Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery (9 page)

“What’s with the scaffolding?” she asked him.

“Makes it easier to deal with the repairs to the siding and the underlying structure. You’ve got some dry rot here and there that will have to be taken care of before we can construct the iron trellis.”

Not knowing what dry rot was or wanting to think too deeply about it, Jordan quickly alphabetized the pile of books she held, then led the way down the hall to the kitchen at the back of the house.

*   *   *

T
HOUGH
its cracked, yellowed linoleum and warped countertops bespoke a misguided remodel, the kitchen was spacious and had a homey feel to it. Hints of the original design could still be found in the mahogany wainscoting and in the glass-fronted cabinets that graced the butler’s pantry. A huge, white porcelain sink stood against the back wall, next to an ancient refrigerator that made strange sounds and did its best to keep Jordan’s electric bill well into the stratosphere. She’d also discovered boxes full of antique kitchenwares in the attic—chromolithograph tins for coffee, tea, and sugar; yellowware crocks and bowls; and wooden utensils. Once she fixed the room up, she was certain it would become one of her favorites.

Both men sat down at the well-worn pine table that took up most of the center of the room. Pulling out a carton of fresh farm eggs she’d bought at the Saturday market, she rummaged in the cabinet next to the stove for a porcelain mixing bowl.

“Scrambled eggs and toast okay?” she asked, plunking the items on the counter next to the ancient gas stove.

“We’re pathetically easy,” Jase replied, leaning back and stretching his legs under the table.

“I read a few pages of Seavey’s personal papers last night,” she told Tom while she cracked eggs and beat them with a whisk. “I didn’t make it far before conking out, but it appears as if Seavey knew his business partner was going to cause him trouble. He wrote about an incident in which the partner tried to hang a Chinese vegetable farmer. Seavey intervened on the farmer’s behalf.”

“I seem to remember reading something about that in newspapers from that time.” Tom took a sip of his coffee. “The partner accused the vegetable farmer of making off with a shipment of opium, right?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty clear from what I read that Seavey and his partner were smuggling in opium on a regular basis.” She added milk to the eggs, then reached into the fridge for fresh herbs and a plate of organic butter from the local dairy. Using a spatula, she cut a small wedge of butter and dropped it into her cast-iron skillet to melt. “Seavey talked about the Chinese as if they were illegal immigrants, but my memory of the nineteenth century on the West Coast is that the Chinese were laborers.”

“They were,” Tom confirmed. “They came into the country around the middle of the century to work in the mines during the California Gold Rush. But that was before the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Not one of our country’s finest hours.”

She glanced over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, then used kitchen scissors to snip fines herbes into the eggs.

“Congress passed the law in 1882,” Jase explained. “It gave lawmakers the ability to suspend immigration. The original intent was to exclude Chinese immigrants from working in mines, taking jobs away from Americans, but the restrictions were gradually expanded to include Chinese living in cities. One senator called it nothing less than legalized discrimination.”

“So by 1893 when Seavey died,” Tom added, “there was a thriving business in smuggling Chinese immigrants out of Canada—where they could enter legally—and onto our shores. If you read the local papers from that time, you’ll see numerous accounts of the authorities rounding up Chinese and returning them to Canada.”

Jordan shivered as she poured the eggs into the skillet, then got busy slicing a loaf of artisan bread. “Pretty grim.”

“Definitely not cool for a nation that prides itself on its support of human rights,” Jase agreed.

“That explains the comment Seavey made in his papers that he wouldn’t have anything to do with transporting Chinese immigrants. He was concerned his business partner was combining human trafficking with the smuggling of opium.” She reached for plates and cutlery, handing them to Tom.

“The two crimes were miles apart in severity,” he pointed out as he laid the plates on the table. “Opium smuggling occurred simply to avoid paying duties, thereby increasing one’s already substantial profits from the sale of the stuff. Smuggling immigrants, though—now
that
was a federal offense. Seavey seemed to stick with highly profitable businesses in which the authorities tended to turn a blind eye, like the shanghaiing. Everyone knew it took place, but the ships needed crews, so no one really cared except the union reps. In the case of opium, no one cared except the Customs officials—at least, to begin with.”

“The common denominator being,” Jordan pointed out wryly, “that no one seemed to care much about upholding the law.”

“Well, you’re definitely right about that.” Tom sat back down, eyeing her curiously. “So why
were
you reading Seavey’s papers last night?”

She stirred the eggs while she debated whether to admit that Hattie wanted her to look into Seavey’s murder.
And
whether to let on that the number of ghosts hanging out around the place continued to increase. Of course, said ghosts were conspicuously absent this morning, without explanation, which always made her more nervous than when they were present. She never knew quite what to think when they disappeared.

Pulling the skillet off the stove, she served the eggs. On the one hand, if she admitted she was looking into Seavey’s murder, she could avoid the type of discussion she and Jase had been having when Tom arrived. Then again, Seavey’s murder really wasn’t her only motivation to go poking around in the past. She didn’t like lying, even by omission, to her friends.

“Just curious, that’s all,” she prevaricated, silently rationalizing that she’d explain later. “I was hoping to find a mention of the
Henrietta Dale
.” Grabbing toast from the toaster oven and putting it onto a plate, she sat in a rickety chair across from the two men. “I figured that if Seavey purchased a clipper ship and was using it for business purposes, he’d have mentioned it. According to the gardener I talked to yesterday on Dungeness Spit, the ship ran aground during her maiden voyage. I also wondered what Seavey had intended to use her for, which I found out—smuggling opium. But I had hoped he would mention the shipwreck.”

Though come to think of it, she realized, a forkful of eggs stalling midair, Seavey couldn’t have written about it if he had been aboard and died that night, as he insisted.

Jase was frowning at her again. “You
do
realize that if you interfere in Darcy’s investigation, she’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Right?”

Who knew the man was such a pit bull? Jordan sighed. Maybe she
should
mention Seavey’s ghost. It might distract Jase from his current goal, which seemed to be acting dictatorial.

“I’m just following up because of the coincidences,” she reminded him. “I know you two don’t think Holt would’ve been diving out there, but we found him in the same approximate location as where the ship ran aground. If Seavey was using the ship for smuggling, it stands to reason that Holt might’ve been curious enough to see if he could locate the shipwreck.”

Jase shook his head. “There’s no connection unless Holt knew about the shipwreck, and you had Seavey’s papers, which, by the way, wouldn’t even have mentioned the shipwreck if Seavey died that night. You said yourself that Holt had no interest in reading them, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have found anything. So I don’t see how he could have known to go diving in that location.”

Dammit, he was right. She got up to open a can of dog food for Malachi, who viewed it with disdain, then went back to staring intently at the toast on her plate. He’d become addicted to the freshly churned butter she bought.

She returned to the table, brooding while she fed her toast to Malachi. Okay, maybe it
was
just a coincidence that Holt had been found in that location. Unless … another thought occurred to her. “Didn’t you say Holt was working at the Cosmopolitan Hotel?” she asked Tom.

“Yeah.” Tom swallowed a bite of toast. “He won the bid to repaint the top three floors—the new owner is doing some upgrades. That means Holt would have been working in the suites from which Seavey ran his businesses, back in the 1890s. Seavey bought the hotel from the person who originally built it, then added onto it substantially. He also knocked an entrance from the basement of the hotel into the network of underground tunnels running under the waterfront that were used for smuggling and shanghaiing.”

“So it stands to reason that Holt could’ve run across some old business papers, then got curious,” she concluded.

Jase’s expression was skeptical. “We’re talking Holt, here—he rarely showed interest in anything other than custom paint blending and hitting on women in All That Jazz. If he came across old papers, he would’ve chucked them into the trash.”

“It can’t hurt to drop by and have a chat with the owner,” she insisted.

“Just be careful how far you take this,” Jase warned. “Even if you do find a connection, it may not relate to Darcy’s investigation. If Holt
was
diving for sunken treasure, I can guarantee he wouldn’t have told anyone about it. Therefore, I still don’t see how it could be relevant to his murder.”

Jordan opened her mouth to argue further, sorely tempted to point out how thickheaded he was being, but she was interrupted by the back door swinging open. Amanda entered, bleary-eyed and sporting bed hair, a coffee mug dangling from the limp fingers of one hand. Dressed in torn jeans, layered tank tops, and high-top running shoes, even just out of bed, the lithe blonde managed to ooze a girl-next-door sexy appeal. Jordan considered snarling.

Amanda halted, blinking at them. “Oh. Um, morning.”

“Hey.” Tom smiled fondly at her. Jordan had observed that he functioned somewhat as a mentor, since the two frequently ended up working on the same homes.

Though her parents lived right next door, Amanda had pitched her tent in Jordan’s backyard the first day she’d shown up to work, claiming that she had to live with a garden 24/7 in order to tune in to its “vibes.” Jordan had long since ceded kitchen rights to her, including the use of the espresso machine.

“Pull up a chair,” Jordan offered, “and have some breakfast.”

The young woman accepted a plate of eggs from her with a sleepy smile, giving Jase a limp “high five” before sitting down. “You talked to Jordan about the plan yet?” she asked Tom.

“We were getting to that.”

“It’s important that she’s fully on board, since we’ll be counting on her to provide critical information.” Amanda shoved eggs into her mouth.

“I’m sure you both know more than I do,” Jordan pointed out.

“Oh, we don’t mean about the restoration work itself,” Amanda assured her. “You don’t have a clue about
that
.” Jordan debated whether to be insulted as Amanda continued. “We need you to talk to the ghosts. You know, ask them about the original design of the house and the gardens. Our goal is a completely integrated, historically accurate restoration.”

Tom held up a hand. “Why don’t you let me explain everything to Jordan before we go there?”

Jase obviously agreed. “You don’t even know if Jordan wants to stick with the original design of the house,
or
if she’s interested in applying for historic landmark status. That’s a headache all on its own, not to mention whether the original design of the house is livable, in terms of modern conveniences.”

Amanda looked mutinous. “But—”

“It’s not as if Jordan likes to go without her comforts,” Tom interrupted.

“Hey,” Jordan said. She
was
insulted.

“We’re not saying there’s anything wrong with wanting to be comfortable,” Jase hastily assured her. “I upgraded both the kitchen and bathrooms in my house when I restored it. I wasn’t interested in living without a dishwasher, among other things.”

“But we need her to talk to the ghosts, so that we have
all
the information,” Amanda insisted. “This is an exciting opportunity for all of us, having the original inhabitants of a haunted house available for interviews during the restoration.”

Jordan tried to wrap her mind around that comment and failed. She settled for saying, “I can’t bring the ghosts into the process until I have a vision of what I intend to do.” Standing, she removed plates and stacked them in the sink. “Tom, did you bring your papers with you from the library?”

“Yep.” He pointed.

The sheaf of papers sitting in the middle of the table looked thick and intimidating. Jordan blew out a breath. “So. Who wants more espresso?”

*   *   *

T
HREE
hours later, Jordan drove out to the Port Chatham Historical Society research building, weaving around horse-drawn carriages and old-fashioned bicycles. If any cops were on traffic duty, they probably thought she was careening wildly down the road under the influence. But it wasn’t as if she had any choice in the matter—she couldn’t drive
through
people, even if they weren’t of this world.

Halfway into Tom’s recitation of the many repairs needed to Longren House, she’d started hyperventilating over the projected costs. Apparently the diagonal crack running the length of the bay window in the parlor was a “compression shear crack of moderate size,” a
not so bad
problem
yet
, while the cracks in the plaster behind the bookcases in the library were possibly the result of ground settlement, a
worse
problem, and
troubling
. Tom had then talked about finding no “pyramid” failures in the exposed portions of the foundation in the basement, maybe a
good
sign, but quickly segued into a discourse on water being the “adversary” they had to decisively rout from the entire structure.