Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery (27 page)

“They might be if you cause enough of a commotion,” Jordan retorted. “What good is it to have ghosts around if all you’re going to do is comment on the proceedings?”

Jase exchanged looks with Bob and Darcy, it dawning on them that they weren’t alone.

“So I’m going to count to three, Chief.” Bob sounded surprisingly genial. “And you’re going to drop your weapon. One … two—”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Darcy held her gun up, then lowered it slowly to the dock, never taking her eyes off him.

“Oh, great,” Frank said, disgusted. “Law enforcement today must receive little or no training.”

“Excellent,” Bob told Darcy. “Now, your backup. The one in your left ankle holster?”

“Sure, no problem.” Darcy kept both hands outstretched, then reached down with one and hitched up the leg of her jeans. She pulled a small gun out of a hidden holster and placed it next to the other one.

“Kick them into the water,” he ordered.

“Good Christ!” Seavey exclaimed “Order her not to comply, Jordan!”

Darcy hesitated, then sighed. “Those guns cost good money, Bob. I don’t exactly have the department budget to replace them.”

“Shut up. I’m not going to ask you again.”

Darcy gave him another quiet look for a couple of beats, then did as she was told.

Jordan closed her eyes.
Think, dammit
. She had to do something that would distract him, that would give the others the opening they needed. But what?

“The marine charts,” she said suddenly, opening her eyes.

Everyone looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“Who gives a shit about the marine charts?” Bob asked.

“I do,” Jordan insisted. “You didn’t go out to Holt’s to retrieve marine charts—you went out there to try to find the documents Holt had discovered at the hotel. Right?”

“Who the fuck cares?” Bob started dragging her backward down the docks, his gun trained on the others.

“
I
care, dammit,” she gasped, bringing both her hands up to claw his arm where it pressed against her windpipe. “If I’m going to die, I want my friends to make certain Hattie and Michael Seavey know the truth about the shipwreck.”

“You found out something important?” Hattie asked.

“Not now, my dear,” Seavey said.

Charlotte hissed and flew over Bob’s head, missing by mere inches.

Jase’s expression had turned more frantic. Tom was looking from Jordan to Darcy, waiting for some kind of signal.

“No one cares about your lies, got it, Jordan?” Bob grunted. “Christ. If I didn’t need you to get me off this dock right now, I’d shoot you and dump you into the water.
Normal
people freeze in terror and behave. But no, you can’t quit mouthing off—”

Jordan took as deep a breath as she dared, then closing her eyes and praying, she let her knees fall out from under her, throwing her weight to the side.

Bob started swearing. Charlotte swooped down, knocking the gun partially out of his hand.

A loud
boom
echoed right next to Jordan’s ear, and Darcy started to fall. Seavey closed in, grasping the gun and struggling with Bob, who started screaming, not understanding what was happening.

Darcy fired as she went down. The bullet went through Seavey, hitting Bob, who fell on Jordan, pancaking her against the wooden timbers, his weight squashing the air out of her lungs. She wheezed, her vision blurring, her fingernails scrabbling for purchase on the wood as she struggled to crawl out from under him.

Bob’s weight was suddenly gone and Jase was holding her tight, his arms banded in a vise around her. “Don’t you know
any
self-defense moves?” he growled into her hair.

“No,” she said, holding onto him just as tightly, “but I’ll let you teach me some.”

“A little warning would have been nice,” Darcy groused, holding her arm, blood flowing freely between her fingers.

Tom dropped to the dock beside her. “How bad is it?” he asked urgently, pulling her fingers away from her arm. “Let me see.”

“I don’t fucking believe it!” Darcy snarled, ignoring Tom and keeping the gun pointed at Bob, who was lying facedown on the dock, moaning and gurgling oddly. “You got me shot
two times in one month
?”

“I think that was Charlotte,” Jordan sniffed, reluctant to leave Jase’s arms.

Charlotte huffed. “I
saved
you!”

“You certainly did,” Jordan agreed, giving her a weak smile over his shoulder.

“Well done, Seavey,” Frank said grudgingly, having pulled Hattie to safety.

Seavey made an elaborate show of dusting off his suit coat. “A life of crime
can
come in handy at times, can it not?”

Jase pulled Jordan well away from Bob, then retrieved Darcy’s cuffs. He walked back over to Bob, kicking his gun into the water, then knelt to flip him over and cuff him. Tom was on the phone, calling 911.

“You carry
three
guns?” Jordan asked, faintly incredulous.

“Middle of my back,” Darcy replied, standing as two more patrol cars and an ambulance drove into the marina parking lot, sirens blaring. “Son of a bitch is still alive, more’s the pity. You complaining about me being armed to the teeth?”

“No.” Jordan shuddered.

“Don’t
ever
do this again,” Jase said fiercely, coming back to hold her. “My heart fucking
stopped
.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” she protested, her voice muffled against his chest. She was fairly certain she didn’t want to quit holding onto him, either. Any time this millennium. “I had an appointment for a conference call. I had no idea.”

“Fine. Just don’t ‘not do anything’ ever again. Got it?”

“Shook us up real good, babe,” Tom said from beside Darcy. “When Jase got your call …” He paused and shrugged. “I’ve never seen such a laid-back guy move so fast.”

“So I called you?” Jordan asked, finally easing back. “I thought I called Darcy.”

“When you didn’t respond and I heard Bob’s voice in the background,” Jase explained, moving her out of the way of the medics who needed to get to Bob, “I borrowed Tom’s cell and called Darcy.”

“How’d you find me?” Jordan asked. “GPS tracking of the cell signal?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “You’ve
really
got to quit watching crime shows. Small towns don’t have that kind of capability. I knew about your meeting with Bob this morning and put it together. My guys were at an accident out on Highway 20, so I told Jase and Tom to back me up.”

She turned to the medics, who were starting to work on Bob. “He’s got a sucking chest wound. You two would be doing the world a favor if you didn’t try all that hard to revive him.”

“Tsk tsk.” One of the medics winked at her without pausing. “So bloodthirsty. I had no idea, and I don’t mind telling you, I find that pretty hot.”

Jordan let her head fall against Jase’s shoulder and waved a limp hand. “I really
do
need to pee now.”

Chapter 22

J
ASE
drove Jordan’s Prius home because she was shaking too badly to be trusted behind the wheel. At her insistence, he and Tom then left her in the care of the ghosts and went back to nailing siding onto the library wall. Amanda had hip-hop blaring on a boom box in the backyard while she weeded. Occasionally, Tom fired up what Jordan assumed from the deafening, grinding roar could only be the sawsall. The cacophony sounded eerily, blessedly normal.

She sat in the kitchen with everyone around her—Hattie and Charlotte at the table, Frank in his usual place, leaning against the counter behind her, and Michael Seavey standing nearby. Malachi lay at her feet where she could reach down and rub his stomach while she sipped the chamomile tea Charlotte had made for her.

Seavey brought out a cigar, preparing to light it. She glared at him, and to her surprise, he slid it back into his suit coat pocket.

“Pray, explain to us once again the ludicrous reason this man tried to kill you,” he ordered.

“He thought I was going to expose a part of his past—the fact that he was related to Sam Garrett,” she said. “He had a reputation to uphold as the president of the Wooden Boat Society, and he was desperately afraid unsavory details would come out that would cost him his position or harm the charitable contributions to the society. Evidently, the board of governors gets together once a year and determines his salary based on his fund-raising efforts.”

“And Garrett refused to tell you who he had seen shoot this great-great-nephew of mine, because the man was a family member of his?” Seavey asked.

“That’s my supposition, yes.” Jordan took a sip of tea, which felt wonderfully soothing on her sore throat. She’d have marks where Bob’s arm had pressed against her neck for days to come, a fact that had put a grim look in Jase’s eyes.

“Charlotte, I need to ask you more questions about the night of the shipwreck, if you don’t mind.”

“Are we back to that?” Frank asked, exasperated.

“Yes,” Jordan replied, determined. “By doing some more reading, and from having another chat with Garrett, I’ve figured out that Garrett was the one who lured the
Henrietta Dale
onto the beach that night. Captain Williams then contacted him, I believe, on the seventh, and told him about the hidden compartments and the opium. The two of them returned to the ship to salvage as much as they could.”

She turned to Seavey. “I was always bothered by Williams’s claim that he was so devastated by losing the
Henrietta Dale
that he retired from service. After all, he’d only sailed her for a few hours when she went down. I know now that it was a smoke screen. He didn’t want anyone figuring out what he and Garrett were up to, and he also didn’t want anyone suspicious about where he got the funds to retire.”

Seavey scowled. “I hired Williams because I knew he had the … traits, shall we say, to do whatever I asked of him. Nevertheless, I am surprised he turned against me so quickly.”

“I suspect he transferred any loyalties he had for you once he found out about your murder—he probably approached Garrett
after
Eleanor’s article appeared in the newspaper. What continued to puzzle me, though, was that Garrett swore that he didn’t murder you.” Jordan shifted in her chair, uneasy at the thought that Garrett might still be lurking somewhere nearby. “In fact, he’s been threatening me to make certain I told you so.”

Seavey scowled. “That’s unacceptable—I will look into it.”

“No!” Jordan and Hattie said it at the same time.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Jordan added. “He said he’d leave me alone as long as I did as he wished.”

“And I don’t like you taking any chances, Michael,” Hattie said. “Unless, of course, there’s simply no other way to ensure Jordan’s safety.”

“I don’t believe I’m in any danger at this point,” Jordan assured her.

Charlotte spoke up. “I don’t understand. If Garrett didn’t kill Michael, who did?”

“Eleanor Canby,” Jordan said.

Charlotte and Hattie both gasped, but Seavey nodded thoughtfully. “Of course. Because of Jesse’s death on board the
Henrietta Dale
.”

“The only other possibility would have been the Customs inspector, Yardley. But unless he found the bodies of his men, he wouldn’t have had any real proof. Whereas Eleanor had the reality of her son’s death,” Jordan explained.

“I read portions of her memoir this morning, and she clearly held Michael personally responsible for Jesse’s death.” Jordan looked at Charlotte. “Didn’t you tell me that her reporters were milling around during the rescue that night?” At Charlotte’s nod, she continued, “Do you remember
who
was transporting the stretchers of the three wounded men to Willoughby’s clinic? And I’m assuming they
were
sent to Willoughby’s?”

Charlotte frowned. “Now that you say that, I believe only two stretchers were loaded onto the wagon and sent to Dr. Willoughby’s. Eleanor was directing that effort, because of her close connection to the doctor.”

“And it would have been easy to simply have Seavey’s stretcher carried farther down the waterfront, to a location where someone wouldn’t pay it any heed.”

“Dear God,
yes
.” Charlotte sent Seavey a chagrined look. “I was so upset, I simply wasn’t paying any attention.”

“No one would have expected you to,” Seavey replied gently.

“On that part of the waterfront during those years, all kinds of crimes were commonplace,” Jordan pointed out. “If, under the cover of darkness, Eleanor had paid someone to put a bullet in you and dump you under the wharf, no one would have intervened or come forward to talk to the authorities about what they saw. You were just another unsolved murder on the waterfront.

“Eleanor would’ve felt she needed to report on your murder, because to
not
do so would have raised suspicion. But there were no follow-up newspaper articles, because there was no investigation. The police had nothing to go on. Your body was discovered the next morning, when one of her reporters wrote and submitted the story, which Eleanor probably reviewed and edited, just to make certain it said what she needed it to say.”

“I had no idea that Eleanor was capable of such violence,” Hattie said quietly.

“She probably wasn’t until Jesse’s death pushed her over the edge,” Jordan told her. “Charlotte, you said Eleanor was hysterical on the docks when she discovered that Jesse wasn’t among the survivors, correct?”

“Yes, she was inconsolable,” Charlotte said, her expression distant as she remembered. “Two of her reporters had to drag her aside at one point, because she was screaming at Captain Williams, demanding to know why he hadn’t done more to save his passengers.”

“I suspect she slipped into a sort of fugue state at that point, then ordered that one of her reporters get rid of Seavey,” Jordan surmised. “My bet is that if you asked her a week later about it, she would have no memory of the incident. I could try to hunt down personal papers or memoirs by her staff, to try to verify my speculations—”

“There’s no need,” Seavey interrupted. “Indeed, I find it perfectly plausible that Eleanor murdered me.”

“All of this—both present and past—is a result of the actions you took back then,” Frank told him.

“Frank!” Hattie gasped. “That’s not fair!”

He shrugged. “Perhaps not. But Seavey was engaged in illegal activities that drew Port Chatham’s less desirable elements. His decision to hire Garrett as his partner, in particular, was fateful.”

Michael frowned pensively, then sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t argue with that reasoning.”

Jordan studied his demeanor, growing concerned. “I think we all make decisions during our lives that lead to unintended consequences,” she pointed out. “I doubt you had any reason to believe that Garrett would be so callous. He was part of a fire crew aboard a steamer when you met him, right?” When he reluctantly nodded, she continued. “Therefore, you would have had no reason to believe that he was a cold-blooded murderer.”

Seavey’s expression remained troubled. “Still, my judgment was faulty.”

Jordan shivered. “Believe me, there seems to be a lot of that going around.”