Dark Passage

SEVEN

‘She vanished as quickly as an electric light goes out when the switch is turned.’

David Devant, Secrets of My Magic,

Hutchinson, 1936

Sitting for hours in a hot tub can suck the energy clean out of you. Add a gorgeous lunch of broiled lamb skewers, baby arugula and lemon vinaigrette, followed by a square of baklava, and all you can think about is a nap.

Ruth had already headed off for her yoga session when I hauled myself off my bunk, collected my knitting and made my way aft to the Oracle.

I was ten minutes early.

The attractive barkeep I’d noticed there earlier that morning was alone, moving busily behind the bar, arranging empty glasses on a tray, presumably preparing for the arrival of the knitters who, if the number of splits being chilled was any indication, were expected to be heavy drinkers.

I sidled up to the bar. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘How does this work exactly?’

The barkeep – Pia from Italy – looked up, smiled, and tucked an errant strand of her straight black bob behind an ear with her little finger. ‘What would you like? Phoenix specializes in Greek wines, of course.’ She indicated the iced basins. ‘Our featured wine today is Ode Panos, a sparkling wine from Domaine Spiropoules. It’s lovely.’

I dug the sea pass out of my pocket and slid it toward her across the bar. ‘I’d like to try some, thanks.’

Pia ran my sea pass through her portable scanner and handed it back. ‘Shall I start a tab?’ When I nodded, she slid a bottle of Ode Panos out of its ice bath, quickly and expertly removed the cork – with a muted pop and a wisp of smoke – tipped the flute against the lip of the bottle and slowly poured.

Since nobody else had arrived, I asked, ‘Have you been working on Islander long, Miss…?’

‘It’s Fanucci. Pia Fanucci.’ She handed me the glass. ‘Not on this particular ship, no, but Tom and I have been with Phoenix Cruise Lines for a while. We used to work on Voyager.’

I took a sip of the wine. Pleasantly bubbly, a touch of rose, a bit of green apple with a hint of banana. A little too perfumy for my taste, but as a mid-afternoon aperitif, not bad. ‘Is Tom your husband?’

‘No, he’s my work partner.’ She brightened. ‘I guess I should explain. When I’m not tending bar, I’m Tom’s assistant. He’s Thomas Channing, the magician. He goes by Channing exclamation point,’ she added, drawing a line in the air and dotting it with the tip of a well-manicured finger.

I knew all about One Name celebrities, like Elvis, Cher and Madonna. My son-in-law’s real name was Daniel Shemansky, but ever since he and my daughter returned east from Colorado, he’d styled himself just plain Dante. Not that Dante was particularly famous, but their luxury bay-side spa, Dante’s Paradiso – get it? – seemed to be thriving.

‘You should come see the show,’ Pia continued.

I set my glass down on a paper coaster, carefully centering the base over a black-and-white sketch of the ship. ‘I read about it in the program and was thinking about going tonight.’

‘You’ll enjoy it,’ Pia said. ‘I’m a newbie, but Tom’s been in show business a long time. Atlantic City, Las Vegas. He’s been working the cruise ships now for about three years. He designs his own illusions, although there’s a guy in Virginia who actually builds them for him. They’re totally amazing.’

I grinned. ‘What kind of magician would he be if they weren’t?’

Pia beamed. ‘Exactly!’

‘So you get cut in half, float in mid-air…’ I waved a hand vaguely. ‘That sort of thing?’

‘Exactly that sort of thing,’ she chuckled. ‘My favorite is the Zig-Zag Box, but the highlight of the show, really, is the Indian Sword Basket.’

‘Eeeek!’ I squeaked. ‘I’ve always wondered about that. Are the swords fake?’

‘Oh, no, they’re very real. You’ll see!’

‘How’s the comedian? I see he’s on first.’

Pia shrugged. ‘He’s OK, I guess. But this is his first gig for Phoenix Cruise Lines, and I think he’s a bit too blue for a family audience. Last night we had people walk out. Not good if he’s opening for us.’

‘Not at all,’ I agreed. ‘But I promise to tough it out, laugh at all his jokes – lame or not – and look forward to seeing you and the amazing Mister Channing Exclamation Point. And I’ll bring my sisters.’

Pia smiled. ‘You won’t be sorry.’

I thanked Pia again and carried my wine over to a comfortable, white leather chair decorated with brass studs. I settled in, arranged my knitting on my lap, and took another sip, transporting myself to the whitewashed houses and brilliant blue sea of Santorini, a place I’d visited only in my imagination.

I was jolted out of my daydream when a group of teenagers erupted into the lobby from the elevator and breezed into the bar. Each girl carried a sheet of paper and a pencil. ‘Hi, Aunt Hannah!’

‘Julie! What are you doing here?’

‘We’re on a scavenger hunt.’ Julie flapped her list in my direction. ‘We’re supposed to count the number of jeroboams in the Oracle bar. I don’t even know what a jeroboam is!’

Pia Fanucci pointed behind her where four giant wine bottles were arranged, like pillars, supporting a glass shelf on which was displayed a sterling silver plate with an engraved inscription commemorating an international wine award. ‘Those are jeroboams.’ Pia explained, ‘They hold about four litres of wine each.’

‘Four!’ shouted one of Julie’s three companions. Heads down, they scribbled the answer onto their worksheets and disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.

‘Your niece is a pretty girl,’ Pia commented after they were out of sight.

‘I know. She’s going to break hearts some day.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Just turned fourteen.’

‘She looks older.’

‘I know. They grow up so quickly. Seems like just yesterday she was playing dress up with her Barbies.’

‘Keep an eye on her,’ Pia said as she swiped up a few drops of water from the polished surface of the bar with a damp rag.

I’d set my drink down on a circular end table and had reached for my knitting, but the cautionary tone in Pia’s voice brought my hand up short. ‘Should I be worried?’

Behind the bar, Pia appeared to be checking the rag for imperfections. After a moment, she dropped it into a sink. Her gray-green eyes met mine. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that working as a bartender I see a lot of alcohol-related craziness. Sometimes I think they should raise the drinking age to thirty. After the hormones have stopped raging, anyway. But in some guys, the hormones never stop raging, you know? Had an eighty-something-year-old in here the other day…’ she started to say when the elevator doors slid open and Liz Rowe stepped out into the lobby. Liz carried an oversized crewelwork bag; the business end of a pair of knitting needles protruded from the top. I waved at my new friend. ‘Over here, Liz.’

Liz joined me, set her bag down in the chair next to me to reserve it, then hustled over to the bar to get herself a glass of sparkling wine, cutting my private chat with Pia short. If only I’d had five minutes – and maybe a glass of Ode Panos – more, I might have been able to cut through the rhetoric about alcohol and hormones and find out why Pia had neatly avoided answering my question. I drained my glass. By the time Liz rejoined me, I was ready for a refill, too.

More passengers trickled in, until the knitting group numbered around twenty. Projects ranged from small, like my hat, to highly ambitious, like a queen-sized lace-weave afghan. I had no idea how the woman had fit it into her luggage. One guy, who wielded his hook with the lightning speed of a gunslinger, was crocheting – I am not making this up – a Stetson hat. I was listening to him explain how he’d modified the handle of the crochet hook to accommodate rug yarn in order to make the tiny, tight stitches he needed for his project when I noticed that David Warren had showed up. He was leaning on the bar, talking to Pia.

‘David knits? That’s a surprise,’ I commented.

‘What?’ Liz glanced up from her work.

‘David Warren. He’s over at the bar.’

As we watched, David reached across the bar, seized Pia’s hand and pulled her gently toward him. He was speaking too earnestly, too quietly for us to hear, but Pia didn’t seem alarmed. She listened, then nodded, before slowly withdrawing her hand.

‘I don’t think they’re discussing le vin du jour,’ Liz said.

As I watched, Pia shrugged, turned and, keeping her head bowed, began filling the glasses on the tray with sparkling wine.

David had been dismissed. For several seconds he didn’t move; then he shook his head, did a smart about-face and disappeared up the double staircase that led to the upper decks.

‘I wonder what that was all about?’ I whispered.

‘We could ask Pia, I suppose, but that would be nosy.’ Liz’s blue eyes sparkled.

‘Of course it would,’ I grinned, ‘but that’s never stopped me before.’

By the time four p.m. rolled around, all but a few of the knitters had packed up and returned to their staterooms. When the coast was relatively clear, Liz and I approached the bar. I nudged Liz. ‘You go first,’ she whispered.

We perched ourselves on a pair of bar stools, comfortably upholstered in the same white leather as the chairs.

‘What can I get for you, ladies?’ Pia wanted to know.

‘I think I’m in the mood for something crisp and dry,’ I said.

‘You got it.’ Pia bent down, opened the sliding glass door on an under-counter refrigerator, selected a bottle, uncorked it and poured me a glass. ‘Try this. It’s called Assyrtiko. If you like Chablis, you’ll like Assyrtiko.’

I took a sip and smiled appreciatively. ‘Zesty,’ I said. ‘A bit lemony. I do like it.’

I set the glass down on the bar. ‘What did David want?’ I asked, hoping to catch her off guard.

Pia’s eyebrows shot up into her bangs. ‘David? Oh, you mean David Warren.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth and made a major production of twisting the cork back into the bottle. Only after she’d returned the Assyrtiko to the fridge did she return her attention to us. She rested her forearms on the bar, leaned forward and spoke softly. ‘He wanted to ask me a question. I used to know his daughter.’

‘We’re assigned to the same table at dinner,’ Liz confided before I could pry any further. ‘I’ve tried to draw David out, but he doesn’t say much. He looks so sad!’

Pia considered us seriously, her green eyes solemn. Something in what Liz had said must have struck a sympathetic chord, because she managed a cheerless smile and started talking again. ‘He has reason to be. His daughter, Charlotte, used to work for Phoenix. About eighteen months ago, we were serving together on the Voyager. Somewhere between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, Char simply vanished. They combed the ship for her, of course, but she never turned up. The only possibility was that she went overboard.’

I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. ‘Did she jump?’

Pia shrugged. ‘Nobody knows. When Security checked the cams, they saw Char out on deck around half past five in the morning, talking on her cell phone. She wandered around the corner, out of range of the camera and poof! Gone! All they ever found was one of her red heels lying on the deck not far from where she must have gone over.’

Something was wrong with that picture. With the exception of the cabaret dancers, none of the staff on board Islander wore high-heeled shoes. ‘Was Charlotte a dancer?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Pia said, ‘but it was her night off, and we were in port, so she dressed up to the nines and went out clubbing with some of the staff. Sadly, Tom and I had a show that night so I couldn’t go along.’

‘How do you know the shoe belonged to Charlotte?’ Liz inquired gently.

‘These were Giulia Ricci’s,’ Pia explained. ‘Red leather. Cost the earth. Char saved her pennies for months in order to buy them.’

‘The brand with the famous red polka dots on the soles?’ I asked.

Pia nodded, leaned across the bar and lowered her voice. ‘David kept the shoe. He showed it to me and asked if I could identify it as Charlotte’s. He’s been carrying it around with him in his briefcase.’ She shivered. ‘Creepy, if you ask me.’

‘My oh my,’ tutted Liz. ‘No wonder he looks sad.’

‘Nobody who knew Char believes she committed suicide.’ Pia pounded on the bar with the flat of her hand, emphasizing each word. ‘She was upbeat, bubbly, engaged to this great guy back home. Her contract with the cruise line was almost over, and she was looking forward to flying back to Minnesota in a couple of weeks. No way she would have killed herself.’

Under the circumstances, suicide didn’t sound very likely to me, either. ‘Could she have had an accident?’

Pia puffed air out through her lips. ‘Are you kidding? The railings on these ships are forty-two inches high, almost as high as this bar. Could you fall over this?’ She slapped the bar again.

‘Not even if I were blind drunk,’ I said.

Pia’s remarkable green eyes flashed. ‘And at five-thirty in the morning Char certainly wasn’t drunk.’

I leaned forward, spoke softly. ‘Do you think Charlotte was murdered, Pia?’

‘Eliminate suicide or accident and what are you left with?’ Pia let out a long, slow breath. ‘Her father certainly believes it was foul play.’

‘Under the circumstances, you’d think David wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Phoenix Cruise Lines,’ I said. ‘Why is he on board?’

‘I think he’s conducting his own investigation. The official one was crap.’ Pia paused to hand a glass of wine to another passenger and scan his sea pass. Once the customer was settled into a chair, she turned back to us. ‘When we got back to Fort Lauderdale, the F.B.I. came on board, but what was there to investigate? Charlotte had simply vanished. Might as well have been abducted by aliens. The F.B.I. dismissed the case for lack of evidence. Verdict? Accident, possible suicide. And don’t get me started on the Bahamian police!’

My geography of the Caribbean was pretty good, having spent six months of Paul’s recent sabbatical living on an island in the Bahamas. Jamaica and the Caymans, I knew, were nowhere near the Bahamas. ‘How the heck did the Bahamian police get involved?’

‘All the Phoenix ships are registered in Nassau,’ Pia explained. She jabbed an index finger toward the ceiling. ‘You probably noticed the flag.’

Liz screwed up her face. ‘Let me get this straight. A Greek citizen, living in the British Isles, owns ships that sail in and out of ports in the United States of America, and those ships are registered in the Bahamas?’

‘That’s right. It keeps taxes low.’

Liz shook her head. ‘Jeeze Laweeze.’

Pia took a deep breath, let it out. ‘Anyway, the detective they sent from Grand Bahama spent about an hour on the ship, interviewed a couple of people, pawed through Char’s things, then flew home. End of story.’

Something wasn’t right. ‘But why is David Warren investigating this ship, so many months later?’

‘How do you Americans say it? The usual suspects? Voyager is in dry dock until early next year. Some of her staff ended up here. Like Tom and me.’

Pia grabbed a napkin from the pile near her elbow and dabbed at the tears that had started to spill from her eyes.

‘You and Charlotte must have been friends,’ I said sympathetically.

‘Friends? You could say that. She was my roommate.’

Ouch! No wonder the tears. ‘What was Charlotte’s job on the Voyager?’ I asked gently. ‘Did she work for Channing, too?’

Dry-eyed, Pia considered my question. ‘She was one of the youth counselors.’

A cold ribbon of fear snaked up my back. Was that what was behind Pia’s warning to me earlier about keeping an eye on Julie? ‘Jesus,’ I croaked.

‘Exactly.’