Haunting Jordan pcm-1

by P. J. Alderman

  At the top of the stairs she skidded to a halt, gaping.

  Two women stood in the lower hall, dressed in vintage clothing. One, in her forties, wore a full-length, forest-green silk dress with a fitted velvet bodice that dropped into a curved vee over her slim hips. Her narrow shoulders were covered by a cape of the same velvet trimmed in black, and she’d pinned her brown hair up in an elaborately coiffed style that Jordan figured had to be historically accurate. The second woman, fair-haired and younger by perhaps a decade, was dressed less sedately. Her pale blue silk gown sported a small bustle and a daring neckline.

  “There you are.” The older of the two smiled up at her. “I hope we’re not disturbing?” When Jordan continued to stare, slack-jawed, the woman laughed self-consciously. “I’m Nora. And this is my sister, Delia. We’re docents at the Port Chatham Historical Society. We must have given you quite a shock.”

  “Ah. Um, no. Sorry.” Jordan loped down the stairs. “Your costumes are fabulous.”

  They glanced at each other, smiling.

  “Thank you.” Nora smoothed her skirts with slender, pale hands. “It’s best to look the part, we always say. Don’t we, Delia?”

  Delia turned in a circle to show off her gown. “What do you think?” Her eyes, which were a perfect match for her dress, gleamed with mischief. “I’m trying to convince Nora that fashion had nothing to do with comfort in those days. She’s been reading about the rational dress movement that was touted back then by a few radical old stick-in-the-muds.”

  “Hmmph.” Nora looked down her nose. “The rational dress movement was very forward thinking. Women actually damaged their internal organs by wearing corsets and carrying around so much weight in all those bustles and petticoats.”

  “Most women were looking for a husband and wanted to display their assets to best advantage. Just because a few old biddies were lecturing on the dangers of corsets—”

  “The new, less restrictive styles were just as flattering—”

  “Bull!”

  Jordan, fearing the onset of whiplash, cleared her throat. “Um, I’d offer you ladies some refreshments, but I’m afraid all I have is—”

  “Who would want to look that straitlaced?” Delia snapped, rolling right over her. “Men weren’t looking for sedate.” She sniffed, turning her attention to Jordan. “You don’t happen to have any Vanity Fair magazines, do you?”

  Jordan hesitated, baffled by the question.

  “Can’t you see she hasn’t even moved in yet?” Nora chided her sister. “Magazines would be the very last thing she’d unpack.”

  “Nonsense. Anyone who keeps up on fashion would have one or two magazines with them for the long trip up here, now, wouldn’t they? And she did travel all the way from California.”

  “Ah, well—”

  “Delia.” Nora ignored Jordan’s attempted reply. “Quit harassing the poor girl.”

  Delia pouted.

  Jordan couldn’t remember the last time anyone had referred to her as a “girl,” but she had to admit that it beat “black widow” hands down. She pasted an apologetic smile on her face. “I’m afraid I really don’t pay much attention to fashion,” she said, gesturing at her jeans, which looked “vintage” only because of the number of washings they’d endured. “About those refreshments—”

  “We brought treats!” Delia lit up, her moods fluctuating at the speed of a teenager’s. “A chocolate cake! We put it in the kitchen.”

  “How kind of you. Let me find some paper plates. But first, would you like a tour of the house?”

  “Don’t go to the trouble,” Nora told her firmly. “We’ve seen it many times.”

  “That makes sense.” Jordan led the way toward the kitchen. “I suppose Port Chatham has a historic homes tour, right? And the prior owners would’ve had the place on the tour, what with the murder and all.”

  She heard a gasp behind her; she turned to find Delia halted, tears in her eyes.

  “There, there.” Nora rushed to put an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “She’s extremely sensitive,” she confided to Jordan. “She cries over the sad stories associated with some of the homes here in town.”

  “I’m so sorry. Can I get anything? Perhaps some water?”

  “No, we’re fine. Your comment took us by surprise, that’s all.”

  “So you know all about the murder?”

  “Of course. Poor Hattie. Such a tragedy it was. Killed by the man she loved, they say …” Nora handed Delia a handkerchief, her own expression bereft. “But we never really believed the official story, now, did we?”

  “No.” Delia blew her nose loudly. “Frank loved Hattie. He never would have killed her.”

  “Though it’s true we don’t really know for certain—”

  “I do! He was a wonderful man. He didn’t have a violent bone in his body.”

  Nora sent her sister a sharp look. “Well, perhaps, though it would hardly seem so from the newspaper accounts.” Her hand sliced through the air impatiently. “The fact is, I’ve always suspected Seavey.”

  “Who is—was—Seavey?” Jordan asked, intrigued.

  “Well, I don’t think he did it,” Delia insisted. “Even if he was a bad man.”

  “He was a vile man. Anyone can see that from—”

  “But he worshipped Hattie—”

  “He most certainly did not!”

  “Cake,” Jordan said grimly. “In the kitchen. Now.”

  Nora jumped. “We have to be going.” She pointed Delia in the direction of the front door.

  “No—wait,” Jordan said hastily. Right. Scare off the sweet little local ladies. That’ll endear you to the neighborhood. “I’m sorry for sounding abrupt—it’s just that I’ve already had a long drive and … Please stay.”

  “No, we mustn’t keep you.” Nora nudged her sister forward. “We just stopped by to bring you a few historical documents we thought you might enjoy. They’re on the counter next to the cake. You’ll return them to us at the Society when you’re through with them, won’t you?”

  “Of course. How thoughtful of you. In fact, I’m eager to visit and go through your collection.” Jordan waved a hand. “I’m determined to fix the old place up. I’d love to see some pictures from when it was new, plus any articles that might have appeared at the time in the local newspapers.”

  Evidently she’d said the right thing, because both women beamed at her.

  “And we’d love to be of help!” Delia gushed. “It’s so important to preserve our heritage, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.” Relieved, Jordan walked them to the door. “Are you sure I can’t interest you in some cake? I can’t possibly eat it all by myself.”

  “No, we’ll … get out of your hair!” Delia giggled, looking pleased with herself, and Nora chuckled indulgently.

  Jordan looked from one to the other, not getting their joke. Did her hair look that bad? She resisted the urge to raise a hand and check. “Well, thanks again. I’ll stop by tomorrow. What time do you open?”

  “Around ten,” Nora replied. “Do you know where the research center is?”

  “I have a map—I’ll find it.”

  Jordan closed the door behind them. Leaning against it, she shook her head, amused. Given their argumentative communication style, she’d wager her Prius that those two had been living together for a very long time.

  Walking back to the kitchen, she spied a cake box on the counter next to a jumble of newspaper clippings and papers. Peeking inside, she swiped a bit of frosting. “Oh. Yum.” Devil’s food with cream cheese fudge frosting.

  One side of the cake was smashed—she wondered whether they’d dropped it on the way over. She shrugged, smiling, and licked more frosting off her finger.

  As she walked back down the hallway to the foot of the stairs, she looked up. “You can come out now,” she called. “They’re gone.”

  The dog stuck his head around the banister, unrepentant.

  “Traitor.”
>
  * * *

  JORDAN spent the next several hours hauling, sweeping, and mopping. By late afternoon, she had generated a recycle pile of respectable size and felt the need for sustenance that didn’t contain sugar.

  After explaining the concept of leash laws to the dog, who sat and listened with exaggerated patience, she tied a piece of rope she’d found in the butler’s pantry around his neck. He barked at her, no matter how firmly she tugged on the rope, until she folded it and held it out. Taking it gently from her, he held it in his mouth and trotted out the front door, pausing to look over his shoulder. She shook her head and hurried obediently after him.

  “We need to have a discussion regarding names,” she said as they proceeded down the sidewalk. “I refuse to call you Dog—it’s demeaning. What about … hmm … Spike?”

  “Raaoomph!”

  “Hey, he’s a great director—you could do worse. But I’ll keep thinking.”

  The afternoon had turned warm, and she tugged off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist. As she walked, she soaked up the atmosphere along with the rays.

  Port Chatham sat on a bluff on the northernmost tip of the Olympic Peninsula, surrounded by the glistening waters of Puget Sound. The town’s historic waterfront faced Port Chatham Bay on a narrow strip of low-lying land only a few blocks wide. The rest of the town—the majority of its residential areas—had been built on the bluffs overlooking downtown.

  Around each corner, Jordan was confronted with yet a different view of the shipping lanes and the islands that dotted Puget Sound. To the east, a few blocks off the brow of the hill, she could see the ferry making its way across Admiralty Inlet to Whidbey Island.

  Her neighborhood consisted of blocks of historic homes surrounding a small, satellite business district that spread outward from a central intersection of two arterial streets. As always, she was struck by the clash of old and new—well-cared-for homes that made her feel as though she’d stepped back a hundred years in time juxtaposed with the jarring presence of modern businesses, telephone poles, and parked cars.

  A block down, a young man sat on a sagging couch on the front porch of a small cottage, playing jazz on his guitar—a song that combined elements of blues and fusion. A young girl wearing a vintage dress sat at his feet, softly humming her own tune while she played with an antique doll.

  Just beyond the cottage stood a lovingly tended old home, painted lemon yellow with aubergine accents and surrounded by a white picket fence smothered in pink climbing roses. Jordan smiled and waved at the elderly couple sitting in the gently swaying porch swing, holding hands. The man put out his foot to halt the swing, surprise showing on his face, but his wife returned Jordan’s smile with a nod.

  The grocery was one block up and two over, and it seemed to be a neighborhood hub of sorts. She’d discovered the small business district when she’d stayed at a bed-and-breakfast down the block, on her trip to town the prior summer. Between jazz performances at the local taverns, she’d sat outside the bakery and had coffee, then wandered down the quiet back streets, exchanging greetings with friendly locals who’d been out watering their lawns or walking their dogs. She remembered thinking at the time that she’d possibly found a community that could be her salvation. Her impression hadn’t changed.

  The dog sat down to wait outside the grocery, his leash still in his mouth. She didn’t even attempt to tie him to the bicycle stand.

  Though the building was new, the grocery fit into the neighborhood with its homey atmosphere, appealing displays of organic produce, and quaint hand-lettered signs. Leaded-glass windows of abstract design flooded the interior with light, and customers sat in a loft over the deli, reading the newspaper while they ate their sandwiches.

  The aisles were stocked with standard fare plus an impressive selection of gourmet and organic foods that promised to do serious damage to Jordan’s monthly budget. She dumped canned organic dog food, a box of whole-grain cereal, milk, and a bag of coffee into her basket, plus a deli-packed serving of vegetarian lasagna for dinner. Snagging a bottle of Pinot Noir, she headed for the checkout.

  Halfway there she halted and backtracked to add a wedge of imported French triple-cream Brie, fancy crackers, and more sliced chicken breast, muttering to herself the entire time about a lack of self-discipline. After a chat with the checkout clerk about the fire a few years back that had destroyed the original historic building, she and the dog headed back home.

  Pulling paper plates from one of the boxes on the kitchen counter, Jordan fixed a sandwich, dividing the chicken breast heavily in favor of the dog. Opening a can of dog food that looked more appealing than her own recipe for beef stew, she added its contents to the plate, placing it on the floor. The food disappeared with alarming speed.

  While she munched on her sandwich, she rifled through the stack of papers left by Nora and Delia. The ladies had provided a mix of old newspaper articles about the murder and what appeared to be pages from a diary. She wedged the papers under one elbow, picked up a book on Port Chatham’s history she’d bought at a local bookstore during her last trip to town, and headed outside to sit on the front stoop. Though she felt more exposed than she liked—as if someone were still watching her—she’d be damned if anyone would stop her from enjoying her own porch.

  According to the clerk at the grocery, fire had played an important role in the town’s history. Torn over what to read first, she finally set aside the ladies’ papers and propped the book on her knees, flipping through until she found a chapter on historic fires. The author had interspersed text with pictures of the valiant fire crews, standing somberly in their old-fashioned uniforms and helmets.

  A photocopied newspaper article on a huge waterfront fire caught her eye, and she settled down to read, the dog snoozing in the sun at her feet.

  The Great Fire

  May 25, 1890, two weeks earlier

  “THEY say an entire block is already in flames,” Hattie Longren murmured to Eleanor Canby. “Five are dead, with more to be found.”

  Though midnight had come and gone, they stood next to the bell tower at the top of the bluff with their neighbors, watching as the inferno raged below them on the waterfront. Orange flames leapt high against a smoke-filled, black sky, writhing and reaching out on the wind.

  “Good riddance, I say.” Eleanor folded her arms over her ample bosom. Tall and matronly, she wore her gray serge as if it were a suit of armor in a war against loose morals. “We both know that area was nothing but saloons and brothels.”

  As the owner of the Port Chatham Weekly Gazette, Eleanor frequently wrote editorials with strong views regarding the lawlessness and temptations of the waterfront. Rigid, old-fashioned views, in Hattie’s opinion.

  She shivered, holding the folds of her cape tightly closed against the damp night air. “No one deserves to die that way.”

  The bell had begun ringing at ten, a full half hour after the first spiral of smoke had been spotted, according to one neighbor. The blaze had quickly spread. Hattie suspected the fire was no accident, and that the initial report had been intentionally delayed. Someone had been sending a message: Do as we say, or see your business destroyed. But whoever had started the fire hadn’t counted on the strong wind from the south, and other businesses were now at risk.

  A murmur rose from the crowd as several adjoining buildings, black silhouettes half eaten through, teetered, then fell, consumed instantly in a roiling mass of crimson sparks. A silver stream of salt water arced from a tugboat anchored in the harbor, dousing roofs and flooding the streets. Hattie could see the dark shapes of men racing to and fro in a desperate attempt to save the records from City Hall. Working to save City Hall, but making no effort to save the people in buildings facing the waterfront, she thought in disgust.

  “Will the fire spread up here?” Charlotte’s delicate features were pale from anxiety.

  “No.” Hattie placed a hand on her sister’s trembling shoulder. “There’s no chance of that. They�
�ll have it under control before then.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Eleanor retorted. “Sparks could find their way to us.”

  “If they do, we’ll extinguish them,” Hattie said firmly. At the impressionable age of fifteen, Charlotte was prone to wild mood swings. Hattie didn’t need her frightened by Eleanor’s tendency toward dour predictions.

  After their parents died in a carriage accident in Boston, Charlotte and her beloved lady’s maid, Tabitha, had come to live with Hattie. Charlotte had proven to be more of a handful than Hattie had anticipated. Charlotte yearns for adventure as you once did, their mother had written in a letter to be delivered upon the event of her death, but she hasn’t your innate good judgment. We’re counting on you to keep her safe.

  Innate good judgment. Hattie sighed. If only her mother knew the truth about her short marriage. The tension between her and Charles had driven him to sea, where he perished at the hands of a mutinous crew, leaving her with a struggling shipping business she was ill prepared to manage. And now she had Charlotte depending on her as well. A familiar sense of panic threatened to overwhelm her.

  “That fire was started by a drunken prostitute, mark my words.” Eleanor’s voice snapped her back to the present. “I can find no sympathy for those of her ilk. Painted harlots, flaunting their wares and infatuating our decent young men, plying them with corn liquor until they don’t know their own minds!”

  “Bull,” Hattie said, earning herself a sharp look from Eleanor. But Hattie knew well the intertwined cycles of poverty and cruelty—her mother had run a clinic in Boston’s Back Bay. “It’s the supposedly decent men of this town who are preying on helpless women.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Hattie shrugged off Eleanor’s look of condemnation. “What about Jessie? Hasn’t he been seen in the Green Light?”

  Eleanor’s mouth thinned at the mention of her youngest. Young, handsome, and possessing an easy charm he couldn’t have inherited from his mother, Jessie was well known around town for his wild ways.