Curse of the Arctic Star (10 page)

“That could be our motive right there. It’s pretty suspicious that she happened to be close enough to get photos before they shooed everyone away.”

George scrolled back up. “Let’s see if we can find out more about our happy blogger . . . .”

But the “About Me” section of the blog didn’t have much information. It just gave Wendy’s name and age and mentioned that she lived in Seattle when she wasn’t “traveling the world in search of the next adventure.”

“Should I run a web search, see if I can find out more about her?” George suggested.

I was about to tell her to go ahead when my phone buzzed. It was Bess.

“Are you with George? We’re saving seats for you two at breakfast,” she said. In the background, I could hear Alan chatting with someone, though I couldn’t tell who. “You’d better hurry up—we don’t have much time to eat before we dock in Ketchikan.”

“Drat,” I muttered as I hung up. “I guess more research will have to wait.”

We found Bess and Alan sitting with Vince and Lacey in the café. “There you are!” Vince greeted us with a smile. “Your friends were worried that you’d fallen overboard or something.”

“Nothing that drastic, just taking a walk.” I sat down and smiled politely at Vince and Lacey. “So are you guys looking forward to Ketchikan?”

Lacey glanced up from buttering her toast. “Oh, we’re not going ashore,” she said. “We decided to skip Ketchikan and stay on the ship.”

“Really? Why?” George asked.

“I’m not really in the mood for sightseeing,” Lacey said softly, shooting a look at her husband.

Vince explained, “She’s still a little shaken up over what happened the other day. We figured we’d just hang out on the ship, have a quiet day on our own while everyone else is away.”

I was a little surprised, since this was Alaska, after all. But . . . this was their honeymoon, and it was no wonder that the brand-new husband and wife might want to spend some private time together rather than surrounded by a bunch of strangers with nowhere to really get away. I was feeling some of that myself, actually.

Maybe I should stay on the ship too,
I thought as I
chewed the bagel I’d grabbed from the buffet.
That would give me a chance to investigate without having to dodge Alan or make small talk with random other passengers or whatever. I might even find a moment to sit down with Becca and really talk about the case without being interrupted every two seconds.

It was a tempting thought. But I wasn’t sure it was worth the trouble. How would I explain to Alan why I wasn’t going ashore? It was probably too late to fake an illness. Besides, most of the trouble so far had been very public. If the saboteur was going to strike again, it seemed more likely to happen where the passengers
were
than where they weren’t. In other words, if there was any action today. it was probably going to happen in Ketchikan, and I didn’t want to miss it.

“Yo, Scott!” Alan shouted just then, jumping to his feet so fast he almost upended his orange juice. He waved his arms vigorously. “Over here, bro!”

I glanced over and saw the shore excursion specialist we’d met on the first day. He was carrying a clipboard and a stack of envelopes.

“Hi,” he said when he reached our table. “Everyone ready for some big fun in Ketchikan today?” He shuffled through the envelopes. “Alan, I got your message. You four are signed up for the deluxe town tour, followed by the lumberjack show, and then a floatplane ride to the Misty Fjords.”

“What?” George looked up from her french toast. “I mean, wait—what?”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. “You signed us up for all that stuff?” I asked Alan. “When were you planning to fill us in?”

Alan grinned. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Some of these shore excursions fill up early, you know. You girls have been so busy running off getting facials and stuff that I was afraid we’d get shut out.”

“Oh.” I traded a look with George and Bess. Being stuck in a bunch of structured tours and activities wasn’t exactly the Ketchikan experience I’d had in mind. How was I supposed to check out our suspects that way, unless they happened to have the exact same itinerary?

“It’s okay,” Bess said, giving Alan’s shoulder a squeeze. “We appreciate it, Alan. It’ll be fun. Right, girls?”

“I wanted to go kayaking,” George grumbled. But seeing Bess’s glare, she shrugged. “But whatever.”

“Um, actually I was thinking it would be fun to just wander around town on our own,” I said. “From the tour books in our suite, it looks like there’s a ton to see and it’s all pretty close together. But I don’t mind doing that by myself if you guys want to do the other stuff.”

Scott was still standing by, his hand holding a pen poised over his clipboard. “So that’s down to three for the activities?” he asked.

“No!” Alan protested before I could respond. “Come on, Nancy. I put a lot of thought into these activities—I really think you’ll enjoy them.” He grinned. “And I won’t take no for an answer!”

I hesitated, trying to figure out a way around this. But looking at Alan, I could tell it was no use. I pasted on a smile, though it felt a little weak around the edges.

“Okay,” I told Scott. “Put us down for four.”

“THAT WAS COOL,” BESS SAID. “ I NEVER
thought I’d see a bald eagle up close like that, let alone a whole bunch of them!”

“See?” Alan slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I told you guys this would be great.”

I tucked my camera back in my pocket, squinting a little in the midday sunlight. It was a beautiful day with hardly a cloud in the sky, despite Ketchikan’s nickname being the Rain Capital of Alaska.

“This way, people!” Scott called out. “That concludes the deluxe tour, so those of you who aren’t
signed up for anything else today are free to go shop, eat, or sightsee on your own. However, anyone who’s signed up to see the world-famous Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show should stick around. It’s just a short walk from here, so if you’ll follow me . . .”

Most of us fell into step behind him, chattering about the things we’d seen over the past couple of hours. There were about a dozen people on the tour. Unfortunately, none of our suspects were among them. The only people we’d known before the tour started were the ABCs.

“I’ve heard this lumberjack show is a real hoot,” Babs said, falling into step beside me.

I nodded and smiled, though I was feeling distracted. Yes, the tour had been fun. We’d taken a carriage ride through the picturesque town, visited a salmon hatchery, and then toured a place where people took care of injured bald eagles and other wildlife. All that had sidetracked me from the case for a while, but now I was getting restless.

When Babs turned to talk to Coral, I sidled away toward my friends. Bess and Alan were walking hand
in hand, but George had slowed down to fiddle with her camera, so I was able to pull her aside.

“We’re wasting time here,” I whispered.

George glanced up. “What do you mean? Alan actually came through for once—that tour was cool.”

“I know. But I was really hoping to get a chance to check out some of our suspects today, like Wendy or maybe Tobias.”

“Okay, but how would you find those people even if we did get away?” George shrugged and glanced around. “Open your eyes. Ketchikan is a mob scene.”

I saw her point. The
Arctic Star
wasn’t the only cruise ship docked in Ketchikan at the moment. There were two other massive ships there, and their passengers were everywhere.

“Anyway,” George went on with a grin, “I hear this lumberjack show is pretty fun. Let’s check it out, and then maybe we can duck out of the fjord thing afterward, okay?”

I sighed. It would have to do. “Fine,” I said. “Lumberjacks it is.”

Soon we were all seated in the grandstand of the open-air arena where the lumberjack show would take place. My friends and I were at the end of a row about halfway back, with most of the seats nearby taken up by
Arctic Star
passengers. Scott was at the end of the aisle a couple of rows ahead of us.

“Relax, folks,” he called out as he sat down. “The show’s scheduled to start in about fifteen minutes.”

“I wonder what all the other people from the ship did this morning,” Alan said. “Scott said a bunch went kayaking or fishing. And some others did this tour where you go into the rain forest and do a zip-line thing. Maybe we should have tried that.”

“Zip lining? No thank you.” George shuddered. “We had, uh, a bad experience with a zip line once. Right, Nancy?”

I shot her a warning look. She was right—I’d had a pretty bad accident on a zip line in Costa Rica once because someone had sabotaged it to try to stop one of my investigations. Alan already knew I was an amateur detective, of course—pretty much everyone in River
Heights did. But I didn’t particularly want to remind him about my little hobby. He came across as pretty goofy, but he wasn’t stupid. What if he figured out what I was really doing on this cruise?

Luckily, though, Alan didn’t seem to have caught the comment. “It’s weird to think of a rain forest in Alaska, isn’t it?” he mused. “I mean, when you think Alaska, you think snow and glaciers and stuff, not rain forest.”

“Very educated comment, Mr. Environmental Studies Guy,” George quipped.

Alan looked annoyed. “Hey, I may be an enviro student, but that doesn’t mean I’m an expert on every environment on the planet, all right?”

“Look,” Bess said, clearly trying to distract them from sniping at each other. “I think I see some other people from our ship coming in. Including our favorite arachnophile.”

“Huh?” George glanced toward the entrance, then made a face. “Quick, everybody hide,” she hissed. “It’s Spider Boy!”

I looked too and saw Tobias entering the grandstand with his parents. For a second my instinct was the same as George’s. But then I realized this might be my only chance today to do any investigating. Okay, so it involved our weakest suspect. Still . . .

“Hello!” I called to the family, standing up and waving. “There are some seats over here!”

Tobias’s mother spotted me and waved back. Moments later they were making their way toward us.

George groaned softly. “Are you nuts?” she whispered. “That kid’s scary enough even
without
easy access to axes and stuff.”

But there wasn’t time to say any more before Tobias pushed past us and flopped into an empty seat. “I hope the show starts soon,” he said impatiently. “It’s probably going to be the only interesting thing I get to do on this whole stupid cruise.”

“Relax, son,” his father said with a sigh. “It’ll start soon.”

“So what did you kids see in Ketchikan so far today?” his wife asked us.

The small talk continued from there. It turned out the family had spent the morning wandering around sightseeing on their own instead of joining any of the organized activities. I couldn’t help wondering if that was because Tobias was being punished for the spider stunt. Had he confessed to planting Hazel on the buffet yet?

I cast around in my mind for a subtle way to ask. But Alan, of all people, beat me to it.

“Hey, buddy,” he said with a grin, leaning toward Tobias. “Did you bring Hazel along to check out the show too?”

Tobias gave him a withering look. “What do
you
think, genius?” he snapped.

“Tobias! Manners!” his mother scolded. Then she smiled at Alan. “Sorry. He’s a little touchy about Hazel right now.”

“Yes, and he’s not making it easy on himself.” Tobias’s father looked at his son sternly, though Tobias ignored him. “The ship is being nice about what happened, and Miss Coral has been especially gracious. But Tobias still won’t admit to what he did.”

His wife sighed. “It’s just not like him,” she murmured. “Tobias can be, er, difficult. But he’s not normally a liar. I certainly hope this isn’t a new phase . . . .”

“At least Hazel has been confined to her cage since yesterday,” Tobias’s father said, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “I’m sure everyone’s glad about that—well, except maybe for Analyn.”

“Analyn?” I echoed.

“She’s the maid for our cabin,” Tobias’s mother explained with a rueful smile. “Lovely young girl from the Philippines. Poor thing—she probably wasn’t expecting to see a tarantula sitting on the coffee table when she brought the clean towels in last night. Even one in a cage.”

My friends chuckled, but I frowned slightly. “Wait,” I said. “I thought the maid for your cabin was named Iris.”

“They probably have more than one,” Bess said. “Like us, remember? Our suite has Max plus the two maids.”

“That’s right, there are two cabin stewards for ours as well,” Tobias’s father said. “Analyn and a young man named John.”

“Oh.” Something about this was bothering me, though I wasn’t sure what. “So the maid we saw, Iris—”

At that moment, Tobias leaped to his feet. “Hey! Look, there’s seats right down in front!” he blurted out loudly, interrupting me. He stomped on my toes as he raced for the aisle. “Come on, let’s go before someone takes them!”

“Sorry, sorry,” his father said breathlessly as he and his wife followed.