Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101) (30 page)

“Here on the Emerald Deck,” I was told. “Go down this corridor all the way aft. You won't miss it.”

I stopped by the table in the Sea Breeze Bar long enough to tell Naomi where I was going, then I headed for the Infirmary. I made tracks—as fast as my injured toe would allow. It felt as though it had swollen to twice its normal size inside the confines of my shoe, making me wish I had abandoned my loafers for a pair of tennis shoes. The toe hurt like hell, but what caused my heart to thunder in my chest was wondering what catastrophe had now befallen either Beverly or Lars.

In the waiting room of the Infirmary a somber Beverly Jenssen sat in a plastic-backed chair dejectedly thumbing through a dog-eared magazine. When she looked up at me, I was dismayed to see she was wearing what would, over time, blossom into a first-class shiner of a black eye.

“What happened?” I demanded.

“Oh,” she said. “It's so silly, I don't even want to talk about it. It's just that the nurse won't let me leave without having someone come walk me back to my cabin. Lars had such a bad night that I didn't want to bother him. Once he finally fell asleep, I wanted him to get as much rest as possible.”

“What happened to your eye?”

“I turned it up too high,” she said. “It got away from me.”

“Turned what up too high?” I asked.

“The treadmill up in the gym.”

I was astonished. “You're eighty-six years old. What were you doing on a treadmill?”

“Walking,” she returned. “That's all it is—walking. The girls—Claire and Florence—asked me to go with them this morning. They go to the gym every day, you know. Lars is a good one for walking, but only if you're going somewhere. Since he doesn't have to worry about going to the beauty shop or getting his hair wet, he doesn't mind about the weather. He disapproves of gyms and all that expensive equipment, but Claire and Florence don't. They go and have a good time, and they said it helps them get over things—like what happened to Mike and Lucy yesterday. They said the endorphins make you feel better. Since Lars was sound asleep when they invited me, I thought it would be fun to go, too. You know, while the cat's away and all that.”

“And then?” I urged.

“Well, we went up to the gym. I watched Claire and Florence get on the treadmill first. It looked perfectly simple, and it was. But then I turned it up too high. I fell and smacked my face on the handle. I'm just lucky I didn't break my dentures. I could have, you know.”

I looked around the waiting room. There was no sign of the two harebrained sisters who, in my opinion, had led my grandmother astray. “Where are Claire and Florence now?” I asked. “Still in the gym?”

“Oh, no. They came down with me right after it happened, but I sent them away. I didn't want them spending their whole morning in the waiting room here when it was nothing serious. I told them it was nothing. Then, after they left, the nurse told me I couldn't leave without having someone here with me. That's when I called you. You don't mind, do you, Jonas?”

“No,” I said. “I don't mind.”

Except that wasn't true at all. I
did
mind. Not that she was hurt or that she had called me. What I disapproved of was her pulling such a damn-fool stunt in the first place.

“What were you thinking?” I demanded. “You don't have any business getting on a treadmill to begin with, for God's sake! Not at your age!”

I must have sounded like an outraged father chewing out a teenaged daughter who has shown up a few minutes after curfew. Beverly's eyes filled with tears. She turned away from me and hid her face behind the magazine.

My back was to the door, so I didn't see Naomi Pepper until she crossed the room and knelt down beside Beverly. “There, there,” she said consolingly. “Don't listen to him. He's just being a bully. If you want to get on a treadmill, that's entirely up to you—no matter what your age. I fell down the first time I tried one, too. And once that black eye of yours has a chance to ripen, I think it may be even better than mine was.”

For some reason, that seemed to perk Beverly right up. “I've never had one before,” she said, giving Naomi a tentative smile. Then she turned to me and glowered. “Even at
my
age,” she sniffed. “Well, as far as I'm concerned, if you don't try new things every now and then, you could just as well be dead.”

With that, Beverly held out her hand to Naomi, who obligingly hauled my grandmother to her feet. It was Naomi, not I, who walked Beverly Jenssen down the corridor to the elevator lobby and then down the hall to her stateroom on the Bahia Deck. I followed behind them at a safe distance while steam continued to pour out of both my ears.

At Beverly's stateroom, she swiped her own key card to let herself inside. “Naomi, thank you so much for coming to my aid,” Beverly said before she closed the door. She said nothing to me. All she gave me for my trouble was a scowl.

“What does that make me, chopped liver?” I demanded once the door had slammed in my face. “And as for you,” I said to Naomi, “what gives you the right to interfere in a private family problem?”

Naomi looked up at me. “Biology, maybe,” she said. “It was a situation that needed a woman's touch. But if I'm not supposed to interfere in your private family problems, maybe you should think about taking some of your own advice and not interfering in mine.”

With that, Naomi thrust the fax envelope back in my hand. Then she turned on her heel and marched away, heading off for parts unknown. All I could do as I watched her go was wonder what the hell I'd done wrong this time. Managing to start a before-breakfast quarrel with both my grandmother and my new roommate was a new all-time record—even for me. And it wasn't just a matter of women sticking together. Naomi had a point. After all, I had come into her life and had no qualms about asking questions about Naomi's relationship with Harrison Featherman and with her daughter, Melissa. Turnabout was only fair.

Way to go, J. P.,
I told myself disconsolately.
No matter how old you get, you're never going to learn.

N
URSING MY BRUISED EGO
, I went upstairs to the Lido Deck and availed myself of the buffet. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the world was awash in a misty, dripping rainstorm that cut visibility to less than half a mile—not the best possible day for viewing glaciers. I tried to take a positive view of the situation. Since we weren't due in Glacier Bay until afternoon, there was always a possibility that the weather would improve the same way it had during the train ride up the mountains from Skagway to White Pass.

When I went looking for a table, I located one that was directly beneath a light fixture. Then, after finishing my cafeteria-style scrambled eggs and toast, I removed the faxes from the envelope and perused them once more. Even in better light, I found myself wishing I still had the use of Naomi Pepper's damnable reading glasses. I was deeply engrossed in studying the faxes when Marc Alley dropped by my table with his reporter pal, Christine Moran, firmly in tow.

“Mind if we join you?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Help yourselves.”

As they took seats, I moved the faxes out of the way and made to return them to the envelope. “Aren't those the articles about Margaret Featherman from this morning's Seattle papers?” Marc asked.

I nodded. “Do you want to read them?”

“We already did,” Marc told me. “Christine got them off the Internet earlier this morning.”

Christine Moran nodded. “It's driving me crazy,” she said. “Here I am a reporter stuck in the middle of not one but two murders. Can I get any information? Not on your life. Other than downloading somebody else's articles off the Internet, I can't find out anything even though, by rights, I'm at ground zero on this story. No one on the ship will say a word. It's stonewall time from the captain right on down.”

“I thought you specialized in medical stories.”

“I'm a freelancer,” she replied. “I can write about whatever I please, and, as I'm sure you know, murder happens to sell. I'm due at the next symposium meeting in half an hour, and I'll be there, but as far as I can see, this on-board neurology stuff is small potatoes compared to everything else that's going on. And if I happen to stumble into another story along the way while I'm covering the symposium, then I will. There's no law saying I can't. Besides,” she added after a pause, “this is murder with a medical twist, isn't it?”

I tried changing the subject. “So the meetings are going forward even without Harrison Featherman?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” Christine answered. “I understand he's back. A float plane brought him back, and they used a tender to pick him up a little while ago. He's this morning's keynoter. Naturally, Marc here is supposed to be in attendance.”

“As in the show must go on?” I asked.

Christine smiled. “I guess,” she replied. A somber Marc Alley said nothing.

“Any word about whether or not they found Margaret?” I asked.

Marc shook his head. “No one said anything to me about it. From the dead silence on the subject, I'd say she's a goner.”

I wanted to ask Marc if he had received any calls from someone with a voice that sounded remarkably like Margaret Featherman's, but I didn't—not with Christine Moran sitting there hanging on every word. In the meantime, Christine continued to study me with undisguised interest. Her unblinking gaze made me fidget in my chair.

“From what Marc says about you, Beau, I'd say you're not having any trouble keeping your hand in—I mean, you being an ex-cop and all. According to him, you've been right in the thick of everything that's gone on.”

I glanced in Marc's direction and wondered exactly how much he had told her. I hadn't sworn the man to silence, but I was a little dismayed that he had spilled his guts to someone who also happened to be a reporter. But then, my relations with the Fourth Estate had never been what I'd call cordial. My years as a cop had caused an initial distrust to ratchet up to a case of genuine paranoia.

“Just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I told her.

Even though I had made no derogatory comments, Marc seemed to sense my disapproval. “I had to talk to someone,” he said defensively. “I barely slept at all last night. It's not easy to drop off when you realize someone is out to get you and the only reason you're still alive is that the killer missed and took someone else out instead.”

Obviously Marc's recent near-death experience on the observation platform of the White Pass and Yukon had left him a changed man. His initial determination not to allow the Leave It To God threat to alter his way of life had taken a direct hit.

I tried changing the subject. “What about those pictures you were taking on the train yesterday?” I asked.

“What about them?”

“Have you had the film developed?”

Marc shook his head. “Didn't have a chance,” he said. “There are still a few more frames on that roll. I'll probably finish it off in Glacier Bay this afternoon—if it stops raining long enough to take pictures, that is.” He fell silent and then shook his head and sighed.

“What's wrong?” Christine asked.

“Thinking about the pictures,” he said. “I'm sorry I missed that shot yesterday—the one off the back of the train. It could have been spectacular, with the canyon outside framed by the entrance to the tunnel. I blew it, though. I forgot to turn off the flash. And when the guy hit me from behind—”

Christine Moran zeroed in on that statement like a hawk falling out of the sky to strike some unsuspecting prey. “Guy?” she asked at once. “Are you saying you think whoever hit you in the back was a guy? Did you see his face?”

Marc sighed. “No, I didn't see his face.”

“What makes you say ‘he,' then?”

“I've been thinking about it all night. It seems to me there was a lot of power behind that shove. Whoever did it meant business. They wanted me to go flying over the railing. Call me an old-fashioned sexist if you want, but I have a hard time thinking of women as muscle-bound hit men. I mean, aren't they supposed to use poison or something?”

Marc had come to the table carrying a tray laden with food. Now, having eaten almost none of it, he stood back up and glanced at his watch. “We'd better be going,” he said to Christine. “I can't to be late for Dr. Featherman's speech.”

“You go on ahead,” Christine said. “As soon as I finish my breakfast, I'll join you. Save me a seat.”

Nodding and preoccupied, Marc Alley set off.

“He's such a nice man,” Christine commented as she watched him walk away. “What I don't understand is why he continues to be so loyal to Harrison Featherman. I sure as hell wouldn't be. The way that man's treated Marc the last few days is downright criminal. I've never heard of a doctor firing a patient, have you?”