Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 01 - Killer Cruise

by A. R. Winters

  “I think most people are squeamish about dead bodies,” she said with short laugh. “Say, how about this? Maybe he was poisoned, and then he toppled over and cracked his head open like an egg.”

  Trying and failing to suppress a shudder, I stood up to shake it off. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I guess it’s possible.” I began to pace up and down, but the problem with pacing in a tiny cabin is that you only get two steps in each direction.

  “Oh, and there would be one other good thing about it if he’d been poisoned.”

  “Yeah?” I said, pondering whether we should really be weighing the benefits of poisoning.

  “It means it couldn’t have been Sam, right? He would have had to have been poisoned at lunch, or at least well before she met him. Also, it might have explained the state he was in. Maybe it wasn’t just the side effects of happy hour making him bounce off the walls.”

  “Oh, good point.” I was about to say I hope he was poisoned before I caught myself. “I guess the police will figure it out, anyway.”

  Cece smirked.

  “What?”

  “Police? What police? Ain’t no police on this boat.”

  I pursed my lips “Don’t they… helicopter them in? Or go back to shore?”

  She shook her head with a laugh. “Go back? Do you know how many millions of dollars they’d lose? And the bad press of a murder investigation during a cruise? No way. It’s just going to be the ship’s security until we’re back home.”

  “Huh,” I said, not really surprised, but enlightened nonetheless. Fed up with pacing in such a confined space, I sat back down on the chair “Are the security guys good? Do they know what they’re doing?”

  “They’re pretty good at putting drunks back in their cabins. But I don’t know about murder investigations. It’s never happened on a ship I’ve been on. Not that I’ve heard about, anyway. There could have been one they kept under the radar, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, they wanted to keep this a secret too. You know, I think I might see what I can find out.”

  Cece cocked her head at me. “What, are you undercover FBI?”

  I giggled. “No…”

  “A private detective?”

  “Kinda,” I said with a mysterious smile.

  “Spill!” she demanded with a glare.

  “I’m just messing around. But I’m a journalist, at least that’s what I trained as, and it’s what I did before I ended up here. I took some classes on investigative journalism and that kind of thing.”

  “Sylvia would kill you if you wrote a story about it.”

  “Well, I don’t want to write a story, but you know, just… look into things. Kind of help them out.”

  “The security guys probably won’t appreciate it,” she said thoughtfully.

  I nodded. That was one of the things we’d learned in investigative journalism class: everyone hates it. Both the cops or lawyers and the people being investigated. But the more hated your investigation is, the more likely you are to get a Pulitzer. At least that’s what the professor said. Not that she had one.

  “Yeah, well, I won’t tell them. I’ve got a great disguise.”

  She gave me a funny look. “You brought wigs and stuff with you?”

  “No, silly, I mean my job,” I said with a laugh. “I’m supposed to be going around the ship talking to people, looking at things, taking pictures and all that. I’ll just do my talking and looking and picture-taking where the interesting stuff is.”

  Cece nodded. “Good plan. Man, I’m jealous. Maybe I’ll study journalism like you when I go to college.”

  “While I’m not your career advisor, I’ve gotta say, it’s kind of a dying industry. I mean, look at me. Instead of doing proper journalism, I’m tweeting about face painting and I’m banned from saying anything even slightly negative about this cruise.”

  “Beats cleaning rooms.”

  “Which beats liaising with customers?”

  She nodded and gave me another toothy grin. “You know it. But hey, if you’re going to do this, be careful.”

  “Why? Are you worried it’s a serial killer?”

  She laughed, swiped her phone off her pillow, then picked it up and threw it at my head. “No, doofus, I’m worried you’ll get fired. You and Sam are the two coolest new chicks here.”

  “Cool? Us?” I said, confusion genuine.

  “Hells yeah. You’re from Nebraska. I’d never even heard of it! Sam was saying you actually get snow and everything there. Man, I’d love to see it.”

  I snorted. While I of course had a full bushel of home state pride, I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone outside of Nebraska claim it was cool.

  “Thanks. And we were both really glad to meet you too, Cece.”

  We beamed at each other in mutual admiration, for probably longer than was appropriate, before I left her to it.

  I had some planning to do.

  Chapter 6

  T en minutes later, I was back in Cece’s room.

  “Umm…”

  She raised an eyebrow at me and one corner of her mouth raised in a knowing smile. “Want my help?”

  I nodded. “Yes, please. But only if you want to.”

  She’d slid off the bed and hopped to her feet already. “What are we gonna do? Kidnap someone and torture them for information?” she said with a little too much enthusiasm and a wicked glint in her eye.

  I giggled. “Umm, no. I thought I might start with something a little less dramatic.”

  Cece nodded in acknowledgement. “True. We don’t know who to torture yet, do we?”

  “Stop it!” I gave her a playful punch on the arm. “You’re terrible.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re housekeeping, so you can get into the rooms, right?”

  “That’s my job,” she said. “Go into the rooms and mess them up.”

  “Mess them up?”

  “Oops. Wait. I got it wrong again. I’m always doing that. Clean them, that’s what I do. Clean, clean, clean.”

  This is already a lot more fun than it has any right to be, I thought to myself.

  “Awesome. I was thinking I might take another quick peek inside Murphy’s room, see if there’s any clues.”

  “Murphy’s room, in the VIP section?”

  “Yeah… is that a problem?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Not all of housekeeping has access to that section. Our keycards only open the areas we’re actually assigned to work in.”

  “Oh,” I said, deflated. It looked like my investigation was going to come to an abrupt conclusion before it had even begun. That or I’d have to find another way to get access to Murphy’s room.

  “With one exception, that is.”

  “One exception?”

  Cece lifted the card hanging by the lanyard from her neck. “Yep. Cece Blake accepts no restrictions or limitations. My card opens everything.” She grabbed me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes to show she was super serious. “Eh-vuh-ree-thing.”

  “Really? How…?”

  She raised a finger to her nose and tapped it. “What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em.”

  Amused, I decided not to push it.

  “Come on.”

  When we got to the VIP section, it was incredibly quiet, so we dropped our voices to a whisper.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” asked Cece.

  It would’ve been a lie to say I had no doubts whatsoever. But since Sam still hadn’t come back to the room, I was getting nervous for her. Why were they keeping her for so long? It couldn’t have taken her more than a couple of minutes to explain what had happened the night before.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Unlike the day before, the door was properly closed this time. Cece held up her card to the lock, and the entire reader flashed a bright green to show that access had been granted. There was a whirring as a small motor withdrew the lock.

  We gave the door a push, slipped inside, and then pushed it to behind u
s, not closing it completely.

  “The body was over there.” I pointed ahead. “Just behind the sofa.”

  Cece didn’t waste any time nervously stepping forward as I had the day before; instead, she marched over with big strides.

  “Yuck,” she said, shaking her head like a wet dog. “There’re blood stains.”

  Standing beside her, I saw them again. Even with the body gone, you could kind of make out the outline of where the head had lain, with a rusty stain around its outline.

  We stepped around the sofa gingerly, both of us being careful to make sure we didn’t actually walk through the area the body had been. We walked around a little further, so that our backs were to the sliding french doors that led to the balcony and we were facing the sofa and the entrance door beyond.

  “Look,” I said, pointing at the floor a few of yards away from the sofa. The day before, I had been so preoccupied with the body—and Ethan Lee—that I’d missed something that was now blindingly obvious.

  “Some poison,” said Cece shaking her head and giving a nervous chuckle. “Guess the rumor mill was wrong about that.”

  We were looking at the remains of a lamp. It was about two feet tall and made of brass, and looked heavy enough to kill someone with, funnily enough.

  Slowly, we walked around, back to roughly where we started.

  “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” said Cece quietly, the situation having subdued her exuberance somewhat.

  “Adrienne!” screeched a voice and I jumped, in Cece’s words, a hundred feet into the air.

  Ashen-faced, I spun around, already beginning to shake.

  Sylvia was staring at me, hands on her hips. “And you. Cleaner girl. What are you doing?”

  “I…” Having nothing good to say, I let my sentence end after a single inconclusive word.

  “Loud woman,” said Cece furiously, mirroring Sylvia’s condescending cleaner girl and refusing to use her name, “we’re trying to work!”

  “Work?” said Sylvia.

  “Yeah. Work. This one here,” she said, pointing at me, “is some kind of social media maven and she’s going to do a post about the lives of the workers aboard the ship. Aren’t you?”

  “I… am,” I said, nodding too emphatically. I lifted my phone into the air and waved it, as if it was proof of my work. I hoped Sylvia didn’t mention the fact that Cece hadn’t brought a cleaning cart with her. “I thought it might be interesting for the guests to see what goes on behind the scenes.”

  “Where’s your cleaning supplies?” asked Sylvia, her eyes flicking suspiciously back and forth between us. My heart sank.

  “I hate to tell you this, honey,” said Cece her voice dripping with condescension, “but a lot of social media stuff is faked. Posed. I don’t have any supplies because I’m not doing any cleaning,” she said, shaking her head as if as if explaining something incredibly complex to a difficult child. “In case you didn’t notice, it’s way past the time housekeeping are done for the day.”

  Although I was delighted with Cece’s clever response, it was all I could do not to cringe at the vitriol in her tone. Surely we’d get in serious trouble.

  “Well, why are you in this room? This room is off limits.”

  “Off limits? What are you talking about?” said Cece, waving her badge. “I checked the list of guests, and this cabin is listed as empty. A last-minute cancellation. We wouldn’t be going into an actual occupied cabin in the evening to take pictures, would we?”

  “Empty?” said Sylvia, her head tilted in confusion. “Oh, well, maybe that is the case. But listen to me, and listen well. This room is off limits to you. You’re not to take any pictures in here, and you’re to leave it alone. Do you see?”

  “Fine!” Cece huffed out a sigh so dramatic I was surprised an Oscar wasn’t immediately thrust into her hands. “We’ll find somewhere else. Come on, Adrienne, let’s go.”

  Cece grabbed my hand and speed-walked us out of there so fast I was panting by the time we made it to a service stairwell to hide in.

  “That was close,” she said with an amused laugh.

  I was too shocked to laugh. “Cece… you were amazing!”

  She gave me a mock bow. “Thanks.”

  “But, umm, I’m a bit worried Sylvia might be mad at me.”

  Cece shrugged. “She would have been madder if we’d told her what we were really doing. I had to be pretty harsh with her to keep her off-kilter. And anyway, she shouldn’t have been there either.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. She’s supposed to be the MC for the karaoke night, but she must have shoved that task off onto some other poor soul.”

  I frowned. “Karaoke night? I don’t remember seeing that on the schedule.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, that’s because karaoke isn’t classy enough. They call it Ocean Idol instead, but it’s basically just a karaoke competition for people who think they’re too good for karaoke.”

  “Huh. How did you know the room was listed as empty?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t. I mean, it probably isn’t, is it? But with the passenger no longer occupying it, it should be. I’m sure she won’t check.”

  “Sure?”

  “Pretty sure…”

  Chapter 7

  T he next morning, I met Cece for breakfast in the excitingly named Crew Mess Two.

  “You don’t look like you slept too good.” Cece, however, looked annoyingly fabulous.

  “That obvious, huh?” I said, wrapping my hands around my coffee mug. “I couldn’t sleep. I was wondering about Sam. They’ve still got her locked up.”

  “She’s still in the brig?”

  “I guess so. I haven’t seen her. I’m going to try and track her down today.”

  “Wish I could come with you.” She held up her hands in a gesture of but what can you do. “But unfortunately I’ve got rooms to clean.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got lots to do today too. But I’m just going to try and slip away for a little bit.”

  We finished our breakfast of eggs, toast, and three coffees for me and headed our separate ways.

  I wanted to meet with Ethan Lee again. It was him I’d spoken to before, after all, and it was him who was ultimately in charge of Sam’s incarceration, being the head of the ship’s security. Right after breakfast, I’d checked his schedule and saw that he was on the late shift today. He would be on duty from the early afternoon right up until late at night. This meant I had the morning to focus on my job.

  Like many modern, healthy young people, I started my day with some yoga. Well, watching it anyway.

  When I arrived at the yoga studio, I found it to be a deep room inside the ship with no windows. The participants ranged from older children brought along by their mothers, to people who put the ‘great’ before grandparents.

  I got a few nice shots of the instructor and her annoyingly toned body, and a decent group shot of the participants from behind.

  I typed ‘#yoga #seaflexing #cruiselife #cruiseyoga’ on my phone before picking two of the images for my drip-feeding social media queue. One of them would be sent out within the hour, and the other the following day. Why not get ahead?

  I didn’t hang around. I wanted to do a whistle-stop tour of a whole bunch of the shipboard activities, to get a lot of posts full of pizzazz lined up for the day. After yoga, I continued my morning exercise theme by heading to the running track that wrapped around the entire ship, and I suspected I couldn’t even manage one circuit of it. Though I wasn’t about to try. I’d love to, but I’ve got so much work to do, I lied to myself.

  Stepping out into the morning sunshine, the sea breeze seemed to embrace me and give me a veritable wake-up slap, flecks of salty seawater doing a much better job of waking me up than my morning coffee had. It was so invigorating that I promised myself I was going to try and spend more time outside, when I could. There’s something about the ocean air that’s intoxicating.

  Maybe that’s because
it’s still so… exotic, I mused. Perhaps if you took someone from a little beach-side town, they’d be similarly awestruck and impressed by the unending cornfields of Nebraska.

  There was a small but steady stream of runners hustling their way around the circuit, and what they lacked in numbers they made up for in enthusiasm. This average age of these folks seemed older than the yogis, and I imagined most of them had been running since before I was even born. Every person who went by greeted me with a cheery “good morning,” or “how’s it going?” as they jogged on by.

  It was hard to drag myself away from the rail to go back inside. I could’ve stayed out there, soaking in the air and staring at the horizon for hours. But no, I had a full morning ahead of me. I went on to visit three different music classes (singing, ukulele, and bongo drums). And after that, two coffee shops, the VIP gym, and finally—at least for the morning—I took a picture of the door to the ship’s bridge. Although I intended to go inside at some point during this cruise, I was too shy, and felt too new, to try and get entry just yet.

  I ate a quick lunch of a side salad and a sandwich, both of which were surprisingly good, and then I went back to check our room to see if Sam had returned. She hadn’t. The room felt bare and empty without her, and I didn’t feel the slightest bit grateful for the extra space her absence afforded me.

  Just after one o’clock, I headed over to Ethan Lee’s office. It was located near the bridge, just a short walk down a hallway away from it. I had sussed out the location earlier during my morning’s whistle-stop tour.

  Outside his office was a small staffing station, and I was greeted by a smartly dressed young man in a sailor’s uniform.

  “Adrienne James, social media manager,” I said, emphasizing the manager to make myself sound more important than I was. “Please tell the first officer that I would like to speak to him, immediately if possible.”

  “Of course, ma’am,” he said with a respectful nod. I was kind of disappointed that he didn’t salute me.

  He returned a moment later. “Follow me.”

  The first officer’s cabin had a commanding view that overlooked the ocean. We were very high up here, much higher above the sea than any building back home in Cornridge was even above the ground. His office had large windows that filled the room with natural sunlight. There was a large, impressive-looking desk which Ethan Lee was sitting behind when I entered. But as soon as I arrived, he stood up and made his way around to greet me.