Bon Bon Voyage (14 page)

“Did she arrive on board while we were gone?” I asked eagerly.

Mr. Hartwig sighed and shook his head. “I'm afraid we haven't heard from her.”

“Then you must call the authorities in Tangier and have them institute a search. Surely there's an American embassy or consulate that can—”

“Ma'am, if Mrs. Gross doesn't want to rejoin the ship, that's her right. My investigation tells me that she was not happy with the cruise. Or she may have decided to meet us in Casablanca, which is her right.”

“But what if she's been kidnapped, or she's ill and not receiving proper treatment in Morocco?”

His lips compressed. “Or she's planning to sue us for leaving her behind and for other imagined deficiencies in our service. The truth is, Mrs. Blue, that your friend has a record of inveigling money, unpaid services, and entire free cruises from other cruise lines by—”

“You put her off, didn't you?” I cried. “You considered her a troublemaker or even a mutineer and told her she couldn't reboard. I've heard that cruise lines do that. There's a story about a man who was trying to organize a boycott of the bars on board a cruise ship because of the high prices, and the ship's officers—”

“We did not put Mrs. Gross off at Tangier,” Mr. Hartwig snapped, either his patience with me at an end or, more likely, his anger taking over when I put my finger on what had happened to Mrs. Gross. He turned away and left me standing there, discouraged because her fate was now back in my hands.

20

Owen Griffith asked to join me at lunch. Naturally, I agreed, eager to tell him the bad news about Mrs. Gross and my suspicions that she might have been told to leave the ship at Tangier. He thought that possible, in which case, there was nothing we could do for her, although she might have herself a nice case against the cruise line, which could be just what she wanted. “Maybe cruising and putting one over on the cruise lines is her hobby,” he suggested. “Sounds like good fun, doesn't it?”

I didn't think so. Furthermore, I suggested that he wasn't taking the problem seriously enough. He grinned at me and said, “Oh, I'm fascinated, but we'll have to wait for Casablanca to see if she shows up there. In the meantime, have you met a couple named Crossways? Bloody fascinating people.”

Mr. Griffith seemed to feel everyone was fascinating, including me—fascinating, but not to be taken seriously. “They're adjunct professors at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography,” I informed him frostily, after which I finished my lobster pasta, which I'd ordered to please our sweet steward, and asked about the desserts that were available. I felt a great need for a nice dessert to cheer me up after the stress of finding out that Mrs. Gross was still missing and that no one seemed to be in a hurry to find her. I told the waiter that I'd have a double portion of chocolate mousse cake. Just this once I'd eschew my duty to order something I'd never tasted and eat something I knew would make me happy.

“Adjunct professors? Not likely,” said Mr. Griffith. “What do you want to bet?” I told him I didn't gamble. “Fine, but we'll still check it out. My take on those two is that they're SOTS.”

“They haven't indulged in any excessive drinking that I've noticed,” I replied. “You drink a lot more than the Crossways do. Do you consider yourself a sot?”

Mr. Griffith laughed heartily and admitted that some people might consider him a sot, but he certainly wasn't a member of SOTS, which was the acronym for Saviors of the Seas. “They cruise to catch the lines dumping prohibited stuff into the water and then make reports to environmental agencies. The lines hate them.”

I immediately saw how this might apply to the disappearance of Mrs. Gross. “Goodness, if you're right, Mrs. Gross may have caught them investigating and threatened to turn them in.”

“Interesting theory, love. Let's check them out.”

“Maybe they kept her from getting on the boat, or even injured her,” I suggested over my cake, which had already effected a lifting of my spirits. After dessert, I accompanied Mr. Griffith to the computer room, where we accessed the Web site of the oceanographic institute. His guess was quite correct. The Crosswayses were not listed as adjunct professors or anything else. What if they'd killed her?

Again insisting that I call him Owen, he suggested that we track the Crosswayses down and question them. A good idea, I thought, especially since he'd be along to protect me in case they turned out to be murderers. I postulated that a thriller writer might know all sorts of hand-to-hand combat techniques, not to mention the obvious fact that he was a somewhat burly man. Next, he suggested that we check out the exercise room, because the Crosswayses struck him as the kind of people who would exercise regularly. We checked, they weren't there, and somehow or other I found myself trying out one of the treadmills that faced the sea. I could look right back at Gibraltar from the machine, a spectacular sight, so the experience was rather nice as long as the machine was set on slow.

However, we never did find the Crosswayses. Instead Mr.—Owen urged me to speed the machine up to see how I liked it. I was not enthusiastic, but since he was on the treadmill beside me egging me on and I didn't want to seem lacking in a spirit of adventure, I gave the lever a push, and the mat began to race under my feet. Naturally, I shrieked in terror and fell off. Owen hopped off his treadmill without mishap and tried to help me up. Then an attendant rushed over to check on my well-being and offered me twenty free minutes in the white health capsule. I just wanted to go back to my suite and nurse my bruises, which I did. I did not, however, cry, although I felt like it. Falling off a racing treadmill is very painful.

Evidently some guy lured Carolyn onto a treadmill and damn near killed her. I lent her some of my capsaicin cream to rub in where it hurt and helped her into bed while she muttered about someone named Crossways being the undercover killer of Mrs. Gross. I figured she just needed some sleep, so I didn't wake her up until dinnertime.

Dinner was great, as usual, but we got some bad news over the loudspeaker system. At least Carolyn thought it was bad news. We wouldn't be stopping at Casablanca because there were fundamentalists rioting there, and the State Department had warned Americans off. Instead, we were heading for the Canary Islands, and if things calmed down, maybe we could stop at Casablanca on the way back. Fine with me. As soon as I heard I'd have to take my shoes off to get into this mosque Carolyn was so crazy to see, I lost interest in Casablanca. My first night barefoot on the boat was enough for me. I could just imagine a bunch of American-hating Arabs stepping on my toes to get even for me visiting their mosque.

Carolyn took the news badly. She really wanted to see the mosque, even if she had to take off her shoes. After all, she said, they had carpets all over the place. Arabs and Persians were famous for their carpets, which meant, I figured, that she wanted to buy herself a carpet in Casablanca. And then there was Mrs. Gross, who was still missing. If Mrs. Gross was figuring on catching the boat at Casablanca, what was she going to do? Carolyn wanted to know. On the other hand, if the woman wasn't getting on at Casablanca, she was probably dead—put off the boat by the cruise line or killed by this Crossways or a taxi driver.

Harriet Barber thought the last was likely because she and her husband had been warned about cab drivers when they visited Russia. Carolyn nodded vigorously over her first dessert. She'd heard about Russian cab drivers. Harriet said she'd taken care of that by photographing their driver with her cell phone and sending his picture to the hotel in case they didn't get back on time. Smart woman, Harriet. I had to like her because she'd pitched in and sat on the Barbary ape so I could handcuff him.

The other interesting thing that happened at dinner was between Barney and Vera. Marshand, the cereal guy, got on Vera's case because she was bitching about all the male stewards with not enough females to balance them off. That's when Barney said to Marshand, “I have to say, Greg, that I like a smart, assertive woman who knows her mind and speaks it—a woman who can take care of herself.”

Vera gave him a nod and said, “Well, I like a man who doesn't try to comb his hair over a bald spot, which everybody knows looks ridiculous.” The point of this was that Barney had a bald spot, but what hair he had left was buzz cut, military fashion. No comb-overs for him. Marshand tried the comb-over, but it didn't work and looked stupid. I wondered if Vera and Barney were sleeping together. And if they were, how Carolyn would react if she tumbled to it. Although I thought about asking her, just for the hell of it, she took off after her second dessert and only turned up a couple of hours later, really excited.

“Guess what the man from Silicon Valley, Mr. Killington, just found out for me? Mrs. Gross never left the ship at all in Tangier. Someone hacked into the computer and made it look like she'd checked off the ship, but the entry was put in the night
before
we got to Tangier.”

“How did the Silicon Valley guy find that out? And what's with his ponytail?”

“It's probably the style in Silicon Valley. I've heard they don't even wear suits to work, although some of those companies are worth billions, and their people earn lots and lots of money. Mr. Killington—John, I think—is an executive, but when I asked if he could find out for me, he was so excited. He said, ‘You mean hack into their system? Sure, I can. It'll be like the old days in college,' and I could hardly keep up with him when he headed for the computer room. It didn't take him that long, and while I waited for him to finish, I went online myself and ordered a pair of stained-glass dresser lamps from the Smithsonian site. They look like something that architect—from the prairie school—might have designed. What is his name? Ah! Frank Lloyd Wright. Anyway, the point is, if she didn't get off the boat, where is she?” Carolyn asked triumphantly.

“Good question,” I had to agree, although I didn't want to think about it just then because my knees were aching from hiking around the ship with Dr. Beau. He kept telling me that exercise was good for what ailed me. Maybe, but after all, Beau was a pathologist. I wasn't dead yet, so what did he know?

“So ve're here,” said Froder. “Meeting so often is not gut idea. Look vat happened last time. So vat's the problem?”

“You mean besides the fact that I can't get in touch with the helicopter pilots because the fuckin' fundamentalists are keeping us from docking in Casablanca?” Hartwig snarled.

“I can put you in touch with them if they're online,” Patrick offered.

“And leave footprints in the computer. Not unless we have to.”

“Then, what?” asked Hanna.

“Gross. Patek, why the hell did you have to kill the woman? There's this food columnist the line gave a free ride in return for publicity. She's chasing me around insisting that I call the consulate in Morocco to send out people looking for Gross. She even accused me of putting Gross off the boat at Tangier for causing trouble.”

“I take care of her,” said Patek. “What name?”

“Leave her alone,” Hartwig retorted. “For now.”

21

I had slept badly in my room on the great plains of Canada, but I collected myself and gave an admirable paper, “A Theoretical Process for Using Toxic Mine Tailings,” which was well received by my colleagues and prompted lively discussion. Having finished what
had
to be accomplished at the meeting, I resigned myself to doing something about my disgruntled wife, although I knew my plan was going to prove costly and time-consuming. First, I made a long-distance call to the cruise line to get her itinerary, dates and places, and permission to join her on the boat in time for Mother's Day, if that could be arranged.

After increasingly long waits, which were costing me staggering international long-distance fees, the person taking my call said that there were already three people in my wife's suite, a situation that made it unlikely that there would be room for me. Irritated and anxious to get to lunch, I informed the woman that she was mistaken; the only person in the suite with my wife was my mother.

“Well, you're wrong,” she said, “although for some reason I don't have the other name. Still, we seem to have lost a passenger. If she doesn't catch up with the ship soon, I suppose you and Mrs. Blue could use that cabin, but unfortunately, you'll have to pay for the added accommodations. I see here that Mrs. Blue is sailing as a complimentary passenger and that the line has already agreed to add two other people to her status. I really have to say that one more would be asking too much of the company.”

“Don't worry about it,” I snapped. “There'll be a bed for me in the suite. Now where can I fly to get onto the ship before Mother's Day?”

“Ummm,” said the woman, whose name was Rhonda. “Well, you've waited a bit late to do this. I'd have suggested Casablanca, but we don't know that they'll be able to dock there. The first attempt had to be passed up because of the rioting.”

“Rioting?” I felt like clutching my head and groaning. “My wife was caught in rioting?”

“Not that I know of,” said Rhonda patiently. “The
Bountiful Feast
changed its itinerary and headed for the Canaries instead, hoping to stop at Casablanca on the way back to the Mediterranean, but only if it's safe. We do
not
let passengers disembark at ports about which the State Department has issued warnings.”