Page 24 of Ghostmaker

“I have a feeling Christie’s mother was supposed to make it three murders in three days,” Ten said, looking as if he were about to get sick.

“It’s gotta be Jonas Crawford behind this, right?” Cope could feel the fear and grief coming from the woman in Bertha’s reading room and had a feeling Crawford was the reason behind her distress.

“It feels that way.” Ten got out of his seat and opened the door. “Something big is going on for Cisco to be here.”

Cope had been thinking the same thing. He followed Carson and Ten out of the room and across the shop, where the door to Bertha’s reading room was open. He could see Jude and Ronan had already arrived.

“Hey, guys,” Cisco said, as Cope shut the door. “Sorry to pull you all out of what you’re working on, but I need you all now. You all know Faulk’s husband, Riordan, and this is Sarah Myers. Sarah is an assistant curator at the Peabody Essex Museum. Riordan came to me this morning with Sarah’s story and I determined that you all needed to hear it too. Go ahead, Sarah.”

Sarah looked to be in her early fifties. She was dressed in a navy blue pantsuit with a crisp white blouse. Her greying hair curled around her face. The woman looked as if she’d been up all night crying. She reached for a tissue and dabbed her wet eyes. “I’ve been with the PEM for almost twenty years now. I have my MFA from Northeastern and I specialize in maritime art.”

Cope remembered the murder victim had just been named curator of the maritime collection.

“There was an opening for a curator and I applied for it. I thought I was a shoo-in for the position considering how long I’ve been with the museum and the fact that I’m a native New Englander.” Sarah looked at Riordan, who wouldn’t make eye contact in return. “It felt like a slap in the face when I found out that the position was going to a woman who’d worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.” Sarah dabbed her eyes again.

No one in the room moved. Everyone was riveted to Sarah and her story.

“I was upset about being passed over for this promotion, so I took a few days off to gather my thoughts and figure out what I wanted to do next; stay with the PEM or start sending resumes to other museums. That’s when I saw a social media post about a new psychic in town who was offering free readings.”

Jude and Cope exchanged knowing looks. Cope had feeling this was all leading back to Jonas Crawford. “You went to see him?” Cope asked.

Sarah nodded. “I waited in line for two and a half hours. When it was my turn he asked what I wanted to know and I told him I was concerned about my career path and what came next. Crawford handed me a form, he said it was a non-disclosure agreement and that I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what I saw or heard during my reading. I signed it.”

“Without reading it?” Carson asked.

“Yes. I realize now how foolish that was. When I asked for a copy, Crawford told me I didn’t need a copy, and I strangely agreed with him. When I think back on what happened, it reminded me of Obi Wan Kenobi using his Jedi mind trick in the original Star Wars.”

Cope knew exactly what Sarah was talking about.

“Crawford didn’t answer my question about my career, but instead focused on Cindy Walsh and how angry I was at her for stealing my job. I never mentioned her name, he just seemed to know it. Crawford asked me dozens of questions about her, what she looked like, what kind of car she drove, where she lived, what kinds of weapons were in the museum’s collection.” Sarah sighed, her eyes were on Cisco.

“It’s okay, Sarah, you’re not in trouble, but we need to hear the entire story in order to get to the bottom of it.” Cisco offered an encouraging smile.

“While I was giving Crawford all this information, I was enjoying myself, as if it were a relief to get the venomous feelings I had about Cindy off my chest. I also got the feeling that he was getting off on it too, as if he were planning something. Before I left, he said something about revenge being a dish best served cold and I remember thinking, screw that, I want my revenge to be red hot. Cindy needed to pay for what she’d done.” Sarah dabbed at the fresh tears falling from her eyes. “The strange thing was that all those feelings about revenge and hating Cindy Walsh vanished, like fog burning off in the sun the second I stepped out of the shop.”

“What the hell is going on here, guys?” Cisco asked, his gaze on Cope.

“We met with a woman yesterday who had a similar story to tell about meeting with Crawford. He refused to answer the question the client had come to ask and keyed in on the woman’s estranged relationship with her mother. Late that night, the mother’s doorbell began to ring and ring. Then pounding started on the front door. The woman was terrified and called 911, but when the cops arrived the person was gone. The client came to see us yesterday, afraid of what happened the night before, but also worried that this person would come back again that night. We recommended that they spend the night in a hotel.” Cope sighed. “We haven’t heard anything from the woman or her mother this morning and to be honest, when you pulled us into this meeting, I thought you were going to tell us that something awful had happened to those women.”

“Did the two of you know about this?” Cisco pointed to Jude and Ronan.

“We did,” Jude said. “There was nothing criminal in the story we heard. Ronan and I agreed that getting these women away from their homes for the night was a good course of action.”

“So far we’ve got a murder and one attempted murder, both associated with this Jonas Crawford?”

“It could be three murders,” Cope said.

“Three?” Jude asked.

“There was another murder three days ago. A husband named Paul Shea was murdered in his home in what the newspaper said was a robbery gone wrong. His wife found him when she came home from her book club. It might be worth a call to find out if this woman had also visited Jonas Crawford.”

“What the hell are we saying here? That this psychic is somehow able to read a person’s deepest, darkest, desires and then somehow those wishes come true?” Cisco looked as if he were having a hard time swallowing this information.

“I never wanted Cindy to die,” Sarah said, and began crying again.

“You wanted her out of the way so that the position at the museum would be offered to you.” It wasn’t a question. Cope knew it to be true.

“Well, sort of, but not like this. How could you possibly know that? I’ve never said or even thought those words out loud.”