A Séance in Franklin Gothic

by Jessa Archer

  “Blevins just doesn’t seem to have much…curiosity about this sort of thing,” I said. “He’ll accept the easy answer and leave it at that.”

  Ed sighed. “I wish I could say you’re wrong, Ruth. But…you’re not wrong. That’s Blevins to a tee. Still, I’m pretty sure we’ll eventually learn who it was.”

  “Why is that?”

  He laughed. “Because you won’t let it rest until you know, that’s why. Now why don’t you go in there and check on our girl. Let her know you made it back safe. Maybe see if she’s got some sort of rain magic in that book of hers, because they could sure use it up at Pender’s Gap. And then if she wants to hang around a bit longer, come on back. I’m sure we can find some way to pass the time.”

  I squeezed his hand, then turned on the flashlight app on my phone. “I’ll be right back.”

  “And I’ll be right here.”

  The fake lock was still hanging from the loop. Once I was closer, I saw that Cassie hadn’t recreated the circle of candles after all. She was sitting in the lotus pose she always uses for meditation, with the book Tessa had borrowed open in front of her. Her eyes were closed, and the only light was a single pillar candle, which she held in her hands.

  A huge wave of relief washed over me. Some part of my mind had been convinced that as I got closer, I’d find Cassie’s body in the same spot where Tessa Martin’s had been.

  Now that I could see she was okay, my anxiety lifted. Maybe it was best not to interrupt her. I stuck the phone back into my pocket and headed back to the door.

  “It’s okay, Mom.”

  I turned back and saw Cassie, her eyes now open. She was smiling, but I could tell even by the faint light of the candle that there were tears in her eyes.

  She patted the spot next to her, and I sat down.

  “I found her,” she said.

  “Tessa?”

  Cassie nodded. “She’s here. But I don’t think she’ll be here long. She’s at peace now, though, because she found her answer.”

  “Answer to what?”

  “To what comes next,” Cassie said. “That’s all I was able to pick up, but…”

  We were both quiet for a moment, and then I said, “I was surprised to see you in here. You ran out like a scared rabbit last night. What changed?”

  She shrugged. “I just got to thinking. Tessa wanted so badly to be able to do…this. To be a medium. To have the very gift that I’ve been running away from. It just seemed wrong not to give her that chance.”

  I gave her a confused look. “Chance at what? To be a medium?”

  “Yeah. A medium is just someone who communicates between this world and the next. She communicated with me tonight. It was a little scary coming in here by myself, but it was worth it to give her that. Are you ready to—”

  A gust of wind whipped across the floor in front of us. It was a very targeted gust. The candle in Cassie’s hands barely even flickered, but the breeze rifled through the pages of the book. It ended as quickly as it had begun, with the book now open to a different location. A photograph that had been stuck inside flipped off the pages and onto the floor.

  I reached out and picked it up.

  The candlelight was dim, so I turned on Ed’s flashlight so we could see it more clearly. It was Tessa, laughing up at a tall young man with blond hair. Behind them was a burgundy Dodge Charger.

  And in his hand was an orange can. The picture was too small for me to read the label, but I didn’t need to.

  “Pacific Boost,” Cassie said. “That’s the can you found here. And that’s Derrick Blevins with her. He’s such a jerk. Bad choice, Tessa.”

  The candle flickered, almost as if in agreement.

  “Which means nothing will ever be done,” Cassie said. “Blevins never ran those cans for fingerprints. He probably threw them in the dumpster as soon as he got back to the station.”

  “I suspect you’re right,” I told her. “The deal with Ed could have been a teenager making a mistake and his family circling the wagons to cover for Derrick. But he’s not a kid anymore. On the bright side, even if there’s no way we’d get Blevins to investigate his son, we know for certain that he’s no good now. We can keep an eye on him. And if he does anything else like this, we’ll get enough evidence to make it stick, no matter who his daddy may be. Good work, Tessa.”

  I half expected to see the candle flicker again or feel a brush of wind across my cheek. But there was nothing, making me wonder if I’d imagined the flicker a moment ago. And yes, making me feel a little silly for believing. Even though I believed that Cassie believed, it was still hard to shake a lifetime of paranormal skepticism.

  I grabbed Cassie’s book from the floor while she retrieved Ed’s flashlight, and then we headed for the door. “Did they arrest Abel and Elijah?” she asked.

  “No, and yes,” I said. “I’ll explain on the way home.”

  As we stepped outside, a flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed by the crack of thunder. And then the storm that all of Thistlewood had been praying for over the past few weeks finally arrived. It went from a drizzle to a solid sheet of water as we crossed the short distance to Ed’s truck. Cassie piled into the backseat of the cab, but I tossed the book onto the seat and then stood there for a moment inside the open door, lifting my face up to catch the rain.

  It felt cool and cleansing. I could have stayed there until I was drenched, but I didn’t want to soak the seat of Ed’s truck.

  As I slid into the passenger seat, the gold foil letters on the front of A Paranormal Compendium glinted briefly beneath the dome light. A very ordinary font for a far-from-ordinary book. Franklin Gothic. In fact, it appeared to be Franklin Gothic Medium.

  That would be Tessa’s font. If there was already a name next to that one in Mr. Dealey’s Typographic Book of the Dead, then I’d have to make an exception and double up for once, because it was a perfect fit.

  I just wished that everything else had fit together as neatly. It felt wrong for one of the parties responsible for Tessa’s death to go unpunished. Unnamed, even. And that was going to gnaw at me. It wasn’t simply a missing piece of the puzzle. Those were frustrating enough. No, this was a piece that had been stolen.

  Hidden. Buried.

  Yes, it would gnaw at me. But I would celebrate the partial victory. Tomorrow there would be coffee in my cup. A job with purpose. The love of friends, family, a conniving cat, and a very good man.

  And eventually, I would find a way to make this right.

  More Cozies from Jessa Archer

  Legal Beagle Mysteries

  Thistlewood Star

  Hidden Harbor Tea Shop

  Knitting Mysteries

  Hand Lettering Mysteries

  Golf Mysteries

  Coastal Playhouse

  Sneak Peek: Scales of Justice (Legal Beagle Mysteries #1)

  Chapter One

  Here I was—hired singer at the wedding of the year. I could feel my pulse racing. Showtime, baby!

  Practicing law was easy for me. Getting up and singing in front of a crowd was harder, even though I loved doing it. That was my eternal dilemma... to balance my twin vocations as businesslike attorney and flashy performer.

  I smoothed down the pale silk of my dress and hoped my sweaty palms didn’t leave a stain. The accompanist was finishing up a Bach chorale, and she looked up at me expectantly. From my vantage point beside the minister, I could see that the other end of the huge tent was clogged with bridesmaids in frothy pink gowns. Behind them I spotted the top of the bride’s shellacked blonde hair and her crystal crown bobbing beside her father’s shiny bald head.

  One rousing rendition of “Amazing Grace” from me, and Trixie Johnson—soon to be Trixie Johnson Dingle—would march down the aisle on Big Daddy Johnson’s arm past four hundred of her closest friends and enemies, straight into the waiting arms of her beloved, Farnsworth “Buddy” Dingle... the Fifth.

  I was so nervous you’d think this was Broadway. On some l
evel, it might as well have been. This was my musical debut in front of everyone who was anyone in Misty-on-the-Sound, a town as snooty as its name implied. My years of voice lessons and hours spent practicing scales when I could have been brushing up on the law were all on the line. Crack a note, go flat, and no one was going to be harder on Pepper Sullivan than Pepper Sullivan.

  The pianist pounded out a theatrical finish to the Bach piece as well as she could on the electric keyboard. She turned to me, and I realized that it was my moment, so I stepped out to face the crowd sitting in the rows of stiff-backed chairs. Fluffy gowns filled the back as the army of bridesmaids was marshaled into place by Ivan the wedding planner.

  “Amazing Grace” wasn’t really a wedding song, but it was the bride’s favorite hymn, and so I’d been instructed to sing the first two verses, at which point the pianist would launch into “Here Comes the Bride” for the processional.

  My song was more appropriate for a funeral. But hey, to each her own. This wasn’t my wedding day. I took a deep breath, and the notes poured out of my throat, sweet and full and rich... and perfectly on key.

  Amazing grace! how sweet the sound...

  At the back of the tent, a sudden flurry erupted among the attendants. The bride’s tiara was bobbing around wildly, crystals flashing in the sunlight. Ivan was waving his arms, and the father of the bride was turning his head one way and then the other.

  I launched into the verse.

  ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear...

  The eyes of everyone in the place were on me. I started to really put my heart into the words, and a few folks out in the chairs began singing along.

  But somehow the flurry among the attendants had morphed into a tornado of tulle. As I watched from the front, singing to the crowd, the bridesmaids formed a kind of phalanx. On Ivan’s signal, they picked up Trixie’s twelve-foot train and appeared to dash outside, disappearing from my view, apparently heading in the direction of the Krystal Kleen portable sanitation trailer Daddy had rented at a rumored cost of $12,000 for the day.

  From the back of the tent, Ivan waved to me and pantomimed stretching taffy. I saw him mouth, “Keep singing.”

  Okay, then. The bride must have personal business to attend to, and it was my job to keep the crowd entertained. I turned to the accompanist and made the same stretching motion. She nodded. I launched into the second chorus. Even more guests joined in.

  And then I recognized the sound of Mr. Woogles, my sweet beagle, barking. Loudly. I wasn’t sure what was going on back there, but his participation wasn’t helping. Leaving Woogie at my house across the street had seemed like the best solution, since most of Misty was here at the wedding.

  Now I felt bad for him, stuck in the living room, sniffing the scents, hearing the sounds, and missing all the excitement. Probably trying his best to stretch up and see out a window. Tomorrow I would have to make it up to him.

  Nothing I could do about it at this point, though. I carried on with the hymn, getting ever louder in an attempt to cover up my doggy’s enthusiastic reactions to the brouhaha.

  It was going well! People were turning to each other, smiling, singing along. I felt wonderful. I was a good singer, maybe even a great singer. Too bad Jared, my new almost-boyfriend, wasn’t there. I would have liked him to hear me sing.

  I took a deep breath and began the chorus again, just for good measure. It was glorious to be singing on the bluff right above the beach and Long Island Sound, a gentle breeze at my back. I could smell salty air, while the strong sun was kept at bay by the canvas of the huge tent over my head. The music flowed in measured tones from my throat, effortless and beautiful.

  Amazing grace! how sweet the sound...

  At that moment, the chapel was filled with the sound of a woman’s piercing scream, and then a long howl that was definitely coming from the beagle in my living room.

  About the Author

  Jessa Archer writes sweet, funny, warm-hearted cozy mysteries because she loves a good puzzle and can't stand the sight of blood. Her characters are witty, adventurous, and crafty in the nicest way. You'll find her sleuths hand lettering inspirational quotes, trying to lower golf handicaps, enjoying a scone at a favorite teashop, knitting a sweater, or showing off a dramatic side in local theater.

  Jessa's done many things in her long career, including a stint as a journalist and practicing law. But her favorite job is spinning mysteries. She loves playing small town sleuth and transporting readers to a world where the scones are delicious, wine pairs with hand lettering, and justice always prevails.

  www.jessaarcher.com

  Copyright ©2019 Jessa R. Archer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Amy Queau

  A Séance in Franklin Gothic/Jessa Archer. — 1st ed.