Innocent Murderer (7 page)

I poked around the bow and checked out the anchor line, which was enormous and snaked its way down a hole about one and a half times my circumference. You could ride it up if it was calm — if there was no choice.

As I stood there, looking down through the hole at the sea below and the waifs of fog that clung to it, the anchor line came to life and began reeling itself in. Each loop of the chain was bigger than my hand. As it rattled up onto the deck from its hidden visit beneath the sea it hugged one side of the tunnel. We were in a dead calm. I won
–
dered what the chain would do in a rolling sea.

“Cordi!”

I turned and followed the voice; Duncan, out for a stroll in the fog, just like me.

“Dear girl,” he said. Duncan was the only person I'd never corrected for calling me girl. It just seemed so innocuous and well meant coming from him. “How's the stomach?” He flung his arm around my shoulder and I staggered, not at the weight of him but because the sea was wreaking havoc with my balance.

I gave him what felt like a sick little grimace. “Not great.”

“You just have to suck it up, as they say,” he said, and I could tell he was proud of himself for getting the lingo right.

“When it's going the other way?” I asked.

He looked at me curiously and then grinned. “Well, I admit, that's a tad difficult.”

He withdrew his arm, put his hands on my shoul
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ders and stared into my face. “You don't look so well,” he proclaimed.

Since I already knew that I didn't bother to answer. Instead I said, “What do you suppose that Peter guy meant when he asked Terry if the Zodiac ropes had been cut?”

“Dunno. Doesn't make any kind of sense. I mean, why would anyone want to cut the ropes?”

“I could have been killed.”

Duncan looked at me. “I hope you're not suggesting someone was out to get you?”

I didn't answer.

“My dear girl, no one could have known you'd have to take over the boat. And there's the little ques
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tion of why.”

“So maybe someone was out to get Peter.”

“Cordi, where do you get such a vivid imagina
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tion? Besides, I've heard from the captain that the ropes weren't cut — they were just badly frayed.”

He stared at me until I looked away. I could see Owen and Terry huddled on the bow in deep conversation.

Duncan followed my gaze. “Have you met Owen and Terry yet?”

I nodded. “I sat beside them both on the plane.”

“Lucky you.”

“Terry's a bit of a handful, but Owen seems nice enough. A bit stiff but okay.”

“You mean Terry's right-hand floor mat.”

“He's a floor mat?” I asked.

“He does everything she tells him to do and gets no thanks whatsoever. He comes to every writing meeting just in case she wants him.” Duncan flicked an imaginary piece of fluff over the railing and turned to look at me.

“I think he must be in love with her because I can see no other reason why he would do that.”

We stood at the railing, watching the ship being pushed about by the sea.

Duncan was twiddling his thumbs, looking like some
–
one who wanted to say something but couldn't get it out.

“What?” I finally asked.

He looked at me. “Have you met Sally yet?”

I looked back at him with interest. “No. Who is she?”

“She's a member of the writing group. Good-looking with a hell of a head of red hair.”

Sally. The one on the plane. I slowly nodded. “Yeah, I've seen her. Why?”

“She's not right,” he said.

“Not right?”

“You know what I mean. You've been there.” There was a long pause between us.

“She's depressed?” I finally asked.

Duncan nodded. “Looks like her boyfriend left her.”

“Arthur?”

“How did you know that? You've spent most of your time in your room.”

“I overheard the breakup on the plane,” I said.

We stood in silence for a while. “She could use a friend.”

“Surely she has friends on board.”

Duncan hesitated. “Yes,” he said. But he said it the way you say it when you're not really sure.

“Ah ha! An ulterior motive.”

“I can't put my finger on it. She's been to every writ
–
ing class and I still don't know why she bothers me. Something about her isn't right.”

“You think it's the depression?

“Could be,” he said thoughtfully. “Could be … She seemed sad even before Arthur dropped her.” But he didn't sound as though he was convincing himself.

“I'll see what I can find out,” I said, with a noted lack of enthusiasm.

We went back to watching the dull grey sea.

“What do you know about Terry's trial?”

“Don't tell me you don't know?” Duncan said. “Where were you when that happened? It was in all the papers.”

“I can't remember. I must have been out of town,” I said, somewhat defensively.

“She killed a friend of hers named Michael in her sleep.”

I stared at him as I thought about all the implications that simple sentence embodied. “And was acquitted?”

“Yes. They determined that she didn't know what she was doing, and based the case on several others where sleepwalkers were acquitted of violent crimes.”

We talked some more about the case and I wondered how easy it would be to fake walking in your sleep and killing someone. But I was beginning to feel unwell and didn't feel like pursuing my thoughts.

I left Duncan and sought refuge in my room. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew Mar
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tha was prancing in, carrying a vermilion and bilious green bathing suit draped over her shoulder and par
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tially hidden by a multicoloured towel covered in teddy bears. Where she ever got her sense of colour I didn't want to know.

“C'mon, Cordi! It's sauna time!”

Sauna time. I groaned.

“C'mon, it'll do you good. Where's your bathing suit?”

I waved in the direction of the dresser, or whatever it's called on a ship.

Martha began fishing out everything until there was nothing left. She looked at me questioningly.

“It's the navy blue thing right there.” I moved towards her to get it when she pulled it out and waved it around.

“There's hardly anything here, for god's sake. Where do you put yourself?”

I grabbed the bathing suit from her and went into the head to find a towel. The sauna was right down at the end of my corridor — aft of my cabin in nautical terms. The change rooms were big enough for five peo
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ple, but the sauna could have held ten because it lay mid
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way between the men's and the woman's change room so that both could use it.

I changed into my bathing suit and opined that it had to be a coed sauna. Martha took an inordinate amount of time changing into her suit and while I was waiting for her I started counting the blue flowers on the wildly floral wall
–
paper. I got to three hundred when Martha emerged from her cubicle and I was very proud of myself for not leaping backwards in shock. She was wearing the most amazing bathing suit. She looked like a ballerina with a little skirt that refused to sit tight to her hips but stuck up, making her look even bigger. Colourful little fish were flitting to and fro, their eyes glittering with multicoloured sequins, and at discrete locations there were clear circular discs exposing the skin beneath. It was definitely not the type of suit some
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one of her ample size should attempt to wear.

I guess I didn't hide my reaction very well after all because Martha's face caved-in. “I bought it because I thought everybody would be so busy looking at it that they wouldn't notice how big I am.”

I felt about two centimetres tall.

She turned from me and as she opened the sauna door a voice squeaked out, “You just have to bide your time, Sal. Be patient. But I still don't understand why you have to do it at all.”

The voice stopped as our eyes met. She was a woman of curves, like a Reubens, with raven black hair and burnt umber eyes. She instinctively hunched forward as if to protect her body from a blow and then relaxed.

“Hello, I'm Sandy.”

I nodded my head at her. She'd been in the writing class. I turned to look at the only other person in the sauna — the redhead.

Martha waded in and introduced me to Sally as we found our spots on the benches. She really was a big woman — not fat but big boned. Her luxurious, curly, red hair billowed around her face, making her watery blue eyes look like an afterthought.

“I was just telling Sally here,” said Sandy, “that she's got to be patient. She's frustrated that she hasn't seen a polar bear yet.”

I smiled and said, “Hard to see anything in this fog.”

Sandy and Sally exchanged glances. Maybe I'd been too flippant?

“Did you know they are the largest land based carni
–
vore in the world and their hair is actually translucent so the sun will go through it to the skin beneath?” I pushed on. “Their skin is black to absorb the sun and the fur is like a wetsuit when they swim.”

No one said anything after that nice little piece of didactic information.

“Your lecture was fun,” said Sandy suddenly. Fun was a strange word to use and I just nodded.

“Did you really solve a murder?”

I nodded again.

“It sounds fascinating, all the clues and sleuth work that you had to do.”

I thought about the state the body had been in and involuntarily shivered.

“Lord love you, Cordi. How can you be shivering in a sauna?” Martha asked.

“Maybe someone stepped on her grave thinking it was mine.” I swivelled my eyes over to look at Sally. That was a funny thing to say. These were a rum pair.

Martha jumped into the silence and changed the subject rather too abruptly. “Sally is part of our writing group and rumour has it she's a dynamite writer.”

Sally, who looked as though she had been crying for twenty years, waved away the compliment.

“I just wish you'd read some of your novel to us in class so we could enjoy your talent.”

“Sorry, it's just something I never do.”

“Couldn't you hand out a copy, or even just an excerpt? Anything?”

Sally mournfully shook her head. “Sorry, I can't do that because …”

Sally was interrupted by Sandy, who said with the finality of a full stop period, “Sally doesn't like crowds,” and again they exchanged glances.

“But that doesn't mean she can't …” Martha started, before thinking better of it when she caught sight of Sally, who had large tears pounding down her face. For a while I thought that maybe it was just a whole lot of sweat and we could ignore it, but then she started to gurgle a bit.

Martha and I looked at each other and then at Sally.

“You know, it's okay to cry,” said Martha. “It helps the pain.”

“How would you know what kind of pain I'm in?”

“Sweetie, we're on a boat. There are only a hundred and ten or so of us and the rumours have been flying. You haven't exactly kept your sorrow to yourself. You've been moping about the ship for all to see.”

“What rumours?” she asked.

“Take your pick. For example: you just lost a child in childbirth and are suffering from postpartum depression.”

Sally gave a weak smile and shook her head.

“How about: your business just went bankrupt and you are in debt over your earlobes?” Where did Martha find these metaphors?

Sally slowly shook her head.

“Okay then. You're a murderer, intent on revenge.”

Sally suddenly covered her face and shook her head.

Sandy squeezed her on the shoulder, in an attempt to comfort her, but Sally shook her off.

Martha caught my eye and knowing what she was about to do I began shaking my head, but she pretended not to see me. “Final scenario: Cordi here accidentally overheard your conversation with Arthur on the plane.

He broke up with you.”

Sally began sobbing then and Sandy gave us the hairy eyeball, but we stayed put.

Eventually Sally choked out, “He said he loved me.”

The words, though muffled and tear laden, were easy to hear — the universal story of love's cruel side.

“I don't know how I can survive without him,” she said, then whimpered. “I don't think I can.”

We were saved from all the normal useless platitudes that accompany such a statement by the sauna door open
–
ing and two more women coming in. They were as close to Mutt and Jeff in size as any friends I'd ever seen. One was the woman who had tried to muzzle Peter, and had asked the question about how to get away with murder on the boat. She was very thin and at least six feet tall.

She had short, wavy black hair and a no-nonsense sort of face with an aristocratic air to it.

The other was the woman who Terry had skewered.

She was nudging five feet on her tippy toes. She had really frizzy, grey streaked hair and watery grey eyes that matched her complexion. She was a woman of angles — everything sharp and pointy from the top of her head to her nose and chin to the hipbones sticking out through her bathing suit.

I thought that Sally and Sandy might leave because they had been in longer than we had, but they stayed put. Martha introduced me to Elizabeth Goodal and Tracey Dunne, from the writing group. I was beginning to feel hemmed in, and where, I wondered, were all the men? This was a shared sauna after all, but it would be a hell of a lot nicer without bathing suits. Tracey had taken up a position beside me, making me feel like a giant.

Elizabeth broke the awkward silence by saying to no one in particular, “I just came from the dining room and Terry was lacing into some poor guy, telling him he was incompetent and the cause of the Zodiac fiasco.” She looked at me with a deprecating smile and said, “Nice work by the way.”