Huckleberry Finished:. Livia J Washburn

my eye.

      He was big enough to break somebody’s neck, that was for sure. He was considerably taller and heavier than Webster, and in his job as head of security for the riverboat, he’d probably had some training in handling passengers who had lost their temper and gotten violent, as well as practical experience. I didn’t doubt for a second that he was capable of killing Ben Webster, at least physically.

      I wasn’t sure why he would have done such a thing, though. He had seemed satisfied with telling Webster he had to get off the boat when it docked in Hannibal.

      But what if Webster had tried to cause more trouble after fooling me with that cabin trick? If Rafferty had caught him in the middle of committing some sort of sabotage, and the two of them had struggled…

      It seemed reasonable to me. The problem was that if such a thing had happened, Rafferty could have just told the truth about it. It was his job to protect the Southern Belle, after all. He wouldn’t have needed to hide Webster’s body and try to cover up what had happened. There would have been an investigation, of course, and the incident might have hurt the riverboat’s reputation and gotten Rafferty in trouble with the owner, Charles Gallister, but I was convinced that he wouldn’t have been charged with anything if things had happened according to the scenario I laid out in my head.

      Somebody else would have to sort that out. There was also the operator of the roulette wheel to consider. Webster had accused him of cheating and taken a swing at him. However, I thought it was pretty unlikely the fella would have tracked Webster down later and killed him over that.

      As those thoughts were going through my head, Captain Williams turned to me and asked, “When was the last time you saw Mr. Webster?”

      “Earlier this afternoon.” I hesitated.

      “Mr. Rafferty has told me about the incident in the casino involving Mr. Webster,” Williams said. “You don’t have to worry about revealing anything you shouldn’t.”

      “Well, in that case, it was right after that when I saw Webster last. I went with him back to his cabin and told him to get his things together so he could leave the boat when it docked here in Hannibal.”

      I didn’t say anything about the cabin switcheroo Webster had pulled. For one thing, it made me look sort of dumb, and for another, despite being the captain of the riverboat, Williams wasn’t a police officer. I didn’t have to answer his questions.

      The trick about the cabins indicated to me that Webster had been up to something, so I knew I’d have to tell the cops about it. Until that time came, I intended to keep that bit of information to myself.

      “Did he have any trouble with any of the other members of your tour group?”

      That was the sort of question the cops would ask, too. But I could answer it honestly by shaking my head and saying, “Not that I know of.” I asked a question of my own. “Who found Webster’s body?”

      Williams nodded toward the man in khakis and grease stains. “Henry here. He’s one of our engineers.”

      I looked at the man and asked, “Is this some sort of storage closet?”

      “That’s right, ma’am,” he answered. “We keep mostly tools in it. I opened the door to get a wrench I needed to adjust one of the valves on the boilers.”

      I forced myself to look into the closet again and saw that Webster’s body had been shoved up against shelves that contained wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, plastic boxes full of assorted nuts and bolts and washers, and a lot of other stuff that I didn’t know what it was.

      “Do you have to get things out of here pretty often?” I asked.

      Henry shrugged and shook his head. “Not really. We keep the engines and boilers in top-notch shape, so they don’t need much work except for routine maintenance, and all that’s done while the boat’s docked in St. Louis. It’s not unusual for us to make several cruises without anybody ever having to open this door.”

      If someone knew that, they would also know that the supply closet wasn’t a bad place to stash a body. There was at least a chance no one would discover it until the Southern Belle returned to St. Louis. To me, that seemed to indicate that the killer was somebody pretty familiar with the operation of the riverboat.

      Like Logan Rafferty, I thought as the man himself came back along the corridor.

      “The cops will be here in a few minutes,” he announced.

      Captain Williams frowned at me. “I didn’t care for the tone of those questions you were asking, Ms. Dickinson,” he said. “You seem to think that a member of my crew could be responsible for what happened to Mr. Webster.”

      “Well, you’ve got to admit it’s a possibility,” I said. “Shoot, right now everybody on the boat’s a suspect, isn’t that right?”

      “There are close to a hundred passengers on board,” Williams said, his voice cool. “Webster was a passenger. I’d say that’s where you’ll find the killer.”

      “I don’t plan on findin’ the killer,” I said. “That’s a job for the police.”

      And I sure hoped that it worked out that way this time.