Title Wave (21 page)

The Grand Lobby was elegant, with polished chocolate marble floors and a magnificent mahogany staircase that soared three levels high, with a sparkling chandelier twinkling above. Scattered around the area were a number of tables, chairs, and plush loveseats—and like in the Garden Lounge, all of them were occupied. Tricia mounted the stairs and ascended to Deck 2 only to find that the Portside Bar and the lower level of the ship's library were also overflowing with
passengers who'd been driven inside by the weather. Turning right, she headed down the corridor, stopping to admire some of the paintings on display, before she headed on toward the Crystal Ballroom. Many of its tables and chairs were occupied by people like her who'd sought a quiet sanctuary. This would do. The only conversations she heard were whispered as she crossed the expansive ballroom, settling on the port side next to a large expanse of window that was no more than ten or twelve feet above the roiling sea. She sat there for a good five or ten minutes, just watching the ocean's fury. Oddly enough, she felt at peace. Still, after a time, she turned her chair inward toward the tranquil room and consulted her book. She had plenty of time before the editors' panel would take place in the ship's theater. That was something she didn't want to miss.

She'd read for fifteen or twenty minutes before she looked up to see Harold Pilger sitting alone at one of the ballroom's tables on the other side of the deck. Closing her book, Tricia gathered her things, rose, and crossed the ballroom and the aisle beyond.

Pilger's gaze was fixed on the ocean rushing by outside the large droplet-spattered window. A yellow legal pad sat before him on the table, along with a pen. Several pages had been folded under the pad, but it looked like he'd paused to compose his thoughts.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Tricia said.

He looked up. “Oh, hello.”

“How are you enjoying your trip, Mr. Pilger?”

“Call me Harold. I'm sorry, but I've forgotten your name.”

“Tricia Miles. Were you waiting for someone?”

“No. Just sitting here jotting down some thoughts.”

“May I join you?”

He stood. “I'm sorry. Where are my manners? Please sit.”

Tricia took the chair across from him at the small table, and Pilger turned the pad over. Rats! She couldn't get a peek.

“To answer your question, yes. I'm enjoying the trip so far, although it's a bit of a working vacation.”

“Oh?” Tricia asked, glad she hadn't had to push to get him to open up. That is,
if
he was about to open up. He might be willing to do so, if she first made a confession.

“Mr. Pilger—”

“Harold,” he insisted.

Tricia smiled. “Harold. I think you should know that it was me who found EM hanging in her stateroom bathroom.”

Pilger's eyes widened, his mouth dropping open. “I take it ship's security didn't mention my name.”

“No. Thank you for coming forward to speak with me.”

“As Cathy told you, I'm a bookseller. I specialize in vintage mysteries—but I'm also well acquainted with the work of most contemporary mystery authors as well. And, I've read a lot of true crime accounts.” He nodded. “So, I thought you might be interested in what I saw the night of EM's death.”

“Very much,” he admitted. “I take it you don't believe her death was suicide.”

“No. Did they let you see the body?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I noticed there was an abrasion on the underside of her chin. As though she'd been dragged across the carpet in her stateroom. Also, her keycard was missing. I had to put mine into the slot in order for the lights to come on. I doubt she could have hanged herself in pitch blackness.”

He nodded, listening intently. “Anything else?”

“I saw no sign of her laptop computer. I never saw her without it.”

“Yes. It's missing,” he confirmed.

“I thought perhaps you came on board to try to ascertain whether her death was suicide or murder.”

“She
was
heavily insured,” Pilger admitted. “Fidelity Mutual of Connecticut will not pay out for a suicide. Therefore, anything I can do to prove EM was murdered will benefit my employer.”

Tricia nodded. “EM's stateroom keycard was recovered the morning after her death,” Tricia began, but didn't go into details about where and when. “I don't know if someone on board had used it to buy goods or drinks. If so, I'm sure ship's security could check video to find out who did.”

“I'll be speaking to Officer McDonald again later this afternoon. I'll be sure to ask.”

“Have you spoken with Dori Douglas, EM's fan club president?”

“Yes. She very graciously offered to help us in any way she could.”

“It was EM who introduced me to her editor, Cathy Copper. Was she the last one to speak to EM before her death?”

“I don't believe so. Ms. Douglas told me she'd spoken to EM before retiring on Monday evening. We believe she was the last to see Ms. Barstow alive.”

“Has Officer McDonald corroborated that?”

Pilger frowned. “He hasn't been forthcoming with much that can help me determine what actually happened. I suppose I'll be trading letters with the cruise line's lawyers to get what little information they'd be willing to share.”

“It's too bad. Their first priority should be finding out the truth—even if it would be inconvenient for them to admit a crime was committed.”

Pilger nodded.

“Harold, did you know the ship has hundreds of cameras monitoring the public areas twenty-four/seven?”

“So I noticed,” Pilger said, and nodded toward one of the Plexiglas domes that hid a camera on the ceiling not far from them.

“I wonder if we could persuade Officer McDonald to let us review the video from those cameras.”

“Do you think they'd still retain those images after so many days?”

“It couldn't hurt to ask.”

Pilger eyed Tricia suspiciously. “And what do you get out of it if we uncover the truth about EM's death?”

“Nothing more than personal satisfaction. I have no literary aspirations. I wouldn't write a tell-all exposé for the tabloids. But I'd feel I was doing a service to EM's legions of fans who will want to know the truth about her death. You might be surprised, but fans of her writing will not only grieve for the loss of their favorite author, but for the loss of her characters, as well.”

“Do you feel that way about Agatha Christie?”

“I was just a little girl when she died, but I often wonder what else she might have written had she lived another one, five, or even ten years more.”

Pilger nodded. “I understand.”

“Are you a mystery reader, Harold?”

The lawyer shook his head. “I deal in facts. I read true crime because I prefer operating in the real world. I have no affection for fiction.”

“That's too bad,” Tricia said. The man had no clue. According to George R. R. Martin, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.” Tricia believed it heart and soul. She was way beyond that thousand-life threshold. Still, the two of them did have a common goal: to find out the truth behind EM Barstow's death.

“Are you willing to approach Officer McDonald about reviewing those ship's video logs?”

“Yes. And the sooner, the better.”

Tricia nodded. “He seems to work erratic hours, but we could at least approach the ship's security team.”

Pilger picked up his legal pad and pocketed his pen. “I should go now. There are probably hundreds of hours of video to review. The sooner I start, the sooner I'm done.”

Tricia pushed back her chair and rose.

Pilger stood, too. “Ms. Miles—Tricia,” he amended. “I don't think it's a good idea for you to accompany me.”

“Why not?”

“I'm on board in an official capacity, and you're—”

“Just a wannabe sleuth?” she offered. He hadn't minded her telling him things about EM's death that he hadn't known. Was he afraid that she—a lowly retailer—might come across yet more pieces of information that could be used to prove his theory and look more knowledgeable—and capable—than someone who'd passed the New York bar?

“Well,” he began, but didn't seem to have a placating comeback.

“I completely understand,” Tricia said. And how. She forced a smile. “I'm sure we'll run into each other before we dock in New York. Good luck with your investigation.”

“Thank you. And thank you for understanding.”

Again Tricia forced a smile. “Have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

Tricia strode off, unwilling to resume her seat across the way. She'd find somewhere else to pass the time until the editors' panel, which was still a good two hours off. And maybe she'd count the minutes until this far-from-pleasurable cruise was to end.

Tricia found
a quiet niche in the Wee Dram bar and read for more than an hour before she thought to look up and note the time.
Good grief!
It was already five after one. She'd told Angelica she'd meet her at the Lido Restaurant at one o'clock.

Once again Tricia gathered up her things and this time hurried to the nearest bank of lifts. Two minutes later, she entered the busy restaurant, walking its length until she spotted a table for six with a high chair squeezed in.

“There you are,” Angelica scolded, but she sounded more relieved than annoyed.

Tricia took the only empty seat, next to Grace. “Sorry I'm late. I've been reading.”

“So we figured,” Ginny said, handing Sofia an arrowroot biscuit to gum.

“Did you check out the food on your way to the table?” Grace asked.
She held her fork, ready to spear a piece of lettuce from the salad in front of her.

“No. I'm not really hungry. I had an enormous breakfast.”

“And what was that? Half a bagel?” Ginny guessed, and laughed.

“No. The Kells Grill's full Irish breakfast.”

“How much were you able to eat—a quarter of it?” Antonio asked. His plate contained grilled salmon in a wine sauce with some angel-hair pasta on the side.

“No. All of it.”

The heads of the other five adults at the table all snapped to look in Tricia's direction.

“All of it?” Angelica asked. “But that's a massive amount of food.”

“I know,” Tricia said. “But the fresh sea air made me hungry.”

“Don't tell me you did your usual four-mile power walk on the deck in this weather,” Ginny said.

“Oh, no. I was afraid I'd be swept overboard. I just took a quick sniff outside.” Okay, that was a lie, but it could have happened that way. “Anybody do anything interesting this morning?”

“I had a massage. It was heavenly,” Angelica said, attacking one of the rolls on her plate, and then smearing it with a thick pat of butter.

“And while she did that, I had a pedicure,” Ginny said. “Wanna see my blue toenails?”

“I'll pass on that,” Tricia said, and smiled.

“And while they did that—I wrote a presentation to make to my employer, Nigela Ricita, about changing the menu at the Brookview Inn.”

“Surely Ms. Ricita doesn't expect you to work on your vacation?” Grace chided him.

“Oh, no. But it is my pleasure to take this experience and apply it to my vocation in any way I can.”

“I don't know,” Grace said, cutting a cherry tomato in half. “Seems like you should be having more fun.”

“But my work
is
fun,” Antonio said, glancing in Angelica's direction and winking.

“I hope you'll suggest these wonderful pork chops,” Mr. Everett said.

“What kind of sauce is that?” Tricia inquired.

“Honey hoisin. Absolutely marvelous. All the meat has been superb.”

As a former butcher, Mr. Everett knew a good cut when he ate it.

“Are you sure you don't want anything?” Angelica asked her sister.

“I may swipe a couple of cookies for later this afternoon. After the editors' panel.”

“You won't have long to wait,” Ginny said. “The panel ends at two.”

“Oh, no. I'm sure it starts at two,” Tricia said.

“'Fraid not,” Angelica agreed. “I looked at the Daily Program before Ginny and I went to the spa. It definitely started at one.”

Tricia glanced at her watch. She'd already missed half of it. This day was
not
getting any better.

“Was there something you wanted to hear at the talk?” Grace asked.

“Just what EM Barstow's editor had to say about the future of her Tennyson Eisenberg series.”

“Surely there's no future if the author has died,” Antonio said, and twirled pasta around his fork.

“Oh, no,” Tricia, Angelica, Ginny, and Grace said in unison, and with conviction.

Antonio shook his head. “I fear I will never understand the publishing business.”

“You aren't alone, my boy,” Mr. Everett said, reaching for his cup of coffee.

Tricia pushed back her chair. “I'm going to see if I can catch the last half of the panel.”

“Where will we meet later?” Angelica asked.

“I'll probably park myself in one of the bars. They seem to be a quieter destination than the bigger common areas on the ship.”

“If we don't track each other down, let's meet at the Portside Bar for cocktails at five,” Angelica suggested.

“Only if you promise not to start without me. Remember what happened last night.”

“How could I forget,” Angelica said with a little shudder. Antonio couldn't seem to hide a grin.

“See you later,” Tricia said to a chorus of good-byes. She had no patience to wait for the lift, and strode straight to the forward staircase, which was virtually empty. She made it down the stairs to Deck 1 in less than two minutes, and hurried to the theater. It was standing room only on that level, and Tricia wished she'd thought to stop at Decks 2 and 3 first, since several of the box seats seemed to be vacant.

The audience was intently listening to one of the panelists: a woman whose placard said Claire Lawford. “We've seen a lot of changes in the industry over the past decade, especially with the consolidation of so many publishing houses.” The rest of the panelists—including Cathy Copper—nodded sagely, and the moderator encouraged each of them to give their take on what the next trends in genre fiction might be.

Tricia had a feeling she had probably missed the most juicy information, which had no doubt been dished at the beginning of the discussion. And she was right. Under other circumstances, she probably would have hung on to every word the editors said, but she had wanted to hear one piece of news, and it was not brought up. She looked around the auditorium, but didn't see anyone she knew among those seated. Perhaps her best bet was just to wait—and confront—Cathy Copper.

Confront
sounded a little antagonistic. She'd invite Cathy for a drink and if she accepted, she'd find a way to introduce the subject.

It took another ten minutes for the discourse to wind down before
the moderator thanked the panelists, and the audience reacted with an enthusiastic round of applause. Soon the murmur of voices grew in pitch as the spectators rose from their seats to file out of the auditorium. Tricia stepped out of the way as the large room emptied, her gaze fixed on the panelists, who stood on stage, speaking with each other.

Only a few stragglers remained when the panelists headed for the stairs that led down to the rows upon rows of now-empty seats. Tricia started down the main aisle. “Cathy!”

Cathy looked up. “Oh, hi, Tricia. Thanks for attending the panel. I'm shocked that so many people thought we had anything of interest to say.”

“I wish I could say I was here for the entire program, but I'm afraid I got my times mixed up and only got to hear the last half of the discussion. I thought maybe we could go to one of the bars and get a drink and you might fill me in on what I missed.”

Cathy looked about ready to refuse, but then seemed to think it over. “That sounds nice.” She held out a hand. “Lead the way.”

Since the Golden Harp pub was on the next level up, they headed up the forward staircase and easily found a place to sit near one of the portholes that overlooked the still-choppy sea. The ocean was a darker shade of gray than the gloomy skies above, and Cathy's expression seemed just as dour as they ordered a round of drinks. A glass of Chardonnay for Tricia, and another diet cola for Cathy.

Tricia surrendered her keycard while Cathy looked out the window and sighed. “I had no idea the weather would be this appalling,” she said, sounding subdued.

Tricia had to admit, when she thought of a cruise, she pictured sunny skies and a warmer climate. “Bermuda was nice.”

“While it lasted,” Cathy grumbled.

“Were you able to take in any of the sights?”

“Just the wharf. Half the shops were closed because the tourist season won't officially start for another couple of months.”

What a bundle of negativity. Cathy's expression was so dour, Tricia half expected her to burst into tears at any moment.

“I take it you didn't find the panel to be very interesting.”

She shrugged. “I've heard it all before.”

“Based on the audience's reaction, I don't think they did.”

Again Cathy shrugged.

Tricia wondered if she should ask about EM's characters' futures, but then the waiter arrived with their drinks, setting them down on cocktail napkins embossed with a golden harp. Tricia signed the receipt and the waiter moved off. She picked up her glass. “Cheers.”

Cathy picked up her own glass, but didn't join the toast.

“Did Mr. Pilger bring news from your supervisor about the fate of the Tennyson Eisenberg series?”

“It will go on. I'd like to take a shot at writing them.”

“Really?”

“I think I know them well enough to pull it off. It could even be an improvement. I think you're aware of my feelings concerning the direction EM wanted to take the series. No one could reason with that woman.”

Was Cathy referring to EM's passive-aggressive nature?

“Oh?”

“She wasn't entirely stable—mentally, that is,” she added dryly.

“Did you see signs of mental illness in her before the trip?” Tricia asked, feigning innocence.

Cathy nodded. “Sadly, yes. She'd been practically paranoid about protecting her vision of her series and its characters. She didn't take into account what her publisher—and more importantly—her readers wanted. She was determined to kill off Tennyson Eisenberg.” Good grief, the woman sounded positively offended by the thought.

“Conan Doyle did the same thing with Sherlock Holmes, but
eventually relented and his grateful readers benefited with many more stories to enjoy.”

“These days, readers are a
lot
more discerning,” Cathy commented.

For one so young, Cathy certainly was cynical.

“What plans does the publisher have in mind for the series now that EM is gone?” Tricia asked.

“I'm sure they've had top-level meetings on just that subject. I probably won't be told until I go back to the office on Monday.”

“I suppose it will be business as usual for you.”

Cathy nodded. “EM and I weren't in contact on a daily basis. In fact, we rarely spoke. We conducted most of our business by e-mail. And, in fact, a lot of times I would be e-mailing Dori Douglas, the president of her fan club, who was acting as her virtual assistant. She handled a lot for EM, who didn't pay her a nickel,” she said as an aside. “I don't know how EM convinced the poor woman to take on that kind of responsibility. I know I wouldn't have done it.”

Of course not. It seemed as though Cathy could barely stand the woman, which must have made working together nearly unbearable—for both of them.

“I suppose now that your panel is over you're free to do as you please for the rest of the cruise.”

“One whole day,” Cathy agreed. “It's too bad Internet access is so expensive on board. I'm going to have a lot of e-mails to go through when I get home.”

Did she mean personally or for her job?

“I did load several manuscripts on my tablet, and I'm going to make an effort to read them before I get back to work. A couple of them look really interesting.”

“Mysteries?” Tricia asked hopefully.

“Literary fiction. That's what I prefer to read. I have an English degree from Dartmouth.”

“So do I,” Tricia said.

Cathy immediately brightened, as though she'd found a kindred spirit in a sea of genre readers. “I'm working toward my master's. My thesis is on eighteenth-century women poets.”

Oh, dear. That subject had been done to death by nearly half of Tricia's classmates. She'd chosen pulp fiction, which hadn't been a favorite subject of her professor, but she'd still received an A.

“Were you in a sorority?” Cathy asked.

“Kappa Delta.” For about a month. Tricia just hadn't fit in and preferred to spend most of her time away from class reading. She'd left the sorority house and had ended up with Pammy Fredricks as a roommate.

“I was in Sigma Delta,” Cathy said, sounding disappointed. If they'd been sorority sisters, would Cathy have wanted to hang out with Tricia? “Being a Sigma Delta sister was one of the highlights of my life,” she said wistfully.

And what were the lowlights?

“Do you get to New York often?” Cathy asked. “Maybe we could have lunch together sometime.”

My, what a change of attitude—and all because they'd gone to the same college.

“This is actually the first time I've gotten away since I opened my store almost six years ago.”