Chapter 21
Not on the ship. Unless he’s using a fake name, said the text message from Sheila.
Annie put her phone down. After taking the brisket out of the freezer to thaw for their Hanukkah dinner tonight, she sat down at her computer to write another chapter on the Mary Schultz book before the boys got out of bed. They were really sleeping in this morning.
She turned her thoughts back to the Jezebel.
Well, there was no way she could find out anything about the man if he was using a fake name. So he could be on the ship. But if he was out to get his ex-wife, maybe he posed no threat to Annie’s friends. Maybe. But if he was crazy enough to kill someone—anyone—he might do it again.
She clicked on the cruise Web site again, as if it could provide her with some peace of mind. She’d read over this site a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours. What was she looking for? Clues? Comfort?
She clicked on the newsletter, read it over. It gave the upcoming events of the day, as well as highlighted a few things that took place yesterday. In the left hand corner of page three, a death was mentioned. A death? A Harold Tuft of Sarasota, Florida—hmm . . . the same place Allie lived—was reported dead. Annie shivered. Could this guy have known Allie? Surely he did—she was a scrapbooking star from his hometown and they were on a scrapbooking cruise.
She heard the rustling around of her boys heading to the kitchen. She left her computer and followed the sound.
“Morning, boys,” she said.
“Morning, Mommy,” they said together, and ran to her, hugged her.
“Morning sugar is the best kind,” Annie said, and smiled. “Go sit down and I’ll make you some eggs. How does that sound?”
They both made their way to the table and Annie headed for the fridge. She took out the eggs and readied her frying pan. She loved mornings with her boys now that they were a little bit older.
Annie beat her eggs and tried not to think of Sam beating up that boy because he said terrible things about the Jewish people. And then there was the time that Ben came home sobbing because a friend said his parent would never let a Jewish boy into their home.
Annie tried not to think about it too much, but being Jewish was on her mind because of Hanukkah. After dinner and family time, she was heading over to Sheila’s basement to meet DeeAnn for their weekly crop. She was thinking about a special book. A book about being Jewish. A spiritual scrapbook—sort of like Cookie’s scrapbook of shadows. Cookie. Finally, she was able to think of her with some fondness, without the horrible, black, bereft feeling. Still, she was unable to make complete peace with the disappearance of her friend.
She poured the eggs in the pan as Mike was entering the kitchen.
“Juice, boys?”
They both said yes. Mike tried to skirt around Annie, brushing up against her, which he couldn’t help. Their kitchen was tiny and they were always tripping over one another.
The Chamovitzes were saving for a down payment on a bigger house. As the boys were getting older, space was more and more of an issue—along with the fact that they only had one bathroom.
“How did you do on that math test yesterday?” Mike said as he set the filled juice glasses on the table in front of the boys.
“I think I did okay,” Sam said. “I won’t know until Monday.”
“I got a one hundred on my spelling test,” Ben said.
“Good for you,” Annie said. She scooped the eggs onto plates for her boys and sat down at the breakfast table.
After breakfast, Mike took the boys out and left Annie to work. When she went back to her computer, the screen with the cruise on it was still up. Before she got settled in to her writing she decided to give Vera a call. She knew it would be expensive, but she needed to talk with at least one of them. She really wanted to talk to Sheila, but she knew that she was in meetings off and on and had events planned. Better to call Vera.
“Hey, Annie,” Vera said.
“Hey, Vera. How’s it going?”
“Honestly?” she said, and laughed.
“Well, as honest as you can make it,” Annie said, smiling.
“The food is great. The scrapbooking is intense. We took a bit of a break from it today. We’re all at the pool. Well, everybody but Sheila. She’s at a meeting with David’s Designs.”
“How is she?”
“She still has a headache and not much of an appetite. I swear she had maybe two bites of toast this morning. Poor thing. We’re all worried about her, but we’re keeping an eye on her.”
“How did her meeting go yesterday?”
“Honestly, I don’t know; she didn’t mention it at breakfast. We talked about the murder. She had a passenger list and was ready to go over it, but then Randy saw the ship’s security chief last night and he said they’d already looked through it.”
“Yep, I guess that would be the first thing a security team would do,” Annie said, more to herself than to Vera. “But what about this Harold Tuft? How does he fit in?”
Vera explained to Annie everything she knew about Harold.
“It’s been awful,” she said with her voice lowered.
“I keep looking at men and wondering if they are the one. Also, they say they’ve got the poison situation in hand. That it wasn’t food poisoning. But I don’t know what to believe. Eric says I’m paranoid. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t wait until we make land. The FBI is going to meet the ship at the next port. I’ll feel so much better then.”