“In the meantime,” she told Hattie sternly, “I expect you to resolve this marriage issue. I’m not keen on having either man in this house.”
Hattie made several reassuring noises that Jordan knew better than to believe signaled the end to that discussion, then faded away, leaving her in peace.
Malachi slipped into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed, settling in. Jordan climbed in right after him, fighting for her half of the comforter. She was about to turn out the bedside lamp when she saw Michael Seavey’s personal papers, still stacked where she’d left them on her nightstand. She’d been procrastinating about returning them to Holt, not looking forward to having to fend off his inevitable advances. And didn’t that make her feel guilty, in light of today’s events? She and Hattie were certainly a pair. First thing tomorrow, she’d take the papers to the local mail shop and copy them, then drive them out to Holt’s house. His family would want to know that she returned them, since they would be part of Holt’s estate.
She leaned against the headboard, still too worked up to fall asleep. Perhaps if she read Seavey’s papers she wouldn’t lie in the dark and think about the other thing she’d seen that afternoon. Or maybe she’d find information that would indicate the thing she’d seen wasn’t the Henrietta Dale, thus proving the gardener wrong.
Surely, if Seavey had owned a clipper ship, he’d have written about it. And if so, he also would’ve detailed his plans for the ship. It seemed unlikely that he would’ve gone into any kind of shipping business, given his established shanghaing practices. And no one had mentioned to her that Seavey had taken over Longren Shipping after Hattie’s murder. Jordan couldn’t come up with any reason why he would’ve needed to expand his interests in that direction. So if he had purchased the clipper ship, why? And who might have tried to run it aground? And what, if anything, did the shipwreck have to do with his murder? Or Holt’s, for that matter?
She grabbed a couple of pillows and punched them into submission, shoving them behind her, then leaned back. Reaching for the papers, she flipped through a stack of yellowed, handwritten notes until she came to a sheaf of pages dated 1893.
Before she had a chance to search for a mention of the Henrietta Dale, a diary entry from the month before Seavey’s death caught her eye:
July 8, 1893: I found much in the events of this evening to be cause for increased concern. Garrett grows ever bolder, taking unwise risks, even flaunting our successes in front of the Customs agents …
Jordan looked up from the page long enough to adjust the light from the bedside lamp, then settled in to read.
Lost Nerve
July 8, 1893
(one month earlier)
MICHAEL propped a shoulder against the back wall of Mayor Payton’s luxuriously appointed parlor, sipping after-dinner port from Baccarat crystal and listening to the evening’s guest performer, Payton’s unmarried sister. A quiet mouse of a woman dressed in a dull green gown that did nothing for her sallow coloring or plump figure, she’d been seated next to Michael during dinner. She moved effortlessly between Bach, Schumann, and more contemporary ragtime songs, displaying a far better command of the pianoforte than she had of polite dinner conversation.
Michael’s fellow dinner guests, polished in deportment yet woefully uneducated in the fine arts, ignored Miss Payton’s stunning musical talent in favor of consuming large amounts of the admittedly excellent Duoro port the mayor imported for his frequent fund-raisers. Drowning out the music with chatter, the guests bemoaned the cool, wet summer weather that had ruined the Independence Day fireworks display; worried aloud about their risky investments in the proposed railroad between Port Chatham and Portland, Oregon; and vociferously predicted the demise of the local shipping industry. The latter was based on the increased business that lately had gone to that “upstart” port town of “heretics and hedonists,” Seattle.
Michael found it all intolerably boring. Savoring another sip of the port, he wondered whether he could manage a glance at his pocket watch without appearing rude. And whether, if he found enough time had passed, he could slip away without drawing unwanted attention.
Loud laughter erupted from the opposite corner of the room, causing Miss Payton to falter in her otherwise flawless execution of a Bach cantabile. More than one set of eyes averted as Jesse Canby staggered then fell onto a velvet settee. His silk cravat wine-stained and askew, his legs splayed, he raised his head to lock gazes with his mother, Eleanor, who stood rigid with embarrassment. Jesse’s eyes were feverishly bright, his laughter uncaring as the effort to hold his head up became too much.
As owner of the Port Chatham Weekly Gazette, Eleanor Canby held sway over the opinions of the town’s social elite. She’d made it clear that Jesse, an unrepentant alcoholic who had taken an unhealthy interest in the waterfront’s opium-smoking parlors, not to mention its brothels, was no longer welcome in her home. And recently, she’d become ever more strident in her stand on her editorial page, railing against the evils of such licentiousness. Indeed, given the potential for offending Eleanor, Michael was surprised that Payton had allowed Jesse to attend this evening’s event.
Then again, when one craved the heavenly demon, all else took a backseat. Jesse was quietly supplying the good mayor with contraband, thus minimizing the risk that someone would witness Payton’s visit to a known opium den.
Michael was careful to keep his expression bland, not allowing his amusement to show. Payton was in a delicate position: he couldn’t slight Eleanor without suffering political repercussions, yet neither could he publicly snub his supplier. Nevertheless, Eleanor possessed a keen intelligence—it wouldn’t take long for her to piece together the reason for Jesse’s presence tonight.
The irony was that half the guests this evening, including Jesse, were Michael’s regular customers. The new pastime of Port Chatham’s social elite was a visit to one’s favorite Chinese “laundry,” taking a walk on the wild side of the waterfront. And Michael’s goal was to ensure they could engage in their illicit activities with a minimum of risk, in the company of like-minded friends. Once his plans were complete, his customers would no longer feel compelled to sneak through the back door at a laundry; instead, they would recline in splendor served by Michael’s charming chefs, smoking chandu opium of the highest quality, smuggled in weekly from Canada.
Oddly enough, his customers seemed to relish taking the risk of inviting him into their homes. They constantly plied him with invitations to attend the season’s most prestigious gatherings, be they dinners organized to belay the tedium of the cold, cloudy summer, or political fund-raisers meant to line the coffers of the mayor and his cronies.
Michael wanted nothing more than to hole up in his hotel suite. He remained haunted by the thought that Hattie would walk into a hostess’s parlor, or that Hattie was seated at the other end of the dinner table, just out of sight. Though it had been three years since her death, he continued to be plagued by imagined glimpses of her among the crowds on the waterfront boardwalks, and by his memories of her gracing the elegant homes of her neighbors.
The persistence of those memories infuriated him.
Miss Payton brought the Bach piece to an end, pausing to shuffle music scores before launching into her next song. Michael set his glass on the tray of a passing housemaid, then slipped out the French doors to the garden.