The Flying Circus

by Susan Crandall

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. It took some time to get the young lady calmed down.”

  So Cora was here. A flash of longing came and went like lightning.

  Then he wondered, who was meeting Evans? Who was making sure no one walked off with the loose parts of the Evie? “She needs to leave.”

  “She’s not your concern any longer.”

  “We didn’t kidnap her.”

  “I see. Maybe we should back up and start with the basics. He took a pencil and small pad from his pocket. Your name?”

  Point of no return. “Henry Schuler.”

  To lie would just confirm both his stupidity and his guilt. But he wasn’t going to answer any questions about Emmaline’s murder. They’d have to ship him back to Indiana for that, so he could at least be where there was a possibility of convincing them to investigate.

  The man’s eyes snapped to Henry’s face.

  “Henry Schuler,” Henry repeated. “From Delaware County, Indiana.”

  The man got up and left the room.

  Henry was left waiting again.

  Just before sunrise, Henry was led from the jail in handcuffs. The deputy flashed a piece of paper so quickly Henry could only read the largest print across the top: WARRANT. Henry only asked one question: What had happened to Gil?

  “Released.” That one word made it so Henry could put one foot in front of the other. Gil was free. He could look after Cora.

  When they took him through a back door and loaded him into a waiting car, he supposed he was headed to Delaware County. The city was deserted but for a truck leaving off bundles of newspapers and a milk delivery wagon. Peaceful. He watched the palm trees lining the streets pass by with detachment, as if he’d already left this place of water and unnatural weather.

  They pulled up to the train station just as the sun was inching over the horizon, a spectacular display of pink and orange that he soaked in as if it were the last he’d ever see. As he and a grumpy deputy boarded a northbound train, Henry wondered if Cora was asleep in her tent or if she’d been too restless and was watching the sunrise. He wondered if Gil was busy putting the engine back together. And he wondered about Frank Evans. How did he take the news that Henry had been hauled off to jail?

  The deputy unlocked Henry’s handcuffs and relocked them in front of him so he could sit in the train seat more easily. A man across the aisle frowned, got up, and moved to a different seat, offering the same look of loathing people had given Henry throughout the war. It no longer held the same power.

  When he’d imagined this day, he’d thought the train ride would be interminable, with panic clawing his gut and his mind racing. But as soon as the train pulled out of the station, Henry fell asleep with relief coursing through his veins. The deputy awakened him to change trains. Henry refused the food the man purchased at the station. The deputy smiled for the first time as he took Henry’s sandwich and added it to his own dinner. Henry was back asleep before the man had finished half of it.

  Union Station in Indianapolis was filled with people when they arrived. Neither the deputy hanging on to Henry’s arm nor the handcuffs seemed to draw attention. When they walked out of the building, the biting wind slapped Henry in the face. The sky was a sharp blue that hung over Indiana only in the deepest of winter. He welcomed the cold, even though coatless. The deputy shivered in his uniform jacket and grumbled about having drawn the short straw and being forced to travel north in January.

  Out on Illinois Street, people did notice the handcuffs, and the deputy’s tight hold around Henry’s upper arm. They sidestepped to give wide clearance, as if Henry were an unpredictable wild animal that might spring. Maybe they were right.

  The deputy hustled Henry along north, straight into the wind. His eyes watered with the cold, yet he still tried to slow down. He’d never seen Indianapolis before. But the shivering deputy kept them moving. Henry wished there were ice, a thick coating that made it so a man couldn’t keep his footing no matter how he shuffled.

  Unsure where they were headed, he didn’t ask. The end destination would be the same, no matter the path to get there.

  When they crossed Market Street, Henry looked to the right and saw the famous Circle with the tall Soldiers and Sailors Monument in its center. When he turned left he was looking at the front of the Indiana statehouse a block away. He dragged his feet to get a longer look at both, but the deputy jerked him along. Ice would indeed have been welcome.

  They’d only gone about three blocks when they entered the Traction Terminal. Apparently the electric interurban car would take them the last leg to Muncie. The waiting platform was bright and warm. When they passed the large newsstand, Henry wondered if the headlines last May had contained his name. There would have been no photograph because he’d never had one taken . . . until that Hollywood newsreel. Oddly, that footage had not been the vehicle of his demise. Instead it had been the search for Cora, probably led to them by the publicity for Evans’s new aircraft. Disaster had a nasty habit of sneaking up on your blind side. He’d known it all along.

  The Delaware County sheriff met them in the traction shed as they descended from the car at the Muncie terminal and promptly arrested Henry for the murder of Emmaline Dahlgren. He’d been expecting it. He didn’t know why the words echoed in his ears and his equilibrium left him. If not for the sheriff’s having a grip on his arm, he might have listed to one side like a sinking ship.

  This sheriff wasted no time in asking all of the questions that the Dade County sheriff had not. Henry answered each one the same: “I’ll be happy to answer all of your questions after I speak to Anders Dahlgren. And I would like a lawyer.” After three separate and equally fruitless attempts at questioning, the sheriff gave up and put him in a jail cell. As the lock was turned, the sheriff said, “He may not be willing to see you. Then what?”

  “He will,” Henry said with false confidence.

  “I’ll call him. Too late for him to come today.”

  Henry nodded and then stretched out on the thin mattress. Dinner was served by the sheriff’s wife. He ate with a surprising appetite.

  The next morning passed with no Mr. Dahlgren. The farm was only an hour away; Henry was starting to worry. He met with his appointed lawyer at eleven in a small room with a table and a chair tucked on each side. The handcuffs stayed on. The man introduced himself as Xavier Thornburg in a voice so soft Henry had to strain to hear it. Thornburg was probably forty, short, and slight of build, barely coming up to the middle of Henry’s chest. Even though it was cold out, the lawyer had a sweaty handshake.

  He shuffled some papers. “I see you’re charged with . . . oh!”

  “Murder.” This was not an auspicious start. Henry thought about Cora’s claim that any lawyer provided for him would be uninvolved and careless. Right now, he’d be happy to have one who’d read the charges before he came in the room.

  Thornburg cleared his throat. “Yes, I see. How do you want to plead?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be telling me?”

  The lawyer looked surprised. “Well, anything you tell me is confidential. So I suppose we should start with your version of what happened.”

  “My version?”

  “Yes. The county prosecutor already has their version lined out.”

  “Which is?” Henry was curious to discover what they assumed had happened and how they supported their theory. It might help him dredge up more memories.

  “Defense counsel isn’t privy to their case at this point in the process. In due time, they’ll have to turn over a list of witnesses they plan to call, evidence filed, and the like. Our plea at this point is simply for the arraignment.”

  “Arraignment?”

  “Where we go before the judge and the charges are read. And then you plead guilty or not guilty. I don’t advise guilty. If you’re going that route, we can declare it later and us
e the leverage for sentencing. Not guilty gets us on the trial docket. And we go from there.”

  “I already told the sheriff that I don’t want to discuss anything until I speak to Anders Dahlgren in person.”

  “Oh, yes. The sheriff told me to tell you that Mr. Dahlgren has refused to come. So, shall we begin with your version of the events?”

  For the first time in two days, real emotion gripped Henry. Mr. Dahlgren was so convinced Henry had killed his daughter that he wouldn’t even speak to him. It pained him more than he could say, but he couldn’t blame the man. If Henry had been in Mr. Dahlgren’s shoes, he would probably feel the same way, brokenhearted, disgusted, disappointed, furious. He’d never seen that man angered. He couldn’t imagine what it would look like.

  At that moment, he understood how much hope he’d been pinning on Mr. Dahlgren’s belief in him. How much he’d counted on Emmaline’s father to demand further investigation—once he’d heard Henry’s explanation.

  Now what chance did Henry have of convincing anyone to ferret out the truth of what had happened? Without a clear memory, what did he have to offer as incentive? For one panicked second he thought about telling Thornburg that he was going to enter a guilty plea if the death penalty was removed as a possibility.

  But it didn’t feel as if he could have killed anyone. Shouldn’t that change a person in some fundamental way—whether you remembered it or not? Or was that just his own form of denial, of self-preservation?

  Henry recounted to Thornburg what had happened on the day of the murder. For the first time, the tremors that always started deep in his bones did not come.

  “That’s it?” The lawyer sounded disappointed. “Amnesia is a tough sell to a jury.”

  Good God, the man missed the point entirely. “I’m not trying to sell anything. I told you what I know.”

  “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

  “I want you to help find out the truth, isn’t that your job? I want someone to at least look into other possibilities than me killing her. Something was going on with her before that day. Didn’t anyone else notice? Is it possible that she just fell? Maybe I did, too. Maybe I didn’t see her and tripped over her. There has to be a reason for my own head injury.”

  “My job is to present the best defense for your case. Investigation is left to the police.”

  “Then get the sheriff in here.”

  The sheriff listened to Henry’s story. When he reached the point where his memory went blank, the sheriff’s interested look shifted to impatience.

  “Hear me out,” Henry said. “I want the truth, too. I’ve done everything I can to remember details that might help fill in the blanks of what happened on that riverbank. I must have hit my head, been hit . . . I just don’t know how it happened.” If he shared the possibility that his own rage had blinded him, that would be the end of it here and now. Answers would never come. “It’s true Emmaline and I didn’t get along. But it had been that way from the first. I’d lived with it for over four years. Why I would have done something about it last May? Nothing was any different between us than it ever had been.” He explained the head injury he’d sustained, probably the reason for the blank spot in his memory; Violet’s appearance had spurred his panicked decision to flee. “I’m not an idiot. I know what it looks like. And I don’t expect you to believe that I was planning on turning myself in. I don’t know what your investigation has uncovered so far, but since I’m sitting here under arrest, I’d say not much other than Violet’s statement. All I’m asking is that you take what I’ve said and look at the case again.”

  The sheriff crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, his face a blank mask. “I’ve known Anders for a long time. He’s a good man. He deserves justice. That girl deserves justice.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. I just want justice to be just and not because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ll face up to what I did when I know for a fact that I did it.”

  “This is an unusual tactic for defense, son.”

  “It isn’t a tactic. It’s the truth. And if someone else did this to Emmaline? Then he needs to be held accountable. Remember I told you she’d been in the woods near the Chautauqua grounds the day before. And she was angry.”

  “So you say.”

  “Well, isn’t that what it’s all about? What I say? What someone else might have to say if you ask them the right questions?” Henry stopped short of suggesting the sheriff question Johanna. If the girl had seen anything, he felt sure she would have told her father.

  The sheriff rose from his seat. “Let’s get you back to your cell.”

  The sound of the cell door’s locking seemed louder this time. Henry had no idea what the sheriff intended to do, if he did anything at all.

  26

  After his meeting with the sheriff, the calm left Henry on a hurricane wind. Maybe it had just been numbness, a stunned emotional pause, like those brief seconds after you hit your finger with a hammer before the knee-buckling pain sets in. The relief was ebbing, too, being replaced inch by inch with the stark fear that he might never see the outside world again, never see the world from a bird’s-eye view with the wind tearing at his hair.

  He made laps around the rectangle of his small cell. Only one other occupied cell was near him. Its inhabitant punctuated the silence with the slow rhythmic thud of his head against the bars. It had started the minute the man was locked in there. Henry’s pace fell into the cadence of that steady beat.

  As he circled, the regrets started. If he’d come when he’d made the decision to, he could have gone to Mr. Dahlgren himself, first thing. Standing face-to-face, even if the man didn’t believe or forgive him, he would at least have heard Henry out, he was sure of it. And he could have done some digging himself before he turned himself in, had more to offer the sheriff. If Henry had gone back to the river, it might have shaken something from the mortar of his memory.

  He heard the courthouse clock strike one. Today was race day. Or was it yesterday? Time had gotten scrambled.

  That he wouldn’t know the outcome of the race hit him like a physical blow. No one would share news of Gil or Cora or the flying circus. He was cut off in a way he’d never been. It was true, he’d been alone a good part of his life; but after having had people who’d accepted him, who’d willingly shared their lives with him, this new aloneness was more bitter than any he’d ever had to face.

  And Gil? What must he think of me? By now, Gil had to know Henry had been charged with murder, had used Gil to get away and lied to him. If not from the Dade County sheriff, then from Cora. Henry had stupidly thought he had more time. Now he just seemed that much more cowardly. Would he ever have a chance to apologize?

  The door to the hall in front of the cells clattered open. “He’s at the end. I’ll be right here. Don’t get close to the cells.”

  Henry stepped close to the bars and listened as soft footsteps approached. The head-thumping in the other cell stopped. Then it started again.

  And she was there. He blinked to make certain his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him.

  “Hello, Henry.” Cora stepped close and put her hands through the bars. Henry grabbed them like a lifeline. She smelled different, but somehow familiar.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Where’s Gil? Did they let him out?” Questions tumbled on statements, fueled by the fear she’d be swept away from him again. “Did the Pinkerton force you back here?”

  “Miss! Step back or you’ll have to leave.”

  Defiance showed in her eyes. Henry let go of her hands, took a step back, and nodded for her to do the same.

  She took a small step backward. A half smile graced her lips when she said, “The Pinkerton finally gave up when I yelled for someone to call the police, that I was being kidnapped. And the police let Gil go after I went in and explained everything to their satisfaction.”
/>
  Henry relaxed a bit. “The race?”

  “The race was yesterday afternoon.”

  “How’d you get here so fast?”

  “I’ve been here since early this morning.”

  “Oh, Cora! You didn’t race?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t stay down there and run it with you up here . . . like this.”

  “But this was your chance! Evans, the Evie—” He’d ruined it for her.

  “Gil raced it. You know his chances of winning were far better than mine. We wanted the money to hire you a good lawyer. And as far as Evans is concerned, a war hero is next-best thing to a woman daredevil for publicity.”

  Henry stood there for a few seconds absorbing the enormity of what she’d given up. “You shouldn’t have come. There isn’t anything you can do. You gave that race up for nothing.”

  “I disagree.” She stepped closer again and the deputy issued a sharp warning. She stopped just short of putting her hands on the bars. She lowered her voice. “I went straight to the Dahlgren farm.”

  Henry felt as if he’d been gut-punched. “You what?”

  “I wanted to tell Mr. Dahlgren what you couldn’t, what you’d been planning to.”

  Henry didn’t even want to ask how it had gone. He knew. He just hated it that Cora had to experience the loathing that should have been his. “He wouldn’t see me.”

  “I know. But I think that had more to do with placating his wife than with you.”

  Henry shook his head, unable to force words from his lips. She was just trying to make him feel better.

  “He doesn’t want to believe you hurt his daughter. I can see it. He’s just so beaten down by everyone telling him it has to be true.”

  Henry remembered how Mr. Dahlgren had been about the bracelet Emmaline said Henry had stolen, how he’d not been able to call his daughter a liar, yet hadn’t punished Henry in a way that said he believed the lie.

  “We don’t have time to fool around here, Henry. We need answers. So I asked him what evidence they had that you attacked Emmaline—after his wife left the room with a case of the vapors, of course. You were right!” Cora’s voice rose with restrained excitement. She glanced to make sure the deputy wasn’t inching closer and listening. “After Violet came back screaming that she’d seen you, that you’d killed her sister, no one looked any further.”