Mystery on the Bayou

                                                                                        Chapter 20

                                                                               Hiding in Plain Sight

       Everyone sat down in the dinning room at a very long oak table which easily had room for all of the guests.  While they were eating, Deputy Clark said, "Essie, Olivia, I forgot to mention that the schools will be closed until Carl Masters is caught.  Your teachers have set up a web sight where they will send your school work.  Look for it under your school's name."

     The girls didn't seem a bit upset by the idea.  "Also," Deputy Clark continued, "Doogie, Floyd, Pete and Grant, I'm afraid you all are going to be Ron's house guests until Carl Masters is behind bars.  His spies have seen all of you with Ron and Grace and will no doubt, have made your names and descriptions known to their boss.  Carl may have his spies here in town now and it would be disaster to all of us is he or they see you all walking out of this house."

     "Jessie, Carl's spy also saw you with the rest of them at the shack when we captured Grant," Clark looked over at him and smirked, "I know he turned out to be a good guy," Clark said before someone else stood up to defend their friend,  "anyways, the bad guys would recognize both of you too."  "It's not an issue for me Clark," Jessie told him, "I was going to ask Grace and Ron if I could stay."  And we would have said "Yes" Grace and Ron chimed. 

     "I am more than happy to stay too," Grant said. "You know we're glad to have you," Ron assured him.  "And Mrs. Current," Clark started, "You can leave if you want to.  The bad guys don't know who you are." Before Mrs. Current could respond, Clark added, "You ladies from the church who came to help may also leave when you're ready too," Clark ended.

     "If it's all the same to my son," Mrs. Current started, "I'd like to stay with my family."  "Of course you can Mom," Grace told her.  Ron's mother gave her a sweet smile, then took a healthy bite of her pizza.  It didn't take Olivia and Essie's teacher very long to send their lessons via the website on their computers.

     Both girls were in agreement to get on the homework as soon as they were done eating.  While the girls were studying, the rest of the group were helping to arrange the house.  A few of the senior ladies were putting dishes, glasses and other kitchen items away where Grace wanted them to go.  The others church ladies were breaking down boxes to make them fit in the garbage cans more easily.

     After Esther and Olivia were done with their homework, they hurried to the game room.  Ron had a wall full of video games.  "Well, the girls will always have something to do in this house," Grandma Current observed.  Jessie and a few of the other ladies laughed heartily.  The church ladies left the house around four o'clock in the afternoon, after helping to get the kitchen in good order.

     Deputy Mike Snow received a call on his cell from Sheriff Frank Mathews around five o'clock that afternoon.  "What's up Boss," Mike asked him.  "Well, all the road blocks have been set up.  There's no way out for Carl Masters to leave town, unless he's learned how to fly." Mike snickered.  "Did you and Clark remember to park your cruisers in Ron's garage?" "Yeah we did," Mike answered. "Did you lay the rules down for Ron's guests, as far as who can leave the house and who cannot?" the sheriff ask him.

     "Clark did.  The church ladies have left but Mrs. Current prefers to stay.  Of course Clark told the others they had no choice, but to stay." Mike told him,  "But I don't think they're suffering too much.  They're all sitting around playing cards and drinking sodas.  "Okay.  Sounds like you and Clark have everything under control.  I'll keep you all posted."  "Okay Boss, see ya." Mike said, ringing off.

     Meanwhile in a little shack in the woods beside the bayou; not the shack that Grant hid in when he agreed to hide Carl Masters' car, but another wooded area, another little shack on a wet strand that not even Doogie Strum would take tourist through, because of the vast gator population there.

     There in that shack, so surrounded by trees and bush that no one would know there was a  building setting there, Carl Masters sat with two of his men, one called Chuck Dean-a heavy set man, bald with beady black eyes; the other's name was Bobby Core.  He was a big man built like a wrestler.  He had spikey blond hair and narrow blue eyes.  Bobby and Chuck were waring hobo costumes like their boss.

     "So," Carl begin, "you two have been scouting the town, what information do you have for me?  he finished by lighting a cigar.  "Well, We checked out the back parking area of the Sheriff's Office and Ron Current's semi cab has a "For Sale" sign on it," Chuck told him, chewing on a cinnamon tooth pick he'd taken from his jacket pocket.

     "I went by Grace Riggly's  house and it is empty and there's a "For Sale" sign in the yard. Bobby told his Boss.  "Hmm," Carl mused, blowing his cigar smoke towards the ceiling.  The two of them must be hiding somewhere in town."  "I don't know Boss," Chuck said, "They might have taken the kid and left the city, on the sheriff's orders I'm guessing, before the roadblocks were put up," he ended.

     "And that was all you saw in your casing of this one horse town?"  Carl asked in a displeased voice.  "Well...." Bobby started and then hesitated, fearing his info would tick Carl off.  He knew how mean the man could be.  But Carl said, "What?  What?  And Bobby had to tell him however insignificant the information might be.

     "Well, I saw a bunch of old ladies come out of this big ole' white house on the outskirts of town a couple of hours ago," he told him.  Carl glared, "What's so unusual about that?" he said harshly.  "Well Boss,  no one else is moving out of their houses and the streets are empty."  "He's right Carl," Chuck put it in, "This place looks like a ghost town.  So I would say it was unusual for those women to come walking out of that house."

    "Someone here must have seen and recognized one of us," Carl told his men.  "Hence the road blocks," Chuck whispered to Bobby, adding a roll of his eyes.  Bobby looked over to where Carl was rocking his chair back on two legs and looking at the ceiling.  He took a relieved sigh, that Carl hadn't heard Chuck's whisper or seen his eye rolling.

     "Okay.  "Here's what we're gonna do," Carl said, motioning for the two men to pull their chairs over to the ramshackle table where he was sitting.  When Chuck and Bobby had sat down, Carl begin to tell them his plan.  "The only way we're going to get out of this town is if we can convince the police to give us our freedom."

     "And just how do we do that?"  Bobby asked.  "We take hostages," Carl said with a chuckle.  Chuck and Bobby glanced at each other with a worried look on their faces.  "I don't know who lives in that big white house on the edge of town, but they're going to have some company tonight," the Boss said with a cackling laugh.

                                                                           End of Chapter 20