Drowned Under Read online

  Maybe the Manzonis figured this out and jumped ship to avoid the extra charges. I knew for a fact Fredo Manzoni was a cheapskate of the highest order. Barry’s cannoli hadn’t fallen far from that tree.

  Before I called the cruise line, I checked HighseasSleaze.com for the latest scoop on any dubious cruise events. This week there had been a mob-sized fistfight off Zanzibar, a suicide off St. Bart’s, a slip-and-fall near Ensenada, an onshore robbery on Turks and Caicos, a customer overboard (while taking a selfie, of course) off the Greek coast, and two couples missing off the Australian coast. But it wasn’t the Manzonis. I couldn’t find them anywhere, even cross-referencing for location and crime. This might seem like a good thing, but the cruise lines were notorious for avoiding bad publicity at all costs. The worse the event, the more likely they were to cover it up, so it could also be bad.

  Darling Cruises was one of the better choices for travelers with hip replacements and bad knees—in other words, my clientele. The line had slightly smaller, classier boats, fewer drunk freshmen, proper art auctions, and, as much as I hated to say it, a standard three-coffin morgue. They sailed to bucket list locations and hadn’t had a norovirus/fire in the engine room/sinking disaster in the past few years, so I felt better putting my clients there. Apparently, so did Peggy Newsome. It was probably the only responsible thing she had done in her too-long life.

  Harriet Archer, the Travel Agent Liaison for Darling Cruises, was my main contact and my favorite. She’d worked her way up in what was a tough, male-centric organization, and we had been phone buddies for years. A few months ago, she’d flown to Manhattan for a conference and we’d had champagne cocktails in the Oak Room at the Plaza. We both had a history of hapless, unsatisfying boyfriends, and loved coupons.

  “Harriet? Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel.”

  “Cyd! How great to hear from you. Happy Holidays! A classic oxymoron, if you ask me, but no one’s asking. What can I do for you, love?”

  “I’m calling about some passengers booked through another party.”

  “Would that party have a stick up her ass the size of Uluru?” Uluru was a sacred mountain in the Australian Northern Territory. Dollars to donuts Peggy Newsome did not know this.

  “That would be the one.”

  “That derro. She’s lucky I haven’t kicked her dazzling crowns in. What’s going on?”

  “There’s a couple named Sandra and Fredo Manzoni. They were on the Tasmanian Dream. Their son says they’re missing.” There was a long silence. Too long. “Harriet?”

  “I don’t know anything about this. And I should. They booked through Peggy?”

  “Yes. And I wish I could say I’m surprised she hasn’t done crap.”

  “She’s a middle-aged wasteland. Last time she took a Darling Cruise and the Wi-Fi and cell reception were crap, she commandeered the ship-to-shore radio when the steward didn’t leave a chocolate on her pillow. I’ll get into it and call you back as soon as I can.”

  I did a quick check with my contacts at Tiger Air and Jetstar to see if the Manzonis were booked on any flights from Tasmania back to Sydney. No Manzonis anywhere.

  The phone rang as soon as I hung up.

  “Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel.”

  “What are you doing there at this hour? Are all the doors locked?”

  Honestly, from prison? “Yes, the doors are locked, Uncle Ray.”

  “The Manzonis are missing.” Light speed, like I said.

  “I’m on it. I’m waiting for a call back from Darling Cruises.”

  “I’m happy to handle it if it’s, you know, awkward for you. I wouldn’t help that son of a bitch Barry, but Fredo and I go back.”

  “It might be tough for you to orchestrate on a payphone. I’m fine. Really.”

  “If you’re sure. Love you, bye.” It was only a couple of minutes before he was hacking into my files again. What could I do? Have him arrested? The phone jangled, making me jump in my ergonomic chair. It was Aunt Helen.

  I sighed. “Coming.”

  Chapter Three

  I ducked into a deli for Aunt Helen’s ricotta salata. It looked dry—even for dry ricotta. I was going to hear about that. She was out of her mind, but she still had standards. She and Uncle Leon had moved into our house when he retired from the Natural History Museum and was on a fixed income. I use that term loosely, as the “fixed” part seemed to fluctuate, depending on how he did at the races.

  Being a former taxidermist, he had a weakness for horses who appeared half dead, so the fluctuation was mainly down. I had already slipped him most of my Christmas fund, which meant I’d have to resort to the humiliation of the “homemade gift.” As if I needed another reason to dread the holidays.

  I took a left onto 77th Street, where the season’s blaring Santas, reindeer, elves, and spruce trees—lit up to be visible from space—closed in on me. I passed a Nativity scene with Wise Men resembling forwards for the Knicks. Mrs. Hunt, never one to take chances, had covered each figure in shrink-wrapped vinyl like an unused couch in her best parlor. The cracking plastic winked under the foggy streetlights. One house up from us I glared at our neighbors’ glowing, twenty-five-foot high snowman, so tall its puffed face peered into my bedroom window. It had been giving me recurring Ghostbusters nightmares, minus the comedy.

  Finally, I reached our house. Except for a brief respite during my ill-fated time as Mrs. Manzoni, the brick three-story with the A-line roof (currently hosting a rusting, blinking Santa’s sled and our remaining three blow-up reindeer) had been something of a “love prison,” full of various incarnations of the Redondo family. The changing of the guard never affected the surveillance they maintained on me.

  I stopped on the steps, wondering, as usual, whether I should turn and run. Too late. The door opened, throwing me into a spotlight from the fifty light fixtures in our hallway. My mother, Bridget Colleen Colleary Redondo, stood backlit in the doorway, her waist-long, red-gray hair down for once. I gestured rudely at the leering snowman and went in.

  I squished my Dooney & Burke into the coat explosion already hanging on the rack. Aunt Helen, an inflated human comma, hobbled toward us, shoved her way past my mom, and jerked the ricotta out of my hand. She looked down at it and sniffed. “Everything’s cold.”

  My Uncle Leon, his whippet-like physique in a fitted, early Beatles suit and tie, emerged from the den. He winked at me and took my mother’s arm. I followed them down the scarlet wallpapered hallway, past the obstacle course of extra chairs, and through the swinging door into the kitchen.

  No one said anything as Aunt Helen sprinkled the ricotta on top of her bowl of pasta norma and placed it directly in front of my mother, like a poisoned chalice. Mom pushed the bowl my way.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” I took a sloppy spoonful of the eggplant-drenched penne. The two women looked at each other, while Uncle Leon threw up his hands, then used the downward momentum to snag the Parmesan. I looked at my mother. “Well?”

  She stared at the tablecloth. I imagined her leaning, and falling, over a low railing into the Caribbean and felt weak for a minute. “Don’t tell me you want to go on a cruise? Because it is not happening.” I grabbed the cheese.

  Aunt Helen stopped chomping her salad. “Why not? She’s not as good as your clients, your own mother? She deserves it. Especially since no one in the neighborhood has invited her, or us, for a single holiday extravaganza. Since you put your uncle in prison, that is.”

  “Mom?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing is right.” Aunt Helen forced a piece of romaine down her throat, for suspense. “No rummage sale for The Lady of the Angels, no caroling for the unfortunate, no tree-trimming parties, no Punch Drunk Love Potluck, nothing. We’re all boycotted. Because of you. It’s just one big Redondo blackout.” Uncle Leon shrugged and Aunt Helen slapped his negligible bicep. “What do Bridget and I h
ave without holiday gatherings and the Holy Trinity? You, Mr. Big Stuff?”

  Oh, God. Then I saw a tiny wobble in my mother’s chin. Was she crying? Or laughing?

  “I just think cruises are dangerous,” I offered.

  “The Manzonis are missing. Old news. They deserve it. That’s no reason to punish your mother.”

  At that point, Mom burst into full scale laughter. “She’s right about that. Sandra Manzoni can rot in hell, the shameful way she treated you. But really, the potluck? The last two times we all got food poisoning.”

  “It’s the principle.”

  “Of what?” my mother said. “Equal opportunity dread?”

  “That’s called society, missy.” She turned to me. “And you. You need to fix this.”

  She was right. It wasn’t fair that the whole Redondo family was paying for my mistake. Even if it wasn’t technically a mistake. I felt bad enough already for inadvertently putting my uncle in jail. This just made everything twenty times worse. I was officially the Grinch of Bay Ridge. And chartreuse was not my color.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom, I didn’t know. I thought they were just boycotting me.”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey. It gives me more time to pursue something new.”

  Oh, no. Last time, that meant a blacksmithing class. We used to have a garage. “What do you mean?”

  “Here it comes.” Aunt Helen slugged more wine into her glass.

  “What? What’s new?”

  Mom blushed. My cell phone blared. It was Harriet. I pushed my chair back.

  “Mom, I’ve got to take this.” I’d just made it to the swinging door when she shouted, “I’ve signed up for Catholic Blend.”

  I asked Harriet if I could call her back.

  “Seriously, Mom? Online dating? It sounds like a bad bag of coffee.”

  “Why not? We don’t have any holiday plans and it will get me out of the house.”

  I couldn’t handle my mother’s Internet dating preferences and seeing my ex-husband in the same night. “We can talk about this later. I have to go back to the office. I love you.” I kissed her on the head, then moved toward the swinging door.

  “That’s fine. I’m used to doing the dishes by myself,” Aunt Helen announced to the room.

  Uncle Leon followed me out and gave me “the look.”

  I’d been waiting for it, as I’d heard at Chadwick’s that Old Rugged Cross had come in ninth in the fifth. I pulled out the emergency hundred I keep in the secret compartment in my wallet for just these increasingly frequent occasions.

  “You’re a doll.” He kissed me, then headed into the den to watch Nova. What can I say? When I was little, he used to let me run around the dioramas in the museum at night. I loved him. And I hated that he and Aunt Helen were suffering because of me. Maybe I should just disappear until New Year’s so all the remaining Redondos could have the jolly old time they deserved.

  Chapter Four

  Thanks to my kitten heel boots and the Bay Ridge Municipal salt trucks, I made it back to the office in six minutes. I thought about my mother the whole way, about how I would feel if she were missing, and the risks I would take to get her back. And I thought about Barry in kindergarten, giving me half his ham salad sandwich.

  I opened the door, pulled my frigid feet under me, and stared at the picture of Barry the chameleon and her five babies, which had pride of place on my desk. At least the reptile side of my family wasn’t suffering from potluck withdrawal.

  I picked up the landline and dialed. “Hey, it’s Cyd.”

  “Well, there’s vaguely good news. The Cruise Director said couples rarely go overboard together. Usually one of them pushes the other, then denies all knowledge. Or one slips over during a photo and the other raises a pointless cry for help. It’s not often that one falls in and the other one dies saving them—that usually only happens on honeymoons. If they’re both missing, odds are they’re onshore.”

  “But they could be onshore and dead.” I started scribbling a timeline on my Bay Ridge Leather shoe-shaped notepad. They had restored my red vintage Balenciaga shoulder bag after my last trip, matching the red leather to fill in the bullet hole and bleaching out the cobra venom stain, so I felt compelled to do cross-promotion. I could still see the damage, but from four feet away, it was invisible. Like with most people, I guess. I had bought the bag in a vintage shop in Williamstown ten years earlier. In Africa, it had actually saved my life.

  “When was the last time anyone saw them?”

  “They won a dance competition the night before the ship docked in Tasmania. They were booked on our Historic Penal Colony Breweries Tour excursion, but apparently they cancelled at the last minute. After they came down the ramp in Hobart, no one’s seen them. They’re not on any footage the Staff Captain could find.” She paused. “He said.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he isn’t known for his veracity.” That meant he and Harriet had dated. I’d ask her about that later.

  “Did they book a private excursion?” Private excursions during a cruise were more expensive than ship tours and offered a more private experience focused on a passenger’s particular interest. But they had a downside. Cruise line-sanctioned trips provided insurance and refunds, and they would wait for you if you were late. If you booked privately, the ship wasn’t responsible financially or otherwise, and if you weren’t back in time for Embarkation, they’d just leave you. It was your responsibility to find your own way to the next port. I’d been forced to arrange a few speedboats for tardy clients.

  “If so, no one admits knowing about it. Including Peggy.”

  “You talked to Peggy?”

  “I made sure to time the call in the middle of her massage. She said they were grown-ups, and she was on vacation.”

  I wanted to walk over and throw a firebomb through the Patriot Travel window, but everyone would know it was me. Making my brousin Frank arrest me during the holidays, after I’d lost him his promotion, was too much.

  “So there’s a chance they’re still in Hobart? Maybe they decided to stay and see Port Arthur.” I’d booked a few private tours there with a limo driver named Gary. “Harriet?”

  “Why aren’t they answering their phones?” she said. “You checked the outbound flights, right?”

  “Yeah. But what else?” I could hear it in her voice.

  “Everyone’s being cagier than usual about this one. The crew is hiding something. I want to know what it is.” Harriet had moved up so fast in the company because she knew where all the lifeboats were buried. I trusted her instincts. “And, one of the cabin stewards told me the Manzonis aren’t the first passengers to go missing on this route over the past few months.”

  “Seriously? How many?”

  “Six. That we know of.”

  “Six! Are you fricking kidding me? How is that not on HighseasSleaze.com?”

  “Because we have a great PR person?”

  “Harriet!”

  “Because I want to keep my job? I’m kidding. I’m on it, I promise.”

  “How about the Hobart police? Coast Guard? Can I do anything from here?”

  “Not from there. I do have an idea, though,” she said. “I’m sure you want to be with your family, but I’ve got free vouchers that run out on the third of January. Any chance you want to share a free double balcony cabin on the Tasmanian Dream with me? Same route. Same crew. It leaves from Sydney tomorrow morning, but you could catch us up in Melbourne on the twenty-second. I can talk in person to my informants and you can keep your eyes and ears open, all while drinking free mojitos. Plus, it stops in Tasmania.”

  It was a tough call. I had always, always wanted to go to Australia. On the other hand, a cruise was my idea of hell. Why anyone would want to be stuck with thousands of people desperately trying to have fun, often with people they des
pised, was beyond me. If I wanted to be pressed up against a lot of partying morons with no escape, all I had to do was take the R train to Manhattan on a Friday night. Besides, I had grown up in an overflowing house with no privacy and thirty people at dinner every night, in a neighborhood where everyone was always trying to do the same five things in the same five places. I basically lived on a stationary cruise ship, minus the waterslide.

  My ideal vacation involved quiet, privacy, and no more than two people. There was a time one of those people was Barry. He was my ex-husband, my oldest friend, and his parents were missing. It was only a few days. I could stand it, for his sake. And my exit would open up access to a host of holiday festivities for all the Redondos and potentially postpone my mother’s entrance into the middle-aged white slave trade via Catholic Blend.

  “You’d have to leave right away, even to make the Melbourne docking, though.”

  There was no one to cover for me at the office anymore. But the reality was, everyone who was traveling for the holidays was already ticketed. Clients staying in Bay Ridge for Christmas week only came in to avoid their families, not to book a wine tour of Provence.

  I had my BlackBerry for emergencies, and Eddie still had Uncle Ray’s old satellite phone somewhere.

  “Yes. I’d love to.”

  “Fantastic,” Harriet said. “The Manzonis notwithstanding, this is going to be fun.”

  Chapter Five

  Easy for Harriet to say. She was an orphan. I hung up and did some quick calculations. Could I book a ticket, pack, get to the airport, fly twenty-four hours including layovers, and get to Port Melbourne, all while losing a day at the International Date Line? This was the sort of trip I helped my clients plan for months. I had seven hours.

  I called my contact at Qantas. I could go through Dubai or Los Angeles. As a single woman who favored mini skirts and LA Law reruns, it was a no-brainer. It was great to think no matter where you lived, you were really only one day away from anywhere. It’s just that most of the time, it didn’t feel that way. If you lived in Bay Ridge, Chelsea could feel like Antarctica.