Curse of the Arctic Star (9 page)

Another cameraman was filming the guys in the pool. He glanced over his shoulder at Alan. “You guys’ll be Superstar superstars,” he joked.

I peered at him over my sunglasses. It was Baraz, the one who’d disappeared so abruptly yesterday.

“Okay, how can I say no to that?” Alan peeled off his T-shirt and stood up, tugging up the waistband of his swim trunks.

“Have fun,” Bess said, glancing up from her fashion magazine.

Alan grinned, dropped a quick kiss on top of her
head, then cannonballed into the pool to loud cheers from the other guys. I sat up, dropped the book I’d been pretending to read, and scooted my lounge chair a little closer to my friends. It was a gorgeous afternoon and the pool was busy, but none of the other sunbathers were close enough to overhear us.

“Okay, where were we?” I said briskly.

George looked up from her laptop with a smirk. “You were trying to convince us that an eight-year-old is some kind of criminal mastermind,” she joked.

I smiled. “Okay, I already admitted that one’s a little bit of a stretch,” I reminded her. “So let’s come up with some other ideas.” I’d spent the past half hour stewing over the case while pretending to read my book, so I was ready. “I’m thinking we shouldn’t focus too much on motives right now—it’s just too random. Instead let’s think about opportunity. Who could have done the things that have happened so far?”

“Just about anyone on the ship.” George shrugged. “I mean, we’re all stuck in this floating tin can together. Equal opportunity.”

“Not really.” Bess looked thoughtful. “There weren’t that many people around the mini-golf place this morning. If the bolts on that antler were loose enough to let go just because Alan and I leaned back against the moose’s side, it probably couldn’t have been that way for long, right?”

“Good point.” I thought back to the incident. “Actually, I did notice something weird right after it happened.”

“What? Tobias sneaking around with a monkey wrench?” George teased.

“No. It was when Becca arrived on the scene.”

Bess cocked an eyebrow. “Hang on, you’re not suspecting
Becca
, are you?”

I shook my head. “It’s just that I noticed her giving Hiro a really funny look when she spotted him there.”

“Hiro? You mean that kiddie wrangler guy?” George tugged at the strap of her one-piece swimsuit. “Come to think of it, he totally encouraged us to check out the mini golf, remember?” She grinned. “Hey, while we’re at it, playing mini golf was all Alan’s idea. Maybe
he
did it!”

Bess gave her a sour look. “Very funny.” Then she glanced back at me. “I do remember Hiro being nearby with the kids when we got there. I’m not sure he could’ve sneaked away from them long enough to loosen the bolts, but I guess you never know.”

I nodded. “I’ll have to ask Becca about him when I get a chance. Anybody else we should think about?”

“What about
him
?” George was staring at the action out in the pool.

I followed her gaze. The water volleyball game was in full swing. As Vince spiked the ball over the net, one of the cameramen leaned in to capture the action shot.

“Baraz,” I murmured thoughtfully, watching him. “Yeah, that was kind of weird how he disappeared right after the accident.”

“And that director made it sound like it wasn’t the first time,” George recalled. “What if he was off tossing his monkey wrench overboard?”

“Anything’s possible. But why? What’s his motive?” I sighed, realizing that sentiment was becoming a refrain for this case. I realized something else. “It’s also possible
that the moose thing was just an accident. Like someone said, it’s a brand-new ship. We might have been the very first ones to test out the course. Maybe the screws didn’t get tightened enough and they just let go.”

“That’s probably at least as likely as some eight-year-old supervillain being strong enough to loosen a bunch of bolts,” George said. “Especially when he was supposed to be on a tour with a bunch of other kids and Mr. Nanny at the same time.”

“True. But I’m not ready to totally cross Tobias off the list yet, given what just happened at lunch. Anyway, maybe we should move on to something we
know
wasn’t an accident—namely the mannequin stunt.” I glanced at a lounge chair across the pool, where Lacey was lying on her stomach, watching her new husband and the others. “I think I’ll go ask Lacey a few questions about what she saw.”

I hurried over to her. She squinted up at me when I arrived. “Hi,” Lacey said. “It’s Nancy, right?” She smiled apologetically. “Sorry, there are so many new names to remember!”

“Yeah, it’s Nancy. Hi, Lacey.” I perched on Vince’s empty chair beside hers. “Listen, I was just thinking about what happened yesterday. It kind of gave me the creeps. Maybe we should notify the police. Were you the first person to see that mannequin in the pool?”

“I guess so.” Lacey visibly shuddered. “Vince was with me, of course, but he didn’t notice it at first. It was so horrible! I couldn’t help screaming my head off, even though I felt like an idiot afterward.”

“Nobody thinks you’re an idiot,” I said with a smile. “Did you notice anyone else near the pool at the time? Any kids, maybe?”

Lacey didn’t seem to hear me. She was staring out at the pool toward the spot where the mannequin had been floating. “I’ve had the strangest feeling ever since then,” she said softly, seeming to speak more to herself than to me. “It’s like I’m waiting for the next terrible thing to happen.” She shuddered again. “I’m really beginning to think this whole cruise is cursed!”

I
YAWNED AS I QUIETLY PULLED THE SUITE
door shut behind me. The early wake-up call I’d requested had come right on time, though Max had seemed as chipper and wide awake as ever when he’d knocked on my door. Meanwhile all I’d wanted to do was crawl back into bed, let my head sink into my special buckwheat pillow, and go back to sleep for another hour or two.

But I hadn’t. The ship would be arriving in Ketchikan in a few hours, and I wanted to get some investigating done before then. Or before something else happened.
Thinking back on Lacey’s gloomy prediction yesterday, I couldn’t help shivering a little myself.

It’s a good thing she doesn’t know about the rest of the bad stuff that’s happened,
I thought as I hurried through the silent hallways.
If the passengers find out about all that, it could be a disaster for this ship. Not to mention Superstar Cruises.

I quickly banished the thought. I was going to make sure that didn’t happen. First on the agenda? Talking to Becca. I wanted to ask her about Hiro, and maybe take a look at that threatening e-mail.

I’d already texted Becca to check that she was awake—and alone. When I arrived at her office, she was bent over her laptop at the desk again.

“Hi, Nancy,” she said, sounding tired as she glanced up. “Give me some good news. Did you figure out what’s going on around here?”

“We’re working on it,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “I just need to ask you . . .”

I let my voice trail off as I heard footsteps hurrying along the hallway. Glancing out, I saw a familiar figure
clicking toward me on high-heeled navy pumps.

“Tatjana!” Becca said in surprise as the woman brushed past me into the office. “What’s wrong?”

“Big problems,” Tatjana barked out.

Becca sat up straight, weariness replaced by wariness. “Oh, no. What now?”

“We’re getting tons of reports from levels five through seven,” Tatjana replied. “The passengers have been calling since midnight to complain that their temperature control systems are going haywire. Half the cabins are boiling hot, and the other half are freezing.”

“I’d better go deal with this.” Becca sounded dismayed. She headed for the door, pausing beside me as if belatedly remembering that I was there. “Sorry, Nancy,” she added. “Talk later?”

“Sure.” I turned to follow her out of the room, only to find Tatjana staring at me. Again.

“May I help you?” she asked. “I report directly to Becca. I’m sure I could answer whatever questions you have for her.”

“That’s okay.” I pasted on a bright smile. “It’s nothing important.”

As soon as I was safely out of sight around the corner, my smile faded and I collapsed against the wall. Unless I missed my guess, those haywire heating systems were no accident. Our saboteur had struck again—and the voyage was just getting started. I was no closer to guessing his or her identity.

Chewing my lip, I mentally ran through my suspect list. But it was pathetically short, and some of the people on it were laughable. An eight-year-old boy? Really? Was I that desperate?

I wandered up the stairs to the promenade deck, where many of the ship’s shops were located. Pausing in front of a clothing store, where several expressionless mannequins posed in the window like giant creepy dolls, I flashed back to the pool incident. Unbidden, a chilling question popped into my head:
That body was fake, but what if the next one’s real?

My mind jumped to that ominous note in my suitcase, and then to the moose antler crashing down inches
from me. The latter could be a random accident, maybe, but not the former. Was someone targeting
me
as well as the ship? But how had they found out about me?

The promenade deck was almost deserted at that hour, since most of the shops were still closed. I wandered past one darkened storefront after another as I thought over the suspect list. Hiro was a big question mark. Yes, he’d been around for the moose incident—and the pool one too, come to think of it. And being an employee, he’d have easy access to the mannequins and such, as well as to the heating and cooling system. But what was his motive? Could there be a clue in that weird look Becca had given him? I would have to wait until I talked to her to find out.

Then there was the disappearing cameraman, Baraz. He’d been nearby during the moose incident too. The other members of the camera crew? I had no idea. But I guessed that the crew had nearly unlimited access to the ship. Probably even the “backstage” parts, which meant he could also be involved in that heated argument I’d overheard.

And what about Wendy the blogger? I paused, noticing the ship’s Internet café right across the concourse. Some of her behavior had been sort of suspicious, and she seemed pretty serious about her blog. Was that enough of a motive for her to want to ruin the cruise?

There were lights on in the Internet café, so I walked over and peered in the window, wondering if she could be in there right now, sending off her latest entry. Instead I saw an even more familiar face bent over one of the terminals.

“George!” I called, hurrying inside. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

She glanced up at me with a yawn. “Trust me, it wasn’t my idea,” she said, sounding cranky. “Alan woke me up with all his crashing around in the bathroom. Remind me again why we let him come?”

I ignored that. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Feel like taking a peek at our favorite travel blogger’s work?”

“You mean Wendy the weirdo? Sure.” George’s fingers flew over the keyboard.

Within seconds, Wendy’s Wanderings was up on the screen. The blog’s top entry was titled “Terror on the High Seas.”

“Uh-oh,” I said, shoving George aside so I could perch on the chair with her. “That doesn’t sound good . . . .”

I leaned forward to read. It turned out to be a funny entry about the tarantula incident. Wendy had even done some research, discovering that Tobias and his parents lived in Vancouver, which was why Hazel hadn’t been confiscated by customs agents or noticed at all until yesterday. The boy had hidden the spider’s cage in his suitcase and Hazel herself in his pocket as they boarded, then kept her presence a secret from his parents until she’d appeared on the buffet, telling them he’d left her with a school friend for safekeeping. The way Wendy told it, the whole thing came across as a humorous episode.

“She’s actually not a bad writer,” George said as she read.

“Yeah.” I scrolled down, checking out the next latest few entries. There were about half a dozen so far about the cruise, mostly short ones describing the food, entertainment,
and lodgings. But there was one more that caught my attention: “Blood (Sort of) in the Water.”

“Hey, she wrote about the pool thing,” George said as she spotted it too. “Wow, she even got a picture of the lifeguard dragging the mannequin out of the water!” She leaned closer, peering at the photo. “The blood looks a lot more lifelike in the picture.”

I nodded as I scanned through the entry. This one read more like a news report, describing what had happened and saying that ship employees claimed it was a prank. I winced when I read the last few lines:
But seeing a dead body in the pool—even a fake one—isn’t the best way to start a relaxing cruise to glacier country. More like an epic fail, actually. Is it enough to sink this brand-new cruise line before it leaves the harbor? Only time will tell . . . .

George pointed to the bottom of the entry. “She got a bunch of comments on this one,” she said. “That means a lot of people read it.”