Mystral Murder (Julie O'Hara Mystery Series) (9 page)

They kissed deeply as she unbuttoned his shirt, slipping it over his shoulders and off. Andrew quickly stepped out of the rest of his clothes and shoes and they stood, skin sliding against skin, their bodies pulsing inside and out. He dropped to his knees in front of her, parting her and not stopping until she cried out. Then he lifted her onto the bed and they rocked as one, climbing the peak of their desire until they fell back, spent, on the other side.

He tried to speak afterwards, but she quieted him, knowing what he wanted to talk about, and knowing that it would steal their peace. Facing him, she held his hand until he drifted off to sleep. When his breathing was deep and easy, she rolled onto her back, careful not to disturb him.

As was her pattern, Michelle fought to stay awake, but eventually she succumbed to sleep herself. That was how she thought of it.  Her body succumbed to the deep desire for rest, while her mind succumbed to overwhelming sadness and terror.

***

It always began the same way. The little girl said “Mama?” and the big woman said, “Cecile.” The little girl didn’t understand. The other women who came to the school to pick up the other children were all called “Mama”. One day, when they were at home, the big woman slapped the little girl in the face. “Never call me that again. You are to call me ‘Cecile’.  And so, she never called her that again.

Still, even if she didn’t like that name, that’s what Cecile was, wasn’t she? The little girl noticed that the Mamas liked it when their children drew pictures. They picked up the children and hugged them. Sometimes they just picked them up and hugged them for no reason, but she knew Cecile would need a good reason. So, the little girl drew very detailed pictures and colored them very carefully so she wouldn’t go outside the lines. She showed them to Cecile hoping for a hug, but Cecile just said they were “very good”.

They lived in a big, old house. There was a maid who came every day to polish things. She polished glasses and silverware, especially a fancy silver set on a silver tray. The little girl thought it was the nicest thing in the house; she could see her face in the big pitcher, just like a mirror.  And there was another small pitcher, a teapot and a sugar bowl. The little girl wanted to play with them, to make believe she was serving tea, but she would never dare ask Cecile about that.

The other thing the maid polished was wood. No one ever sat at the giant table in the dining room that had so many chairs, but the maid polished it all the same. The living room furniture had cushions that smelled musty and made the little girl wrinkle her nose, so she didn’t go in there, but the maid did. The couch and chairs had heavy, dark wood legs and knobs, and the maid polished those, too. 

It seemed to the little girl that the whole house was dark: the floors and the paneled walls, the staircase and railings. She liked it better on the second floor where the bedrooms were. The floors weren’t as dark there and the plaster walls were painted white.

But she didn’t like the third floor…NO, NO…not the third floor!

She didn’t mean to go there. Cecile told her not to go there and she wouldn’t have. She only knew about the wide front staircase that came straight down into the front hall. She went up and down those stairs all the time, but only to the second floor. She saw them turn back and go higher, but Cecile said “never go up there”.

The little girl would never disobey Cecile.

But these were different stairs.

The little girl found them by accident when she opened a door in the storeroom next to the kitchen. They went right up, turning round and round. She thought they would go to the second floor; maybe they were secret stairs to her bedroom! But when she opened the door at the top, she was in a room she never saw before and Cecile was there, sitting at a desk.  

“What are you doing here?!”
she yelled. She grabbed the little girl’s arm and dragged her around the dusty, book-lined room. “This is Row Bear’s room! How do you like it?” She shook the little girl and said, “Row Bear is dead, but maybe you should stay here tonight. Let him come and get you!”

Cecile released the little girl and pulled a skeleton key from the pocket of her dress. She locked the door to the back stairs, unplugged the single green-shaded lamp and, taking it with her, stormed out of the room through the other door.

The little girl heard the key turn in the lock on the other side of the door. She ran to it and grabbed the door knob, turning and yanking and pulling at it. She looked around fearfully; it was starting to get dark! She ran to the single, dormered window, but it was locked and painted shut.

Oh, what was she going to do? A dead bear was coming! Row Bear was coming!

***

“Michelle, you’re okay,” Andrew said softly, stroking her arm. “Wake up, sweetheart, it’s a dream. You’re here with me.”

Michelle was breathing hard and there were tears in her eyes. “It was the bear; the dead bear was coming for me.”

“It was just a dream. Here, I’ll hold you.”

She backed up to him. He put his arm over her and she held on to it. Safe in his embrace, Michelle thought about the nightmare, still frightening and vivid in her mind. Cecile had been talking about her deceased husband Robert Sinclair, who had turned the third floor of the old house into a small library. With her heavy French accent, “Robert” had sounded like “Row Bear”.

“What time is it?” Michelle asked.

“It’s midnight. Go to sleep, my love.”

* * * * *

T H U R S D A Y

~

CHAPTER 24

J
ulie was outside perusing “The Mystral Bulletin - Day Six”, which Miguel slipped under their door every morning before dawn. She had just lowered the itinerary and reached for her coffee when Joe stepped out onto the balcony, razor in hand, half his chin covered with shaving cream.

“I wasn’t there when she went overboard, Julie.”

“What? Adrienne? Of course, you weren’t.”

“No. I mean I
know
I wasn’t. I remember! We were standing at the elevator and I couldn’t get it to work. I was probably pushing the wrong damn button. I decided to take the stairs down, but Adrienne didn’t come with me. There was a door to the deck right there. She said she was ‘going for a walk’ or something. I didn’t care; I was looking for another bar! I went down to Deck 5, to the Promenade, but everything was closed. I remember seeing all those stores with their roll-up cages pulled down. Then I thought of our mini-bar and I came back here.”

“I thought that’s what you did,” Julie said. “I threw out a lot of little bottles. There was cognac, scotch, vodka, Canadian Club and I don’t know what else. The only thing you left was a couple of beers in the refrigerator.  You had to be here awhile to drink all of that.”

“You don’t know what a relief it is to remember, Merlin. Clyde Williams had me worried with that ‘accident’ scenario.”

“Well, I never doubted you for a moment. Speaking of Clyde Williams, you should tell him, Joe. By the way, we’ve got the day free; my interview with
Conde Nast Traveler’s been cancelled.  It was in the Bulletin.  Wonder when they were planning to tell me they had the art auction there, instead? ”

She stood up. “I’ll pick up around here while you finish shaving.”

“Okay. I’m starved; let’s go to the buffet first.” He looked at his watch, “It’s only seven-thirty.  We’ve got plenty of time.  We can stop by Clyde’s office before I go to AA.”

Julie heard him singing in the bathroom and smiled.

***

They were in Horizons, their trays loaded with fresh fruit, bagels and omelets and Julie was teasing Joe. “What? No grits?”

Declining help from the waiter at the end of the buffet, they looked around for a table by the floor to ceiling windows. The restaurant was packed, especially the window seats where diners were watching the US Coast Guard
cutter, which was still accompanying the Mystral.

Then Julie spotted Jon Reece, eating his breakfast and simultaneously typing on his laptop. With all his gear, he’d managed to hold down a window table for four, unchallenged.

“Hi, Jon. Mind if we join you?” Julie asked.

Clearly, he did, but it would have been bad form to refuse. “Not at all,” he said, closing the laptop and setting it on the chair next to him. “Please, sit.”

“I saw you cancelled our interview, Jon?”

“Not me, Julie.
The Captain. Val Gilman, the Cruise Director, caught me before I left my cabin. You probably have a message on your phone, too.”

“My publisher will be disappointed,” Julie said. “No offense, Jon, but I’m just as happy to have the day free.”

“None taken. I was just restructuring my piece. There’s nothing preventing me from using guest interviews.  I’m going to do a few more and write a story anyway.”

Their conversation paused as a passing waiter poured coffee and asked if anyone wanted juice, which they all declined.

“Will you write about the Man-Overboard?” Joe asked.

“You bet!
Conde Nast won’t want it, but I don’t care. I can sell this story anywhere. It’s all anyone’s talking about; who thinks she fell, who thinks she jumped. One guy I spoke with swears he heard a ‘thud’ on his balcony. Security checked, but they didn’t find anything out there.”

“It’s tough to investigate when the crime scene floats away,” said Joe.

“That’s a good line; can I quote you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“No problem.”

“So who will you sell it to?” Julie asked.

“Newspapers. News magazines. There’s plenty of mayhem on cruise ships, among passengers
and
crew.  What else would you expect with thousands of people onboard? Rape and robbery are the most common problems, but the industry keeps a tight lid on all of it. The cruise lines only report what they absolutely must and not one word more. 

“A ‘Man Overboard’ is one of those things that have to be reported, but the incidence is downplayed. It happens more often than people think
.  Passengers get drunk and take risks, usually stupid things. They fall overboard playing games on their balconies or climbing somewhere dangerous with a camera.” Jon took a sip of his coffee and lowered his voice. “The MOBs involving the crew are different, but even more hush-hush. You never hear about the crew member who deliberately jumps ship when he gets to a certain port, or the staff member who commits suicide, like the Indian girl that jumped from another HCL ship last year.

“Their missing person reports are notoriously incomplete. When anyone tries to get more information, the cruise line stonewalls, claiming to ‘protect the family’ of the deceased.  Meanwhile, the authorities consider the ship’s information ‘voluntary’, so they don’t push it. Really, how can they?”

“What if a passenger is murdered?” Julie asked.

“Then I’d have an even better story. Do you think it’s a murder?”

“I think it could be,” Julie said.

“Next to impossible to prove,” Joe said, munching on a bagel.

I don’t know about that,
Julie thought. “Do you have a cell phone, Jon?”

“You bet!”

* * * * *

CHAPTER 25

T
he Mystral’s Security office was on Deck 1, just below the conference room where Joe would have to be in a half-hour for his AA meeting. Clyde Williams welcomed them and escorted them into his inner office. He took his seat behind his desk wearing a look of frustration that Julie was beginning to take as permanent.

“Glad you have a moment to see us, Clyde. How are you?”

“Good as I can be, Joe. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to see you because I remembered what happened the night Adrienne
Paradis disappeared. The details started to come back to me this morning. I’ve been remembering more and more about it. She and I walked out of the Top Hat club together. I wanted to look for another bar, but she didn’t want to do that. She said she wanted to ‘go for a walk out on the deck’.  I remember that I couldn’t get the elevator to work and we went to the stairs.”

Joe looked down momentarily, then at Julie, and continued.  “There was an exterior door there by the stairs. Adrienne threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. She said ‘good night, darling,’ or something dumb like that. I just turned and headed down the stairs. That was the last I saw of her, Clyde.”

“I got off at Deck 5, but I couldn’t find a bar that was open. Everything on the Promenade was closed with the gates pulled down, so I went back to our suite and raided the mini-bar. And that’s it, I swear. I finished my binge and I went to sleep.”

“I believe you, Joe. We don’t have cameras on the elevators, so the only record we had of you and Ms.
Paradis was a video of the two of you exiting the Top Hat club together.  But yesterday we went over all the ship’s video from that night and one of the 360 degree cams over the Promenade had you in front of Barrister’s Pub alone at two-thirty. You were looking as if you wanted to go in. The pub, as you said, had the security gate pulled down. I’m inclined to believe that you did go back to your cabin from there.”