
“What is it?” said Ethan.
Ryan walked over to us. “Looks like she had a staff keycard. A master one. That would explain how she got in here last night.”
“Where’d she get that?” I asked with a frown.
“Maybe corporate gave it to her,” said Ethan. “If they did, they certainly should have informed me as head of security, but I wouldn’t put it past them.”
There were murmured mutters of agreement.
Corporate was, in many ways, the enemy of those of us out doing the real work on the ocean. They’d hired a spy to check up on us; why not give the spy complete access to the ship while they were at it?
“A better question, though,” said Ethan, slowly pacing across the room as he thought, “is why was she in here? The key let her in, but what was she doing in here late at night?”
Cruise Chaos: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 3) Page 7