Ghost Ship

by Roger Weston

  Jake’s elbow bumped against the bar, and he brushed dust from his jacket. He turned to face the group. “Folks, this is the end of the guided tour. If you have further questions please visit the information kiosk in the parking lot.”

  Jake answered a few more questions and then waited for the last of the group to leave. Most of them walked away grumbling and complaining. As they left, he realized that Richter was right in not letting the public tour the other decks. However, why shouldn’t he be able to take one last look? Richter’s refusal to let anyone see the rest of the ship made him even more curious about what the upper decks looked like. Maybe her old log books were still on-board. Most likely the historical society snatched them up, but if the condition of the boat was any indication, it didn’t appear anyone was concerned about preserving the Queen Mary’s historical integrity.

  Checking for security first, he walked down the hall of the Promenade Deck and passed various dining venues on the way. Recalling pictures he’d seen of the Queen Mary’s layout, he made his way down the corridor toward a staircase. He jogged up the stairs to the next level. At the landing of the stairwell he saw a gold plaque that announced he was at The Sun Deck. Heading deeper into the interior of the ship, he passed double doors to the executive offices. The pounding he heard earlier got louder. He continued in that direction and it led him toward the stern of the ship. Pausing first to be sure there was nobody around; he entered the once elegant Verandah Grill and stood for a moment looking through the windows at the Pacific Ocean. Whatever Richter had planned for the Queen Mary, she would never be the same.

  A loud crash brought him back to reality. The sound was clear. Something was happening on the deck above him.

  Jake went into the hall and climbed the stairs to the Sports Deck. As his head cleared the landing he saw construction boots. He took another step. The deck was filled with men working on one of the red-and-black funnels that topped the vessel. He watched as they removed rivets from the middle stack. Puzzled, he continued to watch them for a few minutes. Apparently they were already starting the process of scrapping the Queen Mary. He wondered how much Charles would make selling her metal. It seemed like he’d lose money on the deal. Jake turned and headed back down the staircase with his shoulders slumped. He felt like a sailor on a boat stranded in the doldrums with sails sagging and water running out. He hated to see a good ship scrapped. Returning to the interior hall of the Sun Deck, he walked past the executive offices again. Maybe the logbooks were inside. He decided to find out. Someone needed to preserve the history of this once grand ship.

  Approaching a desk, he scanned a supply manifesto, which listed food stores and industrial supplies—ranging from paint to rivets to welding materials. He also noticed current charts and insurance policies. This was what he would expect to find on a ship preparing for voyage. A voyage? What exactly was Charles planning for the Queen Mary? Was he going to sail her or scrap her?

  Voices in the hall disrupted his thoughts. Richter hadn’t exactly given Jake permission to nose around. Through a slit behind the door hinges, Jake saw two men walk down the interior passageway. One of them had a face that had haunted him for years. A face he hoped he’d never see again.

  CHAPTER 10

  Jake waited for the men to pass and then headed down eight flights of stairs to the “G” deck, the guts of the ship. Once there, he was astonished by what lay before him. From bow to stern the hull of the Queen Mary had been outfitted with new equipment. A state of the art diesel-electric power train had been installed. The Queen had been completely retrofitted. She wasn’t going to be scrapped after all. She was going on a voyage. Jake ran up the eight flights and down the gangplank and off the ship. Security guys mulled around the parking lot and the Bentley was still waiting for him. Jake told the driver to go ahead; he was going to walk back to the hotel. Setting off on foot, he jogged along South Harbor Scenic Drive for about half a mile before he called Ashley.

  “Where are you?” Ashley said. “I couldn’t find you after the speech. Where’d you go?”

  “I’m a couple of blocks from the Queen Mary. Where are you?”

  “I took the limo back to the hotel.”

  “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right there.”

  “Jake—”

  He hung up the phone.

  Jake knocked quietly on Ashley’s door at The Richter Beachfront Hotel. She opened the door with a look of concern on her face.

  Jake tried to smile. “Come on, let’s take a walk,” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just come on.” He looked over his shoulder. “We need to go.”

  Ashley grabbed her purse and followed Jake out of the hotel. They crossed the street at a crosswalk with half a block of cars lined up in both directions. Someone was laying on their horn. Jake wished he was back in the San Juans on his fishing boat where he could keep the world at a distance.

  “I ought to go over there and rip that guy’s steering wheel right out of his car.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Jake?”

  “He’s probably packing and eager for action.”

  “What?” Ashley’s long red hair fanned out as her head spun to catch a glimpse of the guy in the car.

  “We’re not going back to the hotel.”

  “Where are we going then?”

  “Just act like everything is normal. Okay?”

  “What are you talking about? What about my stuff? I have to go back.”

  “Ash, you’re just going to have to trust me, alright.”

  “I thought we were on vacation. Remember?”

  “Not anymore.”

  A cab dropped them off on Wilshire Blvd. in a commercial area near UCLA and Beverly Hills. The second coffee shop was light on customers and the music was loud. Jake pulled out a chair for Ashley and then sat down by the window and looked out the pristine glass in a daze.

  He turned to face Ashley. “I saw someone on the ship from my past.”

  “Who?”

  He took a deep breath. “The man who killed my father.”

  “I thought your dad was lost at sea.”

  Jake tried to relax and keep his adrenaline under control. Tom Koch had turned up—a very sinister development in any situation, but especially so when an old ship was being sold. If Richter had brought in Koch, then Richter was up to some very dark and desperate deeds with the Queen Mary at the center of it all. Richter’s words re-played in Jake’s mind: “My name will be forever linked to her—one symbol of greatness attached to another.”

  Jake told Ashley the story of his father’s death. He managed to focus on the words spilling off his tongue. His dad had been hired to captain the Relentless, an old tramp ship that was sailing to Vietnam on her final voyage. But she never made it. The Relentless sank in the North Pacific, and his dad went down with the ship. Koch had been onboard the ship. He was the ship owners’ agent serving as shipmaster. Somehow he managed to secure a lifeboat and float on the currents to Hawaii. The sole survivor. Later he was tied to an insurance scam and was implicated in the sinking of the Relentless. Only problem was he got away with it. The D.A. let him walk.

  Jake paused to settle the tension he felt. He looked directly into Ashley’s sapphire eyes and was calmed by the compassion he saw in them. He wondered if Richter was aware of Koch’s past. Tom Koch, the killer, was a dangerous foe…and Jake suddenly felt like plankton in the path of a whale. He asked Ashley to book the first flight back to Seattle.

  While Ashley was making arrangements for the flight, Jake got out his cell phone and rang Charles. “Mr. Richter, I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak about the Queen Mary. It was an honor. I now understand why you didn’t want her toured. She’s in bad shape. Guess since she’s being scrapped there was no sense in cleaning her up, right?”

  “Who said she’s being scrapped? She’s being sold to the Taiwanese for a casino. They’ll clean her up.”

  “I see.”

&nbs
p; “She’s going to be anchored on an islet in Penghu, Taiwan, with constant shore-boat access. Taiwan is attempting to create the next Macao to lure tourists.

  “Glad to hear that. I’d hate to see such a beautiful ship destroyed. By the way, I wanted to let you know that we’re leaving.”

  “Leaving? My jet isn’t scheduled to fly until tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll catch my own flight. I appreciate your hospitality. And thanks again for giving me the opportunity to send off such a grand old ship.”

  “Yes, she is grand, isn’t she?”

  “She definitely is.” Jake said absently as he reconsidered the events leading up to this day and what he had learned. Richter was going to resell the ship to a Taiwanese buyer who was going to convert the ship into a casino. It sounded plausible. Maybe Jake had misjudged the situation after all.

  CHAPTER 11

  Portage Bay

  Washington State

  Back in Seattle, Jake dropped Ashley off at her apartment. The next day, he slept in. He was enjoying the peace and tranquility of Portage Bay and trying to forget all about Richter and Koch and the Queen Mary. He needed to let it go. He was no hero, and there was nothing he could do about the ship. If Koch sunk the thing and if the insurance company got scammed, it wasn’t his problem. Yep, he’d let it go. Presently that meant lying in bed and listening to the water lapping against the deck of his houseboat. He drifted off again and then ordered Chinese take-out after waking. That evening he watched an old John Wayne movie. Once he felt an overwhelming need to call up Ashley to see how she was doing, but didn’t. She was fine.

  ***

  The next day, Jake hopped in his skiff and headed to a fish and chips restaurant across the bay from his home. A large yacht grumbled slowly past as Jake weaved his little craft between it and another vessel.

  He tied the lines of his skiff to the dock in front of the restaurant. Sitting in his boat, he kicked back and started on his lunch. He loved fish and chips and was glad to be back in town. He was enjoying the sounds of seagulls squawking and the sights of various boats tugging by.

  “I was hoping I might run into you here.” The voice jerked him from his thoughts. He turned and saw Ashley standing with a brown-bag lunch in her hand. “Come onboard and join me,” he said.

  “You sure you don’t have a date or anything?”

  “You know me better than that.”

  The boat rocked slightly as she sat across from him.

  Jake dipped his deep-fried fish in tartar sauce. For a while they talked about work at the university, classes, and how the students were doing. Then came a long pause.

  “I’ve been thinking about our trip to Long Beach,” Ashley said.

  “What about it?”

  “I really think you should report your suspicions to the authorities.”

  Jake wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What would I tell them, that I saw the shipmaster of the Relentless on the Queen Mary? Arrest him. I doubt the Coast Guard brass would even order an investigation. They’ve already let Koch go once.”

  Ashley pushed her long hair away from her blue eyes. “But if he is planning on sinking the ship, the crew would die just like your father did.”

  Jake cringed. “If I thought it would make a difference, I would call them.” He realized his tone had hardened. “Look, I’m sorry, Ash, but I tried for years to get them to launch a new investigation into my dad’s case. Without evidence, they won’t do anything.”

  “What about the police?”

  “They’re even worse. They’ll claim it’s not their jurisdiction.” He dipped the remainder of his battered catch in the sauce and looked up at Ashley. Behind her, a guy with a familiar face sat at a table on the dock. He looked like a typical college student. The man put a backpack on the table next to a cup of chowder and opened a book. Jake couldn’t recall that the man was a former student of his, but there were many familiar faces around the university. He focused his attention back on Ashley.

  “Maybe Richter’s plans to sell her to the Taiwanese are legit,” he said. “We have no way of knowing.” Jake stopped talking. The clam-chowder guy stood up and wandered away from his table toward the end of the dock. He hadn’t looked at Jake and Ashley, but he was moving closer and within earshot. Impulsively, Jake started up his boat’s engine.

  “What are you doing?” Ashley said.

  Jake collected the ropes. “Taking you for a ride.”

  ***

  Later on, Jake went to his office and picked up the phone to call the Coast Guard, but he didn’t dial. He threw the phone down. He knew that without evidence they wouldn’t do a thing.

  He decided to visit a friend of his. Wan-Si was a business professor from Taiwan. Maybe he’d have some insight on the gaming industry in Penghu. Jake knocked on the door to Wan-Si’s U-District condo.

  “How are you, my friend? Come in.” Wan-Si looked like a hung over rock star. Last year he’d gotten tenure, and since then he’d grown his hair down to his shoulders.

  They found chairs in the living room and talked for a while about things in general. Wan-Si had been at a Christmas party until after 3 a.m. He was a very popular professor.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Wan-Si said.

  “No, thanks.”

  “What, you already had lunch?”

  Jake nodded.

  Wan-Si yawned and closed his eyes for a minute.

  “So, you still planning on teaching one of my classes?” Jake said.

  “Yeah, after the break. Where you been? I thought you wanted me to come last week.”

  “Sorry. I was called down to Long Beach by a billionaire. He wanted me to give a commemorative speech for the Queen Mary.”

  “Nice. Wish I would get that kind of invitation.”

  “Well, apparently he sold the ship to a Taiwanese businessman who plans on docking her off one of the Penghu Islands. He plans on turning it into a casino.”

  “Las Vegas in Taiwan. I’ll have to pay her a visit. Sounds like my kind of place.”

  “It seems like an inglorious end to a great ship to me. Guess it’s not much worse than a haunted hotel.”

  “Haunted hotel?” Wan-Si shook his head.

  “Yes, over 600 ghosts haunt that ship. Every day of the year a new encounter is reported. Apparently, it’s one of the most haunted places in the world.”

  Wan-Si shook his head in acknowledgement and Jake saw the color drain out of his pal’s face.

  “Can I get you some tea or anything?” Jake said.

  Beads of sweat spotted Wan-Si’s forehead. “Sure. A couple of aspirin would be nice, too.”

  Jake brought the goods.

  Wan-Si downed the pills and looked at Jake. “If this guy is planning on taking that ship to Taiwan, it’s going to be a losing venture.” Wan-Si wiped his face with a napkin. He reached for his tea, but changed his mind. He put his hand on his forehead.

  “You want to finish this conversation some other time?” Jake said. “You’re not looking so well.”

  Wan-Si shook his head. “I’ll be alright.”

  “Why do you think it would be a losing venture? I thought the casino business was booming on the shores of Penghu.”

  “No, he would lose money—because of the ghosts. There’s this place in Taiwan called San-Zhr Pod Village. It’s an abandoned hotel apartment project with an amusement park. Really a beautiful location and could have been a great place to live.”

  “Could have been? What happened? Did it have environmental issues?”

  “No,”—he shook his head vigorously—“just listen. It’s an unusual place. I mean really unusual. All the apartments are called pods. They’re built like corn stalks, but only a couple of floors high. A very odd and spacious design for my country. The yellow pods were like kernels of corn on upright corn stalks.”

  “Are you making this up? What were you doing last night?”

  Wan-Si shook his head again. “Built back in the
1960s on a beautiful waterfront setting in Sanzhi. It was meant to attract families for good times. The amusement park was my country’s answer to Disneyland.”

  “Sounds like a lucrative development.”

  Wan-Si shook his head and put his hand on his stomach. “No, no. It’s abandoned. Pay attention. Nobody ever came to live there because during construction there were many accidents. Many workers died. Give me another aspirin.”

  Jake handed him the bottle, and Wan-Si washed another aspirin down with tea. “The local papers reported on all the accidents and deaths that occurred on the construction site. Pretty soon, nobody would go there. You have to remember, this was an amazing place, the kind of construction that should have attracted crowds just to marvel over how extraordinary it was.”

  “What happened?”

  “The place was haunted by the ghosts of the workers who died there. It was said that a dark and evil presence filled those apartments. Nobody would go within a ten-mile radius of the development. Taiwanese are very afraid of ghosts.”

  “Why don’t they just tear it down?”

  “You can’t do that, man. Destroying the homes of spirits is forbidden.” Wan-Si put both his hands on his stomach.

  “You alright?” Jake said.

  Wan-Si shook his head. “I’m gonna be sick.” He jumped up and lunged for the bathroom.

  CHAPTER 12

  Puget Sound

  6 a.m.

  Jake stood at the helm of the Wolverine, and navigated her into pounding gray seas. His boat rose and plunged as it smashed through the swells. Powerful winds ripped across the sound, and walls of spray slapped the windshield. Jake’s assault on the massive waves went on and on, and the storm winds sang a gloomy, whistling dirge around the wheelhouse, a sad song that echoed in Jake’s soul. Unable to sleep, Jake had taken the ferry over to Pt. Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula where his crab boat was docked. He’d hoped to find comfort on her battered decks.