Death Sets Sail

by Dale E. Manolakas

  “But doesn’t he have enough right now for Scotland Yard to get these Wessex people to lock Amy up before we dock?” I wanted to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

  “I don’t think so. He’ll contact me tomorrow morning with more. Maybe we’ll be able to relax the last night for the awards ceremony. Meanwhile, act normal. Keep your eyes on your drinks. Everyone stay away from Amy. And Mary, be careful at dinner.”

  “Can’t Mary switch to our table? God knows, we are minus two.”

  “No,” Sean answered me. “Too obvious.”

  “Speaking of dinner, it’s time to go.” Elias waved for the bar tab.

  “I’ll get this one,” I offered.

  “No, I insist. You’re not raking in the royalty dough yet.” Elias flashed a big smile under his moustache.

  * * *

  At the dining room, Esther and Mavis were entering just ahead of us. They were talking like high school best friends exchanging secrets. Mavis had obviously refused to take “no” for an answer and was still ingratiating herself more to get ghostwriting dollars from Esther or one of her friends.

  I would not have any relationship with Mavis when we returned or ever take another class from her. I knew she was in trouble, but she had made it clear we were not friends.

  “Mary,” I whispered. “If a writer had an agent interested in republishing an old series again as a print on demand and e-book, would that be a good thing?”

  “No. It’s usually the desperate act of an uninspired writer. Who is it?”

  “I don’t think . . .”

  “Come on. Spill the dirt.”

  “It’s . . .” I hesitated, but then decided turn-about was fair play here. “. . . Mavis.”

  “That’s hardly news. We all expected that. Poor woman. If I were she, I wouldn’t expect much revenue from that series. It didn’t do well when it first came out.”

  “Ah, too bad.” I was genuine in my sympathy for Mavis.

  “It happens. Often.”

  “I guess.”

  “Wish me luck,” Mary whispered, and then followed Esther to their table.

  Mary bravely took her seat near Amy who shot her a smile tantamount to the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, but with dimples. I wished Amy was locked up and hoped Mary stuck to her plan not to eat.

  Mavis stood lingering at Amy’s left. She was genuflecting while Esther seated herself. Mavis watched me as I passed with Elias and Sean behind me. Then, Mavis leaned into Esther with her mouth moving a million miles an hour. When Esther glanced over, I knew Mavis was spewing venom about my group and me.

  “Hello.” Elias greeted their glares cheerily as he made his way past the gauntlet to our table.

  Neither Esther nor Mavis responded.

  As we approached our table, Brent was seated, but without Helga. I looked toward the entry and then scanned the room for her.

  Helga was nowhere to be seen. Or, more notably, heard!

  ⌘

  Chapter 32

  A Helga of a Mystery

  At dinner Brent, floating on too many cocktails, gregariously led the conversation. He was uncharacteristically uninhibited because there was no Helga-downer by his side. He cheerily replaced the Brent-and-Helga Show with the Brent Show.

  Mavis and me took our turn buying wine for the table. The server poured.

  “Will Madame be coming?”

  “Of course. Why not?” Brent snapped, then moderated himself and added, “She’s just late.”

  Brent returned to his conversation with Anne about her gardening and spectacular roses. I had taken care of my own gardening and roses enough to catch that Brent had done nothing but smell the flowers, not cultivate them, in his lifetime. He was shooting from a non-gardener’s hip or, worse yet, a hip that had not even frequented a flower shop. The closest he had ever gotten to rose-care was ordering them on the phone.

  Our table had been noticeably sparse in the absence of Mendel and Frederick, and was even emptier now without Helga’s heavy presence and unpleasant domination. Her full elegant crystal wine glass sat strangely untouched by her red, red lips, which regularly delighted in drawing red, red blood from those around her.

  Mavis finally stopped sucking up to Esther and, undoubtedly, disparaging our investigation. She took her seat at our table. She was sullen. I now knew the personal pressure she was under and was not entirely unsympathetic—just mostly so.

  Curtis came late and sheepishly took his seat at his dinner table. He avoided looking over at me even though I openly waited for his usual friendly smile. Had I done something wrong? Well, besides having dead bodies turn up around me, that is.

  “Trouble in paradise?” Mavis smirked.

  I wasn’t surprised she had been watching me and even less surprised that she seemed delighted with the question.

  “No.”

  I sat up tall and then joined her and Brent’s conversation with Anne. It was about the rose’s place in literature and love. Brent apparently did know something about that.

  “I have one spot in my front yard that gets enough sun for roses,” I volunteered. “I have planted . . . no . . . really overplanted with so many varieties and colors of roses. Every single rose bush is my favorite when I buy it.”

  “I understand,” Anne agreed. “Every color is my favorite, depending on the day.”

  “I know. It’s strange, isn’t it? And you can’t help but mother them—spray them for aphids and feed them rose food.”

  “They give you so much pleasure that you are compelled.” Anne was delighted with my kindred spirit.

  “In all honesty,” Brent confessed. “I don’t know about feeding them, but I buy them regularly for Helga . . . Blood red.”

  Mavis interrupted.

  “Where is Helga? She’s late. That’s not like her, Brent.”

  I waited for Brent’s response. I was surprised that he simply did not respond

  “Yes.” Elias topped off his Cabernet Sauvignon, did the same for his closest tablemates, and then passed the bottle to Brent. “Where is your charming wife?”

  “My charming wife, as you call her, is writing, I suppose.”

  Brent then turned and charmed Heather into a flirtatious exchange about her day.

  I studied Brent. Had he found Helga, or did he just not want to go public with her absence all day? I was surprised that he seemed not to remember that I knew she wasn’t writing. We had found her laptop in her bedroom closed and apparently unused. And why would she start at dinnertime when she so enjoyed being an evil black hole in public?

  I tried to catch Brent’s eye, but he avoided looking at me. He had extended his good-times antics from the bar to our dinner table.

  * * *

  As the appetizer and salad courses came and went, I noted our little table had become a hybrid family. It had all the personality conflicts and annoyances that come with those kinds of relationships. In a way, I did miss the Brent-and-Helga Show, the venomous exchanges and tongue-lashings. She was an entertaining fireball and he was a practiced lightning rod.

  Elias skillfully kept one eye on Amy at her table across the way. I did as well. Amy was chatting animatedly with Esther. Sean appeared unconcerned; he trusted Mary’s survival instincts.

  As we waited for our main courses, not too overtly but not quite furtively enough for Mavis’s evil eye, I glanced repeatedly at Curtis. I wanted some sign we would have our date tonight. There was none. He had found someone else—I was sure of it. And why not? Bodies were piling up around me, and there were likely to be more if we couldn’t get Amy under control. How attractive could that be?

  Then, just as I had given up on Curtis, he turned and smiled at me. He raised his wine glass slightly and mouthed, “The bar?”

  I very casually nodded, hoping he thought I had just momentarily glanced over. I discarded any doubts about our relationship and justified his preoccupation until now.

  Mavis watched the interchange with a sour look. She was jealous, jealous Bre
nt had showed up at our cabin and jealous of Curtis’s attentions. I ignored her and rejoined the Brent, Heather, and Anne conversation. They were analyzing decomposing bodies and their nutritious effect on roses when buried in a shallow grave under them—as opposed to a deeper one.

  “Aren’t you two carrying this too far?” I laughed. “I don’t think the reader cares about this minutiae. It seems obsessive and inbred.”

  “The reader cares about every detail,” Mavis said. “But you wouldn’t really know that, would you? You’ve never worked with an editor for publication.”

  I smiled pleasantly at Mavis and this time couldn’t resist cutting to her core. I wanted to get even. I wanted to make her publicly admit her writing career was dried up. I had taken all I could.

  “And what are you editing now with a publisher?”

  “Several things.”

  “Oh, interesting. Share? We’d all like to hear.”

  “Not now.” Mavis looked away and drank her wine.

  The table was silent. Everyone knew Mavis had become an authorial shadow of her former self, and was not really on the publishing carousel with them. I felt cruel, but it was oddly and curiously satisfying. It was as if Helga had channeled through me and was present at the dinner—Helga was sharp and would have known Mavis’s answer referred to her old series, too. I shamelessly used eavesdropping information gleaned from her and Esther in the restroom. Mavis wondered at my knowledge of her confidential conversation and then turned her attentions elsewhere.

  The hiccup of my shameless attack passed and conversations went back to normal. And Brent, of course, went back to devouring Heather—verbally and visually. It appeared that the entire table knew about Mavis’s fallow years and, evidently, the code of conduct, which I had transgressed, was “don’t ask, don’t tell.” I didn’t know that and seemed to be excused for my ignorance because, as Mavis had amply pointed out, I was unpublished, not quite part of their club, and, therefore, not ruled by their code of conduct.

  Either way, I would never do that again!

  It did not feel right to me, anyway. That just wasn’t who I was.

  * * *

  Our main courses were served with clockwork precision and in unison. The presentation was beautiful and the gourmet plates were all steaming hot.

  Just as I put the first bite of my crispy and creamy au gratin potatoes in my mouth, a security guard quietly advanced on Brent. He was quite clearly trying not to attract attention, and he achieved his goal—almost.

  “We need you Mr. Brodsky.” The security man whispered.

  “It’s Mr. Hawthorne. And stop whispering in my ear!” Brent took a drink of wine to wash down the large bite of filet mignon he was chewing. “Can’t it wait until after our dinner?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hawthorne. But, no, it can’t wait.” The security guard stood straight and spoke softy in middle-class Queen’s English. “Could you please come with me? It’s important and personal.”

  “Important and personal?” Brent was loud and sarcastic as he stabbed another bite of filet and a slice of the raw onions he had specially ordered. “Then it must be my wife. Tell Queen Helga I am at dinner . . . and that she is late.”

  “What is it?” I intervened—I believed as of right—after this afternoon’s trek with Brent.

  “Never mind.” Brent turned to Heather with a pleasant smile and then back to the security officer. “Tell my wife to join us.”

  “Sir, I can’t. I need you to come with me . . . now.”

  Brent glanced up at the security officer and then down at his dinner plate. Instead of putting down his fork and knife, he cut another piece of his filet and stabbed at the pieces of raw onion.

  I scrutinized Brent. He was not going to move. I thought this was odd after he dramatically drafted me into his domestic hide-and-seek game this afternoon. Why wasn’t he jumping up?

  At the table, everyone was irritated at Brent’s behavior. Even if it was just Helga’s nose being out of joint, they thought Brent should go. At the very least, if not for Helga, he should go for them and their own peace at the dinner table.

  I suspected at this point that it was not about Helga being a pissant, but more than that. I spoke up.

  “I’ll come with you. Is Mrs. Brodsky in her cabin?”

  “No.” The security officer glanced at me, and then back at the top of Brent’s head as Brent chewed his onion and filet and forked his next bite. “Sir, she’s not . . . sir, she’s had an accident.”

  “What?” Brent stopped his fork with a large piece of rare filet and onion—mid-air. “Is she all right?”

  “No, Sir.” The security officer was through being patient and obviously tired of Brent’s arrogance. “I’m afraid she’s not.”

  “She’s not?” I interjected, horrified at the thought of another body.

  The security officer ignored me—viewing me as an outsider, a non-player in this situation.

  “Is she alive?” Shock and panic flash across Brent’s eyes as he stood quickly. “I mean . . .”

  Brent stopped in midsentence. I thought how presumptive and odd it was that he went straight to death. The others, of course, were not privy to my afternoon adventures with Brent.

  “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  He immediately regained his composure, looking around the table at us. “She’s probably on one of her binges.”

  “No, sir, she . . . I think you’d better just come with me, Mr. Hawthorne. It’s very serious. The doctor and captain are with her.”

  “The doctor and captain with her . . .” Brent parroted.

  A clatter of questions arose from our table

  “What kind of accident?” Sean asked.

  “What happened?” Mavis simultaneously signaled Esther with a small wave, to no avail.

  “Is she dead?” Heather asked with furrows across her smooth pale forehead and between her large eyes.

  The security officer lowered his eyes. We all knew.

  “Lord above!” Sean shook his head.

  “This is too much.” Anne held her hand up to her chest. “I don’t understand. Our table is . . .”

  “Getting smaller and smaller,” Elias said.

  Elias made the sign of the Greek Orthodox cross several times, looked gravely at me, and then eyed each member of our quartet—even Mary who had now turned her attention to our table, as had most of the nearby diners.

  “But it doesn’t fit the pattern,” Sean whispered to me.

  “No, it doesn’t,” I agreed, privately relieved that I had not shared my suspicions about Helga being the murderer with anyone.

  As Brent got up to leave, I suspected another pattern now—a pattern of one—one miserable abused husband taking advantage of the wild-west deaths on the high seas—or, should I say, wild-Wessex deaths. One shattered and battered husband counting on the Wessex Cruise Line and Esther to cover up foul play at any cost. One degraded husband perhaps desperately trying to change the trajectory of his life. I wondered if he really had that mistress. Was she at home or on board cruising with us across the Atlantic as we quite literally collected bodies?

  “Follow me.” The security officer headed to the staircase out calmly, trying to curtail the mounting scene.

  “I’m going with him,” Sean stood. “Elias?”

  “Let’s go.” Elias gulped the last third of his wine glass.

  Without a word, I followed the parade out of the dining room. Mary joined us and I told her what I knew in a nutshell.

  I glanced back to see Mavis hurry over to Esther. The nearby dining tables were no longer silently watching the activity at our table, but were instead buzzing louder and louder.

  Our small, very subdued group waited for the elevator.

  ⌘

  Chapter 33

  A Lifeboat Too Far

  As we stood waiting for the elevator, Brent remained quiet, oddly quiet. And not the least bit inquisitive. He asked nothing. Then suddenly, as if he realized he should b
e interrogating the security man, he forced out a question.

  “Where is she?”

  “Down below.” The security officer punched the down call button several times again.

  “Down below?” Elias repeated.

  “A machinist found her on his routine maintenance checks.”

  “Wait a minute. What do you mean?” Sean interrupted. “A machinist found her? Where? What do you mean by ‘down below.’ Speak up!”

  Brent joined the bandwagon of inquisitors that he should have been leading. “Yes, what do you mean ‘down below’? Where’s Helga? What happened to her?”

  “Look, all I know is what I was told. The captain and the doctor are with her.”

  “With her?” Brent questioned. “Is she alive?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I was just ordered to get you and . . .”

  “Did she say anything? Did she ask for me? What is going . . .?”

  “What in heaven’s name is going on here?” Esther interrupted as she and Mavis dashed up to the elevator. “Is this about Helga? I am the head of the MWW and in charge. We can’t have our functions and dinners disturbed like this every night!”

  “Helga is evidently in trouble,” I whispered.

  “Oh.” Esther settled down.

  We all boarded the elevator, Mavis was the last and stuffed herself in, insistent on not being left behind.

  Then, to my surprise, Curtis came around the corner. Mavis was only too happy to make room for him.

  I smiled up at him and felt my mind wandering away from any concerns for Helga.

  The elevator descended with this incongruous group of riders, much like any elevator would. But a unified mission bound this odd assemblage, and also, I was convinced, it housed evil—it housed Brent.

  * * *