Chapter Nine

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 Juneau was so rainy that Myrtle realized how lucky they'd been with the weather so far on the cruise. The rain was pouring down in buckets through the foggy air. There was a tram that lifted passengers past a dense Alaskan rainforest to the top of a mountain ... at least, that's what it was supposed to do. Myrtle couldn't even see the tram out her window for the rain and fog.

There was a tap at her cabin door and she opened it. Miles stood there looking rather bemused. "Your door. How ... ?"

"Oh, you mean the gnomes on my door? Aren't they the dearest things? Can you believe that there is a concierge on this ship? So very cooperative, too. She was delighted to print out a bunch of gnome pictures and bring me tape to put them up on the door," said Myrtle. She and Miles sat on her sofa together.

"The concierge must have thought you were insane," said Miles, shaking his head.

"Certainly not. I told her the pictures were for Jack. She couldn't be happier to help me out," said Myrtle.

"I'm wondering if I should make a bet with Elaine," said Miles thoughtfully. "We could bet on how long Red will allow those gnomes to be stuck on your stateroom door before he pulls them all off."

"At least my point will have been made," said Myrtle. "That's all that really matters. Now, what are we doing today?"

"I'd really planned on being on the tram. Now it's too foggy to see anything. I don't want to ride a tram with no view." He sounded quite dispirited.

"I thought you were Mr. Adventure," said Myrtle. "Isn't there some sort of zipline thing or something?"

Miles gave her a long-suffering look. "I don't want to dangle over the rainforest; I simply want to view it. And it appears we're completely socked in with rain."

"Then let's go shopping. I want to get some smoked salmon to bring home with me as a souvenir of the trip. And Red is forcing me to try to pawn off the snow globe on some poor shopkeeper as a return."

Miles said, "But you wouldn't have purchased it at their store."

"Red says all the stores sell the same stuff and that it shouldn't be hard to get them to accept it." Myrtle shrugged.

"Maybe. But not to pay you back for it!" said Miles.

"At any rate, I'm supposed to try. Believe me, I agree with you—it's ridiculous. It's one reason why there are gnomes taped all over my door. The snow globe cost too much for me to write it off as a loss. And I need to find something else to give Jack," said Myrtle.

"Shopping it is, then," said Miles with a sigh. "Let's dig out our rain gear."

It was raining so hard when they left the ship that they found themselves rushing from one store to another and from one awning-covered bit of sidewalk to another. What's more, no one was willing to take Jack's snow globe back.

Cruising for Murder: Myrtle Clover #10Where stories live. Discover now