by Diane Noble
At first glance, nothing seemed amiss. Then I saw what Zoë had seen in the moonlight.
A body floated facedown in the pool.
Before we had taken a half dozen hurried steps toward the pool, two crew members raced from the bridge, shouted, and plunged into the pool. In the same instant the captain slammed through a doorway on the far side of the pool. The first mate followed on his heels, the hotel manager was next, then Ricki and her husband, Gregory. Trailing after the others was Dr. Baptiste. A few steps behind him came the white-bearded Dean Williams himself. They all huddled together, speaking in hushed voices, their faces white in the moonlight. I hurried toward the group, Zoë on my heels.
She whispered, “Who is it? Surely it can’t be—”
I spun around, glowering. “Don’t even think it. And certainly don’t say what you’re thinking.” It wasn’t Carly; it couldn’t be. My trickle of fear was swelling to a torrent in response to the girl’s apprehension.
I moved closer to Ricki. “Who is it? Do they know?”
Ricki turned to me, glanced at Zoë who was sniffling loudly, then shifted her gaze back to mine. She shook her head. “The captain has radioed for instructions from headquarters in Nassau. I heard him say that deaths onboard ship can be a nightmare. He needs to find out who has jurisdiction. Nassau will want to play it down for obvious reasons.”
“Bad publicity?”
She nodded. “He may just want to wash his hands of the whole thing—act like it never happened.”
“Shouldn’t the Costa Rican authorities be involved?”
“Depends on whether we’re within territorial waters. And then there’s Canada, who’s in charge of the day-to-day operations of this ship.” She shrugged. “It gets messy.”
I knew the United States traditionally claimed twenty-four nautical miles from its shores as territorial waters and that the UN had sponsored the Law of the Sea Treaty, which gave all sea-bordering nations territorial waters of twelve nautical miles. But I had no clue how fast we had been traveling when we left Parisima or whether our heading had kept us within Costa Rican territorial waters. I had also discovered in my research that although Global Sea Adventures was a Canadian company, its fleet of ships—including the Sun Spirit—was registered in Nassau, the location of its headquarters. But I had no idea as to the jurisdiction involved here.
The ship’s running lights were on now, and I watched the men trying to pull the body from the pool. As they lifted the body to the surface, I could see that the figure was slight, wearing clothing appropriate for either gender—khaki bermuda shorts, tank top, Velcro sandals. In the dark, the hair—short and of an indistinguishable color—could also have been that of a man or a woman. I tried to remember what Carly had been wearing when I last saw her, but nothing came to me.
Two men knelt beside the body and began CPR, their backs to us. I still couldn’t make out the identity of the victim. A man I recognized as the ship’s doctor hurried toward the group and knelt beside the others.
I commanded my fears to hush their ugly voices and turned to Ricki. “We were on our way to your cabin to ask about Carly Lowe—find out if she’s safely back onboard. I was with your husband’s group this afternoon. I saw her briefly when we got to town, then I lost track of her. I assumed she was with your group.”
Ricki frowned and shook her head. “She had signed up to be with me, but she disappeared by the time we got to the rain forest.” She paused. “That’s not unusual when we have college students along. Many like to seek out their own adventures. We treat them like the adults they’re supposed to be. I’ve made it clear they’re responsible for getting themselves back onboard before we sail.”
So she doesn’t count noses. I didn’t bother to hide my irritation.
Her husband, obviously eavesdropping, stepped up. “If she missed the ship, she’ll catch us by the time we get to the spa this afternoon. Kids these days are resourceful. I wouldn’t be too worried.” He paused. “You’ve heard about canal travel on the coast?”
I nodded. Gutsy, brainy Carly. More resourceful than most, my head said. My heart didn’t agree.
“We’ve done these spring-break cruises more than once. Believe me, when kids miss the ship, they take to the Canal de Tortuguero. Taxi skiffs travel between villages several times a day. She’ll probably get to Playa Negra before we do.” He shrugged. “Though there’s also the possibility she’s onboard, just busy elsewhere, if you know what I mean.”
I did, and I didn’t like the implication.
I focused my attention on the men still laboring over the body by the pool. After a few more minutes, they stood and backed away. We now had a clear view of the body.
The body was ashen and a substance, dark and bloody, trickled from the man’s lips and pooled on the deck below his head. I turned away, feeling sick.
“I think it’s Harry Easton,” Gregory said. Frowning, he swept the palm of his hand into his receding hairline. “He’s from San Francisco. Nice guy.”
I vaguely remembered seeing him around mostly hanging out with the students. The first day out, I had assumed he was one of the professors. “Did he have anyone with him? A wife?”
Gregory shook his head. “I talked with him a few times, but he didn’t ever seem to relax. Pretty uptight. Made me wonder if he was here on doctor’s orders or something. You know, maybe a forced vacation.”
The attention of the captain and crew was fixed on something the doctor was saying. I sidled closer, listening intently. Zoë, sniffling, started to follow me. I held up my hand and gave her a stern shake of the head. She backed away.
The doctor’s voice droned quietly. I’ve been blessed with sharp hearing, which, I must admit, is disconcerting to people who think they need to shout at anyone over sixty. Even from several yards away, I could hear every intonation as he spoke, even the click of the doctor’s ill-fitting teeth. Dr. Mortimer-Beldon is older than I am by a pinch. Or two.
We’d had breakfast together the first morning out, and he told me he had the greatest job ever for a widower: a free cruise anywhere in the world in exchange for treating a few passengers suffering from bee stings and seasickness. He’d also waggled his eyebrows and asked if we might take a moonlight stroll together sometime. I’d stared at him, gaping, too dumbfounded to utter a word. He finally winked, squeezed my hand, and said he’d be in touch later. He’d obviously misunderstood and thought I was tongue-tied because of his unexpected—and “welcome”—attention. I’d steered clear since.
“I suspect he had a heart attack,” he was saying to the captain. “The man was out of shape, short of breath the last couple of days. He hadn’t been feeling well, and I recommended he get more exercise. I’d say he was probably down here for a late-night swim, fell in before he got his clothes off, became disoriented. The fear got him. And likely, the strenuous activity just getting out of the pool got the old ticker out of rhythm.” He tapped his chest. “Sadly, it took him before he could call for help.”
“The blood,” I said, stepping forward. “What about the blood?” I glanced at the body and felt my stomach quiver.
Dr. Mortimer-Beldon gave me a faux smile—half arrogant, half pleased to play the role of the expert. “Likely caused from a burst blood vessel in his esophagus. Maybe from the stress of trying to reach the side of the pool while dealing with the chest pain. Might have been from, uh”—he glanced at the crew members who had administered CPR—“overzealous efforts to revive him.”
Dr. Baptiste stood off to one side, silently, ever the gentleman. He didn’t overstep the bounds of professional courtesy and offer his expert opinion, either to agree or disagree.
A jewel-like flicker near the body caught my eye. I slipped around the huddle of crew and passengers who were still firing questions at the doctor. I was about to suggest an autopsy be performed but stopped before the first word left my mouth. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Not yet. First I wanted to take a closer look at the strange yet famil
iar object by the victim’s right hand.
I ignored my arthritic knees and stooped beside the body.
I felt someone watching me and looked up to meet Ricki’s curious gaze. I motioned her over. A moment later she knelt opposite me. “You seem to recognize this,” she said.
“My late husband was a butterfly hobbyist. He didn’t collect them; thought it was too cruel to kill such magnificent creatures and stick pins through them. But he had books scattered around the house on the delicate little creatures.”
“Have you seen one of these before?”
“It’s a blue morpho.” I tried to remember other characteristics beyond the unique color and size. Nothing came to me. I always figured that only so much information could be packed into my brain. Not much room left for trivia.
Ricki reached for the dead insect and, with the practiced movements of a trained naturalist, cradled it in her hand. “This is a beautiful specimen, nearly perfect.” Carefully, she stretched one giant wing outward.
The glittering lights above us caught the iridescent, almost electric blue of the nine-inch wingspan. The wing dazzled and shimmered, its lacy edges trembling in the sea breeze. Unexpectedly, tears welled in my eyes, and not just for the butterfly. “Such a magnificent creature shouldn’t die,” I said. “Not here, like this.” I paused. “How could it have traveled so far over water?”
She gave me the butterfly, and I held it, wondering how it happened to be at the side of the pool where Harry Easton died.
“It may not be as far from home as you think. This one might be an escapee from the preserve. This rare species of morpho is raised there, mostly because of its unique beauty. And its unusual size. The rain forests boast dozens of similar species—eighty altogether.”
As Ricki rejoined the huddled group of whispering passengers, I returned the insect to the place where it had died. I stared at it for a moment, something important nagging at the edges of my mind. I couldn’t fathom what it was. After a moment I stood and stretched the kink from my back. Surrounding the ship was the ink-black sea. Dead center was a body, a magnet for sleepy-looking passengers, who stood about, speaking in hushed tones.
Interspersed were clusters of students, some yawning, others looking wide-eyed and worried.
Carly wasn’t among them.
Knowing the crew had bigger things to deal with than a passenger we weren’t sure was missing, we headed back to our staterooms.
“I knew Mr. Easton,” Zoë said as we climbed the metal stairs.
“You knew him? How?”
“He’d been talking with me and some of the others.”
My antennae went up. “About what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just friendly stuff about school. He said he has daughters in high school. They’re not sure about where to go to college. He wanted to know all about Shepparton. That’s all.”
The antennae retracted. She went up ahead of me, trudging as if the weight of the universe rested on her shoulders.
“He was really cool about the whole fast-track spring-break thing. Wanted to know what else kids do when they’re onboard and what clubs they hit when they’re in port—that sort of thing.”
I sighed as my antennae shot up again. “Why would he want to know something like that?”
“He called it research for his girls. Places to let them go—or not go.” She wiped her nose with her shirt-sleeve.
We reached her stateroom door, and she halted in front of it. “It’s so sad,” she said. “I mean, what will his daughters say when they find out about their d-d-dad?” She pulled off her glasses and buried her face in her hands.
After a moment I gave her a hug. “Maybe we can find out their address. You can tell them how highly their dad spoke of them.” I hesitated. “I’ll talk to the captain in the morning. For now, young lady, you need to first check to see if Carly’s back, then get some sleep.”
I waited impatiently while she sniffled, wiped her glasses on the hem of her T-shirt, and gave me a watery smile. Finally, she unlocked her door.
“Thanks, Mrs. MacIver,” she said. “This has been a terrible night. One of the worst I can ever remember.” She looked inside, called Carly’s name, and turned back with a shrug.
“She still may be in someone else’s cabin,” I said and told myself to believe it.
She gave me a pitiful look and closed the door.
A flash of something in her face reminded me of the Sarah Bernhardt impression my Janie would adopt for dramatic effect when she was a teen. My daughter always did love drama, and no matter how mousy Zoë seemed, I was beginning to suspect that she did too.
On the way back to my stateroom, I turned my thoughts to Harry Easton. Nothing I had heard about him added up. No matter what Dr. Mortimer-Beldon said, Harry didn’t look out of shape. And from the questions Zoë said he had asked the students onboard, I doubted the story about his daughters.
I changed direction midstep and headed back to the pool area for another look around. Hollis always said I worried too much over niggling, unimportant details, like a dog worries a bone.
Maybe I was doing it again. All I knew was that I couldn’t help myself. It was the tiny, unimportant detail of the out-of-place butterfly that nagged at me.
I just didn’t know why.
By the time I arrived at the pool, the body had been removed, I assumed to Dr. Mortimer-Beldon’s clinic. I didn’t want to consider what happened to people when they died onboard a ship this small. The only refrigeration system big enough for a body was in the kitchen. Now that was a tidbit of trivia I could use to liven up my article. I wondered if anyone planned to tell the chef before he arrived to fire up the grills and pour water and pancake mix into the industrial-sized KitchenAid.
The trip to the Sub-Zero for sausages was going to catch his attention, to say the least.
I imagined his expression, then tried out a few headlines, finally settling on “Frozen Find near the Flounder.” It didn’t help that I was scheduled to tour the kitchen and observe the chef in action in the morning. I only hoped he discovered the body before I stepped foot inside his domain.
The ship’s running lights had been turned off, but moonlight still flooded the deck, so I could easily make out details around me. I stooped near where the body had lain. Poolside lounges and chairs were in scattered disarray, hiding whatever might be underneath them. Frowning, I went down on my knees and peered under the deck furniture.
Harry Easton had been too young to keel over from a heart attack, no matter what the ship’s doctor had said. I went through a mental list of other reasons he might have been asking about the students’ hangouts. Drugs? After all, we were in Central America. That wasn’t so far-fetched. Maybe he was a trafficker checking out new sources for transport. What better way than a group of unsuspecting kids on a fast-track, spring-break cruise?
Though I hadn’t the slightest evidence this was true, I grew angry as I felt my way around the deck. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. A syringe maybe, or dust particles from some sort of powder. Even if Easton hadn’t been involved in such a trade, it infuriated me to think that thousands more were.
My anger toward the hapless man finally spent by my overactive imagination, I stood up and brushed off my hands. Besides, who did I think I was—Miss Marple? I turned around. Harry Easton probably died from a heart attack just like Doc said.
“Out for an early morning stroll, Mrs. MacIver?” A low voice rumbled from the shadows.
Startled, I squinted into the darkness. My fantasies about some sort of drug deal gone bad made me want to run in the opposite direction. But I stood my ground, knees shaking, and told my heart to slow its off-kilter rhythm.
“I’m sorry.” The voice moved closer. “Did I frighten you?”
Finally I could make out the shadowy figure as it moved toward me. “Not at all,” I lied. I shaded my eyes against the moon and blinked. “Who is it?”
“Adam Hartsfield.”
&n
bsp; Adam. I breathed easier. We had spoken a time or two in passing, but I was surprised he remembered my name. I guessed him to be in his sixties. He was handsome in a craggy, lean, Clint Eastwood kind of way. As I watched him walk, I noticed a limp—something I hadn’t observed before. Perhaps it was a recent occurrence caused by a nighttime skirmish with a man who ended up dead? I was chilled by the thought and tried to put it out of my mind.
“A lot of excitement tonight.” He stared down at the pool.
“Yes. I was out here earlier.”
“So was I, but the captain seemed to have everything under control.”
“Heart attack, they say.” I waited for a reaction, but the man seemed to have about as much emotion in his face as a dead barracuda.
“That’s what they say.” He sauntered closer to the pool, kicked back a couple of plastic chairs with his sandaled foot, squinted into the water, and shrugged.
“The man’s name is Easton,” I said. “Harry Easton. From San Francisco, I hear.”
Adam glanced up quickly as if about to say something, perhaps to correct me, then seemed to change his mind. “I’m certain the captain will make all the proper phone calls, notify all those who need notifying.”
Cold.
“Harry Easton was someone’s son, perhaps someone’s brother or father, or spouse. He didn’t die in a vacuum.” I swallowed hard, remembering the “notification” that had been delivered to me. How it had altered my life. Unexpected tears filled my eyes. Without another word, I turned away from Adam and headed back to my stateroom.
At the top of the metal stairs, I turned to see if he was still standing by the pool. But he had disappeared as silently as he had arrived.
I slept fitfully the rest of the night and woke at dawn, my head throbbing from too little sleep. I pulled out my miniature coffee maker, added water, and waited for it to boil while Gus laced around my ankles. The coffee’s deep fragrance calmed me as I scooped it into the top section of the pour-through receptacle. I knew from experience that this headache would require at least three strong cups before I would be ready to meet the world.