Now You See It

Book 13: Witch City Mystery

by Carol J. Perry

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Female Sleuths; Mystery; Animal Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

Fans of Amanda Flower and Heather Blake will delight in this latest mystery in the Witch City series, featuring Lee Barrett, program director for Salem, Massachusetts's, local station, WICH-TV, and a cast of colorful characters and sleuthing helpers—including her detective sergeant husband, and a clairvoyant cat, O'Ryan.



Just married, Lee and her husband, Detective Sergeant Pete Mondello, are settling into their new home when Lee is dubbed WICH-TV's new "Historical Documentary Chief Executive." Her first subject is the brand-new Salem International Museum, slated to be a location for traveling blockbuster exhibits, starting with "Seafaring New England." From research to collecting artifacts of Salem's long-ago days as a shipping capital, the project is a challenge—but when the driver of a truckload of antiquities turns up dead under a pile of fall leaves, it's not quite the kind of challenge Lee expected . . .



Soon, Lee and Pete are dredging up clues along with a hardy crew of helpers, including Lee's librarian aunt, Ibby, Lee's best friend and practicing witch, River North—and of course the clairvoyant cat, O'Ryan. But when a ship model in the exhibit's collection appears to be haunted, Lee will have to dive into her own treasure trove of psychic gifts before a killer comes to the surface to strike again . . .

Release date: September 26, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Labor Day in Salem means a day off from work, maybe an end-of-summer cookout, and the annual putting-away of all the white jeans, jackets, dresses, and shoes. Nobody knows who made up that “no white after Labor Day” rule, but my Aunt Ibby raised me to take it as gospel.

I’m a thirty-five-year-old redhead, born in Salem. My parents, Jack and Carrie Kowalski, named me Maralee. Orphaned when I was five, I came to live with my research librarian aunt, Isobel “Ibby” Russell, and grew up in the old family home on Salem’s Winter Street. I’d known from the time I got a part in my seventh-grade school play that I wanted a career in television, and thanks to an Emerson College education, a lot of persistence, and some dumb luck, that dream came true. Maralee Kowalski became Lee Barrett when I married NASCAR driver Johnny Barrett, but sadly, I became a young widow when Johnny died in an auto crash. As Lee Barrett, I’ve been a weather girl, a home-shopping show host, and I even did a brief and unmemorable stint as a call-in psychic. I’m currently the program director and occasional field reporter at Salem’s WICH-TV. But much more important than that, I’m now Lee Mondello, newlywed. My husband, Salem police detective Pete Mondello, and I now have our own home on Winter Street, and it was there, on the Wednesday evening before the Labor Day long weekend, that I washed, ironed, folded, and neatly packed that summer wardrobe into a large, covered blue plastic container.

My aunt and I had shared our home with a big, beautiful yellow gentleman cat named O’Ryan, and now, since we both lived on Winter Street, we had a kind of “shared custody” arrangement. With cat door entrances to both homes, O’Ryan came and went as he pleased, so I wasn’t surprised when he strolled into the bedroom, hopped up onto the top of the plastic box, lay down, and closed his eyes.

Aunt Ibby’s house is a lot bigger than ours, with plenty of spaces—cellar and attic, closets and cupboards—for storing off-season clothing, sports equipment, and things “too good to throw away” or “might come in handy someday.” I stood in the center of the master bedroom and turned in a slow circle, wondering where I could stash the now-full blue plastic box. I could, of course, take it to Aunt Ibby’s.

“No,” I told myself. “You’re a grown, married woman with a home of your own. You’ve been depending on your aunt for far too long. Figure this out for yourself.”

O’Ryan opened golden eyes. “Mmmrupp,” he said, as though echoing my thought.

“There’s the den, and the second bedroom and bath,” I said aloud to the cat. “There’s space in each of those that’ll do for now.” I picked up the box, carried it down a short hall to what we called the “guest room,” and shoved it into the bottom of an empty closet. “It’s a good thing we haven’t invited any guests,” I told O’Ryan. “If things go the way Mr. Doan plans, this room might have to become my home office.”

Bruce Doan is the station manager at WICH-TV. He’s well-known for expecting all his employees to “wear more than one hat,” as he playfully describes it, and he’d offered me a brand-new hat that very morning. I already wore two—one as program director, the other as an occasional field reporter. Since neither job was what one might consider “full-time,” he apparently felt justified in offering me yet another title.

“Lee, how would you like to be my historical documentary executive director?” he’d asked. “Sound good?”

“It sounds pretty highfalutin,” I’d acknowledged. “Exactly what does it mean?”

“You know Rupert Pennington, of course,” he began. He knew perfectly well that I did know Mr. Pennington, the director of Salem’s prestigious Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts. I had, in fact, worked as a television production instructor there a few years earlier—to say nothing of the fact that Mr. Pennington is one of Aunt Ibby’s favorite gentleman friends. I waited for him to continue.

“You’ve heard about the Salem International Museum project, of course?” he asked.

“Of course,” I agreed.

I knew that the new museum was to be located in a sturdy, old brick building that once had housed an A&P grocery store. Fortuitously saved from the wrecking ball of Salem’s infamous “urban renewal” phase, the place had housed a series of retail stores, a couple of restaurants, and most recently, a fitness center. Unlike the justly famous Peabody Essex Museum and the much younger Witch Museum, the International Museum was not intended to house a permanent placement, but rather to be a location for traveling blockbuster exhibits from around the world.

“There are already floor plans for exactly how much space each display will take,” Doan explained. “They’ve brought in some big-shot art directors and history experts who’ll figure out where everything is supposed to go—you know, paintings on the walls, expensive stuff in locked glass cases. You just follow them around and get them to talk to you. Piece of cake.”

I was pretty confident it wasn’t going to be all that easy, but it was an interesting challenge. I’d heard my aunt discussing the museum with her girlfriends, but my knowledge of what it was all about was pretty sketchy. It was time for me to do some serious homework if I was going to don the hat of “historical documentary executive director.”

“When would you want me to get started on this?” I asked. “I’ll have to figure out how to fit it in with my program director duties.” I’d been “promoted” to program director when Buffy Doan, the station manager’s wife, had insisted that a job as field reporter be handed over to her straight-out-of-broadcasting-school nephew Howie—that’s Howard Templeton. That moved Scott Palmer—not my favorite person—into the lead reporting position I’d held. Don’t get me wrong—I love being program director. The hours are way better for married me, and it came with a little pay raise. But sometimes I miss the edge-of-your-seat, race-out-the-door, day-or-night excitement of being in the middle of the news action—and every time I see Scott Palmer doing a report on something I’d have loved to cover, I feel a little pang of jealousy.

“You can get started right away—” Mr. Doan paused, giving me a kind of up-and-down look. I realized I looked awfully casual for a highfalutin job in my faded jeans and loose T-shirt. “You might want to update your wardrobe a little. I’ll tell you what. I’ll get you started with one of our new green WICH-TV jackets.” Big smile. “Enjoy your weekend and Labor Day Monday off. Let’s see. Today is Wednesday. You might as well take tomorrow and Friday off, too, and get yourself organized. Maybe do some shopping. They’ll be starting to get stuff shipped in to the museum pretty soon. The designers might already be working in there. Your press credentials will get you in so you can get some ‘before’ footage of the place while it’s empty. Get with Francine Hunter. She’ll be your videographer for this. Just get your programs lined up first, then get right on it. If you start on Tuesday, that’ll give you and Francine a good three weeks to get it all filmed and edited—from the empty rooms right up until the mayor cuts the ribbon for the October opening.”

“Start Tuesday,” the man says! “Get your programs lined up first,” the man says! Does he think it’s easy making sure all the shows under my direction are properly staffed every day with sets and props in place, scripts up-to-date, talent prepared, wardrobe clean and pressed, lights and sound and cameras tested, and everything ready on time? I was in charge of the morning kiddie show, Ranger Rob’s Rodeo, the daily Shopping Salem, and The Saturday Business Hour. I also did some of the set décor for Tarot Time with River North and Cooking with Wanda the Weather Girl. None of it was a piece of cake or even easy as pie. Fortunately, plans for the following week’s shows were already firmly in place. Ranger Rob and his co-host, Katie the Clown, would feature fun indoor and outdoor games and some interviews with local high school football players. Shopping Salem had a lineup of the newest back-to-school fashions. The man who did the Business Hour was always prepared; all I had to do for him was keep his set neat and clean and make sure he had plenty of yellow legal pads. I knew I was going to take the new challenge. At least I’d be in front of the camera again, talking to an audience, introducing them to something new and hopefully exciting in my city. I told the boss I’d do my best.

“Good,” he said, as though he’d never had any doubts about it. “Stop and see Rhonda and she’ll fix up your new schedule.”

Rhonda manned the station’s reception desk and kept careful track of everyone’s schedule and did myriad other things. I told her I’d see her on Tuesday and asked her to alert Francine about what was going on. “Wow,” she said. “This must be important. He gave you two extra days off? With pay?” She was still marveling at such a miracle when I left the office and took the aged elevator—we call it “Old Clunky”—down to the first-floor lobby, climbed into my almost-new Jeep, and went home to prepare for my new journey into New England history.

Over dinner that night of baked chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, and canned peas—I’m not much of a cook yet, but I’m learning—I told Pete about my new assignment. The only thing I knew for sure about the show was its name—Seafaring New England—and the fact that Salem was to be the show’s first stop. Mr. Doan had assured me that my documentary would be of “major importance” because “the first time is when they get all the bugs out, and the TV audience loves being in on all the screwups.”

Pete, as always, greeted the news with loving enthusiasm and cautious optimism. “This sounds like it’s right up your alley, babe, with your love of history, and with a research librarian for an aunt. It’s all on top of your regular job, though. Are you sure you can handle both?”

I wasn’t sure, and I told him so. “I promised Mr. Doan I’d do my best. If it’s not going to work out, I guess I’ll know it before long. I’ve already started a file.”

He grinned. He knows my penchant for creating files, filling out index cards, and posting sticky notes. “Of course, you have. What are they calling it?”

“Nothing fancy. Just Seafaring New England. The whole thing is centered around New England’s maritime and seafaring history from the arrival of the Pilgrims in Plymouth in 1620 up to the present,” I explained. “The exhibit starts off right here at the new Salem International Museum. After us, it goes to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut and after that to Newport, Rhode Island. Each city hosts the exhibition for six months.”

“The department is already gearing up for extra security,” Pete said. “They’ve got their own people, but there’ll be a lot of really expensive stuff in there. Chief Whaley doesn’t want anything bad to happen on our watch.”

“That’s good,” I said. “I hadn’t even started to think about that part of it.”

“Oh yeah. The whole building will be rigged up with cameras and alarms everywhere. Naturally it’s all insured to the hilt. For millions, I’d guess.” He smiled. “It should draw some good crowds.”

I agreed. From what little I’d learned so far, the show would cover a lot of territory. Maritime history and industry from every New England state would be displayed, including commerce, fishing, whaling, and ship building. I figured a pretty good-sized chunk of it would come from the days when Salem ships were legendary—the vessels that historians claim traded with more different peoples in Asia, India, Africa, South America, and China than all the ships of other American ports put together. The more I learned about it, the more my interest in the project grew.

I cleared away the dinner plates and took a couple of Fiesta ware bowls from the cupboard. I hadn’t attempted anything in the way of real homemade desserts yet, so I depended pretty much on a variety of ice-cream treats. This evening’s offering was Little Debbie brownies topped with vanilla ice cream and sprinkled with crunched-up Oreos. Worked for me, and Pete didn’t complain. “Has O’Ryan been by to visit today?” he asked, adding some more Oreo crumbs to his bowl.

“He helped me put the summer clothes away,” I told him. “It was just one big plastic box full, but I didn’t know exactly where to put it, so for now, it’s in the guest room closet.”

“Maybe we should start using our side of the attic,” he said. “There’s plenty of room up there.” Our house was built like a “row house,” with a wall separating our half from the mirror-image other half. But the top floor—the attic—was one long, unfinished room, which the two sections of the building shared.

“I suppose we could,” I said, without enthusiasm. In the first place, I don’t like attics. I had a really bad experience in one once. Now all attics creep me out, and it didn’t help that our next-door neighbor whom we shared one with was a convicted wife killer. Oh, Dr. Michael Martell had served his twenty years and was totally rehabilitated, according to the authorities. He’d even become a close friend of my Aunt Ibby’s and was a respected creative writing instructor at Salem’s Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts, where Mr. Pennington was the executive director. Besides that, while Dr. Martell was “doing time,” he’d become a mystery writer and—as Fenton Bishop—had authored a series of best selling “Antique Alley” murder mysteries.

“It’s not as though a box of old summer clothes is of very much value,” Pete pointed out. “I doubt that our attic-sharing neighbor would covet any of them.

I had to laugh at that idea. “I wasn’t worried about Dr. Martell showing up in my white jeans, silly. I just don’t want to go up there.”

Pete understood about my fear of attics. Aunt Ibby and I had once been trapped in one by a killer. O’Ryan had saved our lives, and Pete also had begun to understand that the big yellow cat had some special skills that regular, everyday housecats don’t have. When Pete and I were in the “getting-to-know-you stage” of our relationship, there was another thing I’d had to share with him that up until then, only Aunt Ibby and my best friend, River North, knew about me. I am what’s known as a scryer. That’s a person who sees things in reflective surfaces—things other people cannot see. River calls me a “gazer,” and says that the ability is a special gift. I don’t think of it as a gift. Almost all the visions I’ve seen—in mirrors, windows, silverware, hubcaps, anything reflective—have had something to do with death. I dislike my “special gift” even more than I dislike attics. Pete tries to understand that secret scryer part of me, but he doesn’t like to talk about it.

“It’s good to have the extra space, though,” Pete continued on the subject of the attic. “Maybe someday we’ll put up a wall, put in some dormers, finish it off for an extra bedroom.”

“That would be okay. Then I wouldn’t mind it at all.”

“When do you get a look inside the museum building?”

“We start filming officially on Tuesday morning,” I said. “But Mr. Doan says all I need to do is show my press pass, and I can get in before then.”

“I hope you won’t be too disappointed with what you see. They’ve got the place clean, and the floors look good. They haven’t painted all of the walls yet, though and some of it looks like—well, one big, old attic.”

An attic? I took a deep breath. “You’ve been inside?”

“Sure. Security survey.” He used his cop voice. “We’ve been climbing all over the place, checking on where alarms should be, camera placements, where guards need to be stationed. All that.”

“I’m glad you told me. I’ve been picturing glass cases, overhead lights, you know. Like the Peabody Essex Museum, only empty.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll get there. They’re doing a really careful job.” Big, encouraging smile. “It’ll be good for your documentary—showing the audience everything from the beginnings right up to the opening day of the show.”

“I guess you’re right,” I agreed. We picked up our dishes and loaded the dishwasher.

“Shall we watch some TV, Mrs. Mondello?” Pete gets a kick out of using my new name—and I get a kick out of hearing it.

“Good plan, Mr. Mondello.” We settled down together on the living room couch. Pete had just turned on the wall-hung TV when O’Ryan strolled in and hopped up onto the couch, wedging himself between us.

“Speak of the devil,” Pete said. “I was just asking about you, big boy.” O’Ryan responded by giving Pete a pink-tongued lick on the nose, then tapping the remote control with a fuzzy yellow paw.

“It looks as if O’Ryan wants to choose the channel,” I observed, not at all surprised by the cat’s deliberate motion. I reached for the TV Guide on the coffee table and flipped through the pages. “Yep, there it is. Wicked Tuna is on tonight. That’s one of his favorites.”

Pete is still fairly skeptical about O’Ryan’s unusual talents, even though he’s witnessed enough of the big cat’s remarkable feats to become a bit of a believer. O’Ryan, after all, once belonged to a real Salem witch. She’d called herself Ariel Constellation, and before her unexpected demise in the cold waters of Salem Harbor, she’d hosted the late-night movies on WICH-TV. She’d named the cat Orion, for the constellation, and claimed that he was her “familiar.” When he came to live with Aunt Ibby and me, we decided that the Irish name O’Ryan suited him better—always bearing in mind the fact that in Salem, a witch’s familiar is to be respected, and sometimes feared.

“It’s not on until eight,” Pete said, adding with just a tiny hint of sarcasm. “I hope he doesn’t mind if we watch the early news first.”

“Mrruptt,” O’Ryan purred, which I took to mean it was all right with him. “No problem,” I said. “Anything special we’re looking for on the news?”

“Kind of,” he said. “And maybe it has something to do with your museum. We’re not sure about that at all.”

“What are you talking about? My museum?” Pete isn’t exactly in the habit of discussing his job with me. We’d had an agreement about that back when I was a field reporter. Combining his confidential police work with my on-air investigative reporting didn’t mix well. But these days, since I’d become program director, the old conflict of interest just didn’t exist. “Can you tell me about it?”

“It seems one of the Public Works guys found a body this morning. It was under a pile of leaves where some of the early arriving artifacts for your Seafaring New England show are being stored—in the vault of a small branch bank that’s been closed for a while,” he said. “The dead man was a bonded driver for an armored truck company. His truck was empty. The items had been unloaded, counted, numbered, and examined before they were locked in the underground vault. Nothing was missing.”

“Since the body was under a pile of leaves, I’m guessing someone hid it? That this wasn’t an accidental death?”

“Suspicious circumstances.” Cop voice. “He’d been shot. Let’s see if any new details have been released yet.” The WICH-TV logo appeared on the screen with a “Breaking News” banner. Phil Archer, the early news anchor, did the voice-over while a video showed a fenced-in area where gold and brown fall leaves covered the ground. Yellow crime-scene tape surrounded the area, and the camera zoomed in on a disturbed area, where leaves were in a mound-shaped heap and spots of bare ground showed nearby. “Early this morning, the body of an armored car driver was discovered beneath a pile of these colorful leaves, in the vicinity of a secure facility in downtown Salem,” Phil intoned. “The driver’s name has not been released, pending notification of family, but authorities say that the cargo he carried in the vehicle was intact. Police have disclosed that the man had been shot at close range. An investigation is underway. Here’s Scott Palmer with details.”

Wouldn’t you just know it? This one should have—could have—been all mine, and there’s Scott Palmer, all smirky and full of himself—with the details of what had to be a murder.

It turned out that Scott didn’t have much more to share with the viewers of WICH-TV than what I’d already learned from Pete and Phil Archer. He mentioned that the contents of the armored car had contained artifacts destined for the upcoming Seafaring New England show at the new Salem International Museum, which he described as “a facility designed to show a variety of traveling blockbuster exhibits from around the world.” A file shot of the old A&P building was followed by a picture of a ship model. “The show will display articles from all around New England, including this model of George Crowninshield’s great ship America, on loan from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. There’ll also be a large model of an elephant, because in 1796, the same ship brought the first elephant to arrive in America to Salem. There’ll be a giant model of another Salem ship, the Naiad, too.” Scott used his breathless, network-announcer voice. “Preliminary investigation indicates that the shipment within the armored vehicle was undisturbed, and that even the dead man’s wallet and personal belongings were found intact.”

I was glad that none of the truck’s cargo had been stolen. Items to be displayed in the museum were irreplaceable. I’d heard there’d be items from important venues, even the Smithsonian—as well as artifacts from private collections from some of the oldest Salem families—things that had never been on public display before.

“I’ll bet my aunt has more information than Scott has about it,” I suggested to Pete. “What do you say we let O’Ryan watch his show here while we go over to her house so I can ask for some research librarian help?” I added a little incentive. “She told me she made one of her famous lemon-bar pies this morning.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” he said. “The cat can catch up with the Wicked Tuna crews, you can do some homework, and I can enjoy Ibby’s homemade pie and coffee. Let’s do it. Should we call first?”

I’d already reached for my phone. Her answer to my text was swift. Please do come over. Is O’Ryan with you?

I assured her that our shared feline was safe and happy, and Pete and I stepped out into the pleasant evening coolness onto Winter Street. Our street is one of Salem’s old ones, complete with redbrick sidewalks and lots of old-growth trees, oak and chestnut and maple. This cooler-than-usual September had presented one of Salem’s most glorious early “leaf-peeping” seasons, and tour buses throughout the city had brought a rush of camera-toting visitors.

“Between the opening of the museum, the fall foliage fans, and next month’s Halloween craziness, Salem should be pretty darned active for a while,” I said, my boots crunching through newly fallen red and yellow leaves. As I looked down, though, the colorful sight reminded me of Scott’s video of the forlorn pile of vegetation that had covered the body of the so-far-nameless murdered truck driver.

“Phil Archer said the driver had been shot,” I said, kicking a spiny green horse chestnut capsule onto the curb.

“Yep. Close range. Not pretty. And sadly, off the record, there’s a possibility that he may have been killed with his own gun.”

“He was armed?”

“He was licensed by the state to carry a weapon. We’re checking his home to see if it’s missing from there.” Pete shook. . .