"Probably so, except that Grandmother has told everyone that this is a very special Charity Event in honour of her eightieth birthday."
That bit of information took me aback. The woman making her family jump through flaming hoops of fire and play nude volleyball was eighty years old? I couldn't help but give the octogenarian a virtual highfive.
"I think most of the relatives are grumbling about having to put up with another get-together so soon, but they're buying it with the hope that it signals the end. Given Grandmother's age, they're betting she doesn't have many more Charity Events left in her. And besides, none of them would dare turn down an invitation to their meal ticket's eightieth birthday party."
I had to agree. The logic seemed sound, but I was beginning to wonder if the same could be said of Charity Wiser herself. "So where is this party?" I asked, somehow knowing I was going to be surprised by the answer.
"Well, as I said before, Grandmother isn't interested in throwing what you might consider a regular party. She thought it would be a good idea to host this event where you'd have all the family in one confined space."
I was having visions of one of those Agatha Christie TV murder mysteries, prevalent in the 1970s and
'80s. The action always took place in a spooky house on a deserted island where all the guests-mostly aged movie stars trying to revive fading careers-arrived on sputtering motorboats with some Crypt Keeper character at the helm who told them he wouldn't be returning for several days...by which time most of them would be dead. Except for the detective. Sounded like a good deal to me. I was in.
"You'd leave in the middle of September," Flora told me.
"Leave?" I asked, trying to blunt my excitement. Oh my gosh, we
were
going to Murder Island!
"That gives you about a month...to do whatever you need to do to prepare and make yourself available for the trip."
"Trip?"
More head bobbing. "The next Charity Event is on a cruise ship. We'll be sailing from Barcelona to Rome. To make it more enticing..." (Like I needed that.) "...Grandmother told me to tell you that you could invite a guest. All the cabins are booked for double occupancy anyway, so you could bring along your wife or whomever you wish."
For a moment I was speechless, not only for the grandness of what was being offered me but, realistically and logistically, I was wondering if I could...and should...accept it. Did I buy Charity Wiser's contention that her life was in danger? Or was she just some rich wacko looking to add another player to her real-life game of Murder Mystery? And could I get away so easily? It wasn't much notice. For the moment I only nodded.
"Grandmother says you could pose as her business advisor-she'll tell everyone she plans to do some work during the week and that your presence will provide her with a valid reason to write off the trip for tax purposes. Given her reputation for thrift, no one will question it and you'll get a bird's eye view of the family. What do you say, Mr. Quant? Grandmother is holding open two reservations on the ship, so all you need to do is give me your answer and I'll give you this envelope. In it is a retainer cheque and remaining details my grandmother thought might prove helpful."
I eyed the envelope with lust. Suddenly my questions about the validity of the case and my availability to make the trip seemed trivial. I am generally a person with his feet planted firmly in reality, but I do love to dream. I don't believe in the impossible. You never know, do you? That's why I left my stable, dependable career as a cop with the Saskatoon Police Service for a much riskier turn as a small-city private eye. It was my dream, a whole new exciting way to live my life. This case fit my dream perfectly: a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas. It was
Murder on the Orient Express
on water. I'm not convinced my decision would have been different otherwise, but I found myself answering in the affirmative before I'd thought the whole thing through. But really. A free
Mediterranean cruise? Come on!
Colourful Mary's is a restaurant-slash-bookstore owned by my friends Mary Quail and Marushka Yabadochka. Its reputation for fabulous food, much of it influenced by the Aboriginal and Ukrainian heritage (respectively) of the couple, far outdistances that of it being the only gay-owned and -run restaurant in Saskatoon.
That spring, Mary had scooped out a portion of the abandoned lot next door to use in an experiment with outdoor dining during the summer months. She pulled together a collection of cheap auction sale doors and windows, set them on their sides to act as a fence to separate the space from the rest of the gravelled area, then filled it with round bistro tables and folding chairs. She set the tables with royal blue linens and purple dinnerware, added some lipstick-red wine goblets and mustard-yellow-handled flatware, hung a few strings of multicoloured bare bulbs in a criss-cross pattern above the dining area, threw in some tattered streamers and a few plastic parrots, and they were ready for business. It vaguely resembled the after-effects of a Mexican fiesta party I'd once attended and was exactly the kind of thing that kept Colourful Mary's one of the city's most unique and popular hangouts.
Except for a cooing twosome a couple of tables away, Errall and I were the only leftovers from the evening's dinner rush. Over the wacky door/window barrier we'd see the occasional passerby heading for a downtown movie theatre, nightclub or late night coffee-and-dessert place and we'd exchange smiles, but other than that we were pretty much alone. Mood music floated above our heads from hidden outdoor speakers; someone had changed it from the spunky dinnertime salsa to something smooth and sensual, not unlike the red wine we were halfway through the second bottle of. It was one of those perfect Saskatchewan summer nights: no wind, no mosquitoes, and hot. The air felt surprisingly moist-given the prairie penchant for dryness-and even at quarter of ten, there was still a sliver of light at the horizon. All this perfection made the evening more languorous and almost heartbreakingly glorious because of the certain knowledge that tonight-or one night very soon-would come the first nip of chill, no stronger than a child's breath, the sure sign of summer's end.
Errall and I regarded each other over a collection of fat candles Mary had come by to light once it began to get dark. In deference to the weather, Errall wore a sleeveless, V-neck white T-shirt, tan shorts and sloppy sandals. With intense facial features and blue eyes to match, Errall is a striking woman. She had recently cut her dark tresses short, to just below her ears where they naturally flipped out in a jagged edge. It was a sportier, casual look for the normally severe-looking barrister. At close to six feet, she is tall and lanky and her smoking habit-reacquired only two years ago after a five-year hiatus-was undeservedly given credit for keeping her slim. Errall Strane is my lawyer and owns the building, PWC, that houses my office, which also makes her my landlord. But our relationship is more complex than that. An apt description remains elusive. She's argumentative, crass, bossy, opinionated. She can be manipulative, particularly in business. She can be cold-hearted. She's a workaholic. She's driven. She'll sometimes say black, only because I say white. She's smart, sharp, clever and very honest. She'll always let you know where you stand in her books. I have seen her be brave, loyal, fiercely protective and empathetic if not sympathetic. She can be hard. She can be soft.. .I suspect. If it wasn't for my high-school chum, Kelly Doell, I don't think our paths would have ever crossed, or if they had, I doubt we would have loitered long in each other's company. Kelly and Errall were a couple-for years.
Now Kelly was gone.
In February, after a year of turmoil following Kelly's diagnosis with cancer and resultant loss of a breast, the eight-year relationship had ended. Kelly had become a different person, a person who couldn't be in a relationship, at least, not a relationship that also included Errall. The storm of it all only ended when Kelly suddenly and unexpectedly packed her belongings and moved to Toronto, rarely to be heard from since, by any of us. Not only was the relationship over, but so, it seemed, were her other friendships, including the one with me.
So Errall was undeniably the person I knew who was most in need of a getaway. But, obvious as it might seem, she was not my first choice for companionship on the Charity Event Mediterranean cruise.
The friendship had existed between Kelly and me, not Errall and me. Errall was not a friend, she was someone who slept with a friend. Yet, here we were, part of each other's lives, with no Kelly in sight.
Even so, and shame on me I suppose, I first asked my neighbour Sereena and then friends Anthony and Jared to join me. But as it turned out, they were already planning to be away in September. Then there was my mother, but I was hoping she'd agree to look after my animals and house while I was gone. And there were other possible choices too, but by the time my finger was moving farther down the list of potential pleasant and fun travelling companions, another thought began to fester... er...develop in my mind: Perhaps Errall
was
a friend, just on her own, without Kelly. I wasn't ready to conclude that I actually enjoyed her company, but I did know that our times together were often invigorating. Fun? I don't know about that. But given current circumstances, she did need to be on this boat. She had a wound and I had the salve.
"I'm going to do it." She spoke after several moments of careful contemplation. "I'll have to reschedule my root canal with John MacPherson-as if that's not reason enough to leave the country-and check with Sheila to see if she can look after my clients while I'm gone.. .but Russell, I really think I'm going to do this thing. It's crazy. You and me on a cruise? It's nuts. But God, do I need it."
"The cruise is only a week," I encouraged her further. "You won't be gone that long. And after we get off the boat, Anthony and Jared have invited us to their house in Tuscany before we go home. It'll be perfect. And yeah, you need this."
"Okay, quick, before I change my mind, give me all the details. Spain to Italy, right?"
I pulled out the itinerary Charity Wiser had included in her package and handed it over to Errall. "We set sail from Barcelona then do the Balearic Islands, Tunis..."
"Tunis!" she came as close to squealing as someone like Errall can, eyes fully ablaze. "Africa!" Then she went into her best Meryl Streep-Danish-
Out of Africa
accent, "I hahd a fahrm in Ah-fri-cah." She looked to me for applause. Got none. "That's Northern Africa, right?" she asked in her regular voice.
"Uh, yeah," I said, quickly flipping through some tour brochures to check. "It's the capital of Tunisia.
Then we do Sicily and finally up the coast of mainland Italy to..." More checking. "...Civitavecchia," I said, outrageously slaughtering the pronunciation of the town's name with something like Cityvicky-ah.
"Huh?"
"Well," I responded, sounding much more knowledgeable than I really was, compliments of the bottle of shiraz in my belly, "Rome isn't a coastal city. The closest port is this Silly-victor-victoria place." I checked the brochure. "It says here Rome is about a ninety-minute taxi ride from Silly-oh-toe-sis."
"I bet that'll cost a few Euros," she said, wisely paying no heed to my silliness. "And where exactly are Anthony and Jared staying?"
"Tuscany, the opposite direction. But they tell me they're just a few hours from Stichy-Vichy-ah, near a town called Castellina in Chianti." Finally, a name I could pronounce. And how civilized of those Europeans, naming towns after wine.
"Russell," Errall said, her nose deep into the pages of our itinerary. "You didn't tell me we're sailing on the FOD Cruiseline."
I looked up from where I was straining in the dim lighting to find Castellina in Chianti on a map of Italy
I'd now unfolded and held over our table-so close to the candles I worried it might catch fire. "Yeah. Ever hear of it? Is it kind of like Carnival or Holland America ?" I asked, not adding my real question: "Or Titanic?"
Although I'd told no one, not only had I never been on a cruise before but I'd rarely set foot on a boat, big or small, of any kind-on purpose. Truth told, I was a trifle nervous at the thought of getting on this vessel. I was game of course, but nervous nonetheless, and desperate for as much assurance of safety as I could get. I'm a true prairie boy. If I'm going to be surrounded by something endless and flat and blue, I expect it to be a field of blooming flax.
"Have you been living under a rock?" Errall looked at me with an unattractive curl in her Up. "What kind of gay person are you? It's FOD! It stands for the Friends of Dorothy Cruiseline. It’s right up there with the Radisson or Silversea cruiselines. Not only does it cater primarily to a gay clientele but it is top-of-the-line, luxury plus. They win all sorts of awards in the small, luxury ship category."
Small! Whaddaya mean small? How small? That's a friggin' big sea! "What do you mean small?" I asked calmly.
"Well, I think they only have two ships: The Dorothy holds maybe three-hundred-and-fifty passengers..."
I could feel my skin shift. "How many does the big ship hold?"
"That is the big ship."
Oh shit.
"The other one is just a schooner. I think it holds a hundred, hundred-fifteen at most."
Gulp. "Which one does it say we're on?"
Errall checked the papers in front of her. "The Dorothy. Too bad, eh? Wouldn't it have been a blast to be on a schooner, really feel the waves crashing under you?"
"Yeah, really." Yeah, Yody ho hum, and a bottle of rum, or whatever that pirate song says. I wondered if they had a song about gin. Sheesh. Three-fifty, huh? "How do you know all this?"
"Kelly and I looked into a cruise last year." She stopped there and pretended to suddenly be entranced by something on the itinerary. We didn't talk about Kelly much anymore.
I replenished our wine and used the momentary dearth of conversation to reflect on what I'd just learned. Charity Wiser was sending her family on a gay cruise. What a pip! Suddenly it became clear to me why she'd obviously gone to some trouble to track me down and hire me. It wasn't because I'm a particularly skillful detective. Humphf!