Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery (26 page)

Jordan suddenly realized that
this
was what had been bugging her—the captain’s original account of the shipwreck that night, followed so closely by his retirement. He simply couldn’t have been that broken up over the loss of a ship he’d sailed for just a few hours. So the only explanation that made sense was the one Garrett had just given her, that Williams immediately realized that no one would be the wiser if he came back a few days later to retrieve the
Henrietta Dale
’s valuable cargo. Such a cargo would have also given him the funds he needed to retire.

“Ah,” Garrett said now, accurately reading her expression. “I see that you realized the import of Williams’s behavior immediately following the shipwreck and, indeed, during the investigation of the cause of the grounding. By the time of the hearings into the grounding, Williams had carefully concealed enough money to retire comfortably, based on our salvage efforts. All he had to do was act broken up over the loss of his ship, making it look as if he were too grief-stricken to take the helm of another vessel any time in the near future.” Garrett smiled, his expression reminiscent. “I must say, the chap was a consummate actor.”

“But I don’t understand,” Jordan said. “If you retrieved the opium within days of when the ship went down, what was Holt diving for?”

“Unfortunately, Williams didn’t have knowledge of all the secret compartments. And a portion of the hull had sunk in deeper waters, making the effort to dive and break open the compartments far more difficult.”

That made sense. After all, divers then wouldn’t have had the modern gear available today. She remembered now that the dive suit she’d seen Garrett wear that day on the spit had been odd looking. It probably represented what he knew of the dive suits from his own time on earth.

“Okay, I believe you,” she said.

“I’m greatly relieved.” His tone was wry. “However, I must insist that you make a point of notifying Seavey at once, and informing him of what you have learned. I grow weary from the inconvenience of avoiding him on the waterfront.”

She suspected it was more than that, but she didn’t want to push him any more than she had. “All right. You have my word that I will inform him sometime later today.”

Garrett shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t believe your word is sufficient. You see, I’ve always found that when threatened, people will do or say whatever they need to, to remain alive.” He stood, then placed his hands on the table, leaning over her. “You have twenty-four hours to do as I bid, or I will return to eliminate those you consider your friends, including this mutt. Do you understand?”

She swallowed. “Yes, I understand.”

He straightened, nodding. “Good. If you do as I request, this will be the last you see of me.”

“Thank God for that,” she muttered as he turned to fade away. With shaking hands, she picked up her bill and pulled out money to cover it.

“You’re as white as a sheet!” Marietta exclaimed as she came over to remove the plates. “Are you all right? My food didn’t give you indigestion, did it?”

“No.” Jordan mustered a thin smile. “Your food was delicious as always. It was just something I read—it made me lose my appetite.”

But as she walked back to Longren House, stopping frequently to kneel and hug Malachi, she suddenly realized her distress was partially caused by something she
had
read. Something that was even more shocking and horrifying than what she’d just endured.

She had a strong hunch she knew who had killed Michael Seavey after all.

Chapter 20

A
FTER
leaving Malachi in the care of Jase and Tom, she got into the Prius and headed for the marina. She needed to find Charlotte and ask her some pointed questions, but they would have to wait—she was running late for her appointment with Bob.

On the drive down, she was so distracted by her thoughts that she failed to take in any of the scenery. She
did
manage to avoid plowing through a couple of coach-and-fours, but otherwise, her mind was still focused on what she’d read and learned from Garrett over breakfast.

Michael Seavey had, in all likelihood, been the unconscious man the crew had taken off the
Henrietta Dale
in the first moments after the ship’s grounding. So it stood to reason that he’d been transported back to Port Chatham for medical treatment,
and
that he wouldn’t have remembered the trip. It also followed that if he had suffered from any sort of concussion, he could have remained unconscious for days. But she didn’t believe he’d survived that long.

Before leaving the house, she’d double-checked the date of the newspaper article in the library that Hattie had shown her that first night, the one recounting Seavey’s murder. The article had been dated just two days
after
the shipwreck, which in reality worked out to be little more than thirty-six hours after Seavey would have been brought back to town.

The
Henrietta Dale
had run aground late on the night of August 5, 1893, which meant that by the time Seavey reached Port Chatham for treatment, it had to have been the morning of the sixth. Which, in turn, meant that the murderer could have killed Seavey and dumped his body amid the chaos. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that his body wouldn’t have been noticed until the morning of August 7. The timeline worked.

And it would have been relatively simple to murder him, after all. The killer merely needed to be someone whose presence the rescue workers wouldn’t have questioned, who made it a point of being in charge of transporting the unconscious Seavey to a doctor’s infirmary. Once he had Seavey out of sight, it would have been easy to shoot him and dump his body under the wharf. All under the cover of darkness, if the killer had waited until that evening.

She pulled up in front of the Wooden Boat Society headquarters and killed the engine. Following a chattering group of tourists inside, she waited impatiently for them to move aside so that she could walk into Bob’s office. The sooner she got this call over with, the sooner she could go home and verify her suspicions with Charlotte.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said to Bob. “Has your friend called yet?”

“Nope.” He looked up from what appeared to be a mock-up of a brochure about the upcoming boat festival. “You’re good. When you didn’t arrive right on time, I sent him a brief email, asking him to delay his call by fifteen minutes, just in case.”

Jordan sat down across from him at the desk. “How do you want this to work? Do you want to put him on speaker, so that we can both talk to him?”

“Why don’t we see what his preference is?” Bob replied. “I hear you had another visitor at your house last night.”

“Yeah, Clive Walters.” She gave him a brief recap. “Darcy and I think he might have murdered Holt and broke into my house looking for the documents, because he was trying to keep Seavey around as a ghost to improve business.”

Bob leaned back in his chair, raising both brows. “Really? That’s pretty crazy.”

“Yeah, I thought so. We won’t know for certain until Darcy—” Her cellphone rang, cutting her off. “That’s probably her right now. Excuse me.”

She stood up and walked a few feet away, pressing the screen with her thumb to answer the call. “Tell me he’s our guy,” she said without preamble.

“I don’t know whether he is or not,” Darcy said, sounding tired and exasperated.

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. The ballistics on the gun match, but he’s lawyered up and not talking. Several guests also swear he never left the winetasting event that evening, and they would have no reason to lie for him. So if he slipped out, I can’t figure out how or when. And he’s definitely
not
confessing to the murder—only to wanting to stop you from getting hold of the documents you needed to solve Seavey’s murder. He’s claiming I’m protecting you and that
you
killed Holt.”

Jordan stared out the window at the neat rows of expensive power boats and yachts in the marina. “So other than the sheer
insanity
of his faulty mental processing,” she said slowly, thinking it through, “that means someone else might have planted the gun.”

“Tragically, yes. I freaking
hate
this case. As of now, I’m concentrating on Sally as a Person of Interest, because she has the strongest motive. That could evaporate, though, if her ISP verifies that she was using email at the time of Holt’s murder.” Darcy sighed. “I don’t suppose you remember the last time you were in the library?”

“No, not really … maybe that morning? I was gone all that afternoon and evening. And the house was wide-open. Anyone could have put the gun there.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t want to lock your doors when you leave,” Darcy said sarcastically.

“Hey.”

“Sorry, I’m a little testy.” Jordan heard her fiddle with some papers on her desk. “I can’t believe I’m asking this, but can you question the ghosts and see if any of them know anything or saw anything? We could use the information to point us to the right person.”

“I can ask, though they disappear with alarming regularity,” Jordan replied. “One of these days I’m going to ask them where they go. Not, mind you, that I’m sure I really want to know.”

“Well, get back to me as soon as you can, will you? I’m booking Walters on the attempted robbery, but a lawyer will have him back on the streets within hours.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.” She ended the call. “Sorry about that,” she said, turning. “That was Darcy, as I suspected.”

“Yes, I heard,” Bob said.

She froze midturn.

He held a very, very scary-looking, really, really
big
black gun in his hand. And it was pointed at her.

“But what about the conference call?” she asked stupidly, staring at the hole in the end of the barrel.

“I’m afraid I felt compelled to mislead you,” Bob replied gently.

Chapter 21

F
UCK
.” Jordan bent over, trying to control the roaring in her ears. With the thumb of her left hand, she surreptitiously speed-dialed Darcy. “I’m going to pee my pants.”

“That’s disgusting,” Bob said. “Suck it up.”

“
You
try having a b-big gun pointed at you,” she retorted, feeling both nauseous and faint.

“Shut up.” He followed her sidelong glance toward the other room. “And unless you want me to kill all those nice, innocent tourists as well, you won’t try to get their attention.”

Which was exactly what she’d been thinking.
Shit
. Where was a damn ghost when she needed one? Even Charlotte could have caused some kind of commotion with all the crap lying around his office, and the distraction would have given her a chance to run for it. The front door wasn’t that far away.

She straightened gingerly. And focused on the hole in the end of the gun barrel. Again. “Why?”

“Why what?” He kept the gun trained on her as he leaned over to pick up the wastebasket beside the desk. “You mean, why did I kill Holt? That’s simple—he was going to expose my family background.”

“But everyone already knows about your great-great-grandfather MacDonough.”

“Not
that
ancestor. Sam Garrett.”

“
You’re
related to Garrett?” She stared at him, utterly confused.

“Good ole Grady married Garrett’s sister not too long after Seavey’s death. And I knew once you started looking at the marriage records, you’d figure it out. I couldn’t have that. Cellphone, in here, now.” He gestured with the wastebasket. “I can’t have you trying to contact anyone.”

Shit, shit, shit
. She reached into her back jeans pocket and slowly withdrew it. Hopefully, Darcy was hearing all of this.

“I still don’t understand,” she said, trying to buy herself time. “What difference does it make if you’re related to Sam Garrett? I would think that kind of notoriety would bring people in by the droves to the Wooden Boat Festival.”

Bob snorted. “Being the descendant of a master ship’s carpenter is
prestigious
. Being related to a mass murderer? Not so much. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s an economic recession, and people aren’t making charitable contributions like they used to. One
whiff
of my being related to a mass murderer, and the contributions to the Wooden Boat Society would have dried up. Not to mention that the festival would have bombed this year. And Holt had plans to hold a
press conference
, the fool.”

“You sent out a call?” Michael Seavey asked, materializing beside her. “Why does this man have a gun pointed at you? What have you done now?”

Her knees almost gave out in relief. She splayed a hand out at her side, hoping he understood the signal.

Seavey raised a brow. “Indeed, I never willingly engage in physical violence unless there is sufficient provocation.”

“Have you ‘called’ the others?” she asked, sotto voce.

“I don’t recommend calling anyone, unless you want me to shoot you right here and now.” Bob gestured with the gun. “Come on, I’m losing patience with your juvenile stall tactics. Give me the damn phone.”

She palmed it so that he couldn’t see the lit screen and dropped it into the plastic basket. “The least you could do is have a nice hardwood wastebasket,” she prattled. “Plastic is so, well, low class—”

“Oh, that’s excellent,” Seavey said, his eyes rolling around in their sockets. “Increase the ire of the person holding the gun. I’m amazed you’ve managed to remain alive this long, given your lack of survival instinct.”

He had a point.

“I’m not stupid enough to spend money on a goddamn wastebasket, when that money would otherwise go straight into my bank account,” Bob said impatiently. Setting down the wastebasket, he said in a more pleasant tone, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: You’ll come around behind the desk, and then we’ll quietly leave by the back door. If you make any noise, I’ll drop you right here with a bullet through your spine. If you try to get anyone’s attention, I’ll kill you, then shoot them. Got it?”

“Oh, dear. This indeed might be more serious than I first believed,” Seavey murmured.

“You think?” Jordan asked.

“I think what?” Bob knit his brow.

“Never mind. Where are you taking me?” She was afraid she already knew the answer.

“You and I are going on a little boat ride. Bodies are much harder to find if they’re dumped out in the Inlet.”

“He’s quite correct in that regard,” Seavey said.

“No shit,” Jordan snapped. “Are you going to do something, or not?”

“What would you have me do? Try to knock the gun out of his hand? These are very close quarters—you might inadvertently be shot. I believe our best opportunity will occur once we are outside.”

“Jesus,” Bob snapped. “I just
told
you what I’m going to do. You’re fucking crazy! I have a
fucking gun
, and
I’m
calling the shots. Now,
move
.”

She rubbed trembling hands against her jeans, then walked around the desk. If she let him put her on the boat, she knew she was a goner.

Taking her upper arm in a painful grip, Bob snugged the gun barrel against her back. “Okay, let’s go. Look like we’re having a pleasant walk and chat, or you’ll be responsible for the deaths of others as well as your own.”

He pushed her toward the back door, told her to open it, and then they were outside on the docks. Seavey floated along next to them. Turning her toward a long line of boat slips, Bob said, “Keep going, but not too fast.”

“Believe me,” she retorted, her mind racing to come up with some sort of strategy, “I’m in no hurry.”

“A sense of humor,” he replied with a chuckle. “I like that. In fact, I like
you
, Jordan. It’s a damn shame I can’t keep you around.”

He actually sounded as if he regretted what he was about to do. “So why don’t you give it some thought?” she bargained. “I’m willing to keep everything quiet. We can make a deal.”

“No, you aren’t,” he replied, sounding amused. “This whole goddamn town listens to you now. They all think you talk to ghosts, which I know is a bunch of crap. You’re just making this stuff up as you go.”

Seavey puffed up threateningly. “He believes you are
lying
about us?”

“Call the others,” Jordan murmured. “The more chaos, the better.”

Seavey shook his head. “I don’t want to put Hattie at risk. Or Charlotte, for that matter.”

“How would they be at risk? He can’t see you.” Jordan added for incentive, “He murdered your nephew, you know.”

Seavey’s expression darkened.

“Oh, that’s cute, Jordan.” Bob chuckled again, this time digging the gun hard into her side and making her yelp. “Do you really think pretending to talk to ghosts is going to convince me they exist? I’m not that gullible. You must really need a lot of attention to feel good, babe, that’s all I can say.”

“But what about all that stuff you said about me seeing ghost ships?” she asked.

“I needed to keep tabs on you, that’s all.”

Unbelievable
. She glanced over her shoulder in sheer astonishment. The man was
way
deep into transference, thinking she was vying for the limelight when
he
was the one going to such great lengths to do exactly that. The freaking bane of every psychologist’s existence: the client’s emotional drive to accuse his therapist of the psychological problems
he
suffered from. And she wasn’t even getting paid to deal with this drivel.

But she’d be damned if she’d stand for him accusing her of
making this crap up
. She dug in her heels, slowing them down. “Okay, first of all, I really
do
see ghosts and ghost ships, you asshole. And second, why would I have the need to make any of it up?”

He shoved her to keep her moving forward. “How the hell do I know? Maybe you’re new in town and feeling lonely. Maybe you think if you’re quirky, Jase will take you to bed sooner. The bottom line? I don’t really give a damn. The end result is that your lies and stories convinced enough idiots in this town that you really do talk to ghosts and can solve old murders. So Holt was going to ask you to look into Seavey’s murder. And that meant you’d figure out the family connection to Garrett.”

“You know,” she said crankily, “if you’d just chosen denial over transference, none of this would have happened. You could’ve ignored the fallout from Holt’s press conference, because it was just too horrible to contemplate actually having to murder someone. And really, denial is wonderfully effective. You could have claimed the historical data were wrong—that you weren’t actually related to Garrett. People might never have even cared.”

“You really
are
a pain in the ass, you know that? I have no clue what the hell you’re talking about. Maybe killing you
will
be a pleasure.”

“Fits with your family heritage,” she snapped.

“I can confirm
that
,” Seavey agreed. “Garrett took far too much pleasure from the violence he engaged in.”

“You can jump in anytime now,” Jordan told him, feeling more than a little desperate to get Bob’s gun pointed in a different direction.

“Shut up,” Bob growled.

“And I was right,” she persisted. “Holt really
did
care more about family than he let on, if he was going to ask me to solve Seavey’s murder.”

“Yeah, he cared about the extra money he would make if he had a really good story to tell about those old opium tins,” Bob scoffed. “Otherwise, they were just rusted crap he’d brought up from some old wreck. I tossed him and the tins back into the water.” He jammed the gun into her ribs a second time. “Now
move it
. I’ve had enough of your stalling.”

“Drop the gun, Bob.” Darcy moved out from behind the bow on a large sailboat, her gun leveled at him.

Relief rushed through Jordan, and her knees buckled.

But as she crumpled, Bob wrapped an arm around her neck, yanking her against him and pressing the gun barrel against the side of her head. “Stand up, bitch!”

She gasped for air and locked her knees to ease the pressure against her throat.

“Keep your distance, Chief, or she gets it right here.”

In her peripheral vision, Jordan saw Charlotte and Hattie materialize.

“He’s got a
gun
!” Charlotte screamed, zipping in and out of the moored boats. “Do something, Michael!”

“If I make the wrong move, she could get shot,” Michael explained. “We must wait for the right opportunity—”

“And if you don’t take action soon,” Frank said from behind Jordan and Bob, “she’ll die regardless.”

“Then I suggest
you
come up with a plan,” Seavey retorted mildly. “I don’t want Jordan’s death or serious injury on my conscience.”

“On that we agree,” Frank replied. “The current living arrangements are adequate; I don’t want them disrupted.”

“This is not the time for an argument over the best strategy,” Hattie pointed out.

Charlotte hissed, her zipping motions becoming ever more erratic.

“Would someone please just
do
something?” Jordan pleaded.

Bob’s laugh sounded ugly. “No one can save you, not your imagined ghosts, not even your cop buddy here. We’re getting on that boat.”

“
Imagined
?” Hattie asked, her expression turning irritated. “He believes we don’t exist?”

“The nerve!” Charlotte hissed.

“Can we focus on what’s important here?” Jordan croaked as Bob’s arm tightened.

“Yes, why don’t we?” Darcy said calmly, her gun never wavering, her expression coldly professional. “This is a death-penalty state, Bob. It’s iffy whether the DA will ask for it in Holt’s case, but if you kill Jordan, that’s seriously premeditated murder
and
kidnapping. Virtually guarantees a lethal injection.”

“You’ve got three seconds to drop
your
gun, Chief.” Bob didn’t sound the least concerned, which really, really terrified Jordan. “If you don’t, your girlfriend dies. And I know how much you like her.”

“I can take her or leave her, to tell the truth,” Darcy replied mildly. “She’s a bit of a hassle.”

“Hey,” Jordan croaked.

“Well, you are,” Darcy replied. “Every time I turn around, I’m getting you out of trouble. Frankly, I’m tired of it.” She locked gazes with Jordan for a second and cocked her head slightly to her right, as if she were considering whether she really
was
worth saving.

Jordan slid her eyes to her left and spied Jase and Tom moving in silently from a dock that intersected theirs, keeping low to the ground. She pushed, trying to angle Bob more to her right, to keep them out of sight.

He tightened his arm, cutting off her air. Stars sparked in her peripheral vision. “Quit it.” He jammed the barrel harder against her temple, splitting the skin. She felt blood trickle down the side of her face.

“He’s hurting her!” Charlotte cried out and zipped around. “Do something, Michael!”

Jordan felt Bob stiffen and closed her eyes, realizing she’d just made the possibly fatal mistake of alerting him.

“Join the party, boys,” Bob called. “Come on over here, hands raised, unless you want to watch your girlfriend get it.”

Jase and Tom straightened, their expressions resigned. Jase sent her a look filled with chagrin, then settled his gaze on Bob with cold determination.

“Real smooth,” Darcy told her. “Remind me never to bring you to a shoot-out again.”

“Sorry,” Jordan croaked.

Bob motioned for the men to join Darcy. “Over there, where I can see you.”

“I always knew you were a prick, Bob,” Jase said mildly.

“And you’re a self-righteous asshole,” Bob told him.

“Boys, boys,” Darcy scolded, sounding bored, her eyes anything but. “No need to trade insults.”

“Really, Jordan,” Seavey reproved. “Are any of these humans of use to you at the moment?”