"Oh my God," she screeched, coming closer, her eyes riveted on the screen. "It's even worse than I thought! You're watching straight porn!"
And indeed,
Wonder Woman
had been joined by a suited man who looked amazingly like Lyle Waggoner. Talk about pitching a tent. He too had had a tough day at work and he too wanted to show us how he wore no underwear.
"Russell, what is going on here?"
Where was the damn remote? I fumbled around for it. "Errall, I swear I didn't know what this was when I put it in."
She sat on her bed and looked at me with heavy doubt. I didn't blame her. "Didn't the title
Debbie Does
Dick
clue you in at all, Mr. Private Eye?"
I felt like a twelve-year-old boy caught with a nude Ken doll and didn't like it one bit. Why did I have to explain myself to this woman? You do, Quant, you just do. "This kid...last night at Emerald City...gave this to me."
"Uh-huh." More skepticism. She was really enjoying the whole scene.
On screen Lyle and Lynda were releasing their work-related tensions.
"I stuck it into my tuxedo jacket pocket right before Phyllis fell. With everything that's happened since, I forgot about it until now."
Actual dialogue was happening on screen. Our ears perked up. If it was important enough for Lyle and Lynda to stop what they were doing, it had to be important enough for us to listen.
"It's been a tough week, hasn't it honey?" Poor Lyle. Never was a great actor.
"Yes it sure has. I'm beat," Lynda told us, massaging her left breast nipple with a saliva soaked thumb and forefinger.
"So I brought you something." Lyle.
"Oh God, Russell," Errall whined, "can't we turn this off?"
I would have liked nothing better. "But why would some guy I don't know give me porn in a dance bar?"
Errall gave me a look. "God, you can be so dense. Maybe he was into you. Maybe he's in it. This could be a new trend. Maybe instead of giving out phone numbers, guys are doing porn videos and giving out copies, kind of like an audition tape. I wouldn't put it past the gay male population to come up with something like that."
I glanced back at the screen. Lyle was definitely not the guy who bumped into me. Lyle was older, tall and dark, with wide shoulders and slim hips. The guy in the bar was fair, young and slender.
"Oh, you shouldn't have!" Lynda exclaimed as she eyed her gift, doing an admirable job of acting surprised.
I, however, was not acting. Our mouths dropped as we watched the "gift" present himself to Lynda. Oh gosh, honey, you got me a human. Just what I always wanted. Lyle's gift to Lynda was a threesome.
But what was most interesting was that the "gift" wasn't just any human. It wasn't the fellow who passed me this DVD, but it
was
someone I knew.
There he was, naked as a jaybird (whatever that saying means-aren't all birds naked?).
"Isn't that..." Errall said with a dry swallow as she pointed to the screen, the cameraman having focused on Nick Kincaid's considerable charms. "He's.. .he's.. .okay, tell me the truth, as a lesbian I haven't seen many of these things but isn't that one just.. .well.. .is that normal?"
I was shaking my head, an appreciative smile on my face. I had suspected Nick of being gay all along. I assumed
that
was his big secret. Yet judging by his performance on screen, he was anything but. Nick had been lying to his family for years. Not about his sexuality, but about what he did for a living. He had to explain his money and lifestyle somehow. But he didn't make it by being a popular fitness instructor. He made it by having a world-class-sized dong and using it for financial gain.
"I've noticed a lot of guys on board paying attention to Nick. I thought it was because he was so good-looking and a closet case. But it was because they recognized him from his porn career. That's probably what happened with that guy in Emerald City who Nick had a fight with. He must have recognized Nick, thought he was gay, and made a move on him. Nick ended up having to use his fists to convince him otherwise."
And then I remembered something else. I'd asked Phyllis to ask around about Nick. The young guy in the bar was probably a friend of Phyllis' and passed me the DVD-probably from The Dorothy's own adult movie section in the library-because Phyllis asked him to. But did this have anything to do with Phyllis'
death? Had I unknowingly put her in jeopardy? Was Nick more involved in all of this than I'd thought?
Had he found out Phyllis was about to reveal his secret and followed her up to Lovers' Lane and pushed her off the boat?
"But he's a
straight
porn star," Errall countered, breaking my concentration. She was referencing Nick's rather convincing onscreen tongue work as evidence. "Why would a bunch of gay guys recognize him?"
"Well, I'm betting if we keep on watching this we'll see that Nick and Lyle have a little scene together too. This is a bi video."
"Are you saying the guys slobbering over Nick on this boat are bisexual?"
I shrugged. "Well, maybe some are, but watching bi videos is a real turn-on for some gay men."
"I don't get it." Errall found the remote and paused the video on a nice shot of Nick's muscular buns.
"Bi videos have straight guys...or at least very straight-acting guys...having a little action with other straight-acting guys. A lot of gay guys have fantasies about that. Don't lesbians fantasize about straight girls?"
"Is there anything gay guys don't fantasize about!" Errall asked as she got up and headed for the bathroom. "When do you guys have time to work, eat meals, attend family functions? Sheesh!"
I grabbed the remote to stop the film and the screen mercifully went blank.
"Mail," Errall called back at me, crouching down to pick up a white envelope that had just whistled under the door.
"It's from Charity," she said once she'd opened the envelope and begun to read. "We're invited to a Wiser family pre-dinner cocktail party at Tin-Sel." She looked at me. "Apparently the captain is going to attempt to reach the Amalfi Coast before sunset. Should be a nice view from there. Six p.m. sharp. Will you be done by then? Or should I leave you and Nick alone for a while?"
Not a wholly unpleasant idea.
I had no intention of missing the Amalfi Coast and Charity's party, but I had a couple things to attend to beforehand. There were two rooms I hadn't searched yet: Faith and Thomas' and James and Patrick's.
Confirming that the two men were otherwise engaged, I started with the cabin belonging to Hope Wiser's widower and son-in-law.
The place was an unholy mess, so it took me a little longer than I'd expected. And, in the end, beneath the piles of discarded clothing, magazines and books, I found absolutely nothing. So heading into the room belonging to Charity's surviving sister and her husband, my hopes were low. My strategy of break-and-enter thus far had resulted in little of use. None of the handwriting samples I'd found in any of the rooms matched the notes Charity had been receiving. Whoever it was who sent them had been careful.
Sure, I'd found the wads of cash in Jackson's room, but it turned out he was using it to score drugs in our ports of call. And all the pricey items belonging to Nick Kincaid had been paid for by his career in porn.
Even so, I went through the drill in Faith and Thomas' room.
Handwriting-no match. Communiques with local thugs arranging a hit-nada. Signed confession-nope.
But then...
At first I almost missed it, rummaging through the bathroom's cabinet and cubbyholes. But as I reached deep into a vanity drawer I felt something soft pushed into the farthest corner. I pulled at it with two fingers and out came a white bundle, something wrapped in Kleenex, maybe ten centimeters long and six wide. There was a solid object at the centre of the package. I laid it carefully next to the sink and gently unwrapped it.
Inside was a glass vial with an eyedropper screw-on top. The liquid was so clear, it was almost ice blue.
I removed the lid and took a small whiff. I didn't need a skull or triple X insignia to tell me what this was.
Poison.
It was our last night aboard The Dorothy and although the dress code for the evening was casual, when Errall and I entered Tin-Sel, I noticed that many of the Wisers had made an effort to dress up a bit, as had I.I put aside the dressy walking shorts I was going to wear and went for a loose-fitting cream shirt with stylized fairies dancing around the collar and cuffs and my tried-and-true wonderpants-black, never out of style and tush-hugging. They'd been sitting in my closet all week but came out as wrinkle-free as Joan Rivers.
"Well, looks like the gang's all here," Errall, resplendent in a shark-coloured halter-top dress, said under her breath. "And Charity's managed to get through the cruise without getting killed. Congratulations."
"It ain't over yet," I responded in a low voice. "We don't reach Civitivecchia until seven a.m."
We helped ourselves to champagne offered by a passing Tin Man waiter and dove into the crowd. Most everyone was milling about near the windows, eyeing up the increasingly spectacular landscape. The Dorothy was chugging along at a fair clip, nearer to land than usual, in an attempt to reach the most scenic of the Amalfi's deep gorges and amazing Gothic-inspired cliff side resorts before dark.
"Charity Wiser?" a cultured voice called out from near the entrance.
Everyone turned. It was Mauro Corsaro, the ship's concierge.
"What is it Max?" Charity responded over the heads of her family.
"Er-hmm," he said, clearing his throat, obviously uncomfortable delivering a message in such a public matter. But Charity wasn't moving. "Your call from Rome has just come through."
A murmur rippled through the room. A call from Rome. Everyone knew it could only mean one thing. It had to be a call from the lawyer. This was the last night of the cruise. And here was a final, ugly reminder that when the cruise ended, so did their inheritances.
"We've put it through to your cabin?" Mauro added, a bit snippy-as befitting a concierge of his status.
"Is that acceptable, Madame?"
"Oh dear," Charity answered. She looked at Flora. "Will you stay with Dottie? I need to take this call.
I'll meet you later for dinner?"
Flora nodded dumbly. The room was silent as Charity made a good exit, the flowing sleeves of her pearl-white outfit and matching neck scarf flaring dramatically behind her as she went. For a moment the Amalfi was forgotten and everyone just stared at one another. I'd have given up my
Men's Health
subscription for a year to know what was going through the collective mind of the Wiser clan at that moment.
"Well, there's no use staying here," Jackson finally broke the silence. "I'm off to a real bar where they'll serve up something stronger than this damn champagne." And he marched from the room.
"The view from the upper deck is way better," Nigel announced as he and his twin ran for the door.
"What a good idea," someone else agreed.
Within seconds the room was
cleared. I was quick to follow.
"Mr. Quant," Patrick Halburton greeted me with his old man rasp. He was ambling up the Deck Seven hallway and had caught sight of me in the small cubicle, halfway down it, where extra linens were stored and passengers came for ice.
Shoo fly, shoo, I wanted to say. I didn't have time for him right then. I nodded politely and pretended to be busy with something in one of my pants pockets. (Not that easy to do without seeming like a pervert.)
"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking wholly dumbfounded, as if he'd spotted a polar bear on Waikiki Beach.
Jeepers. I pulled him into the ice room and said in a hush, "Don't you want to be on one of the upper decks looking at the Amalfi coast?"
He shook his head. He was probably wondering why I was whispering.
"I'm a little busy right now," I told him, not whispering anymore but as quietly as I could. "Maybe we can talk later."
"What are you doing here?" he asked again.
My patience was running low. Patrick Halburton was about to spoil everything with his inane chatter.
But I couldn't get angry with the old guy. He had no idea that he was standing smack in the middle of a trap.
It was the last night on board, and the murderer, whoever he or she was, had one last chance to make good on their threats against Charity and save their inheritance before she changed her will. Which meant I had one last chance to catch the culprit. I had some ideas. Now I needed proof. The party in Tin-Sel and the "call from Rome" had been set up to communicate to all the suspects that the change in the will was going ahead as planned and that Charity would be alone in her suite for the next while. If someone was going to hit her, it had to be now, while everyone else was too busy taking in the amazing Amalfi.
Time was short. If I couldn't get rid of him, at least I could get him out of the way. I pulled Patrick further into the room behind me so that no one-presumably the murderer-coming down the hall would spot him. Now if only I could keep him quiet.