forgotten where I stowed the box and might actually have hidden it on myself, as so often happens with cruise guests, and I quote, 'of a certain age.'"
Boos from the room at large. Hissing from the Dicks. "So'd you set that fella straight?" Osmond called out.
Tilly smiled archly. "I certainly did. I thanked him for his time, told him to have a nice day, and hung up the phone."
A thunder of applause. Hoots. Hollers.
Yup. Midwesterners could deliver tongue-lashings that were second to none.
Tilly motioned for quiet. "Since it's obvious we'll receive no help from ship's security, we're left with only one recourse. We'll have to band together and find it ourselves."
"Woo! Woo! Woo!" yelled the Dicks, pumping their fists in the air. Head bobbing from the women. Margi leapt to her feet and did the jump-around, knocking Osmond off his chair with an errant hip. Bernice raised her hand.
"How come Emily gets the penthouse suite when the rest of us are booked into kennels? Does the bank know about this?"
"Emily thinks her sweetheart paid for the upgrade," Nana defended. "Isn't that romantic?"
Bernice crossed her arms defiantly. "Sure he did. If you ask me, something smells funny."
"No one did ask you," Osmond countered as he struggled back into his chair. "So there."
"Don't pick on Bernice," Lucille Rassmuson scolded. "I smell something, too. Florally. Smells like" -- she sniffed the air -- "a funeral parlor."
I crooked my mouth into a smile. "I had a few flowers in here earlier, but they, uh, they didn't survive the storm."
"Hey, why am I wet?" Osmond asked as he regarded a dark stain on his pant leg.
Moans all around. "Maybe you should cut back on those diuretics," Dick Stolee teased.
"It's the carpet," I apologized. "It got a teensie bit wet...because of the flowers."
A half dozen hands went down to test the floor. "Teensie bit wet?" complained Bernice. "It's soaked!"
"Watch this," Dick Stolee instructed as he popped out of his chair. He bounded across the floor at a dead run, assuming a surfer's stance as he skidded the last ten yards, geysering water in every direction. I looked heavenward and shook my head. Oh, God.
Grace Stolee let out a guttural sound that I suspected her husband had heard many times before. "Would someone kindly tell the human squeegee that if he tears his ACL or breaks his hip, I'll be taking the bike ride down Mount Haleakala without him?"
"Si'down, knucklehead," Dick Teig barked out. "You're pissing your wife off."
Tilly grabbed the nonstick fry pan we'd confiscated from the kitchen and gave it a whack with a meat-tenderizing mallet, creating a sound like an out-of-tune Chinese gong. BOINNNNK! "Order, people. I'll have order!"
Osmond gave his hearing aids another tap. "Would you give that thing another whack, Til? Seems to help the ringing in my ears."
BOINNNNK! "All right, I'm turning the meeting over to Emily. She's devised a plan, and I think it's a good one. She'll give you the logistics."
"Show of hands." Osmond stood up. "All those in favor of turning the meeting over to Emily?" Ten hands shot into the air. "Opposed?"
Bernice raised her hand. "Doesn't anyone else want to know who Emily's sleeping with to get set up in a room like this?"
"The ayes have it," Osmond announced. "Take it away, Emily."
Tilly thrust the meat tenderizer at me, looking as if she wanted to get rid of it before she was tempted to use it on Bernice. I set it down on the table in front of me and stood up. "Thank you all for coming on such short notice. The thing is, we don't have much time to execute my plan. I'm afraid that once the gangplank goes down in Maui, our thief is going to hightail it off the ship with the puzzle box. So if we don't catch him or her sometime within the next three hours, we may not catch him at all."
"So what's your plan?" Dick Teig called out.
"I have a stack of photos here, and if my instincts are right, one of the people I'm about to show you is responsible for Macing me, stealing the puzzle box, and killing Professor Smoker."
"You think the three incidents are related?" inquired Alice.
"I can't prove it yet, but that's my theory."
Low groans. Head shaking. Raised eyebrows.
"What?" I protested.
"We've heard your theories before," Dick Teig complained.
"Yeah," Lucille Rassmuson agreed. "You're always wrong."
"Well, I'm not wrong this time. I'm positive I'm on the right track."
"That'd be a first," grumbled Bernice.
Okay, so I was fairly confident