Heading for breakfast, I opened my door to the hallway and nearly screamed.
Petronella stood right in front of me, her face a frozen mask as she looked down the hallway.
“Petronella? What’s the matter?”
“Wh—? It doesn’t make sense.”
The murder? Not yet it didn’t. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t. Maybe, even, that I’d make sense of it.
Petronella, however, did not look as if she had confidence in that. More like she had heartburn.
I leaned out and turned my head to see what she was looking at. A door well down the hallway toward the front of the ship slid closed.
“Did you see someone? Who?”
“I wasn’t sure,” she mumbled. “It’s strange. Like last night.”
“But you must have seen—”
“He came out for a second, then he turned back and… and kissed her. And… Oh, he wore his clothes from yesterday.” She jerked her head from side to side. “No, no, no. We won’t speak of it. I came to be with you because after the horrors you faced yesterday, you need support, protection. Then… Then I saw.” She fluttered both hands in the direction of that closed door. “But, it couldn’t be— Because, you know.”
Know? Not even a glimmer.
“Petronella—?”
The cabin door that had closed a moment before, opened and a man came out, propelled by a woman’s hands. Not in anger, but determination, and with a mix of emphatic words and chuckles. They were too far down the hall to make out the words.
But not too far to recognize the people.
Wardham.
Odette.
He wore his clothes from yesterday, Petronella had said. But they weren’t the clothes he’d had on when he entered the security chief’s door.
Odette wore a negligee. An honest to goodness negligee with lace straps and—
I shook my head. Dislodging irrelevant details.
I grabbed Petronella and yanked her inside.
“Wha—?”
“Shh.”
I closed the door — quietly, not alerting them they’d been spotted — with us inside.
“But that was… was… In her cabin. But … Why?”
I wasn’t getting into that.
“How do you know those are the clothes Wardham wore yesterday? When did you see him?”
“I… I don’t know.
“Was Wardham who you saw in the mirrors last night with the pirate smile?”
“I don’t kn—”
“You must have recognized him. Even upside down. Was it Wardham?”
Her hands covered her mouth, but she nodded.
Had he gone straight to Odette’s cabin from when Petronella saw him last night, with a bottle of wine, waving, and smiling like a pirate? And had I recognized Odette’s skirt? It was a straight shot to the front of the ship, then the secondary stairway and a short walk to Odette’s cabin. At that hour they’d be unlikely to be seen.
However Wardham got there, he was with Odette this morning, not yet twenty-four hours after his wife was discovered murdered. He was wearing last night’s clothes. She was in a negligee. There’d been kissing — heaven knows Petronella wouldn’t make that up.
The other woman. Classic motive for murder, anyone? The twist was this time the other woman was the ex-wife.
He wants to go back to his first wife now that she’s inherited that pile of money.
He jumped because she had gobs more money before that inheritance came in. Or else he had no choice, because she roped him in and that was that.
The roping could fit Leah and Wardham.
Had Odette inherited money since their divorce? That would mean the motive daily double — the other woman and money.
But could someone as ineffectual as Wardham pull off a murder? Unless he wasn’t as ineffectual as he seemed.
Or.
He was not the brains behind the crime.
I eased out a long breath. “Let’s keep this between us, Petronella.”
“I would never — never — talk about this to anyone.”
* * * *
I consumed breakfast, apparently making appropriate responses to Petronella at the table for two the maître d’ kindly procured for us, but my brain was elsewhere.
It kept repeating, Odette is so nice.
I considered that. Did her astringency disqualify her from niceness? Possibly with a lot of people. I liked her all the more for it.
Aunt Kit’s voice sounded in my head. Your liking someone does not preclude that individual from being a murderer.
She’d proved that in mystery after mystery she’d written in the years we’d lived together. I swear she did it on purpose. Though whether she decided a character was the murderer after she realized I liked the character or whether she made the murderer likable from the start or whether she used both methods, I hadn’t yet pinned down.
I might have a better grasp on why she did it.
She thought I was naïve about people.
She had some cause for that.
I wondered sometimes if Aunt Kit’s people-watching was entirely about creating fictional characters or if some of it was intended as a post-graduate course for me. If so, I was grateful, because it sure beat the trial by fire learning method.
Back to Odette.
She was nice. With just enough lemon to be entertaining.
That doesn’t mean she didn’t kill Leah Treusault. Approach this rationally. Aunt Kit’s voice was nearly as bossy as the rest of her.
Didn’t mean she wasn’t right.
I sighed. As I ate a chocolate brioche, I asked myself what I knew that could count as suspicious against Odette.
Answers came all too easily.
Odette was the reason they were all here. She’d said as much herself. There’d been no group cruise last year, but she’d brought them together this year.
Leah had stolen her husband.
Odette hadn’t said it that dramatically, but that’s what it amounted to.
Plus, Odette had been the source for all my information about Maya and Ralph beyond my observations. How much of my instant suspicion of Maya was from observation and how much from Odette’s take.
But Leah dumped him for Wardham.
Even so, that wouldn’t mean she’d be ready to see him recover immediately with the bereaved Maya.
Was that the moment I’d started wondering if Maya’s first husband might have met with foul play?
Or was it when Leah asked if Maya was trying to kill another husband?
Oh, you are a sharp one. Do you know, I never once considered that.
Was that true? Or had Odette skillfully led me to that point?
She considers she’s beaten me.
Not that Leah had beaten her by taking Wardham away. But that Leah considered it that way.
Because to Odette the contest wasn’t over?
Because Odette had been playing a different — and more final — game?
Petronella’s voice penetrated before an answer to that vital question surfaced.
“Did you hear me, Sheila?”
“Uh-huh.” I must have heard her in order to respond. Even though I didn’t know what she’d said.
“I’m glad you agree. I don’t want to be rude in saying you look tired, but a nice nap and a quiet morning — or even the whole day — in your cabin will be the best thing for you. I’m going to do the same thing.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said enthusiastically.
It was a great idea — for Petronella. Not for me.
Once she was in her cabin, I continued down the hallway, turning toward the front stairway to get out of her line of sight if she happened to poke her head out.
With that danger past, I paused.
Imka.
She had more to tell me. I was sure of it.
You might be wondering why I didn’t confront Odette.
I wasn’t ready. I needed time. Or nerve. Or both.