And the Winning Amateur Sleuth Is.... by Connie Berry

 Last month, in anticipation of the launch of my new Kate Hamilton mystery, The Shadow of Memory, I constructed a puzzle and challenged the amateur sleuths among us to solve it.

The good news is we have two winners!

But first, here is the case: A cruise ship that sails along the South American coast pulls into port in south Florida. It’s time to disembark. But when the steward tries to alert the male passenger in stateroom 210, he finds the man lying across the bed with a knife in his heart. Who killed him and why? Here are the clues, which include two red herrings (true but irrelevant).

1. The victim, in his thirties, was wearing shorts, a tropical-patterned shirt, and flip-flops. There appeared to be no struggle.

2. Other passengers, including the couple in stateroom 208 next door, say the man spoke with a Spanish accent, and the shipping company produced a passport in the name of Juan Cabrera, whose native country was listed as Peru.

3. None of señor Cabrera’s fellow passengers saw him at the lavish onboard buffets, although the couple next door admit they might have overlooked him as they were struggling with seasickness for much of the trip and ate in their cabin.

4. Also, none of his fellow passengers saw señor Cabrera on any of the shore excursions. To leave the ship, Cabrera would have had to produce a cruise ID card. There was no record of it, although one of the crew members swears he saw the dead man leave the ship several times.

5. A search of the dead man’s luggage revealed that his clothes had South American labels.

6. The search also produced a second, hidden passport, issued by the UK, with a photo of the dead man and the name Martyn Whyte.

7. Authorities also found an unregistered cell phone with a number of photographs of the historic center of Lima, Peru, as well as Machu Picchu. One of the photos was of the dead man himself, which means someone else took it.

8. The steward who found the body testified that he saw señor Cabrera (or Martyn Whyte) the previous night when the man rang his bell and asked for hot chocolate. That was the last time anyone admitted to seeing the man alive.

9. Authorities in the UK confirmed that the passport issued in London was genuine. Martyn Whyte was wanted for bank fraud and failure to pay his taxes. He was last seen in the company of a woman whose identity remains unknown.

10. Further investigation revealed that Mr. Whyte was an investment banker in the City. He was recently fired from his job after irregularities in his accounts were discovered, and he admitted to racking up enormous gambling debts.

Those were the clues! Who killed Juan Cabrera and why?

Winner #1 is Sue Stover!

Congratulations, Sue! You are one heck of an amateur sleuth. If you send your mailing address to connieberry903 at gmail dot com, a signed copy of The Shadow of Memory will be on its way to you. Thanks so much for taking the challenge.

Winner #2 is our own K. M. Rockwood!

Not only did Kathleen come up with a solution, she actually wrote a short story about it, which she published on this blog and you can read it here. I was impressed! While her solution was different than mine, I loved her version so much. Kathleen, an ARC of The Shadow of Memory is yours.

What was my solution?

I’m glad you asked:

1. Martyn Whyte, a London investment banker with a gambling problem, was hired by a South American drug cartel to act as a go-between. All he had to do was take periodic cruises to South America, where he would pick up packets of fentanyl and convey them to a contact on the ship. Since Whyte’s mother had been Peruvian, he could speak fluent Spanish. The drug dealers provided him with a fake passport and a new identity—Juan Cabrera—to use while onshore in South America.

2. Whyte agreed, although he secretly planned to do one deal, take the drug money, and disappear with his girlfriend, who occupied cabin 208, next to his. The only problem was her husband. How could they make sure he was out of the way?

3. Whyte’s contact on the ship was his steward, who laced the husband’s food with syrup of ipecac to make him feel seasick. With the husband ill, Whyte and his girlfriend could live it up on shore excursions, which they did (hence the photos). To distance himself from the drug deals, Martyn Whyte swiped the sick husband’s cruise ID card every time he left the ship.

4. Overhearing their plan, the steward first drugged Whyte (who had a penchant for hot chocolate) and then stabbed him. You don’t fool with drug dealers.

Have you ever solved a mystery in real life? We want to know!