The Silent Scream of the Straw Man

by Corinne F. Gerwe

  “I don’t know why he’d take a chance like that, but I think he did because one morning I noticed one of the cars wasn’t in the place it had been the night before when we’d left. I didn’t say anything at the time because sometimes you question yourself. You know what I mean. But when it happened the second time, I started watching him. I think he knew it cause he got real careful like around me. He didn’t play up to me like he did the others. I’ll tell you right now, he wasn’t an enemy I wanted to make. I figured he’d be left behind when the job was done and I for one would be glad to never see him again. The others don’t feel that way, I know. They’re a good-hearted bunch and he showed them the best places for the moonshine runs and kept the cars running. I’ll bet he could move around these mountain roads at night like the old bootleggers, but I think he liked women better than booze.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It was the way he swaggered around, some days more than others. Like letting you know something without saying it. You could almost tell he had something secret going on that he couldn’t talk about but, was dying to. So he let you know in other ways. Made me start thinking he had something going with someone involved in the movie. But that would have got him fired. What better reason to keep it secret?”

  “Why do you think the Ranger was still here the night of his murder? How could he have gotten back to town? Were all of the vehicles accounted for?” Farley asked.

  “Yes, sir. But he must have come back here that day, after we got off early because of the Halloween shindig. That’s when we got half the day off. The rest of the cast and crew on location had to stay until three o’clock, but we finished at noon because our scenes had been shot. So we took the van back to the lodge and he left in his Ranger. I guess he must have come back, maybe to hot wire a vehicle. I don’t know, but they were all here the next morning. I can’t figure it, Chief. Maybe you can.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  ON THE WAY BACK TO town, Farley tried Joyce Crenshaw’s cell phone number again and got the same voicemail recording. He called Sherwood to ask if she was on location at the compound. Sherwood had remembered that she hadn’t shown up that morning.

  “She isn’t here, Chief Farley. But, I’m sure there’s no cause for alarm. I’ll admit it’s not like Joyce to miss anything, particularly when it involves the extras. She’s normally a constant presence during the course of filming, watching over her flock. Come to think of it, I hadn’t informed Joyce directly about assembling at the Events Center this morning, but rather sent email notifications because I’d given everyone the weekend off. Otherwise I would have made an announcement on the set. Perhaps she didn’t get the message.”

  Farley replied, “Well one of her flock is dead, and as far as I can tell, she hasn’t been seen since she left the party Saturday night.”

  “Are you seriously telling me she’s missing?”

  “Unless someone can verify her whereabouts, I’m going to contact the sheriff’s department to request they put out an all-points bulletin on her as a murder suspect. Before I do, I need you to find out if anyone in the company has seen her or heard from her within the last twenty-four hours.”

  “This is unbelievable, a terrible mistake, but I’ll do as you say.”

  Farley called Aura Lee to check in and got the usual flurry of information.

  “Chief, you cannot imagine all the talk going on in town about that business at the Events Center this morning. I’m certainly glad I kept myself out of show business, tempted as I was to audition. I’d have been picked for sure and there I’d have been, under a cloud of suspicion. Were you able to narrow it down to a suspect?

  “I put my money on Tanner’s girlfriend, Margaret Bowling. Deputy Purdy found out she wasn’t stuck down on the river without transportation after all. Seems she had some new handyman lined up who was more than willing to drive her around in his pick-up. He probably had ideas about taking Tanner’s place, seeing as how Zack was spending too much time away from home. Purdy wouldn’t have known about him if the pick-up hadn’t been in Margaret’s carport when he went down there to tell her about Tanner getting killed. She made the excuse that he was working for her, but Purdy said he was in the house and didn’t look to be doing anything.”

  “Is Deputy Purdy there, Aura Lee?”

  “No, Chief, but he left his report and said he had some more checking to do on this fellow. His name’s Rupert Mills. I’ve never heard of him, Purdy says he works mostly with the wilderness trade at the river landing. I guess that’s where she spotted him. Purdy’s report is about six pages long. He sure goes into detail and even took soil samples from her yard and driveway.”

  “Radio him and tell him I need him back in town immediately. We may have a missing person. I’ll be contacting the sheriff within the hour.”

  “Good gracious, not another one! I don’t think my heart can stand another body sacrificed to a scarecrow. Folks won’t be able to put in a garden anymore without having nightmares.”

  “I’ll get back to you, Aura Lee. I’m heading up Church Street to talk to Dev and Kate. Tell Purdy to wait for me when he returns.”

  Kate, Dev, Steve, and Eleanor had been using the chart made by the sketch artist as a guideline. When Farley joined them, Dev relayed their shared impressions of the witnesses, and gave him the sketch with checkmarks on it indicating discrepancies. Farley reviewed it, noting one checkmark near the curved bar in the corner of the room left of the entrance to the ballroom, and the other close to it along the side wall. The only other checkmark was on the stage.

  They gathered around the kitchen table while Dev explained how he had caught Eleanor’s confused expression, lasting only a second, right before the questioning began. Her gaze had been directed toward the left side wall, in her line of vision. When he’d asked her about it later, she’d almost forgotten, but recalled having had the notion that someone should have been standing there. She’d tried to concentrate but couldn’t come up with an image. Kate had urged her to relax and led her through an imagery exercise.

  Eleanor added, “The exercise helped me to remember the woman in charge of the auditions, the one who had sent her assistant to tell me to stay, was not there today, in the position she had been.”

  Farley added, “That would be Joyce Crenshaw. Had she been in your line of vision when your late husband came in?”

  “Yes. She’d been standing back from the others by the bar, watching me. But there was something else missing today, someone who’d been near her. That’s what puzzled me; there was no one sitting at the bar where I was looking today. It was darker there, just like it had been that day, shadowed by the loft overhang. I’d been looking at her with gratitude, because she’d given me the chance. Then, the rough grip of my husband’s hand startled me as he jerked me around and the room turned like a carousel, with faces staring at me in each frame. For an instant, I saw a figure move forward from the darkness of the corner. Today, there was no one there. The bar stools were empty.”

  Farley felt a surge of excitement, “Thank you, Eleanor. What does the checkmark on the stage indicate?”

  Steven answered with enthusiasm. “That’s my input, Chief. But the mark doesn’t represent a person, or maybe it does. You see, I’d been working off to the side that day, sitting near the exit door, a habit of mine, taking script notes and jotting down ideas for dialogue changes. I find it helpful to listen to local dialects. I’d been trying to overhear the conversations between extras in order to capture regional colloquialisms and inflections. I’d been far enough away from those being interviewed, and enough distance from the stage, to hear the voices of the extras waiting in line. I’d been able to do this because there had been no distracting noise. Do you get it, Chief? There had been no sound of laughter, not in the whole time I sat there.”

  Farley suddenly knew for certain that Joyce was no longer a suspect. She was his most important witness, and she was gone.

  He thought for a moment then s
aid, “Joyce Crenshaw stood in the background in close proximity to the bar. She would have known the person sitting there. She would have witnessed that person’s reaction, perhaps not giving it much importance then, but would have today, if she’d been there. She would have also known where this person was not. Everyone’s eyes had been on Willis Gaither. Joyce was a watcher, accustomed to taking in everything within her surroundings.

  “Like you, Steve, afterward she would have had little interest in a local murder. However, she had chosen Eleanor from the crowd and would remember her. She had also chosen Zack Tanner and had kept a close eye on him, particularly after I questioned her about him. She would have noticed his absence when no one else did. Tanner was murdered between approximately noon and two o’clock the day of the Halloween party. Joyce had agreed to keep tabs on Tanner for me, but I had the feeling she was holding back information, possibly to protect him. I had warned her he might be up to mischief, but she was a formidable woman, accustomed to handling difficult situations. When that afternoon passed with no sign of him, she must have tried to track him down, causing her to be late to the party. When she’d recognized Eleanor Gaither, it gave her an excuse to call me to find out if I knew anything about Tanner’s whereabouts. She’d gone outside the Events Center to make the call, just as I pulled in the lot. I’d been trying to locate Tanner at that point and had not yet discovered his body. I informed her about the frantic call from Margaret Bowling and about subsequently locating the Ford Ranger in the remote parking lot. After I left, she must have started putting two and two together based on information she’d kept from me to protect Tanner. It would be like her to confront a person she suspected of harming him, or share her concern about Tanner with someone she trusted.”

  Farley’s cell phone vibrated. He answered, talked briefly, and then turned to them. “Joyce Crenshaw is definitely missing. Care to take a ride, Dev? We’re going to need all the help we can get to find her. We’ll start at the compound. Steve, I’d like you to come along. Your director is pretty shaken. Not one member of his cast and crew has seen Joyce since the party. He’s called off filming and was about to send everyone to the lodge when I told him to stay put.”

  As Dev rose from his chair, Kate reached over to him and gently put her hand on his arm. She whispered softly with a slight hint of fear in her voice, “Be careful, darling.”

  Ever attuned to Kate’s mood, the finches went wild with tweeting concern. Dewey cooed with distress.

  “You and our wee avian tribe need not be alarmed, my dear. We’re about to tackle an acting troupe, not an armada.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE ABRASIVE HEMP ROPE BINDING her wrists together burned into her flesh as she struggled. The burlap sacking covering her head scratched where it was tied at her throat. Her mouth was stuffed with a filthy cloth and covered with tape. Dust filled her nostrils, making it difficult to breathe. The rope burns on her ankles had started to break open and bleed. But she would not stop struggling to free herself, because to stop meant certain death.

  She’d been lying there for hours and could not tell if it was day or night. The rough rotting floor was a sea of splinters and sharp wooden edges. Each time she moved she felt another puncture or another scrape. Her head throbbed with pain, and her forehead felt tight from the swelling. But she didn’t feel helpless, and she didn’t feel hopeless. She was a fighter and a strong woman. She had endured enough emotional pain in her life to know she could take the physical pain as well, if she set her mind to it. So she writhed and rolled another inch and felt another piercing stab and fought back the terror trying to consume her.

  She could hear the sound of rushing water, constant and somehow soothing. She had never been so thirsty or so desirous of its cool refreshment. The water became her beacon of hope, and she moved on the floor in its direction. If only she could reach a door, an opening, an access to air and soft earth. She rolled again, this time with more precision, more like a rocking roll, so as not to turn over and end up face-down.

  She thought with determination, Come on sister, let’s rock and roll. That’s my era. I was a rock and roll baby, a rebel at heart. Her mantra changed from mind-over-matter to R-E-S-P-E-C-T. She could not speak but made her thoughts sing like Aretha as she moved another inch.

  Richard Sherwood would have been frantic if not for Penelope. The final days of his film were beset with calamity; a murdered extra, a missing casting director, his entire film company under scrutiny, possibly one of them a killer, and the chief of police on his way to question them all again.

  How could it be that in the midst of disaster, he felt calm and steady? The answer sat in a chair on the other side of the small portable table. She’d made him a light lunch perfectly suited for his digestion and was insisting he eat it. Members of the cast and crew were attempting to stay busy, interacting with each other, sharing their concerns about Joyce, waiting for this day to come to an end.

  Protected by the canopy under which they sat, Pen had soothed and reassured him that all would work out because Jeff Farley was on the case. She expressed confidence his film would be a masterpiece even if there were no more retakes, that he was only doing them as a result of too much thinking. She reminded him of how pleased he had been with those scenes and how minor the flaws were he wanted to perfect. She talked about how great artists often allowed for flaws, how the master carpet weavers of India left a flaw in each rug on purpose, some having taken a lifetime to create.

  Pen’s voice was hypnotic; the more he listened the calmer he felt. He began to feel sleepy, and then she told him she’d spoken to her sister, who had a message for him in the form of one warning, and one request.

  He waited to hear what Mamma Phoebe had said as if waiting for a truth he must believe and an order he must obey.

  Pen continued, “My sister said you must heed her warning about the great pretenders. The greatest one near you might take another great one from you. Do not allow anyone to form into groups.”

  Sherwood sat up straight in his chair and replied, “What does she mean? Is she talking about the here and now? How can I separate everyone? There are others back at the lodge. When she says ‘great’ is she talking about my stars? That is preposterous, Pen? Isn’t it?”

  Pen replied, “She said you would know how when the time comes.”

  “What is her request? Maybe that will help me understand.”

  “She requests that you protect Chief Farley. She’s very fond of him, Richard.”

  “Protect Chief Farley! How am I supposed to protect him? He is the last person around here who needs protection.”

  “She said you will know what to do when the time comes. You should feel flattered, Richard. She rarely makes such requests.”

  “Do you think she’s testing me?”

  “My sister is a very wise woman. If it is a test, Richard, it would be for your benefit, not hers.”

  He wondered what his chances would be with Pen if he failed. Before he could reply, one of the cameramen called to him. Chief Farley had arrived with a deputy and two others, one of whom was his screenwriter. He could see them approaching and rose from the table. His attention centered on Farley, who was several inches taller than the others. His demeanor had changed since morning. For the first time since they’d met, Sherwood felt a sense of awe in his presence. Farley had been no laid back mountain boy who happened to end up a small town police chief. This was a man who had seen the world and understood the primitive nature of man.

  He murmured to himself, “How am I supposed to protect him?”

  There were in all thirty-four people on the set besides Sherwood, Miss Pen, and Steven. The camera and lighting crew were a close knit group made up of ten men and two women. There was one make-up artist and two wardrobe attendants, a set designer with two attendants, a ten-man equipment crew, and six actors on the set. Farley ordered they be sectioned into groups for questioning. Sherwood had an immediate reaction.

  “Chief Fa
rley, if you don’t mind, I’d like to suggest that we separate the groups because they tend to act as one in this type of situation and look to each other for answers. They are all worried about Joyce, but also feel uneasy about her disappearance.”

  Farley replied, “Go ahead and arrange them how you like and I’ll start questioning them one at a time in private. Deputy Purdy will do the same with the crew. I’d like you to assist Purdy if you will. You know your people, and as you said, understand the best way to illicit information from them. But I need answers without delay and you must emphasize to everyone that Joyce Crenshaw’s life is at stake. Dev will assist me and I’d like Miss Pen to be there as well, now that I see she is here.”

  “Now wait a minute, Chief. I don’t want her put in any danger.”

  Pen had been quietly listening, still seated at the table. “I want to help, Richard, particularly when Miss Megan is questioned. I’ve sensed that she’s been frightened of something or someone. I might be able to put her at ease.”

  Sherwood felt like he’d lost control of his set, his film, his company, and Miss Pen. Plus he had orders from Mamma Phoebe. He sighed with frustration, and then remembered, “You will know what to do and when,” she had said.

  So he nodded his head and turned to follow Deputy Purdy, then realized, he’d been helping by giving advice and protecting by giving him control.

  The six actors present were costars Megan, Buddy, Brett Dillon, Martin Trainer, and Bill Foster, and bootlegger, Jack Dawson.

  Farley chose the table where Sherwood and Pen had been seated to begin questioning the cast.

  He started with Jack Dawson, who squirmed in his seat and said, “I don’t know anything, Chief. I knew there was something wrong with that Tanner guy, but we’ve been so busy, who has time to pay attention to some extra who thinks he has a chance in the movies. I figured that was why he was always sneaking around.”