cauldron and start casting spells of his own, but he could better handle working around the craft.
“It does. I’m going to need to speak to Madam Aurora too. I’ll call her when we get to the office and then reach out to Bertha.” Cope yawned. “Christ, I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
“We will, when this is done.” Jude squeezed Cope’s knee before parking the car across from West Side Magick. “Pizza tonight? I have a feeling this is going to be the kind of day that ends with us needing carbs.”
“Every day is a day I need carbs, but you’re right. Today is the day I’ll let myself eat them.” With a sigh, Cope pushed open the heavy car door. Thankfully, he remembered to shut it gently.
After he’d gotten himself and Cope coffees, Jude sat down to get to work on The Beecher House. His original research had only been skin-deep. Who were the people who’d owned the house? Was there anything tragic that happened on the property? To be honest, he’d stopped truly looking for tragedy after reading about the August 1917 suicide of Geneva Beecher. The U.S. had entered World War I only four months before, Jude figured Geneva lost a beau in the war and decided life wasn’t worth living. He’d also assumed Geneva was the spirit rattling things in the house. He wasn’t quite so sure now.
Knowing the approximate time when Brooks was murdered helped Jude zero in on the exact records he needed. According to public census records, Frances and Robert Beecher resided in the house from 1930 through 1950 when their oldest son, Claude, took over residency with his family. It was a big house. Jude wondered if it was big enough for the elder Beechers to remain in residence after their son took possession of the property?
Public records might have given Jude the answer to who owned The Beecher House in the 1940s, but it also stopped him dead in his tracks since the 1950 census wasn’t yet public. The Census Bureau only releases data to the public after seventy-two years have passed, which meant the 1950 census data wouldn’t be available for another two years.
Going back to the computer, Jude searched his favorite Salem Hauntings webpage. The site was not only up to date with the latest haunted happenings around the Witch City, but it also had a page of rumored hauntings and happenings. He typed in “The Beecher House” and hit the button to search.
The top results revolved around the sad incident of Geneva Beecher. The articles he read all confirmed that the young woman had met her doom jumping from the widow’s walk, but not because she’d lost a lover in the war.
Unbelievably, the stories suggested Geneva was a lesbian. Two prominent young ladies of the time, Annabella Walton and Francesca Smithton, were rumored to be involved with Geneva. Jude wasn’t stupid, he knew full well the three young ladies could have been the best of friends. Jealousy, and the need for attention, didn’t die out with the mass hysteria of the witch trials. He wouldn’t be surprised at all if another young woman, who was left out of the friend group, was the one who started the rumor of the young women being lovers. On the other hand, it was also possible that in addition to being best friends, the young women, finding commonality, were in fact involved with each other.
If only there was a way to separate fact from fiction. “Cope!” Jude shouted. He stood up from his desk so quickly that his chair knocked backward into Fitzgibbon’s desk.
“Christ, Jude. Shout the walls down, why don’t you?” He grabbed a frame, that the shock of Jude’s chair knocked over, and righted it.
“Sorry, Cap. You know what it’s like when you find a piece of the puzzle that’s been staring you in the face all along.” Jude couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to think about speaking to Geneva. He might have thought about it sooner if he wasn’t worried about how Cope was dealing with coming back to work, and if the birthday present he’d given his husband wasn’t haunted. Christ, what lives they led.
“I know the feeling well, but I never shouted across the precinct like a fish monger.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “What the hell did you find, anyway?”
“A spirit that might be able to shed some light on this case.” Jude’s heart was pumping with excitement, rather than fear, for