Several Deaths Later

He went back to his cabin and stripped and lay down and took his emergency cigarette from his dinner jacket and, of course, being months old, it was hard and stale but Tobin tried not to notice that as he sat on the edge of his bed in his underwear inhaling the thing, thinking of Cindy in the arms of Kevin Anderson and wishing that he were not five-five and not so complicated and that Cindy and he could fall madly in love for the remaining three days of the cruise. It was testament to his frame of mind that he only rarely thought about the bodies he'd seen earlier on the deck, or about the dead Ken Norris.

And then, cigarette half-smoked and already starting to feel guilty about his indulgence ('Now isn't that a stupid reaction to something like Cindy dumping you-smoking? Exactly who did it help? You? Anybody? No.'), a knock like a rock fell on the door and of course he thought: Cindy. She's spent enough time with the TV playboy and is sorry and now at last we're going to make love and spend three fleshy, blissful days together.

But it wasn't Cindy at the door. Not at all.

It was Captain Hackett.

19

4:34 A.M.

'Small caliber bullets, close range.'

'Dr. Devane used to be a coroner,' Captain Hackett explained. 'He's now a full-time physician aboard the ship.'

'I see,' Tobin said.

'Upstate New York,' the doctor said. 'Where I was a coroner, I mean.' He seemed to think his former address had some bearing here. He was the same brown-haired man Tobin had seen on deck earlier. He wore a blue suit and a white button-down shirt and a red tie. He looked like a politician. He had the teeth for it, anyway, and that odd, cold distance Tobin had always sensed in politicians.

They were in Captain Hackett's office, sitting at a round table covered with rolled-up nautical maps. A decanter of brandy and three glasses were on the table. A facsimile of a Chesterfield lamp was pulled down near their heads for illumination. In the portholes the night was velvet black. None of the men could be said to be quite sober.

'Do you know who they were?' Tobin said.

'The woman's name was Iris Graves.' The captain poured each of them more brandy as he spoke.

'Know anything about her?'

'I've been through her belongings. She seemed to be a reporter.'

'Really?'

'Yes. And you won't believe for what paper.' The captain laughed. 'Snoop.'

'That thing in the supermarket?' the doctor said. 'Exactly.'

'The hell of it is,' Tobin said, 'they sometimes get things right. Or half right.' Then he thought back to her wrestling match with Alicia Farris. The notebook they'd been fighting over became very large in Tobin's mind. 'How about the man?'

'Sanderson. Everett Sanderson.'

'Occupation?'

'Not sure.'

'You went through his things?'

'Yes. But except for a few letters addressed to him, there was no other form of identification,' the captain said. 'Plus he bought his ticket under the name of Kelly.'

'Why would he do that?' the doctor said. He sounded irritated at the mere thought of dishonest people.

'That's what we're going to find out,' the captain said. 'Or presumably, anyway.'

Tobin said, 'I'm waiting for the good part, Captain.'

'The good part?''

'Yes, when you tell me why you invited me to your cabin.'

Captain Hackett leaned forward beneath the Chesterfield light and folded his hands. Tobin recalled the man's panic earlier in the evening-the first indication that he was perhaps not as composed as he hoped to appear. 'I need a spy, Mr. Tobin.'

'A spy.'

'We've got three and a half days before we reach port. That means for three days I need to keep several hundred passengers calm. I need to find out what's going on.'

'I don't understand what I can do.'

'You're in a unique position. You're one of them but you're not one of them.'

'One of whom?'

'The 'Celebrity Circle' crowd. You're part of the show but you're not intimate with any of them. I've noticed that you don't take your meals with them and that you don't go to their parties and that you don't hang out with them much.'

Tobin shrugged. 'I'm a guest 'celebrity.' They're a very tight-knit little group.'

Without reservation, the captain said, 'One of them is a killer.'

'That's a pretty heavy accusation.'

'I have no doubt it's true. Especially since I found out that the Graves woman was a reporter.' He paused again and glanced at the doctor. 'Naturally, we've got security forces of our own aboard the vessel, Mr. Tobin, but as I said, you're in a unique position to find some things out.'

'Right now I'm very interested in Sanderson.'

'So am I. I've already put in a call to our home office. We should know a great deal more about him within eight hours or so.'

'The biggest problem you're going to have, Robert,' the doctor said, 'is keeping everybody calm.' He made a face at Tobin and Tobin realized just how drunk the man was. 'Including me.' The doctor laughed, but he was only half-joking. 'I sure as hell don't like walking around a cruise ship where a killer's loose. Do you, Mr. Tobin?'

'So how about it?' the captain said.

'I'll help you any way I can,' Tobin said. 'I mean, if I find anything out, I'll let you know.'

'I'd appreciate it if you'd go out of your way to find things out.'

'All right.'

'And report them back to me.'

'Of course.'

'Because one more murder and…' The captain shook his head. 'The cruise industry can be very profitable, Mr. Tobin. It can also become very unprofitable once you start getting a certain reputation.'

The drunken doctor said, 'I think you can understand our position.'

What he actually said was, 'I shink y'can un-nershand our poshishion.'

Tobin was just glad the good doctor wasn't performing surgery this evening.

Or that Tobin wasn't going to be his patient, anyway.

Tobin went through the special hell of insomnia. Why is it, he wondered, when you can't sleep you don't have sexual fantasies about gorgeous women but instead concentrate on all the terrible things you've done with your life? Your failures. Your excesses. Your petty vanities.

Sick of flowered shirts, he put on a plain white button-down job, a pair of Lee jeans, and his blue canvas slip-on deck shoes, and went out to the railing to watch the rolling water and the way the moonlight burnished its black and eternal beauty.

Now the human sounds were gone and there was just the steady thrum of the powerful engines and the caw of occasional birds lost in the midnight clouds.

'Seems that we have the same problem.'

He was embarrassed by the way he started at the unexpected sound of another voice.