Cooks, Crooks and Cruises

by A. R. Winters

  I crossed the stage, and hopped down the other side. Cece landed just a second after me.

  “It’s creepy when there’s no people here.” I saw Cece suppress a shudder of her own, and I could see goosebumps on her forearms.

  “Look,” I said while pointing under the stage.

  Cece was already nodding in understanding. From the back, the stage was completely open. If you crouched down, you could easily slip under the stage and have a perfect hiding place. It was also incredibly obvious. Anyone who truly wanted to hide to gain entry to the demonstration would surely have thought of it.

  “Come on,” said Cece, dropping to her knees, and beginning to crawl under the stage.

  That hadn’t been part of my plan. There wasn’t actually any need to go under a dusty old stage, was there?

  Still, it couldn’t hurt to be sure. I fell onto all fours, and crawled after Cece. When she was under approximately the middle of the stage, she turned around and shifted into a sitting position, leaning back against some of the metal scaffolding that held everything in place.

  “Now this is a good hiding place, isn’t it?” I said to Cece.

  “Oh yeah. Not bad at all. And if you look up, you can see between the cracks in the floor of the stage.”

  I put my arms behind me, and leaned back. Sure enough, you could see up through the cracks. Although it wouldn’t be an ideal view of the cooking demonstration, for someone who was more interested in the chef himself than in his dishes, it would provide a great way to get up and close to him.

  “Doesn’t this remind you of being back in high school?”

  “No.” I cocked my head at her. Where did she go to high school? A coal mine?

  “What? Are you saying you never snuck a boy under the stage during a show, while everyone was staring right above you, and—”

  “No!” My cheeks were flushing already. I couldn’t imagine doing such a thing. Cece and I had obviously had very different experiences in high school.

  “Man, you missed out,” said Cece, shaking her head and eyes closed as she reminisced.

  While I was sure her high school years were fascinating—if not scandalous—they weren’t the topic at hand. We were supposed to be investigating a murder.

  “So we’re agreed, down here would have been a much better place for her to hide. She probably could have snuck out when the show had begun and watched from behind, too. Meredith’s eyes would have been fixed on the crowd.”

  Cece opened her eyes again, looking up through the cracks.

  “If she’d hidden down here, she could have caught his greasy beads of sweat as they fell,” Cece arched her eyebrows at me and stuck out her tongue.

  I shuddered at the thought and glared at her.

  “I don’t think sweat can be greasy.”

  “Sure it can. If it rolls over freshly oiled skin.”

  “And why would Vince put oil on his skin?”

  Cece shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask Meredith. I saw her spraying his face before he went on stage one time. I think she likes the shininess. It makes him look youthful on the camera or something.”

  “Yuck!”

  Cece shrugged. “It’s just part of his image, I guess.”

  Part of his image or not, I wasn’t pleased that Cece had now put the idea of greasy sweat into my head.

  “Anyway,” I said, shaking my head to try and get the imagery out, “I guess we know that her excuse about there not being anywhere to hide is a load of old hogwash.”

  Cece dropped her chin and arched her eyebrows at me.

  “Hogwash? Are you from the 1930s?”

  I glared at her. Hogwash described it perfectly as far as I was concerned.

  “Oh, no.” A wicked grin spread on Cece’s face. “Not the thirties. You’re from a farm. Did you wash hogs on the farm?” She tilted her head and gave me a quizzical look. She managed to hold it for about two seconds before she fell back laughing at her own unfunny joke.

  I poked her again. “Quit it.”

  “Okay, okay.” Cece pushed herself up straight again. “So what does the fact that she didn’t hide down here tell us?”

  “Either she’s lying or…”

  “Or? What’s the or?”

  “Good question.” I frowned in thought. “Maybe she’s stupid?”

  Cece started giggling. “Yep. That could be it. That’s my explanation for most of the annoying crud that people do. They’re idiots.”

  I grinned right back at her, but felt a guilty twinge doing it. My grandma had always told me to think the best of other people. I guessed Cece’s grandma had told her that everyone else was an idiot. I suspected the truth lay somewhere in between the two philosophies.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Cece half-nodded, but the corners of her mouth started to twitch up. Uh-oh, I thought.

  “Or we could give you something to tell Meredith about…”

  She winked at me and started crawling toward me. I crawled out faster.

  It was time to talk to Olivia again.

  Chapter 25

  I dropped Cece off back at her cleaning cart, where she quickly snapped back on her pink rubber gloves and adjusted her apron so that it was straight. She peered down at it, and then brushed her hands over it to remove a cobweb it had picked up after our crawl under the stage. We promised to meet up for dinner with Sam later.

  I hadn’t told her that I planned to talk to Olivia right away, as no doubt she would have wanted to join. I didn’t want to jeopardize her job as well as my own with what could be an explosive confrontation.

  I began to search the ship, starting with where I’d found Olivia sunbathing previously, and making my way through the outside areas first. Olivia’s skin matched her name in its coloring, and I knew that if Vince didn’t have any events on, then she would be outside, working on the perfect tan.

  After a brief and cheerful chat with Minnie in her coffee shop where I posted a few more pictures to social media, I continued my search.

  I was pleased to find Olivia in a very public place.

  She had a sun lounger right up against the edge of the Lagoon Pool, lying back in a bikini, shiny skin freshly oiled with a delicious-smelling tan enhancer. The bottle was sitting beside her, and according to the text on the side, it promised to use the power of coconuts to make pale skin coconut brown.

  Next to the bottle of tanning oil was the Vince DeLuca scrapbook she’d been keeping. It looked even bulkier than the previous time I’d seen it, and I wondered what new ‘items of interest’ she had come across to stick inside.

  Olivia had a small towel over her eyes, to protect them from the sun. Strange choice. Most people would use sunglasses…

  It was a busy day out at the Lagoon Pool, as the sun was shining brightly, but it wasn’t overwhelmingly hot. It was the perfect temperature to lounge around, sip a cocktail, and really let yourself unwind.

  Unless you were a child, of course. There was a group of kids a few yards away from Olivia engaging in a (much noisier) reenactment of the battle of Gettysburg using only pool noodles for weapons.

  Olivia, however, did not seem to be overly bothered by their screams as they mortally wounded each other again and again and again.

  Before talking to her, I took a panoramic shot of the pool area, applying a filter that gave everything an orangey glow. A Perfect Day, I typed out on my phone as a caption, before sending the image out into the world.

  It wasn’t very original. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite of original. But most people didn’t care about that. They preferred platitudes and clichés over clever philosophical insights. Then again, so would I, if I were on vacation.

  I sauntered over to Olivia, as if I didn’t have a care in the world and running into her was just a happy coincidence.

  “Oh, hi!”

  Olivia didn’t stir. Perhaps she was asleep.

  I got closer to her, and sat down on the sun bed next to her. Sti
ll no movement.

  Frowning, I decided I had to be subtle about this. It would seem strange to deliberately wake her up for a mindless chat, wouldn’t it?

  The sun loungers were the plastic kind, that could either be tilted up to a sitting position, or laid out flat. Olivia’s was currently laid out flat. The one I was sitting on was propped up as high as it could go. Perfect.

  I reached around behind me and felt for the plastic props that held it in the vertical position. I pulled them out, and then let the whole top section of the sun lounger crash down into its frame to lay flat. It landed with a loud clattering BANG. I may have given it an extra shove on its way down.

  Olivia shot up, the towel falling from her eyes, and her head turning toward me.

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I can never get these things to work right.”

  Olivia frowned, shook her head like a dog waking itself up, and then gave a kind of smile in greeting. It wasn’t a proper smile, more the kind of half-smile, half-grimace of recognition you give when you’re disturbed by someone you don’t particularly want to see, but you need to pretend to be polite.

  “Olivia! It’s you!”

  She nodded at me in agreement. It was indeed her.

  “Is Vince here?” She turned her head around, looking for signs of him. I looked over my shoulder too, as if he might actually be there.

  “Not right now.” I smiled at her. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” Olivia put a hand in front of her mouth to cover a yawn. “You should try and work in your tan.” She nodded her head toward me.

  I glanced down at my forearms and shrugged.

  “Oh, I’d love to. But all my time off is in the evenings,” I sighed dramatically, as if I had the hardest job in the world.

  Olivia gave me a sympathetic look. “Hey, why were you using a towel to cover your eyes?” I was trying to be subtle in my approach. I don’t think I exactly managed it though.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had those awesome sunglasses. The cooking ones. The ones with spatulas for arms. That was you, right?”

  Olivia frowned back at me. “Did I?” She tilted her head as if in thought.

  I managed to control my face to stop showing my amazement at such a blatant lie. There was no way she, or anyone, would forget about owning such an unusual pair of sunglasses. Right?

  “You did. They were awesome. But I guess you lost them, right?”

  Olivia nodded hesitantly. “I’m always losing things. Speaking of which, have you seen my phone? I must have left it in my room.”

  You’re not getting away with it that easily! No. My trap is set and now I’m going to slam it shut!

  “Look at this.” I pulled out my own phone, and began to open up the photo album and scroll through it.

  “That’s not my phone.”

  “I know. It’s mine. Hold on, I want to show you something.”

  “What?” Olivia had been propping herself up with her arms, but now she twisted around, planted her feet onto the deck, and leaned forward in my direction.

  “Here it is. Look.” I pushed the phone in front of her face.

  “That does look like my sunglasses.” Olivia nodded uncertainly.

  “Do you know where I found them?”

  “I don’t know, but I’d appreciate them back. Can I have them?”

  “Oh, I don’t have them,” I said with a smile.

  She just arched her eyebrows at me, and leaned forward even more.

  As she came closer, I caught the scent of coconut tanning oil, and inadvertently licked my lips. I loved coconut. It reminded me of the Thai curry I had eaten once after Sam and I had gone on a road trip to the big city. Well, Omaha anyway.

  Focus, Adrienne, focus!

  “Actually, I don’t have them. They were found at the scene of the murder.”

  Olivia’s cheeks flushed. “Then why were you asking if I knew where they were? Were you trying to set some kind of stupid trap for me?”

  It wasn’t a stupid trap; it was a great one. One that had actually worked.

  “I was just curious as to whether you knew you had left them.”

  Olivia gave me a look of exasperation.

  “I didn’t tell you I knew where they were, because, quite frankly, I didn’t really want to talk to you.” She locked her eyes with mine in a glare. “You’re boring and weird. I know the sunglasses were found there, and the first officer knows exactly why. We’ve already talked about it. Now why don’t you go and play Miss Marple somewhere else, you silly old bat?”

  My eyebrows shot up. Old? I wasn’t old. I wasn’t even thirty yet! I stood up, genuinely angry. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so insulted.

  “Yes. I know all about that. And I know about your little lie you told him as well!”

  Olivia’s jaw locked, and she gritted her teeth together. She slapped her palms flat down beside her on the sunbed, and pushed herself angrily to her feet. “I beg your pardon?”

  It suddenly occurred to me that Olivia was a paying customer on this cruise, and part of my job was to be polite to them. But there was no backing out now.

  “You told the first officer that you were looking for a hiding place, but there weren’t any, didn’t you? That wasn’t true, was it?”

  “No! You’ve got it all wrong. I tried to hide under the table and I must have lost my glasses. I realized I couldn’t hide there—I’d get caught—so I went back to my cabin. Got it?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. There were plenty of places to hide. Under the stage being one of them. You hid under the table in the dark, waiting for Hannah so that you could kill her. Right? How did you lure her there?”

  “That is outrageous! Hannah was perfectly healthy when I left!”

  We both paused. A brief moment of silence marred only by the nearby screams of battling children. She had slipped up and we both knew it.

  “So Hannah was there when you left.”

  I stared at Olivia, deep into her wild brown eyes. There was something wrong with her, but she wasn’t completely crazy. My gaze shifted down, onto the Vince DeLuca scrapbook lying by the sun lounger. I cocked my head at her.

  I had an idea. A slightly preposterous one, but it might help make her confess.

  “You didn’t kill Hannah. But you know who did.”

  Olivia started shaking her head back and forth at me, and I could see from the quiver in her shoulders that she was trembling. In anger? In shock? In fear? A mixture of all three?

  And then it hit me.

  “You’re protecting Vince!”

  Olivia reached out and snatched at me, grabbing my shoulders. “No! You have to believe me! Vince didn’t kill Hannah. They just had a fight. When he left, she was alive.”

  “So he was there too? It’s turning into quite a party. Now why would they have been fighting?”

  “Hannah was…”

  She paused, seemingly unable to go on.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Was what?”

  Olivia was glaring daggers at me. I’d caught her in at least one lie and now we were getting to the truth. Or some of the truth, at least.

  “She said she was Vince’s daughter. That’s what she believed. She wanted Vince to acknowledge her, but he refused. He said Meredith would kill the both of them.”

  “Hannah? Vince’s daughter?”

  Olivia nodded again. “I couldn’t believe it either. Vince said it wouldn’t be good for either of them if it came out. But she said she didn’t care. She wanted to be publicly acknowledged as his daughter.”

  “And then did he…”

  I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t ask whether he had killed his own daughter. It was just too horrible to contemplate.

  “No! No, no, no. I told you. He didn’t hurt her. He just turned away and left her.”

  It only took me a couple of seconds to come to another conclusion. One just as shocking. But it made perfect sense.

  “You ki
lled Hannah to protect Vince’s reputation! He didn’t want to acknowledge her, so you made sure he wouldn’t have to!”

  I quickly shrugged her hands off my shoulders, swatting them away. I couldn’t have a killer’s hands on me. I ran my eyes over her again, checking for weapons.

  Luckily, she was only wearing a bikini, so I couldn’t be surprised by a knife—or worse.

  “No,” she said coldly. “I didn’t do that.”

  I couldn’t handle this anymore.

  I needed to tell Ethan and get her put under lock and key. Out at sea, there was nowhere she could escape to. I couldn’t tackle her on my own without causing a massive furor so I decided to do the only thing I could: tell Ethan and get him and his security team to arrest her.

  The best thing for me to do right then was exit the situation as quickly as I could. I stepped backward, and then turned away and started briskly walking away from her.

  A shiver of excitement ran down my body me.

  This would work out great. I’d found the killer, and it would be me that saved Meredith from her wrongful incarceration. She’d have to give me that job after that!

  I had a hundred different thoughts going through my head as I planned the next few minutes, hours, and months ahead.

  But I hadn’t expected Olivia to be so brazen, so bold, or quite so crazy.

  When she hit me, it was at a full-tilt run, her shoulder slamming into my waist and sending me flying through the air.

  One minute, I was thinking about how to spin this whole story for the benefit of Vince and Meredith, and the next — Thump. Whoosh. I was sailing through the air, over the water of the pool, but not for long.

  Splash!

  Immediately I was underwater, head submerged, with Olivia on top, driving me toward the bottom of the pool.

  I’d found my murderer.

  But...

  Was this it?

  Chapter 26

  I tried to hold my breath as best I could as the weight of the infuriated Olivia drove me right to the bottom of the Lagoon Pool.

  It wasn’t very deep and we quickly crashed into the bottom.