Death on the Bella Constance (A Jesse Watson Mystery Series Book 6) (22 page)

“Don’t say anything else. Just listen, okay `ge ya?”

“Okay,” I replied. I knew from the tone in is voice that
there was more to come, and it was for my ears only, so I sat there quietly and
listened to what he had to say.

Everyone at our table stopped talking and waited for the
news.

“The police are going to keep him overnight. They’re not
about to let a suspect loose on their beautiful, tourist-filled island. I like
that part. The part I don’t like is that I don’t think
Utah
’s guilty. He kept telling the police that everyone
suspected him. He knew he was going to get the blame, so he wanted to question
the kid—find out who paid the kid to do it. He was sincere about his innocence.
I have a tendency to believe him, but that’s only because I know he begged the
captain to go with him. The captain refused to get involved. He won’t leave the
ship.”

“How do you…”

“The police and I have developed an understanding. I watched
the interrogation on the computer from Loukas’ PSR… as he calls it—his private
snoop room.”

“What…”

“Just listen, Jesse, and don’t say anything until I tell you
what to say.”

I sat mum as Billy continued.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. Right
now, all I want you to do is tell everyone that
Utah
has been detained by the police. Nothing else. You don’t know the details, but
you do know he’ll be spending the night there. Tell everyone to enjoy their
meals, and then after you finish dinner, hopefully in the next thirty minutes,
I want you to get your bodyguard to escort you back to our room. Once you’re
out of Bella’s sight, get
Savannah
to come to our room with you. Keep
your eyes open for any suspicious activity. We have work to do, `ge ya.”

I didn’t question him about
Savannah
and why I was to bring her with me. All I said was, “Okay,
Billy. I’ll tell them.”

I closed up the cell phone and said, “I don’t have all the
details, but I do know that Utah Hawks was taken in for questioning after he
showed up at the hospital.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Bella asked in disgust. She shook
her head. “I always knew he was a criminal. He’s the one behind the plot to
kill my husband.” Her anger was surfacing. “He’s going to pay! You can bet on
that! He’ll regret the day he ever crossed me!”

And pay… he would. Bella Constance would see to it.

We tried to avoid any reference to Utah Hawks as we finished
our dinner, but it wasn’t easy. Everyone had an opinion, but no one had an
answer. Another lively chat session at the captain’s table was about to come to
an end, until Lara stirred the pot by saying, “I know it’s none of my business,
but I overheard Utah Hawks arguing with Bertie Callahan in the hallway just
before I got on the elevator to come here. It might not be important, but I
thought I should say something… since your announcement that Mr. Hawks is in
jail. I know everyone’s looking for the person who’s trying to kill Mr.
Constance, and I thought I should speak up. Pieces of a puzzle can sometimes
come together with the help of something that might seem so insignificant.”

She had gotten my attention with her news.

“Bertie!” Bella said. “She’s as harmless as a fly. She was
probably giving him a raking over the coals. Maybe she thinks he’s guilty,
too.”

“I saw them arguing at the beach,” I added. “Lara might have
something here.” I looked at Lara and asked, “Did you hear what they were
saying?”

“Not really. All I heard was something about
Utah
being a bad man.”

“See! I told you so!” Bella jumped in. “Bertie is beyond
reproach. She saved my child’s life. She’s a good friend.”

The conversation died down from there, but Lara’s tidbit
about the pieces of the puzzle coming together by a simple clue, had stuck with
me. I wasn’t the only one who had noticed a conflict between Bertie Callahan
and Utah Hawks. I couldn’t wait to tell Billy.

“I guess that settles it,” I said, trying to get this dinner
moving toward a speedy end. “I say we do like Billy said, and enjoy our
dinner—and then do what we want to as long as we have our bodyguards.” I
chuckled slightly just to emphasize the fact that we could have a good time even
with our bodyguards surrounding us and listening to everything we say. There
are just some things women like to talk about without men hearing us.

Eventually, the dinner was over and we all agreed that it was
time to do our own thing. I told them that I was going to my room—I was so
tired. That’s all it took to get the ball rolling. Everyone else agreed with
me. They’d had enough for one day. We left the dining room to go our separate
ways, but just before we reached the elevator, I noticed that there were two
bodyguards standing on each side of the
Med
Center
door. No one said anything. Perhaps
they were too wrapped up in their own personal thoughts. Maybe they just didn’t
notice. But I noticed. What was going on in there?

Think happy thoughts, I told myself. Everything is fine, and
if nothing happens, tomorrow we would spend our last day here on the beach
soaking up the glory of
Bermuda
. Then a cloud appeared on my sunny
thoughts—another day dodging bullets. There goes my positive thinking right
down the tube.

“This isn’t over, yet,” I said to Bella just before we parted
in the hallway to our staterooms. “Keep your bodyguards close.” She smiled and
waved as she waited for
Tex
to open the door. The minute she was
inside, I looked at
Savannah
and whispered, “Come with me to our
room.”

She knew something was up, so
Savannah
politely dismissed her bodyguard at my door.

“I’m going with Jesse. We’ll be fine.”

Before I could slip the keycard in the slot, Billy opened the
door. He stuck his head out of the room and looked around.

“Come in,” he said, motioning as if he was in a hurry. “Did
you see anything suspicious?”

“Only the two bodyguards posted at the
Med
Center
door. Have any idea what that’s
about?”

Billy closed the door, turned around and said, “Some bad
things are going on. We have much to talk about.”

Savannah
’s
fear showed when she looked at Billy and asked, “Where’s McCoy?” She looked
around the room. “Is he here with you? Is he all right?”

“McCoy’s fine,
Savannah
.
He left the ship to follow Nell,
Jena
,
and Ruby. He’ll be back shortly. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why would three sisters leave the ship without their
bodyguards? Bella and Loukas always have pretty tight security especially when
it comes to their girls. They really beefed it up on this cruise because of the
threat on Loukas’ life. They know the threat isn’t over, and they want their
girls protected.”

“Protected from whom?” I asked. “Utah Hawks is in jail!”

“He hasn’t been charged.”

“But he will!”

“I don’t think so,” Billy said. “I think someone’s trying to
frame him.” Not one to mince words, Billy added, “Dorothy Berdinski has been
severely injured. That’s why there were guards posted at the door to the
Med
Center
.”

Savannah
and I gasped at the same time.

“According to Bertie they were headed out to leave the ship
when someone came up from behind her and gave her a hard shove. She
accidentally bumped into Dorothy, sending her tumbling down the stairway.
Dorothy has a few broken bones, but the doctor’s main concern is her internal
injuries.”

“Oh, my. How awful,” I said, sadly. “This is bad news. Did
anyone see the person who did this? I mean, there’re cameras all over this
ship.”

“You can’t tell anything from the video. The corner to the
stairs was dark because a light was out. By the time the crew got wind of the
outage, it was already too late for Dorothy Berdinski. She was lying at the
foot of the stairs by then.”

“Is she going to live?”
Savannah
asked.

Billy hesitated for a second, and then said, “The prognosis…”

“What you’re saying is that she’s probably going to die,” I
butted in. “Tell us the truth, Billy.”

“She probably will die from her injuries. They’re pretty
serious. She was taken to the Welsh Clinic. It’s closer than
King
Edward
Hospital
.”

“Is the clinic capable of handling her injuries?”

“It might be called a clinic, but they are a state-of-the-art
facility.”

“Kind of like the Mayo Clinic,”
Savannah
said, comparing the two. “It’s
called a clinic, but it’s more than that. It’s a fine facility capable of doing
great things.”

The phone rang and startled us. Billy went to answer it as
Savannah
and I exchanged our views on the
situation. I was sure the police had the right man in custody, but
Savannah
wasn’t convinced.

“I have to agree with Billy,” she said. “Utah Hawks is
probably not guilty even though he is the most likely suspect. He’s rude, has
harsh feelings toward his wife’s family, and he doesn’t seem to be at all happy
with his life. I’ve discovered from writing books that the least likely person
one might suspect usually turns out to be the guilty one. Sounds like the
making of a good mystery novel.”

“In that case,” I added. “
Jena
is the killer.”

“What? Are you serious, Jesse?”

“No,” I replied. “
Jena
isn’t behind this. The idea is ludicrous. She adores her parents. I was just
kidding. Billy and I talked about the same thing earlier, and that’s what I
told him. To be honest, I think
Utah
,
Bertie, and the captain are in cahoots. That’s my take on it.”

“What gives you cause to suspect those three?”

“Oh, just some of the things I’ve heard and seen.”

“Like what?”

Before I could reply, Billy walked back over and said, “Bella
is beside herself about Dorothy. She went to the
Med
Center
to see her, but Dorothy had already
been transferred to the clinic. I tried to talk Loukas out of letting her go to
the clinic, but he says there’s no stopping her when she makes up her mind. So,
Loukas, Bella, and their entourage are on their way to Welsh Clinic.”

“Will they…”

“They’ll be safe,” Billy said before I could finish. “They
have enough bodyguards with them to start a small army.”

“I’m starting to worry about McCoy,”
Savannah
said. “Does he have a bodyguard with
him? How long has he been gone?”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, there was a knock
at the door. Billy walked over and opened the door to see McCoy standing there,
safe and sound. “Join the crowd,” he said, smiling as he closed the door. “We
were just talking about you.”

“I know,” McCoy said, chuckling as he walked over to
Savannah
and gave her a hug. “My ears were
burning.”

“I was beginning to worry about you,” she said in earnest.
“Dorothy Berdinski has been hurt.”

“Yeah, I know,” McCoy replied sadly. “I heard about it as
soon as I got back on the ship. I passed Loukas and Bella on their way out.
They were headed to Welsh Clinic. I sure hope Dorothy is going to be all right.
She’s a nice person… a little weird… but nice.”

Unfortunately, no matter how good a person is—it won’t save
them from death.

Death was surely coming to get Dorothy Berdinski. I felt it
in my soul, and the feeling wasn’t good. I decided not to share my thoughts
with anyone. It was just too depressing.

“What about the girls?” Billy asked.

“Oh, them… I don’t know what the deal is with those three,”
McCoy said. “They left the ship and went to a local coffee shop. They stayed
about an hour, chitchatting and laughing the whole time, and then got up and
left. When they got back to the ship they missed seeing Bella and Loukas by a
minute.”

“Sounds to me like they wanted an alibi for that time,” I
suggested. I looked at Billy and asked, “What time did Dorothy fall?”

“Around nine. Right after they had dinner in their room.”

I looked at McCoy. “What time did the
Constance
girls leave the ship?”

“Sometime around nine. Why?”

Somewhere in the back of my mind,
Jena
’s face kept leaping forward. Why would the most
unlikely person keep appearing in my thoughts? I had brought her name up as a
joke, but now it didn’t seem so improbable anymore. But why? Why would she want
her father dead? If anyone should be a suspect, it should be Nell. She’s
married to
Utah
. A woman sticks by her man… good or
bad… and she knows what’s going on all the time. Yes, it had to be Nell. Or
maybe… 

“Oh, never mind. I’m just grasping at straws.”

Billy walked over to me, and said, “If you have an opinion,
`ge ya, I’d like to hear it.” He smiled. “Sometimes you come up with some weird
stuff, but sometimes you don’t. What are you thinking?”

“Let’s just say that
Utah
is the ringleader. Wouldn’t it make sense that Nell would be in on it, too?”

“I’ve thought about that,” Billy replied. “But Nell has a
love-hate relationship with that man because he treats her so badly. You know
she can’t be happy. Why would she do anything to help him hurt her father? And
what does that have to do with Dorothy?”

“Suppose that the three sisters from
Georgia
and the three daughters of Bella and
Loukas crossed paths as they were leaving the ship… and Nell gave Bertie a
quick push. It was dark. Who would know?”

“I followed them,” McCoy said. “I never saw the three sisters
from
Georgia
, so I doubt if the girls did. I
definitely didn’t see one of them push anyone down a flight of stairs.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. “I guess that shoots that theory down.”

“It’s not impossible,” Billy said, looking at McCoy. He
looked over at me and then
Savannah
. “What do you think?” he asked her,
trying to include her in the conversation.

“I don’t want to think,”
Savannah
replied. “All of this is disturbing. The thought that we could be in the
company of real killers, not made-up ones like in my books, makes me nervous.
My insides are shaking. One of us could get hurt… or killed. We’re right in the
middle of this mess. Nobody really knows who’s doing all those horrible things.
We’ve had a suicide, a stalker, an injury from a broken high-heel, a stabbing
in the dining room, a killer in a dune buggy, and now, an attempted murder via
stairs. I just want to go to bed and forget about all of this for a while.”

Savannah
writes about killers, but it was apparent that she found it difficult to be a
part of the scenario in real life. Her stories, according to my mother, were
vivid and enthralling. But when it came to witnessing the actual carnage, she
was like a beaten pup. She was scared, withdrawn, and timid. Unlike me, whose
fear kicked in the adrenaline,
Savannah
dealt with her fear by retreating.

“Maybe we should call it a night,” McCoy said after seeing
the distressed look on his wife’s face. “This is a little much for
Savannah
. Besides, there’s nothing we can
do.”

“I write fiction,” she said. “This is all too real for me.
I’ve had my brush with a psycho, and I don’t ever want to go there again. You
guys do stuff like this for a living.” She looked at Billy and me. “You can
handle it, but I can’t. I don’t even know if I could use a gun if I had to.”

We all knew what she was talking about. She didn’t want to be
put in a situation where someone else other than herself had control over her
life. Not so long ago, she had been held captive by a man with misplaced
affection, and who knows how that would’ve ended if it hadn’t been for Billy
and me. I didn’t even want to revisit those memories, so I know she didn’t
either. The happenings on this cruise, I’m sure, brought it all back for her.
So, instead of trying to convince her she could handle it, I let it go. I
looked over at McCoy, and said, “
Savannah
’s
right. This cruise has been a real roller coaster ride, and it’s time to take a
break from all the fun.” I looked at
Savannah
and smiled. “Enough is enough. Go to bed, get some rest, and if anything
important comes up, we’ll let you know.”

“If Dorothy Berdinski dies while I’m asleep, please don’t
call me with the bad news,”
Savannah
said as she and McCoy walked over to
the door. “I don’t want to know.”

Their exit was swift. Whatever information we could’ve
exchanged, if any, would have to wait until morning. I turned, looked at Billy,
and said, “Let’s go to bed, too. I’m done. I don’t think I could take much more
excitement.”

“Go to bed? Are you serious? Trouble is escalating. It’s time
to go on alert. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen soon. Tomorrow
is our last day on the island. We’ll be putting to sea early the morning after.
The killer is running out of time.”

Go on alert. I knew what that meant. Billy was ready for
action. He wants to dig in and find the bad guy. “What can we do, except skulk
about the ship all night?”

He turned, walked over to the computer setup behind the
dressing screen, and said, “Isn’t that what we do best?”

I thought about it for a minute, and then said, “Yeah, I
guess it is. I guess I better get out of this evening gown if we’re going to
lurk around in the shadows.”

“Good idea,” he called back to me. “I’ll have a look at the
computer and see what everyone’s up to.”

I changed into casual clothes, choosing a simple pair of dark
slacks and matching T-shirt of the same color. Dark clothes were always the
chosen apparel of private detectives. How else could they go unnoticed by
others, or blend into the scenery? “I’m ready,” I said after changing clothes.
I walked over behind the screen to Billy and peeked over his shoulders. “Have
you found anything interesting?”

“Not so far.”

“What about the captain? I never did get to ask you about
him. Where did he go when he got called away from dinner?”

“There was a small kitchen fire he had to attend to,” Billy
said as he pecked away at the computer keyboard. “Then he went to his quarters
for about half an hour. He must’ve gotten a call about Dorothy, because he left
his room and rushed to the scene. He went to the
Med
Center
next, and then I lost track of him.
Why?”

“I was just wondering. I thought maybe he was doing something
he shouldn’t have been.”

“Like trying to push Bertie down the stairs? No, he’s in the
clear on that one as far as I can tell. Let’s see what he’s doing now.” Billy
pecked at the keyboard, but couldn’t find the captain.

“That’s odd. I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Maybe he has left the ship.”

“The captain never leaves the ship, unless…”

“Unless it’s sinking. I know. And he’s the last one to
leave.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to go, but the ship isn’t
sinking, and the captain is not anywhere to be found. Oops! I take that back.
Here he is.”

I looked down at the split-screen and smiled when I saw him
standing in the hallway on deck five talking to Nell. “Isn’t that ironic? I put
him high on the list of suspects, and her somewhere in the middle. What do you
make of it, Billy?”

“You really believe the captain is involved?”

“Up to his eyeballs! I sure wish we could hear what they’re
saying.”

“That’s not an option. We don’t get sound in the hallways.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just the way the system is set up.”

“Can’t you change that?”

“I might see what I can do.” 

“Just don’t do it now. I want to go for a long walk.”

“Why not? I’m game. How else are we going to find out
anything? You never know what we might pick up in the wee hours of the
morning.”

Billy didn’t change out of the clothes he had worn to the
so-called poker game. His pants and shirt were dark, so why bother? And he
already had his gun strapped to his ankle. I grabbed my black windbreaker,
stuffed the snub-nosed .38 in the inside pocket, and was ready to follow his
lead.

Two hours later, after scouring the whole ship and finding
nothing of importance, Billy and I decided to visit the ship’s bar before we
called it a night. As soon as we walked in, I saw Maura Rodrigus having drinks
with a man I assumed was her husband. She waved to us and mouthed the words,
“Thank
you.”
I waved back, smiled, and then nodded my head in agreement as Billy
and I continued to look for a table. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lara
Sweeney sitting in a booth by herself getting sloshed. I could tell she’d had
way too much to drink because she was crying, talking to herself, and her Long
Island Ice Tea glass was empty. A server was headed her way with another. I
looked at Billy, discretely pointed to Lara, and said, “We can’t leave her by
herself. She’s either intoxicated or getting that way fast. Sometimes bad
things happened to drunken people on a ship, especially if they’re alone and
depressed. They could fall overboard, accidentally or not. In Lara’s case, it
might be no accident if it happened to her. A little intervention might not
hurt.”

Billy agreed. He suggested we go over to her booth, and in a
nonchalant way, see if we could get her to go back to her stateroom. We
approached her hoping she would invite us to join her, and she did. However,
our task proved to be less easy than we had expected. She refused to give up
the drink placed in front of her, almost to the point of getting belligerent.
And it turned out that the more she drank, the more she cried. We know, because
she said she had several drinks and was getting more depressed by the minute.
Then she continued to cry.

There’re three kinds of drunks: happy, mean, and crying
drunks. The happy ones are the kind who get silly and laugh until you feel like
you want to scream. They want to hug and kiss anyone in sight. The mean drunks
are loud, angry, and they poke at you, sometimes actually coming to blows with
a person. But… the crying drunks, in my book, are the worst. The more they
drink, the more they cry. It’s sad, because this kind of drunk is usually very
unhappy and can’t cope with their sadness. And alcohol just intensifies their
misery. Many times they will cry themselves to sleep or they pass out. Lara
Sweeney was no doubt a crying drunk.

We finally convinced her it was time to leave the bar, and
Billy and I would see to it that she got to her room safely. I grabbed up her
clutch purse and stuffed the items that had spilled out back into it.

“You’d do that for me?” she asked as she leaned on me and
stumbled her way to the exit. She looked around, and then said, “I have to pay
my bill. I don’t want to go to jail.”

“Don’t worry. Billy’s settling up your tab.”

“That’s so nice of him. No one has ever cared about me,
except my mom and dad.”

“That’s not true, Lara. We care about you.”

Billy walked up to her other side, took her gently by the
arm, and said, “Yes, we do, Lara. And we’re not the only ones. Bella and Loukas
care about you, too.”

“They won’t for long when I tell them what I know about their
daughter. They’re not going to like what I have to say. Trust me.”

Billy and I stared at each other when Lara said those two
words.
Trust me
had great meaning to us since it was a phrase Billy had
used many times, and with conviction. When he said it, I knew I could bank on
it to be true. Could it be true with Lara? Did she have some dirt on one of
Loukas and Bella’s daughters? We had to find out.

As soon as we reached her room on deck five, she tried
unsuccessfully several times to get her keycard in the slot to open the door.

“It won’t work,” she said, and then started crying again. “My
father was a good man. He didn’t deserve…”

Billy politely took the keycard from Lara, slipped it into
the slot, and then opened the door. “Here you go, Lara. These cards are tricky
sometimes. They’ll drive you crazy.”

I looked at Billy and smiled. He always could handle people
so well. He knew the right thing to say at the right time… a quality I loved
about him… among many.