by Elaine Viets
“You know a lot about emeralds,” Helen said. No wonder the captain was suspicious.
“I get around.” Andrei flashed his white teeth. “What about you?”
“I live in Fort Lauderdale,” Helen said, ignoring his double entendre.
“I mean, wanna hook up? She doesn’t know how long it takes me to buy Fiji water, and it’s going to be a long, hard night. I could give you something long and hard before we cruise.”
What a sleaze, Helen thought. “Not interested. I have someone.”
“Bet he’s not as good as me.” He thrust his hips forward.
Ew, Helen thought. “I’m busy,” she said.
“Watching a dog pee?” he asked.
“Better than hanging with a hound,” Helen said. She picked up Mitzi and carried her back toward the yacht. Why did Andrei have to look and sound like a classic villain?
It made this job tougher.
CHAPTER 20
Helen’s two-way radio crackled as she was smoothing the duvet in the Paradise stateroom.
“Main salon head needs attention,” Mira said.
“Roger that,” Helen said.
Again? The yacht hadn’t even left port and this was the third time Helen had cleaned that head. Pepper had used it again. Helen recognized her candy pink lipstick on the discarded tissues. The flossy blonde was not a good sailor. She would earn those emeralds.
Helen grabbed her cleaning caddy, slipped on another pair of disposable gloves, bolted through the secret passage and sprinted up the crew mess steps to the on-deck head.
She was greeted by chaos. Pepper must have showered in the marble sink. Water was splashed on the floor, the mirror, even the hand-carved wall sconces. Helen brushed the toilet bowl, wiped the sink and carefully blotted the droplets off the hand-painted wallpaper. Both hand towels were streaked with mascara and lipstick. She replaced them. That made six towels in an hour—for one head. No wonder the crew did laundry eighteen hours a day.
She emptied the wastebasket and wiped the fingerprints off the light switch. Pepper had washed her hands with the Bvlgari soap bar, so Helen opened a fresh one—the third bar so far—and pocketed the damp bar, used once. It smelled heavenly. She hoped she got to use it in the bath she shared with Louise.
She surveyed the room and mentally went through her checklist. She’d missed something. Toilet paper! She folded the tissue into a neat point. Done.
The yacht hummed and rocked slightly. Helen wondered how long before it hit the six-foot waves. On the way back downstairs, Helen caught a glimpse of the port at night. The lights sparkled like jewels and the stars were diamonds on black velvet. The water was smooth and black as obsidian.
She wished Phil were here with her to enjoy the view. Her wistful longing was interrupted by the padded sound of shoes on the thick carpet. Guests! She mustn’t be seen. Helen picked up her caddy and disappeared down the stairs to finish the turndown service for the Paradise stateroom.
Scotty had unpacked his own luggage, and Helen wished he’d let her do it. He’d scattered cigar ashes over the carpet and desk and used a porcelain vase for an ashtray. She hoped the vanilla air freshener would disguise the cigar odor and it wouldn’t seep into the other rooms.
Bimini was next. Scrawny little Ralph Randolph was a big slob. He’d spilled champagne on the built-in dresser. Helen gave Mira a frantic radio call and the head stewardess told her how to fix the damage to the oak finish.
Ralph’s bathroom habits would shame a pig. Helen guessed she should be grateful Mrs. R. seemed neat. Her husband made enough mess for two people.
She wondered if she could get a minute to call her sister. She was worried the blackmailer would call Kathy again and demand more money. Her sister panicked every time he called. Last time she’d insisted Helen fly to St. Louis because Kathy was scared to leave the cash on the Dumpster.
Why shouldn’t she be? Helen told herself. The creep was threatening Kathy’s son—and your nephew. Your sister has every right to be afraid. You got her into this mess.
When Coronado Investigations started, Helen knew the day would come when she’d be stuck on a case when the blackmailer called. That’s why, on her last visit, she’d put Kathy’s name on Helen’s local bank accounts. Now her sister could withdraw money without Helen. But she worried that Kathy would be too afraid to go to the bank if he called.
Helen thought the blackmailer enjoyed Kathy’s fear almost as much as the money. She’ll be crazed when she discovers I’m out of the country. I’ll have to get her through this crisis long-distance.
But maybe the blackmailer hasn’t called. Maybe I’m just borrowing trouble. If I could get two minutes with my phone, I’d know for sure.
She was halfway down the passage to her cabin when her radio sputtered. “Mrs. Crowne has left the on-deck head,” Mira said.
Helen quietly cursed Pepper and her overbearing husband and went up the stairs with her cleaning caddy. Again.
About an hour out of Fort Lauderdale, the rough seas started. Helen kept running through the secret passage and up and down the steps, cleaning, scrubbing, folding toilet paper into points. The guests used so many towels she’d had to replenish the supply in the cabinet. She could feel the yacht bouncing a bit, but she wasn’t sick.
I’m an old sea dog, she thought.
In a weird way, she was grateful for the ceaseless work. She didn’t have time to worry about Kathy.
At eleven o’clock, the men retreated to the sky lounge for scotch and poker. Now Helen had two guest heads to clean and another flight of stairs to climb.
“I’m not feeling so good,” Helen heard Pepper tell Beth and Rosette in the main salon. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
“You do that, dear,” Beth said. “We’ll stay here and talk.”
The salon’s sofas and end tables were securely bolted to the floor. Beth and Rosette, the society woman, seemed unfazed by the rough seas. Beth held Mitzi in her arms while the poodle whimpered. The two women sipped champagne, nibbled on snacks and delicately knifed reputations. Helen rested for a moment at the top of the crew mess stairs and listened.
Rosette waited until Pepper’s footsteps faded down the main staircase, then said, “Really, I don’t know why Scotty bothered marrying her.”
“You don’t?” Beth said, archly. “Her attractions are obvious.”
“We can all see them,” Rosette said. That “all” was etched in acid.
“I think she’s rather sweet,” Beth said. “She’s better than that horror he had before Pepper. What was her name? Belinda? Blanche?”
“Blossom,” Rosette said.
Helen nearly dropped her cleaning caddy. She leaned forward to hear more.
“I think Scotty paid that one by the hour,” Rosette said. “What street corner did he find her on?”
“She was from somewhere in California,” Beth said. “He flew her back on his plane and bragged she’d made him a member of the Mile High Club. Scotty has always had a taste for the demimonde.”
“You don’t have to be so delicate, darling,” Rosette said. “He likes hookers. He told my husband he doesn’t have to romance them—they’re paid to worry about how he feels. He was feeling a bit battered after his last divorce. I don’t care who he sleeps with, but he dragged that one to dinner with us. That was the limit. I pleaded a sick headache.”
“If you’d seen the sleazy rag she wore, you really would have been sick,” Beth said. “I couldn’t escape. You stuck me with her. That was very naughty of you.”
Did Scotty date Arthur’s future wife? Helen wondered. Blossom was her trick name. Maybe lots of hookers used it. She did have outrageous outfits in her closet and an arrest for prostitution. Her clothes and behavior around Helen were impeccable, but Fran the housekeeper insisted Blossom had dressed to meet a man.
“Thank gawd Scotty came to his senses,” Rosette said. “She mentioned getting married on the beach once too often and he finally put her on a plane back to whatever
whorehouse she came from.”
“Not before she stole his watch and who knows how much cash,” Beth said. “Scotty was too embarrassed to report it.”
“I think he got off cheap,” Rosette said.
Helen jumped when she heard Mira clattering through the crew mess. “Helen!” the head stew said. “Why are you lounging on the stairs? Go see if Mrs. Crowne needs anything.”
Helen shot through the secret passage to the Paradise stateroom, where she heard Pepper being violently sick. Then the bed creaked and there were alarming moans.
Helen tapped on the Paradise door. “Mrs. Crowne?”
“What?” Pepper gasped.
“Do you need anything, Mrs. Crowne?” Helen asked. “May I bring you some hot tea? Ginger ale? Dramamine?”
“Nothing works,” Pepper said. “I’ve tried it all.”
“Would you like your bathroom cleaned?”
“No, let me die in peace,” Pepper said, and groaned like something from a newly opened grave. “Wait! Come in. You can get me something.”
Pepper was shivering under the duvet, curled into the fetal position. Her creamy skin had a green tinge and her golden hair was plastered to her damp forehead. “I want a bucket,” she said.
“Like a plastic scrub bucket. I don’t want to keep getting up to barf. I wish I’d never seen that salmon mousse. Oh, God, not again.” Pepper jumped up and streaked toward the stateroom’s head.
Helen gently closed the door, then radioed Mira. “Give her one of the small plastic buckets in the passage,” the head stewardess said. “You’re lucky. Some guests use the wastebaskets.”
By eleven thirty, the wind was stronger. On her trips upstairs, Helen saw whitecaps on the black water. The boat was rocking like the devil’s cradle. Occasionally, she heard a crash as something slid off a shelf. The chef, Suzanne, had packed the galley cabinets with Bubble Wrap and was taping the doors and drawers shut. Mira and Louise were securing dishes and ornaments. The deckhand and second engineer had zipped the canvas covers on the deck furniture. Now they were lashing it to the rails.
Helen felt queasy. She couldn’t walk through the shifting secret passage without barking her shins or hitting her elbow. Slowly, her body got used to the yacht’s movement. First the ship would plunge down—taking her stomach with it—then rock back and forth until the next big wave hit it hard and the process started over.
The wooden blinds swung and banged against the windows, and the waves slapped the boat so loud Helen heard them when she cleaned the sky lounge head on the third deck. The stink of Scotty’s cigar hung in the sky lounge. Her queasy stomach did a backflip and Helen raced downstairs to her cabin. If she was going to get sick, she’d use her cabin head. It didn’t have to be cleaned every time.
Yeah, I’m a real old salt, Helen thought as she worshipped the porcelain. She sat briefly on her bucking bunk. The room spun.
Her radio crackled into life. “Helen, where are you?” Mira asked.
“Sick,” Helen said.
“You’re not allowed to be sick,” Mira said.
“Nobody told my stomach,” Helen said.
“I mean it,” Mira said. “You have to take hot tea, a soft-boiled egg and saltines to Mrs. Crowne. Louise is taking care of Mrs. Randolph. I’m delivering an egg and toast to the missus. Come up to the galley now.”
Helen ran into Louise in the secret passage, almost literally. She plastered herself against the wall while Louise tried to ease by with a tray loaded with gold-rimmed china and Baccarat crystal.
“A soft-boiled egg and ginger ale for Mrs. R.,” the stew said. She was so tiny, she barely came to Helen’s shoulder.
Carrying that tray must be a chore for her, Helen thought.
The ship made a sudden lurch and Helen reached out and caught the Baccarat glass before it tumbled over the side of the tray.
“Thanks,” Louise said. “I can’t afford to lose one hundred fifty bucks if that breaks. I wish I was off this damn yacht. I’m sick of waiting on rich idiots. Oops!” The yacht leaped again and Louise staggered down the passage and through the looking glass.
Later, Helen would remember that conversation.
It was the last time she ever spoke to Louise.
CHAPTER 21
Helen dragged her aching body up the stairs again, pulling herself up by the rail. She tried not to think about carrying a tray of food back down it. She had a job to do. She had a smuggler to catch. Nobody died of seasickness, did they?
At last, she was upstairs. Chef Suzanne presided over a shifting galley, where water sloshed out of steaming pots and sizzled on the Thermador stove top. Helen caught glimpses of other top-of-the-line brand names, including Sub-Zero.
Suzanne, a thin woman with straight dark hair and serious brown eyes, pointed to a napkin-covered tray on the center island. The chef had used thin, gold-rimmed china for the soft-boiled egg, saltines and tea.
“That goes to Mrs. Crowne,” Suzanne said. “The men are asleep—or passed out—in the sky lounge. Mira covered them with blankets and they’re snoring.”
The boat took another downward plunge and Helen grabbed the railing along the counter to stay upright.
“How do I get this downstairs?” Helen asked.
“Walk with your feet wide apart for balance,” Suzanne said. “Keep them spread as wide as your shoulders. Hold on to the tray with one hand and the wall with the other. And be careful. That’s Rosenthal china. Any breakage comes out of your pay. You’ll have to check on your charge every fifteen minutes.”
“She told me to go away once I delivered the bucket,” Helen said.
“You still have to stay awake in case she calls you. Mira left a thermos of coffee in the crew mess. That should keep you awake.”
Helen waited until the yacht was out of the deep swing and into the smaller rocking motions. As she started out of the galley, the yacht took another steep plunge. The china rattled and the gold-rimmed cup slid off the tray and smashed on the floor.
“It’s only a cup,” Suzanne said. “We have lots of those.”
“Where’s a broom?” Helen asked.
“I’ll sweep it up. You get that food to the guest,” Suzanne said.
“How much is it?” Helen asked.
“Eighty dollars,” Suzanne said.
Helen hoped she could put the cost of the broken china on her expense account. She picked up the tray again. After what seemed like hours, she made it down the stairs and through the passage to Pepper’s door. Her muscles ached from the effort to keep her balance.
She knocked, and found Pepper still huddled under the duvet.
“Put it on the nightstand,” Pepper said as she tried to sit up. She was still wearing her pink ruffled outfit, now hopelessly wrinkled.
A small rail around the stand’s edge kept the tray from sliding off. Helen poured Pepper a cup of oolong. She was shocked by the woman’s pasty face. As Pepper sipped the sloshing tea, her color returned.
Helen had braced her legs to keep from falling as the yacht was slammed by another wave. She felt like she was riding a surfboard. The sea seemed to be getting wilder.
“Don’t you get seasick?” Pepper asked.
“A little,” Helen said.
“But you still have to work? That’s awful,” Pepper said. “I wouldn’t do it.”
I wouldn’t marry a rich old man like Scotty, Helen thought, but said nothing.
“Sit down,” Pepper said. “Talk to me. Those ladies upstairs are old and Rosette is mean. When I came out of the john I heard her tell Beth that I dressed like a cocktail waitress. Well, what’s wrong with that? That’s how I met Scotty. I always look nice. Rosette doesn’t bother. She’s just jealous. Don’t you think?”
Pepper didn’t want an answer, just a sympathetic ear. She prattled away as she sipped her tea. About ten minutes into the monologue Pepper said, “I guess my husband is still playing poker, huh?”
“He was. I think he fell asleep in the sky lounge,” Hele
n said.
“Good,” Pepper said. “I can be up and dressed pretty by the time he’s awake. I wanted to fly to Atlantis and meet him at noon tomorrow. That’s what everyone does. But he insisted on going with his buddies on the Earl and dragged me along. Well, he’s going to pay. I’m getting emeralds and diamonds both.”
Helen hoped Pepper planned to stash that jewelry. She suspected Scotty would dump her when she was no longer ornamental.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” Helen said.
“I am,” Pepper said. “The tea helped. Do you know how I met Scotty?”
Helen sat in the stateroom, listening to Pepper drone on. Her radio didn’t erupt into more commands. The boat’s rocking gradually grew more gentle.
She sat up suddenly, wondering where she was. Then she heard Pepper snoring softly. Helen was sitting in Pepper’s stateroom. She’d fallen asleep while Pepper had been talking.
The teacup and the saltine dish were both empty. The teapot was cold. So was the untouched egg. What time was it?
She checked her watch: five forty-three. She wished she could call Phil and tell him what she’d learned about Scotty and his hooker girlfriend. It might be connected to the Zerling case. But she had to report to work at six a.m.
Helen tiptoed out, carefully shutting the door, and opened her cabin. She hoped she could shower without waking Louise.
But Louise’s bunk wasn’t slept in and there was no light on in the bathroom. Poor Louise, Helen thought. She must have had to work all night, too. And she hates this job even more than I do.
Helen showered quickly and changed into her work uniform of shorts and a polo shirt, then climbed the stairs again. In the galley, the lights were blazing. The air was scented with coffee and cinnamon rolls were baking in the oven. Suzanne was slicing a pineapple on a cutting board. The tall woman had her dark hair tied back. This morning, she seemed worried.
“Morning, Helen,” Suzanne said. “Have you seen Louise? She was supposed to help set up and serve breakfast.”
“Not since last night about three o’clock,” Helen said. “She was carrying a tray to Mrs. Randolph and I met her in the passage. Her bunk wasn’t slept in. I thought she was working all night.”