by Blake Pierce
They both fell quiet again.
Then Crivaro added …
“That was a good question, by the way.”
He glanced over and saw that she grinned a little.
*
As Crivaro kept driving, Riley basked a little in what he’d just said …
“That was a good question, by the way.”
She also appreciated that he’d shared such candid and personal thoughts with her. It almost seemed that he liked having her around. Maybe things were really looking up for her today.
Of course, a lot probably depended on what she and Crivaro found out at the carnival.
What if they turned up nothing at all?
The question worried Riley. Back at the meeting, the whole team had changed tactics because of her interpretation of the poem.
What if I was wrong? she wondered.
What if the poem had nothing to do with the murders after all?
Would everybody be mad at her?
Another thing worried her. Crivaro had just been honest with her. Should she be honest with him, tell him about her pregnancy?
Maybe, she thought.
But then, would he just take her off the case—and out of the program?
She frowned at the idea.
That shouldn’t be his call, she thought.
She’d had a prenatal checkup recently, and everything was fine. And although the case was strange and troubling, was it any more stressful than anything else in her life—her problems with Ryan, for instance? The case didn’t involve any physical stress—far less than the boxing workout she’d given herself yesterday, and her physician had assured her she’d be fine for that sort of thing.
She decided not to bring it up.
They arrived to find that the carnival was located in a mall parking lot. Above the entrance was a sign that read …
Mercer and Mathers Midway Entertainments
Riley’s heart started beating faster.
What were they going to find out here?
Was her theory right, or would she be proven horribly wrong?
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Riley tried to keep her excitement in check as she and Crivaro got out of the car. She wanted to look like an experienced investigator, not a wide-eyed beginner. But after all, they were checking into a theory that she had come up with—that the killer might be found in a carnival.
Could this be the one?
As they walked toward the entrance, Riley saw that it looked and sounded pretty much like any ordinary carnival, with rides and blaring music. It also looked …
Small.
Riley thought about the title of the poem …
Welcome to the Labyrinth
The carnival didn’t look like much of a labyrinth. Riley started to have sinking doubts that this was really any kind of lair.
When they reached the main box office, Crivaro said to the man who was selling tickets, “We’d like to talk to carnival owner.”
Inside the booth behind the vender, a burly man was reading a newspaper.
He lowered the paper and asked Crivaro in a rough, wheezy voice, “Who’s asking?”
Crivaro pulled out his badge and introduced himself and Riley.
The man squinted at Crivaro. “Have you got a subpoena on you?”
Crivaro looked surprised.
“No,” he said. “Do I need one?”
The big, balding man grunted with physical effort as he got up from his folding chair.
“Depends on what your business is,” he said.
“We’re investigating two murders,” Crivaro said.
The man let out a raspy laugh of relief.
He said, “Oh, that’s OK, then. As long as it’s not about my alimony payments. Come on through. I’ll be right out to meet you.”
Crivaro and Riley walked through the carnival gate, where the heavy man met them, huffing and puffing with every step. He was smoking a cheap-smelling cigar, which didn’t strike Riley as a good idea for a man in his condition.
He shook hands with Crivaro and said, “Clyde Mercer is my name. I’m the sole owner of this outfit, Mercer and Mathers Midway Entertainments. Have been since my partner Barrett Mathers croaked twenty years ago, may the crooked bastard rot in hell.”
Crivaro asked, “How long have you been at this location?”
“Just a week now. We’re in the middle of our summer tour around these parts, playing county fairs and fundraisers and civic celebrations, that kind of thing. We play right here in this parking lot a week or so every year.”
“Where were you before you came here?” Jake asked.
“Over north in Rigbury, doing a couple of days’ gig for a church bazaar there. We’re heading out of here tomorrow for another stop-over in Fleetwood, a fundraiser for a volunteer fire department.”
Riley studied Crivaro’s expression as he listened to Mercer’s answer, and she could imagine his brain clicking away. Surely he’d want to check out whether anything unusual had happened back in Rigbury while the carnival had been there—especially any murders.
Also, she guessed he was mulling over what it might mean that the carnival was leaving here tomorrow.
After all, the last time a carnival had left the DC area, a corpse had been found the next morning in the field where it had played.
Was another corpse going to be found right here in this parking lot?
Not if we can help it, Riley thought.
But if there was a killer traveling with this carnival, was he going to murder more women in other locations during the rest of its summer tour?
Crivaro said to Mercer, “Maybe you could give us a look around.”
“Glad to,” Mercer grunted. “We’ve got a nice little outfit here.”
As Riley and Crivaro started following Mercer through the grounds, a man running one of the smaller attractions caught Riley’s eye. She realized that she noticed him because of the way he kept glancing at them. Trying to appear that he was looking in some other direction, he was shooting sideways glances at them.
When she turned to look directly at him, he quickly looked away again.
He was running one of the smaller attractions—a game in which patrons shot water guns at a clown face painted on a piece of plywood. The patrons tried to shoot enough water into the clown’s open mouth to fill its nose, which was a red balloon. The object of the game was to explode the balloon and get a prize.
Although the man himself wasn’t in a costume and his face wasn’t made up, he was wearing a red nose and a shaggy red wig. And he couldn’t seem to stop himself from watching Riley and Crivaro.
Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was only natural that Crivaro had provoked some curiosity among onlookers by producing his badge. The man wasn’t the only person eyeing them with curiosity, but Riley thought that one had a particularly shifty expression. She decided she’d keep an eye on him.
She turned and followed Crivaro, who kept asking Mercer questions as they wandered among the attractions—all of them standard carnival stuff as far as Riley was concerned. There was a small Ferris wheel, bumper cars, a couple of scary-looking rides that spun patrons high in the air with tremendous centrifugal force, and other more child-appropriate rides, like spinning tea cups. There was a merry-go-round with rather tired-looking animals.
There were also the usual booths and vendors—the water-balloon game, coin toss games, shooting galleries, a whack-a-mole game, and some food stands.
Riley was struck by how small and crowded the place seemed—not at all labyrinth-like, with only a few shacks and portable toilets.
She found it harder and harder to imagine that this place had anything to do with the murders.
As they walked along, Crivaro asked Mercer about his personnel. Mercer said that they were mostly touring carny folks, with a few locally hired temp workers mixed in. When Crivaro pointed out a hobo-like clown who wandered among the patrons making balloon animals, Mercer said he’d b
een with the carnival for years.
Crivaro watched the clown somewhat warily. But Riley was all but sure he couldn’t be the killer. She remembered the lecture Danny Casal had given them the day before yesterday about clown types—the European “Pierrot,” the vagabond “Auguste,” and also the “tramp” …
“… often personified as a hobo or a vagabond, with a worn-out hat and shoes, sooty sunburned makeup, a sad frown, and a painted stubble of beard.”
The clown who was shaping balloon animals fit that description perfectly. The slain women, on the other hand, and been made up as “grotesque whiteface” clowns. Riley felt sure that the killer himself would wear the same sort of costume and makeup as his victims.
Mercer’s tour brought them back near to where they had started. Crivaro was jotting down some notes in a pad as he walked along.
But when they approached the water game again, Riley saw that the man who was running it wasn’t there.
Then she spotted him hurrying away, still wearing his red nose and wig. He kept looking back, and when he saw her watching him, he broke into a run.
Riley dashed after him.
The man glanced back again, and stumbled.
She was gaining on him.
Looking frantic, the man whirled around and darted up a wooden ramp.
He disappeared into the huge, wide-open, grinning mouth of a scary painted clown.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Riley hesitated for a moment.
Above the huge clown face a sign said “Fun House.”
She looked around and saw that Crivaro was still standing next to Mercer. Crivaro was staring toward her, but she could see that he was too far away to catch the fleeing man.
Riley whirled and dashed up the ramp, ignoring the angry shout of a woman in the ticket office.
She pretended she didn’t hear Jake yell, “Sweeney! Where the hell are you going?”
She rushed through the clown-mouth entrance, pushing aside hanging pieces of black plastic that draped the opening.
Once she was inside, Riley felt like she was caught in a nightmare.
She was bathed in weird, dim light and strange sounds—cackling and screaming and moaning and creepy organ music. She was surrounded by black walls with glowing images of scary faces—clowns, skulls, and various kinds of monsters—painted on them.
Riley’s pulse was pounding now, and a word escaped her lips …
“Labyrinth!”
This was the only structure she’d seen on the carnival grounds that might be large enough to serve as the killer’s lair.
Was this really it?
Be careful, she told herself.
The man was in here somewhere, and he was surely dangerous.
But at the moment, she didn’t even know where to go.
Suddenly dark winged shapes dropped down and buffeted her on all sides.
Startled and shaken, she tried to wave the creatures off.
Bats! she thought.
But not real ones, she quickly realized. They were rubber bats bouncing from unseen elastic cords.
The bats disappeared upward, and then one of the walls slid away, opening into complete darkness.
Cautiously, Riley stepped forward.
With a burst of light and a chorus of shrieks, a glowing white full-sized human skeleton appeared, dancing right in front of her.
Riley let out a yelp of alarm, but she quickly scolded herself …
This is all just make-believe.
And yet, she knew that whoever she had followed into this place was all too real.
The skeleton gave a final shriek and whipped out of sight as quickly as it had appeared.
Now pale lights came on, showing her that she was standing in what appeared to be a shadowy hallway. A figure was moving away from her down the hall, staggering and lurching as if drunken.
It’s him! she thought.
And he had almost reached another opening at the far end of the hall. which was draped with strips of plastic like the front entrance.
He’s about to escape, Riley thought.
Ignoring a roar and two red, gigantic, wolf-like eyes, she started down the hallway after him.
After just a couple of steps, she almost toppled over.
The floor was tilting underneath her feet! Just a little, but enough to throw her off balance.
This was why the man had been staggering.
But of course, he surely knew this place much better than she did. He was better prepared to cope with its tricks and pitfalls.
She tried to run through the hallway, but the floor tilted first one way and then another. She knew she was moving more slowly than her nemesis was.
When she finally pushed the through the plastic strips hanging over the doorway, she found herself in a room bathed in colored light again, and she was facing a wall with …
Three doors!
A deep, mocking voice echoed through the room …
“Which door do you choose?”
Riley felt an irrational surge of anger toward the voice.
She wanted to yell out …
“I don’t have time for games!”
But of course, the voice was recorded. Worse, the man she was chasing surely knew which was the right door already and had already gone through.
Letting out a groan of frustration, Riley pulled open the middle door.
She was surrounded by countless images of herself. It was a cluster of mirrors arranged to multiply her reflection seemingly into the infinite distance. The recorded voice let out a cackle and shouted …
“Wrong door!”
Riley stepped backward and the door shut by itself in her face.
Riley let out a groan of despair. She reached for the door on the left and pulled it open. This time she faced three wavy mirrors that grotesquely distorted her image, one making her short and fat, another tall and skinny, and the other wildly misshapen in a variety of ways.
Again the voice laughed and said …
“Wrong door!”
Growing more angry and frustrated by the moment, she backed away and the door flew shut.
There was only one door left. She yanked it open and was almost blinded by the outdoor light.
She breathed a sigh relief.
But as she took a step down an exit ramp, she was startled by a surge of wind that erupted from the floor under her.
It was one last prank—one designed to embarrass girls and women by making their skirts fly up. Fortunately Riley was wearing slacks.
She pushed through the gust of air and looked around.
The man she was chasing was already some distance off, running through the carnival grounds as fast as he could, pushing people out of his way as he went.
Riley felt an unexpected fury rising inside her.
She shouted at the top of her lungs …
“Hey! You! Stop!”
As she took off in a run after him, her whole body felt ready to explode with anger. She wanted to get hold of that man and pummel him as she had the punching bag in the gym.
She, too, pushed people aside as she ran after him.
Suddenly, she saw her prey fall to the ground
Another man had tackled him.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Riley felt disappointed. She knew she should be relieved that somebody had taken down the man she’d been chasing. But instead, she felt frustrated at not having been able to take on the guy herself, especially after following him through those bizarre tricky rooms with fake monsters.
When she pushed past the carnival patrons who were already surrounding the pair on the ground, she saw that it was Crivaro who had captured the suspect.
Now Crivaro had turned the man face down so that his red clown’s nose squashed against the pavement. His red wig was lying nearby from having been knocked off in the tussle. The gawking onlookers bunched up closer around them.
Crivaro waved his badge at them and yelled, “Stay back, folks. I’m here
on FBI business.”
The group obediently stepped back a little and continued staring.
Crouching down next to the man, Crivaro looked up at Riley as he got out his handcuffs. Gasping for breath he said to her …
“After you ran inside there, I realized you’d spotted somebody. So I waited to nab him when he came out.”
Crivaro added with a winded chuckle, “But the bastard’s fast and nimble, and he wasn’t easy to grab. I wound up chasing him myself. Had to resort to tactics I haven’t used for a while.”
Crivaro snarled at the man as he handcuffed his hands behind him …
“You gave me quite a chase, buddy. I don’t know your name, but you’re under arrest on suspicion of murdering two women.”
The man twisted his head toward Crivaro with a shocked expression.
“Huh?” he yelped. “I didn’t murder nobody!”
The man kept protesting as Crivaro read him his rights.
“Never,” he wailed. “I’m no killer. Wouldn’t do nothing like that.”
Finally Riley asked him, “If you’re innocent, why did you run?”
The man stared wild-eyed at Riley as Crivaro hoisted him to his feet.
He looked really panic-stricken now.
Nodding toward Crivaro, the man said to Riley, “I saw him pull out his badge when the two of you came in. And I thought—”
Crivaro interrupted, “That we were going to arrest you? Smart kid.”
“Not for murder!” the man said. “I never did nothing like that in my life!”
A couple of local cops had pushed through the crowd. They helped Crivaro keep the man subdued as he started to struggle against the cuffs.
Crivaro said to him, “What’s your name, buddy?”
The man shook his head and groaned. “Aw, Jesus.”
“You might as well tell me,” Crivaro said.
One of the carneys stepped out from the surrounding group and yelled …
“I’ll tell you what his name is. It’s Orson Trilby. And I’ll tell you what he did, too. He’s jumping bail. He told me all about it.”
