Destination Murder

by K. J. Emrick

  “See what?” She was confused over what he thought he was protecting her from, and annoyed that he thought he had to protect her from anything at all. “What’s in there? What did Cream find?”

  Jerry regarded her sternly, then gave it up. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop her. Next to her ability to cook up a storm, her greatest character strength was her insatiable curiosity. If she wanted to know what was in the room then she was going to find out, no matter what he did.

  “It’s not pretty,” he told her. Then he took her hand and walked her back over to stand with Cream, where they could see inside the cramped storage room.

  Among the brooms and mops and shelves stacked with toilet paper rolls and cleaning supplies, a man lay dead on the floor. Purple bruising discolored his neck above the collar of his crisp white shirt. He’d been choked to death.

  His eyes were wide and staring in a face that Cookie recognized all too well.

  Madison’s husband. Joseph. It was him lying there, dead.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered.

  Jerry held her, and turned her away from the grisly sight. She didn’t argue with him this time.

  Chapter Two

  Cookie sat on the bed in their cabin with Cream in her arms. She was still in shock. Despite his best efforts to comfort her, not even him nuzzling his nose against her hands and licking her fingers could make her feel better.

  Questions came and went in her mind. Why? How? Who? She had tried talking to Jerry but her mind was in such a jumble that she couldn’t make the words come out right. There hadn’t been much time, either. Almost as soon as she had seen poor Joseph lying there, one of the ship’s crew had come rushing up to tell them they shouldn’t be in that section. Jerry had flashed his badge in its leather pocket case and explained the situation and soon there were too many people around for the two of them to talk privately.

  She hadn’t even known that Jerry had brought his badge along on the cruise. Why would he do that? Couldn’t the man stop being a police officer for even a few days?

  It didn’t matter. Someone had killed Joseph. That was all that was important right now. If Jerry could use his police officer skillset to help in any way, she shouldn’t complain.

  “Oh, Cream,” she said, scratching her best friend between his ears. “This cruise certainly turned out to be a horrible decision. And Jessica! Her perfect day has been ruined. And my poor Madison…”

  Cookie had stayed with her daughter for nearly an hour after breaking the news to her. That was something a mother should never have to experience. Telling Madison that her husband had been killed was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. It wasn’t fair. To Madison, or to Cookie either.

  She hadn’t known Joseph as well as she might have liked to. Her son-in-law had been a busy man, and there had been tension between Madison’s second husband and Clarissa from the start. That was the reason her granddaughter had started spending summers with Cookie in the first place. As far as she knew, things had been getting better for them. But recently, there had been that rift growing between Madison and Joseph. Cookie had thought that was just normal marriage stuff but maybe not.

  Then the image of Joseph lying dead came back to her. Someone had wanted him dead. Not Madison, certainly. No matter what their problems were, Madison would never do such a horrible thing. But then… who?

  She was still trying to find answers to questions she could hardly stand to think about when Jerry and Clarissa walked into the cabin together. Clarissa’s eyes were red. Jerry’s face was set in stone.

  “Come here,” Cookie told Clarissa, holding her arms wide for her granddaughter. Cream had the good manners to jump down out of her lap so she could pull Clarissa into a hug on the edge of the mattress. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  The teenager, so grown up but still so young, just shrugged. “He was only my step-dad.”

  Cookie heard the rest of what Clarissa didn’t want to say out loud. She was heartbroken. Obviously, things had gotten better between her and Joseph. As hard as she was trying to deny it, Clarissa was going to miss the man. Cookie didn’t pry. They both knew the truth without speaking it.

  “How is your Mom?” she asked.

  It was Jerry who answered. “She was sleeping when we left her. The ship’s doctor gave her a pill that let her rest. You should try to go down a little later, Cookie. I’m afraid she’s going to be upset all over again when she wakes up.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Cookie could only shake her head. She hadn’t wanted to leave her daughter like that but the doctor had insisted, for Madison’s own sake. “I can’t imagine losing someone you love like that.”

  Her gaze drifted up to Jerry, the love of her life. If she ever lost him she would be devastated. Her daughter was going to need a lot of comforting in the next few days.

  More than comfort, Madison would need answers.

  So did Cookie.

  “Oh, no,” Jerry said. “I know that look.”

  “What?” she asked, trying to sound innocent. “What look?”

  He frowned. “Finding criminals and catching bad people is my job. It’s what I’m good at, so let me do this. You can’t interfere.”

  All she could do, was stare at him. Did he really think she was just going to step aside? Had they not been dating for two years? This involved her family. There was no way on God’s green Earth that she was going to just sit by and twiddle her thumbs!

  Her gaze went through him, her hands clenched into fists. “Yes, Jerry. You are the police officer. However, Madison is my daughter. Joseph was my son-in-law. Clarissa is my granddaughter.” She gave Clarissa another squeeze. “You can not expect me to sit quietly and… and stew!”

  Clarissa glared at him, along with her grandmother, and Jerry began pacing the small cabin space, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Look, the captain has already asked me to assist. He knows what I do for a living and out here on the open waters we can’t exactly call the local police in to investigate. We’re reversing course and returning to port, but that’s going to take us another two days. In the meantime, Cookie, you can’t get involved.”

  “It’s my family,” she repeated stubbornly.

  “But don’t you see? That’s exactly why you can’t be involved. You won’t be able to maintain an emotional distance between you and what happened.”

  “Oh?” she asked sharply. “And you will?”

  He shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

  “Maintaining emotional distance? That’s what you do?”

  She saw the pain in his eyes and wished she hadn’t said that. He and his first wife had been unable to have children. How could he understand what it was to be a parent and see your child suffering? Cookie couldn’t take a step back from this. She wouldn’t.

  She had to help. If that stepped on his toes, then she couldn’t help that. She hadn’t asked for poor Joseph to end up murdered. Whatever was going on with Jerry, emotionally, was going to have to be put on a back burner and be set to a slow simmer.

  The thought of that added to her pain, because it meant putting their relationship on hold. Maybe even permanently. Well if that was the way it had to be, then so be it.

  She straightened. “I can take care of myself, Jerry. I did it for years before you came along. I’m not some cream puff that’s going to crumble the moment you touch her.”

  That, at least, made him smile. “I’d never accuse you of that, Cookie.”

  “But you think I’ll get in the way.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  It almost felt like he’d slapped her. He should know her better. “I’m not changing my mind, Jerry. You’ll just have to live with me interfering, if that’s what you think I’ll do.”

  “Let me explain what I mean.” He finally sat down in the chair at the corner desk, opposite the bed. “Your daughter and Joseph were having troubles in their marriage, right?”

  Clarissa stiffened next to Cookie. “Just what are you suggesting, Jerry?”
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  “I’m not suggesting anything. But I am saying that hard questions are going to have to be asked. When was the last time Madison saw Joseph? Why wasn’t he at the reception?”

  “Well, because he… had passed on, of course,” Cookie said, finding the nicest way she could think of to say “dead” in consideration of Clarissa’s young ears.

  “Exactly. I didn’t see Madison rushing off to find him, though. That makes me think there was something wrong in their marriage. A wife sitting next to an empty chair, and not even trying to find out where her husband is?”

  With angry tears rolling down her cheeks, Clarissa stood up from the bed. Her eyes glared holes through Jerry. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this. How dare you say my mother had anything to do with this!”

  There wasn’t much room in the cabin to stalk anywhere, but Clarissa managed it just the same. The sound of the door slamming behind her was loud in the confined space.

  “Clarissa…” Jerry tried to call after her, too late. Instead he turned helplessly to Cookie. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? Your daughter isn’t a suspect in my mind, but for a lot of people, well, she’s going to be the first one they think of. She didn’t live in our town so no one really knew her. She and her husband were having trouble of some kind, even if you didn’t know about it. Now he’s dead. She laughed and danced and drank champagne at the reception instead of going off to find Joseph when he didn’t show up. I mean, if this was back home she’d be down at the police station answering a lot of unpleasant questions already.”

  “Well,” she said sarcastically, “let’s be grateful we’re not back home where people would be saying what a fine suspect she makes!”

  He stared at her, trying to decide what to say to that, while Cream made his way back up on the bed to lay his doggy snout down on her leg. Her best friend was getting on in years. Kind of like her, she supposed, although wasn’t sixty-three supposed to be the new forty? Still, older didn’t mean slower. It just meant wiser.

  “Whether I understand what you’re saying or not,” she told Jerry, “you’re being unreasonable. That was my son-in-law that got killed. Clarissa’s step-father, I’ll thank you to remember, and I don’t appreciate the way you just treated her.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it, Cookie.” He rubbed at the back of his neck and took a slow breath. “But that just shows me how unprepared you are to investigate something like this. If a simple question about your daughter’s motives is going to upset you then what’s going to happen when someone starts asking… I don’t know, about whether or not Madison left the wedding reception at any point? Was she in your sight the whole time or was there a moment when she could have snuck away to kill her husband?”

  Scooping Cream up into her arms, Cookie stood up. “I’ll have you know that my daughter was at that reception the whole time. She was with us, for the love of God! You saw her there yourself. She was there the whole time…”

  Her angry words trailed off as she remembered something. Madison had been with them, or in their sight, the whole time the wedding and the reception were going on. But there had been someone who had snuck out before things really got started.

  Jerry was watching her, expecting her to say something, and she just didn’t know what. He wasn’t right about her not getting involved. Not only should she get herself involved, she needed to be involved. There just didn’t seem to be any way for her to explain it to him. So, for now, she decided to stop trying.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she told him abruptly. Crossing to the door she slipped out and closed it behind her with less force that Clarissa had. She caught just a glimpse of Jerry crossing his arms as she left, shaking his head like she’d disappointed him.

  Well. Then let him be disappointed. If she’d had any doubts before about whether they were having trouble, she certainly didn’t now. The way he was just talking to her was not the way a man spoke to a woman he loved. It was the way a cop spoke to someone when he was trying to explain the law.

  Were they breaking up?

  If Jerry was going to leave her the way her husband had, she’d be heartbroken, but she’d get over it. He’d been so distant lately. Now, with everything that had happened, there was just no time to talk. Every time he opened his mouth just now it had been to tell her to sit down, and be quiet, and stay out of the way. Well. Fat chance of that!

  When they got back to Widow’s Rest, she and Jerry would have to have a long sit down discussion about where their future was heading. Maybe over some Bundt cake. Bundt cake always made things easier. If this was it, she would just have to get on with her life.

  For now, they were stuck together on this boat with nowhere to go. The time to break up with someone was definitely not when you were sharing a cabin with them. Maybe Madison would let her stay with them. She’d probably appreciate the company while she suffered through the loss of her husband. Poor girl. Couldn’t even bury him for days yet. Did they even have funeral preparations for each other? So young to die…

  Then again, she hadn’t picked out a nice plot of earth to bury herself in, either. Death always seemed so distant and far away, until it didn’t. As she walked with Cream now among the other passengers, some of them laughing and happy, most of them gossiping about the tragic events of earlier in the day, she decided it was one more thing for her to put on her list.

  She had climbed the stairs to the main deck, and out here the floodlights illuminated everything in an eerie sort of full light, even though all around them was nothing but the darkness of the open water. So many thoughts crowded her mind as she looked up at the stars twinkling in the night sky, high above the highest level of the ship where the crew piloted them on a course back to land. Dawn would come soon. So much to do, so little time.

  She had some questions that needed answering. Jerry could say whatever he liked about her lack of skills when it came to investigating things. Sure, she was a baker, and not a cop. But she was also a woman. She’d take her woman’s intuition over by-the-book police procedure any day.

  Cookie smiled to herself, but there wasn’t any mirth in it. She knew what she was going to do next. She just wasn’t sure her friend Jessica was going to like it.

  The cruise ship had something like a honeymoon suite at the far end of the uppermost passenger levels. After taking some time to clear her head out in the open air, she headed back down two floors to the Paradise Deck. The staterooms here were for the important, the wealthy, and the just married. She knew which one was Jessica’s. It was a huge cabin, and Cookie could only imagine what it had cost Benjamin Roth to book it for him and Jessica. For that matter, she cringed whenever she thought of what this whole cruise had cost him. Cookie and her family—and Jerry too—had gotten on board for free because Cookie was supplying the cake. Jessica’s family didn’t have to pay, either. That was a lot of money to spend on a wedding, even when it was your own.

  Maybe Benjamin had a good heart after all. She’d spent so much of the past few years hating him that she couldn’t believe he would ever lift a finger for anyone else, but if he’d done all this for Jessica… maybe his new bride had worked a change in him that would change the sour to sweet.

  And maybe pigs could fly. Chuckling to herself, she knocked on the double doors of the honeymoon suite. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Soft music, maybe. Or a sign on the door asking everyone to not disturb the new couple.

  Instead, Benjamin Roth opened the door with a scowl. He was still in his tuxedo, with the neck unbuttoned and his tie hanging loose around his neck. His blue eyes were dark as he glared at her, and then down at her dog, and then back at her. “What are you doing here, Karen? Isn’t it bad enough that our wedding night’s already been interrupted by all this foul business?”

  She returned his glare for all it was worth. “Yes. I know. This foul business as you call it was my son-in-law being murdered. I’m very aware of how bad it is. So sorry it’s ruining your fun, Benj
amin”

  With a sigh, his expression softened. “Yes. Well. I didn’t mean… well. It’s a bad thing however you look at it, I suppose.”

  “Yes.” She kept her voice flat and neutral with an effort. What had she been thinking, trying to give this man the benefit of the doubt. Changed? A leopard didn’t ever change its spots. “How is Jessica?”

  “Devastated, of course.” He lowered his voice. “This was supposed to be a day to finally take her mind off her psychotic ex-husband. Now, it’s just like it was two years ago. Another murder and she’s at the center of it. All I wanted was to give her a wonderful wedding that she would remember for the rest of her life…”

  He sighed again, and then stepped back, opening the door wider. “I suppose you want to come in and talk to Jessica?”

  “I do. Yes. Thank you.”

  “Do you have to bring your dog?”

  Cookie eyed him as she stepped into the room but she didn’t bother answering. Of course Cream would come with her. For his part, her little dog wagged his tail and gave Benjamin a toothy grin. Then he sneezed.

  Good boy, Cookie told him silently.

  Jessica was sitting on the couch in the suite’s living area, an overstuffed white loveseat that matched the rest of the furniture and the thick rug. A set of doors off to the side led to what could only be the bedroom. Champagne sat in a metal bucket of ice that had mostly melted to water. Sconces spaced around the wall lent a muted glow that would have been romantic under other circumstances. With her knees bent up to her chest, her dark skin contrasting against the white robe she wore with the ship’s logo on it, Jessica looked miserable.

  “Hi, Cookie,” she said, resting the side of her face against one knee. “How’s everyone else taking things?”

  Cookie sat down next to her, settling Cream on her lap. “Oh, most of your guests seem to be worried about you, actually. Don’t concern yourself over that.”