Music to Die For

by Radine Trees Nehring

  Over Tracy’s words, Carrie asked, “Where does

  Farel live? Can we get in his house without breaking in?”

  Tracy’s head bounced up, her eyes wild, too bright. “Dulcey will be there. We’ll find her! He lives alone, but I know where he hides his house key. It’ll be easy to get in.”

  “We won’t call the sheriff,” Chase repeated as if he hadn’t heard them. “You saw the note. And what about the news getting out?” His voice shook. “We’re news, oh, my Lord, are we news!”

  He looked down at his wife, then at Carrie. “We gotta find Dulcey quick. First thing we do is go to Farel’s house.” He said this as if it were something he’d just thought of.

  Eyes really can blaze with passion, Carrie thought as she watched him. His eyes were reflecting sparks from the candlelight.

  “Yes, we’ll go there,” she said as Tracy finally twisted free of her husband’s slackened hold and dropped to the floor, rocking slightly on her feet. Carrie noticed that Chase had moved quickly to wrap controlling fingers in the fabric of his wife’s full skirt.

  “But I am reporting Farel’s murder,” she said. “I’ll call 911 from a phone in the auditorium. I won’t say anything about the kidnapping yet. If we leave now we’ll have time to check Farel’s house and see if Dulcey might be there alone, or with someone you know. The sheriff won’t come until after he’s dealt with this.

  “But, if strangers are at Farel’s, we can’t approach the house without help. We’ll just stay hidden and keep watch until help comes. We might increase the danger to your daughter if we do anything more—do you understand?”

  Neither of them spoke. She looked at Chase. “Do you have a cell phone?” He nodded. “In the car.” “Good. We can call for help if we need it.” Now Carrie felt an electric energy moving her.

  She said, “I’m staying with you. You need a witness to everything you do from now on. And we must talk. I want to tell you about a woman I saw in the woods...”

  Chapter V

  Tracy turned toward the door but was stopped by the tug of Chase’s fingers on her skirt. A small whimper came from her throat, though she said nothing and froze where she was.

  Chase hadn’t moved at all. He was staring at Farel, his eyes dark and pensive.

  Now they act hypnotized, Carrie thought.

  Her son Rob would be ready to take action. At thirty, Rob often seemed older than his mother, and he was more deliberate about making decisions than she was. But, once he’d decided what to do, he’d beat her out the door.

  Well, neither Rob—nor Henry—was here. She was on her own.

  In comparison with Rob, Tracy seemed so childlike, so unequipped to deal with this tragedy. Perhaps, as a defense against the dreadful circumstances she was facing, her rational mind had shut down.

  And Chase? He was arrogant and self-centered. Carrie found it hard to like him, talented and famous or not. She wondered if he went to church, if he ever prayed. As far as she was concerned, not even worry about Dulcey could be an acceptable excuse for the way he was acting.

  And there was something else wrong here, something more than Dulcey’s abduction. Surely it must be part of her mission to find out what that was...and fix it.

  It’s obvious I’ve got to stick with them. They need me, she thought, bypassing the knowledge that Chase’s own mother was nearby and that both performers, no matter how young, were mature enough to manage successful careers as well as a music theater in Branson.

  She reached out and took hold of Tracy’s hand, squeezing it hard enough to hurt—which at least got Tracy’s attention—and asked, “Where did you find the candlestick? I’ll put it back.”

  Tracy pointed over Carrie’s shoulder and she turned, seeing a small shelf on the back wall. Then she whirled back toward Chase, sensing sudden movement from his direction. Quick as lightning he had bent over Farel’s body and was reaching toward the scissors. He had a handkerchief in his hand.

  Whoa, thought Carrie, he woke up in a hurry! Her sharp command, “Stop,” was meant to startle him, and it did. He froze, his handkerchief-wrapped hand only inches from the scissors.

  “Don’t touch those,” Carrie ordered in the firm tone she had used when disciplining Rob. “Tracy didn’t touch them, nor did I, and if you didn’t...” She let the sentence die while her eyes watched him for any further move.

  As Chase drew his hand back, Carrie said, “Give it to me,” and reached out to take the square of cloth. She was surprised that Chase would think his wife had stabbed Farel, or...but no, he’d been in the auditorium with his mother. Who else besides Tracy might he be trying to protect?

  She wrapped the handkerchief over her hand and rubbed the metal candlestick as if she were doing a thorough dusting. Surely that would take care of Tracy’s fingerprints.

  “Wait for me on the sidewalk,” she said. “I’ll blow this out and follow. As soon as the candle goes out, light a match to show me where you are, and don’t move from that spot.”

  She put the candlestick back on the shelf, blew out the flame, and waited until a match flared outside the door. As she stepped quickly around the dead man, she noticed that shapes and forms were now easy to see in newly unclouded moonlight, though the security lights were still off.

  She started through the door, and then stopped. She’d touched the inside doorknob. Pushing aside the memory of Henry’s instructions about destroying evidence, she polished the knob. Surely the killer hadn’t touched it. If that part of Tracy’s story was true, the door had been open when he ran out.

  She hesitated again, thinking about the light switch. She hadn’t touched it, but Tracy had. Well, forget what Henry would say. Tracy had troubles enough, and besides, any fool could see she hadn’t killed her cousin.

  Carrie rubbed her cloth-covered hand over the light switch, leaving it in the on position. If the killer had left fingerprints there he must have touched lots of other things in the shop too. Henry was still too much a policeman to condone destroying evidence, but if it ever came up, she’d just have to explain about the need to protect Tracy.

  Thoughts of Henry reminded her how much she wished he was here right now.

  Never mind, he wasn’t...wouldn’t be until tomorrow, so for now it was “Carry On Carrie,” just as it had been so many times in years past.

  Nodding to herself, Carrie went out the open door and joined the Masons on the sidewalk. They were a pair of statues, waiting for her to lead the way, though they must be very familiar with every part of the Folk Center grounds. She started to walk along the moonlit path toward the back of the auditorium, talking to them over her shoulder as she went.

  “If anyone asks why I’m with you,” she said, “just tell them I’m your convention hostess.”

  “You don’t need to come with us.” Chase’s tone was sullen.

  Carrie ignored him. “From now until the police get to Farel’s body, you need to be sure someone outside your family can say exactly where both of you were and what you were doing. I’m that outsider. I wasn’t with Tracy every minute, but she obviously isn’t strong enough to have stabbed her cousin when he was facing her. You were with your mother and other people in the auditorium. The problem is, though, how accurately can officials here decide when Farel was killed? How sophisticated is the sheriff’s department or the coroner? Do you have a good medical examiner here? Farel’s body was still warm when I first touched it, so he hadn’t been dead very long. Do they have the ability to tell the time of death within a few minutes, one way or another? I doubt it, so you could need an alibi for a pretty wide time range.”

  She stopped at the stage door and turned to see if they understood the importance of what she was saying. Their faces appeared iridescent in the moonlight—two ghostly skulls with dark eyeholes. Tracy’s lips looked black, and Carrie saw them part several seconds before she heard the moaned, “Ohhh.”

  As the sound faded, Chase said, “Okay, but then we’re all gonna go to Farel’s house. We’ll
keep an eye on you too.”

  Carrie felt a flash of temper and almost opened her mouth to tell Chase she was here because they needed her, not because she was enjoying herself, but she stopped the comment just in time and turned toward the door.

  Chase brushed past her and pulled the door open. As light from inside spilled out, Carrie looked back at Tracy. “Wait a minute,” she said.

  “Tracy dear, spit on this handkerchief. Your eye makeup has dripped into smudges on your cheeks. Let’s get rid of that before we go in.”

  After scrubbing off the marks, Carrie put her arms around Tracy—who looked ready to cry again—and whispered, “There, you’ll do, the cheek rub has put in color. You’re a good actress, so you can smile. You’ll get through this, and we’ll find Dulcey soon.

  “I’ve been thinking about the words of one of your recordings, ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.’ Think ‘He’s got Dulcey in His hands.’ Sing it to yourself now.”

  She patted Tracy’s back, released her, and nodded at Chase. “Okay,” she said.

  Carrie took Tracy’s hand as Chase opened the door, and the three of them stepped into an alcove next to the auditorium stage. There were people everywhere. Bright lights from the front of the stage blinded Carrie temporarily, though she could tell that two adults and two children, probably a family group, were playing and singing in front of the footlights.

  Someone shouted, “Next,” from the darkness of the auditorium seating area, and the four musicians stepped to the back of the stage. They continued playing while a group of cloggers clunked past Carrie and out into the bright lights.

  Neither Chase nor Tracy paid any attention to the activity on stage. Chase grabbed Tracy’s free hand and yanked her, with Carrie hanging on behind, toward a side hallway.

  Almost like a game of crack-the-whip, Carrie thought, suppressing a desire to giggle as they whizzed down the hall and into an oddly shaped room against the side of the round building.

  Several people sat on stools and folding chairs scattered in random disorder around the room. Some were leaning over guitars and other stringed instruments, playing softly to themselves, ignoring everything but their music. One large group sat against the back wall, gathered around Brigid Mason. She was perched on a high stool and seemed to be telling an Ozarks play-party story. As they came into the room she was beginning to growl her lines like a bear.

  Almost everyone in the room looked up as Chase, at the front of the human chain, came to a sudden halt, and Tracy, then Carrie—unable to stop their forward motion in time—banged awkwardly into each other and then into Chase’s back.

  As the three began to untangle themselves, a dry male voice said, “Y’all musta been practicin’ yore entrance fur weeks.”

  Now the room echoed with giggles and hoots of laughter. Chase stared at the floor, and Carrie couldn’t tell whether he was angry or embarrassed.

  As soon as she could be heard over the laughter, Brigid Mason waved and called out, “Be there in a bit.

  I’m just finishin’ my story.” She turned back to the group, and the rising volume of her voice indicated the story was at a crucial point. Once more, she had the full attention of her audience.

  A tall young man sitting near the door put down his guitar and rocked back in his chair, staring at Tracy for a long moment. Then he got up and came toward them, his red checked shirt stretching and pulling around broad shoulders and arms as he moved. He punched Chase hard in the biceps. “I see you found ’er, pretty boy. I knew she hadn’t run off, seeing as how I wasn’t with ’er.”

  Chase flinched, but now the man ignored him. He had turned to look Carrie up and down. “Well, well, did you go and get Tracy a chaperone? Looks like the poor woman’s already been tripped up tryin’ to hang on to your...”—he paused and turned his eyes toward Tracy—“...your wife.”

  He stared at Carrie again. “Got scratches on ’er face and,” he bent his head to look insolently at the back of her skirt, “dirt on some-a the rear view.

  What’d she have to do, Tracy, tackle ya?”

  He leaned his head back and laughed.

  Tracy’s words sounded pinched, almost a squeak. “Shut your mouth, Bobby Lee Logan,” she said. “You make noises about nothing.”

  Bobby Lee seemed not to notice the strain in her voice. “Aw, now, can’t take a joke, Tracy m’love?” he said and winked at Carrie.

  Chase ignored the man and spoke directly to his mother as groans and laughs from her audience signaled the end of the story. “Come on, Momma, we gotta leave, see how Dulcey’s doing.”

  “Well, you sure are frosty,” Bobby Lee said. “Guess fancy man Mason’s too big-time now to even say a word to the likes of us. You agree with that, Tracy?”

  Carrie looked around the room, which had fallen silent. Several of the faces looking at them appeared hostile.

  “Now leave ’em go,” said one of the women from her seat near Aunt Brigid. “Their kid’s sick. Little Dulcey. Leave ’em go.”

  The room was so quiet it might have been empty. Brigid Mason looked at her son and slid quickly to the floor, forgetting the skirt that had been carefully arranged to fall around her on the stool. The fabric was pulled up and over the top of the stool as her feet hit the floor, revealing a red petticoat and a generous expanse of heavy black pantyhose.

  She yanked at the skirt, her mouth held in a firm line, and this time no one laughed. Before she could pick up her fiddle case, Chase had disappeared into the hall, pulling Tracy behind him.

  As she waited for Aunt Brigid, Carrie took a good look at the man called Bobby Lee. She hadn’t been wrong. Bobby Lee looked like a volcano about to erupt.

  Chapter VI

  Chase and Tracy were out of sight by the time the two women reached the stage, but Brigid Mason knew where she was going. She turned behind the stage and headed down a hall bordered by dressing rooms. Though she was hurrying, Chase’s mother could still talk without any problem. It was obvious she had sensed her son’s anxiety and was also aware that Carrie—though a stranger to the family—was somehow linked to the cause of that anxiety.

  “Seems like something’s happened,” she said without preamble. “Is it to do with Dulcey?”

  “Yes, something has happened,” Carrie said as she sidestepped around a boy carrying a tub bass, “but so far as we know, Dulcey’s all right. Because of the...new development, I need to make a phone call. Is there a phone here I can use?”

  “Phone’s in the office down this hall. I’ll show you. What’s happened then?”

  “Chase and Tracy may want to be the ones to tell you about it, but we’re involved in a bigger problem than Dulcey being missing. That’s why I’m here.”

  Brigid looked at her sharply, but she kept walking, full skirt swirling around her ankles. They came to a group of performers, and as if nothing were amiss, Brigid paused to greet them. While Carrie waited in the background she saw Ben Yokum coming out of what looked like a storage room and said, “Hello,” but the man acted as if he didn’t recognize her. Well, maybe he doesn’t, Carrie thought. He’s only seen me once, and the light wasn’t good.

  When they got to the end of the hall, Brigid stopped, opened a door, reached for a light switch, and pointed. “Phone. Now you tell me what’s happened a’fore I go to the car. I won’t let on you told when I see the kids.”

  Carrie looked into the other woman’s eyes for a second, wondering what to say. What was this grandmother feeling? Carrie knew such a kidnapping would worry her to distraction, even if the child she loved was supposed to be with a friendly relative. So, maybe Brigid Mason had a right to know the worst before she went to her children.

  “We don’t know where Dulcey is yet, though I pray she’s all right. Farel Teal, however, is not all right. He’s dead. Tracy found him in the dressmaker’s shop. Stabbed.”

  “Lord almighty,” said Brigid, putting her hand over her heart. “Poor little gal. No wonder Chase acted so bad. So, you goin’ to call She
riff Wylie? How come we’re leavin’?”

  “We’re going to Farel’s house to look for Dulcey. Someone, probably Farel’s killer, left a note that makes it look like he, or at least someone connected, has her now. But there’s also a chance she’s at Farel’s.”

  Carrie saw fear flash into Brigid’s round face. The woman struggled with her emotions for a moment, then asked, “When was Farel kilt?”

  “Don’t know for sure, but he was still warm when I got there. That had to be about 8:30, since your program lasted an hour. Tracy was just ahead of me going through the craft area, and she found him. She says she saw someone in the dressmaker’s shop as she walked past. The lights were out, but she thought it was a man. He ran toward the auditorium as soon as he heard her. I came along soon after and found her sitting on the floor of the shop in quite a state. I stayed with her until Chase came, and then I decided to stay with all of you, to see if I could help, of course, but also because I can give Tracy and all of you an alibi until...”

  Brigid’s sharp question stopped her. “How’d you know? Did you think we’d need an alibi ’cause the killin’ had somethin’ to do with the old feud?”

  “Feud?”

  “You from around here? What did you say your family name was?”

  “Culpeper. I’m Carrie Culpeper McCrite.”

  “Ohhh, Culpepers. Spelt with two p’s and not three?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Ahhhhh...so you’re one of those.” Brigid looked sideways at Carrie, her eyes compressed into slits.

  “But I’m not...” Carrie stopped. Maybe an imagined family relationship here would help people accept her, confide in her. She wondered, though, if the Mountain View Culpepers were considered good people. Brigid sure had a funny look on her face.

  “One can’t pick one’s relatives,” Carrie said, hoping that was the right reply.

  Brigid’s face smoothed. With a nod, she seemed to dismiss the Culpepers as she asked, “What did the note say?”