Rigged for Murder (Windjammer Mystery Series) (14 page)

“Led to what, Alyssa? Did Rob find you up on deck with Pete?”

“No.” She was sobbing now. “But I think he knew.”

“Knew what, Alyssa? Did you have sex with Pete?” Alyssa’s silence gave Brie her answer. Rain swept across the window. “How could you do that when Rob is like a bottle of nitro on the edge of a high shelf?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “The worst part is I think Rob really loves me. But my behavior makes him angry, and his ignoring what I want and need pushes me further away. So now we just get each other’s attention by acting outrageous. I provoke his jealousy, and he wraps it around me like a straitjacket, suffocating me. I can see we’ve both been wrong, but I don’t know how to start over. I feel like I’m locked out of my house in the cold, and I’ve lost my key.”

Brie leaned back in her chair and studied Alyssa. “Honesty is the key, Alyssa,” she finally said. “In fact, it’s a kind of skeleton key—you’d be amazed what it will open.”

Alyssa looked up, uncertain.

“It looks like you’ve taken the first step by being honest with yourself.”

“I just hope I’m not too late.” Alyssa’s despondent gaze found the window.

“What time were you up on deck with Pete?” Brie asked, bringing Alyssa’s focus back to the interview.

“I went up there at about 1:45.”

“Weren’t you worried that Rob would wake up and find you missing?”

“Rob always has a couple of drinks before bed—nothing wakes him up after that.”

Alyssa had managed to convince herself of that, but Brie wasn’t so sure.

“So, you went on deck at 1:45. What happened after that?”

“I was just walking toward the bow when I heard Pete arguing with George, so I stayed back where he wouldn’t see me.”

“Do you know what they were arguing about?”

“No, not exactly. I just heard Pete accusing George of being gay.”

Brie’s head jerked up from the notes she’d been writing. “Go on,” she said.

“He was saying something about how he wouldn’t crew on a ship with someone who was gay. Pete just had this irrational hatred of gays, and he told me he’d heard a rumor about George.”

“And what time did you leave Pete and go back to your cabin?”

“It was about 2:20 when I headed back down below deck. I went to use the head and was in there about five minutes before going back to our cabin.”

“Did you hear anything unusual at all after you went back to bed?”

“I fell asleep pretty quick. I was tired.”

“Do you know if Rob left the cabin after you came back in?”

“No! I mean, I’m sure he didn’t.” Alyssa sat forward nervously, and Brie guessed from her response that Rob had indeed left the cabin. The downside of interrogation was that almost everybody lied about something. Brie had learned long ago that finding the truth was somewhat like sifting through sand looking for salt.

She pressed her a little more. “You say you were so tired you fell asleep immediately. Isn’t it possible you wouldn’t have awakened if Rob got up?”

“No,” she said emphatically. “That’s not possible.”

“So, if you were sleeping soundly with Rob, what caused you to wake up and need a cigarette a mere forty-five minutes later?”

Alyssa squirmed. “There was a lot of lightning. I think that’s what woke me. I put on my raincoat and went up on deck for a smoke. I’m trying to quit—just one more weakness in my character, I guess.”

And lying rounds it out nicely
, Brie thought, wondering if she should repeat the honesty speech. At least Alyssa was transparent in her lying, which meant maybe there was hope for reform. What was more, this last lie had a more noble purpose—it was obviously meant to protect Rob.

“Well, that’s all I need from you right now, Alyssa. Why don’t you give me about ten minutes and then send Rob in. And please don’t discuss our conversation.”

Alyssa got up and walked to the door. She paused with her hand on the knob as if debating about something. Then she opened the door and stepped out, closing it softly behind her.

Brie swiveled the big chair around, propped her feet up on the windowsill, and thought about egg noodles. The thought brought immediate comfort. Stress, confusion and anxiety almost always led to a healthy serving of egg noodles with plenty of butter, usually followed by a long walk. Her private formula for getting her head straight, it harked back to her childhood and her mother’s homemade spaetzle.

Old Mrs. Hoffmeister, their next door neighbor on Cherry Street, had passed on the wonders of spaetzle-making to Edna Beaumont, who didn’t have a German bone in her body. For some mysterious reason known only to Edna, spaetzle was never made except at the lake. It was a time-consuming process that ironically flourished in the primitive setting of their rustic lake cabin, as if the making of spaetzle somehow lent itself to a lack of electricity and running water.

Brie remembered how her mom would sit on the front porch of the cabin with the big stoneware bowl in her lap, working the thick dough for the spaetzle. Then she’d fire up the old Coleman stove out on the picnic table and put on a big pot of water. Brie and her brothers would roll small pieces of the dough with their hands. They’d drop them into the boiling water and wait impatiently till they rose to the top. Edna would scoop up steaming bowls of the wonderful stuff and add dollops of butter. The three siblings would plop down on top of the picnic table—feet on the bench, lake out in front—to enjoy the spoils of their labor.

Brie stared out the window at the storm, but the rain fell in her heart. She felt a sudden longing for things that could never be reclaimed—childhood and the comfort of family. Mom had loved that cabin—loved it! But Dad had loved the open water. He was a Mainer. The sea and sailing were in his blood. He had finally cajoled mom into selling the cabin so he could have his boat on Lake Superior. Brie and her brothers had loved boat and cabin alike, just as they had loved both parents. And mom—she’d gone along with it the way women often did. But she was never comfortable on the boat. What was more, she had never again made spaetzle, even though Brie had repeatedly begged her.

Edna
had
made a stand when she and Tom Beaumont were first married. She had badly wanted to stay in Minnesota, and he had finally agreed. In the beginning there are other things men want badly, and it makes them willing to compromise. But for Edna, staying in Minnesota had been like taking out a long-term mortgage she would pay back in a million ways over the years, as if that decision were always accruing interest. Giving up the lake cabin for his boat was just one of the ways Mom had stayed current on the debt. And then the heart attack, just four years after the boat. All was lost—all. Dad had no life insurance, and Mom had sold the boat and everything else just to keep the family going.

There was a knock on the door and George popped his head in. “Anything I can get for you, Brie?”

“Egg noodles?”

“Ah, I’m not sure...”

“Just kidding, George.” She turned her chair around. “Whatever you’re planning for lunch will be fine.”

“How about a tuna melt and a bowl of corn chowder?”

“Sounds great. Could you bring it in here? I’d like to make some notes while I eat.”

“No problem.” He was about to close the door when Rob hove into view and asked if he should come in.

“How long till lunch, George?” Brie asked.

“About fifteen minutes.”

“That’ll give us time. Come in, Rob, and have a seat.”

Rob advanced toward the chair with a physical presence which alone would have placed him high on the list of suspects. Sitting down, he leveled his gaze at Brie and spoke in a surprisingly controlled tone. “I didn’t kill Pete. I just want to say that right up front. I know I’m probably your most likely suspect after the way I acted last night.” He seemed to have relinquished his bravado and antagonism, which no doubt had served as a suitable shield for a male ego badly battered by Alyssa’s antics.

“Why don’t you tell me when you last saw Pete?” Brie said.

“I went up on deck at 2:55. I know because I checked my watch just before leaving the cabin. I was going to have it out with him—I knew Alyssa had been with him. She thinks I’m asleep when she comes in like that. I never am. Anyway, I waited for her to fall asleep, and then I went up there to find him. Well, I found him all right—I found him dead. I panicked since I had a pretty good motive for killing him myself, especially considering I was planning on beating the shit out of him. I should have called the captain, but I assumed either he or Scott would come on deck at the change of the watch and find Pete.”

“Has it occurred to you that Alyssa could have killed him?”

“Come on! That’s just not possible. She’s not strong enough. And what would her motive be?”

“Maybe Pete threatened to tell you about their affair.”

“I can’t believe even he would be that stupid. Unless he had a death wish.”

“Apparently he didn’t need one.”

“I just should have gone for the captain when I discovered his body,” Rob said again. “I’ll never forgive myself for that. It was horrible for Alyssa to find him. I never meant to fall back to sleep, but she woke up when I came back in and could see I was upset. She asked what was wrong, and I told her I was feeling restless. She told me to get back in bed and she’d rub my back—she knows that relaxes me. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

Brie guessed the truth was that when Rob came back in upset, Alyssa was worried enough to go back up on deck. Maybe that’s why she thought it might be too late to salvage their relationship. She must believe that Rob had killed Pete. In Brie’s mind it was also still the strongest possibility.

“There was something else, too,” Rob said.

“Go ahead.”

“I could swear I saw something move up toward the front of the ship as I started back down the ladder to our cabin. It may have been just a shadow, but I don’t think so. I was a Marine—we were trained to spot subtle movement. I’m ninety percent certain someone was up there. I headed back toward the bow to look around, but found nothing.”

“Could you see well enough to tell if someone went down one of the front companionways?”

“They could have ducked down into the forward cabins, but I had a view of the galley companionway as I walked forward. A kerosene lamp was burning down there, so I think I would have seen anyone heading down that ladder. I went down into the forward compartment and checked the store-room and the head. Nothing. I tried the doors to the cabins, but they were locked. There was nothing else to be done, so I went back to my cabin.”

Brie studied Rob for a moment, hoping to get a gut sense of whether he was being truthful, but she wasn’t picking up a vibe one way or the other. If he
was
telling the truth, she now had a lock on the time of death. The killer had struck during the 35 minutes between Alyssa’s leaving Pete at 2:20 and Rob’s going on deck at 2:55. Tim, Will and Howard had those forward cabins, and conceivably George could have ducked into one of their cabins if the door was unlocked. Scott had no apparent motive, in addition to being left-handed, and Brie felt certain that the killer was right-handed. She jotted down a few notes.

“Is there anything else?” Rob asked with some urgency. “I’d like to get back to Alyssa.”

Brie looked up from her notepad. “That’s all for now.” She watched him move toward the door, but as he turned the knob to leave, she stopped him. “You know, Rob, amazingly, sometimes something good can come out of a crisis like this. Assuming you’re telling the truth, that is.”

He turned slowly back around. “I’m sorry I was rude to you last night, Brie. It was uncalled for. You’re okay.” With that he strode out of the library.

Brie walked over to the fireplace and set three logs onto the grate. She stepped back and watched them ignite. Holding her hands out to the warmth, her gaze came unfocused as she stared deep into the flames. Wind and rain rattled at the window, and somewhere in the storm a gull cried. An errant spark snapped out of the fire and struck her outstretched hand as if to say,
don’t get too close
. Brie stepped back, rubbing her hand, and wished she were far away.