Murder at Sea of Passenger X Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery #5 (Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Series)

by Anna Celeste Burke

  I hoped Martin Santo was, indeed, the drunk who had bumped into Marsha Stevens. The possibility that some other drunk with expert pickpocket skills was roaming the ship was more than I could bear to consider. Still, what difference would it make if it had been Martin Santo unless we could find him?

  15 Morning Constitutional

  I felt as though I had a hangover when I woke up on Day 9 of our ten-day voyage. Not from drinking, but from too many sweets. My chocoholism had done its worst. I had not been able to resist a peek at the treats in those take-out boxes when we finally returned to our cabin. A huge mistake. Even Jack had been unable to resist the urge to “eat dessert twice.”

  “Lucy and Ethel must have felt like this after they got fired from that job at the candy factory,” I murmured. That Rumi quote about the sea breeze carrying secrets didn’t help me get out of bed this morning. In fact, all the ugly secrets that we had uncovered yesterday made me want to pull the silky covers up over my head.

  In addition to suffering the consequences of my overindulgence, I was feeling the aftermath of my wrestling match with that fool Justin. Why not stay here? I’d be comfy and safe from missing passengers which no one seemed to miss, murderous thieves, and a misguided youth all too willing to play the patsy.

  When I became fully conscious, I suddenly remembered that my gorgeous little bauble had disappeared last night. Where? Jack and I couldn’t be sure. Its disappearance was eerily like Marsha Stevens’ vanishing necklace. In my case, there was no drunk involved, and I hadn’t even left the restaurant when I noticed it was missing.

  Or more precisely, Hetty Green noticed as we were saying our goodbyes. “Georgie, what have you done with that exquisite pearl and diamond pendant? Please tell me you took it off and put it away when you went to the powder room?”

  Recalling how startled I had been, even now, I reached for the necklace as I had done last night. As unbelievable as it had seemed, it wasn’t there!

  Jack and I had done a quick search with help from the staff who were still around and cleaning up. Our servers had already cleared the dishes and stripped the tables. A waiter shook out the linens that had been tossed into a laundry bin.

  The maître d’ had called security and a bleary-eyed Adam Drake had shown up minutes into our search. He had taken down the names of all the staff who had been on duty and had gone so far as to frisk the crew members he could round up—including the maître d’ who was mortified by the experience. Jack had tried to prevent Adam from doing that.

  “No thief skilled enough to get that necklace from you without your noticing it is going to hang onto it,” Jack had whispered as we watched from a few feet away. Still, I could understand that Adam was trying to be conscientious.

  “He must be following orders from Bill. He wouldn’t take it upon himself to do that without authorization from his boss.”

  “True. Bill must be feeling about as bad as Adam did about this crime spree somehow being their fault. Too much responsibility with too little control—the story of our lives, isn’t it?”

  “What if it wasn’t stolen at all and I flushed it down the toilet or something stupid happened like that?”

  “It’s all just too much of a coincidence, Georgie. Bold, to pick you out as a target, but it wouldn’t be the first time today. You’re always quick to blame yourself, too. The sociopaths who choose to become skilled thieves count on the rest of us having all these doubts and desires not to impose upon others or be impolite. I shouldn’t be so hard on Adam and Bill.”

  When we finally gave up and headed back to our cabin, I was close to tears. Jack stopped for a moment and held me in his arms. Lifting my chin, he gazed into my eyes and spoke tenderly but firmly.

  “It’s just a thing, Georgie. A very pretty thing, true. One that’s even more beautiful when you wear it, but it’s still a thing. We have so much. All this!” His arm swept wide, drawing attention to our view of the ocean from the deck where we stood wrapped in each other’s arms.

  The silvery moonlight cast an almost magical glow upon the water. A breeze rippled, creating a dazzling pattern as though adorning the sea itself in an array of necklaces made of moonbeams and wind. “And we have each other,” the kiss that followed made up for a lifetime of lost baubles and more serious misfortunes. I luxuriated as I replayed that moment from last night, but not for long!

  “Georgie, my love, are you awake?” I opened my eyes, and three sets stared back at me this morning. My blue-eyed babies sat at the foot of the bed with Jack standing in between them. He held a serving tray.

  “How do you do it?” I asked. The cats swarmed me now that I had responded to Jack’s question. I was awake—let the feline greetings begin. He must have given them their treats already, or they would not have been so polite.

  “Do what?” he asked.

  “Wake up refreshed and ready to go no matter what went on the night before! You’re up and dressed already—how?”

  “Coffee. I have some for you, too. Do you want breakfast in bed or would you prefer to sit out on the veranda?”

  “The veranda sounds perfect, although I don’t deserve it after losing that pendant!” I replied over the rumbling of my Siamese kitties who took turns greeting me with a head bonk. “No chance it turned up under my seat at The Captain’s Table?”

  “Sorry, Georgie, there’s been no message from the restaurant. We can look around again. The place will be closed until this evening, but I’m sure you can get Gerard to let us in.”

  “If I can track him down. Where was he last night?”

  “You said it yourself that Chef Gerard has his hands full trying to cope with the changes in his luau plans. When Paolo dropped by at the end of the evening, he apologized profusely on Gerard’s behalf.”

  “I know. What a ham—you’d think he was playing a scene from Shakespeare instead of relaying a message form Gerard. I probably shouldn’t bother Gerard. He’s probably desperately trying to figure out how to cook a kalua pig without access to an imu.”

  “An imu?” Jack asked, as he headed toward the veranda, then stood there waiting patiently.

  “An underground oven you dig in the sand and fill with coals, topped with wet banana leaves to get an authentic smoky, steamed whole kalua pig. That’s how Gerard had intended to prepare it for us if we had arrived in Bora Bora yesterday as planned. He had organized this beautiful ceremony with drums and dancers, a procession hauling in that pig with lit torches and chants.”

  “Wow! I hope word about what they missed doesn’t get out and cause a mutiny among the passengers. Some of the chatter last night was less than pleasant.” The cats were losing patience, speaking of mutinies in the making. Wave two of head bonks was underway, and I got a sound trampling from them in the process.

  “What is it about cats? They’re always so excited when their humans wake up, aren’t they?” Ella gave me a little pat on the face with a soft paw, while Miles rolled around on the bed. I gave Ella a smooch. She hopped a couple of times and pounced on Miles. He launched himself into the air like Marvelous Marley World’s Catmmando Tom superhero. Off they went, racing from our bedroom with the pitter-patter of little cat feet receding into the distance.

  “Oh, boy, are they ever wound up!” I exclaimed as I slipped on my robe and opened the sliding doors for Jack. A gust of sea air and a bolt of sunshine hit me all at once. I closed my eyes for a moment, then followed Jack onto the veranda and shut the screen door behind me. Jack set the tray down on the table and poured me a cup of coffee.

  “Drink up! I’ve promised the cats a morning constitutional. Miles is way too smart, by the way. When I said ‘leash,’ he disappeared in a flash and came back dragging this.” Jack pulled a small harness with a leash attached to it from a pocket. A bellow drew our attention to the screen door. Both Miles-the-mighty-mouth and his more mellow companion stared at us.

  “So, that’s what has them so hyper!” I said as I took a seat at the small bistro table and sipped the coffee
Jack had poured.

  “Mommy has to drink her coffee first, okay?” I asked Miles who boomed back at me. “That had better be okay because a morning constitutional is not in the cards until the caffeine kicks in, Jack.”

  Truthfully, coffee is probably a worse addiction for me than chocolate. Somehow, it doesn’t leave me with a load of guilt like a chocolate binge. As I savored a sip of coffee, I suddenly realized we were moving.

  “Jack, we’re underway for Bora Bora. Is there news about Passenger X?”

  “Not good news, Georgie. I was hoping you wouldn’t ask until after you’d eaten breakfast.” He lifted the room service cover from the plate in front of me. “Quiche and fresh fruit. It’s delicious,” he added, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  “Uh-oh,” I muttered as I dug into that quiche. I took a couple of bites and then swigged down the rest of my coffee. “Refill, please.” I held my coffee cup near the pitcher Jack had just set down. He obliged. After eating a little more of that quiche and nearly finishing that second cup of coffee, I felt like I could handle the news. I was almost certain I knew what it was, anyway.

  “I’m ready. Let me have it. Is it another body?” I asked.

  “Yes. The search team recovered a body floating on the water this morning.”

  “That poor man,” I said, hoping more coffee would ease the pounding in my head. “At least now they’ll be able to identify him and notify his family of his death.” Jack didn’t say a word.

  “What?” I asked. “There’s more?” I flashed on the scene in that cabin last night.

  “You might want to hold it a minute before you take another sip of your coffee.”

  “Is it Abby?” I asked. “Where? How?” I continued pummeling Jack with questions before he could do more than nod yes. I’m not sure why I asked those questions. Far more important than “where” or “how” was “whodunit” and “why.”

  “He’s a she,” Jack said. “That man overboard wasn’t a man after all.”

  I should have listened to Jack’s warning. I nearly became another victim of the chicanery on board the ship as I tried to swallow without spewing coffee. Once I quit coughing and dabbed the tears from my eyes, I was finally able to speak.

  “No way, Jack. The camera caught her on her way to her workout in those cute workout clothes. Wendy Cutler would have noticed. How did Abby end up in nondescript dark clothes not long after the camera caught her in pink?”

  “I guess she had a change of clothes in the gym bag she had with her. No wonder she never made it to the spa, and we never got another glimpse of her on video later in the day.”

  “David Engels showed up too late to get a good look at the passenger falling overboard, but Wendy Cutler couldn’t tell it was a woman? At the very least, someone as observant as she seems to be would have spotted that blond hair.”

  “Unless Abby was wearing a wig.”

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  “Maggie says she has on a wig cap or a wig band or something like that. Her blond hair tucked up under it. She also had one blue eye and one brown one—courtesy of a contact lens that stayed put during that fight and her drowning.”

  “Drowning? Are you saying she was still alive when she fell into the water?”

  “Yes. Probably unconscious, if Maggie’s correct in her assessment of Abby’s condition. She’s only had time to do a preliminary examination of the body.”

  “A wig and contact lenses have to mean she was in disguise, Jack. Why trade in the perfect cover for pilfering from the spa for drab ware?”

  “I don't know. Maybe the thieves were on their way to a theft that required they dress more as stealthy cat burglars. Or Abby decided she liked being on the boys’ team better. Given it was so easy to lead them both on, why not join them?”

  “But being a girl is what worked for her, Jack. Why give that up? Besides, Abby’s the one who was being led on by her teammates for them to have ganged up on her and shoved her overboard.”

  “Given that Martin Santo took Jake Nugent out, too, I’d say he’s the ‘player’ among the men in that group.”

  “If she was tossed overboard early yesterday, how did that strand of Abby’s hair get caught on the Velcro tab in Perroquet’s costume later in the day?”

  “If Abby had been in Tina’s cabin earlier on this cruise, that hair could have been anywhere in there. We found more of Abby’s hair in her cabin last night, too.”

  “Well, that’s odd, too, since stewards had cleaned her cabin before someone ripped that place apart,” I said.

  “At the time, I just assumed Abby had been in that cabin along with the demolition team. The level of desperation makes more sense if they expected to find something in that room and it wasn’t there after they had already killed Abby Kinkaid and Jake Nugent. Who’s left to ask about the whereabouts of that necklace or whatever they were trying to find? Even though Abby wasn't there, it’s not too surprising strands of her hair turned up. Those hairs could have been in a drawer that was pulled out or on the mattress under the clean sheets. Who knows?”

  “What about the blood, Jack? Is that Abby’s?”

  “It’s hard to say at this point since we don't even have a blood type for any of the principle suspects. That’s for the FBI agents to figure out, along with all the other unanswered questions about this case.”

  “Does that mean backup is on the way?”

  “Yes, thank goodness! They should arrive in Bora Bora by helicopter when we do in the next hour or so. I’m not sure exactly when they left Tahiti. They could get there before us. Anyway, the sooner, the better. We’ve done about as much as we can with the resources at our disposal. Both Bill and Maggie have done wonders given the tools available to them and the fact that there are half a dozen investigations underway, not just one.”

  “Two bodies in the morgue and that loser in the brig ought to make that immediately clear. I doubt even seasoned members of the FBI have encountered that too often on a cruise ship.”

  “You’re right. Hopefully, there are enough clues in all the evidence stored down in the infirmary to nab the culprits, even if they manage to get off this cruise ship when we get back to Papeete tomorrow morning. That’s presuming we arrive in Bora Bora, take on the supplies the crew needs, and are underway again this afternoon as Captain Andrews plans.”

  “I can’t get over the fact that our mysterious Passenger X turns out to be Abby. How come she didn’t get reported as missing when they did that passenger census?”

  “Bill says she wasn’t in her cabin when they made the check, but a woman called in claiming to be Abby Kinkaid. A charge in Abby’s name turned up a few minutes later at a coffee shop, too. They used that kind of information to account for passengers who weren’t in their cabins.”

  “Tina could have made that call. Martin Santo must have taken Abby’s keycard before he and Jake Nugent shoved her overboard. Clever to use it to make it look like she was still on board. How did he manage to get it from her?”

  “We’ll have to ask him if we run into him. He’s a slippery devil. It’s good there aren’t as many holes in the hull of this ship as there are in accounting for passengers and crew members. We’d be underwater by now.”

  “Abby must have turned both men against her if they were willing to work together to get rid of her,” I suggested.

  “I doubt either man trusted her if they figured out she was playing them both for fools. Romantic triangles sometimes result in bloodshed, but there’s even more at stake here. An untrustworthy partner in crime can put you away for a long time. You’d be surprised how many criminal cases get solved because a jilted lover decides to turn in the guilty party, Georgie.”

  “It still doesn’t make sense to me how that leads to murder. I suppose Abby's pals couldn’t just punish her by cutting her out of her share of their ill-gotten gains. That could make her more inclined to rat them out.”

  “It’s hard for me to get into their kill-or-be-killed mindset. Abby
must have become a liability somehow. Jake Nugent, too.”

  “Not to mention there are fewer mouths to feed, as you put it earlier. Here’s another issue that’s bugging me about Martin Santo. Why was he wearing overshoes? If those shoes are standard-issue for members of the kitchen staff, maybe Martin Santo’s not a passenger but a crew member. I know Bill says his name doesn’t show up on the roster of employees, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there using another name.”

  “I’m sure that photo of the man we’re calling Martin Santo has already circulated among the crew as well as passengers. I left a message for Bill to see if he can plaster the crew quarters with ‘wanted posters’ using pictures of all the known culprits. Even though he's done something like that on the electronic bulletin board already, I don't know how often crew members access that site.”

  “I hear you,” I said, disheartened. “If our thieves are in disguise, maybe Martin Santo’s face is as big a lie as his name.” I wasn’t even dressed yet, and it was very early on Day 9 of our honeymoon. Still, I felt a wave of defeat engulf me.

  “Georgie, my sweet, I’m a step ahead of you on that one. Heck, we didn’t even have the gender right when it came to searching for the missing passenger. I mentioned that to Bill, too, although I'm not sure what to do about it. Maybe he's had a brainstorm since I called him at 6:30 a.m. It's after seven, now."

  "Oh, no, are you kidding me? No wonder I feel like I do. You know I don't do early mornings well, Jack."

  "Get dressed, Georgie. I’ll see if Bill can meet us at The Captain’s Table and let us in there to do another search for your pendant. That way you won’t have to drag Gerard up there. Bill and I need to touch base about how to manage the handoff to the FBI. We need to speak to Captain Andrews about who’s going to provide an update to passengers, now that we're underway. Some of them may have noticed the flurry of activity at dawn.”

  “It’s a good idea to prepare a brief statement, so everyone’s on the same page about how to respond to questions from passengers. I can put my PR experience to work and pull something together if that would help.” I could hear my phone ping me from the bedroom. I ran to get it.