Chapter 6
C hapter S ix
“Any sign of anything?” Randy asked Lars as passengers were screened getting off the ship in St. Maarten. There was a little grumbling, but since most of the passengers knew what had happened, and the crew were being subjected to the same search, the grumbling was kept to a minimum, or at least that’s what Randy thought.
Lars shook his head. “I hope we never have to do a repeat of this. The captain isn’t going to be happy if we don’t find anything and have to go through all of this all over again at the next port.” He stood with his hands behind his back, watching the scanner screen over the shoulder of the operator. There had been nothing that resembled the missing pieces. Mostly towels, hats, and sunscreen. Coming back on was going to be another story, because St. Maarten was a jewelry mecca with great prices that the passengers were likely to take advantage of.
“I doubt we will,” Randy said as he looked for anyone resembling the woman on the video. He saw no one, and soon the people exiting the ship slowed to a trickle. “I suspect that whoever they were managed to get off the ship the same way they got on. Though this passageway has been the only way off or on at this stop. I don’t see how they could get past us.”
“Me either. There is still the possibility that they haven’t left the ship. We’re going through it now, checking everywhere that someone could possibly try to hide away. We may not find them, but it could flush them out,” Lars explained, and then pulled out his phone. “What?” he asked, his eyes widening. “Okay. Don’t touch anything. We’ll be right up.” He shoved his phone on his pocket. “Call me if you find anything,” Lars told the screener.
“What’s going on?”
“We need to get to the dining room,” Lars told him before striding to the elevator bay and taking it up two decks. The breakfast service had ended, and the waitstaff was preparing the room for dinner. “Where is it?” Lars asked, and he was pointed to where one of the other servers stood.
“I was passing this table when I saw it,” the server said, and pointed to a tan bag sitting on one of the chairs.
Lars reached for it.
“Use gloves,” Randy cautioned. “We need to preserve any possible evidence.”
Lars pulled a pair from his pocket and pulled them on. Then he gently lifted the bag and opened it, pouring the contents on the table. “Well… that answers that.” The missing necklace and bracelet shone in the light, along with two watches and a ring.
“Have the shop staff perform an inventory to see if these are missing. No other passengers have come forward, so maybe this was stolen from the stores, and they aren’t aware yet.” Randy wished he could conclude that the thief was gone, but it seemed that the stolen property had been returned, including some that they hadn’t even known was missing.
“What the hell do we do now?” Lars asked.
“The goods have been returned, and we can get them back to their owners. That’s step one. Since we have no one in custody, we can hope that our thief has figured out a way to get off the ship, and they’re gone.”
“But what about them?” Lars asked.
Randy shrugged. “Hopefully, they’re in St. Maarten and are someone else’s problem. The best thing at the moment is that we have what was taken. I’d check the feeds from the ship that show the dock and see if we can’t get an image of our thief on their way. At least then we’d know this was over and that they were gone. From there, we go back on our way.” That was the very best that could happen from the cruise line’s perspective.
“Should we try to see who left the package in the dining room?” Lars seemed anxious to get back to his camera room.
“You could. But somehow, I doubt we’ll get anything,” Randy told him. “Because I don’t think our thief left it here. I think this little package is the gift from someone else. There has to be a great deal of value here, and if our thief went to enough trouble to steal it, without us aware of most of it, then why not figure a way to get the goods off the ship and just leave?” Tons of explanations ran though his mind, but only one made sense, given everything that they knew.
“You think they were found out and someone got hold of what was taken?” Lars nodded slowly. “They brought it in here and left it on a chair, figuring it would be found….”
“And with as busy as the room was, it will be difficult to figure out who it was,” Randy supplied. “Not that it really matters. We have a good Samaritan, and if they wish to be anonymous, then we can let them.” He had learned long ago that sometimes it was best to just take a good break when it happened. “You can inform the captain what we have and find out where the other pieces came from so we can get them back to the owners.” And it looked like he might be in for a stress-free rest of the cruise. At least he hoped so.
“Thank you for everything,” Lars told him, and they shook hands.
“You and your team did a lot of the work and found the images we were able to use.” He hadn’t really done all that much, really. It had been Nathaniel who had pointed them in the direction they really needed to go. He smiled to himself at the thought, but something still niggled at the back of his mind. Nathaniel was a magician and a master of misdirection, and he couldn’t help wondering if this whole thing might just have been a way to keep them all preoccupied. He hated himself for thinking that, but the feeling just wouldn’t go away.
“Did you have fun in St. Maarten?” Randy asked Nathaniel when he saw him in the bar once all the passengers had returned to the ship and they were on their way again.
“I did,” Nathaniel said with a bright smile. “Did you?”
Randy shook his head. “I stayed on the ship. It seems someone left a bag of stolen goods on a chair in the dining room. No idea who or if our thief had a change of heart, but we did see someone we believe was our thief on the pier, taking a look up at the ship before leaving.” He couldn’t help smiling. “She did turn and flip the bird, so I’m pretty sure it was her, though she looked more like a linebacker than she did in the other videos. I’m also sure she didn’t get back on because everyone was checked carefully.”
“That’s good. So Carolyn will get her jewelry back.”
“Yes, and after an inventory, the stores on board will also get back what was taken. So everything is all set, and hopefully, this entire issue is behind us, and there won’t be any more excitement on this sailing.”
“I hope so,” Nathaniel said. “At least not that kind anyway. A couple of the performance staff have taken ill, so I was asked if I could help fill in. I have another show to do later in the cruise, and until then, I’ll be helping out where they need me.”
Randy chuckled. “Do they need you to fill in on one of the dance numbers?”
Nathaniel grinned. “No. But they asked me to help with one of the evening entertainment parties. Apparently, there’s a calypso evening on the pool deck tomorrow night, and they asked if I could help out. It should be fun. Are you planning to go?”
Randy sipped his drink. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“You should come. They’ll have special drinks, plenty of music, and some special food. It’s supposed to be a unique time. I don’t know how often they do this sort of thing, but the crew is pretty excited about it. Once I’m through with my duties, we could dance under the stars.” He leaned over the small table to where Randy sat trying to look relaxed, but whenever Nathaniel got closer, he felt like someone turned up the heat.
“Is that your sort of thing?” Randy asked.
Nathaniel’s eyes darkened. “If you remember that very first time we met, I danced with you on stage.”
“And put me in my own handcuffs.” He tried to be funny.
“You could bring those along if they’re a requirement to get you on the dance floor. Though in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m really good at getting out of them.” He winked, and Randy wondered how in the hell Nathaniel could get under his skin so damned easily. “How about you agree to at least go up and see what it’s about?”
“Fine,” Randy groaned, but he wasn’t at all that upset. Things were working out, the stolen goods were back, and he was finally beginning to relax a little. He liked to think that some of the things they did put enough pressure on the thief that they gave up the ghost and got out of Dodge. “I’ll meet you up on deck tomorrow night, then.”
Nathaniel nodded and looked around. “There seem to be some new faces.”
“Yes. I’m told we took on about fifty new passengers. They had been staying at one of the resorts on the island for a few days before boarding. It was one of the packages offered by the cruise line.”
Nathaniel tensed, and he watched some of the people pass. “It’s just a different type of cruising than the kind I’ve done before.”
“True. Passengers can embark and disembark at one port along the route. That’s why they have you doing shows later this week. There will be a number of people who haven’t seen it before.”
“Yes. Then I get off in Aruba and transfer to a different ship for a few weeks before flying home.”
“How long have you been away?”
“I’ve been doing shows on ships for various lines for months. They drop me in a port, and a day or two later, I pick up the next ship, and I’m off again. I’ve been to most of the islands multiple times, but this ship stops at some that I’ve never been to before. I’m rather excited to see Trinidad before I leave the ship. And it will be nice to have a few months at home before my next contract starts, but then I’m at sea for months again.”
“How long have you been doing this?” Randy asked. It seemed like a tough kind of life, with everyone around you changing all the time.
“Five or six years. Things with my family have been tough for a while, and I needed to get away. I had already developed the act and was trying to make the circuit to get noticed when the entertainment director for one of the big cruise lines caught my act and approached me. I thought it a great idea at the time. I could get away from family drama by running away to sea. And it worked.”
“Are you in touch with them?” Randy asked. He and his family kept in touch, but they weren’t in each other’s back pockets.
“Not really, if I can help it.” Nathaniel sipped his drink. “We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and at this point, I think it’s best that I go my own way in life. I don’t need them and haven’t for quite some time.” While he was trying to be nonchalant about it, there was tension in his eyes.
“Is it because you’re gay?” Randy asked.
Nathaniel shook his head. “I don’t think that was a big issue. Sure, they were a little shocked, and my father had a tough time dealing with it for a while. But in the end, they moved on. It was more like I didn’t want to live the way they did. We moved a lot when I was a kid. My father’s work took us all over the country, and I got tired of it. Of course, now I’m at sea for much of the year. But at the time, it was a huge deal. My parents are also very set in their ways, and I needed some distance.”
Randy leaned forward. “I don’t get it.”
“My brother is married with two kids, and then there’s my sister. They all live together in a big family group, and that isn’t something I want. I never had anything that was mine growing up. All the toys and everything else belonged to the family, and being the middle child, it always seemed like I got left out. It’s still that way, to a large degree, so I left.” He drank the last of his scotch and soda and set the glass on the table. “Even though I’m at sea and moving around a lot, I’m the one in charge of my life.”
Randy still didn’t understand, but he figured everyone was different. “It sounds like your family cared about you. While things may have been different….”
“You don’t understand. How could you? When I was sixteen, my family lived in Michigan for two years. It was the longest we stayed in the same place. And one of the school clubs I was in was planning a trip to France for ten days. It was a big deal, and I raised money for the club for months. I sold everything I could get my hands on, candy, cheese, snacks—you name it, I sold it. We raised almost everything we needed. I was so excited to get to go.”
Nathaniel’s expression grew very dour, and Randy got the feeling that the story didn’t end happily.
“I had to get signed permission from my parents to go. Mom had already signed everything, and I had my passport, but my father decided that everyone in the family should get to make the decision. So he put it to a vote. Mom, of course, voted for me to go, but my brother and sister said no because they didn’t get to go too. My dad was on the fence, but in the end, he said I could go, and, of course, I voted yes. So I did get to take the trip, but it made for a lot of resentment among all of us. I didn’t talk to my brother or sister for a month, and they did their best to make my life difficult. Anything good that I got was resented, while if something happened to anyone else, I was expected to celebrate it.” He asked for another drink. “Anyway, in the end, it was best that I get away from all of them.”
“Wow… that sounds….” He didn’t really have words. Nathaniel’s father made a huge issue out of nothing by how he handled that. A simple parental decision would have saved all the angst and hard feelings.
“Well, let’s talk about something more fun. I have a dentist appointment the next time we dock in Miami,” Nathaniel said with a grin, and Randy rolled his eyes, but he got the idea. Talking about family was a minefield. Nathaniel checked the time and stood. “I need to work for a while. But maybe I’ll see you later.” He winked and hurried away.
Randy sure hoped that was the case.