Hula Done It? (22 page)

"Not so fast," Nana said, seizing her tail as if it were the end of a tug-of-war rope. "Sneezy! Dopey! Lucille!"

Jennifer shot a glance behind her shoulder as her forward motion suddenly switched to a backward slide across the deck, compliments of three dwarfs and a pig.

"That's my granddaughter," Nana scolded Jennifer. "So we're not gonna make no waves. Understand?"

"Let go my tail!" Jennifer twisted her body around, swatting at Sneezy and Dopey. "So help me, Granny, when I get my paws on you, I'll --" THUNK!
BOOM
.

Snow White stood over Catwoman's body, all satisfied smiles and innocence. "Whoops. My walking stick must have slipped."

The green Crayola elbowed the brown one. "Help me out here. Are those guys dwarfs or elves?"

"Step away from her body!" Smoker snarled at the dwarfs. "Nice and slow. That's it. Now, everyone over to the port side of the boat."

People shuffled left. People shuffled right. The undecideds stood in the center aisle looking desperately confused.

"TO THE LEFT!" Smoker bellowed.

Everyone shuffled left while Jonathan rolled around on the floor like an upended tortoise.

"I'll save you, Emily!" he vowed as he tried to get his legs beneath himself. "Any minute now!"

Nana raised her hand. "Excuse me, Professor, but I seen on a Travel Channel special where too many people crowded onto one side of a boat wasn't a good idea, on account a it could make the boat capsize and sink."

"I'll make a note of that, Mrs. Sippel." He exerted pressure on my throat as he wrenched me into the aisle. "Anything else?"

Nana gave her mushroom cap hat a little scratch. "I can't figure somethin' out. If you're still alive, who was it what got throwed over the side?"

"No one!" I croaked within his hammerlock. "It was a sham! He --!" I gasped in panic as he tightened the circle of his arm.

"No one died?" Nana enthused. "Did you hear that, Emily? Isn't that nice?"

"You're a thief, sir," Tilly accused. "What have you done with my journal?"

"And a sweeter journal I have never seen, Professor Hovick. You're going to make me a very rich man. Thank you for the windfall. Where would we be without the unmitigated trust of Midwesterners like you? No need to worry about the book's whereabouts; it's safe. In a place where you'll never find it, I might add. Can you believe the damned thing was authentic?"

I squirmed futilely in his grip, nearly breaking out in song when Darth Vader swept menacingly into the cabin, boots pounding, cloak flying. Thank God! Duncan would know what to do. Duncan wouldn't let my neck be snapped like a twig. Duncan would --

"If you'll kindly join the others," Smoker instructed calmly, "I won't be forced to break this young woman's neck."

Duncan joined the rest of the group without a word of protest. A little disappointing, considering he could have protested in
five freaking languages!
On the up side, at least Smoker hadn't called me ma'am.

"Hold on, Emily," Jonathan wailed, his feet flopping around like fish. "I've almost mastered it."

Smoker made a point of kicking Jonathan's stalk as he steered me around him. "Who would have thought that a lowlife like Griffin Ring could change my fortunes so radically two centuries later? Finding his journal was like winning the lottery."

"I won the lottery," Nana piped up. "If you let Emily go, I'll write you a check. I got twelve million."

"Twelve million?" said Dopey. "Last time I heard it was eight."

"Tech stocks," she explained. "I made a killin' before I bailed."

Tilly's expression hardened. "Since you have the journal, Professor, I assume you also have the treasure?"

"A logical assumption. You were quite lucky to uncover it the way you did. I was absolutely certain it was buried somewhere on the grounds of the Secret Falls; that's why I scavenged the place on my own after all of you cleared out. Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea, and much to his detriment, he recognized me." He jerked my body around in the direction of Nils and Gjurd. "Sorry about your companion, gentleman, but it couldn't be helped. Prime example of wrong place, wrong time."

Nils seemed to expand to twice his size. "It was
you
who killed Ansgar?" His voice thundered like that of the Great Oz.

"Not my fault. He forced my hand."

Color stained Nils's cheeks. "You killed him? You stole his wallet? You boarded the ship using his identification?"

Smoker nodded. "It couldn't have worked out better if I'd planned it myself."

Roaring in anguish, Nils hurled his trident through the air, scoring a direct hit in the center of Smoker's forehead -- a blow that could have killed him if we'd been talking steel instead of styrofoam.

Smoker kicked the trident out of the way as Tilly's voice grew more stern. "You forced your way into my cabin last night and stole the puzzle box."

His manner grew short, his calm rapidly deteriorating. "Aren't you the academic genius? Thanks for leaving it in the open the way you did. You made my job much easier. Ransacking a cabin isn't my idea of fun."

My eyelids flew up into my head at his admission. Smoker was the one who'd stolen the treasure from Nana's cabin?
Smoker
was the one who'd shot pepper spray into my face?
Smoker was the one who'd slammed me into the wall?
SMOKER WAS THE ONE WHO WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING TO NANA IF SHE'D ANSWERED THE DOOR?

I inhaled a deep breath, clearing my mind, expanding my lungs, energizing my will, igniting a hot, inner fire that turned me into the justice seeking Amazon known as WONDER WOMAN!

"AAARH!" I screamed, hammering my boot heel into the instep of his sandaled foot. He yowled in pain, dropping his arm from around my throat to hop backward on one foot. I spun around and slammed my palm upward into his nose. CLONK! I dropkicked his kneecap. THUNK! He stumbled backward over Jonathan, falling onto his fat suit in an awkward heap.

"I've got him!" cried Jonathan, rolling on top of him like a giant rolling pin.

I pivoted on my heel. "Grab Bail --"

She was smiling at me from the far end of the aisle, a can of pepper spray in each hand, fingers on the nozzles. "You are
such
a pain," she said patiently. "Get the broccoli off Dori, then step aside."

NUTS! Would nobody give me a break here?

"You've got some good moves for an escort," she said begrudingly. "Self-defense lessons?"

"It's the costume," I said, panting. I stood my ground, matching her stare for stare. "You fell in love with the wrong man, Bailey."

"Says you. I know he's the right man."

"He's slept with half the student population of Penn State!"

"So? He's a man. He has needs."

"Does he need condoms?" Nana interjected. "Margi's got extra."

I shook my head. "So if he was sleeping with the immediate world, why keep your relationship with him a secret? What difference would it make to anyone?"

Bailey stared at me as if I'd suddenly sprouted a spare head. "Hel-looo? I can't afford to have any hint of scandal appear in my personal records. I want to teach in the Ivy League! You think I'd stand a snowball's chance in hell if word got out that I was shagging my major professor? If I don't maintain the appearance of being intellectually superior and morally upright, I end up at East Podunk University with all the other academic losers. Do I strike you as the kind of person who'd let that happen?"

"I've heard a East Podunk," said Nana. "Where's that at? New Jersey?"

Bailey threw an irritated look at Nana and Tilly before circling back to me. "You put two and two together, didn't you? Dori thought he was being so clever by giving me that necklace. No one ever made the connection. He loved it that we were pulling the wool over everyone's eyes."

I shrugged. "People in Pennsylvania might say rowboat, or fishing boat, or dinghy, but in the land of ten thousand lakes where my grampa lived, a lot of people say
dory
. So if you're wearing a fourteen-karat gold
dory
around your neck, and the people in Professor Smoker's inner circle are the only ones allowed to call him by his pet name, I'm thinking that makes you about as inner circle as they come."

She smiled with quiet respect.
"Touche."
Nils hedged slightly toward her.
Pssssssst!
She blasted him with her pepper spray.

"Uff da!"
he cried in a spate of rabid Norwegian, driving his fists into his eyes. I winced in sympathy.

"Anyone else?" she offered. "There's plenty where that came from."

"Nice job playing the aggrieved graduate student," I complimented her.

"Thanks. I minored in theater as an undergrad."

"So how was this supposed to work?" I prodded. "Smoker dies, then the two of you rendezvous on some remote Carribean island where you divide the proceeds from the sale of the journal and treasure?" I tried not to react as Darth Vader materialized by the men's head behind her. Wait a minute. Darth was already there. I shifted my gaze from the evil lord on my right to the one standing straight ahead.
Holy crap
. There were two of them?

"Orkney Islands," Bailey corrected. "Not so much tourism there. A change of identity for Dori. A fake passport. It was rather an ingenious plan, considering how quickly we had to hatch it. Dori gets to escape the censure of school administration for his sexual practices, and I get to spend the rest of my life with a man who has placed me in the center of his universe."

"You and everyone else," I fired at her. "Not to mention, he killed a man!"

"That wasn't part of the plan. What do you want me to do? He said he was sorry! Look, enough with the chitchat. Help him onto his feet. We have a boat we need to sink."

Halfway up the aisle, Jennifer French stirred back into consciousness, coiled her body around to regard Bailey, and before I could blink, charged at her like an offensive tackle.

"EHH!" cried Bailey, as the pepper spray flew out of her hands and rolled out of reach.

"Catfight!" cried Dopey, leaping onto a bench for a ringside seat as the two women crashed to the deck with a reverberating BOOM! The two Darths swept forward, one yanking Jennifer to her feet, the other hoisting Bailey off the floor.

"Leave me alone!" Jennifer shrieked at Darth Number One, swinging her fist at his mask. "Daaaamn!" she cried, cradling her hand against her black feline chest. "Bastards! You're all bastards!"

I shook my head. Was anyone besides me noticing that Jennifer might have a few unresolved issues with anger management?

"Give it up," Darth Number One ordered Jennifer, forcing her onto an empty bench.

"You, too," ordered Darth Number Two, cuffing Bailey to an upright pole.

He had handcuffs? I looked on curiously. Was that part of Vader's official equipment, or were cuffs only included in the superdeluxe version of the costume?

"Emily!" Jonathan beckoned from atop Smoker, his florets fluttering wildly. "I could use a little help over here!"

The dwarfs and crayons rallied, coaxing him to his feet and standing him upright, while two little pigs replaced him on top of Smoker, paralyzing the professor beneath six hundred pounds of pork on the hoof. "Would somebody get a picture of this?" yelled one of the pigs. "Emily might be able to use it in her newsletter."

I brushed off Jonathan's stalk, embarrassed that I could have ever thought him capable of murder.

"Did I do good?" he asked shyly.

"You did great." I flashed him a face-cracking smile, my mouth dropping open as I looked beyond him to the two Darths who stood before me, minus their breathing masks. EH! "Duncan?" I rasped, touched by the desire playing on his handsome face. "Etienne?" I whispered, warmed by the passion smoldering in his electric blue eyes. "You're both here." I forced the smile to remain on my lips. "Imagine that." And one of them had asked me to marry him.

Euw, boy. This was a little awkward. "About my cabin upgrade." I darted a desperate look between them. "That was so generous and...and romantic of you!"

"It was nothing," said Jonathan.

I swiveled my head, drilling his little green face with a horrified look.
"Excuse me?"

"Your upgrade. I wanted to thank you for saving my life."

"You?"
I stabbed my finger at his stalk. "You paid for the upgrade?"

"I was happy to pay for it."

"But you have no money, Jonathan. You don't even have a job!"

"So? I have an American Express card. That's just as good as money."

Oh, hell! "Was it you who sent the flowers?"

"That was me," said Duncan.

"And me," said Etienne.

I exchanged frustrated looks with both of them before turning to Duncan. "You knew about my new cabin the day it happened. How?"

He shrugged. "The clerk in the florist shop pulled up all that information on the computer when I placed my order. She mentioned you'd been upgraded to a suite with a great balcony."

I threw my hands into the air. "WHO SENT THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL?"

"That would be me," Etienne whispered, in a voice that vibrated down my breastbone. "I love you, Emily."

"I love her, too," objected Duncan. "And the only thing that kept me from proposing earlier was that I was heaving into a barf bag!"

"Don't listen to them," Jonathan cried, dropping to his knees in front of me. "You're the only girl in the world for me, Emily. Will you marry me?"

Oh, yeah. This was going well.

A
t ten o'clock the following morning, while other passengers were bicycling down Mount Haleakala, snorkeling, or touring a tropical plantation to learn of Hawaii's rich agricultural heritage, I sat at the dining table in my stateroom, staring at the puzzle box that security had removed from Bailey's backpack the night before and returned to Tilly, along with her missing journal.

"How much longer are we gonna gawk at this thing before we get down to business?" Bernice sniped. "I say we set the dang thing on a chair and let one of the Dicks sit on it. That should be enough to bust it into smithereens."

All the Halloween costumes had been returned to the rental shop, so everyone was pretty much back to normal again.

"How come you're singling the Dicks out?" Lucille objected. "I'm just as big as they are. Why should they have all the fun?"

"You can't sit on it," Tilly reprimanded. "It's not a whoopie cushion. It's an historic artifact."

"I think Bernice has a point," Margi spoke up. "What good has come of that box? It played a part in getting the little Norwegian killed. It nearly got Emily killed. I think it's bad luck. We should get rid of it before anything else happens."

Knock knock knock
. We all swiveled our heads toward the door before I gave Alice the okay to pop up and answer it. Nana and Helen Teig straggled into the room, their faces long with disappointment.

"I was so sure I was gonna win," Nana lamented, as she and Helen dragged chairs to the table to join the rest of us. "I come up with everythin'. The business card. The map with no advertisin'. The blue M&M." She shot a glance at Helen. "A
real
M&M, too. Not one a them doctored-up things."

Helen elevated her chin to a haughty angle. "I don't want to hear it, Marion. Scavenger hunts are like love and war. Everything is fair."

"What do you mean, doctored-up?" asked Margi.

Nana gave her lips a "well, let me tell you" smack. "Helen couldn't find no blue M&M, so she colored one a her Skittles to look like an M&M."

"I would have won, too, if the ink hadn't rubbed off on the judge's fingers."

"I
told
you to use your Magic Marker," her husband chided. "But
nooo,
you had to go with the ballpoint."

"The Magic Marker was dark blue," Helen barked. "I needed peacock blue. Besides, I was glad I lost when they showed us the prize. An ugly chunk of rock from the Volcanoes National Park. Can you believe that? They tried to dress it up by sticking it in a little acrylic box with a brass label, but it was still ugly."

"They actually gave away some of the island's volcanic rock?" I questioned. "But isn't that supposed to rain bad luck down on the recipient?"

"That only applies to folks what steal the rock," Nana explained. "If the State Parks Department makes a gift a the stuff, you don't got nothin' to worry about. At least, that's the line they give us before they announced the winner."

"And the winner was none too happy with the prize, either," Helen stated. "You could tell by the way he ran screaming from the room."

"What's the big deal about that?" asked Bernice. "They do that on
The Price Is Right
all the time."

"So who won?" I asked. "Anyone I know?"

"A fella with two broken arms," said Helen.

I stared at Nana, wide-eyed. "Jonathan won the scavenger hunt?"

"Beat me out by two minutes and thirty-three seconds."

"Wow, his luck really is changing. I'll have to congratulate him."

"I'm sure he'd like that, dear. But you won't find him in his cabin on account a he's in the infirmary."

Uh-oh. "Please tell me he's only visiting a friend."

"Nope. He run outta that room so fast, he didn't see the 'wet floor' cones outside the potties until he was airborne. But they was sayin' he only broke one leg, so that was real good news."

Tap, tap, tap
. Our heads pivoted to the door again. Osmond got up to answer it and returned with Duncan.

"Good morning, all," he said to the room at large before directing a meaningful look my way. "Would you believe I was stupid enough to think I might actually catch you alone?"

"Group meeting," I said, shrugging. "We're trying to decide what we should do with Tilly's treasure."

He sauntered toward the table, peering at the oblong box in the middle. "So this is the infamous Ring treasure?"

"Some treasure," fussed Bernice. "If we don't know what's inside, it's nothing but a piece of junk."

"Did you have a chance to talk to Percy and Basil?" I asked Duncan.

"This morning. It took a while, but they finally coughed up the information. They put marbles into the ship's vault, pure glass ones that were manufactured years ago. I guess collectors consider them on a par with Superman comic books and old Coke bottles."

I regarded him skeptically. "Marbles? That's what they dug up at the Secret Falls and were being so secretive about? Marbles?"

"Basil's family owns the Broomhead Gallery and Museum in Pudsey, England, so he's always looking for articles to replace the ones he destroyed when he accidentally burned the place down when he was a little nipper. I guess it's been a terrible burden for him to bear all these years. His relatives have never let him live it down."

Marbles?
I shook my head. "So did you convince them to explain about the list of names on the back of Percy's business card?"

"Your hit parade?" He laughed. "The town of Harrogate in Yorkshire sponsors a parade every year to commemorate Captain James Cook's birthday, and each year the board of tourism tries to find people who have some relationship to Cook to ride in the main float. Next year's selections were going to be two James Cook scholars: Dorian Smoker and Bailey Howard -- the first two choices of the Harrogate Institute of Tourism. Otherwise known as H. I. T."

I made a small O of my mouth as warmth crawled up my throat. "It was a real parade? Not...a hit list?"

"An honest mistake," Duncan soothed. "And very creative, I might add."

"But I don't get it. If Percy was so anti-Cook, why was he carrying around the names of people who were candidates for a pro-Cook celebration?"

"He and Basil intended to convince Smoker and Bailey
not
to participate in the parade. Their real beef is with the tourism board, and their long-term goal is to bring an end to the festivities entirely."

Knock. Knock, knock.

Groans. Hissing. Eye rolling.

"Why don't you just leave the door open and stick an Open House sign on it?" Bernice suggested. "Save us from having to get up so much."

"I'll get it," said Duncan, returning in a half minute with Etienne at his side. EH! Just what I needed. All the competition in the same room again. I gave Etienne a little finger wave and wondered how many Tums I'd have to swallow to calm my stomach. He gave me a long, lingering look that would have caused internal combustion if I'd been sitting closer.

"I'm glad you're all here," he said, in his beautiful French/German/Italian accent. "I believe I have some information that might be of interest to you. Do you mind, Emily?"

"Please." I allowed him the floor with a sweeping gesture.

"As a professional courtesy, the Maui police shared some of their findings with me this morning, so I have answers to a few of the questions that were still bothering Emily last night after the professor and Miss Howard had been taken into custody."

"What kind of questions?" asked Bernice.

"Questions about Nils Nilsson," he responded. "He was not the Nils Nilsson who was arrested on charges of assault with a baseball bat. That was another Nils Nilsson, one of sixteen former presidents of the World Navigators Club with the same name. Nilsson is apparently as common a name in Norway as Bucherer is in Switzerland, or Smith is in the United States."

So how was I supposed to know that? Heat crept from my throat to my cheeks. "Did Nils or Gjurd tell the police what they found at the Secret Falls?"

"Coins," said Etienne. "Or what they thought were coins. Upon closer examination, they discovered they were actually old tokens from the New York subway system. Still, if presented to the right collector, they could be worth something."

"I wanna know how Jennifer French got hold a our treasure map without buyin' it from Bernice like everyone else done," said Nana.

Etienne smiled. "When she was questioned about her attack on Miss Howard, she mentioned how a significant archaeological find might have worked in her favor at the university. As to how she came by the map, she said someone had forgotten to remove it from the photocopier in the business center, so she simply took it."

Oh, this was cute.
Everyone
had forgotten to remove the map from the photocopier, even Bernice. That had to make Tilly feel better about her own mental health. But I was still curious about one
teensy
point.

"Can you explain something to me?" I asked Etienne. "Professor Smoker obviously jumped ship in Kauai. But what did he do until he left? Stay holed up in Bailey's cabin? He couldn't have stayed there the entire time because he would have been found out by the cabin steward, wouldn't he?"

Etienne nodded. "Bailey had a duplicate key made for her cabin so they could both come and go as they pleased, then she shaved his head and rented a disguise for him in the costume shop. A fat suit. Facial hair. Bought him a Hawaiian shirt. I believe you might have run into him the night of the storm in the Anchor Bar."

Oh, my God! The guy in the bar had been Professor Smoker?

"I believe the professor was feeling rather full of himself by then, skulking about the ship incognito. His original plan had been to lie low in Kauai until Bailey sent him his falsified travel documents, but when she contacted him about your grandmother's friends finding the treasure, he decided he needed to help her steal the thing, so he used Ansgar's ship ID card to reboard. He probably would have gotten away with murder if not for Shelly Valentine's and Emily's keen eyes." Etienne glanced at the box in the middle of the table for the first time. "Is this the piece that has been causing all the trouble?"

"You bet," said Nana.

"It's a piece of junk," snapped Bernice.

"It's an item of inestimable worth," pledged Tilly as she opened her journal to the proper page. "Griffin Ring himself says it's priceless. It's right here in black and white."

"You haven't opened it yet?" Etienne asked.

"We don't know how," said Nana. "It's one a them puzzle boxes."

"Do you mind if I try?"

Tilly handed him the box. "Be my guest."

He held it above his head, checking all the angles, then lowered it to his waist and with pressure from his thumbs and forefingers, eased the lid effortlessly off the box.

Oohs. Ahhs. Gasps.

"How'd you do that?" asked Nana.

"My grandmother has one much like it. They're very European."

When he set the box back down in the middle of the table, we peered into the interior, agog.

"What is it?" asked Dick Teig. "A pocket watch?"

"It's too big for a pocket watch," said Dick Stolee. "The thing's big as a saucer. My money's on an antique stopwatch."

"You're both very close," said Tilly as she lifted it into the palm of her hand. "Do you know what this is?"

"Piece of junk," said Bernice.

"It's a chronometer," Tilly marveled. "A device to measure the longitude of a ship. This must be one of the original chronometers designed by John Harrison. Oh, my goodness. This is incredible! Captain Cook must have enlisted Griffin Ring to bury it so that if the other devices were stolen, they'd still have one to use on the return voyage to England. The Sandwich Islanders were notorious for stealing everything they could get their hands on, so this chronometer must have been their backup. After Cook was killed, the crew obviously never bothered to retrieve it. Do you know what this means?"

"I'm hoping it means we're all filthy rich," said Dick Teig.

"It means we can make a noteworthy contribution to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England! We'll be greeted like conquering heroes!"

Dick Teig rolled his eyes. "I'd rather be filthy rich."

"I can't thank you enough, Inspector Miceli," Tilly enthused as she boosted herself to her feet. "Come along, people. We're going to have this secured in the vault straightaway."

Grumbling. Pouting. Groaning. But in the time it took to blink, they were out of their seats and through the door, leaving me alone for the first time with the two men in my life.

I smiled at Etienne. I smiled at Duncan. I tried to think of something profound to say. "Would you like to sit down?"

They sat on either side of me, bookending me like a couple of pumped up Chippendales. "Do you have an answer for me this morning?" asked Etienne, cradling my right hand.

"I was about to ask the same thing," said Duncan, cradling my left.

"I asked her first," announced Etienne.

"So what?" countered Duncan.

Etienne narrowed his eyes at Duncan. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

Duncan clenched his fist. "You want to take it outside, bud? I'll be glad to show you."

Oh, this was nice. I looked from one to the other, thinking that you really did need to watch what you prayed for, because sometimes you actually got it. In spades. "Um --" I bobbed my head toward Etienne. "I'm a bit curious. When did you board ship?"

"In Kauai."

"So why did you wait until last night to pop up?"

His face darkened with embarrassment. "The storm. I -- uh -- I was a bit seasick."

"You, too?" asked Duncan, softening. "Was that the absolute worst feeling you've ever experienced, or what?"

"Absolutely the worst. I didn't think I'd make it through the night. I was
praying
I wouldn't make it through the night. Sorry, darling," he apologized.

"They say Admiral Nelson was seasick his entire career," Duncan went on. "I don't know how he stood it. You ever been to Portsmouth, Miceli? If you tour the
HMS Victory,
you can stand on the very spot where Nelson bought the farm. It's pretty awe-inspiring. I know the guy who leads those Portsmouth tours. If you're interested, I could put you in touch with him."