Death of an Aegean Queen by Maria Hudgins Page B

The laughter sort of morphed into coughs and throat-clearings as everyone decided they should act, if not somber, at least sober.
    “That reminds me,” I said, looking at Leclercq and Stone, “Marco and I saw you two today on Mykonos. You were talking to one of the dancers from the ship. She had a package, I remember.”
    “Ah, yes!” Stone came to life. “We were browsing through one of the little shops when Miss Benson came out of a back room with the absolutely most wonderful geometric-style krater. A krater to die for. Probably eighth century b.c .” Stone’s way of speaking was effete, I thought. I could definitely see him in an antique shop. “She let us look at it for a moment and then she left so I said to Willem, ‘We must get that krater. If you and your client don’t want it, I certainly do.’ ” He waved a hand toward Leclercq and looked around the table, making eye contact with each of us, as if to assure himself we agreed with him that some things were too wonderful to be passed up. “So we followed her outside and offered her nine hundred Euros for it, but she said, ‘No.’ Then Willem said, ‘Tell us what you paid for it and we’ll double it.’
    “She still said, ‘No.’ She simply would not negotiate. Then she explained she was picking up the krater for a friend and she had no idea what he’d paid for it. We asked her if she would talk to her friend for us or give us his name so we could deal with him directly. But she wouldn’t tell us his name.”
    “So what could we do?” Leclercq said. “Malcolm told me we’d be crazy to let this thing slip through our fingers, so I gave her my card and asked her to please pass it along to her friend. I hope she will. Malcolm, what did you say her name was? I’ve forgotten it already.”
    “We met her this morning when we were waiting in line to get off the ship,” I said. “Her name is Brittany Benson.”
    All eyes at the table shifted from me to the woman next to me. Kathryn Gaskill’s head jerked forward and horror spread across her face. I glanced across and beyond our table, trying to follow her eyes, to see what she saw, or hear what she heard, that had petrified her. She jumped up from the table, toppling her chair backward, and ran from the room.
    * * * * *
    “Excuse me.” I started to dash off after Kathryn and then turned, shaking my head at Lettie who, I knew, would follow me if I didn’t stop her. Five dumbfounded faces stared back at me, but no one followed me out.
    I ran up and down the hall outside the dining room noting from the lights above the elevators that none of them were descending, so it was unlikely Kathryn was heading to her room. In an L off the main hall, I found a ladies’ bathroom and pulled the door open. Kathryn stood in the middle of the room, her back to a wall of mirrors and sinks, trembling.
    “What is it, Kathryn?”
    “That name. Didn’t you say . . . Brittany Benson?”
    “Yes. I’m sure that’s the name she gave me when I met her this morning.”
    “That’s the name of the girl I told you about! The girl who accused George of rape!”
    I tried to think fast, but trying to think fast always seems, to me, to make the process actually slow down. “There must be a lot of girls by that name. I’m sure it’s not the same one.” I led her to a chair in the corner and babbled on. “Benson’s a very common last name, and Brittany, why, it’s one of the most popular girls’ names in the U.S.”
    Kathryn looked at me as if I had lapsed into another language.
    “And besides, you saw her last night, Kathryn. The tall, pretty girl in the center of the dance line? You remember? You commented that she was the best dancer on stage.”
    “Did I? I wouldn’t recognize her now anyway. She was in high school the last time I saw her, and even then, I only saw her a few times from a distance. On the other side of the courtroom.”
    I continued trying to soothe Kathryn, and eventually she let me walk