"Yes."
"And you didn't argue?"
"No."
"You were in the bathroom?"
"Yes."
"Just freshening up?"
"A shower. This was going to be very special."
"I see."
"I'd dated football players before and one U.S. senator but never a network star."
"Ah." What sins "dated" hid.
"And so while you were taking a shower, getting ready for-"
"While I was taking a shower, getting ready for-"
"— the killer came in and-"
"— and hid in the closet."
"The closet?"
She nodded to the louvered doors. "There."
"How do you know?"
"Because I saw him. Or her."
"Him or her?"
She described the getup. "It was supposed to look like a he but it could have been a she. You know?"
"You didn't tell me about the closet before."
"I forgot."
"Is there anything else you forgot?"
"You really think they're going to blame me, don't you?"
For the first time, he noticed how vulnerable she looked. Much younger, and sweet in a midwestern way. By now the blood on her hands and arms had caked. She still held them away from her body as if she did not want them at all.
"I just think you need to get your story straight," he said, softly.
"You're really nice."
Standing up, knees cracking, turning his face away from what had been the handsome towheaded body of Ken Norris, he said, "You mean for a critic."
She smiled. "My father never forgave you for the crack you made about John Wayne."
"All I said was that Wayne made the mistake of confusing his politics with his art. He was a very good actor, actually."
"My father said he wanted to punch you."
"Be sure to invite me to your next family reunion."
Then he stared at her a moment. She stood on one side of the body, he on the other. "I have to ask this."
"Oh, God."
"Did you kill him?"
And she began instantly to cry, soft midwestern-girl tears, and all her lusciousness trembled beneath her white terry-cloth robe and he found himself feeling like a shit again.
"I had to ask."
She kept crying. "I know."
"Do you need some Kleenex?"
"Please."
So he went and got her some Kleenex from the bathroom, which still smelled of steam and perfume, and brought her back a pink handful and said, "Now I'll have to call the captain."
"Will you stay here with me?"
"Yes."
"I really didn't kill him."
"I know."
"I was going to write Aberdeen all about it."
"Who's Aberdeen?"
"A woman at the insurance company."
"Ah."
"But now I don't even care about that."
She stared down at the body of Ken Norris. "He said he'd just finished a pilot and would probably be on CBS next season."
Tobin tried hard not to frown. What a seducer's ploy that had been. "Probably be on CBS next season." He could hear the deep-voiced Norris saying exactly that, that line of lines uttered by thousands of TV has-beens daily to wives, children, creditors, eager midwestern girls, and themselves. Most especially-and desperately-to themselves.
Tobin went and called the captain.
6
"And you believe her?"
"Yes," Tobin said. "You hesitated a moment."
Tobin shrugged. "You asked me an absolute question that required an absolute answer." He nodded back to the room where Ken Norris's body lay, and where Cindy sat with a dour steward. Tobin smiled. "Absolute answers take a little longer."
"She's very nice-looking."
"Believe it or not, Captain," Tobin said, knowing what the large, white-haired man in the perfectly tailored white uniform was implying, "I've been around nice-looking women before."
They leaned against the railing and watched the silver sea sprawl in the moonlight. The night noises had largely subsided-most people were drunk and passed out, fornicating, or simply sleeping. Tobin watched the horizon line. Easy to imagine that the entire planet was water. That this was a little world unto itself, that there was no other world at all.
"Perhaps he tried something on her and she didn't like it. It could always be self-defense."
"You want an answer right away," Tobin said, "and I understand that. You want to greet your passengers in the morning with the news that, yes, there has been a murder but no, the murderer is not at large. In fact, she's in custody and everything is wonderful."
"I don't want panic. I don't want the cruise ruined."
Tobin said, angrily, "I don't want to see a woman charged with something she didn't do."
"Then you really believe somebody was in the closet?"
"If she says so."
"Then who would it have been?" The captain caught himself and laughed. "I guess that would fall under the general heading of stupid questions, wouldn't it? If we knew who was in the closet, then we'd know the killer."
"Not necessarily."
"What?"
"She didn't say this person was the killer. She just said he or she was in the closet."
"What's the difference?"
Tobin, dragging on his cigarillo and thinking that it wasn't really smoking if you didn't inhale, said, "I'd say there's a good chance that that's the killer-the person in the closet-but we don't know that for sure."
"Then what else would he or she have been doing in the closet?"
"I don't know."
Capt. Robert Hackett, who had the outsize, handsome features of a Roman senator, said, "You really think she's innocent?"
"You talked to her. Do you really think she killed him?"
"Yes."
"God, really?"
"Who else would have done it?"
"The person in the closet."
The captain shook his head. "You really believe there was somebody in the closet?" Before Tobin could respond, Hackett said, "I'd better go tell the other cast members what's going on. There are three of them in the lounge."
Tobin said, "Do you mind if I go with you?"
"No." Then he nodded to the room. "Maybe you'd want to take the young lady for a stroll along the deck while we remove the body. Then we can go down to the lounge. You might tell her we'll get her a different room for the rest of the voyage."
He started back toward the cabin and then paused. "I still think she did it, Mr. Tobin. I don't believe a word about the person in the closet. Not a word.”
7
The small lounge was got up art deco, with a smoky, neon ambience long on mirrors, shadows, and black-and-white floor paneling. On the small dance floor a couple in matching Hawaiian shirts performed something fat and slow and melancholy, something very middle-aged that both stunned and saddened Tobin. It was not so much a dance as some simple but profound animal reassurance that if all else failed, they at least had each other. To the right of the bar was a small section of pink love seats and overstuffed chairs and tables of glass and chrome. Behind this was the bar where a thin man in a severe black dinner jacket from the thirties wiped drinking glasses as if he were doing something far beneath his dignity. His glowering gaze grew only more hostile when he saw Tobin and Captain Hackett.
The party, such as it was, lay in the area of the love seats, where three members of "Celebrity Circuit" sat luxuriating in the adoration of some very drunk passengers.
The three members were Kevin Anderson, the blond All-American sort whose canceled series had been "Night Patrol," about an undercover cop; next to him was Susan Richards, a true dark beauty whose canceled series had been "Galloway House," a nighttime soap opera about a very wealthy Irish family; and Todd Ames, the smooth, gray-haired character actor (invariably he played the handsome cad, a more virile George Sanders) whose canceled series had been "Killer's Call," about a professional killer who stalked other professional killers.