Late Checkout
Page 28
Mercury sneaked into Agnes’s utility room and grabbed the old lady outfit along with Abe Lincoln’s beard. He stuffed dress, hat, satchel, and all into his backpack and followed Willie to the library. I was able to fill the police in on what Mercury had told me about how the whole upstairs-downstairs change of characters thing worked.
Wanda had spotted trouble with the disappearing woman trick right away and had hurried backstage trying to find me. Everybody thought the idea of dropping crumbs to let the people know where I’d gone was brilliant. I couldn’t figure out how to tell them that leaving the crumbs was Maralee’s idea—that it never would have occurred to me in a million years. I haven’t told anyone about her singing either.
The plans for the WICH-TV anniversary celebration are continuing on schedule, Agnes and Rob have been rehearsing together and it looks as though they may be an item again. Young Howard has taken the offer from that station in Maine and my regular hours will resume shortly. My investigative report on the murder in the stacks has drawn some national attention and a couple of job offers for me too. I’ve decided to stay where I am. “Bloom where you’re planted,” as Aunt Ibby says.
I never did make that flowchart. In the first place, I didn’t have a big enough white board to fit all the names and anyway I wasn’t quite sure about which name should be at the top.
There was some controversy over what to do with the Honus Wagner card. Sharon Laraby Stewart settled the question. She said that she’d given that copy of The Boys of Summer to the library and as far as she was concerned, that included whatever was in it. (I guess that explains the “unexpected inheritance” River saw in my reading.) The card will be auctioned soon and Aunt Ibby is pretty sure the proceeds will pay for someone to do all that pesky copying and filing of old paperwork, and might just buy the library another much-needed bookmobile.
RECIPE
Aunt Ibby’s Chicken à la King
1 cup sliced mushrooms (or one 4.5-ounce can
mushrooms)
½ cup chopped green pepper
6 tbsp. butter
6 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. salt
tsp. pepper
1½ cups well-seasoned chicken broth (Aunt Ibby uses
Progresso Tuscany Chicken Broth)
1 cup light cream
sherry (optional)
1 cup cut-up cooked chicken
¼ cup chopped pimento
Cook and stir mushrooms and green pepper in butter over medium heat for five minutes. Remove from heat. Blend in flour, salt, and pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture is bubbly.
Remove from heat. Stir in chicken broth and cream. (Sometimes Aunt Ibby also adds a splash of sherry.) Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for about a minute. Stir in chicken and pimento. Heat through.
Serve hot in patty shells, or over biscuits or toast points.
Acknowledgments
I want to acknowledge special people from my past who nurtured and influenced my writing journey far more than any of them ever knew. Those mentioned here have passed on. River North might say they’ve gone to the Summerland.
First, the teachers. Seventh and eighth grade at the Pickering Grammar School in Salem gave me virtually all of the basic tools I’d need to be a writer. I’m forever grateful for those years of memorizing grammar rules and diagramming sentences under the tutelage of English teacher Anne Berry, and the extraordinary introduction to fine literature, poetry, and classical music given by Claire Davis. At Salem High School Valentina Glebow deftly, lovingly presented me with Shakespeare and Joe Lyons made me work extremely hard to eke out an A in his English class, teaching me much needed discipline. Librarian Dorothy Annable recognized and encouraged the budding writer.
My first job was as a thirteen-year-old docent at the Ropes Mansion in Salem. Director Nellie Messer gave me real appreciation for Salem’s rich history and fostered a lifelong love of antiques. Mary Mason hired me for my second job in the Old Salem Bookstore. I worked there all through high school and what a fabulous environment it was for a voracious young reader. After my freshman year at Boston University, Florence Gilmore, advertising manager for the Pickering Fuel Company in Salem, took a leap of faith and hired nineteen-year-old me as her assistant and taught me the economy of words it takes to write ad copy. Later, Bill Brown, CEO of Brown’s of Gloucester, hired me as advertising and sales promotion manager of that grand old department store, where I worked and learned for more than a decade. When we moved to Madeira Beach, Florida, I applied for work at Aden Advertising, a small agency located right on the beach. Ray Aden hired me. I learned to write and design restaurant menus and motel brochures. Ray taught me how to call on the client and actually sell the idea. For the first time I learned to do the face-to-face sales pitch—a good thing to know when meeting agents and editors at writers’ conferences.
Instructor of my first writing/critique group was professor Larry Holcomb in Rockport, Massachusetts, where I studied with some wonderfully talented authors, and later, when I moved to Florida I joined another writing group headed by Martha Monigle, who became teacher, friend, and mentor, guiding me to my first published magazine articles and the sales of my first books.
My aunt Carrie Russell and my ex-mother-in-law, Isobel “Ibby” Hill—two strong and beautiful red-haired women—became the models for Lee’s Aunt Ibby in the Witch City Mysteries.
Don’t miss the next adventure of
Lee Barrett and Co.
Coming soon
And be sure to read
All the books in the Witch City series
Available now from
Carol J. Perry
and
Kensington Books
Carol J. Perry was born in Salem on Halloween Eve. She has written many young adult novels, in addition to the Witch City Mystery series. She and her husband Dan live in the Tampa Bay area of Florida with two cats and a black Lab.
CAUGHT DEAD HANDED
She’s not a psychic—she just plays one on TV.
Most folks associate the city of Salem, Massachusetts, with witches, but for Lee Barrett, it’s home. This October she’s returned to her hometown—where her beloved Aunt Ibby still lives—to interview for a job as a reporter at WICH-TV. But the only opening is for a call-in psychic to host the late-night horror movies. It seems the previous host, Ariel Constellation, never saw her own murder coming.
Lee reluctantly takes the job, but when she starts seeing real events in the obsidian ball she’s using as a prop, she wonders if she might really have psychic abilities. To make things even spookier, it’s starting to look like Ariel may have been an actual practicing witch—especially when O’Ryan, the cat Lee and Aunt Ibby inherited from her, exhibits some strange powers of his own. With Halloween fast approaching, Lee must focus on unmasking a killer—or her career as a psychic may be very short lived . . .
TAILS, YOU LOSE
Minding her business has never been more deadly . . .
After losing her job as a TV psychic, Lee Barrett has decided to volunteer her talents as an instructor at the Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts—known as “The Tabby”—in her hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. But when the local handyman turns up dead under seemingly inexplicable circumstances on Christmas night, Lee’s clairvoyant capabilities begin bubbling to the surface once again.
* * *
The Tabby is housed in the long-vacant Trumbull’s Department Store. As Lee and her intrepid students begin work on a documentary charting the store’s history, they unravel a century of family secrets, deathbed whispers—and a mysterious labyrinth of tunnels hidden right below the streets of Salem. Even the witches in town are spooked, and when Lee begins seeing visions in the large black patent leather pump in her classroom, she’s certain something evil is afoot. But ghosts in the store’s attic are the least of her worries with a killer on the loose . . .
LOOK BOTH WAYS
In Salem, Massachusetts, there are secre
ts everywhere—even in the furniture . . .
When Lee Barrett spots the same style oak bureau she once had as a child on the WICH-TV show Shopping Salem, she rushes to the antiques shop and buys the piece. Just like the beloved bureau she lost in a fire, this one has secret compartments. It also comes with an intriguing history—it was purchased in an estate sale from a home where a famous local murder took place.
* * *
The day after the bureau is delivered, Lee returns to the antiques shop and finds the owner dead. The police suspect the shop owner’s unscrupulous business partner, but Lee wonders if the murder is connected to her new furniture. At least part of the answer may be revealed through a mirror in the bureau, tarnished and blackened, allowing Lee to tap into her psychic visions. Using this bureau of investigation, Lee may be able to furnish her policeman beau with the evidence needed to catch the killer—before the next one to be shut up is her . . .
MURDER GO ROUND
A killer takes a spin through Salem . . .
Lee Barrett has agreed to attend a storage auction with Aunt Ibby—even though she suspects the forgotten rooms will yield more junk than treasure. Her skepticism vanishes once the two win a bid on an overlooked locker and uncover a trove of beautiful curiosities, including a stunning wooden carousel horse with gentle eyes and fading paint. But just before Lee leaves the fairground relic at a local repair shop, the sight of a silver samovar awakens her psychic abilities and conjures visions of murder.
* * *
Lee prays the intrusive ESP episode was just a glimpse into the past—until her policeman boyfriend reports a dead man outside the repair shop. Apparently, the unknown victim had been hot on Lee’s trail since the auction. And with the horse found dismantled, it looks like he was up to no good. What’s the story behind the antique equine, and could a strange bubblegum-chewing woman with fiery hair have something to do with the crime? Guided by her gift and O’Ryan, her wise tabby cat, Lee’s set on catching the murderer . . . before she’s sent on the darkest ride of her life.
GRAVE ERRORS
Whose funeral will be next?
For residents of Salem, Massachusetts, the day after Halloween brings empty candy wrappers, sagging pumpkins, and a community-wide identity crisis. That is, until Lee Barrett’s TV production class suggests extending the spooky season with the traditional Mexican celebration Dia de los Muertos. But when the students discover not all of Salem’s dead are resting in peace, the post-October blues don’t seem so bad after all . . .
* * *
As if a series of haunting graveyard visits isn’t disturbing enough, Lee and her policeman boyfriend connect the crime to an unsolved missing person case. Driven by a series of chilling psychic visions, Lee calls on her cleverest allies—including her shrewd cat, O’Ryan—to go underground and dig up the evidence needed to put a lid on a cold case forever . . . before the latest headstone in town has her name on it!
IT TAKES A COVEN
There’s a new witch hunt in Salem, Massachusetts . . .
When Lee Barrett joins a former student’s bridal party as maid of honor, she expects cake tastings and dress fittings. But wedding planning becomes more peculiar than Lee’s scrying talents could ever predict. There’s a magical baker, a best man with a checkered past, and a talking crow named Poe as the ring bearer. There’s also a kindly old man dead under his apple tree—one of a series of unexplained deaths hanging over the Wiccan community . . .
* * *
With witches dropping dead before they even come out of the proverbial broom closet, Lee’s best friend, River, fears she might have somehow unleashed a terrible curse on the city. Now, aided by Poe and her clairvoyant cat, Lee sets out to investigate. Are lives being claimed by vengeful supernatural forces—or by something more shocking? She soon discovers, casting light on the wicked truth can be one killer commitment . . .
BELLS, SPELLS, AND MURDERS
Someone’s spreading deadly holiday cheer through Salem, Mass . . .
Lee Barrett has landed her dream job at Salem’s WICH-TV. As the new field reporter, she’ll be covering events live as they’re unfolding. Next on her holiday checklist is an interview with the beloved chairman of a popular walking tour through Salem’s historic districts. But it may be his ghost walking this snowy Noel season after Lee finds him murdered in his stately offices, bloody Santa hat askew.
* * *
With her police detective boyfriend working the case and a witch’s brew of suspects—including some bell-ringing Santas—Lee chases down leads aided and abetted by her wise cat O’Ryan and some unsettling psychic visions of her own. When a revealing clue leads to another dead body, not even a monster blizzard can stop Lee from inching closer to the truth . . . and a scoop that could spell her own demise this killer Christmas.