Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 05 - Cruise Conundrum Read online

  “Proof of what?”

  “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it sounded serious. He sounded kind of dangerous, in fact.”

  Ethan nodded a few times before leaning back in his chair with a sigh, letting his arms drop down and giving them a shake as if to ease out an ache or cramp.

  “And?”

  “Oh. The other thing. You’re not going to believe this.”

  “After the last few cruises we’ve had, I’m open to believing a whole lot more things than I used to,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. But get this—Not-so-Awesome Andy was blackmailing one of the VIP passengers, Jessica.”

  “Blackmailing her? How was he doing that?”

  “Well, it obviously started some time ago, long before this cruise. He had photos of Jessica cheating on her husband, Rick. I saw one of the pictures, all torn up. Cece and I put it back together. He left a note with it, telling her that she had to make the normal payments, or else he would ruin her marriage by informing Rick that she was cheating on him.”

  “Pictures? And a note? Saying all of that?”

  “Yep.”

  “It seems Andy wasn’t very awesome at all, was he? And pretty dumb, too. I mean, if you’re going to blackmail someone, you don’t write it down and incriminate yourself.”

  “Don’t you?” My face was all innocence. “I’ve never really thought about it before, blackmailing someone.”

  “No, I don’t see why you would have. But I guess it’s true about what they say: most criminals are caught because they make stupid mistakes. Though I guess in this case, Andy got away with it while he was alive.”

  “Well, yeah, except maybe he didn’t get away with it. Maybe it caused his death. I mean, I bet Jessica didn’t like being blackmailed much.”

  “Tell me about this Jessica. Does she strike you as a murderer?”

  Finally, a waitress came over and took away the stack of plates in front of me. I breathed a sigh of relief, seeing them gone. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer Ethan’s question though.

  “One thing I’ve learned recently is that you never can tell with people. Jessica doesn’t strike me as a murderer, but then they never seem to. In her case though, she seems to be too much of a ditz to successfully get away with killing someone. I’m not saying she’s stupid exactly… no, I guess I am. She is stupid. And an airhead. And a ditz. But she did seem quite sweet with it. Too sweet to be a killer, I would have assumed.”

  “She clearly wasn’t clever enough to cover up her affair, if Andy managed to find out about it.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Ethan gave me a questioning look.

  “Andy wasn’t the only one who found out about it. Me and Sam did too. We caught her behind some bushes with some guy who wasn’t her husband.” I shook my head at the memory. “If she did commit the murder, I bet she made a few mistakes and left some clues.”

  “I think we should try and have a word with her then, don’t you?”

  I nodded agreement. “Yep. I think she’s still on shore at the moment with the rest of the photographers, taking some pictures. Hopefully we can catch her when they come back, before the next session that Xavier is running.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Thanks for filling me in.”

  I leaned back in my chair, pleased with myself, until I realized I’d forgotten something.

  “Oh wait, there was another thing I needed to tell you.”

  “You’ve had a busy morning, haven’t you? And I was just stuck in meetings.”

  “I suppose I have. This isn’t good news, I’m afraid. I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to keep the murder a secret.”

  “Oh? What happened?” Ethan didn’t look pleased at the news.

  “That woman, Raina, on the cruise on her own. She called up one of her friends and told them that Andy was dead.”

  Ethan groaned and rubbed at his head with his right hand. “That’s all we need. She told her friend that he was murdered?”

  I shook my head.

  “Thankfully not. She just said he had died. I asked her about it, and she said she had to tell her friend, because her friend was trying to hire Andy to do the photography for her own wedding. She said her friend—Steph—she needed to know urgently so that she could find another photographer.”

  “It’s hard to believe the photographer is that important, isn’t it? You would think there were dozens of competent people who could lift up a camera and press the button at the right time.”

  I giggled at him. I was pretty much of the same opinion, but neither of us were photography experts either.

  “I know, right? And Raina herself had been offering him six figures for a few pictures, too! It’s ridiculous.” I paused a moment, a thought forming. “That gives me an idea. Hold on.”

  “Oh?” Ethan leaned forward, curious.

  I pulled out my phone and launched the internet browser. I typed Raina wedding photos Awesome Andy into the search box.

  Just as I thought, they were available online. Raina was one of those people who was rich enough that when they got married, it made the local magazines and newspapers as well as socialite gossip blogs.

  I clicked on a link which promised to show all the photos of her society wedding. While the page loaded up, I shuffled my chair around the table a little so I was closer to Ethan and put the phone on the table between us. He lifted his own chair and brought it closer to mine so that we were both sitting right by the corner, the phone within easy viewing of both of us. Our knees grazed against each other, and he patted me on the leg with a grin.

  “So these are her wedding pictures,” I said. “The ones that cost more than my parents’ house.”

  Ethan’s eyebrows raised.

  “Houses are cheap in the part of Nebraska I come from,” I said, half embarrassed. It really was true. When I saw how much houses cost in some of the more expensive parts of the country, it made my eyes almost fall out of their sockets. How did people ever afford them?

  As the pictures loaded up, we both stared as I scrolled through them.

  “These are… good?” asked Ethan uncertainly.

  “I guess they’re artistic?”

  Since this was more my realm than Ethan’s, I wanted to be able to explain to him just why they were good. The problem was—I couldn’t.

  “Half her face is missing from that one. That’s… artistic, is it?”

  “I suppose so. And you see the way both their faces are blurred in this one? That’s definitely done deliberately.”

  “I guess you must be right. But why?”

  Good question. But not one I could answer.

  “Maybe it’s the style these days? It’s too late to ask Andy. Though we could speak to Raina. Maybe she could explain what it is that we’re missing. They probably look better in a photo album, or in a magazine, than on a small phone screen.”

  “Yeah, I guess they probably do.”

  Neither of us seemed convinced. It did put a little thought into the back of my mind though: maybe I could be a six-figure photographer. I mean, if this was art, then I was fairly certain I could become an artist.

  There was a buzzing from Ethan’s pocket. He pulled out his own phone, frowned at the screen, and shook his head in mild annoyance.

  “Looks like I’ve got a small fire to put out. Let’s catch up and go see Jessica together in about half an hour or so?”

  I nodded. That would give me time for a dessert or two, and maybe a coffee.

  “Sounds good. I’ll take a stroll to work off some of my lunch,” I said with a chuckle.

  He gave my hand a squeeze as he stood up.

  “See you shortly. I’ll try and be as quick as possible.”

  “Take your time,”

  “Shall I walk you out?”

  “Um, no, I’ve just got to send a quick email. You go ahead.”

  Yeah, send an email and check that the Death by Chocolate Cake was still up to its normal hi
gh chocolatey standards.

  “See you later then.”

  I waved goodbye to Ethan with one eye on the dessert station.

  There’d still be plenty of time for a little walk as well.

  Chapter 23

  “Hey, hold on.”

  Ethan was grinning at me as he approached. What was he smiling about?

  I soon found out when he wiped away a smear of chocolate from the corner of my mouth.

  “Oh my goodness! That’s so embarrassing!”

  “Death by Chocolate? It’s the best cake on this old boat,” said Ethan with a laugh.

  Willing that pesky color out of my cheeks, I walked beside him through the ship’s large Grand Atrium where we’d agreed to meet.

  On our way to go and see Jessica, we passed by the same bar that Cece and I had seen Rick in before, drinking with Greg Washington. This time, he wasn’t with Greg though, who was no doubt in the kitchens working.

  Rick was sitting by himself, up on the same barstool he’d fallen off the day before, six empty beer bottles in a row on the counter in front of him.

  “Someone’s honeymoon is going poorly,” I said, pointing my head toward the man at the bar.

  “Looks like it. And his wife was not only having an affair, but also being blackmailed? Poor guy.”

  “I know. I feel sorry for him. He thinks his wife just married him for the money. Awful, huh?”

  “I guess. Come on. Let’s see if we can find the bride.”

  We passed by Andy’s room on the way to Jessica’s. From the outside, you wouldn’t know someone had been killed only a few yards away.

  The only sign that there was even anything slightly amiss was the Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the door. But it was hardly the only room with one of those.

  As we passed, my footsteps quickened. There was something about places where people had died that gave me the jitters.

  Ethan rang the doorbell to Rick and Jessica’s room, and we didn’t have to wait more than a few seconds before she opened it.

  Jessica was wearing a short little black dress with some very high heels. It wasn’t exactly what you expected to see someone wearing on a typical afternoon.

  “Oh, hello. You caught me trying on dresses. What can I do for you?”

  “Can we come in?” I said to her. “We need to talk to you about something. Something serious.”

  “Serious?” Jessica’s eyes went wide. “Did I spend too much in the boutique? Are they angry at me?”

  It took me a moment to work through what she was saying. When I finally understood, it didn’t do much to improve my opinion of her intellect.

  “What? No. I don’t think they would ever get angry at that. Can we come in?”

  “Sure, make yourselves at home. You had me worried they were going to come and take their dresses back for a moment!”

  I followed Ethan inside. At first it looked like he was going toward the sofa, the one that was an exact copy of the one Andy had died on. But he switched direction halfway across the room, and went to sit at the dining table, like we had in Xavier and Zara’s suite.

  I approved of his choice.

  When we were all seated, Jessica sat there with an expectant look on her face, clearly wondering what this was about.

  “Jessica, we know you were being blackmailed by Andy.”

  “Black mail? All my mail is white. In envelopes. At least I think it is. I don’t remember getting anything black in the mail.”

  Ethan and I exchanged wary looks. Was she trying to pull one over on us or was she actually that slow? It was hard to tell.

  “We don’t mean that. We mean he was making you give him money. To keep a very important secret.”

  Jessica sucked in a massive breath of air as her mouth dropped wide open in shock. She closed it and bit her lip, wringing her hands together in front of us while she thought about what to say.

  “No, he wasn’t,” she finally said, after she managed to regain control of her jaw. Unfortunately her body language had already told us that he definitely was in about half a dozen different ways.

  “Jessica. We just saw your reaction.” I looked in her eyes as I spoke, making sure she knew that we knew the truth.

  “But how did you know?”

  “One of the housekeepers found a blackmail note, and a photograph, when she was cleaning the room,” Ethan said very matter-of-factly.

  “But they can’t have. I destroyed it.”

  “You didn’t do a very good of destroying it. It was easy to put the pieces back together.”

  Jessica shook her head in disbelief, as if the very thought of reassembling those pieces was a mission on par with the Manhattan Project, or the first moonshot.

  “Okay. I admit it. I was having an affair with my tennis instructor—he’s on the cruise too—because we’re in love.” She looked to me, then to Ethan, and then back to me as if for moral support. I wasn’t about to offer her any, and it didn’t look like Ethan was either.

  “We’re in love, but I have to stay married to Rick for another year. If I divorce him before then, I won’t get anything in the settlement. He made me sign a prenup. Can you believe it?”

  I thought Rick had done the right thing in getting her to sign a prenup, but I didn’t think she actually wanted to hear my opinion on the matter, at least not right then.

  “Andy found out, and he was blackmailing you. But you wanted to end it, right?”

  She wrinkled up her face. “What do you mean?”

  “We saw the note. You hadn’t made your last payment to him. He was threatening you.”

  Jessica shook her head. “Oh, no. I just forgot. It was lucky he reminded me. Though I’m not sure how to make the payment now that he’s sick and not coming out. Should I give it to the doctor in sickbay?” She scrunched up her face in thought. “Andy always likes it in cash. He says he doesn’t want a paper trail.” She paused for another moment, and as I watched, I saw her face light up with a brilliant idea. “I know! Could you give the money to him for me?”

  “No,” Ethan said it with such finality that Jessica immediately shut her mouth in shock.

  Jessica didn’t seem to be responding the way I thought a murderer would. I decided to push on regardless.

  “It must have made you angry, right? Andy making you pay him all that money?”

  Jessica looked confused. “Angry? Why?”

  Ethan and I exchanged another pair of disbelieving looks.

  “Because he’s taking your money!” I said. “I mean, wouldn’t it make you want to kill him?”

  There, I’d said it. I felt I had to be that obvious, though. She clearly wasn’t following my line of questioning, so I needed to be incredibly direct.

  Jessica frowned. “Kill him? Why would I want to do that? He was helping me by keeping my secret!”

  Was that really how she saw it?

  “But if he was dead, he would still be keeping your secret, and you wouldn’t have to pay him anymore.”

  “Oh!” I felt like I could see the gears turning and whirring inside her head behind her eyes. Like realization was suddenly dawning upon her, as she made some great discovery. “Wow. I never thought of that. How do you guys come up with stuff like that?”

  She couldn’t possibly be this dim, could she? If she was, then there was no way she’d be clever enough to get away with murder. She would’ve messed up along the way, and we would find out before too long, I was sure of it.

  “Anyway,” said Jessica, “I couldn’t kill Andy.”

  “Why not?” asked Ethan wearily. Her idiotic answers seemed to be wearing on his last nerve.

  “I don’t know how to kill someone. It’s not like they teach you that in school.”

  “I don’t think any murderers took classes for it, Jessica,” I explained. “Sometimes, people just, you know, pick up a gun, point it, and pull the trigger.”

  “Well, I don’t know how to do any of that, either!” She stopped to think again for another
long second. “I don’t like loud noises.”

  We weren’t getting anywhere with her. Either she was a genius pretending to be an idiot, or an idiot who made no attempt to hide it.

  “Why are you asking me this anyway? Isn’t Andy sick with the flu?”

  “Yes, that’s right. He’s sick with the flu,” said Ethan shaking his head in exasperation.

  There hadn’t been any need to tell Jessica that Andy was dead, and it was good to know that she hadn’t heard a rumor about it yet. I suspected if she did find out though, the secret wouldn’t last longer than the time it took her to open her mouth again. Which wouldn’t be long at all.

  Jessica leaned back in her chair, seemingly exhausted from our conversation. Then I saw the same look on her face again that I had seen before, and I knew she had something else to say.

  “Can I ask your advice?”

  We both leaned forward. This might lead somewhere was what we were both thinking. But it didn’t lead anywhere we wanted to go.

  “Go on. What’s your question?”

  Jessica stood up again and put two hands to her body indicating her tight black dress.

  “The ball tomorrow, the invitation said it was black dress. But this dress has got sparkly bits on it. Look, it goes a little bit pink, and then a little bit purple, and a little bit green, when I move. Do you think it’s all right?”

  I frowned at her. “Those are sequins. Black sequins. And yes, they’re fine. You won’t have any trouble getting into the ball with a dress like that.”

  Jessica beamed back at me. “Thank you so much. I tried to find a dress with the least purply pinky greeny bits. But whenever I held it up to the light, it seemed like they’re all the same. This one seemed to have the least though.”

  It probably has the least because it’s the smallest, I thought.

  “They are all the same. The sequins reflect the light, that’s all.”

  She shook her head in wonder. “How do you know all that? I didn’t learn anything useful in school. And I went to an Ivy League!”

  I stared at her to see if she was joking or not. She wasn’t. I didn’t think she could do jokes.

  But attending an Ivy League school wasn’t a joke. I couldn’t help but imagine there was a building with her family name on it somewhere on campus. Possibly more than one.