Decked

by Carol Higgins Clark

  “Is it possible she made a mistake and put something in the paste herself?” Regan asked.

  “Most people don’t store arsenic on the pantry shelf,” Livingston observed. “Very odd, this whole business. I’ll get any news clippings faxed to you straightaway and certainly hope they are helpful in jogging your memory.”

  Regan hung up. Hurriedly she filled Luke and Nora in on what had happened to Penelope, then said, “I’ve got to get back. Gabby Gavin is bringing Veronica up to the suite, and the boat drill starts in fifteen minutes.”

  As she darted out the door, Nora called after her, “Regan, I’m worried. Athena’s body was found near the Exner estate and this Penelope woman was poisoned there. For God’s sake, be careful!”

  “TIGHTEN THOSE BUTTOCKS. And hold. And one and two and three. Now release and two and three. And squeeze and two and hard, harder and release . . .”

  Gavin looked around. These people could sit here from now till Doomsday squeezing their buns but they still won’t end up in great shape. Sit-and-Be-Fit. What a joke. It was like telling a couch potato he was building up his muscles by pushing the remote control with one hand and lifting a Twinkie to his mouth with the other. But from the looks on the faces of all the oldsters surrounding Gavin, it was obvious they thought something worthwhile was going on. Maybe it was all that squeezing.

  Forty-five minutes later the young muscle man instructor yelled “Thank youuuuu, alllll,” as he clapped his hands enthusiastically. “See you tomorrow and watch out for all that fattening food they serve all day long. And have fun! Go out and get some of that sea air!”

  “I will. I will,” Veronica cried out. “But first we must all prepare for the boat drill.” That proclamation having fallen on the ears of her fellow exercisers, who shook their heads in agreement and muttered “Oh yess, um hmmm, that’s right,” Veronica jumped to her feet. “Gavin, I’ll race you back to the suite.” In a shot she was off.

  Gavin hoisted his not overweight yet not fit body out of the chair and ran after her. Veronica’s course followed a zigzag path as her body veered starboard and then port and then back to starboard, through the maze of corridors and staircases, in tune with the creaking and leaning of the ship. Just as she was reaching the door he caught her arm. “Lady Exner, I have a tough time keeping up with you.” He forced a laugh. This woman is going to put me in my grave, he thought. Either that or drive me crazy.

  “Exercise releases endorphins which gives one a sense of well-being and energy which begets energy. It’s just like the smashing feeling of being in love that eating chocolate can recreate. Which reminds me. I’ve got a Mars bar which I’ll split with you.” She smiled up at him.

  Maybe my ex-wife Clovis wasn’t so bad after all, Gavin thought.

  As they entered the suite Gavin’s heart started to pound even harder. Maybe I’ll have a chance to nab the bracelet, he thought. It was only Tuesday but if the opportunity presented itself . . .

  “Excuse me, but as they say at sea, I must use the head,” Veronica blushed. Tittering, she shut the bathroom door.

  Gavin stood there, not believing his own luck. He looked around and spotted the small stool in front of the vanity in the bedroom area. This was his chance. That jump suit Lady Exner was wearing would probably take a few minutes to peel off and a couple more to yank back on.

  He hurried over, grabbed the stool with both hands and dashed up the steps to the closet. Ha! It was natural for him to get the life preservers out for her. They were within easy reach but he knew he’d shoved the bracelet so far back on the top shelf he’d have to stand on something to get it. Which of course would look fishy even to a dingbat like Lady Exner.

  Opening the closet door, he was once again subject to the mean stare of the orange water wings. I never should have thrown the bracelet on that top shelf, he thought angrily. He pulled the stool in closer and, carefully balancing himself, placed both feet on the cushion usually reserved for wealthy rumps. Grabbing the doorframe, he pulled himself up at the same moment the sound of the toilet flushing announced Lady Exner’s imminent return. He reached up and fumbled for the bracelet when the toilet whooshed again and he heard Regan Reilly’s voice outside the door, chatting with the steward, as she placed her key in the lock. Not close enough to locate his hidden treasure, he jumped back down and frantically shut the door, ran over to the couch with the stool, dropped it, and stretched his left leg out on top.

  “Regan, you are just in time. Mr. Gray is here to give us personal instructions for the boat drill. He is so kind.” As Veronica walked up to the living room she added, “Oh dear, is there something wrong with your leg?”

  “I guess all the squeezing got to me. I seem to have aggravated an old hamstring injury I sustained when I was water skiing out in the Hamptons at a big celebrity party. I’ll be fine.”

  Regan wondered if this was a first. She couldn’t imagine there were too many people besides Gabby Gavin who could walk away from a Sit-and-Be-Fit class in pain. “We may as well get suited up,” Regan said brightly. “Let’s get out those life jackets.”

  CAMERON HARDWICK WAS not pleased to see that Gavin Gray was at the same lifeboat station where he was assigned. Hardwick deliberately stayed at the edge of the group, bored with the nervous giggling of his fellow passengers as they tightened the straps on each other’s life jackets and told stories of people they knew who were on a ship that had to be evacuated. Some idiot started singing “Nearer My God to Thee” in honor of the Titanic but finally shut up after a withering glance from the officer in charge who droned on about emergency procedures.

  Gray was standing near the officer and Hardwick had a good chance to study him. His eyes narrowed as he realized Gray was flushed and a nervous tic was jumping under his eye. Something’s really gotten to him, Hardwick thought and wondered what it could be. This morning, Hardwick had observed Lady Exner and Regan Reilly in the breakfast area from across the deck, and from a distance had followed them to the lounge. When it became clear that Gavin Gray was going to stick with Exner for the exercise class, he’d left. Now, as he continued to study Gray’s distracted, tense face, his curiosity turned to annoyance. He knew what Gray was. One of those professional escorts ships hire to dance with the old hens. But that job certainly didn’t include Gray’s swinging his butt around in an exercise class. What was his big interest in Exner, and was he going to be another problem? Cameron decided it was time to get his hands on a key to Exner’s suite, and to the empty one across the hall. Quietly he slipped away from the lifeboat station and into the lounge. As he had hoped, it was deserted. Careful to be sure he wasn’t being observed, he made his way to the stairs and up to the top deck. The silence when he reached it convinced him that the on-duty steward was at the drill. Hardwick walked noiselessly to the small room that served as the steward’s station just down the hall and around the bend from Lady Exner’s suite. The door was unlocked. He slipped in, his eyes darting from desk to chair to file cabinet to the wall panel that would light up for room service.

  Cameron went through the desk drawers. They were a somewhat untidy jumble of lists and regulations, paper clips and pens, crumbs and candy. The bottom drawer held a pint of Jack Daniels. Cameron lifted his eyebrows. A steward who imbibed on duty was probably pretty careless. Hopefully it’s the night steward who likes to drink.

  He went to the file cabinet. As he had hoped, it was unlocked. There were only about a dozen files but in the last one he found what he was seeking. A key ring with three spare keys for the two suites. He helped himself to one of each of them.

  As he left the steward’s station he heard the whir of the elevator. The staircase was at the end of the long corridor. He would not have time to get to it without being seen. With giant strides he ran to the door of the unoccupied suite and let himself in. He was just closing it when he heard Lady Exner’s high-pitched voice telling Regan Reilly how perfectly thrilling the drill had been.

  Hardwick leaned against the door and l
et out a silent whistle. If Reilly had seen him up here, alarms would have gone off in her head. He’d taken a chance but feeling the keys in his hand made it worthwhile.

  The draperies were drawn but it was possible to discern the layout of the suite. Carefully he studied it. It undoubtedly was a mirror image of the one where Exner and Reilly were staying. There was no place to hide. The only hope he had of getting to them would be to let himself into their suite in the middle of the night and use the surprise factor. It wouldn’t be hard to take care of the old lady. It was Reilly who might be a problem.

  He studied the sofa. It was obviously a convertible. This would be where Reilly slept in the other suite. Even though she might be awake and hear him come in, with the element of surprise he could crack her head before she had time to call out or reach for the phone. From the sofa he ran back down to the foyer. Eight seconds. That was all the time he needed.

  There was one problem. If blood spattered on either bed, no one would believe that the two women had disappeared because Reilly was trying to keep Exner from falling off the terrace.

  A pillow. Over their faces. No trace that way. In the duskiness of the quiet penthouse Cameron Hardwick smiled. The slow-acting knockout drops that had served him so well at casinos would be useful again. They took a couple of hours to take effect completely. It wouldn’t be that hard to slip them in Exner’s drink at dinner, or else he’d manage to join her and Reilly for a nightcap in one of the lounges. It would be too much to drug them both. Reilly would get suspicious if they both started fading at once.

  He had four nights to make it happen but the last night, Friday, would be the safest. In the confusion of docking early Saturday morning, they wouldn’t be missed immediately.

  The plan would work. He’d make sure it did. And next week he’d collect the two hundred thousand dollars that was just waiting for him in the safe deposit box.

  Hardwick put his ear against the outside door of the suite and listened. He heard a faint buzzing sound, then the steward’s voice. “Flowers for you, Lady Exner.”

  Hardwick opened the door a crack. As the steward’s back disappeared into the opposite suite, he hurried down the corridor to the stairs and back to the anonymity of the public rooms.

  OXFORD

  AT HEADQUARTERS IN Oxford, Superintendent Livingston had been very glad to hear from Regan Reilly so soon. After he said good-bye to her, he hung up the phone, swirled his chair around so that it faced the window and leaned back, his favorite position when he was thinking. He approved of Regan’s suggestion to obtain copies of the coverage of the death of Athena Popolous from her hometown newspapers. The Popolous family lawyer had made arrangements to have the body returned to Greece. Apparently the parents were in seclusion. Even though it had been more than ten years since they had seen their daughter, they had still always clung to the hope that one day she would return.

  His review of the old file as well as his conversations with the lawyer made it obvious to him that the Popolous family was both affluent and influential. Undoubtedly the discovery of the missing girl’s body would be major news in Athens and would receive extensive media coverage. Pushing back the irritation that acquiring the newspapers hadn’t occurred to him first, Livingston again reached for the phone. When he left his office fifteen minutes later, it was with the assurance that copies of papers reporting the Popolous case could be translated and faxed to him and to Regan Reilly on the Queen Guinevere.

  His first stop was a five-minute drive away, to the bedside of Penelope Atwater in Royal Oxford Hospital. He braced himself for the rather nasty sight of Penelope, as he had seen her last night, her face ashen, her lips cracked and dry, intravenous tubes attached to her roly-poly arms, a hospital shirt perilously close to revealing the unthinkable, all of this enveloped in a stinky haze that left no doubt as to the abominable condition of her innards.

  After depositing his Renault in the carpark, Livingston gulped in a precious few breaths of fresh air, then resolutely pushed through the revolving door into the nearly empty lobby. The janitor mopping the tile floor was using a dark green cleaning solution that never failed to make Nigel’s eyes itch and little bumps appear on his already razor-burned neck. He hurried to the clerk in charge of visitors’ passes, who was wearing a red-and-white-striped uniform and a badge which proclaimed that to date she had volunteered ten thousand hours to Royal Oxford Hospital.

  This is your life, Livingston thought as he asked for and received a pass to visit the ailing Penelope. Scratching his neck, he rushed to the lift. If I’d sat in that lobby for ten thousand hours, I’d have turned into a life-sized hive, he thought.

  Penelope Atwater was in room 210. If possible, Livingston decided, she looked worse today than she had last evening. As he drew up a chair to the bed, he felt genuinely remorseful that he had to question her. When she breathed in his direction he also felt sorry for himself. He waited patiently as in response to his inquiry about how she felt, she flooded him with precise and unwanted information. “But,” she croaked, “at least I’m alive, which is more than I can say for my sweet old roommate.”

  Livingston glanced at the stripped bed under the window. “I’d assumed she’d been discharged.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Penelope belched. “Oh, beg your pardon.”

  “Hmmm, yes, of course.” Livingston turned to the business at hand. “Miss Atwater, I do hate to trouble you, but you seem so absolutely sure there was no possibility that you might have mistakenly included arsenic as an ingredient in your hors d’oeuvres.”

  “I call them my tasty pasties,” she quavered.

  “Quite so. Now if my notes are correct, you took the remaining ... er ... tasty pasties up to your room. That would suggest that since they all came from the same batch, if they had been completely eaten by the guests on either Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon, someone else would have gotten ill. The fact that only you became ill after bringing the leftovers to your room is rather odd.”

  Livingston pulled out his notebook and flipped the pages rapidly. “You did not feel particularly well Saturday night but recovered enough to enjoy more tasty pasties on Sunday afternoon as well as a normal dinner.”

  “Oh yes.” Atwater’s eyes brightened. “For Sunday dinner, after you and the young ladies left, Lady Exner and Val and Philip and I enjoyed some bangers and mash. You see, Saturday night I had really just a touch of normal distress which accompanies a delicate constitution. Sunday night was entirely different. It wasn’t until I went up to my room and treated myself to the last of the tasty pasties on my bedside table that I became violently ill.”

  Livingston looked up sharply. “I understood that you brought the remaining tasty pasties up with you when you retired Sunday evening. Are you saying that you had left them in your room earlier?”

  Penelope looked guilty. “You see, they go over so well and I was afraid the girls would eat them all up, so, when I excused myself for a moment, I slipped six or seven of them in a napkin and took them to my room.”

  “So they were in your room for anyone to see most of the afternoon and evening?”

  Finally Penelope seemed to understand the drift of the questioning. Her eyes widened. Her mouth formed a circle. Her chubby hands clasped the hospital shirt. “You mean someone might have sprinkled arsenic on them while they were in my room? But who? And why?”

  Livingston stood up. He patted her shoulder. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

  As he left the hospital grounds Livingston made a quick decision. A right turn would have started him toward Llewellyn Hall. A left turn led to the main street of Oxford and the Kings Arms Pub. He chose the latter, deciding that a quick sandwich and a cup of tea would be very welcome before he met Philip Whitcomb, his fiancee, Val Twyler, and the maid for further questioning. Philip had assured him that they would be at the Hall all day.

  It was still early for lunch and the pub was nearly empty. Livingston ordered a cheese-and-tomato sandwich and
a pot of tea. The waiter had just served him when the front door opened and he heard his name being called. Claire James hurried to his table.

  “Hi there, Inspectah. What a surprise to see you here. Oh, you’re havin’ just what I was fixin’ to order. May I join you?” She did not quite wait for his nod of assent as she slipped into the seat opposite him.

  Livingston had been hoping for a quiet lunch with a chance to think, but on the other hand, he decided, this young woman had been here at college with Athena Popo-lous, and a chance to talk with her one-on-one just might prove to be fruitful. He certainly could use even a glimmer of new information, and besides, he admitted to himself, Claire James was very attractive in her spandex bicycling outfit.

  As she signaled for the waiter, Claire explained that she was staying in Oxford for an extra couple of days after the reunion. “It gets kind of borin’ after everybody else is gone, but my fiance is meetin’ me here tomorrow and then we’re headin’ up to Scotland. I just love to travel.”

  The waiter arrived. “I’ll have just what this handsome man here is havin’,” she said, smiling coyly at Livingston. That settled, Claire leaned forward, her attitude became conspiratorial, her voice dropped to a near whisper. “Have you discovered yet who strangled poor old Athena?”

  Livingston tried not to sound annoyed. ’ The investigation is continuing.”

  “Well, I just bet the trail is mighty cold after ten years. Who knows, her killer could be dead by now.” Claire widened her eyes, seeming to enjoy the possibility.

  Livingston took a savage bite of the sandwich he had wanted to savor.

  “And I heard about poor Penelope. When I saw her stuff all those crackers in a napkin, I just knew she was going to get sick.”

  Livingston’s eyes narrowed. “You saw her?”