Death Sets Sail

by Dale E. Manolakas

  “I have to concur . . .” Elias shrugged. “It was set up too nicely for him to ignore.”

  “And remember the night Helga asked him if his mistress was on board?” Mary added.

  “Whether she is or not, he has a lover at home . . . motive . . . along with the abuse,” Elias added.

  We were circumspect while we ordered—the women wine and the men hard drinks, neat.

  “What do we do about it?” I asked. “Is he going to go after me next, because of my big mouth?”

  “He used you to cover his tracks,” Curtis observed. “He needs you.”

  “Curtis is dead right.” Elias said. “Oh . . . just right will do. He needs you.”

  “But he knows I don’t believe his charade,” I said. “He has the captain and the doctor who believe him. And I didn’t like the way he looked at me tonight.”

  “You’re not going to be alone, anyway. You can’t because of Amy,” Mary pointed out.

  “That’s true,” I agreed.

  “I say we do nothing,” Sean suggested. “We can’t without proof. An autopsy will have to be done and something has to pop up . . . Brent’s skin under Helga’s nails. Some bruising from a struggle.”

  “The odds of either of those are remote,” Mary supposed. “The only skin exposed in a tux is Brent’s face and hands. There were no scratches there. I looked.”

  “I did too.” I was proud of my seasoned-criminalist behavior.

  “Good going.” Mary reached her hand up and we high-fived. “In the mystery writing world, husbands often get divorced this way. At least, in my books they do.”

  “Well, in my world of real crime they do too . . . though not as often,” Sean added. “But that doesn’t change our position here . . . the fact that there is nothing to do right now. I’ll e-mail my old partner and see what he can do with Helga’s body and arranging an autopsy when we land. Or, maybe he can get it sent back for an autopsy before Brent can bury it or worse, cremate it.”

  “Good plan . . .” Elias paused as the server brought our drinks. “ . . . but I think we had better focus on Amy now. Brent’s not knocking anyone else off . . . even you, Veronica. Too dangerous. And, personally, I can’t think of anyone who deserved a little toss over the balcony more than Helga. I’m glad not to have her around.”

  “Elias,” Mary reprimanded. “You sound like women deserve a good old fashioned stoning for misbehaving . . . like in Zorba the Greek or one of those Muslim countries? I think we should be less candid in our remarks. A woman has died.”

  “Been murdered,” I corrected Mary.

  “Right.”

  “I think we have enough problems with Amy right now,” Sean took control. “If we have to make a choice . . . better to stop a serial killer than a wife killer. Let my partner take care of Brent.”

  “Speak of the devil,” I remarked. “Don’t look now, but Amy’s here with Heather in tow.”

  Amy led Heather past several empty tables and took one adjacent to us. She sat facing us. She smiled and nodded.

  Amy kept an eye on our group and, I believed, particularly me.

  Curtis and I stayed for just the one drink. We left, but not until I was sure Sean and Elias would escort Mary to her room.

  * * *

  In Curtis’s stateroom, we had another short drink before our ritual began—as it had before, slowly and tenderly. We caressed each other’s bared bodies and I smelled and sucked and tongued his erect penis. Suddenly, Curtis stood and lifted me as he had before, but he didn’t go into the bedroom. He carried me out onto the balcony in the cold night.

  “What?”

  “Quiet, baby.” Curtis put his mouth around mine and inserted his warm, wet tongue deep into mine.

  Outside, he stood me against the balcony. I grabbed it for my life until I felt his hands knead and massage my buttocks. I was wet and getting wetter. I arched my back and presented myself to him—braced for the thrust. I waited for him to fuck me as I looked at the blackness of the Atlantic. I tasted the salt air as it blended with his whiskey taste in my moist open mouth.

  He penetrated me from behind as he put one of his massive hands on my stomach and pulled himself deeper and deeper into me, His other hand pulled, caressed, and pinched my clitoris until I squealed in pain and pleasure. He pulled my lips around to his, forced my wet mouth open, and interlocked our tongues as we came—together, irreverently—doing anything to sustain it.

  Then—he penetrated me again— differently.

  Afterward, I begged for everything he did in the bedroom for hours.

  ⌘

  Chapter 35

  No Tea, No Sympathy

  In the early morning, I went back to my own bed, unnoticed by the ear-plugged and eye-masked slumbering Mavis. It was hard to sleep. Hard to believe I was the person in Curtis’s stateroom—an enthusiastic convert satisfying his sexual appetites.

  I woke late, but still before Mavis. This was the last full sailing day before we docked in Southampton to disembark at seven a.m.

  I fluffed my pillow and lingered cozily. I immersed myself in memories of Curtis’s lusts. I caught myself moaning involuntarily. I glanced at Mavis still in a deep sleep. She hadn’t heard.

  I forced Curtis to leave the pleasure spot in my brain. Instead I thought about the dreaded day before me and my ongoing need to be vigilant against Amy. I was sure my cohorts were not thrilled with the prospect, either. But we had no choice. There was one thing we could not do in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and that was to leave the Queen Anne. That is—leave it alive! To me, the MWW awards ceremony tonight had lost its allure. Murders could do that to an event. Murders—and Mavis and Esther’s assaults on my character.

  My only objective the rest of the cruise was to survive. I needed to avoid Amy’s remaining vial of Prolixin and keep clear of Brent, particularly near ship rails.

  I got up quietly, showered, got dressed, and got out before Mavis awoke.

  I went to our MWW seminar room to get a strong tea and find Elias, who had Amy’s memory sticks.

  * * *

  As I rounded the hallway corner, Jody, Agnes, and Herbert were chattering in front of the meeting room. An elaborate continental breakfast was set up outside the two adjacent seminar rooms. The gathered MWW members were milling around and talking about Helga’s death. Some comments were quite nasty, but justified. Others were more sympathetic—obviously from writers who did not know the woman.

  “Damn the high octane tea, full speed ahead to a coffee jolt,” I said to myself.

  I grabbed a big mug of java and all the uppers it afforded. It was hard burning the candle at both ends.

  “Both ends.” I smiled to myself.

  I circled through the gathering to find my cohorts.

  “Veronica.” Agnes bounced over like she was on a school playground. “Did you hear about Helga?”

  I did not slow my pace one iota. Instead, I kept scanning for Elias amongst the troop of writers all in a twitter. I ignored Agnes and grabbed a muffin.

  “Did you hear the news?” Agnes trailed me with Jody and Herbert now in tow.

  “News?” I feigned ignorance.

  “Helga’s dead. Dead as a doornail,” Jody heralded. “She fell from the rail in the storm.”

  “Statistically unlikely.” Herbert shrugged. “But they say it happened.”

  “Brent was here with Esther this morning and told everyone,” Jody sympathized. “He’s heartbroken.”

  “Brent was here?” I didn’t see either Brent or Esther there now. “When?”

  “I don’t know.” Then Agnes smiled slyly. “You know, I hate to say this but you do realize with her gone, the publishing world has a void that needs to be filled.”

  “Yes,” Jody burst. “But I didn’t even bring my book with me to work on.”

  “I did.” Herbert smiled, yellow, crooked overlapping teeth and all. “I’ve plotted out three more short novelettes, too. I used these Queen Anne cruisers as characters. Amy is one o
f my victims. I called her Andrea and had her ravished in . . .”

  “Write it. Don’t speak it.” In class I had to be an audience for his smut—not here. “Remember what Mavis said. If you talk a book, it doesn’t write as well.”

  I knew now she said that so she wouldn’t have to listen to all her students’ drivel that would never be written or published.

  “Oh, right . . .”

  Herbert’s disappointment at not titillating himself was written all over his face. In class, we were functionaries in his world of brutal fantasy sex. It never registered with him that we could shut him down out of class.

  “I write everyday no matter what, and guess what? That includes on this cruise.” Agnes ignored Herbert’s shtick as she always did. “Prolific and terrific.”

  I laughed and my mug bounced coffee to the brim. But not one of the three hack hobby writers laughed with me. Evidently, they were not joking—my bad!

  I couldn’t believe my ears. These three had aspirations to jump into the fray and compete for Helga’s crown? These abusers of the alphabet and abortionists of the writing craft were more delusional than I had thought.

  “Good for you, Agnes.” I mustered the phony enthusiasm of a carnival barker. “By the way, have you seen Elias?”

  “No,” Herbert answered. “But I think he’s presenting. The schedule is posted over there.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you all later.” I turned and muttered, “See you later . . . in your dreams!”

  It was too early, too late, or, just too anything for me to put up with the three of them. I walked over to the posted meeting schedule to find Elias and gulped down my now-cooled coffee. I needed to get the memory stick and find out if there were any developments. I hoped Elias had come up with a new idea to prove up Helga’s murder. And I also hoped Sean had heard from his New York connection about our triple murders. Quadruple, if you included Otto’s demise.

  I scanned the program. Elias, Sean, and Mary were not on the schedule until this afternoon. I looked in the MWW rooms and didn’t see them or Esther or Mavis.

  I set down my now-empty coffee mug and headed for Elias’s stateroom. They had to be where the evidence was. As I rounded the hallway corner, Brent shot out in front of me.

  I planted my feet but we collided. Brent grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “Veronica! Just who I wanted to see.”

  I looked up at the big man and felt his massive hands clamped around my thin shoulders. I knew Helga had no chance once this muscular mass chose to get her over the rail.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I am in a hurry. I have to go.”

  “Wait.” Brent did not release me. “I want you to listen. I loved Helga. I would never have done anything to her. She was my life.”

  “I know . . . I know how worried you were yesterday when you came and got me.” I soothed him because he did not release me.

  Brent silently studied my eyes and then whispered, “You’re lying.”

  I saw people crossing to the elevators down the hall and said loudly, “Let me go. You’re hurting me.”

  Brent saw them, too. His eyes flashed anger as he dropped my shoulders so hard I almost fell.

  “Veronica stop the bullshit, I saw the look on your face last night, I heard what you said to Sean, and I know you’re lying now.”

  “What are you talking about?” I goaded him.

  “Look. You’re wrong. I need you to know that.”

  “Brent, I know you wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “But you would kill her,” I thought.

  I bald-faced lied, and adeptly too, both for my preservation and my friends. I should have been more circumspect last night. I shuddered at the memory of being alone in his cabin with him—on the very balcony where he had disposed of Helga. Thank God, there was no balcony around now. I was even smaller than Helga. With one swoop he could scoop me up and be rid of me in the churning, changing Atlantic. I would simply follow the many other bodies that had joined her depths. The Atlantic was endless in the dark distance eastward. I was amazed at the Vikings, Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, and so many others who had challenged it in their tiny ships. Then, I thought of the centuries of dead who warred on, over and below its waters, always, of course, with God on their side—only their side.

  “Good,” Brent calmed down. “If you thought I killed her for her money . . . I didn’t. Most of her estate goes to her alma mater. You have to believe me. You saw that I was looking for her all day.”

  I was cornered and frightened. I didn’t want to be hunted by both Amy and Brent. Nor did I want my friends to be. But the operative word in his plea to me was “most.” However, I was not going to debate with a killer about the monetary proportions in the will. He had tossed Helga over the balcony. Whether in a rage or by design, he had thrown her into the storm that night and had expected her to end up at the bottom of the Atlantic. But she hadn’t.

  He was guilty and had coopted me to use me as a witness to cover it up. That was his mistake. I did not believe his charade in his cabin and I did not believe him now. On both counts he had failed by judging me an idiot—that part of his plan made him the idiot. He shouldn’t have involved me at all, because I will be a witness for the prosecution if it comes to that.

  “Then . . . your conscience is clear.” I stepped around Brent and started down the hallway.

  “Wait.”

  Brent blocked me.

  “Are you going to kill me, too?”

  The minute the words filled the narrow space between us, I regretted blurting them out. My vanity had undone all the placating and lying that I just did.

  “You little . . .” Brent’s face was red and the words spit through his teeth. “You don’t know anything. And if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut. If you . . .”

  Just then, Esther came down the hall.

  “Brent, I’m so glad I ran into you. How are you doing?”

  Esther took his hand and held it.

  “Not well,” Brent calmed himself, looking back and forth from Esther to me. “I was just asking Veronica if she knew where you were. I wanted to make sure Helga’s presentations were covered.”

  Another lie.

  Esther continued to ignore my presence and still held Brent’s hand. “How sweet. Don’t worry about that. But we do want to remember Helga tonight at the awards. I need you to help with some more intimate, charming memories about her in her honor.”

  “Sure.” Brent retrieved his hand. “I’ll have to get back to you.”

  “We need to do it now,” Esther insisted. “There isn’t much time. You need to meet with Anne, who’s doing Helga’s memorial speech.”

  “I have to go.” I escaped.

  As I hurried down the hallway, Esther chattered about Helga’s accomplishments.

  I knew, as Brent did, that Helga had one defining accomplishment, systematically creating a murderer—and I don’t mean in her books. I mean the gradual creation of a real murderer—her own murderer—Brent, her abused caged animal.

  ⌘

  Chapter 36

  There Be Monsters Here

  Near Elias’s cabin, I passed two security guards talking in the hall. I recognized them both. They stared, but didn’t say a word. I knew they recognized me, the troublemaker. I knocked on Elias’s door.

  Elias opened the door to Sean and Mary standing amidst a cabin torn apart. There were cushions on the floor, drawers emptied and hanging open, and in bedroom beyond clothes thrown out of the closet.

  “Come in.”

  “What happened?” I shoved the Brent incident aside.

  “Obviously, Amy happened,” Mary replied.

  “When? Last night?”

  “No.” Elias shut the door after me. “This morning early, when we were panelists.”

  “She knew it’d be clear,” Sean said.

  “I reported it to the security men outside,” Elias said. “But just as a formality. They don’t care.”


  “But how did she get in?” I asked.

  “We figure the maid was cleaning and she slipped in. Hid until she left,” Sean said.

  “Or did the harried-lost-key routine,” Elias added. “Works in my books.”

  “I don’t even want to ask what she took.” I looked at Elias.

  “Everything important.”

  “I bet she got rid of what little evidence you left in her room, too.” Mary threw the cushions back on the couch and then slumped onto it.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “Nothing to do,” Mary answered. “I’m sure it’s all overboard at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

  “Too bad I didn’t transmit all of it to my partner in New York,” Sean said.

  “Too bad, indeed,” Mary responded. “But none of us were thinking.”

  “I didn’t put it in the safe, damn it. I was just in a hurry. I forgot,” Elias said. “I mean I could have plotted her break-in from one of my books. But I was coming back after the panel. It wasn’t that long.”

  “What’s done is done.” Mary replied. “We all didn’t think.”

  “What about the Prolixin?” I asked. “Did she get that?”

  “Sure.” Elias threw cushions on the easy chairs and he and I sat. “And we know she has the opened vial in her purse.”

  “This is not good for us,” Mary said.

  “No, it isn’t.” Sean joined Mary on the couch.

  “What was on the memory sticks? Did you have a chance to look at them?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Sean said. “They were circumstantial and would have bolstered our case, but we still needed hard evidence.”

  “He’s right. It was drafts, including the final draft, of a novel. A very sad one, but still just a piece of fiction,” Elias agreed. “I stayed up late and read most of it. It’s a thinly veiled autobiography. It contextually exposes Otto, Mendel, and Frederick for what they were. But not by name. It’s really masterful . . . with a fast-paced plot and unique characters. It is edited brilliantly. I understand now why she was published so young. She was a genius, a natural.”