Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Chapter 10

  “Her name was Louisa. She was beautiful, and I was half in love with her, along with every other man who met her. Well, maybe not in love, but certainly in lust.”

  Franklin Bell smiled as he reminisced, his faded eyes gaining a little twinkle as he mentally relived the old days, when he was a young scoundrel with the world—and all the adventure, excitement and women in it—at his feet.

  It wasn’t easy listening to her elderly, widowed grandfather talk about lusting after a long-dead carnival star. Especially not with Mick sitting right across the table, listening as well. But Gypsy managed to remain silent and let the old man tell his story his way. She needed to hear it. Needed to know if this strange, sad death in the big tent all those years ago could be connected to the ones happening today.

  “Sounds like you were a real playboy, Grandpa.”

  “Ahh, sweet Gypsy Rose. Franklin Bell wasn’t always the broken down old shyster you see before you.” He gave a wheezy chuckle. “I was considered quite a catch back in the day.”

  “Does that mean you and Louisa…”

  “Sadly, no. She didn’t want any of us,” he admitted. “Picky, we called her. Then hoity-toity. It became a game, and then a bet, to see which of us could win her.”

  “Were all the men involved in this game?”

  “Ayuh.”

  “Including Jersey and Barry?”

  “Sure, all those old-timers. Me, and Shep…some others who are long gone now. Bunch of randy singles who thought we were cock of the walk,” Grandpa said, obviously not having put the details of this conversation together yet. He hadn’t started connecting Jersey’s and Barry’s murders to this dead woman. He didn’t have any idea Gypsy and Mick were doing so.

  Her grandfather had been reluctant to talk about the Fletcher family at first, and had tried to change the subject. When Gypsy had told him they knew a woman had fallen from the trapeze and died, he’d finally opened up. Now he was almost smiling as he recollected long-ago days, when he’d just been starting out and had been a handsome young bachelor living a reckless life on the road.

  “Louisa and her sister looked a little alike, but Betsy wasn’t nearly as pretty. She was a year or two older. They showed up during a county fair in Kentucky, with their baby brother in tow. Little Willie. Orphaned, they said. He was a sprightly tyke, and within a year or so, they had him on a mini trapeze, mimicking their act from five feet above the ground. Cute as the dickens it was.”

  She and Mick exchanged a look, both of them obviously impatient to get to Louisa’s tragic death. They knew Frank well enough to know he’d have to build up to it. He was an entertainer, a web-spinner, and he loved nothing more than entrancing an audience, whether it was with a flea circus, a pygmy cannibal, or a love story.

  “So who won the bet?” Mick asked.

  Grandpa frowned, reached into his pocket for his handkerchief, and brought it out to cover his mouth for a cough. Gypsy leaned forward in her chair, waiting for him to answer.

  “There were no winners, not in the long run,” he finally explained. Frowning, he added, “But I guess you’d have to say it was the Brute, for a while, anyway.”

  “Barry?” asked Mick.

  “Yep. He didn’t keep her for long, but he got her all right. Had the naked pictures to prove it, and showed ‘em to anybody who wanted to see.” Grandpa shook his head in disgust and stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket. “Hard worker, but he could be a mean, lousy sonofabitch in those days.”

  Mick didn’t appear surprised by this news. “Yeah, I’ve heard he had a temper. He wasn’t always the sweet old grizzly bear we knew and loved.”

  “Sookie tamed that beast. She was the beauty and he was the bastard.”

  “And he became completely reformed?”

  Her grandfather hesitated, finally turning his full attention on Gypsy. He looked at her, staring at her hair, her face, and her eyes, as if he wanted to memorize her or something. “For the most part,” he admitted in a voice not much more than a whisper. “But I’ve had my suspicions about a few things over the years.”

  “Like what?”

  He waved a hand, avoiding her gaze, and shifting in his seat. He appeared to regret having said anything. “Never mind. Anyway, women always loved Barry, in his wicked old days and his calmer ones. The worse he treated them, the quicker they were to fall into his hairy arms.”

  “Including Louisa?” Gypsy asked.

  He nodded. “Especially her.”

  She was having a hard time visualizing all of this romantic drama involving those people. The Barry and Jersey she’d known had seemed old to her from the time she was little. She knew now they really hadn’t been—her Grandpa had only been in his mid-forties when she was born, Barry and Jersey probably the same age or even younger. But all adults seem ancient to a five-year-old, especially when they were part of your family.

  Once upon a time, before he had met her grandmother, who had died when Gypsy was a baby, Frank Bell had placed bets on women with other men. He’d played romantic games, tried to seduce pretty girls. He’d had a whole life long before her mother had been a gleam in his eye, and an eternity before Gypsy had come along.

  It put things into perspective.

  “Why wasn’t Barry able to keep her for long?” Mick asked. “If he was such a ladies’ man?”

  “Oh, that was Esmerelda’s doing.”

  Gypsy sat up straighter and brought herself mentally back into the conversation. Had they just mentioned her sister?

  Mick answered that question before she asked it. “You mean D’Onofrio Brothers’ famous stripper?”

  Grandpa nodded. “She was something. Louisa was pretty as a china doll, but Esmerelda looked like a demon seductress sent to bring men to their knees.” He shook his head, his expression darkening. “Everyone was a little in love with Louisa, but mad-tempted by Esmerelda. She jammed her spiked-heels into all our hearts at one time or another. Or our balls.”

  Eww. Grandpa’s balls. Not something she wanted to think about.

  “She was all flame and fire compared to Louisa’s softness and calm.”

  And this was the woman whose name had been chosen for her sister. Nice, Mom. She made a point to never have this conversation around Esme, who would hate finding out any of this stuff. She also decided Gypsy Rose wasn’t so heinous after all.

  “Esmerelda had a claim on Barry first and when she found out about Louisa, oh, was she mad; thought she might scratch his eyes out. I think Barry was almost matched in temper by that one. They woulda killed each other if she hadn’t…run off.”

  “So was Louisa’s death kept hush-hush because it was part of some love triangle?”

  Grandpa grabbed his handkerchief again. This time, he lowered his head, and she suspected he was shielding teary eyes. “No. It was just an accident,” he mumbled, not looking up. “Tragic accident.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He still wouldn’t look at her. “Sure I’m sure.”

  “What about suicide?” Mick asked, his voice gentle.

  The old man flinched. That was his only reaction. Mick didn’t press, and neither did Gypsy. Suicide was a definite possibility, although with what Derek had said about the woman’s expression of horror, and the way it had seemed like the rope broke, it wasn’t a given.

  “Why was it kept a secret?” Gypsy prodded. “You’d think something like that would have become part of carnival lore, at least here.”

  Her grandfather honked his nose into his handkerchief and finally looked up, eyes narrow, lips compressed. “Because of her husband.”

  She and Mick exchanged a confused look.

  “Louisa’s husband. Turns out she had run away from a very bad man, who beat her and her boy. That would be Willie, who never was her brother.” He sighed heavily. “Never could understand why she chose Barry. Went from one violent man to another.”

  “Jesus, did we turn on the TV and land on the Soap Opera channel?�
�� Mick asked.

  She shared the sentiment.

  “Her husband was from a rich family in Georgia, and according to her sister, Betsy, he started abusing her on her wedding night. She ran away from him eventually. Had to, because she knew he would take the boy in a divorce.”

  Gypsy suspected she knew where this was going. “He found her?”

  “Only after she died during a stop in Augusta. The newspaper covered it, and the story made it to Atlanta. Her husband saw the picture. He swooped in with his lawyers and threatened to sue me out of business if I let anybody know his runaway wife had fallen off a trapeze. He took little Willie and I never saw or heard from them again. Betsy left right afterward and that was the end of the Flying Fletchers.”

  How sad. Poor Louisa had tried to escape a horrible marriage, ended up with someone who was apparently almost as bad—Barry? Really?—and died a horrible death. Sometimes good things didn’t happen to good people.

  “You kept the trapezes up all these years to remind you of her,” Mick said, his voice soft.

  Grandpa nodded. “Yes, I did. Least I could do. Sort of a tribute, since I had to keep the story from becoming legend.”

  He must have cared very much for Louisa Fletcher—or whatever her married name might have been. Gypsy wondered if her grandmother had known.

  Mick was quickly able to segue from the tragic romance back to the case. With a serious glance at Gypsy, he said, “So, this boy, Willie. How old would he be now?”

  “Oh, he was about five when she died back in sixty-eight. So he’d be in his fifties now. Probably ended up a politician, like his daddy.”

  Maybe. Or, if the suspicion that was obviously lurking in Mick’s mind—and Gypsy’s—was true, maybe he’d ended up a murderer.

  It made sense.

  Willie had been a child when his abused mother had absconded with him. The sister said he’d been abused, too. He’d had a couple of good years in the carnival, and then had likely seen his mother’s death, if he was part of the trapeze show.

  Dressed like a bird. Falling from the sky. She couldn’t stop picturing it as Derek Monahan had described.

  His father had come and whisked him away—perhaps back into an abused home? Some people, like Mick, could recover from that kind of situation. Some could not.

  How damaged would an abused little boy be after those kinds of traumas? Abused enough to eventually seek justice for his mother’s death by targeting the men who had placed bets on her—maybe even hurt her as well, in violent Barry’s case?

  People had killed for less. Revenge was a strong motivation, and plenty of damaged souls had waited years to attain it.

  It sounded extreme. Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about the black feather that had been lost from the first crime scene. And what had been done to poor Sweetie bird—and oh-so-poor Jersey—at the second.

  She was going to have to track down this Willie. She’d start by going back to learn everything she could about the late Louisa Fletcher.

  Gypsy was about to ask her grandfather if he remembered the rich husband’s name when their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a woman’s scream. It was faint at first, growing louder by the second, as if the person screaming was getting closer. And running.

  Gypsy leapt up, instantly on alert. Mick did the same.

  He beat her to the door by a foot, pushed it open to let her exit, and followed her out. The scream had continued, rising and falling in volume. It was joined by shouts, more screams and pointing. Gypsy leapt down the outside steps and started running toward Anyways Andrea. The woman was halfway across the field, staggering and pulling at her own hair, screaming as she came toward them.

  “Shep!” she called when she spied Gypsy and Mick. “The bastard got Shep!”

  Her stomach rolled. Not another one. Oh, God, not Shep too.

  They ran toward Andrea, who was out of breath, holding her side, and almost staggering with the exertion of running over from the carnival.

  “Where? What?” Mick barked before Gypsy could even open her mouth.

  Still unsteady on her feet, the woman spun around and pointed. They looked in the direction to which she gestured. It took a second to realize what they were supposed to be trying to see. Finally, Gypsy realized the finger was pointing at the big slide—far in the distance. She had to narrow her eyes to peer at it, her vision slightly blurred by the drizzle.

  Then she saw, and her head started to spin. She felt as dizzy as Andrea looked.

  Something was dangling on the slide, about a third of the way down. Something dark. Something large. Something human shaped.

  Judging by Andrea’s hysteria, it was the body of Vinnie Shepherd. Shep—one of the other men involved in the bet on Louisia Fletcher’s charms.

  Jesus, it all made sense.

  “I watched him go,” sobbed Andrea. “I was looking for him, and noticed him sneakin’ over there through the woods. I followed to see what he was up to. Couldn’t find him and then I saw him just hanging there. He’s just hanging there!”

  Mick took the shaking woman by the shoulders. “Is he alive? Andrea, did you go up to see if he’s still alive?”

  Andrea shook her head, her eyes darting wildly here and there. “Could he be? Could he maybe be alive? I thought…I thought….”

  Mick ran. He didn’t say a word, didn’t explain, he just took off at a flat-out race across the field.

  Gypsy paused long enough to turn around and yell at her grandfather to call 911, wondering whether it would be faster to run like Mick had, or get into her car and drive over. Before she could decide, though, she noticed her grandfather wasn’t standing on the porch where they’d left him. He’d come out the door of the office right after them, obviously as affected by the screams as everyone else who now poured out of their homes. Now, though, Grandpa was nowhere to be seen.

  She thought he’d perhaps already gone in to make the call.

  Then she realized the truth.

  “Oh, God, Grandpa!” she called, thoughts of the scream, and Andrea, and even Shep fleeing her mind.

  Because Franklin Bell was lying in the dirt behind the porch, as if he’d fallen backward over the rail.

  He wasn’t moving, and he wasn’t making a sound.

  “He’s alive. For now.”

  Mick sighed in relief as Gypsy gave him the news he’d hoped to hear.

  “Shep?”

  “Dead. State police and CSI are on the scene.”

  She nodded in acknowledgement, her thoughts obviously on her grandfather and not really on anyone, or anything, else.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. I had no idea it had even happened.”

  He’d been at the slide, climbing down to check on Shep’s condition, when he heard the ambulance sirens. Reaching the other man and checking his vital signs, he knew the rescue workers were going to be too late; they would need a van to take the body to the morgue.

  To his surprise, the emergency vehicles had turned into the housing lot, rather than the carnival one, pulling up in front of the office building. He watched, expecting them to be directed over, when someone called out that Franklin Bell had collapsed. That was when he realized Gypsy had not followed him over to check on Shep.

  “He never regained consciousness in the ambulance. The doctors took him away immediately when we got here. They said it looked like his heart, but I haven’t heard any more than that.”

  Shane had told him the carnival owner had experienced one heart attack some years ago. With the strain and drama going on in his world now, it wasn’t surprising that he’d been struck again.

  “He’s not that old, Gypsy, and he’s strong. You know he has won this battle once before.”

  “When he was younger and stronger.”

  “He’s got a lot to live for. You know everyone is outside.”

  She glanced toward the waiting room window. “I can hear them.”

  Members of the carnival family were already gat
hered in the hospital parking lot. They’d been told they couldn’t all come into the small facility; there were just too many of them.

  “How did you get in?”

  “Everyone thought it best if I came to be with you.” The carnival crowd had apparently noticed the amount of time Mick and Gypsy had been spending together. He could have told them it was only for the case—purely professional—but he knew that was a lie.

  “I’m surprised the nurses let you pass.”

  “I told them I was family.”

  She gestured toward the window. “Isn’t everyone?”

  Yes, they were. One, big dysfunctional, loving family that had been rocked by tragedy after tragedy in recent weeks. They wouldn’t survive losing Frank, their father figure, too. He and Gypsy both knew that. Even if the Winter Carnival were to reopen, it would never survive, not with the heart and soul gone from it.

  “I’m so sorry, Gyp.”

  He opened his arms. A pause as brief as a breath, and then she stepped into them, wrapping her own around his waist, and burying her face in the crook of his neck. He felt the wetness on her cheeks against his skin. Her eyes had been dry when he’d entered. She was finally giving in to emotion, as if she’d just been waiting for someone—for him—to be there with her.

  Gently stroking her back, he kissed her hair, and tightened his arms around her. They stood that way for a long moment, as their unusual relationship changed again, just as it had the other night at his place when she’d pulled on those gloves.

  It was all so strange. They’d been childhood frenemies for years, and then nothing for decades. But she’d walked back into his life one short week ago and blown it wide open, making him confront fears and desires he’d never wanted to deal with before. Making him want something else.

  He’d desired her the minute he saw her, had admired her as he saw her commitment to her job, and liked her as they spent more time together. Now, holding and consoling her, he realized his feelings were more than wanting, admiring and liking.

  He wanted to take her pain away. Wanted to dry her tears and make sure she never had to cry again. Wanted to carry some of her burden. Wanted to rub her shoulders, make crazy love to her, make her breakfast.