The Flying Mermaid was a replica pirate ship that docked at various tourist ports around the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn’t particularly seaworthy at three quarter sized, but it sailed well enough if the conditions were pleasant. It was popular with the college crowds as a kind of destination-party location. A group of students in Tampa, Florida had booked the ship for the first weekend in June.
Usually the parties were all night affairs, so the captain was surprised that the kids had asked about sleeping quarters on the ship. Outside of the party season, the ship doubled as a floating hotel, with enough notice, it could be configured back to sleep about two dozen people if a few of them didn’t mind sharing rooms. A number of decorations, cannon balls and blade heavy cutlasses, were put back on the walls, though not as securely as they would be for a full hotel season. The students only expected about fifteen people attending, so most of them would have their own room.
They had their own security for the event and payed a large extra deposit to have the vessel mostly to themselves. Normally the crew doubled as chaperones and bouncers though they were just as happy to have the time off. A few stayed on board to look after any miscellaneous problems that came up.
The captain had stayed on board the first night just to see how things went and despite his initial misgivings, it seemed to be going smoother and quieter than normal. The group in question were a bunch of engineering graduates celebrating their last time together before going off in different directions in the world.
Satisfied that the students were well behaved, the captain spent the next night on shore. He even left his room to the guests when they said they had a few latecomers to the event. Despite being a reasonably authentic pirate ship the doors and locks were decidedly modern and motion detectors guarded the hallways after everyone was locked in their rooms.
During the night, a few rooms were wakened by a loud thud, a clang of metal and a scream from one of the quarters. Unfortunately the door was locked from the inside and it took precious moments for someone to find an extra keycard and get the door open. By then it was too late.
The student staying in the room had bled to death, the cutlass lying next to him in bed, evidently having cut his throat. The initial thought was suicide, but the smart watch they had on registered a deep sleep right up until the sound of the thud. There wasn’t enough time, or presence of mind, to use the sword, get back into bed and tuck himself in.
The motion detectors hadn’t registered anyone outside of the rooms until everyone had come out almost at once, meaning if was murder, they should still have been at the scene of the crime, but it was empty, minus the victim.
The thoughts of the investigators turned to the thud heard shortly before the scream. Nothing else in the room seemed damaged or out of place, even the other half of the pair of cutlasses was still on the wall. In a flash of insight they checked the next room over and noted a large spherical dent on the wall, at the exact height as the sword mount in the adjoining space. There were two people in that room and no quick way to tell who was awake at the time.
The captain arrived on scene, noticed the size of the dent, and mentioned it looked like one of the cannon balls. He said that many of them had been rescued from a room that contained a lot of loose gunpowder. A quick check of the two suspects hands found a telltale residue on one set that had almost been washed off completely.
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