Mystral Murder (Julie O'Hara Mystery Series) (10 page)

Julie was relieved. She said, “What about the video from Deck 12? 
Anything new show up there?”

“No. As I said, the bridge-
mounted cameras pan the port and starboard flanks. We’ve studied the railings on all the video and, other than you walking along, there’s simply no one there after one in the morning. She had to have jumped around two-fifteen, immediately after she left you, Joe, and
just after the camera passed, otherwise we would have caught her somewhere along the walkway by the railing.

“The ceiling mounted cameras on the outside lower decks didn’t pick up much of anything that morning; it was too dark and foggy. The video shows the walkway and five or six feet past the railings…period.  If anyone fell beyond that perimeter, the cameras couldn’t pick it up because the visibility was near zero. We spotted a few passengers along the lower railings between twelve and one, and then no one after that. Not surprising, what with the fog and ninety percent cloud cover.”

Julie was stunned. It sounded to her as if the investigation was
over
.

“Then you’re assuming that she was alone and that she jumped?”

“It looks that way, Ms. O’Hara.”

“Call me Julie.  I find that hard to believe, Clyde. Adrienne
Paradis was self-assured and forward thinking when I first met her. And later, when she was intoxicated, I’d have to describe her as happy-go-lucky.  What I’m saying is, drunk or sober, I don’t see Adrienne Paradis jumping to her death off this ship!”

“She could have fallen overboard accidentally,” Joe said, trying to stem the tide of anger he saw rising in his partner.  But Julie would not be sidetracked. 

“I don’t think an ‘accident’ makes sense, Joe.”

She turned back to Williams. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but someone accidentally falling would be close to the ship, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t some part of that person’s body pass through the lower decks’ cameras in that ‘five or six foot perimeter’ as they fell?”

“Maybe, maybe not. In this case, apparently not,” he said, his eyes downcast and his face turned slightly away from them.  

It was obvious to Julie that Williams was shutting them out. Was Jon Reece right? Had word come down from HCL headquarters to let it go, to ‘sweep it under the rug’?

Before she could say anything else, Joe stood up, placing his hand under her arm. “C’mon, Julie. I’ve got to go. Thanks for seeing us, Clyde. Good luck with your investigation.” Julie smiled and mumbled a hurried “thanks,” as Joe steered her out of Williams’ office.

As they climbed the stairs to the next deck, Julie said, “
Good luck with your investigation
? What investigation? Jon Reece was right, Joe. They’re dropping it!”

“Maybe we should, too, Merlin.”

“Over
my
dead body…”

*
* * * *

CHAPTER 26

T
he Art Auction in the Odyssey Lounge wasn’t scheduled until late in the afternoon of Day Six, but the artwork was on display all day for potential buyers. Always an art lover, Julie decided to calm down and pass some of the morning there while Joe was at his AA meeting. She’d taken a quick tour through and was sitting at the bar sipping an iced tea.

Julie’s best friend, the late Marcus Solomon, had been an accomplished artist and a good teacher. Under Marc’s tutelage, Julie had learned what to look for, and she had acquired a small collection of fine art, some of which had appreciated nicely. 

That was never going to happen with any of the overpriced artwork in the Odyssey Lounge, which was definitely not investment quality, as the brochure implied by referring to its “inheritance” value. As a collector, she had heard that such was the case in these “at-sea” auctions.  Unfortunately, Julie could tell that most of the passengers admiring the art didn’t know much about it. 
They’re duping some of these older folks with this crap. Retirees on fixed income, thinking they’re doing their children a favor by leaving them fine art. The only “fine” that applies here is the amount they should levy on these auctioneers.

“Oh, look, Phil. It’s Julie!”  Alice Kent led her husband through the crowd toward Julie. Her hands were full of materials kindly supplied by the scam artists running the auction: a brochure, a small pad of paper and a pencil. Julie saw that Alice’s pad was full of notes.

“Hi, Alice, Phil. Are you going to the auction?”

“Yes, I think it will be fun,” Alice said. “We’ve seen a few things we like.”

“I do a little art collecting; would you like a couple of tips?”

“Please,” Phil said.

Julie had to restrain herself from smiling. Phil Kent’s relief was written on his face. Clearly, he wasn’t the art lover Alice was.

“Okay. Number one: Slide your hand under the corner of a frame. No matter how nice it looks from the front, if you feel staples, it’s junk. No one puts a valuable piece of art in a cheap frame, especially at an auction. Number two, get all the info: The name of the artist and the title, of course. Also, words like, ‘hand-touched’ or ‘embellished’ and ‘signed’, which is common, or ‘autographed’, which isn’t. Take your list to the Internet Café, look them up and compare prices. And remember, it’s much easier to return something you buy locally, on land.”

“That’s good advice,” Phil said, nodding at his wife.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Alice sighed. “Come on, Phil. I think I’ll check the frame on that Thomas
Kinkade lithograph.”

Probably one of the priciest here, since
Kinkade died last month.

“Okay, see you guys. Good luck!”

Julie turned back to her iced tea, smiling.

“That
was
good advice,” the bartender said in an aside, as he wiped the bar.

“I had dinner with them the other night,” Julie said. “They’re nice folks.”

“So are you. Julie O’Hara, isn’t it?”

Julie looked at him quizzically.  A tall fellow with sandy hair, he was wearing a name tag …but
she
wasn’t.

“Paul Gilman,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m the Head Bartender on the ship. I worked this lounge during your seminar. My wife bought your book,
Clues
.”

Julie shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Paul. Your wife is onboard?”

“Yep.
Valerie Jean Gilman, she’s the Cruise Director.”

“Oh, yes! Val Gilman,” Julie said, remembering Jon Reece’s comment about Val calling him to cancel their interview.
“I didn’t know married couples could do that, work and travel together on a ship.”

“There aren’t a lot of us; most of the crew is single. You have to interview and be hired separately, but as long as neither of you is subordinate to the other, there’s no problem.”

“Well, I guess that leaves the Captain out,” Julie said laughing.

“
Heh…guess you’re right,” he said, moving to the other side of the bar to wait on a customer.

Uh-huh, what have we here? A nice little cluster: a fake laugh, a tilted nod and a half-smile. The Head Bartender knows about Captain Collier’s affair with Dr. Sinclair…and most of the crew does, too, I’ll bet.

Julie saw Joe passing through the Photo Gallery on his way to meet her. She took a last swallow of her iced tea and said, “Good to meet you, Paul. See you later.”

“Bye, Julie. Nice talking to you. Have a good day.”

Julie met Joe before he got to the Odyssey. She took his arm and turned him around, heading for the elevator at the front of the ship.

“Joe. We’ve got to go back to our room and work out a new plan. We’ve left a very big stone unturned.”

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “I knew it. I knew you weren’t going to let this go. What big stone?”

“I mean there’s a whole
other
world on this ship. There are a thousand people in the crew who are single and married and live out of sight beneath the passenger decks. People who live in very tight quarters.”

“So?”

“Gossip, Joe. Gossip…”

*
* * * *

CHAPTER 27

“I
see two problems, Julie.” Joe said, stepping into his bathing suit. “First, how are we going to get crew members to open up? Why should they talk to us? And second, we’ve only got a day and a half left!” He slipped his feet into his topsiders and pulled a white tee shirt over his head. “There are four-thousand people on this ship. How can we possibly find a killer in that time? It’s a needle in a haystack.”

“Okay. The ‘four-thousand people’ thing is bull, and you know it. Most of the passengers on this ship didn’t know Adrienne from Adam! And I don’t think any of her pampered clients wanted to kill her. So that narrows the list down to her husband, her friends and any crew members she had dealings with. 

“Look, I just can’t believe that Adrienne jumped off this ship. And the crew
sees
things, Joe. The security cameras are in some places, but the crew is
everywhere
,
all the time
. They’re taking care of plants, washing floors, polishing glass and brass, day and night. The restaurants have people in and around them, either cooking or cleaning, day and night. And the poor cabin stewards! Miguel is
always
somewhere in the corridor; I think he sleeps on a pallet out there.”

Julie had pulled on a pair of faded avocado shorts over her white tank-top bathing suit. She was looking around for her tennis shoes and saw them out on the balcony.

Joe followed her out. While she sat tying on her shoes, he leaned on the railing. The Mystral was moving at a good clip over a choppy gray sea, salt spray hitting the lower decks. Fluffy gray and white clouds raced past the summer sun, but out on the far horizon the clouds were heavy and dark. “Looks like rain.”

He was thoughtful as he watched a pair of gulls, squawking and swooping as they followed the ship. “Getting information out of the crew isn’t going to be easy, Merlin. They’re trained not
to talk to passengers about ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. I’d need to find someone who cares about doing the right thing, someone who would trust me to keep their information anonymous.”

He looked at her for a moment.

“There are crew members in AA. I could go to the four o’clock meeting.”

“That’s a great idea. And I want to see Val Gilman.” Julie had told Joe about her conversation with Paul Gilman, the bartender in the Odyssey Lounge. “I’m sure she’ll be too busy to talk to me on the pool deck, but I’m hoping to set up a time to meet her later. It’d be great if we could do it while you’re at AA.”

Julie went inside, remembering that Val was supposed to have left a message. She looked over at the phone and the light was flashing. She picked it up and pushed the message button, then “speaker”:

“Julie, it’s Val Gilman, the Cruise Director.
I’m sorry, but your interview with Jon Reece has been cancelled. It’s nothing to do with you; we’re delighted to have you onboard the Mystral! Everyone loved your seminar, including me! I’m told it’s a question of space limitations. We have an art auction today and we need the Odyssey Lounge for preview space. Looks like you’ll have more time to kick back and relax. Bye!”

“Well, that was a crock,” Julie said.

“Might be a help. She may feel obligated to meet with you. C’mon, we should get a little pool time in while we can,” he said, opening the cabin door.

He let go of the door to grab his card key off the bar. A gust of wind whipped through the open balcony door, slamming the cabin door with a solid
thwack
!  “Whoa! What did I tell you? We’re going to get a storm tonight!”

“You were expecting smooth sailing?”

* * * * *

CHAPTER 28

A
round noon, they went through the buffet in Horizons and took their sandwiches and iced tea out to the pool. It was much easier to find a table and deck chairs than on previous days, the sun-tan crowd having been thinned by the passing clouds and breeze.  Another surprising change was the pool, where the salt water was rolling and sloshing quite dramatically.

“What’s making it do that?” Julie asked.

“The Mystral is actually rolling; the water is staying horizontal.”

“But it feels like the ship is
level.”

“It’s not. The rolling is limited by the ship’s size and its stabilizers, plus we’ve got our ‘sea legs’…we’re used to it, so it seems like we’re not moving.”

Joe stood up. “C’mon, let’s go give it a try!”

After a few minutes in the pitching and swirling water, they climbed out, exhausted and counting themselves lucky that neither of them had been slammed into the sides of the pool.

“No wonder nobody was in there!” Julie said, drying her hair with a towel.

An older, gray-haired couple laughed heartily and called out to them. “We were wondering if anyone would be brave enough to go in the water!”