The Body on the Lido Deck

by Jane Bennett Munro

  Hodges sagged. “Bloody hell.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said gently.

  “No one left to mourn the poor girl but me,” he said sadly. “So it was Maggie who was crushed in the roof.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the murder you’re trying to solve.”

  “Yes, among others.”

  “What others?”

  “Well, Joe Gerard for one, and Mrs. Levine…”

  “Who is Mrs. Levine?”

  “A passenger who liked to hear herself talk.”

  “Who was killed to shut her up, I’ll wager.”

  “Undoubtedly. And also Meacham.”

  Hodges looked up, startled. “Meacham?”

  “Yes. We just found him in the cooler in the infirmary.”

  “Blimey,” Hodges said. “We were all wondering where he’d gotten to. Haven’t seen him for days. Has he been in that cooler all this time?”

  “No, because Mrs. Levine was in it up until San Juan. She was taken ashore there and flown home with her sister.”

  “Has he been dead all that time?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe. I couldn’t tell.”

  Rob stirred irritably. “What’s taking so long?”

  “What’s your hurry?” Hodges inquired. “Do you have an appointment or something?”

  Rob subsided.

  A series of beeps announced the arrival of Captain Sloane and Officer Grant. “Hodges? Dr. Day? Is everything all right?” the captain asked.

  “The lady claims that the doctor attacked her,” Hodges said. “We saw it on the security cameras in the infirmary.”

  “What happened, Dr. Day?” Officer Grant asked.

  I told him. “And that reminds me; where were all those security guards you promised? Did you leave Hal and Nigel hanging out to dry too?”

  Grant didn’t have a chance to answer that, because Captain Sloane suddenly noticed the bruise on my jaw. “Did Dr.Welch do that?”

  “Yes, he did,” I told him. “Are you going to tell me I need to see a doctor, because that’s not even remotely funny.”

  The captain hid a smile. “No, I wasn’t going to suggest that.”

  “I offered to give her an ice pack,” Rob said, “but she refused.”

  “That’s not what I refused,” I said. “I refused to go back to the infirmary with him.”

  “Dr. Welch, please fetch Dr. Day an ice pack,” Captain Sloane said.

  “You’re going to just let him go after what he did?” I asked in amazement.

  “Certainly. He can’t go far. After all, there’s always the chance that someone will need a doctor before we reach Fort Lauderdale. Go, Dr. Welch.”

  Rob went.

  “Disciplinary action will be taken,” Captain Sloane said. “It’s unlikely he’ll ever work for the Constellation cruise line again with that on his record.”

  “Do you think he’s the killer?” Officer Grant asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I started asking questions, like we discussed.”

  “And he got mad,” Grant said. “That’s significant.”

  “He got upset at first, and then he calmed down and answered all the questions. He said that he and Lynch ran into you when they left the infirmary that night after they put Leonie in the cooler, and that you went back into the infirmary to check. How come you didn’t mention that?”

  “Because—”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s because I didn’t ask. I’ve heard quite enough of that from Rob.”

  Grant sighed. “And now you’re trying to intimidate me.”

  “Rob also said that you can alibi him for the night after we watched the security tapes.”

  “That’s true. And he can alibi me also.”

  I feigned surprise. “Do you need an alibi for that night?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. You tell me.”

  “Never mind,” Grant said. “What happened after that?”

  “Then I asked for a swab to check for blood in the cooler. That’s when he got really mad.”

  “Why do you think that upset him so much?”

  “He said I was going to ruin his reputation.”

  “How?”

  “By getting him suspected of Leonie’s murder,” I said. “He said that he’d never be able to get another job with that hanging over his head.”

  “Was there blood in the cooler?”

  “Yes, lots of it. All around the edges and down in the corners. It was when I showed Rob the swab that he tried to attack me.”

  “How did you manage to get away?”

  I told him.

  “He’s taking rather a long time,” Captain Sloane said. “It doesn’t take this long to get to the infirmary and back.”

  Grant rose to his feet with a grunt. “Perhaps it’s time to see what’s going on. Shall we?”

  We all stood up.

  “Not you, Dr. Day,” Grant said. “You stay here.”

  “Not on your life,” I said.

  Grant sighed. “Captain?”

  Captain Sloane shook his head. “You’re on your own with this one, Grant.”

  The four of us went back to the infirmary. Rob was nowhere in sight.

  “That’s that, then,” Grant said. “Shall we check his cabin?”

  “We’d better check the cooler first,” I said. “As I recall, we left it open.”

  We went into the morgue. The cooler was just as we’d left it, wide open, but with one rather glaring difference.

  Meacham was gone.

  24

  What’s done cannot be undone.

  —Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 5, scene 1

  “BLIMEY,” GRANT SAID. “What the bloody hell happened to him?”

  I clutched my head with both hands. “Seriously? What is this, the Attack of the Body Snatchers? This is getting out of hand.”

  “Well, at least you’re not imagining things, because I saw him here too,” Grant said. “Do you suppose Dr. Welch took the body?”

  I turned up my palms. “To what purpose? What would Rob want to move the body for? And where would he move it to?”

  “Maybe he hid it in his cabin,” Grant suggested. “Let’s go look.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “There’s a bunch of exam rooms in here. The body could be in any one of them. Shouldn’t we check them first?”

  “The lady has a point,” Captain Sloane said.

  It didn’t take long with four of us looking. Nobody reported seeing a body.

  I took the opportunity to check the refrigerator to see if there was an ice pack in the freezer unit. There wasn’t one. Too bad, because my jaw was really throbbing. The inside of my mouth was cut, too, and that also hurt.

  We left the infirmary and took the forward elevator up to the main deck. Grant took us through a door that said “Crew Quarters—No Passengers Allowed Beyond This Point” and down a narrow corridor. Unlike the corridors in the passenger areas, the walls were an unrelieved institutional beige with no pictures, and instead of plush carpet we were walking on vinyl flooring the same beige as the walls. Every so often we had to step over raised thresholds which I knew were there in case of flooding.

  Rob’s cabin was about halfway down, and I noted signs on the doors denoting whose cabins they were. Officer Dalquist lived down here, and so did Chief Engineer Gerard. As Rob had said, Officer Grant’s cabin was right next to his. We bypassed it and Grant unlocked Rob’s door. Nobody was inside.

  “You don’t suppose he stuck it in your cabin, do you?” I asked. “Do you guys play practical jokes on each other?”

  Grant gave me a skeptical look. “Really, Dr. Day, this isn’t college. We’re all grownups
here.”

  “You’d better check,” I said. “That body has to be off-loaded when we get to Fort Lauderdale.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Grant said. “He doesn’t have a key to my cabin.”

  “Who does?”

  “I do,” Hodges said.

  “Open it up,” Captain Sloane ordered.

  “But Captain,” Grant protested.

  “Do you have something to hide, Officer Grant?” the captain asked.

  “Well, no, but …”

  “Go ahead, Hodges,” the captain said.

  Hodges did so.

  No body.

  Grant didn’t exactly heave a sigh of relief, but I thought I noticed an infinitesimal relaxation of his neck muscles. Perhaps he wasn’t altogether sure that the body wouldn’t be in his cabin. And I wondered why that should be.

  Oh, but that was ridiculous.

  Still …

  I made a mental note. Just in case it mattered.

  “Now what?” Hodges asked.

  “Wouldn’t it be more likely,” I asked, “that if the body were hidden in anybody’s cabin, it would be his own?”

  “What are you getting at, Doctor?”

  “Where’s Meacham’s cabin?”

  “He’s on B deck,” Hodges said. “He’s next door to me.”

  “What are we waiting for?”

  A door opened, and Chief Engineer Gerard came out into the corridor in his bathrobe, which was bright red and absolutely screamed at his hair. Under the bright overhead light, his face was in shadow. “What’s going on here? People are tryin’ tae sleep.” Then he saw me and frowned. “Doctor, ye shouldna be here. Did ye no’ see the sign on the door?”

  “She’s with me,” Grant said.

  “And me,” said Captain Sloane.

  “Ah,” said Gerard. “Captain. I apologize. I didna see ye the noo. What are ye doin’ doon here?”

  “We’re looking for a body,” I said.

  Gerard folded his arms across his chest. “Anither one? Who is it this time?”

  “Meacham,” I said.

  “Meacham? Isna that yer department, Grant? Canna ye no’ keep track o’ yer own pairsonnel?”

  “Meacham’s dead,” Grant said. “I saw his body in the cooler in the infirmary. But now it’s gone.”

  “Well, if it’s in his cabin yer lookin’,” Gerard said, “he’s on B deck.”

  “Chief Gerard,” I said, “didn’t you give my husband a tour of the engine room?”

  “That I did,” Gerard said. “We finished up over an hour ago.”

  “Well, then, Hal’s going to be looking for me,” I said. “Let’s get going.”

  “Good luck tae ye,” Gerard said. As he turned to go back into his cabin, the light struck his face in a way that allowed me to see the shiner around his left eye.

  Hmm, I thought. He hadn’t had that when we’d seen him at dinner. Could it be … was it possible … that Hal had done that to him?

  And if so, what had Gerard done to Hal in return?

  Suddenly I was very anxious to see my husband. “Come on,” I urged my companions. “There’s no time to lose.”

  B deck was a replica of A deck. We found Meacham’s cabin without too much trouble, and Grant knocked on the door.

  “What are you doing that for?” I asked, but Grant didn’t have a chance to answer before the door was opened by a man who was clearly not expecting to see a woman outside his door, let alone a passenger, as he was stark naked.

  “Put some clothes on, man,” Captain Sloane snapped.

  With a mumbled apology, the man shut the door in our faces.

  “Meacham has a roommate,” I said. “I didn’t realize …”

  “Everybody has a roommate down here,” Grant said. “Only the officers get single cabins.”

  The door reopened. The man was now wearing pants, although he was still naked to the waist and barefooted. “Sorry, sir. Captain. What can I do for you?”

  “We’re looking for Meacham,” Grant said.

  “Not here, sir,” the man said. “I haven’t seen him in days.”

  “Sorry to disturb you then,” Grant said.

  “Quite all right, sir.” The man closed the door.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Certainly,” Grant said. “You could hardly expect me to ask him if he had a dead body in his room, could you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Come on,” Grant said. “Let’s go back to the infirmary. Perhaps the doctor has come back.”

  Captain Sloane said, “I’d better get back to the bridge. I left Officer Lynch in charge by himself.”

  “Oh,” I said, “then Nigel must be done talking to him. Maybe he and Hal are waiting for me at the infirmary.”

  They weren’t. The infirmary was locked up, just as we had left it, and the corridor was deserted.

  Hodges said, “Captain, if you don’t need me anymore …”

  “That’s all right, Hodges,” said Captain Sloane. “You’re dismissed.”

  Hodges left.

  “Grant, are we done here?” the captain asked.

  “Yes sir.”

  The captain left, leaving me alone with Grant.

  Grant unlocked the door to the infirmary. The place was utterly silent and dark. Rob must have turned off the lights after coming back here, because they had all been blazing when I ran out of here.

  “Rob?” I called.

  No answer.

  I turned on the light, half expecting to see Rob’s crumpled body on the floor. But he wasn’t there. I headed for the office. Perhaps someone had stashed Meacham in Rob’s chair. I turned on the light. No Meacham. No Rob either.

  “He’s not in here,” I called out to Officer Grant. “Let’s start checking exam rooms.”

  “What for?” Grant objected. “We’ve already looked in all of them.”

  “That was when we were looking for Meacham,” I called over my shoulder as I ran down the hall to the first exam room.

  “Don’t go in there,” Grant called back. I heard his rapid footsteps behind me.

  I turned on the light.

  Meacham’s body lay on the examination table.

  How the hell had we missed that when we’d looked in all the exam rooms not thirty minutes earlier?

  Oh. Realization dawned.

  There had been four of us looking before. One of which was Officer Grant.

  He must have been the one who’d looked in this room and then told the rest of us that there was no body. Which meant that he had been the one to put it here.

  “Officer Grant,” I said, turning to face him, “why did you—”

  He didn’t let me finish. He grabbed me from behind, looped something around my neck, and pulled it tight. I gasped. Obviously he hadn’t yet pulled it tight enough. He pulled harder. I grabbed for it and tried to wedge my fingers underneath it. Luckily for me, my silver choker collar that I’d worn to dinner interfered with whatever he was choking me with, which allowed enough space for me to get two fingers under it.

  “Bugger!” he grunted through gritted teeth. He jerked back on the ligature. Maybe he figured if he couldn’t strangle me, he’d break my neck instead. I let all my limbs go limp—except the fingers under the ligature—and fell to the floor.

  Apparently Grant wasn’t expecting that. It jerked the ligature out of his hands and he dropped it. Under the bright lights it gleamed gold.

  “That’s Leonie’s necklace,” I exclaimed. “You killed her!”

  Grant dived for me, and I rolled to evade him, but he was too fast for me. As he pounced on me, I bent my legs and shoved upward as hard as I could. I’d seen it done on TV, but I had no idea if I could actually do it.

  It worked. He didn’t actually sai
l over me and land on his head, but I got him in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him.

  He rolled off me, gasping for air. I tried to get to my feet and run away, but he grabbed my ankle and brought me down. I tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. I thought about trying to scrape his hand off my ankle with my other foot but then thought better of it as he could have simply grabbed the other ankle and then what would I do? I’d have to resort to punching him in the gonads with my fist.

  So I kicked him there with my other foot. As Rob had done, he doubled up and howled in pain. He also let go of me. I scrambled to my feet, hoping to put some distance between us. But it was not to be.

  “You sodding bitch!” he screamed. Apparently he’d regained his wind. I didn’t pause to reflect upon the physical impossibility of that epithet, but even so he managed to grab my ankle and bring me down once more. As I fell, I hit my head on the corner of a free-standing cabinet. I saw stars but didn’t lose consciousness.

  It did, however, give Grant time to get to his feet. He picked me up off the floor as if I were a rag doll and carried me into the morgue where the cooler door yawned open. My heart sank. He was going to lock me in the cooler. That’s why he’d moved Meacham.

  Well, he wasn’t going to get me into that cooler if I had anything to say about it. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sank my teeth into his ear. He screamed and let go of me. I hung from his neck and kept my teeth locked on his ear. If I let go of his neck now, my weight would rip his ear right off. My jaw was killing me, but I didn’t loosen my bite. I did, however, loosen my arms from around his neck.

  He’d been so torn between holding me captive and pushing me away, neither of which had turned out well, that he was unprepared for the sudden shift in weight. He grabbed for me, but it was too late. His ear tore, blood spurted, and he clutched it and screamed. “You fucking bitch, what have you done?”

  I turned and ran, spitting blood and flesh as I went. But Grant, maddened by pain, caught me, socked me in the jaw precisely where Rob had hit me, dragged me back into the morgue, and heaved me into the cooler like a side of beef. The last thing I saw before the door slammed shut was a face distorted beyond recognition with rage, blood pouring down one side of it, and a pair of bloody hands.

  “By the time anybody opens this again, you’ll be dead, you interfering busybody bitch!”