Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101) (15 page)

“This is very serious,” Antonio breathed. “I will report it at once.”

“I'm sure you will,” I said. “What about the staff-access corridors? Are they subject to video surveillance as well?”

Antonio shook his head. “Too expensive,” he said. “The cameras are located in passenger areas only.”

“Too bad,” I told him. “It looks to me as though some of the ship's company is in it for more than just wages and tips. Thanks for the help.”

By then another crewman was standing by to take charge of me and deliver me back to the purser's desk. Once there, I was mystified as to what to do next. I resented the idea of the cruise-ship officers dodging the responsibility for making the official notification to Margaret Featherman's family. Not having to deal with grieving family members is one of the better benefits of being a retired police officer. Nonetheless, since First Officer Vincente had drafted me for the job, I figured I'd better get started.

“Dr. Harrison Featherman's cabin, please,” I said.

This time there was a young woman behind the counter. “If you would please step to a house phone . . .” Before she could go any further into the standard security spiel, my uniformed escort whispered a few discreet words in her ear. She nodded and, without another word, tapped a few swift key strokes into her computer terminal “Of course, Mr. Bowman. Dr. Featherman's suite is on Bahia eight-four-eight.”

My name's Beaumont, not Bowman
, I wanted to growl at her, but I didn't. Instead, I dutifully headed for the elevator lobby and for Dr. Harrison Featherman's stateroom. Official or not, here I was cast in the unpleasant role of bearer of bad tidings. When Margaret went overboard, the
Starfire Breeze
might have been close enough to land for her to swim to safety, but that didn't strike me as a very likely outcome. Vincente wanted me to say Margaret was “missing” only, not “missing and presumed drowned.” But it seemed to me that, after hearing the news, Margaret's relations would be obliged to draw their own conclusions. And maybe, as far as Harrison Featherman was concerned, the loss of a troublesome ex-wife wouldn't be such bad news after all.

Predictably, when I reached Harrison Featherman's cabin, the doctor himself was out. However, the current Mrs. Featherman—the beguiling and exceedingly pregnant Leila—was in. For some reason, the name I couldn't recall the day before when I was looking at the gallery of pictures on the Promenade Deck came back to me now as soon as I heard her voice.

“My husband isn't here just now,” she said, opening the door far enough to peer out at me. “Can I help you?”

“My name is Beaumont,” I said, barely managing to suppress the recently amputated “Detective” part. “J. P. Beaumont.”

“What is this concerning?” Leila asked.

Behind me two couples, returning from shore and laden with bulging shopping bags, came crowding noisily down the corridor. “It's private,” I murmured. “May I come in?”

Leila opened the door and beckoned me into a junior suite that was somewhat larger than mine. On a table in the corner the remains of a solitary lunch awaited the arrival of a Room Service attendant who would eventually come and retrieve the tray. Mrs. Featherman wore a long, flowing caftan made of some kind of gauzy turquoise material that drifted around her as she moved, softening her ungainly, pregnancy-imposed waddle. Motioning me onto the sofa, she used the bedside table for support before taking a seat on the edge of the rumpled bed.

“What's so private?” Leila asked.

“First tell me if you know where your husband is and when he's expected back. My business is really with him.”

“He was planning to go ashore. Since I'm not at my energetic best these days, I decided to stay on the ship. I would have just slowed him down.”

“Slowed him down?” I asked.

Leila nodded. “He was looking for someone,” she said.

“For his former wife—for Margaret?”

Leila nodded again.

“Do you have any idea when he'll be back?”

“We're due to sail soon. I'm sure he'll be back on board before then.”

I knew from reading that morning's
Starfire Courier
that our expected departure from the dock in Juneau was at 6
P.M.
—eighteen hundred hours—with all passengers due back on the ship at least half an hour prior to that.

“He may already be back on board,” Leila continued. “But just because he's on the ship doesn't mean he'll come straight here. We don't eat dinner until the second seating. He likes to spend these pre-dinner hours visiting with some of his fellow physicians. They may be hanging out in one of the bars. They tend to congregate in the cigar lounge. The warnings about smoking and health don't apply to them, you see,” she added with a smile.

Her casual use of irony surprised me. An ironical view of the world usually comes only with advancing age. It's something I would have expected from someone far older than Leila Featherman.

“Wouldn't he call to let you know he was back on board?” I asked.

“We don't find it necessary to keep track of each other's every movement,” she replied. “The two of us don't have that kind of relationship.”

If past behavior is any indication, you probably should
, I thought.

“You still haven't told me what this is about,” Leila pointed out.

“Where was your husband last night between five and six?”

“I have no idea. As I told you before, we're second seating. I run out of energy so easily these days that I decided to get some rest before dinner. I closed off the door between the bedroom and the sitting room, put on my night-blinders, and went to asleep. Harry was here when I went to sleep, and he was here later on, when I woke up. I would imagine he was here the whole time, but I have no way of knowing that for sure. He may very well have nipped out for a smoke. Why?”

While I considered whether or not to tell her, Leila figured it out on her own. Realization spread slowly across her face. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Does this have something to do with Margaret's disappearance?”

Once put that way, there was little point in dodging the issue. I had been sent to deliver the bad news, and so I did—to Leila Featherman rather than to Harrison himself.

“We have reason to believe that Margaret Featherman fell overboard late yesterday afternoon.”

“Overboard,” Leila echoed. “You mean she's dead then?”

“We don't know that for sure,” I said. “It appears that we were fairly close to shore at the time it happened. If she was conscious when she hit the water, she may have managed to swim to safety. Or, barring that, someone may have spotted her and picked her up.”

“But if she'd been found, wouldn't we have heard by now?” Leila asked. “Wouldn't someone have let us know?”

I nodded, and it was true. News stories of daring rescues at sea are usually blared around the world within a matter of minutes.

Leila's hand went to her mouth. “Margaret dead,” she repeated. “It's hard to believe.”

“Remember,” I cautioned. “At this point, we're not positive she's dead.”

Leila sighed. “Personally, I can't say that I'm sorry. But this is going to be tough on Harry. Very tough. And on Chloe, too, especially after the big scene at dinner the other night. Have you spoken to her?”

“To Chloe? No, I came looking for Dr. Featherman first.”

“Well, she's right next door,” Leila said. With the help of the table, Leila pushed herself to her feet. “I'm sure she'll want to know what's happened. Wait here while I go get her.”

Leaving the cabin door propped open with the dead bolt, Leila went out into the corridor. I heard a knock, followed by the unintelligible exchange of murmuring voices. Moments later, Leila and Chloe came into the room where I was. Seeing the two young women together, it was difficult to imagine how one could be the other's stepmother.

Chloe came straight to where I sat and stared down at me in wide-eyed disbelief. I thought she'd recognize me as one of the people who had been seated at her mother's table two nights earlier, but there was no visible sign of recognition.

“You say my mother is dead?” she demanded. Her skin was flushed. Her breath came in short hard gasps, as though she'd just finished running the thousand-yard dash.

“As I told Mrs. Featherman, your mother is missing. We don't know for sure that she's dead. From the point where she went overboard, it's possible she could have made it to shore safely.”

“But how can you know where that was?”

“Because we know the exact time she went into the water, and the ship's GPS—global positioning system—keeps track of where the ship is at any given time. The Coast Guard has been notified and is launching search-and-rescue missions toward Port Walter, your mother's last-known position. If she's still alive, they'll find her.”

“What if she's dead?”

“They'll find her then, too. It's entirely possible that she'll wash up on shore.”

“From the middle of the ocean?”

“As I said, we weren't in the middle of the ocean,” I responded. “We were near land. It was after we entered Chatham Strait and while the ship had slowed to whale-watch. Was your mother a swimmer?”

Chloe nodded. “She swam very well. She did two miles every morning in the lap pool at her condo.”

If Margaret was a two-mile-a-day swimmer, that made it more likely that she might possibly have made it to shore. “Well, then,” I said. “Let's hope for the best. To me it didn't look all that far.”

“You're saying you saw it happen?” Chloe demanded. “Were you there?”

“No, I wasn't. Your mother's fall was captured on film by the ship's security camera. I've just come from seeing the video.”

“And you're sure it was Mother?” Chloe asked.

“I'm sure,” I said.

Chloe paled. Reaching out, she grasped Leila's arm and allowed herself to be guided over to the bed. “If she fell off the ship, she must be dead,” Chloe whispered. “But I can hardly believe it's true, that something like this could happen. It sounds like a terrible practical joke.”

“It's no joke, Chloe,” Leila said gently. “The first officer sent Mr. Beaumont to tell us. To tell your father, really. But since Harry wasn't here, I thought you'd want to know about it right away.”

I had seen Chloe Featherman two nights earlier with her eyes narrowed in fury, trying to stare down her mother. Now, for a brief period at least, Chloe Featherman managed to achieve the look of a grieving daughter. She spent the next several minutes weeping inconsolably while Leila Featherman held her and comforted her as best she could. At last, Chloe quit crying long enough to take a ragged breath.

“Tell me again,” she managed. “When did it happen and how?”

“We don't know the how of it,” I told her. “Not yet, at least. There'll be an official investigation, of course. We do know when it happened. There's a time stamp on the security camera film that gives the exact moment. She went overboard late yesterday afternoon—at seventeen forty-seven.”

“What time is that in real time?” Chloe asked.

“Five forty-seven
P.M.
” I said.

“Was there a note?”

“A note?”

“A suicide note.”

It hadn't occurred to me that Margaret Featherman was suicidal. Mean as hell, but not suicidal. People intent on killing themselves generally look for privacy. They don't knock themselves off while visitors are popping in and out of the room. And I've never yet known a suicide who donned a layer of duct tape before pulling the trigger or driving into a bridge abutment. But suicide was Chloe's first assumption, and I was kind enough to let her keep it for the time being. Besides, when it came time for a wholesale homicide investigation, use of that duct tape might well be a detail the FBI would want to keep as a holdback.

What followed was an astonishing transformation in Chloe Featherman's demeanor. Her tears dried up as abruptly as if she had turned off a faucet. Pallor was replaced by flush as uncompromising anger displaced Chloe's initial spate of grief.

“That bitch!” she exclaimed. “That incredible bitch! Mother's gone and killed herself, and what better place could she have chosen than on a cruise ship where my father is involved in a major conference? Just think of the audience—some of Dad's most prestigious colleagues, noted neurologists from all across the nation. Think of the headlines that'll grab! And when better to do it than when Dad is on the verge of nailing down a stupendous grant? There's bound to be a scandal after that kind of thing, and everybody in the business knows that people who write checks for grants are scared to death of scandals. They're petrified of even the whiff of a scandal.

“Now that I think about it, the whole thing makes perfect sense. It's exactly the kind of stunt Mother would pull. She hates Dad so much that she'd do anything to hurt him, to discredit him. After all, that's why she came on this ship in the first place. She was looking for anything she could find that would make the grant proposal blow up in Dad's face.”

“Come on, Chloe,” Leila Featherman said gently. “I'm sure you don't mean that.”

That one kind remark was enough to make Chloe turn the full force of her anger on Leila. “Don't you start, too. I'd have thought you'd be the last person to jump to Mother's defense.”

“If she's dead, she's dead, Chloe,” Leila responded patiently. “I can't imagine that she would do such a terrible thing just to spite your father. Yes, I know Margaret was a troubled person, but she wasn't crazy. I don't believe even she would go to such lengths just to mess up one of your father's business deals.”

“You may not be able to imagine it, but I can,” Chloe returned grimly. “She's my mother. I happen to know her a whole lot better than you do. Where's Dad?”