Ransom at Sea Read online

  “Have a … why don’t you sit there?” he said, gesturing toward the love seat.

  “Thank you.”

  Ransom took a seat and Faulk sat on the foot of the bed facing him.

  “Forgive me for staring,” said the detective, “but you look familiar to me. Have we met somewhere before?”

  “No, I don’t believe so,” Faulk said brusquely. “I’d remember that.”

  “Yes … well, never mind. I’m here checking up on the whereabouts of all of the passengers of the Genessee yesterday morning, as a matter of form.”

  The old man stared at him for a moment. “Oh … well … how would I know anything about that?”

  Ransom allowed his brow to furrow quizzically. “Didn’t Stuart Holmes spend the morning with you?”

  There was another pause. “Oh. Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, then, I guess it’s all right.”

  When he didn’t go on, Ransom said, “So he was with you?”

  “No—I mean, that is to say, yes, he was.”

  “All morning?”

  “Well … yes. From the time I met him onward … until the time we … parted.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  Faulk absently glanced at his watch as if he could read the past in its face. Ransom noted that it was a Rolex. “Um … I don’t know … it was sometime after ten … um … it was later than I thought it was going to be … but … not long after ten.”

  “And he was with you until?…”

  “Oh, now, let me see … it was until … till well after noon.”

  “You’re sure.”

  The old man brought his eyes up to the detective’s. “Yes.”

  Ransom shifted in his seat and crossed his legs. “You and Mr. Holmes are friends, I take it?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve known Stuart for a hundred years! We go very far back.”

  “And he’s also your attorney?”

  A jolt went through his body as if he’d received a mild electric shock. “Why, yes, he is … that is to say, he was. He used to be. At one time.”

  “He’s not anymore?’

  Faulk shook his head. “He’s retired.”

  “Really?” Ransom replied with mild surprise. “Holmes gave me to believe that he was doing some work for you now.”

  “What? Oh, he told you that? Well, yes, he does to the odd bit of … now and then, you understand, because we go so far back. And he probably likes to … well, no, I’m sure he likes to keep his hand in. People in his profession do, you know.”

  “Yes…,” Ransom said slowly. “Very peculiar, though, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “That you’re both from Chicago, and that you would come all this way to consult with him.”

  There was another startled pause. “Well … I suppose … yes, I guess it could seem strange … but we all need a vacation now and then, don’t we? There’s nothing wrong with having a little getaway now and then, is there?”

  “No, there isn’t,” Ransom replied without inflection. Faulk looked so relieved to have successfully answered the question that Ransom didn’t have the heart to point out that it was hardly a vacation if the point of doing it was to work.

  “So, you and Mr. Holmes spent yesterday morning discussing business.”

  He nodded eagerly. “Uh-huh, that’s just it.”

  “May I ask what kind of business that would be?”

  Faulk blustered indignantly. “Well, really, Detective! I mean, that’s a personal matter! After all, it’s … well, I assure you it doesn’t have anything to do with this case you’re working on. I mean, really! Client-attorney privilege, and all that, right?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ransom replied smoothly. “Sometimes I get overly curious.”

  The colorless way he’d said this caught Faulk’s attention. Faulk’s lips flattened into a sullen line and his eyes seemed to recede a fraction of an inch. He looked not unlike a guilty child who was unsure as to whether or not he’d been found out.

  “That’s all right,” he muttered.

  Ransom rose rather carefully from the love seat, not for fear of startling the old man again but because the lack of support from the worn foam cushions made maneuvering somewhat difficult. He paused at the door. “I think that’s all I need. How long were you planning to be in town?”

  “Huh? Me? Well, I thought … I would’ve left today, but I was waiting to talk to Stuart again. I guess … I suppose till tomorrow.” There was a second of hesitation, then he added anxiously, “Is there a problem with that?”

  “I don’t think so.” Ransom exited the cabin, a satisfied smile on his face, closing the door after him. He stood for a moment considering what to do next. Having arrived at a temporary pause in the investigation, the weariness of his overnight race to Emily’s aid and the subsequent investigation caught up with him. He decided to go his room and lie down for a while.

  * * *

  The staff of the Genessee began serving dinner at six o’clock that evening. Unlike lunch, the evening meal was a proper sit-down affair. The passengers were given a choice between two entrees, a variety of salads and dressings, vegetables, and desserts. The food was served by David and Hoke, with Samantha Farraday filling her role as hostess.

  But Mrs. Farraday’s usual brightness couldn’t elevate the atmosphere of the dining room that evening. The tension was evident in the relative silence with which the meal was eaten, the dwindling number of guests a grim reminder of their situation. In addition to Miss Hemsley and her niece, Lynn had taken a sandwich to her room, not wanting to face the stress of a meal with a roomful of suspects, of whom one must be the cause of Rebecca’s plight, and Claudia Trenton was absent again.

  “Is Miss Trenton not joining us?” Emily asked Hoke as he placed a salad plate before her.

  “No, ma’am. She says she’s not hungry. Mrs. Farraday brought her some food down, though.” He bent closer to her ear and whispered. “She says she does not like to do that—cater to people, I mean … bring food to their room—because then they come to expect it. But she did it for Miss Trenton. I think she’s very worried about her health.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see.”

  Hoke hurried away from the table and back toward the kitchen.

  Emily was seated at a table once again with Lily DuPree, and the others were arranged around the room. Jackson Brock and Muriel Langstrom shared a table with Stuart Holmes; the Millers were together at another; and Bertram Driscoll was alone at a table near the portside door. The arrangement wasn’t, as Emily had hoped, conducive for her to learn much more.

  “Do you think the police will let us go soon?” Lily said with a sort of apprehensive wonder in her eyes. Emily couldn’t quite tell if she was worried that they would be detained or that the excitement would soon be over.

  “I expect they will,” said Emily. “I don’t think they really have any reason to keep us here.”

  “That young man who came up from Chicago—that detective—he was very imposing!”

  “Was he?” Emily smiled inwardly. She knew her friend would appreciate the description.

  “He didn’t really talk to me, but from what little I saw of him … and what I’ve heard today from the others … they say he gives the impression that he thinks Rebecca Bremmer didn’t kill poor dear Marcella.”

  “I think he’s just being thorough. But of course, he should’ve spoken with you, since you were on the deck all the while.”

  “Yes…,” Lily replied, sounding rather disappointed. “But I was facing away from the plank, you know … that thing you walk up to get onto the boat. And I kept drifting off to sleep. I didn’t really see that much.”

  “Yes, that is a shame,” Emily said. Lily didn’t notice, but her companion’s eyes had become more incisive. Emily leaned forward slightly and adopted a very confidential attitude. “They say that young man, Hoke, was the last one to leave the boat.”

  “When?”
/>
  “Just before the murder. And you know what that means!”

  “What?”

  Emily made a pretense of glancing over her shoulder to make sure the man in question was not nearby. “The last one off the boat just possibly could have killed Marcella before leaving.” She didn’t complicate matters by reminding Lily of the fact that the body hadn’t been there when Rebecca first looked in the cabin. It was something she didn’t understand herself.

  “Oh!” Lily replied, her eyes widening. She sat back in her chair, doubt clouding her face. “Oh.”

  Emily waited for her to elaborate, but Lily continued to sit quite still with her brow furrowed.

  “Oh, that’s right!” Emily said, taking the impetus herself. “I seem to remember you saying that he wasn’t the last to leave.”

  “What?” Lily said distractedly. Then she shook her head. “I was so tired after the upset of the night before. He probably was the one who left last. You see, while I was still awake, I looked over when someone passed. But I was so tired … I kept hearing … I kept hearing footsteps. People coming and going … it’s just a jumble.”

  Emily nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. I quite agree.”

  * * *

  Ransom probably could’ve slept away the evening and entire night, but he was awoken at six-thirty by the chirping of his cell phone, which he’d placed on the nightstand. It was Lynn calling to ask if he would mind picking her up and driving her to the sheriff’s station. He assented and laid the phone down. He lay there for several moments in a hazy state, not quite sure if there had really been a call or if he’d been dreaming.

  Like Emily and her overheard conversation, he thought, lying there with his eyes closed.

  When he finally realized he was awake, he opened his eyes and had that vague sense of disorientation one often gets when waking in a strange place, but it quickly passed.

  The nap hadn’t helped much. When he sat up and swung his feet to the floor, he found that his body had the heavy, drugged feeling of someone who had slept too fast and woken too soon. He thought with a rueful smile that it would’ve been better if he’d never lain down at all. Needing to shake off this lassitude, he undressed and took a quick shower. The Lakeview wasn’t much for amenities, but at least the plumbing was vigorous and the water very hot. After standing in the steaming spray for some time, allowing the warmth to bathe and relax his muscles, he adjusted the temperature so that the water became cool and invigorating.

  Afterward he stood in the center of a threadbare, minuscule bathmat as he toweled himself off, and was none too happy with what he saw in the mirror above the sink. The fluorescent light over the mirror seemed to set aglow the silver hairs that spread among the dark blond like encroaching crabgrass, and the overnight drive and abbreviated sleep had left dark crescents under each eye.

  “Jesus Christ, you look old,” he said to his reflection.

  Once he had dressed again, he went to his car, switched on the engine, and drove back to the dock. Lynn was waiting for him in the parking lot beside the general store. She placed the two large suitcases in the trunk, then climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Did you eat?” Ransom asked as he steered the car back out onto the road.

  “I had something,” she replied.

  They said little more during the short drive.

  There were a handful of deputies gathered outside the sheriff’s station enjoying a smoke and shooting the breeze. Ransom gave them a nod as he and Lynn went past them into the station.

  A different deputy was seated behind the main desk. This one had black hair, very pale skin, and a small crescent-shaped scar that gave his face a rakish look.

  “Is the sheriff still here?” Ransom asked.

  “You must be the detective from Chicago,” the deputy replied.

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, Joe is still here. Go on in.”

  “This is Miss Francis, she’s here to see Miss Bremmer,” he said before moving.

  “Yeah, I was told you’d be back. You’ll have to leave those things here.”

  “All right,” Lynn said in a flat tone that meant she was not going to argue despite what she thought of the demand.

  As Lynn was shown back to the cells, Ransom went to the door to Barnes’s office, gave it a double knock, then went in. The sheriff was seated behind the old wooden desk, his feet up, thumbing through a copy of Newsweek.

  “You keep late hours,” said Ransom.

  “Actually, I was waiting for these.” He laid the magazine aside and tapped a manila envelope that was lying on top of his desk.

  “The pictures?”

  Barnes grinned. “Uh-huh. It’s the pictures, all right. And it’s easy to see why the Millers didn’t want you to have them.” He swung his feet to the ground and with two fingers slid the packet across to him. “Since we were interested in seeing something that was likely to be in the background, I had Nagel, our photographer, print them up eight by ten.”

  Ransom opened the envelope and extracted the sheaf of photos. He looked at them one by one, not scrutinizing them but getting an overview. The first few were shots of formations of dead trees and driftwood. Though the Millers had an eye for what would make a good picture, their expertise fell short of the mark. In each photo, they had found an interesting formation and attempted to capture it, but the center of the formation would be slightly off; a little to the left or right, higher or lower, than center, making the photos look a bit askew.

  In the next batch of shots the Millers took turns photographing each other on the beach facing north, with the Genessee in the background. As the Millers had warned, they were quite a distance from the boat. He made a mental note to come back to these after he’d finished looking through the rest.

  “The good ones are coming up,” Barnes said.

  Ransom glanced at him over the top of the photos, then flipped to the next one.

  Barnes couldn’t help laughing at the frozen expression on the detective’s face.

  “This is really why you decided to wait, isn’t it?” he said.

  “No, really, Nagel just now got them to me.”

  The photo was much like the earlier ones: a tangle of dead, twisted limbs and branches that put one in mind of a Celtic knot design. But at its center was the broadly smiling Martin Miller, only in this picture he was stark naked.

  “Oh, dear,” Ransom said, sounding very much like Emily, as he leafed through the rest of the shots in which Miller and his wife had taken turns posing au naturel.

  “No wonder they didn’t want you to take the film!” Barnes laughed.

  There were thirty-six photos in all. Ransom took out the few that included the boat and laid the rest of them facedown on the desk. He then looked more closely at the boat pictures.

  “They were telling the truth about one thing,” Ransom observed. “They were a fair distance from the boat when they took these.”

  “And farther away when they took the rest.”

  When Ransom got to the third picture, in which a clothed Martin Miller grinned at the camera, his left palm shielding his eyes from the sun, the detective noted something in the background. He squinted at it, but was unable to make it out, which brought another pang to his vanity.

  Without lifting his eyes from the photo, he said, “You wouldn’t happen to have a magnifying glass, would you?”

  “Matter of fact, I do,” Barnes said as he opened the center drawer of his desk. He extracted a rectangle of glass surrounded by a frame of black plastic with a matching handle. He handed it to Ransom. “What is it?”

  “It’s hard to tell. I think—way in the background—there’s a man on the dock. It looks like … David Douglas.” He bent the magnifying glass to the photo and peered through it. “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure … wait a minute. It’s not a man at all. Unless I’m very much mistaken, that’s Claudia Trenton.”

  He handed the photo and magnifying glass to the
sheriff, and was heartened when the younger man had to use the glass to look at it.

  “Where?” Barnes asked.

  “Just to the right of Miller’s shoulder.”

  Barnes brought the photo close. “Oh, yeah! I see. That is Trenton.” He looked up at Ransom. “She’s walking toward the boat.”

  He nodded. “Yes. That means she went back to the boat. She didn’t tell me that. Did she tell you?”

  “No, but I didn’t ask her that directly. I didn’t see any reason to.”

  “Neither did I,” said Ransom.

  Barnes looked back down at the photo. “I can’t see that it makes any difference, though. This is one of the early pictures. The Millers took over twenty pictures after this. It must’ve been while the crew was still there doing their thing. She’s walking right there out in the open, not trying to sneak back. If the crew was still there, she couldn’t really have hidden on the boat until everybody left and then did the old lady in. She probably just went back for something she forgot.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” Ransom conceded. “It’s odd, though.”

  “What is?”

  “That nobody else mentioned seeing Claudia Trenton return. If she went back right after leaving, as you say the whole crew would’ve been there, and the stewards would have been doing the cabins.” He spent a minute pondering this, his jaw firmly set and his eyes narrowed. “I think I’ll have a word with Miss Trenton.”

  Barnes started to get up, though he did it reluctantly. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Um, it might be better if you didn’t, if you don’t mind.”

  “I should be there.”

  “I know, but Miss Trenton was very upset when I spoke to her before, and I think that having you there would make it worse.” Barnes started to say something, but Ransom held up a hand. “I realize you’re the law here, but my unofficial capacity—with the help of Miss Charters—might make it easier to get Miss Trenton to open up.”

  “Miss Charters?” the sheriff said with a quizzical grin.

  Ransom nodded. “Some things are better left to Emily.”