Murder on the QE2 (11 page)

“Unless she was naked when she ingested the poison.”

“That’s a possibility, too, Mary.”

“Ms. Ananthous is going to lecture tomorrow on poisonous plants and their use in murder mysteries.”

“That’s right,” I said. I looked at her. “You aren’t suggesting that—?”

“Oh, no. Of course not. It just crossed my mind, that’s all.”

We left the Queens Grill together, and paused in the lounge to observe the dark sea through the large windows. Although we couldn’t observe much, it was obvious this was not a night to venture out onto any deck.

“Jessica!”

James Brady, my journalist friend, entered the lounge. “Buy you a drink?” he asked.

“Thanks, no. This is Mary Ward.”

“A pleasure,” Brady said. “Jess, can I comer you alone for a few minutes?”

I looked to Mary, who said, “You go right ahead. I read your column in
Parade
every Sunday, Mr. Brady. I like it very much.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ward.”

“I’m going to the casino,” she announced.

“You gamble?” I asked.

“Oh, a little. Some of my friends back in Lumberton gave me money—just small amounts—to gamble for them whenever I’m going to a place that has a casino. A few quarters for the slot machines, that sort of thing. If I win with their money, we share it.”

“What a nice idea,” I said. “Maybe I’ll join you there later.”

“Is she a mystery writer, too?” Brady asked as Mary walked away.

“No,” I said. “But she could be. Now, you said you wanted to talk with me. About Marla Tralaine, I assume.”

“Good assumption. You’ve known about it from the beginning.”

“Yes.”

“This morning, when I asked if you’d seen her.”

“Again, yes. I didn’t feel it was my place to tell anyone about it, especially a member of the press.”

“I understand. What do you know?”

“Very little.”

“I hear you’re writing something for the daily program about it.”

I forced a laugh. “It isn’t as though I’m doing an article, Jim. The Cunard people felt it would be good if all the passengers learned about the tragedy at once, from a single source.”

“And you’re that source.”

“Yes.”

“I heard she was stabbed.”

“Stabbed? With a knife?”

“No. With some sort of ice pick, like the ones used by mountain climbers.”

“Oh?”

“Is that what you’ve heard?”

“Not exactly.”

“Have you been in touch with Sam Teller?”

“The cable TV Sam Teller? No. He and his wife are in seclusion, I’m told.”

“Bad blood, Jessica, between Sam Teller and Marla Tralaine.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Brady, as handsome an Irishman as I’ve ever known and with a charm to match, said, “My TV producer back in New York asked me before I left to file reports from the ship. I told him I didn’t want to, unless there was some breaking news. Well, this qualifies.”

“I would say so.”

“Since you seem to be in the thick of things, Jess, I’d appreciate being kept in the loop.”

“For you, James Brady? Of course. Quid pro quo.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Then you keep me in
your
loop, which is always considerable. Deal?”

“Deal. Where are you headed?”

“I hadn’t given it much thought. Maybe I’ll join Mrs. Ward in the casino.”

He reached in his pocket, pulled out two quarters, and handed them to me. “For a slot machine. We’ll split the winnings.”

I intended to go straightaway to the casino to meet up with Mary Ward, but on my way there, I took a detour and stopped in at the office of the QE2’s director of security, Wallace Prall. I caught him as he was leaving.

“I finished writing the insert and gave it to Ms. Jenkins,” I said.

“Good. That’s great, Mrs. Fletcher. Very much appreciate it.”

“But there’s something I think we should talk about.”

He looked as though he were in a hurry, so I quickly said, “Theories seem to be running rampant about how Ms. Tralaine was killed.”

His face reflected surprise.

I continued, “Some people are saying she was poisoned. And I just heard from someone else that she was stabbed to death with some sort of ice pick.”

“That’s bound to happen in such a situation,” he said.

“I can understand that, Mr. Prall, but don’t you think we should include something in the program about how she died? To head off these rumors?”

“You already said you’ve written the announcement. Too late to change it, isn’t it?”

“Probably. But I was thinking more in terms of announcing it in some other way. You suggested I hold a briefing each day on the situation. If I knew how she died, I could mention it tomorrow morning.”

“That’s good of you to suggest, Mrs. Fletcher, but I think I was premature in suggesting daily briefings. We won’t need anything further from you. The insert you’ve written more than suffices.”

His attitude bothered me. I asked directly, “How
was
Ms. Tralaine murdered?”

“I really have to run,” he said.

I repeated my question, with more emphasis this time.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.”

“Has cause of death been determined?” I asked.

“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Fletcher, but I do have to run. I’m late for a meeting. Her death has us all hopping.”

As I watched him walk away, I tried to understand his point of view. Obviously, he had a serious and difficult job to do. Having me—who after all was only a mystery writer and passenger—probing into his area of expertise was undoubtedly annoying.

But they’d reached out to me, and I’d responded. Surely, they owed me at least the courtesy of basic information.

The casino was a beehive of activity when I entered the
QE2
’s large space devoted to gambling. The air was filled with a discordant symphony of bells and whistles from the dozens of slot machines. The roulette tables were three deep, and the two craps tables were doing a land-office business.

I looked for Mary Ward among the slot machine players, but didn’t see her, so I wandered over to one of the craps tables where Judge Dan Solon yelled words of encouragement to other players in his deep, gruff voice.

I’m not a gambler, but a friend once took me to a London casino and gave me a primer on shooting craps, saying he enjoyed that game the most because it involved participation with others. Everyone at the table was playing against the house, he explained, with the exception of the occasional person betting the wrong way, placing bets along with the casino, and hoping the other players at the table would lose. These are not especially popular players, according to my friend.

The dice had just been passed to Judge Solon. He blew on them as craps players are wont to do, implored the dice in his hand to be good to him, and energetically tossed them to the opposite end of the table, where they ricocheted off the ridged rubber surface, spinning and tumbling on the green felt, then coming to rest. There was an eruption of excitement; I assumed the judge and his fellow gamblers had won on that toss.

I was going to drift away to renew my search for Mary Ward when I noticed a player at the other end of the table, the older actor who played Morris McClusky. in my play. And, to my surprise, wedged in between him and a corpulent male passenger, his round face flushed with the excitement of the game, was my newfound friend from North Carolina, Mary Alice Ward.

She saw me, broke into a grin, and waved for me to join her. It wasn’t easy navigating the knot of players at the table, but I eventually made it to her side.

“Mr. Ryan here is teaching me how to play dice,” she said.

“Oh,” was all I could come up with.

“Craps,” he corrected.

Ryan, whose first name was Ron, was a wonderful-looking, stooped older man, with a craggy face that reminded me a little of the actor Walter Matthau. He hadn’t fallen victim to male pattern baldness, but his hair had turned a uniform white. He glanced at me and said, “She’s my good luck charm for the evening,” referring to Mary.

“I hope she brings you good fortune,” I said.

The stickman, the casino employee at the table responsible for moving the dice to the proper player, used his long stick to push them back to Judge Solon. I looked down at the table in front of Ryan. He’d placed dozens of chips on a narrow band marked PASS. I didn’t know how much the chips were worth, but I assumed they represented quite a bit of money. I checked the piles of chips in front of other players. Mr. Ryan’s bet was at least triple anyone else’s wager.

Solon again rolled the dice. When they came to rest, one read three, the other four. Again, an enthusiastic response from those at the table. Of course, I thought. Three plus four equals seven, which my friend had told me was always a winner unless... unless it occurred at another point in the game; I couldn’t remember what that rule was.

Mary said to me, “This is so exciting. I’ve never seen this game before.”

“Did you win any money for your friends, playing the slot machine?” I asked, having to speak loud over the noise from the vocal players at the table.

“Oh, yes. I put in three quarters in a machine over there,” she said, pointing, “and got one hundred back.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said, tempted to add that she should take her winnings and leave the casino.

The judge rolled a nine. That seemed to change everything. The casino employees shifted chips to various marked areas of the table. On the next roll the dice came up with a six and a one. There were loud moans as the employees scooped up chips from virtually everyone and put them in the casino’s coffers. Now, I remembered. A seven was always a winner unless a different number had been rolled. Then, seven became a loser.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Ryan,” Mary Ward said, her voice heavy with dejection.

“No problem,” he said, placing a new supply of chips on the PASS line. “I have a feeling my luck is going to run good tonight.”

I had to smile at his comment. It’s what every gambler I’ve ever known says when they’re losing. I had the distinct feeling that Ryan perhaps had a gambling problem. That might have been an unfair judgment on my part, based only upon watching him for a few minutes at a gaming table. But you pick up a sense of those things if you’ve been around enough people, and are in the business of observing human behavior in order to create believable characters in books.

Rip Nestor had told me Ron Ryan virtually begged him to play the role of Morris McClusky on this crossing. The character I’d created wasn’t a major one, although he did play a pivotal role toward the end of the play. I didn’t imagine Nestor paid his actors and actresses very much, depending upon the lure of a luxurious five-day North Atlantic crossing to England as a compensation for a lack of hard cash.

Why would this actor beg to be in this play? Obviously, because he was like most actors, always looking for the next job.

Although I wasn’t a participant in the game, I found myself mesmerized by it, and stayed there as the dice passed from hand to hand each time someone threw a seven after another number had been rolled.

The stickman, not realizing I wasn’t a player, pushed the dice to me. I shook my head. He moved them on to Mary, who looked to me, and then to Ryan.

“Go ahead, toss ’em,” Ryan said. “For me.”

Mary took a deep breath, picked up the two dice as though they were hot, looked at them in her hand, and asked, “Now?”

“Now!” Ryan said.

She reached as far as she could over the table and tentatively threw the dice to the opposite end. They came up eleven, a winner; along with a seven, eleven was a winning number when a new game was commencing.

The table went wild as players collected their winnings and put down additional bets. The pile in front of Ron Ryan was even higher now. For an actor begging for a role, he seemed to have a lot of money to back up his play. At least I hoped he did.

Ryan encouraged Mary Ward to continue tossing the dice. Each time she did, the numbers came up seven or eleven, winning for all the players at the table, with the exception of one sullen-looking gentleman in a tuxedo who had decided the odds were against the players, and who was betting
with
the casino, losing on each of Mary’s rolls.

After six consecutive winning rolls, she threw a six, which prompted a flurry of betting activity. Now, everyone would win until she “sevened-out.” She rolled five consecutive numbers before coming up with the dreaded seven.

It was a happy table. If news of Marla Tralaine’s murder had reached everyone, no one in the casino reflected it. The mood was boisterous and upbeat.

“Here,” Ryan said, pushing a pile of chips in Mary’s direction.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t accept that,” she said.

“Hey, you were what I thought you’d be—my lucky charm. Buy yourself a pretty dress with it.”

She shook her head and said, “That’s very generous, Mr. Ryan, but I’m quite content helping you win some money. I won money too, at a slot machine. My friends back home and I will share it. But I think it’s time for me to leave. I’m feeling sleepy.”

“It’s tiring just trying to keep your balance in this storm,” someone else at the table said.

Amazing, I thought, how easy it was to forget the roll and pitch of the giant ship when you were focusing on other things. Now that he’d mentioned the storm, I was very much aware of it, and grasped the edge of the craps table to steady myself.

I followed Mary through the throngs of people in the casino. She stopped once at a slot machine, and I saw a twinkle in her eye.

“Don’t,” I said.

“It is tempting once you’ve won some money, isn’t it?” she said sweetly. “I suppose that’s how people become addicted to gambling.”