Strangers on a Train

  “Chuck?” I echoed.

  “Sanchez’s boss,” Becca explained. “He got an anonymous tip this morning advising him to check the guy’s locker. When he did, he found the drugs hidden under a spare apron.”

  “An anonymous tip?”

  “Yeah, apparently someone e-mailed him from one of the public computers in the ship’s Internet café,” Becca said. “The message wasn’t signed. Why? Do you think any of this is connected with the case?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” I tucked the info away to think about later. I knew we might not have much time before the bartender came back, and I wanted to ask her all my questions. “I also wanted to talk to you about Scott again. You know—the shore excursions guy. You said he’s got a good rep in the industry, but how well do you really know him?”

  Becca shrugged. “Not that well. I never met him before he got hired here. All I know is he used to work for Happy Seas Cruises, and his old boss put in a good word for him with Captain Peterson. Why? Has Scott done something suspicious? You asked about him before, right?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Sort of.” The more time passed after the incident on the train, the more I doubted my own reaction. Was I grasping at straws by treating Scott as a viable suspect?

  “Okay.” Becca checked her watch, then glanced toward the door. “But listen, Omar will be back any second, and I want to talk to you about something.”

  “What is it?” I asked, a little distracted by my own thoughts.

  “It’s Tatjana. She’s been acting, well, kind of strange lately.”

  Instantly I snapped back to attention. Even though Tatjana had been on the original suspect list, I hadn’t been thinking much about her lately, mostly because my suspicions of her were based on the way she seemed to keep turning up whenever I was discussing the case with Becca. Which really wasn’t all that suspicious, given that Becca was her boss.

  “What do mean, acting strange?” I asked.

  Becca twirled her straw in her iced tea, her expression troubled. “It’s probably nothing. It’s just that she hasn’t been answering calls or texts right away lately. And a couple of times I haven’t been able to find her where she was supposed to be—it’s like she just disappears now and then. It’s not quite enough to put my finger on, but . . .”

  “Okay. I’ll look into it,” I said. “As a matter of fact, Tatjana is—”

  I cut myself off as I heard rushing footsteps. Glancing at the door, I expected to see Omar returning. Instead I saw that Hiro had just burst in, red-faced and breathless.

  “Hi,” he said, looking startled to see us there. “That is, um . . .”

  “What are you doing here?” Becca blurted out.

  I was surprised to see him too. “I thought you were herding kids at the gold-panning place,” I said with a smile.

  “That wrapped up a few minutes ago.” Hiro returned my smile, though it looked a bit forced. “The passengers are on their own for the rest of the afternoon. Even the little kids.”

  Becca stood up. “Excuse me,” she said, looking strangely uncomfortable. “I just remembered I’m supposed to take care of something before the passengers get back. I’d better go. Talk to you later, Nancy.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I—”

  It was too late. She was gone. And Becca had never answered my text about Hiro.

  I glanced at Hiro, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot, looking as agitated as one of the hyper little kids he was paid to entertain. Maybe this was another opportunity for some impromptu interrogation.

  “Were you looking for Omar or something?” I asked. “He should be right back, if you want to sit down and wait.”

  “Oh!” Hiro glanced at me with that same forced smile. “That’s okay. I was just looking for, um, someone else. Thanks, though.”

  With that, he darted out the door. I shrugged. Oh well, so much for that. But what was up with Becca? Her behavior reminded me that this wasn’t the first time she’d reacted oddly to seeing Hiro. What was that all about?

  My phone buzzed, interrupting my thoughts. It was George calling.

  “Where are you? Never mind, don’t tell me—just get over to the ice cream parlor near the gold-panning place pronto,” she hissed. “Alan’s driving us crazy asking where you are, and we’re running out of excuses. Bess can only distract him for so long by fluttering her eyelashes and laughing at his lame jokes.”

  I sighed, all thoughts of snooping around the nearly empty ship fleeing my mind. “Be right there,” I promised.

  “Do we really have to change for dinner?” George complained as we walked down the carpeted hallway toward our suite a few hours later. “I’m starved. And if we don’t get there soon, Babs will snarf all the rolls.”

  “Yes, we do,” Bess told her. “We’ve been walking around all day in summer weather, and we all could use a shower and some fresh clothes.” She wrinkled her nose. “Plus I think you spilled half the gold dust you panned down your shirt.”

  “Really?” George plucked at her T-shirt, trying to get a look at it.

  I, for one, was looking forward to showering and changing. After I’d rejoined my friends at the ice cream parlor, we’d spent an hour or so wandering around seeing the sights. Then we’d returned to the ship, where Alan had insisted on finding a spot on one of the upper decks so we could watch the ship pull away from ­Skagway. By now we were all sunburned and hungry.

  Bess reached for the door, but it opened before she could touch the knob. Our butler, Max, stood in the doorway, grinning at us. He was short and wiry, with thick blond hair, dancing blue eyes, and seemingly boundless energy. Upon first meeting him, he’d reminded me of a golden retriever in human form, and my impression hadn’t changed since.

  “Welcome home!” he exclaimed. “How was Skagway?”

  “Great,” Alan said. He started telling the butler all about our day as we entered the suite.

  I didn’t hear much of what he said as I headed for my bedroom. My stomach grumbled as I yanked open a dresser drawer. I was so busy puzzling over everything that had happened that day that it took a moment for me to register that the drawer was empty.

  “Huh?” I mumbled, blinking at the sight. Hadn’t I folded and put away some shirts in there just that morning?

  I opened another drawer above the first one, wondering if I’d stuck the shirts in with my underwear by mistake. Stranger things had been known to happen when I was distracted by a case.

  But that drawer was empty too. I checked the other drawers—nothing in any of them. In fact, the only clothes in my room were the ones I’d left in the little built-in hamper near the door.

  I stepped outside. The others had disappeared into their own rooms by then, and Max was whistling a cheery tune as he swept the floor.

  “Hey, Max,” I said. “Do you know what happened to my clean clothes?”

  “You mean the ones I sent out for laundering this morning?” he asked brightly. “They should be back first thing tomorrow.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the dirty clothes spilling out of my open hamper. “Which ones did you send out?” I asked. “Because my hamper’s still full.”

  “I know.” Max shrugged and grinned. “You left me a note right on the hamper, remember?”

  “A note?” It had been a very long day since that early wake-up call, and my mind felt sluggish, unable to deal with this new wrinkle. “What note?”

  “The one where you said you’d stuck your clean clothes in the hamper and the dirty ones in the drawers, so I should be sure to send out the right ones.” Max grinned and winked. “Most guests do it the other way around, but I don’t like to judge.”

&nbs
p; I put a hand to my forehead. “You sent all the clothes in the drawers out to be washed?”

  “Yes.” Max’s smile faded slightly. “Isn’t that what you meant by the note?”

  “What note?” I said again. “Can I see it?”

  “I threw it away.” He shrugged. “Why? Is there a problem? I’m sorry if I misunderstood. . . .”

  My mind spun, still refusing to take this in. I’d been pretty tired that morning, but I knew I hadn’t left Max any notes about my laundry. That meant that one of two things was happening here. One of the possibilities was that Max was lying to me—that there was no note. So he’d either sent out the wrong laundry by mistake, or worse yet, on purpose. Was this just another innocent error along with that messed-up wake-up call? Or should he be a suspect? My mind shot from the laundry to the wake-up call to the note in my luggage, trying to work out whether Max could be the accomplice I was looking for.

  The other possibility was even more disturbing. Maybe the note was real—which would mean someone had sneaked into our suite and planted it on my laundry hamper. Who would do something so petty and weird? Somehow it didn’t fit in with the other incidents we were investigating.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Drew.” Max looked stricken now as he realized how upset I was. “Did I do something wrong?”

  His voice had risen, both in pitch and volume. Bess stuck her head out of her room. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Not exactly . . .” I quickly outlined the problem, with Max interrupting every few lines to apologize. He also offered to run down to the shipboard shops and pick me up something to wear at his expense.

  But Bess shook her head. “It’s okay,” she told both of us. “I’ve got plenty of clothes. Come on in, Nancy—you can borrow something of mine.”

  I smiled weakly. “Thanks,” I said, following her into her room. “Sometimes it’s nice having a friend who’s a fashion plate.”

  The following day I awoke feeling rested and ready for anything thanks to a nice dinner (in one of Bess’s dresses) and a full night’s sleep (in a T-shirt and sweatpants borrowed from George). My doubly clean laundry was back by the time I got up, plus Max had whisked off the stuff from the hamper, promising to get it washed quickly.

  The butler was acting so apologetic about the laundry mix-up that I was starting to doubt my suspicions of him from the night before. I’d had a few minutes to discuss those suspicions with Bess in hurried whispers while she was finding me something to wear, and she’d seemed pretty dubious too. Still, we’d agreed that it was worth adding Max to the suspect list. Why not? It wasn’t as if we were any closer to solving this thing.

  After a leisurely breakfast, we joined most of the rest of the passengers on the upper decks. The ship was cruising through Glacier Bay today, and we were all expecting some spectacular views.

  The scenery didn’t disappoint. Soon everyone was oohing and aahing over the jagged icy-blue-and-white glaciers surrounding us, framed by the majestic snowcapped mountains rising in the distance. I even forgot about the case for a while. Then I noticed Wendy wandering past, clutching her camera and her laptop, and it all came crashing back. I bit my lip, wishing I could steal a few minutes to discuss my latest thoughts with my friends. But I couldn’t; not with Alan right there.

  “Should we try the next deck down?” he asked, leaning over the rail to snap another photo. “There might be better views down there.”

  “Doubtful,” George said. “If you’re bored, just say so, dude.”

  “I’m not bored,” Alan answered quickly. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I just don’t want to miss anything.”

  “Tobias!” an irritated voice called out from nearby, distracting me from whatever George said next. “Settle down, son. Let’s not bother the other passengers.”

  Glancing that way, I saw Tobias swinging on a railing. His mother was snapping pictures nearby, while his father glared irritably at the boy.

  George was looking that way too. “Looks like you’re not the only one with a short attention span, Alan,” she said with a laugh.

  “Ha-ha, very funny,” Alan answered.

  Suddenly I had an idea. “Looks like Tobias’s poor parents are at the end of their rope,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “Too bad Hiro isn’t around to take him to get his energy out on the climbing wall. Especially since there’s probably nobody else there right now—he could go crazy on that thing.”

  “Good point, Nancy.” Bess turned her big, innocent blue eyes toward Alan. “Maybe you should offer to take him, sweetie. I know you’ve been dying to try the climbing wall.”

  That was exactly what I was counting on. Alan had mentioned wanting to try the ship’s state-of-the-art rock-climbing wall several times, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t done it yet. Probably because Bess had no interest in such things.

  “Oh,” Alan said, glancing from Bess to the scenery and back again. “Um, I guess that’s not a bad idea. We could just go for a little while—give Tobias’s folks a break.”

  “What a nice idea.” Bess squeezed his arm, turning on that million-watt smile of hers that never fails to turn guys into jelly. “Why don’t you go suggest it to them? I’m sure they’d really appreciate it.”

  Moments later Alan and Tobias were disappearing into the nearest stairwell. “Come on,” I told Bess and George, heading away from the crowds at the rail. “We need to talk.”

  Soon the three of us were huddled behind a stack of lounge chairs. I started by filling them in on the previous day’s chat with Becca and subsequent encounter with Hiro, since this was my first chance to talk freely to them since then. We discussed all that for a few minutes, though we didn’t reach any new conclusions.

  “Did you tell George about your newest suspect?” Bess asked.

  “You mean Max?” I said.

  “Max?” George said. “You’re kidding, right? The guy doesn’t exactly seem like a hardened criminal.”

  “I know,” I said. “But it’s weird how he keeps messing things up lately—and how it always affects me.”

  “Paranoid much?” George rolled her eyes. “I mean, seriously, Nancy—a botched wake-up call? Sending out the wrong laundry? This is your evidence that he’s up to no good?”

  “I know, I know.” I glanced around to make sure nobody had wandered close enough to hear us. “But what if he’s been in cahoots with that jewelry thief all along? He definitely had access to our luggage, which means he could have left that nasty note in my suitcase on the first day. And maybe now he’s just trying to distract me however he can, hoping it’ll throw me off the case.” The argument sounded weak even to my own ears.

  “Okay, there’s that,” Bess said diplomatically. “What about the rest of the suspect list?”

  We went on to discuss our other suspects, including Wendy, Scott, Fred, and Tatjana. Could any of them be the thief’s accomplice? None of us could come up with any compelling evidence for or against.

  “It just doesn’t quite add up, does it?” I said at last, leaning against the stack of chairs and squinting up into the cloudless blue sky. “We have a whole bunch of suspects, but not much solid evidence. Just vague clues that could mean anything. We’ve been investigating for days, and it feels like we’re no closer to figuring out who could be the thief’s accomplice.”

  George opened her mouth to respond. Before she could say a word, another voice spoke up from behind us.

  “Thief’s accomplice?” Alan said. “What the heck are you guys talking about?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Comic Relief

  “ALAN!” BESS BLURTED OUT.

  Alan looked over the stack of chairs. H
is forehead was creased in a puzzled frown. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking at each of us in turn.

  “Um . . .” George gulped. “We were just, ah, role-playing. That’s it—we’re actually super geeks, and we’re really into, um, acting out famous true crimes from history. Now you know our secret—oh well, we’re pathetic nerds.”

  Alan shook his head. “Nice try.” He glanced at me. “I thought I was going crazy when I heard you talking to the assistant cruise director about clues and stuff. And now here you are again, discussing suspects and evidence and accomplices. . . .”

  Uh-oh. Apparently Alan had overheard more than I’d thought yesterday morning. Added to his accidental eavesdropping just now? Well, it seemed the cat was out of the bag.

  I took a deep breath, glancing at my friends. “I guess our secret’s out. We’d better fill him in.”

  “Fill him in?” George echoed cautiously. “Um, you mean . . .”

  “The truth,” I finished for her. I was annoyed at myself for being so careless, letting him find out more than he should. But besides that? I was mostly, well, relieved. Now we wouldn’t have to sneak around behind Alan’s back anymore, which should make our lives—and the investigation—much easier. Maybe he’d even be some help.

  “Okay, if you say so,” Bess said. She turned and took Alan’s hands in hers. “I’m sorry we haven’t been honest with you. It’s only because Becca swore us to absolute secrecy. We didn’t win this cruise in a contest. We were called in to look into some mysterious happenings. See, Becca knows Nancy from way back, and when she suspected someone was out to sabotage the Arctic Star . . .”

  From there, the three of us took turns telling him the whole story. Alan’s eyes got wider and wider as we talked. When we finished, he let out a loud puff of breath.

  “Wow,” he said. “This is insane!” He turned to stare at me. “And you’re some big-time girl detective? I had no idea!”

  “Yes, you did,” Bess said. “I know I mentioned it a couple of times. Remember? When we saw that mystery movie on our third date, I told you Nancy would’ve had the case solved in half the time.”