Mystral Murder (Julie O'Hara Mystery Series) by Lee Hanson

It’s all anyone’s talking about; who thinks she fell, who thinks she jumped. One guy I spoke with swears he heard a ‘thud’ on his balcony. Security checked, but they didn’t find anything out there.”
    “It’s tough to investigate when the crime scene floats away,” said Joe.
    “That’s a good line; can I quote you?”
    “I’d rather you didn’t.”
    “No problem.”
    “So who will you sell it to?” Julie asked.
    “Newspapers. News magazines. There’s plenty of mayhem on cruise ships, among passengers and crew.  What else would you expect with thousands of people onboard? Rape and robbery are the most common problems, but the industry keeps a tight lid on all of it. The cruise lines only report what they absolutely must and not one word more. 
    “A ‘Man Overboard’ is one of those things that have to be reported, but the incidence is downplayed. It happens more often than people think .  Passengers get drunk and take risks, usually stupid things. They fall overboard playing games on their balconies or climbing somewhere dangerous with a camera.” Jon took a sip of his coffee and lowered his voice. “The MOBs involving the crew are different, but even more hush-hush. You never hear about the crew member who deliberately jumps ship when he gets to a certain port, or the staff member who commits suicide, like the Indian girl that jumped from another HCL ship last year.
    “Their missing person reports are notoriously incomplete. When anyone tries to get more information, the cruise line stonewalls, claiming to ‘protect the family’ of the deceased.  Meanwhile, the authorities consider the ship’s information ‘voluntary’, so they don’t push it. Really, how can they?”
    “What if a passenger is murdered?” Julie asked.
    “Then I’d have an even better story. Do you think it’s a murder?”
    “I think it could be,” Julie said.
    “Next to impossible to prove,” Joe said, munching on a bagel.
    I don’t know about that, Julie thought. “Do you have a cell phone, Jon?”
    “You bet!”
    * * * * *
     
     
    CHAPTER 25
    T he Mystral’s Security office was on Deck 1, just below the conference room where Joe would have to be in a half-hour for his AA meeting. Clyde Williams welcomed them and escorted them into his inner office. He took his seat behind his desk wearing a look of frustration that Julie was beginning to take as permanent.
    “Glad you have a moment to see us, Clyde. How are you?”
    “Good as I can be, Joe. What can I do for you?”
    “I wanted to see you because I remembered what happened the night Adrienne Paradis disappeared. The details started to come back to me this morning. I’ve been remembering more and more about it. She and I walked out of the Top Hat club together. I wanted to look for another bar, but she didn’t want to do that. She said she wanted to ‘go for a walk out on the deck’.  I remember that I couldn’t get the elevator to work and we went to the stairs.”
    Joe looked down momentarily, then at Julie, and continued.  “There was an exterior door there by the stairs. Adrienne threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. She said ‘good night, darling,’ or something dumb like that. I just turned and headed down the stairs. That was the last I saw of her, Clyde.”
    “I got off at Deck 5, but I couldn’t find a bar that was open. Everything on the Promenade was closed with the gates pulled down, so I went back to our suite and raided the mini-bar. And that’s it, I swear. I finished my binge and I went to sleep.”
    “I believe you, Joe. We don’t have cameras on the elevators, so the only record we had of you and Ms. Paradis was a video of the two of you exiting the Top Hat club together.  But yesterday we went over all the ship’s video from that night and one of the 360 degree cams over the Promenade had you in front of Barrister’s Pub alone at two-thirty. You were looking as if you wanted to go in. The pub, as you said, had