“I’ll tell you what we are not going to do, Fairfax. Under no circumstances are you to turn this ship around. I don’t want to hear word one about a Williamson turn.”
The Captain rubbed his temples as he held the phone. A Williamson turn or maneuver is where the ship is turned around at a high rate of speed. Like all captains, he had been trained on this. If he were convinced that Pearson had truly gone over the side, he would order the Williamson turn and direct crewmen to deploy high-power spotlights shined on the water. The special rescue boats with outboard motors would be put in the water. It was within his discretion to also send lifeboats to aid in the search. His SQM, Safety and Quality Manual, laid out the procedure he should follow.
But he was compelled to act only if an eyewitness, or preferably two, saw the passenger go over the side. In this case he had a boozy eyewitness who, after a little probing, admitted that she did not see her husband go overboard. And he had an owner who was going to fight him every step of the way if he took aggressive measures to look for Pearson in the water.
“I am going to order that the ship be thoroughly searched. We have the passport photos of all the passengers. I’ll direct that copies of Pearson’s picture be made and distributed to the crewmen who will undertake the search.”
“Okay,” Morrison said, sounding mollified. “But I don’t want the passengers ordered back to their rooms. Let the crewmen bang on the cabin doors asking for Pearson. If he’s in one of the rooms, he’ll answer.”
The call ended before Fairfax could respond.
It was Saunders who spoke first. “For the second time I’ll ask, what are we going to do?”
“You heard the man,” the Captain said. “We’re going to search the ship.”
40
Lady Em, Brenda and Celia sat together offering silent prayers that Roger would be saved, even while they realized there was almost no hope that if he had gone overboard, he had managed to stay afloat in the treacherous waters.
Fairfax’s voice came over the ship’s public address system. “This is your captain. We are trying to locate a Mr. Roger Pearson. Mr. Pearson, if you can hear this message, would you please contact the bridge. If any passenger has seen Mr. Pearson in the last twenty minutes, would you please call the bridge. That is all. Thank you.”
Celia spoke first. “I wonder if that’s standard procedure, to first search the ship for somebody they think might have gone overboard.”
Lady Em turned to Brenda. “Go to Yvonne,” she said. “She should have someone she knows with her.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t do her much good,” she confided to Celia when Brenda had left. Lady Em was wracked with regret and anger. She knew that her announcement that she was having another accounting firm go over her finances may have caused Roger to deliberately go over the railing. She had not seen him at lunch, but had run into him when she took a brief walk on the deck at five o’clock. With nervous energy, he had launched into explaining why she should not waste money on such an unnecessary expense. She had finally stopped him by saying, “I don’t want to discuss it. I hope I have made my decision perfectly clear. And frankly, it concerns me that you are so adamantly against it.”
They were the last words she had uttered to Roger. Did he fall, or did I drive him to suicide? she wondered.
Twenty minutes later, as a member of the crew went from one group of passengers to the other urging them to please enjoy dinner, she reluctantly picked up the menu.
“I would suggest that we all need a strong drink,” Professor Longworth volunteered.
“I think that’s a very good idea,” Celia said fervently, as she noted how very ill Lady Em suddenly looked. And very old, she thought. She’s so commanding and energetic that we forget her age. And, of course, Roger has been a close friend as well as working for her all these years.
They were silent at dinner, each busy with his or her own thoughts.
41
The table where Alvirah and Willy were sitting had had the same reaction as that of their neighbors. Willy had even insisted that Alvirah join him in having a vodka martini. Devon Michaelson, Ted Cavanaugh and Anna DeMille were of the same mind. Anna was the one who voiced the mutual sentiment. “It’s hard to think that last night at this time the poor man was sitting only a few feet away from us.”
After hearing the Captain’s announcement about the search for Roger, they were confused about what to think. Ted volunteered, “For whatever reason, there must be some doubt about his wife’s story that he fell overboard.”
Alvirah’s reaction was remembering the quarrel she and Willy had overheard outside their suite last night between Roger and Yvonne. She wondered if that was only a temporary flare-up. Did Roger’s admission to Yvonne that he was facing twenty years in prison drive him to deliberately go overboard? She was sure Willy was thinking the same thing, but, of course, he wouldn’t say it.
Anna DeMille secretly wished that Roger had waited until later to fall overboard. She had been enjoying the Captain’s party. There had been at least a dozen A-list celebrities there. She had left Devon’s side and drifted over to the rap star Bee Buzz and his wife Tiffany. They had both been very cordial and laughed when she told them her story about not being related to Cecil B. DeMille. That was so unlike the time they turned their backs on her when she tried to start a conversation on the deck. Then, as they all sat down to hear the latest news about Roger Pearson, she had stumbled and Devon Michaelson had put his arm around her to save her from falling. It had felt so good. She had hoped he would never let her go. Later she pretended to stumble again, but this time he didn’t seem to notice. She looked around.
“And now to think, we’re all still dressed up for a party,” she said unnecessarily. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“We never know from one minute to the next, do we?” Alvirah agreed.
Neither Devon nor Ted Cavanaugh bothered to answer her, each busy with his own troubled thoughts.
42
Miles away from the now-vanished ship, Roger Pearson was trying desperately to keep a slow, steady pace as he tread water. Think rationally, he told himself. I’m a very strong swimmer. If I can keep moving, I may have a chance.
He gulped in air as he continued to swim. This is a busy travel lane, he told himself. Another ship may come along. I’ve got to make it. Even if I end up in prison, I don’t care. She pushed me over. She pushed me over. She’ll go to prison too. And if they don’t believe me, there’s one other thing I can do. I can cancel that five-million-dollar policy. That’s probably why she tried to kill me. Well, I’ll fight her with every ounce of strength I have. I need to live to cancel that policy.
Roger then remembered the survival training course he had taken when he was a sixteen-year-old Boy Scout. It had worked in the swimming pool. Could he do it now when it might save his life?
Holding his breath, Roger let himself slip under the water as he struggled to wriggle out of his trousers. Kicking hard to keep afloat, he managed to tie the ends of his pants legs into a double knot. Then he looped the pants over his head with the knot behind his neck. The next, most difficult move was to scoop air and water through the open waistband of the trousers, then hold and twist the waistband to trap the air.
A feeling of real hope washed over him when the air inside the pants formed a pillow that floated about six inches above the water. To test his makeshift flotation device, he stopped kicking and held still. With no effort on his part he was now buoyant in his improvised life jacket.
Although he knew that air would slowly escape and he would have to repeat the process, he was sure he had increased the length of time he could stay afloat without succumbing to exhaustion. Would it be long enough?
A wave washed over him, causing his eyes to fill with salt spray, but he closed them and persevered.
43
It had been necessary to stop Roger from being arrested. After a late afternoon walk on the deck, he had come back to the suite pa
le and sweaty. “It’s no use,” he had said. “I’ve tried to talk her out of doing an outside audit of her finances, but all I did was make her more suspicious.”
Now that it was done, Yvonne was filled with dread. Roger had sat on the rail for only a few minutes, then said, “Too choppy for this perch.” Just as he tried to move forward, he almost lost his balance. That was when she lunged forward and pushed him with all her might.
Before he fell, his look had been one of surprise. Then as his body began to go down, he screamed, “No, no, no . . .” Her last sight of him was watching his legs and feet go over the rail.
She knew she should have waited longer before telling anyone that he had fallen overboard. It seemed like only minutes before the Captain and other personnel began to search the ship looking for him.
It was only then that she remembered that Roger was a strong swimmer and that he had been on the swim team in college. Suppose they found him alive? There was no way that she could make him believe that she had accidentally pushed him when she meant to help him down off the railing.
The consequences for her of Roger being rescued were so overpowering that she was trembling and shaking when the doctor gave her a tranquilizer. Brenda offered to wrap a blanket around her as she sat on the sofa in the living room of the suite.
It was time to get rid of Brenda, who with uncharacteristic sympathy had also offered to sleep on the couch.
As Brenda was holding the blanket, they could hear a loud knock on the door across the hall. A young crewmember yelled through the door. “Excuse me. We are looking for a Mr. Roger Pearson. Is he in this room?”
They heard a faint “no” from the room’s occupant. “Thank you,” the crewmember said as he moved to the next door.
Brenda turned to Yvonne. “Am I helping you by being with you or would you rather be alone?”
“Oh, thank you, I guess I’ll be all right alone. I may have to get used to being on my own. But thank you again, and I will be all right.”
When Brenda was finally gone, Yvonne got up and poured a stiff scotch on the rocks. She tilted the glass in a silent tribute to Roger. You’d have committed suicide before you faced twenty years in prison, she thought. She wondered how soon she would be getting the five million dollars in insurance money. Probably within a week after she was back in New York. If Roger did siphon off a lot of money from Lady Em, where was it? Did he have secret bank accounts he hadn’t told her about? Well, one thing for sure. If she were ever questioned by the FBI, she was sure that she could convince them that she knew nothing about Roger’s finances.
With that comforting thought the self-made widow decided to treat herself to a second, generous serving of Chivas Regal scotch.
44
“Come in,” Fairfax said after Security Chief Saunders knocked on his door.
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing, Captain. No one reported seeing him over the last two hours. I am confident that he is not on the ship.”
“Which means he probably went overboard at the time his wife said he did.”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
Fairfax paused. “The Pearsons were in a cabin on the ultra deck. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“So that means when he hit the water he had fallen at least sixty feet. What do you think about his chances of survival?”
“Slim to none, sir. He fell over backwards and he had been drinking. If he survived the fall, he likely would have been knocked unconscious. If that were the case, he would have sunk quickly, especially when you consider how heavy his wet clothes would have been. Even if we had gone back for him immediately, Captain, I don’t believe the outcome would have been different.”
“I know, and I agree,” the Captain sighed. “I’ll call Morrison and fill him in. I want you to call Chaplain Baker and tell him to come and meet me here.”
“Very good, sir,” Saunders said as he headed to the door.
Morrison picked up on the first ring. After explaining how they reached the conclusion that Pearson had to be dead, the Captain told the owner that he and the Chaplain were going over to talk to Pearson’s wife.
The owner’s voice rose to a bellow. “I know the two of you will do a wonderful job breaking the bad news to the woman. Say whatever you have to say to calm her down, but under no circumstances are we going back to look for him.”
45
It seemed as though nobody wanted to go to bed. Although the evening entertainment, a duo performing songs from prominent operas, had been canceled, the bars with tables and chairs were nearly filled. The casino was even more crowded than usual.
Trying to escape her thoughts, Lady Em had invited her tablemates to have a nightcap with her. That was where Brenda found them after Yvonne told her to leave. Everyone asked how Yvonne was faring.
As Brenda was answering, word began to circulate around the room that the search for Roger had not been successful. The Captain and Chaplain Baker had gone to Yvonne’s room to tell her that because Roger was almost certainly dead, the ship was not going to undertake a search and rescue effort.
Walking ahead of his group, Ted Cavanaugh had selected a table for four. Alvirah and Willy were with him, and Alvirah did not miss the fact that Ted had rushed to grab a nearby table as soon as he spotted where Lady Em was seated. Nor did she miss the fact that Lady Em caught his eye and abruptly turned away. Devon Michaelson had again declined to join them. Anna DeMille had grabbed a chair at the bar next to a man her age who appeared to be alone.
Then Lady Em stood up abruptly. “Brenda will sign the check for me,” she said. It was an effort to keep her voice level. “I am very tired. I will say good night to all of you.”
Brenda sprang to her feet. “I will accompany you.”
God forbid, you thief, Lady Em thought, but her answer was simple and final. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
There was a nagging pain from her left shoulder going down her arm. She needed to get to her room and take a nitroglycerine pill now.
As she left, she passed by Ted Cavanaugh’s chair, hesitated, then continued on.
Alvirah quickly noticed the grim expression on Lady Em’s face. She seems upset at him. I wonder why.
A few minutes later, when everyone began to leave, she managed to get in a word with Celia. “I never did get a chance at the Captain’s party to tell you that you look so beautiful tonight. How are you doing?”
“About the same,” Celia admitted, then added, “Keep feeling in your bones that it will all work out.”
Ted Cavanaugh had caught the exchange, puzzled for a minute, then realized why she seemed familiar. Celia Kilbride was the girlfriend of Steven Thorne, the hedge fund swindler. A lot of people think she was in on it, he thought. I wonder if she was. God knows, he thought, she has the face of an angel.
46
The Man with One Thousand Faces did not waste time mourning the loss of Roger Pearson. If anything, he welcomed the distraction it had caused. People were talking about it, mulling it over, saying what a shame that it had happened. They were agreeing that it was not only the personal loss of Roger for his family and friends, but it was also an unfortunate incident for the Castle Line. The maiden voyage of Queen Charlotte would be forever remembered as much for the tragedy as for the luxurious experience it offered.
Too bad, he thought, as he felt the swift rush of energy that had always filled him when he was about to pounce. Most times he was able to have the object of his longing without the unfortunate need to take a life to achieve his goal. He knew that might not be the case tonight. It was unlikely that Lady Em would sleep through his visit to her bedroom. He had overheard her lamenting the fact that she was a light sleeper and that any sound could wake her up.
But he could not wait any longer. At the cocktail party he had heard the Captain urging Lady Em to give the necklace into his keeping. If she were to do that, he might never have the chance to steal it again.
At the
Captain’s party it had been difficult to force his eyes away from it. It was beyond exquisite. It was flawless.
And in a few hours, one way or the other, it would be in his hands.
47
Alvirah and Willy were barely in their suite when she asked in a worried tone, “Willy, did you notice how Lady Em started toward Ted Cavanaugh, then apparently changed her mind?”
“I thought she was just saying good night,” Willy said. “What was wrong with that?”
“There’s something about the way he stalks Lady Em,” Alvirah said firmly.
“What’s that supposed to mean, honey?”
“Trust me, he does. Tonight at the cocktail party he went straight over to Lady Em and stared at her necklace. I heard him say, ‘That’s the most stunning piece of ancient Egyptian jewelry I have ever seen.’ ”
“That sounds like a nice compliment.” Willy yawned in what he hoped would be a signal to Alvirah that he was ready for bed. But if she noticed, it did not deter her need to talk things over.
“Willy, I was walking on the promenade deck this afternoon when you went back to doing the puzzle. Lady Em was about twenty feet ahead of me. Then somebody hurried past me. It was Ted Cavanaugh. He went right up to Lady Em and began to talk to her. Now you know that most people who take a walk on the deck aren’t looking to start a conversation with someone they hardly know, especially someone like Lady Em.”
“Lady Em isn’t the kind you try to get buddy-buddy with,” Willy agreed.
“I am absolutely sure that he started to argue with her, because at one of the doors she turned and kind of hurried over to it as if to get away from him.”
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