The elegant Bahamian purser waited by the hospitality desk, extending his hand as I approached.
“Miss Harmon, I am so very sorry to hear about your mother. If there is anything I can do to better a bad situation, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
I nodded, still not able to say anything without risking tears. Jack had gone back to consulting on the movie—and watching Milo—but I followed the purser to his office behind the hospitality desk, waiting as he opened the enormous safe with the strange key, placing the evidence inside.
“May I ask how you heard about my mom?”
He locked the safe again, then offered one of the balletic bows. “Miss Harmon, cruise ships are floating cities populated with interlopers. Please forgive me for being among the busybodies, I was simply concerned.”
“Forgiven,” I said. “But it’s safe to assume you heard about Ramazan and Serif too?”
“The pornographers,” he said with distaste.
“You asked how you could better the situation. I’d like to see their work schedules, beginning with the time we left Seattle until today.”
He leaned back, the dark eyes evaluating me. “And you’ve cleared this request with Officer van Broeck?”
Geert. “No, sir, I have not.”
“I am pleased to hear you tell me the truth. I will take your request under advisement, and I will be in touch. Until then, do try to enjoy the remainder of your day.”
MJ was pounding the piano keys in a lounge that resembled an English gentlemen’s club. Dark walnut paneling, deep green wingback chairs, two billiard tables—and a black grand piano where the musician’s hands leaped like mad cats. Unlike the music last night, she played something that sounded almost cacophonous.
I’d found her through one phone call to Geert. At any given moment, his Ninjas seemed to know where everybody was on the ship, even somebody hiding in this lounge that was closed until later in the afternoon. The piano was tucked behind a billiard table and MJ’s back was to the entrance. The place was empty, not even a Filipino bartender to say yes to every question, and I waited, listening to the assaultive chords. Finally, when she stepped on the foot pedal, extending the bitterness, I walked up behind her. Cheap tricks were not my way, but time was running out. And I needed her to talk.
“That’s bleak music,” I said.
“Oh!” Her hands flew off the keys. The chord dropped dead. “You scared me!”
“I’m sorry.” I meant it. Manipulating her made me feel like the liar my mother knew me to be. “May I talk to you for a moment?”
She had already pulled out the fall board, dropping the cover over the keys, letting it land with a felt-cushioned thud. “I need to go,” she said. “We’re filming this morning. I’m already late.”
She reached for the sheet music and I touched her wrist. She recoiled as if scalded.
“You were in the chapel?” I asked.
Her eyes were darting. “What?”
“Milo was there too. And I doubt he went in there to pray.” I hated this part, poking her again. “Did you meet in there before or after Judy’s hanging?”
“No—!”
“So she wasn’t dead yet?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“MJ, I have proof.”
Her face fissured like an cracking eggshell, the lines of worry spreading down her face from those sad eyes, that soft mouth trembling. “He took pictures.”
When I didn’t respond, her hands dropped into her lap, the palms open, a gesture of devastated supplication. Under the lamp for the sheet music I could see her fingers, the tips enflamed while slivers ran like dashes down both palms.
“What happened in that chapel?”
She saw me staring at her hands and tucked them under her arms. “You saw the photos. What more do you want?”
“MJ, there are no photos.”
“Then how—” She stopped. “Then you’re making it up.”
“No, I have proof. But not from photographs. I also know about your dope conviction.”
The sheet music rested disheveled on the thin shelf above the fall board. Her eyes were scanning the lines, searching.
“Cooperation is your best option. I’m sure you learned that when you got busted.”
“I never meant to hurt Judy.”
I waited. She turned, her eyes now scanning my face.
“It started years ago, when I was dealing pot. I was a mess. And Milo, I believed him.”
“About what?”
“He told me they had an agreement.” She picked at the slivers in her left hand. “And I saw myself as damaged goods. And here was this movie star, paying attention to me. Me, screwed up MJ.”
The clock was still ticking in my head. “What does this have to do with the chapel?”
She looked up again. “If I tell you the truth, will you believe me?”
“The truth? Yes.”
“I got saved.”
It took me a moment and she misread my silence.
“Yeah, I know, jailhouse conversion. Go ahead, make fun of it. But I didn’t do it to get out early. I did it because now I was a different me. I was a better me.” She stopped picking her hands and her voice went up an octave. “And who was my biggest champion? Judy. She helped me get back on my feet. She got me to play music again.”
“Did she know about you and Milo?”
She shook her head. “But I knew.”
“Did she know about any of the affairs, before the tabloids broke the news?”
“I could never tell. She was crazy-blind in love with Milo, and everyone in Hollywood puts on a front. Even the nice people. But if she knew, she didn’t care. And she didn’t try to stop him.”
“And you two took a roll in the chapel—for old time’s sake?”
“No!” She came off the bench. “That is not what happened.”
“Then tell me. The truth.”
“I was playing a set in the bar—”
“What night?”
“Monday.”
“The night she died.”
She picked at her hand again. “I was playing in the Sky Bar. I was so tired. Really tired. I had twenty minutes off after the first set. In the old days I would’ve fired up a joint but I went down to the chapel. I can’t explain it, there was this heaviness in my heart, like that feeling of being homesick.” She sighed. “I know now it’s like grief. Nobody was in the chapel, and I just wanted to pray so I got down on my knees in front of the cross and—”
“What cross?”
She blinked.
“MJ, what cross? There’s no cross in there.”
Her lips trembled and as the words came I realized this confession was for two audiences. One was spoken, for me, but the other came softly, a hushed entreaty with that same sweet and devastated voice I’d heard last night—forgive me, she was saying—then describing the empty chapel at that late hour and how she didn’t think anybody would come in—mercy, have mercy—and how she had knelt at the foot of a large wooden cross that hung on the wall above the platform, feeling a desperation so dark that she laid her hands on the wooden beam.
“I don’t know how long I was praying. Maybe a long time. But suddenly I felt someone behind me, pulling me by my hair. I grabbed the cross, holding on and—” She lifted both hands, displaying the palms lined with slivers. Her voice was shaking. “He pulled, and I didn’t want to let go of the cross. There was this horrible sound, and it must have scared him because he let go of my hair and when I turned around—oh, God—it was Milo.”
“Alone?”
She nodded. “The cross came crashing down, just missing us. I started crying and he put his hand over my mouth. He was snarling, like an animal, telling me I’d teased him long enough.”
My question cloaked the air, not needing to be spoken between two women.
She shook her head. “He was too drunk and finally he left. There I was, sprawled out with that fallen cross.” She began whispering again.
“What happened after that?”
“I had to go play.”
“In the bar?”
“That’s part of my contract, playing at any parties. I need the money. But Sandy chewed me out for taking such a long break— like I was goofing around. Then he gave me the sniff test.”
“The what?”
“Smelling me, to see if I fell off the wagon.”
“You didn’t tell him about Milo?”
“C’mon. Which of us would he kick off the movie? Not Milo.” She opened her hands, displaying the damage. “This looks good now, but I played two sets with my hands on fire. And the next morning, when I heard Judy was dead, I decided this was the cruise from hell.” She looked at me, hard. “I mean that, as a place.”
I nodded. I knew what she meant.
And I wasn’t about to disagree.