P.J. Alderman - Ghost Ship

Malachi yawned, ending with a whine that urged her to quit woolgathering. She started down the stairs, and he followed, so sluggish that he tripped, hitting the back of her knees and causing them to buckle. But for her death grip on the railing, they both would’ve tumbled and landed in a heap at the bottom. Shaking her head, she motioned for him to precede her.

She crossed the foyer and stood in the library’s arched doorway, assessing the damage from the prior night’s events. As far as she could tell, Charlotte’s telekinetic attempts at straightening had created more havoc, not less. Admittedly, a few books had been placed back on shelves, but they were upside down and out of order. Pictures still hung askew, plant pots still lay on their sides.

From the beginning, the library had been her favorite room and one of the reasons she’d lost all rational thought, writing an obscenely large check for the house. Ceiling-to-floor, glass-fronted bookcases lined the walls, stuffed with books on every subject and published in every decade from the 1800s to present day. The far end of the room included a cozy conservatory with French doors, and when she opened them on nice days, she was drenched with fragrance from flowering bushes and vines that had managed to survive decades of neglect.

In the last few weeks, her attempts to clean and organize the house had primarily centered on this room, as if she subconsciously understood that turning it into a cozy, comfortable escape was a huge step toward turning Longren House into a true home. She’d dusted, scrubbed, and polished woodwork, and spent days organizing and shelving stack after stack of books. But after last night’s debacle, she wasn’t certain she could still see the fruits of her labors.

She walked through the room, opening the French doors to let in fresh air. The doors banged against something, then swung back into her. She put up her hands instinctively to protect her face, then leaned outside to see what they’d hit, which turned out to be the steel supports of the scaffolding she’d caught a glimpse of the night before. Making a mental note to inquire about it, she adjusted the doors to partway open, then got to work.

Not knowing where to start, she knelt next to a toppled plant, scooping soil back into its pot. Her mind drifted back to what she’d read the night before. Evidently, Michael Seavey had become heavily involved in smuggling opium around the time of his murder in 1893. The guys at the pub thought whoever had lured the Henrietta Dale onto the rocks might’ve been a business competitor. But given Seavey’s misgivings about his partner Sam Garrett, it seemed more likely he was the culprit, not a competitor.

She’d have to ask Tom to educate her with regard to opium smuggling in the 1800s. Who had been the players? How prevalent had smuggling been along the Northwest coast? When she drove out to the historical society later today, she should look for the editorial Eleanor Canby had supposedly written in the Port Chatham Weekly Gazette . Given the dates on Seavey’s papers, the editorial should have been published well before his murder—in Jordan’s estimation, at least several weeks.

As she walked over to a bookshelf to straighten its contents, she noticed Malachi sitting just inside the library door, holding his leash in his mouth, his expression disgruntled. She’d altered their usual morning routine of a walk over to the restaurant, and in his opinion, for no good reason. When she made eye contact with him, he heaved a martyred sigh.

“Don’t give me any grief,” she warned, using a dust cloth to wipe down a leather-bound copy of War of the Worlds , then wedging it at the end of a shelf holding Acts of Malice by Perri O’Shaughnessy and Promised Land by Robert B. Parker. “This is therapeutic.”

“What’s therapeutic?”

She glanced over her shoulder to see Jase standing on the steps outside the French doors. He ducked under the scaffolding and waved the latte he held—probably freshly made in the kitchen of his Arts and Crafts–vintage cottage just down the block. He wore one of his trademark dark blue Henleys, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and well-worn jeans sporting frayed cuffs and a rip above one knee. With a day’s growth of beard shadowing his jaw, he had her thinking of things she’d avoided for the last year during her divorce.

“Alphabetizing the books,” she answered, focusing on his question and ignoring her X-rated thoughts. Giving a brief prayer of thanks that she’d thought to pull on jeans and comb her hair into submission, she motioned for him to enter and accepted the latte. “Organizing them gives me a feeling of control over my environment.”

He studied the shelves. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to group books by subject?”

Jordan shrugged, taking a sip. Whatever complaints she had about Jase—and they were becoming increasingly difficult to remember—she couldn’t fault his coffee. The man was dead serious about his java—he even imported special beans from a microroaster in Portland.

“What’re you doing out and about so early?” she asked. “You couldn’t have had more than a few hours of sleep.”

“Bill closed for me.” He leaned down to rub Malachi’s ears. The dog gurgled appreciatively around the leash. “I wanted to check on you, make sure you’re okay. You looked like you felt pressured to investigate the shipwreck, and I wanted you to know that hadn’t been our intent. Our discussion was more in the way of a healthy debate.”

“Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes and went back to shelving. “I took Darcy home, then came back and went to bed myself, though I did read through a few of Michael Seavey’s personal papers.” She didn’t mention the mess that had greeted her in the library.

Jase smiled. “Figured you could find something in Seavey’s papers that would refute Bob’s assertions, proving that the ship you saw was real?”

“Okay, yes. What I discovered, though, was that Seavey and his business partner were smuggling opium from Canada. Evidently, Seavey planned to use the Henrietta Dale for that purpose. He also intended to cut his business partner out of the deal.”

“I didn’t know opium was illegal then.”

“It wasn’t—they were smuggling it past the Customs agents to get around paying import duties, thus probably keeping more of the profits for themselves.”

She stepped back to judge whether the row of books she’d just straightened was aesthetically appealing, deciding they would look better if several were stacked on their sides. “Given what Seavey probably had on board the Henrietta Dale the night of the shipwreck, if his business partner—a man named Garrett—knew of Seavey’s plans to cut him out of the take, it makes sense he would’ve been behind luring the ship onto the rocks. It also follows that Holt might’ve thought there was something valuable enough to salvage.”

Jase gave her a frown. “I don’t want you going anywhere near Holt’s murder investigation.”

She stopped shelving books to give him a quizzical look. It wasn’t like Jase to ever give orders—he’d been nothing but supportive while allowing her to find her own way through the morass of events that had blindsided her since her move to town.

“This isn’t the equivalent of researching Hattie’s murder,” he warned now. “Someone in this time period, someone—in all likelihood, in this town—committed murder. That means he has a lot to lose if you start poking around.”

“I’m aware of that. But all I’m doing is trying to figure out if the Henrietta Dale really did run aground anywhere near where we found Holt, and whether it’s connected to his possibly diving in that area. You have to admit, the coincidences are piling up. Holt was working in the hotel originally owned by Michael Seavey.” A hotel still haunted by his ghost . “And you said yourself it didn’t make any sense that Holt was diving—he must have had one hell of a reason to overcome his fear of the water. If I can just establish a connection, it would help Darcy—”