I tried to look as surprised as I would have been if Melissa hadn’t told me the same thing a few minutes earlier. I didn’t have to fake the sympathy I felt as I reached across the table, clasped Louise’s hand, and murmured, “That’s terrible.”
“You don’t know how terrible it is. When you get back to Atlanta, you give your daughter a great big hug and tell her how much you love her. Do that every day.”
“You know, I think maybe I should.”
Louise nodded. “I wish I’d been able to do that one more time. Just one more time, so Hannah would know.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“I hope so.” She sighed. “Anyway, when I said I wanted to kill someone, I meant that I’d like to find whoever murdered Hannah and…well, I can’t say even the score, because you don’t keep score with your loved ones’ lives….”
“Of course not.”
“But see that justice is done, I guess you’d say. And to me, there can be no justice while the person responsible for Hannah’s death is still drawing breath.”
She had stopped crying. Her eyes burned with the desire for vengeance now. I had no trouble believing that if she had a gun and knew who had killed her daughter, she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot whoever it was.
I had to pretend that I didn’t know any of the story’s details. “Tell me about it,” I said. “It might help.”
“I’m not sure anything will help, but…all right. It started a couple of years ago when Hannah and her father had a terrible argument.” That sad smile came back on her face. “Eddie’s not the easiest man in the world to live with. He hasn’t been for me, and he wasn’t for Hannah, although he did love her a great deal. But they just didn’t get along, and when they argued that last time, Eddie told her she could move out if she didn’t like the way he did things. She was twenty-one then, so it was her decision. She didn’t just leave home, though. She moved all the way to St. Louis.”
“Where do you live?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“A little town called Kennett.”
I nodded. “I’ve heard of it.”
“I worried so much about her, but she seemed to be happy. She met a man she liked, and she got a job, here on this boat. She worked in the casino as a waitress.” Louise shrugged. “It wasn’t really what you’d call a good job, but she hoped it would lead to better things.”
“I’m sure it would have.”
“If she’d ever had the chance…But then someone…someone…”
Even though I wanted to hear the story from her, the pain in her eyes was so stark I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “You don’t have to go on if it’s too hard,” I told her. “I understand. And this is really none of my business.”
“Yes, it is,” Louise said. “Because Eddie and I came on this cruise under false pretenses. Or at least I did, anyway.”
“What do you mean, false pretenses?”
“Like you said, it’s not as painful to just come right out with it. After Hannah had been working on the riverboat for a while, someone hit her on the head and threw her overboard. She was caught in one of the paddlewheels.”
“Good Lord,” I muttered, and I didn’t have to fake the horror I felt at hearing it again, this time from the mouth of the murdered girl’s mother.
“Yes, it was terrible,” Louise agreed. “The police told us that the blow to the head probably would have been fatal, even if she hadn’t gone overboard. The killer was just…making sure, I suppose you’d say.”
All I could do was shake my head in sympathy and wait for her to go on.
“The police investigated but never made any arrests. I don’t think they ever even had any strong suspects. I’m not sure they even cared that much about solving the case.”
“Oh, I imagine they did. They just didn’t have any leads, I expect.”
“Well, I have a lead,” Louise said. “Hannah had told me less than a week earlier that she’d had some sort of trouble with someone else who worked on the boat. But she didn’t say who or what it was about, and when I told the police, they told me they had questioned all the other employees and everyone said Hannah got along just fine with everyone else. They claimed not to know what I was talking about.”
“But you think one of the crew killed her?”
Louise nodded. “I’m convinced of it. I just don’t have any proof or anything to tell me which one. So I did the only thing I could.” She hesitated. “You won’t tell anyone about this?”
“There’s nobody I’d tell,” I assured her.
“I hired a private detective,” Louise said. “An old acquaintance of mine. You know him. Mark Lansing.”
That just about floored me. I tried to keep the surprise off my face, but I’m not sure I managed. “Mark?” I repeated. “Mark is a private detective?”
Louise nodded. “His mother and my mother are good friends and have been since we were kids. I’ve kept up with him that way, even after he moved to St. Louis.”
“Let me get this straight. If he’s a private detective, what’s he doing pretending to be Mark Twain?”
Louise leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “He’s undercover.”
Well, that made sense, I supposed. If Louise had hired Mark to investigate her daughter’s murder, and she thought that someone who worked on the Southern Belle was responsible for it, then Mark would be able to find out more if everyone on the boat thought he was just an actor playing Mark Twain. The killer wouldn’t suspect him of being a detective.
That explained the gun in his shaving kit, too. I’m no expert on such things, but it seemed likely to me that a private detective would have a license to carry a gun.
And the fact that Mark and Louise were old friends, as I had thought they might be once I found out where Louise was from, even explained the hug. There wasn’t any hanky-panky going on between them, and she had probably come to his cabin the night before to see if he had uncovered anything important in his investigation.
At least, I hoped that was the case.
I mulled all that over in my head for a couple of seconds, then said, “So you and Eddie hired Mark—”
“No,” Louise interrupted. “I hired Mark. Eddie doesn’t know anything about it. He thinks…he thinks that we should just move on, that Hannah’s murder will never be solved and we just have to accept it. I was barely able to talk him into taking this cruise with me. I told him it was going to be my way of…of saying good-bye to her.”
“But you’re really hoping that Mark will find out who killed her?”
She nodded. “That’s right. I realize, after all this time, the odds are against it. But I have to keep hoping, you see. I have to keep hoping for justice.”
I understood. I couldn’t imagine the pain and grief she must have experienced, of course, since I’d never been through anything like that in my life and hoped that I never would. But I could see in her eyes how important it was to her that Hannah’s killer be found.
“Does your husband even know Mark?” I asked. Eddie hadn’t acted like it when we were all in the dining room earlier.
Louise shook her head. “He’s heard me talk about him, but they’ve never actually met.”
I was a little annoyed. Mark Lansing had told me that he was a lawyer before he became an actor and got the job as Mark Twain. I supposed I could forgive a fib like that, since it was in the line of duty, so to speak, but I was irked anyway. He could have told me the truth.
And just why would he do that? I asked myself. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, he hadn’t known me from Adam—or Eve. Even though I was convinced he actually liked me—that hadn’t been an act—his first responsibility was to his client. I could understand that feeling, since I felt it myself toward the folks who went on my tours.
Still, I intended to have a talk with Mr. Mark Lansing and inform him that I knew the truth now. From here on out I expected him to shoot straight with me.
“Nothin’ to apologize for,” I told her. “You had every reason to be upset. I hope that talkin’ about it has made you feel better.”
She smiled, and it wasn’t quite as sad this time. “I believe it has, a little bit. But now I’ve added to your burden.”
“Not at all. Has, uh, Mark found out anything?”
Louise sighed. “I’m afraid not. A lot of the people who worked on the boat with Hannah are still here, but some of them have left in the past year, of course. We may never be able to track down all of them. But my instincts tell me that the killer is still here. A mother’s instincts can’t be wrong, can they?”
All the time, I thought. I knew that from bitter experience. No matter how good a kid was—and Melissa was a mighty good one—there were going to be times when they’d let you down when you’d least expect it. Probably the same held true about being a parent.
“Mark’s been around the boat for several days now,” Louise went on, “but he told me this morning that he hasn’t found anyone who had trouble with Hannah before she was killed. The only possible clue he’s come up with is finding one of the dealers in the casino who knew Hannah and said she was worried about something a couple of days before she died. He said she was so nervous she was sick to her stomach.”
“Did she get like that very often?”
“Not at all. Hannah was always very healthy.”
I didn’t know what that meant, if anything, but I filed it away in my brain, anyway.
“So you talked to Mark about the case this morning?” I asked. Louise didn’t know that I had seen her coming out of his cabin, and I figured I probably wouldn’t tell her. That would just complicate things.
“Yes, I went up to his cabin for a few minutes after we saw the two of you in the dining room. I was able to catch his eye there, and I guess he understood that I wanted to talk.” Her mouth tightened. “I was going to talk to him last night. I even slipped up to his cabin after Eddie had gone to sleep. Once Eddie’s good and asleep you can’t wake him with a bullhorn. But Mark had company.”
I swallowed. “Really?” I managed to say.
“That’s right. He gave me a key to his cabin, but when I started to let myself in, the chain was on…and there was a woman in there.”
“Do tell,” I murmured.
“Of course, Mark’s private life is his own business, and I don’t expect him to be working on Hannah’s case twenty-four hours a day. I know it shouldn’t bother me that he’s already made a conquest….”
I wouldn’t have gone so far as to call it that.
“But I guess it does, a little,” she went on. “I’m curious, too, if it’s someone who works on the boat or one of the passengers. If it’s one of the passengers, someone Mark didn’t even meet until yesterday…well, I’m no prude, but that seems like moving awfully fast to me.”
I couldn’t argue with her there. It seemed mighty fast to me, too. But there had been extenuating circumstances, I told myself, and anyway, nothing had happened. All I’d done was borrow Mark’s cabin for the night. He hadn’t even been there.
“Did you ask him about it this morning?”
Louise shook her head. “Oh, no, I couldn’t have. I was too embarrassed. And he didn’t bring it up, so either he was asleep and his girlfriend didn’t tell him about me showing up at his cabin, or else he was too ashamed to admit it.”
I knew the truth. Mark didn’t know a thing about her coming to his cabin the night before. And it would be better all around, I told myself, if things stayed that way.
Louise drank some more of her coffee, then said, “My, I’ve really poured my heart out to you, haven’t I? I hope I haven’t bored you too much.”
“Not at all,” I assured her. “And I’m so sorry for your loss, Louise.” I added the thing that people always say at times of tragedy. “If there’s anything I can do to help…”
“You’ve been a good listener.” She squeezed my hand. “That’s enough. Unless you can figure out who killed my daughter and tell the police.”
She didn’t know about what had happened on the plantation the year before. At least, I figured she didn’t. The case had gotten some national publicity, but not much. My fifteen minutes of fame, or notoriety, as the case may be, were long since over.
“I’ll leave that to trained detectives like Mark,” I said.
Louise stood up. “I’d better go find Eddie. He was going to make some calls to his office, but I’m sure he’s done with that by now. He’s probably wandering around the boat looking for me, and I don’t want him getting into any trouble.”
She said that like a woman who was used to her husband running the risk of getting into trouble anytime he was out on his own. Given Eddie Kramer’s volatile temper, I could understand why.
That thought brought me right back to Ben Webster. I didn’t know anything about him, but I didn’t see how there could be any connection between him and Hannah Kramer’s murder. If there was a connection, though, and Eddie somehow found out about it…well, I could see him breaking Ben’s neck. I didn’t have any trouble visualizing that at all.
“If you need any help, here I am,” I told her as I stood up, too. “You just let me know.”
“Thanks. I think you have the makings of a good friend, Delilah.”
“I hope so.”
She smiled and left the dining room. I picked up my coffee, finished it off, then decided I’d go look up Mark. We needed to have a talk and get some things out in the open between us.
As I stepped out onto the deck, I noticed a big, dark blue car pulling into the parking area adjacent to the dock. It stopped in one of the handicapped spaces—and didn’t have a handicapped sticker or hanger, I noticed—and a man in a uniform of some sort got out from behind the wheel. He was a chauffeur, not a cop, I realized as he opened the car’s rear door to let a man in what looked like an extremely expensive charcoal gray suit climb out.
The man didn’t acknowledge the chauffeur, just started toward the gangway leading to the riverboat’s main deck. He was in his fifties, I guessed, stocky and broad shouldered, like he’d been an athlete in his younger years and was still fairly fit for his age. Brown hair starting to turn gray topped a beefy face.
Captain Williams appeared on deck just as the newcomer reached the bottom of the gangway. The captain waited there, a worried frown on his face, as the man strode on board in a no-nonsense manner. He certainly didn’t ask Williams for permission to come aboard, either, although I didn’t know if that was customary on a riverboat.
There was a good reason for that omission, too. Captain Williams said, “Mr. Gallister. I didn’t know you were coming up to Hannibal.”
“Someone’s got to straighten out this mess, Captain,” the newcomer said, “and as the owner of this boat, I hereby appoint myself.”
So that was Charles Gallister, I thought, real estate mogul and owner of the Southern Belle.
CHAPTER 15
Gallister looked like the successful businessman he was. Up close I could tell that his suit probably cost even more than I had thought at first, and I didn’t want to think about what the Italian shoes on his feet or the silk tie knotted around his throat must have set him back. Chances were, Gallister himself didn’t know how much they cost and wouldn’t care if he did know. Men such as him didn’t worry about the price of things. They just bought what they needed—or wanted.
Don’t get the idea that I disliked him on sight just because he was rich. That’s not really true. I’m like everybody else. I’d like to be rich myself one of these days. The reason I didn’t care for Charles Gallister was that he struck me as arrogant, and I guess as successful as he was, he had every reason to be.<
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Gallister and Captain Williams started toward the nearest set of stairs. Williams said, “We’ll go up to the pilothouse and talk, sir. I can fill you in on the situation.”
Gallister just nodded curtly. They went up the stairs.
I headed for the salon. I didn’t know where I would find Mark, but that seemed as good a place to start looking as any.
He wasn’t in the salon. I checked the dining room again, although I didn’t think he would have returned there so soon, and sure enough, he wasn’t there, either.
That left his cabin. I went there, unhooking the chain and venturing past the warning sign, but he didn’t answer my knock and didn’t respond when I called his name through the door. I figured he must still be on the boat, but I didn’t know where else to look.
“Ms. Dickinson?” a man’s voice said. “You need some help?”
I turned to see Vince Mallory at the bottom of the stairs leading to the third deck. I shook my head and said, “No, I was just looking for Mr. Lansing.”
Vince probably wondered why I’d gone into an area that was off limits to passengers, but if he did, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead he pointed a thumb toward the third deck and said, “I’m afraid I haven’t seen Mr. Lansing, but I was about to go up to the observation area. Would you like to join me?”
“Might as well,” I said, since I couldn’t find Mark. Then I realized how that might sound to Vince and added hurriedly, “I didn’t mean to seem unenthusiastic—”
“Hey, that’s all right,” he broke in with a grin. “No offense taken. I’ll be glad for the company.”
I went around the chain, rehooked it, and joined Vince at the stairs. We went up side by side, and when we reached the landing on the third deck, we turned right toward the observation area at the bow. Built-in benches with storage areas for purses and things like that underneath them followed along the curving railing.
Each deck was set back from the deck below it, so from up here we could see part of the second deck and the main deck, as well as the dock and most of Hannibal with the gently rolling green hills behind it to the west. It was a beautiful scene, pure Americana. With the people in period costume, including the faux Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher, strolling along the streets of Hannibal, I could almost believe the town had gone back in time.
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