Making a list, checking it twice,” Dudley sang, in a feeble attempt to lighten the atmosphere after the Santas had left his office.
Jack placed a call to his assistant, Keith. “The cruise director is e-mailing you the passenger and crew list right now,” he explained. “Check everyone out, but begin with Harry Crater—he’s a passenger. I’ll talk to you in a few minutes from my room.” Jack hung up, turned to Dudley and asked, “How did Crater end up on this ship?”
“A nurse wrote me about all the good he had done and said that he was very ill, and this would be his last cruise.” Dudley pulled out a file and handed Jack the letter. It listed the many contributions Crater had supposedly made in the last year.
“Could you make a copy of that for us?” Regan asked.
“Of course.”
When Regan and Jack left Dudley’s office, passenger and crew lists in hand, they found Ted Cannon waiting for them in the corridor.
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others,” he told them, “but something occurred that I thought you might want to know. It might be nothing . . .”
“What is it?” Regan asked.
“That fellow Harry Crater, who’s in the infirmary. I know he’s traveling alone. When I went to bed last night, I heard noise coming from his room. The television was on, and I heard people talking and drawers opening and closing. I had seen him being carried off, after he fell at dinner, and I thought he must have been brought back to his room. Apparently not. It just seemed odd, and I thought you might want to know.”
“These things are always good to know,” Jack said.
“Have they found out who it was Maggie saw in the waiting room?” Ted asked.
“Not that we know of,” Regan told him.
“I have to admit it bothers me to think that Maggie was alone in that waiting room in the middle of the night when some unknown character came wandering through.”
He’s right, Regan thought. And he doesn’t even know that the man might have tried to suffocate Crater. Maggie could have been in big trouble, especially if there wasn’t any motive for the attempted murder and the intruder was simply deranged. “It is scary to think that she was alone with that guy,” she agreed.
“I told Maggie that if Ivy starts to feel sick in the middle of the night again, she’s to call me and not go anywhere alone,” he said firmly. “I know you’re reviewing the passenger and crew list. If I can help you in any way, give me a call. Otherwise I’ll see you later.” With a wave of his hand, he turned and headed down the corridor.
“I think he’s got a crush on Maggie,” Regan observed.
“He does. I feel dishonest not telling him Maggie might have been face-to-face with a would-be killer.”
“Me too,” Regan said.
They were walking past a poster of Left Hook Louie that had been taped to the wall of the corridor. They stopped to examine it, both thinking of the photograph of the missing Tony Pinto they’d seen on television.
“It’s certainly possible,” Jack said quietly, after a pause.
Regan knew exactly what he meant.
When they reached their cabin, the phone was ringing. Regan ran to pick it up. It was Alvirah.
“Regan, it’s a good thing I stayed here. I have two things to report. I was watching the news, and there’s a mobster who’s missing who—”
“Bull’s-Eye Tony Pinto,” Regan interrupted. “I know what you’re going to say, and Jack and I have been thinking along the same lines. We joked about it last night, but it’s not a joke anymore.”
“Two and two makes four,” Alvirah said. “He was trying to get out of the country. He lives in Miami. He has been missing since the day our ship sailed, and two people on this cruise claim to have seen someone who looks just like him. And they didn’t see him out on deck sunning himself. The other thing I want to tell you,” she went on without waiting for a comment from Regan, “is that Eric, the nephew, just called with a phony-baloney story about that deck of cards belonging to one of the officers on the ship, and how he wanted to come by and pick them up. I told him Willy would be happy to deliver the cards to the officer, but of course that nonexistent officer was off duty.”
“Hold on, Alvirah.” Regan told Jack Eric’s tall story about the cards. Jack took the phone from her.
“Alvirah, I’ll get pictures of the cards sent to the office right away, then I’ll get them back to you. If Eric is involved in any way with the problems on this ship, we don’t want to tip our hand to him. I’ll tell my office to look at his background carefully.”
As soon as they had hung up, Jack photographed the backs of the royal cards with his digital camera, e-mailed them to his office, and called Keith. While he was on the phone, Regan took the cards, went into the bathroom, held them up to the magnifying mirror, and jotted down the numbers. If we’re going to give these cards back to Eric, she thought, I want to be sure we have a copy of the information on them.
She went back into the bedroom. Jack had just hung up the phone. “Keith promised to get back to me as quickly as possible.”
“I have an idea,” Regan said. “Let’s walk around this ship for a while. If Ivy, Maggie, and Alvirah all managed to run into strange characters without trying, maybe we’ll get lucky when we are trying. Anyhow, I’d like to get some fresh air.”
“Fine with me. Let’s get cleaned up and see what’s out there. This isn’t that big a ship. If Tony Pinto is on board, he’s not far away.”
Jack’s cell phone rang. He raised his eyebrows questioningly as he answered it. The caller was Regan’s best friend Kit. “Hey, Kit,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Still looking for a date for New Year’s Eve. I went to a party in Greenwich last night hoping I might find someone who doesn’t have plans, either. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. But I did get some scoop I thought you guys might enjoy.”
“Hold on, Kit. I’ll put your buddy on.”
Regan took the phone. “I could hear what you were saying to Jack. Don’t worry about New Year’s Eve. It’s always a terrible night anyway.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry about it all week. But get this! I went to my friend Donna’s annual post-Christmas party last night in Greenwich. All anyone was talking about was this guy Highbridge, who cheated so many investors, including a lot of people at the party. As you may have heard, he’s now on the run. Everyone assumes he headed to the Caribbean. So I thought of you. And there’s more! One of the women at the party said Highbridge’s ex-girlfriend Lindsay, who’d tried to get friendly with a lot of the people Highbridge knew in Greenwich, claimed that he phoned her yesterday. The number was blocked, but a radio was blasting in the background. She was sure she heard someone announce the local temperature in Miami.”
“You’re kidding!” Regan said. “They must have had a bad breakup if she’s telling people about his call.”
“She’s out in Aspen with her new beau and told people about the phone call late last night when she was out clubbing. I guess she’d had a few drinks by then. The sister of one of the girls at the party is out in Aspen. She and her husband were within earshot when Lindsay was blabbering on about Highbridge.”
“Was there any talk of Lindsay going to the police with that story?”
“No. Now she’s denying she ever said anything about Highbridge. Anyway, I thought you’d be interested since you’re in the Caribbean and sailed from Miami.”
“I am interested,” Regan said. “You never met Highbridge at any of Donna’s parties, did you?”
“I met him once, about five or six years ago.”
“What was your impression of him?”
“Tall, boring, and full of himself.”
“I guess he didn’t ask for your number,” Regan chuckled.
“How did you know?” Kit laughed. “I think when he realized I didn’t have any money he could steal, he moved on.”
After Regan hung up, they decided Jack should call his office one more time.
“Keith,” Jack said to his assistant, “this is probably a long shot, but see if you can find any connection at all between Bull’s-Eye Pinto and Barron Highbridge.” He paused. “Besides the fact that they’re both on the run.”