Page 51 of Veil of Silence

Roscoe beamed. “You still singing, sweetheart?”

“No, I’m not.” She hadn’t really sung since Christian disappeared. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.

He shook his head. “That’s tragic. You sounded like an angel. And your mother always said you had the best ear of the trio.”

Nora tilted her head. “She told all three of us that.”

“Smart woman.” Roscoe motioned toward the hallway. “Come on back. Let’s talk.”

They followed him into a surprisingly polished studio lined with acoustic panels. An old upright piano stood against one wall, and a soundboard filled most of another.

Roscoe dropped into a rolling chair and waved them toward a sofa. Nora sat at one end while Austin took the other, leaning forward with his forearms braced on his knees.

“So.” Roscoe rested his mug against his stomach. “You’re here about Jeff Donnelly.”

“I heard you spoke with him Tuesday,” Austin said.

“Sure did. Nice guy. Persistent.” Roscoe’s eyebrows lifted. “He wanted to know about some old touring groups. The Renshaws. The Loveless Sisters. The Daltons.”

The Daltons.

Nora hadn’t heard that name in years. They’d been another family group, out of Mississippi if she remembered correctly. Their oldest son had supposedly run away.

“Why those groups?” Austin asked.

“Because somebody kept paying their expenses.” Roscoe looked at Nora. “Your family received higher guarantees sometimes, didn’t you? Hotel rooms covered without anybody admitting who paid?”

Nora nodded. “My father thought Roy might have been taking kickbacks.”

“That’s what everybody assumed.” Roscoe rolled toward a cabinet and pulled open the bottom drawer. “But your dad had it wrong.”

That matched what Nora’s father remembered Roy trying to tell him.

But what exactly did that mean?

Chapter

Eighteen

Austin leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

Roscoe removed a thick three-ring binder and dropped it onto the table. Yellowed calendars filled the plastic sleeves, each one crowded with handwritten dates, venues, and notes.

“Jeff asked me the same thing.” Roscoe opened the binder. “So I told him about this.”

He flipped to a calendar from the year before Christian disappeared and pointed to several entries marked COMP.

“One of those dates belonged to your family,” he said. “Another to the Renshaws. Another to the Daltons.”

“What does COMP mean?” Austin asked.

“Complimentary. Somebody else covered enough of the expenses that the promoter could offer the group more money.”

Roscoe turned another page. More COMP notations appeared beside the same names.

Nora studied the locations. “These are all in the same part of Tennessee.”

“Exactly.” Roscoe tapped two dates several days apart. “Look here. Thursday night near Knoxville. Saturday night outside Crossville. Both paid better than usual.”