"Hi," said Bettina, looking chipper. "Okay that I've dropped by? I wanted to talk to you more about Miles." She raised her eyebrows as she said, "And nice door decorations, by the way."

Myrtle considered telling Bettina right there at the door that Miles was less than smitten with her. But she realized this tactic might be less than effective if she were to talk to Bettina again before the end of the cruise. She opened the door wide. "Thanks. And sure. If you don't mind my packing while we talk."

Bettina walked in and raised her carefully painted-on eyebrows. "Well. When you pack, you pack."

Myrtle glanced around the small cabin. There were items on every available surface. "Just push some of the stuff over to the side on the little sofa there. I'll sit on the bed." She sat down amid her various vitamins and continued sorting items into bags.

"Vitamins, huh?" asked Bettina, nodding her head toward the large pile on the bed. "Is that how you stay active at your age?"

Myrtle bristled a bit at the your age. "Eighty is the new seventy. Vitamins are good for everyone. Even my grandson takes a gummy vitamin every day."

"Oh sure, sure," said Bettina quickly.

"You wanted to talk about Miles?" asked Myrtle.

"I did. Of course, I'm still rather put out with you for destroying our tête-à-tête last night," said Bettina with a sulky expression on her face.

"For heaven's sake. Miles was tired, or not well, or whatever. He was in no mood to have a romantic interlude. I was the one who convinced him to remain out for a few minutes before he headed back to his cabin. He's hardly the life of the party, Bettina. Are you sure that he's your type? As a matter of fact, he and I are going to join one another shortly to go read together. Read. Is this the kind of life that you want to commit yourself to? In a small Southern town?" asked Myrtle.

As she questioned Bettina, she realized that something was bothering her. There was something that she knew but hadn't yet recognized as something important.

Bettina, to Myrtle's annoyance, was picking up Myrtle's various belongings and curiously surveying them before tossing them to one side. "Bettina, I do have a method to my packing madness ... if you don't mind?"

"Right. Sorry," said Bettina. "I suppose you're right. It doesn't sound like Miles and I have very much in common after all. Reading isn't really the kind of activity I had in mind."

"I suppose it's not for everyone," said Myrtle graciously. Although, in her mind, she was quite critical of non-readers. And there was still something about the reading that she was trying to remember. She added absently, "I'm rather surprised that you're still interested in Miles. I understood that you had a new beau."

Bettina's eyes narrowed. "That's news to me. I've got a new beau?"

"Sure you do," said Myrtle. She turned away from Bettina to reach her eye drops and extra makeup that she hadn't used. "You were allegedly flirting with him on the pool deck."

And then she froze. She realized what the discrepancy was. Bettina had told Myrtle that she'd been on the way to the disco room when she'd seen Terrell coming out of the lecture early. But Terrell had said that Bettina had said she'd been at the pool and gotten splashed by some troublemaking children. That meant that Bettina had been fully dressed and wet. As one might expect to be when drowning a younger woman in a hot tub.

Myrtle gasped as Bettina leaped at her, pushing her down on the bed and grabbing a pillow. "Thought you knew," snarled Bettina. "Nosybody. Always in everyone's business. Doesn't pay to be nosy." She pushed the pillow over Myrtle's face.

Myrtle desperately clawed on both sides of her for something to use as a weapon against the stronger woman. Her right hand closed on something narrow and long and she raised it to stab Bettina in the side.

Bettina howled in fury and released the pillow to knock the nail file out of Myrtle's hand. Myrtle shoved the now off-balance Bettina away and stumbled to her feet, backing away from Bettina to keep her in her sights.

Myrtle knew if she could just keep Bettina talking that she had more of a chance to catch her breath and regain more strength. She gasped out, "Tell me."

Bettina was amused. Her expression was very much like a cat that had a little bird it was tormenting—a cat that knew what the outcome of the hunting game would be. "Tell you what?"

"Tell me how you murdered two people," said Myrtle, trying to steady her breathing and her nerves. She played to Bettina's vanity. "You're an older woman, and one of your victims was young."

Bettina preened. "I work out. Didn't you know? Miles should have told you since I did see him in the gym a few times, although he kept to the treadmill and didn't use the weights as I did." She said in a mulling voice, "I wonder if—now that you'll be out of the way—Miles might be more interested in a relationship with me. I'll have to try it."

Myrtle worked to stay focused. "So did you simply overpower Celeste, then? I'm imagining that you caught her off-guard. Celeste underestimated you, didn't she?"

This question seemed to resonate with Bettina. "Yes. She certainly did. As I told you, I thought that my little ink prank would help me purge myself of all my feelings of rage against Celeste. I mean, what she did was truly despicable. I was on the point of becoming engaged to Jim, and he was a terrific man. Funny, handsome, and rolling in it. I was going to be set for life. And Celeste! Celeste couldn't stand to see me happy. She told this guy all kinds of lies about me. The next thing I know, he wasn't even returning my phone calls."

Myrtle felt relief that her strength was surging back. Not only that, but a fair amount of adrenaline, too. "You were still filled with rage, though, weren't you? After the prank?"

"I was. Oh, it was just like Celeste to tell me while on the cruise why Jim wasn't returning my calls. She liked the fact that she'd trapped me. She was paying my ticket on the ship and I couldn't really get angry with her ... not in an upfront way. She understood the prank and accepted that as a fair reaction. I don't think for a minute that Celeste ever guessed I'd still be mad after the prank was over. But I was. I went to her cabin just to cuss her out. Just to tell her what I thought of her," said Bettina, clenching her fists in recollection.

Myrtle said, "And you did just that, didn't you. Except that Celeste wasn't chastened at all."

"Exactly. She was smirking at me. Celeste was very, very pleased with herself. Suddenly, I was furious. I'm usually more of a laid back person and I don't think I'd ever been this mad in my life. When people say they see red? I did it. I literally saw red. I picked up the closest thing and it just happened to be a seriously heavy champagne bottle. I swung it at her, just to see that smirk get wiped off her face," said Bettina.

"She died on impact, I'm guessing," said Myrtle. "Blunt force trauma."

"I suppose so. When I felt for a pulse, there was nothing. But then I had a problem. I had to get Celeste out of there. You hear all the time about people on cruise ships who've been drinking and end up falling overboard and disappearing. I decided that would be the best way to get rid of Celeste. I threw the bottle overboard first and then went back for Celeste."

"Who must have been pretty heavy," said Myrtle. She rested against the desk, feeling stronger every minute.

Bettina said, "She was. But you have to remember that I was still pumped with adrenaline from our argument. I dragged Celeste out to the balcony and then was able to hoist her body halfway over the guardrail. Finally, I managed, while half-standing on a deck chair, to shove her the rest of the way over."

"Of course, you didn't realize that there was a lifeboat underneath," said Myrtle. "And you couldn't hear a thump as she hit?"

"No. It was, naturally, still light outside because it's Alaska in the summer. But it wasn't broad daylight, by any means. And it was loud out there—the wind and the water. The lifeboat was pretty far down, too. I heard nothing. No one would ever have really known what happened to Celeste if her body hadn't fallen in the boat. Then I slipped out of the cabin. I didn't think anyone was the wiser," said Bettina a bit sadly.

"But someone did see you—Eugenia."

Bettina said, "Apparently so, although I didn't realize it at the time. And, of course, she didn't realize the significance of what she had seen at the time. Eugenia was always rather slow, you know. The problem was that Eugenia knew too much. She knew too much about everything. She knew about Celeste's and my spat because of the ink and because she helped Celeste change."

"Spat?" asked Myrtle wryly.

Bettina ignored this. "Celeste apparently told her all about it so that Celeste could have a good laugh at my expense. Too bad for Eugenia. Once she thought about the fact that Celeste had seriously wronged me and the fact that she saw me leaving Celeste's cabin at a critical time, even Eugenia was able to put two and two together."

"Pity for Eugenia that it took so long," said Myrtle. "I could tell she was onto something. I suppose she didn't want to say anything to me about it until she was sure."

"That sounds like Eugenia. Of course, by the time she was sure, and had told me she'd seen me, she had to go. I stalked her discretely for hours. The best opportunity was when she was in that hot tub. She was half-asleep and the noise from the jets was quite loud. And yes, she was younger, but she was caught off-guard."

"And from behind," said Myrtle, "so she would have been at a clear disadvantage for struggling."

"Precisely," said Bettina, showing her gleaming teeth in a smile.

"But you couldn't help ending up splashed, could you? Which is why you were so damp when Terrell saw you. You had to invent a quick story, didn't you? Something you thought he'd believe: that you were flirting with a man and had gotten splashed by some poorly supervised children. The only problem is that you told me that you'd been on your way to the disco room when you spotted Terrell," said Myrtle.

"Yes, but I needed to get some distance between myself and the pool area," said Bettina. "And who thought you'd actually be sharp enough to find a discrepancy? And now you'll have to pay for it. Killing someone who is older than me is definitely preferred. And ... much easier."

Bettina lunged again at Myrtle and Myrtle frantically swung her head around to look for something on the small desk to strike Bettina with. As she did, she heard—once again—exhausted psychic Wanda's dour voice: "Snow."

With perfect clarity of mind and single-mindedness of vision, Myrtle grasped the tremendous and completely inappropriate snow globe gift and walloped Bettina's head with it with all her channeled strength and panic.

And Bettina, as Myrtle had somehow known she would, went down like a rock.

As she stared, panting, at the unconscious Bettina, there was a light tap at her door.

Myrtle wildly pushed it open and looked in amazement at a sober and smiling Randolph. He was holding a small gnome in a canoe. "Hello, gnome lady. Look what I found in the ship gift shop." He moved slightly to the right to gape at the floor. "Is that ... Bettina?'

"Oh, Randolph, I'm so glad to see you. Bettina is the murderer. And I was next on her list!" said Myrtle.

Randolph put a supportive arm around Myrtle and called out in a clear, loud, demanding voice, "Red! Red Clover! Are you in your cabin?"

Red immediately appeared in the hall, an alarmed expression on his face.

Myrtle said in a tired voice, "Red, I owe you an apology. That snow globe is indeed dangerous."