A FATAL FESTIVAL (Alethea, The Circus Sleuth Book 3)

by Jenna Coburn

  Barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes at him, or perhaps shake him by the shoulders, Alethea just exhaled deeply. “I’m going to do some dicking around, then. You know, in the private dick way.” With the brightest smile, she ran off.

  Chapter IV

  As she had agreed with Virgil to leave their own circus to him, Alethea did not even take the time to visit her family and perhaps join Elyse in making fun of their stinky father. If the incident didn’t have an obvious connection to outside meddling, she’d have considered the stink bomb explosion to be something that Creighton Thwaite might have easily just achieved on his own—an “unfortunate malfunction of magical materials.”

  The man Reynard, who had taken much the same role in the failed negotiations as she had, seemed a reasonable sort to her, and so she’d start by trying to talk to him. There was definitely something afoot, and it was unlikely that there was a big conspiracy that everyone in the other circus was a part of; it was hard enough to organize a circus as is without attempting to turn them into some sort of ninja clan.

  She tried to look inconspicuous once she had made her way back, and then asked a passing guy, who looked like he had something better to do than be suspicious, about talking to Reynard. She was pointed to the far side of the circus, and it seemed like it was usual that someone came asking for him. It was easy to consider that he probably was one of those people that did all the grunt work of boring financial and organizational nature—indispensable, but underappreciated.

  The trailer was rather small, and a bit on the old side. It looked like Reynard didn’t get much out of it all. Alethea knocked on the door and was asked inside, where she found the man typing on his laptop with some documents strewn about. “Miss Alethea Thwaite, what an unexpected guest.” He looked her up and down. “I suppose you’re here because our political summit didn’t involve much actual exchange of information?”

  “Hi, Reynard. I assume I can call you Reynard? You can call me Alethea.” He nodded, and invited her to sit with a gesture of his hand. “And that’s exactly why I’m here. If people are being sabotaged across the festival, then everyone should work together to find the culprit. I don’t care who it was, and we don’t need to speculate now, with nothing much to go on. That is, unless you have something to go on?”

  Reynard shook his head with a regretful expression. “Afraid not. No one has seen suspicious figures around, rubbing their hands and/or cackling manically.” Alethea smiled politely for a second. For some reason, it felt like a joke she might make, too; it hit a bit close to home, and she wondered if this was how other people experienced her quips. “It must have been a group, actually. I don’t think a single person could have pulled that much off in one day.”

  He was right. Everything pointed to a well-coordinated effort instead of a single person that flipped out a bit. The man who broke Braden’s concentration was the only visible connection to that group. Alethea’s hand automatically wandered to the bandage on her neck, which prompted Reynard to look at it, then at her with a silent question in his eyes. “I was in a performance that went slightly wrong,” she said.

  The tone in her voice clearly told him that this was all she was going to say on the matter, so Reynard did not pry. “Just please tell me what you know, Reynard, and I’ll tell you what Virgil told me, and maybe we can establish something of a dedicated line of communication between us.” She smiled for a moment.

  “Alright.” He sighed and closed his laptop, as if to signify that they were starting to have an actual conversation. He leaned forward. “Just so you know, you should have pointed out your injury before. That might’ve made that talk…better. Anyway….” He cleared his throat. Alethea slowly raised her eyebrow. There was apparently a lot of red tape to go through before this guy could actually start talking.

  “Yesterday, one of our trapeze artist’s performances was cut short when she fell. Someone had manipulated the rigging, just precisely enough to not be noticed before the performance, and so as to not break easily. She was saved by the net, but still injured.” He watched her, as if there were something on her face he was searching.

  “The second thing that happened was that someone put something into our food backstage, which was less dangerous, but much more fatal to our performances. Luckily, it kicked in only after some time had passed, and I didn’t eat any of it, but…well, let’s just say that some of our performers’ digestive systems will never be the same again.” They both dwelled on that for a long moment.

  “And that’s what happened,” Reynard concluded. “I know it’s strange, in one case a person could’ve been killed, in the other it was a prank—a vicious prank, but still a prank. It’s not like anyone would’ve died on the toilet.”

  “It was actually the same for us, Reynard.” Apparently, the saboteurs liked to combine what they understood as practical jokes with a crueler variant that only narrowly had failed to kill someone. “Our strongman’s weights were tampered with, and he almost got seriously hurt. And my father, who performs as a magician, got hit with a stink bomb.” Reynard nodded once, then shook his head.

  “Whoever does this must have some twisted mind,” he said in a low voice, half to himself. “We really need to watch ourselves. I sincerely hope that if they try again today, we’re ready and find out beforehand. It’s just—”

  “Maybe it would be wiser to just put everything on pause,” she finished the thought for him. He looked at her with big eyes, and then nodded again. “Damn, if only that were possible. If this wasn’t some sort of glorious festival, it would be easy, but try convincing everyone…and try looking into the faces of the audience. Imagine the refunds.”

  He really didn’t look like he wanted to follow that suggestion. Instead, he balled one hand to a fist and bit down on his jaw. “We have to find these guys. If only we had a lead.” Alethea bit her lip, and he saw.

  She sighed deeply.

  “There’s a guy who yelled at my brother, and then his throwing hand slipped. I’m actually surprised you didn’t hear about that yet, since this is less than a village. Anyway…that guy. He may be a lead. But…I mean, he may not even be part of the whole thing. Also, we’re not sure who he was, or what he even looked like. He just slipped through the cracks.”

  Reynard nodded, but then shrugged. “It might be worth a try, Alethea. We don’t have much to go on, as I said. Anyone around here I asked doesn’t remember anything helpful, not even a dude who yelled. But if that’s all…I’ve got normal work to get back to.” He stood up—the polite way of prompting a guest to also stand up—and they shook hands once again before quickly exchanging numbers and saying good-bye.

  All in all, the meeting went about as well as expected. There were new puzzle pieces to put together, and some progress was made, yet there hadn’t been a breakthrough. If the Circus Pandemonium had anything on the perpetrators, then their director wouldn’t have acted as he had, and things could have been quite beautiful and simple. As Alethea had learned before, these two things seldom went together. Presumably, Virgil expected her to report in, and she couldn’t think of anything else to do. The mystery man who distracted her brother could be anyone, anywhere.

  Even if she considered him some sort of voodoo priest, that brought her in no way closer to him. He hadn’t left a doll lying around, or a magical business card. And for all she knew, no matter what America said, he really was unrelated. Two incidents, one serious and one uncomfortable, had happened in both circuses. The other thing seemed like the proverbial fifth wheel. And still, she realized that she wanted to believe America more than she wanted to listen to her own reason. Some connection had to be there, and by thinking along the right lines, she could find it. That was what the old woman had wanted to make her believe in, wasn’t it?

  She found Virgil giving orders from in front of his trailer, standing there, overlooking his realm and his citizens. There was surprise on his face, and she recognized that he hadn’t expected her back so soon. “Are
you already done at Circus Pandemonium?” He asked without a greeting or embellishment.

  “We kept things short and sweet.” She smiled and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Two things happened at their circus. One of their trapeze artists was injured because her gear was faulty, and someone put something in their food that…gave them some digestive problems.” She raised her eyebrows for a moment. “Looks like the same thing that happened to our people. And the festival visitors will realize something is wrong pretty soon, too.”

  “So that means they have nothing else, either?” She shook her head, and Virgil considered the issue for a moment. “I wish you had brought something more back, but you still did well, considering the circumstances. As it is…we just need to make the most we can out of having a day’s worth of warning. I’m already trying to drill into everyone’s head to keep their eyes open and double- and triple-check everything.”

  “That won’t be enough.” Alethea spoke her mind. “I fear that things might get worse before they are going to get better. Keeping our eyes open is good and well, but the circumstances make lapses in security basically inevitable. These people seem to know what they’re doing, and nobody’s seen them. I just don’t know where to go from here. I just don’t want to wait until someone else gets injured.”

  “I’m sorry, Letha.” He put an old, leathery hand on her shoulder. It felt warm even through her clothes. “What should I say? What would you have me do?” She looked at him for a long time. There was something she could say, but the words got stuck in her mouth. She looked down at both their feet.

  “I think you know what you could do,” she whispered. Looking back up at him, she shrugged. “And I know that…well, that you won’t do it.” A tired smile appeared on her face, and she put her hand on his shoulder in turn. “I’m going to see what I can do…play security for a bit, and maybe I will have a flash of genius and catch the evildoers.”

  Their arms fell back down to their sides simultaneously. Their unspoken disagreement filled the air between them, and neither of them said anything more to fill it; they just turned away from each other and went their separate ways.

  Alethea had said what she was going to do, but she felt a pressure inside herself to do more. The desire for that flash of genius, that way of finding who they were looking for, made her feel restless. In her head, she went over the things she knew; the thing that irritated her most was that nobody had seen anything. It was the paradox surrounding the great masses of people at the festival—there was always someone there, but few things offered more privacy than a crowd filled with individuals not looking at each other. Not remembering each other. In a festival like this, with dancers, singers, walkers on stilts, fire-breathers, clowns, sculptures, acrobats, and clowns mixing among the slowly moving mass of pedestrians, nothing was strange. Few things were so remarkable as to be remembered, because everything was remarkable, and the brain was overloaded with sensations piling on top of each other, demanding every last bit of attention.

  “I think I need a drink,” Alethea mumbled to herself as she stretched. She already knew that, in all likelihood, she would spend her time talking and asking around for hours. All she could hope for was that the day would be uneventful, maybe even boring, and that yesterday was a sudden wave of chaos not followed by another.

  There would be no such luck, of course.

  Chapter V

  Alethea was running, brushing past people, ducking and twisting and pushing through every opening until she had finally reached her target. There had been a short call, just a few seconds long, from Reynard. He had not said much, but the sound of urgency, the tone in his voice, told her everything. Whatever had happened, it was important. By calling her, he showed he trusted her—a trust she wasn’t willing to betray. In all probability, the Circus Pandemonium had heard of her detective skills, and that’s why they had brought her in so quickly.

  She arrived later than security, but sooner than the police. There were no crowds; it hadn’t happened during a performance. The sun had already disappeared, night was gripping the festival, and different sensations took the place of the daily artistry. Behind a small and seemingly unnecessary line of broad-shouldered men was a group of people that stood over a single individual on the ground.

  She recognized the man. He was the sword-swallower of Pandemonium—a wiry and pale man with fiery red hair. He looked strangely peaceful, as if sleeping, but the faces of everyone around him showed clearly that he would not wake up. There was no outward sign of injury, no sword, but Alethea could imagine what had happened. She swallowed heavily, and when Reynard approached her, they just looked at each other for a few seconds.

  “Dammit,” she said in a low voice.

  “Dammit,” Reynard agreed with her. “Sorry for…calling so suddenly and saying nothing, I just thought that it would be good for you to be here. For someone from your circus to be here.” Alethea nodded. Even if a more suspicious person might have seen a thinly veiled accusation in these words, she didn’t care about these strange lines in the sand, especially after such an escalation in the chaos that was overtaking the festival. The only important thing was to prevent whoever did this from striking again.

  “I understand.” She bit her lip. Being there was one thing, but being useful was another. Standing there, she felt powerless. “I feel like I failed. Like there was a way to prevent this and I didn’t fight hard enough.”

  “I know that feeling,” he answered. They both looked at the victim, and a short while later, medics arrived. The police came just minutes after. Everything was cordoned off and people that had no real purpose there, like Alethea or even Reynard, were sent away. They ended up in Gudmund’s trailer, who, to Alethea’s surprise, wasn’t surprised to see her. The three of them sat down together, with the circus director pouring whiskey in a glass for each of them.

  They kept their silence, and they drank a bit. Alethea, taking her first sip out of politeness, was surprised that this whiskey was actually drinkable. Normally, no one around her bought the expensive stuff. After they had taken part in this manly ritual, and neither Gudmund nor Reynard seemed to be ready to start talking, it was she who tried to.

  “So…what was his name?”

  “Obed Selby,” Reynard answered. “He was a good guy. He was still young. This is just…this is too much.” He looked sideways at Gudmund, who was already pouring more whiskey for himself. The circus director’s face looked gloomier than she could have ever imagined she’d see him. The blond, tall man blamed himself. All three of them blamed themselves; that was why they were sitting together like this.

  “I know, this is…too close to home. Can you tell me what you know about him? The police might ask the same questions soon enough, but still…we’re in this together, aren’t we? We need to stop these guys together. I can’t imagine what happens if they keep hurting people, and keep on getting away.” In fact, she could imagine, but she didn’t really want to.

  Gudmund threw back his whiskey and cleared his throat, with two pairs of eyes suddenly focusing on him. “Obed was thirty-two years old. We celebrated his birthday in October. He has an ex-wife and a child somewhere on the West Coast. He somehow got into circus stuff during high school and then never finished college, which pissed his parents off mightily. He said that he was miserable back then, and running off to do his own thing, even if it was hard having little money, especially with his family, was still the best decision he ever made. He was with us for 10 months now, not too long, but long enough for everyone to know him and like him and know that he didn’t deserve what happened to him.” He sighed and leaned his head on his hand. “Not that anyone else would deserve that,” he added in a low voice.

  Reynard had nodded in agreement while Gudmund was speaking. Turning back to Alethea, he continued, “We don’t know anything about him that’d suggest he has enemies, or something like that. That’s usually what people ask, isn’t it? But he didn’t have enemies. He was just a guy li
ving his life, not harming anyone.” Reynard tapped the table, as if the erratic sounds could make him remember some crucial piece of information.

  “Obed had one performance today, a few hours before he was found like that. I think he complained he wasn’t feeling too good and went into his trailer.” Reynard was interrupted, and Alethea flinched a bit as Gudmund hit the table with the flat of his palm.

  “Why didn’t he go to the hospital? Why didn’t he just….” He emitted a powerless, angry groan. “I’m sorry, I know…people don’t go to the hospital because they feel ‘under the weather,’ but this wasn’t a normal situation. These….” He tried to breathe deeply. “I need another drink.” He poured himself a whiskey first, and then filled the glasses of the other two up once more.

  “He must have left his trailer and then fallen down outside, passed out before…we tried to resuscitate him, but…I tried to ask around, but no one saw anything peculiar, and Obed couldn’t tell us. We need to check his equipment, his food, and…everything.” Reynard took a small sip of whiskey. “The police needs to, I mean.”

  “He was a friendly guy. An open guy.” Gudmund seemed to have checked out for the most part. They had lost count on how fast he had inhaled these whiskies; the bottle looked significantly depleted, though. “He was a bit awkward at first, a bit nervous, but anyone’s a bit nervous sometimes. Around new people. On stage he was fearless.”

  Alethea bit her lip, nodding with a worried expression. She looked at the half-full glass in front of her, but decided she couldn’t possibly down that. “Thank you. And…I don’t like to be formulaic, but my condolences…I mean it. This is…this really is too close to home. It’s a shock. Let’s meet again tomorrow, okay? Let’s stick together now.” She stood up. “Good night, Gudmund. Reynard.”