Dead Man Docking - Mary Daheim [92]
Rick cocked his head to one side. “I don’t doubt Anemone’s feelings for Jim. But I would say that Ambrose may have his eye on someone else in the Giddon household.”
“Beulah?” Renie blurted in surprise.
Rick shook his head. “No. He may have fallen for Jim. You see, Ambrose is gay.”
After the St. Georges had left, Judith kicked herself. “I should have guessed. It’s not as if we don’t have a sizable gay community at home.”
“Your gaydar must have gotten lost in the fog,” Renie suggested.
“Until now,” Judith said as the cousins began to get ready for bed, “I thought maybe Anemone was meeting Ambrose at Neiman Marcus and that’s why she was so embarrassed. Humiliated was the word she used. Obviously, I was on the wrong track.”
“We’re assuming Jim is straight?”
Judith threw up her hands. “Who knows? The only thing I can believe about him is that he fell into a sweet deal when he hooked up with Anemone. Of course he seems to be someone Erma can control. Having his way paid through Stanford medical school isn’t exactly a token bribe.”
“If he makes it,” Renie noted. “Jim doesn’t strike me as the sharpest blade in the butcher block.”
“True enough,” Judith allowed, carefully hanging up her new suit. “On the other hand, he may be one of those people whose brains are science-oriented, but don’t cope well with everyday matters.”
“He may also be Anemone’s first love,” Renie pointed out. “They’re both very young. She’s led a sheltered life. And the wedding isn’t supposed to take place until after he’s out of med school. That’ll take years. A lot can happen between now and then.”
Wrapping the plush terry-cloth hotel robe around her tired body, Judith sat down on the bed. “We’re not looking at any of this in the right way. Let’s go back to the beginning.”
“You mean to Magglio Cruz’s murder?” Renie asked, sitting down opposite Judith.
“Right. What’s the one thing about all these deaths that’s the same and yet different?”
Renie thought for a moment. “The manner thereof. Mags was stabbed, Dixie was poisoned, and Émile was strangled.”
“Exactly.” Judith smiled her approval. “The weapon used to kill Mags was something at hand, and possibly not premeditated. That suggests an argument, a sudden burst of violence. It could also indicate that the killer panicked.”
Renie frowned. “Not enough to keep him or her from getting rid of the weapon. Or, for that matter, to let that panic show after the crime was committed.”
“Which indicates the killer has a certain amount of self-control or is used to working under pressure,” Judith pointed out.
“I’m not sure that description lets us eliminate anybody involved,” Renie said after a brief pause. “Every one of the suspects we know is either obnoxiously up-front—like Erma—or may have a hidden agenda—like CeeCee. Furthermore, they all live in a pressure-cooker kind of world. Not to mention that someone of this ilk who has just committed murder—especially under volatile circumstances—usually has strong survival instincts. Even a frail flower like Anemone would hardly walk out into the middle of the ship’s saloon and announce, ‘I done it.’”
Judith nodded. “But I’m also referring to the kind of panic that doesn’t show but stays inside and eats away at the person who did do it. Given that Dixie and Émile were the first to discover Mags’s body, why then did they become the next victims? I still think they saw something or someone that would’ve given the killer away. If they didn’t name names, then it had to be a thing, not a person.”
Again, Renie paused before responding. “Did Mags fall or was he pushed into the piano?”
Judith shook her head. “It could have happened either way, though pushed—or should I say stuffed?—seems more likely. He was a slender man, but it strikes me as peculiar that he would have landed in such a way.”
“On the other hand,” Renie pointed out, “you never saw enough of his body to tell what might have happened.”
“That’s true,” Judith admitted. “Biff McDougal must know. So should Rick and Rhoda. Unless Biff’s withholding some of the facts even from them.”