Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101) (26 page)

I told her as much as I could, alluding to the fact that there was a good chance Marc Alley had been the killer's intended target. I would have gone into more detail, but she cut me off in the middle of a sentence.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but all this talk is taking too much time. If I'm going to be there soon enough to do any good, I'll need to head home, get the Beaver warmed up, and file a flight plan. I'll be in Skagway as soon as I can. I'll let Mrs. Conyers know that I'm available if she needs my help. After that, it's up to her. She'll either retain me or not. One way or the other, you'll be off the hook, Beau. What time is the ship due to sail?”

“Six
P.M.
”

“And where do you go tomorrow?”

“Glacier Bay. I haven't paid that much attention to the itinerary. I figure once I'm on the ship, I go where it goes.”

“I doubt Lucy Conyers is going to be on board by the time you sail,” Carol Ehlers returned. “But I'll do my best. If Mrs. Conyers does retain me, I'll need to be in touch to get the names of all the people who were on the train when it happened. I'll want to conduct my own investigation rather than simply relying on Sonny Liebowitz's say-so as to what went on.”

“Call anytime,” I told her. “I'll be here.”

Once off the phone, I went into the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water. For someone who was supposed to be on vacation and taking it easy, I looked pretty damned haggard.

I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, thinking I'd give myself the benefit of a short nap. I may have actually dozed off, but it seemed to me the light tap on my door came within seconds of my closing my eyes. When I opened the door, Naomi Pepper was standing in the corridor. “Hi,” she said. “Anybody home? And are you still taking in strays?”

I glanced up and down the hall and was relieved to see that Hector, my room attendant, was nowhere in sight. I motioned Naomi inside, where she took a seat on the sofa. “What's going on?” I asked.

“I feel like I'm trapped in some other dimension. Everything I thought I knew has gone out the window. Margaret's dead. Sharon and Virginia aren't speaking to me. I refuse to go beg Todd Bowman for a permission slip, so I feel like a prisoner. The
Starfire Breeze
is a very nice ship, but as soon as you can't come and go as you please, it starts feeling like a jail—nice to look at, but a jail nonetheless. I've been going stir-crazy all day. I really wanted to take that railway ride up to White Pass, although I heard something went wrong on that today, too. There was a delay of some kind. Two trains never left at all.”

“Calling what happened a delay is a bit of an understatement,” I allowed and then went on to tell her about what had happened to Mike Conyers, including the fact that Mike's widow was most likely in the process of being booked in connection with his death.

“Things like this aren't supposed to happen on cruises,” Naomi commented sadly when I finished relating the story. “It's supposed to be all beautiful sunsets and romantic dinners, not murders and disappearances.”

Her view was so close to my own that it made me laugh, although it really wasn't a laughing matter. Two people—two
Starfire Breeze
passengers—had died in the course of this cruise. Although the ship's crew members were evidently aware of what was going on, most of the passengers were not. The
Starfire Courier
came out daily and dutifully reported that day's schedule of events as well as arrivals and departures, but no mention was made of more serious matters. As far as passengers were concerned, there had been only a “delay” in the White Pass and Yukon excursion train schedule. No one cared to make any kind of official announcement that a man—one of their fellow passengers—had fallen hundreds of feet to his death. As far as I could tell, regardless of FBI involvement, this particular cruise line was still very much in the “under-reporting” business.

“I thought it would be a lot more peaceful myself,” I told her.

A period of silence followed. I assumed Naomi had come to see me because she wanted to talk, but her pump seemed to need priming. “So what all has been happening on board today?” I asked.

Naomi Pepper bit her lip before she answered. “I talked to Harrison before he left to go look for Margaret,” she said finally.

“And?”

“I know how Margaret found out about Missy.”

“How?”

“Harrison told me that they found a draft copy of Harrison's brand-new will in Margaret's stateroom. It had been faxed to her that afternoon, just before she called me. No wonder she was upset.” Naomi shrugged. “I guess I would have been, too, if the shoe had been on the other foot.”

“Did Harrison have any idea where it came from?”

“None at all. He's furious about it and convinced that someone in his attorney's office must have leaked it to Margaret the same way someone in his travel agency leaked the travel plans. He thinks Margaret bribed them.”

“But he has no idea who it might have been?”

“No.”

“Did Harrison say anything about the other fax, the one that came in at dinner that first night and was mistakenly delivered to Chloe?”

“He said it's about the IPO.”

“As in ‘initial public offering'?” I asked.

“Right. He said Margaret's company was getting ready to do one of those this week, but I don't know any of the details. I don't follow monetary affairs very well. Talk about securities and stocks and all of that bores me to tears. My eyes just glaze over. Gary was always excited about IPOs—said they were a great way to make money. As far as I could see, it was just another way of betting on horses—corporate ones rather than those with four legs. He never made any money on those, either.”

Again Naomi fell silent. She plucked at a loose thread on the arm of the couch. Something was going on with her, and I had no idea what it was. “Did you talk to Ralph Ames?” I asked.

She nodded. “He was nice and very reassuring. He told me not to talk to Todd Bowman at all. Ralph said that as long as I say I want to have my attorney present, Bowman will have to leave me alone at least until after we're back in Seattle. After that, who knows?” She gave a hopeless shrug.

“What's wrong, Naomi?”

Tears spilled out of her eyes and down both cheeks. “What's wrong?” she sobbed. “Everything. My life is a shambles. My daughter hates me. Two of my best friends aren't speaking to me, and I'm a suspect in the death of a third one. I'm stuck on this goddamned boat for another three days and two nights, and I don't even have a place to sleep or shower or change clothes. What's wrong? You tell me—what's right?”

I've always been a sucker for damsels in distress. If a woman is crying, I tend to jump in and do whatever's necessary to make her stop. The offer was out of my mouth before I could help myself. “You can stay here with me,” I said.

“No,” she mumbled into her hanky. “I couldn't do that,” and kept right on crying.

I waited until I couldn't stand it anymore. “Look,” I said impatiently. “Have you had anything to eat today?”

“No,” she sniffled. “I wasn't hungry.”

She was still wearing the same clothes she had been wearing when I saw her last—the same clothes she'd worn the night before.

“What about a shower? Did you have one of those?”

“I already told you. I tried going back to the room, but I couldn't stand it. I don't want to see Sharon and Virginia. I don't have any idea what I'll say to them.”

I stood up, went to the closet, and pulled out a clean, still-plastic-wrapped terry-cloth bathrobe. “Here,” I said, handing it over to her. “One of the nice things about having a junior suite is that there's a wonderful Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. I want you to go in there, strip down, and have a nice long soak. While you're doing that, I'm going to call Virginia and Sharon and ask them to pack up your things. I'll send my room attendant down to pick them up and bring them here. Then, after you're decent again and feeling a little better, I'm going to order a Room Service dinner to be served right here in the room.”

“Really, I couldn't . . .” she objected.

“You can,” I told her. “You have to, and you will. Now what's your cabin number?”

After a few more increasingly indefinite nos, I finally won that round. In the end, she never did say an actual yes. She simply took the bathrobe from my hand, disappeared into my bathroom, and shut the door behind her. As soon as I heard bathwater running, I picked up the phone and dialed Naomi's soon-to-be-former cabin. Virginia Metz answered.

“It's Beau,” I told her. “Beau Beaumont from the dining room,” I added. “Your tablemate.”

“Sorry,” she said. “With everything that's happened the last couple of days, dinner in the dining room seems eons away. What can I do for you?”

“Naomi's here with me,” I said. “And she'll probably be here for the rest of the cruise.”

“So?” Even over the phone, the distinct coolness in Virginia's one-word response was enough to lower my room's temperature by a good two or three degrees.

“She needs her things,” I added quickly. “Would you mind packing them up for her? I'll be glad to send my room attendant down to pick them up in a little while.”

“After what Naomi did to Margaret, you expect us to pack up her suitcases for her?”

I didn't know if Virginia was more upset about Naomi's having a child with Margaret Featherman's former husband or if her attitude derived from suspicions that Naomi might be involved in whatever had happened to Margaret on board the ship. Either way, I could see why Naomi felt that returning to her cabin was out of the question.

“Well,” I said. “It doesn't sound as though you're any more eager to be around her than she is about seeing you at the moment. But if you'd rather, I suppose I could come down and do her packing myself.”

“Don't bother,” Virginia said curtly. “How soon will you be sending someone to get her things?”

“Say fifteen, twenty minutes? Would that be long enough?”

“We'll have her suitcases packed and waiting outside the door. Tell her we want our room key back, too.” With that, Virginia Metz slammed the receiver down in my ear.

Taking my own room key, I went in search of Hector. I found him out in the hallway, using his cart to deliver fresh ice and clean towels to my neighbors two doors up.

“Do you require something?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “A lady is going to be joining me in my cabin from now on,” I told him. “If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to go down to her old cabin and bring her luggage up here. Her name is Naomi Pepper, and her suitcases will be waiting outside the door.” I gave him the deck name and cabin number.

A conspiratorial grin spread across Hector's broad face. Clearly having passengers change cabins wasn't unheard of aboard the
Starfire Breeze
. Hector appeared to be enjoying the idea immensely.

“Of course, Mr. Beaumont,” he said quickly. “I'll be only too happy to do that.”

I reached for my wallet, expecting to offer him a tip. “No need,” he said. “I'll take care of it right away.”

Back in the cabin, I tried to sort through all the ramifications of what was going on. Virginia Metz wanted Naomi's room key back. On land that would have been a simple transaction. On board the
Starfire Breeze,
it was somewhat more complicated. On board a cruise ship, those little plastic key cards mean everything. Not only does it allow passengers in and out of their rooms and off and on the ship, it's also necessary for buying even so much as a tube of toothpaste from the gift shop. If you're on a cruise ship without a key card, you don't exist. You're in almost as bad a shape as the poor guy in that old social studies movie they used to show at my elementary school back in Ballard. I think the film was called
The Man Without a Country
.

Naomi was still soaking in the tub, so I picked up the phone and dialed the purser's office. “Supposing a passenger wanted to change cabins,” I said. “Would it be possible to turn in one key and have all the charges for that key transferred to another cabin, along with getting an additional key to the new room?”

“It can be done,” the crisp-voiced young woman told me. “But of course, there's an additional charge.”

“That's understandable,” I agreed. “So how does one go about it?”

“Both people have to come to the purser's desk together. That way, new key cards can be issued to both of them at once.”

“I see,” I said.

The job would have to be done in person. We'd have to go and stand in line in public to do it, and I was sure the fresh-faced young people at the purser's desk would all jump to the same conclusions Hector had. It wasn't something I looked forward to with eager anticipation.

The bathroom door opened. Naomi emerged wearing the robe and with a towel wrapped turban-style around her head. Free of smudged makeup, she looked refreshed and even a little relaxed. I handed her the Room Service menu. “Order something for both of us,” I said.

“But it's early,” she objected. “Don't you want to wait?”

“There's nothing magic about eating dinner at eight-thirty. Besides, I ended up skipping lunch today, too. We'll eat now. Then we'll go down to the purser's desk and make arrangements to trade in your old key card for one to this room.”

Naomi was talking on the phone to Room Service when there was a tap on the door. Hector, still grinning, stood in the hallway carrying two suitcases. “Come in,” I said. “Just put them on the bed.”

He did so, but I caught him taking a discreet look at Naomi in the process. He was surprised, I think, to discover that the woman in my room wasn't the same one he had seen me with most recently. Once again I made as if to tip him. Once again he declined.