Death Sets Sail

by Dale E. Manolakas

  “That’s because Mendel wrote it instead of Amy. He underestimated her,” Mary said. “On top of that, just imagine her seeing Mendel’s book come out. Reading it and its twisted ending.”

  “And then watching Otto and Frederick at the Oscars, splattered across the news and Internet,” Elias said

  “It would be the final straw,” I said. “That’s when she decided to confront Otto.”

  “I’d whack off their manhood, like the women in my slashers. Then, I’d slowly skin them alive,” Mary smirked.

  “I’m sure you would.” Elias chuckled. “Remind me not to cross you, because that mind of yours is beyond normal.”

  Mary laughed. “Thanks, Elias.”

  “Let’s be serious for a moment.” I quieted the authorial banter. “Not only is this autobiographical for Amy, but it distorts the reality she has lived all these years. She is depicted as a woman who initiated rough sex and then cried rape and then killed her baby. I mean this book is really bad.”

  “I agree,” Elias said. “And what better place to dispose of Frederick and Mendel than on this isolated cruise across the Atlantic where there are no cops, no forensic teams, no coroner . . . no anything.”

  “Just a hack doctor, used for Wessex cover-ups, and a brain-dead security team,” Mary said.

  “Don’t forget Esther and Mavis getting in bed with them, too.” I got my digs in.

  “Yes,” Sean agreed. “FYI, I had a copy of the police report Amy made when the rape happened transmitted to me this morning. It doesn’t match the book . . . it was rape. The cops took it seriously. Mendel was lucky she withdrew it.”

  There was silence. Elias shook his head and stroked his moustache. Mary and Sean took a few bites of their barely touched salads as they thought. I started my own salad.

  “How ironic that Mendel’s book was probably the catalyst for all three murders. Without Mendel’s book, life might just have gone on as it had before.” Elias ignored his salad. “What do we do now?”

  “I don’t know,” Sean said. “It’s clear Amy doesn’t need our protection. And I don’t think at this point there will be any other bodies popping up.”

  “Unless she knows we are on to her.” Mary shoved her food away. “There is no one to arrest her here and we don’t have proof. If she finds out about what we really know we could all die of heart attacks. Who would know the difference? I am certainly tubby enough to be categorized as a heart risk.”

  “Oh, no.” I objected to Mary’s self-criticism, even though it was painfully accurate.

  “Wait. That sounds ridiculous, but might not be.” Elias got serious. “You can only be executed or imprisoned for life once. And she has nothing else to lose.”

  “Then we have to keep this to ourselves.” I was frightened. “Right now, she has no idea what we have discovered.”

  “I’ll make sure if we start dying she won’t get away with it,” Sean said. “I’m wiring this to my ex-partner who’s still on the force. We need someone on the outside who can avenge us if need be, but more than that, we need to find proof against her while we keep our mouths shut.”

  “I agree,” Elias said.

  “We’ve already said too much at dinner.” Mary looked worried. “And . . .”

  “We are where we are. No recriminations,” Elias interrupted. “We’ve got to get the Prolixin away from her, if she still has any and we can find it. And, Sean, do you think your ex-partner can trace any purchases she made?”

  “Good ideas,” Mary said. “Who would have thought that little Amy could have done all of this?”

  “She probably wouldn’t have,” Elias said. “The matter was dormant . . . behind her . . . until the book and the Oscar.”

  “Mendel should have let things go,” Sean said. “It was his book.”

  “Right,” Mary agreed. “The rumors were true. His muse was gone and he needed something. Fiction can never beat the twists of real life.”

  “Dinner is going to be hard,” I said. “We have to be careful, Elias.”

  “I agree,” Elias said. “I’ll watch my liquor.”

  “You’d better,” Mary warned. “You start talking and don’t stop. Look at you with Mavis.”

  “Come on,” Elias objected. “I had an ulterior motive.”

  “We all have with her,” I said.

  “Look. Everyone just act normal,” Sean suggested.

  “Well, I for one am going to do something now,” Mary announced. “I’m going to try to get into her stateroom. We need proof and to confiscate the Prolixin if she still has some in her stateroom.”

  “I’ll go with you and stand watch in the hall,” I volunteered. “Does she have a roommate?”

  “We’ll find out,” Mary said.

  “How are you going to get in?” Elias asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mary replied. “Trick the steward.”

  “Too dangerous,” Sean said. “I can pick a lock.”

  “What?” I blurted.

  “Cops have many talents.” Sean shrugged. “What can I say?”

  “Good.” Elias stood up. “We’ll all go. Sean and I will stand post at both ends of the hallway and watch for Amy or any potential roommate. You two go in and get out fast.”

  As we four marched out of the dining room and down the hall, I was fearless. My chest swelled and my heart beat with pride, purpose, and belonging.

  I was convinced I had solved the murders—well, Sean and I had.

  ⌘

  Chapter 28

  Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave

  The halls were deserted after lunch. The MWW members were in meetings. Other passengers were at their groups’ meetings, and unaffiliated cruisers were at the Wessex Cruise Line’s daily movies, card games, and programs. I presumed early risers were napping before four o’clock High Tea. High Tea was of course a tradition on British cruise ships.

  Elias had confirmed that Amy was attending the after-lunch MWW panel discussion on literary agencies by agents. It was a highlight of the MWW program for writers. It revealed the inner workings and thoughts of that parasitic layer between the book and the public, the statistical health of the book business, and trends.

  In fact, my cohorts were afraid that as a grouping they would be missed. It went without saying that I, of course, would not be. But we all agreed we would work quickly and then slip in at the back of the panel discussion.

  With his detective skills, Sean found Amy’s stateroom and that she had paid almost double for her stateroom to sail sans roommate. We all agreed that, with her less-than-stellar career, she could not easily afford it. It confirmed to us that she had paid that dear price to achieve her true goal in secrecy—murder.

  * * *

  Sean knocked on Amy’s door with a plausible story on the tip of his tongue. With no answer, Sean waved us up and did his work picking the lock. Mary and I hurried and stood sentinel with Elias down the hall near the closest bank of elevators.

  “There it is. A piece of the proverbial cake.” Sean cracked the door open. “Have at it and leave everything as you found it except any evidence we’ll need—the Prolixin, notes, calendars. Mary, I’ve read your books. You know the drill. Veronica, follow her lead. I’ll go down to the other end of the hall.”

  “Move aside, Sean. We’re ready.” Mary stood poised at attention.

  “I’m ready too,” I whispered. “But you guys have to stop Amy if she shows up . . . no matter what!”

  “Believe me I know what to do, and so does Elias.” Sean turned and scooted down the hall quite agilely for a man his size and age.

  Mary pushed the door open and started in. I panicked and froze in my steps.

  My good girl kicked in and I couldn’t step over the threshold. How could I break and enter? Well, how could Sean break and I enter? How could I be involved? This was absurd! I was Veronica Kennicott, aspiring author from Santa Monica, California in the good old U.S. of A. Had the isolation of the high seas and salt air gone to my brain? Was
it truly the rule, rather than the exception, that anything goes on this floating conglomeration of people ruled by the questionable and the imbibed of the Wessex Cruise Line—at least anything that did not threaten Wessex’s corporate bottom line?

  “Come on.” Mary broke my brain streaming and dragged me in by the arm.

  “Shouldn’t we at least put out the Do Not Disturb sign in case the maid shows up?”

  I looked to her for leadership, but then laughed at myself. Her qualifications might be superior but they were still only derived from my same experience—none other than the printed word. We were alphabet graduates in the school of crime. Suddenly, I was even more afraid.

  “No, it could cause complications. Shut the door. The guys will take care of us.”

  I shut the door to the room’s daylight-darkness filtered through the drawn curtains. I held my breath as Mary turned on the lamp.

  “Thank God.” I breathed out in relief. “She’s not here.”

  “Of course not, she’s at the meeting. Don’t be such a Nervous Nellie. Let’s get to work. You take the bathroom. Call me if you find something. Anything you move put back just like it was. Be very careful. We don’t want to tip her off if we don’t find the goods . . . and, even if we do, we need time on our side. I’ll start with the dresser.”

  I turned on the bathroom lights and went over every inch—not that there was much. I searched Amy’s make-up case and toiletries. Her make-up was top drawer and her face creams expensive. I personally bought middle-of-the-road all the way. I ignored the hard sell for the pricy creams, as I aged and slid further over the proverbial “Hill”.

  On the way out, I looked under towels piled on the floor for the maid.

  “Nothing. No Prolixin.” I turned off the lights and left everything as I found it.

  “Go through the nightstands. I’ll take the closet.” Mary slammed the bottom drawer of the dresser. “Oops!

  While we searched, every second was an hour. My hands were shaking and my forehead was hot with sweat. I concluded I would never be a good criminal. I was just a criminalist, or really, a criminalist who really simply wanted to create clues and evil in print. The only real, live chasings-of-evil I had done involved the petty thieves and barking dogs in my neighborhood. Of course, there were the notable Hollywood Valentine Theatre murders I had solved, but in the end, I had tracked down that killer to save myself from arrest. Suddenly, I transformed into a calm exacting sleuth. After all, we were here to save our lives! Our foursome was a threat to Amy and she had nothing to lose. I steadied my hands and remembered the Valentine Theatre as Texans “Remember the Alamo.”

  I opened the last drawer of the second nightstand.

  “Mary, look. Medications. Containers of them,” I announced as I started to read the labels. “Well, this one accounts for her placid affect. She’s drugged all the time.”

  “Let me see.” Mary came over and read the labels. “Wow, this is a whole pharmacy. Pills to wake up with. Pills to stay awake with. Pills to make her want to stay awake. Pills to go to sleep. And pills to counteract the pills.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “Just years of living with my killers, killees, and cowards. A writer’s life.” Mary rummaged away. “Everything but Prolixin.”

  “Look here.” I held up two containers. “These are from a pharmacy in Canada.”

  “The Internet!” Mary grabbed them. “And look, two different doctors. Interesting. She could get Prolixin from there, too. And Sean said there’s a liquid form.”

  “Do we take these?”

  “No, she uses them. She’d notice.” Mary got the ship’s pad and pen from the adjacent desk. “Write down the info. Get the prescription numbers and pharmacy names, too.”

  “I’ll just snap a picture with my phone.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forget technology. I even forget it in my books sometimes.” Mary put the pen and pad back carefully.

  “Easy to do.” I sympathized, of course, without any personal authorial experience in that vein at all. I noted, though, that when I edited my books I should check on updating technology references.

  “Snap anything that will lead us to the Prolixin. I’d go through the closet, but she might have it with her.”

  “What for? There’s no one else we can predict from the book.” I lined up the Canadian pill containers and snapped pictures. “And we’re all here.”

  “Not funny.”

  “But considering we’re in here, her purse might be the safest place.” I studied the labels. “Guess what? She misspelled her last name by one letter on some of these. Sean’s partner could never have traced these purchases.”

  “Great catch. Amy’s a tricky lady. Double check it and then help me with these suitcases.” Mary opened the sliding mirrored closet doors and struggled to take down the stored luggage in the closet. “This is where my delightful murderer in book number eight years ago hid his knife on a very bloody family vacation.”

  As the large black suitcase submitted to Mary’s pulling, she whispered, “Bingo. Hear the stuff rattling? You take the small one. Don’t forget to check the small pockets and the lining.”

  “Did you look at the safe at the back of the closet?” I grabbed the mismatched and tattered navy blue carry-on

  “Yeah. It’s open and empty, just as I expected. In my experience, murderers want to be clever, not obvious. That’s how I write them, anyway.”

  “Ah, I’ll remember that.” I threw the carry-on across the bed next to the large suitcase that Mary was fighting to unzip.

  “Damn, this zipper is touchy. It’s like mine that I overstuffed once too many times,” Mary said.

  Finally, and suddenly, the zipper gave way. Mary rummaged through what amounted to a laundry bag of clothes used so far on the trip and a large stash of the small toiletries the maids place every day in our cabins.

  “Nothing.”

  “Too bad.” I had mine unzipped.

  Mary ran her hands along the lining and in the two small side compartments again. “I’ll put this back.”

  I flipped open my lid as Mary put the unhelpful large suitcase back up on the upper shelf of the closet.

  “Look at all this stuff. And here’s Mendel’s book.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Mary looked at my find. “His book.”

  I grabbed the book from amongst the news clippings, magazines, small boxes, and clothes in large sealed baggies.

  “Freeze.” Mary whispered.

  “What?”

  “Shh. Just freeze.”

  I looked at Mary and didn’t move. I didn’t even twitch and eye. I thought she saw a trap or bomb trigger wire or something. My knees started to buckle.

  “Put it down just like it is,” Mary commanded. “Fingerprints. We want her fingerprints.”

  Mary made her way over. “We have to preserve anything we can.”

  “Oh, my God.” I sunk into an adjacent chair. “You scared me to death. I thought you saw a booby-trap or something.”

  “No, sorry. Get some tissues from the bathroom. It looks like there’s something stuffed in the book.”

  I was irritated, but got the tissues.

  “See . . . There.” Mary took a tissue.

  “I see it.”

  Mary flipped the pages of the book with the tissue. As she did, we saw meticulous notes in the margins. It looked like the textbook of an average student competing with gifted ones for an “A” in a college literature course. I remembered those college days, trying to make up with ink and time for what God had not given me in gray matter.

  “Look here.” Mary pointed. “Amy has notated Mendel’s embellishments and lies.”

  “Here’s an envelope.” With a tissue I slipped an envelope out of the book. “A law firm.”

  Mary opened it laboriously using tissues. The law firm refused to represent her for a defamation case. They said there was no defamation, actual or by innuendo.

  “I know what the actual me
ans, but what is that innuendo?” I asked.

  “It means indirectly, from the context.” Mary put the letter back carefully. “The reader would need outside facts to recognize that the book was about Amy’s life.”

  “Anyway, the bottom line is that she couldn’t sue?”

  “Yes.” Mary put the letter and book back and then examined a clear plastic baggie with hot pink underpants and a bra. “Look at this. Holy Mary . . .”

  “Are those the underwear garments she was raped in?”

  “They’ve got to be. Look at the ripped side.” Mary was unable to take her eyes off them. “There’s some blood. Look. On the bra.”

  “Maybe.” The keepsakes repelled me. “What the hell did she bring them here for?”

  “I think to get her anger up. Her courage. A reminder.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. Way back, in one of my first books, I had a man do that with his wife’s hair to stir him up for revenge. The murderer had ripped it out of her head during the rape-torture-murder. I got the idea from a psychology book with a chapter on revenge.”

  “Huh.” I was amazed by Mary, but immediately tried to look as professional and savvy as she did. “I think she was planning a ritual burial at sea with this stuff too, after she got her revenge.”

  “Possibly.” Mary looked at me with a smile. “You’re good. I’m going to work that into the book I’m writing now. With your permission, of course.”

  I preened. “Have at it.”

  I knew there was no stopping Mary, anyway. Besides, I had taken that plot point from an obscure but very good mystery I had read a decade ago. I turned back to my hunt through the rest of the artifacts.

  “There it is. The Prolixin. With Kleenex around it.” I took a liquid vial from an inside zipped pocket. “But it hasn’t been opened.”

  “My God.” Mary dropped the underwear on the bed and grabbed the bottle with a tissue. “You’re right. Look, a different name, an anagram. May Rellim. Canadian. And a different doctor. Internet. We never would have found this doing research.”