Tempest at the Seawall

                                            Tempest at the Seawall  

             “Ms. Josephson your husband died after drinking a cocktail laced with curare, one of the deadliest poisons known to man. The fact that you kept your honeymoon cruise a secret from most of your acquaintances narrows our list of suspects considerably, and, I am sorry, at this point, you rise to the top of that list.

        “That’s impossible. I loved Jepson Hamilton dearly. We had just started our lives together and we took this trip to have a precious time together free from the pressures of our respective legal practices. I know nothing about this poison and I would not even know how or where to get it. I had nothing to do with this horrible murder,” Jill shouted at Captain Ron Hanson.

      Oh, but the plot thickens.  While this confrontation and shouting match took place in the cabin of the newlyweds a person who knew much more about the murder

 lurked in the shadows on the Lido Deck of the Carnival Legend of the Seas that had docked in Hamilton, Bermuda.

    — That figure, me, Sammy LaVecca, Jr., watched as phase one of my revenge plot played out like clockwork.

     The stupid shyster’s creative handling of pop’s estate in league with my dear, departed father had deprived me of the millions that rightfully belonged to me and I had made sure the lawyer had paid with his life.

      For eight years I had slaved away every summer in my dad’s chicken processing business in Salisbury, MD. while completing medical school. 

    How did my dad, Sammy, Sr., pay me back for daring to choose a profession other than his chicken-pluckin’ business? He conspired with his two-bit attorney to leave his entire estate to my stupid-ass son, Sammy, 3rd. 

    Sure, I contested the will for years in the courts both in Maryland and in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the family’s vacation retreat, but the courts had fallen for their slimy legal tactics and immediately thrown out my claim.

   Now, as the Legend sat at the dock while the investigation continued, I got ready to “jump ship” and make my escape.  

     My phony crew member’s uniform lay at my feet as I changed into “civies” and grabbed my medical bag containing the remnants of the curare I had planted in the happy couple’s cabin after poisoning Jepson.

   As a resident at the Sao Paulo General Hospital I had no problem getting my hands on the muscle relaxant. The dose I put in the groom’s glass worked exactly as intended—fatally.

  Sprinkling traces of it around the cabin just made it easier to frame the bride.    

  The fact that noone else knew the couple was aboard greased the skids for me even more.

   They danced the night away in the ship’s ballroom and returned early the next morning, where the groom quickly downed his routine pre-bedtime cocktail. He even had a special glass set aside for “Man of the Year.” 

   Simple task for me to slip into the cabin to set up their evening honeymoon package and spike his drink.

     He lingered unconscious for two days before breathing his last. 

     Noone suspected a trusted crewmember who had delivered a package courtesy of the cruise line.

   As I planned it, the bride, 20 years younger than her husband and also an expert in estate law, became the leading suspect.

  Why wouldn’t his sole heir do away with the old codger so she could get hands on Jepson’s fortune sooner and live the rest of her life with my young stud brother?

    By the way, the devoted wife had carried on an affair with my brother while the will conspiracy unfolded–another reason to suspect her in her husband’s death. The wheels kept spinning round and round.

   My plan to even the score had moved along like a liner cutting through the smooth waves of the ocean.

    What I hadn’t counted on was crack Bermuda detective Pedro Valdez, one of the few members of the local force with a medical degree.

    “Something doesn’t add up,” he said. “A passenger on a Caribbean cruise wouldn’t have easy access to curare. Hospitals, chiefly in South America, administer it in unusual cases and keep it locked up because of its potentially deadly side effects. It had to come from someone from South America with a medical background.”

      Jill breathed a sigh of relief that she apparently no longer remained on the suspect list and gladly filled in the details about my medical background and the fact that my brother had an estate not far from the ship’s port. 

      She also feared that her former lover might be next on my revenge hit list.    

     “By the way,” Valdez asked Hanson, “have you signed on any new crew members lately—and did any of them jump ship in Hamilton?”

      “Now that I think of it,” said Purser Ron Jameson, “one guy—Joe Padres— signed on just as we departed from Baltimore Harbor. He cleaned all the special cabins for us, but seemed to have a big interest in the work of the ship’s doctor. Came across as an aspiring medical student. Haven’t seen him since we docked in Hamilton.”

   Since I thought I had gotten away undetected I hadn’t bothered to put on any disguise besides the crew member’s uniform. 

  So, Valdez put out an all-points bulletin for someone fitting the description of me in uniform. Noone had spotted me leaving the ship, so it took the cops about five days to put the pieces of my carefully mapped out puzzle together and find me—camped out  in the visitor’s cabin on my unsuspecting son’s vacation hideaway in Bermuda.  

    My highly sophisticated intelligence network had reported that Sammy, 3rd had remained in the States, already counting the millions that did not rightly belong to him.  Soon he would be on his way back to the islands.

     The authorities handcuffed me and carted me off to the local lockup just in time—I had started plotting phase two of my revenge plan, on grampa’s favorite grandson, as soon as he returned from his own voyage.