Innocent Murderer by Suzanne F. Kingsmill Page A

got to see this. Look out your window!”
    Looking out that window was the last thing I wanted to do after spending five hours at it, but I turned and looked. All I saw was a never ending expanse of sea and pack ice, a deep blue sky, and the mainland. I turned back and shrugged at her.
    Martha came closer and looked. “Oh, you’re on the wrong side. Come on!” and she grabbed me by the hand and pulled. I was a dead weight and she let go.
    â€œCordi, you’ll regret it if you don’t come and see.”
    â€œSee what?”
    â€œYou’ll see. Now where is your dressing gown?”
    I was feeling groggy from the Gravol. “I don’t have one.”
    â€œYou don’t? Why not?”
    â€œBecause most people don’t travel with dressing gowns.”
    She stood there looking at me for a second and was about to say something when she thought better of it.
    Instead she flung me a pair of sweats, a top, and my run – ners. By the time I put my jacket on I was feeling a little better and thought that maybe Martha was right after all, until I caught sight of the time. It was 3:00 a.m. Was I doomed to always be awake at 3:00 a.m. on this ship?
    As we moved out into the corridor, Martha leading the way, I said, “Martha, what are you doing up at this time of night?”
    She stopped in the corridor and I crashed into her.
    â€œSome weird noises woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I looked out the porthole and there it was. I knew you’d want to see it.” Martha continued down the hall. She could be so infuriating.
    We walked up a couple of decks and then outside, where we took the starboard stairs up to the observa – tion deck. And there it was. Actually, there they were.
    Two vibrant rainbows, one snuggled inside the other and arching across the deep blue of the sky. The sun was bal – anced on the horizon, a red orange globe.
    I could clearly see each colour of each rainbow — so clear and precise that there was no fading out at the edges or anywhere along the enormous arcs. They were perfect, stretching from Baffin Island across the ship and halfway to Greenland. We were the only ones up there and we stood and watched as the ship knifed its way through Baffin Bay to Lancaster Sound. In this uninhab – ited place of history and intrigue we could have been sent back three thousand years and it would have looked exactly the same.
    I turned and looked toward the stern of the ship and gasped. In the golden light of the sun, which was try – ing — unsuccessfully — to set, lay a monster of an ice – berg, taller than the ship and slowly receding from us. We moved to the far rail as if drawn by a magnet and watched it as it slowly glided away — or that’s what it seemed like as we moved away from it.
    I glanced down over the railing and saw the pool below. There was a white towel hanging over the rail. But that’s not what caught my attention. There was a hunk of some sort of clothing floating near the surface, rising and falling with the movement of the ship. I was trying to make out what it was when my eyes shifted and I found myself looking down into the depths of the pool. At first it looked like some kind of weird white reflection through the wavy water, but then I recoiled when the reflection materialized into the unmistakable body of a naked woman.

Chapter Eight
    I charged over to the stairs and, grabbing one railing in each hand, swung myself down the stairs, two at a time. I could hear Martha struggling down behind me, cursing her long flowing gown. Even before I got to the ladder I’d whipped off my sweatshirt and kicked off my shoes.
    â€œGet help!” I yelled at Martha, and in a flash I had my sweats off and jumped into the pool. I felt nothing. No cold. No fear. Just the incredible focus of my goal. I swam down and took hold of the person under the chin, my fin – ger momentarily getting