P.J. Alderman - Ghost Ship

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?”