16

Cope

Cope's stomach rumbled when Tennyson set a bowl of his famous chicken and dumplings in front of him. It smelled heavenly. While Cope had been waiting for the doctor to discharge him from the hospital, Ten had run out to the supermarket to get all the fixings for dinner. He'd put the meal together in the Crock-Pot while Jude got Cope settled in bed. That was four hours ago. Thankfully, Cope felt well enough to have dinner in the kitchen with the rest of the adults. "Thanks, Ten. This looks amazing."

"Kaye used to make this meal for me when I was sick as a kid. I would feel better when I ate it and thought the meal had magic powers."

"I'll take all the magic I can get at this point," Cope said before digging in.

"How are you feeling?" Ronan asked, watching Cope with a critical eye.

"My head hurts, and my back is sore. I think I tensed up when Rothschild shoved me, and that hurt me more than hitting the ground. What happened to him after he was booked into the jail?"

Ronan shot Jude a questioning look.

"Guys, I'm fine. Please tell me what happened to Rothschild and what you learned at the medical examiner's office." Cope looked back and forth between Ronan and Fitzgibbon, knowing that if he waited long enough, one of them would start to talk.

"Rothschild was booked on disorderly conduct charges, along with the assault and battery on you. He's spending the night in the county jail and will be arraigned in the morning around ten or so. He'll most likely be granted bail since he has no criminal record. We can get a restraining order against him to keep away from you, but that would also mean that you wouldn't be able to take part in any interrogations we have with him going forward." Ronan offered Jude an apologetic look before continuing. "When we went to see the coroner, he wasn't prepared for us. He hadn't located any of the evidence or the original photographs we'd asked to see. He promised to have it for us first thing in the morning."

Cope forked up a pillowy dumpling and thought over what he was about to say. Jude wasn't going to like it, not one bit. "I want to go to Rothschild's court appearance tomorrow. He might have had the first word, but I want the last."

"You should take the day to rest."

"Jude, I'm fine." Cope knew there would be pushback from his husband. "I'm also coming with you to the medical examiner's office."

"Jesus, Cope. What the hell is wrong with you? Rothschild could have killed you, and you want to keep pressing your luck?"

Cope took a deep breath. The last thing he wanted to do was fight with Jude. "All I'm going to do is sit in the courthouse and listen to proceedings. It might help the judge decide to hold Rothschild if she can see my bruised face and the bandage covering my stitches." Jude opened his mouth to interrupt, but Cope held up a hand to stop him. "All we're going to do at the ME's office is look at pictures and maybe evidence. It's not like I'll be performing an autopsy. I'll sit and listen. I promise to come home and rest afterward."

Jude got up from the table and paced to the fridge. He opened the door, and Cope could hear things rattling around. This was Jude's favorite way to buy himself some time. Usually, he let his stubborn husband get away with it, but not today. "I'm part of this team. I want to do my part." Like Tennyson , he thought but didn't say out loud.

Jude shut the fridge door. He had a can of ginger ale in his hand, which he cracked open and took a sip from.

"I know when I'm outnumbered." Jude sat down. "Okay, you're in, but if you're feeling headachy or dizzy, you need to tell me. Got it?"

"Got it," Cope agreed, trying not to celebrate his victory. He dug back into his meal. Now that he didn't feel as though the Earth was spinning off its axis, he could actually think. Not being able to speak with Vic Rothschild was a nonstarter. He needed to get a firm read on the man to help figure out what actually happened the night Domenica died.

With all the reaching out to Domenica's spirit, Cope assumed he would have heard back from her by now, but there had been no contact other than the day at West Side Magick when they'd recorded the podcast episode. "Since I haven't been able to reach Domenica, do you think I should reach out to Bertha Craig and see if she can lend a hand?"

"I have a confession to make," Ten said sheepishly.

Cope felt his stomach tighten and threaten to revolt. "Don't tell me your chicken and dumplings actually came from the freezer section of the supermarket."

Ten grinned. "No, I made dinner from scratch. What I need to tell you is that I've also been reaching out to Domenica. It's not that I didn't think you could reach her—I just figured two heads might be better than one in this situation."

Cope felt his body sag with relief. "Thanks for doing that, Ten. I've never worked with a spirit who was this elusive after asking for help. It's probably a safe bet that Carson and Cole have probably been reaching out to her as well."

"And maybe every other psychic in Salem," Ten agreed, wearing a worried look. "Do you think that's what's keeping Domenica away from us? I might not want to talk either if two dozen people were trying to get my attention all at once."

Cope shook his head. "I would absolutely agree with you if it weren't for the episode of the podcast we appeared on. Up to that point, no one knew if the voice heard during the first episode was Domenica's or a ploy to get more listens and subscribers. When I reached out to her that day at West Side Magick, there wouldn't have been all of those other people trying to get her attention."

"What if Domenica really was mentally ill?" Fitzgibbon asked softly. "I know we usually fall on the side of the victim when we investigate cold cases, but what if she was in need of a psychiatric intervention when her husband had her admitted to Danvers State Hospital?"

"I haven't wanted to go there, but it is a possibility," Cope admitted. "I haven't worked with a lot of spirits who were still mentally ill on the other side."

"Neither have I," Ten chimed in.

Jude shook his head as if to clear it. "I don't understand what you're talking about. I thought everyone was healed when they died, like Bertha. The breast cancer killed her, but there's no sign of it now."

"That's usually what happens. We've spoken to so many murder victims over the years, and we never see their spirits as they were when they died. We usually see their best version of themselves."

"I can only think of two spirits I've ever spoken to who were affected in death by what ailed them in life. One was a teenager who'd died by her own hand and wanted people to see what her pain caused her to do. It seemed like such a typical teenage thing to do. The other one was Elvis."

"Elvis Presley?" Ronan asked. "You met the ghost of The King? Why didn't we know about this?"

"I knew. Cope mentioned it when we were working the Kotter Brighthouse case," Ten said.

"And you never told me?" Ronan asked incredulously. "You know what a huge fan I am."

Ten patted Ronan's arm. "That's right, snookums. You're Elvis's biggest fan. I didn't tell you because Cope said there was something wrong with him."

"I thought he was still messed up from all the drugs that killed him. He wasn't interested in crossing over or being reunited with his family. I'm not a shrink, but he seemed to be wallowing in his past failings, like he thought he didn't deserve to walk into paradise."

"That's awful," Ronan said.

"You can lead a spirit to the white light, but you can't make them cross into it. Not until they're ready."

"Do you think that's the case with Domenica? That she isn't ready to cross over, or do you think her mental illness is keeping her from it?"

Ten shook his head. "I'm not sure."

"What if Domenica is stuck in a time loop?" Cope asked.

Ten's eyes widened. "That's a definite possibility."

"What's a time loop?" Jude asked.

"It's when a spirit is stuck reliving a single moment over and over again. Like that movie Groundhog Day , only in Domenica's case, I'm guessing she's reliving the moment she died." Cope had helped people in time loops before, but it wasn't easy to get them to break free. "A lot of spirits feel like it's their penance. The Catholics think it's purgatory. It's neither of those things. I think of it as a skipping record that plays the same snippet of a song over and over again until you bump the needle to a different groove."

"How do we bump Domenica's needle?" Fitzgibbon asked.

"I hate to say it, but I need to speak with Vic Rothschild." Cope knew Jude wasn't going to be happy with his solution.

"No!" Jude shook his head vehemently. "There's no way in hell I'm letting you get within fifty feet of that asshole."

"Jude, I need to know if he recognizes the words Domenica said during the podcast as things she said that last night on the cliff. We need to walk him through everything that happened that night."

"Are you saying you don't think he pushed her off the cliff?"

Cope shrugged. "Vic Rothschild has been proclaiming his innocence for the last forty years. Maybe he's telling the truth."

Jude didn't look convinced.

"We need to interview Rothschild anyway," Ronan said. "Instead of interrogating him, let's do what we did with Tony and Aimee Webster. Let him tell us what happened the night his wife died. Listening to Vic recap the events leading up to her death might get Domenica to engage with Cope."

Fitzgibbon nodded as Ronan spoke. "Sorry, Jude, but I agree with Ronan. We can keep Rothschild shackled when he speaks with us if that would make you more comfortable with having Cope there. Plus, he'll have to get through me and Ronan to get to Cope. I promise you that."

Jude took a deep breath. His eyes were on Cope. "Okay. You're back on the team."

"Uh, I never left." Cope grinned at his husband. He got out of his seat and refilled his bowl with more chicken and dumplings. If he was going to help solve a forty-year-old mystery, he was going to need all the energy he could get.