Curse of the Arctic Star (5 page)

When we stepped inside, Alan craned his neck upward. “Check it out,” he said with a grin. “Dinner beneath the stars—literally!”

Following his gaze, I saw that there were several skylights between the chandeliers. Through the closest one, we could see a large swath of the evening sky—
twilight blue washed with pink. Countless stars were just twinkling into sight, looking much closer than they did back home in River Heights.

“Gorgeous,” I said, the view distracting me from my worries. At least for a moment.

A smiling hostess hurried toward us. “You’re at table seventeen,” she said after checking our ship IDs. “Follow me, please.”

Table seventeen turned out to be a large round table set for nine located near the center of the room. When we arrived, three women in their sixties or seventies were already seated there.

“Welcome!” one of them said when she saw us. She was petite and tan, with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and wide-spaced blue eyes. “You young people must be some of our new dinner companions.”

“Yes, we must,” Alan said with a smile as he pulled out a chair for Bess. “I’m Alan, and these are my friends Bess, George, and Nancy.” He pointed to each of us in turn.

“Lovely to meet you,” the second woman spoke up.
She was taller and a little older than the first, with a graying blond bun and a bright smile. “I’m Alice, and these are my friends Babs and Coral.”

“You can call us the ABCs,” Coral spoke up with a titter. She was pleasantly plump and grandmotherly, with wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. “Get it? The ABCs—Alice, Babs, Coral.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said as I sat down between George and Babs.

“Yeah.” George reached for her water glass. “I didn’t realize we’d be sitting with other people.”

Babs chuckled. “This must be your first cruise, then?”

“Yes, it is,” Bess said. “And please don’t be offended by what George said. She just meant—”

“It’s all right, dear.” Babs waved one wrinkled hand dismissively. “If it’s your first time, a lot of things must seem rather strange.”

Alice nodded. “But don’t worry,” she added. “The three of us are experienced cruisers. We’ll show you the ropes.”

“Really?” Alan said. “How many cruises have you been on?”

“Oh, dear, I’m not sure I can count that high anymore!” Coral giggled. “Let’s just say it’s enough that we should be able to answer any questions you may have. Right, girls?”

Alice nodded, but Babs was looking across the dining room. “I think our last two tablemates have arrived,” she said.

I glanced over and saw the hostess approaching again. When I saw who was following her, I elbowed George. “Hey, it’s the honeymooners!”

“Who?” Bess and Alan asked.

“Um, just someone we sort of met earlier,” George told them.

By then the newcomers were at the table. Vince and Lacey both appeared to be in a much better mood than they had been the last time we’d seen them. Lacey looked lovely in a soft blue gown, and Vince was handsomer than ever in his dinner jacket and tie.

Soon more introductions had been traded. “Honeymooners, eh?” Coral said, winking at the rest of us. “Don’t worry, we won’t mind if you need to kiss between courses.”

Meanwhile Babs was leaning forward, peering at Lacey. “You look familiar, my dear,” she said. “Doesn’t she, girls?”

Alice glanced over. “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “You don’t have a sister who works for Jubilee Cruise Lines, do you?”

Coral gasped. “You’re right! Why, if Lacey had darker hair and blue eyes, she’d be the spitting image of that pretty young singer on our Caribbean cruise last year!”

Lacey looked taken aback. “Um, no, you must be mistaken. I don’t have a sister.”

Vince put a protective arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay,” he told her. Then he smiled at the ABCs. “She’s a little shy. Always gets tongue-tied when someone mentions how beautiful she is, even though it happens all the time.”

“Well, of course it must!” Babs exclaimed, while Coral tut-tutted pleasantly.

Lacey gave them a wan smile. “I only wish I
was
related to someone at Jubilee,” she said softly. “Maybe then we’d be on one of their cruises right now, instead of taking a chance on this brand-new untested cruise line.” She shivered. “I haven’t felt right since Vince and I spotted that body earlier.”

“Body?” Alice’s eyes widened. “What body?”

“Didn’t you hear what happened at the pool right before we set sail?” Vince asked.

Coral leaned forward. “No, but do tell!”

I traded a worried look with Bess and George as the honeymooners started describing what had happened. The cruise director might have smoothed things over earlier, but it seemed the gossip was still spreading.

Just then there was a clatter from the next table. I glanced over and saw that Tobias, the bratty kid from our hall, had just dropped an entire tray of rolls on the floor. His father was scolding him while his mother bent down to try to salvage the rolls. Several
waiters were already making a beeline for the table.

“That kid causes a commotion everywhere he goes, doesn’t he?” George said.

I nodded. I’d just noticed that Wendy the travel blogger was at the same table as Tobias. She’d traded in her casual granny dress for a pink tulle vintage prom gown and a headband with a large plastic flower on it. Her laptop sat on the table beside her plate as she chattered nonstop at the man sitting next to her. I wasn’t sure she’d even noticed the roll mishap.

“Whoa!” Alan exclaimed suddenly, staring off in a different direction. “Do you see who I see?”

As I glanced that way, a flash of color caught my eye. It was Mr. Hawaiian Shirt. He was sitting at another table with half a dozen other people. The others all appeared to be chatting and having a good time, but he was slumped in his chair, playing with his fork and looking fairly miserable.

George saw him too. “Hey! That mustache guy we met earlier didn’t even bother to change clothes. So why do I have to dress up?” she complained.

“Huh?” Alan glanced at the man. “No, look over there. It’s Merk the Jerk!”

He was pointing toward a different table. “Merk the Jerk,” I echoed. “He’s a stand-up comedian, right?”

“Yeah,” George said. “His real name’s Lou Merk. He’s had a couple of TV specials and been in a few movies and some online stuff.”

“I suppose he must be part of the shipboard entertainment.” Babs peered in that direction. She sighed. “I’m just so disappointed that Brock Walker had to cancel!”

Just then a pretty young waitress hurried toward us. “Good evening,” she said in a lilting Jamaican accent. “I’m Daisy, and I’ll be your server tonight.”

“Daisy?” George grinned. “What, are all the ship’s employees required to have flower names or something?”

Daisy looked confused, though she smiled politely. “Can I start you off with some drinks?”

“Iris, remember?” George glanced around at Alan, Bess, and me. “That maid we saw earlier was named Iris, remember? Get it? Flower names?”

Bess ignored her. “I’d love an iced tea with lemon,” she told Daisy.

As the others gave their drink orders, I noticed several men with video cameras hoisted on their shoulders entering the dining room. “What’s going on over there?” I asked the waitress when she turned toward me.

She glanced over. “Let me get the maître d’ so you can ask him.”

Daisy walked to the front of the dining room and moments later returned with the maître d’ in tow. His name tag read
MR. PHILLIPS
. I repeated my question.

“The camera crew?” he said. “They’re just the ad people.”

“Ad people?” Bess echoed.

“Didn’t you get the insert in your info packages?” Mr. Phillips looked troubled. “It should have been covered in there.”

Vince glanced at his wife. “We got the insert.”

“So did we,” Coral put in as her friends nodded.

“That explains it,” Alan said. “See, we just won this cruise last week in an online contest. We didn’t have time to get any info packs in the mail or anything.”

Mr. Phillips nodded and explained, “The company hired the crew to do some candid filming during this inaugural cruise—just happy guests enjoying themselves, things like that. The footage will be used for future web ads and such.”

“We could be in ads?” George sounded interested. “Cool.”

“I do hope you won’t mind being filmed,” he continued. “But of course anyone who doesn’t wish to take part should inform a member of the cruise staff as soon as possible.” Mr. Phillips excused himself and returned to his post.

As Daisy finished taking our order and hurried off, I glanced again at the camera crew. When had they started filming? Could they have captured any footage earlier in the day that might help with the case? I made a mental note to try to track them down later.

“That was delicious.” Bess pushed her chair back from the table about half an hour later. “If you’ll all excuse me, I need to go powder my nose.”

Yeah, Bess actually says things like that. Without irony, even. What can I say? It works for her.

“I’ll come with you,” I said quickly, dropping my cloth napkin beside my plate. “Uh, for the nose powdering, that is.”

“Me too.” George got up and followed us.

Soon we were in the ladies’ lounge. It was just as opulent as the dining room—plush carpeting, chandeliers, a wall of mirrors with delicate upholstered stools in front of them, the works. But I barely spared a glance for any of it.

“Is anyone else in here?” I asked, peeking under the stall doors.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Bess sat down at the mirror and pulled a compact out of her purse. “Why? Do you have any new theories?”

“Not really.” I quickly told her and George my idea about talking to the camera crew. “You never know,” I said. “Maybe they caught someone carrying
that mannequin around or something.”

“Anything’s possible.” George sounded dubious. She was prowling back and forth across the lounge area, tugging at her dress as if it was choking her. “I guess this means you’ve decided there really is a mystery, huh?”

“It’s sure looking that way.” I glanced around again, making doubly sure we were alone. “And that’s not all—I think someone’s onto us.”

Bess stopped applying powder to her already flawless skin and glanced at me in the mirror. “Onto us? What do you mean?”

“Something happened right before dinner,” I began. “I’ve been dying to tell you, but with Alan around . . .” I went on to tell them about the note in my suitcase.

By the time I finished, Bess’s eyes were wide and worried. “That really sounds like someone was threatening you!”

“Don’t sound so shocked,” George told her. “It’s not like Nancy’s never been threatened before. It kind of goes with the territory.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “But nobody’s supposed to
know why I’m really here, remember? So who could have done it?”

Before my friends could answer, the door swung open. Two giggling preteen girls rushed in with their middle-aged moms right behind them. Bess smiled politely, then stood up.

“We should get back to the table,” she said, dropping her makeup back in her purse. “We don’t want Alan to worry.”

I was disappointed. My friends are always good at helping me figure things out, and I really wanted to talk about possible motives and suspects. But another woman was already coming in, and I realized our private moment was over.

“Let’s go,” I agreed with a sigh.

The bathroom was located in a hallway between the dining room and the stairwell. As we headed toward the former, we passed a door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
. It was standing slightly ajar, and I could hear angry voices coming from inside.

I paused, a little surprised. All the ship’s employees
seemed to make a point of staying polite and cheerful anywhere passengers might hear. But whatever was going on just inside that door sounded anything but polite or cheerful. Most of it was too muffled to make out, though it sounded like two men arguing. Then one of them raised his voice.

“Drop it, John!” he said sharply. “Or I’ll make sure you never make it to Anchorage!”

My eyes widened. That sounded pretty ominous.

“Hey,” I called to my friends, who were a few steps ahead. “Hang on, I want to—”

“Ladies!” A loud, jovial voice interrupted me. Turning, I saw Marcelo, Becca’s boss, hurrying up behind me, a broad smile on his handsome face. “I hope you’re not lost. Can I have the honor of accompanying you back to the dining room?”

“Sure,” Bess said with a smile.

I glanced helplessly at the door. But it was too late. The voices had stopped, so I had little choice but to allow the cruise director to sweep us all back into the dining room.