After she left, the Captain asked Saunders, “What do you think?”
“She admitted she didn’t see him fall overboard. She also admitted that they both had a lot to drink. And this was before they were planning to go to your cocktail party. I’m not at all convinced that he went overboard.”
“Neither am I,” Fairfax agreed. “The last time I had an incident like this on a ship I commanded, the wife insisted she saw her husband get washed over when the ship hit a swell. If the chap did go over, he got very lucky. He landed unharmed in the bed of a floozy passenger several levels below.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Saunders asked.
Before the Captain could answer, his phone rang. He picked it up. Even without the phone on speaker mode, Saunders could hear every word coming from the mouth of Gregory Morrison, the blustery ship owner.
“What the hell is going on?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone.
“A report has been made by a woman passenger that her husband may have—”
“I know that, dammit,” Morrison bellowed. “I want to know what in hell you’re doing about it.”
“Mr. Saunders and I have questioned the wi—” The Captain had started to say “widow” but caught himself. “The wife of the man who may have gone overboard. Both she and her husband had been drinking a lot, and she admits she didn’t actually see him go over. My recommendation is—”
“I’ll tell you what we are not going to do, Fairfax. Under no circumstances are you to turn this ship around. I don’t want to hear word one about a Williamson turn.”
The Captain rubbed his temples as he held the phone. A Williamson turn or maneuver is where the ship is turned around at a high rate of speed. Like all captains, he had been trained on this. If he were convinced that Pearson had truly gone over the side, he would order the Williamson turn and direct crewmen to deploy high-power spotlights shined on the water. The special rescue boats with outboard motors would be put in the water. It was within his discretion to also send lifeboats to aid in the search. His SQM, Safety and Quality Manual, laid out the procedure he should follow.
But he was compelled to act only if an eyewitness, or preferably two, saw the passenger go over the side. In this case he had a boozy eyewitness who, after a little probing, admitted that she did not see her husband go overboard. And he had an owner who was going to fight him every step of the way if he took aggressive measures to look for Pearson in the water.
“I am going to order that the ship be thoroughly searched. We have the passport photos of all the passengers. I’ll direct that copies of Pearson’s picture be made and distributed to the crewmen who will undertake the search.”
“Okay,” Morrison said, sounding mollified. “But I don’t want the passengers ordered back to their rooms. Let the crewmen bang on the cabin doors asking for Pearson. If he’s in one of the rooms, he’ll answer.”
The call ended before Fairfax could respond.
It was Saunders who spoke first. “For the second time I’ll ask, what are we going to do?”
“You heard the man,” the Captain said. “We’re going to search the ship.”
40
Lady Em, Brenda and Celia sat together offering silent prayers that Roger would be saved, even while they realized there was almost no hope that if he had gone overboard, he had managed to stay afloat in the treacherous waters.
Fairfax’s voice came over the ship’s public address system. “This is your captain. We are trying to locate a Mr. Roger Pearson. Mr. Pearson, if you can hear this message, would you please contact the bridge. If any passenger has seen Mr. Pearson in the last twenty minutes, would you please call the bridge. That is all. Thank you.”
Celia spoke first. “I wonder if that’s standard procedure, to first search the ship for somebody they think might have gone overboard.”
Lady Em turned to Brenda. “Go to Yvonne,” she said. “She should have someone she knows with her.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t do her much good,” she confided to Celia when Brenda had left. Lady Em was wracked with regret and anger. She knew that her announcement that she was having another accounting firm go over her finances may have caused Roger to deliberately go over the railing. She had not seen him at lunch, but had run into him when she took a brief walk on the deck at five o’clock. With nervous energy, he had launched into explaining why she should not waste money on such an unnecessary expense. She had finally stopped him by saying, “I don’t want to discuss it. I hope I have made my decision perfectly clear. And frankly, it concerns me that you are so adamantly against it.”
They were the last words she had uttered to Roger. Did he fall, or did I drive him to suicide? she wondered.
Twenty minutes later, as a member of the crew went from one group of passengers to the other urging them to please enjoy dinner, she reluctantly picked up the menu.
“I would suggest that we all need a strong drink,” Professor Longworth volunteered.
“I think that’s a very good idea,” Celia said fervently, as she noted how very ill Lady Em suddenly looked. And very old, she thought. She’s so commanding and energetic that we forget her age. And, of course, Roger has been a close friend as well as working for her all these years.
They were silent at dinner, each busy with his or her own thoughts.
41
The table where Alvirah and Willy were sitting had had the same reaction as that of their neighbors. Willy had even insisted that Alvirah join him in having a vodka martini. Devon Michaelson, Ted Cavanaugh and Anna DeMille were of the same mind. Anna was the one who voiced the mutual sentiment. “It’s hard to think that last night at this time the poor man was sitting only a few feet away from us.”
After hearing the Captain’s announcement about the search for Roger, they were confused about what to think. Ted volunteered, “For whatever reason, there must be some doubt about his wife’s story that he fell overboard.”