Ransom at Sea (24 page)

“I don't—” She faltered, then began again. “I shouldn't have said that. We do all right. But a scandal like this … I know you think it'll bring us customers. Maybe it would eventually. But if passengers stayed away for very long, it would be the end of us.”

“I don't think people would necessarily blame you because someone gets murdered on board your boat. Especially if it turns out that it really was Rebecca Bremmer who killed her aunt.”

“Maybe not,” Samantha said after a long pause. “Look, Mr. Ransom, I really don't mean to sound unfeeling. I know it's a terrible thing, murder.”

“It's perfectly natural that you would be concerned about your livelihood.”

She searched his face, then smiled. “Thank you. Now I'd better go down and check that the dining room has been cleared.”

Before she could walk away, he raised the cigar he'd been holding between two fingers. “By the way, do you mind?”

“Not at all. You're free to smoke on this deck. Just please don't do it on the lower decks.”

“Thank you,” he said with a tilt of his head.

Ransom stuck the tip between his teeth, pulled the lighter from his right-hand pocket, and lit the end of his cigar. He replaced the lighter, leaned on the ship's rail, and took a long, satisfying drag. He then blew a heavy stream of smoke into the air, silently contemplating what Samantha Farraday had just told him. He had smoked in peace for several minutes when he saw Sheriff Barnes come around the rear corner of Friendly's General Store, accompanied by Lynn Francis. They came down the dock and up the boarding plank.

“Have you found out anything?” Lynn said unceremoniously when they reached him.

“Nothing concrete.”

“Anything at all?”

He didn't fail to note the degree of anxiety in her voice.

“I'm afraid not. Not yet.”

Lynn's lips tightened. “Rebecca asked me to pack up her things, and her aunt's. Sheriff Barnes was good enough to give me a lift.”

“Oh,” said Ransom. “I believe Emily's in her cabin. I'm sure she'd like an update on how Rebecca is doing.”

Lynn hesitated a moment before leaving them. From the doubtful expression on her face, it was clear she thought he knew something more than he was telling, and equally clear that she didn't want to leave without hearing it. But she'd known him long enough to realize that pressing him would do no good.

“I'll go see her, then.”

She crossed to the stairwell and disappeared down it.

“Where is everybody?” the sheriff asked.

“Hiding. Apparently they're afraid of me.”

Barnes humphed. “I didn't have that problem. They probably think I'm Barney Fife.”

“From what they've told me, they all seem to think you're very capable—and they all think you have the right person in jail. Or they want to believe you do.”

Barnes ran one of his large hands through his reddish hair, then bent forward and rested his forearms on the railing. “So, now that your friend is gone, you want to tell me if you learned anything?”

The right corner of Ransom's mouth inched upward. “I was telling Lynn the truth. I haven't learned anything new.”

“‘Concrete' was what you said. How about something that's not concrete?”

The detective heaved a frustrated sigh. “Everything that everyone has told me so far seems plausible enough. All of them—I should say, most of them—were a bit nervous when questioned, which as you know isn't unusual. I'd have to say that on the surface of it, you are perfectly right in assuming Rebecca Bremmer's guilt.”

“I'm not sure I like it when you put it like that.”

Ransom laughed lightly. “Sheriff, you have her in jail.”

“Yeah…,” Barnes replied, dipping his head to one side.

Ransom eyed the side of the sheriff's face for a moment: it was a kind face, strong and firm but not excessively angular. “My guess would be that you honestly believe she's guilty, but feel sorry for her.”

Barnes smiled rather sheepishly. “Your guess would be right.”

“Don't sound so embarrassed. Pity isn't necessarily a bad thing.”

“I wouldn't let it keep me from doing my job.”

“Obviously.”

“But detective … uh … pardon me, but despite what you're saying, you don't sound like you think Bremmer's guilty.”

“It's not that,” Ransom replied with another sigh. “It's that … after questioning all the people, I think Emily's right.”

“About what?”

“Something just doesn't smell right on this boat.”

“Maybe it's that thing you're smoking,” said Barnes with a grin.

Ransom laughed. “I'm sorry, is it bothering you?”

“No, I was just joking.”

Ransom took a puff from the cigar and blew the smoke away from Barnes. “I know it's vague, but something here just doesn't feel right. I don't know if it has anything to do with the murder. That might be a completely separate issue.”

“So what doesn't feel right?”

“I wish I could say. You did question them all, didn't you?”

Barnes nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“And your impression was?”

He puffed out his cheeks, held the air there for a moment, then pushed it out between his lightly closed lips. “Have to say, they all seemed pretty shocked. All except the Farradays, and the crew. And your friends, of course. I got to hand it to that old lady of yours. She can really keep her head.”

“Yes, she can. In far more difficult situations than this,” Ransom responded rather proudly. “What strikes me is that the things these people say they did yesterday seem fairly odd. Driscoll with his little prank on Langstrom, Trenton going off on her own in a strange place, Holmes and his mysterious client…”

“Wait a minute—what?” Barnes said, knitting his brows.

“Stuart Holmes, the former lawyer, was seen talking to the same man in Sangamore, the boat's first stop, and here. He denied it at first, but when pressed he told me that the man was a client. He wouldn't go farther than that. Didn't Emily tell you about the mysterious stranger?”

“Yes, yes she did.”

“And what did Holmes tell you?”

“Just that he didn't know the guy. It was someone he ran into both places. That's not hard to believe. People from Sangamore come through here all the time on their way to the U.P.”

“But you didn't press him on it?”

Barnes shook his head. “No, I didn't. I'm afraid I didn't take Miss Charter's views very seriously. Seems I should have.”

“Many people have made that mistake, Sheriff,” Ransom said, calling to mind his first encounter with Emily, when he'd taken her for a doddering old woman. “Even myself.” He paused to take another drag from the cigar. “So assuming that Holmes is telling the truth and the stranger is simply an old client and not someone with whom he has hatched a diabolical plot to kill a harmless, senile old woman that neither of them knew, that leaves us with next to nothing.”

“You see my problem, then?” said Barnes.

“I saw it from the start.”

Barnes straightened up. “I've got another bit of bad news for you. Coroner's report is in, and he found a lump on the old girl's head, of course. He says it means it's likely she was clocked on the head before being strangled, which is what I figured.”

Ransom nodded. “That doesn't come as a surprise.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Was it a strong blow?”

“Strong enough.”

Ransom smiled. “And why is that bad news?”

Barnes shrugged his broad shoulders. “It means for sure that the girl could've done it.”

“It also means anyone else could have,” Ransom said. “Some of the passengers might not have been physically up to strangling a struggling woman of Miss Hemsley's size while she was conscious, but I'll wager most of them could manage it if she wasn't.”

Barnes pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“That's because, despite your feelings, you're thinking in terms of evidence against Rebecca Bremmer.”

Barnes smiled. “Well, you're thinking about evidence against anyone else.”

“No,” Ransom replied without emotion, “I'm just focusing, for the moment, on the evidence against others.”

“But you haven't found anything.”

“Not really.” He reached into his pocket and pulled the film out, which he handed to the sheriff. “Only this.”

“What's this?”

“The Millers are amateur shutterbugs. They were up the beach taking photographs around the time the murder took place. It's an outside possibility, but they might have caught something on film, though they claim they were too far away. Can you have these developed?”

“Sure.” Barnes squeezed the canister in his fist for a moment, then stuck it in his pocket.

“Good. I know I don't have to say this, but be careful with it, please. The Millers were very anxious about them. I told them you'd make copies for them.”

Barnes emitted a single laugh. “Okay, sure.”

“Other than that, all I've found is the same thing you did: it seems unlikely that any of these people committed the murder. Most of them have fairly good alibis, and even the ones who don't, I haven't found any reason they would want to kill Hemsley. All of them claim that they had very little acquaintance with the victim, and knew nothing of her other than the fact that she was getting senile and was running her niece ragged. All of them claim to like the niece, but they all think she did it.”

Barnes sighed. “Well, if that's the case, I'm afraid I'm going to have to let them go on their way. If you don't have anything more.”

“Hmm,” Ransom said in a tone of understanding. He had, perhaps, a little more information than that, but despite the generally amicable relationship he'd formed with the sheriff, he didn't want to share the possibilities that occurred to him. “When will you let them go?”

“Not till morning.”

*   *   *

“She's very nice … she's just very nice, that's all,” Lynn said. She held a blouse up by the shoulders and shook it. It was light plum with tiny white buttons.

“That's the way she struck me as well,” said Emily, who was seated on the bed next to the case. They were in Rebecca's cabin. “And something more as well.”

Lynn folded the blouse and laid it in the suitcase. She looked down and her elderly friend. “What's that?”

“The way she looked after her aunt spoke volumes about her character. Whatever Marcella might have been when Rebecca was a younger woman, she had through no fault of her own become quite disagreeable. The way Rebecca looked after her was admirable. She must be a very strong young woman.”

“Yes, she is,” Lynn said in a tone so odd it caused Emily's eyebrows to rise. Lynn slowly went over to the closet and retrieved another blouse, this one white, and began to fold it as she recrossed the room.

“What is it, my dear?” Emily asked. “What's troubling you?”

“Emily … Rebecca is the first person I've cared about since Maggie died—I mean other than you and Mr. Detective. I don't think she could harm anyone.”

“Lynn, what is the matter?”

The young woman draped the blouse over the upraised back of the suitcase, then sat down beside Emily. Hesitating, she laid her hands on her knees and looked down at them.

“The other night—the night her aunt made the fuss—Rebecca was talking to me about her. Unburdening herself, I guess you'd call it. She told me … she told me that she wished her aunt was dead. She knew she would've been miserable in a nursing home, and wished she would just die.”

“Very natural to feel that way.”

“She asked me if I felt that way when Maggie was dying. I told her I did, but I lied: I didn't. I didn't want Maggie to die, no matter how badly off she'd become. Do you think that … wanting to hang on like that makes me selfish?”

Emily laid her right hand on Lynn's left. “No, my dear.” She allowed a silence, then added, “But there's something more, isn't there?”

“No … no, I don't know what you mean.”

“Lynn, just because Rebecca expressed those feelings, that doesn't mean that she killed her aunt.”

An involuntary impulse caused Lynn to gently pull her hand away. “No. I don't think that.”

“Oh. Well, of course not,” Emily said lightly. “It's only that that, too, would be a natural thing to fear about someone one with whom might be developing feelings … because in such early days, and in such dire circumstances, you might realize that you didn't really know that person.”

The two women were startled by the sound of a throat being cleared.

“Oh, God!” Lynn exclaimed, looking over to the doorway and finding Ransom standing there. Her eyes narrowed. “How long have you been standing there?”

“I just arrived. I haven't been listening in on your conversation, if that's what you're afraid of.”

She flushed and lowered her eyes. “Sorry.”

“Lynn, you must stop thinking of Jeremy as the enemy,” Emily said. “He's here to help find out the truth.”

“Assuming that the truth is what you want,” said Ransom.

“Of course it is!” Lynn said defensively. “So why wouldn't you tell me what was going on up on the deck?”

“Because Sheriff Barnes was there, and I didn't feel it appropriate to share views with him that might needlessly cast suspicion around.”

“Then you have learned something?” Emily said with interest.

He pulled the small wooden chair out from the corner, turned it to face them, and sat down. “Emily, outside of Rebecca, it doesn't seem that anyone else could've done it—”

“There has to be!” Lynn exclaimed.