Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 01 - Killer Cruise

by A. R. Winters

  Collapsing into giggles, I fell onto my bed.

  Shipboard life wasn't so bad.

  Apart from the pesky matter of the murder.

  It was imperative that I clear Sam's name. This life could actually be fun, if things ever settled down.

  Chapter 18

  T he next morning, while the ship was pulling into Mahogany Bay for the next stop of our cruise, I decided to make use of one of the perks of my job.

  Eschewing the staff mess, I made my way to the International Buffet for breakfast.

  I flashed my ID to the hostess, a young blonde-haired girl with a perky smile.

  “Hi. I’m here to take some shots of the buffet for a feature I’m going to do. It’s going to be called ‘How to Pile a Buffet Plate to Cut Down on Repeat Journeys to the Buffet Bar.’”

  “Wow, catchy title,” she said, tone thick with sarcasm.

  “It’s a work in progress,” I said sadly.

  “Just kidding. In you go. Hey, wanna take a picture of me too? I’m trying to get big on Insta.”

  “Sure. How many followers are you up to?”

  “Eleven.” She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s new,” she explained.

  I gave her a charitable smile. “We all have to start somewhere.” I held up my phone to get a picture of her at her work station. I was sure I’d be able to find a use for it somewhere. “Smile!”

  She didn’t smile; she put on a depressed face instead, which I guess was supposed to make her look interesting or edgy or moody or something. Instead, it made her look tired. I’d need some serious filters and some clever captioning to use it. No wonder she didn’t have many followers.

  “Check the ship’s account later and then you can repost it on your feed.”

  She beamed at me, and before she knew it, I had snapped another picture a hundred times better. That would be the one I would use. Pleased with myself, I made my way inside.

  The International Buffet was massive, with just about every kind of breakfast you could imagine, as well as a bunch more foods which definitely didn’t make the breakfast menus back in Nebraska—miso soup, fried seaweed, french fries, muesli, and three different kinds of rice to name just a few.

  I grabbed a plate from the buffet and began to pile it up. I used pancakes and waffles to ‘extend’ the base of the plate and give me more room to work with. I loaded it up with bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, hash browns, an omelet, sausages, and some bacon until I had a mountain that was dangerously high and totally Insta-swoon-worthy.

  I took a seat that gave me an unobstructed view of the buffet, and then set up my shot: a mountainous pile of breakfast foods in the foreground, and the extensive buffet behind.

  I took a few pictures until I got the focus just right, tried out a couple of different filters, and settled on one that made the food look even better in the picture than it did in front of me.

  Then I threw it all away.

  Yeah, right.

  I started to work on demolishing the massive amount of food I’d piled up. The thing about us country girls that is we know how to eat. And so eat I did. Eat, and eat until I’d just about cleared the entire plate.

  “And that’s how it’s done,” I said to myself with satisfaction, leaning back in my chair.

  A woman walking by gave me a strange look, so I just smiled back at her. She quickly hurried away.

  “There’s nothing wrong with talking to yourself,” I muttered under my breath.

  I posted the breakfast-mountain photo to our three biggest social media feeds with a teaser for an upcoming article about how to make the most of a buffet which I would write that afternoon. And I would not be using the work-in-progress title I’d pitched to the hostess.

  Now it was really time to get to work.

  I walked, rather slowly and with no small amount of regret after my oversized breakfast, to the starboard-side aft fourth-floor passenger cabin section, also known as Cece’s section. I stopped to pop out onto the deck along the way to get some deep lungfuls of fresh air; I needed it after such a rich meal.

  When I got to Cece’s section, I approached a middle-aged Latina wearing the same cleaning apron I’d seen Cece wear before. She didn’t speak English, and my high school Spanish stopped at knowing how to ask where the library is, but she certainly understood ‘Cece Blake’ and pointed me in the right direction with a toothy smile.

  Following her directions, I walked down a hallway of internal cabins, the kind that didn’t have any windows to the ocean. Although they were cheaper than the fancier ones, they were still far superior to our prison chic staff quarters.

  I found Cece at the end of a hallway, inside the final cabin in the row. I heard her before I saw her.

  “UN-believable. Who the—”

  “Cece?” I called.

  “Adrienne? In here. Check this out, yo.”

  Curious, phone at the ready for anything interesting to snap, I entered the room. It was one of the smaller cabins, consisting of a double bed, a couple of nightstands, a small desk and vanity, and an en suite where I could hear Cece and a worrying slurping sound.

  “What is it?” I called as I approached the bathroom. If I wasn’t mistaken, Cece seemed to be using rather too much of a pineapple-scented cleaner, and after my extravagant breakfast, it was making me feel a little queasy.

  She emerged, pink rubber gloves almost up to her elbows, holding something yellow and wobbly in both hands.

  “Check it.”

  I had no idea what she was holding. Not a clue. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

  Cece jerked her head toward the bathroom, urging me to follow her in.

  “Huh. Wow.”

  “You see what I have to deal with?” she said, shaking her head.

  Cece was standing in front of the bathtub, which was full of what appeared to be pineapple jello. Actually, I exaggerate—it was only half full of the bright yellow jello. The plug had been removed from the plughole, and was sitting on the side of the bath. The jello was stubbornly not pouring down the drain, instead sitting in a quivering, flopping mess.

  “Is that… a bathtub full of yellow jello?”

  “Yes. That is a bathtub full of yellow jello.” Cece had a serious but unsurprised look on her face.

  “But... why?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Why do people do anything? To make me mad, I guess.”

  I laughed. “I suspect they had another motive apart from that.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. Now how am I going to deal with this? Any ideas?”

  I shrugged. “I guess, grab a bucket, and start bailing it out?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. I was kind of hoping you’d use your college education to tell me some magic, sciencey way to get rid of it.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I majored in journalism, not jello removal.”

  She shook her head in resigned disappointment. “Shame.”

  “Let’s try turning on the showerhead too. Maybe some hot water will help get it down the drain.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking that. But I was also thinking a ton of jello down the drain might be bad for the ship’s plumbing.”

  “Oh. I didn’t think of that. Hmm.”

  We both stared at the bathtub, the contents of which was wobbling as if it was nervous. And it should have been. We were about to rock that jello’s world.

  “Bailing it out it is. And then we’ll use the showerhead to wash away whatever’s left.”

  Cece popped out of the room to fetch a couple of smaller buckets from a nearby cleaning supply closet and when she returned, she was also holding another pair of pink rubber gloves.

  “Sweet!” I said, as I took them out of her hands and slipped them on. “How do I look?”

  “Sensational. We should get Hot Stuff down here to see. Shall I call him?”

  “No!” I shouted way too loudly.

  Cece covered her ears with her hands in mock pain.

  “Sorry,” I said. “L
et’s get bailing.”

  We got to work, her at the faucet end and me at the other, a giant black plastic garbage bag between us.

  “Hold on, let me double bag this. It’s gonna be heavy.”

  With our extra-strength garbage receptacle ready, we began to fill up our buckets with jello and empty them into the bag.

  It actually didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and after fifteen minutes, we’d resorted to scooping up handfuls of the jello to dump into our buckets before putting them in the garbage bag.

  “All right, now let’s spray the rest down the drain.”

  Cece turned on the hot water, spraying the inside of the tub to force the remaining yellow jello toward the plughole.

  Not bothering to stand up, I crawled to the drain end and began mashing the remaining clumps of jello down the holes into the drain.

  Finally, we were done.

  “C’mon, let’s drag this mother down the hall. There’s a garbage chute we can heave it down.”

  After we had disposed of the giant bag full of jello, we returned to the cabin, taking a moment to sit down on the edge of the bed.

  “Thanks. Appreciate it.” Cece clapped me on the leg and gave my knee a squeeze.

  “Does this happen often?”

  Cece shook her head. “No, some of the guests can be a little inconsiderate, but this was a first.”

  “Lucky me, then.”

  “Yeah. So what are you up to?”

  “There’s a medical bay, right?”

  Cece looked startled for a moment and then recovered. “I guess so.”

  She guessed so? She’d been on these cruise-liners for years, and she only guessed that there’s a medical bay?

  “You’re not sure?” I said with a frown.

  “Oh, no. Yeah, there’s a medical bay. With a doctor. Are you ill?” she said with sudden concern.

  “No, nothing like that. I was thinking I might talk to the doctor. While I’m sure he didn’t do a full autopsy, he might have something to say about the body.”

  “Right. Got it.”

  “Do you know the doctor?”

  She shook her head rapidly. “Oh, no. I don’t know Dr. Wilson at all.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her and gave her a ‘come on and spill it’ look.

  “Okay, okay, I know him. I’ll introduce you, I guess. His name’s Ryan Wilson.”

  Her cheeks had a rosy tinge to them I hadn’t seen before. The girl who wasn’t embarrassed by anything was embarrassed by something—and she was terrible at hiding it.

  “What does he look like?” I asked as innocently as I dared.

  “It’s not like that!”

  “Not like what? I didn’t say anything.”

  “I… Right. Yeah. He looks like... you know. White coat. Stethoscope around the neck.”

  “And how’s his bedside manner?”

  She punched my knee. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Trying to stop from laughing too much, I stood up. “Can you introduce us now?”

  “What, now now?”

  “Yep, come on. I did just get down on my hands and knees to help you empty a bathtub and throw a ton of jello down the garbage chute.”

  Looking like she regretted ever accepting my assistance, crimson-cheeked Cece stood up and began to lead the way to the ship’s main medical facility.

  Chapter 19

  Dr. Ryan Wilson was one of those doctors who looked way too young and way too handsome to be a real doctor. He looked like a television doctor.

  He was crouched down next to a young girl, a kindly smile on his face as he spoke to her, looking directly into her eyes as he did so.

  “Just because you’ve got diabetes doesn’t mean you can’t eat delicious stuff. There’s loads of great foods. And I’m telling you, that ice-cream sundae is nowhere near as good as it looks. That’s a dish better enjoyed with the eyes than the mouth.”

  I nudged Cece. “We can enjoy him with our eyes.”

  She jabbed me in the side. Hard. I decided not to go on and comment on mouths.

  “Is it really not that good?” said the little girl.

  “Really. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a friend who’s a chef. I bet if I spoke to him really nicely, and I told him I’d met the most special little girl on the ship, and I asked him to make you a special frozen dessert, just for you... well, I think he might do it.”

  The girl’s eyes were wide. “Really? Do you think so? A special one just for me?”

  He nodded with sincerity.

  “And no one else would be allowed to have it? Only me?”

  He nodded again. “Only you, honey.”

  The little girl looked up at her mother. “Did you hear? A special dessert just for me?”

  The mother was beaming at the doctor in gratitude. “Thank you so much, doctor.”

  “It’s a pleasure. I’ve got your cabin number here on your form, so I’ll speak to my chef friend, and either call your cabin or send a message to it later.” He turned back to the little girl. “How does that sound?”

  “Yay!”

  The grateful mother and her delighted daughter left the sickbay. It looked like we were next.

  The waiting room was brightly lit with a number of comfy chairs. A door led further inwards, presumably to the doctor’s main examination room and whatever facilities they had beyond. I guessed Patrick Murphy was somewhere back there too.

  The doctor stood up, still wearing the same sincere smile he’d used to sway the little girl. Except now, it looked even a touch brighter.

  “Cece! How great to see you!”

  “Yeah. Hey. How’s it going?” Her voice was the closest to a monotone I’d ever heard from her.

  “Hi. Ryan Wilson,” he said to me, sticking out his hand, and then immediately yanking it back.

  Amused, I watched as he pulled off the clear plastic glove he’d been wearing and tossed it into a garbage can.

  “Let’s try that again.” He stuck out his now bare hand again. “Ryan Wilson.”

  I shook his hand. “Adrienne James.”

  He turned to Cece and took on a more serious demeanor. “Is everything okay, Cece? Are you feeling all right?”

  “Of course. I never get sick.”

  His smiled widely. “Good! Great! Glad to hear it. That’s the problem with getting guests in the sick bay—while it’s nice to have company, it usually means there’s something wrong with them. I am glad you’re well, though.”

  Cece smiled back at him. I had been waiting for a sarcastic jab or a witty remark, but nope. Just a kind-hearted smile. She was definitely into him.

  “Actually, she’s here because of me,” I said.

  He put his concerned face back on.

  “Don’t worry—I’m not sick. I’m here about Patrick Murphy.”

  He looked at me and read my name badge. “You’re the social media manager?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and then he cut me off.

  “Right. I saw your buffet picture this morning. Very impressive work. But I’m afraid I can’t talk to you about Patrick Murphy. Not only would it breach doctor-patient confidentiality, but staff and crew have been banned from talking about his untimely demise, I’m afraid.”

  “Right, I understand,” I said nodding, “but don’t worry, I’m not here with my social media hat on. I’m actually looking into his death.”

  “She’s investigating,” said Cece with a helpful interjection. “She’s got her Sherlock Holmes hat on instead. She’s got to find out what happened to him.”

  “That’s right. At the moment, they’ve locked up our friend, Sam, saying she’s the only suspect. But they’re wrong. Sam shouldn’t even be a suspect. She had nothing to do with his death. She just happened to be with him just before he was killed.”

  “Right...” said Ryan, who was clearly deep in thought about what we were saying.

  “And she was working with Hot—I mean, the first officer,” said Cece.

  I nodded. “
That’s right. But that’s actually supposed to be a secret. I hope you can keep that to yourself, please, doctor.”

  Cece gave me an whoops expression and held up her palms in apology. Perhaps I hadn’t mentioned to her that working with Hot—with the first officer was supposed to be kept on the down low.

  “We need to find out what really happened that night. To clear my friend’s name.”

  The doctor was nodding his head slowly in understanding, but not agreement.

  “Also, that Murphy was a total creep anyway. He was behaving pretty inappropriately toward Sam,” said Cece. “Made a pass at her.”

  The doctor looked surprised. “Murphy did? Really?”

  “Why do you look so surprised? Surely even you heard about his reputation.”

  “Well, yes. But the thing is, Murphy was on so many different medications that I don’t think he could even...” he glanced at me, and then at Cece, his cheeks beginning to flush. “I’d be surprised if he was interested. I mean, he certainly wasn’t able. If you catch my drift.”

  Cece shrugged. “He was interested, all right. He’s a pig. Was, sorry. He was a pig.”

  That was some very interesting information he’d given us. For one, it meant that he and Sylvia certainly weren’t having a physical relationship, which put the affair theory on the back burner.

  “I guess you didn’t do an autopsy, right?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m more of a family doctor. I don’t do autopsies. There has been one ordered to be completed when we return to port though.”

  “But you did examine the body though, right?”

  “Ye-es,” he said with hesitation, clearly debating how much he should actually tell me.

  “Was he killed by the blow to the head? With the lamp?”

  “In my opinion, that is almost certainly how he died, yes.”

  “Not poison?”

  He shook his head. “While that’s possible, I find it extremely unlikely. If he was killed by poison, then he must have been hit over the head at almost the same time as the poison took effect. It would make the poisoning rather pointless, no?”

  “Yeah. I figured it was the lamp. I just wanted to hear your opinion. There were rumors going around the ship that he was poisoned.”