Before Raymond left, Brenda called out to him, “Tell the Captain someone tried to strangle me, and I insist on getting better protection until we reach Southampton.”
Too bad that her dear Ralphie isn’t around, Raymond thought as he tiptoed out. He went directly to a storage closet and closed the door behind him. As soon as the connection was established, he whispered, “Another attempted murder. This time Lady Haywood’s personal assistant Brenda Martin was the intended victim. He tried to strangle her, but she managed to slip a finger under the cord and keep breathing. She didn’t talk about anything missing from her room, so the motive is not clear.”
Raymond slipped the cell phone back into his pocket and exited the storage closet.
One minute later his phone registered that he had received a text. It was from John Saunders, the chief of security. He was being summoned back to Brenda’s suite, where the Captain and the ship owner were waiting for him. With a towel and ice bucket in hand, Raymond hurried back to her cabin.
Brenda was still in the armchair where he had left her. Raymond’s first glance revealed that she had finished the vanilla ice cream, the apple pie and the coffee in the few minutes she had been alone. But there was no missing that she had an ugly red bruise all around her neck. She could have been asphyxiated, he thought, but the first thing he heard her say to Dr. Blake was that she wouldn’t be alive if Raymond hadn’t rescued her. She added that she planned to sue the cruise line because even though they knew there was a murderer on board, they had not taken the trouble to secure the halls from a serial killer.
Captain Fairfax began a lengthy apology, but he was cut off by Gregory Morrison. The ship owner assured Brenda that he would take good care of her if she would agree to not say a word to the other passengers about what happened to her.
“Whether or not I say a word won’t matter to what you are going to pay me,” Brenda gasped as she ran her fingers over her sore neck. “I could be dead,” she moaned, “and it would be because all of you failed in your duty to protect us. The next thing you know is we’ll all be on the deck singing, ‘Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee.’?”
79
Five hundred nautical miles away the Paradise ship’s doctor was anxiously studying his new patient. He didn’t even know his name. No ID had been found in what little clothing he still had on when they pulled him from the water.
The man was suffering from hypothermia and pneumonitis. The few words he had uttered were almost incomprehensible: “pushed me, get her” were repeated several times. But with a temperature of one hundred four, the doctor attributed them to delirious rants.
He looked up as the door opened and the ship’s captain came into the room. The Captain did not waste time on pleasantries. “How is he?” he asked brusquely as he studied the unexpected passenger who had been brought aboard ten hours earlier.
“I don’t know, sir,” the doctor answered, his tone as always deferential to the Captain. “He is stabilized, but his breathing is very labored. He’s not out of the woods yet, but I believe he’s going to make it.”
“Considering how cold it is in these waters, I’m surprised he was able to survive. Then again, we don’t know how long he was in the water,” the Captain observed.
“No, we don’t, sir. But he had two things in his favor. In the medical community we often joke that the person who’s best-suited for cold is fit and fat. His ample fat likely insulated his body’s core, making him less susceptible to hypothermia. But he has the muscular shoulders and legs of a swimmer. When he was treading water, those muscles would have generated heat, offering additional protection from the cold.”
The Captain was silent for a moment, and then snapped, “Well, do your best and keep me posted. Did he give his name yet?”
“No, sir, he has not.” The doctor did not add that the patient was mumbling about being “pushed.” He knew the Captain preferred hard facts over speculation. He was sure that those utterings would turn out to be hypothermia-induced delusions when and if the patient recovered.
“Do you expect him to pull through?” the captain asked.
“I do, sir, and I won’t leave him until I’m sure he is out of danger.”
“How long do you expect that to be?”
“We’ll know more over the next seven hours, sir.”
“Notify me immediately if he regains consciousness.” The Captain left the room. Immediately the ship’s doctor pulled a reclining chair over to the side of the bed, leaned back in it and pulled a blanket around his neck.
Sweet dreams, Mr. Mystery Guest, he thought, as he closed his eyes and drifted into a sound sleep.
Day Five
80
Alvirah and Willy, Devon Michaelson, Anna DeMille and Ted Cavanaugh gathered for a quiet breakfast, which turned out to be anything but.
A few minutes after they sat down, Brenda arrived at her table. Yvonne and Professor Longworth were already there. Brenda in her newfound glory, with a red mark from the choking around her neck, had originally planned to have breakfast in her suite. After confirming that she was not seriously injured, Dr. Blake urged her to spend the night in the infirmary. She refused, preferring the privacy of her cabin.
She decided it would be much more interesting to share her near death experience with her fellow passengers in the Queen’s Lounge. She made a point of stroking her neck as she sat down, and then made an audible groan as she swallowed a glass of fresh orange juice. At their exclamations of “What happened to you?” she was happy to tell her table mates the story without sparing a single detail.
“Are you sure you didn’t see the person who assaulted you?” Yvonne asked nervously.
“He must have been hiding in the closet. When I was turned the other way, he attacked me from behind,” Brenda said, holding her hand to her chest at the memory.
“Did you notice anything that might help them figure out who attacked you?” Yvonne asked.
Brenda shook her head. “Not really. Whoever it was, was very strong,” she said.
She doesn’t have a clue, Longworth thought. Very interesting.
Brenda continued. “Whatever he put around my neck, he was going to use it to strangle me. I began to black out. I remember being pushed into the closet. I was fortunate that I had managed to get a finger inside the noose before he started pulling. I struggled at first, but then I decided it would be better to pretend I was blacking out. I was right on the edge of losing consciousness when I felt his grip start to loosen.”
“Oh my God,” Yvonne said.
“Oh my God is right,” Brenda reiterated. “My life started to pass before my—”
Now it was Longworth’s turn to say, “Oh my God—when will this end? Are we all in danger?”