Rigged for Murder (Windjammer Mystery Series) (11 page)

“Well, one thing’s for certain.” Brie said. “One of these people had a compelling reason to do away with Pete. When we get to the inn, I’ll call a friend of mine back at the department and have him run the names of everyone on board through NCIC to see if anything comes up. I’ll also have him check their home towns. At least we’ll know if anyone on board has a prior offense. So, if you have addresses for all the passengers and crew I’ll jot them down. I’ll also need their birth dates, but I can get those at breakfast.”

“Does that include me?” John asked, reaching into the drawer under the chart table and pulling out two manila folders containing information on the passengers and crew.

“I’m afraid it does,” Brie said, feeling uncomfortable—and feeling bothered that she felt uncomfortable.

He stood up and came over to her with the files. “I suppose now you’ll find out I used to be the mad bomber, and I won’t stand a chance with you.”

Brie tried but failed to suppress her laugh. “You never know, it might make for some explosive chemistry.” She locked eyes with him momentarily as she reached for the files, and electricity filled the gap between them. At that moment the breakfast bell rang, short-circuiting the connection. Brie hopped off the berth.
Saved by the bell
, she thought to herself. What was she doing making a comment like that? Her life was complicated enough right now without adding John DuLac to the pile. She reminded herself that she lived in Minnesota and would have to go back there sooner or later. She headed for the door, trying not to look at him.

“By the way, you won’t find me in those files, but I was born and raised in Bath, Maine, and now live near Camden.”

Remembering something, she turned around. “I need your permission to search the passengers’ cabins while they’re at breakfast.”

“You’ve got it. Since the cabins only lock from the inside, you’ll be able to get into all of them, now that everyone has gone forward for breakfast.”

“Maybe you could tell them I’m going over some notes and that I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“No problem. I’ll make sure no one leaves the galley.”

“Great! See you in a little bit.” Brie stepped out the door and into her cabin to drop off the files. She lingered there, still flustered by what was obviously a mutual attraction between her and John. When she came back out a couple minutes later, she was glad to see he’d gone to breakfast.

B
RIE WALKED ACROSS THE PASSAGEWAY and stepped into Rob and Alyssa’s cabin. She was looking for anything that might connect one of the people aboard to the crime scene or personally to Pete. On the floor by the wall were two duffels containing their clothes and personal items. She lifted them up on the berth and started looking through the first one.

There were three things Brie knew definitely about the crime. First, the murderer was right-handed, indicated by the angle at which the marline spike had been driven into Pete’s chest. Second, the assailant was powerful. Pete was not overly tall at five feet, ten inches, but he was wiry, and rock climbing would have made him very strong. Third, the murderer wanted Pete to know who he was. The assailant had attacked Pete from behind and strangled him, but not to death. He’d stopped at a point, pulled him down to the deck, knelt over him and stabbed him.

There were signs that Pete had continued to struggle after he was down on the deck. Brie had found strands of his hair, with skin tags attached, caught in the cracks between the deck planks. They had been pulled forcibly from Pete’s head during the struggle. The murderer was exacting retribution for something Pete had done, and he wanted the satisfaction of knowing that his face was the last thing Pete would ever see.

Brie finished with Rob’s duffel and toiletries. Nothing there of interest except a bottle of Chivas Regal and a heavy plastic tumbler. She hadn’t seen Rob drinking but assumed he liked a nightcap before turning in. No wonder Alyssa was able to leave the cabin to go up on deck and smoke; Rob was probably out for the count.

She searched Alyssa’s duffel next, as well as a small make-up bag. Nothing interesting there except for a number of condoms tucked into a box containing hair waxing strips. Had Alyssa hidden them there? Brie checked around the rest of the cabin, lifting up the pad on the berth and checking the small cabinet under the wash stand. Nothing incriminating here.

She walked across the passageway and entered John’s cabin. A duffel holding his belongings sat next to his berth. Brie searched through it thoroughly, hoping he wouldn’t notice she’d been there. She found two black tee-shirts that looked like they hadn’t been worn. Remembering the black fibers under Pete’s nails, she checked them carefully for any sign of wear. Nothing. The cabin contained little else except John’s books and charts. No clues to his personal life, which she couldn’t help wondering about—especially the girlfriend part.

Brie stepped out the door and back into her cabin. She put on her raincoat and headed up the ladder. Pulling her hood up against the rain, she walked forward to the other companionway that descended to the cabins of Tim Pelletier and the Thackerays. John was standing at the foot of the galley companionway talking to the passengers and blocking the view up onto the deck.
Smart boy
, she thought. She was able to get down to the forward cabins without being seen.

Brie shed her raincoat in the passageway and started with Tim’s cabin. She noticed he had packed light. Passengers were encouraged to bring a minimal number of things on a windjammer cruise because the cabins were tiny. Other than warm clothes at this time of year and rain gear, there just wasn’t much you needed, but John had encouraged the passengers to bring a book, a camera, binoculars, and maybe a journal to write in.

Tucked among Tim’s clothing Brie found a 5x7 framed photograph of a group of young people on what looked like a hike or camping trip. Tim was standing to the right with a pretty redheaded girl. They had their arms around each other’s waists, and she was leaning against his shoulder. Brie wondered if this was the woman immortalized on Tim’s chest. She found nothing else in his cabin. As she stepped out the door, she heard George say “Ready with the first round of pancakes.”

Brie walked a few feet across the passageway and entered the Thackerays’ cabin. She had little hope of finding bloody clothing in any of the cabins. It would have been too easy for the killer to throw any blood-stained item overboard, and it would have disappeared on the outgoing tide. Also, a few rocks and a plastic bag would have sent anything incriminating to the bottom. As far as any blood on one of the rain slickers, it would have run right off in the heavy rain that was falling last night. Anyway, she guessed the killer wouldn’t have tried to sneak up on Pete wearing a yellow coat.

Brie searched quickly through Howard’s duffel, finding nothing incriminating. She wasn’t surprised—Howard wasn’t much of a suspect. It was always possible, though, that he and Will had collaborated in the crime—she’d seen odder things than that in her career. But Will’s belongings yielded nothing interesting either.

The cabin contained a bunk bed. Brie checked underneath the pad on the lower bunk. Nothing. Climbing up the ladder, she lifted the pad on the top bunk and scanned underneath. Something black in the far back corner caught her eye. She crawled up on top of the bunk and into the back corner, where she lifted up the pad. Stuffed down between the bunk board and the wall was a black sock containing something. She pulled it out and looked inside. It held a marline spike that was approximately eight inches long. Keeping hold of the bottom of it with the sock, she rotated it slowly. There, engraved on the side, were the initials P. M.

Pete had mentioned last night that his marline spike was missing, and that he thought he might have dropped it on deck during the storm. Had he gone to get a spare from the storeroom? Or had someone else taken one of the spares after Scott mentioned them and later stabbed Pete with it? And finally, if Will had found Pete’s marline spike on deck, why had he kept it after Pete was murdered? Brie added these to the growing list of questions she’d begun compiling.

She bunched up the top of the sock in her hand and crawled down off the bunk. Suddenly, she sensed someone was there. Whirling around, she found John standing in the doorway no more than four feet away, watching her. He saw the fear in her eyes.

“I’m sorry if I startled you, Brie,” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything when I saw you up there. I thought you’d jump and bang your head. Sorry.”

“What are you doing down here?” Brie’s tone had an edge.

“I came down to get a lamp from the storeroom. One of the ones in the galley just ran dry. The sky’s so dark today we need the lamps burning down there. George is about to serve up omelets. Are you nearly finished?”

“This cabin was my last stop.” She stepped past DuLac into the passageway and picked up her raincoat. She slipped the sock containing the marline spike into a large pocket on the inside and put on the coat. Still feeling uneasy about his presence, she didn’t comment about what she’d found, nor did he ask.

DuLac walked into the storeroom and was out a few seconds later with another hurricane lamp. “From where everybody is seated at the table, they can’t see you coming up this ladder. When I get up on deck, I’ll pretend I’ve just run into you.”

He started up the ladder with her behind him. Once they were both up, he said in a slightly raised voice, “There you are, Brie. I was just coming to get you. George is serving up the omelets right now.”

“Great, I’m starved.”

She followed him down to the galley, where everyone sat in utter silence. Tension and distrust hung in the air as thick and heavy as a north Atlantic fog. Brie exchanged sober greetings with the group. She took off her coat, hung it up, and slid in alongside Scott. John sat at the end of the opposite bench.

George was serving up ham and cheese omelets and passing the plates around. A large steaming platter of blueberry pancakes sat in the middle of the table waiting to be circulated. “Captain, why don’t you start the pancakes, butter and syrup around?” he said. John helped himself to two pancakes and sent the platter down his side of the table to Howard, Will and Tim. It was then passed across to Alyssa, Rob, Scott and Brie. George snagged two for his plate, set them back on the stove to stay warm, and sat down next to the captain.

“Can I pour you some coffee, Brie?” Scott asked, reaching for one of the carafes.

“Thanks.” Brie held her mug over and immediately noticed that he was pouring with his left hand. She amused herself with the thought that she could wrap up this murder quickly, if six of the other seven people present would just pick up their forks and eat with their left hands. They could all pounce on the remaining culprit, tie him up with some heavy line and lower him into the hold for safekeeping until the Coast Guard arrived. Her fantasy evaporated like sweat on a windy day as all seven of the others picked up their forks and started eating with right-handed abandon.

Brie studied the group surreptitiously as she ate her omelet, noticing particularly the shift in both Rob’s and Alyssa’s demeanors. Rob’s offensiveness had disappeared, revealing a well of concern for Alyssa. For her part, Alyssa displayed a mood as gray as the baggy sweat suit she was wearing. The make-up and flirtatiousness were gone, replaced by puffy red eyes and wan lips. She forked in her pancakes with such intensity that Brie imagined them as mortar for her crumbling emotional dam. Tim clung to his corner at the opposite end of the table, as if trying to become one with the hull of the ship, and Will’s eyes darted nervously around the table between bites of food, like a rat with his cheese checking for the oversized tabby cat. Then there was Howard, who just looked sad—the look of a man who was old enough to have seen as much death as he’d like to for one lifetime. John was totally unreadable, so complete was the neutrality he displayed. And George’s usually jovial aura had been replaced by a nervous tic in his left eye.

Brie got up and went over to the stove to spear another pancake. On the way back she paused. From where she stood, she had a good view of everyone’s face as she posed her question. “Did anyone talk to or see Pete during his watch last night?” she asked.