The Branson Beauty (4 page)

The main showroom was empty. Abandoned water bottles and coffee cups littered the tables. Many of the chairs and tables had been pushed back against the walls. “It was pretty cool, sir,” Tony said. “They were all doing yoga. That one skinny guy with the ponytail had the idea. He got up on the stage and had them doing all kinds of stuff. It really calmed everybody down. Do you know there's something called a downward dog?”

Hank just smiled. “What's behind the stage?” he asked. Tony led him through the maze of kitchens and dressing rooms. There was no one left. They headed upstairs. There were only three passengers and two medics left in the observation lounge. A very old lady was sitting regally on a gurney.

“… and there is no way, young man, that I have any intention of lying down and being carted off this snake-bit ship like an invalid. If you want me on this thing, I'm going like this.” She folded her hands in her lap with a definitiveness that signaled that the conversation was over.

Hank had no desire to start it up again. He yanked Tony's sleeve and the two backed out of the door. They turned in the corridor to see someone who was obviously not in any condition to argue about his transport off the boat. Albert the Moron was completely prone and meticulously strapped to the gurney that Medic One and a colleague were about to take down the last flight of stairs. He was still moaning—loudly.

“The elevator's not working,” growled Medic One. He glared at Hank. “You are going to owe me one heck of a drink after today.”

“Yep,” Hank said over Albert's moans. “Probably two. Get him to the hospital. Make sure that one of my deputies goes with you and stays with him.”

“What else is on this deck?” he asked Tony.

“Just the captain's dining room and the private kitchen,” Tony said, pointing at the closed white door with a gold anchor painted on it. Hank tried the knob. It was locked. He turned to Tony, who was standing just behind him.

“Huh,” Tony said. “That's weird.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a jumble of keys. It took him several minutes of searching to find the right one. Hank occupied himself by looking out the wall of windows at the activity down below. Somehow the television camera crews had managed to sneak back down to the shoreline. Their bright lights illuminated every bedraggled passenger staggering off in the whipping snow. They started to bob like summertime fireflies as they caught Albert in their beams. Hank wasn't sure if he felt sorry for him or not.

“There!” Tony finally got the door unlocked. He pushed it open, and Hank stepped inside, flipping on the light switch. One long rectangular banquet table covered by an embroidered white cloth stretched the length of the room. Aside from a few crystal water glasses and crumpled cloth napkins, it was bare. Deep blue carpet anchored with brass fittings covered the floor, and a huge wooden ship's wheel hung on the back wall. Every window had the shade drawn.

And then he saw the hand. Long, elegant, and white, it peeked out from an edge of the tablecloth. Hank stepped forward and around the end of the table. A woman lay behind it. Her brown hair spread around her on the blue carpet as if she were underwater. Her green dress billowed around her knees, and her red, hemorrhaged eyes stared at the gold-detailed ceiling. A ring of bruises circled her neck. Rigor was setting in.

Hank stood over her and stared. This … well, this was unexpected. Behind him, Tony let out a little shriek. Hank did not take his eyes from the body. He slowly raised his arm and pointed toward the door.

“Get out of here. Go get Deputy Karnes, and don't let anyone else up on this deck at all.” Tony did not move. “Go!”

Tony moved backward toward the door, just as Sam's cheery face poked around the doorjamb.

“Hey, Chief!” he said. “Everyone is off and safe and on their way home.”

Perfect.

 

CHAPTER

3

The room was very cold. Hank squatted down next to her and felt for a pulse, although it was quite obvious he would not find one. The big boat creaked in the wind, and the snow pelted the windows. He stood. Sam was standing stock still on the opposite side of the banquet table from the body.

“Let's step outside,” Hank said.

Sam backed out through the door, then visibly got a grip on himself.

“I should call for the coroner,” he said, reaching for his radio. Hank stopped him. Better not to broadcast this over the scanner settings while the media was twenty feet away.

“Just walk down and tell Larry personally to come up here. We'll have him call it, then we'll get the coroner down here. And the crime-scene techs.”

They also needed to ID her. There had been no purse, no wallet in the room. Hank walked up and down the hallway before he found Tony sitting in the lounge, his arms wrapped around his middle.

“Hey,” Hank said. “Do you know who that is? Do you recognize her?”

Tony looked at him as though he were an idiot. “You mean you don't?”

Hank raised an eyebrow. “You mean I should?”

“It's Mandy Bryson. She was almost homecoming queen last year. She's friends with my little sister. She spoke at graduation. Everybody knows her. She's, you know, she's the one. She's…” He trailed off.

“When did you last see her?” Hank asked.

Tony stared at him. Hank repeated the question. Tony shook his head. “I didn't even know she was on the boat.”

Did anybody? Hank frowned.

“Hey.” Hank turned as Larry appeared beside him. “Sammy said you needed me up here ‘right frickin' now,' but he wouldn't say why.”

Hank rose and walked back into the dining room. Larry followed, muttering. They walked around the table and the muttering stopped.

“Oh, shit,” said Larry.

“I didn't want this out over the scanner until the TV cameras left and we could close all access to the dock without a huge fuss,” Hank said.

“Good call,” Larry said. “I got this. You go get your CSI guys.” Larry had also worked up north, and thankfully had seen enough homicides to know exactly what he was doing.

By the time Hank made it down to the dock, the TV cameras were gone. So was the Pup. Then he heard something crashing down the hill from the road.

“Chief!” Sam panted up to him. “I went up and got enough of a signal to call Sheila on my cell. She's getting Kurt and Alice and heading out here.”

Hank nodded. He figured the media were far enough away that it was safe to use the scanner frequency, as long as he didn't get too specific. He radioed that he wanted every deputy in the area on the dock immediately. He'd have Sam lead another search of the boat.

“I want every closet and cupboard searched. You look under every table, in every drawer, you got it?”

The Pup gave a floppy nod and ran off.

“Why,” said a pinched voice, “is that necessary?”

Gallagher. Hank had noticed the showboat's owner appear on the dock seconds earlier. The Company Man was not with him.

“I'd like to have my men do a damage assessment here,” the
Beauty
's owner said. “We don't need your deputies getting in the way of that. I'd like a look at my poor boat.”

Hank blew on his hands. The wind gusted in whistling bursts down the hill, and he decided maybe he should raise his voice.

“Sir. As of right now, this is my boat. The entire thing is now a crime scene, and no one—no one—goes aboard without my permission.”

Gallagher started to protest. Hank continued.

“There is a dead girl in your dining room. It appears she was murdered.”

Gallagher's jaw dropped so far that his chin hit the upturned wool collar of his coat. He did not close it as Hank rattled off a list of all the information he was going to need from his company. It was still open—but blessedly silent—as Hank finished, drew his frozen body up to its full height, and turned back to the boat. He had work to do.

*   *   *

The crime scene, now roped off with tape and crowded with techs, was apparently the captain's dining room. It could be reserved for small private parties that wished to enjoy Table Rock Lake without being subjected to skirt-twirling, fiddle-playing, tap-dancing extravaganzas. Or the hoi polloi who enjoyed such things.

It had been booked today for Frances Honneffer's eightieth birthday. Twenty-two people had attended. And according to Tony, all of them had ended up in the observation lounge next door after the boat ran aground. Except Miss Mandy Bryson. Who had clearly been strangled. And probably hit on the head, as well.

Mandy's identity had been confirmed by Kurt, the crime-scene tech, who had a kid in last year's graduating class at the high school. He and his fingerprint powder were now focused on a well-camouflaged box on the wall in the back corner. His partner Alice was busy photographing the area around the body. Larry walked around her and over to Hank.

“It's going to be hard to establish a time of death. Somebody turned the heat off. It's a de facto refrigerator in here. Kurt finally found the thermostat.”

Hank nodded.

“I'm pretty sure she was killed here, though. There's a little bit of blood on this chair,” he said, pointing to the corner of an overturned banquet chair near her head. “We took a sample to confirm it's hers, but I'm sure it will be. She's got to have a cut somewhere. We haven't turned her over yet, though.”

Hank nodded again. “Could have bumped the chair as she was getting forced down to the ground.”

Larry agreed. “And did you see her right hand? It's still grabbing the edge of the tablecloth.”

Both men jerked up as the door to the dining room popped open. Sheila sailed through. She was wearing an enormous white parka with some odd kind of fake fur around the hood. It went down almost to her knees and made her look like the unfortunate offspring of a hairy penguin and a marshmallow. Hank was envious.

The hood was cinched tight around her mahogany-colored face. She yanked it back and shoved a travel mug at him. An adamant finger followed. “This is the only time—ever—that I will get you coffee. Ever. Got it?” The finger jabbed his chest.

She could smack him upside the head for all he cared. The warmth of the mug began to penetrate his icy hands. He took a long, grateful swallow.

“And I'm going to want my mug back.”

“Uh-huh,” Hank said between slurps.

She started to walk away, but he stopped her.

“Put on your best momma bear face and go take a full statement from Tony Sampson. He's the kid sitting in the lounge at the front of the boat. He's had a rough day. Be nice.”

Sheila rolled her eyes. “I'm always nice.”

Hank was about to reply when a thud caused both of them to look toward the corridor. A gurney had hit the doorjamb; two of Larry's guys repositioned it and made it through.

“We're ready to move her,” Larry said.

“Wait just a sec,” said Hank. The coffee was thawing his brain and making it capable of higher thought again. “Let me take one more look around.” He handed the coffee mug to Sheila and stood quietly in the doorway for a minute. He walked forward, imagining the path Mandy Bryson had taken into the room. He moved to the end of the table. Then he took a step back and into the killer's shoes. From the direction of the bruises on her neck, it appeared that Mandy had been facing the person. The killer must have stepped forward, shoving her into the corner of the table, then down to the floor. That was when she grabbed the tablecloth. Right before the end.

He knelt down beside her and gently lifted her shoulder, rolling her onto her side. He moved aside the spot of blood-crusted hair on the back of her skull and found a vertical cut, rough but not deep. He rolled her back and raised up on his knees until he was eye-level with the top of the dining table. There was nothing on it that could have caused that kind of injury. It hadn't been the chair. That was for sure.

Hank rose and slowly walked around the table, then in a wider circle around the edge of the room. He stared thoughtfully at the thermostat box for a moment—who would have the presence of mind to turn the temperature down? Everyone in the room stood still, watching. He walked the perimeter again, examining the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the blinds over the windows. Every killer left something behind. Even if it was just an emotion. He looked again at the beautiful girl dead on the floor. There was a lot of emotion there in the bruises around her neck, but which one? Hate? Fear? Panic? Love?

His circuit ended back by the doorway. He retrieved the coffee from Sheila and nodded. The medics wheeled the gurney forward. They carefully lifted the body and laid it down as Alice made the sign of the cross. Larry gently zipped the plastic bag closed, and they slowly rolled Mandy Bryson out of the room and down into the storm.

*   *   *

Sam's team had not turned up anything during its search of the boat. Hank left Sheila and the Pup in charge of the scene and, armed with a list of Tony's best recollection of who had been at the birthday luncheon in the captain's dining room, went to find Gallagher.

He found the
Beauty
's owner sitting in the backseat of his big blue car up on the road. He knocked on the window. Gallagher opened the door and slid over. Hank climbed in. It was blissfully warm. Gallagher cleared his throat. His driver sighed and got out to stand in the middle of the deserted road.

“I saw the ambulance leave,” Gallagher said. He was staring straight ahead. “Who was it?”

“Her name was Mandy Bryson. She was a local teenager.”

That was all Gallagher needed to know at this point. Hank listed everything he wanted to know about the boat staff and their access to different parts of the boat. And then he remembered something. “I need to ask you where exactly you were during the time you were on the boat today. You were not supervising the paddlewheel removal. Where did you go?”