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.”
* * *
THIS 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.