1 Shore Excursion (8 page)

“
I can
dress myself
, thank you!
”
I yelled.
“
Stay out of my stuff
.
How is she dead? Where?
When?”

“I don’t know.
I don’t know.
”
He ran his hands through his red hair until it was sticking up all over.
“All I know is that the room
steward
saw the other old ladies going to the Early Riser’s
B
reakfast
this morning and thought Ruth was with them. So he knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he
went into
Ruth’s
cabin to
make up the bed,
and there she was.
Dead.
As a hammer
.
Someone’s killed her.
Dr. Sledge, the ship’s doctor, is there now and the purser and they want you.
So hurry up, Sidney, for God’s sake, put your shoes on
,
and let’s go!”

Strangely, we didn’t meet anyone as we rocketed up the stairs to the Continental Deck where poor Ruth Shadrach, afraid to room with a stranger, had booked a single.

She looked so pitiful, lying there in the new pink nylon travel pajamas that she’d
bought
especially for this trip.
Twice s
he’d told me about them and the matching robe, its sleeves now securely knotted around her throat.

“Oh, my God
!
” I turned away from her and buried my face in Jay’s big chest.

Dr. Sledge pulled the sheet back over her.

“Miss Marsh,” said the purser, “I know what a terrible thing this is
for you.
It is
terrible
for all of us.
But could you
please inform you
r
group of Miss Shadrach’s passing while Mr. Wilson
come
s
with me now to the bridge to speak with the captain?
Dr. Sledge will stay with
Miss Shadrach
, and Anthony will guard the cabin.”

How we got through the rest of that day, I’ll never know.
One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life was to gather the High Steppers together and tell them about Ruth Shadrach.
They were stunned and saddened. Many were in tears.

“Who would do such a thing?”
Mrs. Weiss said
, shaking her head.
“No one had any reason to harm her.
No one knew her but us.”

She looked around the room at the others. They were no longer the
jolly band of
High Steppers, but
frail
individuals,
peer
ing at each other with closed, suspicious, fearful faces.

“We don’t know.”
I said.
“We don’t know anything yet.
And at this point we don’t know what the procedure will be or what the captain will do.
He will let us know when a decision
has been
made.
E
ach of you will probably be questioned to see if you
can
provide any helpful
information.”

“Will they bury her at sea?”
blurted
Mrs. Murphy
, who was obviously more curious than distraught.
“I
’ve
never seen a burial at sea.”

“NO,
Gladys
, they will NOT!”
Jay shouted.
He
had just entered the back of the room, and he looked all in.

“Now, please, everyone, go on to lunch if you can,
” he continued
.
“
I
t’s open seating, and if you can’t,
just go to your cabins and order room service or lie down or something and let us try to
sort
things out.
When we have further information, we will share it with you.
Right now, they are saying there will be no alterations in the day’s activities, but if you choose not to participate,
believe me,
everyone will
understand.”

After they were gone, Jay and I went back to the conference room on the Promenade Deck
. He had no new information from the captain.

Jay was pacing, couldn’t stand still, couldn’t sit, like a big cat. He ran his hands through his red hair
again and again
.

“They’re stonewalling, Sidney. I couldn’t find out anything. Everyone that I spoke with said they would get back to us later.”

I sank into a
conference
chair and put my head down on my arms on the cool gleaming wood of the table, thinking about it all, turning the whole terrible thing over in my mind.

“Did you actually speak with the captain, Jay?” I asked without moving my head. I thought if I didn’t move it, it might stop aching.

“No. The First Officer, a guy named Avranos, said that Captain Vargos was in a meeting and could not be disturbed. But what about the High Steppers, Sid? When you told them, what did they say? How did they take it? Pretty bad, I bet. Did anyone say if they saw or heard anything?”

I looked up at him. He had stopped
pacing and had perched on the big table
, staring at me with a grim look in his brown eyes.

“Oh, Jay, it was awful. Poor little Hannah just cried and cried. Even old Mr. Bostick was honking away into his handkerchief. But, no, no one mentioned hearing or seeing anything. Ruth had that single cabin on the port side, remember, and the rest were all on the starboard. So if they were all in their rooms sleeping when it happened, it’s not surprising that they didn’t.”

“So no one truly knows what happened.”

“No. No one except the
…”

I just couldn’t say the word.

“Murderer
,
” Jay said, finishing the awful thought for me.

We had dealt with a lot of
crises
together
over the years, some of
them
pretty bad
. N
othing remotely equal
to
this.

Everything was complicated by the steadily worsening weather.
Squalls had been predicted on leaving Harwich, and as the wind rose, the pitch and yaw o
f the behemoth we were riding
increased proportionally.
Even with her sturdy construction, the Rapture was having a hard time handling the weather.

“Great, just great,” Jay said, as we began to hear glassware crash in the dining room.

“That’s really what we need just now, an effing gale, with
poor little
High Steppers yammying everywhere and
all
falling down and breaking their hips!”

We assumed that the captain had
immediately
informed the authorities and the cruise line about Ruth, of course, but
no one had
as yet
shared any
decision as to the
plan
of action.
Jay and I
agreed
to
wait for
their decision before laying the bad news on Itchy.
We had no way to
contact them
, really. The storm had knocked out the cell
phone
system
connections
and the
I
nternet
in the computer room
wasn’t working either.
We had been told that it would be some time before it could be repaired.

So here we were, sailing merrily along in the middle of a
huge storm
in the North Sea with the High Steppers, dead Ruth Shadrach, and whoever had killed her.

Cruise lines are equipped to deal with dead passengers.
No one likes to talk about it, of course, and it’s not something you want to feature in the brochure, but it happens, and when it does, they know what to do.
What they are emphatically not equipped to deal with is murder.

“Jay,”
I said, “Did
you try to come in my cabin this morning
about
three a.m.
?”

He stared at me
as if I was
nuts
.

“I guess that’s a no,” I said, “but I had to
ask
, because somebody did
. T
hey turned the handle on my door
.
I
f it had been you it would have been okay.
But if it wasn’t you, then it’s definitely NOT okay.”

Jay moved his stuff into my cabin that afternoon, without being asked.
I told you that he is really a terrific guy, and if the High Steppers or IFT disapproved of my
new roomie, I didn’t care.

T
he sea was still pretty choppy the next morning,
and
the sky
was
overcast, but the worst of the storm seemed to have passed during the
night
.
The closet doors had stopped banging open and closed about four
a
.
m
.

When the first door banged open, then shut, about 2:30, Jay sat straight up in his bed screaming, “Get out of here, you son of a bitch!”

It took a while for him to really wake up and be convinced that it was not a murderous intruder, only the big bad closet.
I laughed so hard I got the hiccups.

“Not funny, Sidney, not funny! What if some madman had chopped his way into our cabin?”

“This killer is not a wild beast, Jay. This one is sneaky. He slips around like Gollum and throttles old ladies.”

“That’s comforting, Sidney.
I love that thought.”

“What do you think about a motive, Jay?
There has to be a motive.
I mean, who would want to kill Ruth, and why?

She didn’t have any enemies. I bet about the only bad thing she ever did was not return her library books on time.”

“Not to speak ill of the dead, Sidney, but Ruth was pretty annoying.
I enjoy most o
f the rest of the High Steppers
most of the time,
but
I have to tell you,
Ruth was not my favorite. Is being totally annoying a motive?”

“Now was that nice? And no, it’s not a motive.
People don’t
want to be
nick, nick, nicked all the time, Jay, but they don’t usually kill folks over it.”

“Maybe there is no reason.
Maybe it’s just random.
Wrong place at the wrong time.
Maybe he was trying to rob her cabin and she caught him.
I like that idea better than a sneaky murderous fiend slinking around the ship, stalking the High Steppers.”

“Jay, Ruth
was a retired schoolteacher, living on a fixed income. She didn’t own anything a random sneak thief would want to steal. She
was in her bed, in the middle of the night, in her own room, minding her own business
,
when she was killed.
That’s not the wrong place at the wrong time.
That’s not random.
That’s targeted.”

“Hey, don’t get all worked up, Sidney.
It’s four a.m.
Turn off the light and go back to sleep.
I’m sorry I woke you, Dick Tracy.
I didn’t mean to get you started.
Quit worrying sweetie, go back to sleep. You need sleep.
Tomorrow we’ll get on the horn and make Itchy fly us all home asap.
Let the cops figure it out.”

Just after dawn I p
ull
ed
on fleece pants and a sweatsh
irt,
left
Jay snoring on the opposite berth,
and went out on deck in search of coffee.

I had decided in the long stretches of the night that
Jay might be right and
as soon as
we reached
the
first port, Oslo, we
would somehow convince Itchy to abort this voyage from hell and get us back to New York
pronto
, even if that meant refunds, something they
hate to
provide
under
any circumstance
s
.
That is, if the authorities would let us go.
It made my head hurt
again just
think
ing of
it.

In the meantime, jolly old Sidney’s job was to keep up everyone’s spirits.

I smelled Dr. Sledge
’s pipe smoke
before I saw him
. H
is sturdy, square body
lean
ed against
the rail
,
his pipe clenched firmly in the corner of his mouth
.
The
few remaining strands of
his
thin reddish hair
were being
ruffled
by
the wind
It wasn’t raining then, but we were in heavy seas. Thick bands of dark clouds filled the sky.

He waved me over.

“Hello, Miss Marsh.
This is fortunate, indeed.
I was just coming to find you
,
and you have saved me the trouble.

“
Hope you don’t mind the pipe,” he
added
,
puffing, obviously
not car
ing
whether I did or not.

“Nasty habit, pipes,” he muttered.
His
pale
blue eyes scanned the
darkening
horizon.

“The captain informed me early this morning that
,
weather permitting, the authorities from Empress Cruise Line
s
w
ill
attempt to board the ship later today by
fast boat or
helicopter to clear this Shadrach thing up.”

“What do you mean, ‘clear this Shadrach thing up?
’
”
I stared at him in sheer amazement.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Don’t you mean, find out who killed her?”
I said.

“
Those are harsh words, Miss Marsh, and we mustn’t jump to conclusions, must we?
”
He
turn
ed
to face me. “
I am only repeating to you what
Captain Vargos told me
early
this morning
.

“
M
y preliminary examination indicates only that Ruth Shadrach died of strangulation.
How she came to be strangled will have to be investigated. Hopefully,
the matter
can all be sorted out before we reach Oslo tomorrow, so the ship won’t be delayed in docking.”

“Dr. Sledge.
Ruth Shadrach was murdered.”

“
Tut, tut, Miss Marsh.
There you go again.
I said that Ruth Shadrach died of
strangulation
, my dear.
Not that she was necessarily murdered.
”

“What!
Of course she was murdered,
you know it!
H
ow can you say anything else?
You of all people! I saw her, Jay saw her, you examined her.
Those knots weren’t tied around her neck by accident.
All it can be is murder.”

He took a long draw on his pipe.

“
I wouldn’t be so eager to promote a charge of murder here if I were you, Miss Marsh,” he said, eyes grim
, pipe clenched firmly between uneven
yellow
teeth
.

“A m
urder on a cruise ship would be a difficult thing for everyone concerned, don’t you think?
Particularly for you and your travel company.
After all, if we’re talking about murder
here
, then you and your group
—
her only companions
—
must be the prime suspects, what?
Good day.”

He tapped his pipe on the rail, put
it
in his pocket, and with a brief nod, strode off down the deck.

“Me and the High Steppers.
Murderers.
That
jackass!
”

For a moment I was blind with rage.
I could barely think, much less speak.

And yet
, I thought, as my brain began to recover,
that is, of course, what they all will think.
As Mrs. Weiss said, no one knew her but us
.

Now what were we
going to do?
This was beyond terrible.
No one had ever
even died on one of my trips before, much less
been murdered
.
But t
hey weren’t going to get away with this and blame it on the High Steppers. I needed a plan, pronto.

I found most of the ladies in the
tea
room at ten o’clock, learning ribbon embroidery.

I’m sure that it seems as strange to you as it did to me that
despite
what had happened
,
life on board would continue fairly normally.
But in fact,
normalcy
was
precisely
the goal of
the ship’s staff
.

The Rapture is a huge ship, carrying 2,367, no, make that 2,366 passengers, most of whom had not only never known Ruth Shadrach, but also were quite unaware that anything had happened to her.

The passengers had not been
informed
of her death, and if Dr. Sledge’s attitude this morning reflected that of the line,
they wouldn’t.
T
he orders from the top must be “business as usual”.

Even given
the circumstances of
poor Ruth’s untimely demise,
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
C
ruise lines go to great lengths to hide anything unpleasant that might spoil the trip for paying customers.

The same thing sometimes happens on ships when a hurricane is in the Caribbean.
Will you be relatively safe?
Yes.
Are your ports suddenly changed? Yes.
Are you
always
told
exactly
why?
No.

The weather
conditions
may be
referenced and a
fairly plausible reason given for the sudden shift in
itinerary,
just not the
alarming
one.
No one wants passengers to panic.

Meanwhile, back at home, your family and friends, frantic with worry after watching The Storm Report hyped on television, are crashing you
r travel agency’s phone lines.

Because of the
misty,
overcast day, I felt sure that
only dedicated deck walkers
were aware that the ship’s speed had slowed considerably
—that
we were now taking a very long time in getting to Oslo. The notices left in the staterooms by the stewards th
at
morning
had been, I thought,
deliberately vague
:
“Mandatory Port Talk with the Captain
—
Broadway
Showroom
—
4:00 p.m.”

I sat there watching my dear little ladies sew, intent on their pretty work,
their tight gr
a
y perms nodding over
heaps of bright
ly
-colored ribbon.
They looked so vulnerable, so good,
steadily
working, chattering away.
Knowing that many of them, including Ruth, had pinched pennies for a long, long time to afford this cruise,
I silently swore that somehow,
someway, I would find the slimy
creep
who had done this to her and to all of us, before things got any worse.

I went to find Jay and
enlist his help
.

I found
Jay
, all right, in the hot tub.
Drunk.
Or at least well on his way,
along
with the magician and two of the dancers from the show.

“Hi, there, sweet Sidney, you little Southern magnolia, you! Come on in, the water’s fiiiiiine!”

“Just what do you think you are doing?” I
snapped
.

“What do you mean, what am I doing, little Miss Church Choir?
I am enjoying myself, that’s what I am doing.”
He shrugged elaborately.

“What about the High Steppers, Jay?
What about Itchy Feet Travel?
What about poor old Ruth Shadrach?”

He took a long sip of his drink, smacked
his lips
, leaned back and closed his eyes.

“Have a
B
loody
M
ary,
Sidney
.
I recommend it.
The
y are
delicious.
Dee-
li
-
cious.
I’ve had several already.