Bon Bon Voyage (20 page)

29

“Holy crap!” I said to Vera. “You look like I feel.” And I felt like I had the mother of all hangovers—headache, sloshing stomach, foggy eyes, and I was so dizzy I staggered into the table and knocked the broken bowl off. It must have been one hell of a storm, and I was really glad I slept through it.

Vera was wearing the twice-her-size robe and clinging to Barney's arm, but he was dressed and looked fine. Go figure. I could see the unused pill among the pieces of the bowl I'd broken. The guy had obviously slept through the storm with no pill to help, and awakened feeling fine.

“I better go check on Greg,” he said. “See you at breakfast.”

Vera groaned as he lowered her into a chair before he left. I bent for the envelope that had been in the bowl, stumbled into the chair across from her, and tried to focus on the flyer inside.

“Shit. I think I've gone cross-eyed. Can you read this?” I passed the paper across to her, and she read it.

“Says the stewards are out on strike, and we have to make our own beds and re-use our towels. Good for them! We should go out and support them, send e-mails to the line complaining about their rotten hours and food or whatever and how much we're being inconvenienced by the line's stingy, racist policies. Nothing like a good labor fight to make you feel better.”

“So you say,” I mumbled. “Just the idea of eating breakfast makes me feel like throwing up.” Not that complaining did me any good. Vera made me drink a bottle of Bloody Mary mix from the refrigerator and had me out of there in ten minutes. We staggered into the dining room, hanging on to each other while Vera told me stories of labor disputes she'd supported—she sounded like she was ready to go out and hit someone with a placard as soon as she got some breakfast in her stomach. The food was on a long table, and we had to get our own. I'd have gone back to the room, but Vera told me to stop being a wuss and dragged me over to the buffet. Breakfast looked as bad as I felt.

Carolyn sat over at a table with the Crosswayses, grumbling about the fare—an egg fried solid, a bowl of canned fruit cocktail, and some over-toasted toast with margarine and no jelly. Then she launched into the fact that it was going to be a really rotten Mother's Day, no stop at Tenerife, no decent food because it was all going to the crew downstairs as part of the work stoppage, and no Mother's Day feast and celebration as promised in the brochure.

I fell into a seat and stared squeamishly at some lumpy oatmeal that Vera insisted would make me feel better. Vera said, “I might have known you'd care more about the food and tours you'll be missing than the plight of the poor stewards. You of all people, Carolyn, should know how bad they feel when they know we're upstairs eating gourmet food while they're downstairs eating slop like this and working sixteen or more hours a day. So stop complaining and get with the program. I plan to organize the rest of the crew; they should take heart and walk out with their colleagues.”

“And a happy Mother's Day to you too, Vera,” Carolyn snapped.

I tried a spoonful of the disgusting oatmeal and gagged. The stuff tasted like sawdust thickened with flour, water, and newspaper shreds. I picked up my coffee, the battery acid variety we had at the downtown command before I took over the coffee-making. If Vera knew that, she'd probably throw me overboard. Bad as it was, I drank it down in one long gulp. Then I went back to the table for more coffee and a couple of pieces of dry toast. Poor Jason. Vera must have been one hell of an awful mother. Imagine having her take care of you when you had stomach flu or ate too many burritos at the Juárez fair and came home barfing.

I met John Killington, Carolyn's computer geek buddy, at the buffet. He took one look at my tray and said, “Good choice. I feel pretty bad myself.”

“Rough night?” I asked politely.

“Worse morning,” he replied, and walked back with me, interrupted a labor-relations harangue by Vera, and announced morosely, “I discovered a terrible thing on my way down.”

Carolyn looked alarmed. “Not another dead person?” she asked.

“No. Why would you think that? The computer room is locked for the duration of the work stoppage. I don't care about the food or the towels. Hell, I sometimes used the same towel and ate takeout pizza for a couple of months at a time when I was an undergraduate, but I never found myself without access to a computer.”

Carolyn agreed. “I have columns to send to the syndicate. And there'll be nothing more to write about as long as we're eating crew food.”

“
We
have reports to send in to—ah—the Oceanographic Institute,” the Crosswayses chimed in.

“Really?” Carolyn gave them a cold look.

“You people make me sick.” Vera threw down her paper napkin and stalked off, muttering to herself about third-world wage slaves, while I was trying to figure out why Carolyn was giving the Crosswayses such a disgusted look. They were about as boring as anyone I'd ever met, but the world is full of bores. Carolyn could be one herself, and Vera was obviously ready to compete for the Labor Bore of the Year award.

Meanwhile, I couldn't even imagine how long it would be before I'd be able to stomach anything but coffee and dry toast. If we hit another storm, like the one we must have had last night, I was going straight to Beau and let him take care of me until I got back on solid ground, and I was
never
going on another cruise.

“Patrick, where the hell have you been?” Hartwig demanded.

“Fendin' off the lads an' lassies tryin' to get into the computer room. More people worryin' about that than the sheet an' towel drought. They all want to write home an' tell their loved ones how they've been caught in a dangerous strike at sea. An' you an' Hanna marchin' around like the bloody Black an' Tans with those honkin' big guns in your hands. It doesn't help calm the natives any, you know.”

“No one's asking you to carry one if you haven't the guts for it. Did you get the message off?”

“That I did, Bruce, me fine leader. There's panic in Miami this lovely mornin' fer sure.”

“Not that one, you ass. The one to Tenerife.”

“Niver did you tell me of a message to Tenerife,” said Patrick, hiking up the Irish in his accent.

“The hell I didn't. What do you think's going to happen there if we don't dock when we're due in?”

“Didn't think of it at all, at all. What was it you wanted to say to those lads of the Spanish admiralty?”

“Cut the crap, O'Brien. Tell them we've got plague and can't put in to port.”

“Right you are,” said Patrick, and started to leave.

Hartwig's fists clenched before he reached out and pulled Patrick almost off his feet. “Tell them we have a contagious disease aboard and we're trying to identify it. We'll probably sail on to Casablanca. Tell them that, Patrick, before I knock your stupid Irish tongue right out of your smart Irish mouth.”

Patrick's laughter stilled, and he turned to face Hartwig. “You never told me to send a message to Tenerife, and if you take a poke at me, Bruce, you'll have to send your own damned messages. Me, I'll just retire to the bar and let you take care of every little thing you've forgotten to get done.”

“Not if you want to collect your share,” snarled Hartwig.

30

I had planned to go down to crew quarters to see if I could find Mrs. Gross's emeralds, which would tell me who killed her, but first I dropped by the suite because the filet knife in my pocket was poking my thigh. I wrapped the knife in a pair of panties after tucking a foam rubber triangle taken from my manicure scissors onto the knife tip. Fortunately, the cut hadn't bled through onto my slacks. Then I stuck a Band-Aid onto my leg, stepped back into my slacks, and replaced the knife in the pocket.

It seemed to me that the crew and officers would all be out and about by now, so my raid on crew quarters should be fairly safe, and I'd talked Herkule into lending me his steward room pass card by making him feel guilty about my new lack of access to the good food, not to mention my sympathy for his cause and my need to find out who had killed Mrs. Gross and stolen her emeralds. He even told me the secret safe code so I could look in safes. Of course, he didn't know I planned to search below decks and, if spotted, pretend that I'd come down to complain about the inconvenience of the strike. I just hoped that his card opened doors to all living quarters, and I doubted that crew and officers would have their own safes.

However, before I could start downstairs, I spotted Mr. O'Brien talking to Mr. Hartwig and called out to Mr. O'Brien, hurrying to his side. “Could you tell me when the computer room will be reopened? I don't see any reason to lock it up just because of the strike.”

“Better ask Mr. Hartwig here,” said O'Brien, and he left without so much as a good-bye.

Puzzled, I turned to Mr. Hartwig. “Oh, my goodness. You're wearing a gun, too!” I exclaimed.

“I'm the chief security officer on board, ma'am, and we've got a touchy situation here. It's my duty to see that the passengers are protected from the crew, if that becomes necessary.”

“Oh.” Hadn't Miss Fredriksen claimed she was protecting the crew from the passengers? Well, whatever. I did feel the need to add, “I think we'd all be safer with no guns around. Guns are very dangerous.”

“Only in inexperienced and unreliable hands, ma'am. Now you asked about the computer room. We feel that the labor dispute is more likely to be settled quickly if no word of it gets out. The line is sensitive to bad publicity. Unfortunately, if we leave the computer room open, passengers might e-mail home, and—”

“Of course. I see your point, although it's very inconvenient to me. As you probably know, I'm supposed to be sending columns to New York.”

“Then you'll have to accept my apologies, ma'am. I'd like to order Mr. O'Brien to accommodate you, but we can't afford to play favorites.”

“Yes, well I do hope that all the fuss over the work stoppage isn't keeping you from investigating the death of Mrs. Gross. Have you any clues as to who might have murdered her?”

“Her injuries could well have been caused by a fall downstairs. Elderly ladies have brittle bones. However, I'm also looking into the more upsetting possibility.”

“If she fell downstairs, how did she end up in the freezer?” I asked sharply.

“It's a very strange case,” he admitted, “and I've heard rumors that she went to the spa the morning of her disappearance. I have to look into that when I have time.”

Mr. Hartwig went away after giving me one of his amazingly sweet smiles and telling me that I was a very caring woman to feel more anxiety about Mrs. Gross's death than my own inconvenience brought on by the stewards' strike. What a strange man. I didn't know what to make of him, but I did hate seeing those guns.

When I glanced at my watch, I realized that, having eaten breakfast so late and then spent time securing my leg from my knife, bamboozling Herkule, and talking to the two officers, lunch had already started, and we had been instructed to show up promptly at noon. God only knew what they'd feed us and why it had to be eaten immediately. But I now knew why Herkule had offered to describe his meals to me and the chef had been so apologetic and helpful.

Well, I'd just have to visit crew quarters after lunch, but I'd really like to have e-mailed Jason to tell him what had happened and how disappointing my Mother's Day was proving to be, in no small way due to his mother's horrible treatment of me.

The line in the dining hall was very short by the time I arrived and grabbed a cup of soup, a sandwich, and a bowl of Jell-O with a squirt of what I glumly imagined to be some canned nondairy product. Luz had saved a seat for me and was waving, so I was going to have to sit with Vera again. In fact, our usual tablemates, in their usual seats, except for Greg Marshand and the doctor, had gathered. Commander Levinson looked terrible. You'd think a Navy officer with many years at sea would have weathered the storm better than that.

I was feeling a lot healthier myself, even considering the boring packaged meat I spied when I lifted the slice of white bread on top of my sandwich. And the leaf of lettuce was wilted. Randolph Barber caught it in the lens of his video camera. Luz, with her doctor and the cereal king absent, moved over beside me. “Where have you been?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Talking to people.”

“Listen, you shouldn't go running off without me. There's been another death.”

I stopped contemplating the tomato soup in my cup, canned probably, and the two cellophane-wrapped crackers beside it, and turned to Luz.

“Barney went back to his cabin and found Greg dead in bed.”

“Poor fellow,” said Barney. “We've been playing golf together for ten years. I never expected to have to bury him. He's younger than I am, and his wife's gone, no children worth mentioning. They never come to see him, which isn't to say that he much cared. They're a quarrelsome lot, Greg included.”

“But what happened to him?” I asked.

“Beau says maybe his heart, but he can't tell for sure,” Luz replied. “He's wondering about those pills they passed out last night. Everyone woke up feeling so crappy.”

I winced at the language, but I didn't complain. Why get into a quarrel with my friend when we now had two corpses?