Ghost Ship: A Port Chatham Mystery by P. J. Alderman Read Free Book Online

both elbows on the counter.
    “You look like hell,” Jordan said, worried.
    “Nice to know I look exactly like I feel,” she retorted wryly.
    “How’d you get here so fast?”
    “The Coast Guard guys gave me a lift back to my SUV in the helicopter. We lost the light, and no one thought to bring battery-operated floods. It was pointless to continue, so the plan is to go back out tomorrow morning.”
    “Were you able to wrangle jurisdiction?” Jordan placed a pint of microbrew in front of her.
    “Yeah.” Darcy took a large gulp and closed her eyes for a moment.
    “Anything you can tell us?” Tom asked.
    “Not much. Holt was probably murdered late last night—the ME said he’d been in the water less than twenty-four hours. It’ll be a couple of days before I get the autopsy report.” She reached for a napkin as Jase set down her dinner. “Come to think of it, I didn’t see Holt in here last night. Did you?” she asked Jase.
    “Not that I remember. But Holt always paid with a credit card, so if he was here, I’d have the slip for his meal and drinks.” Jase wiped down the bar with a cloth. “You saw what a zoo it was in here last night—he could’ve escaped my notice easily.”
    Darcy swallowed a bite of sturgeon, then turned to the others. “Did you guys see him?”
    “I wasn’t here last night,” Bob replied, and Tom shook his head.
    “I’ll ask around and check the receipts,” Jase assured Darcy. “Do you have detectives tracing his last movements?”
    “Yep. Hopefully, they’ll find something useful.”
    Tom leaned toward Darcy. “What’s this about you finding him in a dive suit and without gear? You know he hated the ocean, right?”
    “That was my understanding. The only explanation that makes sense is that he was dumped off a boat, but I have no idea why he was diving in the first place. Or where, for that matter. He could’ve been killed anywhere out on the water, then brought to that location.” She grimaced. “Which means, of course, that we’re probably processing only the dump site, not the primary crime scene. We’ll have to keep looking, based on what we find Holt was up to.”
    Jordan told Darcy about the nineteenth-century shipwreck and Seavey’s ownership of the Henrietta Dale . “Don’t you think that’s an odd coincidence, given that Seavey and Holt were related?”
    Darcy’s shrug was indifferent. “Maybe. Then again, it could just be that—a coincidence.”
    “Do you think Holt might have been diving for artifacts off the old shipwreck?”
    “Seems unlikely that there would be any other reason Holt was diving in that location,” Tom pointed out.
    “Then again,” Jordan thought it through out loud, “when I was looking at Seavey in relation to Hattie’s murder, Holt professed to be uninterested in any of his ancestors.”
    “Maybe he hoped he’d find something of value,” Tom said. “Holt was always looking for ways to make an extra buck or three. And there’s been a rumor floating around lately that he underbid the hotel job and was losing money.”
    Darcy pushed away her half-eaten dinner, then leaned forward so that she could address a woman with dishwater-blond hair, dressed in work clothes and boots, sitting three stools down. Jordan remembered serving her a whiskey, neat. “Hey, Sally? Do you happen to know who Holt was dating in recent weeks?”
    The woman scowled. “It’s just like you cops to think that some woman did it, right? Blame the victim, that’s what you always do.”
    “Sally …” Darcy warned.
    Sally abruptly stood, digging a hand into her pocket. “Holt hated women. Not the other way around.”
    “Why do you say that?” Jordan asked, curious because she had suspected the same.
    Sally dismissed her question with a cool look. “I’m not interested in psychoanalyzing the son of a bitch.” She glanced at the tab Jase had handed her, then tossed a couple of twenties onto the bar. “All I know is, whoever did Holt in,