Page 3 of Dead Drunk (Cold Case Psychic #36)

Tennyson

Two days later, Ten sat in his reading room at West Side Magick. He’d just finished up with his last client of the day. A seventy-year-old widow named Madge, who wanted to nag her husband, Ted, over infidelity allegations from fifteen years ago.

Ten knew first hand that the man had never cheated on his wife, but there was nothing he could say or do to convince the grieving widow. Ted had been working late one Friday night and had a heart attack at his desk. The cleaning crew had found his body the next morning. There had been ninety-three missed calls over the ten hours before he’d died. Ten couldn’t help but wonder if Ted died just to get away from Madge.

Thankfully, he’d never have to worry about that kind of situation with Ronan. Not just because Tennyson could read him like a dime store penny dreadful, but because Ronan could never keep a secret that big without the guilt tearing him apart. He was about to pack up for the day to head home when his phone rang. Madam Aurora’s name was on the caller ID.

“Hey, Aurora.”

“Hey, yourself, Ten.”

Aurora wasn’t her usual sunny self. Her affect was flat. Unreadable.

“How have you been? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Ten reached out with his gift and wasn’t getting a whole lot. Aurora obviously had herself on lockdown, keeping whatever she was calling about a secret.

“Hopefully I’m about to change that.”

Aurora, usually so polished and in control of herself, sounded rattled, on edge.

“Are you okay?”

Ten could sense her fear, but couldn’t figure out what his friend was so afraid of.

“I’m fine, but I have this friend who’s in trouble. Big trouble.”

Aurora paused and took a deep breath.

“Can you meet me at my shop? I know it’s the end of your work day and you want to get home to take the kids out to pick strawberries, but this is an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

It wasn’t like Aurora to beat around the bush.

“No one’s hurt. Don’t bring Ronan. Come alone.”

“Aurora, tell me what’s-”

The phone beeped three times and the call dropped. Anxiety surged through Ten’s body. What the hell was going on and why wouldn’t Aurora want Ronan involved?

Stuffing his phone and his wallet into his pockets, Ten peeked out his office door. He knew the detectives were working upstairs and he didn’t want to run into Ronan. It was one thing to keep something from him in the moment, but was something else entirely to lie to his husband about where he was going.

Thankfully, the coast was clear. He practically ran out the door. Just as he was climbing into the SUV, his phone chimed. It was a text from Carson. [???]

Obviously his escape hadn’t gone completely unnoticed. Not wanting to lie to Carson either, Ten set the phone in the cupholder and started the ignition.

The drive to Madam Aurora’s shop took about fifteen minutes. He’d been focused on her the entire drive, hoping his gift would give him some clue as to what was going on and why she was being so secretive. The only possible answer he could think of was that she’d had a premonition about something or someone close to her and needed Ten’s help to figure it out.

Parking the car, Ten hurried down Essex Street and into the shop, which was crowded with summer tourists. When he caught the attention of the girl working the cash register, she pointed toward Aurora’s office.

“Come in,”

Aurora called out when Ten knocked on her closed door.

Taking a deep breath, Ten turned the knob and walked into the room. Sitting at the reading table were Aurora and a man Ten had never met before. He appeared to be in his fifties and wore a grey suit with a bow tie. Of all the scenarios Tennyson’s worried mind had thrown at him since Aurora’s call, unassuming anonymous accountant, was not on his list.

“Ten, we’re so glad you came. This is Rhys James. He’s an accountant at Rimmel and Stockard, over in Peabody. He got into a bit of trouble with the Salem Police last night.”

She tapped a red lacquered fingernail against a pile of overturned papers to her right.

No wonder Aurora didn’t want him to bring Ronan. She was going to plead her friend’s case and ask Ten to see what Ronan could do to get him out of trouble. He turned to Rhys.

“I’m not sure what Ronan can do to help. He’s with the Cold Case Unit.”

Rhys wore a terrified look. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Aurora patted her friend’s hand.

“We’re going to need Ronan’s help eventually, but for right now. We need you to listen to what happened last night.”

“I’m all ears.”

Ten turned his attention to the accountant whose hands were shaking uncontrollably. He imagined it was very unnerving to have done something worthy of the SPD getting involved, but what Rhys had done must not have been very serious, or he would have been held without bail.

“I’ve lived in Salem my entire adult life,”

Rhys began.

“I have trouble with anxiety and for whatever reason, this city soothes me, or at least I thought it did until last night.”

Ten was more confused now that he’d been when he’d walked into Aurora’s reading room.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened last night and we can go from there.”

As he spoke, Ten tried to read Rhys, but the man was too anxious. If he kept trying, all he would succeed in doing was shredding his own nerves.

“A friend from work is retiring. Yesterday was his last day, so we took him out barhopping to send him off with a proper farewell. I was buzzed, but instead of letting a co-worker drive me home, I got behind the wheel. I know it was a stupid decision. I’d only gone about half a mile or so when the cops pulled me over. They gave me a field sobriety test and had me do a breathalyzer. I failed both and they arrested me and took me to jail.”

Tale as old as time. Ten was just glad that no one had been hurt as a result of Rhys’s poor decision.

“Do you need help finding a good lawyer? My husband can’t fix these sorts of crimes.”

Actually, Ronan couldn’t fix any crimes. If pushed, he could probably get speeding or parking tickets resolved, but that wasn’t how his husband worked.

“Shh!”

Aurora cautioned.

“Let Rhys finish.”

Ten hadn’t been chastised like that in decades. He thought the last time he’d been told to shut up and listen had been back during his Union Chapel High School days. He offered Rhys a smile, encouraging the man to continue his story.

“Since I was arrested so late at night, the cops kept me at the Salem City Jail instead of having me sent to the county jail. I was scared to death about what this arrest would mean. Was I going to lose my driver’s license? If my firm found out, would I be fired?”

Ten would have been just as scared if he’d been in Rhys’s shoes.

“I couldn’t sleep a wink in the cell, so I started doing breathing exercises my therapist taught me. They’re meant to calm my racing heart and mind. After a little while, the exercises started to work. I was calmer and was able to think a bit more clearly. It might have had to do with the fact that my buzz was completely gone. I was lying on my bunk in the cell, almost asleep, when I started hearing a voice. I couldn’t make out any words, but it sounded like someone was begging for help. I called out to the guy manning the jail to tell him someone needed help and the officer shouted back that I was the only person in lock up.”

Ten finally understood where this conversation was going.

“You had an encounter with a spirit?”

“We think so,”

Aurora said, jumping back into the conversation.

“I’ve given Rhys some tests to see what kind of gifts he has and he’s sensitive to spirits, but doesn’t have the ability to speak with them like we do.”

“I kept hearing the same sentence over and over again,”

Rhys interjected.

“It was almost like this ghost’s record needle was stuck in the groove, making it skip.”

“Believe it or not, that makes perfect sense. I’ve encountered it a time or two with other people in the past.”

Maybe this situation wasn’t as bad as Ten feared. It seemed like all this guy wanted was for him to help the trapped spirit and to do that, he’d need Ronan’s help getting into the jail.

“What was the message the spirit was trying to give you?”

“Can’t breathe. Killing me.”

Rhys’s entire body shivered. He wrapped his arms around himself as if he could somehow ward off the cold he was feeling.

Ten was able to read that Rhys wasn’t making this up. He’d actually heard those words in the jail cell. Or at least his mind thought he did. It was possible he’d been drunker than he thought. Rhys could have been stuck in a partially asleep dream state.

“He wasn’t dreaming, Ten.”

Aurora turned back to Rhys.

“Tell him the rest.”

“I kept asking the voice to give me his name, that I couldn’t help him without it. I begged and pleaded until the voice stopped speaking altogether. I assumed I’d scared him away, but then, out of the darkness, I heard a name.”

“What was it?”

Ten was on the edge of his seat.

“Jefferson McGrath.”

The name meant nothing to Ten.

“I don’t know who that is. Do you?”

He asked Aurora.

“I didn’t until we Googled him.”

Aurora handed Ten the small stack of papers that had been sitting beside her.

The papers were an article from the Salem Times, dated October 19, 015.

“Drunk Driving Suspect Found Dead in Cell,”

Ten read the headline out loud. Scanning quickly, he discovered that a man named Jefferson McGrath had been arrested on OUI charges on October 18th by officers Robert Oliveri and Cisco Jackson.

“Oh, shit,”

Ten muttered. Now he knew why Aurora wanted him to leave Ronan out of this meeting.

“Keep reading until the end,”

Aurora urged.

Ten obeyed. The article stated thirty-six year old McGrath, who had a record of drunk driving arrests in his past, had just been released from rehab and had been working at a local McDonalds. His body had been found on the floor of the jail cell. According to the medical examiner, fingerprint bruises marked the right side of his neck and blood vessels in his eyes had burst. Autopsy results were pending the return of toxicology results.

Ten had no idea what it was Aurora wanted him to read so badly. He was about to ask her what she meant when his eye caught on the last line of the article.

“Salem Police officials claim McGrath was alone in his cell at the time of his death.”

Ten looked back and forth between Aurora and Rhys.

“This man was murdered alone in his jail cell?”

“He obviously wasn’t alone, Ten.”

“You think a cop killed him?”

Ten’s head swam with the implications.

“Not just any cop either, possibly the future chief of police.”

Ten couldn’t catch his breath. Cisco had been a part of their family for years. He doted on Everly. Ten and Ronan were the godparents to Cisco’s son, Frankie. He’d been the one who fought for a grant for Salem to open a cold case unit, which he wanted Ronan, Jude, and Fitzgibbon to run.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Use your connections at the Salem Police to get into the city jail and see if you can connect with McGrath’s spirit.”

Ten was afraid Aurora was going to say that.

“Ronan’s gonna lose his shit when I explain what happened and how Cisco might be involved.”

“Ronan’s a detective. It’s his job to catch killers. McGrath died fifteen years ago. His death is a cold case, ergo, Ronan would be doing his job. End of discussion.”

It might be the end of the discussion for Aurora, but for Tennyson, it was just beginning.