[Lady Justice 11] - Lady Justice and the Cruise Ship Murders Read online

  I hadn’t realized that I was breathing that hard, but in the cavernous old gymnasium the sound must have been amplified.

  As I heard his footsteps grow closer, I held my breath, which made hanging on even more difficult.

  I realized that I was going to either black out for lack of oxygen or lose my grip for lack of strength very soon --- neither of which held much promise.

  It sounded like the rapist was very close and I decided that if I was going to go, I might as well go out on my own terms.

  I gripped the rope as best I could with one hand and reached for the flashlight in my back pocket with the other.

  I was out of breath, both of my arms ached and I could barely grip the flashlight.

  I switched on the light and saw that the guy was right below me. I had climbed an amazing eight feet.

  I let go and as I dropped, I took the one shot I had and swung the flashlight at the guy’s head.

  I felt the impact, the light went out, I hit the floor and my lights went out.

  The next thing I knew, Ox was cradling me in his arms and gently smacking my face.

  “Walt! Wake up! Are you okay?”

  “What? --- Where? What happened?”

  “You got him, partner. You got the Trolley Trail rapist.”

  My arms ached, my head hurt, my legs were tired and my crotch was chaffed, but I never felt better.

  All in a day’s work.

  CHAPTER 3

  With all of the hoopla of Ox’s wedding, the preparations for the cruise and the long nights away stalking the Trolley Trail rapist, I had made one of the fundamental blunders of matrimonial bliss --- I had forgotten about our anniversary.

  I didn’t forget the actual event. That magic day, two years ago when Maggie and I recreated the wedding ceremony in Elvis’ Blue Hawaii will be burned into my memory forever.

  What I did forget was the actual day. Somehow the date was lost in the two weeks that we spent in the tropical paradise of Hawaii, and it just didn’t seem that important.

  Maggie remembered.

  The captain had given me a couple of days off to lick my wounds and when I crawled out of bed the next day, Maggie had prepared a breakfast of pineapple, papaya and waffles slathered in coconut syrup, my favorite Hawaiian breakfast.

  As soon as I saw the papaya, it hit me.

  “Oh, Maggie, I’m so sorry ---”

  “Shut up you big hero. I’m going to give you a pass this time, because I know that somewhere out there is a woman that won’t be attacked because you did your job. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Still,” I said apologetically, “I should have remembered.”

  “I remembered for both of us. If you’re up to it, I have a special evening planned.”

  What could I say but, “Sure, what do you have in mind?”

  “First, we’re going to enjoy a wonderful dinner at the Bristol Seafood Grill downtown and then I got tickets for the Yanni concert at the Midland theatre.”

  “Sounds great!”

  Actually, I would have preferred Mel’s Diner, but this was Maggie’s gig so I figured that I’d better play along.

  I’m not much on fine dining, but I’ll have to admit the seared Mahi Mahi was wonderful and brought back memories of our days on Maui.

  Another plus was that they had my favorite key lime pie and I can’t get that at Mel’s.

  After dinner we walked to the Midland Theatre a few blocks away, for the Yanni concert.

  The Midland, built in 1927, was one of Kansas City’s historic treasures and the inside concert hall was adorned with all kinds of cool stuff that I know absolutely nothing about, but is quite beautiful.

  While my musical tastes lean toward 50’s rock ‘n’ roll, Maggie and I had seen Yanni before and we both love his stirring orchestral compositions.

  On this particular night, my battered body was definitely more responsive to the lilting melody of the beautiful Nightingale, than Little Richard’s Rip It Up.

  In fact, one of the hazards of my job is that I have to associate, on a daily basis, with the dregs of humankind.

  Just a few months previous, we had ended a serial killer’s reign of terror only after ten people were murdered and with my recent encounter with the Trolley Trail rapist, my opinion of my fellow man was at an all-time low.

  One of the things that make Yanni’s orchestra so special is that the musicians come from all over the world, Greece, Russia, China, England, Cuba and, of course, the USA.

  As I sat and watched the men and women from these diverse cultures playing their instruments in perfect harmony, I was impressed with the fact that music is, indeed, the universal language.

  At the end of the concert, Yanni spoke of his recent tour of the Far East where he had performed at the Kremlin in Russia, China, South Korea, Singapore and other exotic locations.

  His message was that when we get right down to it, we’re all not that much different. He quoted the astronauts in the International Space Station who say that when they look down at earth, they don’t see the artificial boundaries and borders that men have created. They see one world occupied by mankind.

  His final words before his last piece, was that his travels had taught him one thing --- people can accomplish anything when they work together for the common good, and that we should never --- never --- give up on the human spirit.

  When the concert was over, my body still hurt like hell, but my faith in my fellow man was healed.

  In the technology lab at the University of Alaska in Juneau, three figures huddled in front of a computer screen.

  Louis French, an instructor in computer science, clapped his hands. “He did it! Quimby actually convinced the Stewarts to come to Alaska to search for gold!”

  “Thanks to your ability to hack into the Professor’s email account, we know about it,” Gwen Larson replied.

  “So what’s the plan?” Luke Larson asked. “How are we going to proceed?”

  “It would appear that our young treasure hunters are combining business with pleasure. They have booked a cruise from Vancouver to Seward with stopovers in Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan. They are supposed to meet Quimby in Skagway.

  “He has never met the Stewarts, so the two of you will be aboard that cruise ship. You’ll take care of the Stewarts, dump their bodies overboard and become Mark and Amy Stewart. When the old fool leads them to the gold, you’ll take care of him too and the gold will be ours to split.”

  “A cruise and a fortune in gold,” Gwen said, approvingly. “Sounds like a plan to me!”

  Vacations are supposed to be fun, but somehow getting ready for them isn’t.

  Ox soon discovered that jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt, his idea of ‘dressy casual’, didn’t exactly coincide with what Judy had in mind.

  Ox hadn’t bought a new suit in years, so one whole day was spent dragging the big guy from store to store upgrading his wardrobe.

  Fortunately, I had acquired some new threads just a year ago, compliments of the US Government, when I was undercover in a sting operation, so I got to skip most of the guy shopping.

  Unfortunately, Maggie thought it was important to have me along on her shopping excursion because she valued my opinion.

  I spent grueling hours sitting in the ‘husband chair’ just outside the fitting room while Maggie ran back and forth trying on various colors and sizes of the same garment.

  After a few hours, I was brain dead and all of the clothes looked the same to me anyway.

  Invariably, Maggie would ask, “Which do you think goes better with my complexion, the red or the blue?”

  If I said ‘red’, she would usually wind up buying the blue one, so I never really figured out why she dragged me along.

  I needed a new pair of casual slacks.

  I go to the rack, find a 34 waist, 30 inseam, and it’s a done deal.

  How hard can it be?

  The next obstacle was our luggage --- or lack thereof.

  The last
time that we used it was two years ago on our trip to Hawaii, and it was old then.

  When I pulled them out of the storage closet, one had a missing wheel and the handle wouldn’t collapse on another one. All of them looked like they had been through World War II.

  “A little duct tape and they’ll be good as new,” I said.

  I saw the look on Maggie’s face and didn’t bother hunting up the duct tape.

  Another afternoon was spent luggage shopping.

  Who knew there were so many different kinds? The same size bag could run from sixty bucks to over three hundred.

  We went to four different department stores before we found just the right combination of quality and price.

  Once we had decided on the brand, we had to choose a color.

  I suggested black, so we bought red. I didn’t actually give a rat’s patootie one way or the other.

  Once we booked our trip, we started getting emails from the cruise line offering answers to frequently asked questions and things we would need before boarding the ship.

  One of the messages said to be sure to bring along our passports ---- passports?

  Why would we need to have passports to go to Alaska? Isn’t that one of our fifty states?

  Because we start the trip in Vancouver and that’s in Canada.

  Judy was the only one of us with a passport, so the rest of us got busy giving Uncle Sam all the information he would need to keep track of us for the rest of our lives.

  There were a million little details like raincoats and umbrellas. The toothpaste in my travel kit had hardened into concrete and we had to put stuff in little baggies so that the TSA guys at the airport wouldn’t confiscate everything.

  Another thing that we had to consider was whether or not to try to carry our weapons on the trip.

  After doing some research, we discovered that in order to do so, we would have to enroll in a class and that not only the airlines, but the cruise ship line and Canada all had a different set of rules governing firearms.

  We decided not to bother. After all, we were going on vacation and who needs to be packing heat on a vacation?

  Maggie and I live on the third floor of a three-story apartment building that I own on Armour Boulevard.

  My dad, Bernice, the current love of Dad’s life, the Professor, Jerry the Joker and Willie, my good friend and maintenance man occupy the other units.

  Dad, Bernice and the Professor are all octogenarians and Jerry and Willie are in their sixties.

  I had some concerns about going off and leaving them to fend for themselves, but each one, after hearing of our upcoming trip, assured me that everything would be just fine.

  When Maggie and I had been on our honeymoon in Hawaii two years ago, we had scheduled some repair work to be done in our absence. The contractor had discovered a dead body concealed in the wall of the old building. Weird things just seem to happen when the Captain is not at the helm of the ship.

  Another concern was the Three Trails Hotel, the other building that I own. It’s a flop house with twenty sleeping rooms that share four hall baths. Naturally, the clientele is limited to old retired guys on social security and the unemployed who work out of the day labor pool.

  This derelict institution is managed by Mary Murphy, a seventy plus matron that rules the place with an iron hand and a white ash ball bat.

  In the past two years, Mary had shot an intruder and clubbed an assassin to death, and that doesn’t count the two tenants that were recently murdered by a serial killer or the religious fanatic that had rented a room to make bombs to blow up Kansas City.

  In my wildest imagination, I couldn’t guess what might be coming next, but I figured that it would probably come while we were at sea.

  Mary assured me that she had everything under control, but I had my doubts.

  My only comfort was in knowing that this rag-tag bunch of seniors did have a good track record when it came to handling the unexpected.

  My dad, Willie and Mary had saved my skin several times, but I had to wonder how much these old codgers had left in the tank.

  Sometimes you have to just have faith and forge ahead.

  CHAPTER 4

  Wanting to get the most out of our journey to Alaska, we decided to do some research on the ports of call that we would be visiting on our cruise.

  We spent hours on the computer and even went to the Mid-Continent Library to check out a book that had been recommended, The Floor of Heaven, A True Tail of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush by Howard Blum.

  Our society is steeped in the lore of the wild and wooly west. Every kid growing up in America has had a cowboy hero.

  When I was a kid, it was Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy. With the advent of television, Marshall Matt Dillon and The Rifleman wore the white hats. Clint Eastwood filled the big screen with Pale Rider, High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales.

  Such was not the case with the Alaskan frontier, at least for me.

  Until I read Blum’s book, I had never heard of George Carmack and Skookum Jim, the two prospectors that are credited with the first gold discovery in the Yukon and the guys responsible for starting the Klondike Gold Rush.

  Charlie Siringo was a Pinkerton detective whose exploits rivaled any of our old west lawmen and Jefferson Randolph (Soapy) Smith was undoubtedly one of the greatest con men ever.

  With a gang of over 300 men, Soapy Smith virtually ruled the town of Skagway. He made a fortune luring the returning prospectors into his saloon and brothel, and his cohorts separated many a man from his pouch of gold dust with their crooked card games.

  We all knew about the hardships faced by the pioneers that headed west in the wagon trains, but until I read the book I never knew of the ‘stampeders’ that carried tons of supplies on their backs hundreds of miles up the icy trails to the gold fields.

  We read and we studied, and the more we read, the more excited we all were to explore the vast lands of America’s last frontier.

  On the day before our departure, our gang decided that a ‘Bon Voyage’ party was in order. After all, it was the first cruise for all of us and it was also the official honeymoon for our newlyweds.

  Dad ordered a cake from HyVee that was shaped like a ship and Mary made punch that she swore wasn’t spiked, but I suspected differently.

  Bernice, upon hearing that our itinerary included cruising through Glacier Bay, reminded us of the tragic events surrounding the Titanic and told us to tell the Captain to watch out for icebergs. I promised her that we would.

  Jerry, as usual, had his monologue ready for the occasion.

  “This being your honeymoon,” he said, “reminds me of a story.

  “Now I realize that the two of you have been --- uhhh --- intimate for quite a while, but my story is about a young couple on their honeymoon who were getting undressed together for the first time.”

  Ox figured what was coming and buried his face in his hands. Judy just rolled her eyes.

  Jerry forged ahead. “The man took off his shoes and socks and his toes were all twisted and discolored. ‘What happened to your feet?’ his wife asked. ‘I had a childhood disease called tolio.’ ‘Don't you mean polio?’ ‘No, tolio, it only affects the toes.’ The man then removed his pants and revealed an awful-looking pair of knees. ‘What happened to your knees?’ she asked. ‘Well, I also had kneesles.’ ‘Don't you mean measles?’ ‘No, kneesles, it only affects the knees.’ The new bride seemed to be satisfied with this answer. As the undressing continued, her husband at last removed his underwear.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said.

  ‘Let me guess… smallcox.’”

  Dad roared with laughter. “smallcox! What a hoot! How about it Judy? Has Ox been afflicted with the dread disease?”

  Humoring the old man, Judy just smiled, “No, Ox is just fine, but thanks for asking.”

  Bernice, as serious as a judge, put her hand on Dad’s shoulder. “John, I’m just so thankful that you
never had that disease.”

  It was at that moment that I realized just how much I was looking forward to being a thousand miles away.

  The next morning was a killer.

  Our flight from Kansas City to Dallas was to leave at 7:10. After a plane change, we would arrive in Vancouver, BC at 1:30 in the afternoon and be whisked off to the ship for a five o’clock departure.

  Everything had to run like clockwork or the big ship would sail without us.

  Given the hour drive from our apartment to the Kansas City Inconvenient Airport, we figured that we ought to be on the road by 4:00 A.M.

  I just don’t do 4:00 A.M.

  Our alarm blasted us out of bed at three in the friggin’ morning and as I struggled out of bed, my head confirmed my suspicions that Mary’s punch had indeed been spiked.

  We showered, dressed and packed the last suitcase just as Ox pulled up in front of the building and honked.

  Dad, the retired over-the-road- trucker, had insisted on driving us to the airport, thus saving us the long-term parking fees.

  He was to drive us in Ox’s SUV, the biggest vehicle among us.

  I dragged our two enormous suitcases and two carry-ons from our third floor apartment to the street. When Ox popped the rear door, the back end was already filled with Ox and Judy’s luggage.

  After some strategic rearrangement, we were able to get our two suitcases in the back but the carry-ons just wouldn’t fit.

  I was about to suggest that we put them in the front seat next to Dad, when Bernice appeared. She had decided that she had better ride along to keep Dad awake on the drive home.

  When all was said and done, one carry-on was in my lap and the other one was under my feet. It was a loooong ride to the airport.

  At 5:00, we pulled up to the curb at Terminal C and unloaded under the watchful eye of the airport cop.

  I had figured that at 5:00 A.M., there wouldn’t be many passengers at the check-in line.

  Wrong!

  At least fifty people were lined up at the American Airlines counter and the line snaked back and forth four times.