Music to Die For (5 page)

She shut her eyes. Swallowed. Swallowed again. Steady, she thought, steady. You’ve faced violent death before. When Amos died, the gunshot wound was uglier than this. Blood spattered everywhere then...no, don’t think about it. You’re strong, as strong as you need to be for this moment.

She could look. She had to. Oh. Oh, yes, certainly things had been worse when Amos died. Blood had simply flowed here, wetting the bright blue shirt and concrete floor.

She bent, felt for a pulse, listened for breathing. The man’s skin was warm and soft, but she couldn’t detect any heart beat, and his open eyes looked frozen. The broad chest was still, and no new blood came from the wound.

The light had been shaking in Tracy’s hand, but now it steadied. She’d put the candlestick on a stool.

Carrie examined the room. She saw lace in glass cases, bolts of cloth stacked on tables, stiff dress forms displaying Ozarks mountain styles. Long dresses. Aprons. Bonnets. Old-fashioned treadle sewing machine. She peered behind the counter and checked inside the single dressing room. No one else was in the shop.

She went to the door, shut it, and turned to study Tracy in the candlelight.

No. Impossible. This woman couldn’t have inflicted such a wound. The man was tall, and, even in death, the muscles in the arms and chest under his blue shirt looked powerful. Tracy wasn’t any taller than Carrie. She’d have had to raise her arm, aim the blow. She was so tiny, so thin. The wound was in front; the man would have seen her. He could have stopped her easily with one hand.

No, not Tracy.

While Carrie was trying to sort out her thoughts, Tracy began swaying back and forth, crooning, “Dear God...make this go away...forgive me...no, oh, no... noooo.”

Her words sounded like both a prayer and a cry of the most wretched despair ever heard. She was swaying so far it looked like she was about to topple over, so Carrie reached out and pulled the young woman into her arms. Seeing nothing to sit on but the stool that held the candlestick, she sank to the floor, still holding Tracy, pulling her into her lap like a small child. For a long time they huddled on the floor together while Carrie stroked and patted, murmuring the familiar mother-words, “There-there now, there-there.” At last the sobs faded to low moans, and it was time to decide what to do next.

She still hadn’t figured that out when Tracy stopped moaning, sniffed, and slid out of Carrie’s lap to sit next to her. She took out the cloth hanky that had been part of a perky stage costume only an hour earlier and blew her nose. The emotions and questions on her face were as clear as if she’d spoken aloud.

She’s deciding whether or not to trust me, Carrie thought.

But something needed to be done at once. There wasn’t time to wait for trust. Carrie began speaking softly, her words coming easily now.

“Do you know who this man is?”

“F-Farel. My cousin, Farel Teal.”

She had expected the answer but, because of Dulcey, had hoped her guess was wrong.

“How did you find him? Why is he here?” While Carrie waited for a reply, she remembered Tracy’s side trip in the administration building. A phone call? And she’d made another call from the restaurant.

“You called him and asked him to meet you here?”

After a pause and a frown, Tracy said, “Yes.”

So she’s decided she can trust me, Carrie thought. It’s my harmless, grey-haired grandma look.

“I called him from the administration building while you-all were starting to the dining room... asked him to meet me here after the performance... bring Dulcey. See, she was, uh, visiting him, and... and I needed her back, because Chase, well, he didn’t understand. I had to talk to Farel and explain...and... he said he would meet me. He’s...he was deputy chief of the Folk Center fire crew, so he has keys to all the shops. This place seemed good, away from where folks would be.

“After we finished the show, I told Chase and Momma Brigid I was going to stop at the dining room phone and call a girl friend here before I forgot—said I’d promised to call. They should go on and we’d meet in the auditorium. I pretended to use the phone until they left, then I came on here.

“But I could barely see. I thought they woulda turned on the post lights by now, but it was dark. I had to feel my way. That’s when I saw the light in here.”

“Light?”

“Cigarette lighter, but I didn’t smell anyone smoking. Farel doesn...didn’t smoke.”

The wet lines on Tracy’s cheeks glowed and faded in the candle flame, and now her words began to spurt out as if she were rushing through a just-remembered speech.

“I thought Farel hadn’t made it yet, but I started toward the door anyway. I wasn’t thinking, you know, and my knees hit the stone wall of the flower planter out there. I must have made a sound because the man with the lighter ran.

“I came around the wall to see what he’d been doing. It was strange. What would he steal here? They don’t leave any money. And if he was a workman, why would he run? The light switch didn’t work, but I had the package of matches we use in one of our sets at Branson in my pocket. I looked and, um...Farel...

“I didn’t pay any attention to who ran past me.

Whoever it was went toward the auditorium real fast. There was no way to tell. It was dark...and anyway, there was Farel...”

“But you did see that it was a man?”

Tracy stared wide-eyed at Carrie and didn’t answer.

She’s certainly making sure I know she can’t, or more likely won’t, identify the person who was in here, Carrie thought, and wondered why, but she only said, “What did you do then?”

“W-went to Farel, you know, to see if he was, um, if I could, uh, help him. And I couldn’t.” Now Tracy bowed her head and whispered, “Dear God, forgive me.”

Carrie turned away from Tracy and crawled over to the body. She looked at it for a long minute and was trying to memorize every detail when she saw a bit of paper clutched in the left hand.

Knowing Henry would not approve of disturbing what might be evidence, and not caring a bit, Carrie pulled the square of paper free and smoothed it out. The words looked as if they had been painted with a brush. “Will you pay enuf to keep the girl alive? Tell no one. See note in blue bird house after tomoro’s show starts.”

She slid back across the floor toward Tracy, whose head was still bowed. Should she show her the note? If Tracy was frightened and worried now, what would seeing the note do to her? Or did she already know about it? Was this just a continuation of the kidnapping scheme? If so, Tracy probably was a part of it—but how
could
she be? How could she...

Carrie prayed for guidance as she thought of the child. She needed a clear plan, needed to act right away. She looked around the shop again. No phone. The administration building was locked, but there was the auditorium. It was probably bustling with people, but it would have phones. She must find a phone where she wouldn’t be overheard and call the police.

She looked back at Tracy’s bowed head. Well, what else could she do? Henry wasn’t here to help, there was no one else to turn to. And she couldn’t protect Tracy, not now.

She held the note toward Tracy and said, “Does this look like it was written by Farel?”

At first Tracy didn’t move, but then she looked up, stared at the note in Carrie’s hand, read it once, twice, and asked, “Where’d you get this?”

“It was in his hand.”

Carrie watched Tracy carefully as sadness was replaced by...what? Fear? Or was Tracy a good actress as well as a good musician?

She repeated, “Does this look like it was written by Farel?”

“Well, it musta been. It’s printed odd, sort of disguised looking, but it musta been him.”

After a moment of thought, Tracy lifted her chin. Now she looked stubborn. “But Farel could
spell
.” She spit out the defensive words, and, for a moment, reminded Carrie of Ben and his moist snort.

Carrie wondered if Tracy realized what the presence of that note might mean—assuming she wasn’t part of the plot that put it there—but she didn’t think it was time to mention her own suspicions.

“Where is this blue bird house, and who knows about it?” she asked.

“Just about everyone who works at the Folk Center. It’s sort of a joke. Fella who used to make and sell bird houses here said bluebird houses should be blue, so he made a fancy blue one and put it up. Everyone thought it was pretty, but they still bought the plain ones. He stopped making blue houses, but the sample’s still up on a pole outside the gift shop. Bushes have grown up around it now, and visitors don’t usually see it.”

Carrie thought for a moment, biting her lip. Farel Teal wouldn’t have had any reason to send a note. He’d already told them he had Dulcey and, from what Chase said, had also explained his demands. So, that meant...

Carrie shut her eyes. Had someone killed Farel to take the child? Her heart lurched. Be strong, she reminded herself again and realized she was now up to her ears in this mess and had also accepted, without question, what must surely be her responsibility—helping the Masons.

She crawled back to the body, knowing that Henry, and probably others, would eventually question her. She mustn’t miss the tiniest detail. Henry had taught her that the little things could be very important. She needed to remember everything.

The dead man’s shirt had a long narrow slit in it that extended at least a quarter inch on each side of the place where the scissors had entered his chest. The candlelight cast tiny ragged shadows where edges of the shirt fabric were lifted up and away from the wound. Even allowing for the blood that had flowed from the wound, why...?

She got to her feet and turned toward Tracy, who was staring into space, statue-still.

“Did you touch anything? Farel? The scissors?

Was everything just like this when you got here?”

“Yes, well, um, I touched his wrist and neck like you did. Then I laid my hand on his forehead, like Momma would when we were kids and got sick.”

“You touched nothing else at all?”

Tracy dropped her head and spoke softly. “That’s all.”

“But then, why...”

Carrie stopped and looked toward the door. It was opening—a dark form stepping through. Before the shriek in Carrie’s throat had time to break out, Chase Mason’s voice said, “Good God almighty!”

Instead of rushing to him as Carrie had expected, Tracy bowed her head further and wadded her hands in her lap. She looked like a statue—“Mourning”— posed on a stand.

He’ll at least go to her, thought Carrie.

Instead, Chase remained in the doorway, and all he said was, “What happened? Tracy, what happened?” His words were slow, measured, his face and voice without expression.

Several moments passed, and when Tracy stayed as she was, saying nothing, acting as if she hadn’t heard her husband, Carrie said, “Farel had evidently just been killed by a person or persons unknown when Tracy came past here on her way to the auditorium. A man she can’t identify ran out past her. This note was on the floor.”

For garden seed, how had she dragged up that “person or persons unknown?” It made her sound like some television cop. Well, maybe that wasn’t such a bad impression to give Chase and Tracy right now.

Chase seemed not to have noticed her words. He was reading the note, his face turning to grey steel.

“Dear God, Dulcey.”

Then he looked down at Farel. “Evil! Evil rat. He...”

A cry from Tracy stopped the words, and both he and Carrie turned toward her. Her eyes were wide and full of panic as she stumbled to her feet. She started toward the door, mumbling something Carrie couldn’t understand.

Chase caught her easily and held on as she began to kick and hit, twisting and writhing, trying to free herself. Chase simply held tighter, pinning her arms, though her legs still swung at him. He paid no attention to the blows from her soft shoes.

Finally Carrie heard understandable words as Tracy’s voice rose to a shriek, “Go to Farel’s, she’ll be there...I’ve got to get to her...oh, let me go, let me
go
!”

The noise stopped when Chase loosed his right hand and slapped his wife’s face.

“Was that neces...” Carrie began, then cut the words off when Tracy collapsed against her husband, dropping like a rag doll.

“Hysterics,” was all Chase said as he lifted Tracy into his arms and stood very still, looking down at her face.

Speaking as calmly as she could, Carrie asked, “Do you think Dulcey might still be at Farel’s house?”

Chase’s sharp eyes turned on her, and she decided that he was going to ask how she was involved in this. But, before he opened his mouth, she saw understanding hit him.

“Farel
didn’t
write that note! Someone else has Dulcey!” He looked down at Tracy again. “Good God, what has she done?”

Carrie spoke quickly, taking control, hoping Tracy hadn’t heard her husband’s condemning words. “We need to act at once. Call the police, or is it the sheriff here?”

“Oh, no, we won’t,” Chase said. “First we find Dulcey.”

She sidestepped that and asked, “Did you go through this area after Tracy left you?”

“Yes. Momma and I did.”

“Together?”

His eyes said he caught her implication, but he only nodded. At least he was willing to answer her questions.

“Did you hear or see anything? Anyone in here?”

“No. Just heard owls. The security lights were off, but with the moonlight we could see enough to make our way. We were talking about Dulcey. Wasn’t paying attention to anything else. But I didn’t see anyone, and I think Momma woulda said if she did.”

“Where have you been since then?”

“Back stage. Talking to folks while we waited for Tracy, asking about Farel. Ben said he hadn’t seen him tonight. Uh, that’s Ben Yokum, stage hand.”

“Yokum? Like Little Abner?” Carrie couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, just like that. He came from California not too long ago. Says he’s from the Ozarks originally but no one here seems to know him, so he musta not been from this region. Well, anyhow, when Tracy didn’t show up, I left Momma talking and came to see, and...”