Dinner was strange.
Quieter in one way with the Marry-Go-Rounds’ table empty. Though the Valkyries and guys indulged in their usual boisterous drinking and eating.
The overall turnout was lower than most nights, but many found a reason to stop by our table and try to find out what it feels like to find a dead woman.
Bob fended off most with able assistance from Catherine. She called the head waiter over. After a whispered exchange, he stood subtle guard.
Once again, we were among the last to leave. Tempting music came from the atrium stage, past the banks of elevators. The guitarist and violinist — Pyorte and Anya, I now knew — were playing again.
“Good many people in there,” Bob said, from his advanced scouting position.
I ducked in, enough to see he was right. Also enough to catch sight of someone walking past on the next level up. The opening for the stairs revealed only the bottom third of the female, wearing a skirt like one Odette had worn to dinner last week. But that was unlikely, since the Marry-Go-Rounders appeared to be mostly staying in their cabins.
I grimaced over the crowd, not wanting more questions about finding Leah.
“Upstairs?” Catherine suggested. We all agreed.
Petronella’s seat was the only one with a view down to the stage area, which was fine with me. Listening to the music eased tightness between my shoulder blades. My eyes closed. No distractions.
Relaxation evaporated in an atmospheric disturbance as Petronella flailed next to me. My eyes popped open. “What?”
“I don’t— I couldn’t— A mistake, must be a mistake.” As if blown back by a blast, she was splayed in the upholstered chair.
“What must be?”
Catherine and Bob craned forward, looking over the railing. Catherine looked back at me and shook her head that she had no information.
“What happened, Petronella?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“You must know.”
“There was a man. Going toward the elevators. I know he held up his hand. Like he was waving?”
Why was she asking me? “Someone waved to you?”
“Oh, no, not to me.”
“Who was waving?”
“I couldn’t be sure. But the way he looked…” She clasped both hands to her heart.
“How did he look?” Catherine asked.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly…”
Open-ended questions didn’t work on Petronella. We needed to narrow this down.
“Drunk?”
Head shake. “Though he held a bottle of wine, I think.”
“Angry?”
Head shake
“Happy?”
“Maybe. He … smiled.” She gave a small shudder. “Like a pirate.”
“Bloodthirsty?” Bob asked with relish.
Petronella shrank deeper into her chair. Her hands now clutched the material over her heart.
To pull her back from the brink of considering bloodthirsty pirates’ smiles, I asked, “Why couldn’t you be sure who it was?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? He was upside down.”
“Upside…?”
“The mirrors,” Bob said. “Must be the angle.”
Catherine and I leaned over and saw what he meant. Mirrored planes tipped in such a way that people reflected upside down.
I shifted around for different angles.
Upside down and … backward. Sort of. Looking in one mirror, you saw the reflection of a reflection. As I watched, people advanced and retreated, sometimes the same person appearing to do both at the same time.
I focused on one upside down figure, waiting for her to come out by the elevators. She didn’t.
She’d been going the opposite direction. Heading toward the part of the ship where cabins lined the passageways.
Had the man Petronella seen been doing the same? Or had she been looking at a single reflection?
And what the heck did it matter?
After that, we were unanimous in making it an early night, even though it was one of the time-change nights, which meant an extra hour of sleep.
As Aunt Kit said, one of the true joys of these western-bound transatlantic cruises.
After getting ready for bed, I tried reading for a while, but found my mind returning to Leah.
Pulling out my phone, I sent Aunt Kit a stream of texts about finding Leah and what I knew of the investigation.
While I waited in hopes she’d answer immediately, I re-read her texts from yesterday.
Twice.
By the end of the second time through, I knew there’d be no rapid response tonight.
Then I had an inspiration.
I tried the internet.
It worked.
Forget those warnings about pre-bed screens, I was making internet hay while most of my fellow passengers slept.
Skipping email again, I went directly to the reviews written by Leah under the name Dee North.
Look at her history. Patterns. Aunt Kit had written.
As I scrolled deeper into Dee North’s reviewing history, I saw that over the past six months she rated nothing higher than two stars, while the past two months were all one-stars. Before six months ago, she’d had more twos, an occasional three, and even a four. Then, rolling back further in her history, revealed another, deep dip into vitriol and all one-stars.
I went to the start and scrolled backward through the history again, jotting dates for the one-star extravaganza periods, bracketing the times when the nastiness was more virulent than usual.
I saw a pattern.
The darkest periods came a little less than four and a half years ago, a little less than one and a half years ago, and for the four months leading up to this month.
After each of those first periods came a break with no reviews at all, then an interval where she became relatively benign.
The breaks were from late October to mid-November. Exactly the timing of this cruise. It appeared the pattern was a virulent patch, cruise, honeymoon period, before the nastiness ramped up again.
The break four years ago coincided with the great spouse swap.
But what about the break a year ago? That’s when she and Wardham cruised without the others.
The cycle from relatively benign for the month or two after last year’s cruise to the nastiest of all reviews before this one had accelerated from previous cycles.
I wrote an email to Kit asking if that was the pattern she’d meant, as well as recounting more of what I’d seen and heard.
Who knew when I’d get an answer. Maybe when we reached land. I flopped back in the desk chair.
What was I doing, anyway?
The Diversion’s Chief Security Officer struck me as a very capable man.
On the other hand, you have access and insights he can’t ever have.
That was Aunt Kit’s voice. Great. No texts or emails, but plenty of direct delivery into my head.
Do you know what I’d give to be in your shoes? At the center of a real murder investigation, seeing it all from the inside? You better stay involved. I expect a blow-by-blow account and I’ll have opinions on everything.
I wrapped my light robe around me and went on the balcony, enjoying the sea-dampened breeze pushing at me. The ocean was rougher tonight, the rocking of the ship more pronounced. I found it soothing.
My chin rested atop my folded arms settled along the railing, I looked out to darkness pitted by the stars and their reflections into immeasurable depth that contradictorily seemed close enough to scoop up by the handfuls.
When my chin slid of my arms I knew it was time to get into bed.
Where I dreamed of ups and downs of nastiness, ebbings and flowings of vitriol, all in time to the rocking ship.