1 Shore Excursion

by Marie Moore

  I was no longer listening. Kirsten knows her stuff, and I usually enjoy what she has to say, but with the sudden deaths of two of my clients, I had a lot on my mind.

  So much that I pulled the little black plastic knob, reclining my seat, and shut my eyes, worrying, worrying, tuning out the tour as we rumbled through the gates of the ancient city.

  * * *

  The bus left the tarmac and entered the long driveway leading to our first castle.

  Looking back at the High Steppers, I caught the Murphy ladies watching me and whispering. I knew that they and probably Gertrude Fletcher—seated alone across from them—had been talking about me.

  It happens every trip. Gossip about the tour leader is either an occupational hazard or one of the great unadvertised pleasures of a group tour, depending on your perspective.

  When we reached the first castle, Kirsten counted us off and then led the way across the drawbridge into the courtyard, waving her red umbrella for us to follow, brightly explaining the finer points of medieval Danish architecture.

  In her wake, the High Steppers picked their way carefully across the uneven stones, slowly moving single-file past the ticket-taker through the massive south doors of the castle keep. Jerome Morgan impatiently pushed his way around the shufflers to go through the gate ahead of them.

  Chet Parker joined me on a bench in the courtyard and lit a cigarette. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t do the smoking sermon. Not my style. Your lungs are your own business. I used to smoke. But don’t you want to see the dungeon, Chet?”

  “Too boring. I like my dungeons with lots of torture machines, racks, iron maidens, stuff like that. This one just has mice. I’ve been here before.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Several times.” He unbuttoned his cuffs and folded them back carefully, perfectly, above his wrists, exposing tanned arms and a Cartier watch ... real or faux, I couldn’t tell. “Empress didn’t tell you about me?”

  “No. Tell me what about you?”

  “Glass Slipper.”

  “Oh.” I guess I should have known, but I don’t handle the financial end of the group trips. The sales agents and accounting do that. By the time I get the passenger list the final payments have been made.

  Empress Lines’ Glass Slipper Host Program is one of a number of similar deals that some cruise lines quietly maintain to ensure that lonely ladies have a good time on their vacations. Each line has some cheesy name for it. Around the office, we just call them all Gigolo Programs.

  The way it works, an attractive, articulate man is offered a substantial discount on the price of his cruise. In return, he is expected to dance a lot and charm the ladies, particularly the lonely, elderly, or unattractive ones, ensuring that they leave the ship at the end of the voyage in a rosy, romantic glow, eager to book another cruise.

  The dancing hosts are screened, somewhat, and supposedly given a background check. Mild flirtation is allowed and even encouraged. Serious involvement, which might lead to repercussions for the line, is not.

  Sometimes, though, a rich widow returns from her vacation with the ultimate souvenir, a boy toy.

  Blond, handsome, and fastidious, Chet Parker was a perfect Glass Slipper Host. I should have known.

  “They don’t exactly fit in with the High Steppers, do they?” Parker said. “Neither one of them has spent over two minutes with anyone in the group since we left New York.”

  Following his gaze, I spotted Mr. Silent—Jerome Morgan—standing high on the ramparts, looking out to sea with binoculars, his yellow shirt rippling across his big shoulders in the wind. Morgan seemed intent on something in the distance. Fernando Ortiz, in a dark blue windbreaker, stood beside him, shading his eyes with his hand.

  “No, they don’t,” I said, “but that’s not unusual. There are always a few who don’t fit. The tour price attracts them.”

  “It would attract me. Cheap is the only way I can go. I couldn’t vacation like this at all if I had to pay full price. I love European travel, but I really don’t have the money,” Parker said. “Without my discount I wouldn’t get any farther than Fire Island.”

  He stood to crush out his cigarette, and then sat back on the bench beside me.

  “But I’ve gotta tell you, Sidney,” he said, “this trip is giving me the creeps. First that old lady offs herself, then Bostick screws the dancer and gets himself killed. I don’t know. It’s getting weird.”

  He brushed a strand of hair back from his forehead and took his designer sunglasses from his pocket.

  I didn’t say anything, just leaned back against the cold wall of the castle, admiring its beauty and smelling that unmistakable, musty ancient stone smell, mingled with a faint whiff of tobacco and Chet’s cologne.

  “What do you think really happened to Al, Sidney? Was it really all about the dancer?”

  I wondered if I could trust him. After all, he did sort of work for Empress and supposedly had been checked out.

  “I don’t know, Chet,” I said finally. “I just don’t know. But you would think that in a crime of passion, the deckhand would have killed Bostick in his cabin when he found him with the girl. So what was Al doing in the freezer?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. What does the girl say?”

  “Nobody seems to know. And nobody seems to know where she is, either. They say she left the ship when we docked and no one’s seen her since. You would expect Empress and the cops to be on her like white on rice, but she supposedly just strolled off the ship and vanished. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”

  “I think it’s a little convenient,” Parker replied. “They don’t want trouble, you know that. No bad publicity. You know how this stuff works, Sidney. Someone may have even paid her off, sent her back to Brazil. Who knows? We’ll probably never know. There’s really no point in trying to find out, either.”

  “No, I guess not. She would probably be really hard to track down, too, even if I had a way to find out her name and home address. Especially if she didn’t want to be found.”

  “True. There’s another thing about this that really bugs me, Sidney. If the deckhand didn’t kill him, then how on earth could Al Bostick have ended up naked and strangled in an off-limits crew area, in the freezer?”

  “No one seems to know, and unless someone confesses or comes forward with more information, we may never find out. Right now, if anyone knows anything, they’re not sharing.”

  “Al may have been lured in there by the killer, Sidney. Or maybe he went with the dancer for some kinky reason and was followed by the killer.”

  “Eeeuw.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whoever killed him also had to be really strong, and crafty, there’s no doubt of that.”

  “We may never know how it was managed, Chet. No one has reported seeing anything. The time of death was placed by Dr. Sledge as ‘sometime during the wee hours of the morning.’ That’s between mid watch and first watch, when most of the crew and passengers on the ship are sleeping. I guess now they can call that time of night on this ship ‘the dead man’s watch.’ ”

  “Thank you for that spooky little spin on nautical terms, Sidney. I love thinking of that.”

  “I’m just saying …”

  “Speaking of spooky, want to hear something funny? Some of the old ladies think that the dancer was cursed or something because she worked in the Broadway Showroom. There are rumors swirling that it is haunted.”

  “Haunted? How ridiculous is that? Where did they get that idea?”

  “From some tale they were told on the ship’s tour. You know how those things go, Sidney. Add a good ghost story to a tour and you can always jazz it up. Maria Petrone gave the Haunted Showroom story a boost, too. She swore that she heard weird voices late at night coming from the Showroom as she headed back to her room from the casino. I wish it was haunted. I loved the big shows on my first few cruises but I’m bored with them now. Those shows get prett
y tired when you see the same one, night after night, cruise after cruise. That’s the only drawback I’ve found to the Glass Slipper. After a while, no surprises.”

  He paused. “Tonight’s special treat will be great, though,” he said. “Would you like to go to Tivoli Gardens with me? I don’t think I can stand another evening of dancing with the Levy sisters.”

  “I’d love to,” I said, “but when we get back from this tour there won’t be time for Tivoli. We’re sailing at five o’clock.”

  “Oh, no, we’re not,” he replied. “Didn’t you hear the captain’s announcement this morning? We’re going to stay in Copenhagen at least until midnight. The ship can’t sail until the Danes finish the paperwork on Bostick and the deckhand, or, as the captain put it, ‘until certain formalities have been completed.’ ”

  “I didn’t hear it. I overslept.”

  I wondered why I hadn’t been given notice of the itinerary change. If the Captain expected me to be a part of his team and follow his orders, the least he could do was keep me informed.

  “Well, because of the delay, we have to blow off Helsinki on Friday to stay on schedule for St. Petersburg,” he continued. “To make it up to the passengers, they are being treated to a night at Tivoli.”

  He stood up, dusted off the back of his pants, and lit a cigarette. “Come with me to Tivoli, Sidney, to the best amusement park in all of Europe. Forget the serious stuff and all these dull people for one night. We’ll have fun.”

  I thought about Jay and the captain and the whole mess. A night at Tivoli away from it all sounded pretty good.

  In fact, it sounded great.

  “Sold! I’ll meet you at the bottom of the gangway at eight.”

  13

  At the next castle, Kronborg, I stood on the high north wall at the top of the great stone tower overlooking the sea, watching the sun glitter on the strait of Oresund. Sweden was clearly visible on the far shore.

  A Russian freighter passed fully loaded with her hull deep in the water, bound for St. Petersburg, I supposed, followed by a Silja Lines ferry. A lone fisherman sat in a small wooden boat, rocking in the wake of the great ships.

  Something flashed in the sun. Was the fisherman trying to signal his presence to the ships’ captains? I would be signaling if those giant ships were bearing down on me. I would be waving my arms and hollering big time.

  Below me, the Murphy family stood on the path at the water’s edge, photographing one another using a big, old-fashioned camera, with first the sea, then the castle, as a backdrop. Their camera flashed again and again.

  Didn’t they realize that the castle was too big and they were too close for it to show up? People take the most random pictures on trips and then wonder why their friends nod off when forced to view them.

  I moved to my right, from the shadow into the sun, and found Fernando leaning on the parapet. Through his binoculars he was watching the ships and the Murphys, too. Morgan was nowhere in sight.

  “Well, hello, Sidney,” he said without turning. “You move very quietly, like one of the ghosts that haunt this castle. And may I say that you look lovely today, much prettier than a spirit.”

  “If I am a ghost, Fernando, then perhaps you are, too. But not, I think, the prince of Denmark.”

  He laughed softly and lowered his binoculars, turning to face me. It was the first time in the entire trip that I had seen him really relaxed. His dark eyes were warm with amusement. He looked pretty good himself, in his white shirt and dark blue jacket, silhouetted against the bright blue sky.

  “No, I am not the prince of Denmark, Sidney. Far from it. You’ll have to look farther to find your Hamlet.”

  “And I was wrong.” he said, suddenly very close to me, “though you move as quietly as a mouse, you are no ghost either, are you?”

  Startled, I took a step backward, away from him, and clumsily stumbled over a rock, almost falling onto the parapet.

  He caught me easily, laughing out loud now, breaking my fall. I looked up at him, wondering what it would be like to kiss him, and he knew it. I could see it in his eyes. My face burned redder than Brooke Shyler’s hair.

  “Come with me to Tivoli tonight, Sidney, after you tuck those dreadful people into their beds. You’ll learn that I’m not a ghost, that I am very much alive. I think you will enjoy the evening.”

  I looked down and saw the Murphys staring at us, mouths open. I shook his hand from my left arm, tried to summon some dignity, and stared at my watch as if it were made of rubies.

  “Thanks, but I can’t, I’m busy,” I stammered. Standing next to him like that made me inexplicably nervous. “Oh, my goodness!,” I blurted, “Look at the time! The group will be at the bus in twenty minutes. We must be going.”

  I turned to start back down the stone steps, but his left hand shot out to take my arm again and reel me in.

  “Have dinner with me tonight at Tivoli, Sidney, won’t you? I can promise you a memorable evening.”

  “I can’t,” I said, looking up at him, “I promised Chet that I would go with him.”

  “Well, when you change your mind,” he said, releasing me, “and I hope you will, I’ll have a table for two reserved at The Peacock for nine o’clock. Nine o’clock. Don’t forget. I’ll be there, waiting.”

  Without a word, I started down the winding stairs, tripping again, almost missing a step in my haste.

  His teasing voice echoed behind me. “Be careful, lovely Grace, it’s very dangerous. There might not be anyone there to catch you next time. Remember, nine o’clock. I’ll be expecting you.”

  I rushed down the path to the bus, almost knocking down Muriel Murphy in my haste, stewing to myself over the conceit of the men in my life—Fernando, Chet, Captain Vargos, even Jay.

  Men! I steamed, Either I have no guys in my life or too many. And each of them is convinced that he is the greatest .I can’t deal with this. It’s way too complicated. I’m going to quit this job and go to work at Macy’s just as soon as I get back to New York. In the maternity department, where I won’t have to deal much with men. Or maybe I could go back to school and learn to run a mammogram machine.

  An old nun in dusty black vestments sat on a bench outside the courtyard wall, her gnarled hands twirling wooden spindles as she wove coarse thread into delicate lace.

  She lifted her head as I blasted by her, nodding to me with a slight smile, making the sign of the cross to give me her blessing, as if she could read my thoughts and found herself in total agreement.

  I need all the blessings I can get, I thought. Maybe I won’t go back at all. Maybe I’ll just find a good convent around here somewhere, take my vows, and spend the rest of my life with the kind sisters, peacefully making lace.

  I was among the last ones on the bus, not a good thing for a tour host. Gertrude and the Murphys would probably write me up. I thought I caught Muriel glaring at me, though Muriel was generally so strange anyway that it was hard to tell.

  In my haste, I didn’t even stop at the gift shop or the bathroom, just climbed the bus steps and plopped down next to Kirsten, closing my eyes.

  She began her bright and cheery monologue. The stragglers filed in, Fernando included, and the bus backed out of the parking lot and headed back to Copenhagen.

  * * *

  Hannah and Ethel had spent far too much time at the Kronborg gift shop selecting troll dolls for their grandchildren, so we were almost forty minutes late arriving at the pier.

  By that time, I deeply regretted skipping the restroom break. Back at the ship, I was last in the long, slow line on the gangway through security. When I was finally aboard I rushed down the stairs and corridor of B Deck.

  I unlocked the cabin, flung my bag on the bed and, unbuttoning my pants, jerked open the bathroom door.

  Jay stood at the sink, shaving, a towel wrapped around his waist. “Well hello, Nancy Drew. Thank you for knocking. How’s it going? Caught the murderer yet?”

  “I’ll be back when you’re finished,
smartass. Don’t use all the towels.”

  I slammed the door and blasted back down the hall and up the stairs to the ladies’ room outside of the Crystal Dining Room.

  When I re-emerged, Maria Petrone stood just outside the dining room door, studying the evening menu placard on the gold easel.

  “How does it look to you, Maria?” I said. “Delicious?”

  “Man, yeah, it does. It says Danish Middag. What is a middag? I never heard of no middag, did you? But whatever it is, it looks great. I don’t know what I’ll pick for my main course.” She leaned closer to the placard, squinting at the calligraphy. “I might have the roast pork with red cabbage and some of the poached salmon, too. Gladys Murphy says that it’s okay to have both. Then ‘apple dumpling with warm cream and a hint of schnapps.’ I love apple dumpling. Mario will take the steak. He always takes the steak, no matter what night it is. What are you having?”

  I studied the menu.

  “Hard to say, Maria. With so many selections it’s difficult to choose, isn’t it? But I’ll be eating light tonight or not at all. There is great food at Tivoli. Aren’t you going?”

  “Nah. I been to Coney Island plenty of times.”

  “Oh, but Maria, it’s not like that, really, nothing like that. Tivoli is much nicer. It is special.”

  “I hear what you say, Sidney, but I don’t want to go. Nuts to that. I told my Angelo, I ain’t missing my high-dollar middag and show for no amusement park. You young people go and have a good time. Tell me all about it when you get back. But I ain’t chowing down on no hot dog and pop tonight. No, ma’am. I can do that back in Queens.”

  “Miss Marsh is quite right, Maria. Tivoli is delightful.”

  Brooke Shyler joined us, impeccably dressed in black silk pants and a white shirt that I guessed was from Agnes B.

  She and Maxine Johnson held nearly empty champagne flutes. They had just come from the Starlight Lounge, where the Mariner’s Club party for returning passengers was in full swing.

  “You must go, Maria,” she insisted, with Maxine nodding in agreement. “Everyone loves Tivoli. They always have, ever since it was built back in 1841 by permission of the king. Hans Christian Anderson wrote about it in “The Nightingale.” It’s very romantic. You and Angelo should go and ride the swan boats or the carousel. You could have a schnapps and watch the fireworks. It’s lovely. Maxine, tell her.”