Cruel Capers on the Caribbean: A Kate on Vacation Mystery (The Kate on Vacation mysteries) (8 page)

“Am I over-reacting,” Liz said, “or was that the weirdest conversation ever?”

The shiver that ran down Kate’s spine had nothing to do with the sea breeze. “I just had pretty much the same thought.”

T
hey decided to wait until after lunch to approach the ship’s doctor. Between eleven and two, there was a risk they would find only an assistant in charge of the infirmary.

At two-ten, Liz walked into the infirmary on Deck 2 with her retinue of dear, dear friends. She clutched her stomach. “I think I ate something that was bad.”

The young woman in the outer office blanched. “Come back to an examining room, ma’am. I’ll get Dr. Madigan for you.”

She scowled at the others as they tagged along. Kate and Rob scowled back. Skip gave her his most charming smile. She apparently opted to ignore them and instructed the patient to sit on the end of an examining table. Liz obliged, then groaned and clutched her stomach again.

The young woman scurried from the room.

A couple minutes later, Dr. Madigan came in. “What seems to be the prob....” The words died on his lips as he recognized them.

“I’m having an allergic reaction,” Liz said. “I’m allergic to bullshit.”

The others stared at her. As no-nonsense as Liz was, she almost never cussed.

Madigan sighed. “I don’t blame you.” He looked at Kate and gestured to the only chair in the room. He sat down on a stool at the end of the examining table.

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with what the hell’s going on here?” Kate said.

Madigan shook his head slightly. “Just your typical cruise ship cover-up.”

“What do you mean?” Skip asked.

Madigan blew out air. “I spent a few years in the Peace Corps right out of med school. Got used to traveling around, seeing the world. I figured what the hell, let’s try being a cruise ship doc for a while. I had no idea the crap that goes on behind the scenes.”

“What do you mean?” Kate echoed her husband’s words.

The doctor ran fingers through his sun-bleached hair.

Kate gave him a hard look. Her impression of him the other night had been fleeting. She’d been focused on Cora. Now she lowered her estimate of his age. His tanned skin was a bit leathery, with crows’ feet around his blue eyes, but he probably wasn’t past thirty-five.

“What I mean is that everybody on this ship needs their job a helluva a lot more than I do, so the name of the game is cover the cruise line’s ass at all costs.”

“That include the captain?” Rob asked.

“Him most of all.”

“So what can you tell us?” Skip asked.

“First, this lady had probably never used injectable drugs before in her life. I examined her from stem to stern. No needle marks or puncture wounds anywhere, except that one on the inside of her left elbow.”

Skip nodded. “Could you determine time of death?”

Madigan shook his head, his expression regretful. “I don’t have the forensic training. My best guess is between noon and mid-evening.”

“Jorge was hovering over that food tray at a little after six,” Kate said. “Right in the middle of that window.”

Madigan looked confused.

Kate waved her hand in a never-mind gesture. She didn’t feel like taking the time to explain it to him. “Is there anything else you can tell us, Doctor?”

Madigan waved his own hand in the air. “Call me Ted. When I was examining the body, I found a small contusion and a minor laceration on the back of her head.” He gestured with his hand to show on his own head where the injury was located.

“Translation: a bump and small cut,” Liz said.

Ted Madigan gave her a half smile and nodded.

“Somebody knocked her out?” Kate asked.

The doctor shrugged. “Either that or she fell and hit her head on something, but it didn’t look severe enough to have killed her.”

“Did it bleed much?” Skip asked.

Ted Madigan shook his head. “It was more a skinned place, like when you bump your knee on something rough. No dried blood in her hair.”

“Somebody could have hit her with something and stunned her,” Liz said, “then overpowered her and injected the drugs.”

Something was hovering on the edge of Kate’s mind, something the doctor had said. She closed her eyes and brought up the image of Cora, that first morning, spooning yogurt into her mouth.

“Maybe,” Madigan was saying. “But don’t forget she was in a room that was locked from the inside.”

Kate held up her hand in a stop gesture. “Did you say the needle mark was on the inside of her
left
elbow?”

“Yeah.”

“Dr. Madigan, locked room or not, Cora Beall did
not
commit suicide. She was left-handed.”

~~~~~~~~

“W
hat now?” Kate said as they left the infirmary. Madigan had reassured them he would give a full report, including all their doubts and suspicions, to the Tampa police. Should they wait and see how they handled the investigation?

“I want to see if I can get into Cora’s cabin,” Skip said.

“How you gonna pull that off?”

“I’ll shanghai a room steward and steal their master key if need be.”

Kate was surprised by the vehemence in his voice. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

But his jaw was clenched, a sure sign he was anything but okay. She stared at him.

He met her gaze. “Don’t like political bullshit and cover-ups. Never have.”

Which is why you are no longer a police officer and are now self-employed
.

Out loud, she said, “Let’s go.”

As they headed for Deck 10, Liz hung back with Kate. “Is this the same guy who admonished you to butt out and enjoy your vacation?” she whispered.

Kate just cocked her head and smiled.

Skip suggested Rob and Liz wait in their cabin. It wouldn’t be good for a lawyer to be arrested for breaking and entering. Not that it would be all that good for a private detective either, but no point in risking all their professional licenses.

Kate insisted on coming along, however. “If you’re gonna end up in the brig, I might as well be with you.”

She kept watch as he worked on the lock on Cora’s cabin door. “As determined as the captain is to cover this up,” she whispered, “even if we get caught, I doubt he’d do much. Not if we threatened to go public with the story.”

“It may go public anyway,” Skip said. “I don’t think the good captain realizes how relentless the American paparazzi are.”

Kate grimaced. They’d had personal experience with said paparazzi in the past.

“And we’re in.” Skip stepped quickly through the door, pulling Kate in after him.

“Do you usually pack lock picks when you go on vacation, Mr. Canfield?” she said with a teasing smile.

“I do now. Somehow I always end up needing them when I’m around you. I’m surprised they made it past the security screen of our luggage.”

Kate gave him a mock offended look. “Hey, I don’t ask for this crap to happen.”

“No, but you seem to be a magnet for it.” He softened the words with a grin. “Check out the bedroom area, will you?”

“What are we looking for?”

“Anything that’s off. Mostly I want to figure out how a killer got out of this room with the door alarm engaged.” He picked up the wedge-shaped doorstop alarm that someone had deposited on the desk. “What I wish I had brought with me is my fingerprint kit.”

Kate let out a low chuckle from where she was examining the floor around the bed. “Now that
would
be over-packing.”

Skip moved the alarm’s button to the on position, then tapped the top of it, simulating a door pushing against it. The gizmo squawked in his hand. He released it. The sound stopped. “There’s no way anyone could have wedged this under the door, then opened that door and left the room. You saw how hard it was to push it back, and the noise it made would have drawn attention.”

Kate walked over and tapped it. It let out another brief squawk. “Yeah, that’s pretty loud. And if they had put it down, then left by the door, the alarm would have been shoved out of place. It wouldn’t have been under the door when we opened it.”

He nodded. “Find anything over there?”

“Just dust bunnies.”

Skip went to the closet and pulled Cora’s bags out. He hefted them. “These feel too heavy to be empty.” He put them on the sofa. “Check them for hidden pockets.”

Kate reared back a little, uncomfortable with the invasion of Cora’s privacy. She reminded herself that the woman was beyond caring, and they were trying to solve her murder.

“Search her dresser drawers when you’re finished there.”

Kate nodded as she opened the first suitcase.

After a few minutes, Skip said, “Come look at this, Kate.” He pointed out several subtle spots on the beige carpet, where the pile was stained slightly pink. “Too light-colored to be blood. Maybe they were already there.”

“I doubt it. Not in a high-end cabin like this one.”

“Could be Cora’s blood from her head wound, that someone tried to clean up.” He went back over to the closet and rummaged through the pockets in Cora’s clothing. Then he started tapping on the walls.

“What are you looking for?” Kate said, from her position by the dresser.

“Won’t know ’til I find it.”

They both whirled around when the cabin door swung open.

The steward, Jorge, stood in the doorway. “What you doing here?” His eyes shifted to Skip, standing half in the closet, and he blanched. “You not s’posed to be here. How you get in?”

Skip ignored the question and pointed to the stains on the carpet. “Do you know what those are from?”

Jorge barely glanced at them. “Wine. I need clean here now. You leave.”

Kate stepped toward him. “Actually we’ve been looking for you. We have some questions.”

“I not allowed talk to you.”

“Says who? The captain?” Skip asked.

Jorge pressed his lips together in a grim line. “You leave now, and I no tell him you in here.”

S
kip knocked lightly on the Franklins’ cabin door. Liz let them in. They reported on the stained carpet, the only results of their aborted search of Cora’s cabin.

“I checked Clem out some more while you all were breaking and entering,” Liz said. “He seems to be on the up-and-up. He’s written the screenplays for quite a few movies, even some box office hits. And he’s not as poor as Cora made him out to be.”

“How’d you get into his financial records?” Skip asked.

Rob’s fingers were moving toward his ears. Kate put a restraining hand on her husband’s arm. “Don’t ask. Not unless you want to hear Rob singing ‘la, la, la,’ off key.”

“I do
not
sing off key,” Rob said.

Kate grinned at him.

“Moving right along,” Liz said. “Clem’s story about Cora’s brother overdosing on drugs is legit. Cora was sixteen, eighteen when her mother committed suicide.”

That sobered their mood. “What else is on your list of questions?” Liz asked.

Kate pulled the now crumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket and consulted it. “We still need to get in touch with Dr. Hudson somehow and find out when and where he saw Clem and Cora fighting.”

“Hmm, let me check him out.” After a few minutes, Liz looked up. “He runs a dialysis center in Chicago. I can’t find a home number but I’ve got the center’s number.”

Kate took out her cell phone and turned it on. She punched in the number that Liz rattled off.

A young woman answered. “Wellcare Dialysis Center.”

“Could I speak to Dr. Hudson, please?”

“Uh, he’s on vacation.”

“Do you have any way of getting in touch with him?” Kate asked. “It’s rather important.”

“His assistant can probably reach him. What’s this about?”

“Let me give you my number. Please ask him to call me as soon as possible. Tell him it’s about the woman who died on the cruise ship.” Kate gave the young woman her name and cell phone number, then disconnected.

To the others she said, “He apparently hasn’t returned to work.”

“Maybe he and the wife decided to finish their vacation in New Orleans,” Rob said.

Kate shrugged. “Maybe.”

Skip consulted his watch. “I can’t think of anything else we can do right now. I suggest we act like
we’re
on vacation for a while. You want to take a swim in the pool?”

“I’m up for a swim,” Liz said.

Rob yawned. “I think I’d rather take a nap, but you all go on.”

~~~~~~~~

T
he ship had traveled far enough south again that the air was now quite warm. The pool was too crowded to do much more than splash around for a few minutes to cool off. Refreshed, they dried themselves with the white fluffy towels provided by a pool-side attendant and then commandeered three lounge chairs.

Kate flopped onto the one in the middle. She raised her face to the sun. “You all realize that back home in Maryland, it’s probably raining right now.”

Liz lowered herself onto the chaise to her right. “April showers bring May flowers.” She waved at a waitress who was circulating amongst the chairs taking drink orders. “I’m getting a pina colada. You two want anything?”

Kate started to shake her head, then changed her mind. She rarely drank this early in the day, but they
were
on vacation. “Sure, I’ll have one too.”

“I’ll have a beer, please,” Skip said. “Coors.”

Within a few minutes, the young woman was back with their drinks. Kate sipped the sweet, tangy mixture of coconut milk, pineapple juice and rum. “Mmm. I could get used to this, being waited on at pool side.” She took another sip, then set her glass down on the deck next to her chair and closed her eyes.

The next thing she knew Skip was gently shaking her shoulder. “Maybe we should go in. You’re getting burned.”

Kate looked down at her legs. Her thighs were a rather bright pink. “Damn, I forgot to put sunscreen on. I’m not used to the sun being this intense, especially this early in the season.”

She and Liz gathered their things while Skip pulled a T-shirt on. They headed back to their cabins.

As they entered the corridor, the door of the cabin next to Cora’s opened and Jorge stepped out. His eyes went wide when he saw them. He turned to his right and hustled away from them.