Late Checkout

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 twenty 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 . . .