“On the counter. I’ll arrange the tea sandwiches and put them in the fridge until we’re ready to serve them. You’re in luck, Bethany. Everything we’re eating tonight is on your diet, all cold food. Or have you already given up that diet?” Usually it didn’t take more than a few days for Bethany to abandon a fad diet.
“I’ve given up eating ice cubes. They make my teeth ache, and they’re not very filling. I’m still sticking to cold food for now, but I crave a steaming bowl of soup.” She unzipped a cooler. “Where’s Cheyenne?”
Val pointed up with her index finger. “On the open deck, where we’ll have cocktails. Granddad’s up there with her and Gunnar, who’ll be serving as bartender.” He’d also have an essential role as a stand-in for Damian later in the evening.
Bethany took the sandwiches out of the cooler. “I’m glad your grandfather doesn’t have to run around as much as he did on Saturday. It wasn’t easy keeping everyone’s glass full. Do you need any help here?”
“No, but you could go to the upper deck and prepare the grill and the ingredients for s’mores.”
“More s’mores. I’ll never eat those again without thinking of this.” She made a sweeping gesture around the saloon. “I see Cheyenne peeled the film off the windows.”
“I did that. She put off coming aboard as long as she could. I borrowed the key so I could get the food ready.”
Before Cheyenne’s arrival, the chief had shown Val where to position the props, how to handle one of them, and where to hide them in the engine room.
Bethany picked up the cheese board and crackers. “I’ll take these upstairs.”
Val arranged the crustless sandwiches on a platter. Irene had cut them into attractive shapes—rounds for cucumber, ovals for egg salad, squares for ham, and triangles for smoked salmon. As she put the sweets on a tiered serving tray, Val glanced occasionally through the sliding glass door at the aft deck where the hostess greeted her guests as they boarded. Cheyenne then sent them to the upper deck.
When Val felt the vibration of the engines, she knew all the guests had arrived and the yacht would soon leave the marina. She set the table in the dining area, put the sandwiches and sweets in the center, and snapped a photo to show Irene how attractive her high tea on the yacht looked. Then she refrigerated the sandwiches and the clotted cream. She’d serve them after everyone was at the table.
Gunnar came into the saloon just in time to help her bring the rest of the cocktail snacks upstairs. He took the platter of crudités with artichoke dip. She followed him out of the saloon and up the stairs, carrying the macadamia nuts and dried fruit. The yacht glided on smooth water.
Cheyenne tapped on her wineglass with a spoon. “Thank you all for joining me this evening. We’ve come together to celebrate Otto’s life and to extend sympathy to Louisa Brown, who also lost her husband suddenly. Once we’re out in the bay, we’ll have a brief remembrance ceremony. Then we’ll have a light meal in the saloon. Tonight, we have some extra people who weren’t on the yacht last Saturday. Our bartender, Gunnar.”
He waved. “Hi, everyone.”
Cheyenne pointed to the bridge, where three men sat with their backs to the open deck. “The pilot from Saturday night, Jerome, is in the middle seat. On his left is Captain Zach, and on his other side is someone you may know.” She rapped on the glass door to the bridge.
The man on Jerome’s right stood up, turned around, and joined them on the open deck. Chief Yardley had kept out of sight until now. Val studied the faces around her. Louisa looked surprised, Trey nervous, Stacy wary, and Homer puzzled.
“Bayport Police Chief Earl Yardley asked to be here this evening,” Cheyenne said. “He’ll explain why.”
The chief positioned himself so he could see all the guests. “Those of us investigating the death of Otto Warbeck are trying to piece together what happened on this boat six days ago. At the time you might have been too upset to remember details. Tonight, we’ll try to stimulate those memories. If you recall anything you didn’t mention when I talked to you individually, please speak up.” He added, “Or you can tell me in private, if you prefer.”
After the chief finished talking, Homer came up to Val. “I have a copy of my script with me.” He patted the inside pocket of his jacket. “If you brought copies of the others with you, we could exchange.”
“Sorry. I don’t have them with me tonight.” She decided against telling him the police had taken them. “You said Otto had promised you a Titanic-related gift for coming to his dinner party.”
“Yes, I’d despaired of it, but Cheyenne said she has what Otto planned to give me.”
“And you were supposed to give Otto something in return.” Homer looked taken aback, but didn’t deny it. Val took a guess at what Otto had demanded. “He wanted to know if any of his guests had ever visited your shop.”
Homer ran his finger under his paisley bow tie as if it had suddenly tightened. “Yes, indeed. He thought one of them might have brought me something to sell. I’m afraid I disappointed him. As I told him, I can describe the decoration on a pillbox I saw a year ago, but I have a bad memory for faces.”
Hard to believe he could have totally forgotten the man who’d brought him a possibly stolen vase. He’d dashed Otto’s hopes of confirming Trey as the thief. The antique dealer hadn’t fingered Trey, either because he couldn’t, as he claimed, or because he wouldn’t, with his own reputation as an honest businessman at stake.
Homer drifted toward the snack table, where Granddad was talking to Stacy.
Val approached Trey and said, “You might want to spend a lot of time on the bridge with Jerome this evening.”
Trey’s eyebrows lowered. “Why?”
“On Saturday night you left the saloon shortly after Otto. You were gone longer than anyone else. You said you were on the bridge with Jerome, but since he doesn’t remember, he can’t confirm your alibi for the time when Otto was shot. Seeing you there might help Jerome regain his memory. It’s in your best interest if he does.” Correction. It was in Trey’s best interest, assuming he’d told the truth. But if he’d left the upper deck to shoot Otto, he wouldn’t want Jerome’s memory to return.
“Okay. I’ll sit with Jerome. Maybe if I remind him, he’ll—”
“Don’t do that. The man sitting next to him at the controls will hear what you’re saying. It will sound as if you’re trying to plant information.”
“You mean I should just sit there and hope Jerome remembers something?”
“You can jog his memory without telling him what to say. Do what you did on Saturday night. Talk about the same navigation instruments. If you took a drink or s’mores with you on Saturday night, do the same this evening. You never know what might bring back memories.”
He looked skeptical, but he ambled toward the table where Bethany was assembling s’mores with marshmallows she’d just toasted. Louisa was already enjoying the sweet treats, as she had on Saturday night. Trey filled a plate with them and carried them toward the glass door to the bridge.
Granddad waylaid him. “Don’t forget to take a drink with you. I remember you had a root beer Saturday night.” He thrust the soft drink into Trey’s free hand and opened the door for him.
Val spoke to Granddad in an undertone when he closed the door. “Did you really remember what Trey drank?”
“Not until the chief told me to make sure he had a can of root beer. Jerome was also drinking root beer Saturday night. You know what that means?”
“The drug Jerome took was probably in the root beer.” Not in the s’mores. Slipping Rohypnol into a drink was the classic way to drug someone. “Trey must have put the drug in his own root beer and then switched the cans when Jerome wasn’t looking.”
Val noticed the chief standing alone and joined him. “Did the lab find traces of Rohypnol in the root beer?” At his nod, she continued, “Any fingerprints on that can?”
“Both cans were wiped clean of prints. It would have made more sense to toss
the cans overboard.”
“Trey wouldn’t have done that, not with his passion for saving the bay from pollution.” Val noticed a lack of motion under her feet. She looked out over the water. A few other boats were visible, but they weren’t nearby. “The ceremony is about to begin.”
Stacy called her son back to the open deck.
Cheyenne spoke for a few minutes about Otto’s career as a maritime lawyer and his love of all things related to the Titanic. “It’s fitting that on the day he died, he was reliving a moment of history that had great meaning for him. I wanted to spread his ashes on the bay, but there are restrictions against that, so I’ll toss rose petals.”
She took a glass bowl of white rose petals from a built-in cabinet on the deck, threw a handful of petals over the railing, and invited her guests to do the same.
As Val waited her turn, she thought about the planning that had gone into the dinner party last weekend. Otto had interwoven his Titanic obsession with his fixation on his sister’s death. Val realized now why he’d approached her—not because she was the best caterer around, but because she, along with Granddad, had doggedly pursued the truth about suspicious deaths. Otto wanted them to dig into his sister Andrea’s death. To make sure they saw the parallel between her death and Annie’s in his mystery scenario, he’d have made it explicit in his solution.
Val didn’t need the envelope with the solution to solve Otto’s mystery game, but it bothered her that she couldn’t find it. As she watched the rose petals she’d thrown in the water drift away, she remembered Otto’s challenge to her and Granddad before dinner: Where would you look for the conclusion to a Titanic mystery?
It came to her in a flash where he’d hidden that envelope. As the others lingered on the upper deck, she rushed downstairs to the galley. She opened the freezer and found the envelope under the icemaker. Otto’s little joke, ice cubes as miniature icebergs. She opened the envelope and read the solution to the game. No surprise. Otto had named Damian as the culprit in the young woman’s death. With her brain addled by the drugs he’d given her, she’d climbed on the Titanic’s railing and lost her balance. But in Otto’s solution, the victim’s name wasn’t Annie, but Andrea. The name substitution might have ignited some fireworks at the table last Saturday. This evening’s re-creation of Saturday’s events would definitely make a bang.
Chapter 23
High tea on the Abyss would have been somber and silent without Homer, who regaled the table with fascinating, though possibly fictional, tales about Titanic artifacts, survivors, and collectors. Val wondered if he was rehearsing for his new business venture of hosting Titanic dinners to hawk his antiques.
Chief Yardley was on the phone through much of the dinner. When it was over, he suggested everyone move to the seating area of the saloon.
Instead of trying to squeeze onto the sofa, Val sat on the arm of Granddad’s easy chair.
The chief stood at the other end of the room, near the sliding door that led to the aft deck. He addressed the group. “I’d like you to tell me exactly what happened after the host left the table and went out to the deck.”
Granddad pointed to the CD player. “Cheyenne cut off the old-time music that had played during dinner. She pressed a button and out came something with no tune and booming beats.”
Cheyenne smiled. “My rap workout music.”
“Why did you choose that to play?” Chief Yardley said.
Cheyenne didn’t miss a beat. “Otto had set up the CDs in the tray on Saturday afternoon. Right before he left the table to go on deck Saturday night, he told me to flip to the next CD and to play it loud like I usually do.”
Granddad’s furry eyebrows rose in disbelief. He hadn’t abandoned his theory that Cheyenne had chosen the music so no one would hear the gunshot when Damian killed Otto.
Chief Yardley’s face remained impassive. “I’d like everyone to do exactly what they did that night. Please turn on the music, Mrs. Warbeck.”
Cheyenne went over to the player and put on the rap CD.
Stacy shook her head. “It was louder than that.”
The chief waited until everyone agreed Cheyenne had matched Saturday night’s volume. “What happened next?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the music.
Trey raised his hand. “I left the saloon, stopped at the bathroom right outside, and then went up to the bridge. I expected Otto to be there, but he wasn’t. Jerome looked out of it. I thought I could help him navigate. So I stayed up there.”
Val hoped Jerome’s memory would come back so he could confirm or deny Trey’s statements. If they were together, they’d both have alibis.
The chief told Trey to go up to the bridge and stay there until summoned. He went out the sliding door.
Stacy spoke up. “I left next. Otto had asked me to meet him outside at eight thirty-five.” With her lecturer’s voice, she could be heard over the music. “When I went out, I glanced up at the pilot deck and glimpsed someone in a tux. I thought at first it was Otto, but it must have been Trey. Otto was waiting for me down the stairs on the swim platform. We spoke briefly and then I returned here.”
Chief Yardley jotted in a small notebook. “How long were you out on the deck?”
“Three or four minutes. After I came inside, Damian left.”
The chief stopped writing. “I talked to Damian Brown earlier this week. He told me that he went into the head on the deck. Tonight Gunnar is going to stand in for him.” When Gunnar went out the glass door, the chief continued, “What happened next?”
Noting that Louisa looked distracted, Val said, “Louisa, I think you went down those stairs.” Val pointed at the curved staircase near the dining area.
“Cheyenne said we could use the downstairs bathroom,” Louisa said, as if she had to justify her actions.
The chief said, “Would you mind going there now, Mrs. Brown? Stay there about as long as you did on Saturday night.”
After Louisa went down, Val stood at the top of the stairs until she heard the bathroom door close. Then she ran down the stairs, opened the door to the engine room, and dashed through it. On her way to the swim platform, she grabbed the two props Gunnar had borrowed. She arranged the life-sized dummy facedown on the deck. Then she aimed the prop gun over the water, as the chief had suggested, and pulled the trigger.
The shot was louder than she’d expected. She dropped the gun on the swim platform near the dummy’s left hand and retraced her path through the engine room. As she crossed the hall to the interior staircase, Louisa came out of the head.
She stopped short. “What are you doing here? You weren’t down here that night.”
“I was looking in the engine room for the envelope with Otto’s mystery solution.” Technically true, since Val had searched it earlier in the day. “I didn’t find it there. Did you hear any unusual noises when you were in the bathroom?”
Louisa looked blank. “No.” She started up the stairs to the saloon.
Understandable that she wouldn’t have heard the shot inside the guest head, with the engine and the storage rooms between it and the swim platform.
When Val returned to the saloon, rap music still blared from the CD player. No one in the saloon mentioned hearing a gunshot.
Gunnar, Damian’s stand-in, burst into the room looking flustered, as Val had coached him to do. Their eyes locked across the saloon. He touched his ear and nodded, the signal that he’d heard the shot while in the head on the aft deck.
Granddad went over to the CD player and lowered the volume. “I’m turning the music down now so we can hear each other. But on Saturday night I turned it down later, after Cheyenne left the room.”
Bethany spoke up. “When Damian came in, he said something. I couldn’t hear him across the room.”
“I heard him,” Stacy said. “He got very agitated and shouted, Where’s Louisa?”
Startled, Val nearly missed the arm of Granddad’s chair as she went to sit on it. She could imagine Damian being
distressed after shooting Otto, but why would his wife’s absence make him so anxious? Was it possible he hadn’t shot Otto and had only heard a gunshot? In that case, he might have feared Louisa had been shot. Who could have pulled the trigger? Trey had been the only one who’d gone out on deck earlier and hadn’t yet returned.
Cheyenne said, “I heard Damian ask about Louisa too. He definitely looked anxious. He calmed down after I told him Louisa had gone to the guest head on the lower deck. He joked about her hogging the bathroom.”
Val glanced at the table, where the scripts had remained during the break in the dinner. When Damian returned from outside, he could have gone back to the table, picked up his booklet, and removed the card on which Otto had written their meeting time. He hadn’t done that, suggesting he wasn’t concerned that meeting his host would make him a suspect in a shooting.
“Who left the room after Damian came back?” the chief said.
Homer spoke up. “When Louisa came upstairs, I went to the loo on the lower deck. I’d been feeling queasy, but down there the motion wasn’t so bad. When I came back here, I felt seasick again. I saw Cheyenne leave by the door to the aft deck. Then I went—”
“One step at a time.” The chief turned toward Cheyenne. “Mrs. Warbeck, please show me what you did when you went out on deck.” He opened the sliding door for her and went out.
Val hurried to join them. Granddad and Homer followed.
Cheyenne pointed to the head on the deck. “I went in there.”
Homer shook his head. “I think not. When you left the saloon by this door, I was on my way out the door to the side deck. Within seconds, my stomach was roiling even worse. I didn’t want to be sick over the railing, so I hurried along the side deck to get to this loo. The door was open and I went in.”
Val watched him and the woman he’d contradicted. Which of them was lying? He looked unblinkingly at Cheyenne.
Her eyes darted around. “Yes, of course. I forgot. I went to the master stateroom to use the head.”
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