Killer Cruise Read online

  The first thing I did was take a few pictures of people boarding: #CruiseLife #Cruising #FirstDayCruise. Most of the VIPs had boarded the day before for an extra exclusive night, but the regular passengers—non-vips, as Cece called them—were being welcomed aboard today.

  The Swan of the Seas was apparently a minnow in the world of cruising, though it still felt like a floating city to me. The population on board was at least triple that of Cornridge, Nebraska, where Sam and I hailed from and it felt to me just as monumental as if I’d moved to Chicago or New York.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see who it was.

  “Adrienne, darling?” said Sylvia the cruise director, who had sidled up behind my prime location looking down on the gangway below.

  “Oh, hi!” I said and immediately felt guilty. It’s a bit of a weakness of mine; whenever I’m doing something fun, I feel like I should be doing something not fun instead. And this job was definitely fun so far.

  “Good work so far, but I’m going to need you to think about a bit more pizazz in your work, do you see?”

  “Pizazz?” I asked, scrunching up my nose. I’d only started a few minutes before. It didn’t seem exactly fair to accuse me of being boring, which is presumably what my pizazz-lessness was.

  “Yes, get out there, mingle. Meet the customers. I know you’re not a customer liaison, but in some ways, you are the ultimate customer liaison. Do you see?”

  Do you see seemed to be a verbal tic of hers and I was already tempted to answer no.

  “Uh-huh,” I sounded. “I was thinking of interviewing some of the cruise regulars. Since I do have a background in journalism, after all.”

  Sylvia nodded at me. “Yes, that might work. But make sure they’re positive. If they have any complaints, make sure you edit them out. Your job is to provide a positive spin, not to ‘report’ on problems, do you see?”

  “Yes, I see,” I said, hiding a frown. I was being censored already and I hadn’t even reported anything yet!

  “Remember, you’re our social media tsarina, our publicity princess, our picture poster, and our Twitter tweeter. You’re not Bernstein and Woodward. Do you see?”

  I gritted my teeth and forced my finest fake smile. “Absolutely. I’m going to be so positive I’ll pop.”

  “Fantastico! You can ask some of the other staff members who the regulars are for your interviews, but remember, keep them short and sweet and fun. And make sure you’re Tweeting and Instagramming hourly!”

  Hourly? Goodness. Perhaps this work wasn’t going to be quite as laid back as I thought it would be.

  “Yes, boss,” I said and saluted her with my smartphone.

  She beamed back at me and went off to harass some other poor staff members. Looking below me, I could see that the gangways had been lifted and removed, and the last of the ship’s moorings were being untied.

  Beyond, I caught my last glimpses of the most fun city I’d ever had the pleasure of visiting: New Orleans. After nearly a month there, I’d come to the conclusion that there was more excitement in one night in New Orleans than in an entire month in Nebraska. Not that Nebraska is dull, you understand, but… no, scratch that. Nebraska is dull. But almost anywhere would be compared to Nola. Speaking of which, I’m not supposed to say Nola, because apparently it makes me sound like a tourist.

  I was on a deck called The Constitutional, so named because it provided a pleasant path to stroll the circumference of the ship at a leisurely pace, with a few cafés dotting the path and a liberal sprinkling of benches, chairs, and sun loungers placed every hundred yards or so in case you needed a break in your exercise. Another deck had a running track for those wanting something a bit more active, and I hoped to get a few interesting shots there later.

  I was just about to head back inside when an idea stopped me dead in my tracks.

  Patrick Murphy! Cece had said that he was a cruise regular, exaggerating that he went on a hundred or so a year. Not that I’d normally choose to focus on a rude drunk, but Sam had seemed quite upset when she’d come back from escorting him to his room the day before. I wanted to know more about him—and now I had an excuse.

  The previous night, Sam and I had spent a couple of hours studying the layout of the ship, trying to memorize the location of every point of interest. It wasn’t just for our own edification of course; it was also a job requirement. Unlike Sam though, I had the opportunity to wander the ship as I pleased—in fact, it was my duty to visit all the interesting parts—and so memorizing the location of everything was going to be a lot easier for me.

  It was about a ten-minute walk from my spot on the constitutional deck to the VIP section, in which Mr. Murphy’s stateroom was located. When I arrived, I immediately made my way to the nearest crew station, where I found a printed list of passengers and their cabins for this section. His room was designated VIP-12.

  Pleased at my own cleverness, I sauntered down the hallway with confidence, only to realize that particular corridor ended at VIP-10.

  Confidence deflated, I returned to the crew station and made another attempt, this time successful.

  Outside the cabin door was a sign reading “The Stateroom of Mr. And Mrs. Patrick Murphy.” Although the sign was of course only temporary, it looked like a permanent fixture and no doubt made the passengers in this section feel like they actually were Very Important People. Perhaps some of them really were.

  Next to the door was an ornate lion’s head doorbell that, although undoubtedly made in China for pennies, looked like it had been borrowed from an Edwardian mansion. If there weren’t dozens of identical ones throughout this section of the ship, it certainly would’ve fooled me.

  I pressed the button and was mildly disappointed that it rang with a normal ding-dong rather than a roar.

  I waited patiently for five seconds, impatiently for another fifteen, and then I rang it again.

  After my third attempt at ringing, I decided to change my tactics before giving up and finding someone else to interview. This time, I rapped on the door with my knuckles, regretting it as soon as I realized the ornate white door was actually painted steel. Banging your hand against a steel door is much more painful than doing so against a wooden one. My knocking produced less noise than the ouch I let out in painful surprise.

  What I did notice, though, was that the door was not, in fact, fully shut. It was open just about an inch. I stared at the crack between the door and its frame. Was it open when I arrived? Or had it just opened?

  I gave it a tentative push and the heavy door slowly began to swing inward.

  “Hello?” I called through the crack.

  There was no answer. I pushed the door a bit harder and it swung all the way open.

  Peering inside, my eyes went wide with shock.

  “Oh my…”

  The room was so much nicer than mine it didn’t seem fair. While of course I understood that I was just a member of staff and this businessman was paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a night, seeing the difference left a kind of gnawing jealousy inside me.

  I’d never be able to afford a room like this. Not in a hundred years.

  The floor was laid with marble, and the walls were simply but tastefully decorated with a number of abstract art pieces. And the lighting! Mine and Sam’s room had no windows and a single too-harsh fluorescent bulb that made the room achingly bright if it was on, or left us in pitch blackness if it was off. But here, there were large sliding windows which let in all the natural light to bounce off the brightly painted walls and copious mirrors spread throughout.

  “Hello?” I called. “Mr. Murphy?” I put my head right in through the door but I didn’t yet step inside. “Is anyone there? The door’s open…”

  I didn’t get a response. Quickly checking over my shoulder to make sure no one else was watching me, I stepped inside.

  “He-llo!” I called, much louder than before, but in a friendly sing-song voice. I didn’t want to sound like a burglar—not that
I knew what burglars sounded like.

  I took another step inside and something caught my eye. Up ahead, I could see a rather expensive-looking leather sofa, but more importantly, behind it was a shoe sticking out.

  The problem was… it didn’t look like it was just a shoe. I thought I could see it attached to a sock. But I couldn’t see any further due to the sofa and my current line of sight.

  I took another step forward, moving slightly to the right to get a better viewing angle.

  Oh, how I wished I hadn’t.

  The shoe was most definitely attached to an entire leg, and presumably the rest of a person beyond.

  “Are you sleeping!?” My voice was loud and high pitched, almost yelping. Calm down, I thought, calm down. I took three deep breaths.

  “Are you passed out drunk on the floor?” I began to walk forward with nervous little steps. “Please be passed out drunk on the floor. Mr. Murphy! Mr. Murphy…”

  Squeezing my hands into tight little fists, I forced myself to keep going. With another couple of steps, I could see right over the sofa and what it had been hiding.

  “Oh… no.”

  Patrick Murphy was laid out on the floor, a reddish-brown stain surrounding his head. From the angle of one of his arms, it was clear he wasn’t sleeping—not even a very drunk person could sleep at that painful angle.

  Patrick Murphy had gone from dead drunk yesterday to actually dead today.

  Had I been a real reporter, I would’ve taken a photo, but I strongly suspected that Sylvia would not approve of me posting pictures of dead guests on our social media accounts. Even if it was without a doubt the most exciting thing that was going to happen during this trip.

  “It looks like I’m going to have to find someone else to interview…”

  Chapter 3

  I stepped backward as fast as possible until I almost stumbled over the lower lip of the doorframe.

  Cold sweat beading on my forehead, I exited the room and gently pulled the door most of the way closed behind me. I didn’t want a curious passenger or friend of the deceased to see an open door and just wander on in.

  This is my punishment for not paying close attention at yesterday’s meeting, I thought to myself. Cece had entertained me and Sam by making amusing quips while Sylvia droned on and on about all kinds of incredibly obvious information. But if I’d listened better, maybe I’d know what to do now!

  After taking half a dozen breaths, I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead with the palm of my hand and hurried back to the small crew station. Although I had a radio, I didn’t want to broadcast what I’d found to everyone who might be listening in.

  Instead, I used the internal telephone. There was a small list of numbers above the phone, but seeing as none of them was labeled “Report a Murder,” I took an educated guess and called security.

  “Hello? This is Adrienne James, the social media manager.”

  The voice at the other end of the phone was tinny and distant, as if the security department were located a hundred feet below the sea. It probably was.

  “Yes?”

  “I think—I mean, I know—I mean, murder!” I wanted to slap myself. For Pete’s sake, I went to school to be a journalist! I’d excelled in my broadcast journalism course, and I needed to channel those skills now. Imagine if Dan Rather stammered like that every time he reported a major news event?

  “…murder? Is this a joke? First day prank, ha ha?”

  After a deep breath, I said, “This is not a joke. I have found a deceased passenger in their cabin. From the way the body is displayed, it looks as if the passenger was murdered. This is in the VIP section. The passenger is Patrick Murphy and his cabin number is VIP-12. Please send someone immediately.”

  There was a brief, static-laden lull from the other end of the phone before a new voice returned. “This is First Officer Ethan Lee. Please stay exactly where you are and I will be with you shortly. Do not allow any passengers or crew to enter the cabin. You are to wait for my arrival. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said with a sigh of relief. “Got it.” His calm and collected tone had that powerful air of authority about it that good policemen and military officers on the television always seemed to exude. Everything’s going to be all right.

  I stood in front of the cabin door acting as a guard while I waited. But the problem with waiting, particularly when something terrible has occurred, is that the mind runs at about a million miles an hour thinking all kinds of ridiculous thoughts.

  For example, Patrick Murphy had clearly been dead for some time. There wasn’t an actual pool of blood around his head—it was more of a dried stain on the carpet. That meant he’d been killed the day before. Which was when we had met him. And what had happened then? Sam had escorted him back to his room and then returned, seemingly upset about something. But she hadn’t told me what she was upset about. Surely, surely it couldn’t have been… that.

  Could it?

  Of course it couldn’t! Samantha was my best friend and I’d known her since before she was born—our mothers met at lamaze class. Not once in more than two and a half decades had I known her to brutally murder anyone. “Not even a single one,” I whispered under my breath.

  Then I slapped myself on the leg. Why wasn’t my brain normal? Why was I making jokes to myself when I’d just found a dead body!

  “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

  There, before me, appeared a vision.

  “I am now…”

  “Sorry?”

  The man in front of me was, according to his name tag, Ethan Lee, First Officer, who I’d spoken to on the phone. He looked close to my age, possibly a touch older, and filled out his uniform as if it had been tailored precisely for him.

  “I’m okay. But the man inside isn’t.” I indicated the room behind me.

  “Show me.”

  With a nervous nod, I pushed the door open again and walked back inside the room. While my first impression had been of jealous awe, the room was now much less enticing. The brightness seemed clinical, and now that I was paying attention, the smell was… well, the salty ocean air and potpourri that seemed to dominate before had a heavy scent of death hanging over it. Not that I knew what death smelled like—before today.

  I didn’t walk right up to the body, but I made my way forward to stand behind the sofa, and then nodded my head in the direction of Murphy. Before I could see it, I had a panicked thought that maybe the body wouldn’t actually be there anymore, that it would be gone, that I had imagined the whole thing and I was going to look like the biggest idiot who ever sailed the seas.

  But no, it was still there, in all its rictus glory.

  The first officer brushed against me and I heard him sucking in a breath through his teeth.

  “Who have you told?”

  “No… no one. Just whoever I spoke to when I called the security number. You and the other guy.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way. Don’t tell anyone about this, not passengers or crew, do you understand?”

  His voice had the timbre of authority that you don’t say no to. It wasn’t the ‘I’m your boss, do you see?’ annoyingness that Sylvia had; it was a deep, resonant authority that said, ‘Trust me, you need to do what I say.’

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  He began to slowly walk around the sofa, not directly to the body, but in a wide circumnavigation of the scene, returning to my side about half a minute later.

  He glanced down at my chest. “Adrienne?”

  I nodded and gulped. For a moment, it felt like I was in trouble.

  “Did you know this passenger at all?”

  “Not really, sir. We met him yesterday afternoon. He was stumbling around drunk below deck. My friend Sam, a customer liaison, took him back to his room.”

  “Sam?”

  I nodded and he seemed to be taking a mental note.

  “Thanks. Adrienne, this is a rather unusual situation. You are probably very worried, and you�
��re probably in shock. But the important thing is to remain calm, to understand that this is being handled, and to remember that the passengers are aboard this ship to have a great time and this kind of news would greatly upset that.” As he spoke, he held my shoulders and locked his chestnut-brown eyes with mine. My breathing had slowed and, given his sincerity, I just knew that everything was going to be okay.

  “So I’m going to need you to return to your job…” his eyes left mine for a moment while he read the title on my name badge again, “…doing whatever a social media manager does, and remember, don’t mention this to anyone.”

  “So don’t tweet it out, huh?” I said with a grin.

  As it turns out, this was not a good time to make a joke. He did not smile. His eyebrows lifted just a fraction of an inch, his chin dropped an even smaller fraction of an inch, and it was like he’d yelled DON’T YOU DARE KID ABOUT THIS, LITTLE GIRL. Or maybe that was my imagination.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  His left hand dropped to his side and his right gave my shoulder a final squeeze. “Back to work. We’ll handle this.”

  With a meek nod, I hurried out of the cabin like a student dismissed from the principal’s office and made my way back to the constitutional deck. Outside, a sea breeze was lifting flecks of water into the air and the salty dampness immediately helped to calm my nerves a little.

  Right. Work. Work, work, work.

  Don’t think about the dead body.

  Don’t think about the fact Sam took him back to his room the night before.

  Don’t think about the stain around his head.

  Don’t think about—

  “Pizzazz! Did you find some pizazz for me? Did you do an interview?”

  Ugh. She’d snuck up behind me, or at least, that’s what it felt like. I kind of wanted to tell Sylvia what I’d found to shut her up, but I’d been ordered not to.