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“Please take a seat,” said Garth kindly, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk. “You know Chase Kingsley and Odelia Poole. They will assist me in carrying out an inquiry into the death of Lil Thug. Chase is a police officer, and Odelia a police consultant. Together I hope we’ll be able to shed some light on this terrible tragedy.”

“So what happened? Is it true that Lil Thug was murdered?” asked Oren nervously.

“I’m afraid he was. Murdered and robbed,” said Garth as he leaned forward and took in the twosome. “Now I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, and even though you don’t have to respond if you don’t want to, I think it’s in your best interest if you cooperate.”

“Of course,” said Oren. “What do you want to know?”

“First off, does this earring look familiar to you?” Garth held out the plastic baggie with the earring inside.

Both influencers shook their heads.“I don’t wear earrings,” said Chiquita.

“Me neither,” said Oren. “Also, it looks kinda cheap.”

Garth studied the earring with a frown.“It does?”

“Did you know Mr. Thug?” asked Chase.

“Not personally, if that’s what you mean,” said Oren. “I knew of him, of course. Everyone does.”

“We did have a quick chat with him yesterday,” said Chiquita. “I asked him if he wanted to feature in one of our videos.”

“He respectfully declined,” said Oren.

“Yeah, he said he was a great admirer of the kind of work we did, but didn’t feel comfortable featuring in videos destined to create a profit for us.”

“He then referred us to his manager,” said Oren ruefully.

“Which I guess is understandable.”

“Can you give us an idea of the activities you two engaged in last night?” asked Odelia.

“Well, we decided to go to bed early,” said Oren, “since Chiquita wasn’t feeling well.”

“I had a headache,” said Chiquita, “and since Oren didn’t want to stay out by himself, we got back pretty early.”

“How early?”

“Ten o’clock? Something like that.”

Garth consulted his notebook and nodded. Apparently the statement jibed with the footage he’d pulled from the camera at the entrance to the corridor.

“And then what did you do?”

“I took an ibuprofen and went straight to bed,” said Chiquita.

“And how about you, Mr. Vittle?” asked Garth.

“Well, I did the same,” said Oren. “Not the ibuprofen, but I got into bed at the same time. Took me a while to fall asleep, but when I did, I must say I slept like a log.”

“Same here,” said Chiquita. “And when I woke up this morning, my headache was gone—thank God.”

“You’re here to work?” asked Odelia.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” said Oren, nervously licking his lips. “We splashed out pretty big for this cruise, and we need to make it worth our while.”

“And how do you do that?”

“Well, we shoot videos and post them on our YouTube channelA Good Planet with Oren and Chiquita, and the more views we get, the more we get paid. So we try to make our videos as exciting and interesting as possible, to attract more followers.”

“Tough business model,” said Chase.

“Yeah, it can be pretty tough, but it beats sitting behind a desk crunching numbers.”

“I guess,” said Chase dubiously. Clearly he wasn’t a big fan of the influencer lifestyle.

“So how are you both settled, financially?” asked Garth. “Are you doing well, or… not so well?”

“Um…” Oren shared a look with Chiquita, and uttered an awkward laugh. “We’re doing very well, sir. In fact you could say business is booming. Isn’t that right, sweetie?”

“Oh, yeah. We’re making more money than we know what to do with right now.”

“That’s odd,” said Garth. “We talked to a witness this morning who overheard you two arguing yesterday. Something about financial problems? And about the way you don’t see eye to eye on what your goals are?”

“A witness?” said Oren, scooting forward on his chair. “What witness?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. But this person overheard you two arguing about the nature of your business. Chiquita here wants to focus more on the environmental challenges our planet is facing, while you, Oren, you just want to make money, plain and simple. And the fact that you’re here onthis ship is a point of contention between the two of you, isn’t that right? Chiquita doesn’t feel entirely happy about this trip, which Oren more or less talked you into. Feel free to interrupt me, Oren—Chiquita?”

For a moment, neither influencer spoke. They both had that look on their faces of a person caught in a lie.“Look,” said Oren at length, “it’s true that we don’t always see eye to eye on everything. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Not see eye to eye?” Chiquita burst out. “You’re kidding, right?” She turned to Garth, her face flushed. “He wanted to save the planet… by going on a cruise! Can you imagine? Not exactly a low-impact, sustainable holiday, right? So I told him this was a terrible idea, and we’d get plenty of flak from our followers. And guess what? I was right—they hate the idea!”

“That’s not true.”

“Hate it and hate us right now! They accuse us of selling out, and I don’t blame them.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.”