Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery

by P. J. Alderman

  Jordan paused from mixing drinks long enough to take a huge bite of the burger, closing her eyes in ecstasy. “Holy God. I need to make this a permanent job. Screw the tips, as long as the meals are free.”

  Darcy nodded, her mouth full. “Easy come, easy go on the money in the safe. But withdrawal of Kathleen’s cooking? Not an option.”

  Jase, who was passing by, leaned across the bar to murmur in Jordan’s ear, “The perks are very good.” He winked, then headed over to deliver drinks to the band.

  “I’ll just bet they are,” Darcy replied drily.

  “So we know Sally’s visit probably accounts for one of the sets of fingerprints. That leaves two,” Jordan mused, ignoring them both.

  “And one of the three matches the prints we got off your front door,” Darcy informed her.

  Jordan raised both eyebrows. “Really? So that means whoever broke into Holt’s house is the same person who was in my library.”

  “Yes, which I consider not to be a good sign,” the police chief replied. “You could be in real danger from someone, and that someone really could be the murderer. I can’t compel people like Sally to give me their prints, unless I want to start acting like a jerk. She did admit to entering Holt’s house. If the door really was unlocked, then I would be on thin ice except that she left the shot glass in plain sight.”

  “Does that mean I need to carry my empty beer mug out of here and throw it away where you can’t find it?” They both turned to see Bob wedge his lanky body between Darcy and the patron on the next barstool. He towered over them, grinning affably, and held out his hands. “Cuff me, Chief. I confess, I dropped by Holt’s yesterday to pick up a roll of marine charts he’d borrowed from me.”

  Darcy shot him a dirty look. “So you also admit to going into Holt’s house without permission?”

  “Hey!” he protested. “The door was unlocked. And we both know that everything in Holt’s house will go through state-level probate, unless you turn up a distant relative, and it will take forever to get anything back. Major hassle. I just wanted to retrieve the charts; I use them all the time.”

  Darcy swiveled on her barstool and addressed the room at large. “If there’s anyone here who didn’t trespass and break into Holt’s house after the murder, please raise your hands.”

  The ghosts looked confused by the question; only a few human hands went up.

  “Jesus Christ,” Darcy said. “I might as well call in a paddy wagon.”

  “Well hell, Chief,” a man at a nearby table spoke up, “Holt had my compressor and paint sprayer. Those are expensive items. And the door was unlocked.”

  “Yeah,” someone else agreed. “And he had my nail gun.”

  “He was strapped for cash and borrowing stuff all over town,” a third explained.

  “I’m amazed you didn’t find dozens of unidentified prints,” Jordan observed.

  “Nah. Most of our stuff was in his toolshed,” the third man replied.

  “I walked right in and grabbed the sprayer out of the living room,” the first said. “I don’t remember touching anything except the doorknob, and I was wearing my work gloves.”

  Jordan remained confused regarding one issue. “I thought you said you didn’t talk to Holt about what he was up to,” she said to Bob. “He had your marine charts?”

  “I didn’t talk to him,” Bob replied. He pointed to a tap, and she drew a beer for him, sliding it across the bar, which he made a show of handling with only his fingertips. “He dropped by a couple of weeks ago and asked if he could borrow some marine charts. People around here borrow my charts all the time, just to look at them, or to pinpoint a location based on reading some mystery novel set in this area.”

  “Okay,” Darcy told Jordan, turning around, “so that’s two out of three sets of prints. Maybe. Barring that they might belong to any one of the several hundred lawbreakers in this town, that leaves us with one other person.”

  “With respect to the fingerprints showing up in both locations, I can’t think of any reason for Sally to break into my house,” Jordan mused. “So I vote for door number three, whoever is behind it.”

  “Any ideas?” Darcy asked Bob.

  “Nope. I didn’t see a soul.”

  “Whoever it was, they attacked Jordan.”

  He looked concerned. “Hey, I’m real sorry. That had to have been, what? Right after you left the marina?”

  “Yes,” Jordan replied.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  “Sore but fine.”

  “So you’re up to talking to that historian on the phone tomorrow? He’d like to set up a conference call for around nine in the morning, if that’s okay.” He set down his beer mug to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a folded sheet of paper. “This is the schedule of events for the Wooden Boat Festival. I’ve penciled in your talk at the society headquarters for end of the second afternoon, if that’s okay.”

  Jordan took the paper from him, frowning. “Actually, I’ve given it more thought, and I’m still not sure I’d feel comfortable talking to anyone about seeing the ghost ship, much less a crowd of people.”

  Darcy raised her brows at Jordan.

  “But I’ve already publicized your seminar; you can’t back out now,” Bob protested. “The Wooden Boat Festival is the biggest event Port Chatham puts on; folks will be really disappointed if you don’t show.”

  “Seminar? Bob, I never committed to do the talk; I just said I’d think about it.” Jordan was irritated. She’d been very clear that she’d get back to him with a decision one way or the other.

  “Let’s start with the telephone interview tomorrow,” he said in a placating tone that only served to irritate her further. “If you’re okay with how that goes, then you can give the seminar. Deal?”

  “I’ll do the interview, then decide,” she said firmly. “So you have no clue who else might have wanted something inside Holt’s house? How well do you know Clive Walters?”

  “That guy who owns the Cosmopolitan? I’ve had a few dealings with him. He wants to advertise in some of my mailings, to pick up bookings during the festival. Tried to get me to let him advertise for free. Said that unless people could find hotel rooms, they wouldn’t attend the festival, so I owed him some free space.”

  “Cheeky,” Darcy observed, “but that’s Clive for you.”

  Bob rolled his eyes. “Like I would fall for his bullshit reasoning. The society is always strapped for cash—we don’t give away anything for free. And we’re a major source of revenue for the town’s merchants. If anything, I should raise my ad rates.” He cocked his head at Jordan. “Why are you asking about Walters?”

  “I just wondered if you knew whether he owned a .22,” she replied. “We got into a scuffle. He thinks I stole historical documents from his hotel. I wondered if he’d fought with Holt, possibly.”

  “Not a clue,” Bob replied.

  “He appears to have an alibi for the time of Holt’s death, anyway,” Darcy put in. “He claims he was hosting a winetasting at the hotel that evening. If so, there’s no way he could have hosted the event, then taken a boat ride all the way out to the spit to dump a body. Not according to the official time of death from the ME’s report, that is.”

  “Well, damn.” Jordan stared at Darcy in dismay. “There goes your best suspect.”

  “Maybe.” Darcy looked unconvinced. “I’m digging deeper, trying to verify his story with the guests at the winetasting. But his motive is weak. Why kill over a small remodel job? Still, he says he owns a boat that he moors at the marina. Correct?” she asked Bob.

  He shrugged. “I don’t have anything to do with renting out the slips, but I’ve seen him around. It’s possible he let someone else take the boat out.”

  “Maybe,” Darcy said again.

  Kathleen appeared silently at Jordan’s side for a second time that night. Jordan picked up her empty plate to hand it to her, thinking she’d come to retrieve their dishes, but got a glare fo
r her effort.

  “I don’t bus the dishes, for Christ’s sake,” the chef growled. “Come with me. Right now.”

  “Me?” Jordan asked.

  “You see me talking to anyone else?” she snapped.

  “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes,” Jordan told Darcy, “come find me.”

  “I’ll send out a search party,” Darcy responded cheerfully.

  “Not funny,” Kathleen said.

  Curious, Jordan followed the cook down the back hallway, stopping at the doorway to her kitchen. Kathleen kept walking, turning when she realized Jordan wasn’t behind her.

  Jordan started to explain, “I know you don’t like people in your kitchen—”

  “Get in here, right now.”

  “Okay, sure, right,” Jordan muttered, edging inside.

  A large man dressed in loose work clothes leaned against the counter along the back wall next to the stove, his muscular arms crossed. His dark expressionless eyes tracked her as she closed half the distance between them before she stopped out of an innate sense of caution. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

  “You deal with this guy, then get him the hell out of my kitchen,” Kathleen ordered. “I have work to do.”

  “Do I know you?” Jordan asked him, puzzled. The light dawned. “Weren’t you sitting at one of the tables in the pub last night?”

  “Yeah.” The man straightened, and she realized uneasily just how imposing he was. He flashed her a humorless grin, exposing crooked teeth. “You want answers about the wreck of the Henrietta Dale and Seavey’s murder, and I want to set the record straight.”

  She eyed him nervously. “And you would be?”

  “Sam Garrett.”

  * * *

  JORDAN rounded on Kathleen. “You can see ghosts!”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Kathleen grumbled.

  “Denial,” Jordan said. “Believe me, I can empathize. But you can see him, right?”

  “Of course she can see me,” Garrett answered for her. “Are you daft, woman? How do you think she knew to come find you?”

  Kathleen pointed the long-bladed chef’s knife she was using to chop garlic at both of them. “Deal with him and then leave. I have work to do.”

  Jordan folded her arms. “This discussion isn’t over, you know,” she told her.

  “You want to ever eat my food again?”

  Well, shit.

  “I thought so.” Kathleen went back to chopping garlic.

  “Ignore the fool woman!” Garrett interrupted, clearly impatient. “We have much to discuss.”

  It finally dawned on Jordan that she was talking to a cold-blooded killer. If he decided to attack her, she really had no defense against him.

  She edged toward the door, then was in the process of realizing she couldn’t leave Kathleen alone with a murderer when he made a tsking sound that halted her in her tracks. “I wouldn’t advise trying to run.”

  Kathleen slammed an iron skillet onto the stove, glaring at her. “If you rabbit before handling him, I will bury my meat cleaver between your shoulder blades. He’s your problem.”

  Jordan sent up a silent prayer that Jase would come back to the kitchen with dinner orders, but she wasn’t hopeful—even Malachi was sound asleep behind the bar, oblivious to the danger she was in. Surreptitiously, she glanced at the knife racks above Kathleen’s workstation.

  “Those knives can’t hurt me,” Garrett said, amused.

  Her fear must have then shown on her face, because he sighed. “I currently have no plan to kill you. I simply want to set the record straight.”

  Jordan swallowed and waved a shaky hand. “By all means,” she told him, trying to sound courageous, “proceed.”

  “You consider me a suspect in Michael Seavey’s murder, do you not?” he demanded.

  Did she dare say yes? “In truth,” she allowed, “I hadn’t yet reached any conclusions.”

  “Quit prevaricating!” he snapped, and she jumped a foot.

  “Um, what I do know is that you and Michael Seavey were at odds, that you had committed several m-murders …” She swallowed. “And that people back then were generally afraid of you.” Versus now, when they have good reason to be flat-out terrified.

  Her answer seemed to mollify him. “Precisely. However, I did not murder Seavey.”

  “Were you responsible for the grounding of the Henrietta Dale?”

  A smug look crossed his face. “Of course. It was ridiculously easy.”

  “How did you do it? Set a lantern farther down the beach? After disabling the one in the lighthouse?”

  “The manner in which I caused the grounding of the Henrietta Dale is neither here nor there.”

  “Well, you had to have done something similar to what I describe. Otherwise, the captain wouldn’t have made such a grave error in his calculations,” she insisted.

  He looked amused. “You may believe what you wish.”

  Exasperated, she pushed him. “So your intention was to murder Michael Seavey?”

  “On the contrary. My intention was to ruin the bastard by sinking his ship. The fact that he ended up dead because of … my actions …” Garrett seemed to stumble over the words, then shrugged. “Let’s just say that I wasn’t unduly concerned about the possibility. Although it would have been more gratifying to watch him experience the humiliation of a total loss of power and influence.”

  “From what I’ve been told—”

  “—You mean, from what you’ve seen?” he corrected her with a sly grin.

  Jordan heard Kathleen snort. She pressed on. “I read about the shipwreck in the Port Chatham Weekly Gazette. The Henrietta Dale broke up in the surf that night, so I’d say you succeeded, if that was truly your goal. You also caused the deaths of dozens of people.”

  “Their deaths couldn’t be helped,” Garrett replied, his tone hardening. “No one treats me the way Seavey did and gets away with it.”

  Jordan shuddered. “So you returned to Port Chatham and finished the job, killing him there.”

  He hissed angrily, and she backed up several steps. “You haven’t been listening. I came here to tell you that I had nothing to do with the man’s murder! Though I would like to take credit for it, certain … events, shall we say, immediately after the sinking of the Henrietta Dale made it impossible for me to return to Port Chatham.”

  “Do you know who did murder him?”

  “I couldn’t, could I? I wasn’t present. I only care that you understand I didn’t murder the man.”

  “Okay, fine. Message received.”

  “I didn’t send a message! I stood here and told you the truth of it!”

  “Let me rephrase that,” she said hastily. “I meant I now understand that you didn’t murder Seavey.” She glanced in Kathleen’s direction, but the cook had something sizzling in her iron skillet and was pointedly ignoring them. “So you can go now?” she asked Garrett hopefully.

  He sent her a chiding glance that had her contemplating whether she could reach the door into the back hallway before he could nab her, or whatever it was a ghost could do to her. Folding his arms across his massive chest, he said, “I have information that I am willing to barter in return for your promise that you will announce I had nothing to do with Seavey’s death.”

  “But don’t most sociopaths like to have kills attributed to them that they didn’t do?” she asked curiously. Not that she had a clue, really. And what the hell was she doing, asking such questions? After all, reminding a murderer that he got off on the act of murder was sort of like poking a crazed bull with a sharp stick.

  “ ‘Sociopaths’?” He thought that over, then nodded. “The term is pleasing. What I wish to impress upon you, however, is that an altercation with Michael Seavey at the moment would be enervating, and these days, I wish to expend my energies on other pursuits.”

  Honest to God, she really didn’t want to know.

  “Therefore, it’s imperative he understand that I wa
sn’t the one to murder him.” Garrett’s dark eyes were coldly assessing. “Do we have an arrangement?”

  “Yes.” After all, it wasn’t as if she was going to say no and risk further pissing him off.

  “Excellent.” Reaching into the pocket of his wool coat, he did something to cause a small, ornately decorated tin to fly out and float in the air between them. Jordan immediately recognized it from the day at the beach. “I believe this is what you have been seeking,” he said, zinging it at her.

  She grabbed it out of the air, turning it over and examining it closely. It was actually quite beautiful, the lid etched in swirling scrolls of an Oriental design, their colors faded with time and exposure to the elements. “You’re the diver I saw on the beach that day,” she exclaimed.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t make the connection; you look different out of a dive suit.” She tried to open the box, but it didn’t budge—it was probably rusted shut.

  “It’s sealed with beeswax, to keep the contents dry,” he explained. “Each ‘package’ contains a quantity of chandu opium, molded into small cakes, portions of which are placed in a pipe to be smoked. The cakes were wrapped in waxed paper.” His expression was derisive. “Seavey was determined to provide his customers with the highest quality opium, packaged in a pleasing manner. He went to great expense to have the opium cakes brought in from the Orient, then repackaged in a more pleasing way. Really, it’s not as if his customers would have known the difference if he’d substituted less expensive product after the first puff or two.”

  What he was saying was consistent with what Jordan knew of Michael Seavey—the man placed a high value on presentation and style. She doubted he would have stood for increasing his profits through a lowering of the quality of the drug. “So you’ve been retrieving these from the shipwreck?” she asked.

  His gaze slid away. “Of course not. What earthly use would I have of them? Besides, over time, with exposure to the elements, the stuff would obviously have deteriorated to the point of being worthless.”

  Not in the eyes of collectors, who would pay dearly to own a small piece of West Coast history, she realized. She thought back to her first encounter with him and was still confused on one point. “But I saw you bring one of these tins out of the water, didn’t I?”