Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery (10 page)

About the time he anthropomorphized a structural defect in the staircase—describing it as relentless in its attempts to undermine the second and third floors of the house—she’d called a halt. After shooing everyone out, she’d straightened up the rest of the mess in the library, agreed to let Malachi take her for a walk, then shoved him into the Prius for the trip out to the Historical Society research facility.

Her favorite route from home to the south side of town where the facility was located was admittedly circuitous. Instead of heading straight south through her neighborhood along the main drag, she turned east, driving down the hill to the waterfront. This route gave her sweeping views of Admiralty Inlet and Port Chatham Bay, where she could observe the ferries and other marine traffic. The harbor was filled with sailing ships of all kinds—even an old-fashioned steamer or two with their huge smokestacks and paddle wheels.

In the past, she’d taken for granted that the beautiful old ships she always saw anchored throughout the bay were actually
there
. Now, of course, she had to wonder, which really put a dent in the pleasure of simply observing. Did ghost ships—if those were what she was actually seeing—simply hang out in the harbor? Was the ghost of every wrecked ship from over the centuries still lurking about? If she walked into a historic bar down on the waterfront, would she find a higher ratio of ghosts to patrons than in All That Jazz, because of the number of spectral sailors living along the waterfront?

She braked at a red light downtown, scowling at the two ladies attired in ankle-length day dresses with parasols, jaywalking half a block up. Dammit, this simply wouldn’t do—she couldn’t spend all her time speculating about the ramifications of what she saw versus what everyone else saw. And more to the point, she refused to lose the simple pleasure of enjoying the scenery on her outings. There had to be some way to control this crap. She had enough challenges in her
real
life.

The light switched green and she turned onto the main drag heading out of downtown. Challenges, for instance, such as money, which was beginning to loom large, particularly after talking to Tom that morning. She supposed she’d have to consider starting up a new therapy practice earlier than she’d originally intended. Though the insurance settlement she’d received from her husband’s murder would tide her over for now, the repairs would make a serious dent in those funds.

Her plan had been to take at least a year’s sabbatical from therapy work, and frankly, she wasn’t even convinced in light of recent events that she should return to a practice at all. Given that she hadn’t had a clue that her charming sociopath of a husband had been bedding his patients for years—she wasn’t exactly confident of her skills in her chosen profession.

Granted, when she’d mentioned her concerns to her good friend Carol, a fellow professional, Carol had pooh-poohed them. She’d pointed out that no one does a good job of sorting through events affecting her own life, and that Jordan’s recent failures had no correlation to her effectiveness as a therapist. But Jordan wasn’t convinced. And because she’d lost her confidence, she knew she’d second-guess every decision she made in a therapy session, which wasn’t fair to her patients.

In addition, her discipline had been Rational Therapy.
No one
, at this point, would describe her life as anything remotely resembling
rational
. She turned into the Historical Society’s parking lot. No, she really didn’t believe she should be taking on patients—at least, not until she could come to grips with her own problems. If anything, her original plan for a one-year sabbatical should be extended.

Maybe Jase would let her waitress for tips. “That should give me just enough money to pay for your dog food,” she said out loud to Malachi.

“Rooooo … ooow.” He yawned, then inched forward to lick the side of her face.

Spying a construction worker in overalls coming out of the building, she cracked the windows, then hopped out of the car, poking her head back in just long enough to tell Malachi, “I promise I’ll only be a half hour or so.”

Malachi heaved a sigh, his expression skeptical yet resigned, and lay down.

She jogged across the lot, Seavey’s papers tucked under one arm, catching the man just as he was locking up. She stuck out a hand, saying cheerfully, “Hi! I’m Jordan.”

He shook. “Travis, ma’am.” He looked to be in his thirties, and his overalls were covered with smears of something white and gunky. He was frowning at her.

“Any chance you’d let me inside the building for a bit?” she asked. “I need to check the newspaper archives for information on a murder that occurred in the nineteenth century.”

His face cleared. “Hey, you’re that ghost lady, right? What? Are you investigating again or something?”

“Or something,” she replied vaguely. “I won’t be long, I promise.”

He hesitated, scratching his head, transferring some of the white goo in the process. “I’m not really supposed to let anyone else in.”

She pasted a reassuring expression on her face, hoping she looked trustworthy.

He gave a small shrug. “I guess it doesn’t matter all that much. I figure you’d just get one of your ghosts to go through the wall and unlock the door from the inside, right?”

As if she could get any of “her ghosts” to do
anything
she wanted. “Right.”

“And it
would
be kinda cool to help you solve an old murder, I guess.”

“Absolutely.”

He unlocked the door but kept his arm across the door-jamb, blocking her from entering. “Just don’t touch the walls, okay? The Sheetrock mud is still wet, and I don’t want to be sanding your handprints out of it.”

“Scout’s honor,” she promised. “I can lock up after myself if you’re leaving for the day.”

“Nah.” He stepped back to let her through. “I’m headed to the lumber company to pick up some extra mud. I was gonna stop for some lunch, but I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

She beamed at him. “Perfect.”

Inside, she was hit with a mildly chemical odor that tickled her nose. She hastily headed downstairs to the basement, where the Society’s archived collections were temporarily being stored during the remodel. The two elderly docents, Nora and Delia Hapley, were still on vacation in the south of France, happily avoiding the mess of the remodel. Little did they know how many times Jordan had illegally accessed their historical papers. She suspected there would be hell to pay when they found out.

She was pleased to find that the overhead lights had been turned back on—an improvement since the last time she’d visited, huddling in the dark and using her penlight to read. From memory, Jordan quickly found the stacks that contained binders of newspapers from the 1890s. Before she’d left the house, she’d checked the date of the story about Seavey’s murder, which made it easy to narrow down which binder to pull from the shelves. Her best guess was that the shipwreck had to have occurred either immediately before that article was printed, or within a few days of it. And the shipwreck would have been big news—there should be several articles about it.

Sitting down at a small desk on the back wall, she set Seavey’s papers, which she’d brought as another point of reference, aside for the moment. She opened the binder and started carefully lifting out stacks of brittle yellowed newsprint, scanning for dates and headlines. As luck would have it, she found what she was looking for in the first set of papers, spying the following banner headline, stretching across the front page:

Tragedy Strikes in Local Waters: Scores Perish as
Henrietta Dale
Founders on Dungeness Spit

August 5—Captain Nathaniel Williams, commander of the ill-fated clipper ship the
Henrietta Dale
, stood beside this reporter late last night on the west edge of Dungeness Spit, tears pouring down his ruddy cheeks as he watched the ship disintegrate, having fallen victim to powerful waves. “I’ve never skippered a finer ship,” he cried. “It breaks my heart to watch her die.”

While en route from Victoria, British Columbia, the ship mysteriously ran aground south of the New Dungeness Lighthouse. As of this reporter’s deadline, many of the crew and passengers on board have perished, though the lightkeeper, with the help of his wife, has been able to pull a few blessed souls from the icy surf.

Rescue personnel from neighboring towns—including our own Port Chatham—tried in vain to help those injured in the sudden grounding, but the precarious nature of the ship in shifting sands was a danger to all those who valiantly attempted to save lives.

Captain Williams removed his wool cap in a gesture of respect as the beautiful ship met her final death throes, her masts crashing into the surf, her hull breaking into pieces. “She was the pinnacle of my life’s work,” he said, visibly distraught. “I’ll never skipper another like her.”

Though few in number, the injured will be transported to Port Chatham to be treated at local infirmaries. Relatives of crew members and passengers can inquire as to the status of their loved ones at the Port Chatham Police Station.

Jordan set the newspaper aside, leaning back in the wooden chair she’d pulled up to the small desk. So there
had
been survivors. That meant there must be a list of victims in a subsequent article, as well as stories from survivors that would give her an idea of how many survived and who they might have been. It was possible she’d even run across a mention of Michael Seavey, either listed among the dead or noted as transported to the local infirmary.

She sorted through the rest of the stacks of newsprint, frustrated when she found nothing other than the article Hattie had shown her mentioning Seavey’s murder. As with many historical collections, not all issues of the old newspaper had been preserved—there were gaps in the coverage,
big
gaps. She had a few more issues at home, but the chances were slim she’d find what she needed there.

Dammit! Scrubbing her hands over her face, she thought about what she knew so far, which was precious little: The ship
had
run aground, and it was possible that Michael Seavey had survived the wreck. She’d found no mention, though, of the ship being deliberately lured off course.

If Seavey
had
survived, why didn’t he remember? And why weren’t there more articles about Seavey’s murder? Did the lack of stories about a formal murder investigation support his contention that Eleanor had planted the article for some reason? Surely even the murders of known criminals had been investigated in the nineteenth century. And such an investigation wouldn’t have been ignored by the newspaper, if only for the purpose of underlining Eleanor’s unyielding editorial stance regarding the evils of such activities.

Then again, Jordan supposed it didn’t matter
how
Seavey had died, necessarily. Because if the ship had been lured onto the rocks, someone had most likely intended to murder him. In fact, whoever that person was may have realized Seavey had survived and come back to finish the job. If she could find evidence that someone had deliberately wrecked the ship, then either way, she had a murder to solve.

She pulled herself up short.
If
she decided to solve it. As far as she was concerned, she’d found her answer, that she really was—alarmingly—seeing a ghost ship. The article was clear: The
Henrietta Dale
had broken up in the surf off Dungeness Spit that night over one hundred years ago. So Bob was correct; there was no way anyone could have refurbished the vessel.

Jordan let her mind slide away from that scary little fact and focused on murder instead. Seavey didn’t seem to care how he had died. But Hattie
did
. And dammit, if she were in Hattie’s place, she would feel a similar level of guilt. Hadn’t she wanted to solve her own husband’s murder, even after he’d slept around on her, dragged her name through the papers, and battled her for more than his fair share of the assets in the divorce? Admittedly, Ryland had turned out to be a major jerk, but he hadn’t deserved to die. And although Jordan had been implicated, her main motivation had been to find out who killed the man she’d once loved.

In Seavey’s case, there was no question that he had a violent past, but he’d cared enough for Hattie to avenge her murder, and he hadn’t deserved to be falsely accused. Even if Hattie eventually chose not to marry him, she would feel better if she at least helped find out what had happened to him. So Jordan had no problem empathizing with Hattie’s point of view. Unfortunately.

She felt like banging her head against the nearest brick wall. Besides Seavey, who had been on board the
Henrietta Dale
that night? Obviously, the crew and its captain; Bob had said that Seavey had hired a captain known to be extremely competent. Had that captain been hired locally? If so, it was possible the captain had written a memoir. After all, he would want to defend his actions that night, in case anyone wondered about his culpability.

She stood and walked over to the stacks, hunting for collections that were perhaps from famous Port Chatham maritime families. If she could piece together the details of the events surrounding the
Henrietta Dale
, then research the laws and cultural mores of the time regarding the importation and use of opium, perhaps she’d start to have a sense of Michael Seavey’s life in the weeks before his death.

Hunting through folders and binders for more than a half hour, she was about to give up when she found a small packet of papers written by Captain Nathaniel Williams. Opening it, she discovered a sheaf of badly frayed, handwritten pages, presumably from a personal diary, carefully encased in plastic covers. She flipped through them, looking for dates, but most of the entries didn’t have any. There was no telling whether the pages documenting the shipwreck had survived—she’d have to go through what was there to determine if the collection contained any information of use.