Well! When she got home she’d ask her neighbors, Roger and Shirley Booth, what on earth a gowerow was. Must be some folk tale character. This was, after all, deep in the Ozarks where such tales were born.
Roger and Shirley would know. Their families had been in the Ozarks for more than a hundred and fifty years.
But... a child? Why had this total stranger mentioned a child? It hadn’t sounded like a joke. Carrie shook her head to dislodge the eerie memory. The woman must be what Shirley called “tetched in the head.”
When Carrie reached the clearing, she saw that people were beginning to come out of the cabins, and they were dressed for dinner. She’d better hurry if she was going to catch up.
Chapter II
Only a few stragglers were still finding seats when Carrie arrived at the convention dining area, and she was glad she’d worn her blue dress instead of the stand-out red.
She slid between tables and was dropping into a single vacant chair near the back when she heard her name.
Oh, bother! There was Beth at a front table, waving an arm and pointing to the empty seat next to her.
Nothing to do but smile and walk past the seated diners to the front of the room. Maybe the ones who didn’t know her would think she was some late-arriving dignitary, though she knew quite well she didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a dignitary.
Beth was whispering frantically before Carrie’s behind hit the chair bottom.
“Carrie, Chase and Tracy haven’t shown up yet! We’ve called his mother’s number and no one answered, and that was ages ago! They were supposed to be here early to rehearse.”
She pointed to four vacant chairs at the head table. “And,” she finished, stating the obvious, “they weren’t. The director asked if I could find out what happened and says if they aren’t here soon we’ll have to begin without them. I hate sitting here doing nothing but worrying, but I’m supposed to stay with the men from the auto club.”
Carrie looked at the two empty chairs across the table and turned back to Beth, who whispered, “Well, I can’t exactly go with them to the men’s room, now can I? Come on, think of something! They’ll be back any minute.”
“Where does the mother live?” Carrie asked. “Is it very far from here?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Beth said, shaking her bottle-blond curls, “but I remember hearing that the Masons lived out in the country. Do you suppose you could notify someone, Folk Center officials, or...”
She paused and glowered toward the man seated at the center of the head table.
“Darn it—excuse me, Carrie—but I’m getting stuck with this. The director came over, said he had the convention dinner to manage, and would I please find someone to check on the Masons since, of course, he didn’t want me to go off and leave the auto club men without their host.”
“It is an honor to be selected as a host,” Carrie said, feeling a twinge of jealousy, even though she knew she’d have hated the assignment.
“Well, maybe, but I feel more like their chaperone if you want to know. Last night they listened to musicians on the square downtown until all hours. They kept singing along like they knew what they were doing, and neither of them can carry a tune in a basket. I could have died of embarrassment. Oh, look, there they come, talking their way across the room as usual. Quick, Carrie, what can we do?”
A tingle of excitement was already beginning to bounce along Carrie’s backbone. Here was a challenge, a mystery. She thought back to JoAnne and Amos’ deaths and how she...well, she and Henry...had discovered who killed them. There had been danger and some really awful moments, though to be honest, she’d brought those on by just being stupid. It would never happen again.
The mystery that delayed the Masons would probably turn out to be nothing more than a flat tire, but at least she might have a chance to meet them and tell Henry what they were really like.
Oh, phooey, Henry should be here. She pictured her large, comfortable room and its two beds.
“Carrie, why on earth are you smiling now?” Beth asked, looking grumpy. “This is serious, aren’t you paying attention?”
“Of course I am.” Carrie thought for a moment longer, then whispered, “I’ll go see what I can find out, but be sure they leave food for me. I don’t want to miss dinner. Are there speeches?”
“The director, and you know he’s good for at least twenty minutes. There’ll be an invocation and comments by the head of the Folk Center. You have about forty minutes.”
Carrie had already spotted baskets of cornbread and plates of butter along the center of the table, as well as bowls of Peach and Apple Chunky. She reached for a piece of corn bread, buttered it, plopped on a generous amount of Peach Chunky, and, realizing it was going to drip, wrapped the sticky mass in her napkin. Pushing the napkin in her purse, she smiled sweetly at a woman who was staring at her, then got up and left the room.
She stopped at the cash register in the public dining room and asked the hostess if anyone there knew Aunt Brigid Mason, Chase, or Tracy.
“Goodness, I don’t,” said the hostess, who looked about sixteen in her long calico dress and ruffled pinafore, “except I’ve seen them perform. Haven’t they come yet? Some other lady was looking for them a bit ago.”
“No, they haven’t,” Carrie said, “and I wondered if anyone around here knew them well enough, friends or something, who might help us locate them.”
“Well,” the girl said, “Farel Teal, Tracy’s cousin, works over at the auditorium sometimes. He’s in charge of organizing the evening performances, and they’re rehearsing tonight. Try there.”
Carrie thanked the girl and hurried out, hoping she could find her way to the back of the auditorium through the administration-classroom building and the fenced craft village behind it. If everything there was locked, there would be no access to the auditorium from the top of the ridge. She’d have to walk all the way down the hill and back up on the other side—in her dressy blue shoes.
She did the best she could when she bought dress shoes, and these heels were only an inch high, but her toes still felt pinched. More than once she’d wanted to ask a shoe manufacturer why anyone might think normal toes would fit comfortably in what they were offering. And—also more than once—she’d wondered what would happen if she wore lace-up walking shoes to a fancy occasion.
As Carrie hurried across the loop driveway, she wished she’d started her shoe revolution tonight.
But thank goodness, the door of the administration building was unlocked. Someone must be working late, maybe a cleaning crew getting ready for the spring opening.
A few dim lights were on, but she didn’t see anyone as she hurried down the hallway past the open doors of the small auditorium, classrooms, and offices. The click of her heels echoed in the dark building, and, in spite of squished toes, she began to tiptoe. The furtive action brought back an image of the woman who had moved so silently through the forest.
“The gowerow has taken the child.”
Surely the strange woman was only a harmless local character, but her message was so weird.
At last Carrie reached the back door of the building. It wasn’t locked either. She shoved the heavy door open and peered out. The craft village looked deserted, and the buildings were just one-dimensional humps against glaring security lights on the back of the main auditorium, but there was enough light to see the concrete walkway.
Now, before she left the building... She took the napkin out of her purse and was chewing sticky, peach-soaked cornbread as she slipped through the heavy door and let it click shut.
The hexagonal craft huts huddled close to the walk on either side of her, but their blank fronts made them all anonymous. They offered no hint of the rich displays of the potter, ironworker, weaver, and other inheritors of the Ozarks’ traditional self-sufficiency that would be showing their skills when the area opened to the public.
The dark patches of the Heritage Herb Garden spread down the hill in rais
ed beds on her left, and Carrie spent a moment wondering what mysteries might be unveiled there during the coming weekend. She looked forward to learning more about the preparation and use of traditional herbs grown here.
She came to a final turn in the walk just as she was finishing the last bite of cornbread and wiping peach syrup off her fingers. She could see the stage door at the back of the auditorium and the dark shape of the outdoor stage next to it.
The glow of a cigarette came and went. Someone was standing in the shadows at the edge of the outdoor stage, smoking. Probably one of the performers. Smoking wasn’t allowed inside. At least that meant the back door would be unlocked.
Ignoring the person with the cigarette, she walked up the ramp and pulled on the stage door. It didn’t open. She tugged again, rattling the door, then knocked on the metal with her fist.
“Kin I he’p you?” a male voice said from behind her.
She jumped at the sound. She’d been concentrating on the closed door. “Well, yes, I’m looking for Farel Teal.”
“Ain’t here. Who’s askin’?”
“I am,” Carrie said stiffly. “And who are you?”
The cigarette was pinched out, and a man walked toward her out of the shadows.
As he came into the light over the stage door, she saw that he was probably about her age, in his sixties, and his face had the weathered look of a man who spends most of his time outdoors.
“Name’s Ben. I work here, backstage. T’aint nothin’ around here I don’t know about, and I kin tell you Farel Teal won’t come rushin’ through the door ’til the last minute. He’s not one fer doin’ anythin’ extra, and comin’ in early is too much extra fer him.”
Ben stopped and glared into her face, which was easy, since his stooped form was only a few inches taller than her own five feet two, and he now stood less than three feet in front of her. She could smell the stale tobacco on his breath.
“So I’m askin’ agin,” he said, “who’s lookin’ fer Farel Teal?”
“How do you do, Ben?” She extended her hand toward him. “I’m Carrie, and I’m lookin’...looking for Farel Teal because his cousin Tracy and her husband, mother-in-law, and daughter are needed over in the dining room. They’re performing at a banquet there tonight and were supposed to arrive some time ago, but no one has seen them. I thought Mr. Teal might know where they are.”
Ben didn’t seem to see her extended hand. He snorted, spraying moisture, and Carrie jerked backwards.
The man didn’t act like he noticed that either. “Chase ’n’ Tracy ’n’ Aunt Brigid are around here somewheres. I seen ’em earlier, but like I said, Farel ain’t. They was lookin’ fer him too. I told ’em what I’m tellin’ you, Farel ain’t here.
“’N’ you’re sniffin’ the wrong trail ’bout Farel knowin’ where his cousin is all the time. Tracy and him may have growed up playin’ together like two pigs in a pen, but there’s been no playin’ and no love lost neither since she married Mason.
“He’s a bad ’un,” Ben concluded, dropping his voice to a raspy gurgle.
“Oh,” Carrie said, wondering which of the two men, Chase Mason or Farel Teal, was supposed to be bad. Her backbone was tingling again, but she didn’t have time to ask this odd little man about who was bad and who wasn’t.
“Well, Ben, I just know I’m supposed to find the performers for the Department of Parks and Tourism banquet, and,” she looked at her watch, “I have twenty minutes to do it. Did you say you’d seen the Masons?”
“Yup, ’bout fifteen minutes ago. Don’t know where they was headed after they left the auditorium though. They seemed mighty anxious to find Farel themselves. He’s peculiar popular all of a sudden.”
He fell silent but looked thoughtful, and Carrie wondered if he was deciding to tell her something that might help.
She waited, shifting her weight back and forth to relieve her complaining toes.
But, after a pause, the man just repeated, “Sorry, can’t he’p you,” and turned away, taking a key from his vest pocket. He unlocked the auditorium door and, without looking at her again, slipped inside. The door shut firmly behind him.
Well, then, that was that. Maybe the Masons had gone to the dining room some other way. She hoped so, because she had no idea what to do next.
Carrie retraced her path through the craft area toward the back door of the administration building. She’d started to pull the door open when a shouted “no” came through the small crack. What on earth? Was someone saying she couldn’t come through this building now?
She was about to open the door farther to see who had shouted at her, but the hidden voice went on, obviously not speaking to her at all.
She stopped where she was, trying to decide what to do next, holding the heavy door open just enough so she could hear what was being said. If it was a private conversation, maybe she should knock or say hello before she went in.
A woman was talking. She wasn’t crying, but Carrie could hear tears behind her words.
“No! He won’t hurt her, Chase.” A pause. “He loves her! I know him, and if we raise a fuss it’ll only make things worse. He’ll get stubborn and up the ante. Don’t you see, if we just pay, he’ll bring her right back. All he really wants is money. He’d never harm Dulcey.”
A man’s voice now, shaking, furious. “Oh, sure you know him, Tracy, you know him all right. But how do you know he’s not on drugs? Does he still drink too much? And Dulcey is supposed to perform with us tonight. How’re we gonna explain her being gone? I’m heading for his house right this minute. Y’all can go ahead and start the program without me. It’s pretty obvious you don’t give a...”
“No.”
The woman screamed the word.
A lower, older woman’s voice broke in, spreading like molasses over the echoing “No.”
“Well, son, you know these folks are paying you to perform, so that’s exactly what you’re goin’ to do. You’ll fulfill your contract. Besides, Tracy’s right, Farel’ll be good to Dulcey, ’n’ she’s always enjoyed being with him.”
Silence. Carrie shoved her knee against the crack in the door to help hold its weight. If she let the door shut now, they’d notice the click.
The male voice came again, and this time it was almost a whine. “Well, is this what you want us to do? You want us to sit and smile at the audience and say, ‘Sorry, our daughter’s been kidnapped by her mother’s crook of a cousin and he wants a huge sum of money, so that’s why our little star, Dulcey Mason, isn’t with us tonight. We’re so sorry.’ Trace, you know he hates me. And it was your fault for letting her go out in Momma’s yard alone. Anyone could have kidnapped her.”
“Chase, Chase.” It was the younger woman’s voice, still sounding of tears...pleading. “It isn’t really like kidnapping, and what else can we do? Farel’s good with Dulcey; you know she’s safe. Let’s just pay him and get it over with. It’s not that much money, not for us now. All we have to do is pay and he’ll bring her back. He’s desperate to have money to start over with. I told you, but you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t loan him the money, and that’s why he did this.”
“Oh-h-h no, Trace, you can’t fly that rooster in my coop! And, if ol’ cousin Farel is so great, why’s he want to leave the state in such a hurry anyway? Why the threats? On the phone he said if we didn’t pay the ransom he’d take Dulcey far away. That sounds like a threat to me.”
“He didn’t mean it. For heaven’s sake, Chase, go ahead and pay him. We don’t want any police or publicity. You know that wouldn’t be good for us, so what else is there to do?”
“Of course you’re taking the side of your scummy relatives.”
There was a gasp, then the older woman’s voice.
“Now, now, son, there’s no call for that. Of course it’s worrisome, but we have a show to do and we’re gonna do it. Let’s go, we’re mighty late already. We’ll say Dulcey has a cold and we had to find a sitter. Come on. I don’t see what else to do fer now.
Besides, I bet Dulcey’s having fun with Uncle Farel. She’s purty independent, ’n’ used to bein’ with other folks when you two’s out on the road.”
Carrie heard movement and the scrape of a chair. She pulled back hurriedly, letting the door click shut, then opened it wide and stepped into the hall, releasing the door so it would slam behind her.
There was light coming from the room on the right. A man looked out. Chase Mason. She recognized him, of course.
“Well, h-hello there,” Carrie said, thinking her voice sounded much too loud in the empty building. She swallowed, wondering if her halting words would give her away as an eavesdropper. But then, they were probably used to people being overwhelmed by their fame and would think that’s what was causing her discomfort. She cleared her throat, spread her lips in a smile, and continued more steadily, “I’m your escort. The convention banquet is about to start. Shall we go eat?”
Chapter III
Silence.
For a moment, Chase Mason stared at Carrie as if she were some threatening being that had suddenly materialized out of the air. Then his look of suspicion faded, his head jerked in a nod, and he turned back to the lighted room. Following him, Carrie saw that all three performers were picking up instrument cases, but still, no one said even a small “hello.”
Well, somebody should say something!
“I’m Carrie McCrite, and I work for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. I’m your escort this evening—I guess I said that, didn’t I? We’re so glad you’re going to play for us tonight. It’s quite an honor.”
She knew she must seem like a babbling fool, but why wouldn’t they say anything?
Finally Aunt Brigid Mason spoke, sounding as if she had just awakened and remembered what was expected in moments like this. “Pleased to meet you, Miz McCrite.”
“Ah, uh, we’re certainly looking forward to hearing you play.”
Silence.
Carrie tried again. “Isn’t Dulcey going to be here?”
Music to Die For Page 2