Annabelle Archer BoxSet, page 86
part #1 of Annabelle Archer Series
Fern readjusted his towel turban and hiccuped. “Easy pleasy.”
42
“There you are,” I said as I dashed into the kitchen tent where Richard stood garnishing a platter of hors d’oeuvres with fresh flowers. I wiped the water off my face as I breathed in the savory smell of rosemary filling the small space. I noticed a second tray of lamb skewers threaded with fresh sprigs of the herb and wondered if I could distract Richard and steal a few. The gummy bears were not filling.
Richard looked up at me and the clear plastic shower cap he wore slipped down on his forehead. “There I am? Where have you been? The ceremony ended twenty minutes ago.”
I tried to ignore the shower cap and the obvious question of where he got it. “I’ve been busy.”
Richard tapped his foot. “Well, while you’ve been gallivanting around, I’ve been slaving away out here on the docks.”
I doubted if anyone had ever claimed to be “slaving away on the docks” while wearing a designer suit. I looked at the metal framework holding the tent together, the bars rattling as the wind shook them, and I couldn’t help but notice the walls of the tent groaning as the rain pummeled them. I said a quick prayer the tent would not be lifted up and blown away, taking Richard and several hundred hors d’oeuvres with it.
“I haven’t been gallivanting around,” I said. “I’ve been trying to do some damage control. And figure out what’s going on.”
“What’s going on is these guests are eating and drinking like they were just rescued from a desert island.” He snapped a white rose head from a long stem and placed it at the top of a tray of mini lobster rolls. “If they keep up this pace, I don’t know if I have enough food to last all night.”
“It won’t have to last all night,” I said. “Just until the police discover the second dead body and shut us down.”
“I thought the plan was to tell the security team once my cocktail party was over.” Richard looked at his watch. “It’s almost time for the first dance.”
I held up my hands. “Okay, okay. Since our plan was going so well, I hoped I could buy a little more time to try to figure things out.”
“Going so well?” Richard’s eyes widened and he snatched up a rose. “Which part of this night seems to be going well to you?” He ripped a bruised petal off the bloom. “The monsoon?” Rip. “The dead body?” Rip, rip. “The fact that some of us may be going to jail for obstruction of justice?” Rip, rip, rip. The rose fell apart and he threw the petals to the ground.
“Well, obviously not those things.”
Richard pointed to his head. “For heaven’s sake, Annabelle, I’ve resorted to wearing a shower cap. A shower cap! Me!” His voice cracked. “It’s almost too much to bear.”
I tried not to stare at the thin, crinkled plastic covering his hair and put a hand over my mouth to stifle my urge to giggle. “Where on earth did you even get a shower cap?”
He pointed to his head and I noticed faint lettering on the plastic.
“Does it say Mystic Maven on your head?” I asked.
Richard nodded. “I found them in the gym bathroom. You have to hand it to them. These people know how to brand.”
Why was I surprised the ship had its own imprinted shower caps?
“If you breathe a word of this to anyone, I’ll deny it until my last dying breath.” Richard shook a finger at me. “And if those TV cameras come anywhere near this tent and film me like this, they’ll regret it.”
“Your secret is safe with me. I, for one, do not have a death wish.”
Richard bobbled his head at me. “You don’t seem to have a problem running around a ship with a killer on board. Sounds like a death wish to me.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll find Daniel Reese and tell him everything. Up until the part about us not telling him for the past hour so we could go ahead with the ceremony. I might leave that part out.”
“Good thinking. And, if asked, I was here in the kitchen tent the entire night.”
“Stay here then. I’ll come get you once I’ve spilled the beans.” I shot a look at his head. “It’s not like you want anyone to see you in this state anyway.”
He leveled a finger at me. “Don’t even dream of posting a photo. And if I end up in a ‘snap’ or a ‘chat’ or a ‘story’ . . . ” He made air quotes. “Heads will roll.”
“Believe me, a monsoon does not Instagram well.”
I pulled back the flap of the tent. The rain had changed to steady, fat drops bouncing off the waterlogged sheets of plywood covering the dock. I eyed the metal ramp a few feet away and, just as I was about to make a dash for it, noticed a small figure in a bright yellow rain coat and rain hat disappearing through the ship’s glass door at the top of the ramp.
I blinked and then blinked again. The only person I knew with an ensemble like that was Leatrice, but I had specifically told her to stay away.
And, of course, I knew she wouldn’t listen to me. I steeled myself for the rain then hurried up the ramp to the boat, pushing open the glass door and preparing to give Leatrice a thorough scolding.
The room was empty aside from trays of Champagne glasses and used hors d’oeuvre trays stacked to go back down to the kitchen tent. She must be nearby, I told myself as I shook the rain off my clothes. I peeked into the main salon. It was still packed with guests, and there wasn’t a bright yellow rain jacket in sight. I made for the galley kitchen where Richard’s headwaiter was opening a bottle of Champagne.
“Jim!” I clutched the tall man’s arm. “Have you seen a little old lady in a yellow rain coat?”
He jerked his head toward the door on the other side of the galley. “She went that way looking for you. Do you want me to go after her?”
“No, I’ve got it. You just keep the guests drunk so they won’t notice when the police arrive.”
Jim stared at me, his mouth falling open a bit, but I left before he could do anything more than look confused. The door from the galley led to a back spiral staircase. I paused for a moment then decided to go down. I wound down the stairs, holding tightly on the rail so I wouldn’t slide all the way down, and paused when I reached the next floor. Down the hallway I could see Fern still wearing his fluffy beige towel ensemble. Leatrice stood next to him.
“Aha,” I said, striding down the hall.
Leatrice turned and beamed at me from under her oversized yellow rain hat. “I’ve been looking for you, dear.”
“That’s my line,” I said. “And what are you doing here? I told you not to come down.”
“You did?” Leatrice looked confused. “I didn’t hear you say that. But, then, we did have a bad connection.” She looked at Fern. “If I’d known this was a toga party, I would have dressed accordingly.”
“This isn’t a toga party,” I said. “Fern’s being a distraction.”
“Isn’t he always?”
Fern batted his eyelashes at me and shifted the towel on his head so it wasn’t so crooked. Leatrice had a point.
I grabbed Leatrice’s arm. “I need to get you off the ship. It isn’t safe here.”
“But I brought you this.” She held up a manila envelope. “The envelope you asked me about over the phone. The one I delivered to you the other day.”
I gave her a pointed look. “The one in my apartment?” Not that I was the least bit shocked Leatrice had let herself into my apartment.
She patted my hand. “Yes, dear. You’re welcome.”
I took the envelope from her. “You still can’t be here. Things are about to get unpleasant, and I don’t want you caught in the middle of it.”
Leatrice’s face brightened as she looked past me down the hall. “You look familiar.”
43
I spun around then let out a breath when I saw it was Mandy and not Daniel Reese. “You startled me. I thought you were headed off the ship”
“I was, but I wanted to grab a heavier coat from my room.” Mandy let her eyes linger on Fern’s towel-turbaned head, which he patted.
I didn’t even bother to explain because the explanation would sound ridiculous. I looked over my shoulder to the stairs. At least no one else was a witness, even though I could hear the low hum of the guests one floor above us. If all was going according to plan, they were being plied with enough food and drink to keep them from entertaining any notion of exploring the ship.
“You’ve come by our building before, haven’t you?” Leatrice asked.
Mandy nodded, her eyes fixed on the manila envelope. “I thought it was at your place, Annabelle.”
“We had a bit of a mix-up. Leatrice thought I wanted her to bring it to me on board.”
Mandy’s eyes darted up and down the narrow hallway. “That’s the only evidence we have showing something fishy is going on.”
“Leatrice,” I said, “we have to get you and that envelope off the ship. It isn’t safe here.”
Her face fell. “But I just got here and it took me forever to drive here in this rain.”
“You drove in this storm?” Mandy gaped at her and then sighed. “You can’t send her out in this weather.”
“Fine,” I said, my sigh matching Mandy’s. “But we have to keep you out of the way.”
“She can hide out in my room until the rain slacks off a bit,” Mandy offered. “No one will look for her there.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. I could only imagine what kind of trouble Mandy would get into if anyone discovered my nutty old neighbor had crashed the wedding and was hiding out in her bedroom. Then again, Mandy was already in hot water, so what was a little more?
“Of course. I was on my way there anyway.”
Leatrice and Mandy headed down the hall to the spiral staircase that led down to the crew quarters. I trailed behind, still not comfortable with the idea of Leatrice hiding on the ship with the wedding going on above us and a dead body yet to be discovered just steps away.
“What are you doing?” I said to Fern when I noticed he was following me. I started walking faster.
“This is exciting. I’ve always wanted to go into hiding,” Fern said in a low voice as we wound our way down the staircase. “This is just like being in the witness relocation program.”
“This is nothing like that,” I said when we reached the lower level. “Leatrice is hiding out until we can get her safely off the ship. That’s all.”
“Why are you trying to take this away from me, Annabelle?” Fern pushed me back as he sped up and passed me in the narrow hallway, almost bumping into Leatrice and Mandy when they stopped in front of a doorway.
Mandy opened the door and waved Leatrice inside the small windowless room.
“Make yourself at home.” She took a couple of steps over to the closet. “I need to find my Mystic Maven raincoat or I’ll get drenched out there.”
Leatrice took a seat at the blond wood desk and put the envelope in front of her, pushing the crystal Mystic Maven paperweight out of her way.
“Did you open it?” I asked Leatrice.
She looked affronted. “Of course not, dear. I would never pry.”
I restrained myself from mentioning the many ways she’d pried in my life, from trying to set me up with the pizza delivery boys to leaving open cookbooks on my kitchen counter to slipping flyers for cleaning services under my door. I picked up the envelope and ripped open the back flap.
“What are those?” Leatrice asked.
“Arrest records. I flipped through the files. “Half the people on this ship seem to have some sort of criminal record.
“Except me,” Mandy said, pulling a black coat from the closet. “But I think that was because of a spelling mistake.”
“I like the fabric,” Fern said to Mandy, appraising the black nylon rain coat she’d slipped on. “But the cut doesn’t do your figure any favors, honey.”
Leatrice rubbed her hands together. “Oooh. It’s like a pirate ship. How exciting.”
“I don’t think many pirates were into petty shoplifting and bouncing checks.” I scanned the records quickly then set them aside and turned to the receipts.
“Is it normal to buy so many guns?” Leatrice asked, staring over my shoulder at the paperwork.
“What’s that?” Mandy asked, straining to look while Fern held her back and adjusted her coat.
“Those receipts are from dark net gun suppliers,” Leatrice said, “All small orders but lots of them.”
I looked at her. “How do you know?”
“I recognized the names from my time on the dark net with Boots and Dagger Dan.”
I tried to forget Leatrice’s time hanging out with online hackers. It did not make me feel better to know that she was familiar with the seedier side of the internet.
“Why does a luxury yacht need to purchase so many guns under the radar?” I wondered aloud.
“Why do they make raincoats so boxy? Life is full of mysteries.” Fern pointed at Mandy. “What you need is a belt to cinch your waist.”
I glanced back at Fern pawing through the closet while Mandy looked helpless beside him. I mouthed an apology to her then turned back to the papers. “I can’t imagine a private yacht needing this kind of an arsenal. I wonder if the harbormaster somehow saw the guns and questioned them.”
“That gun room had crates filled with automatic weapons,” Leatrice said. “Those must be what they bought under the table.”
“Of course those crates were filled with guns,” I said, thinking back to seeing them when we found Leatrice. I hadn’t focused on that at the time, but now it seemed obvious.
“If I stumbled across the crates of guns, someone else could have,” Leatrice said. “I’ll bet the harbormaster has to check the cargo of every ship.”
“And these orders were in the captain’s files,” I said.
“You think he’s behind everything?” Leatrice asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I doubt he could pull this off on his own.” I wondered how much Kristie’s father knew. Being a treasure hunter wasn’t that far from being a smuggler, and if my hunch was correct, the guns below deck were not bought to protect the artwork. Was the personable Mr. Barbery really a gun runner? And had he killed the harbormaster to protect his secret?
Fern stood up with a white terry cloth sash from a robe in one hand. “We could use this to shape the waist.”
Mandy waved him off. “I think I’ll be fine.”
Fern made a face then shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He looked down at the sash. “What am I talking about? This towel isn’t doing my figure any favors either.” He tied the sash around his own waist then appraised himself in the mirror on the inside of the closet door and nodded his approval.
I put the papers back in the envelope and pulled my cell phone from my pocket, hitting the speed dial for Reese. “Crap. No service. It must be the storm. Fern, can you stay here with Leatrice and guard these papers? I need to go find our security team and tell them everything.”
Fern gave me a salute, and I tried not to worry that my first line of defense was decked out in terry cloth from head to toe, now with a cinched waist.
“Good luck sneaking off the ship,” I said to Mandy as I opened the door to the hall.
“Look at all the dresses you have in the back,” Fern said as he resumed pawing through Mandy’s closet. “I’ll bet some of these would look amazing on me.”
“I’m right behind you,” Mandy said. I hoped for her sake she’d be able to escape from Fern and Leatrice, but I didn’t give her great odds.
44
I took the spiral staircase, stopping at each level and peering down the hall to look for the black-clad security officers. Either they were all upstairs with the guests or they were better at being unobtrusive than I’d given them credit for. I paused before reaching the top level and took a breath. My mind felt like a jumble of information and clues that didn’t connect. I knew I had almost all the pieces of the puzzle, although the answer still eluded me.
First, there were the accidents and the fire. Clearly those were done to get the wedding off the ship. But the two murders seemed unconnected to those things and to each other. Who would want both the harbormaster and Brody dead? What did they have in common? If the huge stash of guns was the reason the harbormaster was killed, how could Brody be connected to the guns as well? Nothing I came up with seemed likely, but who knew at this point?
I stepped into the galley kitchen where Jim, the catering captain, stood opening and closing the wooden cabinets while making a soft cooing noise.
“Looking for something?” I asked.
He spun around and slammed a cabinet door shut. “What? No. I mean, I’m sure I’ll find . . .” Jim put a hand over his heart. “You startled me is all.”
“I’ve spent a decent amount of time on board the ship, so I can probably help you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
His eyes darted around the narrow kitchen. “Probably not.”
I stared hard at him. “Jim?”
He ran a hand over his bald head. “Fine. Just promise me you won’t tell Richard.”
“Okay.” I had no desire to get Richard even more worked up than he already was, so it was an easy promise to make. “Tell me.”
Jim slumped against the counter. “I brought Rocky with me even though Richard told me not to. I was just so worried he’d be scared alone in the storm. And now he’s run off.”
“Rocky?” My mouth fell open as I recalled the name. “You brought your pet flying squirrel to the wedding and now you can’t find him?”
Jim nodded without meeting my eyes.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. One more thing to add to my list of disasters waiting to happen. “If I see Rocky, I’ll stick him in my pocket, okay?”
Jim didn’t look comforted.
I passed through the next room and into the main salon, scanning the crowd for Daniel Reese. The low-hanging swaths of bright fabric nearly touched people’s heads, making the room feel even tighter, but I finally spotted him at the far end of the room. I tried to catch his eye by waving my hands over my head, but his attention was focused in the other direction. I’d have to work my way through the crowd.
