Chapter 22
Once Frank and Desiree had left the atrium, Savannah looked at her watch and realized it was rapidly approaching dinnertime.
She turned to her family and friends and said, “We should all go back to our rooms, freshen up a little, and then get ready for dinner.”
“I feel bad, us takin’ a break,” Gran said, “since our best suspect just got cleared.”
“Frank wasn’t our best,” Dirk chimed in. “Olive is. Don’t forget that Sergeant Bodin’s still got her locked up at the bank.”
Savannah shook her head. “That just sounds too weird. You don’t think he’ll keep her overnight, do you? I think the ship sails tonight around nine o’clock. If she’s not aboard . . .”
That was the moment when she realized they had a major issue. They all realized it at once.
“What are we going to do?” Dora said. “How are you guys going to solve this case if you’ve sailed away on a ship?”
Savannah turned to Dirk, a sick feeling growing in the pit of her belly. “We can’t,” she said, incredulous that she could even be thinking of abandoning ship, let alone saying it.
“But we can’t stay here in Saaxwoo,” Tammy said. “Waycross and I walked from one end of it to the other and didn’t see a single hotel or boardinghouse. We’d have no place to sleep.”
Savannah looked at Tammy with her swollen tummy, then turned to her brother, whose eyes were wide with concern. “Don’t worry, sugar,” she said. “We don’t all have to leave the ship, and for sure you don’t.”
Ryan spoke up. “If you two are staying, so are we.”
“Me too,” Granny said.
“You’re all going ashore. Now!”
Savannah spun around to see who it was behind her who had said such a thing, and found herself face to face with Chief Security Guard Poole. Behind him stood four of his guards, dressed in black uniforms, their arms crossed over their chests and stern looks on their faces.
“What the hell?” Dirk said, taking a step toward Poole. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said,” Poole replied. “The captain has asked me to escort your entire party ashore.”
Savannah fought to keep her temper under control. Whatever was wrong, she was pretty sure it wouldn’t improve the situation if she were to soundly box Poole’s ears or give him a bloody nose. “May I ask,” she said with a slightly sarcastic tone, “what we’ve done to deserve this great honor?”
“You’re disturbing the peace and upsetting many of the passengers.”
“What passengers have we disturbed?” Savannah asked. “We’ve hardly even had a chance to rub elbows with any of them, let alone ruffle anybody’s feathers.”
Poole turned to Tammy and produced a pair of handcuffs. “You, Miss Hart, are under arrest.”
In an instant, Savannah stepped between Poole and her friend. “Under arrest for what?” she asked, although she had a sinking feeling that she knew what he was going to say next.
“Stealing another passenger’s purse.”
Yes. That was it. Bingo.
Holy cow, she thought. What now?
Poole was moving around Savannah, closer to Tammy, and opening one of the cuffs.
“No!” Dirk blocked Poole and laid his open hand on his chest. “You won’t be putting cuffs on her. It won’t happen. She’s no threat whatsoever to anyone. Whatever you think she’s done, we’ll discuss it. But without restraints.”
The two men glared at each other, neither moving nor saying a word for what seemed like forever. Poole had an angry, determined look on his face, but Dirk’s expression was that of outraged indignation. He was also considerably taller than the chief, with a lot more bulk.
Savannah would have bet on her husband in a boxing or wrestling match against Poole any day.
Apparently, the ship’s chief security guard came to the same conclusion, because he reluctantly slipped the cuffs back into his pants pocket.
He glanced beyond them to the security checkpoint, where they saw a familiar face passing through, boarding the ship.
“You have ten minutes,” Poole told the group, “to prepare to go ashore. My guards will escort you to your staterooms to pack your things. Then they will bring you back here to the atrium, and you, Miss Hart, will be delivered into Sergeant Bodin’s custody.”
Savannah watched the blood drain from her friend’s face. Tammy’s golden California tan quickly became a pasty gray.
Savannah moved closer to Poole, and in a quiet but menacing tone, she said, “Tammy has done nothing wrong. If you speak to the woman whose purse was supposedly stolen, you’ll see that, as a matter of fact, she has her purse. She had misplaced it, was looking for it, and thanks to Tammy, it was restored to her.”
“We know exactly what happened, Miss Reid. The entire incident was recorded with the casino CCTV.”
“If you watched the entire ‘incident,’ as you call it, then you know that no harm has been done here today on your ship. As anyone with two eyes can see, this young woman is very much in a family way. She doesn’t need to be distressed by any foolishness on your part. If anything happens to her, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”
“That’s right,” said Granny as she moved to stand beside Savannah. “You’re playing with fire here, boy. I’m in my eighties. I’ve got one foot in the grave and the other on a stick of hot butter. I could kick off at any minute. This girl that you’re accusing is very dear to me, a precious part of my family. If I was to see something bad happen to her, I’m sure it would push me right over the edge. What are all those cruising fans gonna think of you and your ship when they read that story in the pages of Adventurous Cruising or Everybody on Deck magazines?”
John moved to the fore, as well. It was beginning to get crowded in Chief Security Guard Poole’s personal space. “What she says is true, lad,” he told Poole. “Don’t be a clot. Use your bonce. You can’t kick an expectant mother and an octogenarian off a ship.”
“Watch me.” Poole snapped his fingers and his security team instantly divided themselves among the group. One guard per cabin.
Savannah shot Dirk a helpless look, which he returned.
Poole’s guards were efficient. Three seconds later, they were all on their way out of the atrium, marching toward their rooms, with a guy with a black uniform and an even darker disposition following close behind.
“So much for our free, dream trip to Alaska,” Savannah grumbled when they reached their stateroom.
“We’ll see plenty of Alaska,” Dirk replied. “Up close and personal. It’s the loss of that all-night buffet that I’ll be mourning.”
* * *
The entire Moonlight gang, plus Dora, Richard, and Patricia Chumley, stood on the pier amid the mountain of their luggage and souvenir shopping bags.
They were all upset, but Patricia even more than the others. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said for the third time in the past five minutes. “I was shopping all day. Then I went back to my room and had a shower and a nap. Why would I get kicked off the ship for that?”
Savannah wanted to be a source of comfort and reassurance for the highly annoyed editor. But she was exhausted and had very little to offer.
“I’m sorry, Patricia,” she told her. “I really am. If I had my way, we would all be sitting down to dinner right now in that big fancy dining room. But right now we have bigger fish to fry. Before sundown we have to find—”
Dora interrupted her. “We may not have fish to fry, but if anybody gets hungry I do have some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my overnight bag.”
Savannah stared at her mother-in-law for a long moment, then shook her head and continued. “As I was saying, we have to find overnight lodging for ten people in a town that I’m pretty sure doesn’t have a hotel.”
Savannah marched over to Sergeant Bodin, who was assuring the weeping Tammy that she was not going to be arrested for purse snatching or any other felonious activities.
“Please don’t cry, Miss Hart,” he was telling her. “I wouldn’t lock you up in a bank overnight with a suspected murderess. I promise you. Olive Kelly isn’t even in the bank right now. I let her go.”
“You what?” Savannah demanded. “You turned her loose?”
He nodded. “I did. I had nothing to hold her on. Last time I checked, it wasn’t illegal to carry a can of gas around the woods, as long as you don’t light it. We don’t have any solid proof that she did.”
“Where is she?” Savannah wanted to know.
“Probably the Honey Bear Motel. That’s where I told her to go when she asked me where she could spend the night.”
A motel? A motel? Savannah thought. She felt like the sun had suddenly burst from behind the clouds and shone its warm, vitamin D–giving rays upon her face.
John joined them just in time to hear the sergeant’s last remark. “A motel! Savannah, isn’t that a fine thing? It appears we’ll have lodging after all!” He turned to the trooper. “This Honey Bear establishment that you spoke of, you recommend it?”
“With all my heart.”
“It’s that good?” John asked.
“It’s the only one in town. It beats sleeping out in the woods. At least the bear’s on a chain.”
* * *
“Good grief, there really is a bear.” Savannah couldn’t believe her eyes. A fully grown brown bear was chained to the porch of the motel, near the office door.
Fortunately for those wishing to do business with the innkeeper, the chain was too short for the bear to reach them when they were entering and exiting the building.
Unfortunately for the bear, he had very little freedom, and Savannah’s heart ached for him when they walked by and saw how limited his movements were.
The animal had no bed, per se, only a pile of hay that had been tossed against the building. A large dog’s water dish was his only possession.
An old-fashioned refrigerator with a soft drink logo on its door stood between the bear and the front door. A cardboard sign had been fastened to the refrigerator with a strip of duct tape. It read: FEED THE BEAR A SODA—$5.00.
“I don’t know who owns this motel,” Savannah said. “But I hate them already.”
Dirk pointed to the padlock that secured the chain around the animal’s neck. “If I had a key or a hacksaw, I’d set that guy free in a heartbeat. Let him run around the woods, the way a bear’s supposed to.”
Savannah shook her head sadly. “He can’t be set free. Not anywhere near human beings anyway. They’ve ruined him by keeping him here and feeding him.”
As they passed through the front door, Dirk said in a low voice, “You’d better keep your opinions to yourself for the time being, Van. Remember, we can’t all sleep in the Bronco.”
If Savannah had hated the innkeeper before she laid eyes on him, she loathed him once she actually saw him.
Hearing the bell above the door ring when they had entered, he had emerged from a room in the back and greeted them with a grunt.
“No way!” she said to Dirk. “Kenny Bates has a brother.”
She looked over the motel owner, mentally comparing him to her least favorite police officer in the world, Kenny Bates. Back in San Carmelita, Kenny made Savannah’s life miserable every time she had the unpleasant task of visiting the county morgue.
Kenny was madly in lust with her. She wanted to stomp a mud hole in Kenny’s backside and toss him off the end of the town pier.
Theirs was a relationship made in hell, and here, two thousand miles away, was a guy who was the spitting image of him.
He wore an old, dingy undershirt with holes in it that revealed far more of his belly than she would ever want to see. His baggy khakis were unzipped. He shuffled across the floor in house slippers that were bound together with swaths of duct tape.
Savannah tried not to be overly judgmental of her fellow man. So she decided she didn’t mind the smell of tuna fish from the sandwich that he was eating. With his mouth wide open.
She did mind the overpowering stench of body odor though. She minded it a lot.
She was glad that Granny had stayed with the others outside and waited for her and Dirk to conduct the group’s business. Granny didn’t abide what she called “rank filthiness.”
Many times Savannah had heard her say, “Even the poorest among us can afford the price of one bar of soap. There’s no excuse for being dirty. None a’tall.”
“What can I do ya for?” the guy asked Savannah, giving her a long, lecherous look up and down her figure.
“You can put your eyeballs back in your head,” Dirk said, “’cause that’s my wife you’re talking to and gawking at.”
Savannah stifled a snicker. So much for watching one’s mouth and not saying anything offensive that might jeopardize their prospects of having a roof over their heads for the night.
But the innkeeper didn’t appear to take offense. Something told Savannah that people spoke offensive things to him frequently. Probably on an hourly basis.
“We need some rooms for the night,” Dirk told him.
“Rooms?” He gave them a smarmy little grin. “I figured you two would be sharing one.”
“We will,” Dirk snapped. “Like I said, she’s my wife. But we’ve got a bunch of friends and relatives waiting outside. We’re gonna need five rooms, at least. Six if you’ve got ’em.”
“I got four.”
Savannah’s mind raced through the possible combinations of people inhabiting the same bedroom.
“No-o-o!”
She hadn’t meant to scream the word, but she was sure she could hear it echo around the office walls for a full minute afterward.
She drew a deep breath and regrouped. “What I mean is, we have a party of ten adults, and we really, really do need a minimum of five rooms. If there’s any way you can accommodate us, we’d be most obliged.”
Kenny’s twin brother wasn’t moved. He dug at some tuna stuck between his teeth with a long, dirty pinky nail.
“Four. Take ’em or leave ’em.”
One quick, sideways look at her husband told Savannah that he was about to snap.
“Do you have extra roll-away beds?” she asked.
“Yep. One.”
Savannah turned to Dirk. “Your folks are sleeping with us, and we get the roll-away.”
He gave her a look of horror that gradually faded into numbed resignation. “Whatever. Let’s just do it.” He turned to Kenny B. of the North. “How much will that be?”
The innkeeper named a sum that was so exorbitant that Savannah and Dirk thought he was joking. But after several moments of stony silence, they realized he was serious.
“That’s ridiculous!” Dirk shouted. “Hell’s bells! We could stay at the Ritz for that!”
He shrugged. “Then go stay at the Ritz.”
* * *
A few minutes later, when Savannah and Dirk walked out of the office, keys in hand and hardly any money at all in Dirk’s pockets or Savannah’s purse, they had to pass by the bear.
“Tell ya what, fella,” Dirk told the poor creature. “If I can swing it, I’ll find a way to feed you a really big dinner before I leave. It’ll stink like sweat and taste a little like tuna, but something tells me you won’t mind.”