Three-Tiered Homicide: A Sara McMasters Psychic Mystery

By Barbara McGowan

Dr. Sara McMasters is a forensic psychologist/psychic who needs to take a break from her successful practice in South Houston, Texas. She finds a little solitude in East Texas in a town called Talents. She is doing well until she gets involved in the death of a town member during a wedding. Things are not what they seem. She puts on her forensic psychologist hat to try and solve the death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887310657

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1: Talent Texas

Chapter 2: Charley

Chapter 3: First Read-Through

Chapter 4: Queen Bee

Chapter 5: First Rehearsal

Chapter 6: Power Outage

Chapter 7: Dressing the Town for Halloween

Chapter 8: Trouble at the Run-Through

Chapter 9: The Bakery

Chapter 10: Wedding Day

Chapter 11: The Aftermath of the Wedding

Chapter 12: Busy Day of Psychic Work

Chapter 13: Scottish Festival

Chapter 14: The Funeral and the Crystal Ball

Chapter 15: The Dream

Chapter 16: The Investigation

Chapter 17: Hell Week

Chapter 18: Did Maggie Do it?

Chapter 19: Sara and Kyle

Chapter 20: Busy Day at the Bakery

Chapter 21: And the Rangers Won't Help

Chapter 22: Opening Night

Chapter 23: Julie Brown

Chapter 24: Closing Day

Chapter 25: Julie's Knowledge

Chapter 26: Hospital Visit

Chapter 27: The FBI Arrives

Chapter 28: The Mysterious SUV

Epilogue

Back in South Houston

About the Author

cover.jpg

Three-Tiered Homicide

A Sara McMasters Psychic Mystery

Barbara McGowan

Copyright © 2023 Barbara McGowan

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88731-064-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88731-065-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

My thanks to Detective Jeff Peu with the Arlington Police Department for all his insight and patience in answering my questions about procedure involving homicide. Also, my thanks go out to Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Jason Morgan for all his help and cooperation regarding Texas Ranger procedure. Last of all, a special thanks to Wendy L Watson, for her encouragement of this book, and to my wife, Charlene, for editing.

Chapter 1

Talent Texas

After what seemed to be a grueling and disappointing Friday night of auditions, I was preparing to make my way home to get some much-needed rest and to prepare for the second night of auditions. I suppose everyone was gearing up for the Halloween season. The overwhelming lack of talent wasn't something I was accustomed to dealing with. Life had been much simpler for me in the past when I directed in a much larger venue, but those days were long since gone, and the final curtain had been drawn toward a much more promising career in the private sector. I yanked the scrunchy out of my long red hair, shook it out, and let out a big sigh. It seemed to help me de-stress.

All I needed to do now was one final check on the theatre before heading home. The building this town called a theatre was an old converted church. It was not only used for putting on plays but was also used for other community functions. It had been modified so that it had a proscenium stage. In the back part of the building, there was a large hall that the city used for banquets and other needs. There'd been a long history of community theatre and community involvement here in Talents, Texas. How the town had gotten that name only God knows, because there clearly wasn't anyone here who had any talents or at least any talents that had been here tonight.

The call of the great outdoors of East Texas seemed to be a fitting change of pace from Houston. I had relocated here because I had gotten overwhelmed with the big city life of Houston. My lucrative private practice as a forensic psychologist and mental health counselor, and the stress that went with it, was showing on my own mental health. So I decided I needed a break. I left word with a colleague that I was moving and gave her my contact information in case she needed to go over some client data. I had made some prosperous investments and could afford to make the move to just about anywhere I wanted to. So I did some shopping around for real estate, which was situated within some favorable ley lines and had found a 2500-square-foot cabin that had three bedrooms and two baths. It was a bit of overkill, but the price was right and had promise. It was built in the 1950s and was situated on two acres of land located here in East Texas, not far from Longview, in a town called Talents and came with an unusual history. It also had an abundance of pecan trees and peach trees on part of the land. It also had enough space for a gazebo and a small creek that ran across part of the property. I planned to build a meditation area and a place to put a garden to plant roses and some herbs.

There were stories there had been an unexplained death surrounding the property. I was told by the real estate agent that there were tales that it might even be haunted and that is why I got the property so reasonable. I found out from some of the locals that there had been a murder on the property in the sixties that was never solved. I still liked the place and a little ghost never seemed to bother me so I bought it with all its history and then I loaded up a moving van with everything I owned and moved here. I especially brought with me Skeeter, my Westie. Skeeter was four years old, and to his way of thinking, he ran the house. His favorite toy was any inflated balloon.

When we first arrived, Skeeter was a little jumpy, and I just brushed it off as him getting used to the new surroundings, but every time he would go outside, he would snarl and bark at what seemed like nothing. I finally set up a meditation circle and calmed the area down.

I had also done some renovations to make it reflect my lifestyle. In place of a door bell, I had an old-fashioned bell with a clapper and a rope that was attached which you used to slap the clapper against the bell. I had converted one of the bedrooms into a study and consultation room for when my past caught up with me, as I knew it would.

Besides, I could only stay away from counseling for only so long. I had also been a professional psychic investigator working with several prominent attorneys, and sometimes the Houston Police Department, as well as police departments in other areas. I enjoyed the gifts of psychic abilities that had been given me. My grandmother, Fluella, had them, and she always told me they had been passed down from many generations of my Scottish ancestors. In Scotland, they called it the gift of sight, and for many centuries was looked upon as a favorable gift of God. Her words of encouragement resonated in my thoughts. She taught me that the ponderings of baseball, basketball, football, soccer, and all things the children play dance in their dreams. However, visions of things past, visions of things present, and visions of things yet to be dance in the minds and thoughts of the psychic. Sometimes the thoughts of others will invade your thoughts in your every waking moment, begging for a chance to escape from the netherworld to the living world. Sometimes you will wish to sleep, and to dream in a world of your own making instead of the world created by others. That will be your life as a psychic. Others see and others feel the feelings and the sights created by themselves, which is their normal. Those that are gifted may not lead normal lives. Psychics see, hear, touch, and feel the thoughts, the visions, and the feelings of others. There is no escape. There is no exception to the rule. There are only visions meant to help and to lead those for whom the visions are intended. This will be your normal. This is your life. You should have no regrets and must accept it as a gift from God and to always pay attention to the gift.

I still kept in contact with some of my former clientele from Houston and other places, so I always kept my abilities honed. I worked on one too many missing person cases in which the subject of the case was found dead, and at thirty-five years old, the stress had gotten to me. The straw that weighed heavily on my shoulders was a case I wish I could forget. I thought that by leaving Houston I could leave the experience of the case behind me for a while. I really needed some me time without the distraction of clientele, so I was attempting to keep that part of my life to myself.

I had done some directing in Houston at the Alley Theatre in my spare time, and when the president of the local community theatre found out I had a background in theatre, he jumped at the chance to enlist my services. The Board of Directors of the small theatre had decided to put on a musical version of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, so I had volunteered to direct the show at the theatre board's pleading. I had tried to tell them the first weekend in September was a bad time to hold auditions for a play, but they had insisted. I was familiar with plays and musicals so directing it wasn't a big stretch, or so I thought. It wasn't the directing of the show; it was the casting of the town's talent. The cast requirements were flexible, but ideally, it called for a limited cast of men and women, and so far, the pickings were slim to none. You'd think that in a town of this size, you'd find a few qualified actors, but no, not here. It was like scraping the bottom of the barrel. No outstanding vocal talent had auditioned. Well, it was only the first audition call.

I moved to Talents a little over a year ago and had struck up a friendship with Maggie Baker the cookie lady (as the locals called her). She had put me in touch of with some of the locals to help me fix it up and to keep it maintained. They were reluctant because of the history of the place, but I told them it was only part-time. Maggie originally hailed from Cut and Shoot, Texas, a small city outside of Conroe, Texas. Her grandmother, Elizabeth, had settled in East Texas in the early 1900s with her then husband. Her husband, Clair, was five years her senior, and the land they bought was used for timber production until oil was discovered in Tyler in 1930. At which time, he went to work in the oil boom. Clair died when a drilling accident took his life. He left her enough money to stay in Talents and raise her only son, Clyde. Clyde moved to Houston and worked in the oil industry. He got married and left Houston for Cut and Shoot right after Maggie was born. When Elizabeth died in 1985, she left all her property to Maggie under the stipulation that she move here. Maggie was my touch of sanity in a town full of insane happenings. Maggie was the only person I had confided in about my past profession, and when things went awry Maggie would always say, Sara, you'll get through this too.

As if reading my mind, my cell phone rang, and it was Maggie calling. You want to go get coffee and talk about it? she asked.

"Now what makes you think I have anything to talk about?' I asked.

I know you all too well; you tend to dawdle when you are working through a decision and don't give me the excuse of ‘I just need some time to think.' I know you better than that, Maggie replied.

I mulled over what Maggie had said, trying to come up with a snappy reply, but I knew Maggie was right and couldn't find anything to discredit Maggie's comment so I just said, I'll meet you at Bob's Diner in fifteen minutes, and we can have that talk.

Bob's Diner wasn't really a diner; it