Cruel Capers on the Caribbean: A Kate on Vacation Mystery (The Kate on Vacation mysteries) (13 page)

“Or he had other health problems,” Rob said, “that kept him from getting on the list.”

Kate’s throat closed. The whole mess was so tragic. With the exception of Hudson, everyone had just been trying to survive.

“I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble getting Jorge to cooperate,” she said. “My guess is he was doing it to help out his friends and family.”

The agent nodded, his expression grim. “Hard to believe someone would sell a part of his body for a thousand bucks.”

~~~~~~~~

A
t noon the next day, Kate, Skip and the Franklins stepped out onto the sunny sidewalk.

Rob stretched and blew out air. “Somehow I didn’t expect the Tampa police station to be our last stop on this vacation.”

Kate raised her face to the sun, grateful the task of giving their statements was behind them.

Skip took her hand. “Was it a good vacation, despite murder and mayhem?”

“Yes, it was.” She struggled with a twinge of guilt. “I mean, it’s horrible that Cora’s life was cut short, but at least Clem is free now, and her daughter knows her mother didn’t commit suicide.”

Skip smiled down at her. “It’s okay to admit you had a good time. All that stuff would have happened to them whether we were around or not.”

Kate nodded. “I hope you don’t mind. I asked Clem to stay in touch, let us know how he’s doing, and how Carrie’s handling things.”

Instead of answering her, he brought her hand to his mouth. Turning it over, he kissed her palm. She sucked in air.

“Will you two get a room,” Rob said.

Kate laughed out loud.

~~~~~~<>~~~~~~

I
f you have enjoyed this book, please take a moment to leave a short review on Amazon and/or other retailers. You can readily find the links to these pages at the
misterio press
bookstore
.

As always, I am deeply grateful to those people who helped me make this novella better: my beta readers, Sue and Gina; my critique partners at
misterio press
, Shannon Esposito and Vinnie Hansen, and my long-suffering husband who is also my proofreader. No author can produce a good story without people like these folks who hold up a mirror and let me know what is working and what is not.

To the best of my knowledge there is no Carousel Cruises, and if there is, my apologies. My use of the name is purely coincidental and the specific events in this story are products of my imagination and are not intended to represent any real-life events.

However, it is true that cruise ships tend to be legal entities onto themselves. Even though they may routinely start and finish their itineraries at U.S. ports, they are rarely registered in the United States. Instead, they are often registered in countries that allow them considerable leeway in how they conduct their business, including the business of investigating crimes onboard.

I stumbled on this by accident when I started to research what country would have jurisdiction over a murder committed on a cruise ship. I had intended to have the murder occur between ports of call, and the authorities at the next port would investigate.

What I discovered was that
no country
has such jurisdiction. As the ship’s doctor says, the captain is king. And so crimes–rape, robbery and even murder–are sometimes swept under the rug and not investigated at all, in the interests of maintaining a pleasant experience for the passengers and not tarnishing the cruise line’s reputation.

This worked out well for my story. With no one investigating Cora’s death, my semi-amateur sleuths had free rein, as long as they stayed under the captain’s radar.

In real life, this doesn’t work out so well for cruise passengers who are victims of crime. There are several websites devoted to their stories.

Therefore it is quite realistic that Cora, a seasoned traveler, would have a portable door alarm. The door-stop design described here is exactly the type of alarm I carry in my suitcase when I travel. They also make ones that hook over the door knob and are set off by motion, but they would not be practical on a cruise ship that sometimes rocks in the water.

The black market for kidneys is also all too real, unfortunately. And a thousand dollars is the average payment to people from developing countries who sacrifice one of their kidneys in order to feed their families.

What is not quite so realistic is the itinerary of Kate’s cruise. There used to be a cruise line with a Western Caribbean cruise that departed from Tampa and stopped at Grand Cayman, Cozumel and New Orleans. My husband and I took that cruise in January, 2002.

But today, while some cruises depart from New Orleans, I couldn’t find any that had that city as a port of call. And while Key West is a port of call on some cruises, no itinerary would be likely to include two U.S. cities. I exercised a bit of literary license here, in order to make the storyline work.

And while the description of the Caymans’ harbor issue is real, when a cruise ship has to skip that stop due to rough waters in the harbor, they are unlikely to circle back later in the cruise. Again, for the sake of the storyline, I made this happen.

I hope you enjoyed this second installment in the Kate on Vacation series. These novellas are intended to be a fun read, liberally sprinkled with local color so you can be an armchair traveler. I have another Kate on Vacation novella outlined, but it is set in Hawaii and I’m still saving my pennies to travel there for a research trip.

I do have the next full-length Kate Huntington mystery almost finished. I hope to release it in Fall, 2014. Here’s a synopsis:

––––––––

F
ATAL FORTY-EIGHT, A Kate Huntington Mystery
:

––––––––

K
ate’s former boss, Sally Ford, is retiring. The new man in her life, Charles Tolliver, has convinced her to turn over the reins of The Trauma Recovery Center to others and spend her golden years with him.

But instead of many golden years, she may only have forty-eight hours. On the evening of her retirement party, she is kidnapped by a serial killer.

Normally the disappearance of an adult would be handled by a different department, but Lieutenant Judith Anderson of the Baltimore County Police Department’s homicide division realizes the MO is similar to a rash of kidnappings/murders that occurred in New Haven, Connecticut the previous year. When Kate and her P.I. husband insist on being part of the investigation, Judith’s hesitation is brief. A woman’s life is at stake and there is no time to lose.

Unfortunately the pair of FBI agents who arrive from New Haven have mixed emotions about civilian involvement. The middle-aged male agent is happy to have Kate’s assistance as he fine-tunes his psychological profile of the ‘unsub’ the press had dubbed the Forty-Eight Hour Killer. But the voluptuous, young female agent believes in doing things by the book.

As she locks horns out in the field with Skip, misunderstandings abound back at headquarters. But there’s no time for these innuendoes and jealousies. Sally has less than forty-eight hours to live.

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A
bout the Author –>

K
assandra Lamb was a psychotherapist for over two decades, specializing in trauma recovery. She has also taught psychopathology at Towson University and at other colleges. Now retired, she devotes the majority of her time to her other greatest passion, writing. The magic portal to the world of Kate and her friends (i.e., Kassandra’s computer) is located in Florida, where Kass’s husband and dog catch occasional glimpses of her.

She has completed six books in the Kate Huntington series and two Kate on Vacation novellas. She is currently working on book seven.

You can read and see more about Kassandra and the Kate Huntington series (including photo galleries) at
http://kassandralamb.com
. Please sign up for the newsletter to get updates regarding future releases and other interesting tidbits about the series.

Kassandra blogs at
http://misteriopress.com
about psychology, relationships, and a variety of other topics. Please check it out.

She also hangs out on
Facebook
and on Twitter @KassandraLamb, or you can contact her at
[email protected]

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P
lease check out these other
misterio press
series:

Karma’s A Bitch: The Pet Psychic series
by Shannon Esposito

Multiple Motives: The Kate Huntington series
by Kassandra Lamb

Maui Widow Waltz: The Islands of Aloha series
by JoAnn Bassett

The Metaphysical Detective: The Riga Hayworth series
by Kirsten Weiss

Dangerous and Unseemly: The Concordia Wells series
by K.B. Owen

Murder, Honey: The Carol Sabala series
by Vinnie Hansen

plus even more great mysteries/thrillers in the
misterio press
bookstore