I stepped inside the studio with its long expanse of polished hardwood floor—and its three walls of mirrors. Mirrors, of course. Dancers need to watch themselves. “Eddie?” I called again, my voice barely a croak. “Eddie, are you here? Are you okay?”
Dumb question. He’s not okay. He’s a killer.
I closed my eyes for a second, afraid because of all those mirrors. Then, forcing myself, I walked to the center of the room and, turning slowly, looked for Eddie. There was a desk in one corner. I moved closer. A desktop computer, a printer, and a green-shaded gooseneck lamp shared space with a pile of papers, some books, a pair of dark glasses. Peeking out from under the papers was a small letter opener—shaped like a dagger.
A long ballet barre ran along one side of the room, and one wall featured a row of uncurtained windows where city lights twinkled in the night sky. I almost smiled when I saw the single silvery stripper pole, imagining certain staid and proper Salem ladies pole dancing.
Running footsteps sounded from below. Good. Soon I wouldn’t be alone here with the mirrors. And the killer. But where was he? Had I arrived too late?
I heard his voice. “Having a good look around, aren’t you? What makes you think you can help me, Lee?”
I whirled. Looked behind me. No one there.
“I’m up here.” Still wearing the green T-shirt, he stood upright on a wooden platform just above the stripper pole, where backup stock of ladies ready-to-wear, foundations, and millinery had once been stored. One end of my favorite scarf was tied to a sturdy ceiling beam—with the other end knotted around his neck.
“This is never the right way out, Eddie,” I spoke louder, so he’d hear me above the music. “You know that. Let me help you.”
“I thought I’d figured it out, Lee. The unsolvable perfect crime. Make sure all the evidence points to the wrong person, then make sure that person has a perfect alibi for the time of the murder. I was even writing a mystery with that plot.”
“They didn’t go to the play.” I stated the obvious flaw in his plan. In the mirror directly opposite me I saw the welcome reflection of Pete in the studio doorway, backed up by several uniforms. I guessed that Eddie hadn’t heard the sirens because of the music. He didn’t know the cavalry had arrived.
“They didn’t go to the play,” Eddie echoed. “They didn’t use the damn theater tickets.” The platform faced the window wall. He wasn’t seeing the same reflections in the mirrors I saw. He laughed. A bitter, unfunny laugh. “They went to bed instead. Now if I don’t fix it, they’ll both do time.”
The music ended. The silence felt thick, suffocating, in that long, shiny mirrored room. Pete made a “stand down” motion to the uniforms. Was he actually going to let me try to talk this man, this killer, out of jumping—out of dying?
I looked up at Edwin Symonds then, standing there all righteous sounding, with my favorite scarf around his neck. My fear turned to anger. Cold, mean, pissed-off anger.
I raised my voice. “You think if you die, that’ll fix it? What are you doing? Looking for sympathy?”
“What do you mean, sympathy?” His voice was almost a whimper. “I deserve to die for what I’ve done.” He took a small step back from the edge.
“Oh great. You’ve pretty much fouled up Cody’s and Lucy’s lives, made them look like murderers. Now you want to blame your untimely death on them too?”
“No. I—I mean—I didn’t want it to work out this way. I just wanted to pull off the perfect crime. I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
“You hurt poor old Sam Bond. What was that all about anyway?”
“You really want to know?” The voice now was strong, confident.
“I’m listening.” Pete and the cops had moved out of sight.
Is there a stairway up to that platform? There must be.
“He stole from all of us. Did you know that? Sold our work as his own.”
“Yes. Cody and Alan were going to sue him for plagiarism.”
“He laughed at them. Told them there was no money. But there was about to be. The thieving bastard had found a major publishing house with contacts to colleges all over the world. They wanted to buy world rights to You Can Do This. He’d copyrighted it in his own name. He bragged about it. Laughed at me. Said it was perfectly legal. A six-figure advance would be his. He planned to leave the country. Nothing we could do about it. He was right. We argued. That same night I put on some Latex gloves and went over and stole Cody’s ladder.”
“You bought the theater tickets and told Alan to give them to Cody.”
“Right. I told Alan that Cody would never accept them as a gift from me. Too proud to accept ‘charity.’ Darn fool wouldn’t ever even let me pay for his lunch. I knew he’d believe the radio show story.” Again, the unfunny laugh. “It was the perfect crime. I even wore Cody’s gym sneakers.” He stuck out one of his own sneakered feet. “See? They’re exactly like mine. Easy switch. I wore a Red Sox hat too because Cody’s a Sox fan. Me, I love the Yankees.”
“What about the knife?”
“I saw it in the bar after I slugged Sam with the pipe. I was going to use the letter opener, but the knife was better. I still had the gloves on.”
Bloody gloves?
“I wanted to do it the way Dick Crowninshield had. Anyway, I wasn’t sure Sam was dead.” He shrugged, moving the scarf slightly, smiling when he said the words.
“You took the knife with you.”
“Yeah. Carried it right down the ladder. I didn’t know what to do with it. I dumped it in his office the next day. Sort of a little inside joke, you know? Listen, Lee, it’s all in the manuscript on my computer. It’s fiction of course. You ought to read it. It’s about how Dick Crowninshield could have got away with it if he was smarter.” He stepped closer to the edge.
“Smart like you?”
“Don’t be a wiseass, Lee. You said you could help me.”
“I can if I want to. First tell me how you knew to use the back entrance to my house.”
“Easy. Nobody would give me your address, so I followed you home one day. That fancy car is hard to miss. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Untie my scarf. And don’t tear it.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll go out the same way Dick Crowninshield did. Silk scarf and all. Poetic justice, don’t you think?” Another step forward.
“Oh, sure,” I shouted. “Two losers. Centuries apart.” By then I was so angry, so disgusted, that I almost didn’t care anymore. If Pete Mondello, gun in hand, hadn’t appeared behind him at exactly that moment, I think I actually might have told him to go ahead and jump.
Epilogue
Eddie Symonds didn’t put up any struggle when Pete took him into custody. One of the officers took a knife and chopped the scarf down from the beam, while another one read the prisoner his rights. Eddie was charged with the death of Samuel Bond, but the various degrees of murder, the many aspects of perjury and deceit involved will have to wend their ways through the courts. He’s safely locked up now though, so the good citizens of Salem don’t need to worry about a killer wandering around in their midst. The police took custody of that manuscript Eddie talked about. I haven’t read it, and I don’t think I’ll ever want to.
Cody and Lucy were cleared immediately, and Roger and Ray treated everybody—including Pete and me, Mr. Pennington, Alan Armstrong, and all three of the Angels—to a celebratory family dinner at Rockafellas. Lucy’s mother was invited, and accepted, so things may be smoothing out there. Cody still doesn’t have a full professorship and has resumed all of his teaching duties, including the Salem history class, but his lawyers are working on getting that fat publishing contract amended so that Cody and Alan can profit from their contributions to You Can Do This.
O’Ryan has stopped worrying about me, has returned to taking me for granted, racing me downstairs and making rude cat-comments whenever he wants to. He still reminds me now and then about locking my doors. I got the expected scolding from Pete for going by
myself to the Tabby to save Eddie. I wasn’t even one tiny bit sorry. I’m sure I did the right thing. Eddie is alive to pay for his crimes. I got an exclusive story, and I only wish Old Jim had been there to record every bit of it. The Clue party had to be cancelled under the circumstances, but Captain Billy has signed on to the Candy Land show and Mr. Pennington is still trying to figure out how to stage a Scrabble musical. Ray Temple and Aunt Ibby have stayed “in touch,” and have dinner together occasionally. By the way, the Angels had such a good time snooping that they’re thinking of opening their own detective agency.
I can hardly wait.
RECIPES
Joe Greene’s Pizza-Dough Cinnamon Rolls
For the rolls:
Store-bought or homemade pizza dough
⅓ cup of sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
For the glaze:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of good-quality vanilla extract
6 tablespoons of hot water
Joe Greene makes his own pizza dough, but you can use the store-bought kind. This recipe takes one pound of the dough, and it’s easier to roll out if it’s at room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Grease an 8 x 11 inch baking dish. In a small bowl stir together sugar and cinnamon.
Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough into a 16 x 10 inch rectangle. Brush the entire surface of the dough with melted unsalted butter. Sprinkle it with the cinnamon/sugar mixture.
Start with the long end closest to you and gently roll the dough into a log. Cut the log into 12 rolls, about 1½ inches each. Now arrange each roll in the prepared baking dish about an inch apart.
Bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes until the rolls are fully cooked. Remove the rolls from the oven and cool them while you prepare the glaze. Lee says check them after 20 minutes so they don’t get too crispy on the edges.
Making the glaze: In a medium bowl stir together soft unsalted butter with powdered sugar and vanilla extract. Put hot water in a cup and whisk it, a tablespoon at a time, into the sugar mixture until it reaches a consistency you like. Drizzle the glaze over the slightly warm cinnamon rolls.
Aunt Ibby’s Slow Cooker Coq au Vin
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
6 slices bacon roughly chopped
1 medium onion chopped
½ pound fresh mushrooms
4 carrots, halved
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup of red Burgundy wine
1 cup of chicken broth
1 teaspoon thyme
Mix flour, salt, and pepper; coat chicken with mixture.
In large skillet or dutch oven, fry bacon until crisp, remove, and drain on paper towels.
Brown chicken well in bacon drippings, transfer to a large plate, and set aside.
Add onions, mushrooms, carrots, garlic to skillet. Cook and stir until onions are tender.
Transfer vegetables and broth to slow cooker.
Arrange chicken on top. Sprinkle bacon over chicken. Add Burgundy wine and thyme.
Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours. Salt and pepper to taste.
Aunt Ibby likes to serve this with french bread and tossed salad.
Photo courtesy of Tropical Focus Photography
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 secrets
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 sugge
sts 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 . . .
Murder, Take Two Page 24