Page 28 of Ghostmaker

As a matter of fact Peggy looked just like the kind of woman who’d commit murder, but Jude wasn’t going to say that out loud. “Of course not,” he said instead. “We just have to check off all the boxes. Were you with Alice that night?”

“No, I was with Chet. Every Friday was Alice’s date night with that son of hers who was too good for the likes of me. Little prick.” Peggy took another deep drag from her butt. “Chet came over around dinner time, we ate, fucked, ate some more, fucked some more. West called around lunchtime on Saturday to tell me Alice was dead and that the police wanted to speak with me.”

“Did you speak with the police?” Jude knew she had, but wanted to hear how Peggy would answer the question.

“Sure did. They knew about my seeing Chet and accused me of killing her. Thank fuck for my phone showing where I was all night. Chet’s too. We were off the hook after that.”

“Do you know anyone else who would have wanted to hurt Alice, or had a grudge against her?”

“No, everyone loved Alice. Well, except her ex-husband and Chet.” Peggy took another drag and stamped her cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. “Now hold on one second. There was someone giving Alice a hard time. Some asshole psychic named Victor Hughes. She’d been seeing him once a week for answers about Chet and his intentions for the future, but had stopped going right before the murder because he’d told her Chet was fucking around. I went to him for a while too. That’s how I knew Chet was mine for the taking. He was pissed to lose her as a customer. I guess he’d lost a lot of customers, because the week after the murder, Hughes was gone, and his shop boarded up tight.”

Jude looked to Cope, who nodded, telling him the woman was telling the truth.

“Peggy, is this Victor Hughes?” Cope pulled up a picture on his phone and showed it to her.

“Yup, that’s him all right. Bastard looks younger now than when I knew him. Probably made a deal with the devil or some shit. I should have gone for him instead of Chet. Look what that son-of-a-bitch left me with; a shitty house and shittier grandkids.”

Wasn’t that the truth, Jude thought, trying not to grimace. “Where is Chet now? We’d like to speak with him too.”

Peggy laughed again. “You’re not gonna have much luck. Asshole died six months ago. Lung cancer. Is that all you boys need? I’ve got shit to do.”

“That’s all,” Cope said. “Thank you for your time and hospitality.” He moved quickly toward the front door.

“Yes, thank you,” Jude echoed and followed Cope outside into the fresh air.

When they were safe inside the SUV, Jude eyed his husband in the rearview mirror. “Whose picture did you show her?”

Cope held up his phone. “Jonas Crawford’s. I snapped this at his shop the other day.”

“What?” Ronan asked, turning in his seat to get a better look at the photo. “Alice and Peggy knew Jonas Crawford fifteen years ago?”

“I guess that answers why he kept changing his name. Does anyone else think Crawford, or Hughes, as he was known then, is behind not only Alice’s murder, but Paul Shea and Cindy Walsh’s too?”

Cope nodded. “We’ve got to do something about this guy before he strikes again.”

“Agreed,” Jude said. “I want to speak with West and for you, Ten, and Everly to read him. Hopefully Alice will show up and we can get more answers from her.”

“I’ll call Ten on the way home and see what he thinks. Everly should be getting off the bus around the time we get back to Salem.” Ronan pulled his phone out of his back pocket.

Jude jerked in his seat. He started scratching his arms. “I’m gonna need a long, hot shower, before we do anything else. I’ve got that creepy-crawly feeling.” Jude started the car and hightailed it out of Peggy McHugh’s neighborhood.

If Crawford was involved with Alice Strickland’s murder and now could be caught up in the murders in Salem, they could very well be on the trail of a serial killer. Who the hell would suspect a psychic of committing murder? Usually when someone was killed the suspicion landed on intimate partners, family, and enemies. It was possible people close to the victims didn’t even know they saw psychics, which meant Crawford, or whatever the hell his real name was, could have been killing people for decades with no one being the wiser.

They needed to find evidence to get this man off the streets of Salem before he claimed his next victim.

14

Cope

After a hot shower and a change of clothes, Cope felt almost human again. If he lived to be one hundred, he’d never forget the squalid conditions he’d witnessed at Peggy McHugh’s house. Two of her grandchildren looked to be Wolf and Lizzie’s ages and it broke his heart to see kids living in those kinds of conditions.

Cope scrubbed the dining room table to the point he was worried about scratching the wood. He had a feeling after being in the McHugh house, nothing would ever be clean enough again. Once the table was dry, he got out paper plates for dinner. Ten was picking up pizza and Fitzgibbon was bringing West Strickland. The kids were all in the living room watching a movie, while Jude was in the shower.

“Food’s here!” Ten called from the front door. “Fitz and West are right behind us.”

Cope rushed into the living room to help, grabbing three pizza boxes from Ten, who also carried a bag with salads inside. “Good to see you, West.”

“You too, Cope. Thanks for the invite to dinner.” West took a seat at the kitchen table. “I’m guessing you all have some news for me.”