He looks at the angry mob behind me, leans forward and whispers, “You’re the one dating the sheriff, right?”
I grin. “Correct.”
“Whatever you say goes.”
I gotta say, I’m liking this Deputy Johnson more and more by the minute. “Here’s a clipboard with the entire guest list. This wonderful young man made a checkmark by each name as they boarded the vessel. Now he’s gotta go, immediately—that’s the favor—and all you have to do is read off these names and make a little X when they leave. I’ll ask them if they have any helpful information or saw anything suspicious. If we work on this together, we should have them out of here in no time. The fact is, everyone was up on the main deck waiting for the door prize to be awarded. Do we have a deal?”
He takes the clipboard, pulls a pen from his pocket and says, “Let’s do this.”
The young man, whose name I’m sorry to say I didn’t ask, runs down the gangplank and sprints toward the bus stop.
Boy, do I remember those days.
The deputy begins calling the roll, and I casually question the guests as they pass by. As predicted, everyone was on the main deck hoping that his or her name would be called for the door prize.
As we wait for a particularly ancient couple to hobble down the gangplank with a walker and a four-footed cane, Deputy Johnson asks, “What was the door prize?”
“Three hundred dollars—in chips—to be used aboard the Jewel of the Harbor.”
He scoffs. “What a racket.”
I tilt my head in agreement. “You’re not wrong.”
The elderly pair, Erma and Willard, finally reach us. I don’t need to ask if they saw anything, because I don’t think either of them has seen anything or heard anything in a decade. The Deputy and I exchange knowing glances, and his partner gestures for the couple to disembark.
“Did they say if there was going to be cake?” Erma shouts to her husband as they toddle down the gangway.
He hollers back, “I’m sure there’ll be another wake, Erma. Somebody said something about another dead guy.”
Deputy Johnson plows through the remainder of the guest list. By the time we reach the inner circle of family, Violet has taken off her shoes and refuses to make eye contact with me.
Not to be rude, but she looks positively horrible. Her skin is a greenish hue, indicating perhaps late onset seasickness? A combination of smeared mascara and eyeliner makes dark circles under her eyes, and her finger waves have waved bye-bye!
“Just the family left, right?” Deputy Johnson asks.
“Right, and the crew. That’s Violet there, the middle child. I don’t see Roman, but I assume he’s still at the bar. And behind Violet is the oldest sister, Iris Barnes-Becker, and her husband whose first name I don’t actually know.”
Deputy Johnson runs his pen across the page. “Says here it’s Tom.”
“You better take statements from the family. I don’t think they were waiting to find out who won the door prize, and according to some insider information they pretty much all have motives.”
“Thank you, Miss Moon. We’ll take it from here. I sure do appreciate you calming the angry masses.” He smiles and nods gratefully. “I guess it’s true what they say about you.”
Pasting on a fake smile, I hope that what they say about me is that I’m a wonderfully kind person, and I’m crossing my fingers that no one is saying anything to this deputy about my psychic powers, or suspicion thereof. “I hope it’s all good.” A strangled chuckle escapes.
“Pretty much. No one really listens to Paulsen.”
This information produces a genuine belly laugh, which I immediately attempt to hide, because it seems kind of rude to laugh at a memorial service turned murder scene. “Pleasure working with you, Deputy Johnson. Good luck with the statements.”
He tips his chin, and I hurry up the gangplank to find Erick.
As I approach the back of the boat, raised voices echo off the water.
“I’m not the least bit interested in what kind of immunity you think you have, Whitecloud. The murder was committed on your vessel and we’re impounding it until the crime is solved. If you have any helpful information you’d like to share to speed things along, Johnson and Gilbert will be happy to take your statements when you leave the boat.”
Leticia steps closer to Erick and lowers her voice to almost a whisper. “Leticia Whitecloud doesn’t forget, Sheriff.”
She turns and shoves past me. I teeter over the railing, but I’m in no real danger.
Jimmy and Arnie follow close behind, but surprisingly have the courtesy to turn sideways as they pass me rather than dog pile on their boss’s rudeness.
Last in line is my father. The strain on his face would be evident even to a daughter without special gifts. But I sense the fear and anxiety underneath his exhaustion. “We should probably get out of here, Dad.”
He leans toward me and whispers, “Are you sure you’re done snooping?”
“Rude.” But his comment does get me thinking. “Actually, can you distract Erick for a few minutes? There’s something I need to grab on the upper deck.”
He exhales and his shoulders slump. “I wasn’t serious.”
“Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer.” I spin around on my ruby slippers and hoof it up to the top deck.
Kneeling near where I found Violet weeping earlier, I collect all the torn pieces of paper that didn’t make it into the great lake. Then I circle around to the stern and take a careful panoramic mental picture, for later enhanced psychic replay.
The railing.
The deck.
The rope.
All the tools involved in ending Vassili’s life.
Chapter 5
“Grams? Grams? Don’t you want to hear about the memorial service?” Normally she can’t hear me when she’s up on the third floor of the printing museum working on her memoirs, but something must’ve tickled her ghostly senses, because she rockets through the wall into the bookshop aglow with anticipation.
“I want to know the names of everyone who was there. If there was anyone in attendance that didn’t come to my service . . . Well, I’m sure there’s something a ghost of my status could do.”
“So you don’t want to hear about the murder?”
“Liliané was murdered?”
“Not that I know of, but someone left Vassili dangling at the end of his rope.”
She gasps dramatically. “Oh, how terrible! He was so handsome.”
“Wow. I’m pretty sure it’s sad when ugly people die too, Grams.”
She waves her hand at me dismissively. “Mitzy, that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Lucky for you, I’m the only one who can hear you. And who am I gonna tell? I don’t think there’s a long line of people who will believe that I talk to the ghost of my dead grandmother.”
“Mitzy!”
“Sorry! Is it life-challenged? I can’t remember what we settled on.”
“It’s fine, dear. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. By all normal standards, I am dead. That’s the truth.”