Destination Murder

by K. J. Emrick

  “And you? How are you and your daughter doing? And that tough granddaughter of yours. Such a terrible thing to happen to someone that young. Was she close with her step-father?”

  “They weren’t, for the longest time,” Cookie admitted honestly. “Recently they came to a sort of agreement. Maybe they weren’t the best of friends but Clarissa was happy with him and her mom being together.”

  Jessica nodded that she understood. “Had issues with my own pops for a few years. I know how that goes. And Madison? How’s she taking it?”

  “Her husband’s dead,” Cookie said with a shrug. “She’s a wreck. Sleeping now, as I understand it. You know family has always been important for us.”

  “Us, too.” Jessica reached over and took Cookie’s hand. “Family is everything.”

  This was the opening that Cookie had been hoping for. A way to steer the conversation right where she wanted it to go. “I noticed you had some of your own family here for the wedding,” she said. “I got to sit with your step-brother. Jayce.”

  The look that crossed Jessica’s face was a mixed one. “I haven’t seen Jayce in more than a year. Thought it would be a nice way to bring us closer if I made him part of the service.” She shrugged. “Plus, pops and mom are both gone. Jayce took that pretty hard. Got himself into some bad choices. Even did some time in jail.”

  “Oh?” Cookie asked, trying to sound surprised by that bit of news. “Whatever for? He seemed like such a… nice young man.”

  Jessica laughed, tossing back her long hair. “Yeah, he’s just a peach, he is. Takes some getting used to, and that’s putting it mildly. He’s mellowed out quite a bit from when he was younger, though. Back then he took to stealing cars. Did two years in prison, paid his time, and got out.” She shook her head at some distant memory. “If only his temper hadn’t gotten the better of him that might’ve been it. Just twenty years old when he got out of prison and he goes and tracks down the person who turned him in for stealing the cars in the first place. After the guy got out of the hospital he pressed charges. Jayce got sent back to Clinton County Correctional in New York State for another year.”

  Spreading her hands, she came to the end of her story. “What can I say? That was then, this is now. He’s stayed out of trouble ever since but he’s still got problems with that temper of his.”

  Cookie listened in rapt attention. Jessica didn’t know it, but she’d just painted a picture of her step-brother that made him the prime suspect in Joseph’s murder. Criminal past. Bad temper. He’d left the reception before it was over, too. If he’d left to go meet with Joseph, and there had been an argument or something… but how could there be any connection between the two men?

  She didn’t know. Come to think of it, how much did she really know about Joseph? Back when he and Madison had started dating they kept it quiet for Clarissa’s sake. Madison was bringing a new man into her daughter’s life and she didn’t want to make it harder on Clarissa than it had to be. That meant keeping it quiet from Cookie, too. So from Cookie’s viewpoint, at least, Joseph had just popped into the picture one day. Hi Mom, Madison had said, here’s the man I’m going to marry.

  So could there maybe be something in Joseph’s past that got him killed?

  Did he even have a past? The few times that Cookie had met him the man had always seemed, well… bland. Like white bread. He paid his bills, he spent time with Madison and Clarissa, he went to work and came home again and lived a routine life. How did that make him a candidate for murder? Or for clandestine meetings with men like Jayce, who had been to prison?

  Something wasn’t adding up. There were a few ingredients missing from this recipe. Until she found them, that cake wouldn’t bake.

  “Cookie?”

  When Jessica said her name she realized that she had been sitting there for a few long moments, just staring at the thick piles in the white rug. Her thoughts were working themselves around in circles and not getting her anywhere. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess this has me more flustered than I thought. Anyway, I’m intruding. I should go.”

  Jessica unfolded her long legs and found another smile. “You aren’t intruding, Cookie.”

  “Yes,” Benjamin said from his seat at the small dining area on the other side of the room. “She is.”

  “No. She isn’t,” Jessica insisted. “Cookie, after what you did for me with my ex-husband, you’ve always got an open invitation at our house. I might not have even been here to enjoy this day if not for you. Isn’t that right, Benjamin?”

  The look she shot his way was very pointed. He got the idea quickly enough. “Of course, dear. I only meant that we should try to get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow our guests will be full of questions, I’m sure. We’ll have to be the ones to reassure them. Unless, of course, Karen here has some information about this horrible circumstance that we could share with them?”

  They both looked to Cookie expectantly. What could she tell them? Certainly not that she was beginning to suspect Jayce. “Uh, Jerry has been asked to look into what happened. Apparently the cruise line doesn’t employ its own police or security people and the Captain knew what he does for a living, so…”

  Another thought occurred to her. Maybe Jerry had already thought of it, too, but even if the ship didn’t have its own security people there might still be some kind of security on board. Like cameras in the hallways. Perhaps a record of electronic passcards that were used to open doors. Hmm. A few questions to the crew would give her the answer to that, at least.

  “Well,” Benjamin said. “If Jerry’s doing the investigation then I feel better already.”

  The sarcasm in his words wasn’t hidden very well. Jessica rolled her eyes to Cookie, and the two of them shared a short laugh that almost made things better. Cookie knew where she had to go next, and what she needed to ask. It wasn’t going to be very pleasant asking questions of her own daughter, but Madison needed to know that Jerry wasn’t the only one looking into who killed Joseph.

  And, Jerry could just go to the Devil if he thought she was going to sit by on the sidelines and do nothing while her daughter’s life got turned upside down. That wasn’t her style. She didn’t care how tough the dough was to mix, you had to go where the recipe led you.

  Sometimes, life imitated art. Other times, it was like baking a complicated meal. One step at a time, add each ingredient when it was called for, and then sit back and pray you did everything right.

  Maybe that’s why Cookie was such a good baker.

  Chapter Three

  The sunlight through the porthole-shaped window told Cookie it was morning long before her alarm clock had been set to go off. She’d wanted an early start. Maybe not 6:04 in the morning, she thought bitterly as she checked the time, but there it was. She’d only had around two hours sleep but she was awake now. Time to get going.

  Mornings seemed to come earlier out here on the ocean. As she sat up and stretched and listened to her bones creak, Cookie reached out a hand to Jerry’s side of the bed. He wasn’t there. Just like he hadn’t been there last night when she’d gone to sleep.

  Had he stayed out all night working on solving Joseph’s murder? That thought made her proud of him, until it was overshadowed by another one. She had to wonder, even though she didn’t want to, if he’d stayed out of the cabin all night to stay away from her.

  Cream roused himself with a curly-tongued yawn and padded up the mattress to lick at her hand. He was always happy to see her, and thrilled to be sharing her bed. Being on the ship might not be as exciting for him as it was for Cookie and the others, but he was happy just to be wherever she was.

  Scratching under his chin, Cookie sighed. “Why can’t men be more like dogs?” she wondered out loud. “Loyal, easy to understand, dogs. You’re happy with a belly rub and a dog biscuit, aren’t you Cream?”

  He barked his approval of that idea.

  “Be a good boy,” she told him, “and I’ll bring you back some bacon from the buffet line.
”

  After getting out of bed she scooped food into his little metal dish from the container of dry food they’d packed for the journey. Cookie left him munching happily while she showered and dressed. There were supposed to be a host of activities on the upper decks today. She was sure the crew wouldn’t have cancelled them. There were still a couple hundred guests on board who needed to be entertained. The murder was cutting everyone’s trip short. The least the cruise line could do was offer them shuffleboard and karaoke to take their minds off things.

  The thought had occurred to her, somewhere deep in the night, that the murderer might be any of the passengers. That meant dozens and dozens of suspects that she didn’t know, with no way of looking into each one of them one at a time. If it came to that, then she really would have to leave this to the police.

  Until she had exhausted everything she could do herself, however, she wasn’t going to stop.

  So, she watched everyone around her having a good time and tried not to be annoyed. While she firmly believed that everyone should be grieving for Joseph, she couldn’t expect complete strangers to give up their vacation plans to feel her family’s pain.

  Speaking of that, it was time to go check on Madison.

  Before coming back to the cabin last night and finding Jerry gone, Cookie had gone to Madison’s room. Clarissa had answered and explained that Madison was still asleep. The teen looked like she needed more than a few hours of rest herself. Cookie had given her a hug that had nearly squished Cream between them, but the dog loved every second of it. She thought that it had done Clarissa some good, too. The shadows under her eyes hadn’t been quite so dark anymore as she promised to try getting some sleep herself.

  Now, at just after seven in the morning, Cookie hesitated to knock on their door here on the Cushing Deck. Maybe she should have texted first. They might not even be awake. Well. Only one way to find out.

  Rapping her knuckles softly against the wood-paneled door, she waited in the hallway, rocking on her heels, trying to admire the ugly impressionist paintings hanging against the coral red wallpaper. The ship was in serious need of an interior decorator. Although to be fair she doubted most people gave the décor a second thought when they were here on vacation.

  She’d expected Clarissa to open the door. Instead, a bedraggled Madison was the one who met her, hair flame-red hair messy from hours in bed, makeup streaked down her face, her robe on over the same dress she’d been wearing at the wedding yesterday. She blinked at Cookie with fresh tears spilling from the corners of her eyes.

  “Oh, Mom,” she said, as if there was supposed to be something more to say that she just couldn’t remember. Then she fell forward into Cookie’s arms, and sobbed. “Oh… Mom.”

  Cookie brought her back into the cabin and closed the door. She wasn’t sure who else might be staying in this section of the ship but there was no reason to showcase Madison’s raw emotions for everyone to see.

  Their room was a little bigger than the one she and Jerry were in, with two beds instead of just one and a couch and of course a television mounted to the wall above a desk. Clarissa slept in the bed over by the wall, the sheets pulled out of the end of the mattress and tangled around her arms and legs. Cookie’s granddaughter had gotten some sleep, but it didn’t look like it had been very restful.

  She sat down with Madison on the closer of the two beds. This was the one that Joseph would have been sharing with her. Now, Madison would be all alone in it. She noticed as she stroked her daughter’s hair and tried to calm her tears that Joseph’s suitcase was open and his clothes were strewn everywhere, like Madison had been going through them. Maybe she’d been looking for something. Maybe she just wanted to feel close to him.

  Cookie remembered doing something similar when her own husband—Madison’s father—had left them. Going through photos, and personal effects, and yes even the clothes that he had left behind, trying to find just a hint of the attachment they had shared. Of course, that had just been a man walking out on her. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to know your husband was dead, and he was never coming back, ever.

  With a final shaky breath, Madison sat up and pushed back from her mother to wipe at her eyes with one sleeve of her robe. “Oh, I’m such a wreck. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Mom. I just don’t know what to do.”

  She was keeping her voice low, and crying without a sound, and Cookie knew it was so she wouldn’t disturb Clarissa. She had every reason in the world to be upset but here she was, still thinking of her daughter first. That was the type of woman Cookie had raised against all odds. That was also why she knew Jerry’s belief that Madison had to be questioned about all this was ludicrous. There was no way Madison could ever hurt Joseph.

  That didn’t mean she might not have some useful information, though. Maybe even some things she didn’t know that she knew.

  “Madison,” Cookie said, “we’re going to get through this. I promise. I’ll be here for you every step of the way. When we get back you and Clarissa can come stay with me in Widow’s Rest for a while, if you need to.”

  Madison nodded absently to that. “I don’t know. Maybe. I need to… I need to contact his family. Oh, his poor mom. She’s going to be devastated. Then there’s his work. I’ll have to call them and let them know. And… and funeral arrangements. Mom, we hadn’t ever talked about funerals. He was so young! We’re both too young to think about dying…”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from breaking down again. Cookie held her hands clasped in her own. All she could do was repeat her promises. “We’ll get through this, Madison. All of that is stuff that can be taken care of later. I’ll help you start making calls later today but first, we have to take care of you. When did you eat last?”

  “The reception. I think.” Madison waved a hand in the air. “Last night’s kind of a blur. After the captain and you came to tell me about Joseph… about him dying, I guess I kind of lost it. They gave me this shot to put me to sleep and that’s the last thing I remember. What’s been going on, Mom? What’s happening to find Joseph’s killer?”

  The word caught in her throat and she sobbed again, swallowing back what Cookie had to imagine was a wild tangle of emotions.

  Clarissa stirred, and they both looked over to see if the girl was going to wake up. When she didn’t, Cookie answered Madison’s question in a hushed whisper. “The captain asked Jerry to investigate. Apparently they don’t have anything like a security detail aboard ship. Just the crew. They have authority in open water, as I understand it, but none of them are trained in anything like this.”

  “Good. Good,” Madison repeated, setting her jaw. “Jerry’s a smart man. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Well…” Cookie wished she hadn’t said that. Now Madison’s eyes searched hers, a furrow starting between the messy curls across her forehead. “You see, the thing is, Jerry thinks I need to stay out of it, because he thinks suspicion is going to fall on, um, you.”

  “What!” Madison’s voice shot up an octave, and she gave up any attempt at being quiet. “He thinks what? Is he insane? How dare he! Where is he? I’ll give him a piece of my mind and maybe he wants to come live in my shoes right now if he thinks that I could ever… if he thinks I would… if he thinks!”

  “Mom?” Clarissa was up in bed now, rubbing her eyes as her mother’s shouts startled her awake. She fought her way out of the sheets tangled around her and swung her legs out over the edge of the mattress. She’d put on her pink flannel pajamas before bed, although she’d mismatched the buttons on the front of the shirt. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  “Your Grandmother’s boyfriend,” Madison answered with a twist to her lips, “thinks that I might have killed Joseph!”

  “What?” Clarissa blinked rapidly at Cookie now, coming fully awake in an instant. “Is he still on that? I thought you talked him out of it?”

  Well, Cookie thought. This certainly got away from me in a hurry. She lifted her han
ds to both of them like a referee. “He doesn’t think that Madison did anything. He just thinks that whenever a husband dies like this and there was trouble in the marriage that the spouse is the first one to be accused.”

  Clarissa crossed her arms and turned her head away. Madison glared. “And what trouble does Jerry think me and Joseph were having, Mom?”

  “He doesn’t know. Neither do I, but Madison I could tell. Joseph has been under a lot of stress recently, hasn’t he?”

  “It’s work,” she said, a little too quickly.

  Cookie let that go for now. It might be a piece of the puzzle, and it might not, but it wasn’t what she came here to ask about. “He really doesn’t suspect you. I promise. He’s just… he’s just looking out for you.”

  She stopped herself from saying anything else, realizing she was making excuses for Jerry that he might not even deserve. Why was she defending him? They were having their own troubles as it was and he hadn’t exactly made her feel like an equal partner in their relationship last night when he told her to back off and let him do everything himself!

  Well. That didn’t change the fact that Jerry didn’t suspect Madison.

  “Honey,” she said, gently combing her daughter’s hair with her fingers. “Let me help, okay? Are you ready to talk about Joseph?”

  There was a guarded look in her eyes and now Cookie really wished she hadn’t mentioned Jerry at all. “I’ll talk to you, Mom. Only you. Jerry better not come around here with that nonsense about spouses being prime suspects or so help me I just might… I don’t know what, but it won’t be very nice!”

  “Madison, please,” Cookie said, trying to find the balance between her daughter’s legitimate anger and what she knew was Jerry just being, well, Jerry. “He needs to ask questions if he’s going to find out what happened, now isn’t he?”

  “He can ask his questions to the person who hurt Joseph!” she snapped. Standing up abruptly she grabbed the ends of her hair in her fists. Panic reflected in her eyes. She turned one way, then the next, then she growled in frustration and stormed off to the small attached bathroom. “I need a shower. Try not to let your boyfriend convict me before I get back, okay Mom?”