P.J. Alderman - Ghost Ship

“Nope, Holt dated her sister, who committed suicide not long afterward.”

The next sip of wine almost went down Jordan’s windpipe. “Jesus.” She hated the thought of anyone committing suicide. In her opinion, suicides represented a failure by the therapy community to intervene before it was too late. “Dammit, wasn’t anyone paying attention?”

“Evidently not. Everyone knew the sister had problems—a history of drugs, in and out of institutions, and so on. But she’d been relatively stable for a year or so when Holt got hold of her.”

“You said Holt treated women badly, but I had no idea.”

“Actually, though Sally told me she blamed Holt, I never completely bought her reasoning,” Darcy replied. “I suspect his treatment of the sister might have contributed but wasn’t the primary cause. Melissa—I think that was her name—was always unstable, and the family had limited funds to pay for her care. Sally did what she could, but the treatments never stuck. Melissa would take her meds for a while, then fall off the wagon.”

“And Holt sensed a vulnerability and exploited it,” Jordan concluded bluntly. “Or was too oblivious to understand her fragile state.”

“Yep.”

“If I were in Sally’s shoes, I can’t say for certain that I wouldn’t have reacted the same way about Holt’s death,” Jordan admitted. “She’s got to believe that if not for him, her sister might still be alive. That’s strong motive.”

“I’m checking into her alibi,” Darcy agreed.

Jase ran his fingers lightly over the piano’s keys, then launched into a mellow, familiar tune. It took Jordan a few minutes to place it. “Body and Soul.” She gave him a quiet look, but he merely smiled. Lazily.

“Why don’t you put all of us out of our misery and jump the poor man’s bones?” Darcy asked, observant as ever.

“No privacy, for one thing. I’m not big on exhibitionism, and the ghosts are around all the time.”

“I’m betting if you knocked on his door, he wouldn’t leave you standing on the porch.”

“Remember that discussion we had earlier about how a woman prefers to have the man stay over at her house, not go to his? Besides, according to my Four Point Plan for Personal Renewal, I’m still eleven and a half months away from allowing myself to make any kind of new relationship commitment—six for grieving, six more for looking but not touching,” she reminded Darcy. She was referring to the personal renewal plan her friends called the FPP that she’d implemented to help herself recover from the upheavals in her life.

“Give me a moment to bang my head on the table.” Darcy’s tone was sarcastic. “That plan was a total non-starter. You’re way too impulsive to ever stick to something so rigid.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Did you or did you not write a check on the spot for a house that you’d barely seen? Shut down your practice in L.A. and move up here basically on a whim?” Darcy shook her head. “All I’m saying is that you need to loosen up. Have some sex—it’s a terrific stress reducer.”

“People who live in glass houses,” Jordan pointed out. “When was the last time you took some hot guy up on his offer?”

“Dating the chief of police tends to warp your expectations for the relationship. You, however, have no excuse.”

“Murdered husband? Several life changes that hit high up on the Richter stress scale? Any of this ringing a bell?”

Darcy made a chickenlike clucking noise.

Jordan’s retort was delayed by Kathleen suddenly appearing at their table, radiating a grim intensity.

According to Jase, his cranky chef had once been a fighter pilot in the military. She now managed an organic garden of herbs and greens behind the pub with ruthless efficiency, using its produce to create the mouthwatering meals she intimidated pub patrons into eating. One didn’t try to order from Kathleen—one simply agreed to eat what she served.

“Yes,” Jordan agreed, and Darcy nodded.

Kathleen left without a word.

Jordan returned to the possible cause of the break-in, avoiding further discussion of her romantic life. Or lack thereof. “So maybe someone knew Holt was diving for salvage and decided to break into his house, to see if he came up with anything of value. Maybe the burglar knew what Holt was diving for.”

“We don’t know Holt was doing any such thing,” Darcy reminded her.

“No, but it’s looking pretty likely that he was.” Jordan filled Darcy in on what she’d learned talking to the workers at the hotel, and also that she and Bob had pinpointed the coordinates of the shipwreck, which basically matched where they’d found Holt. “Those workers said Holt had been taking diving lessons.”

“So what part of ‘don’t mess with my investigation’ don’t you understand?” Darcy asked.

“I was actually looking into something else, but since I was at the Historical Society and the hotel, I decided to see if I could discover anything that would help you out.”

“Right,” Darcy said drily. “Wait—what were you doing at the Historical Society? And no, don’t tell me how you got inside. I don’t recommend that you confess to me when you commit felonies.”

“A worker let me in,” Jordan replied in a virtuous tone. She didn’t volunteer that she’d filched more historical documents. “I was looking for information about the Henrietta Dale . I figured that the shipwreck had to be big news at the time, and that there’d be a number of stories about it. I was also looking for information about Michael Seavey’s murder.”

Darcy looked confused. “The shanghaier? Why?”

“Hattie wants me to find out who killed him, because he’s courting her. And by the way, I think Seavey’s murder might relate to your murder investigation.”

“ Whoa. ” Darcy held up a hand. “Did you just say that Michael Seavey is courting Hattie? She has two lovers? Has Seavey’s ghost been at your house?”

Jordan sighed. “Yes, yes, and yes. Michael Seavey has decided to come back from … wherever … and hang out part of the time at my house. He lives in the upper floors of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, but he visits my house to court Hattie. Seavey thinks he perished on the Henrietta Dale , but Hattie found an old newspaper article …”

“Boil it down,” Darcy ordered impatiently.

Jordan gave her a silent look, then continued. “… claiming that Seavey had been murdered. And Seavey left behind business papers. They were hidden in the rooms Holt was remodeling, identifying the cargo on board the Henrietta Dale the night she ran aground. So Holt was after the sunken loot, and someone probably killed him for it,” she concluded. She was pleased she’d been able to articulate it so clearly.

“Shit.” Darcy scowled. “Setting aside for the moment that the number of ghosts in your house continues to multiply, and ignoring the fact that one of them could actually be rather dangerous to have lurking about, let me just be perfectly clear: I don’t think Holt’s murder has anything to do with the past. I believe the fact that we found him where we did may be , at best, an indication that he’d developed an interest in that old shipwreck. His murderer could easily have decided to take advantage of a remote location, nothing more. You have absolutely no proof that anyone in present day could have had a motive to kill Holt over a salvage operation that likely doesn’t include anything of real value.”

“What about the stash of opium? That’s got to be valuable. And we don’t know what else might have been on board the Henrietta Dale . Seavey went to great expense to have secret compartments built into the hull.”