Free Dark Passage by Marcia Talley Page A

along.’
    â€˜How do you know the shoe belonged to Charlotte?’ Liz inquired gently.
    â€˜These were Giulia Ricci’s,’ Pia explained. ‘Red leather. Cost the earth. Char saved her pennies for months in order to buy them.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜My oh my,’ tutted Liz. ‘No wonder he looks sad.’
    â€˜
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.
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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
?’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜You and Charlotte must have been friends,’ I said