Feast of Murder(75)

Julie Anderwahl was having difficulty making it across the deck to him. She really was very sick, unbelievably sick considering the state of the sea. Either she was a woman who got seasick in the bathtub, or something else was going on. Gregor had no trouble guessing what.

“Would you like me to help you?” he called out. “You seem to be having some trouble.”

“I’m fine.” There was an edge of irritation in Julie’s voice, and Gregor didn’t blame her. “I came up because I was feeling sick downstairs and I thought the fresh air would help, but the fresh air smells like salt and now that’s making me sick, and you don’t know how glad I’m going to be when we make land.”

“I’m going to be glad when we make land, too,” Gregor said. “I don’t like the idea of us floating around on the Atlantic Ocean with a dead body on board. There should have been some way to call the Coast Guard in an emergency.”

“There probably is.” Julie had made her way to the front now. There was a low, round line spool lying in the bow and she sat down on that, not seeming to care that it was a little wet. Up close she looked less attractive than she had from afar—but Gregor didn’t think she would have, ordinarily. Her face was much too pale and tinged with green. Her hair hung limply against her head, in spite of the fact that it was stringently clean. Her eyes were dull. She leaned against the ridge of wood in the bow and sighed. “They’re all down there trying out the Green’s idiosyncratic version of a shower. It’s not authentic, but Jon had to do something to keep people on the boat for three days running. I gave it up after a short try and just washed myself down in my cabin. How about you?”

“I didn’t even know there was a shower. Where is this down there?”

“Down there,” Julie said vaguely, waving toward nothing in particular. “You go down past where we put Charlie Shay last night. We were all wondering where you were.”

“I was with Charlie Shay.”

Julie Anderwahl shuddered. “I wouldn’t have liked that. I don’t like any of this. I keep thinking of the Puritans, coming all the way over from England on a little boat like this, having babies at sea, eating God only knows what, and then instead of landing in Virginia the way they thought they were going to they end up in Massachusetts and all the land they have to farm is full of rocks. No wonder they held a Thanksgiving. As soon as we get to Candle Island, I’m going to hold a Thanksgiving. I’m going to kiss the ground.”

“My mother said she kissed the ground on the day she arrived in America,” Gregor said. “Of course, she also said she kicked a man who tried to examine her ears, so I don’t know what to believe.”

“Was your mother born in Armenia?”

“In Alexandria, in Egypt. It was my grandmother who was born in Armenia, but she left with her family after the Turks came.”

“My family came over in 1707,” Julie said. “They settled in New York State. Mark’s father never came over at all. He was European and very starchy about it, from everything I’ve heard. I wonder why Americans do that, marry Europeans.”

“I suppose for the same reasons they marry anybody else.”

“Maybe. But I don’t like Europeans, if you want to know the truth. I spend a lot of my time dealing with them. One of our soon-to-be partners from Europabanc took Jon aside once and said that he ought to get a man in to supervise me. I had much too important a position for it to be entrusted to a woman.”

“Oh, dear.”

“People think it’s the Japanese who don’t think like us,” Julie said. “They ought to meet the Swiss. What about you? Mark says you’re sure Charlie Shay was murdered. He says he agrees with you.”

“Do you?”

“I didn’t see much,” Julie said. “I was in the back of the crowd up here when all that was going on. And I was too sick to be in the mess hall last night, of course. I was a little surprised that you didn’t come rapping on my door demanding to interrogate me.”

“I don’t think we’re in that kind of a hurry,” Gregor said drily. “I did want to ask you a few questions, though.”

“Did you?” Julie held herself very still. Gregor got the distinct impression she was trying to make up her mind about something. The decision she came to seemed to be negative. She shook her head sharply and looked away. “So ask me,” she said. “I’d be interested to know how your mind was working.”

“And you think my questions will tell you that?”