Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery

by P. J. Alderman

  “Valid point.” Witness her stalker, who Jordan had thought was completely nonviolent. When it came to wielding a gun, he’d been quite casual about it. He’d probably been equally casual when he’d cut the brake lines on Ryland’s Beemer. Jordan shuddered.

  “What?” Darcy asked, watching Jordan’s face closely. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing, really,” she answered truthfully.

  “Look, go ahead and investigate Seavey’s murder if you like, but stay out of the current-day investigation. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Jordan nodded. “As much as I can, I will.”

  Darcy looked unhappy with her answer. “Are you worried about Seavey being in your house?”

  “Not really,” Jordan said. “As sociopaths go, Seavey’s a fairly harmless one. And besides, he’s mostly focused on Hattie, not me.”

  Darcy grinned. “A spectral wedding, huh? This should be interesting.”

  Jordan leaned forward, suddenly remembering the biggest news of the day. “So get this: Hattie had her maid from the 1890s, a woman named Sara, return to the house a few years after their deaths to hire workers to build a bookcase behind the desk in the library.”

  Darcy raised both brows. “And this is important because?”

  “Think about it,” Jordan said impatiently. “That means another human could see Hattie. I’m not alone.”

  “Why did Hattie want the bookcase built?”

  “What? Oh, to hide a wall safe that contains about forty thousand dollars, supposedly.”

  “Shit!” Darcy hastily glanced around, then leaned over the table. “Keep your voice down, unless you want to be burglarized, too.” She paused. “Forty thousand dollars? Are you certain?”

  “You’re missing the point here,” Jordan said, exasperated.

  “I repeat—forty thousand dollars?”

  Jordan sighed. “That’s what Hattie claims, though it’s entirely probable someone in the intervening years found the cash. Tom’s going to help me remove the bookcase tomorrow morning, but I’m skeptical the money will still be there.” Bill had noticed their empty wineglasses and dropped off refills. Jordan smiled her thanks, then continued. “You know, I could go back out to the lighthouse and talk to the gardener about who survived the shipwreck that night in 1893. I found a list today at the Historical Society, but it would be helpful to ask her about the details of the rescue. And also I could find out if Holt ever went out there to look at the Henrietta Dale’s logbook.”

  “So you’re ready to admit that the gardener is probably a ghost?” Darcy asked with a grin.

  “Treat me nicely if you’d like me to make the trip out and ask her if anyone from present day who might be associated with your investigation has been lurking about.”

  “Hell yes, what an excellent idea. I can see myself explaining that one in court. ‘My hearsay testimony, Your Honor, comes from a civilian unrelated to the case, who told the story to me after talking to a ghost who can’t be called as a witness.’ ”

  “Geez, never mind.”

  A young, slim woman approached their table, wearing a Victorian-style purple velvet dress, complete with a fitted short cape, and a felted, beaded beret. She carried a large, leather portfolio under one arm.

  Jordan sat up straight in her chair, suddenly uneasy. Up to now, she’d never been openly approached by any of the ghosts in the pub.

  “Hey, Susan,” Darcy greeted her.

  “Hey, yourself.” The young woman smiled at Darcy.

  Jordan gave Darcy a sideways glance, reassessing. “You can see her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Jordan Marsh?” the young woman asked, turning to her. “Bob MacDonough sent me. He couldn’t be here tonight, but he said you want me to sketch some sort of ship you saw?”

  “Oh, right.” Jordan noted Darcy’s amusement and felt foolish. She shook the young woman’s slender, fine-boned hand. “Nice to meet you, Susan.”

  “We’d better get to work, then. I have a portrait sitting in an hour. If that’s all right with you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jordan gave the woman a few moments to get settled, then started describing what she’d seen. Susan’s pencil moved rapidly over a sketch pad until Kathleen reappeared with their dinners.

  She glanced at the sketch Susan was working on. “Why are you having her draw a tall ship?” she asked as she placed the warm plates of food in front of Darcy and Jordan.

  “It’s a sketch of the ghost ship Jordan saw yesterday off Dungeness Spit,” Darcy explained.

  Kathleen glared. “The crap I have to put up with in my diners.” She turned on the heels of her sensible loafers and stalked away.

  Jordan shook her head and dug into Kathleen’s seasonal greens and polenta.

  Susan showed her the incomplete sketch—it was a surprisingly accurate likeness of what she’d seen. “The masts were taller, with more rows of square sails, here and here,” Jordan told her, pointing. “And she had this pointy piece of wood on her bow—”

  “A bowsprit?” Susan asked, her hand flying across the page.

  “I guess, and about twenty feet long, I think …”

  The front door burst open, and Jordan turned her head in midchew. The owner from the Cosmopolitan Hotel stood in the entry, his eyes scouring the room, obviously looking for someone. Jordan slid down in her chair.

  Spying her, he pointed at her, bellowing, “You!” He advanced on them, his strides as long as he could make them, given that his legs were shorter than hers.

  Jordan tensed, gripping the arms of her chair.

  Conversation in the pub ceased as patrons moved out of his way, warily tracking his progress. Susan grabbed her sketchbook and stood, backing away from the table. Out of the corner of Jordan’s eye, she saw Jase leap up from the piano and plow right through several ghosts, headed in her direction.

  Darcy rose and blocked the hotel owner’s path, but the man planted a hand on her chest and shoved her out of the way.

  “Burglar!” he screeched as he reached Jordan. He grabbed her by the upper arms and hauled her onto her feet. “Arrest this woman!”

  “Hey!” Jordan yanked futilely, wriggling to dislodge his painful grip. He yanked back, hard, pulling her off-balance, and she stumbled into his chest.

  Malachi came snarling out of a dead sleep and launched, his big, angry body glancing off the man and crashing into the next table. Mugs toppled, splattering beer in every direction. The hotel owner skidded on the wet floor, pulling Jordan down with him.

  Darcy clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Let go of her, Walters. Now.”

  Malachi scrambled to his feet, and sank his teeth into Walters’s thigh, ripping the fabric of his wool slacks.

  “Get your dog off me!” Walters shrieked.

  Jase waded in, and with a swift upward movement, broke Walters’s grip on Jordan, stepping between the two of them. Darcy twisted Walters’s arms behind him, using her other hand to grip his shirt collar.

  Walters howled in pain.

  “Malachi, leave!” Jordan commanded, and he loosened his grip, backing away a few steps to place himself at Jordan’s side, growling.

  “You’ve got two minutes to explain yourself, pal,” Jase said in the iciest tone she’d ever heard from him, “before I kick you out of here on your stupid ass.”

  She stood on her tiptoes and glared over Jase’s shoulder. “Yeah. What he said.”

  Chapter 10

  THAT bitch trespassed in my hotel after I expressly forbade her to do so.” Walters’s face was white with fury. “She stole valuable historic documents!”

  “Whoa, wait a minute.” Jordan was confused. “What are you talking about? I didn’t steal anything.”

  “You’re way out of line, Walters,” Jase said. “No one manhandles a woman in my pub. And if you lay a hand on Jordan again, no matter where—”

  “But you did trespass?” Darcy interrupted. She was glaring at Jordan.

  “Sort of
…”

  “See!” Walters said triumphantly. “I told you so. Arrest her! And let go of me, dammit! I’m not the criminal, here. She is.”

  Darcy released him, and he staggered backward, scowling at all of them and rubbing his arm. She pinched her nose. “You really can’t go around breaking and entering in the name of historical research,” she told Jordan.

  “All I wanted to do was chat with the workers for five minutes and find out if Holt had run across anything interesting,” Jordan explained. “And I asked permission first.”

  “Which I denied,” Walters spit. He turned back to Darcy. “She stole the papers, I’m telling you! I know she did. I demand that you arrest her—I want to swear out a complaint.”

  “Do you have any witnesses who saw her trespass?” Darcy asked him.

  “Yes.”

  Darcy muttered something under her breath. Then she sighed again. “Look, Clive …”

  Jordan started to snicker—his name fit him really well. Darcy shot her a hard look, and she struggled, somewhat unsuccessfully, to swallow the sound.

  “The way I see it,” the police chief continued, “Jordan could swear out a complaint against you for assault, with the whole pub as witnesses.”

  “What? That’s preposterous. She’s the one who stole from me. You ask her if she has those papers.”

  “I didn’t steal anything,” Jordan repeated. “All I did was ask the workers if Holt had found any papers. Which, by the way, he did. We looked for them, because I was going to—I admit—glance through them. But I had no intention of taking them from your hotel.” At least, she told herself, she probably wouldn’t have. “We didn’t find papers anywhere in the suite, and I have no idea where they are.”

  “I don’t believe you! You—”

  “Well, I’m inclined to,” Darcy interposed firmly, “because I witnessed her looking for the same papers just a few hours ago in a different location. If she had them, she wouldn’t have been looking for them, now would she?”

  “She would if she wanted you to think she hadn’t stolen them,” he argued. “What kind of a law-enforcement officer are you? Totally incompetent?”

  “Oh, for … I didn’t steal your damn papers!” Jordan snapped. “Have you sought the advice of a professional therapist regarding your extreme paranoia? Because you really need to, you know—” The rest of what she’d planned to say was stifled by Jase clapping his hand over her mouth.

  “Not helpful,” he said quietly in her ear.

  “You’re accusing me of being unbalanced?” Walters demanded. Now his face had turned beet red.

  Jordan gave Darcy a look that said she wasn’t touching that one.

  Darcy held out both hands palms up as if she was weighing something. “Assault versus simple trespass,” she said to Walters. “Felony versus misdemeanor. Do you really want to go there?”

  Walters fumed, saying nothing.

  Jase’s shoulders subtly relaxed. “I suggest you leave quietly, before I have you forcibly removed.”

  “I can see I’m not being taken seriously.” He glared at Jordan. “I had no idea you had the law in your pocket.”

  “Watch it,” Darcy warned. “You don’t want to go there, either. I take my job very seriously. If one of your witnesses will swear out a statement saying that they saw Jordan remove historic documents from your hotel, then you have the proof you need to ask me to arrest her for theft. Otherwise, quit wasting my time.”

  “Leave,” Jase repeated quietly. “Now.”

  Malachi growled for good measure, baring his teeth.

  Walters harrumphed, then stalked to the exit. “This isn’t over,” he threatened in a loud voice, looking at Jordan. He stabbed a shaking finger at her. “And stay away from my hotel, do you hear me?”

  “Believe me,” Jordan told him fervently, “not a problem.”

  He slammed out the door. The room was silent for a moment, then patrons slowly turned away and began talking quietly among themselves.

  Susan sidled past her. “I’ll, um, just give this sketch to Bob MacDonough, okay?”

  “Sure,” Jordan said. “Sorry about the commotion.”

  She nodded without comment and fled.

  Jordan dropped into her chair, hugging Malachi.

  “Are you completely out of your mind?” Darcy demanded in a low tone. “Clive Walters is a known troublemaker. Half the people who have worked for him can attest to his temper tantrums. He’s been in my office numerous times, trying to swear out complaints against the people he’s fired—almost no one in this town will work for him. And you thought it was smart to sneak around after he told you not to?”

  “I may have experienced a slight lapse in judgment,” Jordan admitted.

  “You think?” Darcy sat down across from her. “Listen, you really need to back off. Next time I might not have any choice but to arrest you. If he hadn’t manhandled you, we’d be down at the station right now, swearing out a warrant.”

  “You’re right,” Jordan agreed, realizing how much the encounter had shaken her up. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Yes, it will,” Jase said. “You won’t stop.”

  “Hey,” she protested, surprised.

  He gave her a disgusted look. “What? I’ve already talked to you about this, and so has Darcy. But it didn’t deter you, did it?”

  “I honestly didn’t think—”

  He rolled right over her. “What if that jerk had discovered you in the hotel? He might have beaten you up, or worse. For that matter, what if he murdered Holt? You could have been confronted by a killer.” He turned to Darcy. “Does Walters have any weapons registered in his name?”

  “Not that I know of, but it’s easy enough to buy an illegal one. We’ve got any number of survivalist-militia-type enclaves just outside of town. Those folks would be glad to help him put his hands on a weapon.”

  “Do you really consider him a suspect?” Jordan asked Darcy.

  “I hadn’t until now,” Darcy answered. “I have to wonder what’s got him so hot and bothered about those papers, but it’s not like they’re worth all that much. I’ve seen people murder for fifty bucks, but in my opinion, this is just Clive being Clive.”

  Jordan thought about it and agreed with her assessment. The guy was paranoid but that didn’t mean he was also a killer. Most paranoids didn’t escalate to murder. “Those papers are nothing more than a ledger of accounts showing the cargo of the Henrietta Dale the night she ran aground. The ledger itself can’t be worth more than a few thousand at auction. Certainly not enough to go postal over.” An idea occurred to her. “Just in case, can you search his hotel, to see if the murder weapon turns up?”

  “Not without probable cause,” Jase said. “And she doesn’t have it.”

  Darcy snorted. “Hell, given your questionable behavior over the last twenty-four hours, Jordan, I’ve got a better chance of obtaining a search warrant for Longren House than I do for the Cosmopolitan Hotel.” She rubbed the back of her neck, looking tired. “I’ll go talk to Walters tomorrow after he’s calmed down a bit. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t have an alibi for the time of Holt’s murder.”

  “You’d better hope those papers turn up,” Jase told Jordan. “He’ll be on a mission to prove you stole them until they do.”

  * * *

  JORDAN stayed long enough to finish her meal, which was now cold, then left for home. The sun had set, and a sharp breeze was coming out of the south off the water. The neighborhood was quiet; most people were already inside for the evening. Yards were bathed in deepening twilight; lights shone through windows here and there, providing extra illumination as she walked the few blocks between the pub and Longren House. Her footsteps echoed on the pavement as she made her way down the street.

  The house was silent and dark when she entered; evidently everyone had left for the day. No ghosts made their presence known. Still unsettled by Walters’s accusations, Jordan flipped on the hall light and wandered back to the ki
tchen. She pulled a can of dog food from the cupboard, putting its contents on a plate for Malachi.

  “Seriously cool defense of me back there, pal,” she told him, running a hand down his back.

  He looked up from his food, wagging his tail.

  “That guy is certifiable,” she said.

  “Roooo.”

  “You’ve got to wonder what’s so damn important about those papers that he would make such a stink,” she said thoughtfully. “And even more to the point, where the hell are they? I don’t have them. And they don’t seem to be in Holt’s house.”

  Evidently Malachi didn’t share her curiosity, because he didn’t respond. Instead, he focused on eating his food.

  Jase and Darcy were both clearly cranky with her over her meddling. And so far, in one day, she’d managed to get herself shoved down a flight of steps and manhandled. And she knew little more than when the day had started. She had to admit, her detecting skills were pretty abysmal.

  Restless, she wandered over to the stove to put on a kettle for tea. Finding a clean mug, she dropped a bag of chamomile into it, thinking it would help her get a solid night’s sleep, then sat at the kitchen table to wait for the water to boil.

  Earlier, she’d dropped the jumbled stack of Seavey’s personal papers there, meaning to go through them when she had the chance and arrange them by date. They sat where she’d left them, still needing to be carefully reorganized and placed in some kind of protective, acid-free cardboard box, if she could find one. Obviously, even though Holt hadn’t cared if the papers continued to deteriorate, walking around with them in their current, exposed state wasn’t exactly good for them. Several pages now had grass stains and dirt smudges, and some of the ink had smeared where it had come into contact with the moisture on the grass.