The Body on the Lido Deck

by Jane Bennett Munro

  “Really?” said another voice. “Which ship was it?”

  I kept quiet. I didn’t want to become the one trying to answer all these questions, I wanted to learn something. I sincerely hoped Hal would keep quiet too.

  I needn’t have worried. Hal and his fellow grinders were much too busy keeping up with the captain’s commands as we kept changing direction, and the boom whooshed over my head time and time again.

  “It was our ship,” I heard a lady say, “the North Star.” She sounded American, specifically Brooklynese, and loud, and when I glanced her way, I recognized her as someone who had sat with us at dinner a few nights before.

  All eyes turned in her direction. I turned my head away, hoping she wouldn’t recognize me and try to draw me into the conversation. She knew I was a pathologist from our dinner conversation, and she had all the earmarks of an inveterate rumormonger. At dinner she’d kept pointing people out and telling us who they were and what they did, as well as what she suspected them of doing: A plastic surgeon who analyzed the facial features of everyone seated at their table and told them what he could do to make them look better. “If he has to do that to get patients,” she’d said huffily, “he can’t be a very good doctor.” A lawyer who talked incessantly about all the personal damage cases he’d won. “An ambulance chaser,” she’d sneered. A man whose wife suffered from chronic seasickness who took the opportunity to flirt with every single lady on the cruise, as well as several married ones. “Oh, I could tell you about all the cabins he’s been seen sneaking into in the middle of the night,” she’d said in a tone that suggested she knew more than she was saying—and loudly enough for the whole dining room to hear.

  Heaven only knew what she’d told other people about me.

  “I heard,” Mrs. Rumormonger went on, “that it was one of those ladies of the evening, if you know what I mean.”

  “Well, what happened to her?” another voice asked impatiently.

  “She fell through the roof of the Lido deck and landed in the pool,” Mrs. Rumormonger said.

  “That sounds more like an accident to me,” said a third voice.

  “I think it was supposed to look like one,” Mrs. Rumormonger said importantly, clearly relishing her role of raconteur. “But they say that someone strangled her first and then threw her body in the pool.”

  I wondered who “they” were.

  “I ‘eard,” said a man sitting right behind me, “as she fell onto the deck, not in the pool, and cracked her ’ead open.”

  “Oh my God,” said a young lady with a more upper-crust British accent. “How simply ghastly.”

  “Do they ’ave any idea ’oo done it?” asked the man behind me.

  “Well,” Mrs. Rumormonger said, “what I hear is that the captain had her in his cabin right up until his wife came on board at Bridgetown. Then he had to get rid of her so his wife wouldn’t find out.”

  A collective gasp ensued.

  “I say,” a male voice said right in my ear, startling me and causing me to look up. “How about a bit of refreshment, what?”

  I passed him a couple of Cokes, and it was at this point that Mrs. Rumormonger recognized me. “I’ll bet she knows,” she trumpeted, pointing at me. “She’s a doctor. She does autopsies.”

  Predictably, someone said, “Eeeuw.” I looked around for the offender and saw that everyone was looking at me.

  “Don’t look at me,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just a passenger. I don’t know any more than anybody else.”

  “You must know something,” Mrs. Rumormonger insisted. “Isn’t that Scotland Yard man your father?”

  “They’ve called in Scotland Yard?” Coke man asked.

  To avoid having to answer questions, I decided to go on the offensive. “Who told you that she was strangled and thrown through the roof?” I demanded, looking Mrs. Rumormonger straight in the eye. “And who told you that the captain did it?”

  A mousy little lady sitting next to Mrs. Rumormonger spoke up. “I told you, Myra, you should be more careful what you say.”

  Mrs. Rumormonger sighed. “Ruthie, I know what I’m talking about.”

  “So who told you the captain did it?” I repeated.

  She dropped her gaze and looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know exactly, but everybody’s saying it,” she said.

  “Do you have any idea how much damage this story will do to the captain?” I asked. “Particularly if it’s not true?”

  “Then ’e’d better watch ’is p’s and q’s,” said the man behind me, “if ’e knows wot’s good for ’im.”

  “He is rather a bit of a flirt,” said Miss Upper-Crust. “I should know.”

  “And you know this how?” Coke man asked.

  She tossed her head. “How do you think? He was all over me the other night when Mummy and I dined at his table.”

  “He was probably just being polite,” I said.

  “Polite, my arse,” Miss Upper-Crust said rudely. “I’ll have you know that he invited me to his cabin for a nightcap. And I’m not the only one.”

  “Did he invite your mother too?” I asked.

  She sniffed. “Don’t be silly.”

  “Did you go?” I persisted.

  She tossed her head again. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “If the captain had the victim with him in his cabin for the whole cruise up until Barbados, what’s he doing inviting another lady there for a nightcap?”

  Miss Upper-Crust flushed and dropped her gaze.

  “That strikes me as an exceedingly stupid thing to do,” I went on, “and the captain’s not stupid. He wouldn’t be a captain if he was. So if he was in the habit of inviting young female passengers to his cabin, he couldn’t have had the victim staying there with him, could he?”

  “Wotcher gettin’ at, Doc?” asked the man behind me.

  “I’m just saying,” I said, “that if this lady’s story is true, then this girl is lying. And vice versa. You can’t have it both ways.”

  At this point everybody started talking at once, and I shut up. My work here was done. I’d gotten people talking without telling them a thing. I just hoped the race would end before they started peppering me with questions again.

  Hal was exhausted. “Remind me not to volunteer to be a grinder next time we do this,” he commented as we walked back to the shops in our dripping clothes. It was a lot warmer than it had been earlier, and the sun was out, so we took off our jackets. By the time we’d been through the shops and bought our souvenirs and gifts (and bungee cords), we were dry.

  The North Star had docked at the very end of the pier, and now a line of cruise ships flanked the pier on both sides, creating a dark sunless tunnel through which we had to walk. Jessica, the cruise director, was waiting at the gangway when we arrived back at the ship. She was busy greeting all the other passengers as they reboarded, so I asked her if I could talk to her later, and we made a date to meet for a drink in the Ocean Lounge, which wouldn’t be busy until after dinner when the dance band got started. Until then, everybody would be around the pools on the Lido and Nav decks.

  We both took showers to wash off the saltwater residue, and Hal took some ibuprofen and a nap while I went to meet Jessica in the lounge.

  She was waiting for me at the bar with something tall and pink in front of her. She greeted me, and the bartender came right over to take my order. I ordered a martini. When it came, I suggested that we sit somewhere else, and we sat at a table at the opposite end of the room from the bar. “Why all the secrecy?” she wanted to know.

  I got right to the point. “Do you know who makes the arrangements for the performers in the show?”

  “We have an entertainment staff,” she said, “and I’m in charge of it. We have special performers that come aboard along the way, and the arrangement
s for that are made in advance by someone from the shipping line.”

  “What happens if a performer fails to show up?”

  “We have a contingency plan for that,” she said. “We have some skits and production numbers that we can substitute for our headline performers, but we’ve never had to use them as long as I’ve been here. Why d’you ask?”

  “Do you hear about it if someone who performs on this ship fails to show up at the next ship?”

  “Usually,” she said. “These things get around. Why are you asking all these questions, Mrs. Shapiro?”

  “Toni, please. Had you heard that someone got killed on board this ship yesterday?”

  She laughed shortly. “How could I help it? Everybody is talking about it. I’ve heard everything from being pushed overboard to being bashed on the head and thrown in the swimming pool. If you’re trying to get the real story, you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t know any more than anybody else.”

  “Have you heard who it was?”

  She shook her head. “Nobody seems to know. If they do, they’re not talking. Except that Mrs. Levine. She thinks she knows everything.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Levine?” I asked, although I had a feeling I knew.

  “She’s that elderly lady that’s traveling with her sister,” Jessica said. “They’re from Miami. She’s the one who does all the talking. Her sister never says a word.”

  That fit. I recalled that Mrs. Rumormonger, or Mrs. Levine, had been accompanied at our table by another rather mousy elderly lady who talked very little. She was the same one who had reproved her sister on the yacht for talking too much.

  I leaned forward. “The captain warned me that the circumstances would be ‘quite dire,’ to use his words, if I were to talk about it; but I need to know if the reason she was killed had anything to do with her being a performer who goes from ship to ship.”

  Jessica was not stupid. I could practically hear her brain clicking as she did the math. Her blue eyes grew wide, and she put both hands to her mouth. “Not Leonie. Please tell me it wasn’t Leonie.”

  “You knew her,” I said.

  Jessica’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ve known Leonie all my life. She was my best friend.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “How did you know? Did someone tell you?”

  “I saw her,” I said, omitting the gory details. “I took a picture of the earring she was wearing, and my mother identified it. She saw the show and still had the program.”

  “She didn’t suffer, did she?” Jessica begged tearfully. “Please tell me she didn’t suffer.”

  “She didn’t,” I said, hoping I was right and that she’d at least been unconscious when she was crushed. “I’m sure she never knew a thing.”

  Jessica wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “Who are you really?” she asked. “You’re not just Mrs. Toni Shapiro from Idaho. How do you know all this?”

  “How did you know I was from Idaho?” I countered.

  “You and your husband are the only ones from Idaho on board,” she said. “Also the only Shapiros. As cruise director, I have to practically memorize the passenger list. People like it when you know their names.”

  “You memorized twelve hundred names? I’m impressed.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded me.

  I grinned. “You’re right. I’m not just a nice lady from Idaho. I’m a pathologist from Idaho. Toni Day, MD, is my professional name. I just happened to be up on the Lido deck when they opened the roof and discovered her body. I was there when the police arrived. I was there all day. I never got to go ashore at all.” I didn’t mention Leonie’s head falling into the pool, or her body going splat on the deck. I didn’t think Jessica needed to know that little detail.

  Jessica gasped. “Her body was in the roof? You mean when they closed the roof they …” She put her hands over her mouth and couldn’t go on.

  I nodded wordlessly.

  She swallowed hard. “Was it an accident, or was she …”

  “Yes,” I said as gently as I could. “In my opinion, she was murdered. She had a depressed skull fracture. She bled into her brain. That’s what killed her. Not the roof.”

  She exhaled. “Thank God for that. So that’s how you know she didn’t suffer?”

  “That’s right.”

  Her eyes filled with tears again. “But who would kill Leonie? And why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I said. “That’s why I’m talking to you.”

  She frowned. “But why would I kill my best friend?”

  “I’m not accusing you,” I said. “But you knew Leonie. You can tell me about her. Maybe you know something that will give us a clue to her murder.”

  “You know what’s weird? Leonie’s mum was a cruise director too.”

  “Is that why you became one?”

  “Not really. Mostly it was because of what Leonie was doing. She works … worked for this show company that provides entertainment for cruise ships. They really liked the way she sang. She had a beautiful voice.”

  “So in a way, you two were working together.”

  “Right, at least we did when we were both entertainers.”

  “Oh, you were an entertainer too?” I asked in surprise.

  “Certainly. Most cruise directors are former entertainers, or former waiters, or former something elses.”

  “So were you a singer too?”

  “Yes, but nothing like Leonie. I was just one of the ‘doo-wop girls,’ as you Yanks say.”

  “Did you see each other often after you became a cruise director?”

  “At least once a cruise. We always had some time to talk and catch up on things.”

  “That must have been nice,” I said. “Tell me, did either of you ever get involved with any of the crew on these cruises?”

  “Oh, no, we weren’t supposed to. The cruise line has a policy that crew can’t fraternize with passengers or entertainers.”

  “What happens if someone violates that policy?”

  “They get fired.”

  “Do you know of anyone who ever did that?”

  She looked away from me. “Only one.”

  She stopped. I waited. Finally she spoke. “Leonie’s mum had an affair with an officer once.”

  “When was that?”

  “Twenty-five years ago.”

  “Did she get fired?”

  “No. She got killed.”

  8

  The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where got’st thou that goose look?

  —Shakespeare, Macbeth

  “THE SHIP WAS about to dock in Southampton when they found her,” Jessica went on. “They called in Scotland Yard but never found out what really happened.”

  Oh my God. “Jessica,” I said firmly. “You have got to talk to my stepfather. Have you got time now?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Yes, but why?”

  “You’ll see. Come on, let’s go.”

  I took her up to the Nav deck and tapped at their cabin door. Nigel answered it, saw us, and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. “Fiona’s still asleep,” he whispered. Then he saw Jessica. “And who’s this lovely young lady? Aren’t you our cruise director?”

  “Yes, this is Jessica, and she needs to talk to you,” I whispered. “We need to find somewhere we can’t be overheard.”

  “We may as well go back to the Ocean Lounge,” Jessica whispered. “There’s nobody there this early.”

  So we did, and there still wasn’t anybody else there. The bartender came over and took our drink orders. I ordered another martini. I’d barely touched the first one, and the bartender had taken it away when we left.

  “Okay,” I said to Jessica when he’d left us alone, “te
ll Nigel what you told me about Leonie and her mom.”

  Nigel glanced sharply at me, but I merely tipped my head toward Jessica. “Leonie Montague was her best friend.”

  Jessica’s eyes filled with tears again, and Nigel patted her hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said gently. “Toni and I are trying to find out who killed her, since it’s unlikely that either the cruise line or the Barbados police will even try. Nobody wants jurisdiction over a shipboard murder. Even Scotland Yard won’t interfere unless asked.”

  So Jessica wiped her eyes and told Nigel the whole story.

  “What was Leonie’s mother’s name?” Nigel asked.

  “Evelyn Hodges,” Jessica said. “Evie for short.”

  “So Leonie’s name really isn’t Montague?” I asked.

  “It isn’t even Leonie,” Jessica said. “It’s Margaret. When we were kids in school, she was Maggie Hodges.”

  “I’m surprised that Evie would work as a cruise director when she had a four-year-old child at home,” I said.

  “She didn’t,” Jessica said, “until Maggie was old enough for preschool. After that she figured her parents could manage while she was gone.”

  “What about Maggie’s father?” Nigel asked. “Where was he?”

  “I don’t know,” Jessica said. “Evie wouldn’t talk about it. Everybody just assumed he left her when he found out she was pregnant, like so many men do.”

  “So how long after that did she get killed?”

  “On that very first cruise after she went back to work,” Jessica said and started crying again.

  “Oh no,” I said. Poor Maggie. I felt like crying myself. “So did her parents manage all right after that?”

  “They did, thanks to my mum,” Jessica said. “Mags spent a lot of time at our house while we were growing up.”

  “No wonder you two were close,” I said.

  “Again, I’m sorry for your loss,” Nigel said. “As it happens, I was the Scotland Yard detective inspector in charge of that case. The captain asked for our assistance. We were able to determine that Miss Hodges was murdered, and it was made to look like she died from falling down a flight of stairs. But the autopsy showed the real cause of death.”