The sea was pond-smooth this morning. There was scarcely a hint of motion as I hurried toward the stern. I didn’t want to keep Jimmy waiting, but he was there before me, standing by Sophia’s door. He looked thin, his white polo sagging over khaki shorts. He managed a weary smile.
I reached out, touched his arm.
For an instant, his eyes lightened. “I’m okay.”
He wasn’t okay. Time passes, wounds close, but scars remain.
The young woman who’d guarded Sophia’s door on Friday night came around the corner. She looked at us, light blue eyes curious as a cat’s. “Good morning, Mr. Lennox, Mrs. Collins.” As with all the Clio staff, whether service personnel or security or deck hands, courtesy was ingrained. “I’ve brought a key. After you complete the packing, you may leave it with the luggage or bring it to the security office. If you will leave the luggage in the foyer, it will be unloaded in London.”
She handed the key to Jimmy, turned away.
Jimmy hesitated briefly, then abruptly shoved in the electronic key card. He held the door for me.
When we stood in the center of the living room, the door soughing shut behind us, I felt as if Sophia might come through the bedroom doorway any moment. Her aura was everywhere, from the indentation in the sofa cushion where she’d sat, to the casual heap of an open magazine on the coffee table, to the straw purse lying on a sideboard, to the tumbler filled with amber liquid, whiskey diluted by melted ice.
The balcony doors were open. I looked at them in surprise.
Jimmy followed my gaze. “I guess nothing’s been touched since Friday night. They’re supposed to be kept shut but Sophia liked them open, liked the way the air felt, liked hearing the swish of the water. Let’s keep them that way.” He turned toward the bedroom, stopped in the open doorway, staring.
The bed was turned down. A lacy white nightgown was tossed near the foot. Brocaded house slippers, mandarin orange with a black design, lay on the floor. A guidebook rested on the night table. A pair of wire-rim glasses were folded near the lamp. There was a faint scent of orchid, possibly from perfume or bath powder. The doors to the balcony were wide open in the bedroom, too. The pink fringe on a lamp shade moved in the breeze.
I didn’t look at Jimmy’s face. There is nothing that reaches out to the living with as much impact as ordinary, everyday belongings that no longer matter. Sophia had looked ahead to her night’s rest, assumed without giving it any thought that she would step into the nightgown, throw back the sheet, settle against the downy pillows.
Head down, he strode to the closet, yanked open the door, began to pull out suitcases. I crossed to the bed, picked up the negligee, felt its silky softness, folded it into a neat square.
Jimmy began with the dresses hanging in the closet, taking them out one by one, folding them neatly, packing them in the largest case.
I started with the top drawer of the dresser. Both of us had spent many years traveling to far-flung destinations and packing quickly and efficiently was second nature, but I had never dealt with such an extensive wardrobe. It took a good half hour for us to finish with the closet and the dresser, filling two large suitcases. That left the vanity.
Jimmy set a small cosmetic case on the satin-cushioned bench. He gestured helplessly at the array of potions, makeup, perfumes, oils, and powders. “Would you take care of these?”
“Of course.” I slid onto the bench, put the case in my lap. Jimmy walked out into the living area. The beauty products didn’t take long. I opened the drawer and found a slim, elegant black-lacquered box. I slid it out, lifted the mother-of-pearl-decorated lid. My eyes widened. I’d not paid a great deal of attention but I’d noticed that Sophia had jewelry that matched every outfit. The array of lovely and expensive pieces ranged from diamond earrings and necklace and bracelet, to jade pendants, to silver bracelets and golden chains. There was a spectacularly lovely old-fashioned amethyst necklace. I carried the jewel box into the living room.
Jimmy stood by the blue damask sofa, staring down at the cushions where Sophia had sat. He heard my step, looked around.
I came up to the back of the sofa, which faced the balcony, held out the jewel case. “You’ll want to take this with you.”
He took the case, opened it. His lips pressed tightly together.
I came around the end of the sofa and scanned the room. Nothing was out of place. The four chairs around the small dining table were perfectly placed. The coffee table sat squarely in front of the sofa. The easy chairs were on a diagonal slant facing the sofa. The drapes hung straight, though billowed a bit by the breeze through the open doors to the balcony.
Jimmy closed the case and moved to my side. He, too, looked around the luxuriously appointed living room, at the blue sofa and rust-colored chairs, the shining oak table and matching chairs, the glass coffee table, the drapes gently stirred by the breeze from the balcony. “Nothing’s out of place. It doesn’t make sense.”
I glanced at him. We’d always been attuned, our minds working through circumstances to the same conclusion. Now we grappled with the incongruity of this serene room as the site of murder, the murder of a woman fully alert to danger, a woman who was not feeble, a woman who’d always been a fighter.
I pointed to the wet bar. “When I left, she was standing there, fixing a drink.” I pictured Sophia with glass in hand walking across the room to use the telephone, call Jimmy. “We know she called you. Then…” I glanced at the sofa. “If she sat there again, she was facing the balcony. But if someone came to the door, knocked, she would have gotten up, gone to the door, and when she opened it, she definitely would have known if it was one of the Riordans. Jimmy”—I balled my hand, thumped it into the opposite palm—“I don’t believe Sophia would have opened the door without looking through the peephole. Sure, she’d have hoped it was you knocking, but she would have looked.
“If she didn’t open the door, the person who came in must have obtained your key.” Perhaps Ingrid might have noticed whether the key folder was still in the bowl when she serviced the cabin on Friday morning. “Even if someone had the key, Sophia would have heard the door open and twisted around, seen someone entering. There would have been time to scream. Evelyn was in her cabin and she didn’t hear anything.” Evelyn had made it clear she hadn’t been on her balcony, but a scream of terror should have pierced the cabin walls. “Most of all, if Sophia saw her attacker, there had to have been a struggle. The only possibility is if her visitor got behind her, struck her down. But why wouldn’t there be bloodstains?” I looked down at the floor, at shining wood parquet and Oriental rugs.
Jimmy’s face ridged into lines of misery. “She couldn’t have screamed if someone grabbed her by the throat…” He broke off.
I could see the dreadful picture in his mind: Sophia struggling, flailing, slipping into unconsciousness, her limp body dragged to the balcony and tumbled over the railing.
“Only a man would be strong enough.” His voice was heavy.
Alex or Kent. Alex wasn’t big but he was wiry, a rock climber. Kent was physically imposing, lithe and muscular.
I shook my head. “Scratches.” It was summer. Everyone wore short sleeves. Sophia was athletic, and a woman fighting for her life would scratch and kick.
Jimmy’s face creased. He was remembering, as I did, Sophia’s tanned, capable hands with red nails, pointed nails, and the Riordans, all of them with unblemished faces and arms.
“Somehow”—I turned away from the balcony, moved slowly to the door—“Sophia was caught by surprise.”
Jimmy shook his head. He gave a last somber look toward the balcony and I wondered if he was struggling against the horrific conclusion that Sophia had flung herself from the ship. He put the jewel box on the coffee table, carefully did not look again at the sofa. “I’ll bring the cases out.” His voice was gruff.
We were done, Sophia’s lovely dresses packed away, all trace of her personality removed. I walked to the door, opened it, and stepped into the hall.
The service cart stood at the end of the hallway on the port side. Ingrid was stepping out of Evelyn’s cabin, her arms full of bed linen. I hurried toward her, thinking once again of the electronic key case Jimmy had tossed angrily into the pottery bowl. “Ingrid.”
She stopped pushing the sheets into a laundry bag and looked up. She smiled, the automatic pleasant response to a passenger, then abruptly her round face froze, eyes wide, lips parted, the look of a schoolgirl expecting to be chastised. “Ma’am?” One hand lifted to touch the throat of her white blouse.
I gestured toward the cabin. “Mr. Lennox and I have been packing away everything in Suite 6088.”
She looked past me, her gaze uneasy. Her hand dropped, nervously adjusted her blue apron. “I need to get the cabins done.”
“I’ll only keep you a moment.” I kept my tone casual. “You serviced Cabin 6088 on Friday morning as usual, I suppose.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Some of the tension eased out of her shoulders. Clearly there was nothing stressful about recalling Friday morning.
“When you serviced the suite, did you dust the furniture?” I pointed to a feather duster tucked next to cleaning cloths on top of the cart.
“Yes, ma’am. We always dust.” She looked puzzled.
“That would include the green pottery bowl that sits on the entryway table?”
Ingrid nodded and her thick blond curls bobbed.
“What was in the bowl?”
Her eyebrows drew down into a frown. “In the bowl? There was a key folder. Nothing else.”
“Did you pick up the folder?”
“No, ma’am.” She was emphatic. “I moved it aside, used the duster.”
“Did you leave the folder in the bowl?” I watched her closely.
“Yes, ma’am.” She was comfortable now.
That answered one question, one very big question. Sophia’s attacker didn’t gain access to her cabin with the key. Either Sophia herself used the key after a fruitless search for Jimmy and the key was in her pocket when she went over the railing, or Sophia was dead when her attacker took the key from the bowl, stepped into the hall, closed the door, and used the key to reenter the cabin in an effort to make it appear that Jimmy had kept the key.
Behind me, I heard the door to Sophia’s suite close. I was turning to tell Jimmy what I’d learned when Ingrid gasped. Her eyes widened. She grabbed the cart and fled up the hallway. Jimmy and I stared after her.