Late Checkout

Book 9: Witch City Mystery

by Carol J. Perry

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Female Sleuths; Cozy Mystery

Synopsis

A dead ballplayer means foul play in Salem....

Field reporter Lee Barrett is not happy that her hours are being cut back at WICH-TV, although it is nice to spend more time volunteering with Aunt Ibby, a research librarian at Salem's main branch. But Lee's least favorite task is going up to the stacks, a spooky, seldom-frequented upper section of the library. On this day she has good reason to be afraid - she finds a dead man, surrounded by hundreds of scattered books and torn-out pages.

Her police detective beau, Pete Mondello, is soon on the scene, and the deceased is identified as a former minor league baseball player - and ex-con - named Wee Willie Wallace, who hasn't been seen in Salem for 20 years. With help from her friend River's Tarot reading, her clairvoyant cat O'Ryan, and Lee's own psychic gifts, she steps up to the plate to catch the killer who took the old ballplayer out of the game....

Release date: September 24, 2019

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 291

Sample

It was a cool, pretty October Friday morning in my home town of Salem, Massachusetts. My beautiful Laguna blue 2014 Chevrolet Stingray Corvette convertible was in the shop because some inconsiderate dope had run a shopping cart down one side of it, leaving a significant gouge in the passenger door. My aunt Ibby was in Boston at a librarians’ convention, so her vintage but trustworthy Buick wasn’t available either. My hours as a field reporter at WICH-TV had just been cut nearly in half because the station manager’s wife’s nephew had just graduated from broadcasting school and “needs some experience.”

I’m Lee Barrett, nee Maralee Kowalski, thirty-three, red-haired, Salem born, orphaned early, married once, and widowed young. My aunt Isobel Russell and I share the fine old family home on Winter Street, along with our big yellow-striped gentleman cat, O’Ryan.

“Might as well walk to work,” I grumbled to the cat, who watched with apparent interest as I pulled on cordovan boots over faded jeans, then tossed my NASCAR jacket over a white turtleneck shirt. “With the new schedule I don’t have to get there until noon anyway.” O’Ryan gave a sympathetic “Mmrrow,” and followed me to my kitchen door and out into the front hall.

Aunt Ibby had surprised me with an apartment of my own on the third floor of the house when I returned from Florida a few years ago after the death of my race car driver husband, Johnny Barrett. Coming home to Salem had so far been a really good choice for me, and the field reporter job at WICH-TV had seemed like a dream come true.

“Listen, Ms. Barrett, this is only temporary,” station manager Bruce Doan had said when he’d told me about my lowered occupational status. “The kid just needs a little television face time in local TV before he moves on. Meanwhile, your workload will be reduced, but you can still do your investigative reports on the late news once in a while.” The “kid” in question was Buffy Doan’s nephew, Howard Templeton. The reduction in income wasn’t a problem. Between Johnny’s insurance and the inheritance from my parents, I’m fine financially. Besides, Templeton seemed like a pleasant enough guy, but I was trying hard not to dislike him for disrupting my more or less orderly world. It was becoming a challenge.

I locked the kitchen door and started down the curvy, wide-banistered staircase to the first-floor foyer with O’Ryan padding along beside me. He paused at the arched entrance to Aunt Ibby’s living room, peeked inside, then joined me at the front door. I patted his fuzzy head, wished him a nice day, unlocked the door, and stepped out onto our front steps facing Winter Street.

October days can be delightful in New England—some call it “Indian summer.” This was such a day. Leaves had begun to turn to red and gold and the sky was an impossible shade of blue—think Maxfield Parrish paintings. My peevish mood began to melt away as I strolled along the edge of Salem Common, a pastoral oasis in the midst of a busy city. I waved across the wrought iron fence to Stasia, the pigeon lady who sat on her regular bench, surrounded by cooing birds. Across Washington Street, the tourist buses lined up in front of the Witch Museum while the massive statue of Roger Conant gazed down benignly upon us all. I could even smell the aroma of fresh, hot, buttery popcorn wafting from the same four-wheeled red-and-white wagon I remembered from my childhood.

Things aren’t so bad, I told myself. Howard Templeton will “move on” eventually. My car will be repaired in a day or so. I still have a job. I’m blessed to have my aunt who loves me, and Pete Mondello, the wonderful man in my life. Everything is going to be okay. . . .

Those rose-colored glasses slipped off in a hurry when a horn tooted and the WICH-TV mobile van rolled past, a happily waving Templeton kid in the front seat and my favorite videographer, Francine Hunter, at the wheel. Great. That automatically left me riding around in the station’s beat-up Volkswagen work van with Old Eddie for my driver. That’s in case anything worth covering happened during my shift, and in case Scott Palmer—who wears about fourteen different hats around the station including occasional field reporter—didn’t grab the call.

I turned onto Hawthorne Boulevard, kicked a crumpled-up candy wrapper aside (darned urban tumbleweed), trudged past the Nathaniel Hawthorne statue (old Nate, sitting up there, all famous and beloved), and headed for Derby Street, getting crabbier by the minute.

WICH-TV is housed in one of Derby Street’s wonderful old waterfront brick buildings that hadn’t been destroyed during the urban renewal madness of the 1950s. The front door opens onto the main lobby, where the brass-doored elevator still gleams and the black-and-white tiled floor is scrubbed daily. Before I went inside, I took a quick look into the adjacent harbor-side parking lot, checking to be sure Templeton hadn’t glommed onto my parking space along with everything else. He hadn’t.

Sometimes, in the interest of saving time, I use the metal stairway to the second-floor office suite, but being in no great hurry, I opted for “old clunky,” trying not to focus on the brass panels. I have a thing about reflective surfaces. I’m what’s called, in paranormal circles, a scryer. My best friend, River North, calls me a “gazer.” River is a witch and one of the few people who know that sometimes when I look at a shiny object I see things that others can’t see. Aunt Ibby knows all about my so-called “gift.” My detective boyfriend, Pete, knows about it too, and struggles to understand it. That’s all right. So do I.

I pressed the UP button. And waited.

The brass doors slid open and Scott Palmer stepped out. “Hi, Moon,” he said. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” I’ve known Scott since I got my first job at WICH-TV. I was the last-minute replacement for late night show host and practicing witch, Ariel Constellation, who did psychic readings between old horror movies on a show called Nightshades. (Unfortunately, Ariel hadn’t foreseen her own death and I was the one who’d found her body.) Anyway, I’d used the name Crystal Moon for that short-lived career and Scott sometimes still calls me Moon.

“Hi, yourself,” I said. “When you’re that happy to see me it usually means you want something.”

“Yeah, well, I kinda do. Me and Old Eddie were all set to cover the golf tournament over at the Salem Country Club, when Doan decided he wants me spend my whole afternoon digging up background on some dead guy.” He gave me the big smile and the long, innocent, deep-into-your-eyes look he’s perfected. “How about it, Moon? You always liked that research stuff. Me? I’m all about action.”

“I’d like to help, Scott,” I said—because having been raised by a research librarian, I really do like that research stuff—“but my wheels are in the shop. I’m grounded. Stuck right here.”

The smile faded for a fraction of a second, the eye thing didn’t even flicker. “That’s perfect. You can grab a company computer and do a fast workup on the guy.”

“Who are we talking about anyway?” I asked. “Somebody famous?”

“I guess he was at one time. Name’s Larry Laraby. Ring any bells?”

I frowned. The name was familiar. I snapped my fingers. “Sure. His picture is in the lobby. He worked here a long time ago.”

“Right,” Scott said. “Laraby was the station’s first sports guy. Back in the sixties and seventies, I think. Anyway, will you do it? Old Eddie’s waiting out front.”

“Might as well, I guess,” I said, “since you’ll have the VW and Templeton has the mobile. By the way, why are we doing this?”

“The station’s seventieth anniversary is coming up. Doan’s planning some kind of special about the old-timers who worked here.”

I thought about what I’d watched on WICH-TV when I was growing up. “I remember Katie the Clown. She used to do a kids’ show in the morning.”

“She’s probably still around town somewhere. And did you watch Ranger Rob? He was on in the afternoon.” A short laugh. “Hey, Phil Archer is still working here. He’s pretty old. He might even remember Laraby.” He gave me a quick salute and headed for the door. “Thanks, Moon. I owe you one.”

The brass doors had closed by then, so I hit the UP button again. Scott was right about Phil Archer, the station’s long-time news anchor. I remembered watching Phil on the evening news when I was a kid. Phil had since been moved to the noon news, so there was a good chance he’d still be in the building.

As the elevator clunked its slow way up to the second floor, I thought about a simple plan. Just a little something to fill my spare time until Howard Templeton “moved on.”

Sometimes even the simplest little plan can turn serious.

Deadly serious.

I pushed open the glass door to the office suite and wished a “good morning” to Rhonda, the station’s way-smarter-than-she-looks receptionist.

“Hi, Lee.” She pointed to the dry-erase schedule board behind her desk. “I don’t have anything booked for you yet today. Mr. Doan said for you to just stand by in case anything turns up. By the way, Scott was just in here looking for you.”

“Yep. Saw him downstairs. He needs some help on the Larry Laraby project. I can work on that, if it’s okay.”

“Don’t see why not. I’ll put you on the schedule.” She scribbled my name in red marker under the heading “Anniversary show.”

“Thanks. Is Phil Archer still here? I think I’ll start with interviewing him.”

“He’s still down in the newsroom. I think he hates to leave this place.”

“I know. It must seem like a second home to him, he’s been here so long.” I opened a green metal door and headed down the long narrow corridor leading to the newsroom. The glass-enclosed studio is by far the most impressive space in the building, with a floor-to-ceiling wall of monitors, banks of overhead lights, and a handsome curvy anchor desk backed by a panoramic photo of the Salem Common that changes with the seasons. The scene of the moment showed trees ablaze with fall colors. Even the offscreen positions manned by technical crew members, directors, and editorial staff looked attractive and comfortable. I spotted Phil Archer watching the BBC monitor. I checked to be sure the red on-the-air light was off and let myself into the studio.

Phil agreed right away to help with the Larry Laraby project. “I remember him well,” he said. “Strange how he died, wasn’t it?’

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m starting from scratch here. I don’t know the first thing about the man.”

“No reason you would. It was a long time ago—in the seventies. I was a young intern here and Larry was sports reporter. A real V.I.P. in the New England sports world. He’d been with the station from the beginning and knew all the big stars, Larry Bird, Johnny Bucyk, Carl Yastrzemski, Bobby Orr.”

“You said his death was . . . strange?”

“A lot of people thought so.” He nodded. “Yes. A lot of people. Anyway, he’d retired from the station and was going all over the country managing a sports collectibles show. You know, baseball cards, autographed footballs, game jerseys. It was a big business.” I know that. I have a sizable collection of NASCAR memorabilia stashed in Aunt Ibby’s basement.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

He shrugged. “His wife found him dead one morning in their house. Found him in his library. He had a huge collection of sports books. I heard he was even planning on writing one himself. Anyway, there was poor Larry, dead on the floor with his books scattered all around him. He had one of those moving ladders that reach to top bookshelves. They said he must have fallen off of it. Broke his neck. They said that’s what killed him.”

“You didn’t believe it?”

“No. But hey, that’s just me. I probably shouldn’t have said anything. Come on. I’ll show you where the old videos are. That’s a good place to start.”

He was right. I viewed a couple of hours of Larry Laraby’s videotaped sports shows, taking notes all the while. By three-thirty I felt that I had a pretty good overall idea of what the man was like. Knowledgeable and passionate about sports. Good sense of humor. Happy at his work. I would like to have known him.

Aunt Ibby had planned to be home from Boston by four, so I phoned her to beg a ride home. “Of course I’ll pick you up, Maralee,” she said. “I have to stop at the library for a bit though. We have a new woman on the desk and I want to help her close. You don’t mind coming in with me for a few minutes, do you?”

I laughed at that. “Did I ever mind going to the library?”

I clocked out with Rhonda, asked her to try to fix me up with a ride and camera for the next day’s shift and—using the stairs instead of the elevator—hurried down to the lobby and out onto Derby Street to meet my aunt.

She pulled the Buick into the parking lot, stopping just behind the bench bearing a memorial plaque for Ariel Constellation. That bench was a gift from Ariel’s coven. Our fine cat O’Ryan is, in a way, a gift from Ariel too. He was a regular feature on her late-night show, Nightshades. I inherited both the show and the cat. Some say O’Ryan was Ariel’s “familiar.” In Salem a witch’s familiar is always much respected and often feared. He came to live with us and seems to be pleased with the arrangement. So are we.

I was interested in what my aunt would think about my plan for filling the idle hours my shortened work schedule had created. At least it would beat binge-watching back-to-back seasons of The Bachelorette or joining Stasia feeding pigeons on the Common. I began talking before I’d even closed the car door. “I have an idea.”

“Good,” she said. “Tell me about it.”

“Since I have more time off than I want, and the library can always use volunteers, why don’t I spend some half-days helping out there instead of wandering around feeling sorry for myself?”

“Oh, dear. Is that what you’re doing? I think shelving books is a much better alternative.”

“So you can use the help?”

“Absolutely. Give us as many hours as you can.”

“Thank you. I’m thinking I can get some work done while I’m there on another assignment for the station that Scott Palmer kind of passed on to me.” I told her about the Larry Laraby project.

“I remember him,” she said. “Sports, right?”

“Uh-huh. Scott and I talked about some of the other old WICH-TV shows too. We remembered Katie the Clown and Ranger Rob.”

“Of course. And you always loved watching Professor Mercury and his Magical Science Circus.”

“Oh, he was amazing,” I remembered, smiling, “and you used to let me mess up the kitchen doing experiments. There was a lot more local programing for kids back then, wasn’t there? Maybe we could come up with an idea for a new kid show.”

“Of course they have Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel now.” She pulled the Buick into her reserved spot behind the library. “But I’ll just bet we could come up with a good one if we put our heads together.”

“Yep. We sure could.” I pulled down the visor mirror to check my hair. Bad move. I saw the flashing lights and swirling colors that always precede a vision. My immediate instinct was to push the visor back up. Too late. The image filled the oblong space.

A row of books was lined up on a shelf. I squinted, leaning closer to the mirror. What’s that thing sticking out underneath?

The vision obliged, as they sometimes do, with a zoom-lens kind of close-up. It was a shoe. A man’s shiny black shoe. A man’s shiny black shoe with a maroon ribbed dress sock on the foot wearing it.

Then the picture was gone and all there was in the mirror was a confused redhead.

The whole mirror episode was over so quickly I was sure my aunt hadn’t noticed that anything unusual had just happened.

“Come along, dear,” Aunt Ibby said. “There’ll be a little bit of paperwork for you to fill out.”

“Coming.” I slid out of the passenger seat and joined her, still thinking of the vision and remembering what Phil Archer had told me about Larry Laraby. “His wife found him on the floor,” he’d said. “With books all around him.”

I’ve learned that the visions can show things from the past, the present, and even the future. Did I just see Larry Laraby’s foot as he lay dead on the floor among his books? I tried to shake the thought away.

We entered the old building via the side entrance, stepping aside as a parade of about fifteen chattering preteens tumbled through the door and out into the parking lot. “Musical story time,” my aunt said. “Three-thirty to four-thirty. Middle school kids. Enthusiastic bunch.”

I love the smell of the library. Every time I enter one I take a deep breath. This time was no different. I followed my aunt to the main desk, breathing in the lovely scents of paper and bindings and ink and floor polish and pencil shavings and new magazines and old paperbacks, all the while trying to focus on volunteer work instead of on a dead man’s foot.

My aunt introduced me to the new librarian, Tyler Dickson. “This was Tyler’s first full day working here alone,” Aunt Ibby said as I shook the woman’s hand. “I’m sure everything went smoothly?” It was a statement, phrased as a question.

Tyler smiled, flashing great dimples. “I had an absolutely wonderful day,” she said. “I was never rushed—of course Friday is a slow day anyway—but everyone was so kind and understanding about my being new here. I’m going to love this job.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Aunt Ibby said. “Maralee will be volunteering here part time so you’ll soon get to know one another.” Tyler gave a little wave, said, “Nice to meet you,” and headed for the checkout desk while my aunt pulled a booklet and several sheets of paper from a file cabinet and handed them to me. “Just fill these out, Maralee, then tell me more about this project of Scott’s we’ll be working on.”

“He’s just looking for information on Larry Laraby, as far as I know. The other names, like Katie the Clown and Ranger Rob, just popped up in conversation. But Scott said that Mr. Doan is planning an anniversary celebration featuring the old-timers.”

She caught on right away. “So you’d like to work on doing a kind of ‘what ever happened to’ piece for one of your investigative reports.”

“Exactly.” I pulled a pen from my purse and began filling out the volunteer application. Name, address, birth date, Social Security number, education, previous volunteer experience, references, skills, driver’s license . . . I smiled as I wrote down Buffy Doan’s name as a reference—why not? She was the main reason I was here. My previous volunteer experience included spending time along with Johnny visiting patients at VA hospitals. (A lot of those great guys and gals are NASCAR fans.) I’ve put in quite a few volunteer hours at animal shelters too, both in Salem and Florida, and I spent a summer once volunteering as property manager for the acting division of Salem’s Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts.

My aunt watched, obviously amused, as I carefully wrote down each answer. “You don’t have to fuss with that, you know Maralee. You’ve got the job. I guarantee it.”

I answered the last question—“How did you hear about this position?”—by writing my aunt’s name, then signing, dating, and handing the pages to her. “Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” I said, repeating one of her many favorite sayings. “Remember?” I returned the pen to my purse, along with the slim Handbook for Library Volunteers. “Okay. Where do I start?”

“First, you’ll need an official ID,” she said. “It’s just a temporary one for now, but I’ll order the real one for you right away.” She pulled a round paper badge from her top drawer. It was marked “volunteer” and had a space for my name. She used a black marker, printed Maralee Barrett in neat block letters, removed the sticky back, and handed it to me. “Wear it proudly,” she said as I positioned it on my turtleneck. “Now, shelving the returned books is always a good place to begin.” She gestured toward a wheeled wire basket filled to overflowing with books. “I know you’re familiar with the Dewey decimal system.”

I am. Not too many home libraries are arranged according to Dewey, but ours is. The book on top of the pile was Women in the Civil War, so pushing the cart toward the 900s (history, geography), I began my first day as a library volunteer.

I fell into a sort of rhythm, wheeling the cart up and down the aisles, putting each book in its proper place. I found myself studying the bottom row of books in every aisle, as though I expected to see a foot sticking out from under a bookcase. Before long the wire cart was empty. I returned to the front desk, proud of myself for finishing so quickly.

My aunt had been busy too. She greeted me by waving a sheet of copy paper in my direction. “Maralee,” she whispered, using her librarian voice. “See what I’ve found.”

I hurried around the desk and stood behind her chair. “Look at this,” she said. “I’ve located Ranger Rob for you. His real name is Robert Oberlin and he still lives in the area. Has a horse stable over in Rockport.”

“That was fast.” I peered at the paper. “Is that him?” I pointed to a blurred newspaper photo.

“That’s what the caption says. Looks like he’s put on a few pounds over the years, doesn’t it?”

“That doesn’t look like the skinny young cowboy with the fringed shirt and tight jeans I remember,” I said. “Played a guitar too, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “He did. And didn’t he have a sidekick? Little guy? He wore a big white cowboy hat and had a handlebar mustache.”

“Cactus,” I said. “His name was Cactus. Maybe we can find him too. This could turn out to be fun.”

“It could.” She pointed to another cart full of books. “But right now, you have work to do.”

“You’re right.” I grasped the handle, picked up the book on top of the pile—Cats: Antics and Attitudes. I smiled, thought of O’Ryan, and headed for the 590 shelves. The rest of the full cart was easy to shelve too and I discovered that even though I was “working,” I didn’t have to give this job my full attention. My mind raced as I considered various ways I might put together an investigative report on WICH-TV’s old-time talent.

I’d reached the bottom of the cart and had only one item left. It was a notebook with handwritten lined pages. It appeared to be a journal about gardening and bore no number on its spine or cover.

I returned to the desk and showed the notebook to my aunt. “Sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t figure this one out.”

“No wonder. It doesn’t belong there.” She opened the slim book. “It’s marked on the inside cover, see?” She pointed to the stairway behind her. “It goes up there. In the stacks. Better hurry. Stacks close in a few minutes. Tyler’s already starting to check customers out.”

I glanced at the clock. Children’s room, reference area, and stacks always close fifteen minutes before the main desk does. I made a face. I don’t like the stacks. Even when I was in high school and college, I never went up there alone. When I was around six, I wandered away from my aunt and climbed those stairs. “The stacks” refers to a book storage area, away from the general reading space. The bookcases up there aren’t solid, wooden structures like the ones downstairs. There are no plants or teddy bears or autographed pictures of famous authors placed here and there to make it friendly. The unpainted metal shelves are on wheels so they can be moved around. I imagined that rats or snakes could crawl out from the space underneath the bottom shelves where those ugly black wheels were. It’s been improved since I was six, with a few blonde wood chairs and tables and much better lighting, but back then it was dark and spooky and the narrow aisles with tall steel shelves towered over me. I was terrified until Aunt Ibby heard my cries and rescued me.

She recognized the pouty face. “Go along now. It belongs in a vertical file marked Salem Gardens. It’s in the 580 section.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Go along.”

So, reluctantly, I did. I tucked the notebook u. . .