Cruise to Critique (Lucky & Led Cruise Ship Mystery Series Book 5) Read online

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lucky and Led changed out of their formal dinner dress and got into island style clothing; flip flops, walking shorts and T-shirts. Lucky wore an Alaskan cruise theme shirt with the slogan: OLD GUYS RULE, while Led, with head buried in a still unpacked suitcase, furiously threw T-shirt after T-shirt around until he found the perfect one he was searching for. He pulled it over his head and expanded his chest to offer an unwrinkled display. Lucky took a look. Led had on a T-shirt with a beach scene emblazoned with bikini clad women frolicking in the sea and on the sand with the slogan: DATING CONSULTANT. Offering a moment of humor. No doubt about it, the diverse messages on the two T-shirts pretty well summed up the generational gap between Lucky and Led.

  Lucky intended to bum around the downtown on the island to savor the night time experience; an opportunity of going ashore after sunset was a rarity on a cruise. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the ships set sail somewhere around five or six in the late afternoon, steaming for the next port of call. Schedules tended to work around daytime exploration tours leaving the cruisers to be on board for the evening meal and night time entertainment offerings.

  Led, for his part, had a targeted mission in mind intending to do a little reconnaissance around about the murder scene area. His mind had cleared up significantly from the utter confusion it had undergone during the afternoon’s commotion. The crime scene area would still be a protected zone. He wanted to walk around the crime scene area and mentally re-construct the dramatic elements of the fiasco now that the intensity of the daytime activities had subsided.

  The irrational residue from the boyhood accident bore heavy on Led’s mind. The relentless voice of guilt gnawed away and forced him to repeat the same ritual as he did when he was fourteen. Year after year, on the anniversary of the tragedy, he would return to the sandy shore along the beach road to relive that sad incident. Led would kneel in the sand next to where his brother, Tony, had long ago lay, at first, dying...and receiving no help from his younger brother...died.

  The two decided to part ways and pursue their own agendas. They agreed to meet up later at the tender boat dock. Led told Lucky that he wanted to find a bar and some good looking ladies, though he had every intention of hailing a taxi and heading over to the dive shop beach. He wanted to do this alone. The ritual demanded solitude.

  More importantly, Led had thought through the episode of the dark object which had almost hit Yolanda’s leg; the object he had initially judged to be a sand shark due to his blurred vision from the fogged over mask. He now rejected that theory and he wanted to take a look in the area where they had been diving and see if he could retrieve the object. Due to the slip shod investigative manner of the local police, Led still possessed the bullet which had exited Marsha’s head. Now he had a pretty good idea what else had been thrown into the sea.

  Waving goodbye, Lucky began strolling the shop lined streets of downtown George Town. In the hue of the artificial lighting, the store fronts stared out like cheerful eyes of a spider seeking to lure in the curious bug. From the looks of the clogged shops, most of the Caribbean Star’s guests, aka, bugs, had been lured.

  When he passed the windows of the local Senor Frog’s drinking establishment, he spotted two faces which appeared somewhat familiar. He couldn’t remember for absolute certain, so he stopped and calmly ran a review of faces stored in his memory over the last day or so. Lucky had a phenomenal memory for faces thanks to his years meeting people in the ministry and teaching his students.

  Stepping inside the popular, jam-packed Caribbean franchise, he inched his way over to the table where the guys were seated. When he got near enough to hear their conversation, he instantly recognized the voices; it was immediately after the boat drill and he had been plowing his way through the maddening crowd. He had only a glimpse of their faces, then, but now the voices confirmed the identity of the two men.

  Lucky remembered. They were the two off in the computer alcove clandestinely discussing something about getting together or how to get together. One of the men had been upset about their meeting and this prompted Lucky, at the time, to wonder about the whole incident.

  Now, hooked by his curiosity, Lucky ordered a virgin Pina Colada and sat on a stool by the wall which had a convenient ledge for placing his tropical drink. He kept his back to the men and couldn’t help but overhear the give and take of the ongoing conversation.

  “You did bring the package with you, right?”

  “Of course, do you think I’m a dimwit or something?” Not-A-Dimwit sipped on his mug of beer.

  “Let’s not go down that road at this point. We’ll leave that for another time to discuss.” Smirking, Not-Go-Down-That-Road cracked a peanut shell and hustled the nuts into his mouth.

  “We got one package and almost had the second one. That fool shouldn’t have taken the woman out. I had her all primed and ready to give her package over to you when you got there. I was even babysitting the damn thing. She didn’t have a clue as to who you were, so it would have been a no brainer to make her think you were the local contact.. Then, when the shot rang out and all hell broke loose, since you hadn’t arrived yet, I had to ditch it in a trash can. There were going to be cops all over the place.”

  “So, what’s your great idea now,” Not-A-Dimwit asked.

  “I think it’s quieted down long enough now that we make our way over and retrieve it out of its cozy impromptu hiding spot,” Not-Go-Down-That-Road confidently suggested.

  “How do you know that the maintenance people haven’t already emptied out those damn garbage barrows?” Oh, oh, here he goes again. Not-A-Dimwit was behaving exactly like a dimwit in Not-Go-Down-That-Road’s estimation.

  “Island time, my man. Nothing happens quickly. You heard of “manana”, right? Both of the men paused to think over whether their chances of no one emptying the trash cans were really realistic.

  Then, realizing his cultural error, Not-Go-Down-That-Road screeched, “That’s a Spanish thing; this is a British island. You know how anal the Brits can be!”

  With the perfect portrait look of OMG on their faces, Not-A-Dimwit and Not-Go-Down-That-Road chug-a-lugged their beers in unison, pushed away from the table, jumped up and jostled their way through the crowd, trotting out of the bar making a bee line to the dive shop.

  “Check, please,” Lucky bellowed over the loud music.

  Samantha had it up to her eyeballs watching Rex drool his slobber into the 17 ½ oz. brandy snifter containing the Grand Marnier. Gross to say the least! Which about summed up her entire opinion that she held of her disgusting colleague. She needed to break free from Rex’s annoying stalking and find out the real news story behind the mundane account.

  Samantha’s young, but quickly maturing spirit had transformed her into a jaded enough journalist to realize that the juicy part of the story would come out when she did surgery on it. Incising it. Like getting to the succulent inside of a prime steak done rare only after you sliced it open with a knife.

  Slipping off the bar stool as quietly as possible, Samantha tiptoed away from Rex and silently began making her way out of the ship’s Sand Bar lounge. With her complete attention fixated on Rex so as not to jar him out of his alcoholic slumber, she only caught a fleeting side glance of the kissing couple and the giggling reverberating from across the other side of the dimly lit bar.

  After a quick stop in her cabin to freshen up, grabbing her journalist’s apparatus and facial beauty tools, securing both in her shoulder bag, Samantha headed to the tender boat deck. She knew exactly where she needed to be. On her way down the elevator, she remembered some old sage advice from her UF Gainesville journalist classes: if you want a breaking story, you need to think outside yesterday’s new’s column and go to where the next story is about to happen. She had every intention of returning to the scene of the crime; she had a feeling that there was something more to this story which everyone was missing.

  The tender boat shuttle didn’t run as freq
uently as during the peak hours, so Samantha waited nestled up against the security belt drawn across the entrance to the on/off kiosk area. Finally, after a seemingly interminable waiting period, time being relative, she could hear the sound of the engine bringing the approaching tender boat alongside.

  The security guard walked over to where she was standing and released the security belt allowing her to approach the kiosk and use her card to punch out. Just as the bing-bong of the kiosk bell rang signaling acceptance of her card, she looked up and saw Chief Inspector Sanjay Mehta climbing the ladder upon his return to the ship.

  Clearing his throat and with just a hint of the Cheshire grin, the Chief Inspector greeted Samantha as their paths crossed. “Well, Miss Simmons, it’s a bit late to be touring the island. One might surmise that you have found a date offering the possibility of some excitement, perhaps?”

  “Hello, Chief Inspector. Actually, I had seen a truly amazing dress in a store when I was shopping earlier today and I decided I just couldn’t live without it.” Samantha’s lame explanation came across sounding like it genuinely did require crutches.

  Smiling, “Well, most, if not all, of the dress stores are most likely closed by now. Only the bars and other such places are blinking a welcome sign at this hour.”

  Obvious to Samantha, Sanjay wasn’t going to let her off easily even though he really had no proper right to question her. She was working herself up into a huffy fit, but quickly settled down. It was just his nature, she concluded. He is an investigator. She quieted herself by remembering that she asked a lot of intrusive questions in her line of work as well.

  Shrugging off the stand off, Sanjay continued, “Miss Simmons, since I know that you have a nose for news, pardon my pun, I think that you could very well be of use in this ongoing investigation. I have returned just now so I could update our Captain on the situation as it presently stands and if you promise to keep confidential what I brief Captain Hurley about, I’d like you in on it when we pursue more of the facts...and ultimately catch the perps I’ve played my card, so to speak. Will you accept my little proposition?” Sanjay did wear the crown of chief investigator of security, so he had placed his King of Spades on the table. He felt equal to the hero of his childhood radio listening days. He never missed an episode of The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective. He looked at Samantha with an expectant gaze and awaited her response.

  “And, if I keep our little secret meeting hush hush, you’ll guarantee that I’ll be the first reporter to break the news when you solve the who done it?” Samantha’s face turned hard as she considered her standing as the ace reporter aboard the Caribbean Star cruise. She played her trump card; she placed the Ace of Diamonds on the table. “Count me in all the way.”

  “I think you won the game, Miss Simmons,” Mehta retorted. “I fold my hand.”

  Samantha retrieved her cruise card from her pocket and inserted it once again into the slot of the kiosk. The bing-bong sounded and acknowledged her presence back on board. Samantha turned and jumped into step with the Chief Inspector’s enthusiastic gait as they made their way to the crew elevator and the clandestine rendezvous with Captain Peggy Hurley in her private quarters.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The crime scene, either by coincidence or grand design, began to look like the formation of a major alignment of the planets. What the local police presumed was an off limits crime area was quickly, but quietly becoming the most popular gathering place for everyone involved with the tragic event at the dive shop beach.

  One notable exception had not been drawn to that action-packed stretch of sandy shore, Elaine Cromwell. For a very real reason: she knew all she wanted to know about the incident without visiting the site.

  Though she had not officially become a person of interest in the case...yet...she listened to the wisdom of her sixth sense when she mentally reviewed the progress that the investigation was producing. She knew that it would inevitably involve her in the very near future. She felt there would be an official visit soon, and a search of her home, warranted by law, but unwanted if she desired to remain a person not of interest in the case.

  She knew she didn’t need to go to the beach. She needed to make her way back into the master bedroom.

  Before the visit of their cruise ship guests, Lucky and Samantha, the Cromwells had received a phone call from a blackmailer. Ever since George retired, he had become embroiled in a potentially extremely embarrassing situation involving the purchase of his prized property and home. Being in the highest circles of island society, George and Elaine, after many years of paying the dues to belong to this elite group, couldn’t image living on the island if any a breath of a scandal hit the public domain. They would have to give up their beloved home and leave their paradise island and return to England. At this time in their lives, they couldn’t image such an astronomic disruption of their accustomed lifestyle.

  The blackmailer’s threats, based on his creative relationship with the Triad during his days working in Hong Kong, were totally baseless in Cromwell’s estimation. Yes, George had finagled special considerations for his representation on behalf of the Triad in several financial dealings and the Trial had repaid his professional kindnesses by helping him obtain his vastly expensive waterfront property. He had always rationalized that it was just the way of doing business. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

  Now, he figured it was the shenanigans of a long time local realtor with an equally long memory, who brokered for a huge hotel-resort corporation that greedily lusted after the Cromwell property. It was worth millions and George surmised that they could get it for shillings on the pound if they could smear his reputation. The whole affair could prove a disaster to both their financial security as well as weighing heavily on their marriage.

  The request made by the blackmailer seemed harmless enough in itself. The caller had instructed George to go to his usual supermarket for grocery shopping. When he had finished, he should proceed to a particular address. The blackmailer told him to bring along two bags of groceries to make it appear legitimate. Then, he was directed to go inside the building and wait until he was met there by a man of obvious Asian descent. A small package would be subsequently slipped into one of the grocery bags. When the transaction was concluded, he was to take the grocery sacks, now with the added package, to his home and hide the package in his master bedroom bureau of drawers. He was not to dare open it or tell anyone about it.

  This last instruction was overlooked as George had confided the entire phone call affair to Elaine shortly before Lucky and Samantha's unexpected arrival for the visit.

  Elaine knew in her heart that this messy affair was not by divine providence. God was too innocent to forge such a hideous disease infecting their lives. Free will had taken over. It was all for money...greed! And, how about “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”...whatever happened to that commandment whichever number it was on the tablets? She supposed it had undergone historical revisionism by the real estate lobby.

  Add to that, now an innocent life was lost to the fiendish cause; someone by the name of Marsha; someone she didn’t even know; an ordinary cruise ship guest simply looking for a weekend of fun and frolic on a great island. She entered the master bedroom and looked around at the possible hiding places. She began with the most logical location—George’s dresser of drawers.

  Elaine sobbed over all these thoughts as she searched through the drawers of George’s dresser. Her tear drops fell onto her husband’s socks and handkerchiefs. She wasn’t sure exactly what it might be that she was so desperately seeking. She hadn’t missed George’s stealthy stepping back to the master bedroom carrying a sack of groceries--the same sack he eventually placed in the kitchen before he drove Lucky and Samantha over to the dive beach.

  In her frustration with opening one drawer after another she realized her terror. About to let out a scream from frustration, she opened yet another drawer and lifted a stack of undershirts. She couldn�
�t believe her eyes. Incredible! There it sat...a small, innocuous looking brown package. She blinked a couple of times to clear the tears from her eyes and picked up the package. Now what?

  Gently caressing the package, she unconsciously closed the drawer and went out to the kitchen, her safe room. She sat down at the small table in the breakfast nook and put it down. Taking a deep breath, she stared at the wrapped box like she would a holiday present she had been forbidden to open before Christmas eve. She couldn’t take anymore of the mystery; the suspense was killing her.

  She turned the package over and saw the tape securing the wrapping. Her fingers began undoing the tape; she painstakingly unfolded the wrapping paper and removed the box. There it was...all she needed to do was to open the lid and discover what it was that so threatened her husband, their marriage, their lives.

  She lifted the lid. Her eyes bugged out. Is this a joke? She fingered through the contents. This was doubly ridiculous. All this drama over a...a what?

  “I told you that you wouldn’t be happy with my confession,” George Cromwell bellowed into the reddened face of Agent Cartwright. “It has nothing whatsoever to do with my being a player in your outlandish account of some international smuggling syndicate. The truth is that the whole affair is a mixed up mess involving a bogus blackmail scheme thought up by some unknown local real estate broker to steal my property.” George sunk his head into his hands.

  “So you say, so you say. And, just why should I believe such a scurrilous story line from a scoundrel like you? I expected better than that from a career shyster of a lawyer. Take a minute and maybe you’ll come up with a more believable yarn. You lawyers are good at manipulating the truth.” Cartwright was livid. He had worked this case for two years and now this guy was spinning this tale of bull. It was too much, even for the seasoned CIA agent.