Death of an Aegean Queen (13 page)

I left them and took the stairs down three levels to the stern of the Poseidon Deck. This was where Lettie and Ollie had been heading last night for music and dancing in the area around the pool. The deck was abandoned now, so I grabbed a chair and, looking up, saw Kathryn and Nigel still sitting where I had left them. The pool area was open to the sky because the top three decks only went back part way. I moved to a chair that was closer to the bulkhead until I could see none of the upper deck, so Kathryn and Nigel wouldn’t think I was watching them.

I hoped Ollie and Lettie had had a fun evening. Poor Ollie. This was the first vacation he’d had in ages, the first time he’d ever been out of the States, and here he was, a murder suspect. I didn’t need to waste a single minute wondering if he was guilty. The very idea was ludicrous.

I wanted to know more about Leclercq and Stone, the other suspects. Why were they so anxious to get their hands on that krater of Brittany Benson’s? Why had they been so hospitable in offering their suite for a poker game with two total strangers? Ollie said they had been generous with the drinks and they had the poker table all set up when they got there.

Antiquities. That’s what Leclercq was shopping for, wasn’t it? Funny how this was becoming a recurring theme. Leclercq, looking for ancient Greek relics to furnish a client’s new home. Stone, an antiques expert. Luc Girard, world-renowned archaeologist and authority on antiquities. Sophie Antonakos, poor girl from central Greece who, nevertheless, can pick up an antique diadem and immediately spout a scholarly discourse on it. Brittany Benson, showgirl from America, who runs around Mykonos hugging a prize antique krater.

And the
Aegean Queen
, cruise ship with a theme. It flaunted genuine antiquities in showcases all over the ship.

Okay, but was any of that connected to the murders of George Gaskill and Nikos Papadakos, our late photographer? Were the two murders connected to each other? I thought about it for a while and decided I needed to talk to my son, Charlie.

* * * * *

Charlie, my next-to-eldest, was principal of a high school in northern Virginia, a most trustworthy boy and an absolute straight arrow. I knew I’d have to word my request carefully because Charlie wouldn’t violate the law or even bend the rules, and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what I wanted him to do was ethical. Or legal.

I couldn’t call him now because back home it was three a.m. but I recalled passing a sort of computer room on my way out. An Internet café. It had been closed when I walked past, but now my watch said 9:05 so I decided to check again and, lucky me, it was just opening. A woman behind a desk surrounded by computer stations explained the rates to me but they all sounded expensive. You paid by the minute to access the Internet from one of their computers, and she warned me that pages took some time to download. Assuming I’d have to mess around a good bit before I managed to even get into my own email, I could see this costing a bundle.

Then she made me a more reasonable offer. For a few dollars (added to my bill) I could send one email to one address. If I got a reply, it would cost me a few dollars more. I sat down with pencil and paper to compose my message to Charlie.

Meanwhile a large woman with an American accent barged in and asked about using a computer. She looked like the woman who’d been batting her eyelashes at Marco last evening in the lounge. The attendant explained things to her, reciting the same spiel she’d given me.

“Why is it so slow?” the American woman groused. “Don’t you have cable?”

“Oh yes, madam,” the attendant answered with a straight face. “But it’s a very long cable. Goes all the way back to Athens. It’s elastic.”

The woman stomped out, and I sent my message to Charlie’s email box at work:

Hi Charlie,

We’re having a great time, but I have something I want you to do for me. Find out all you can about a man named George Gaskill. He was principal of a school in Pennsylvania about ten years ago. I know it’s not much to go on, but you could maybe pretend you’re thinking about hiring him. If you find the right George Gaskill, they’ll tell you not to hire him because he’s a registered sex offender, but go on anyway and find out all you can.

Also, find out about a former student, Brittany Benson, who attended the school at which Gaskill was principal and who was complainant in a court case charging him with sexual abuse. I’m not making this up! I know students’ records are sealed and employees’ records are confidential, but I’ll bet you can find a way. You could check court records, news coverage, and stuff like that.

Also, Brittany Benson was a cheerleader and George Gaskill now lives in Elkhart, Indiana, and he works at a used-car place. This is important, Charlie, otherwise I wouldn’t ask.

Love, Mom

* * * * *

I left the Internet café and took the stairs down to the Osgoods’ room. Lettie was there but Ollie, she told me, had been called to the security office by Special Agent Bondurant.

“Marco called a while ago,” Lettie added, “looking for you. He said to tell you to come to his room.”

I noticed Lettie had pulled out one of the dresser drawers and one of the sofa cushions. Both were on the bed now, the squarish cushion crammed inside the drawer. As she was talking, she yanked two huge mesh bags full of sponges out of the closet, an avalanche of shoes following in their wake.

“I’m afraid to ask,” I said.

“I’ve figured out how to get these silly things back home without going over on the number of bags they allow you to take on the plane. Watch.” Lettie held up a couple of large space-saver bags. “I brought these in case we needed more room in our luggage, and guess what? We do.”

She stuffed one bag with sponges and ran her fingers across the open end. “These have a special seal so you can squeeze air out but it can’t go back in. Sponges are mostly air, so . . .” She put the full bag on the bed, put the drawer with the cushion inside on top of it, and sat on the cushion. Sat hard and bounced a few times. Air hissed out from under the drawer. When she stood up and lifted the drawer, I saw the vacuum bag was flatter, but not by much.

“They’re too stiff, Lettie. A sponge has to be wet to be squishable.”

“But I can’t take wet sponges on the plane. Oh, hell.” She stood, staring at the problem with her left fist poised thoughtfully under her chin, then snapped her fingers and took one sponge into the bathroom.

I heard water running.

“Ta da! Look.” Lettie returned, holding out two fists. “Pick a hand.”

They looked the same. I felt ridiculous but I pointed to a random hand.

She opened both of them anyway, and a sponge ballooned out of her right hand. The left one, of course, was empty. “They don’t have to be really wet. Just damp. See?” She snapped the sponge downward so if there had been any extra water in it a spray would’ve streaked across the carpet. “I wet it and wrung it out in a towel. When they’re damp, you can squeeze them down to nothing.”

“So what are you going to do? Wet all of them?”

“Yep. And wrap them all in big towels and get as much water out as possible, then I can squash them really flat!”

“I’d better go see Marco,” I said.

* * * * *

Marco opened the door and, without a word, turned and walked back into his bathroom. I closed the door and stood awkwardly in the middle of his bedroom, enjoying the man-smell of aftershave and soap. Except for the brush and towel on his bed, his room was neat. I’d wondered if Marco was a neat freak or a slob, and here was my answer. Neat. On his desk lay a small, clear tube with cotton stuffed into the open end. Without touching it, I bent over and looked closely. The cotton swab I’d given him yesterday lay inside the tube, the cotton on one end stained a dark red-brown.

“Is this a sample of the blood from that pool on the deck?” I called out, loudly enough that he could hear me over the noise of water running in the sink.

“Yes. Do not touch it.”

“Why did you put cotton in one end?”

No answer. I was getting the silent treatment. I looked at the tube again and recognized it as a complimentary shampoo vial. I had two in my room, one with shampoo, one with conditioner. Police, I knew, had special containers for storing collected samples but obviously Marco hadn’t brought any with him so he’d improvised.

He emerged from the bathroom swiping his face with a hand towel and shot me a cold look. “I put the cotton in to keep dust out. I did not want to put the cap back on because the tube is not sterile and sealing it with moisture inside would make the bacteria grow.”

“Marco, I’m sorry I didn’t go to the bar last night. Did you get my message?”

“Yes. It is okay.” But his voice was still cold. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

I said I had, but I’d sit with him and have a second cup of coffee while he ate. I stopped off at my room on our way to the stairs and picked up the LAMBDA book Dr. Girard had let me borrow. At the showcase on the stairway landing, we paused to look at the Cycladic fertility figure and I flipped through the book. “They’re all so similar, these little marble women,” I said. “But I don’t see anything in the book that looks exactly like this one.”

“That is good.”

While Marco waited for his breakfast to be brought to the table, he studied the LAMBDA book. Whether because he was interested in the stolen Greek antiquities or because he didn’t want to talk to me, I couldn’t say. His croissant and fruit arrived and he finally looked at me and smiled. My heart did a little bounce.

“Special Agent Bondurant, the man from the FBI grabbed Brittany Benson as soon as she finished her performance last night,” he said.

“Were you with him when he did?”

“No, I was in the bar. Waiting for you.”

Oops. I asked for that.

“Brittany says she went straight to her room after their show the night Gaskill was killed. Sophie, her roommate, was with her the whole time. They talked for a while and went to sleep. Sophie backs her up on this.”

“I guess that’s that.” I tasted my coffee and added a blip of cream. “Wait a minute. I saw Brittany at three a.m! On the promenade deck, you know, the one running all the way around.”

“You need to tell this to Bondurant. Was she alone?”

“No, she was with Sophie. I know it was Sophie, because I recognized her as the girl who had fallen on her face when she ran on stage.”

“Did you talk to them?”

“No. I should’ve asked them if they’d seen anyone, but I suppose I was too preoccupied with finding George myself.”

Marco and I decided to meet again when the boat dropped anchor in Patmos harbor, and then we left the restaurant in search of Bondurant. We found him in Security Chief Letsos’s office, poring over the contents of a three-ring notebook.

Marco introduced me to the FBI special agent and I told him my story. He dropped his notebook on the floor and listened, his legs stretched out casually and crossed at the ankles.

Bondurant heard me out, then asked, “What were they wearing? Were they still in costume?”

I had to really think about it. I wished Lettie had been with me because, with her near-photographic memory, she could have described everything they had on, right down to their shoes. “No, they weren’t. They were wearing bathrobes.”

“Bathrobes?”

“Yes. It didn’t strike me as odd at the time. All I was thinking about was finding George Gaskill.”

“Were they wearing shoes?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did they see you?”

“I don’t know.”

Bondurant turned to Marco and said, “We took that sample of hair to Kathryn Gaskill a few minutes ago. She positively identified it as her husband’s hairpiece.”