Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery

by P. J. Alderman

  “What are you talking about?” Jordan was bewildered. “What wall safe? I haven’t found anything of the sort in this house.”

  “That’s because it’s been concealed behind a bookcase since I came back as a ghost,” Hattie replied. “I didn’t want any of those questionable owners in past decades to get hold of the money. They would have used it to tear down walls and build on rooms of dubious architectural integrity. Why, they would have used it to destroy Longren House!”

  Jordan held up a hand. “Hold on—let me get this straight. Are you telling me there’s a hidden safe in this house that contains all kinds of money?”

  Everyone looked at Hattie, including Charlotte, who looked as surprised as Jordan.

  “Yes,” Hattie replied serenely. “It’s in the library. Come—I’ll show you.”

  Jordan grabbed her cup of tea and they all trooped down the hallway and into the library. Hattie floated around behind the oak desk and pointed to a bookcase covering the wall that, on closer inspection, did seem to be of slightly different design than the other bookcases in the room. Frank moved over to it, inspecting it more carefully.

  “When I was alive,” Hattie explained, “my husband, Charles, kept a wall safe there for his business papers. After his death, I discovered a large amount of cash in it, possibly ill-gotten gains from smuggling, although I was never able to prove it. I was forced to use some of the money to free Charlotte from her kidnappers, but the rest was still in the safe at the time of my death. Therefore I made certain, once I was able to come back to earth, that our housekeeper, Sara, returned to the house and hired workers to conceal the safe behind a built-in bookcase.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jordan said, excitement chasing chills down her spine. “Do you mean to tell me that someone else, someone human besides me, has been able to see you?”

  Hattie frowned at her. “Well, of course. Though admittedly, there have only been a few of you over the years. Fortunately, Sara was one.” Her expression turned sad. “I like to think I was able to console her a bit—she was devastated by Charlotte’s and my deaths.”

  Jordan waved that aside. “All right. Maybe I’m not crazy; maybe I can find others whom I can at least talk to about all this—”

  “Oh, I doubt others exist today. And really,” Hattie sniffed, “I’d think you’d be much more interested in the money.”

  Scrutinizing the bookcase, Frank faded through it, then reappeared. “There’s definitely something back there,” he told Jordan. “But you’ll need to have one of your workers dismantle the bookcase to get to it. You don’t want to unduly damage the plaster.”

  Jordan remembered her tea and took a sip before it got too cold. “How much money is in there?” she asked Hattie out of curiosity.

  “About forty thousand dollars, I think.”

  Jordan spewed the tea all over the Aubusson rug. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Kidding you … oh, you mean would I say it in jest? Whyever would I do that?” Hattie asked seriously, not understanding the colloquialism. “Unless someone was able to remove the money before I returned, that’s what should be in there.”

  “This is wonderful!” Charlotte cried. “We can use it to pay for your wedding.”

  Chapter 9

  AFTER taking a shower and downing several more aspirin tablets, Jordan stopped in at the neighborhood florist’s to pay for Hattie’s roses. The owner seemed more thrilled by the prospect of being robbed by a ghost than by Jordan’s offer to reimburse her for the loss.

  By the time Jordan arrived at All That Jazz, Darcy was already holding a table. As Jordan crossed the room, she gave Jase a questioning look, wondering if he needed help behind the bar, but he shook his head. Relieved that she would have some downtime, she headed for Darcy’s table, but ended up detouring to check in with Tom, who was sitting at a nearby table with two men she’d never met before. Both wore paint-streaked overalls, though, so she surmised that they worked with him.

  “Any chance you can drop by the house tomorrow morning to help me dismantle a bookcase?” she asked Tom when she was within hearing.

  He raised both eyebrows but refrained from asking outright. “What time?”

  “Tenish? That gives me time to take Malachi out for breakfast.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  The pub was crowded for a Wednesday night, and several of the patrons weren’t drinking. Absently noting a number of ghosts dressed in old-fashioned work clothes, Jordan pulled out the chair across from Darcy and sank into it. An unshaven man two tables away caught her eye. While she was puzzling out why he looked familiar to her, he looked her way, locking gazes with her. He smiled, his expression more cocksure than friendly. Then he stood and left. She frowned, still not placing him, and gave up, shrugging the feeling away.

  Malachi made the rounds, greeting everyone he knew with a lick, holding up his paw for a shake, then took up his favorite position on the floor by her feet. Not for the first time, Jordan wondered why the big dog didn’t seem to be wary of the ghosts in the pub, while at home, he frequently disappeared when they were around. Perhaps it had more to do with the level of tension in the house, versus the relatively low-key buzz from the ghosts in the pub, who were typically on hand to socialize and listen to the live jazz. Whatever the reason, she found it reassuring that he could see them.

  “Looks like we’ve got four distinct sets of unidentified fingerprints at Holt’s house,” Darcy said by way of greeting. “Your fingerprints were all over the attic.”

  “That would be from when I hunted through the boxes to find Michael Seavey’s papers, about three weeks ago.” Jordan propped her running shoes on the extra chair. “So three sets that are unidentified.”

  Darcy nodded. “You did notice that there are mice up in that attic? Lots of them? Everywhere?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, then. So much for worrying whether you contracted hantavirus.” Darcy shook her head, taking a sip from her glass of wine.

  When officially off duty, Darcy typically exchanged her work clothes for outfits that were more flattering to her tall, slender build. This evening, she had on a jazzy red, form-fitting, ribbed cotton sweater with a high collar, low-rider black jeans, and black leather boots—as usual, effortlessly pulling off far more style than Jordan would manage in her entire lifetime. It hadn’t escaped her notice that whenever Darcy entered a room, more than one man’s gaze followed her, showing appreciation and interest.

  “We’ve pretty much wrapped up work at Holt’s house and on the beach,” Darcy said, looking more relaxed and less tired than the night before. “No murder weapon, no dive gear. Anywhere. And nothing at Holt’s house that indicates a struggle, though it would be hard to tell in all the mess.”

  “So maybe he was killed on a boat and dumped?”

  “Who the hell knows? I have no identified crime scene and a complete lack of evidence, so I don’t even know how to start speculating.”

  “Can the medical examiner tell if Holt fought with anyone?”

  Darcy raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” Jordan spread her hands. “Half the population knows to ask that question. The only shows on television these days are reality and crime.”

  “Preliminary findings indicate no sign of a struggle. My guess is Holt knew his killer, who walked up to him and put a bullet through his brain. Or who gave him a lift in a boat, blew his brains out, and dumped him overboard. The gun was a .22, which explains the lack of an exit wound—the bullet bounced around inside, turning his brains to mush.” Darcy must have noticed Jordan’s expression. “Sorry—I forget sometimes that I’m talking to a civilian.”

  Jase dropped off a glass of wine for Jordan on his way to the piano. Evidently he would be providing the entertainment this evening. She took a bracing sip.

  “It would be nice to know who Holt’s most recent girlfriend was,” Darcy mused out loud. “But so far, I can’t find anyone who knows or at least is willing to tell me.”


  The wine selection for that evening was a crisp, dry Merlot, which Jordan thought went down just fine. “So what’s the deal with Sally? She sounded angry enough to do a little B&E. Did she and Holt date?”

  “Nope, Holt dated her sister, who committed suicide not long afterward.”

  The next sip of wine almost went down Jordan’s windpipe. “Jesus.” She hated the thought of anyone committing suicide. In her opinion, suicides represented a failure by the therapy community to intervene before it was too late. “Dammit, wasn’t anyone paying attention?”

  “Evidently not. Everyone knew the sister had problems—a history of drugs, in and out of institutions, and so on. But she’d been relatively stable for a year or so when Holt got hold of her.”

  “You said Holt treated women badly, but I had no idea.”

  “Actually, though Sally told me she blamed Holt, I never completely bought her reasoning,” Darcy replied. “I suspect his treatment of the sister might have contributed but wasn’t the primary cause. Melissa—I think that was her name—was always unstable, and the family had limited funds to pay for her care. Sally did what she could, but the treatments never stuck. Melissa would take her meds for a while, then fall off the wagon.”

  “And Holt sensed a vulnerability and exploited it,” Jordan concluded bluntly. “Or was too oblivious to understand her fragile state.”

  “Yep.”

  “If I were in Sally’s shoes, I can’t say for certain that I wouldn’t have reacted the same way about Holt’s death,” Jordan admitted. “She’s got to believe that if not for him, her sister might still be alive. That’s strong motive.”

  “I’m checking into her alibi,” Darcy agreed.

  Jase ran his fingers lightly over the piano’s keys, then launched into a mellow, familiar tune. It took Jordan a few minutes to place it. “Body and Soul.” She gave him a quiet look, but he merely smiled. Lazily.

  “Why don’t you put all of us out of our misery and jump the poor man’s bones?” Darcy asked, observant as ever.

  “No privacy, for one thing. I’m not big on exhibitionism, and the ghosts are around all the time.”

  “I’m betting if you knocked on his door, he wouldn’t leave you standing on the porch.”

  “Remember that discussion we had earlier about how a woman prefers to have the man stay over at her house, not go to his? Besides, according to my Four Point Plan for Personal Renewal, I’m still eleven and a half months away from allowing myself to make any kind of new relationship commitment—six for grieving, six more for looking but not touching,” she reminded Darcy. She was referring to the personal renewal plan her friends called the FPP that she’d implemented to help herself recover from the upheavals in her life.

  “Give me a moment to bang my head on the table.” Darcy’s tone was sarcastic. “That plan was a total non-starter. You’re way too impulsive to ever stick to something so rigid.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you or did you not write a check on the spot for a house that you’d barely seen? Shut down your practice in L.A. and move up here basically on a whim?” Darcy shook her head. “All I’m saying is that you need to loosen up. Have some sex—it’s a terrific stress reducer.”

  “People who live in glass houses,” Jordan pointed out. “When was the last time you took some hot guy up on his offer?”

  “Dating the chief of police tends to warp your expectations for the relationship. You, however, have no excuse.”

  “Murdered husband? Several life changes that hit high up on the Richter stress scale? Any of this ringing a bell?”

  Darcy made a chickenlike clucking noise.

  Jordan’s retort was delayed by Kathleen suddenly appearing at their table, radiating a grim intensity.

  According to Jase, his cranky chef had once been a fighter pilot in the military. She now managed an organic garden of herbs and greens behind the pub with ruthless efficiency, using its produce to create the mouthwatering meals she intimidated pub patrons into eating. One didn’t try to order from Kathleen—one simply agreed to eat what she served.

  “Yes,” Jordan agreed, and Darcy nodded.

  Kathleen left without a word.

  Jordan returned to the possible cause of the break-in, avoiding further discussion of her romantic life. Or lack thereof. “So maybe someone knew Holt was diving for salvage and decided to break into his house, to see if he came up with anything of value. Maybe the burglar knew what Holt was diving for.”

  “We don’t know Holt was doing any such thing,” Darcy reminded her.

  “No, but it’s looking pretty likely that he was.” Jordan filled Darcy in on what she’d learned talking to the workers at the hotel, and also that she and Bob had pinpointed the coordinates of the shipwreck, which basically matched where they’d found Holt. “Those workers said Holt had been taking diving lessons.”

  “So what part of ‘don’t mess with my investigation’ don’t you understand?” Darcy asked.

  “I was actually looking into something else, but since I was at the Historical Society and the hotel, I decided to see if I could discover anything that would help you out.”

  “Right,” Darcy said drily. “Wait—what were you doing at the Historical Society? And no, don’t tell me how you got inside. I don’t recommend that you confess to me when you commit felonies.”

  “A worker let me in,” Jordan replied in a virtuous tone. She didn’t volunteer that she’d filched more historical documents. “I was looking for information about the Henrietta Dale. I figured that the shipwreck had to be big news at the time, and that there’d be a number of stories about it. I was also looking for information about Michael Seavey’s murder.”

  Darcy looked confused. “The shanghaier? Why?”

  “Hattie wants me to find out who killed him, because he’s courting her. And by the way, I think Seavey’s murder might relate to your murder investigation.”

  “Whoa.” Darcy held up a hand. “Did you just say that Michael Seavey is courting Hattie? She has two lovers? Has Seavey’s ghost been at your house?”

  Jordan sighed. “Yes, yes, and yes. Michael Seavey has decided to come back from … wherever … and hang out part of the time at my house. He lives in the upper floors of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, but he visits my house to court Hattie. Seavey thinks he perished on the Henrietta Dale, but Hattie found an old newspaper article …”

  “Boil it down,” Darcy ordered impatiently.

  Jordan gave her a silent look, then continued. “… claiming that Seavey had been murdered. And Seavey left behind business papers. They were hidden in the rooms Holt was remodeling, identifying the cargo on board the Henrietta Dale the night she ran aground. So Holt was after the sunken loot, and someone probably killed him for it,” she concluded. She was pleased she’d been able to articulate it so clearly.

  “Shit.” Darcy scowled. “Setting aside for the moment that the number of ghosts in your house continues to multiply, and ignoring the fact that one of them could actually be rather dangerous to have lurking about, let me just be perfectly clear: I don’t think Holt’s murder has anything to do with the past. I believe the fact that we found him where we did may be, at best, an indication that he’d developed an interest in that old shipwreck. His murderer could easily have decided to take advantage of a remote location, nothing more. You have absolutely no proof that anyone in present day could have had a motive to kill Holt over a salvage operation that likely doesn’t include anything of real value.”

  “What about the stash of opium? That’s got to be valuable. And we don’t know what else might have been on board the Henrietta Dale. Seavey went to great expense to have secret compartments built into the hull.”

  “The opium is a plant-based product that would have lost its potency a long time ago, not to mention gotten waterlogged, in all likelihood. Do you actually know what else was on board the ship that night? Did you find the business papers?” Darcy stopped abruptly. “I get it—that’s
what you were looking for at Holt’s house. The papers. I knew you were searching for something.” She glowered at Jordan. “You are a real pain in the butt, you know that?”

  “Seavey showed me where the papers had been hidden in his hotel suite,” Jordan explained. She decided not to mention the obnoxious owner and her foray into illegal trespass. “I also talked to one of Holt’s employees, who told me he’d found the papers, then signed up for diving lessons.” She drank the last of her wine, then leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. “I’m not just making this up, you know. Holt really was diving for whatever was on the ship at the time she went down.”

  Which made her wonder, come to think of it, who the guy was that she’d seen on the beach during their hike. At the time, she’d thought he was a ghost and discounted his presence. He’d been diving, and he’d had some kind of decorated tin in his hand. After all, Darcy hadn’t even noticed him. But maybe he was the murderer after all.

  Darcy waved a hand in front of her face. “Hello? You flew away there for a minute.”

  Jordan hesitated; then she shrugged. “Just thinking, is all.” Until she was certain of what she’d seen, she wasn’t going to mention it.

  “Fine,” Darcy said, “but let me repeat: I’m not interested in some old shipwreck, even if that’s why Holt was in a dry suit. This murder took place in present day, and it most likely has something to do with events in Holt’s life that don’t relate in any way to Michael Seavey and the nineteenth century. I’m focusing on who in recent months—including old girlfriends or disgruntled business associates—would have wanted him dead.”

  Her last statement caught Jordan’s attention. “Disgruntled business associates?”

  “Holt’s fired a few workers over the years who subsequently let it be known they thought they’d been treated badly.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Down, girl. I haven’t gotten far enough in my search to identify specific individuals yet. I’ve been busy with the various crime scenes and running down your elusive assailant. And people don’t go around just announcing that they were fired from jobs. Besides, running any names past you that I might come up with is of very little value. Even if I introduce you to each person, it’s not like you have a lot of experience counseling murderers and delving into their psyches. You wouldn’t immediately recognize a homicidal tendency in someone you met.”