We are delighted to welcome back author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro to Omnimystery News today.
Chelsea's second mystery in her historical series featuring Chesterton Holte is published today, Living Spectres (Smoke & Shadow Books; November 2016 hardcover and ebook formats) and we are so pleased that she has agreed to share an excerpt from it with us.
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THE DIMENSION OF GHOSTS WAS MORE active than usual, and it took Chesterton Holte more time than he had anticipated to find Madison Moncrief among the energetic swirls that were ghostly existence. When he finally approached Moncrief, Holte was surprised to find an unfamiliar ghost with him, and so he hesitated as he approached.
"Moncrief? It's Holte," he said in his non-voice.
"So it is," said Moncrief, sounding a bit restored by Holte's greeting. "How long are you back for this time?"
"Not long. I have a few things I'd like to find out."
Moncrief did what passed for a sigh among ghosts. "Haven't we all?"
Holte glanced at the newcomer again, and saw that he had the stupefied stare that those just recently dead had when their death had been unanticipated. "Who is this?"
"This is Julian Eastley," said Moncrief. "He was a hero in the Great War, but it took a lot out of him. He used to do some speaking about the fighting, for civic clubs and the like, and he had an inheritance, so he didn't need to work, which was just as well. After the war, he didn't have a head for business, though he did before it. He used to hang on Louise's leadstrings; if he were a boy, we'd call it puppy love, but in his case, he said it was devotion. Always around the house, and never any worry to me. He hasn't been here very long; I suppose you can tell. He hasn't been able to remember anything of what killed him, not yet, anyway."
"I can see that," said Holte. "What led up to —?"
Eastley directed his attention toward Holte. "Do I know you? Can you tell me where I am? I can't seem to recognize it …"
Moncrief responded before Holte could provide an answer. "I've told him several times, but he's still in shock. You don't have to tell him he's dead if you don't want to. It won't stick."
Holte signaled his understanding to Moncrief, and asked Eastley, "What are the last things you remember before you arrived here?" The question seemed to confuse Eastley, and he could not bring himself to answer for a short while.
"It all seems so … remote, like something I dreamed … a long time ago …" He faltered, then steadied himself and went on, "I had been in my house … I share it with my uncle now, you know? A tidy little place with a partial view of Independence Hall … Well, enough of that. I decided to go out for a drive … you know, to restore my equilibrium? I have to do that when the megrims are on me." He did something that implied an apology, then resumed his narrative. "I drove westward out of Philadelphia and had gone through Columbia — dreadful roads they have in that part of the county — and was approaching York. It was late in the afternoon, and I was thinking about turning back after dining at York, you know, as one does. I find driving at night soothing. I had my flask with me, and was taking a nip now and then, I remember that; it helped me to keep steady, and it almost made up for the roads, and it kept the Black Dogs away. Can't drive well when the Black Dogs are on me. Anyway, there was sun at my back, and when the rear-view mirror flashed, I had trouble seeing what lay ahead. There was a bad patch on a curve, I recall that much. It went around a hillock and the curve tightened toward the far end. The rear-view mirror caught a brilliant ray that dazzled me. I think I might have swerved." He stopped abruptly, floundering for a better explanation of what happened. "There might have been someone coming up behind me, too fast, on that curve. I believe I thought I should go faster or pull over and let him pass, and then the mirror flashed …" He stopped again. "And now I'm here, wherever that may be, and I have no remembrance of how that came about."
"I think you crashed your auto, Eastley, that's what I think," said Moncrief with the patience of frequent repetition.
"That sounds likely," Holte seconded. "Poor fellow."
"How do you mean, crashed my auto? That's absurd," said Eastley, offended by the possibility.
"You'll figure it out, in time," said Holte, trying to console Eastley. "When you do, I'd like to know what you do remember."
"So would I," said Moncrief, and abruptly changed the subject. "Do you have any new ideas about what's become of Louise, Holte? Eastley hasn't been able to tell me anything about her."
Before Eastley could summon up an answer, Holte said, "No, I don't."
"She's still missing?" Moncrief was sounding alarmed now.
"Yes; I'm sorry," said Holte. "So are Stacy Dritchner and Warren Derrington, for that matter," said Holte. "They haven't cropped up here, have they?"
"No," said Moncrief, downcast at the lack of information about his wife, now his widow. "Not that I know of."
"What do you mean, linking Louise's disappearance to Derrington's and Dritchner's? There was disgusting gossip about a connection between them during the summer, the nasty innuendos were sickening. Utter nonsense, I call it," Eastley said, coming staunchly to Louise's defense.
Now it was Moncrief 's turn to bristle. "You can't deny that they were all close friends. It was Stacy who introduced me to Louise. Can't thank him enough for that. I remember that he said at the time that he thought she would be a perfect wife for me, and that she was already taken with me. I couldn't believe my good fortune — a bang-up girl like that."
"You were a most fortunate fellow, Moncrief," Eastley declared.
"I wish I knew where she is. Not to haunt her, you understand nothing like that. But I would like to look in on her, now and again; I miss her. I didn't know what it would be like, not to have her about." Moncrief pondered for a short time. "If you learn anything more about her, Holte, you must tell me. I'll feel better when I know she's all right."
"If you will tell me what you learn, if you learn anything, about her whereabouts. If you remember." Holte looked around at the swirls and flow of the ghosts. "Any more groups of newcomers?"
"Just another group of Armenians. I thought we'd seen the last of them, but apparently not. This lot starved to death." Moncrief was disinterested in them. "Have you made any progress in discovering who killed me?"
Holte answered this carefully. "I may have a lead to follow up. I'll let you know if it goes anywhere."
"Much appreciated," said Moncrief in a display of automatic good manners.
Eastley swirled around, staring in the eyeless manner of ghosts. "That's right: you're dead, aren't you? How did I come to forget that?"
"You'll figure it out, Julian, in time," said Moncrief with ironic sympathy.
Holte realized that he had gained as much information as he could, so he addressed Moncrief. "When Knott gets back, will you tell him I'd like to speak with him?"
"If I remember, I will." Moncrief was being drawn back into the maelstrom of ghosts. "You know how that goes, don't you, Holte?"
"Do you know where he has gone?" Holte persisted, trying to persuade Moncrief to make an effort to bear these things in mind. "I need to talk with him."
"Not that I'm aware of; he didn't tell me where he was going, the last time I saw him," Moncrief murmured, losing definition.
Holte became more insistent. "Anything, Moncrief. Anything you can recall."
"… don't know. Something about a boat …" and saying that, he vanished, Eastley following him into the spiraling grey mist.
Excerpted from Living Spectres © Copyright 2016 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro;
Photo credit Charles Lucke
A professional writer for more than forty years, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has sold over eighty books, more than seventy works of short fiction, and more than three dozen essays, introductions, and reviews. She also composes serious music. Her first professional writing — in 1961-1962 — was as a playwright for a now long-defunct children's theater company. By the mid-60s she had switched to writing stories and hasn't stopped yet. She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at ChelseaQuinnYarbro.net and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Living Spectres by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
A Chesterton Holte Mystery
Publisher: Smoke & Shadow Books
Philadelphia, 1924
It's been three months since crime reporter Poppy Thornton was left to die in an abandoned warehouse by her cousin Stacy, chief suspect in a high society murder. Rescued by the quick thinking of Chesterton Holte — her "gentleman haunt" — and Police Inspector J.B. Loring, Poppy is determined to get the real story and see justice done. But Stacy has fled Philadelphia with the widow of the man he is accused of murdering, and now an international manhunt is on for the suspected conspirators. As that search continues, Poppy, Holte, and Loring have a new mystery: the disappearance of GAD Pearce, 18 year-old heir to the Pearce fortune, who has vanished while travelling through Eastern Europe. The suspects range from the young man's jealous siblings to a mysterious cult of Armenian refugees.
Once again Holte uses his ghostly powers to uncover answers and pass on what he learns to Poppy — who must then alert Loring without revealing her otherworldly source.
Is GAD still alive? Can Poppy keep her job despite social convention, the disdain of her male colleagues, and the dangerous attraction she feels to Loring? Will the authorities succeed in tracking Stacy down? What's really going on behind the closed doors of the politicians and bankers who run the city and the state?
And as the search for truth takes Poppy and Holte deeper into a forest of dark secrets and official corruption, who will die next?
— Living Spectres by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
