Footprints in the Snow
by Stephen L. Moss
We are delighted to welcome author Stephen L. Moss to Omnimystery News today.
Stephen's third mystery to feature musician Paul Kingston is Footprints in the Snow (Northside Press; December 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce to you it with an excerpt, the first two chapters.
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I WATCHED TERRY'S FINGERS FLY across the fretboard of his dented Martin guitar while a blizzard swirled outside, rattling the old windows of my second-floor apartment. The warmth and richness of the Martin's tone did battle with the frigid draft of a Wisconsin winter that had already seemed to go on forever.
It was January, a time when the brilliant colors of autumn are little more than a faded memory, and the green of spring seems like a myth that will never come to pass. For musicians, January is a dry season, a dark tunnel between the frenzy of the holidays and the liveliness of spring, with its weddings, outdoor parties, and all-around optimism. January is a time to have too much time on your hands and not enough money in your bank account. I was grateful my old friend had stopped by, guitar case in hand, looking for someone to jam with. It meant a day that I wouldn't be looking in the mirror, wondering what I was doing with my life, or staring at the balance in my checking account, wondering where all the gravy from a busy Christmas season had gone.
Maybe it's cliché, but watching Terry's fingers fly, I half expected to see smoke rising. He sat, Buddha-like, on the sofa in my living room, his eyes closed, his body undulating with the syncopations of his playing. The tune was "Black Mountain Rag," an old-time fiddle tune that was a signature number for the great Doc Watson. I could hear Doc's grin in Terry's playing, but underneath it there was a weariness, a bluesy, careworn moan that picked at the fragile edges of my soul. Thinking back, in light of all that happened next, I wonder if death announces itself in advance, if only we are keen enough — or crazy enough — to notice.
I accompanied him on my upright bass, slapping the strings in a steady four-four beat, matching his drive. A slight change in Terry's rhythm alerted me that he was going to end the tune. After a light-speed lick high on the guitar's neck, he finished with a growling, syncopated riff on the low strings. We finished together, the ringing notes of our final chord seeming to sizzle in the air.
"All right!" Terry said with a smile. "You've really gotten the hang of that thing."
"Thanks!" I was pleased to hear it. I had only recently picked up the upright bass again after leaving it for the electric bass back in college. A broken ankle the previous autumn had forced me to cut back on work for a while, and I'd filled the time by working up my chops on the upright.
Terry shifted his weight back into the sofa. He looked like he was ready to chat rather than play another tune.
"Want a beer?" I asked him.
"No thanks, Paul."
"Something stronger? I think I've got a bottle of whiskey around here somewhere."
"Uh, no thanks. I quit drinking."
"Oh, got it. Sorry."
He laughed. "Don't be. Beer and whiskey never tempted me much anyway. It was usually
Bacardi or nothing with me."
"How about a sparkling water?"
"That would be great, buddy. Thanks."
I leaned my bass against the wall and headed back toward the kitchen.
Opening the fridge, I grabbed a can of LaCroix for Terry and looked longingly at the sixpack of Ranger IPA I had just brought home. I took another can of water instead.
My name is Paul Kingston. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and play with a bunch of bands around town. Mostly rock and country, wedding stuff, though I'll play any style someone's willing to pay to hear. I'm first call for most of the touring musicals that come through as well, since I can sight-read music a lot better than many of my peers.
My guest was Terry Ames. He'd come up playing bluegrass with his family's band before going electric and switching to country music. He'd made quite a name for himself in Nashville, getting a spot on the fabled A-list of Nashville studio musicians and doing touring work with Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood, among others. I hadn't seen him in a couple of years, since I'd done some local subbing on one of the Chesney tours.
Returning to the living room, I handed him his can of LaCroix and opened my own. I saw that he'd set his guitar on the floor, its neck leaning against the sofa. I sat down in my battered recliner and raised my can of water in salute.
"I didn't mean to stop you from getting a beer for yourself," Terry said. "I've been sober almost a year now."
"I don't remember you as a heavy drinker," I said.
"I don't guess I was, last time we saw each other. But it got pretty bad later on." He took a long sip of his water. "I'm an alcoholic. It took a long time to admit it, but you can only hide from the truth for so long. I just wish I'd gotten some help sooner, before — "
His eyes took on a faraway look. I waited. After a while, he seemed to focus on me again.
"Sorry, Paul. I didn't mean to barge in and get all heavy on you."
"No sweat. But you're going to drive me nuts if you don't finish your sentence. Before what?"
He sighed. "You remember Angie, right?"
"Of course. How is she?" Angie was Terry's wife. I'd worked with her in a band called Down Home Fusion. Later, she had joined the Ames Family Bluegrass Band as a vocalist and then become a member of the family itself when she married Terry.
"Well, she died last year."
"My God, Terry. I'm sorry! I had no idea."
I waited for him to go on, to tell me what had happened. But he didn't. For a long moment, he seemed lost in a memory. I noticed that he'd aged since we'd seen each other, but it was more than the passing years that hung on his troubled face.
He seemed to shake himself awake. "I'm sorry, man. This isn't going the way I planned."
"Nothing to be sorry about, Terry."
"Things were bad with me for a year or so before it happened," he went on. "I was so drunk most of the time I can't remember a lot of that time. I took Angie for granted. I don't know how she put up with me." He shook his head sadly. "And then she was dead, just like that. And I realized I'd wasted our last year together." He tried to blink back a tear, then, and wiped the corner of his eye with a knuckle.
"Anyway, I never took another drink since the day she died. Swore I'd never lose another day of my life to the fog. It seemed like the only way to cope with losing her. You know what I mean?"
"Sure." We were quiet for a while. I pulled up Angie's face in my mind. She had been pleasant, intelligent, deeply devoted to Terry. Now, her death hung on the air like an unwelcome guest.
"You two were working together again?" I asked, suddenly dreading the silence in the room.
"I thought Angie stuck with the Ames Family Band when you — "
"When I 'went country' as my daddy puts it?" Terry said with a half smile. "Yeah, she stayed with them. And for the past year and two months I've been playing with the band again, too. That's what I came here to talk about. I just didn't mean to start off with the Angie part."
He straightened, took a drink of his water. Some of the darkness faded from his face. Then he smiled ruefully.
"I guess there's no way to tell this without more bad news, so I'll just keep it rolling. My mama's ill. They've got her in Froedert Hospital, right here in Milwaukee. It's some kind of blood disease. Supposedly the biggest expert in the field is there, so we brought Mama up from Kentucky to get treated there."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Are they going to be able to help her? How's your father doing?"
Terry's father, Wilson Ames, was the Ames Family Band's lead singer and fiddler.
"Well, Daddy's holding up okay. He's working nonstop, even though he should be retiring. He's seventy-five this year. We've been on the road for much of the past year and a half, trying to keep ahead of the medical bills. Mama's on Medicare, but that doesn't cover everything, not even close."
He paused a moment, staring at his can of sparkling water. I looked at my own, wishing it was something stronger than LaCroix.
"Our whole family is based up here right now, out in Brookfield. That way we can see her when we come off the road." He took a sip of his drink and took a breath. I waited for him to go on.
"Anyway, we've got a series of short tours scheduled for the next few weeks. All of them are within a day's drive of here. We'll be doing Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Any chance you'd be available to come along?"
"What about Elmer? Doesn't he still play bass with the Ames Family Band?"
Terry nodded. "He does, but he's getting on in years. He's decided he won't go north of the
Mason-Dixon Line in the winter." Terry glanced out the window. Snow swirled in a squall of wind.
"Can't say as I blame him. I don't know how you stand living up here year after year."
"You get used to it," I said.
"If you say so. Anyway, I thought I had somebody lined up, guy from down in Fort Wayne, but now he says he's tied up. I heard you were playing the upright now, so here I am. Can you help us out, Paul? My family and I would sure appreciate it."
I ran my calendar through my head, knowing I hardly needed to. My schedule for January and February were nearly dead, same as most years. But there were a few commitments I needed to honor.
Terry saw me thinking. "It's just Thursday through Sunday for the next four weeks," he said.
"Plus a few rehearsals. We hit the road next Thursday."
I had some studio work booked on a commercial jingle, but that was on a Tuesday and Wednesday. Today was a Saturday. I had several days to find subs for the rest of my commitments, and finding subs this time of year should be easy.
"How much can you pay me?"
He told me with a sheepish look on his face. It wasn't much, but it was more than I'd earn sitting around the house. "Bluegrass doesn't pay all that well, especially if you're working for the
Ames family," Terry said.
"I'll do it," I said.
He flashed me a relieved smile that didn't quite erase the tired look in his eyes. "Thanks, man. That's a load off my mind."
We jammed some more before Terry put his coat on and said his good-byes. He jotted down a schedule of rehearsals. The first would be the following Monday afternoon.
"I'll see you then," I said. "Thanks for thinking of me."
"Thanks for saying yes."
I was pretty pleased with myself after Terry left. I'd only been brushing up on my upright-bass playing for a couple of months, and they'd been busy months at that. But I'd gotten good enough to pass an audition and pick up a touring gig. It would be nice to get out on the road for a change, even if it was the dead of winter. And the unexpected chunk of money I'd make would go a long way toward the repairs I needed on my car. It seemed too good to be true.
CHAPTER 2
I headed back to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of Ranger. I popped it open and took a swig by way of celebration. When you work freelance, time off can be scary. You might need the rest, but it's hard to get much rest when you don't know where your next check is coming from. The prospect of a busy winter season was exciting, even if the pay was second rate. I thought of Babe, my blue '72 El Camino. I'd bought her last October when my old Honda Civic was totaled in a wreck. I'm not usually the type to name my possessions, but there was something special about her. Plus, my name is Paul, and she's a big blue ox.
Her driver's side sported three bullet holes from a killer bent on scoring one more victim. A fourth bullet had taken out both the driver's side window and the windshield. I'd replaced those, but the holes still needed filling. On top of that, her transmission was failing. It was one of the older automatics, and from what I'd heard, they'd been balky from the start. It needed an overhaul, and even with the busy time I'd had over Christmas, extra funds for the repairs were not currently residing in my checking account. Now I'd be able to spring for the work she needed.
I took another drink of beer and thought about the rehearsal on Monday. It dawned on me that I had never transported my upright bass before. There was no way it was going to fit in Babe's cab the way my bass guitar and amp did. I didn't even have a case for it. What was I going to do, throw it in the pickup bed and drive around Milwaukee in the middle of January?
I was sure the cost of a good hard-shell case for the upright was going to set me back by a lot. I watched the money for Babe's repairs disappear like the sidewalk under falling snow.
And what good would a case do against theft? I needed a top for my pickup bed. I'd been meaning to buy one, but hadn't needed to. Plus, I didn't want to make Babe look like a camper that had been sat upon by an elephant.
I was going to need to do something, and I was going to need to do it by Monday. I was about to get on the Internet to start looking for used camper shells when I heard a loud burst of audio feedback from downstairs.
I live on the second floor of a duplex I inherited from my aunt. I used to rent the lower apartment out, but I got sick and tired of being a landlord. Lately I'd been letting other musicians stay there for free. The first had been a buddy whose wife had thrown him out. More recently I'd been helping out young bands who needed to keep expenses down while they worked on building their names. My current tenants, in addition to forming the core of a techno-punk band called DIY, were geeks and hackers with a penchant for building things out of other people's junk. Maybe they'd have a suggestion for me and my transportation problem. I pulled open the fridge again, grabbed the rest of the six-pack, and then headed down the front stairs and knocked on the lower apartment door.
My knock was answered by Justin Shogren. He was in his midtwenties and thin, with unruly brown hair that seemed to defy all attempts at styling. He wore several days' worth of beard stubble and thick-rimmed glasses that made him look like Elvis Costello with a bad case of bedhead. He wore a gloomy expression that matched the weather outside.
"Oh, hey, Paul. What's up?"
I held up the beer I was carrying. "Just felt like sharing."
His face brightened a shade, but he didn't smile. "Come in." He stepped back to let me walk through the door into a cluttered living room. On a sagging sofa covered with moving blankets sat Dale Streetor, the other half of DIY. He was heavyset and pale, with curly hair over eyes that were dark and watchful. If anything, his face was glummer than Justin's. In the corner, a TV played a rerun of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Dale picked up a remote, paused the show, and straightened up in his seat.
"Hey, Paul."
I handed bottles of beer to Justin and Dale and took one for myself. I opened mine with a church key I keep on my key ring and passed that around too. I looked around the room. Graphic novels and empty Chinese food containers competed for space on the battered coffee table. Microphones on stands and a mixing board stood watch in the corner opposite the TV. The floor was strewn with more books, old flyers advertising DIY shows, and bits and bobs of electrical wire and electronic components. A cheap Casio keyboard leaned against the fireplace, its guts hanging out.
"Building anything these days?" I asked. Normally the living room was taken up by the pair's latest hacking project. Recently they'd built a speaker out of a refrigerator and a couple of pedalpowered PA systems. I couldn't see much evidence of activity now.
Dale shook his head. "We're kind of between projects right now." He took a sip of his beer and stared at the frozen image of Buffy and Angel on the TV screen.
"Is something wrong? You guys look like Captain America just died."
"I don't know," Justin said. "Just feeling kinda crappy."
"Like, burned out," Dale said.
I waited.
Justin took another swig of beer and sighed. "It just seems like we work our butts off and we aren't really making headway."
"Yeah," Dale said. "With the band, you know?"
"Really? I thought you guys were really starting to get somewhere." Since the previous fall,
DIY's bookings had been way up. They'd even played some gigs in Madison and Chicago.
"We're doing okay that way," Justin said. "I mean, the fan base is growing. People are starting to take us seriously. We've even got label people and booking agents starting to call. It's just that … "
He paused. I waited again.
"It's like this," Dale said. "We got totally psyched when we started getting attention. People started noticing what we were doing, telling us how great we were. We thought 'hey, cool, I guess we've got it going on after all.'"
"We got inspired by that," Justin continued, as if he and Dale had memorized the same speech. "We started writing songs like crazy. Different stuff. Kind of more experimental, but we really grooved on them."
"But the fans don't like most of them," Dale said. "We play something new and we barely get any applause. A couple of girls even booed us the other night." He took another drink of beer and slumped on the sofa. Justin sat down next to him. Taking their cue, I dropped into the director's chair that constituted their guest accommodations. The two kept talking, finishing each other's sentences.
"But if we play one of our older songs — "
" — which we're totally bored with — "
" — then they're like all clapping and hooting."
"It's like they think they can tell us what to sing."
"Well," I said, "they are the customers. They're paying the cover charge, buying downloads of your songs. Shouldn't they have a say?"
"People are starting to put us in a box," Dale said. "It's like now that people know who we are, we have to like, do the same thing all the time or folks will get pissed off."
"Having a fan base to worry about is a good problem to have," I said.
"Sure," Justin said, "but back when no one knew who we were, we had a lot more freedom. Now, every time we think of something we might want to build, we start second-guessing ourselves, wondering if the fans will boo it."
"We're like, creatively bankrupt, you know?" Dale said.
I nodded. I could understand how they felt, but it was hard to muster up a lot of sympathy. To me, if the folks are yelling for "Freebird," you play "Freebird." I'm kind of a hack that way. But if I was writing my own stuff, I'd probably feel differently.
"Well," I said, "I could use your help on a project." I explained my need to carry my bass around and Babe's lack of weatherproof space. They both brightened up immediately.
"We could build something for you, no sweat."
"We've got some plywood left over."
"And roofing shingles. Hey, what about — "
"Passive solar?"
"Totally! And temperature control."
"Whoa, guys," I said. "Maybe something simpler. I kind of need it done by Monday."
They paused in their brainstorming and looked at me dumbfounded.
"Monday?" Dale said. He looked crestfallen.
"Yeah. I've got a rehearsal Monday. Sorry to lay this on you at the list minute. Just found out myself."
"No sweat," Justin said. "We'll figure something out. Leave it to us."
"I'll get some paper," Dale said. He turned to walk to the back of the apartment.
"Thanks for the beer," Justin said. He grabbed the rest of the six-pack and followed Dale, leaving me with the curious feeling that I'd just been dismissed.
"Bye," I said to no one in particular.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Stephen L. Moss
Stephen L. Moss writes mystery, science fiction, and fantasy stories. His short works have been published in Shimmer and Highlights for Children. He lives with his family in Indiana.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at StephenLMoss.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Twitter.
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Footprints in the Snow
Stephen L. Moss
A Paul Kingston, Music Mystery
For bassist Paul Kingston, there's nothing like going on tour to liven up the crawling pace of a long winter. He gladly takes a gig traveling the Midwest with the Ames Family Bluegrass Band. But when Terry Ames, the band's guitarist, is found dead after a fall from high in the stage rigging, things start to get strange. Was it suicide, a drunken accident, or something more sinister?
Things get worse when a mysterious attacker shoots at Orville, the mandolinist, and Lizzie, the young banjo virtuoso, goes missing. Did she run away or was she kidnapped? Is someone stalking the band? What's going to go wrong next?
