Murder, Curlers, and Cruises

by Arlene McFarlane

  She gave me a vacant look, unconcerned that I was dressed like a woman of the Wild West, rescuing her from the bowels of the ship.

  “Are you okay?” I bent in front of her, checking for bruises or marks of any kind.

  She tipped her head past me, focusing on the TV. “You’re in the way.”

  I was so filled with relief, tears pooled in my eyes. “We were worried about you.” I hugged her and smoothed back her mussed hair off her forehead. “Have you eaten?” I looked at the crackers on the table. “Are you hungry?”

  “I ate a sug-air-free chocolate bar the other day,” she said without emotion. “My blood sug-air went sky high.”

  She’d said this exact line two weeks ago, which left me as confused then as it did now. Uncertain if she’d had a chocolate bar since she’d been abducted, I grabbed some crackers from the box, gave them a sniff, and put them on her armrest. They weren’t fresh or top-of-the-line, but I didn’t think they’d kill her.

  She gave them a glance, then went back to watching the TV.

  “Who brought you here?” I asked.

  She blinked straight ahead. “The lady with the long red hair. She’s nice. She watches channel four news back home.”

  “How did you get down here? She didn’t force you, did she?”

  “No. We took an elevat-air.” Her gaze didn’t leave the TV. “I met her when I was walk-ink our first morning here. Then I saw her again Sunday morning. I told her I’d rather be watching my soaps than obeying Stuck-air. And the next day she said if I came with her I could watch my shows all day.”

  “Sabrina promised you that?”

  She nodded. “Last time I went to Stuck-air, I made him paklava. He did not return my Tupp-air-ware.”

  Following Tantig’s thought process was useless. “I’m sure he just forgot.”

  She clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth.

  “And nobody’s harmed you?”

  She blinked and raised her chin, along with another tsk. The silent no.

  “Tantig, did Sabrina ask you about Lucy’s murder?”

  She looked up at me. “Who-hk?”

  “The little person who was killed. Remember? You were at the Captain’s Gala when she was wheeled into the dining room, frozen in an ice statue.”

  She rolled her eyes, like who-hk cares? and fixed her gaze back on the TV. “I saw a suitcase.”

  “A suitcase.” I was trying to unravel this mystery, and Tantig was talking luggage.

  “It was around two-thirty in the morning. The same night I had my hair done in that contest.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back like she was remembering that catastrophic event. Then she pressed her lips together and reopened her eyes. “I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk. Then I saw the nice lady with a man. They were dragging a suitcase behind them. It had a fing-air sticking out.”

  I sucked in, Lucy’s murder becoming more real. “A finger! Are you sure?”

  She nodded at the TV.

  “Did they see you?”

  “I talked to them.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked if they were leaving. They said no. Just rearranging luggage.”

  I suddenly remembered Tantig’s confusion the morning we arrived in Nassau. She’d seen the cruise director wheel out her bag of tricks and had thought everyone was leaving because she’d seen other people dragging luggage around. More specifically, she’d seen Sabrina and most likely Devon wheeling around a suitcase in the wee hours of the morning. They were probably in such a hurry to dispose of Lucy they decided to deal with a confused elderly woman later. And how easy that turned out to be. All they had to do was promise she could watch her soaps on TV.

  Now it made sense why Sabrina’s room seemed empty when I searched it. Her clothes were piled neatly in drawers, but her luggage was gone.

  “What color was the suitcase, Tantig?”

  “White snakeskin.”

  Exactly what I’d seen Sabrina wheel into the ship the day we boarded. Where was it now? In Devon’s cabin? I glanced at the closed door. Outside this room in one of those crates?

  I paced back and forth, putting this all together. I stopped at the table and noticed glittery brown smudges on top of the worn laminate. Where had I seen brown smudges like this before? I jogged my memory. It was somewhere earlier today. The bistro? The pool? Then it hit me. Devon had shiny brown grease on his sleeve when he picked up my tray this morning. But it wasn’t grease. It was paint. And the shine was glitter. The same paint and glitter used on the sign for the hoedown. I stared down at the cans. The same paint and glitter sitting on the table.

  I gaped at the small quarters surrounding me. Was this Devon’s hideaway? His lair? I’d read that cruise-ship crew shared tight cabin space with up to six people. Was this a spot where he could have secret privacy and downtime? Where he could plan drug smuggling? Murder?

  I dragged my thoughts back to the luggage. Devon and Sabrina must’ve killed Lucy, stuffed her in the suitcase, and rolled her to the kitchen to be frozen. Less suspicious than hauling a dead body around by its feet. I shivered at that. “Come on.” I rushed over to Tantig. “Mom will want to see you’re okay.”

  I helped her out of her seat, opened the door, and spied the backs of Molly and Polly, twenty feet away, working on opening the metal box where Clive had hidden. I took a giant step back. Jeepers. Did everyone know about this area? Thank heavens for the constant hum of the engines. Molly and Polly didn’t seem to hear me. I left the door open a crack so I could watch what they were doing.

  They pulled a large bag labeled FLOWER PRESERVATIVE from the locker and dipped their fingers inside. Then they put their fingers to their noses. Huh? Why were they snorting preservative? Holy crap! That wasn’t preservative. That was cocaine. Hold on. Clive had said salt was in the bags. Then again, when he was inside the locker it was dark, and Clive’s vision wasn’t all that great. Probably the first thing that came to mind.

  Shoot.

  I closed and locked the door.

  “What is it?” Tantig asked.

  “We can’t leave yet. Go sit down. I’ll let you know when it’s time.”

  She hobbled back to the recliner, and I did a more thorough survey of the room. I inspected a grimy calendar taped to the wall, marked with notes on when to switch flower containers, set up displays, and check supplies. There was a slash across Sunday and Monday of this week, and Deal was written on both days.

  Were those the days drug deals were made in Nassau and San Juan? I thought about Molly and Polly out in the engine room and remembered the duffel bag Max had seen them holding in San Juan. Was it full of money? If the florist shop was a front for this smuggling operation, were they all in this together?

  I recalled interaction I’d seen between Molly and Polly and Sabrina and Lucy. Judging from the first night at dinner, it seemed like the beach babes had just met Sabrina and Lucy. But that didn’t mean they didn’t all have a role in running drugs. Was it possible this job was so huge that these twosomes sailed on the same ship but didn’t know of the other’s participation?

  Maybe Molly and Polly weren’t in charge of transporting drugs on board. Maybe they just paid for them once Devon confirmed the drugs were safely on the ship. But how did the drugs get on the ship? Who else was involved?

  My heartbeat quickened with each new question. With trembling hands, I rifled through stray papers on the table. Nothing but work notes and doodles.

  Suddenly, the door handle wiggled. I jumped back, then patted my pocket where I’d stuffed the key. Whew! The tugging on the handle stopped. Then a second later, Sabrina flew in, looking like a pissed-off school marm, hair sprouting out of her bun, eyes blazing. Damn. How many keys were there to this place?

  “Headache, huh?” She banged the door shut and whipped a knife out of her boot. “I knew you’d be here. I could smell your perfume miles away.”

  Darn lasting fragrance. Sweat bubbled on my lip, and my shoulders tensed at t
he angry glare in her eyes. “I came to get Tantig,” I said.

  She gave a short huff out her nose. “You can forget that. She’s not going anywhere. And neither are you.”

  My insides were like jelly, and I was back to being eight years old with Holly telling me I couldn’t eat cake in the living room. Like she was the boss over me. Well, I wasn’t eight anymore, and I wasn’t too fond of being told what I could or could not do. I wiped the sweat off my lip and raised my chin.

  “What is it with your family anyway?” Sabrina asked. “First, your great-aunt follows Dev and me halfway to the kitchen. Now you show up here. Don’t you people have anything better to do with your time than meddle?”

  I rolled my fingers into a tight ball. “I guess it’s in the blood.”

  “When Dev sees you here, the blood’s going to flow.”

  My pulse throbbed between my ears. But my first consideration was Tantig. “Let her go. She hasn’t harmed anyone.”

  “She’s done plenty of harm.” She wielded her knife in front of me. “If she hadn’t seen Dev and me carting Lucy away, she wouldn’t be here right now. At first, we weren’t going to kidnap her. Then I heard her remark to someone about a finger and rolling suitcases. I thought, who’d believe a senile old lady? But then you and your meddling background became a concern, and we knew it’d only be a matter of time until you stuck your nose in. See? We had to keep her locked up and out of the way until the coke is off the ship in Miami. We couldn’t trust she wouldn’t blab about any of this to the wrong person.”

  “Who could she possibly blab to? She says very little to anyone.”

  She tapped the blade of the knife under her jaw. “Hmm. Let’s see. Jock was your date at the Gala, was he not? And considering he’s chummy with the captain and has been asking questions about drugs and trafficking—even before Lucy died—I’d say he’s at the top of the list.”

  I tried to think of something to say to dissuade this line of thinking, but she plowed on.

  “Then there’s Detective Romero who arrived after Lucy died and who’d caused problems for her in the past.” She sneered. “More interesting, good old Uncle Sam told me Romero was your boyfriend.”

  “Mr. Jaworski?” The nosy gossip. What did he know?

  I gave a defiant head shake. “Romero’s no boyfriend of mine.”

  She shrugged. “Be that as it may, you’ve solved murders before. What was stopping your great-aunt from blabbing to you?”

  I had no answer. I cracked my knuckles and glanced over my shoulder at Tantig—eyes glued to the TV. I gave a silent moan. I was trying to save her life, and she was watching soaps.

  I turned back to Sabrina, afraid to ask what they intended to do with us. Tantig had seen her captors. She could describe them. That wouldn’t change once the cruise was over. What might have seemed like a crazy story about a suitcase and a finger would become much more credible after she’d been missing for several days.

  I couldn’t stop trembling inside. I had to get Sabrina to soften. Maybe if she talked this out, she’d at least set Tantig free. It was worth a shot.

  I rolled back in my mind to the newspaper article about the drug dealer who was found dead at Lucy’s salon. “Just tell me,” I said. “Was this all connected to the murder at Shortcuts?”

  “You heard about that, did you?”

  I gave a pompous look. “I read the papers.” Much.

  “You could say it was connected.” She shrugged again, and I could tell that’s all she was going to say on the matter. “Lucy was always hard up for cash, and she knew the cops were watching her like a hawk—especially since the homicide. She was trying to lay low, but she got greedy.”

  “So you killed her.”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t intentional. But you probably wouldn’t believe that.”

  “Maybe I would.” She was holding a knife under my nose. I could be open-minded.

  “It wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t lunged for Dev. He was making arrangements for Lucy and me to bring the coke back to New York, freeing up the bikers who usually deliver the shipments.”

  Aha. Lucy’s comment about Jock—and recognizing a biker a mile away—instantly came to mind. So smuggling drugs from Miami to New York wasn’t a first.

  “This time,” Sabrina continued, “we decided to take the beauty cruise and rent a car to drive back. But Lucy started bitching about her share, how it was her business on the line, and she just freaked. Dove headfirst off the top bunk, aiming for Dev. He scrambled out of the way, and a second later she was lying on the floor with her head snapped.” She shook all over as if to erase the horrible memory.

  “Then you hauled her to the kitchen and dumped her in the mold.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “We had to get her off our hands. Seemed like the simplest thing to do.”

  “You could’ve thrown her overboard.”

  “True. But where’s the creativity in that?” She grinned. “Actually, the ice sculpture was a warning to the guy loading the stash into the hull. He was getting cold feet”—she chuckled to herself—“about smuggling the last shipment on board in San Juan, but there was no choice. There are others we have to answer to. We had to see this thing through.”

  I considered the size of the operation. “What about Molly and Polly?”

  “What about them?”

  “You didn’t see…” My gaze wandered to the door.

  “See what?” She waved her knife back and forth like she was cutting through fog.

  Something told me to shut up. Obviously, Sabrina hadn’t run into them a moment ago outside of this room. “Uh, see them at the Western theme night, shaving men.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I saw them. They’re not very good at what they do. Those men were walking away with bandages on their throats.”

  I doubted they cared.

  “But they are funny.” She smirked. “During the contest, when Lucy clouted that little drunk with a hairbrush and all hell broke loose, Molly whispered that she wondered how long it’d be before Lucy got what was coming to her.” She gave a thin laugh. “I told her it wouldn’t be long.”

  “I guess you were right.” I frowned, my thoughts circling back to this whole drug business. “What happens to the drugs once they’re loaded onto the ship?”

  She gave a heavy sigh. “Dev locates the boxes marked from the florists, then removes the bags from inside and stashes them in the locker.”

  “The bags of ‘preservative.’”

  “Yes. That stuff’s a perfect double for coke. Some of the other floral boxes loaded into the hull contain fresh flowers, floral foam, and real preservative. And since Dev personally handles picking the best flowers for Chef Roy’s dining room, he manages incoming loads. The coke goes in the locker, the preservative and bouquets go in the vases, and everybody’s happy. Genius, don’t you think?”

  “Clever. And helpful of him to do all the grunt work for the displays.”

  “It’s worth it. Getting the coke off the ship is more challenging.” Her gaze veered to Tantig, then settled back on me. “After the large flower arrangements have been discarded, Dev hollows out the floral foam at the bottom of the jars. Then he hides the drugs sealed in small plastic bags inside the foam and sets the foam in the bottom of the vases. The used vases are sent to the florist on land where eventually fresh flowers are inserted and brought onto the ship for the start of the next cruise.”

  “After the drugs have been removed from the vases,” I confirmed, “involving another florist in Miami.”

  She made a check mark in the air with her knife. “You’re a quick one, Valentine.”

  I ignored the jab and thought about our first stop in Nassau Sunday. “Is this where you were the night of the captain’s dinner? Checking to see if your first delivery had arrived while Lucy was wheeled into the dining room?”

  She gave a smug smile. “Yes. Dev had to work. Everything was running like clockwork.” Her smile gave way to a frown.
“Of course, having a death and kidnapping on our hands didn’t exactly add into the equation.”

  “Why don’t you explain Lucy’s death was accidental? As for Tantig, she won’t remember any of this tomorrow.” That was a fifty-fifty chance.

  “You think?”

  “I’ve known her all my life. Some days she still asks who I am.”

  She looked as if she was considering, then she straightened her shoulders. “No. Dev would kill me if I let her go.”

  I narrowed my eyes on her. “What is your relationship with Dev?”

  She bobbed her head slightly. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  Huh? “But I saw you with Football Guy.”

  “Who?”

  “The football jock who’s here with his buddies.” I spread my arms high and wide. “Built like an offensive lineman.”

  “Oh. Him. He was just a one-nighter.” She grinned. “Okay, two-nighter. Ends up we were raised in the same town outside Boston. And I know what you’re thinking. How could I? Right?”

  I was head-over-heels crazy for Romero, and yesterday I woke up in Jock’s bed. Who was I to judge? “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

  “Dev and I have been together forever. With everything that’s happened on this cruise, Football Guy, as you called him, was a diversion.”

  I pictured Football Guy’s tattoo and suddenly recalled the photograph of Lucy, Sabrina, and a third person who was cut off. “Then who was in the photo with you and Lucy in your cabin?”

  She pushed back stray hairs from her face. “Dev, except his body was folded behind the frame.”

  Which meant Dev was the guy with the snake tattoo Kashi saw the night of the celebration.

  “Lucy insisted we take the picture and cart it with us for luck, but we all agreed nobody could know of any relationship between us and Dev.”

  “What happened to the picture?”

  She looked at me strangely. “What makes you think it went anywhere?”

  My nose twitched. “Guessing?” Would she suspect I’d been snooping in her cabin? I hoped my perfume wasn’t that lasting that she’d sensed it.

  “You guessed right. I destroyed it after Lucy died. That’s all I needed. A picture with the three of us together.”