by Marie Moore
I was almost positive that it was the man I had named “Homeless Guy.” What was he doing at Tivoli? Who killed him, and why? Was he the author of the note, the man who said he had been watching me, following me? Was he the man I was asked to meet at the carousel? Or was that someone else … maybe even his killer. Had someone silenced him before he could share his information or reveal his identity?
15
We sailed at midnight. Fast-moving, thick clouds were building in the west. Lightning snaked from the cloudbank into the sea. It would storm soon, I thought, certainly before morning.
I stood alone by the rail in the darkness and watched the Rapture clear the docks, then the harbor. Watched until the pilot boat picked up the harbor pilot from our ship. Watched until, with a final wave and a parting blast of his horn, the pilot boat turned back toward Copenhagen and the ship mounted the deep swells of the North Sea.
Then, as the waves grew larger, crashing against the bow, and the lights from shore gradually dimmed, I watched, bathed in mist, until at last there was nothing at all left but the ship and the blackness of the sea.
I heard ladies’ heels approaching from the stern. In my state of mind, the last thing I wanted was conversation with a High Stepper, so I stretched out on a deck chair in the shadows and closed my eyes, hoping that whoever it was would overlook me or think I was asleep.
The footsteps came closer and the deck chair next to mine creaked slightly with the weight of a new occupant. I could smell Chanel.
“Hello, Brooke,” I said, without opening my eyes. “Did you have a nice evening?”
“Actually, I did,” she said. “I went to dinner in Copenhagen with old friends. They sent a car for me. But I came back to the ship fairly early and was sitting on my balcony when I saw you return in the taxi with Chet. You looked rather forlorn, so I thought you might want company. I called your room, but there was no answer. Then I thought that I might just find you here and voilà! Here you are. What’s wrong, my dear? Has something happened, or has it all just gotten to be a bit much for you?”
I looked into the beautiful, wise eyes of my good friend, and I lost it.
All the troubles of the past two weeks came pouring out. Jay, Ruth Shadrach, Al Bostick, Diana, Chet Parker, the carousel, the homeless man, Ortiz, my biological clock, everything.
She didn’t speak until I had finally run down and dabbed my eyes with her monogrammed linen and lace handkerchief.
“You know, Sidney,” she said, “one of the very few advantages of old age, in my view, is that you learn to put a lot of things that once seemed vitally important into perspective. Younger people, yourself included, seem to believe that it is their mission to solve all the world’s difficulties; that the fate of all mankind rests on their shoulders, that everything that happens is their personal responsibility. But the longer you live, my dear, the more you come to realize that you must do what you can, and then leave the rest to fate, or as you would say, to the Almighty.”
She paused to give my arm at little pat.
“There is obviously a great deal going on here,” she went on, “that neither you nor I understand. It may indeed be dangerous for you and for us all, but we must see it through without alarming the rest of the group unduly. Creating panic among the High Steppers would serve no purpose, and it would be terribly cruel. It would spoil everything for them and perhaps put them in even greater danger. You, of course, have an enormous responsibility.”
I sniffed, and she handed me the handkerchief again before continuing. “You must proceed with extreme caution—particularly if you can’t make the tour company see your concern and authorize an early return. There may be a perfectly normal explanation for everything that has happened, though I doubt it. This thing with the homeless man is most disturbing.”
She was silent for a few minutes, then continued, “Yes, dear Sidney, you must be very careful. There is grave danger here. But I think you were quite right not to involve yourself in the police investigation. After all, you couldn’t identify that man. You never knew his name. And it is possible, after all, that you may have been mistaken. The light was poor, you were some distance from the carousel, and you had had an upsetting evening and several glasses of wine.”
“Brooke,” I said, “I’m pretty sure it was the homeless man.”
“Well, it seems very odd to me, dear, that a homeless man could follow you all the way from New York and somehow meet his end on a merry-go-round in Copenhagen. I don’t see how that would be possible. You must have been mistaken. That note may have been from someone else entirely, someone who was afraid to reveal himself in all the commotion at the carousel. The author of the note may even have tired of waiting and left before you arrived. You said yourself that you were delayed by the Murphys and Chet Parker.”
She shrugged. “As for your other concerns, well, Jay will come around, Sidney; he is given to fits of pique, you know that, but he is basically a sound man. And Mr. Ortiz ... well, dear girl, there are many fish in the sea. I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep over the loss of that one. Another will swim along, eventually, you’ll see.”
I thought over what she said, and for a long time neither of us said anything, just watched the sea and the dark sky and the distant lights of passing ships in silence.
Finally I asked, “Brooke, why do you come on these trips? You are a wealthy woman. You can go anywhere, do anything, stay in all the best hotels, go to all the glamour spots. Why are you a High Stepper?”
“My dear, I love being a High Stepper. I have done and still do all of those other things. But I think the High Steppers are a kick. I like them. They are good people, genuine people; they are real. I also enjoy my friends in New York, of course, but I get tired of charity balls and gallery openings and clubs. So many of my dear friends, with their young, young faces on old, old bodies, are so very sad, so very predictable. They care little for the stuff of life. Most of them are far more interested in their appearance and their health and those tiny dogs that they stuff into their purses. Very dull. The High Steppers are funny and very loyal, genuine friends. With them I see more of the world as it is. It’s hard to get a true feel for a foreign country, you know, from the penthouse suite of a five star hotel.”
She looked clearly into my eyes and smiled, as though trying to coax the same from me. “Now come along dear, and let’s go to our rooms. It’s late and we need our beauty sleep! We don’t want bags under our eyes, do we?”
I left Brooke at the door of her suite and, energized by her sensible advice, marched down to my cabin for the confrontation with Jay that I had been dreading all night, prepared to give the apology that I knew I owed him.
But when I unlocked the door, he wasn’t there. Neither were his things.
He had moved out.
16
The yellowish green numbers on my travel alarm clock read 3:06 a.m.
I rolled over on my back, feeling the motion of the ship well underway as it plowed through the Baltic. It was storming again, and when I parted the curtains and looked out, big bolts of lightning illuminated the heavy sea.
Someone hurried past my door, then another and another. I heard high-pitched laughing. Low, sharp commands followed; then I heard even more rapid footsteps. I reached for the light switch and pressed it, but nothing happened. The electricity was off.
I was alone in the cabin. Jay had not returned.
Groping my way across the room, I pulled on my fleece and my gym shorts and slid my feet into flip-flops. Then I quietly unlocked and partially opened the door and peeked out.
The passageway was dark and empty, illuminated only by the emergency lights. No other doors were open.
I spotted Abdul’s white jacket in the dimness, headed toward the stairs, and hurried to catch up with him just before he turned the corner.
“Abdul, what’s with the lights? Why is the power out? What is going on?”
“Not to worry, Miss Marsh. Not to worry. Small electrical problem,
that’s all. Will be back on soon. Everything okay now. Everything fine. Now back to sleep you go, okay? Not to wake old ladies, yes? Everything fine.”
But it was not fine, not fine at all.
The passageway was silent. Whatever had awakened me was gone, and as I reached my door, the corridor lights came back on. The lights in my cabin were working now, too.
Frustrated, I climbed back into bed, my brain in turmoil, searching for the sense of all of this. The more I thought about it all, the more muddled it became.
I tried to read for a while, but the faces of Jay, Ortiz and the High Steppers danced across the pages. Finally I turned off the light and just stared at the ceiling until morning.
* * *
The flower arranging class was in full swing when I entered the Starlight Lounge on Thursday morning. Seated at three long tables by the windows, a group of High Steppers watched intently as the ship’s florist explained how to cut a rose under water to make it last longer in a floral arrangement.
I slipped into an empty chair between Hannah Weiss and Amy Wu.
“Good morning, Miss Marsh,” Hannah stage-whispered. “We missed you at breakfast. You should eat a good breakfast. A young girl like you can stand to put on a few pounds. I had Swedish waffles this morning with cream and strawberries, and Ethel had prunes, of course, but then after that she had ...”
The florist, a very talented but high-strung Asian man from California, stopped speaking, put his hands on his slender hips, and stared at Hannah.
“Oops,” Hannah said, red-faced, “sorry. I’ll be quiet now. I’ll be good, I promise. Keep going. I won’t interrupt again.”
What a jerk, I thought, picking on poor little Hannah. How can he be so mean to a sweet old lady?
The hotshot designer opened another bundle of roses and resumed his demonstration of French hand-tied bouquets. I was no longer interested in anything that guy had to say. I focused instead on my group, studying their faces, trying to piece together the puzzle that this trip had turned into, hoping to get my sadly diminished group back home safely.
Chill out, Sidney, I thought. Brooke is right. There’s really nothing you can do. You can’t freak out over all this, or you’ll go nuts. Relax. If you’re going to find anything out, you’re going to have to stay calm.
The Daily Program listed many activities, as is always the case on days at sea. That means more work for the cruise and kitchen staff but less work for me. On port days, it is just the opposite.
Then the dog and pony show is up to me and Jay.
I planned to chat purposefully all day, all over the ship, to anyone and everyone, gathering whatever scraps of information I could piece together to solve these murders.
Brooke had kindly offered to do the same. I knew I could trust her to be discreet. She had gone to the perfume seminar to talk with the High Steppers there, and after that, she was going to hear what the bridge players had to say.
The florist finished with a flourish, holding a drawing for the arrangements that he had created during his demonstration.
“Oh, my goodness, I won! I don’t believe it! I never win anything!” Ethel Goldstein was thrilled with her Gerber daisies. “I’m taking these back to my cabin and heading straight for the casino! This is my lucky day!”
Maxine Johnson also won. The ladies clustered around her, admiring the lovely bouquet of pink roses, hand-tied with a silk ribbon.
Maxine admired it, too, and then presented it to Hannah with a smile. Esther Levy scurried to her cabin with her vase of bright yellow tulips.
The florist and his assistant began packing up as the catering staff set out coffee, tea, lemonade, and big trays covered with paper lace doilies and heaped with fancy cookies.
There was a thirty minute break between activities. The next class to be held in the room would be a napkin folding demonstration put on by the dining room staff.
After helping myself to coffee and a generous serving of cookies, I joined the girls at a large round table in the corner. They were gossiping about Sylvia and Abe Klein, who had apparently had a huge public spat in the disco after the midnight buffet.
“Abe was really drunk. He jerked Sylvia off the dance floor where she was slow dancing with Pete Murphy, and then he yelled at her and called her a slut,” reported Marjorie Levy.
“Yeah,” said Hannah, stirring her coffee, “and then Murphy told Abe that he didn’t have any right to talk to Sylvia that way, even if she is his wife. Abe tried to swing at Murphy, but Murphy just stepped out of the way. Abe lost his balance and fell right on his keister, and everybody laughed. Then Sylvia started crying and ran out of the room.”
“She wasn’t upset about Abe being mad at her, see,” said Gertrude, barely able to conceal her delight. “Sylvia was upset because Abe said real loud, ‘I paid for those tits that you are shaking at everybody, and I can say anything I want.’ ”
Annoyed with Hannah and Gertrude for butting in on her story, Marjorie again took up the narrative. “Sylvia locked Abe out of their cabin and wouldn’t let him in for anything. Abe beat on the door until the neighbors complained, and the little room steward ran and got the hotel manager and Jay Wilson. They took Abe away with them, and we don’t know what happened after that because nobody’s seen any of them at all this morning.”
“Well,” I said, “where was Mrs. Murphy during all of this?”
“Nobody knows,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes. “She wasn’t in the disco, that’s for sure, because old Pete was dirty dancing then with Sylvia. He was squeezing her ass with both hands!”
“Hannah!” Ethel protested.
“Well, speak of the devil,” Esther said, “here comes Gladys, poor thing. Hush, now, all of you. She’ll hear you.”
“Good morning, Gladys,” trilled Gertrude. “Did you sleep well? Where’s Pete?”
“Pete’s sleeping in,” Gladys answered. “He’s all tired out after his big night at Tivoli Gardens.”
“I thought he might be tired from all that dancing,” Gertrude needled, “Did you and Pete really even go to Tivoli? You weren’t on the bus. How did you get there?”
Gladys’ beefy face turned even redder and she bristled.
I rushed in to make peace.
“Of course they were at Tivoli, Gertrude, I saw them there myself with Dr. Sledge. They must have taken a cab. That’s how I got there.”
To Gladys, I said, “Changing the subject, I meant to ask you about Dr. Sledge. I didn’t realize that you and he were friends.”
Gladys, happy to be off Edith’s hook, pointedly turned to face me, keeping her back to the others. “Well, you see, Miss Marsh,” she stammered, “Dr. Sledge’s brother is, uh, my mother-in-law’s doctor.”
“Really?” I said. “What an amazing coincidence! Did you know our Dr. Sledge before the trip?”
“No, no,” she replied, “we just got to talking one day when we went to get some medicine for our daughter Muriel. Dr. Sledge said that he has a brother who is a doctor, too, in Tallahassee, Florida. I said that my mother-in-law lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with my other daughter, Harriet Finkelstein, and her husband Bill. One thing led to another, and what do you know, we found out that Dr. Sledge’s brother is my mother-in-law’s doctor. Small world, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” Gertrude said, “if Dr. Sledge’s brother really is your mother-in-law’s doctor. It sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”
“Yeah,” said Hannah, “that’s real confusing.”
“Well, he certainly is my mother’s doctor, Gertrude,” Gladys shot back, “and I know that for a fact, because I called Mom from Copenhagen to double-check. She said he sure was, so there!”
Just then the assistant maitre d’ announced that the napkin-folding class would begin in five minutes.
He asked for a volunteer to help pass out the napkins and printed instructions. I rushed to assist to avoid refereeing a fight between Gertrude and Gladys. When I had given everyone their materials, I waved good
bye to the girls and slipped out on deck for some fresh air.
I hated to agree with Gertrude on anything, but the story sounded pretty far-fetched to me, too. There was also the matter of the puzzling argument I had overheard on the path in the park. I had forgotten all about it because of the events that followed. So what was going on with Dr. Sledge and Gladys? What was Dr. Sledge up to?
* * *
Angelo Petrone had just finished skeet-shooting off the aft deck when I found him.
“Nice shot, Angelo. I didn’t know you were a marksman.”
“Not as good as I once was, Sidney, but I try to keep my hand in.”
“Angelo, could I ask you something? Have you got a minute?”
“Sure thing, Sidney. Here, let’s have a seat, out of the wind. What’s on your mind?”
“Angelo, the other night, when you saw Al Bostick with the dancer, where were they? You said in the hallway. Were they near the kitchens?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “They wasn’t nowhere near them kitchens. I passed them on Continental Deck, Sidney, and then they went into his cabin. And that’s the last I seen of him. I don’t know how he got to the kitchens. It seems funny, don’t it? The way it turned out.”
“Yeah, Angelo, it does. It sure does.”
* * *
Dinner that night was formal and I had a terrible time getting dressed because I just didn’t allow myself enough time. I got shampoo in my eyes, turning them blazing red, I goofed up my eye makeup and had to redo it, and I couldn’t find the round brush that made my hair behave. After finally rolling my hair in hot curlers, I grabbed my dress from the closet and discovered that the hem was out. Jerking the curlers out of my hair, I rummaged through a drawer, found some tape, stuck the hem in place, pulled the dress on over my head, and blasted off for the dining room, hoping that the doors weren’t already closed.
The lights in the big room were low, with candles and flowers centering tables overlaid with crisp white linens. The huge crystal chandelier was dimmed. A harpist was playing, and a strolling violinist. Wine was being poured, waiters were circling, taking orders, and the dinner service was about to begin.