Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery

by P. J. Alderman

  “And what?” Garrett asked, amused. “You think to outrun Customs when your little ship is finally sea-worthy? Everyone knows steamers are the only vessels fast enough to beat the revenue cutters.”

  So Garrett had heard about his project to refurbish a clipper ship that had been pulled out of service by its shipping company. ’Twas a pity; Michael had hoped to keep the new business venture a secret from Garrett, since he planned to cut him out of the proceeds.

  “I don’t intend to outrun Customs, merely to outfox them,” he explained with more tolerance than he felt. “Pray tell, Garrett, what does every steamer trafficking in contraband do when the Customs boats approach? They run up sails, to make the agents believe they are a sailing ship, because everyone knows sailing ships don’t carry contraband. What better way to sail right past the authorities than with a luxury clipper ship? And even if the agents come aboard, no passenger will admit to their activities belowdecks.” He shrugged. “Besides, I merely plan to provide my passengers with luxurious accommodations in which to indulge their tastes, not traffic the drug,” he lied.

  “I’ve saddled myself with a business partner who clings to old methods,” Garrett scoffed. “Your judgment is faulty at best. And, I suspect, compromised by your inability to forget the past.”

  Michael froze. “If that’s your belief, you are welcome to strike out on your own,” he replied, his tone arctic.

  “With what funds? You’ve cost me my stake by letting Lok go.”

  “On the contrary—you’ve cost us both our stakes this night through your own recklessness, which I will not tolerate. What happened to the original shipment is of little consequence. Find a way to provide recompense, and soon, or face the consequences.”

  Garrett’s expression was contemptuous. “If you flinch at the sight of a Celestial swinging from a limb, I doubt you have the stomach to take me on.”

  “You have seventy-two hours.”

  Michael jerked his head at Remy and Max, then turned to leave. With his bodyguards flanking him, walking backward with sharp eyes trained on Garrett’s men, Michael returned to the carriage.

  As the carriage wound its way down to the waterfront, his mood remained pensive. Regardless of the reasons he’d given Garrett, he wondered if the man had been right in his assessment. When it came to murder, Michael had never been squeamish. And yet tonight, if he hadn’t intervened—indeed if he’d let Lok die—he knew he wouldn’t have slept for days.

  Chapter 6

  THE next morning, Jordan lay in bed, scowling at the water spot on her bedroom ceiling. Tom was no doubt anxious to tell her all about it, to explain how it was a symptom of a malevolent type of impossible-to-find leak in the roof that would dog her to her grave.

  Roof leaks, she’d read, could start anywhere. Rain could seep through in one spot—perhaps because of a relatively innocent cracked or broken roof tile—then travel along the roofline forever, finally soaking through where one least expected. The old water spot on her ceiling was probably just such a beast. She suspected Tom had a long, detailed list of such beasts. She was doomed.

  And if the events of yesterday were any indication, her strategy of denial had also taken a severe hit. Not that it wasn’t salvageable, but still. It was hard to ignore an object as imposing as a ghost ship with thousands of yards of sails and rigging, tons of decking, and multiple masts resembling giant, old-growth trees. An object large enough and fast enough to mow her down, squashing her like a gnat.

  By comparison, planning a wedding for the ghost of an opium-smuggling sociopath was starting to look like a cakewalk.

  She tossed the covers aside, climbing stiffly from bed. After a halfhearted attempt to look presentable in case any ghosts were lingering about, she hobbled on sore joints and aching muscles to the upstairs landing, pausing for a moment to enjoy the early morning peace and quiet.

  At this time of the day, the house felt settled, peaceful, and … well, welcoming. Though it had been vacant for a number of years before she’d moved in, it held an indefinable quality that made her believe—in some woo-woo sort of way—that it had been waiting for her. Ridiculous, but she suspected that all old houses, saturated as they were with the memories of a century or more of personal history, gave off that vibe. Old houses talked as well—via the creaks in their worn floorboards, the distant rumble of their ancient furnaces, the echoes of footsteps as one walked down hallways over hardwood floors that had long ago given up their tight fit.

  In the air above her, sparkling dust motes caught up-drafts in the fractured rays of sun that shone through windows high over the stairwell. Someone’s handprint marred the light film that had settled on the shiny mahogany railing since she’d polished it a few days ago. The pale, robin’s-egg-blue runner still showed bits of bark here and there—the remaining evidence of sections of wisteria vine having been hauled down from the attic and out through the front door. She really needed to unpack her vacuum and clean up the debris rapidly accumulating on every stair riser and in every room corner.

  Malachi yawned, ending with a whine that urged her to quit woolgathering. She started down the stairs, and he followed, so sluggish that he tripped, hitting the back of her knees and causing them to buckle. But for her death grip on the railing, they both would’ve tumbled and landed in a heap at the bottom. Shaking her head, she motioned for him to precede her.

  She crossed the foyer and stood in the library’s arched doorway, assessing the damage from the prior night’s events. As far as she could tell, Charlotte’s telekinetic attempts at straightening had created more havoc, not less. Admittedly, a few books had been placed back on shelves, but they were upside down and out of order. Pictures still hung askew, plant pots still lay on their sides.

  From the beginning, the library had been her favorite room and one of the reasons she’d lost all rational thought, writing an obscenely large check for the house. Ceiling-to-floor, glass-fronted bookcases lined the walls, stuffed with books on every subject and published in every decade from the 1800s to present day. The far end of the room included a cozy conservatory with French doors, and when she opened them on nice days, she was drenched with fragrance from flowering bushes and vines that had managed to survive decades of neglect.

  In the last few weeks, her attempts to clean and organize the house had primarily centered on this room, as if she subconsciously understood that turning it into a cozy, comfortable escape was a huge step toward turning Longren House into a true home. She’d dusted, scrubbed, and polished woodwork, and spent days organizing and shelving stack after stack of books. But after last night’s debacle, she wasn’t certain she could still see the fruits of her labors.

  She walked through the room, opening the French doors to let in fresh air. The doors banged against something, then swung back into her. She put up her hands instinctively to protect her face, then leaned outside to see what they’d hit, which turned out to be the steel supports of the scaffolding she’d caught a glimpse of the night before. Making a mental note to inquire about it, she adjusted the doors to partway open, then got to work.

  Not knowing where to start, she knelt next to a toppled plant, scooping soil back into its pot. Her mind drifted back to what she’d read the night before. Evidently, Michael Seavey had become heavily involved in smuggling opium around the time of his murder in 1893. The guys at the pub thought whoever had lured the Henrietta Dale onto the rocks might’ve been a business competitor. But given Seavey’s misgivings about his partner Sam Garrett, it seemed more likely he was the culprit, not a competitor.

  She’d have to ask Tom to educate her with regard to opium smuggling in the 1800s. Who had been the players? How prevalent had smuggling been along the Northwest coast? When she drove out to the historical society later today, she should look for the editorial Eleanor Canby had supposedly written in the Port Chatham Weekly Gazette. Given the dates on Seavey’s papers, the editorial should have been published well before his murder—in Jordan’s estimation, at le
ast several weeks.

  As she walked over to a bookshelf to straighten its contents, she noticed Malachi sitting just inside the library door, holding his leash in his mouth, his expression disgruntled. She’d altered their usual morning routine of a walk over to the restaurant, and in his opinion, for no good reason. When she made eye contact with him, he heaved a martyred sigh.

  “Don’t give me any grief,” she warned, using a dust cloth to wipe down a leather-bound copy of War of the Worlds, then wedging it at the end of a shelf holding Acts of Malice by Perri O’Shaughnessy and Promised Land by Robert B. Parker. “This is therapeutic.”

  “What’s therapeutic?”

  She glanced over her shoulder to see Jase standing on the steps outside the French doors. He ducked under the scaffolding and waved the latte he held—probably freshly made in the kitchen of his Arts and Crafts–vintage cottage just down the block. He wore one of his trademark dark blue Henleys, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and well-worn jeans sporting frayed cuffs and a rip above one knee. With a day’s growth of beard shadowing his jaw, he had her thinking of things she’d avoided for the last year during her divorce.

  “Alphabetizing the books,” she answered, focusing on his question and ignoring her X-rated thoughts. Giving a brief prayer of thanks that she’d thought to pull on jeans and comb her hair into submission, she motioned for him to enter and accepted the latte. “Organizing them gives me a feeling of control over my environment.”

  He studied the shelves. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to group books by subject?”

  Jordan shrugged, taking a sip. Whatever complaints she had about Jase—and they were becoming increasingly difficult to remember—she couldn’t fault his coffee. The man was dead serious about his java—he even imported special beans from a microroaster in Portland.

  “What’re you doing out and about so early?” she asked. “You couldn’t have had more than a few hours of sleep.”

  “Bill closed for me.” He leaned down to rub Malachi’s ears. The dog gurgled appreciatively around the leash. “I wanted to check on you, make sure you’re okay. You looked like you felt pressured to investigate the shipwreck, and I wanted you to know that hadn’t been our intent. Our discussion was more in the way of a healthy debate.”

  “Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes and went back to shelving. “I took Darcy home, then came back and went to bed myself, though I did read through a few of Michael Seavey’s personal papers.” She didn’t mention the mess that had greeted her in the library.

  Jase smiled. “Figured you could find something in Seavey’s papers that would refute Bob’s assertions, proving that the ship you saw was real?”

  “Okay, yes. What I discovered, though, was that Seavey and his business partner were smuggling opium from Canada. Evidently, Seavey planned to use the Henrietta Dale for that purpose. He also intended to cut his business partner out of the deal.”

  “I didn’t know opium was illegal then.”

  “It wasn’t—they were smuggling it past the Customs agents to get around paying import duties, thus probably keeping more of the profits for themselves.”

  She stepped back to judge whether the row of books she’d just straightened was aesthetically appealing, deciding they would look better if several were stacked on their sides. “Given what Seavey probably had on board the Henrietta Dale the night of the shipwreck, if his business partner—a man named Garrett—knew of Seavey’s plans to cut him out of the take, it makes sense he would’ve been behind luring the ship onto the rocks. It also follows that Holt might’ve thought there was something valuable enough to salvage.”

  Jase gave her a frown. “I don’t want you going anywhere near Holt’s murder investigation.”

  She stopped shelving books to give him a quizzical look. It wasn’t like Jase to ever give orders—he’d been nothing but supportive while allowing her to find her own way through the morass of events that had blindsided her since her move to town.

  “This isn’t the equivalent of researching Hattie’s murder,” he warned now. “Someone in this time period, someone—in all likelihood, in this town—committed murder. That means he has a lot to lose if you start poking around.”

  “I’m aware of that. But all I’m doing is trying to figure out if the Henrietta Dale really did run aground anywhere near where we found Holt, and whether it’s connected to his possibly diving in that area. You have to admit, the coincidences are piling up. Holt was working in the hotel originally owned by Michael Seavey.” A hotel still haunted by his ghost. “And you said yourself it didn’t make any sense that Holt was diving—he must have had one hell of a reason to overcome his fear of the water. If I can just establish a connection, it would help Darcy—”

  “What you’re doing is dangerous,” Jase interrupted, his tone unusually blunt. “Anything you do to give the murderer the impression you are trying to find out what happened to Holt gives him a reason to come after you.”

  Jordan was so taken aback she couldn’t form a response. Until now, issuing orders hadn’t seemed to be in Jase’s DNA.

  Tom chose that moment to arrive, ducking through the French doors, carrying coffee in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other. He took one look at their faces and halted in his tracks. “You two want me to go back out, wait until one of you gives me the all-clear signal, then return?”

  After a tense silence, Jase blew out a breath, his expression discomfited, as if he realized just how dictatorial he’d sounded.

  “Are those your notes for the restoration plan?” Jordan asked Tom, pasting a welcoming smile on her face.

  “Yeah.” He glanced at the nearest shelf of books, which were still in a jumble. “Wasn’t this room all straightened up yesterday?”

  Jordan sighed. She started to explain, but Tom frowned and leaned closer to read the bindings. “Are your books alphabetized?”

  “It helps me find what I’m looking for more easily, and I like the sense of order.”

  “But wouldn’t it be more practical to organize them by subject, so you can browse?”

  Jase coughed.

  “How about I fix us some breakfast,” Jordan said grimly. She turned to Jase. “Are you sitting in on this meeting?”

  Jase nodded. “Tom thought it might be helpful if I was here.”

  “A restoration on this scale can be a bit overwhelming, when viewed at the planning level,” Tom explained.

  “In comparison to dealing with ghost ships, I think we’re good,” Jordan said wryly.

  Both men looked skeptical.

  “You lived in a condominium down in L.A., right? One that you bought already completely finished?” Jase asked.

  “Of course.” Jordan had never liked the place. Ryland had bought it as a wedding present, and she’d never had the heart to tell him she found its modern architecture cold and impersonal.

  “And you never redecorated it or remodeled any part of it, right?” Jase continued.

  “Right. So?”

  “So there’s a certain amount of … chaos that accompanies any house renovation.”

  She shrugged, stuffing the dust cloth onto a shelf where it would be handy later on. “It’ll be fine—I’ll just make a plan to keep the restoration well under control.”

  “Right.” Jase’s expression was bland. “Where’s that stack of books I had you buy when we were at the hardware store? Have you read the one on old-house restoration?”

  “I haven’t had time.”

  “Which book is that?” Tom asked.

  “The one that explains the difference between historical restoration and remodeling.”

  “Oh. Yeah, good—that one gives a person a clear idea of the types of decisions she will face. It also explains the best process to use when renovating an old home—how to assess the work, draw up a plan, and so on.”

  “If she continues to clean and organize while she reads the book, she’ll become intimate with all of the rooms, while at the same time avoid damaging them,”
Jase pointed out.

  “Great idea,” Tom agreed.

  “So I’m being reduced to a maid in my own home,” Jordan concluded. “Keep it up, and there’ll be no breakfast for either of you.”

  “I’m fairly certain even the book advises that you start with cleaning each room.” Tom was fighting a grin. “But for the sake of my stomach, I’m willing to strike a compromise.”

  “What’s with the scaffolding?” she asked him.

  “Makes it easier to deal with the repairs to the siding and the underlying structure. You’ve got some dry rot here and there that will have to be taken care of before we can construct the iron trellis.”

  Not knowing what dry rot was or wanting to think too deeply about it, Jordan quickly alphabetized the pile of books she held, then led the way down the hall to the kitchen at the back of the house.

  * * *

  THOUGH its cracked, yellowed linoleum and warped countertops bespoke a misguided remodel, the kitchen was spacious and had a homey feel to it. Hints of the original design could still be found in the mahogany wainscoting and in the glass-fronted cabinets that graced the butler’s pantry. A huge, white porcelain sink stood against the back wall, next to an ancient refrigerator that made strange sounds and did its best to keep Jordan’s electric bill well into the stratosphere. She’d also discovered boxes full of antique kitchenwares in the attic—chromolithograph tins for coffee, tea, and sugar; yellowware crocks and bowls; and wooden utensils. Once she fixed the room up, she was certain it would become one of her favorites.

  Both men sat down at the well-worn pine table that took up most of the center of the room. Pulling out a carton of fresh farm eggs she’d bought at the Saturday market, she rummaged in the cabinet next to the stove for a porcelain mixing bowl.

  “Scrambled eggs and toast okay?” she asked, plunking the items on the counter next to the ancient gas stove.