Solving a Mystery

The ship stopped on Monday afternoon because it had spotted a two-person boat floating upside down in the water. They sent out a SCUBA diver to investigate, but she found nothing. They called it into the Coast Guard and sailed on, the apparent conclusion being that it had been blown out by the hurricane from wherever it was tied up on shore.

That's what they want us to believe, anyway, but I've seen enough “Murder, She Wrote”* in my day to know how the criminal mind works. I immediately called Sue and consulted with her. After some deliberation we realized that it had probably been a murder committed by someone on the ship, most likely a shooting with weighted bullets, which would have sunk the victim's body. After preliminary investigation, here is my list of suspects:

The Personnel Officer and/or Her Secretary: After my phone call with Sue, I went back to my room, but my key card was no longer working. I had to go to the Personnel Office to get it recharged, but even after that it didn't work, so I had to go back down. Elapsed time: fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes where I could have been gathering valuable clues or someone could have been disposing of a gun and weighted bullets. Moreover, when I told them that the ship had stopped to investigate a boat, they both feigned ignorance. I suspect they had wiretapped my phone call with Sue, realized I was getting too close, and then jammed my key card.

The Concierge: He too pretended not to know that the ship had stopped when I told him (after running into him by the Personnel Office, I might add), claiming he had been “taking a nap.” He is a Concierge, so he is responsible for knowing all the goings-ons of the ship, so I don't buy that he didn't know about something as important as the ship stopping. He might be in collusion with the Personnel Office. I will have to investigate further.

The Male Adage Dancer: It was his birthday on Monday. It is entirely possible that it is a tradition in his country to shoot weighted bullets into the ocean on one's birthday.

I will keep you updated on further progressions on the case. Sue has me on pretty grueling investigation schedules and doing non-traditional detective exercises. For example, she just called me and instructed me to watch the episode of “Judging Amy” that's currently playing. In it, Sam from “Freaks and Geeks” guest stars as a high school student who has possibly orchestrated a suicide pact among his friends. I don't know what Sue expects me to learn from this - her methods are inscrutable - but the student's job is not to question, only to do.

*I should add that I'm a big fan of the one hour mystery, and greatly enjoy catching an episode of “Monk” or “Columbo” (as well as the aforementioned MSW) when I can. We only get CNN and TNT on the ship, so I have seen a lot of “Law & Order” episodes in the past three months, which have only honed my detecting skills. I also really want to become a fan of “The Closer,” but have only been able to see one episode (the one where the Saudi Arabian man wasn't killed because he had terrorist ties, but because his wife was having an affair with her daughter's allergist). Others in the cast have been critical of what they consider Ms. Sedgwick's “overdone” or “cornpone” Southern accent (“Think yew” and “Ah am so stoop-id”), but I think that it was probably a carefully researched character choice.