Dark Passage (17 page)

‘The place where Julie was found has been secured, not the place Julie was attacked,' I pointed out. ‘Because we don't know where she was attacked, do we?'

‘No,' Martin said simply. ‘Nor can we simply assume that because she was found in a crew area of the ship that a crew member was responsible. The room she described might belong to a passenger, or to one of the staff. There are any number of ways your niece could have ended up down on I-95. Our key card system is reliable, but not infallible.'

‘I have a question about the security tapes,' Ruth chimed in after a respectful silence to let what Martin had just said soak in. ‘This didn't happen to Julie in broad daylight. She had to have been taken somewhere private, where nobody could see. And Julie said the cabin had a living room, so it had to be bigger than this cabin, surely. Wouldn't that narrow it down?'

‘
Islander
has over one hundred cabins larger than this one,' Martin explained gently. ‘Doubles, and some smaller singles, too, some with living room configurations.'

I picked up from where Ruth left off. ‘But all the cabins are directly off corridors, right? So at least
one
of the security cameras must have picked up on a guy in a black polo shirt wearing a ball cap and leading a young girl down the hall!'

Martin flushed. ‘We don't have cameras in the stateroom corridors, I'm afraid. Surveys have told us that passengers consider it an invasion of privacy.'

I blew a raspberry. ‘Why? Because they're bed hopping in the middle of the night?'

‘Something like that. Or fighting, or throwing up on the carpet, or pouring beer over someone's head.' Martin sighed. ‘Alcohol is too readily available. It doesn't make my job easy.'

Georgina wasn't impressed. ‘As far as I can tell, this had nothing to do with alcohol, did it? What I want is for you to find this pervert and lock him up. You have a brig on board for this purpose, I presume?'

‘No, ma'am, we don't, but until we get into port, this guy – whoever he is – isn't going anywhere.' He heaved himself to his feet. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?'

‘Thanks, no,' I said after a moment of silence had passed. ‘Georgina?'

My sister, straight-lipped, shook her head.

Officer Martin opened the cabin door and stepped into the hall. Molly Fortune started to follow then paused, seized my hand and spoke to me, fast and low. ‘You might want to contact an attorney,' she said.

‘OK, but why?' I whispered back. ‘Didn't you call the F.B.I.?'

‘Oh, yes, he called the Feds. But that
first
call? It was to Boca Raton.'

Now I was thorough confused. ‘What's in Boca Raton?'

‘Phoenix Cruise Lines' headquarters,' she said ominously, then slipped out the door.

After Martin and Fortune left, the four of us sat in silence for a while, thinking. There were calls to make, to be sure, but until the
Islander
reached land we were pretty much on our own.

‘Well, ladies,' I said at last. ‘The way I figure it, we have little more than twenty-four hours to track this bastard down. And I think I know just where to begin.'

‘Unlike police in a community setting, who are objective and are a disinterested party in their investigation, shipboard security personnel are compromised by the fact that they must investigate crimes on board a ship where their own employer may be complicit in, or party to the crime. Can these security personnel truly act in a disinterested, objective manner that places the interests of the victim above those of the organization from which they receive their paycheck and continued employment?'

Testimony of Ross A. Klein, PhD before the Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation, March 1, 2012

‘I
t didn't happen,' Pia said. ‘You know that's the answer I have to give.'

‘But young girls
have
been attacked before Julie!' I pounded the flat of my hand on polished surface of the Oracle bar. ‘And it will happen again, and again, and again. Who knows how many others will be assaulted if we don't unmask this pervert. We've got to stop him, now.'

‘I don't understand what you want
me
to do.'

‘You're a smart woman, Pia, and I think you're starting to put it together, just like Charlotte did. Julie's drink was spiked with drugs and she disappeared from the Tidal Wave's bar. But she wasn't the first girl that happened to in the Tidal Wave, was she? You haven't told me the whole story, Pia. What are you hiding?'

Pia pasted on a smile. Her eyes darted nervously from one corner of the lobby to the other. ‘We can't talk about that here.'

‘I completely understand, but where
can
we talk about it?'

Pia checked her watch. ‘I'm supposed to be meeting Tom at ten to practice with the new apparatus. He's setting it up backstage at the Orpheus, and I know there are no surveillance cameras back there. Why don't you meet me there?'

So, Pia didn't want to be spotted talking to me on the surveillance cameras. I wondered why. ‘You're frightened, aren't you?'

‘Let's just say that there are some people who don't want to upset the status quo. Sometimes the safest thing is not to get involved.' Her hand shot under the bar and came back holding a Coke. ‘Here, pretend you ordered it.'

I could understand Pia's reticence. Charlotte had been her roommate, and when Charlotte decided to get involved, it had cost her her life. ‘I promise we'll be careful.'

When I saw Pia again a few minutes later, she was backstage helping Tom secure the clamps on four Plexiglas cylinders, approximately the diameter of a human body, joining them to make one longer cylinder. ‘They have O-rings,' Tom explained, ‘just like the sections of a rocket. Completely waterproof.'

I perched on one of the wooden crates that I assumed the cylinders had been shipped in. ‘I've read about Houdini's water torture chamber. Is it like that?'

Tom swept a lock of silver hair out of his eyes
and grinned. ‘Nothing like that. There's going to be a ship's propeller spinning around in the middle of it.' He drew circles in the air with an index finger. ‘Pass a watermelon through there …
wissshh, womp-womp-womp
!'

I was getting the picture. ‘Then you send a person through? Ouch!'

Tom winked and his ice-blue eyes twinkled. ‘That would be telling.'

For the first time in several days, I saw Pia smile. ‘Note the nautical theme. Tom's very pleased with himself.'

‘What will you call the illusion?' I asked.

Tom grinned. ‘Haven't decided yet. If you have any ideas, let me know.'

‘Have you ever performed the water torture trick?' I asked the magician.

‘Back in the day,' Channing replied, without looking up.

‘Tom started out as an escape artist,' Pia chirped. ‘Handcuffs, locks, straitjackets, the whole nine yards.'

All of the props for Channing's magic act were stored neatly around us, fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, taking up as little space as possible in the otherwise spacious backstage area. I saw the Indian Sword Basket and the Zig-Zag Box, and another box painted in yellow, red and green like a circus wagon. ‘What's that?' I asked. ‘I didn't see it in the show.'

Pia answered, ‘A Vanishing Cabinet. We alternate between that and the Zig-Zag Box. Can't have the same show every night or the audience will get bored.'

Tom appeared to be completely absorbed with the adjustments he was making to one of the clamps on his illusion. I didn't waste any time getting to the point. ‘Where were we, Pia?'

‘There have been a number of sexual assaults during the time I've been working for Phoenix Cruise Lines, Mrs Ives, but the girls weren't as lucky as your niece. Most of them were raped.'

‘How many victims?'

‘I don't know exactly, but there were rumors. Four or five, at least.'

I sucked air in through my teeth. ‘And they never caught who did it.'

‘No.'

‘What I don't understand is why the parents of the victims didn't come forward, make a fuss. How come it's not all over Fox, CNN and the local six o'clock news?'

‘Security staff have been instructed to make the problem go away,' Pia confided. ‘Sometimes they intimidate the parents – your daughter was drinking, she was acting flirtatious, dressing like a slut. They'd guilt-trip the parents, too, who were more than likely whooping it up in the casino while their daughter was being raped by some lowlife.'

‘Blame the victim.'

‘Exactly. I've heard of cases where Security lost the evidence, or never collected evidence in the first place. Security tapes that exonerate the cruise line? Feds are welcome to them, but if they happen to show the cruise line at fault? Ooops! Wonder what happened to that tape? Camera must have been broken, or we accidentally recorded over it.'

Pia paused to take a breath. ‘When I was on the
Voyager
, before Char went missing, a fifteen-year-old was kidnapped, raped and left for dead in a sex cabin on deck three. Did they secure the cabin? They did not. Housekeeping was instructed to clean it up. So there was absolutely nothing for the F.B.I. to investigate when they finally came on board in Los Angeles.'

I held up a hand. ‘Back up a minute. “Sex cabin?” Please tell me you're joking.'

Pia smiled grimly. ‘It's an empty cabin – could be anywhere on the ship. The crew knows where they are and they use them for sex, generally with each other.'

‘Pia, you're telling me that Security has a vested interest in covering things up, but yesterday I got exactly the opposite impression from Ben Martin. He responded quickly, got his team organized, found Julie fairly quickly, and seemed really concerned about conducting a thorough investigation. I'm sure he wants to get the case off his desk – as he says, he's not a policeman – and he's assured us he's planning to turn everything he's got over to the Feds.'

‘That's Ben. He's seems to be a straight arrow. The security guy that came before him? Not so much. He'd actually offer the parents of the victims stateroom upgrades, fifty percent refunds, trip vouchers … and if they really made a fuss, he was authorized to pay them off in cash, if only they'd just shut up and go away.'

I couldn't imagine Georgina settling for any amount of money as compensation for what had just happened to Julie. And I wouldn't want to be within shooting range if anybody tried. ‘Despicable,' I said.

‘But if you felt you had no recourse …' Pia shrugged. ‘I guess getting some money out of it was better than nothing. Once you get off the ship? Forget about it. Phoenix lawyers up.'

I thought about Ben Martin's call to Boca Raton and got a sudden chill.

‘Ouch! Dammit!' Tom was sucking on his finger, scowling at his screwdriver.

‘Need help?' Pia asked.

‘No, no. It's under control. You girls go ahead, chat, have fun.'

‘Fun?' Clearly the man hadn't been listening.

‘Back there you asked me if I was frightened,' Pia continued. ‘I'm freaking paranoid, Mrs Ives! As you know, Charlotte worked as one of the youth counselors, so she must have seen something. She'd figured it out, I'm pretty sure of that, and she was about to blow the whistle. That's why she was murdered.'

‘You were her roommate. Did she tell you who she suspected?'

‘We shared a cabin, that's all, Mrs Ives. Our schedules didn't coincide. I'd be finished with the show by around nine, but she'd often be up until one or two in the morning, babysitting the little brats until their shit-faced parents showed up to claim them. By the time she came stumbling in, I'd usually be asleep. So, no, she never said. But she was upset about something; I couldn't help but notice that.'

‘And we know from Charlotte's father that she had a problem and needed his advice.'

‘Yes.'

‘Have you seen David lately, Pia?'

She shook her head. ‘Not since he tracked me down at the beginning of the voyage – you came over to speak to me just after that, remember? – and asked me some questions about Charlotte.'

‘Like?'

‘Like the questions you've just been asking me.'

‘You know what I think, Pia?'

Pia's eyes narrowed cautiously.

‘With Charlotte out of the picture, there are three people who can solve this puzzle – you, me and David Warren. I think we should get together, lay all the pieces out on the table and see what we come up with. Are you willing to do that?'

Pia shifted uncomfortably on the crate, slid her hands under her thighs and rocked back and forth on them, considering. ‘OK, but we need to be careful. I don't want to end up like Char.'

‘We'll be very careful. And we may have an ally that Charlotte didn't have. The security officer on this ship
seems
to be an honest man, but I really trust his assistant, Molly Fortune.'

I had a sudden thought. ‘They tell me Julie was found down near I-95 in the crew-only area. Do you know where that is?'

Pia nodded.

‘I'd like to see it. Can you take me there?'

‘You're serious? No, wait a minute. I can see from the expression on your face that you are.' She hopped off the crate. ‘Stand up, let me look at you.'

I did as I was told.

‘I think that outfit will do.' She turned to the magician. ‘Tom, what did you do with that clipboard?'

Tom gestured vaguely with his screwdriver. ‘Over there, under the drape.'

Pia retreated into a dark backstage recess and returned holding a clipboard with a pen and several pieces of paper attached to it. She handed it to me. ‘As long as you have a clipboard, you can be in any place at any time.'