It's Murder, On a Galapagos Cruise: An Amateur Female Sleuth Historical Cozy Mystery (Miss Riddell C by P.C. James (the best ebook reader for android TXT) 📗

It was indeed a long journey and Pauline was not feeling any more charitable toward her fellow passengers, the Ecuadorean officials, the tour company’s guide, or the world in general by the time they arrived. The drive down to Guayaquil from the airport hotel at Quito had been torturous. The road was rough and the coach’s suspension hard. The traffic had made it uncomfortably long and also hot, for the coach’s air-conditioning hadn’t functioned well, if it had been working at all. She observed her fellow passengers without any of that goodwill vacations were supposed to engender, as they too waited in line to join the ship at Guayaquil’s hastily erected, and clearly newly named, Cruise Ship Dock. Her fellow passengers, she observed, were the usual crowd of elderly couples, retired single men with large camera equipment packs, and women with overstuffed hand luggage, and a very small number of families. One man standing nearby with two plastic bags that clinked as he shuffled forward with the line looked as if he’d started partying the night before. She hoped her face didn’t betray her silent prayer that he not be anywhere near her cabin.

“Polly, wake up!” Freda said, nudging her as she stepped forward. Pauline realized her focus on the passengers had caused her to miss the line moving again. She picked up her carry-on bag and walked two steps forward and put her bag down again. Like the coach, the line was not moving well.

Pauline returned to watching the passengers. One couple, who looked very young, belied their age by wearing sober, old-fashioned clothing and looking strangely traditional for such a youthful pair. The woman wore a headscarf as Mennonite and Amish folk do. Perhaps that’s what they are, she thought, and moved on to survey the rest of the people in line. They weren’t exactly the kind of people she’d seen on the previous cruises she’d been on. In the Caribbean, where her previous cruising had mainly been, people were flamboyantly dressed and bejeweled. This cruise group were a more outdoorsy set, with lots of khaki clothing and bush hats. Sensible enough for hiking across the bare terrain of the Galapagos Islands and yet strangely out of place in her experience of cruise ships. She hoped they weren’t all naturalists who would only discuss iguanas and finches at every mealtime.

Like all waiting lines – fortunately this was a small ship because the Ecuadorian government was reducing the numbers who could be on the islands at any one time – this one eventually came to an end, and Pauline and Freda were sipping their welcome-aboard mimosas by late afternoon. Thirty minutes later, they were in their cabins next door to each other on Deck 3. The crossing from the mainland to the islands was to take a day and a half, and the voyage was organized for the guests to have dinner, socialize, and then miss most of the crossing time while sleeping.

Their bags arrived. They unpacked and freshened themselves before Pauline and Freda met outside their doors to begin exploring the ship. The moment they stepped outside their cabins, their cabin stewardess greeted them with a broad smile.

“Good afternoon, Señora Holman and Señorita Riddell. My name is Maria. I will be looking after your rooms during the voyage.”

Maria was a petite woman, slim and hardly more than five feet tall, with black hair and dark eyes. “If you should need anything, just call me. My number is beside the phone in your cabin.”

“Thank you, Maria,” Freda said, peering at Maria’s name badge. “You’re from Peru, I see.”

“Yes, madam, but I am very fortunate not to live there anymore.” Maria’s smile grew broader.

“From what I hear and read, you are indeed fortunate,” Pauline said. “Where do you live now?”

“In Quito, Ecuador,” Maria replied, “where I am among good people.”

“Quito seemed a wonderful city,” Pauline said. She saw Maria was already looking to move and introduce herself to a couple entering their room farther down the corridor. “I see others arriving,” Pauline added. “You must go. We shall certainly call if we need something.”

Maria hurried away to greet the couple before they disappeared into their cabin while the two sisters headed for the elevators. They’d agreed to watch the sail out before dining. Pauline had done three cruises, but for Freda this was the first time. As Pauline assured her, the sail out warranted standing outside in the fresh late afternoon breeze blowing in from the sea.

4

First Evening. At Sea

At dinner, they were seated at a table with a collection of ill-assorted people: a morose, overweight single man named Arvin Weiss, who was the person responsible for holding them up that morning; the Mennonite couple Pauline had seen earlier, who were Ruth and Isaac Brandt; a young man from Toronto, Jason Somerville, who announced he was a police detective; and an oddly mismatched American couple, Rod and Betty Chalmers.

The mismatched couple were a revelation. Pauline had read of such pairings, especially in murder mysteries where contested wills were featured, but she had never met one in real life. Rod was in his thirties, but only just, Pauline guessed. Betty was in her seventies, maybe even older. She was a wealthy widow and he had been her exercise instructor, until a week ago. Now they were on their honeymoon, having the trip of a lifetime. She was loud and gay, the excited bride of fevered imagination; he was silent and only spoke in sarcastic rejoinders to anything, indeed everything, anyone said. Pauline hoped they’d find a different table for the rest of the cruise.

Arvin was an equally unsatisfactory dinner companion. As with many overweight people, his clothes didn’t fit, particularly around the middle, giving a general air of being down on his luck. His brown hair was thinning, combed over and straggling in so many opposite directions it