Ghost Ship

by P. J. Alderman

  Seavey shrugged, giving Hattie a surprisingly tender look. “Very well, my dear.” He made a production of disposing of the cigar in an ashtray.

  Jordan folded her arms. “Okay. Now would someone please tell me what is going on here?”

  “It’s quite simple, really.” Seavey flicked ash from his sleeve. “I’ve come to ask for Hattie’s hand in marriage. And this cretin”—he gestured in Frank’s direction—“seems to think he has a prior claim.”

  “Oh, dear,” Hattie murmured.

  “How romantic,” Charlotte sighed, clasping both hands over her heart.

  Chapter 5

  I may not deserve Hattie, but I will never stand for her belonging to the likes of you,” Frank growled to Seavey.

  “At least I avenged her death, Lewis,” Seavey replied calmly.

  “I was hanged, man! I had no choice in the matter.”

  “How thrilling,” Charlotte gushed, “to have two such charming suitors fighting over you.”

  Jordan held back a snort. Only someone so young could hold such an unrealistic view. Then again, what constituted “realistic” when one was standing in a room with four ghosts, contemplating the marriage of two of them?

  She had to admit, if she were forced to choose between the two men, she would find it a tough call. Rawboned and dressed like a nineteenth-century dockworker, Frank Lewis was nevertheless handsome, highly educated, and ethical, though at times admittedly moody, bordering on downright surly. But Michael Seavey embodied the very essence of a stylishly attired, charming sociopath, not unlike her deceased husband and just the type of man she found irresistible.

  In a terrifyingly, psychologically unhealthy sort of way.

  “You’re so lucky!” Charlotte told Hattie.

  Hattie looked pained.

  “Are ghosts even allowed to marry?” Jordan asked the room at large. She was ignored.

  She needed to check into a hotel. No, she needed to quietly slip out of town. She’d take Malachi, of course—she couldn’t leave him behind. But really, a new town sounded like just the ticket. Her friend Carol would probably agree to prescribe a nice sedative to help her deal with her grief over losing Longren House …

  Seavey harrumphed. “If you had been a better man,” he informed Frank, “you would’ve escaped from jail and solved the crime properly. You are correct—you don’t deserve her. I would never have shown such weakness or passivity.”

  Frank visibly flinched; the shanghaier had hit a nerve. “If you knew I didn’t murder Hattie, it was your responsibility to speak up. Yet you did nothing.”

  “Good God, man, I’m not dull-witted!” Seavey looked amused. “Why would I help a known union sympathizer escape from jail? You would’ve continued to wreak havoc upon my business interests.”

  Charlotte clapped her hands together, though they made no sound. “I can’t wait to plan the wedding! We can have it right here in the front parlor!” She hesitated, then frowned at Jordan. “You must work harder on the renovation. Everything must be perfect.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Frank snarled, gliding toward Seavey, who turned to face him, widening his stance, his hands falling loosely to his sides.

  Jordan gave another sharp whistle. “Stop!” She glared at the two men. “There will be no more fighting on the premises. We will solve this like civilized human beings.” She paused, then waved a hand. “Whatever.”

  She really was way too tired to deal with any of them. And she really wanted a hot soak in her claw-foot tub, then eight solid hours in her nice, soft bed. Turning to Hattie, she ordered, “Choose one and tell the other to get lost.”

  Seavey hissed, and Hattie looked horrified. “I couldn’t possibly!”

  Frank’s head swiveled toward Hattie. “You would actually consider his suit?” His expression was incredulous.

  Hattie wrung her hands.

  “Michael is a wonderful man,” Charlotte said loyally, shooting Frank a disgruntled glare. “Most people don’t understand that about him, but he truly cares.”

  Seavey looked gratified.

  Jordan closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Remember our discussion a few weeks ago about the number of people this man murdered during his lifetime?” she asked Charlotte. “I’m with Frank—I think the choice is obvious.” She gave Hattie a chiding look. “I’m surprised you even need to give it a moment’s thought.”

  “But—” Hattie began, only to be interrupted by Charlotte’s shriek of outrage.

  “Michael is a good man! Why, just before he died, he—”

  “That would be when someone deliberately lured his ship onto the rocks, correct?” Jordan drove her point home as she picked up pieces of the lampshade and dropped them into an ashtray. “It seems to me someone wanted him dead. And probably for good reason.”

  “Nonsense,” Seavey replied. “They lured the Henrietta Dale onto the rocks because they wanted to eliminate a competitor, nothing more. It was merely my bad luck to go down with the ship.”

  Frank snorted. “You mean, someone finally had the good sense to rid the waterfront of its worst nemesis. I’m sure you deserved whatever happened to you.”

  “ ‘Worst nemesis,’ ” Seavey murmured, looking quite pleased. “I like that.”

  Hattie looked confused. “But Michael, you didn’t go down with the ship.”

  He gave her a tender yet patronizing look. “I’m sorry, my dear; that’s precisely what happened. If it makes my death any more palatable, rest assured that I felt no pain.”

  “No, no!” She roiled the newspapers strewn across the desktop, then zinged one at Jordan, who barely managed to react fast enough to snag it out of the air. “Jordan, if you would be so kind as to read the article halfway down the front page?”

  Reluctantly curious, Jordan searched until she found the news story Hattie referred to, then skimmed through the text:

  Escalating Lawless and Licentious Activities on the Waterfront

  August 7—Further proof of the disintegration of the social fabric of our beloved Port Chatham society was evidenced by the recent murder of the ruthless shanghaier, one Michael Seavey, whose body was found by this paper’s reporter early this morning, floating in the waters under Union Wharf, the victim of an execution-style slaying …

  Jordan raised her head to frown at Seavey.

  “See?” Hattie gave an affirming nod, then addressed Seavey. “The article states that your body was found floating under Union Wharf. You’d been shot.”

  “Yellow journalism.” Seavey waved his hand. “We both know Eleanor Canby told her reporters to write whatever suited her purposes, which fluctuated from one day to the next. The woman despised me.”

  “No, Hattie’s right,” Jordan said slowly, reading further. “The article is quite detailed—you were found under the wharf at dawn, wearing the evening clothes you’d been seen in the night before.” She lifted her gaze. “Someone shot you in the back.”

  Everyone looked horrified with the exception of Frank, who nodded matter-of-factly, saying, “Any one of your known associates would have been capable of it.”

  “A common enough occurrence in those days, even if untrue in my case,” Seavey agreed.

  “Actually, it seems to be common in your family,” Jordan informed him. “I found the body of your great-great-nephew this afternoon. He’d been shot as well.”

  “How horrible!” Hattie exclaimed.

  “How unseemly,” Charlotte countered. “Women shouldn’t be exposed to such things. If you’d been here at the house, concentrating on restoring our home, ensuring that it will be ready for the hundreds of guests that will attend the wedding—”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” Seavey demanded of Jordan. “I don’t have any descendants.”

  “Yes, you do,” Jordan replied, ignoring Charlotte’s tirade. “I’d have to go back through your papers, then trace the family genealogy, but you definitely have descendants.”

  “You’re reading my pe
rsonal papers? Woman, have you no sense of decency?”

  “If you didn’t want them read, why did you write them?” Jordan retorted, exasperated. She drew in a deep breath. “Look, can we get back on topic here?”

  Everyone stared at her as if she’d spoken in tongues. “Can we return to the matter at hand?” she paraphrased.

  “An excellent idea,” Seavey concurred. “We should discuss Hattie’s and my forthcoming nuptials.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jordan saw Frank puff up threateningly. Hurriedly, she intervened. “Actually, we were discussing the report of your murder. Though for the life of me, I don’t remember how we got on that topic, either.”

  “I wasn’t murdered. The last thing I remember was the shipwreck. How could I have gotten from there to dead under the wharf?” Seavey shook his head. “No. I’m certain the article must’ve been fabricated.”

  Hattie moved over next to Jordan and laid a hand on her arm. Jordan’s arm tingled as if she’d picked up a charge, not unlike static electricity. “I don’t suppose you could look into the matter and make a determination for us?”

  “What? No, no …”

  “She’s hardly capable—you would do better to ask a man,” Seavey pointed out.

  “Hey,” Jordan snapped. “This is the twenty-first century. That kind of thinking went out of fashion a long time ago.”

  His shrug was one of indifference. “Nevertheless, I admit to being unconcerned about the entire affair. Who cares how I died?”

  “Your murder shouldn’t go unsolved.” Hattie’s comment earned her a hard look from Frank.

  “Was there a follow-up article providing details of the murder investigation?” Jordan asked.

  “I don’t know.” Hattie turned to Frank with a beseeching expression.

  He quickly held up both hands. “Forgive me,” he said, his tone cool, “but I have no interest in looking into the murder of the man who allowed me to hang for a crime he knew I didn’t commit.”

  “I think it’s a great idea to ask Jordan to solve Michael’s murder,” Charlotte piped up, ignoring Jordan’s quelling glance. “After all, she solved Hattie’s.”

  Frank waved a hand dismissively. “She was rather inept, though she managed to stumble upon the solution.”

  “But she did solve it, did she not?” Charlotte pressed him before Jordan could form a retort. “Without her, you never would’ve known who framed you for my sister’s murder. So I think we should give Jordan a chance to help us solve Michael’s murder.”

  All eyes turned toward her.

  A Mexican Martini had never sounded better.

  * * *

  TWENTY minutes later, Jordan settled with a sigh into steaming, lavender-scented water in her claw-foot bathtub. Vanilla candles perfumed the air, casting flickering shadows on the mahogany wainscoting that surrounded the tub. Soft classical music played in the background. She’d turned out the lights so that the cracks in the tile floor weren’t as noticeable. Malachi had his muzzle propped on the rounded edge of the tub, content to let her rub his ears.

  Sheer bliss.

  She’d managed to convince the four ghosts to table all further discussion of marriage and mayhem until morning. Even Seavey had grudgingly agreed to leave for the night, though Jordan suspected his equanimity wouldn’t hold for long.

  “No spectral wedding will be held in this house,” she reassured Malachi. Since the dog’s arrival on her doorstep, she’d gotten into the habit of discussing all important issues with him. His advice was usually far more pragmatic than that of the humans with whom she’d become acquainted.

  “Rooooooo,” he agreed now.

  “And there’s no way I’m investigating Seavey’s murder.”

  “Raaaooow.”

  “After all, he’s a sociopath. It’s not like he deserves to know who killed him. And who knows what he’d do if he found out? He could go after someone’s descendant, out of pure spite. I could end up responsible for some poor innocent person’s death.”

  Malachi made the supreme effort to lean over and lick her cheek in agreement, then sank back down.

  “Precisely.”

  Jordan scrunched around in the tub, trying to get her neck positioned more comfortably against the rim. A folded towel hovered in her peripheral vision. With a scowl, she grabbed it and wedged it behind her neck.

  “We need to establish some house rules,” she complained. “I deserve privacy in my own bathroom.”

  Hattie floated toward the opposite end of the bathtub.

  Malachi whined.

  Jordan felt like doing the same. “I’m not interested in hearing anything you have to say at the moment,” she told Hattie. “I’ve had a long, stressful day, and all I want is a relaxing soak, then bed.”

  Hattie wrung her hands.

  “Quit that.”

  “It’s just …” Hattie hesitated. “I thought Seavey had murdered me, you see. I’ve maligned his good name all these decades—”

  “He doesn’t have a good name.”

  “Michael isn’t a bad man. He simply did what he had to, to survive. Just as I did after my husband died.”

  Jordan sighed. “I’ll grant you that Seavey probably isn’t truly evil in the tradition of Jack the Ripper, but he isn’t exactly a model citizen, either. And it’s not the same. You intended to run your husband’s shipping business ethically, siding with Frank’s union to provide better treatment of sailors. You were murdered because you only wanted the best for Charlotte. Seavey, on the other hand, murdered for financial gain. And let’s not forget he was blackmailing you into his bed, for Christ’s sake, as a condition for helping you get Charlotte back. Those are not the actions of an honorable man.”

  “But he avenged my murder,” Hattie pointed out.

  Jordan gave up and stood, wrapping a bath towel around herself and blowing out the candles. “That doesn’t cancel out his other criminal activities.” She shooed Hattie out the door.

  The ghost trailed her down the hall and into the bedroom. “I’m merely asking you to look into the circumstances surrounding his death. Maybe he’s right—maybe Eleanor did publish lies to support her editorial position. But I owe him the courtesy of finding the truth.”

  “Michael Seavey was the bane of your existence until you died—how can you possibly believe that you owe him anything?”

  “Couldn’t you just look into the shipwreck and see if there were any survivors?” Hattie pleaded. “You were so good at understanding the motivations of the people I knew back then, and of understanding who might have been capable of murdering me. Wouldn’t this be similar?”

  “What is this? Good ghost, bad ghost?” Jordan grumbled. At Hattie’s confused look, she said, “Never mind.”

  Drying the ends of her hair with the towel, she explained impatiently, “First of all, I’m not interested in functioning as an amateur detective for all the ghosts in this town.” She paused, shuddering at the implications of what she’d just said. “And second, in this case, everyone probably wanted Seavey dead—he had so many enemies I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  She rummaged through a drawer, looking for the cotton T-shirt Jase had given her as a belated house-warming present and she’d converted into a nightshirt. The one that stated across the front, in large block letters, REALITY IS JUST A STATE OF MIND.

  Hattie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t understand this modern practice of painting comments on your night-wear,” she said. “Or of wearing something to bed that should be worn during the day. Last week, your nightshirt said something that sounded like a local football team. Don’t you have a proper nightgown?”

  “They get too tangled—they’re a hassle,” Jordan replied, turning back the down comforter on her bed. “Didn’t you have any slogans back in the 1800s?”

  Hattie looked confused.

  “You know, like something the president might have said that became a common phrase people used to explain how they felt or how something worked in
the world?”

  “Maybe,” she replied, but her expression said she doubted it.

  “Well, there you go.” Jordan glanced toward the hall. “Where’s Charlotte?”

  “Downstairs practicing her telekinesis powers, using them to straighten up the library.”

  The relevant word in this instance being “practice.” Jordan closed her eyes. She’d think about it tomorrow, she reminded herself.

  Hattie continued to hover just inside the door.

  Jordan sighed. “All right, I’ll take a trip out to the historical society tomorrow to see if there are any other newspaper articles about Seavey’s murder or survivors of the shipwreck. If there aren’t, that’s the end of it.”

  Hattie sagged with relief.

  Of course, the historical society was still closed for remodeling, which meant Jordan would have to ask Darcy to meet her there and let her in. Not a good plan, given how buried Darcy would be with Holt’s murder investigation. And hadn’t she mentioned something about going back out to the crime scene tomorrow?

  Alternatively, Jordan could break into the building. Again. Breaking the law was becoming habitual for her—during her last visit she’d stolen materials from the archives, then broken in to return them while Darcy was in the hospital.

  “In the meantime,” she told Hattie sternly, “I expect you to resolve this marriage issue. I’m not keen on having either man in this house.”

  Hattie made several reassuring noises that Jordan knew better than to believe signaled the end to that discussion, then faded away, leaving her in peace.

  Malachi slipped into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed, settling in. Jordan climbed in right after him, fighting for her half of the comforter. She was about to turn out the bedside lamp when she saw Michael Seavey’s personal papers, still stacked where she’d left them on her nightstand. She’d been procrastinating about returning them to Holt, not looking forward to having to fend off his inevitable advances. And didn’t that make her feel guilty, in light of today’s events? She and Hattie were certainly a pair. First thing tomorrow, she’d take the papers to the local mail shop and copy them, then drive them out to Holt’s house. His family would want to know that she returned them, since they would be part of Holt’s estate.