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“She’s right,” said a familiar male voice from the connecting door. “We’re all behind you one hundred percent. As a matter of fact, Laurel just sent me in to check on you.”
“I did!” was my mother’s response from the other stateroom. I waited for Laurel to roll herself into the room before I filled in the details.
“The captain wants her to leave the ship.”
“Oh dear, that’s too bad,” my mother remarked. “Why?”
“He must have heard someone trashed her room last night, searching for something, and he realizes she’s in danger.”
“Scarlet’s right,” Thaddeus agreed. “As long as you’re on this ship and no one knows who the killer is, you’re at risk. Whoever murdered your husband obviously is looking for something that he thinks you have.”
“Do you really think so?” Kathleen wanted to believe him. Who could blame her for that? Not the good doctor. He put on his best bedside manner and spoon-fed the idea to her like it was some kind of miracle tonic.
“I do.”
“You don’t think the FBI wants to arrest me for George’s murder?”
“I’d be shocked if they did. The forensic evidence doesn’t support that theory,” he insisted. My mother agreed with him.
“For heaven’s sake, Kathleen, how could anyone imagine for one minute that you’re such a cold-blooded killer?” demanded the woman in the wheelchair.
“Mom, why do you think the killer is cold-blooded?”
“He stabbed that poor man in the back,” she pointed out, expecting us to understand the implications of this fact. Clearly she and Thaddeus had been busy in our absence. Had they discussed what he noticed down in the sick bay, when the body was brought in from the ship’s tender? I knew there had to be more than just a gut feeling on her part.
“So?” Cough it up, lady. What other little tidbits did you pick up from your boyfriend?
“The killer didn’t act in self-defense, Scarlet. George didn’t even fight back.”
“And you know this because....”
“There were no defensive wounds on the body.” She announced this bit of news like a pro. Or rather, like a long-time fan of the extended Law and Order family of crime dramas, no doubt imagining herself on the witness stand giving testimony. Tell us, Mrs. Wilson, what did you notice when the body of George Delaney flew by your balcony?
“There weren’t?” I was surprised at this.
“No, not a single one,” Laurel replied. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
She turned to Thaddeus, giving the doctor a chance to fill in some of the blanks for us. “It is. Our victim was deliberately murdered by someone who thrust a knife into his back, someone with rather a good deal of upper body strength. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that there is only one visible knife wound and it went deep enough to cause a massive blood loss when the blade nicked a major artery. George probably never saw the assault coming, especially if the killer snuck up on him.”
“Thaddeus, are you absolutely convinced that Kathleen is innocent?”
“Well, given her knee problems, Scarlet, I’d be most surprised if she was a participant in her husband’s murder. She probably would have injured herself trying to lift him.”
“Doesn’t that count for something?” I demanded, turning to the grieving widow.
“I guess so,” she sniffed, touching her cheeks lightly with the already damp tissues. “You really do believe me, that I didn’t kill my husband?”
“Yes!” we all sang in unison, a chorus of three fervent believers. That tiny glimmer of hope began to rise up in her, and as it did, all that tightly-wound tension in her body began to ease. No longer were her hands clenched in her lap. I watched her slowly exhale, releasing all that angst, until her breathing returned to a more normal pace. I decided to feed that feeling. Maybe I couldn’t tell her about the plan to catch a killer, but I sure could focus her attention on the fact that we all believed in her innocence. Ignoring my own role in the conspiracy to use Kathleen as bait, I picked up the imaginary ball and got ready to make the play. I was going to run this one down the field and score.
“Is it likely that any other medical examiner looking at the body will come to the same conclusion that you did? I mean, how many other explanations for the knife wound can there be?” Okay, okay. I admit I watched a few episodes of Law and Order myself.
“To answer your first question, yes, the medical examiner is likely to have a similar finding to mine. And as for your second, there aren’t that many ways to look at the victim’s wounds, under the circumstances. Usually when you see cuts, most of them are shallow, at least at first.”
“Oh, are they? Did you see a lot of them as a physician?”
“I was often called to the Emergency Room to stitch people up after knife fights. I had to testify in many court cases about the nature of the wounds. It comes with the territory,” he chuckled. “When you know you’re going to get grilled by the prosecutor or the defense attorney, you try to guess what they’ll ask you, so you are prepared. You train yourself to focus on the facts. There’s nothing worse than looking like a complete idiot in court.”
“Feel better?” I asked Kathleen. I knew I did.
“Yes.”
“We should get ready for breakfast.” I turned to my mother. “Kenny wants to meet us in the dining room.”
“That sounds fine, dear.”
“Shoot!” Kathleen groaned.
“What?”
“My clothes are in my cabin. God, I’d give anything to have a shower before the FBI shows up.”
“Why don’t we go grab a fresh outfit from your stateroom and then you can shower here.” I stood up to go.
“Yes, I’d like that. Thanks, Scarlet.”
“It’s my pleasure. We’ll be back shortly, Mom. If we’re not, mount a manhunt,” I said half-jokingly. The other half of me was dead serious.
“You two be careful!” my mother called out. “I want each of you back here in one piece!”
“I promise,” Kathleen said. “Scout’s honor.”
“I promise!” I called out as I closed the door behind me, dancing to sidestep an elderly woman with a cane. “Pardon me.”
“Good morning,” she replied cheerfully. “It looks like everyone is going to breakfast at the same time.”
“Yes, it does,” I smiled as I gave her time to move past me. A glance down the hall revealed that a crowd had gathered at the elevator, swarming like bees at the entrance to their hive. “There’s no time for that. Do you think you can hoof it?”
“Sure,” Kathleen agreed. “It’s only one flight up.”
Carefully snaking past the waiting horde, she and I climbed the stairs to the next floor. Here, too, folks were waiting for the elevators. We made our way slowly down the hall until we finally got to her stateroom. Extracting her key card from her purse, Kathleen swiped it through the lock, pressed on the handle, and pushed the door open. She took a step into the room, but then abruptly stopped in her tracks.
“Kathleen?” I felt a sudden, ominous chill pass through me. Had that same terrible foreboding gripped George just before the knife was plunged into his back? “What’s wrong?”
“Oh!” she cried, horrified. “Sweet mother of pearl, you have got to be kidding me!”
I peered over her shoulder to see what disaster had now befallen her. The stateroom was once again in disarray. But this time, there was one difference. Someone had scrawled five words in red lipstick across the wall mirror. “You are a dead woman!” the message read.
“Who in God’s name is doing this?” she demanded. “It’s...it’s insane!”
I urged Kathleen to turn around and flee, but she was too angry to hear me. A growl emerged from her throat.
“Bastard!”
“I don’t like this. Let’s get out of here and call security,” I urged her. “Come on!”
“Son of a lousy gun! Of all the low down, dirty, rotten things to do!”
“Ah, Kathleen, we really need to go and report this.” I tried to pull her back into the hallway, but she shrugged me off.
“You know what, Scarlet? I was scared before, but now I’m just plain mad! How dare he? It wasn’t enough that he killed my husband, this creep now wants to hurt me? Well, I’m not going to stand for it!”
“You’re not?”
“No, I’m not!”
“Excuse me,” said a polite voice behind us. It was Maria, one of the stewardesses assigned to Deck 7. “Is there something wrong with your room?”
“I’ll say!” Kathleen snapped, her eyes blazing with a fury that seemed to galvanize her from head to toe. I fully expected her to reach up and snatch a lightning bolt or two from the heavens and cast them down for an electrifying floor show that made her point. Ka-bam! Ka-pow! Thanks for making me mad, creep! Bring it on!
“Someone’s broken in,” I explained to the stewardess.
Maria peered into the cabin, concern written all over her face. When she saw the mirror, she muttered, “Oh dear!”
“Yes, ‘oh dear’ is right!” the angry widow agreed. “How could someone get away with doing this to my cabin a second time? This is utter madness! This is...absolutely unbelievable!”
“I will call someone from security immediately! And I will have Farah help me clean this up,” she promised.
“Please do!” Victimized a third time in less than twenty four hours, the grieving widow’s agitation was rising as the reality of her plight hit her hard.
“No, no! Wait!” I insisted. “This is obviously a crime scene. No one touches anything. We’re going to shut the door and wait until someone from security arrives.”
Kathleen vented her frustrations about the lack of ship security the entire time we waited for someone to show up. I figured she was entitled to her rage, given the circumstances, but it was a long and loud five minute interlude before Eleanor showed up.
“Okay, folks, step back and let me have a look.” Wearing blue nitrile gloves, she used Kathleen’s card to swipe the lock and carefully opened the door, trying to avoid smudging any retrievable fingerprints. Eleanor poked her head into the stateroom. “Geez, Louise!”
“You can say that again,” I piped in. All the work we had done the night before had been undone. This time, even the mattresses and cushions had been flipped.
“Wow. I don’t suppose either one of you knows what’s missing from the room.”
“No, but Kathleen has a written inventory of what she and her husband brought with them on the trip, if that helps.”
“We’re going to lock this room and I’m going to post a sentry at the door until the FBI team arrives.”
“Too little, too late,” Kathleen remarked through clenched teeth. “I told you people I didn’t do it the first time around!”
“Right,” the chagrined security supervisor admitted reluctantly. She couldn’t take her eyes off the messy words scribbled across the mirror. “Are you sure you haven’t had some kind of run-in with someone?”
“Of course I haven’t! I would have told you people that!”
“Wait a minute. What are you saying?” I asked Eleanor, rather baffled by her reaction. “You think this is personal?”
“Someone’s definitely got it in for Kathleen Delaney,” was Eleanor’s reply, “and whoever it is wants her dead, just like her husband.”
“Let me get this straight. You think Kathleen knows who’s doing this to her?” Before I could continue, my fire-breathing companion spoke up.
“How many times must I tell you that I don’t have any idea who’s doing this?”
“Oddly enough, I believe you,” Eleanor shrugged, stepping back as if to escape a scorching. “But the FBI just informed us that when they called the Caulkins Cove police station for background information, the two patrol officers were responding to a break-in at George Delaney’s funeral home.”
Kathleen’s face went paler than a classic white L. L. Bean 340-thread count cotton sateen sheet. “What?”
As Eleanor repeated the news, I watched Kathleen closely, trying to gauge her reaction. “But why would someone break into George’s business? He’s a mortician! He doesn’t keep any money on the premises; there’s nothing else to steal, unless you want a casket or an urn. It makes absolutely no sense!”
“No?” Eleanor seemed convinced the break-in back in Maine was related to the murder of the funeral director on the Liberty of the Seas.
“Why is all this happening to us?” wondered a very befuddled widow. It was the last thing she said just before she unexpectedly passed out.
Luckily, the security supervisor and I managed to catch her before she hit the floor. Together, we lowered the unconscious woman onto the carpeted hallway and gently tilted her forward, until her head rested on her knees. She groaned a minute later.
“How are you?” I bent over, searching her face for signs she was in physical jeopardy. I hoped she didn’t have a weak heart.
“What happened to me?”
“You passed out. I’m going to call this in.” With her hand on her radio, Eleanor summoned medical assistance to treat Kathleen. Within minutes, two white-coated women showed up, followed by a white-coated man pulling a stretcher. We stepped back to let them take over, and as we did, a crowd began to collect at the scene.
“Could you folks please go around to the other corridor and give us some room?” Eleanor requested from a couple of passengers who happened to wander too close.
Fifteen minutes later, Kathleen was shivering uncontrollably on the exam table. The nurses were talking to her, but not getting any response.
“Let me call Dr. Van Zandt,” I pleaded. “She likes and trusts him. Where is the phone?”
My mother answered on the second ring. Once I gave her the abbreviated version of the incident, she promised to send him along right away. “Scarlet, you stay with her. I don’t want anyone railroading her. She’s just too vulnerable right now.”
“Will do, Mama,” I promised.
Thaddeus arrived a short time later, with my mother in tow. Together, they flanked Kathleen on one side of the hospital bed. I took up a position on the other. Kenny arrived just as the attending doctor suggested a tranquilizer might be in order.
“No medicines, doctor. As you know, George Delaney was murdered and Mrs. Delaney is a material witness.”
“Well, I don’t really like the way she looks,” Dr. Hurley countered. “She passed out from the shock.”
“Even so, she needs to be alert, so she can help investigators find out who murdered her husband.”
“The man’s right, Jack. Why don’t we use some blankets to warm her up. And maybe someone could fetch a cup of hot tea for her. She hasn’t had any breakfast today. Kathleen,” Dr. Van Zandt leaned over and gave her his friendly healer smile, “do you have any health issues we should know about? Are you diabetic or....”
“Thyroid,” she managed to croak. “I...I didn’t take my pill yesterday or today.”
“A logical explanation,” Dr. Hurley decided. “What do you take? Do you know the dosage?”
I left them to their medical conversation, pulling Kenny aside to pepper him with questions.
“I heard someone broke into the funeral home back in Caulkins Cove. What gives?”
“What gives, Miz Scarlet? This case is a whole lot bigger than we know. All hell is breaking loose back in Maine.”