P. Alderman - Haunting Jordan

“Hell, no wonder you drove them to financial ruin,” Jordan muttered. “World peace hung in the balance.”

“Well, of course it didn’t … Oh, you meant that as a joke.”

Jordan could feel herself crashing as the adrenaline seeped away. “I don’t suppose I can talk you two into leaving for the evening and coming back in the morning, after I’ve had eight hours of sleep and some caffeine and can cope better?”

They glanced at each other with confused expressions. “We live here,” Hattie said. “Where would we go? You can’t really mean that you want to turn us away from our home.”

“That would be tragic,” Jordan said grimly, then snapped her fingers. “Got it! What about a portal? Didn’t I read somewhere that ghosts have portals, like little holes in the wall? You two could disappear into one and then I could stuff a rag into it.”

Charlotte folded her arms. “That’s insulting.”

“Well, what, then? Am I supposed to just accept that I’m now rooming with you two? And what have you done with my dog?”

“He’s around.” Hattie waved a hand. “Actually, we’re glad you finally arrived. It’s been hard to steal enough food for him. If you take the same item often enough, people notice. The poor thing has been getting thinner and thinner.”

“And we’re still developing our powers,” Charlotte confided, her image brightening, then fading, as if on cue. “We signed up for the seminar as soon as we heard you bought our house, but our instructor said it takes a lot of practice to perfect telekinesis.”

“Sorry about the smashed cake,” Hattie added. “We tried.”

Jordan rubbed her forehead. The aspirin wasn’t even going to make a dent. “So what do you want? Approval of the renovation plans?”

Hattie hesitated, then put an arm around Charlotte, who pressed trembling lips together and nodded encouragingly.

“We want you to solve my murder.”

A Crisis of Confidence

BY dawn, the fire had been contained to two blocks facing the harbor, sparing City Hall. Nine were dead, scores more injured. Overhead, the sky slowly lightened to streaks of pale pink and bluish gray, marred only occasionally by black wisps of smoke. Hattie dropped a bucket in the mud at her feet and rubbed the small of her back, gazing past smoldering ruins to the harbor.

Ships lay quietly, anchored on glassy water reflecting the colors of the early morning light. Yet the harbor already resonated with the cries of first mates, ordering crews up masts to secure sails against the growing threat of clouds on the horizon. Wind and rain would move onshore before noon.

Since moving to Port Chatham, gauging the weather had become second nature. Until recently, she would’ve checked the harbor throughout the day, hoping to catch a glimpse of Charles’s ship on the horizon. A dense bank of clouds such as the one visible this morning would’ve meant his return would be delayed. Even now, Admiralty Inlet was unusually empty of ships—none would set sail until the storm had passed.

Though it had been weeks since Hattie had received word of Charles’s death in the South Seas, she still found herself unconsciously searching the waters for his barque. She hadn’t had his body to lay to rest, nor any way to properly grieve. It was as if he’d sailed out of the harbor and would return any day now. She felt like an interloper, running his business. An interloper, yet one with responsibilities, she reminded herself.

Given the threatening weather, she’d have to order Clive Johnson to return the crews to their schooners. No doubt he’d take the opportunity to point out that if they’d been on board throughout the night, they would already have the rigging secured. But at the moment, she was simply too tired to care about his barbed criticisms.

Turning toward the beach, she spied Charlotte and Tabitha curled up together on a blanket, sound asleep, their faces showing the same signs of exhaustion she was certain could be seen on her own, their dresses as soiled and soaked with muddy water as hers. Chief Greeley, though busy throughout the night, had never wandered far from Charlotte’s side. Even now, he stood watch. Hattie was grateful, yet uneasy. Greeley was big and stern looking, and she’d never observed in him any evidence of good humor. Charlotte was far too fragile for a hard man like Greeley.

“Ma’am?” Two of Mona’s girls stood a few feet away, holding folded blankets from the Green Light.

She walked over to take them. “Thank you,” she said gently.

They dipped in nervous curtsies and fled, but not before Hattie had noticed the newly healed cuts and bruises on the smaller of the two. She wanted to inquire about the girl’s injuries, to ask if she needed help, but she suspected her questions would only serve to frighten the two even more.

“They aren’t comfortable around respectable women of means,” Mona explained as she approached. The hard lines in her face were more deeply pronounced in the morning light.

Hattie remembered Eleanor’s earlier warnings and condemnation, and her expression turned wry. “My position in society may be more precarious than you realize.”

“And you haven’t improved it, coming down here to help,” Mona concluded astutely.

“If so, I can’t worry about it.”

“Perhaps you would be wise to return home now that the fire is out.”

Hattie shook her head. “I’m not leaving while people still need tending.” She held out the blankets. “If you’ll pass these out, I’ll see whether the hand pump on that well across the street is still working. The injured need water.”

Mona studied her for a moment, then shrugged. She cast a look at the rapidly darkening western sky. “We’d best hurry—that storm may put out the rest of the fire, but it will bring its own form of misery. We’ll have to use the tunnels for the supplies, and move the injured to the Green Light. We can access the tunnels from the basement of Seavey’s hotel.”

Hattie surreptitiously glanced toward the beach, where he still stood with his bodyguards. He’d watched her all night long, making her shiver more than once from the weight of his gaze.

From what little Charles had told her about his business, Port Chatham’s booming shipping industry relied on a steady supply of sailors. Shanghaiers like Seavey either worked in concert with boardinghouse operators to provide crews to the shipping masters or, in some cases, owned the boardinghouses outright. The tunnels supposedly served as a temporary prison for those least willing to go along with the shanghaiers’ demands.

“Charles told me he refused to pay the shanghaiers for his crews,” she said now.

Mona snorted her disbelief. “It’s common practice with all the shipping companies, your husband’s included. How do you think he got the crews he needed to run that many ships? And with some sailors turning to the union, cheap crews are more scarce than ever.” She glanced around, then continued before Hattie could argue, keeping her voice low. “Rumor is now that Seavey has the local shanghaiing business all but tied up he’s moved on to kidnapping young girls.”

“What? He ransoms them?”

“He sells them into prostitution rings operating in the Far East. Young white virgins are in great demand over there.”

“But if everyone knows what he’s doing, why don’t the police raid the tunnels?” Hattie asked, sickened.

“When someone up on the hill is kidnapped, the police might investigate, though they would have trouble finding enough proof to convict. But most of the time, they look the other way.” Mona’s tone was bitter. “Prostitutes don’t matter.”

Hattie had heard similar complaints regarding lack of police protection from women down on their luck back East—a hard truth of the times she had trouble accepting. Shuddering, she glanced over to reassure herself that Charlotte and Tabitha were still safe. No wonder Greeley had been so attentive.