by Maddy Hunter
“They’ve chained off the area where Professor Smoker was pushed overboard,” I announced, as Nana began the slow process of sorting through her things.
Tilly nodded sagely. “The captain must be quite shocked by this turn of events. Cruise ships are probably more secure than gated communities. I read that being on a cruise ship is safer than virtually anywhere else in the world, except the teacup ride in the Magic Kingdom. Do you realize that in the last twenty years, there hasn’t been one cruise passenger death related to a maritime accident? Twenty years. Can you imagine?”
“Quite a streak,” I admitted uneasily. I had a streak of my own going: largest number of dead bodies found by a non-European while traveling abroad. At least this time, someone else had found the body…or not found it, as the case may be. “Do either of you know who handles criminal investigations aboard ship?”
“They explained that on the A&E special.” Nana waved a hair pick triumphantly in the air. “I been lookin’ for this for months! Musta been hidin’ at the bottom of my pocketbook.” She leveled a severe look on the gargantuan bag. “Your grampa always said I should downsize. He mighta been right. Anyway, that show was sayin’ every cruise ship has a private security force aboard, kinda like them fellas what guard those fancy buildin’s in New York City, but they’re not law officers, so they don’t know nothin’ about police procedures.”
“So who decided to chain off the area around the crime scene?” I asked.
Tilly laid her walking stick in her lap. “It seems logical to assume that the chief security officer and the ship’s captain were probably instructed to do that by either the Coast Guard, the FBI, or some other mainland law enforcement agency.”
Nana nodded agreement. “Cruise ships got the right to ask help from any law enforcement authority they want.”
“Did you learn that on your A&E special, too?” I asked.
Nana shook her head. “Reruns a The Love Boat.”
“So do you think they’ll ask the authorities to come aboard when we reach Kauai?” I persisted.
“I suspect that might be why they cordoned off the crime scene,” said Tilly. “To preserve the area as much as possible for the island police, though I’m not sure how much evidence can be preserved on a windswept deck. This is a cruise line’s worst nightmare. They’re in the business of selling fantasy, and crime scene tape and evidence kits are not part of the Aloha Princess fantasy package. Can you imagine the panic aboard ship if word leaks out that there could be a killer prowling the decks?”
“But there is a killer prowling the decks!”
Nana tossed a collapsible cup and a package of tissue to the side. “Could be the killer’s not interested in knockin’ off no one else. Mabe his only target was the professor fella.”
Tilly mulled that over. “That’s a consideration, Marion. If Professor Smoker’s death was a random killing, every guest on board is in danger. But if he was specifically targeted by one of his enemies, as Bailey suggested, then no one else’s life is actually in jeopardy.”
“Don’t seem to me that Bailey’s too safe,” Nana argued. “What if the killer thinks she got a good lookit ’im? What if he decides his next step is to kill her before she can finger ’im?”
“How would the killer know it was Bailey who saw him?” I questioned. “As far as he knows, it could be any one of over a thousand woman aboard who screamed at him.”
Nana shook her head. “Well, the police are gonna need a better physical description of the fella than a gray warm-up suit. Shoot, everyone on board’s probably got one a them. You s’pose they’re gonna go through everyone’s grips?”
“They’ll never do that,” Tilly asserted. “Much too intrusive. Besides, I doubt they have probable cause. And they certainly want to avoid the publicity an official search would entail. Not to mention potential litigation should some disgruntled passenger take issue with what he might consider an unwarranted invasion of privacy.”
“I don’t get it,” I sputtered. “Exactly what kind of theories could a professor suggest that might get him killed?”
Tilly shook her head. “I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t a clue. I know Professor Smoker was purported to be the world’s leading authority on Cook, but I’m afraid I accepted the claim at face value. Perhaps when Bailey is feeling better, she could enlighten us about what made his theories so controversial. But remember, we’re talking about academia. Academicians can spend entire careers arguing over whether it’s best to crack an egg at the wide or the narrow end.”
Nana gave a loud suck on her teeth. “Well, would you lookit that.” She pulled a small plastic bag from the bottom of her pile and brandished it in the air. “It’s a little care package, with all my favorite goodies! Midget Tootsie Rolls. Licorice Jelly Bellies. Cinnamon bears. And look! A bag a peanut M&M’s!” Her eyes lit up like halogen lights. “This must be your mother’s doin’, Emily. Bless her little heart. She musta hid it in my pocketbook when she come to say good-bye.” She clutched the bag to her breast and threw a contrite look toward heaven. “I take back every unkind word I ever said about Margaret.”
I smiled. “I guess this means you’ll be a shoo-in for the scavenger hunt prize, hunh?”
“If I can find all my stuff and get it to the Dolphin Room in time.” She began sorting through the pile at warp speed. Denture cream to the left. Paper clip to the right. Antacid tablets to the left. Automatic pencil with removable eraser to the right. I eyed her lopsided collection of “stuff” for a moment, coming to sudden attention when a far-fetched thought seized my brain.
“Oh, my God! What if Professor Smoker wasn’t killed for this theories at all? What if he was killed for his…stuff?”
“What stuff?” asked Nana. Mini clothesline and clothespins to the left. Square of folded white paper to the right.
“The book! Tilly’s journal! What if someone realized it could be priceless if it was authentic? What if the book was wrestled away from Professor Smoker before he was pushed over the side? What if it’s now in the hands of his killer?”
Tilly’s face turned the color of wallpaper paste and her eyes froze in sudden horror. “If what you’re saying is true, Emily, then I’m the person responsible for Professor Smoker’s death. Oh, my stars. I’ve as good as killed a man.”
“C’mon now, Til,” Nana chided as she pitched a flat rock into her scavenger hunt pile. “You’re no killer. You had nothin’ but good intentions when you give that journal to Smoker for a look-see.”
“But my good intentions may have caused his death.” She pinched her eyes shut and gave her head a woeful shake. “I never should have let that journal out of my sight. How could I have been so negligent? I have a Ph.D; I should know better. But the name ‘Griffin Ring’ is so historically obscure, I never thought anyone other than Professor Smoker would recognize it. Someone in that lecture room obviously did, however. And I suspect if they knew about Griffin Ring, they must have known about the treasure.”
I lasered my attention on Tilly. “Treasure?”
She heaved a regretful sigh. “I only had time to skim the journal, mind you, but one entry in particular caught my eye. In it, he writes of being sent to search for freshwater and mentions burying something of great value amid an outcropping of rock near a waterfall in the interior of one of the islands. He doesn’t hint at what the object is, but if you remember correctly, Professor Smoker said that Ring was suspected in the death of a relative and the theft of a family heirloom back in England. It could well be that what he buried was this family heirloom, and one can only guess what its value might be today.”
Treasure? Euw. How Blackbeard the Pirate of him. “Did he say which island?”
“He did better than that,” Tilly lamented. “He drew a map. That’s what caught my eye in the first place. But I never took the time to study it, so I have no idea which island it might be. I was too convinced the book was a hoax to give the map serious attention.” Her shoulders sagged miserably. “A
nd now the journal and the map are both gone, so we’ll never know if the treasure was truth or fiction. The find of the century, down the tubes.”
Nana grabbed the folded white paper from her scavenger hunt pile, snapped it open, and regarded it briefly before holding it up for Tilly. “Is this the map you’re talkin’ about?”
Tilly’s jaw dropped to her chest, recognition lighting her eyes. “That’s it! That’s the map! How…what…where did you get it?”
Nana shrugged. “Outta your book. You told me I oughta thumb through it while you was takin’ your shower, and that’s when I run into the map. See here?” She angled it toward me. “It don’t have no advertisin’, so I photocopied it for the scavenger hunt. The rules don’t say nothin’ about photocopies bein’ ineligible.”
“Bless you, Marion!” Tilly shot to her feet as if she’d been fuel-injected. “You’ve saved the day! Where’s my guidebook?” She yanked open a drawer in the vanity, seized her Frommer’s, and flipped through the pages. “William Bligh was a gifted cartographer and the officer Cook made responsible for charting the islands. I suspect Griffin Ring’s map may be a fair rendering of Bligh’s work, so we shouldn’t have any difficulty identifying which of the islands it is.”
She leaned over the book, observing the page from every angle. “We have five possible islands in the chain to choose from, each with a unique shape. Study the island on your map closely, ladies, and tell me. Does it resemble a Nez Perce spearhead, an Acheulean hand ax, a…hmm…a Baganda throwing stick, the remnants of a Pithecanthropus erectus skull, or a Pomo head basket?”
“It looks like a cow flop,” said Nana.
“A cow flop. That would make it the equivalent of” — she paused, studying the Frommer’s intently — “the Pomo head basket. And that means Ring’s map is the island of” — she stabbed the page with her index finger — “Kauai!” She flipped to another section of the book and skimmed the text. “Are there any other markings?”
Nana traced the map with her finger. “It’s got a long crooked line what must be a river, and a big X by some squiggles what look like a waterfall.”
“There’s only one navigable river in the entire state of Hawaii, and that’s the Wailua River on Kauai. So if Griffin Ring was searching for freshwater on the island of Kauai sometime in 1778 or ’79, the river he used to reach the interior was most likely the Wailua.”
“The Wailua River,” I muttered, plucking my excursion itinerary out of my shoulder bag and eyeing the short description. “It says here I’ll be kayaking tomorrow on ‘the most scenic river in Kauai.’ Do you suppose that’s the Wailua? It also mentions that I’ll be hiking to someplace called the Secret Falls. You think that might be the waterfall that’s on the map?”
Nana shoved the paper at me. “If it is, how ’bout you root around for the treasure while you’re there? It’s s’posed to be right by that X.”
With a determined look on her face, Tilly picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Yes. About the kayak adventure that’s scheduled for tomorrow — what river does that take place on?” She paused, her face brightening. “The Wailua?” She flashed us a thumbs-up. “Excellent. This is Tilly Hovick. I’d like to reserve two tickets for —” Another pause. A frown creased her brow. “Then put my name and that of Marion Sippel on the waiting list. We’ll be down in a few minutes to turn in our tickets for the zodiac raft ride.”
Tilly hung up, giving Nana a contrite look. “I hope I haven’t overstepped my bounds, Marion. I know how much you were looking forward to that raft ride, but since you were the one who resurrected the map, I thought you might want to share in our quest for buried treasure.”
“You bet,” Nana said, plucking the map back out of my hands. “But what happens if we don’t make it off the waitin’ list?”
Tilly looked genuinely worried. “Then the burden of finding the treasure will fall into Emily’s hands.”
Oh, great. No pressure there.
“But I hope it won’t come to that. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that there will be enough cancellations to allow us to sign up. In the meantime, we need to be wiser this time, and more discreet. We mustn’t tell anyone what we’re doing. This needs to be our secret. Agreed?”
Nana and I nodded. We were both good at keeping secrets, so I wasn’t concerned about spilling the beans to anyone.
What did worry me was the possibility that if Griffin Ring’s journal wasn’t at the bottom of the ocean right now, it was in the hands of someone who might be looking for the treasure, too. Which begged the question, if Dorian Smoker’s attacker had killed to possess the book, to what lengths might he go to obtain the treasure?
Chapter 4
“If you please, I’ll have the Strasbourg pâté, the prosciutto with melon, the breaded oysters, and the Nova Scotia smoked salmon.”
I rolled my eyes as Nils the Viking followed the example of his friends, Gjurd and Ansgar, and placed an order for four out of the five appetizers that appeared on our dinner menu. Cruise lines allowed you to order everything on the menu if you wanted, but I preferred to leave some food for the passengers who were scheduled to dine at the second seating.
Dinner was being served in the South Seas dining room on deck four — an eye-popper of a room walled in glass, overhung with crystal chandeliers, dressed up with crisp white linen and velvet chairs, and gleaming with ornate silverware and long-stemmed goblets. I was dining with five other people who’d been assigned to my table for the duration of the trip — Margi Swanson, a man named Jonathan Pond, and the three World Navigators I had met earlier. I engaged in some idle chitchat with the Navigators and tried not to dwell on the fact that if what Bailey Howard had suggested was true, one of these guys could be a killer.
Our table was located at the far end of the room near the kitchen, where the sounds of crashing china, shouted orders, and clanging pots overpowered the piped-in notes of a familiar Debussy melody. The other Iowans in my group had signed up for a table for ten, so Margi and I had agreed to become dinner partners at a separate table. Margi was extremely social, so it didn’t faze her to sit with total strangers. Her level of self-confidence had obviously been boosted by the fact that she’d spent most of her life telling people to strip down to their skivvies and pee into a cup.
Our tuxedoed waiter, Darko from Romania, executed a snappy bow to Nils before moving on to Margi, who sat to my left. “Madame?” he asked, paper and pencil in hand.
Margi hesitated, looking as if the final war between good and evil was waging inside her. She furrowed her brow, licked her lips, and in a flash of decisiveness said, “I’ll have exactly what he’s having.” She flashed the waiter a self-satisfied smile before adding, “Except…I’ll have the chopped madeira jelly and chunks of orange without the pâté. Pâté. That’s like cat food, isn’t it? I’m not really fond of cat food. And I’ll have the melon without the prosciutto. That prosciutto sounds like it might be too spicy for me. I get a touch of acid reflux now and again. And I hope the melon is cantaloupe, because honeydew gives me cankers. I’ll try the oyster breading without the oysters, with sweet sauce instead of hot sauce, and I’d like the lettuce and onion rings that accompany the smoked salmon without the salmon.”
As Darko scribbled notes, Margi leaned toward me to whisper, “My sister accuses me of being afraid to try anything new. Well, I’ll show her, and you’re my witness, Emily. Can you believe she was telling folks at the clinic that I’d bypass all the exotic food in favor of everyday fruits and vegetables? I so want to see the look on her face when you tell her how daring I’ve become.” She grimaced at her fingertips before extracting a small plastic bottle from her pocket and offering it up to the rest of the table. “Hand sanitizer, anyone?”
“Madame?” Darko stood above me, pencil poised midair.
I shivered as a waiter bounded past our table, stirring up a cyclone of cool air that chilled the back of my neck. “Fruit cup,” I said, as a dozen more waiters converged into the aisle,
to-ing and fro-ing like Olympic relay racers.
Darko clicked his heels. “I come back soon to take your entrée orders.”
“Enjoy the peace and quiet while you can,” Jonathan Pond advised me from across the table. “Wait until you see what happens when they get really busy.”
“Spoken like a veteran cruiser,” I said, smiling. “How many trips does this make for you?” He looked like an aging computer geek in desperate need of a makeover — bad haircut with a fierce part down the middle, black-framed eyeglasses held together with a wad of duct tape at the bridge, round shoulders, and white Oxford shirt buttoned all the way to his Adam’s apple. All he needed was a pocket protector crammed with leaky pens and number two pencils. The only feature about him that didn’t scream Stereotype was the plaster cast and blue sling shackling his right arm.
“Actually, this is my first cruise,” he replied, “but if I’m sitting here, something’s bound to go wrong. It goes with the territory these days. I’m cursed.”
Oh, my God! A kindred spirit! I nodded sympathy, feeling an instant bond with Jonathan Pond. “I know exactly what you mean. I’ve felt that way ever since I started this new job of mine.”
From behind his Coke bottle lenses, he fixed me with a somber look. “I wasn’t being flip. I really am cursed.”
The three Vikings exchanged curious looks with each other before breaking out in disbelieving smiles. Margi regarded Jonathan’s cast with the kind of lust dieters direct at double chocolate cake with extra frosting. “Excuse me, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but how long have you been wearing that cast?”