Carnival of Shadows

by R.J. Ellory

  Something is better than nothing, his training officer had told him. Always in such situations, something is better than nothing. A man can be faulted for getting it wrong, of course, but a man cannot be faulted for trying. And use that ability you have, Travis, that ability to reason, to challenge everything, to see logic where logic exists, to reject assumptions and apparent coincidences.

  Now, faced with a real situation—an unidentified dead man, both Edgar Doyle and Valeria Mironescu claiming to know nothing of his identity, and a complete lack of eyewitnesses or forensic clues—what, or more importantly, who, could he pursue here?

  Keep it simple. Such axioms were drilled into them from day one. Do what you can do. Do not try to do what you cannot do. Establish a zone of operation, lay down some guidelines, plan out a sequence of actions, and then follow them until what you find forces you to change tack.

  Travis reminded himself of these basic tenets as he made his way up the steps of the Wichita City Library.

  Despite assistance from two very interested and eager librarians, there was not a great deal of immediate progress. Travis understood that his official capacity engendered a sense of obligation to help, but the library and its staff did not exist for his use alone. He knew he would keep the librarians’ attention only so long and then he would simply become a distraction and an annoyance.

  The younger of the two, an intense man by the name of Marcus Briley, recommended Travis speak to a Professor Ralph Saxon.

  “If anyone can help you, it’ll be him,” Briley said.

  “Because?”

  “Well, he’s kind of a walking encyclopedia,” Briley explained. “He was a lecturer at the university. He’s retired now, but he’s been a consultant here for many years.”

  “And where do I find him?” Travis asked.

  “Well, he’s here only on Mondays and Fridays, so if you came back in a couple of days, you’d find him here.”

  “I can’t do that,” Travis explained. “If he can assist me, then I need to see him today.”

  “Maybe if you spoke to the chief librarian, she could contact him for you.”

  “I’ll do that,” Travis said. “Appreciated.”

  The chief librarian, though respectful and ostensibly understanding of the situation, wasn’t so eager to assist. Her name was Marion Gerrard, and she didn’t seem to grasp the urgency of the situation until Travis informed her that it was—in essence—a federal case. Not only that, but concerned the death of a man.

  Marion Gerrard’s manner changed completely. She was suddenly perturbed. “Oh my,” she said. “I feel truly awful, Agent Travis. I am so sorry.”

  “Please, Ms. Gerrard, don’t trouble yourself with the details. If you could simply reach Professor Saxon, I would be most grateful.”

  “I’ll call him at his home this very instant,” she said, and reached for the telephone.

  Shortly thereafter, following directions that Ms. Gerrard had given him, Travis was dismayed at his own forgetfulness. He had not taken just a few moments to determine whether regulus was in fact an actual word. He found it hard to believe that such a thing had slipped his mind. Because he’d wanted it to, perhaps? This was the question he repeatedly asked himself as he crossed town to his next appointment. Why would he not want to know if it possessed any meaning? Because it would serve to confirm that his own actions were out of his control? Surely not. And if someone else had typed that word, then what? Was he being directed toward something; even more likely, was he being misdirected?

  No more than forty minutes later, Travis was standing on the sidewalk in front of a small and unobtrusive house on Cordell Street. Even as he approached the screen, he saw a curtain twitch in a ground-floor window, and the front door was opened before he had reached the top of the steps.

  Saxon was an old man, perhaps in his eighties, and yet he seemed to lack no enthusiasm or energy as he greeted Travis. He showed Travis through to a study beside the small kitchen. Here they sat, and though there was no offer of refreshments or anything else, Travis sensed that Saxon was actually thrilled to be consulted in an official capacity by the FBI.

  “So, how can I assist?” Saxon asked Travis.

  Travis took the small diagram he had made at the morgue from his pocket and handed it over.

  “A puzzle,” Saxon said. “Might I ask for some details?”

  “It’s a tattoo,” Travis said. “Found on the back of a dead man’s knee. It was that pattern as best as I could approximate it, and between the man’s toes, there was a series of seven small dots, also tattooed. Not a cluster, but one between each toe.”

  “Identification,” Saxon said. “Tattoos, historically speaking, have often been used to identify membership, even to tell a life story.”

  “I am familiar with that, yes.”

  “There is a rule of thumb, for want of a better expression. The more hidden and unobtrusive the tattoo, the more secret the wearer wishes his membership to be.”

  “And this design?”

  Saxon shook his head and smiled. “You need a sociologist or an anthropologist, not a professor of medieval history. I can telephone a friend of mine, if you wish.”

  “Yes, absolutely. Anything at all that might help would be much appreciated.”

  Saxon rose and left the room.

  Travis sat and waited while Saxon made the call. He looked around the room, the walls of which were crowded with a mismatched selection of various bookshelves, upon them ranging a seemingly endless collection of texts, files, folders, bundles of documents, volumes old and new. If Travis’s observation was correct, and he assumed it was, there was no Mrs. Saxon and never had been. Here was a man who had dedicated his entire life to academia.

  Saxon returned within a moment. “A wholly disreputable fellow by the name of Marvin Beck is on his way over. He is a retired professor, like me, and we have been colleagues and friends for many years. His specialty is anthropological and social studies, and he will probably be able to shed a brighter light on this than I.”

  “I am really grateful for your time, Professor,” Travis said.

  “Oh, think nothing of it, young man. More than happy to help. At our age, a little excitement is all too rare. Now, some tea, perhaps?”

  “Please, yes. That would be good.”

  Saxon made tea, was still making tea when there was a sharp rapping at the front door.

  “Go let the old reprobate in, Agent Travis,” Saxon called from the kitchen. “Tell him I am under arrest or something.”

  Travis smiled. He really did like the old man.

  Beck, surprisingly, was much the same as Saxon. They were two of a kind, and Travis wondered if there wasn’t a network of retired academics and professors, all of them belonging to an unofficial fraternity, all of them doing their utmost to maintain the belief that the sacrifices they’d made—that of children, grandchildren, a horde of descendants—had been worth it for the pursuit of knowledge. Was Travis himself so much different? Would he be the same at their age?

  “So, what trouble has he been causing now?” Beck said as he came through the front door. “Saxon, where are you?” he called out.

  Saxon was laughing as he entered the room once more. “Mind your manners,” he said. “This is Agent Michael Travis of the FBI, and he will no sooner look at you than cart you off to be interrogated about your subversive Communist sympathies. Right, Agent Travis?”

  “Absolutely, sir. No question about it.”

  “Ha!” Beck snorted. “If anyone’s the Communist, it’s you. Now, get some tea and tell me what’s going on here.”

  Over tea, and holding the small diagram in his hand, Beck’s manner changed considerably.

  “You say there were tattoos between the toes?” he asked Travis.

  “Yes, seven in all. Not a cluster, but one between each toe.”

&
nbsp; “Such things indicate acts of initiation, sometimes tasks, sometimes penalties,” Beck said. “It is a shame I cannot see the body itself, for then I would be able to better determine the age of the tattoos.”

  “And that would help how?” Travis asked.

  “Well, tattoos of this nature are often made at puberty, sometimes even younger. Other times they are made when someone has done things that prove his right to be part of the tribe. But that is more common in the African peoples. This man is white, correct?”

  “White, but olive-skinned perhaps. Actually, not so much Mediterranean, more Eastern European.”

  “And the tattoos themselves, they are small, these dots?”

  “Yes, very small.”

  “And do they seem relatively precise, or do they appear like spots of ink on blotting paper, as if they have spread out beneath the skin?”

  “Quite precise,” Travis said. “Yes, I would say they were quite defined.”

  “Which indicates their having been applied in adulthood.” Beck nodded slowly, and then he looked over the upper rim of his glasses at Travis.

  “I am thinking that they may be as a result of actions performed. I would say that the pattern on the back of the knee is a symbol of membership, whereas the ones between the toes, seven in all, would be more a result of doing something. I think they are earned.”

  “Earned?”

  “Yes,” Beck said. “If, as you say, he appears perhaps Eastern European, then I am wondering if he doesn’t belong to some kind of gang, some kind of organized-crime network, perhaps. You say he was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Might I ask how?”

  “Stabbed in the back of the neck. A blade of some description was pushed upward into the base of his brain.”

  Beck smiled. “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. Not exactly a heart attack or a stroke, eh?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “Well, from what little I know, and from the manner of his death, I would say that you probably have a killer on your hands, Agent Travis. And now, ironically, he himself has been killed.”

  “And the tattoo on the back of his knee?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Beck replied. “Europe is the wrong continent for me when it comes to anthropological or social rites and rituals.” He looked across at Saxon. “What do you think, Ralph?”

  “A reversed question mark,” Saxon said. “A Cyrillic letter, perhaps Coptic, East Slavic?”

  Beck shook his head. “No, none of those. I don’t recognize it at all.”

  “Well, the simple fact is that it could be significant to only those who are part of the organization, if it is actually a mark of membership.”

  “Perhaps a map of some kind, perhaps the location of something…”

  “A constellation?” Travis suggested.

  Beck nodded. “As good a guess as anything. Constellations hold great significance in the Middle East and the Africas. A great deal of store is placed in the position of stars at certain times of year. Perhaps it relates to his own birth sign.”

  “I don’t recognize it from the known signs,” Saxon said. He looked up and scanned the walls. “I have a text somewhere, I’m sure. The Medieval English sages and soothsayers granted enormous importance to astrological divination.”

  The text was located, and Travis had to stand on a rickety chair in order to reach it down. The book was heavy, thick with dust, and it was with some awkwardness that the three of them managed to position it in such a way as to survey the endless tables of astrological patterns that were detailed.

  When they found it, Travis visibly paled. He felt decidedly nauseous, and Beck asked him if he was all right, if there was something wrong.

  “You really don’t look well at all, Agent Travis,” Saxon said. “Can I get you something?”

  Travis could not speak. His mind had stretched awkwardly around a concept that was actually inconceivable, but the evidence for whatever coincidence had taken place here was undeniable.

  The word was there, and though he did not believe it and could not explain it, he could not avoid the reality of it.

  Regulus.

  The constellation that so closely matched the small design he had copied from the back of the victim’s knee was called Regulus.

  As far as he could recall, he had never seen the word before, and yet here it was. He had actually woken to find it right there on a sheet of paper, and now he was being told that it was the name for this diagram.

  He should have made time to research it. He could have so easily consulted a text at the library that morning, but he had not. Had he really not wanted to know? Had he actually been scared to find out what it meant?

  What could he tell these two old men? What could he even say? It made no sense. None at all.

  “Agent Travis?” Beck asked. “You look like someone walked over your grave.”

  Travis did his best to explain. He had sleepwalked, that was all he could say. He had risen in the night, and unaware of what he was doing, he had typed this very word on a single sheet of paper and left it right there in his typewriter. Or the other possibility… that someone else had done it. He remembered how he had felt that morning, the dull ache in his head, the lack of clarity in his thoughts. And then he considered yet another possibility, something even more disturbing. What if he had been drugged? What if someone had crept into his room and drugged him in order to leave that message on his typewriter?

  For a few moments, his mind was utterly quiet.

  “I see that this has come as a great shock to you,” Saxon said, “but then again, perhaps it is not so much of a surprise.”

  “More than a shock, Professor Saxon,” Travis said. “It’s beyond coincidence.”

  Beck smiled. “We have age and experience on our side, Agent Travis, and perhaps some small understanding of the nature of the human mind, certainly when it comes to the field of education and retention of information.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  Beck laughed, almost sardonically. “You said you drove down from Seneca Falls?”

  “Yes, I did, this morning.”

  “A little ironic.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The Roman philosopher, Seneca. Didn’t he say that luck was nothing more than the coincidence of preparation and opportunity? You seem to have been very lucky in finding us.”

  “I don’t understand,” Travis said, still confused, still trying to come to terms with what was happening to his logical thought processes. It felt as if events were conspiring to break him down, to get him to explain something that possessed no rational explanation.

  Trust you spelt well…

  “Sometimes there are things that can be explained, and sometimes there are not,” Beck said. “I guess the nature of your work requires you to be a man of routines and habits, of logic, of concise and complete explanations. I can also see that you are greatly troubled by this. Fortunately, this is one of those situations where an explanation is almost too simple.”

  “Too simple?”

  “Yes, of course. You went to school, did you not?”

  “Of course.”

  “You say that as if going to school is the most ordinary thing in the world. You appreciate that there are a great many more people in this world who do not go to school than those who do?”

  “In America—”

  “Even in America, Agent Travis, your education depends a great deal upon who you are, where you’re from, the color of your skin. However, fortunately you are white and not without some intelligence, and therefore you were able to go to school.”

  “Yes, I went to school.”

  “How much information can the human mind absorb and retain, Agent Travis?”

  “Well, the brain is—”

>   “Not the brain, the mind,” Beck said. “The brain is a few pounds of hamburger, and I am not sure that I like the idea of my intelligence and character and personality being attributed to a half dozen pounds of hamburger, do you? Just as I do not wish to consider that a muscle in my chest is responsible for who I love.”

  “The brain, the mind… they are the same thing,” Travis said.

  “We will agree to differ, Agent Travis. Regardless, the question stands.”

  “How much information can the human mind retain?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have no idea, Professor Beck.”

  “A human being can learn ten languages, study music, philosophy, read through a library of books, visit a thousand places, and the capacity of the mind is never even stretched. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes, of course,” Travis replied.

  “Did you ever study astronomy, perhaps? Did you ever take a lesson in the physical sciences where someone spoke of the universe, the stars, the heavens?”

  “I never studied astronomy, no, but I studied other things, physical sciences, I’m sure.”

  “Did any ever speak of Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Orion, nebulas, asteroids, such things as this?”

  “Yes, of course. I have heard of all of those things.”

  “Well, is it not possible that someone might have shown you some diagrams of the constellations and given their names?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “So there is your answer, Agent Travis. The mind absorbs; it retains. You think you have forgotten, but you never really forget anything. The only thing you forget is how to remember.”

  Travis paused in consideration of Beck’s explanation. “So you’re saying there’s a possibility that I knew that the diagram was this constellation all along, and it just took some time for that information to surface?”

  Saxon leaned forward. “You know, it has been said that if you simply asked for a detail about someone’s life every day… if you just asked them once each morning for that same detail, they would eventually remember it. It could be the most precise and specific detail you could ever imagine, something so unimportant there is no way the person could recall it, but it is there, and if you ask for it, you will get it.”