S'more Murders

by Maya Corrigan

  Val exchanged a look with Granddad. They both knew Cheyenne hadn’t returned to the saloon and used the indoor staircase to the stateroom. The only other way was through the engine room from the swim platform, where Otto had planned to meet someone.

  The chief said, “Mr. Huxby, please go back to the saloon and make sure no one else comes out here.”

  “Delighted. I was afraid you’d want me to stay in the loo for the next ten minutes.” Homer went into the saloon, closed the sliding door behind him, and stood with his back to it like a guard preventing prisoners from escaping.

  “How did you get to the head in the master stateroom, Mrs. Warbeck?” The chief pointed to the staircases leading to the swim platform. “Which stairs did you use to go down to the lower deck? Port or starboard?”

  She gaped at him. “Does it matter?”

  “In an investigation,” he said, “small details often matter. Try to remember what was on your mind Saturday night when you came out here, and go through the motions of what you did.”

  Cheyenne stood still, her eyes closed. Val peeked over the railing at the swim platform. In the twilight, the mannequin dressed in black looked like a sprawled dead man. The chief had told her how to position the dummy without revealing what he hoped to prove, but obviously Cheyenne was his target.

  She took baby steps toward the starboard staircase.

  She looked down at the swim platform, yelped, and covered her eyes. “Someone’s down there. Who?”

  The chief waited a moment before answering. “It’s a 3-D version of the chalk outline that marks a body’s location. That’s where we figure Otto was.”

  Cheyenne’s shoulders sagged. “You’re right. I can’t keep this up any longer.”

  Val glanced at the chief. He must have suspected Cheyenne of lying and hoped the dummy would unnerve her into telling the truth faster than an interrogation would. His ploy had worked.

  Chapter 24

  Cheyenne collapsed onto the deck’s built-in bench, her back to the swim platform below. Val sat down beside her.

  Granddad lowered himself onto the bench next to Val and gave her an I-told-you-so look. He must have taken Cheyenne’s reaction as proof that she was behind Otto’s death. Val suspected Otto’s wife was about to confess to something, but possibly not murder.

  Chief Yardley loomed over Cheyenne. “What did you see when you went down to the swim platform?”

  “Otto was lying there dead. He’d told me he was going to commit suicide, but I didn’t expect him to do it that night. He had untreatable cancer and decided to die on his own terms.”

  Val glanced at the chief. He didn’t look surprised or skeptical, but he rarely showed much emotion. He would have known about Otto’s illness from the medical examiner’s report. That must have tipped him off that Cheyenne had abetted Otto’s suicide.

  Cheyenne wiped away a tear. “I respected Otto’s decision to die as he wanted to, not helpless and in pain. He said that when the time came, he’d make sure his death didn’t look like suicide so I could collect on his life insurance, but he’d need my help.”

  The chief folded his arms. “What kind of help?”

  “I was supposed to get rid of any sign that he killed himself. He said he might make the house look like someone had broken in and shot him. Then I’d have to wipe off any fingerprints and dispose of the gun. I begged him to come up with a way that left me out of it. If he drove off a bridge or into a tree, I wouldn’t have to break the law.”

  Didn’t she know filing a false insurance claim was breaking the law? Val assumed Otto hadn’t mentioned that.

  Cheyenne sniffed. “The way I found Otto, it didn’t look like an accident. It was either suicide or murder. And if it was murder, I’d be a suspect. People would think that I was lying about him wanting to commit suicide and that I killed him to put him out of his misery. So I decided to turn it into an accident.”

  “What did you do?” the chief said.

  Cheyenne shivered as a cool breeze swirled around them. “I pushed him overboard. Burial at sea. I just hoped he’d stay under. I looked all around for the gun. It wasn’t there. The way the boat was rocking, it must have slid off.”

  Or his murderer threw it into the water. Val stared at the dummy on the swim platform. Why would a murderer throw the gun overboard and leave the body? Though Otto wasn’t a large man, maneuvering his body into the water while the boat was rocking would have taken time and strength. It couldn’t have been easy, even for a strapping young woman like Cheyenne.

  The chief put his hands on his hips like an angry parent. “You could have come clean about his suicide after he was pulled from the water.”

  Cheyenne looked as if she’d aged ten years in the last five minutes. “Otto took out life insurance less than a year ago. It wouldn’t pay out if he committed suicide. He had a lot of debt and warned me I’d have barely enough to live on unless I collected that money.”

  “Mrs. Warbeck, I’d like you to go to the swim platform and position the dummy so that it resembles how your husband looked when you found him.”

  After the chief and Cheyenne went down the steps, Granddad whispered, “He’s testing her to see if she told the truth.”

  She motioned for Granddad to move away from the stairs so they couldn’t be heard. “You still think she killed Otto?”

  “She didn’t pull the trigger. We’d have heard the shot, because I turned off the music as soon as she left the saloon. She could have gotten Damian to do it, turned up the music to muffle his shot, and gone out to clean up the traces of murder.”

  Val shook her head. “If Damian had killed Otto in collusion with her, she’d have stayed inside the saloon so she’d have an alibi.”

  “If she was thinking straight. You believe what she said?”

  Val shrugged. “I think she believes it. She expected Otto to kill himself in the near future, but someone may have saved him the trouble.”

  Cheyenne came up from the swim platform and pointed to the saloon. “I owe everyone in there the truth. I need a minute to fix my hair and my face.” She went into the head next to the sliding door.

  The chief poked his phone and put it up to his ear. “Anything new? . . . Okay, you can send him down now.”

  Seconds later, Trey came bounding down the stairs from the upper deck. “The music reminded Jerome I was there. It was so loud that we could hear it through the floor Saturday night and tonight. He remembered we talked about it.”

  “What do you remember about the root beer?” the chief said. “You’ve got thirty seconds to tell me.”

  Trey didn’t hesitate. “I wanted to space out at Otto’s stupid party, so I put a roofie in my soda before dinner. It did nothing for me. I couldn’t understand why until I went to the bridge and saw Jerome nodding off. He had a root beer too and must have drunk mine by mistake.”

  Val gave Trey credit for a convincing story. It would save Jerome from prosecution.

  Cheyenne came out of the head. “Let’s get this over with.” She went into the saloon.

  Bethany made room for her on the sofa. Louisa huddled at the other end of it. Trey stood behind his mother’s straight-backed chair.

  Gunnar whispered to Val, “Is this the show’s final act?”

  “Not sure. It’s improv from now on.” She heard the hum of the engine and felt the yacht moving. They were on their way back to the Bayport marina.

  Val sat on the arm of Granddad’s chair again.

  Cheyenne asked for everyone’s attention. “I want to apologize for misleading you and the police about what happened Saturday night. A month ago Otto found out he had an aggressive and incurable cancer. He told me he would choose when and how he died, but when he took his own life during our dinner party, I was shocked.”

  Her guests looked shocked now, except for Stacy, who’d known her ex would kill himself under certain circumstances.

  Cheyenne continued, “I found Otto dead on the swim platform. He must have thoug
ht he’d fall into the bay after shooting himself. He didn’t, so I lowered him into the water.”

  Trey glowered at her. “Why didn’t you say that Saturday night? We were all murder suspects.”

  Cheyenne winced. “I’m sorry. I should have told the truth sooner.”

  Bethany patted Cheyenne’s hand. “But you don’t know the whole truth. You can tell us what you did, but not what happened to Otto before you found him. He thought about committing suicide, but did he really go through with it, or did somebody kill him?”

  Bravo, Bethany. Val turned toward the chief, who stood near the sliding door to the deck. “Is there any hard evidence that he committed suicide?”

  “Some evidence. According to the medical examiner, Otto Warbeck had advanced cancer. His business card with a note on it turned up here on the yacht. He’d scrawled on the back of the card, proposing an eight forty-five meeting. Experts confirmed the note was in his handwriting. He intended to meet someone on the deck. The card had partial fingerprints on it, belonging to him and Damian Brown.”

  Louisa flicked her wrist. “Otto must have dropped the card and Damian picked it up.”

  The chief shrugged. “Be that as it may, multiple witnesses said your husband went on deck at about that time.”

  Cheyenne nodded. “Just before Otto left the saloon, he told me he wanted to talk to Damian privately and said I should try to keep anyone from leaving the saloon and interrupting them. I had no idea if they ever met, so I didn’t say anything about it.”

  The chief moved away from the sliding door toward the sofa, like an actor going from the wing to center stage. “It’s too late to ask the two men if they met or what words they exchanged. But in the week leading up to the Titanic dinner, Otto Warbeck took some actions that speak louder than words about his intentions. Five days before the dinner, he bought two identical guns. One of them is probably at the bottom of the bay, minus the bullet that killed him.” The chief shifted position to stand in front of Louisa. “You found the other gun under the passenger seat of your husband’s car. Two days before the Titanic dinner, Mr. Warbeck sat in that seat, when your husband gave him a ride to the golf course.”

  Though the chief was only giving facts, their significance was obvious to Val. Otto planned to kill himself and frame Damian for murdering him.

  Louisa broke the stunned silence, her eyes flashing with anger. “Otto planted that gun. It’s his fault Damian is dead.”

  “He didn’t pull the trigger, Mrs. Brown.” The chief let that sink in for a moment and then continued, “But he did something else that led indirectly to your husband’s death. You may not know this, but many color laser printers leave codes, nearly invisible except under special light. The codes indicate the printer’s serial number and a time stamp showing when a page was printed. Otto Warbeck had that type of printer. On the morning of the Titanic dinner, he printed the anonymous letter you received.”

  Louisa blinked, looking dazed. “Otto wrote that letter before the dinner? It said Damian shot him.” Her eyes widened. “Otto killed himself and tried to make it look as if my husband did it. That’s evil!”

  “Why would he do such a thing?” Bethany sounded outraged.

  Stacy looked up at the chief, who nodded to her.

  She talked about Otto’s sister’s death, his obsession with finding the man he blamed for it, and the sketch he had of Demon the drug dealer. “A couple of weeks ago, Otto met Damian for the first time and recognized him as Demon.”

  “No way.” Louisa’s high-pitched voice reached new heights. “He didn’t know how Damian looked when he was young.”

  “That’s why Otto asked me to confirm his suspicion.” Stacy’s low, calm tone contrasted with Louisa’s. “Thirty years ago I saw Demon. Two days ago I saw the same man in your wedding picture. I was at the party the night Otto’s sister went off the balcony. And so were you . . . Louie.”

  Louisa gasped. “Andie fell. Damian didn’t push her.”

  Gunnar leaned down and whispered to Val, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

  Stacy’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Louisa. “It never crossed my mind that anyone pushed her . . . until now.” She looked around the room. “For those of you who don’t know, Otto’s sister’s nickname in college was Andie, short for Andrea. Louisa called herself Louie in those days.”

  “Louie,” Homer muttered.

  Bethany turned to Louisa at the other end of the sofa. “When we were playing the mystery game, you called the girl who fell from the Titanic Andie, but her name was Annie. Otto corrected you.”

  That slip of the tongue had tipped Otto off that Louisa had known his sister. Based on Val’s brief acquaintance with him, she knew he’d have reacted to this information, but how?

  Louisa crossed her arms. “I don’t remember that. You must have misheard.”

  Trey stepped toward the chief. “I remember it . . . and something else that happened at the table. I was sitting next to Louisa, and I saw Otto slip something to her. It looked like a business card. That was just before he announced we were taking a break.”

  Louisa sat perfectly still, her lips trembling. Several seconds passed. Then she said, “Yes, that’s right. I’d asked what kind of work he did, and the business card was his answer.”

  Val might have believed that explanation if Louisa hadn’t taken so long to come up with it. Could Otto have scrawled a note to her on the back of a business card, as he had to her husband?

  Homer cleared his throat loudly. “I found something Saturday night that might be of importance, though I didn’t realize it at the time. When I went to the loo downstairs after Louisa came up, I spotted a bit of paper on the floor. It was Otto’s business card with a message on the back. It said Louie, 8:40 on deck re Andie.”

  Val felt a tingle like a mild electric shock. Otto’s note to Damian had specified only a meeting time, but his note to Louisa also made clear what they would discuss. If she’d known about the route through the engine room, she could have taken it to meet Otto on deck, five minutes before his planned meeting with her husband.

  Louisa stared at Homer, wide-eyed. “I had no idea Otto wrote on the back of the card. I glanced at the front of it. I would have slipped it into my purse, but that was across the room. I tucked the card under my belt. It must have fallen out when I went downstairs.”

  Val pictured the wide satin belt on Louisa’s dress. In the absence of pockets, which the dress lacked, the belt made a good hiding place for something as small as a business card. But why not leave the card on the table? Val could think of only one reason—because Louisa didn’t want anyone to see the note Otto had scrawled on it. She didn’t want to explain who Louie and Andie were.

  The chief turned from Louisa to Homer. “Do you still have the card, Mr. Huxby?”

  “I put it in a pocket in my tuxedo. I imagine it’s still there.”

  “Don’t touch it. I’ll send someone to pick it up.”

  Louisa chewed her nails.

  Val felt the vibration from the motor lessening. The yacht must be leaving the bay for the river. They’d dock at the Bayport marina before long, but would the truth about Otto’s death have come out by then?

  “We’ll soon be on land, so I’ll wrap this up quickly.” the chief said. “The autopsy report on Mr. Warbeck has information about his wound. The bullet’s angle of entry suggested someone shooting upward into Mr. Warbeck’s head. He wasn’t a tall man. Of the people who left this room after he went out, only one was shorter than him.”

  Val and everyone else looked at Louisa. Would she crack?

  Louisa shrank from their intense gaze. “You don’t understand. Otto forced me to shoot him!”

  Chapter 25

  Cheyenne broke the stunned silence that followed Louisa’s disclosure. “What do you mean Otto forced you? How?”

  “I wanted to meet him on deck at eight forty, like he said in the note. After a couple of people went out, Cheyenne blocked the door to
the aft deck and said to use the bathroom on the lower deck. I knew I could get outside from there by going through the engine room.”

  Cheyenne nodded. “When I gave her and Damian the yacht tour before dinner, I pointed out the engine room door and said it led to the swim platform. I never dreamed anyone would go that way.”

  “I was just doing what Otto asked,” Louisa whimpered.

  “What happened next, Mrs. Brown?” the chief said.

  “I thought Otto would be on the deck outside this room, but he surprised me on the swim platform. He backed me against the low railing.” The words tumbled out of Louisa’s mouth. “He told me that he was Andie’s brother and that Damian caused her death. I swore Damian was nowhere near her when she fell. Otto accused me of lying, pulled out a gun, and threatened to kill Damian and me. I had one way to save myself, he said. He stuck the gun in my hand, guided it to his head, and told me to pull the trigger.”

  Louisa shuddered. “No sane person would do that. I thought it was part of his mystery game and the gun wasn’t loaded, but I was scared. The boat was rocking, and my hand was slipping on the railing. I had to do something.” Louisa squeezed her eyes shut as if to erase her memories. “I pulled the trigger, and he fell.”

  An hour ago Val wouldn’t have believed the story. But after hearing about Otto’s illness and his attempt to frame Damian, she could imagine Otto coercing Louisa into shooting him.

  The chief’s face revealed nothing about what he was thinking. “What did you do after you shot him, Mrs. Brown?”

  “Threw the gun in the water and ran back through the engine room to the guest bathroom. I was a nervous wreck. I stayed in the bathroom until I stopped shaking.” She hugged herself as if the memory of it gave her chills.

  “Did your husband know you’d shot Otto?” the chief said.

  “He didn’t see me do it, and I didn’t tell him. He said he’d heard what sounded like a shot while he was in the john, but since no one else mentioned it, he just let it go.” Louisa lowered her head, cradled it in her hands, and sobbed.

  As the chief made a quick phone call, Val gave Louisa a glass of water. She’d have offered something stronger, but she thought Louisa would need a clear head for the next few hours.