Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Julia looked back and forth between them, realizing there was a whole lot more to this carnival life than games, rides, and candy apples. It was like listening to the rerun of a seedy soap opera.

  Suddenly sucking in a breath, Gypsy swung around to Derek. “What did you say about her costume? A bird?”

  The baddest-ass of her employees looked at Gypsy, giving her the full force of that chocolate-eyed attention. She’d seen women stumble under that stare, especially when confronted with Derek’s rugged face, strong chin, thick dark hair, and powerful body. But Gypsy didn’t even appear to notice his looks. She simply stared at him waiting for an answer.

  She’s hooked. Totally gone on Mick.

  Which was wonderful.

  Mick’s ability made him one of the loneliest people she’d ever known, which was doubly sad considering how personable he was. Gypsy didn’t look like the type who would be intimidated by what he could do. She seemed to have a lot of self-confidence, as well as ingenuity. If any woman could get past the anxiety about Mick’s strange hands touching places in her mind that she didn’t want explored, she suspected it was this one.

  Derek replied, “I said she was flying like a bird, and wearing a feathered costume. She looks kind of like a ballerina in that weird movie from a few years back.”

  “The Black Swan?”

  He nodded.

  Mick stepped into their conversation. “The photo of the feather…”

  “And Jersey’s bird,” Gypsy interjected, sounding excited.

  They didn’t explain, merely looking at each other, the gears in both of those powerful brains shifting and considering possibilities. Obviously, Derek had seen something important—vital, and it had provided a clue that made sense to Mick and Gypsy.

  It was good that Derek had been the one to accompany her today. Aidan was working on his latest book, and Olivia was on vacation with her cop fiancée, so Derek had agreed to come along. Kismet, considering Derek’s was the only power that could have discovered this ancient tragedy. Especially because, from the way it sounded, the trapeze artist’s death might be somehow connected to the recent murders.

  “You said the rope broke?” Gypsy asked. “Is there any chance it was tampered with? That she was murdered?”

  “I don’t know,” Derek said, looking up again. The sequence appeared to be starting over. He was watching a woman fly…watching her fall…watching her crash. “I can’t see the trapeze, just her look of terror as she falls. Her hands are still fisted around something when she starts to scream, so it looks like she didn’t lose her grip, which is why I assume the rope broke.”

  Awful.

  “We need to go to my grandfather’s office,” Gypsy said. “You guys want to make yourself scarce and then come back a little before the shift change? Derek, I would really be interested in what you see when you look through our second victim’s bedroom window.”

  Derek nodded his agreement. “I could use some lunch.”

  “I’ll drive,” said Julia.

  “Hell, no. I’ll drive. You can ride on the back.”

  Julie rolled her eyes. Derek was so picky about his motorcycle; he’d never leave it here in the parking lot. “Fine, whatever.”

  Plans made, Mick said, “Okay, we’ll see you then. In the meantime, we’ll go talk to Franklin Bell about the woman who fell from the trapeze…and why everyone has kept her death a secret for all these years.”

  It was the middle of the day—overcast and grey, not sunny like a typical Florida afternoon, but still not the dark of night. So there was no reason for Shep to be nervous. No reason at all.

  But he was nervous. In fact, he was scared to death.

  “Two murders,” he muttered as he watched a group of people leave the big tent and head across the field toward the office trailer. He recognized Gypsy and Mick, of course, but not the other two. Didn’t matter. He was just glad they’d finally left, considering he’d been hiding here, waiting, for a half-hour.

  Once they were gone, totally out of sight, he darted from behind a closed ice cream stand toward the next closest hiding place—a ticket booth near the Himalaya ride. He slipped in some mud, almost falling on his old butt, and grabbed a power pole to steady himself.

  “This ain’t gonna be worth it. No hundred bucks is worth it.”

  Maybe not. But if the carnival was going to be closed for a while, and he wouldn’t have any income, a hundred bucks might very well be the difference between him having a beer with his Spaghetti-Os or drinking rubbing alcohol.

  He’d done it before.

  Shep didn’t like to think of himself as an alcoholic, even if the know-it-alls at the AA place had made him believe it for a while. He’d eventually figured out he wasn’t no alcoholic. He just liked to get drunk.

  Needing to drink made you an alcoholic. Just liking it, well, that made it a hobby. He was one’a them hobbyists, that was all. He didn’t make a big deal about it, didn’t bother anybody. As long as he made his cut from working the basketball booth at the carnival—and maybe skimming a little extra when he could use some sleight of hand on some of the cake-eaters—he was able to keep his hobby happy.

  He wouldn’t be able to continue doing that, though, if he was out of work for even a couple of days. His Social Security check wouldn’t come until next week. He’d be flat broke before then. A hundred bucks could see him through. Man needed to eat, didn’t he?

  And drink.

  There weren’t many jobs that would pay a hundred bucks for doin’ somethin’ so easy. All he had to do was take some pictures on his cell phone, and send ‘em to that reporter from the Jacksonville paper. The police weren’t letting anybody come onto the carnival grounds, and the workers weren’t supposed to either. They’d all been told they weren’t even allowed to cross the field, which was why he’d had to run into the woods north of the property, sneak through them, and emerge into the carnival grounds all the way on the other end.

  So far, so good. He was at least a football field’s length away from the nearest home where anybody could be watching. He could keep darting from attraction to attraction, make his way to the Ducky Draw booth, take the pictures, send them off, and get out. Then he’d get a nice hundred dollar bill in his mailbox.

  “Why anybody would want to see pictures of some stupid plastic ducks, I dunno. I’d sure rather see the bloody bedspread in Jersey’s house than just where he worked.”

  But the reporter who’d called him last night—Shep still didn’t know how he’d gotten his number—had said he didn’t need nothin’ but the ducky pool. A few pictures for a Benjamin Franklin? No brainer.

  “Almost there,” he said, reaching into his pocket to get out the phone. He wasn’t very good at using the thing, especially not for taking pictures, but was glad he had it. It couldn’t be too hard to figure out, right?

  He stopped near the base of the high slide, pushing on the little picture of the camera on his phone. Lifting it, he checked the screen to make sure he was getting the booth and the sign, and pushed the button to capture the image.

  A click. He smiled. “One down.”

  The reporter had been real particular about the angles. He’d wanted a shot from inside the booth where Jersey had worked, pointing down to the plastic ducks in the water. Real sad ducks with nobody to help the kiddies pick them up see if they’d won a prize.

  The guy also wanted one from the outside, at ground level—which he’d just taken. And one more—from above. Way up high, the guy had said.

  There was only one way to do that.

  Ducking back under the slide, well concealed, Shep hunkered down and made his way to the fence where the bratty kids lined up for a turn. Why anybody’d wait ten minutes to climb some steps, and sit on a burlap bag just to take a fast trip down a long wooden chute, he’d never know. He’d take the Rock ‘n Roll that turned ya upside down ‘til you puked any day.

  Peering around the corners, he made sure the coast was clear, steeled his nerves, and
then started to climb the circular stairs that led up to the slide platform, far above his head. The D’Onofrio Brothers Big Slide used to be advertised as the tallest in the country. They’d surely made bigger ones since, but this was still a wicked bitch that tried to touch the sky.

  The steps were just metal grates, made for smaller feet than his. The higher he got, the less he liked looking down through them. He especially didn’t like looking over the rails or off in the distance.

  Shep wasn’t a fan of heights. He hated ‘em, in fact, having seen what could happen when somebody fell from way up. Squish.

  “Come on, a few more steps, one picture, and you can slide your hairy ass down instead’ve takin’ these steps,” he told himself.

  It might be risky to be out in the open like that, but the trip was fast, and he just didn’t want to go back down the stairs. Especially not since it had just started to drizzle. The metal grates would be slippery as hell. A hundred bucks wouldn’t be enough to repair a broken leg. Or neck.

  After what seemed like forever, when his knees had knives stabbing into them, and his hips felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets, he finally rounded the last curve in the steps that led right onto the high platform.

  Someone was standing there.

  His heart thudded, and he almost stumbled back. That woulda been bad—he could’ve slipped right off the stairs, over the safety rail, and plunged straight down to the ground. Falling like a bird whose wings had been plucked.

  “Shit, man, you scared me,” he said. “I sure wasn’t expecting to see nobody up here!”

  The person dressed all in black—a long black coat, a wide-brimmed hat pulled so low Shep couldn’t even see his face—didn’t reply. The silence was a little weird, but he didn’t immediately think about Barry or Jersey. No, his first thought was that this was probably a cop doing a sweep of the grounds to make sure nobody broke the no-trespassing rules.

  “My old ticker almost stopped when I saw ya there.”

  No response. The guy was keeping his head down, as if the broad brim of the hat wasn’t doing a good enough job shielding his face from the weather.

  “Sorry I know I’m not supposed to be here,” he said nervously, shoving his phone deeper into his pants pocket. Stupid, he knew, but he didn’t want the cop to know he’d been out here taking pictures like the paparazzi.

  It’s ducks, dummy. It ain’t like you’re taking pictures of a corpse!

  “I guess this is a good place to stand guard. You can see everything from up here. Only way to get higher would be to get yourself stuck on the top of the big wheel.”

  “Stop talking.”

  The gravelly voice, a thick whisper, sent a shiver of apprehension down Shep’s spine. He wished he’d had a drink before coming out here. Well, he had had a drink. But he wished he’d had two. Maybe three, just for the calming effect.

  “Sorry. Look, I’ll go. Forget you ever saw me here, brother, I won’t come back.”

  “You’ll go all right,” the man said. “Down the slide.”

  Shep giggled nervously. “Sure. You bet. That’s how I was gonna do it anyway. Quick trip down, and I’m outta your hair.”

  “Yes, you will be.”

  The man stepped back to let him pass. Shep didn’t like doing it, especially on this narrow platform. The kiddies were fine up here getting on their burlap sacks with the help of a carnival worker. But this wasn’t a place for two grown men, especially not in the rain when the metal catwalk was wet and slippery.

  “You won’t need a sack,” the man said, still not looking at him. “It’s so wet, you’ll fly right on down.”

  Shep again giggled, but his mouth was dry. He would really like to wet his whistle rather than his ass.

  He suddenly remembered his money problems. There wouldn’t be much whistle wetting if he didn’t make that hundred bucks. “Look, do you, uh, mind if I take a picture from up here? It’s so pretty-like, ya know?”

  He reached into his pocket for his phone, hoping to salvage the situation, snap the picture before the cop had time to object. But the man in black wasn’t having it. He grabbed Shep’s arm, pulling his hand away from his pocket.

  That was when Shep notice the guy was wearing black gloves.

  “Get on the slide. Now.”

  Oh shit. He was in trouble here. There was no reason for anybody to be wearing gloves during a Florida drizzle, not even thin, rubbery looking ones like this guy had on. No reason at all.

  The way he’d been talking, and standing, had already made Shep’s nerves jangle. The gloves made them screech.

  He quickly replayed the past few moments in his mind. It was like the guy didn’t want his face to be seen or something. And if he was a cop, why wasn’t he in uniform? Why hadn’t he pulled out a badge? This wasn’t adding up. It had taken a while to sink into his alcohol-soaked brain, but he was getting a picture that he definitely didn’t want to see. Especially with the presence of those gloves that looked more like they were for hiding fingerprints than for keeping warm and dry.

  “You, uh, been up here long?”

  Silence. It was an ugly silence, the kind that was meant to make people scared.

  It worked. Fear gathered in his stomach and dropped right into his balls, which tried to climb up inside him.

  “You ain’t no cop,” he whispered.

  “Get on the slide,” the man replied, each word pronounced real precise-like.

  Shep froze in terror, like a frog looking at the snake about to swallow him. There was nothin’ normal about this. He wanted out, and he wanted out now. Going down the wet slide was fine with him—in fact, it would get him away from this scary dude fast, and fast was the best way to go.

  “I’m goin’,” he said, trying to force a smile. “Already feelin’ like a kid again.”

  Turning around, he shuffled to the top of the nearest chute, and lowered himself down onto his bony butt. His arthritic knees protested, snap-krackle-and-popping like a bowl of cereal saying hi to a cup of milk. He didn’t care. If he made it to the bottom, he would run on those weak knees, giving thanks to heaven above that his instincts were wrong and this guy in black wasn’t the psycho who’d killed Barry and Jersey. In fact, if he got out of this mess, maybe he’d even stop drinking out of sheer gratitude. Well, after he had a few drinks to calm himself.

  He was about to push himself to the very edge of the platform so he could let gravity pull him down when the man crouched close to him. Shep was bothered by his nearness, but also strangely curious. He hadn’t even seen the guy’s face.

  The rain was falling heavily now, sharp and cold. Hard drops stung his cheeks, but he still raised his eyes to look at the stranger.

  “Oh!” he said. “It’s you!”

  Quick as that predatory snake, the man in black pulled a thick rope out from behind his back. It was already tied in a circle. Like…like a noose.

  Horror assaulted him and he squirmed, trying to rise, slipping on the slide, the slick grate, and his own wet clothes. “No, please don’t. I won’t tell anybody I saw ya!”

  “Have fun sliding straight to hell, Shep. When you get there, tell your sick buddies I said hi.” He dropped the noose down and tightened it, even as Shep reached for it, trying to yank it away. He couldn’t even get a finger between the rope and his skin before it was painfully tightened, cutting off his breath, and his voice.

  He tried to dig his nails under it. Clawing in an effort to pull it from his constricted throat, he realized he was already strangling to death. Was this man going to murder him on the slide, right in full view of everybody over at the trailer park?

  Nobody can see. It’s too far. It’s too grey. It’s raining. Just like you wanted when you climbed up here.

  All for a lousy hundred bucks.

  Shep’s mouth flapped, opening and closing, and he suddenly realized the man in black was shoving something into it, something small, metal and sharp. Before he had time to even wonder what it was, the mu
rderer pushed a point of the thing into his gum, under his teeth. He kept pushing, and pushing, until it poked through the flesh and dug deep, creating even more agony. Blood burst into his mouth, metallic, warm, and salty. Tears of pain and terror poured out of his eyes, blending with the raindrops that were sliding down his cheeks and landing on his swelling lips. He wanted to beg, to plead for mercy. Or at least for an explanation.

  Why? Why him? Why Barry-the-Brute, and Jersey?

  As if he had heard the unasked questions, the man in black gave him the answers.

  “This is for her, and for what the four of you did to her. Now off you go.”

  It took a second, and then Shep understood.

  No! It wasn’t me…I didn’t…I tried to help her…

  But he couldn’t say a word.

  A powerful hand struck him between the shoulder blades, punching away the little bit of air he’d sucked in, as well as blood-soaked spittle. Shep flew forward, briefly alight and aloft. His body lifted into the air like a bird taking flight as he went over the top edge from the platform into the chute. And then he started down.

  It was a quick descent—the brightly-colored surface was wet with rain, and slick from the asses of generations of kids who’d gone down it, squealing with laughter.

  Shep wasn’t laughing. He wouldn’t have had time to scream, even if the knot at his neck had allowed it.

  Before he was even a third of the way down, the rope yanked taut.

  There was a strange snapping sound.

  It wasn’t until a second or two later, when the pain kicked in, that he realized he’d just heard his neck break.

  His body kicked spasmodically, his feet slipping uselessly on the wet surface. No way up. No way down. No way to survive. Even if his neck hadn’t been broken, he would have hung here and strangled to death.

  Those were his last coherent thoughts, though they weren’t his last feelings.

  Pain was his last feeling. Pain that lasted longer than Shep could have ever imagined

  As it turned out, a broken neck didn’t stop a man from strangling after all.