“Excuse me, is Ivan still working this shift?” I asked the attendant.
“Ivan? No, I don’t know an Ivan, sorry,” he replied and carried off our dirty dishes.
My puzzled friends looked at me. “I was just curious,” I said and stood up ready to leave. With over a thousand crewmembers, I didn’t expect the man to remember one name.
Trisha and Larry stood and followed me past the buffet line as we walked back to the elevators to go down to the library on the fifth deck. Larry wanted to use the internet, so Trisha accompanied me inside the library and strolled ahead to look at the shelves. I stopped to look over the book titles and authors. By the time I caught up to her, she was extracting a newspaper from a hanging rack.
“Missing out on some news?” I asked her.
“I wanted to read about the people that fell off this ship,” she said.
“Really? You can look the story up on the internet.”
“But the internet never has the complete details. Oh, here it is. ‘Two men missing, presumed fell overboard,’” she related. “One was a man from Chicago and the other was a steward. The investigation is still ongoing. Phooey, I’d hope there would be more.”
“Are there pictures of the men?” I asked with a feeling of foreboding.
“Not in this paper. Let’s see, oh, in the next day’s news, there are. Not real clear, though,” she said, showing me the pictures.
I looked.
“Well, they must have made a mistake on this one. I saw him, I think, early this morning,” I said as I studied the man’s features in the picture.
She looked at me and back at the article.
“It says here, the man on the left is Peter Hamfield, a small-time criminal who is not currently wanted by the police. The man on the right is a steward and his name is Ivan Ramanoff. Could this be your Ivan? Maybe he didn’t fall overboard, maybe someone else did and the ship thinks it was this Ivan,” she surmised. “I’ll get a copy with my phone.”
“Well, I’ll admit several of the stewards do look alike, but this man is close to the facial features of what I could make out this morning,” I said.
“You should tell the security here.”
“I could and then I could be wrong. Let’s find your husband and locate a lounge chair on one of the decks,” I suggested.
Instead, Larry found us.
“What are you reading, Trish?” he asked after he walked into the library.
“Susan thinks she saw this man this morning,” she said, pointing at a man’s photograph.
“But I’m not sure,” I added. “What would you like to do, Larry?”
I hoped my friend would leave this subject, as I wanted to relax and enjoy our cruise.
“In my line of work, I have found people sometimes look alike. The steward you saw may just be that, a look alike. There’s a matinée running in the theater this afternoon. Want to go there?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Sounds good to me. Trisha?”
“Let’s go,” she replied, putting the newspapers away.
We took the elevator up to Deck Five and found plenty of seats available in the center. The movie was a funny one with a few good actors. When a server came around, we ordered sodas to drink. Since the ship wasn’t scheduled to sail until three, we thought we would watch the receding shoreline when the vessel moved away from the pier. Since we still had a few minutes, we returned to our cabins and picked up our cameras. We all had our hats with us but Larry didn’t have his sunglasses.
Returning to the elevator, we rode up to the sixteenth deck and found a good place to view the landscape as the ship pulled out of the harbor and sailed by the island’s coast.
Larry wandered off to talk with one of the officers on deck while Trisha and I settled into a couple of lounge chairs.
“I didn’t read my newsletter this morning, where do we sail to tomorrow?” I asked.
“I think it’s Hilo–that’s the big island. We signed up for the Volcano National Park,” Trisha replied.
“Me too. If we have time let’s visit the lava tubes in the rainforest.”
“Say, remember those pictures they took of us when we first boarded?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“Well, after the ship pulls out, let’s go down to the fifth deck and see if they are available for purchase.”
“That’s a good idea. Oh, here comes Larry,” I remarked.
“Hey, hon, did you get all the specs on this ship?” Trisha asked.
“That and some more. I found out the two missing men worked on this ship. So, I explained my background and asked them if I could help out,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “We’re supposed to be on vacation.
“You know Trish and Susan, this is a wonderful trip and I have been enjoying it, but I have to do something more in tune with my talents. You gals don’t have to have me tagging along.”
“No, that’s all right, I’m fine by myself and Trisha and I can get into our own mischief,” I said.
“That’s right, honey. If you want to play detective, go right ahead.”
“Thanks, Trish. I’ll see you at dinner time.”
We watched him walk to the end of the deck and enter a door that led to the elevators. The ship was moving a little faster now. We rose out of our deck chairs to walk over to the railing. There we watched the ship pull away from the island. A young woman wearing a white blouse and black vest with matching black slacks came toward us carrying a full tray of treats.
“Would either of you ladies like samples from our kitchen?” she asked, holding out the tray of small brownies and one-inch sample drinks.
“What’s in the drinks?” Trisha asked.
“Just punch. We don’t have alcohol in them.”
“In that case, we will,” my friend said.
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