Carnival of Shadows

by R.J. Ellory

  “I am fifty-one. In human years, at least.”

  Travis frowned.

  Slate smiled, gave a little laugh. “I am joking, Agent Travis. It is my nature to try to lighten everything a little. Please pay no mind to it.”

  “You appear younger than you are,” Travis said.

  “The penalty of wickedness is perhaps the appearance of youth. No one ever takes me seriously, you see?”

  “Wickedness?” Travis asked.

  “Perhaps too strong a word. Mischievousness. A general unwillingness to grow up, you know? Being an adult always seemed so insufferably dull to me.”

  Travis smiled and sipped his coffee. The man might have been a little left of center, as seemed to be everyone he had thus far met, but his coffee was very good indeed.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Slate said.

  “Sorry?”

  “The coffee. Good.”

  “Er, yes,” Travis replied. “How did you know I just thought that?”

  “I didn’t,” Slate said. “You tasted the coffee; your features relaxed a little. When something is good, we relax; when something isn’t, we become more tense. It is just observation, Agent Travis, not mind-reading… though if you want me to read your mind, I could have a go.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Travis replied. “So, back to the matter at hand.”

  “The tattoo,” Slate said. “I have no idea at all. Sorry I can’t help.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Travis said. “I appreciate your time and cooperation. This man’s death has an explanation, and I will find it.”

  “Are you sure of that, Agent Travis?”

  “Sure that I will find an explanation? Of course I am sure. Everything has an explanation.”

  “Aha, that is where you appear to possess a great deal more certainty than I,” Slate said. “I have found quite the reverse, to be honest. The older I get, the more I see, the more people I meet, the more questions I have. And no, I do not believe that everything has an explanation.”

  “I am not talking about the eternal questions, Mr. Slate. I am not talking about whether or not there is a God, or why we are here, or where we are going—”

  “Oh, I have no problem with those questions,” Slate said. “Those are the easiest of all. I am talking about the difficult questions, the ones that no one seems to have been able to answer in all the eons of time.”

  “Such as?”

  “What is really happening in the minds of women. There’s one to begin with. That’s a question that will never be answered, wouldn’t you say?”

  Suddenly Travis was presented with an image of his mother’s face. It was there, right there in front of him, almost as if she were seated before him instead of Slate.

  It was the night before she died, those few moments where he seemed to make some sort of connection through the distance that existed between them. It was his mother, the woman he remembered, the woman who had given birth to him, who had raised him, the woman who had taken a table knife and driven it through his father’s eye…

  Will haunt you forever, kiddo. Gonna be in your dreams, your nightmares, your waking thoughts… always and forever…

  “Agent Travis?”

  Travis looked at Slate.

  “Are you all right, Agent Travis?”

  Travis felt as if there were no air at all in the caravan.

  “I need to step outside for a moment,” he said.

  Travis got up, knocked over his coffee cup, and the last inch of coffee spread across the table. He looked down at it. He saw red wine on the floor of Esther’s veranda. And then he saw blood on the wooden floor of the Flatwater house…

  “I’m so-sorry,” he stuttered.

  “It’s all right,” Slate said. “It’s nothing. Go… step outside. Get some air.”

  Travis headed for the door, opened it, narrowly missed striking his head on the upper frame, and then almost lost his footing down the narrow steps to the grass.

  He stood there for a moment, a real sense of tension in his head, his throat, his chest. He looked out toward the central marquee, now lit within, and there, before his eyes, he saw the Asian girl from the day before.

  She was on a platform no more than three or four feet high. She was dressed in a skintight silver outfit, somehow bent over backward and yet looking at him from between her own legs. She was smiling directly at him, no doubt about it, this image of utter impossibility, as if she had somehow been broken in half and put together incorrectly.

  He remembered her name. Akiko. Autumn Child.

  Travis turned back toward the caravan as Slate came down the steps after him.

  “Are you all right, Agent Travis?” he asked.

  “Ye-yes,” he said. He breathed again, felt the cool air fill his lungs. “I am okay. Just a little dizzy, I think.”

  “Is there anything else I can help you with, or are we done?”

  “I think we’re done, Mr. Slate. At least for now.”

  Slate came forward, handed Travis the picture and the diagram.

  “I hope you find the answers you’re looking for, Agent Travis,” Slate said. “So few of us ever do.”

  Travis said nothing in response. He walked away, and only when he reached the edge of the road did he turn back.

  Slate stood there, his hands down by his sides, but palms turned toward Travis. His expression was guileless and sincere, as if he were saying, There is nothing else to see here, Agent Travis, nothing but what you see already.

  Travis reached his car. He fumbled with his keys and dropped them. He snatched them from the ground, opened the door, and got in. Only when he’d slammed the door shut behind him and Slate had gone back into his caravan did he feel that he could think straight. He wondered if he wasn’t sick with something. He felt troubled; a sense of unease ran right through him like a virus, like some airborne infection that had somehow penetrated his skin and gotten inside.

  He shuddered, tried to close his eyes. The sense of disorientation increased, and he opened them once more. He was surrounded by the ever-present feeling of being watched and yet had no rational explanation for such a feeling.

  Whatever it was, it was not good, and to close his eyes to it—both physically and figuratively—would be to fail to see what was coming. For something was coming—of this he was sure—and somehow he knew it would not be good.

  17

  Travis did not wish to speak to Edgar Doyle. He did not wish to speak to anyone.

  He drove back to Seneca Falls and parked outside the hotel. Inside he found the reception area empty. He turned to the stairwell and heard his name called. Looking back, he saw Laura McCaffrey in the hallway that led to the dining room.

  “Agent Travis,” she said.

  “Miss McCaffrey, good evening.”

  “Danny said you might be back. Have you had dinner?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’m not all that hungry, to be honest.”

  “A sandwich, then?” she said. “You must eat something.”

  Travis headed back down the stairs, simply because Laura McCaffrey—in that moment—seemed to be the first truly normal person he’d seen that day.

  “Thank you,” Travis said. “That would be good.”

  “Come on through to the kitchen,” Laura said. “I’ve made some coffee too.”

  Laura McCaffrey told Travis to sit at a small table near the stove. She said little as she prepared his sandwich. She set it in front of him and then took a seat facing him, her elbows on the table, her hands around her own coffee cup, and she smiled at him with such sincerity that he found it hard to look away from her.

  He ate half the sandwich without even being aware of eating it, and his coffee cup was refilled twice. He felt as if he were dreaming.

  “So how was your day, Secret Agent Trav
is?” Laura eventually asked him.

  Travis smiled, had to contain his laughter for fear of losing a mouthful of coffee. This was what he needed. He needed someone like Laura McCaffrey to remind him that the world was not full of crazies and carnival freaks.

  “It was okay, Miss McCaffrey,” Travis said.

  “Would it be such hard work for you to call me Laura?” she asked.

  “No, not such hard work,” Travis said. “Laura it is.”

  “So, did you find out who the dead guy was?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Hell of a thing, that carnival, you know?” Laura went on. “I was there Friday night, the night it opened. Never seen anything like it before.”

  Travis looked at her closely. There was a sense of surprise in her tone, as if she was recalling something that was puzzling even to herself.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, I’ve seen those sorts of things before, you know. We all have. County fair comes down here, even the circus one time or other, and you see these folks with the tricks and whatever. But these people are different. There’s something not right about them.” She shook her head, smiled a little nervously. “I’m talkin’ out of turn, Agent Travis. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything.” She started to get up from the table.

  “Hold up a minute,” Travis said. “What do you mean?”

  Laura sat down again. She leaned forward a little, as if now this was something she didn’t wish anyone to overhear.

  “I saw that man, you know, the one who looks like he’d just blow away in a strong breeze…”

  “The Thin Man?” Travis asked.

  “Yes… and then there’s the other one with too many fingers.” She shuddered involuntarily. “Creepy as hell, he was, you know? But then he did some things that I have never seen before, and I just cannot get them out of my mind. They have been puzzlin’ the hell out of me ever since, you know?”

  Travis leaned back. He was curious now.

  Laura smiled nervously. “I’m sorry. It was just thinking about those things, and I was suddenly back there. They had that music an’ everything, that carousel music, you know?”

  “Calliope.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what it’s called. That kind of music. Fairground music, music for carousels and the like. Calliope.”

  “Oh right, yes. Whatever it is, it was going the whole time, and I went into that tent where that man was doing tricks…”

  She looked up at Travis, was silent for a moment.

  “Did you see something that troubled you, Laura?” Travis asked.

  “Well, you see people do tricks and whatever, and you think, oh, he’s got a card up his sleeve, or he had that coin in his hand all along. Hell, I even learned one time how to do that thing for the kids where you make it look like you took a dime out of their ear and then you give it to them, right?”

  “Yes, sure,” Travis said, his mind immediately going back to the white feather that was there and then gone.

  “But this was different, Mr. Travis. I mean, he was good, real good… like too good, if you know what I mean.”

  “Too good?”

  “You ever see someone make a card change color in front of your eyes?”

  “Change color?”

  “You know, like he has an ace of hearts in his hand. It’s an ace of hearts. That heart is right there, red like blood, and then he gives you the card and asks you to hold it facedown on your knee, right. He has the card, he shows it to you, he gives it to you, you put it facedown on your knee, and then he says something and you turn the card over and it’s black.”

  “The ace of spades.”

  “No, sir, the ace of hearts, but it’s black. He made the heart go black.”

  “Surely he just gave you another card, one that was already black.”

  “No, it wasn’t possible. You should see him do it. And that wasn’t the only thing I saw him do that I couldn’t explain. I mean, you expect them to be good, don’t you? You expect them to do things that make you go Wow an’ all, but you think about it afterward and you can see how it might have been done. Some of the things he did are still puzzling the crap out of me—”

  Laura stopped midsentence. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  Travis smiled. “It’s quite all right, Laura. I’ve heard a great deal worse, believe me.”

  He saw she was quite embarrassed, and so he just prompted her again. “So, what else happened that night?”

  “I can’t even begin to remember now, Mr. Travis. The more I think about it, the harder it seems to recall anything specific. It wasn’t just the things I saw, it was the whole way that place made me feel. I mean, I’ve been up to that field a hundred times in my life. Hell, we used to play there when we were kids. I know that place like my own backyard. I saw them puttin’ them tents up, all raggedy and fallin’ apart it seemed, but when me an’ Danny went up there Friday night, it was almost magical.” She paused, looked directly at Travis. “It’s real hard to describe a feeling sometimes, Mr. Travis, but there was a feelin’ around that place that sort of spooked me even before I saw anythin’. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was nothin’ right there in front of me, and the kids were havin’ an absolute hoot an’ all, but when I heard that some guy had been found dead out there the next night…”

  Laura McCaffrey closed her eyes for a second. She took a deep breath.

  Travis stayed silent; he knew well enough not to interrupt that internal line, the little monologue now continuing that would stop in its tracks if he made his presence felt.

  “I heard that a man was killed up there… and it sort of…” She shook her head. “I have to say that it didn’t surprise me as much as it should have, Mr. Travis. Almost as though if someone was going to die in Seneca Falls that night, then that was the only place it could have happened…”

  She looked away toward the window. “Danny says I have a gift, you know?”

  “A gift?” Travis asked, even now aware of the fact that there was something utterly charming about Laura McCaffrey, a sense of unprepossessing innocence that was nevertheless truly engaging. Listening to her just talk was the exact thing he needed right now.

  “Like sometimes when you know something will happen, right?”

  Laura hesitated, looked at Travis as if waiting for confirmation.

  “Yes,” Travis said, uncertain of what he was being asked, but concerned only that she didn’t stop talking. She made him feel calmer somehow, and it was not something that he even questioned.

  “Little things mostly,” Laura went on. “Like when someone comes into the diner and you know they don’t have two red cents in their pocket, but they order up a blue plate special and a slice of pie an’ everything. You know they’re gonna eat everything and then run off without payin’. That’s happened twice here. I knew they weren’t gonna pay, and I told Danny, and he said that that was just not the way things were done. You don’t ask people to pay for things ’fore they had them. Anyways, I was right and he was wrong. Two times it happened, and two times those fellers just took off outta here and ran off down the street.”

  Laura reached out and touched the edge of the coffeepot.

  Travis watched her hand, her delicate fingers, the seeming grace with which she moved. She seemed so relaxed. Travis wondered how it would feel to be so at ease.

  “Danny said it was just my imagination the first time. I said that there was nothing wrong with using your imagination, as long as you didn’t use it for bad things, right? Second time he didn’t say anything much at all, but sometimes he calls me a witch. Just for a joke, you know?”

  She looked at Travis.

  Travis smiled. He sensed her reaction. He held her gaze, and she looked away.

  “Anyways, when the thing happened
with Monty Finch’s boy an’ all, well, Danny said that maybe I did have a little bit of the gift. I think it scared him some, to be honest.”

  “Monty Finch?”

  “He’s dead now, been dead two years. He was old; his heart gave out. What happened was that Monty Finch got robbed in his own home. Someone came into his house with a pillowcase over their head, eyeholes cut in it an’ all, damned near scared him to death right then and there. I spoke to the doctor after Monty died, and he said that a shock like that might very well have weakened the old man’s heart. Anyways, this person came into Monty’s house late in the evening, he’s wavin’ a gun, got this pillowcase on his head like he’s one o’ them Klan fellers down south, and he robs the old man blind. Takes off with more than a hundred bucks that the old man has saved. Anyways, it’s all the news the next day. Old man Finch is okay. He’s shaken up some, as anyone would be, but him bein’ so old, it’s really knocked him sideways. He comes on down to the diner for breakfast just the way he’s done for as long as I can remember, and while he’s sat there eatin’, I look at him and I knew. I knew, Mr. Travis.”

  “Knew what, Laura?”

  “I just knew that he was robbed by someone who knew him, someone close. I told Danny. He told Lester. Lester told Sheriff Rourke, and they go see old man Finch and they find out that he had a son. Hell, no one even knew he had a son. Son was a crook all right, had just come out of prison, and they did some checking up on him and found him holed up in a motel just a dozen or so miles from here.” Laura McCaffrey smiled a little awkwardly. “Word was that he was in there drunk with a prostitute.”

  “So the son had robbed his father.”

  “He had indeed. They even found the pillowcase right there in the room with the holes cut in it an’ all.”

  “So you were right?”

  “I was.”

  “And this relates to what happened on Saturday night because?”

  “Yes, sorry. I was just tellin’ you that so you knew I wasn’t just some crazy lady gone mad in a small town in Kansas ’cause she’s got no one to talk to.”

  Travis smiled, again sensed something, an unspoken response to his change of expression. “Never even crossed my mind, Laura.”