Charity swallowed a surprised breath. "Jackson? But he wasn't even in Tunis...he...oh my, are you certain? It's him then?"
"We can't know that. But it certainly moves him up my list."
"And who else is topping this list of yours? Who?"
"Marsha. Maybe Nick."
"They hate me, don't they?" She gave me a crestfallen look. "Nick.. .are you certain?"
"No, Charity. At this point, I'm not sure about anything. Your announcement the other day put everyone at the top of the list. All of those people expected to become rich upon your death. With your words, you changed their lives forever. Even Flora. I hate to say it, but if they didn't before, they may very well all hate you now."
"And want me dead." Charity stared away for a few seconds, letting the enormity of what she'd just said sink in. "That certainly was not my intent." Her voice was uncharacteristically brittle. "I just wanted to help flush out whoever it was who killed Morris." She got up, entered the room and returned quickly with a refilled glass. Mine was still full. "To hell with them," she spit out. "Who cares if they all hate me? It doesn't feel any different than it did before."
I chose to remain silent. I couldn't begin to i
magine what that would be like.
Leaving Charity with her third martini and her thoughts, I headed for the casino on Deck Five. The casino is only three smallish rooms; one for slots and two for table games, with an even smaller adjoining bar called Curses. When I stepped inside the glitzy parlour of the casino I immediately spotted what I was hoping to find: some Wisers.
Patrick Halburton's grumpy-gus-looking frame was slumped over a slot machine into which he was stingily feeding quarters. Nick Kincaid, handsomely sporting his wounds, was at a blackjack table, along with Mary of the Phyllis-Mary-Rhoda trio, and two other men who seemed to be paying more attention to the dark brooding beauty of Nick than their own cards. I poked my nose into Curses and spotted Marsha Moshier, made up to the nines but looking like a four and sitting on the middle of five bar stools flirting with the male barkeeper. Unsuccessfully, I'd bet. The rest of the family must have left her here after their dinner.
I decided on a tack and ambled over to the slot machine next to Patrick's and sat myself down. He paid me no attention. I searched my pockets for change and came up with a few coins that I fed into the machine. I punched at a button without knowing what I was doing and was rewarded with a jingle-jangle of loot falling into a metal receptacle near my knees. Patrick glanced over at my noisy winnings then shifted his attention back to his own machine, never actually setting eyes on me.
"How are you today, Mr. Halburton?"
He was frowning at the machine and transferred the same look to me. "Hullo," he replied, eyeing me up briefly before returning his grimace to his game.
Patrick Halburton had a distinct smell about him. Was it from a lack of regular bathing or change of clothes? Or was it simply an unfortunate choice of soap? I wasn't sure. "Did you have a good day on the ship today?" I asked. "I noticed you didn't come on the tour of Tunis."
"That's right."
How was I gonna get this guy to shut up? "Well, they say the ship itself is as much a destination as the ports of call. Did you spend the day in the casino?"
"Oh no. Don't got the money for this kind of thing for long. Just sat in the library. Reading."
"I'm sure that must have been very enjoyable. Did your son-in-law Jackson spend the day with you? I noticed he wasn't on the tour either."
Now I got his attention. He shifted in his seat and faced me, at first wordless, assessing my face as if he'd never seen it before. "I know who you are. You're that lawyer fella Charity's gone and hired to change her will."
"Well, not quite. I'm just her advisor."
"Same damn thing."
"Well, not..." Oh to heck with it. "Was Jackson in the library with you today, Mr. Halburton?"
"Sure he was."
Fibber.
"For part of it."
Okay, jumped the gun.
"What else did he do today? Did he go ashore?"
He was back focusing on the slots. "S'pose you should ask him that."
That was it. My machine swallowed another quarter and spit out fifteen more. It was obvious my gambling partner wasn't in the mood to be as generous. I could tell my winning streak was beginning to piss Patrick Halburton off. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Nick leaving the blackjack area and head into Curses. I decided to collect my winnings and try my luck elsewhere.
"Here," I said, holding out my fistful of change towards the old man. "I hate carrying around a lot of change." I considered it a down payment on possible future information.
"Don't mind if you do," he said, motioning for me to dump my loot into the metal receptacle at the bottom of his machine.
I said goodnight and headed for the bar.
Nick had settled into a low-slung leather-upholstered chair around one of only three tables tucked away in a dark corner of Curses. Marsha was still at the bar and was whispering something wet into the ear of a muscle-bound guy who'd unluckily sat next to her. He pulled away, looked at her with incredulity, stepped back off his stool and stalked out of the bar. (In search of his boyfriend to bitch-slap Marsha probably.) As her angry eyes followed him they landed on me. She pretended not to see me, slipped off her perch and left, her gait a little unsteady.
I went to the bar, ordered two champagnes from a David Cassidy look-alike and delivered them, along with me, to Nick's table. I felt his pepper-flecked eyes wash over me. He was wearing baggy cargo pants, the type that zip off into shorts, and a navy shirt without sleeves that showed off well-developed arms.
Encircling the left one was a barbed wire tattoo.
"I don't drink," he said as I offered him a flute full of the stuff.
"Strange place to be then, in a bar. Or was it just getting too crowded around the blackjack table?"
He looked at me with nothing on his lips. Nice thick lips above a cleft chin sporting a rough and ready five-o'clock shadow.
"Were you on a winning streak?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"So why in the bar?"
Grunt.
I flicked my head towards the scene of Marsha's embarrassment. "Your sister knows she's shopping for beer and pretzels in a champagne and dainties store, doesn't she?"
"Wouldn't matter."
Jeez! He was about as verbose as Patrick.
He shrugged. "Actually I'm glad to see you, Russell. There's something I wanted to say to you."
I smiled. "Well then, you won't mind my joining you then?" I don't know how I came up with that conclusion, but it served my purposes well. "Did you enjoy Tunis?" I asked once I was positioned next to him, enjoying my proximity to the man. Unlike Patrick-his much older cousin-in-law-Nick Kincaid did not smell like an old man. He smelled like a virile, sensual, musky young man. And when the bartender delivered a glass of tonic with lime, he accepted it with a big paw of a hand with long, nicely shaped fingers. I am a sucker for beautiful hands. Like Stanley Tucci in
The Terminal.
Yup-those are good hands.
"I did, very much," he answered when the waiter had gone. "I've always been fascinated by the history of the Punic Wars."
Oh, oh, a smarty. Change of subject required. "What was it you wanted to say to me?"
He studied his drink as if looking for the words in the glass. "I wanted, to thank you. For breaking up the fight the other night. I got carried away."
"You never told me what happened," I said, hinting. "Did you know that other guy?"
"Nah," he said. "He thought he knew me. It was a big mix-up."
"I see." I say that a lot, even when it's not true-like now-hoping for more.
But apparently there was no more. Nick sat there quiet.
"Do you get along with your aunt?"
Another shrug. "Charity? I guess so. She's a queer old bird, but she's all right."
Queer. Interesting choice of words. Did he mean to tell me that she was gay, or just that she was odd? "I suppose you don't get to see her too often, what with her living in Victoria and you in...?"
"Toronto."
"Yeah, right. Flora tells me you're a fitness trainer. I spend some time in Toronto. If I'm ever in need of a trainer, what gym are you at?" Must be a good one with very rich clients who pay you very well so you can afford all your expensive clothes and bath gels I said to myself.
He gave me a look. Probably wondering why I was asking so many questions. Couldn't blame him but I wasn't about to stop until he shut me down.
"Spink's."
I nodded, though I'd never heard of the place. "I see you came on this trip alone. No wife or girlfriend or partner to bring along?" If he could use queer, I could use partner. Just to see what reaction I'd get.
Nick was a thirty-seven-year-old handsome man who wasn't married, worked hard to make his body look good and had a closet full of matching clothes and skin care products for men. I smelled
Queer as Folk.
And I suspected most of his family did too.
"Is Errall your partner?" he shot back, a look in his eyes I couldn't quite identify.
Do I lie, I wondered, or do I give a little to get some back? "No. She isn't. I have no partner."
"Me either," he said. He raised his glass and saluted me with it. "Here's to being single."
Was I so out of practice? Was this whole conversation really a come on? A flirtation? Or was I totally off base about this guy? When in doubt, go with the flow. Keep your friends close and your suspects closer. So I clinked glasses with him. As we sipped our drinks through engaging smiles, Richard entered the bar. He caught one look of us being engaging and left.
First I'd run off with Nick the night of the bar fight and now this. Even I would be suspicious.
Damn.
As The Dorothy approached the city port of Palermo on the island of Sicily on Tuesday morning, the entire Wiser clan, a fully recovered Errall, and I were back in Tin-sel for a family breakfast hosted by Charity. I was beginning to understand why so many members of the family dreaded these events. Even I was on edge anticipating what ruckus Charity might have in store for us today. As Errall and I settled ourselves next to Faith and Thomas Kincaid, I stole a glance at the mighty matriarch of the Wiser clan.
She was a couple tables over, flanked as usual by Dottie and Flora. She wore an untucked blouse with bold orange, navy and white stripes, belted at the waist over wide-bottomed, white pants. Her hair had been restyled into a becoming pageboy. There was nary a sign of the vicious attack she'd suffered the day before.
We didn't have long to wait. The eggs had yet to be served when she rose from her throne.. .er, seat, omnipresent glass (OJ and champagne) in one hand and a white sheet of paper in the other. She looked to be in fine form. Completely gone was the diffidence I'd spied in her eyes the day before when she'd stood alone, quivering like a wet leaf, lost in the medina. That would never do.
"I'd like to read something to you, if I could." As if anyone could stop her. "A note. Delivered under my door sometime last night." She made a production of putting on a pair of half-moon spectacles and finding the exact distance the paper needed to be from her face so she might read it. She leisurely sipped her mimosa, cleared her throat and began, "It quite simply says: Change your mind or next time you won't be so lucky."
There was silence around the room.
"A death threat, wouldn't you say, Mr. Quant?" She directed her piercing gaze my way, but there was something different in it than the challenging sparks I'd come to expect-something softer, something convivial, a connection. Our experience together, my finding her in a compromised state, rescuing her from two ruffians, and delivering her safely from the medina onto The Dorothy had bound us together and elevated me into a category of acquaintance not many were allowed entry.
But that didn't keep me from experiencing a flash of ire. Why did she keep on doing this? Why was she providing me new information, germane to my case, in the form of a surprise revealed in front of the entire family and a bunch of the ship's staff?
I knew why. Charity Wiser was in love with the dramatic. She was in love with power. She was in love with control. She was in love with making her relatives squirm.
What of the note? Obviously it was sent by whoever arranged the attack in Tunis, all but admitting to it.
Now it was clear. It had not been a random act. Charity was meant to die yesterday. And here was the ultimatum: change your mind about changing your will, or I'll kill you before you do. The murderer was growing brash, more aggressive, anxious to have Charity bow to his demands.
"And this threat isn't the first!" she announced, adding, partly under her breath (but not really), "which won't come to a surprise to
someone
in this room."
"What are you implying, Charity? Are you saying someone in this room-someone in this family-is threatening to kill you?" This from her sister Faith. "That is absolutely ludicrous!"
Finally, I thought to myself, someone who isn't willing to be cowed by Charity-at least not without asking a question or two.