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 movie Se7en and 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 sealed plastic 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."

"Sweet Jesus,"

Ronan muttered, unable to comprehend the thought process behind this woman's actions. "At least she didn't open the remains, the bag is still sealed."

"Why did she bring the box to you?"

Jude reached for the coffee with his name on it and took a long sip.

Ten frowned. "She was hoping I would be able to speak with the spirit who belongs to the remains. I assume she wanted to be able to tell her book club about asking for my help and meeting a real ghost. Neither of us were able to contact this spirit."

He pointed between himself and Cope.

"She was pretty pissed when Ten couldn't contact the spirit and threatened to expose him as a fraud,"

Cope continued the story. "Ten called her a grave robber and insisted on keeping the box."

"She stormed out of here shouting that she was going to sue us."

Ten shrugged. "I'm not sure on what grounds, but I wasn't about to let that woman walk out of here with these remains. Can you just imagine her slicing the bag open and dumping the ashes into a colander to see what shakes out?"

Ronan shivered. The thought of the bag of remains being opened was enough to send him into a blind panic. This moment brought him right back to the day of his grandfather's funeral when he was twelve years old and was afraid his grandfather's ashes would spill in his mother's car.

"Are you okay?"

Fitz asked, setting a hand on Ronan's shoulder.

Ronan nodded. "This just reminds me of when we brought my Gramps home from his funeral. I was completely freaked out when the priest handed his ashes to my mother. I assumed he was going to be buried, and he was, later, after my grandmother passed, but I was terrified of having his remains in the house."

"Why?"

Ten asked, gently.

"I didn't know if he would haunt me or if he'd be able to see the things I was getting up to with friends, or, um, alone in my room."

Ronan felt himself blush.

"You were afraid your dead grandfather was going to see you choking your chicken?"

Jude asked.

"Something like that."

Ronan cleared his throat. "We didn't talk about death in my house. I was raised to believe that when you die, you go to heaven, unless of course you'd done something to deserve a one-way ticket to hell. According to my Sunday school lessons, I knew there was no way his spirit could have been in the house with me, but I was still pretty freaked out."

"So I guess that means you and Ten aren't taking the box home with you."

Jude said, sounding serious, rather than snarky.

"I'd prefer if we didn't,"

Ronan said, wearing an embarrassed look.

"We can leave the box here, locked up in the conference room,"

Ten offered.

"Or upstairs in our fireproof cabinets,"

Fitzgibbon suggested.

"That's a good idea, Cap."

Ronan took a deep breath, happy that the remains would have a safe place to spend the night that didn't include bunking with him and Ten. "What's our next step here?"

"We need to go speak to Laura and see if she can show us where this house is. If we can find out where the box came from, then we have a much better chance of locating someone who'd be willing to take custody of the remains. If we can't locate where they came from then I'm thinking we'll need to talk to Cisco and go from there."

Fitzgibbon wore a troubled look.

"We could get the media involved as a last resort,"

Ten said. "Maybe someone is missing the remains. It's possible that the box was put out with the trash by mistake."

"Ronan, get on the Salem Squawks page on Facebook and see if anyone's asking about the box. I'll call Laura and see if we can go over and meet her."

Fitzgibbon pulled his phone out of his back pocket.

"Why? We're the police, not vampires who need an invitation. Let's just show up."

Jude waggled his eyebrows.

"I'm not seeing anything on the Salem Facebook page asking about missing remains. I agree with Jude, let's just go see this woman. I'll call dispatch on our way over there and see if anyone called the police to report the theft."

"Good plan."

Fitzgibbon drained his coffee and threw the cup in the trash. "Let's roll. Ten are you coming with us?"

"Yeah. I'll call Mom and let her know she'll need to get the kids off the bus."

"I'll do that,"

Cope said. "You guys go get Laura."

Cope headed for the door, but stopped and turned back to Ten. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I can't wait to hear the dirt on this woman."

With a grin, Cope left the room.

"Yeah, me too,"

Ten said. "She won't be expecting to see me again so soon."

"What the hell kind of person steals human remains to use as a book club prop?"

Jude asked.

"An even better question is what kind of person steals human remains in hopes there will be valuables for her to steal?"

Ronan asked, a shiver tearing through his body.

Over the course of his law enforcement career, Ronan had met a lot of deplorable people. Murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and swindlers, to list a few, but he couldn't name anyone as despicable as the woman they were about to go meet.

Ronan rubbed his hands together with anticipation. Laura Cooper wasn't going to know what hit her.