My conversation with Chief Security Officer Gerard Edgars started with, “I have a theory and an idea” and ended with “What have you got to lose?”
That might have been what persuaded him to agree — reluctantly — to bring together the list of people I requested in an empty suite.
“Hey,” the Valkyrie leader objected when she walked in. “Why didn’t they upgrade me to this suite? My agent asked if there were any suites open right before we sailed. That stupid—”
“They don’t like to give away the perks that come with a suite. Sometimes they’d rather have it stand empty. Sit there,” Catherine said firmly.
She and Bob escorted people to preassigned seats on the couches and added chairs. Along with Petronella and me, standing at one end of the lopsided oval, the idea was to break up the groups. The Valkyrie leader, the redhead, and the other one sat to Catherine’s left. Then Constantine, Badar, and Pyorte before Bob separated them from Anya and Imka. Petronella came next, followed by Wardham, Maya, and Ralph.
Ralph was to my right. On my left were Odette, Coral, and Piper, then back to Catherine.
Next to the windows, bartender Jason offered non-alcoholic drinks from a wheeled cart. So far, no takers.
There were two more in the suite, but with the bedroom door nearly closed, no one could see Gerard Edgars or Henri Lipke.
“What is this about?” demanded the Valkyrie leader. Okay, I knew her name was Merilee — and a less appropriate name I couldn’t imagine because there was nothing merry about her — but the Valkyrie leader suited her better. “We don’t have all day.”
“It’s about murder. And finding the person guilty of murder.”
“We didn’t have anything to do with that old woman — sorry for your loss,” she added in an unemotional monotone to Wardham before picking up in her usual delivery. “She went for a walk. Somebody knocked her off. This has nothing to do with us. I just came to check out the suite for our next cruise.”
I talked over whatever response the redhead started to make, no doubt about who’d get the top suite.
“That’s where you’re wrong. It does have to do with you. Did you know some people consider members of your group prime suspects? Take for instance Petronella.” Several of them looked around, homing in on her when she made a gulping sound of protest.
“She thinks Coral threatened Leah somehow and Leah tried to get her off the ship by tripping her on the stairs.”
“What? That bitch? She tripped me?”
I hurried past Coral’s questions undermining my premise. “She struck out with whatever she could at the moment. Her cane. She stuck it between the risers. Coral stepped on it and fell.”
“I knew it wasn’t my shoes.” Coral’s triumph wasn’t pretty. “I kept saying it wasn’t my shoes. I kept saying there was something wrong with the stairs.”
“But it wasn’t something wrong with the stairs. It was Leah’s cane, which she put there on purpose. So it makes sense Coral went after Leah. She has the physical strength to kill Leah.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about how she was killed.”
“As long as you asked, she was killed by something being pressed against her throat.”
“How do you know that?” the Valkyrie leader asked.
“The experts will confirm it.” I blithely committed them to my loosely woven suppositions. “Her cane was pressed against her throat while she was up against something unyielding, effectively strangling her.”
Seeing all the other Valkyries, along with the rest of the people in the room looking at Coral gave me a little thrill.
It was working.
I could hardly believe it. I’d hoped, but hadn’t truly believed. I wished Aunt Kit could be here.
I caught myself. This was barely the beginning and I was a newbie beyond all newbies at this.
Just as their suspicion stretched toward certainty, I cut it.
“The trouble is, Coral is the one person who couldn’t have killed Leah.”
“What?”
“Then why did you—?”
“What are you—?”
“Of course, I didn’t.”
I cut across all the voices “There is security footage.”
The person who killed Leah already knew that, or they wouldn’t have taken precautions to not be identifiable on the security footage.
“The reason we know Coral could not have been the killer is her cast would be instantly recognizable on the security video. Unless…”
I had everybody’s attention.
“She could take off her cast.”
“Well, I can’t. So, you can just stop talking this crazy stuff.”
“Oh, I’ve just started talking crazy stuff. Because there’s a scenario with each of you as the murderer.”