to see you standing so firmly on the side of a spirit. What is it about this guy that has you on his side?”
Jude sighed. He knew Cope was going to ask, but showing his softer side wasn’t his favorite thing. “Brooks needs a protector. With the limited information we have about him and his situation, that much is crystal clear. I’m guessing he was bullied and possibly even killed by someone who had power over him in a religious capacity. Maybe a priest. One of those pedophile fuckers. Maybe Brooks was about to spill the beans about his perversion and the priest shut him up for good.” It made Jude sick to his stomach thinking about it.
“Sex abuse was rampant in the Catholic Church for decades, so what you’re saying is possible. I just don’t get where the hymn lyrics come into play.” Cope gave his head a slight shake.
Jude bit his lip to keep from laughing. “You ever get in trouble at school and have to write lines?”
Cope raised an elegant eyebrow.
“No, of course you didn’t get into trouble, angel boy.” Jude rolled his eyes. “What if the priest gave him a hundred lines of Amazing Grace or one of the other hymns? I know that was a punishment in parochial schools, Navajo ones too. Typing like that might have been rote for him, that’s why he started his hauntings with the song lyrics.”
“Do I want to even know how many times little Jude Byrne had to write lines?”
“Bet the over.” Jude grinned at his husband. “All that punishment ever did was make me hate my teachers. It was humiliating. I’m sure I wasn’t the only bad kid who felt that way.”
Cope was quiet. He seemed to be mulling over Jude’s words. “You think he could be typing the words out of a sense of compulsion?” A horrified look came over Cope’s face.
Jude nodded. “You’ve said before that some spirits have mental health issues. Either ones they crossed over with or ones that developed later. I’m no Dr. Phil, but I’d guess he had these compulsions in life, and being anchored to his personal torture device in death only made Brooks’ situation worse.”
“I think you’re right.” Cope rested his head on Jude’s shoulder. “All I want to do is dive into this case, but what about The Beecher House?”
Shit. The absolute last thing Jude wanted to do was get back to work on that case when the haunting in his own house was far more interesting. “Let’s split it up. Tomorrow in the office, I’ll get back to work on Marc and Peg’s ghost and you can do some research on sex abuse victims here in New England.”
“I’ll look into finding out the origins of the typewriter too.” Cope stood up, pulling Jude with him. “Ready for bed?”
Jude grinned. He was always ready for bed. The glint in Cope’s blue eyes told him they weren’t going to sleep just yet. “Let’s peek in on the little man one last time and then I’m all yours.”
21
Copeland
Cope was exhausted and not from Jude pounding him into the mattress twice last night. After Jude had fallen asleep, Cope had lain awake thinking about Brooks and what awful thing happened to trap his spirit in a typewriter, of all things.
As dawn approached, he’d been able to drop off, but his sleep had been disturbed by shadowy nightmares. Cope assumed they were products of his vivid imagination.
Back in the office with his favorite coffee, Cope dug into the archives of the Boston Globe. He figured that would be the best place to start his search for dead or missing parochial school students. There was no need to search nationwide when the answer could very well be in his own backyard.
“How’s it going?” Tennyson perched himself on the edge of Cope’s desk. He was sipping from a cup of coffee while his feet swung.
“There’s way too much information. None of it is good.” Cope sighed. “The only good thing that could come from this investigation is that I figure out who Brooks was.”
Tennyson nodded along. “I wasn’t really talking about your research, but your response answers my question all the same. I’ve never seen a blue aura so cloudy before.”
Cope had never been a fan of aura reading. It was never an exact science, and according to his mother, his aura always had a tendency to be muddy no matter his mood. “I made contact with the ghost writer last night. His name is