3
Ronan
Ronan, Jude, and Fitz sat in the conference room at West Side Magick waiting for the emergency meeting to begin. Ten had called half an hour ago, telling him the psychics needed to speak to the detectives, stat. Obviously Ten didn’t understand the meaning of the word, “stat,” because fifteen minutes after arriving, the psychics still hadn’t joined the meeting.
“I’m gonna go grab some coffee and find out what the hell is going on with my husband.” Ronan headed toward the door.
“Ten didn’t give you any indication what this was about?” Fitz asked as Ronan reached for the knob.
“No, none.” Ronan opened the door and found Tennyson rushing down the hall carrying a tray full of coffees.
“Thanks,” Ten said, breathing heavy. “Cope’s right behind me. He’s got the box.”
“What box?” Jude asked. “Boom box? Jack in the box? Pandora’s box?”
“This box,” Cope said, walking into the room followed by Carson and Cole.
“You called us down here for an emergency meeting because of a plastic box?” Ronan asked, sounding skeptical. He knew Ten wouldn’t have called unless it was something important, but still the object didn’t look very menacing, unless of course it wasn’t biodegradable.
Ten took the seat across from Ronan. “A woman walked in here earlier with this box. It’s a temporary cremation urn.”
“What?” Ronan asked, instantly understanding why Ten called with such urgency. “There’s a person in there?”
“We think so,” Cope agreed. “There’s something in here, but we didn’t want to open it without you guys being here, just in case.”
“Good call,” Fitzgibbon said, reaching for the box. He spun it around, looking at all four sides and lifted it up to look at the bottom. “Isn’t there supposed to be something that identifies the remains or at least gives the name of the funeral home that cremated the body?”
Ronan nodded. “Yeah, when my grandfather died, we got his remains back in a box just like this. Before the funeral, we had to have his remains placed into the burial urn and the sticker on the box helped to identify him, to make sure we didn’t bury the wrong person.”
Ten grimaced. “I didn’t realize there was a risk of that happening.”
“There was that funeral home up in New Hampshire a few years back that got behind on cremations and let the bodies stack up like cord wood in the back parking lot. Remains were lost, mislabeled, combined with other people’s remains. It was a real nightmare.” Ronan took the box from Fitz and ran his hands along the sides, top, and bottom looking for sticky residue. There was none. “Maybe the identifying information is inside the box. Cap, you want to do the honors?” The absolute last thing Ronan wanted to do was open the box. He had a flashback to the movieSe7enand what was in the infamous box at the end of the movie.
Fitzgibbon unlatched the top of the box and slowly lifted it up. “There’s remains here.” He reached inside and pulled a sealedplastic bag out. When he set it on the table, Ronan made the signs of the cross. “There’s nothing else in the box. No sticker, business card, nothing to identify this person or the funeral home.” He carefully placed the remains back inside the box and secured the lid.
“What do we do now?” Jude asked. “Is the spirit of this person here?”
Cope shook his head. “There are no ghosts here at the moment. Ten and I will continue to try and reach out to this person and see if we can contact them.”
“What can you tell us about the woman who brough the box in and where it was found?” Ronan knew their next step needed to be a call to Cisco Jackson. He’d let Fitzgibbon handle that.
“Her name is Laura Cooper and she lives over on Stanton Hope Drive,” Ten said. “She said she found the box during one of her morning reconnaissance missions.”
“Her what?” Fitzgibbon asked.
“Laura is a neighborhood gossip who likes to inspect her neighbors’ trash and recycling, looking to find a juicy tidbit or two to share at her book club meetings.” Cope shook his head. “Unfortunately, she doesn’t know which house she got the box from or even what street she was on when she found it.”
Fitzgibbon’s eyes widened. “Wait, are you saying this box of human remains was left out for the trash like a broken television or a stained mattress?”
Ten nodded. “That’s not even the worst part of this story.”
“It gets worse than having your remains left out for the garbage men to compact and bury in a landfill?” Jude asked, looking as if he thought this was a bad as things could get.
“Laura took the box because she thought there might be treasures inside,” Cope said, exchanging a solemn look with Tennyson.
“What, like a Cracker Jack box?” Fitzgibbon asked.
Ten shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Sort of. She was hoping to find jewelry or gold teeth.”
