Dead Man Docking (21 page)

Biff didn't respond.

“We'll go out the back way and miss the riffraff,” Rick said after they'd entered the corridor. “It's a good thing I called Captain Swafford to see how the search for the jewels was going. I was able to reach him while he was on his way to the Giddon residence. He told me that Biff had brought you in.”

“We should sue,” Renie muttered as they reached a rear exit.

“Don't even think about it,” Judith retorted. “Your legal threats are what got us into this in the first place.”

“Don't you start in on that again,” Renie said as they walked out into the cool, damp night.

Judith let the subject drop. The air might be chilly, but it smelled fresh after the dank odors of the police station. The fog had lifted a bit, and Judith could see several yards down to the far end of the alley.

But she didn't like what she saw.

Two men stood at the corner of the building. A streetlight shined down on them, making recognition easy. They were in deep conversation, paying no attention to the trio about to head in the opposite direction.

The men were Buzz Cochran and Flakey Smythe.

 

“I don't speak French,” Judith insisted the next morning when Renie finished consulting the Mass schedules at nearby Catholic churches. “Why do we have to go to a service in French?”

“You don't speak Latin, either,” Renie pointed out, “and for the first twenty-odd years of your life, that was the language of the liturgy. Besides, you can doze off during the sermon. If we hurry, we can just make the ten-thirty at Notre Dame des Victoires. It's a beautiful church just a few blocks away, originally built to serve the large French-speaking community.”

“Fine.” Judith reached into her purse to get out her lipstick. It wasn't in the side pocket, so she felt for it at the bottom of the bag.

“Come on,” Renie urged, standing at the door. “It's ten-twenty.”

“I'm coming!” Judith snapped as she began to toss items out of her purse. Among them were the three VIP party invitations she'd filched from Dixie's hotel room. “I don't know why I kept those damned things anyway. I'm hardly going to forget—”

She stopped and stared at the elegant invitations, which lay scattered on the carpet. One of them had small holes cut in it.

“Hold on,” she said, picking up the damaged invitation. “Let me check something.” She reached into her purse again, this time pulling out the note that had appeared under the covered dish aboard ship. “I thought so!” she breathed. “Dixie must be the person who told us to butt out!”

Renie, who'd been looking annoyed, stepped back from the door. “What do you mean?”

“Look.” Judith pointed to the carefully clipped holes. “The capital
B
is missing from
Beales,
the lower case
u
's are cut from
Pankhurst
and
Cruz,
the
o
is gone from
Magglio,
and the two
t
's are from
Everhart
and
Pankhurst.
Taken together, they spell this.” She held the note out to Renie.

“You're right.” Renie grimaced. “I should have realized that. I knew the note's type font looked familiar. But why would Dixie threaten us? We hardly knew her.”

Judith put the invitations and the note into a hotel envelope. “Now we do have something to hide in a safe. I'm locking these up.” She opened the armoire and found the key inserted in the lock. “We can only assume it was Dixie who sent the note. But you're right—I can't imagine why.”

“You can mull during the French sermon,” Renie said. “I'll be trying to translate it. Or some of it. Maybe.”

The eighty-year-old church with its twin towers and stained-glass windows was indeed beautiful. Judith had no trouble following the familiar liturgy, though her mind did wander during the readings and the homily. And in every direction that her thoughts traveled, they arrived at Dixie Beales.

Had Dixie killed Magglio Cruz? Had she been poisoned in revenge? What would have motivated her to send a warning note to the cousins? Or had someone else on board the ship sent the note and somehow the invitations had ended up in Dixie's hotel room?

The Mass ended; the priest and the acolytes processed back down the aisle. Judith hastily crossed herself and said a very quick Act of Contrition. She felt that for the past hour the world had been too much with her.

As they made their way out of the church, Renie was shaking her head. “The priest was a visiting missionary who spent twenty years in Africa. He thinks he's still there.”

“He looked sort of old,” Judith said.

“He
is
sort of old, like eighty-
cinq
. Or eighty-
sept,
I forget. I'm not good at numbers in any language,” Renie admitted. “In fact, I couldn't catch all of the words, but he
seemed to be warning us to stay in
le patolin
—the village—and not go off to find temptation in Bafoussam.”

“Maybe it's just as well I missed it,” Judith remarked. “I don't know where Bafoussam is.”

“In Cameroon, Africa,” Renie replied as they stepped outside into an overcast day. “Okay, what's your game plan?”

“I'm not sure,” Judith admitted. “Research, maybe. I'd like to know what—if anything—has appeared recently in the newspapers about Cruz Cruises. We have a computer setup in our suite. I can go online and check.”

“Are you thinking about the blackmail possibility?” Renie asked as they started walking along Bush Street.

“I don't know what I'm thinking of,” Judith admitted. “We don't have access to very many facts. If Connie was withdrawing increasingly large amounts from her personal account, where did the money go? Is Biff a complete bungler or is he holding back? And if it's the latter, why? Because pressure is being put on him?”

“By Erma or Horace?”

“They pop to mind first,” Judith said as they started down Powell Street's steep incline. “In fact, why don't you arrange to meet with your old pal Paul Tanaka?”

“You mean,” Renie responded, “if he can take time off from his care and feeding of the Widow Cruz?”

“Yes.” Judith was feeling more purposeful. “Call him. He might be staying at the Cruz residence instead of the Fitzroy, at least until after the funeral tomorrow. Do you know where Connie lives?”

“Not exactly,” Renie said as they waited for a cable car to rattle by before crossing the street. “I know it's an expensive condo near the bay, maybe in the Marina district.”

“Okay,” Judith said, moving more briskly despite her weary hip, “you contact Paul while I finagle a computer out of the front desk. I don't want to have to use one of the public PCs.”

“Got it,” Renie replied as they neared the hotel entrance. “What about checking out Flakey Smythe in the newspaper archives?”

“Good thinking,” Judith said, smiling at the welcoming doorman. “Whatever he got out of Buzz Cochran wouldn't be in the paper yet, though.”

“Let's hope Buzz's information didn't include our near arrest,” Renie said, moving toward the elevators. “I'll try to run down Paul and also make nice with Connie Cruz.”

Nodding, Judith went to the front desk. A handsome young man of Middle Eastern descent greeted her with a dazzling white smile. Judith went straight for the bald-faced lie.

“My laptop PC broke,” she declared. “Is there some way I can borrow one to use in
our suite
?”

The implication didn't overtly affect the young man, but he said he'd find out and disappeared through a door behind the front desk. Judith eyed the clocks on the wall, which showed the time in various parts of the world: Sunday, March 23—noon in San Francisco; 3
P.M
. in New York; 5
P.M
. in Buenos Aires; 8
P.M
. in London; 9
A.M
. Monday in Tokyo. It had turned from winter to spring since the cousins had left home. Judith hadn't noticed. So much had happened in the past few days that it seemed to her as if weeks, not days, had gone by. She should call Joe again. And her mother.

The young man returned with a laptop computer in hand. “Do you mind signing for it?” he asked in a diffident voice.

“Not at all,” Judith said. “I should be done with it this afternoon.”

She found Renie talking on the phone, presumably to Connie Cruz. “It couldn't hurt to visit your father in Argentina,” Renie was saying. “The change of scenery might do you good. I'm sure he'd like to see you.” Noting Judith's arrival, she made a thumbs-up sign. “We can talk about that when we see you this afternoon. Are you sure it's all right? Okay, two o'clock, then. Bye.” She turned to Judith. “We're on. Paul's still there.”

“Good,” Judith said, putting the laptop down on the mahogany desk. “We're two for two. And I've got plenty of time to do my research.”

Renie glanced at the phone. “I'll call Bill. He won't answer, but I'll leave a message telling him we're still alive. Then,” she continued, grimacing, “I'll call my mother.”

Judith nodded. She was already absorbed in getting on the Internet and finding a good search engine.

Renie spoke into the receiver: “Cruz dead, cruise canceled. We'll be home after the funeral. Love you.”

Judith looked up from the screen, where a story about pollution in local waters was downloading. “That's terse. Won't Bill be puzzled?”

“No,” Renie replied, dialing again. “After all these years, it's the kind of information he'd expect to get when I'm with you.”

Judith was still perplexed. “But Bill never uses the phone unless he absolutely has to. Does he know how to retrieve a message?”

“No.”

“Oh.” It was pointless to ask Renie any further questions. After so many years, she'd given up trying to figure out how her cousin and her husband ran their household. Stuffed apes, small dolls, a rabbit wearing a tutu—it was beyond even Judith's superior powers of deduction.

She looked back at the screen. She'd started her search for
Cruz Cruises
from January 1, but drew a blank until February, when rumors surfaced about the company's move to San Francisco. The change of headquarters was confirmed in early March, with two subsequent articles giving details. But the story that held her attention ran ten days later, on March 11.

Judith started to read aloud, but her cousin was already talking on the phone, presumably to Aunt Deb. “Not exactly a problem…I'm not sure when we'll get home. We have
to check with the airlines…Of course it's windy…No, I absolutely refuse to put weights on my feet to prevent getting blown away…”

“…Not a contagious disease…Mr. Cruz had what you might call a shipboard accident…We won't be going back on the ship, Mom. How can I fall overboard if I'm on dry land?…Hey, do I wear a miner's lamp on my head in the fog at home?”

“…Not a tremor…Yes, I know, stand in a doorway or get under a sturdy man…What? No, I didn't say ‘man.' At least I didn't mean to say that. I meant
table
.” Renie seemed rattled.

Judith finished the article and turned to watch Renie more closely. Her cousin suddenly looked alarmed. “What? You
did? How high on the Richter scale?…That's high enough. Are you okay?…Oh, that's too bad, but I'm sure Mrs. Parker will find him…Hey, I've got to go. Judith needs me…No, she's not sick…yes, she's being careful of her hip…No, we haven't lost our mittens. I'll see you soon, Mom…Yes,
very
soon…As soon as we can get there…
Soon
.”

Renie hung up. “They had a five-point-six earthquake at home this morning. Mrs. Parker's wretched poodle is missing. No serious damage except for the usual broken crockery and stuff falling off of shelves.”

Judith couldn't help but feel some concern. “I must call home. I've got my heirloom items on the plate rail in the living room, not to mention Grandma Grover's breakfront with the family china.”

“You've never lost much of it yet,” Renie said with a shrug. “If you live in earthquake country like we do on the West Coast, you expect to get a few things trashed now and then.”

“I know,” Judith agreed, “but I'm still going to call Joe as soon as I finish this search.” She moved on to the next story covering the protest at Cruz headquarters, which, judging from the Ferry Terminal Building in the background of the accompanying photo, seemed to be near the bay.

“Cruz had—or has—a problem with dumping wastewater,” Judith explained. “Cal/EPA was starting an investigation about two weeks ago.” She scanned the protest article. Almost three hundred protesters had turned out, but there had been no violence. There were a couple of quotes from both sides, including a brief statement from Paul Tanaka, asserting that the cruise line was in compliance with state regulations.