Ransom at Sea Read online

  “Gerald called me this morning,” Ransom explained. “There was a murder sometime last night, and it appears that the young man was the grandson of Claudia Trenton.”

  “Oh, dear,” Emily said, drawing back slightly. “This will be a terrible blow to Claudia.”

  “Yes, I know. Gerald sent a copy of one of the pictures up for positive identification.” He handed it to Emily.

  Emily’s eyes widened, and she looked up at Ransom. “But Jeremy, I know him!”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t mean I know him, but I’ve seen him before. He was on Navy Pier the day we sailed.”

  Ransom shrugged. “It’s perfectly natural that he’d be there to see his grandmother off.”

  “But that’s just it—he wasn’t seeing her off. He was hovering very furtively in the background, in the shadows inside the building. Claudia was sitting off to the side. He made no attempt to make himself known to her.”

  “That is … curious.”

  “Good heavens!” Emily exclaimed.

  “What is it?” Lynn asked, slightly alarmed.

  “When I first saw that young man on the pier, he was carrying a package—one wrapped in brown paper. But when we set sail, I saw him walking away … and he no longer had it.”

  The group was momentarily struck dumb by this announcement. Lynn was the first to speak.

  “But … but that doesn’t make sense. Why would Claudia’s grandson have something that belonged to Marcella Hemsley? I mean, if you’re thinking that he put it in her suitcase—”

  “Remember, Lynn, we all left our suitcases on the pier lined up in a row as those young men were helping us onto the boat.”

  “You mean he put it in the wrong suitcase?”

  “You said it yourself,” Emily reminded her, “‘I’ve never seen so much Samsonite in one place.’”

  “But Miss Hemsley said the box was hers!”

  Emily arched her thin brows.

  “Oh, God!” said Lynn as the realization hit her.

  Emily nodded. “Her mental state, you know. She probably believed it was hers. The real question is why on earth Claudia and her grandson were playing this elaborate sleight of hand in the first place.”

  “Assuming she knew about it,” said Ransom. “The best thing to do is ask her.”

  They all turned around as Barnes emerged at the top of the staircase. He came onto the deck and crossed to them. “Hey, Mitch,” he said to his subordinate.

  The deputy returned the greeting.

  “This is the picture that I was expecting,” Ransom said, handing it to the sheriff. “And we have a little more information.” He explained what Emily had seen on the pier.

  By the time Ransom finished, Barnes had cocked a curious eye at Emily. “You’re a sharp old thing, aren’t you?” he said with admiration.

  Though crudely put, Emily’s cheeks turned pink nonetheless. “Thank you.”

  He turned to Ransom. “I just talked to my men. They did this deck and they’re just about finished with the second one. They haven’t found hide nor hair of the package. It still could be that Marcella Hemsley, whether or not it belonged to her, just threw it overboard.”

  “It could also be that she got in the way of the person who wanted to get it back,” said Ransom.

  “Uh-huh. Yeah, well, I guess that kind of changes things as far as Miss Hemsley’s murder goes, and Miss Bremmer’s situation … though the timing is still pretty hard to deal with.”

  Emily heard Lynn sigh with evident relief. Apparently Barnes noticed it, too. “I’m not saying that Miss Bremmer is innocent yet, but this other thing here doesn’t look right.” He turned back to Ransom. “This also means I have to take up the investigation.”

  “Yes. I understand that,” Ransom said judiciously. “However, it may be related to the murder that took place in Chicago, so I’d appreciate it if you’d let me sit in when you talk to Claudia Trenton.”

  The right side of Barnes’s mustache elevated a fraction of an inch. “No, I’ll sit in with you for the time being. After all, you’re the one that needs to have the picture ID’d.”

  “Thank you,” Ransom said with a wry curl to his lip. It was obvious that the sheriff didn’t relish the idea of breaking the news to Claudia.

  “Well, I’m going to go to the station and let Rebecca know the good news,” Lynn said. “At least I can let her know there’s some hope. Do you think one of your deputies could drive me?”

  “What?” Ransom said suddenly, peering at her with narrowed eyes.

  “I meant the sheriff,” she said, confused by his reaction.

  “Whatever is the matter?” Emily asked.

  “Lynn, when you called me yesterday, I’d been asleep,” said Ransom.

  She gave a perplexed shrug. “Sorry.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. You see, I wasn’t fully awake. After you hung up, for a short time I had the strange feeling that I’d dreamed it.” He turned to Emily. “I just realized what it was that was nagging at the back of my mind after Barnes and I searched Claudia Trenton’s cabin: she had a cell phone. The conversation you heard the first day out, when you were half-asleep … you said you couldn’t make out what the other person was saying. Could it be that you couldn’t hear the other person because there wasn’t one!”

  “Oh, of course!” Emily said as the understanding came to her. “She was on a cell phone! It was because Mr. Driscoll came on the scene at the time that I’d thought she might’ve been talking to him. Oh, I’ve been very stupid.”

  “Why do you say that?” Lynn asked.

  “Because I should’ve realized that if it had been a furtive conversation between the two of them, they wouldn’t have had it knowing I was there on the deck with them. They couldn’t have been sure I was asleep.”

  “I wouldn’t think she would’ve made a call with you there, either.”

  “Yes, but she might not have made it, she might just have taken it.”

  “The phone was set to vibrate, so it wouldn’t ring,” Ransom said.

  “Either way, she would’ve known that her end of the conversation wouldn’t mean anything to anyone”—her expression suddenly became vague—“or might have been too upset to care.”

  “Well, we won’t find out until we talk to her,” said Barnes.

  Lynn left for the sheriff’s station with Deputy Mitchell, and Emily accompanied Ransom and Barnes down the stairs. They were about to descend the second flight when a glance through the dining room window stopped Emily.

  “Jeremy—” she said.

  Ransom and Barnes stopped and looked in the window. Claudia Trenton was sitting on the far side of the dining room staring languidly out the port window, the hazy sunlight making her look like a faded silhouette. The three sleuths entered quietly through the starboard door. Claudia was alone in the room, the other passengers apparently eager to check their cabins after the search. The tables had all been cleared except for the lone coffee mug on the table beside the seated woman.

  Ransom advanced toward her, followed by his two companions. Emily was rather alarmed by her appearance: Claudia’s stylish beige suit seemed to hang on her as if it had been hastily tossed onto a mannequin three sizes too small.

  It’s as if she’s shrinking away, thought Emily.

  Claudia didn’t look up when the three of them reached her. She said listlessly, “Did you find anything?”

  “No, Miss Trenton,” said the detective. “We didn’t find the parcel.”

  The mention of the item caused her to look up sharply, her mouth set in a grim line.

  “Miss Trenton, may we sit down?”

  “As you please.” She sighed after a long pause.

  Ransom sat on the chair to her right, Emily took the seat on the left, assisted in the most gentlemanly fashion by Barnes, who then sat across from Claudia.

  “We’ve had some news today from Chicago,” Ransom said with surprising gentleness. “About
your grandson.”

  A tremor passed through the old woman’s frame. “Johnny?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he—he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid he is. I have a photo. Could you identify him for me, just to be sure?”

  He held it out to her. She didn’t take it, but looked down at it. Her face remained immobile, except for the lower lip, through which ripples were passing. After several seconds, tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks. But she made no sound, nor did she attempt to wipe the tears away.

  “I suppose it’s all over now,” she said, her voice sounding as if were carried on the wind through a graveyard. “I suppose they killed him.”

  “Who did, Miss Trenton?”

  “His … his ‘friends.’ The people he was involved with.” She was silent for a time. “They were no friends.”

  Ransom’s eyes had narrowed. “Do you know who killed your grandson?”

  She slowly shook her head. “He has been involved with drugs. He … I did what I could. I paid for his rehabilitation. Twice, I did. It was—” She suddenly broke down and buried her face in her hands, her elbows resting on the table.

  “It was what I had to do to keep him out of jail. It was the only way. I tried to be a good grandmother to him, ever since his parents died. I was the one who had to take care of him. I gave him everything that he wanted, but it wasn’t enough. He got mixed up with the very people…” Her voice hardened. “And they got him involved with drugs! He never would’ve done it on his own.”

  “The rehabilitation didn’t take?” Ransom asked.

  “They don’t know what they’re doing, those doctors! They released him, they said he was fine. But he went right back to using drugs, so he couldn’t have been well, could he? The doctors couldn’t have done their jobs! If they had, he would’ve been cured!”

  “But he always had you to help him out,” Ransom said evenly, the scenario familiar and one of which he greatly disapproved.

  She nodded somewhat proudly. “It was what you do for your family. More than once … more than once I’ve had to pay off a debt to those … those people … when they threatened to do him harm if he didn’t pay. But you have to understand, Johnny … my poor Johnny couldn’t help himself.”

  Not with you helping him, thought Ransom. “But you don’t know who they are?”

  She looked up. Her face was pale and blotchy, her cheeks streaked with tears. “No, I— No, I don’t.”

  “Claudia,” Emily said, “the day we sailed, I saw your grandson on Navy Pier.”

  “You did?” She had tried to sound surprised, but it rang hollow and there was fear in her eyes.

  “Yes. He made no attempt to get your attention. You were in plain view while we waited on the dock, and he didn’t come over and make his presence known to you, although you were less than a hundred feet away from him.”

  “That’s … that’s very odd.”

  “What’s even more odd is that he was carrying a package wrapped in brown paper. I saw him leaving the pier as we set sail, and he no longer had it. I suspect that the package found its way into Marcella Hemsley’s suitcase by mistake.”

  Barnes was sitting back in his chair, his mouth hanging slightly open. As with many before him, he found Emily’s directness rather impressive.

  Claudia seemed to be deflating even more inside her suit. Her eyes were wide and dull. “I … I don’t…”

  “It would appear,” Emily continued, “that Johnny meant to put the package in your suitcase, but accidentally put it in Marcella’s instead. Despite the fact that you say it was odd that he was there, I suspect that you were expecting him to put the package in your suitcase.”

  There was a quick intake of breath. “How could you know—think that?”

  “Because I overheard your end of a phone conversation not long after we sailed. Now, the first question that comes to mind is why would you engage in such a bizarre means of receiving a package?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the other woman replied weakly.

  “Come now, Claudia,” Emily said with a sympathetic tut.

  Ransom had been happy to hand over the questioning to Emily for the time being, confident as he was in her abilities and given the help she’d already been in handling the woman. But now he felt he should take up the reins. “Miss Trenton, we have two problems here: the death of your grandson, and the death of Marcella Hemsley. And the things that connect them are a brown paper parcel … and you.”

  Barnes’s eyebrows went up at what the detective was suggesting, but he was even more surprised by the woman’s reaction. He’d expected Claudia to be horrified, or furious, or frightened. Instead she looked resigned.

  “Johnny is dead. I suppose it doesn’t matter what happens to me now.”

  “To you?” Emily asked with surprise.

  Claudia nodded. She looked down at her hands, which were now folded and resting on the table. “Johnny was in trouble again. Using drugs. It had been building up for some time. And … I was tired. I decided to go on this trip, just to get away for a few days.”

  “Ah,” Emily said quietly.

  There was a long pause, then Claudia sighed wearily. “He was always in trouble. He came to me for help, as he always did. But … this time he didn’t want money. He said his … associates wanted me to do something for them.” She turned to Emily pleadingly. “I know what his friends were. I never would’ve done anything to help them, you must understand.”

  “Of course,” said Emily.

  “All they wanted me to do was deliver a package for them.”

  “What was in it?” asked Ransom.

  Claudia stiffened. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me, and since I never ended up having it, I didn’t look … I don’t think I would’ve, anyway.”

  “But you must have had some idea,” said Emily.

  “No. No, I didn’t,” the other woman said emphatically.

  Emily made a noise under her breath. “I’m sorry, Claudia, but you must have—otherwise your grandson’s mode of delivery was completely incomprehensible. You never wanted to touch the package, did you?”

  “All right, I didn’t want to touch it!” Claudia burst out. Then she was silent for a very long time. At last, she said, “You’re right. I didn’t know, but I know what those friends of Johnny’s were like. So I didn’t have to guess what would be in it.”

  “Why did you agree to do it, then?”

  Tears welled in her eyes again. “Because … because Johnny said that they would kill him if I didn’t. And I knew they would, because they’d hurt him before! I just … had to. But I couldn’t face Johnny, not after he’d gotten me into this position. I told him I didn’t want to see him again. I told him I didn’t want to handle the package. I told him he would have to put the thing in my suitcase himself … at the pier … that I would leave it there, so that he could do it.”

  So that, thought Emily, was why you walked so purposefully away from your suitcase.

  “The only trouble was,” Emily said to Ransom and Barnes, “that the steward gathered the luggage together—suitcases that were not all that dissimilar to begin with—and most likely Johnny was still … under the influence. So his mind was confused enough on its own.”

  Barnes had been sitting quietly in his chair, his arms folded, stroking his thick mustache with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Now he shifted in his seat and sat forward. “Yeah. Excuse me, Detective, Miss Charters, but it seems to me that this is where it becomes my case. Miss Trenton, you say you were supposed to deliver the thing … where? Here?”

  She nodded. “I received a call the day before we left. All the person said was that I was to deliver the thing to someone at a place called Lookout Point at this stop. After the steward put the case in my cabin, I went down and looked in it. There was nothing there! No package! And I thought … I thought that maybe Johnny was finally coming to himself, and he decided not involve
me.”

  “But then he called you?” Emily asked.

  Tears flooded her eyes again. “To say he was sorry. That was when I found out that something had gone terrible wrong. But I wasn’t sure … He’d lied to me so many times before. I didn’t know what to do … I was beside myself. I couldn’t sleep, so I went up to the deck that first night out, sometime in the middle of the night.”

  “So it was you who overheard Lynn and Rebecca.”

  She nodded. “I knew at once what had happened. That foolish old woman! I didn’t mean to scare her. I … I should have waited to look in her cabin, waited until the next day. But I was frantic! I was supposed to meet those dreadful people the next day, and I had to have it!”

  “So you left the boat with us the next day, then came back to try to get the package from Marcella Hemsley’s room.”

  She nodded. “Yes. But I couldn’t, they were doing the cabins—the stewards—and all the doors were open. They would’ve seen me … and I couldn’t wait any longer, because I was supposed to be there at eleven o’clock. So … I had to go.”

  “Without the package?” Barnes said, a faint note of admiration in his voice.

  “I thought it would be more dangerous for Johnny if I didn’t show up at all.”

  “And were they there?”

  She gave a shudder. “Yes. I was so afraid … there were two of them. Very young. A girl with dirty, stringy hair, and a young man with brown hair … He had hard, mean eyes. Tiny eyes…”

  “The hikers,” said Emily.

  “I told them what had happened, and they didn’t believe me. At least, not at first. The man accused me of lying. He said Johnny had stolen the … the ‘catch,’ I think he called it, to sell for himself. And that … well, I was terrified.”

  “Because you feared it might be true,” said Emily.

  Claudia nodded reluctantly. “But Johnny had been adamant about having put it in my suitcase on the phone. And I finally convinced—at least I think I did—those two people that it was onboard the boat, even that I knew what had happened to it.”

  “Do you mean you told them who it was you thought had it?” Ransom asked.

  She averted her eyes. “I told them that I could get it for them as soon as I could, and bring it to them.” She sputtered and broke down, holding the back of her right hand to her trembling lips. “They said if I didn’t find it, they would kill me and then kill Johnny.”