“Not helpful,” he said quietly in her ear.
“You’re accusing me of being unbalanced?” Walters demanded. Now his face had turned beet red.
Jordan gave Darcy a look that said she wasn’t touching that one.
Darcy held out both hands palms up as if she was weighing something. “Assault versus simple trespass,” she said to Walters. “Felony versus misdemeanor. Do you really want to go there?”
Walters fumed, saying nothing.
Jase’s shoulders subtly relaxed. “I suggest you leave quietly, before I have you forcibly removed.”
“I can see I’m not being taken seriously.” He glared at Jordan. “I had no idea you had the law in your pocket.”
“Watch it,” Darcy warned. “You don’t want to go there, either. I take my job very seriously. If one of your witnesses will swear out a statement saying that they saw Jordan remove historic documents from your hotel, then you have the proof you need to ask me to arrest her for theft. Otherwise, quit wasting my time.”
“Leave,” Jase repeated quietly. “Now.”
Malachi growled for good measure, baring his teeth.
Walters harrumphed, then stalked to the exit. “This isn’t over,” he threatened in a loud voice, looking at Jordan. He stabbed a shaking finger at her. “And stay away from my hotel, do you hear me?”
“Believe me,” Jordan told him fervently, “not a problem.”
He slammed out the door. The room was silent for a moment, then patrons slowly turned away and began talking quietly among themselves.
Susan sidled past her. “I’ll, um, just give this sketch to Bob MacDonough, okay?”
“Sure,” Jordan said. “Sorry about the commotion.”
She nodded without comment and fled.
Jordan dropped into her chair, hugging Malachi.
“Are you completely out of your mind?” Darcy demanded in a low tone. “Clive Walters is a known troublemaker. Half the people who have worked for him can attest to his temper tantrums. He’s been in my office numerous times, trying to swear out complaints against the people he’s fired—almost no one in this town will work for him. And you thought it was smart to sneak around after he told you not to?”
“I may have experienced a slight lapse in judgment,” Jordan admitted.
“You think?” Darcy sat down across from her. “Listen, you really need to back off. Next time I might not have any choice but to arrest you. If he hadn’t manhandled you, we’d be down at the station right now, swearing out a warrant.”
“You’re right,” Jordan agreed, realizing how much the encounter had shaken her up. “It won’t happen again.”
“Yes, it will,” Jase said. “You won’t stop.”
“Hey,” she protested, surprised.
He gave her a disgusted look. “What? I’ve already talked to you about this, and so has Darcy. But it didn’t deter you, did it?”
“I honestly didn’t think—”
He rolled right over her. “What if that jerk had discovered you in the hotel? He might have beaten you up, or worse. For that matter, what if he murdered Holt? You could have been confronted by a killer.” He turned to Darcy. “Does Walters have any weapons registered in his name?”
“Not that I know of, but it’s easy enough to buy an illegal one. We’ve got any number of survivalist-militia-type enclaves just outside of town. Those folks would be glad to help him put his hands on a weapon.”
“Do you really consider him a suspect?” Jordan asked Darcy.
“I hadn’t until now,” Darcy answered. “I have to wonder what’s got him so hot and bothered about those papers, but it’s not like they’re worth all that much. I’ve seen people murder for fifty bucks, but in my opinion, this is just Clive being Clive.”
Jordan thought about it and agreed with her assessment. The guy was paranoid but that didn’t mean he was also a killer. Most paranoids didn’t escalate to murder. “Those papers are nothing more than a ledger of accounts showing the cargo of the Henrietta Dale the night she ran aground. The ledger itself can’t be worth more than a few thousand at auction. Certainly not enough to go postal over.” An idea occurred to her. “Just in case, can you search his hotel, to see if the murder weapon turns up?”
“Not without probable cause,” Jase said. “And she doesn’t have it.”
Darcy snorted. “Hell, given your questionable behavior over the last twenty-four hours, Jordan, I’ve got a better chance of obtaining a search warrant for Longren House than I do for the Cosmopolitan Hotel.” She rubbed the back of her neck, looking tired. “I’ll go talk to Walters tomorrow after he’s calmed down a bit. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t have an alibi for the time of Holt’s murder.”
“You’d better hope those papers turn up,” Jase told Jordan. “He’ll be on a mission to prove you stole them until they do.”
JORDAN stayed long enough to finish her meal, which was now cold, then left for home. The sun had set, and a sharp breeze was coming out of the south off the water. The neighborhood was quiet; most people were already inside for the evening. Yards were bathed in deepening twilight; lights shone through windows here and there, providing extra illumination as she walked the few blocks between the pub and Longren House. Her footsteps echoed on the pavement as she made her way down the street.
The house was silent and dark when she entered; evidently everyone had left for the day. No ghosts made their presence known. Still unsettled by Walters’s accusations, Jordan flipped on the hall light and wandered back to the kitchen. She pulled a can of dog food from the cupboard, putting its contents on a plate for Malachi.
“Seriously cool defense of me back there, pal,” she told him, running a hand down his back.
He looked up from his food, wagging his tail.
“That guy is certifiable,” she said.
“Roooo.”
“You’ve got to wonder what’s so damn important about those papers that he would make such a stink,” she said thoughtfully. “And even more to the point, where the hell are they? I don’t have them. And they don’t seem to be in Holt’s house.”
Evidently Malachi didn’t share her curiosity, because he didn’t respond. Instead, he focused on eating his food.
Jase and Darcy were both clearly cranky with her over her meddling. And so far, in one day, she’d managed to get herself shoved down a flight of steps and manhandled. And she knew little more than when the day had started. She had to admit, her detecting skills were pretty abysmal.
Restless, she wandered over to the stove to put on a kettle for tea. Finding a clean mug, she dropped a bag of chamomile into it, thinking it would help her get a solid night’s sleep, then sat at the kitchen table to wait for the water to boil.
Earlier, she’d dropped the jumbled stack of Seavey’s personal papers there, meaning to go through them when she had the chance and arrange them by date. They sat where she’d left them, still needing to be carefully reorganized and placed in some kind of protective, acid-free cardboard box, if she could find one. Obviously, even though Holt hadn’t cared if the papers continued to deteriorate, walking around with them in their current, exposed state wasn’t exactly good for them. Several pages now had grass stains and dirt smudges, and some of the ink had smeared where it had come into contact with the moisture on the grass.
The kettle whistled, and she got up to fix her tea. Mug in hand, she walked back over to the table, focusing on Seavey’s blurred longhand script on the topmost page. Sam Garrett’s name caught her eye. Carrying her tea in one hand and the papers in her other, Jordan headed upstairs to her bedroom.