Killer Knots (7 page)

“Do you know where Ms. Shore was heading next?” Carl asked, scribbling notes.

“Speak to the others. They talked to her after me.”

“Did the lady say anything at all to indicate she might not be returning to the ship?”

“No, she didn’t.” Clasping her hands, Marla examined a spot on the carpet. “Does this happen often that people don’t make it back on time?”

“We get the occasional stragglers. We’ll give them about twenty minutes before we raise the gangplank. People get busy shopping or sightseeing, and they forget to watch the time. It’s costly for us to remain in port, so we can’t wait too long.”

“Doesn’t your security team know right away if someone hasn’t come back? They swiped our cards when we left the ship. You should be able to confirm who’s missing.”

“Yes, ma’am. We paged the lady on board just to make sure she didn’t slip through unnoticed.”

“I was unaware she hadn’t shown up until I saw her roommate at the art auction last evening,” Marla said.

She glanced at Vail who hovered near the door, clearly anxious to be on his way. Doubtless he wanted to avoid any investigative work while on vacation. So what if this didn’t concern them personally? She felt bad for the woman. Hopefully, Martha had kept her passport, but she’d still have to get a hotel room, contact the airlines, and such. What a hassle.

“Can you verify the passenger’s physical description, ma’am?” Carl asked. Gripping his pen, he regarded her with a level gaze.

“She, um, sort of looked like me.”

“Did you get in touch with the authorities in Puerto Rico?” Vail interrupted. Marla gave him a startled glance. He might not appear to be involved, but his mind must be running in detective mode. Force of habit, she thought with a smirk.

“Yes, sir. They are conducting a search, but no one answering her description has come forward.” Carl returned his attention to Marla. “Can you tell me which areas on the ship Ms. Shore liked to frequent?”

“I didn’t really know her that well. I ran into her on the bridge tour, and she seemed interested in the talk. Elsewhere? We didn’t come across her in any of the lounges. Maybe she liked to hang out in the casino. I don’t gamble, so I don’t spend time in there. Nor do I make use of the spa.”

“Did the lady have any medical complaints?”

“How would I know? I just said we were barely acquainted.” Her brain registered his words. “Oh, do you think she might have gotten sick on shore and sought medical help?”

“It’s possible.”

“Will anybody check the hospitals? I mean, how awful to be stuck in a foreign place alone and to become ill.”

“It’s being covered. Now, can you tell me who else Martha Shore associated with on the ship, besides her roommate and the other two people mentioned earlier?”

Holding up her hand, Marla counted on her fingers. “Cliff Peters and Brooklyn Jones. They’re assigned to her table in the dining room. Along with Helen, plus the folks at our dinner table—they all work for an art museum in Tampa,” she told the officer. “Did Helen inform you that they received their tickets courtesy of an unknown benefactor? And how we’ve been getting private invitations to the art auctions on board?”

“That’s not so unusual,” Carl said, “especially if these people work in the art field together.”

“Someone on the ship’s crew must know about them,” Marla persisted. “Someone like the ship’s auctioneer, who previously had been employed as curator at the museum.”

“He left the Tampa facility months ago,” Vail pointed out. “How would he have kept up with the employees and volunteers?”

“Beats me, but someone brought them here for a reason.”

Carl interjected, “Is there anyone else whom Ms. Shore associated with, to your knowledge?”

Ignoring him, Marla addressed her fiancé. “Should I tell him about the note?”

Vail shrugged. “Why not? But make it quick. We have to meet the tour group outside.” He tapped his watch for emphasis.

At the last minute, they’d signed up for the excursion to Coral World after arguing whether they should do Blackbeard’s Castle, Magen’s Bay, or spend the entire time shopping. Dalton had balked at the latter, while Brianna had wanted to explore snorkeling. They’d finally compromised when Kate and John said they would like to visit the underwater observatory.

Marla had saved the original note from their cabin door. She pulled it from her purse and unfolded the worn sheet of paper. “This was addressed to Martha, same as the private invitations to the auctions that I received. At first, I assumed my name had been spelled incorrectly, but when I met the other people from the museum, I realized I must’ve been getting messages meant for Martha.”

“I see,” Carl said, taking the paper from her hand and scrutinizing it. “Any idea what this means?”

“No clue. I haven’t really discussed this particular message with any of our tablemates, and I hesitated to bring it up to Martha. Those words could mean anything, but they sound sinister to me.”

Especially since Martha has gone missing.

Marla passed through the security gate toward Havensight Mall, where people congregated with their tour groups. St. Thomas had so many choices of things to do that in her opinion, it was easiest to do nothing and go shopping. But she had never been to the island and confessed to a curiosity about the mountainous wonder that awaited them. The harbor facing Charlotte Amalie was entrancing enough with sailboats bobbing in the water.

She watched people depart for the snorkel excursion, helmet dive, jet boats, and Atlantis submarine. The crowd going on the Kon-Tiki raft were already into party mode, laughing and dancing their way behind the guide, a woman holding up a big sign. Marla could imagine their boisterous return after they sampled a few rum punches on the ride.

Shading her face, she halted beside the group going to the Kayak Marine Sanctuary. “Do you see Brie or your folks anywhere?” She reached into her purse, rummaging for her sunglasses among the guidebooks she’d shoved in there before they left. She kept her key card pass in the zippered compartment along with her passport and traveler’s checks.

“What a mob,” Vail complained, scanning the passengers milling about. “We should have just taken our own taxi.”

“You’re probably right.” Vowing to buy a hat, she wiped the sweat already beading her brow.

“It took me fifteen years of marriage,” said a guy to another man standing next to her, “but now I understand that when a woman says she’s going shopping, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s buying.”

“No kidding,” the other fellow said. “When my wife shops, she can’t make up her mind, so we go from store to store.”

“Personally, I think it’s genetic.”

Marla smiled to herself. She noticed both husbands carried large canvas shopping bags, no doubt prepared to escort their wives and pick up their own souvenirs.

“Oh, there’s Brie,” Marla said, spotting the teen’s lavender Bebe shirt as she squeezed through the security gate in front of her grandparents. Shoveling her way through the crowd, Marla hugged the girl. “Hi, honey. We’ve missed you.”

Kate beamed at her. “You look fresh and bright this morning.”

“I’m excited about seeing the island. It’s such a beautiful place, with the town at the base of the mountains and the picturesque harbor.”

“We need more than one day here,” Brianna stated, bouncing from foot to foot. “I’d love to go to the beach. Magen’s Bay is supposed to be one of the best. I don’t want to spend the whole afternoon shopping.”

“But there’s so much to buy here!” Marla exclaimed. “Jewelry, liquor, linens, perfume, island coffees and rum balls. And next to AH Riise is a place that just sells David Yunnan.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe they have the bracelet I want.”

“You’ve been eager to see Coral World,” Vail reminded his daughter, patting her shoulder. “Don’t let Marla turn you into a shopping fiend.”

“Too late for that,” John remarked in a dry tone. He stood beside his wife, tall and stalwart, with a bored expression. Straightening his glasses, he jerked his thumb at one of the buses. “Are we heading over or just standing here?”

Once inside the bus, he took a seat next to a handsome older man while Marla and Kate sat next to each other, and Vail kept his daughter company. Marla heard the stranger introduce himself as an ex-seaman to John and soon they were chatting like old buddies. Peculiar, she thought. He opens up to someone he doesn’t know more than he does to us.

“I’ll tell you a funny story,” the Navy guy said in a manner that reminded her of Wilda Cleaver, the psychic who’d inherited a salon from Marla’s dead rival. Wilda began her long-winded tales in a similar fashion, and Marla had heard enough of them to cringe when anybody said they had a story to tell. She got an earful of the man saying how he’d given a young midshipman a requisition for fallopian tubes in the days before there were women on ships, and how the crew had sent the poor sap around in circles until he’d ended up asking the captain for help.

John responded with loud guffaws and started telling his own war stories, which she would’ve liked to hear, but Kate touched her arm and struck up a conversation. “Look out the window, Marla. Isn’t this island beautiful? I’m so glad Dalton has you to share these adventures with him and Brie.”

She met her future mother-in-law’s warm gaze. “I hope we’ll be able to do more traveling. I’ve hardly been anywhere.”

“Dalton says you’re expanding your salon. Won’t that make you even busier?”

Here comes the reprimand
, she thought.
Kate will inform me how being a good stepmother means staying home more
. “Actually, once we get up and running, I’d like to cut back my hours. But I’ve put too much hard work and effort into establishing a name in the community to step away entirely. Besides, I really like working behind the chair. It’s just so gratifying when a client looks great and feels better about herself.”

“Well, I really admire your skill and ambition. I couldn’t combine working and raising children myself, but things are different today. You’ll manage; you have lots of energy.”

Marla’s mouth dropped open. “Thank you, Kate. I appreciate having your support. It isn’t always easy,” she said, thinking of the dressing-down she’d gotten from Vail’s former mother-in-law, Justine.

“When you and Dalton are married, you’ll have to call me Mom. Unless that’s what you call your own mother?”

She laughed. “Ma is going to like you. I’ll bet you have a lot in common.”

“Yes. When am I going to meet her? We’ll have to coordinate our dresses for the wedding. Have you chosen a color scheme?”

Her bright tone notwithstanding, Marla caught a hint of underlying anxiety in her tone.
Surely she isn’t afraid I’ll change my mind?

“Uh, not yet. Maybe something will strike me on this trip when we don’t have so many distractions.” Pointing out her window, she added, “Another McDonald’s? They’re everywhere.” Their bus chugged past a chain drugstore and gas station before turning onto the route to take them across the island.

Her attention diverted to the winding ride through verdant hills colored by flaming-red royal poinciana trees, pink azaleas, green banana plants, and white oleanders, along with hibiscus, bougainvillea, and frangipani. As the bus rounded a hairpin curve, they were met by an ocean vista. She glimpsed dark and mysterious islands rising from the distant sea.

Speaking of mysterious, Marla remembered she’d wanted to question the museum people about Martha Shore. Vail had advised her to forget about the woman for now, but she couldn’t dismiss her so readily. At the very least, she should talk to the woman’s colleagues to see if Martha had mentioned plans to remain in Puerto Rico. She hadn’t seen Helen among the tour groups. Had the widow stayed on board to track down her roommate?

Marla pushed aside her questions when they arrived at Coral World. Filing off the bus, she wondered if this excursion would be anything like Crystal Cay in Nassau. She’d enjoyed the underwater observatory there until someone shot at her in the Marine Gardens. Helping cousin Cynthia with a fund-raiser, Marla hadn’t expected her search for a saboteur to turn so deadly.

Brianna led the way to the structure poised over the water and they descended to a lower level where viewers peered at the coral reef through huge windows. Schools of tiny fish swarmed in unison like a wave, undulating in the current. Colorful parrot fish, funny-looking trumpet fish, and other varieties of brilliant sea life kept Marla entranced.

“Awesome, look at that brain coral,” Brianna exclaimed.

Marla nodded. “I like how that branch type of coral waves back and forth. There’s just so much to see down here.” The coral came in all shapes and sizes, waving or billowing as if blown by a wind. Watching it brought her a strange sense of serenity. Just beyond the window’s viewing range, the reef dropped away, and the water became a murky, impenetrable aqua.

Vail stepped up to her side. “It’s easy to forget about the outside world in a place like this.”

“Is that why you like going to parks?” she said, turning to gaze into his craggily handsome face. “Studying the trees makes you feel more tranquil?”

“That’s right. Nature lacks the ugliness that mankind exhibits.”

“Mankind also has beautiful accomplishments, like ballet, music, and art—things most people don’t have time for these days, myself included,” she retorted. “I’m enjoying the art auctions on the ship, because I’m learning something new, and they’re fun.”

“So much fun that Oliver Smernoff nearly belted his wife because she made him miss the final bid on that mystery piece,” he drawled.

“Those people have something going on beneath the surface. Like this undersea life, the ripples affect everyone. I’m interested in learning the truth about Alden Tusk, besides caring about what happened to Martha Shore.”

“We’re supposed to be on vacation, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back while bad things happen to people I know.”

“Marla, darling, let’s go upstairs to see the stingrays,” Kate inserted, taking her elbow.

Marla acquiesced, grateful for the intervention before she got into an argument with Vail. “This is similar to a place I visited in Nassau,” she told her future mother-in-law as they climbed a spiral staircase to the upper level. “I’ll stop here briefly, but then I’d like to check out the shops. We don’t have much time before we have to be back on the bus.”

“Maybe you should do your wedding in tropical colors,” Kate said while they stood in front of a picture window viewing the sharks, stingrays, lobsters, spider crabs, and big fishes that swam past. “Peach or coral would be lovely. Your mother and I could wear turquoise for contrast.”

Marla tilted her head. “I don’t know. Do we really need a color scheme? If anything, it’ll be a small affair, likely at a country club.”

“Or a hotel. Sometimes you can get a better deal depending on the season.”

She glanced at Kate’s eager hazel eyes. “Did Dalton have a big church wedding with Pam?”

“Oh, yes.” Kate smiled sadly. “She looked like an angel in her ivory gown. The flowers were magnificent, and the organist did a stupendous job. My friends talked about their wedding for weeks afterward.”

“I hope it doesn’t bother you that I’m Jewish. Despite our cultural differences, we respect each other’s traditions.” She hated the waver in her voice, but this was a sensitive issue after being harangued by Pam’s parents and her own mother on the subject.

Kate placed her hands on Marla’s shoulders and regarded her squarely. “I don’t care if you’re from Mongolia as long as you love my son and granddaughter.”

Touched by her words, Marla leaned forward and hugged her. “I do, and I love you, too, for saying that.”

“So will you look for a priest and rabbi who can do a mixed-faith marriage, or will you get a justice of the peace? Kate persisted, with a grin that lit her face.

“Who knows?” Marla flung up her hands. “I’m hitting the shops. Do you want to come?”

“I’d better see where John went. He wandered off again, as usual.”

“He does that a lot, doesn’t he?”

“It annoys the hell out of me. The man just can’t stay put. And now he wants to take all these trips? I don’t understand why he isn’t happy when we have so much to do at home.”

They exited together, wincing in the bright sunlight. As a light breeze lifted her hair, Marla whipped a pair of sunglasses from her handbag.

“So he wants to explore the country. That’s a nice goal for retirement. He’s earned the right for leisure travel.”

Frowning, Kate faced her. “You don’t get it. He doesn’t just want to tour the states and see the sights. He wants to follow the different art shows.”

Marla mulled over her words while she browsed the Caribbean crafts store alone. Dalton had taken Brianna to get a hot dog at the snack bar. He preferred to wait for a more substantial lunch in town. Meanwhile, Kate had discovered John haggling over some paintings done by a native artist who crouched on the ground spray painting pictures of alien landscapes. Colorful, but too far out for Marla’s taste. Certainly not after she’d been introduced to artists like Fanch and Peter Max.

Wait a minute. Did Kate say John wanted to attend
art shows
? How peculiar, unless this had always been an interest of his. From Kate’s tone, Marla didn’t believe that applied. So where did this sudden interest in art come from? And why had she seen him shmoozing so intimately with Irene Smernoff on board the ship? Their conversation had been animated, as though they were discussing more than idle shipboard news.

Could it be possible…had they known each other
before
the cruise?

Eric Rand came to mind. The ship’s art auctioneer had a history with these people. Why not her future father-in-law? But John hadn’t been attending the art auctions, except for appearing briefly during the preview. So his interest couldn’t be in collecting modern works of art. What then?

A horrible suspicion crossed her mind. What if they hadn’t been seated with the museum people by mistake? What if they’d been set up, and John was somehow involved?

She wondered, for the first time, who had actually bought their cruise tickets. Had it been John, or Kate? He could have put in a request to sit with the museum crowd. Then he might have been seated at Irene’s table. Their seat mixup could still have been an error on the cruise line’s part. Either way, she’d try to keep better tabs on him, if not for Kate’s sake, then for Brianna’s. The child was staying in their cabin, and Marla didn’t want her embroiled in any intrigue.

Despite Marla’s good intentions, she lost track of John in town after a bus ride through the verdant mountains, a few stops at scenic vistas overlooking the sea, and a lurching halt in front of a street market. They drove on the left side of the road in St. Thomas, which gave her a kick, but the bumpy ride lessened her appetite. Not so for Vail, however. His nose for food led them straight to Cafe Amici, down an alley by AH Riise, which was where Marla had promised to take Brianna for David Yurman jewelry.

“That man refuses to carry a cell phone,” Kate complained about her husband as she took a seat in a wicker chair. They’d found an empty marble-topped table on the outdoor terrace.