The jewelry box was still missing.
As Geert slipped his master key into the penthouse door, I glanced over my shoulder, checking on the steward. He was five cabins down the hall. When I heard the handle turn, I stepped forward and walked straight into Geert’s back.
He didn’t budge. I was a fly hitting a bull.
“So good to see you both,” he said, speaking to somebody at the door.
My heart thumped. I pressed myself into the wall.
“Were you looking for my son?” the man asked.
“Yaa-aah . . .” Geert was big, not fast.
“He’s not here at the moment.” The elder Sparks, the dad.
“No, no, I wasn’t looking for him.”
I wanted to break into a run. “Yah” then “no”? Geert plundered on.
“You, I was looking for you. Yah. You are expected at the wine tasting.”
“Wine tasting?” Mr. Sparks asked, echoing my own incredulity. “We didn’t sign up for a wine tasting.”
“No need to sign up,” Geert said. “And it is free.”
“Free?” The classics teacher applied the Socratic reasoning. “How could it be free?”
“It is only for our best guests. Our loyal passengers. Who stay on board. Who don’t take the tours. Yes, they are waiting for you downstairs.”
I began inching away, sensing this whole scheme was about to blow wide-open. The search would be over, forever.
“My wife and I are not inclined to drink these days,” he said. “Alcohol interferes with her medications. But that was quite thoughtful. Thank you.”
He closed the door. Geert turned, looking for me. I was already heading for the exit and checking my watch: 10:22. We would dock in Seattle in less than twenty-four hours. And then a killer would walk free.
“I’ve got to get inside that cabin,” I told him.
“Neen.” He shook his head. “What do you Americans say? ‘It is how the cookie crumbles.’”
“No,” I said, “The American saying is, ‘It ain’t over ’til it’s over.’ You’ve got to get me into that cabin, one way or another.”
Chapter Thirty-five
On Deck Three, where I could hear the laundry room’s massive folding machines thwhacking away, a woman named Viola stood in the maid’s changing room and tried to teach me how to knot an apron.
“No bow.” She untied my second attempt. Her brown fingers were dry and chapped from cleaning. Whipping the white tails, she magically produced a Windsor knot.
I offered her the white cap, the last item for the uniform.
“No necesario,” she said.
“Sí necesario.” I handed her bobby pins. “Por favor.”
With a baffled shrug, she placed the cap on my head, then tried to get me to pull back my hair. It hung around my shoulders, draping my face, but I insisted on leaving it. Very necesario. When she had the hat secured, Viola gazed at my appearance and stifled a giggle.
“Gracias,” I said, picking up the vacuum cleaner.
In the hallway, Geert leaned against the riveted steel wall. A granite boulder of hostility, he led me to the service elevator where I slid my mom’s reading glasses on my nose. The world rippled like a waterfall.
I let the glasses drift down, peering over the rims. “Does housekeeping get trained in tying knots?”
The mustache twitched, perhaps from the temptation to say it was a stupid question. But he didn’t say it, because he was probably thinking the same thing. Judy Carpenter’s death required inside help. It was difficult to imagine one passenger, even two, pulling off such a complicated killing, leaving almost no trace behind.
But the head of security said nothing as we rode the staff-only elevator up to Deck Six and walked twenty feet down the Highway to another staff-only elevator. Geert keyed it into service—there were no buttons—and we rode up to Deck Fourteen, nonstop. The elevator smelled faintly of refuse, that sweet soupy scent, and opened at the midway between fore and aft. Geert did not get out.
“Walk to the right,” he ordered, holding the door for my vacuum. “Cross to the passenger elevators. Find the steward. His name is Manuel. He keeps his mouth shut. He tells no one nothing. On this ship he is a lonely man, but he gets the best tips.”
“How much does Manuel know?”
“He knows you are a worthless waitress. We are moving you out of the restaurant.” He ran his blue eyes over my hat. “And you look rejected. Other girls refuse to wear such a ridiculous hat.”
The elevator closed and I pushed the glasses to midbridge, squinting. For once I was grateful my mother was paranoid. She thought half-frame reading glasses were a diabolical conspiracy to keep the world out of focus. Her own reading glasses were enormous, the heavy black frames covering nearly a third of my face. My eyes were watering and a headache was already forming between my brows.
Two doors from the penthouse, the stocky steward was unwrapping bars of soap and stacking them in a column on his cart. The air was floral and alkaline.
I blinked away tears in my eyes. “Manuel?”
“Sí.” He pointed the naked soap bar at an open cabin door. “Vamanos.”
My mother’s glasses made the navy-blue carpet look like a furling flag. I pushed the vacuum like a blind man’s cane into the cabin, which didn’t belong to any of the movie people. Following directions, I started cleaning. Manuel came in twice, told me what I was doing wrong, and as I was shutting off the vacuum, I heard him in the hallway.
He was calling out, “Stew-ward.”
I adjusted my silly cap for the dozenth time, stabbing my scalp again with bobby pins, and rubbed the spot between my brows where the headache pounded.
“Stew-ward,” Manuel repeated, in his broken English.
I stepped into the hallway. The penthouse door swung open. Dropping my head, I stared down at the vacuum, feeling the white hat slide forward.
“Our mirrors are streaked,” Larrah Sparks said. “Are you cleaning them?”
“Sí,” Manuel said. “Sí, I clean.”
“Then clean them better. It looks like I’m standing in the fog.”
Leaving the door open, she sauntered across the large cabin. My head was still down but I stole a glance at Manuel. His deep brown eyes looked at me. We had a common enemy now: Slave Driver Barbie.
I lifted the spray bottle that was hooked to the pocket of my apron. “I’ll clean the mirrors.”
He took several fresh white rags from the cart, handing them to me, and I pushed the vacuum into the penthouse. My chin nearly touched my chest, sending my hair forward to cover my face. I followed the vacuum into the bedroom. Sheets and blankets hung off the king-size mattress, spilling onto the floor. Larrah Sparks faced the closet, her back to me as she grabbed the bottom of her tight shirt and lifted it over her head.
I made it into the bathroom before the shirt was off.
Twice as large as our bathroom down on humble Deck Five, its mirror was five-foot-square above double sinks. It didn’t look streaked. But it was covered with opaque flecks of dried toothpaste, probably from the electric brushes standing in their chargers on the tile counter. I lifted the reading glasses, pushing them up against the cap, and blinked at the impressive collection of cosmetics, creams, and hair tools. Her eyelash curler was plugged into the wall. When I touched the thing, it was warm. Glancing at the door, listening, I picked up the prescription bottles that lined the back of the counter. Ambien, for her. Viagra, for him. Prozac, for both.
“Clean that mirror right or no tip, comprendie?” she called from the bedroom.
I could hear her coming closer. Dropping the glasses to my nose, I rushed to the toilet, spraying it down.
“Did you hear me?” She stood in the bathroom.
I nodded but kept my back to her, meekly wiping down the commode with one of Manuel’s rags. After several moments, the shower came on. I took a furtive glance over my shoulder.
She was stark raving naked, flapping a hand in and out of the s
pray, testing the temperature. I continued wiping down the commode. The air grew moist, hot, and pungent with the ammonia from my spray bottle. I coughed and she started dancing back and forth, kicking up her leg to show off another cute anklet, when I suddenly realized the actress’s motivation.
They were in the business of envy. Here was an actress of superficial talent, taking every opportunity for performance, any chance to parade her ripe physique among those less fortunate. In an industry dependent on covetousness and jealousy, maybe I didn’t need to worry about being recognized. In Larrah Sparks’s mind, the maid wasn’t worth an effort of perception. The maid was a faceless worker bee, existing only to shuttle honey to Slave Driver Barbie.
Perfect.
When she climbed into the shower, pulling the curtain and starting to sing, I walked out of the room. My mother’s glasses were fogged and I let them slip down my nose. Plugging in the vacuum, I peeked into the living area. Manuel squatted in the kitchenette, wiping down the cabinets. Sparks’s parents were gone.
I turned on the vacuum and pushed it over to the bureau. I slid out each drawer, looking through the clothes. Itty-bitty shirts, short-shorts. Two sweaters. His clothes were utilitarian. T-shirts, white socks, khaki shorts. Jeans. His boxer shorts had that Spartan mascot on them, the one on his baseball cap. When the shower cut off, I closed the last drawer and ran the vacuum across the sandstonecolored carpet, lifting the disheveled bedding. A platform bed, nothing could be hidden underneath.
She was still naked when she came out of the bathroom and said, “Finish cleaning in there.”
She never looked at me.
Despite choking on shampoo-scented fog, I closed the door to within an inch of the jamb and shoved the glasses up to my forehead. At the commode, I lifted the back cover, checking the underside. A stretch, but time was short. Nothing was hidden there. Or behind the toilet. I glanced around the room. Wet towels lay on the blue tile floor. I leaned down to pick them up and checked the counter’s underside.
Nada. No box.
Hearing her footsteps again, I dropped the towels and grabbed the spray bottle, pointing it at the misty mirror. But I didn’t spray.
The mirror was shiny in places, clear of fog.
Then I realized it was lettering. Something had been written on the mirror with . . . soap? Shaving cream? But the residue had changed the mirror’s surface cohesion. The simplest sort of physics: The tiny water droplets that make fog stick to glass. But residual “grease” kept the water from beading up. It was the same principle behind waxing a car so that rain slides off.
I leaned forward, trying to read the letters. Two words, it looked like. The first letter curved. Like a C. The next letter had vertical and horizontal bars. T, maybe I. The rest was even less legible and the second word had two clear letters at the end: KS.
“You know this for a fact?” Larrah said, just outside the door.
I pushed the glasses down.
“Yah.”
Geert?
I took a clean rag and wiped around the light switch on the wall, peeking out the door into the bedroom. She wore a little yellow bikini now, like butter pats over her privates, and Geert followed her, gazing around the room. Our eyes met, and one white handlebar twitched. In his hands he carried the black nylon bag used for toting my gun.
She stopped at the closet door, shoving clothes to one side. I heard a series of electronic beeps and then the unmistakable pop of a lock. Larrah stepped back.
I ducked my head back.
“See?” she said. “Ours still works.”
“Yah, good, good,” Geert replied. “Please confirm everything is there.”
I stole another look, wiping down the door frame. She stood with her back to Geert, taking items from the safe. But my side angle offered a clear view. She took out her anklets. A wad of bills.
And blue stones.
“All there,” she said.
I ducked back into the bathroom, heart pounding.
“Such relief,” Geert replied. “But I have brought fresh batteries, just to be careful.”
“You really should do a better job,” she said. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had trouble with these things.”
“Yah. I understand. I am sorry.”
“If something gets stolen because of some screwed up safes, my husband’s not going to book another boat ride with you people.”
“That is why I am here. I will make the problems go away, even before they happen.”
“How about them not happening at all?”
Their voices faded as they moved out of the room. I turned to the counter and dug through the leather shaving kit. Minoxidil hair regrowth, extra bottle of Viagra, spare contact lenses, night-bite guard—Sandy ground his teeth—and with the toothpaste, a plastic bag. The surface was wrinkled and filmed with gunk.
But inside, the moonstone glowed like a white orb. Opening the bag, I held the purple crystal to the light. The edges showed a distinctive red tinge, amethyst, most likely. There were also several translucent white stones—quartz, calcite, perhaps—and some blue crystals that looked like glass. At the very bottom, I found three black stones polished to high shine.
Cut into prisms.
“And I want all new towels, even the ones we didn’t use,” she called from the bedroom.
I shoved the plastic bag into the shaving kit, yanked down my glasses, and picked up the spray bottle.
“And that mirror better be—”
She came around the corner. My hair draped like curtains over my face and she watched as I lacquered the mirror with the ammonia and rubbed the surface clean.
“That’s more like it.” She turned her back to me, walking away.
I wiped the mirror, watching the ghost lettering disappear.
Chapter Thirty-six
In the maids’ changing room, I pulled on my jeans and reclipped the phone to my belt. It was buzzing with unanswered messages.
Three calls from DeMott, all within the last hour. The fourth call was from Jack—a text message warning me that Larrah left the set early.
Yes, thanks.
And a fifth call was area code 703. Quantico, Virginia.
The FBI had moved its mineralogy lab from the downtown DC headquarters to Quantico, adding the geologists to the other forensic technicians already there. The smallest portion of the lab, mineralogy was usually the last in line for everything, from new equipment to new spaces. But we did get a new geologist, a soil scientist named Nettie Labelle. I worked with her in December, when she helped pinpoint some obscure chemical compounds. I found her resolute, precise, adamant—and without one worry about being right. She only cared if her facts were right. That was crucial in a scientist. I pulled on the rest of my clothes and returned her call. It was near noon in Alaska, so almost 4:00 PM in Virginia.
“Labelle, mineralogy.”
“It’s Raleigh.”
“Hey, how’s it going?” She didn’t wait for a reply, as usual. “We don’t keep records for private gems that get stolen.”
“I know that.”
“I know you know,” Nettie said. “But your message wasn’t clear and I had to conclude that you wanted me to check the NCIC records.”
“I’m sorry, that’s what I meant. It’s been a chaotic morning.” The federal database for crime information, The National Crime Information Center, linked to state records. “See if anything pops up for California. In particular Hollywood or LA.”
“Will do. And if you go online, you’ll find the records for stolen gems are linked to the mineral descriptions. Dipyramidal Wulfenite, there’s the picture.”
“When did this happen?”
“Just something I’ve been working on.”
I closed the locker. “How many minerals did you link up?”
“About six thousand. Why are you laughing?”
Because I remembered those days, when the microscope, some geology, and a crime to solve meant a perfect day. Back in my early twentie
s, back before death hunkered down to teach me about life. “Do you happen to know anything about benitoite?”
“That’s why you’re asking about California?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Benitoite is California’s state gem.”
I waited a moment. I’d never even heard of benitoite. “How do you know that?”
“Don’t feel bad,” she said, sounding superior. “It is sort of obscure.”
“Nettie?”
“Okay, I memorized all the state gems. In alphabetical order. Alaska is jade. Arizona is turquoise, Arkansas is diamond, California is benitoite. You want me to go on?”
I opened the door. A group of women came in, all speaking Spanish, but they fell silent when they saw me. The hallway was crowded with more employees coming on and going off, some noon shift change. “Hang on,” I told Nettie, walking down to the elevators. Standing in a quiet alcove, I described the powerful florescence and the black prism.
“Blue could be benitoite,” she said. “Black? No.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s bugging you, isn’t it? Me knowing and you not?”
“Nettie, just tell me.”
“Nope. You’re a geologist, find out for yourself. Can you get to a computer?”
“Not a secure one.” The ship had Internet access, but I had avoided it for security reasons.
“Doesn’t need to be secure. Check the UCal records for benitoite. You won’t regret it.”
I sighed. There was no arguing with the woman. “But you’re checking the NCIC for stolen benitoite, right?”
“If you’d let me get off the phone,” she said, hanging up.
I was still holding my cell phone when the elevators opened to the medical clinic. I was trying to decide why DeMott would call three times in an hour. Maybe something happened. Maybe Madame, my mom’s dog, was hurt.
The phone rang at Weyanoke. And rang. Then rang some more. As I listened, growing more concerned, I also got more annoyed with DeMott. He refused to carry a cell phone and his antiquated attitude was another reminder of how life played out on that plantation, the days and nights scarcely changed since Robert E. Lee danced the Virginia reel in the ballroom. By the twelfth ring, when I was feeling that old Weyanoke suffocation—they didn’t even want an answering machine—his sister MacKenna picked up.
The Mountains Bow Down Page 29