“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 kepttrying, 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 fixanycrimes. 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. Itmight 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 theSalem Times, dated October 19, 2015. “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 18thby 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 onthe 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 futurechiefof 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.”
