Haunting Jordan (39 page)

“Hell, I don’t know,” Jordan said, exasperated. “I wasn’t paying attention to those sorts of details. Ryland had just been killed.” She hunched her shoulders and leaned forward. “I want you to drop this, JT. I will talk to Carol myself and ask her about the conference. There’s an
innocent explanation,” she insisted stubbornly. “I’m certain of it.”

“You’re the boss, darlin’.”

She drew a deep breath. “Thanks.”

“You’ll get my bill.”

Jase punched the disconnect button. The silence stretched out between them.

“So Didi is the most viable suspect,” Jordan concluded out loud.

“JT may still come up with interesting names for those witnesses.”

They were both leaving unspoken the information about Carol, and Jordan preferred it that way. Even asking about the shared hotel room would put a strain on their friendship, and Jordan couldn’t do that. Carol had always been there for her. If—and
only
if—Didi came up with a verifiable alibi would Jordan then call Carol.

Jordan stood to stretch out the kinks. If she didn’t get some coffee in her, her sleepless night would soon have her flat on her face. “I need to track down Didi and have a little talk with her.”

Jase shook his head. “Not alone, you aren’t. If she’s killed once, she won’t hesitate to do so again.” He glanced at his watch. “Why don’t we get cleaned up, then I’ll pick you up and we’ll grab brunch on the way out to Ted’s house.”

“Sounds like a plan, as long as you add caffeine to the brunch portion of the agenda.”

Jase glanced at his watch. “I’ve got some emails and a
supplier I have to deal with. How does two hours from now sound?”

* * *

O
NCE
back at the house, Jordan took a long shower, slowly graduating the water temperature from hot to cold in the hope that it would wake her up. With a towel wrapped around her wet hair, she looked through the last of Seavey’s papers. She was convinced she’d find the clue she needed to nail Hattie’s murderer.

Locating an entry from the night of the soirée, she began to read while she towel-dried her hair.

June 6th
—
I find I’m barely able to put pen to paper this night, for I suffer from intense emotion unlike anything I’ve experienced in my lifetime. Though I was able to return Charlotte unharmed, my relationship with Hattie has been irreparably damaged. For I looked into her eyes this evening and saw the truth of her feelings. No matter what I have done—and she will never know the truth of it—she hates me with a deep and abiding passion. I find the pain of this knowledge almost unbearable
.

Remy just now brought me word of Hattie’s murder. I will not rest until I find her killer. How ironic that I was incapable of understanding what I
felt for her was love until it was too late. She would’ve told me it was no less than I deserve
.

Jordan flipped through the pages, hunting for additional references to Hattie, but what she found instead was even more intriguing.

July 23rd
—
For the first time in my life, I have killed out of the need for personal vengeance. Once Remy had persuaded him to talk, he admitted to murdering Hattie in retribution. He’d laughed, thinking I wouldn’t care what he’d done. He sealed his fate in that moment. I had the pleasure of watching the man who took from me everything I hold dear die a slow, agonizing death. Perhaps now I can rest
.

Jordan set the papers down, her hands trembling with excitement. Frank
had
been innocent, and Seavey had avenged Hattie’s murder. The question was, who had died on July 23, 1890? Clive Johnson? It certainly made sense. How tragic that Greeley had been too blind to investigate Johnson. To know for certain, though, she needed a name—an official record of who had died on that date.

She reached for her phone.

“Darcy, I need to get back inside the Historical Society building. Are you up for a little B and E this morning?”

“Gee, why the hell not? I live to break the law,” Darcy replied. “Pick you up in ten minutes.”

* * *

T
HIS
time, Jordan left Malachi at home, explaining that Darcy didn’t want dog hairs in the police cruiser. He let it be known he thought that reasoning was suspect at best.

While Darcy drove, Jordan filled her in on what she’d learned.

“So we’re looking for some kind of official report of a murder on July 23, 1890?” Darcy asked as they turned into the parking lot of the Historical Society.

“Yeah. Seavey, in a journal entry on that date, indicates he killed Hattie’s murderer. My bet, given the prior entries in which he said he needed to deal with Johnson, is that that’s who he killed.”

“Maybe, if you believe that Seavey was being truthful in his journal.”

“Why wouldn’t he have been?”

“Anyone in that time frame who wrote journals or diaries had to believe the documents would be read by whoever survived them.”

“You have a point,” Jordan said grudgingly. “But he admitted to murder, and I don’t see Seavey as a man who spent a lot of time agonizing over his reputation.”

Darcy moved the plywood from in front of the door. “He might’ve wanted his relatives to believe he’d done the right thing, simply because he knew he
hadn’t
and felt remorse. It’s one thing to kill off your competitors, but it’s another entirely to be a party to the murder of a defenseless woman.”

“Maybe.” But Jordan wasn’t convinced. She opened the door and they made their way across the dusty room and down the stairs to the basement.

Jordan ran her fingers down the spines of the boxes holding the
Port Chatham Weekly Gazette
from 1890, pulling out the one that was the correct range of dates. Taking it over to the small table, she opened it and handed half its contents to Darcy. “Look for July 23, 1890, or a date close to that, since the newspaper was a weekly.”

It took her only a moment to find what she was looking for, her surprise growing as she read. She held out the yellowed newsprint, pointing at the front-page leading article. “Police Chief John Greeley was killed in the line of duty the night of July 23, 1890. He’d been beaten, then shot in the abdomen in the alley behind the police station. He bled to death before he was discovered.”

“Whoa,” Darcy murmured, skimming the article.

“Yeah.” Jordan rubbed her face, trying to process the information in a way that made sense.

“There must’ve been more than one murder that night.” Darcy was flipping through the rest of the newspaper.

“I don’t think so, actually.”

“Come on. A cop? You think Greeley killed Hattie, then set up Frank to take the fall?”

“Actually, it fits, and for reasons I wasn’t even taking into account, dammit. Greeley was furious with Hattie for putting Charlotte at risk and causing her kidnapping.
And I don’t care how chauvinistic men were back then, he was obsessed with Charlotte. Men like that are easily capable of killing the person they hold responsible for the destruction of their carefully planned world. And it also makes sense that Greeley would frame Frank—he could buy himself some favors with Seavey for neutralizing a business rival.”

Darcy’s expression was skeptical.

“Okay, look,” Jordan said, warming to her subject. “Seavey said in his journal entry that the man he killed had murdered Hattie ‘in retribution.’ He indicated he’d ‘persuaded’ the man to talk. That sounds an awful lot like Seavey had his thugs beat him until he talked. Seavey also said he enjoyed watching the man he’d killed die a ‘slow and agonizing’ death. A gunshot to the abdomen would qualify as slow and agonizing.”

“Okay, I might buy that. But what happened to Clive Johnson?”

“Good question … wait. Seavey talked about handling the problem with Johnson around the time of the kidnapping—he felt that by not acting sooner, he’d allowed Charlotte’s kidnapping to occur.” Jordan picked up the stack of newspapers, shuffling them to find the ones from early June. After some quick skimming, she grinned and handed an issue to Darcy, folded open to the police report. “An unidentified man was fished from the bay on the morning of June 7—the day after the soirée. The corpse was beaten beyond recognition.”

“People died almost every night on the waterfront—that proves nothing.”

“Yes, but if Seavey had rescued Charlotte by the night before, he’d already gotten hold of Johnson, forced him to reveal Charlotte’s location, then ‘handled’ the problem.”

Darcy folded the paper and handed it back to her. “You realize all you have is supposition and circumstantial evidence, right?”

“Yes, but strong supposition, and all the dates match.” Jordan replaced the newspapers and set the box back in its place on the shelf. “We know that’s what happened, even though it will never be proven in a court of law. And the psychological profile of Greeley fits Hattie’s murder—it was a crime of passion.”

Closing up, they walked back out to the police cruiser. Darcy’s expression was troubled. “This will devastate Tom.”

Jordan’s steps faltered, and she stared at Darcy in consternation. In her zeal to solve the crime, she hadn’t thought of the consequences of revealing the murderer’s real identity. Darcy was right—the family’s reputation could be irreparably harmed in the community. “So what do I do?”

Darcy started up the car and backed it out of its parking place, looking thoughtful. “Tom deserves to know. Tell him what you’ve uncovered, then show him the journal entries. Let him decide how he wants it handled. After all, you can tell Hattie and Charlotte without revealing the information publicly, right?”

Jordan thought about it, then nodded. “That makes sense. I also need to find a way to break it to Charlotte—she
still believes Greeley loved her. I doubt she’ll take the news well that he was a violent, narcissistic stalker whose love for her was so twisted he murdered her sister.”

“Now, that would be an understatement.” Darcy turned onto Jordan’s street.

Jordan’s cellphone rang and she pulled it out as Darcy stopped in front of Longren House. “I’m here,” she said by way of answering. “I just had Darcy run me on a quick errand—we’re a bit late getting back.”

“Actually,” Jase replied, “I was calling to tell you I’d gotten tied up with the supplier and was on my way out the door. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

“I’ll wait for you here.” Jordan walked up the steps onto the porch with Darcy behind her.

“Oh, and JT called back—he got the name of Drake’s reliable witnesses. One, not surprisingly, is Didi Wyeth. But the other—get this—is Ted Rawlins.”

“But that doesn’t—” Jordan abruptly halted at the front door, causing Darcy to slam into her from behind.

Darcy sidestepped around Jordan.
“Jesus
, Marsh—” she swore, then shut up. Ted stood in the front hall, a handgun in his hand.

Jordan heard an odd coughing noise just as she saw Darcy reach for her gun.

Darcy went down without a sound.

Chapter 17

JORDAN’S phone dropped from nerveless fingers.
Oh God, oh God
. She fell to her knees beside Darcy, frantically searching for a pulse.

“Get up, Jordan,” Ted said calmly. “It would be best if I didn’t have to shoot you just yet.”

From somewhere deep inside the house, she could hear Malachi barking furiously and scratching. She slowly rose, keeping her eyes on the gun pointed at her, which looked really, really big. “What have you done with my dog?”

“Shut him in the butler’s pantry, where he won’t be a nuisance. I don’t like to harm animals.” Ted gestured with the gun toward the library. “Let’s have a chat, shall we?”

Jordan gave Darcy one last glance, then walked ahead of him, her heart pounding so hard it felt like a fist hitting her chest from the inside.

Charlotte was hovering at ceiling level, fading in and out, and hissing. Hattie stood in the shadows next to the
French doors, her eyes on Jordan, waiting, Jordan realized, for some kind of sign from her. She glanced at Ted, who was frowning distractedly to himself. Surreptitiously, she splayed one hand out at her side, hoping Hattie understood her signal to wait.

“Hold still, Charlotte, and wait for Jordan to tell us what to do,” Hattie said.

“But I can get his gun!” Charlotte swooped right over Ted’s head, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Jordan shook her head slightly, and Charlotte retreated to ceiling level with a loud sniff.

Think
, Jordan told herself. Jase would’ve heard the commotion and realized she’d dropped her phone—he was on his way, and he would have called the police. She just had to stall until the cavalry arrived. “Why don’t you let me call the EMTs, Ted? You don’t want Darcy to die.”

Ted shrugged. “Why would I care? She was in the way.” He used the barrel of the gun to scratch the side of his head, mussing his hair.

For the first time, Jordan noted that his clothes were wrinkled.
Changing personal hygiene habits—a sign of deteriorating mental stability
. Not that shooting Darcy without hesitation hadn’t already illustrated that salient fact.

“Killing a cop, Ted—that’s not good. You can get the death penalty.”

“Only if I’m caught, and I won’t be.”

“Just let me make the phone call,” Jordan urged. “Then you can take me to your house.”

“Don’t give him any ideas, Jordan,” Hattie admonished. “He could abduct you!”

“No. Just shut up while I think,” Ted snarled.

He paced slowly around the room, keeping the gun pointed in her direction. Through the French doors, Jordan could see Amanda weeding with her back to them, her butt swaying to whatever tune she had on her MP3 player. Chances of getting her attention were slim at best.

“I’m disappointed, Jordan,” Ted said, drawing her focus back to him. “I came to you because I lost the record contract. And you helped me, remember? I’m back on the road to greatness, and I deserve that greatness. But you’ve fucked it all up.”