"Are you boys ready yet?" Adalet asks from her place at the cabin door.

She, Fili, and Ahmet were on the second day of their week-long honeymoon/family vacation cruise aboard the Pacific Princess. Right now Adalet was waiting for her boys to finish changing into their swimming clothes so that they could go relax on the pool deck.

The Captain herself was already dressed in her red one-piece swimsuit with a white sarong wrapped around her waist and brown sandals. She had a pair of dark-tinted sunglasses on top of her head, and a bag filled with the essentials for some fun in the sun.

After a few more minutes of waiting, Fili and Ahmet entered the main room of the cabin. Both were dressed in swim shorts and shirts, Fili wearing a green tank top while Ahmet had on a red t-shirt.

"Ready Mom!" Ahmet reported.

"Then let's get going," Adalet replies, opening the door.

The family walked through the long hallways towards the lido deck. Since it was so early in the morning, none of the other passengers on the ship were awake yet. Reaching their destination, they found the ship's Captain and Cruise Director standing at the end of the hall talking quietly with one another.

"Ah, good morning!" Captain Merrill Stubing greeted them when he caught sight of the three, "I hope you are all enjoying your time aboard our ship!"

"We are!" Adalet replied, "we were just about to go relax at the pool, I've been dying to go swimming since we got abroad!"

"Well you're going to love our pool!" the Cruise Director, Julie MacCoy, responds, "we have three separate hot tubs for you to enjoy, plus a larger pool perfect for swimming laps in! And if you get thirsty, Issac would be happy to mix you up one of his signature cocktails at the bar!"

"I'll have to try one!" Fili remarked as they all entered the pool area, "does he offer- Oomph!"

Fili ran into his wife's back due to her stopping abruptly after entering the lido deck. He followed her line of sight and bit back a sigh at the sight greeting them.

Floating face up in one of the hot tubs Julie had mentioned was the body of a middle-aged woman. She looked to be a short woman with pale skin and dark blonde hair fanned out in the water around her head. Her blank grey eyes stared lifelessly up at the sky above through the lens of her black-framed glasses, and her simple pink sundress was soaked in water and blood from her time in the hot tub. Most surprising of all was the harpoon sticking out of her chest right where her heart was located.

"Ok, I take back what I said about dying to swim," Adalet quipped.

"Oh my..." Julie was looking rather green, "that poor woman!"

"This is terrible! A murder on my ship!" Stubing cried in outrage, "how could this have happened?!"

"Well, I'm going to take an educated guess and say the harpoon is the murder weapon," Adalet says as she approaches the body, "as for who shot her, well that I can't say, yet."

Fili couldn't hold back his sigh this time, "well there goes our plan for relaxation..."

"Wait, do you plan on investigating this murder?!" Julie exclaimed.

"I'm Captain Adalet Sadik-Halvorsen of the Pacific Bay Police Department," Adalet sowed off her badge which she had in her beach bag, "I am more than equipped to investigate this murder."

"Except the team is back on dry land," Fili reminded his wife, "there's no way you can analyze any evidence, least of all get an autopsy for this body!"

"Perhaps I can be of some assistance," a voice offered.

The group turned around to see a new person had joined them. He was a man of average height with short black hair and medium-tone skin. He had a warm, if not a little cheeky, smile on his face and was dressed in a blue shirt, dark shorts, and sandals. From his pocket, he pulls out a piece of identification.

"Dr. Fernando Morales, Deputy Medical Examiner for the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner," Morales introduces himself, "if you need an autopsy done, I'm your man!"

"Is there any place on board that we can use as a temporary base of operations?" Adalet inquired of the captain.

Stubing blinked, "you're really are going to investigate this murder... Well, he could use the ship's backup infirmary, it should have all the necessary supplies needed for an... Autopsy."

"Well, that solves one problem," she hums as Morales approaches the hot tub, "but we're still missing some lab experts..."

"Such as?" Fili inquired.

"Forensics and tech at least," Adalet answered, "but where-"

"Well this cruise just got more interesting!" another new person remarked.

Joining the group were three more people, two men and one woman. One of the guys reminded Adalet of Jones as they had a similar hairstyle and features, but this guy's hair was blonder than her old partner's plus he had grey eyes and the man was wearing a pineapple patterned shirt overtop of his yellow swimming shorts.

The other man was taller and slimmer than the first, with short, buzz cut styled dark brown hair and brown eyes. He wore a light grey shirt and athletic pants with running shoes on his feet. The woman between the two men was short and had long, messy black hair and dark eyes. She wore a sheer black dress over her one-piece swimsuit, dark grey sandals, and a wide-brimmed grey sun hat.

"Great, more people to witness this mess," Stubing complained.

"Sir, I work in Vegas, this," the taller man points to the body, "is tame compared to what I see on a daily basis."

"And you are?" Adalet inquired as she pinned her badge to her swimsuit.

"David Hodges, lab technician working out of the Las Vegas Crime Lab. I specialize in Trace Evidence," Hodges introduces.

"Shawn Spencer, profiling consultant employed by the Santa Barbara Police Department," the other man, Shawn, chimed in.

"Riley Davis, tech genius extraordinaire for The Phoenix Foundation," the woman, Riley, finishes, "sounds like you guys need some experts for this investigation."

Adalet smirked, "you all really want to give up on your vacations to solve a woman's murder?"

"Please, I only took this vacation by order of my boss," Hodges scoffs, "plus, it'll look great on a resume!"

"Nothing like looking on the bright side," Riley rolls her eyes.

"Well then," Stubing was still in a slight state of shock, "I guess you will be solving this murder... Do we know who the victim is?"

"It's Phoebe Bishop!" Julie answers, "I remember when she came aboard!"

"Well, we'll need to ask you some more questions, Miss McCoy," Adalet replies, "if you don't mind."

"Not at all... If you don't mind if I step aside for a minute," she replies, still a little green in the face.

"Of course, once you are feeling better I will ask you more questions," she replies.

"If this is really going to happen, then I would like you to report to me with your finding, Captain," Stubing orders, "since the murder happened on my ship, finding this killer is very important to me!"

"Of course, sir," Adalet assured, "we'll solve this murder as quickly as possible!"

He nods in thanks, "as for the rest of this makeshift team, you can use the ship's medical wing for any work you need to do, there are spare office spaces that should have the equipment you need."

I'll go get my kit," Hodges says, making his exit.

"He brought his tools on his vacation?" Riley snorted, "I mean, I brought my laptop, but that's different!"

"Need help with the body, Doc?" Shawn inquired.

"Are you a doctor?" Morales replied.

"Naw, but my friend Woody lets me watch him work, we're going to need a gurney or something..." he says in thought, "and a body bag."

"We have some in the infirmary," Stubing informed, "I'll take you there while the rest of you investigate this mess!"

While the Captain and profiler left the lido deck, Adalet quickly returned to her cabin to get her tools. While she might not have packed her case with her luggage, she did know the exact place where she had left it back home. Once in the privacy of her cabin she opened a small portal to her home office above the desk she had left her case on and reached through to bring it over to the ship. After she had her case in hand and closed the portal, she returned to the lido deck.

Morales had gotten the body taken away from the scene, and Fili informed her that Ahmet was going to be exploring the ship while they investigated. Adalet tossed her husband a roll of police tape and he began roping off the area to prevent any of the other passengers from entering and contaminating the crime scene.

While Fili was doing that, Adalet looked around for clues. The area around the hot tubs was almost spotless, save for the blood spatter and water soaking the deck. But there was something in one of the puddles that caught her eyes, a faded key card. Picking it up she saw that it was a white keycard with the Pacific Princesses logo on it, but the rest of the information was faded.

"What did you find?" Fili inquired after he had finished taping off the scene.

"A keycard," Adalet answers, holding it up for him to see.

"It looks like the kind the cruise gives its passengers for their rooms," he remarked, pulling out his keycard to compare.

"But it's missing the room number," she says, noticing the difference between the two cards.

"Well, that's never been a problem for you," he smirked as his wife opened her case.

Adalet laughed as she grabbed her dusting kit. She brushed the faded half of the keycard and recovered the missing room number that had been printed on it.

"Looks like the victim was staying in room 1575," Adalet read off the number on the keycard, "what do you say we have a look at her cabin?"

"How about we check in with Julie first?" Fili suggested, "she's probably feeling better by now."

"Great idea!" she agrees, picking up her case, "let's go!"

"Julie, are you feeling better?" Adalet inquired as they approached the cruise director.

"Yes, I got a glass of water from the bar to calm my nerves," Julie gave a slight smile, "I don't know how you can stand seeing people like that every day..."

"You get used to it," she replied, "now, you said our victim is named Phoebe Bishop?"

"Yes, she came abroad at the last port," she explains, "she was very frazzled, and said that she was on this cruise to get away from work."

"Did she mention what she did for a living?" Fili asked.

Julie hums in thought, "not directly, but I think it was government-related? Or maybe it was for a private company?"

"Thank you for the information, Julie, if you think of anything else, please let me know," Adalet says, handing the woman one of her cards.

Leaving the crime scene, Adalet and Fili made their way to the victim's room. Arriving at Room 1575, Adalet slid the keycard into the lock and the light flash green to show it was now unlocked. They let themselves into the room and began looking around.

Either the victim had tried to redecorate her room, or someone had been inside recently searching for something. The place was a mess, the bed was unmade with the sheets and pillows scattered around the room, the desk overturned along with the chair, and clothing was tossed across the cabin, there was even a sock on the light fixture!

Despite the mess of the room, Adalet and Fili still managed to find some useful clues. The first was an invoice for Phoebe's vacation, it looked like a correction had been made regarding the amount charged, but the name of the purser had been printed incorrectly. There was also a pile of colourful paper that had missed ending up in the trash, and a photo tapped the bathroom mirror.

"So what did you find?" Adalet inquired as she exited the bathroom, "I've got a picture here with our victim in it and an unknown man."

"Some torn paper and an invoice," Fili reported, "and since I know how much you love torn paper..."

"Ah, you do love me!" she cooed, "and that invoice is missing the purser's name, think we can decipher it?"

"Shouldn't be too hard," he answered, "let's see if we can find out who wanted to kill Miss Bishop!"

Adalet pulled out her tablet and began comparing the features of the unknown man to those in the database. As she worked on that, Fili taped up the torn document he had found. The pieces made up a pink piece of paper with cutout letters glued into it to spell out a message.

"Listen to this, "Phoebe, I'll kill you for what you did!" sounds like Phoebe got on someone's bad side!" Fili whistled, "and they like arts and crafts..."

"Well, I doubt that's going to be a part of the killer's profile," Adalet jokes, "but maybe that letter could give us an insight into who our killer is."

"How do you figure?" he asked, moving to grab the invoice.

"Well, Shawn said he was a profiler, maybe he can get something useful out of this letter," she suggested, getting her results for the man in the picture, "and we can also talk to Issac!"

"Who?" Fili questioned.

"Issac Washington," Adalet clarified, flipping her tablet around for her husband to see, "that's the man in the picture with the victim."

"Didn't Julie mention someone by that name?" he recalls the earlier conversation.

"The bartender!" she responded, "and given the red jacket he's wearing, it has to be the same man!"

"And speaking of employees, I got the name of that purser decoded," he handed her the paper with the yellow sticky note stuck to it.

Adalet read the name, "Burt Smith... And since the date on this invoice is today, he could have been one of the last people to see Phoebe alive!"

"Then let's go see if he saw anything important!"

After dropping the threatening letter off with Shawn to analyze, Adalet and Fili searched the ship for their new suspects. They found Burt first in his office, and the captain knocked on the door to get his attention.

"Hello! I'm Burth Smith, the ship's purser, but call me Gopher, everyone does!" Gopher introduced himself, "is there something I can help you with?"

"Gopher, I'm Captain Adalet and this is Agent Fili, were investigating the murder of a passenger on this ship, Phoebe Bishop," Adalet explains.

"A passenger has been murdered?!" he cried, "this is terrible! Captain Stubing's going to be unbearable to deal with!"

"Yes well, we promised to solve this murder as soon as possible," she assured the purser as she pulled out the invoice, "you sent Phoebe this invoice today, can I ask what it was about?"

"Oh, it was a refund for a room-service charge, it was supposed to be charged to the cabin beside her, but the numbers got mixed up," he answered, "a simple mistake and easy to fix. I dropped off the invoice this morning to show her that we had fixed it."

"Did you notice anything strange when you delivered the invoice?" Adalet asked.

"No," Gopher denies, "noting that stood out at least..."

"Well if you remember anything, please let me or your Captain know," she replied before Fili and her left the purser's office.

They moved on to the next suspect, Issac Washington. They found the bartender in the gallery picking up supplies for the bar. After some quick introductions, they got to the questioning.

"Issac, what can you tell us about the woman in this photo with you?" Adalet inquires, holding up the picture.

"Ah! Phoebe!" Issac smiled as he picked up a crate of liquor, "she stopped by my bar last night for drinks and we got talking about the latest cocktail trends! She asked for a picture and I was happy to oblige!"

"Well I'm sorry to say this, but Phoebe was murdered this morning on the lido deck," she informed the bartender.

"What?!" he gasped, "she's dead?! This is terrible!"

"Do you know if she was having any problems on board?" Fili asks.

Issac shook his head, "no, she was as happy as can be! And trust me, people always complain to bartenders. If she had any issues on this ship, she would have told me!"

"Thank you, Issac, you've been a great help," Adalet thanked the man.

"I have to admit, this is the most innovative autopsy I've ever performed," Morales begins with, "how many coroners can say that they've done an autopsy on a cruise ship?"

"Probably not many," Adalet agrees, "that being said, were you able to get anything from our victim?"

"Well the cause of death was the harpoon, it went straight through her heart and death was instantaneous," he explained, picking up the harpoon bolt, "now, I couldn't find anything on the victim that would help to identify her killer, but I did have a look at the bolt that pierced the victim and found a strange substance on it. I asked Hodges to analyze it..."

"And I determined that the substance was sunscreen," Hodges takes over, holding a bottle of the substance in his hand, "clearly the killer must have applied sunscreen on themselves before loading the harpoon."

"But couldn't it have been the victim's?" Fili argues, "it's a cruise, lots of people must put on sunscreen! I know I do!"

"But I found no traces of it on the victim," Morales answered, "either she hadn't gotten around to it, or she didn't wear any, which is stupid might I add..."

"So our killer wears sunscreen," Adalet added it to the killer's profile on her tablet, "could you discover anything about the note, Shawn?"

Shawn, who was relaxing in a chair, lowered the magazine he was reading, "yes! One, the killer must have too much time on their hands if they could cut out and glue together this note, two, they watch too many old mystery movies to use such a cliche! But if you look between the lines, you'll see something important!"

"Isn't it read between the lines?" Fili questioned.

"I've heard it both ways," he smirked, standing up and holding up the magazine in one hand and the letter in the other, "see the letters had to come from somewhere, there's no printer for passengers to use so they needed to get the letters elsewhere, specifically from something that's easily accessible and in large quantities!"

Adalet's eyes lit up in understanding, "like a magazine!"

"Exactly!" Shawn grins, shaking the magazine, "so, took a walk and picked up a copy of every free magazine this ship has for passengers since the killer wouldn't want to risk leaving a money trail behind and after comparing the letters used to make the letter to each of the magazines I grabbed, I've determined that they come from "Kitten Magazine", oddly enough, it's a gossip magazine with no kittens in it, kinda a letdown."

"So the killer must read this magazine if they chose it out of all the rest," Adalet deduced, seeing the stack of magazines on the desk Shawn was using, "great job, guys!"

"Do you know who killed Phoebe Bishop, Capt. Adalet?" Stubing inquired, standing in front of his desk, "time is of the essence!"

"We don't know who the killer is yet, sir," Adalet answers, "but we do know that the killer wears sunscreen and reads "Kitten Magazine"."

He raised an eyebrow, "that could be anyone on this ship! It's a cruise! And how do you intend to find out what suspects read that magazine, ask everyone?"