Decked Read online

  Lady Exner undoubtedly would keep aside a bag of wrinkle cream and God knew what other useless potions to fight the aging process for use Saturday morning, which she would have to haul off the ship. He would just chuck it in the water after her, with whatever getup she was planning to greet her money-hungry nieces in. Let the sharks fight over her cigarettes.

  Hardwick reached for his towel and started to dry his muscular arms. Reilly was the one who might cause him some trouble, he thought. She looked like a fighter, and being a detective, probably had a lot of street smarts. But those street smarts wouldn’t help when he surprised her during her rapid-eye movement. He wasn’t about to let any woman ruin his plans.

  He stood before the mirror at the exit and combed back his shiny black hair. Pleased with his reflection, he bent down to slip on the lime-green water shoes he had bought for windsurfing. When he had worn these on the beach at the Jersey shore some idiot had called out, “Hey, Kermit, where’s Miss Piggy?” Cameron had had to hold back from decking him. The only thing that had restrained him was the sight of a band of beer guzzlers stretched out on their towels, laughing, waiting for his reaction, only too eager to come to the aid of their ringleader. The Andrew Dice Clay Road Company.

  Hardwick straightened up and wrapped his beach robe around his frame, tying it at the waist, grimacing at the feeling that the belt had a little more ground to cover than usual. The extra ounce or two was barely visible to the naked eye, but to him it was a perversion. He hated to have any pinchable flesh anywhere, especially around his stomach. Leave the love handles to the Marios of this world.

  As he climbed the staircase back to his cabin, he felt content that his plans were complete. Turning onto his deck he almost bumped into a couple of giggling heavily made-up girls who batted their Tammy Faye Bakker eyes at him in admiration. Too bad I can’t follow up with one of them to pass the time, he thought as he strode into the mini-corridor outside his door, and heard his phone ringing. Hurriedly he pulled his key out of his pocket and dashed inside.

  The call was from Oxford.

  I CAN’T BELIEVE it’s only Tuesday, Regan thought as she led Veronica into the Knights Lounge for bingo. She had seen the expression on her mother’s face when the psychic became apoplectic. It was a Maalox moment for Nora.

  Regan felt guilty about worrying her mother when she was supposed to be having a relaxing time on vacation. “I don’t care how old you are, when we’re under the same roof, I worry when you get in late,” Nora would always say. “When you’re in California, I don’t know what you’re up to and that’s fine.” Then she’d added, “But I do pray a lot.”

  I never should have accepted this job, Regan decided. I’m itching to work on Athena’s case. I should have flown straight to New Jersey and dug out my journal. One night Athena had talked a lot about the last summer she’d spent with her aunt and uncle and cousins. She didn’t talk only about the murder. I wrote down everything she told me.

  “Regan dear, why don’t we take this table here?” Veronica pointed to a low round table on the corner of the dance floor, surrounded by four seats. “Seeing as this is the Knights Lounge, maybe a few in shining armor will join us.”

  “Oh, I think the salt air would probably bother them too much, Veronica.” Regan grinned, thinking back to the visit she and Kit had made to the armor factory in Graz, Austria. Kit had asked the tour guide if the factory had closed down because no knights had been sighted by the female population in hundreds of years.

  As they sat down in the maroon-upholstered swivel seats, Regan spotted Kenneth and Dale entering the lounge. She jumped up and called them over. “I never thought I’d see you two here.”

  “Oh, why not?” Dale answered cheerfully. “It’s clouded over outside, so we figured we’d come in, have a drink, and hopefully win a few bucks.”

  “Oh, lovely,” Veronica chirped. “Do sit down.”

  “Only if you pick out my playing cards, Lady Exner,” Dale said. “I know you have that magic touch. The only thing Kenneth and I ever won was a six-month subscription to a Spanish-language newspaper, and needless to say, ’hola’ and ’adiós, amigos’ are the only words we understand.”

  Kenneth chimed in. “We ended up signing it over to our friend Carmen. She’s from Madrid and lives next door. On Sundays she comes over for Dale’s fabulous exotic coffee that no one else can make and she reads us the highlights.”

  “So it wasn’t a total loss,” Dale laughed as he beamed at Kenneth.

  Scooping up everyone’s money, Veronica joyfully got on line to purchase the cards, as the room began to fill with groups of twos, threes, and even singles who welcomed the chance to try their hand at one of the oldest forms of entertainment on land or at sea. Regan wondered how many church auditoriums, to this day, had someone calling out “N-33” or “0-75” every Friday night, eventually followed by someone screeching “Bingo!” It had been a favorite of Regan’s grandmother.

  The cruise director, Duncan Snow, whose ever-present smile reminded Regan of a jack-o’-lantern, picked up the mike and announced that they were about to “staht” and would the piayers please take their places.

  Veronica sat back down, shuffled the cards, which were actually pieces of paper, and dealt them out with the finesse of a Vegas dealer. “There we go. Two each for the first go-around. And here are some pencils. No chips. Just circle the numbers that are called. Oh, here’s the waitress. Let’s order some drinks.” She turned to Kenneth and Dale. “What would you like?”

  The waitress, a twentyish brunette who looked as if she had been partying late in the crew disco, took the order for four gin and tonics and disappeared.

  “... 6 and 6 clickety click. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. 0-66 clickety click,” Duncan Snow called, as oohs and ahs echoed through the room.

  As he called out more numbers, Regan slowly realized that she was not the owner of a lucky card. Neither was anyone else in her group. Duncan announced “B-12.”

  A prepubescent voice at the next table yelled, “I got it, Mom. Bingo!” The assistant cruise director, Lloyd Harper, whom Regan guessed to be about her age, smiled at her as he passed her table on his way to check the boy’s card. Regan smiled back at him, grateful that Veronica was still bent over, figuring out all the different ways she could have made bingo if she only had one more number.

  More cards were purchased and games played with various ways of winning. The first person to form an X on his or her card would take the pot. The first to line the borders all around. The first to form an L. Finally Duncan announced that the next game would be the last and the jackpot was the biggest of the day. There was a scramble for more cards as people decided to buy two or three extra ones in the hopes of winning big money.

  “This time the winner will be the first person to completely fill their card with circles. That’s right. You have to get every number.” Duncan looked delighted.

  I wonder if there’s any way they can fix this game, Regan thought. She had heard about the cruise director who was in cahoots with some bimbo on board. They used to pretend she had won and then they’d split the proceeds. She looked at the ten-year-old, who was still clutching his winnings. That kid wasn’t going to split his hundred bucks with anyone.

  Duncan began again to call the numbers, having a little expression or singsong for each one. “1-26, let’s pick up sticks. Let’s pick up sticks, 1-26.”

  On the opposite side of the lounge Gavin was seated between two women of uncertain age. The knees of the one on the right were jammed against his. The one on the left had a disconcerting habit of poking her elbow into his arm whenever one of the numbers on her card came up. She repeated every number in a loud questioning voice, causing Gavin’s blood pressure to rise as he yelled, “Yes, that’s the number,” to her, which in turn occasionally made him miss the next number called, which forced him to ask the people at the next table, which started the cycle all over again. He had also suffered the embarrassment of having her ye
ll “Bingo!” when she wasn’t even close.

  I can’t take much more of this, Gavin thought to himself. Let this be the last crossing I have to make, please. At least my card is filling in fast. Only two more numbers to go. As the next number was called and he energetically circled his next-to-last empty space on the card, he heard Lady Veronica’s familiar trill, “Ooh, ooh, dear. Bingo! Isn’t that lovely?” Them that has gets, he observed sourly as she literally danced to the mike, waving her card in her hand.

  As Veronica hugged the cruise director, Lloyd Harper checked her numbers and announced that she had won $462. There was a round of oh-so-brief applause as people got up from their chairs, mumbling about coming back tomorrow to try and win the big money. “I told you I should have bought a couple of extra cards,” Regan heard one old man admonish his wife. “She was in line right behind us and we would have gotten the winning one.”

  “Ah, shut up, Henry, you blame me for everything,” the old woman wheezed. “Besides, you’ve got more money than you know what to do with. Lord knows you’ve never wasted any of it on me.”

  As Veronica stood at the front of the room chatting with Duncan while Lloyd counted out the money, Dale laughed. “Well, I knew she’d pick a winning card, I was just hoping it would be mine. By the way, Regan, she spoke to me about buying some antiques for Llewellyn Hall. Is she serious, or do you think that’s just cocktail talk?”

  “Well, she was talking about putting in some new plumbing and rewiring ten years ago and she’s just getting around to it now. You’d have to be Marco Polo to find the only loo in that house that works, and it groans for twenty minutes after you flush it. I think she means it when she says it, but I doubt she’ll ever get around to any extensive redecorating.”

  “Oh, well,” Kenneth lamented, “there goes our excuse for getting back to London this fall.”

  “It was a nice thought,” Dale agreed. “Butthat’show I had her pegged. Exactly where in Oxford is Llewellyn Hall?”

  “In the estate section,” Regan replied.

  “It’s beautiful there. How much property does she have?”

  “Something over five hundred acres.”

  “Are you joking?” Dale gasped.

  “No, why?”

  “About six years ago I worked with an interior designer who was doing a house in that area. The people had paid a fortune for only twenty acres. Veronica has that kind of money and she jumps up and down about winning a few hundred bucks?”

  “Veronica and her nephew are two of the most unworldly people I’ve ever met,” Regan answered. “Except for her trips, Veronica doesn’t spend much money, and I don’t think she realizes the value of that place. All her nephew cares about is sticking flowers in it.”

  “Who is going to inherit all that land?” Kenneth prodded.

  Regan shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose the nephew.”

  “She told me she was going to visit some niece,” Kenneth continued. “She asked me to fix her hair before she disembarks in New York.”

  “Actually she’s a second cousin, who started to write to Veronica and sent her pictures of her family. Veronica has never met her but she sent pictures back of herself and her nephew and his fiancee and Llewellyn Hall.”

  “What does this second cousin do?” Dale asked.

  “I gather she just lost her job, so she’ll have time to take Veronica around.” Regan frowned. “Veronica told me she had worked in a real estate office.”

  Kenneth raised his eyebrows for the second time in that hour.

  “Well, somebody’s head isn’t in the clouds,” Dale observed. “If I were the nephew, impractical or not, I’d be getting very nervous.”

  SYLVIE SASHAYED AROUND her cabin, spritzing perfume on her pulse points, singing “We’re in the Money” with great gusto but not really knowing the words. “. . .oh that’s right, honey, we’re in the money toni-i-ight. You are so handsome . . . I am so pretty . . . doo doo doo . . . we’re in the money . . . oh, that’s right, honey . . . we’ll get rid of old Violet . . . doo doo doo ... as quick as a bunny ...”

  As Sylvie stepped into her cream-colored cocktail dress she realized she hadn’t been so excited about a man for a long time. Too long. Milton was just so nice. And what a gentleman. Spending time with him today had had the double-edged sword of reminding her what she’d been missing since Harold died. Forget the other creep she’d married. He didn’t count. But her life with Harold had been special.

  This afternoon Milton had unknowingly brought on a resurgence of those feelings, of how right it can be when you’re with someone and there’s a chemistry. When the old bat Violet had finally gone to take a nap, losing round 2 to Sylvie and the ear patch, she and Milton had gone for a walk around the deck. He had taken off his sweater and put it around her shoulders when the wind started to pick up. She had felt like a high school cheerleader whose boyfriend had just given her his football jacket.

  Don’t get carried away, Sylvie thought to herself as she fastened the hook on her dress. But I do hope some of my perfume stayed on his sweater. When he wears it again he’ll be reminded of me. Nothing like a smell to bring back memories. With my luck big sis will have borrowed it and he’ll get it back smelling like Ben-Gay.

  Sylvie glanced at her watch. Six forty-five. I’d better get going, she thought as she reflected on all the times when she’d felt so alone at these Captain’s parties. How depressing. Well, tonight would be different. She had plans to meet up with Milton and Violet and would then introduce them to the people from her table, especially Lady Exner. If that failed, she’d enlist the help of Gavin to entertain the hardly shrinking Violet. That settled in her mind, she freshened her lipstick and started to sing “Tonight, tonight won’t be just any night ...”

  Nora helped Luke with the studs on his tuxedo cuffs.

  “I don’t know how guys who live alone can get these things on,” he commented.

  “Well, I’m not going to let you have the chance to find out how they do it.” Nora smiled up at him. “You look so handsome. Especially in black.”

  “As our daughter would say, it’s good for business.” Luke smiled back at her and leaned down for a kiss.

  Nora frowned. “Luke, I’m so worried about her.”

  Luke realized he should never have brought Regan’s name into the conversation. After the psychic session that afternoon, Nora had been a wreck. He had finally managed to talk some sense into her, and now it was about to start all over again. “Honey, it’ll be just a few more days on the ship and then she’ll be back at work, dealing with real criminals again. That’s when we’re allowed to worry. Not when she’s minding a harmless old woman in the best suite on the ship.” He hugged her. “Now go back to thinking about who she should have married.”

  Nora laughed reluctantly and gave him a playful punch. “All right, you. But I’ll be relieved when we are all off this ship.”

  “Me too. I’m anxious to hear her opinion of my version of a green room.”

  Regan followed Veronica out of their suite. Not expecting to cruise home, Regan had not brought many dressy clothes on her trip. Clad in a deceptively simple black cocktail dress, she provided quite a contrast to Veronica’s silver taffeta ball gown, the rejected outfit of the night before. All I need is a white apron and people will think I’m her traveling maid, Regan thought.

  As the elevator door closed on the hoop of Veronica’s dress, Regan pushed all the buttons in a frantic effort to save the dress from being ruined. She needn’t have worried. When she finally managed to free Veronica’s glad rags from the groaning, buzzing, jammed door, the hoop immediately sprang back into its original shape. It’s crush-proof, Regan thought with amazement. That must have been ghosts of the fashion police trying to destroy it.

  “Eeewwww,” Veronica cried. “Thank you, Regan. I’m so glad it didn’t rip.”

  Rip, Regan thought. That thing is made of U.S. Steel. “No problem at all. You look so pretty, Veronica.”

  �
�And so do you, my dear. But I would love to take you shopping and really dress you with some oomph. For example, you’d look lovely in a dress like this. Would you believe I bought it off the peg?”

  Yes, Regan thought.

  Gavin entered the Queen’s Room with a nervous air. The band was playing softly in the background. The Captain and his senior management team, spit and polished in their dress whites, were ready to meet and greet the first-class passengers. The ship’s photographer had his equipment set up, ready to snap passengers as they flanked the Captain. It was a great money-maker on these cruise lines. Even though the photos were outrageously priced, not many tourists could resist buying these mementos of their trip that went on sale as fast as the photography staff could get them out on display. Some people bought them to get their highly unflattering likenesses out of the display case where they were subject to the scrutiny of their fellow travelers.

  I’d better do some good mixing tonight, Gavin thought anxiously. If I don’t get that bracelet soon, I’ll need a lot of spare time to spend only with Veronica. The apprehension sent a wave of anxiety sweeping through his body. He forced a smile and walked over to say hello to the Captain. Gavin reached out his hand. “Good evening, sir.”

  Thanks to the fact that Veronica was so anxious to get to the party, she and Regan were one of the first people on line to meet the Captain. Within a few minutes of their arrival, the line snaked out the door and past the Lancelot Bar. Dutifully the Captain put his arms around both of them as Veronica twittered “cheese.” Though the Captain did his best to be charming, Regan was relieved after the usual pleasantries were exchanged. As Veronica attempted to linger with him, Regan accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and looked around. The early birds had already staked out seats on the couches and chairs that formed a horseshoe around the dance floor.

  “Oh, Regan, over here!” Regan turned to her left and saw Sylvie waving to them. She was seated on one of the couches next to an older woman.