The massage had relaxed Val to the point of drowsiness. “Poor Louisa. No welcome wagon for her.”
“She did get one invitation from a woman on that block. Emily Adams, a Daughter of the American Revolution. I give her facials. Emily’s always trying to recruit new members for the DAR’s local chapter. She invited Louisa to tea, figuring farmers fought in the revolution, so a chicken farmer’s daughter might just qualify for membership.” Chatty moved to the other side of the table and kneaded Val’s right calf. “Louisa didn’t qualify, but they had a long conversation. Louisa gave Emily useful advice about prenups.”
Val lifted her head. “How did that subject come up during a tea party?”
“Emily’s son wants his daughter’s fiancé to sign a prenup. Emily’s afraid that will jinx the marriage. She’s asked for advice from everyone—including me, when I was giving her a facial. Louisa defended prenups. She said her husband had agreed to one and their marriage has lasted more than twenty-five years. Her prenup specified that, if they divorced, he got no money and only limited visiting rights to their children. That applied even if she divorced him.”
“So he not only had to stay married to her, he had to keep her happy. I’m surprised he agreed to those terms.”
“Louisa said that if more people had prenups like that, the divorce rate would plummet.”
“And the discontent rate would soar,” Val muttered. “I think people should stay married because they want to, not because it’s in their financial interest.” A thud came from the adjacent weight room, probably a barbell dropped by a bodybuilder. “Did you ever meet Louisa’s husband?”
“Briefly, when I went to their house to do her makeup for the yacht party. You realize that when Louisa becomes the Eastern Shore’s chicken queen, he’ll be the prince of Purty Poultry. And he’s already mighty purty.”
Val laughed. “Especially in his tux.”
“I’ll say. I saw him in it as I was leaving. Except for his little bit of gray at the temples, he could have just stepped out of the wedding portrait that hangs over the sofa, where he’s also wearing a tux. You’d never recognize Louisa from that picture. When she was younger, she had thick eyebrows and long, dark hair overwhelming her small head. Saturday night, with her brows plucked, her hair lightened, and me working on her face for thirty minutes, she didn’t look half bad. Gotta wonder what he saw in her back then.”
“Looks aren’t everything.” A lesson Val had learned the hard way when she found out her drop-dead gorgeous fiancé was cheating on her, at which point he became her former fiancé.
“Speaking of prenups, did Otto Warbeck and his wife have one?”
Val had thought they’d left that subject behind. “No idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. Prenups and May-December marriages go together like horses and carriages.”
“From what Bethany said, Otto treated his wife badly. Imagine asking her to entertain his ex-wife.” Chatty worked her way up to Val’s right arm. “We’re in the home stretch now. Bethany said Otto made his guests play a mystery game. Tell me how it worked.”
By the time Val had described the game, her massage was over. She jumped down from the massage table. “Otto called for a break halfway through the game, in the middle of dinner, and he didn’t come back to the table. We never found out how the game ends.”
“But you will. Bethany said you were going to pick up the game booklets. Are you going to the yacht when you leave here?”
“No. The police won’t be finished there until late afternoon or evening.” Val opened the door, glad to see the world beyond the massage closet, even if it consisted of exercise machines. “Thank you for the massage. I should give you an endless supply of that baking aroma oil. Then your clients will go from here directly to the café for something sweet.”
* * *
Granddad was in the hall hanging up the phone when Val went into the house. “That’s the third call today from folks who want you to cater for them.” He ripped the top sheet off the notepad on the telephone table. “Here are their names and numbers.”
“Three in one day? I usually get three in a month.” Val glanced at the paper he gave her. No one she knew.
“They must have called because I talked you up in that TV interview yesterday. Free publicity. They all want you to cater a Titanic dinner for them. On land, not on a boat.” When she groaned, he pointed to the second floor. “We could use some quick cash to pay for the termite damage up there. It’ll be a long time before we finish the Codger’s Cookbook.”
“You didn’t like the idea of celebrating a disaster. Now you’re all for it.” She shouldn’t be surprised at his about-face. Granddad relaxed his principles when it suited him. “I’m not catering any more ten-course meals.”
“One lady said she wanted a four-course version. I’m sure you can talk the others into downsizing. You did the hard part of testing the recipes. You might as well reuse them.”
Val felt her resistance ebbing. “I’ll return the calls.”
“I gotta get back to typing my recipes for this week.” He went into the study and sat down in front of her computer.
She followed him into the room. “Did you catch the interview Cheyenne gave on TV today?”
“Nope. I was busy testing the recipes for my column. What did she say?”
“That Otto couldn’t possibly have committed suicide. You’ll have to come up with a new theory about the murder, Granddad. If she killed Otto, she’d have welcomed suicide as an explanation. Instead, she’s claiming he was murdered.”
Granddad pecked at the keyboard. “I’m sticking to my theory. She’s putting up a smoke screen. She rejected suicide because that’s what an innocent person would do, and she’s trying to look innocent.”
Val couldn’t argue with him, though she suspected Cheyenne didn’t have as twisted a mind as his.
By the time he’d e-mailed his column with recipes to the Gazette and left to meet his friend Ned for pizza, she’d set up appointments to meet the catering clients who’d called earlier. She then worked on expanding her catering menu to include dishes served on the Titanic. She’d expected to hear from the chief. When he didn’t call by six thirty, she assumed he must have forgotten to let her know when the police were finished with the yacht. She left him a voice mail, asking him to call her. Though she usually walked to Gunnar’s house, she decided to drive, because she was a little late. She grabbed a bottle of bubbly on the way out.
* * *
Gunnar opened the door to the one-story brick house he rented. He looked more relaxed than he had for months. The last time she’d visited, the table in his combination living room and office had been stacked high with papers related to his clients’ tax returns. Now it was set for two with the china his landlady had left with the house. “It’s nice to see that table set for a romantic candlelit dinner. Your happy face means you’re finished with taxes.”
“The written part. I’ve been getting phone calls from clients who waited until the last day to look at their returns and ask me questions about them. I didn’t have time to shop for groceries. Do you want to go out, or can you make do with an omelet and a salad, and then a long, leisurely dessert?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“That sounds wonderful.” She plopped down onto the love seat near the window. “After cooking elaborate dishes for the dinner party, I appreciate simple food cooked by someone else.” She added, “I’ll help, of course.”
“You will not. You’re my guest. Your job is to entertain me while we drink the champagne and I make dinner. What have you been doing since yesterday morning?”
They were halfway through dinner by the time she finished telling him about Althea’s request for help for her nephew, Jerome’s visit to Granddad’s house, and Otto’s body surfacing with a bullet hole in it.
He winced when she mentioned the bullet. “Yesterday I was joking about your exercising your sleuthing muscles. Now I’m worried you will exercise them. I hope you’ll leave this one
to the police.”
“Of course . . . unless it looks as if they’re going to arrest Jerome.”
Gunnar put his fork down. “Has it occurred to you he might be guilty?”
“He had no reason to take drugs or to kill Otto.”
“How about this for a reason? Otto leaves the table to go up to the bridge. When he gets there, he goes into a rage because Jerome turned off the autopilot and steered into a squall. Otto says he’ll make sure Jerome never pilots another yacht. Jerome’s plans for the future will go down the tube unless he gets rid of Otto. He drugs himself after shooting Otto. Then he can say he remembers nothing.”
Val admitted to herself that Gunnar’s scenario was plausible—but it still had weaknesses. “Jerome didn’t come on the boat with a reason to kill Otto, so why would he have brought a gun with him?”
Gunnar shrugged. “It could have been Otto’s gun. Maybe he kept it in a compartment on the bridge and Jerome found it earlier in the evening. He didn’t intend to use it, but he knew where it was when he needed it.”
“You make a good theoretical case, Gunnar, but you haven’t met Jerome. Granddad and I have. We both think he’s innocent, and he needs help to prove it.”
“And you can’t turn down pleas for help.”
She leaned across the table. “Do you turn down any? We’re cut from the same cloth.”
“Proving Jerome innocent means proving someone else guilty. That could be dangerous. I said that the last time you went after a murderer, and you didn’t pay any attention. I don’t know why I bother.” Gunnar downed the rest of his wine. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Okay. What are you going to do tomorrow without income tax forms to fill in?”
“I’m getting up early to drive to Washington.”
A trip he’d made often in the last few months. “More forensic accounting work?”
“No. Something else I want to pursue came up.”
Val’s phone chimed. She jumped up to pull it out of her shoulder bag. “Sorry. I need to get this.” As she’d hoped, Chief Yardley was returning her call.
“We’re just about finished at the yacht,” he said. “The fish stink coming from the trash was real bad when the team went in there. They opened the doors to get a cross breeze, but once they close up, it’ll get bad again.”
“Ew.” She’d planned to take the trash with her when leaving the yacht Saturday night, but after Otto disappeared, getting rid of garbage was far from her mind. “Why didn’t they take the trash out?”
“Because they remove only items that might be relevant to a crime. Also, they’ve been in places that smelled a lot worse.”
And the yacht would smell worse the longer she waited to go there. “Thanks for the warning. I’m on my way.” She hung up.
Gunnar’s eyebrows lowered, overshadowing his eyes like thunderclouds. “You’re leaving?”
“Briefly, assuming Bethany’s available. She has the key to the yacht, and we need to clear out some smelly garbage and leftover food.” Val speed-dialed her friend. “Hi, Bethany. Chief Yardley said we can get on the yacht now. Okay if I pick you up in a few minutes?” Bethany agreed. Val tucked her phone away and faced Gunnar. “I’m sorry. I’ll be back in less than an hour. Then we can have dessert.”
He folded his arms. “Can’t Bethany go to the yacht without you?”
Though Val felt bad about leaving, she’d have felt worse if she left the dirty work to her friend. “Bethany helped me with the dinner on Saturday night, when I needed her. I can’t send her to deal with rotting food as if she’s my servant.”
Looking glum, he blew out the candles on the table.
She gave him a quick kiss and bolted for the door.
* * *
It was dark by the time Val and Bethany boarded the Abyss. Val immediately put the trash out on the deck, hoping the fish stench would go away.
When she went back into the saloon, Bethany was lifting the cushions from the built-in sofa. “I’m looking for the envelope with the solution to the mystery game. I really want to know how it turns out. The compartment with the life vests would be a good place to hide it.”
“I doubt Otto hid the envelope where he’d have to deconstruct the furniture to get to it. He’d make an Academy Award moment of revealing the solution, taking the envelope from his breast pocket or having Cheyenne hand it to him.”
“I asked Cheyenne. She said she didn’t know where the envelope was.” Bethany put the cushions back on the sofa. “There’s no hope if he had it on him. After a day in the water, it would be unreadable.”
“I think we can figure out how the game ends if we have all the scripts.” Val opened a drawer in the galley and spotted the scripts. “Right where I left them.”
As she pulled the booklets from the drawer, a bit of paper fluttered from them to the floor. She stooped to pick it up.
Bethany came into the galley. “What are you doing down there?”
“Picking up Otto’s business card. It must have fallen out of one of the booklets.” Val stood up and read the card. “Otto Warbeck, Maritime Law Consultant.” She put the card on the counter next to the booklets.
Bethany fingered the card and turned it over. “Look. There’s writing on the back. Meet me, swim platform 8:45. Otto must have written this and given it to one of the guests.”
Val peered at the words inked on the back. A handwriting expert could figure out if Otto had jotted the note. She couldn’t. She’d seen only his barely legible signature. “Wait a sec. Didn’t you say you saw Otto writing during the dinner? If he made notes in his booklet, we can compare the ink and the writing to what’s on the card.” Val found Otto’s booklet and flipped through it. “There’s no writing in it.”
“Then maybe he was writing that note.” Bethany pointed to the business card. “He could have slipped it to someone at the table.”
A spur-of-the-moment act by a man who’d planned the evening down to the smallest detail? Unlikely. Val had a different explanation. “He also could have written it before the party and tucked it into one of the booklets.”
“Too bad you don’t know which booklet the card came from.” Bethany put the food from the refrigerator on the counter for Val to pack up. “If we figure out who went out on deck at eight forty-five, we’ll know who met Otto.”
“He left the saloon fifteen minutes before that and implied he was going up to the bridge. But that could have been an excuse to go on deck for his rendezvous.”
Bethany continued to empty the fridge. “Stacy and Trey went out first. Then Damian. I’d say he left closest to eight forty-five. Cheyenne and Homer after that. Homer had an antique watch on a fob. I saw him check it a few times during dinner, like someone who had an appointment.”
Val double-wrapped the leftover roast beef and put it at the bottom of the cooler. “A watch like that might not keep accurate time. If it ran slow, he could have gone out late to meet Otto.”
She looked forward to showing the chief the note scrawled on Otto’s business card. Maybe the police could lift fingerprints from it. Best not to touch it more than necessary. She rummaged in a drawer for tongs, nudged the card to the counter’s edge, and grabbed it with the tongs. Then she dropped it into her jacket pocket.
Bethany shifted items in the refrigerator. “Why set up a meeting on the swim platform?”
“Privacy, I guess. People might have left the saloon to visit the head on the aft deck, but they wouldn’t have had any reason to go down the stairs to the platform.”
“Makes sense.” Bethany closed the refrigerator door. “All the food that could go bad is out of the fridge. I left things like mustard and marmalade in case Cheyenne changes her mind about returning to the yacht.” She opened the freezer. “Nothing in here except the sorbet.”
“I hope you’ll take it home. It’s mostly shaved ice—perfect for your diet, if you haven’t given it up.”
“I’m still on it.” Bethany picked up the booklets Val
had left on the counter and flipped through them. “There are only seven. We’re missing Homer’s.”
“I grabbed the ones that were left on the table after everyone got up for a break. Homer must have tucked his away.” Val mimicked putting something inside a jacket pocket. “We’ll have to try solving Otto’s mystery game without all the clues. Can you come over tomorrow night? We can eat the leftovers, study the scripts, and brainstorm about Otto’s mystery plot.”
“I can come, but our brainstorming will be guesswork unless we find the envelope with the solution.” Bethany searched the cabinet drawers and shelves without finding it. “Maybe he taped it to the underside of his chair or the table.” She got down on her hands and knees to check. “No luck.”
Val put the container of sorbet in the cooler. Then she collected the scripts. She had no room for them in her shoulder bag, so she set them on top of the food containers in the cooler. She glanced at Bethany, who was unpeeling the opaque film from a window in the saloon. “You won’t find the envelope there. It would create a bulge in the film.”
“I’ve given up on finding the envelope. I’m just checking how this decorative film works.” Bethany stripped away more of the film and peered out the window. “Yipes! Someone’s out there, lurking.” She jumped away from the window and pressed the film back on it.
“What do you mean by lurking? Trying to hide?”
“No, but he—or she—is acting suspicious. Standing still on the dock, dressed in dark colors, wearing a hoodie.”
“Nothing illegal about that.” Val carried a cooler to the sliding door. “If you take the cooler, I’ll grab the grocery bag and the garbage. We’re done here. Let’s go.”
“Right now? When we know someone’s lying in wait?”
Val had made fun of Bethany’s jitters about zombies in a haunted corn maze last fall. Her fears this time weren’t quite as groundless. Yet, they couldn’t call 911 and ask to be rescued from someone standing on the dock.
Val reached into one of the many compartments in her shoulder bag and handed a small canister to Bethany. “Here’s some pepper spray. If we delay, the suspicious person will have time to assemble a gang of lurkers. Now we’re two against one. Later, who knows how many cutthroats we’ll have to fend off.”
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