Free Three O'Clock Séance: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 3) by Joanne Pence Page A

evening came, she was almost glad to spend it watching Sandy conduct a séance. At least the dead weren’t “fixers” hanging around her office uninvited, or snoops calling her phone multiple times.
    She headed for Sandy’s offices. His assistant, Lucian, met her at the door and led her into the large room she had noticed two days earlier. It was now a very different space. The sofa and lamps had been moved to the walls, and center stage was a large round table. The room was lit only by candlelight, and the drapes had been shut so no glaring city lights shone in.
    She thought she would be early for the séance, but a number of people were already present. She walked in and looked around, but didn’t see Sandy anywhere. Lucian, too, had disappeared. Back to man the door, she supposed. Three women and two men were in the room. She was the youngest by a good thirty years, she suspected, but they looked like a well-heeled group, with expensive albeit casual clothes, shoes, and stylish jewelry. At the same time, they all looked a bit wide eyed and strained, as if waiting or hoping for something.
    “Hello,” the oldest fellow walked up to her. “You must be a newcomer. I’d have noticed you before, that’s for sure.” He winked. “Donald Luff’s the name. Some like to call me ‘the Luff Bug.’”
    She didn’t know whether to laugh or if he was actually being serious. He looked to be in his seventies, about 5’7” or so, and wiry, wearing a suit with a pocket handkerchief that matched his tie.
    “Rebecca Mayfield,” she said, “and I am new. Have you been coming here long?”
    He explained that he started attending séances a few years earlier because he missed his wife, and then quickly learned that he had an ability to conjure spirits. He had been a computer mainframe programmer “in his youth,” and although he switched over to programming PCs, he simply didn’t enjoy it the way he had the big boxes. Now, as a Sandorista, he liked to say he went “from high-tech to no-tech.”
    “So you’re a Sandorista,” she said, doing her best to sound impressed. What luck, she thought, to have found one so easily. “I’ve heard of them.”
    Donald Luff beamed. “Yes, I am. There are four of us here tonight, in fact. Myself, Candace Carter, and Henry and Marta Highfield—the couple over by the wine. All of us love coming, and do so as often as allowed.”
    “Allowed?” Rebecca asked.
    “Sandy only has room for so many people at a séance. They can’t be too large, you know. So you have to apply, and then he makes his selection, attempting to have a mix of men and women, experienced and newcomers, and so on. Since there aren’t that many men involved, I’m able to attend pretty often, same as Henry Highfield. For me, it’s also a nice way to meet some pretty neat gals, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled.
    She really couldn’t take much more of this character. “I’d love to meet the Highfields,” she said.
    “I’ll introduce you.” The eager beaver took her arm, led her across the room, and made introductions.
    She quickly learned that Marta and Henry Highfield had been followers of Sandor Geller ever since attending one of his events when they were vacationing in Denver, some fifteen years earlier. They were in their sixties and had been married for over thirty years, having spent many of those years studying psychics and mediums. Henry, with thick white hair, a rangy build, and dark tan, had taught high school math and science before retiring, and Marta had been a paralegal at a law firm. Marta was still attractive with dyed blond hair, and what was probably a once voluptuous figure that had now thickened with age. The couple confessed to Rebecca that they had “dabbled” with becoming mediums themselves, but found it too scary when they had felt something demonic coming closer to them. After that, they decided to let Sandy be their go-between with “the other side.”
    Rebecca was finding