“Can you believe it? Another chip.”
The receptionist couldn’t believe it. But with no one else lined up for a nail appointment, she couldn’t stop Imka from escorting me to the private room.
I set up the phone, playing Carol of the Bells.
“Badar is still held.” Tears stood in her eyes.
“Imka, I can’t promise you I can help him. But I will try to find out more about what happened. If he didn’t do anything wrong—
“He didn’t, he didn’t.”
“—then finding out what happened will help him.” My brain was churning with what to ask first, how to approach it. A Vulcan mind meld sure would save time. “But to do that, I need to know many other things.”
“What things?” As eager as she was to help Badar, I heard caution.
“Remember when I was in here getting my nails done and a group of women came in? Tell me about those women.”
A flash of something crossed her face. “They have nothing to do with my Badar.”
An unwelcomed thought came to me: Just how protective was Imka of Badar?
She knew where the tunics were kept. Likely knew the right time to slip in and get one, too.
She had the strength to kill Leah. And to carry her to that deck chair.
Her handling of Petronella alone showed that and then she’d pulled Piper from the windows with no evidence of strain.
“Maybe not, but, remember, I said the only way I can help him is to find out what happened. The only way you can help him is to help me. If you don’t want to—”
“No, no. I want to help him. I must. I’ll tell you.”
“As long as it’s the truth. It won’t help if it’s not the truth.”
She bobbed her head.
“Good. Tell me about them.” I left it wide open to see what she came up with on her own.
She frowned, speaking carefully. “They come to the spa every day. They have many demands. Sometimes they want all to be together. Sometimes all alone. The one — you saw — she leads. Always. They talk one to the other. Not to us. They do not tip.”
“What do they talk about to each other?”
She shook her head slightly. “Many things. So many things. Often I don’t want to hear.”
“It might be important, Imka.”
“I try.” She went silent, her bright eyes unfocused with concentration. “They talk much of how to get gifts from their husbands. How to value them. They tell each other, too, how to hide such gifts and other—” She looked at me. “Values?”
“Valuables?”
“Yes, yes. Valuables. In a box the husbands do not know about. Stash, they say. They talk and talk about this. How best to do this. They talk also about the husbands’ health.” Her brows drew down sharply. “Not for caring.” She released a short sigh. “But not to do anything. No action. Wishing, I think, but no action.”
“The woman named Coral, the one who pushed the other lady into the window and later tripped on the stairs, does she join them here?”
“Now, yes. After she fell and even the first day, second day after she returned, not then. They say she sleeps in her cabin.”
“Were they concerned about her?”
“No. This one or that one wants her appointment. That is all.”
“Uh-huh. How about when she started coming, too?”
She tipped her head. “She complains often. Pain, she says. Also what she cannot do. They have no patience with that. They tell her she will lose her husband. I think they do not want to hear her themselves.”
Well spotted, Imka.
“Do you ever see her moving around in a way that might make you think she isn’t hurt as badly as she says?”
“Some complain if a nail file brushes the skin. Others, you could cut off flesh and they would not. She is the first kind.”
“I see what you’re saying. I wondered if her injury doesn’t restrict her as much as she indicates. If she can move around more than she shows?”
“Faking it?” Imka asked.
“In a way. That’s what I was wondering.”
“But doctors — on the ship, at that hospital all see her. How could she fool them?”
That was a good question, but not insurmountable. She could have lied about her level of pain, which would contribute to their diagnosis and treatment. She could have vamped at least one into cooperating with her if she was faking it. Or she could have driven the medical staff to the point of accepting her exaggeration to get her out of their hair.
I went for something less complicated.
“You see things other people don’t.”
She nodded. “I say her pain is not so great as she says. But if she could, she would keep together with the others when they walk too fast for her.”
Well spotted again. “That’s an excellent point, Imka.”
“Also, she would wear the heels. She is not happy with the shoe she must wear to make it even with the cast. She says it makes her leg look like a sausage.” Her smile flashed. “And Miss— the lady she push into the window agrees, it does look like a sausage, which makes the lady with the leg very, very angry. Her face is red. The others, they talk of her. When she is not here, they do. Not when she is here.”
“They talk about Coral? The one with the leg?”
“No. When she was not here, they did not talk of her at all. She did not exist. Or they forget her. I mean the … the other. The one who was pushed into the window by the lady with the leg. They do not forget her when she is not here.”
“Piper?”
“Yes, yes, I believe that is what she is called. Miss Piper.” She spoke cautiously.
“What do they say about her?”
“She has not been with them a long time. She makes the leader worry. Dark hair? Red lipstick? Tall? She does not want the others to follow this Piper. She says often that she is new, is pushy, is different from them. Thinks she’s clever.” That last sentence came out as a creditable imitation of the leader’s voice. “Also, the woman of the red hair. She worries about this new lady. But… yes, I think it is a different worry from the dark-haired lady.”
“In what way?”
She paused, then shook her head. “I cannot say. I feel it, but the right words aren’t here. Even in my head, in my language.”
Remembering the redhead’s interactions with Jason the bartender and, later, his exchange of intent stares with Piper, I pushed a bit. I might be putting words in her mouth, but maybe she needed those words.
“Would you say, Imka, that it was a more personal worry? That the leader is worried Piper might threaten her leadership, but the redheaded woman worries that Piper threatens something else of hers? Something personal, close to her heart?
The young woman took her time, thinking through what I’d asked. “Yes. That is so.”
I nodded, satisfied. “If you hear these women saying anything else that you believe might help me…”
“They are here now.”
“Here? In the spa?”
“Yes. Can that help you show Badar did not do this?”
“It might.” Though taking them on en masse was more than daunting. Before she could pursue her agenda, I added, “You said Badar could not say where he was the night before last. He has to, Imka. He can’t keep it from the ship’s officers.
“He says he will keep it only to himself. That he must. His honor demands this.”
She was a surrogate brick wall on behalf of Badar’s honor that I wasn’t getting through. How about around?
“Who are his friends among the rest of the crew?”
“Friends?” she repeated doubtfully. “I am his friend.”
“How about guys? Does he hang around with any guys? Maybe some of the bartenders?”
“He knows Constantine, who is at the bar by the pool. They eat lunch together many days.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to Constantine. Anybody else? I thought I heard Badar knows bartenders.” She began to shake her head slowly. “What about Jason, who works in the Wayfarer Bar a lot, sometimes at the Atrium bar?”
She stopped for a beat, then shook her head more vigorously. “Badar does not eat lunch with him. Talk to Constantine. He is roommate with Badar.”