P.J. Alderman - Ghost Ship

“Yeah, there’s no way Holt would have done a sloppy job,” Tom agreed. “In all the years I’ve known him, the only complaint I ever heard was that he took too long, because he was such a perfectionist. I never had a qualm recommending him for a job that I didn’t have the time to take on. So something’s rotten about that story. Crazy Clive is up to no good.”

Darcy popped her head into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Jase said.

“Hey, yourself.” She turned to Jordan. “Did you know there’s a giant hole in the side of your house?”

“Dry rot,” Tom offered.

“Ouch.” Darcy winced. “My sympathies. All right if I have the lab tech dust the desk and front door for prints before any more sawdust settles on everything?” she asked Jordan.

“Go for it.” Sawdust? She hadn’t even thought about sawdust. And she didn’t want to think about it, either. “Either of you need caffeine?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Darcy headed back down the hallway and out of sight.

Jordan spooned beans into the grinder and hit the button. At this rate, she’d need to stop by the deli this afternoon and buy more of their special blend. Running out of coffee beans was never an option.

Darcy reappeared, apparently having put the tech to work. After taking an espresso back down the hall to him, she sat down at the table with Tom.

“Did you talk to Crazy Clive yet and ask him about his alibi?” Jordan asked her.

“ ‘Crazy Clive’?” Darcy raised an eyebrow.

Jordan flushed. “Tom’s nickname, not mine. Though I have to admit—in a momentarily unprofessional lapse of judgment, that is—the name fits. The man really needs to chill.” She leaned against the counter next to Jase. “We were just talking about him,” she explained to Darcy, then told her about the rumors regarding the hotel job.

“I’ve got a meeting set up with him this afternoon,” Darcy said. “So Holt was losing money, huh? And Walters was claiming he was doing substandard work? Not, mind you, that it’s all that unusual for Clive Walters to be at cross-purposes with his employees. But I wonder what was really going on there.” Her gaze shifted to Jase. “Did you check through your receipts for the night Holt was murdered?”

“Yeah. Holt didn’t charge any drinks that night, so I doubt he was at the pub. I asked Bill, and he couldn’t remember seeing him, either. I also looked at the receipts for the previous two nights—nada, which is highly unusual for Holt. I can count on one hand the number of nights this year he hasn’t shown up for a beer and to hit on a woman. Have your men been able to piece together where he was that night?”

Darcy shook her head. “So far, all we know is that he stopped by a dive shop downtown to pick up full oxygen tanks around six in the evening. The owner said he asked Holt where he was planning to dive, and Holt clammed up and wouldn’t say. So then he tried to chat up Holt about the local shipwrecks that folks like to explore, and he got what he called a cold, ‘mind your own business’–type reaction.”

“Holt wouldn’t tell his workers at the hotel, either,” Jordan said. “So Holt didn’t want anyone to know where he was diving. Which leads to the question, how did the murderer know where he’d be?”

“The murderer was the dive buddy?” Tom suggested.

“Darcy and I wondered that the first day when we found his body,” Jordan admitted, thinking once again about the man she’d seen. But she was becoming more convinced she’d seen a ghost, not a human. She turned to Darcy. “Is there any evidence he had a dive buddy?”

“Not according to the dive shop owner. He even lectured Holt on the subject, but Holt didn’t seem interested in hearing about how unsafe it was to dive alone. The shop owner chalked it up to stupid first-timer mistakes and Holt’s willingness to break the rules.”

“Uh-uh.” Jordan shook her head. “I think it had more to do with Holt not wanting anyone to know what he was up to.”

“Well, someone knew where he was that night,” Darcy grumbled. “He didn’t shoot himself in the head, or we would have found stippling around the wound. And it’s not like he could have hidden the gun after he killed himself.”

“So still no murder weapon?” Tom asked.

“No, dammit.”

“What about his truck?” Jordan asked. “Have you found it yet?” They all looked at her as if her “powers” had expanded to include prescience. “ What ? It wasn’t parked in his driveway yesterday, so it was kind of obvious that he must have left it parked somewhere else the night of his murder.”

“We found it parked on a side street not far from the Hudson Point marina. A homeowner reported it after it had sat in front of his house for a few days and no one moved it. We’ve gone over it, but nothing unusual is showing up. No forensics other than what you’d expect.”

“No business ledger or files of any kind?” Jordan asked hopefully.

“Nope.”

“Damn.”

“So whatever boat Holt used to get out to Dungeness Spit was moored at the marina,” Jase concluded. “And since you didn’t find it anchored nearby, the boat probably belongs to whoever killed Holt.”

“Possibly. I’ve got my men looking over the boats as we speak, but we can’t board without a search warrant. So unless they find something suspicious in plain sight, we’ll have to figure out who killed Holt first, then execute search warrants on his house and any other vehicles or boats registered in his name.”

“What about the ballistics?” Jase asked. “And the fact that Holt was shot execution-style? That tells me the shooter was probably a man, and professional. I’ve heard of professionals using silenced .22s.”

“The ballistics report came back this morning—no match to anything in the criminal databases. So whoever our shooter is, he’s not in the system.”

“It’s possible that he hasn’t been caught yet,” Jase pointed out.

“Yeah, but I think Holt knew his shooter, and that the bullet-in-the-forehead thing is misleading. An amateur can take aim and fire, hitting in that location simply out of sheer luck.”

“What’s the ME say about angle of entry?”

“What’s that?” Jordan asked.

“Determines height of the shooter,” Jase briefly explained.

“Nothing, yet,” Darcy answered him. “The autopsy report isn’t back.”

“Do you intend to ask Crazy Clive whether he owns a .22?” Jordan asked.

“Yeah, but he isn’t known for being cooperative, so we’ll see if he deigns to give me an answer. The man is paranoid as hell—it never occurs to him to simply tell the truth.”

“People who suffer from severe paranoia read all kinds of meaning into other people’s statements that isn’t there,” Jordan said. “He probably counters every question you ask with a question, the purpose of which is to figure out your hidden agenda, right?”

“Yep.” Darcy gave a silent nod to the lab tech, who had appeared in the kitchen doorway. She stood and stretched. “I’ve got to go. You coming by the pub tonight?” she asked Jordan.

“Bartending,” Jordan replied. “But I want to hear all about this meeting with Crazy Clive. That’s what constitutes entertainment for us therapists.”

“As long as he doesn’t decide on a repeat performance,” Jase warned.

“Not to worry,” Darcy said. “If he darkens the pub’s doorstep, I’ll shoot him. Nobody messes with my downtime two nights in a row.”

AFTER Darcy left, they reconvened in the library. While Tom and Jase examined the bookcase and determined the best way to dismantle it without causing damage, Jordan cleaned up more of the mess the burglar had made. Tom set to work with a drill and hand carpentry tools, and after observing for a few minutes, Jase wandered over to help her reshelve books.