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“I know. Laurel’s going to be very upset.” I spotted a disposable glove on the floor. I knew for a fact it didn’t belong to any of us. “Any chance this might have a viable fingerprint?”
“Don’t touch it. We’ll get it bagged and tagged. That glove might explain why Marley said the FBI team had no luck raising prints in the Delaney stateroom. I’ll call down to the security office and find out where your mom and Thad are on the ship. Someone can keep them busy while we get this mess cleaned up.”
Twenty minutes later, after any possible evidence had been removed by Todd and his team, our ship quarters had been restored to its previously pristine state. Marley arranged for his team to monitor the hallway outside our staterooms, in case the menacing murderers returned.
“We’re ready for Mrs. Wilson and Dr. Van Zandt,” Marley informed his security team. “You can bring them back.”
It took Laurel and Thaddeus seven minutes to arrive, and when they did, they had quite a story to tell us. It seems that there was an elevator malfunction that only affected passengers trying to access Deck 6. The repairmen promised to notify them as soon as the problem was fixed. In the meantime, the security guard sent them to the Schooner Lounge for complimentary cocktails.
“They said it had something to do with the cars not stopping properly at the floor level. It would have been dangerous for us to try to get the wheelchair out of the elevator,” my mother told us.
“Well, at least it’s fixed now. Shall we get ready to go ashore?” I asked. There was something in the look that Thaddeus shot me that suggested he was suspicious of the incident. I fought the urge to flinch under his watchful gaze. “I just need a couple of minutes to make myself presentable.”
“As do I,” Laurel concurred.
“I could use a shave,” Kenny admitted, rubbing the dark stubble on his chin.
“We’ll knock on your door when we’re ready to go,” I promised the men, seeing them off through the connecting door.
A little before six, the four of us descended in the now-functional elevator and exited the ship, walking down King’s Wharf for the second time in a day and over to the ferry dock. There were only a few dozen people waiting on the platform. When the catamaran motored up to its slip and was secured by the deck hands, we quickly boarded, choosing window seats inside.
The journey over to Hamilton was surprisingly pleasant. The afternoon sunlight settled on the colorful houses on the hillside, painting them in a golden glow that made them picture postcard perfect. We passed a few sailboats as they made for land, their crews working the jibs, and a couple of fishing boats heading out to the open sea for night excursions.
“Someday I want to come back here,” I told my companions, “just to see all the things I didn’t get to see this time around. It’s just so pretty.”
“Maybe that can be arranged.” Kenny slipped his arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “Bermuda’s nice in August.”
“Mm, unfortunately that’s when I have a couple of weddings scheduled for the inn,” I sighed.
“We’ll figure something out, Scarlet.” My mother gave me a hopeful smile.
“Perhaps we could fly down for a long weekend in September.” Thaddeus told us. “It’s only a two-hour flight from Connecticut.”
“Does it have to be a weekend?” I wondered. “It’s sometimes easier to take off early in the week.”
“I could do that,” he replied, nodding enthusiastically. “That’s the beauty of being retired. I’m my own man, so to speak.”
I twisted in my seat, focusing my attention on Kenny, hoping he’d say the magic words I wanted to hear. After all, what’s the point of coming to romantic Bermuda and leaving the boyfriend at home?
“I don’t see why I can’t take a couple of days off to relax, given that I ended up working this cruise. Besides, Cedric promised to help me get a tee time at Port Royal Golf Club.” He winked. “I’m in.”
That left one more vote to be cast. We all looked at my mother expectantly.
“Oh, are you waiting for my answer? How can I say no, especially now that Kathleen is in good hands?”
As long as Kenny and I could keep disaster at bay and prevent another murder, my mother would happily return to Bermuda. But if, for some reason, another unfortunate death occurred, I had my doubts she’d ever want to travel again. That’s your incentive to solve this case, Miz Scarlet. Not only will you save poor Vicky from a dastardly fate, you’ll get to come back here for a few more days in paradise.
By the time the Sea Express catamaran tied up to the ferry dock in Hamilton, we’d made plans to stay in a wheelchair-accessible hotel on our next visit and hire Cedric to drive us around the islands. That left me in much better spirits.
“Okay, folks,” Kenny said, leading the way to Front Street, “Scarlet and I are going to catch a bus. We’ll meet you here in about an hour and a half.”
“Give Kathleen our best,” my mother called out to us as we started across the busy thoroughfare. “And be careful!”
“We will!” I gave her a farewell wave and when I turned back, Kenny was already a good fifty feet ahead of me. “Whoa! Wait for me!”
He slowed down long enough to allow me to catch up and then he sped up again. I struggled to stay with him as he trotted along Queen Street and rounded the corner, stepping onto Church Street. For heaven’s sake, where’s the fire?
“Ah, Captain Peacock, would you mind?” I reached out a hand and latched onto his arm. “I know you’re in a hurry, but....”
“I’m sorry, honey. I wasn’t thinking. Let me help you.”
With that, his hand folded over mine and the next thing I knew, I felt myself pulled along as the pace picked up. If I’d have known we were going running, I’d have worn my sneakers.
“We’re here,” he told me, pointing to the central bus terminal where half a dozen pink buses were parked in their respective bays. “I didn’t want to miss this bus and have to wait for the next. At this time of night, it really would have cut into our time with Kathleen.”
“Of course.” I should have known there would be a logical explanation for the unexpected race through Hamilton. We purchased our tickets from the cashier at the window and hopped onto the bus that would take us up Route 7.
“And don’t forget that we still have to catch the bus back to Hamilton after our visit,” he reminded me, pointing to the schedule he held in his hand. “In a pinch, we can grab a taxi.”
We boarded the iconic pink bus, selected seats in the middle, and got comfortable. There were only a couple of other passengers occupying seats. Once the driver backed out slowly and pulled the bus out of the station and onto the road, I posed a question to Kenny.
“If George met Anson Reddy at that funeral directors’ convention in Nashville last year, do you suppose Anson confided in George?”
“Are you suggesting Anson found out about the plot to kill Vicky and told George?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” I looked at him for confirmation. “Could the FBI concentrate on passengers from the Nashville area, to narrow down the list of possible suspects cruising on the Liberty of the Seas?”
“It depends. How do you know Vicky isn’t a funeral director herself? How do you know she lives in Nashville, or even in Tennessee? Maybe she was at that convention as a participant. Or she’s the wife of a participant. Or she just happened to be a guest at the same hotel. Or maybe she sat at a stool in the same bar. Or perhaps the killer did, and that’s when Anson Reddy realized he planned to kill a woman named Vicky.”
“Thanks for adding hay to the haystack. That’ll make it really easy to find that damn needle now!” I grumbled. I knew he was right. Vicky could have been someone without any real connection to Anson Reddy, but somehow I didn’t think so. Why? Think, Miz Scarlet!
“We have to go on facts—not supposition, not intuition, not wishful thinking.”
“Wait a minute. Remember what Kathleen said? She told us that when George came back from his walk, he was upset because he’d seen someone he thought he recognized. That’s really when the trouble started, right?”
“I’ll grant you that,” Kenny conceded. “Go on.”
“We know that George caught up to the woman who was with the man he thought he knew. We also know that the man was in that same crowd, and shortly after that, George was stabbed and tossed over the railing.”
“So?”
“So, did George follow the killer or did the killer follow George?”
“Judging from his camera work, I’d say....”
“No, no. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is, did George book the trip because he found out Anson Reddy was murdered and he knew just enough about the plot to be on the lookout?”
“We’ve been going on the presumption that George just happened to run into someone he thought he knew on the ship.”
“Kathleen said her husband was a big James Bond fan and that he loved gadgets. Was he playing amateur detective, trying to find Anson’s killer on the Liberty of the Seas? Why else would we have these three break-ins? The killer’s trying to find something, probably some incriminating evidence. And now that the FBI is involved, it doesn’t look like that’s a real deterrent. Why? Why would a killer think he could get away with murder while the FBI watched?”
“Actually, there have been four break-ins, if we consider the one back in Caulkins Cove, Maine.”
“At the funeral home!” I tapped my forehead. “Of course!”
“Maybe what we need to find out from Kathleen is how this trip came to be booked. Maybe George deliberately chose it because he wanted to get more information on what he feared was a plot to kill again.”
“Kenny, we know Anson Reddy died in the Cumberland River, not far from the convention center. Was he murdered while he was attending that convention?”
“Good question, Miz Scarlet. Actually, the murder took place two days after the convention wrapped up.”
“He stayed on?”
“He did.”
“He must have had a reason for not going back to Memphis right away.”
“Indeed.” I saw those eyes of his wander off into space, a sure sign he was doing the math in his head. I left him to it. It was time for my own mental gymnastics.
Why would Anson Reddy have stayed on in Nashville? As the old saying goes, cherchez la femme.—ou l’homme, as the case may be. As a lifelong bachelor, he might not have married, but that didn’t mean the funeral director didn’t have a romantic life away from his work place. Had he known Vicky from Memphis or did he meet her in Nashville?
Nashville, the home of country music and the Grand Ole Opry...was Anson a big fan of country music? Was that the connection?
“How would we find out if Anson stayed on to see some shows at the Grand Ole Opry?” I poked my seatmate. “He could have met Vicky there, couldn’t he?”
“Again, you’re not narrowing down the field, Miz Scarlet. You’ve just opened this case up to include how many more thousands of potential suspects?”
Disappointment overtook me once more. We really were beginning to run out of time. In less than twenty four hours, a killer was poised to strike again. There had to be some way of whittling this conundrum down to a more manageable size.
Exactly ten minutes after the pink bus pulled out of the central terminal, we were deposited on the sidewalk outside the King Henry VII Memorial Hospital. It was just shy of six thirty.
We found our way to the General Wing and then, from there, to the General Ward. A stop at the nursing station, to check in with the staff, yielded us the invitation to stay for fifteen minutes, but no more, from the charge nurse.
Kathleen was resting in her hospital bed, her eyes closed. In the bed next to her, I noticed her temporary roommate was on the phone. She looked suspiciously like the female FBI agent we had seen earlier in the day.
“How are you feeling?” I queried Kathleen. I noticed her cheeks were wet and there were little wads of tissues scattered across her tray table, evidence she had been crying again. “Have you had a chance to rest at all?”
“A little. I’m so glad to see you.”
“Laurel and Thad send their best,” Kenny told her.
“Mm, they’re good people,” was the sleepy reply.
I sat myself down on one of the two visitor chairs and leaned close to her. “Can I ask you something?”
Those big blue eyes tried to focus on my face, but I could see it was an effort on her part. Sleep was calling to her. I patted her hand, hoping to gain just a few more minutes of her attention.
“Did you and George plan this cruise for a long time?”
“What?” Her eyelids fluttered a few times before she glanced over at me. “Plan the cruise?”
“Yes, did you and George decide to take the Liberty of the Seas because you knew someone who had sailed the route before?”
“No,” she mumbled.
“They gave her a sedative about fifteen minutes ago,” said the woman in the other bed.
“Oh, damn. Now what? I really wanted to find out why she and George picked this trip.”
“Was a surprise. Came home with the tickets a month ago,” said the sleepy widow.
“He did?” I felt the excitement rush through my veins. Even Kenny sat up suddenly, his curiosity rising.
“Um...said he was so sure he had to be on this ship, he went ahead and booked it without telling me. Don’t normally take a vacation in June. Had to rearrange...um, business...business app...appointments.”
Those were the last words Kathleen spoke before she surrendered to the powerful effects of the medicine and dozed off.