The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  All this time, she'd been talking to the imposter as she watered plants or pulled up weeds. The fact that she was fooled made her feel vaguely ashamed. What kind of detective was she if she couldn't see something so patently obvious? But the two birds had sounded exactly alike, just like their cousin here in the juniper tree.

  She rang the bell again. This time the door opened almost immediately. The maid she'd seen last time answered, wearing the same outfit, the knit shirt over a white skirt and Keds.

  The maid let Laura into the house and motioned her to stay in the foyer. The house was cold. A female voice, singing, floated down from a room on the second floor—deeper and darker than the voice student Laura had heard before. Laura knew it was Nina Lantz-Brashear.

  A few minutes later, Micaela Brashear came down the curved staircase. She wore a halter top, cropped jeans, and bejeweled flip-flops that showed off her lacquered toenails. “Hi,” she said. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Just a couple of questions.”

  The maid hovered nearby, an uncertain smile on her face.

  “Es tambien,” Micaela told her. She led Laura through the house to a narrow room, one wall all screened windows and a pair of French doors looking to the back yard. A print of woman holding calla lilies hung from the wall opposite the windows. The floor was dark red concrete. Outside, there was a lawn, several royal palms, a swimming pool, and a cabana.

  Micaela sat in a wing chair, her back to the yard, pulling her feet up and locking her arms around her knees. Laura thought again that although Micaela Brashear wasn't classically beautiful, her features were assembled in such a way that she could stop traffic with one look.

  “Do you remember the carnival you went to with your friend . . .” Laura looked at her notes. “Lindsay Copeland? It was about a week before you were kidnapped.”

  She touched one of the small golden hoops at her ear. “It was just a shopping center somewhere. We were coming back from swimming when Lindsay saw it and asked her mom if we could go in.”

  “You remember the part of town?”

  “Somewhere on the west side. We went to that water-slide place; it was on the way back.”

  “Can you remember any cross streets?”

  “It was by the freeway.”

  “Did anything stand out in your memory?” Laura thinking: If she met Bill Smith, she'd remember that.

  Micaela shook her head. “Nuh-uh. The rides weren't that great. It was actually pretty bogus. There was a Tilt-a-Whirl,” she added helpfully.

  “You didn't see Bill Smith?”

  Micaela looked at her bright pink nails, rubbed at a spot. “No. At least I don't think I did. I guess he might have seen me.” She added, “Lindsay might remember more, but I don't know how to get in touch with her.”

  She explained that Lindsay and her mom had moved away not long after she herself was kidnapped. “Her dad was in the Air Force, so they didn't stay in any place very long.”

  “I wanted to ask you about the girl who was killed. Can you remember anything more about that night? Where you were?”

  She shook her head.

  Once more, Laura asked about cross streets, whether they had gone north, west, east, or south.

  “I wish I could help, but I just don't remember.”

  “Did you ever talk to her?”

  “We only talked once or twice. He kept us in different rooms. We talked through the wall one time when Bill was gone. If he heard us, he would have killed us.” Matter-of-fact. As if a man killing two girls for talking was an everyday occurrence.

  “Did she tell you her name?” Laura asked.

  Micaela knitted her brows together, staring at the wall beyond Laura. “I think her name was Lily.”

  “Anything else you can remember? About her family, where she was from?”

  But Micaela couldn't remember anything else. Frustrated, Laura thanked her, and Micaela walked her out.

  As they reached the front door, Laura saw Nina Brashear coming down the stairs.

  “Is everything all right?” Nina said.

  “Fine,” Laura replied. “I had a couple more questions for Micaela.”

  “She wanted to know about the carnival we went to,” Micaela said.

  “The carnival?” Nina Brashear looked at Laura. “You think that Bill Smith might have worked there?”

  “It's something to look into.”

  Micaela said, “I've got to go get ready for work. Is there anything else?”

  “You go ahead, Mickey,” Nina Brashear said.

  “Where does she work?” Laura asked as Micaela headed up the stairs.

  “A Baby Gap at the mall. It's a good summer job.” She looked vaguely embarrassed. “After she gets her GED, she'll be going to Stanford.”

  “Does she know what she wants to do?”

  “No, not really. She's so young, and being dragged around all over the place . . .” She stopped herself. “It affected a lot of things. She's very mature in some ways, and in others, I think she was left behind.”

  “Hard to adjust,” Laura said.

  “Yes, it's been hard. For all of us. I want to apologize for Colin, the way he acted yesterday.”

  “No problem. I know this is difficult.”

  “You have no idea. You spend all this time praying for something like this, even though you've given up hope. And then your dream comes true . . .” She waved her hand helplessly. “And it just doesn't . . . It's as hard for her as it is for us. Harder. I can't even think about what she went through.” She stopped abruptly. “You probably don't want to hear this. Our problems are minimal compared to what happened to that other family. Have you had any luck finding out who killed that other little girl?”

  “Not yet. But we're not giving up.”

  “I'm so glad of that. Not everybody can be as lucky as we were.”

  As Laura stepped out onto the front step, she had a thought. “Do you give voice lessons—" She stopped, uncertain how to continue. She'd been about to say “Do you give voice lessons to anybody?” But she didn't want to say that.

  Nina Brashear studied her intently. “Are you a singer?”

  “I sang in high school. In the choir.” A thousand years ago, she'd played Maria in West Side Story.

  “Let me look at my schedule and I'll call you. I'm sure we can work something out.”

  Laura scribbled her home phone number on one of her cards and handed it Nina Brashear.

  They stood on the step, the silence going on a little too long. Laura said, “See you then,” and headed for the car.

  As she pulled out onto Via Tapadero, she looked back at the house in the rearview mirror, thinking about the big adjustment the Brashear family had had to make. That even conspicuous wealth couldn't keep every trouble at bay.

  Laura spent the next hour at the University of Arizona Library, going through back issues of the Arizona Daily Star. She requested the newspapers for the last two weeks of October 1996 and sat down at a long table in the Special Collections annex, enjoying the view through the plate glass windows: green lawns, students and faculty walking and biking, trees wearing their full summer green. Nice to look at—when you were inside and the heat was outside.

  Laura found an ad for a small carnival running from October 21 to October 28, 1996, sponsored by a Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

  A VFW post, not a shopping center.

  Laura took a note of the address and looked up the listings for the three big grocery stores in town. There was a Fry's a couple of numbers down from the VFW post. That could be the strip mall Micaela told her about.

  She went outside and called the VFW post from her cell, got a woman who had been working for the Veterans of Foreign Wars post for sixteen years. Finally, luck going her way. Laura asked her if she remembered the carnival.

  “Oh, sure I do. That's G&H Kiddieland and Shows. Carl Goodrich runs it. We've been working with them for years and years. It's a great thing for the kids.”

  La
ura asked for Goodrich's contact information. G&H Shows had an address in Sierra Vista, Arizona.

  “G&H's based there. They call themselves 'forty milers' because their home base is usually only a day's drive away from the places they set up. They go to all the towns around here, keeps the family pretty busy.”

  “It's a family operation.”

  “Yup. Carl, his wife Trudy, and one of their oldest—he's their accountant and runs the Ferris wheel. Carl is a veteran himself, Vietnam.”

  Next, Laura called G&H Kiddieland and Shows. She got an answering machine giving upcoming dates. G&H was currently set up at the high school in St. David, Arizona, approximately fifty miles east of Tucson.

  According to the tape, the company was now hiring. They were looking for a CDL driver and a “hanky pank.” A CDL driver, Laura knew, was a driver with a commercial license. But she had no idea what a hanky pank was.

  Laura would have driven down there anyway, but now she was intrigued. She called Jaime.

  “Molina,” he said, his voice cheerful.

  “How are you doing over there?”

  “Nada. We're about to pack it in. If the guy did have any other victims, he didn't bury them here.”

  She heard someone talking to him. “That right?” He spoke into the phone. “The FA's going to do the autopsy tomorrow. Nine a.m. at the ME's office.”

  Laura told him about G & H Kiddieland and Shows. “I'm driving out there now. You want to come?”

  “Sure. I love cotton candy. Anything else exciting I should know about?”

  Laura almost mentioned her interview with Micaela, decided it wasn't important. “Not really. Meet me out front at DPS. I'll drive.”

  Fly by Night

  Chapter 8

  St. David was a rural Mormon community characterized by lush farmland, tall trees, and man-made lakes—an oasis of quiet and order. Not a Burger King or Payday Cash Loan in sight.

  St. David High School was up ahead on the left, a Ferris wheel dominating the parking lot. Despite the heat, the place was jumping, the spokes of the Ferris wheel twinkling in the wavering air, the red-and-buff-striped carousel top swallowing light into itself as the horses whizzed around underneath, children's screams both piercing and inviting. Something tiny and hopeful sprang up in Laura's heart; she recognized it as the anticipation she'd felt as a child, whenever her mother or her friends' parents took her someplace for an adventure—the voice inside yelling, Let me out of the car now!

  As if reading her mind, Jaime said, “Takes me right back to when I was a kid. They used to have a carnival at Southgate Plaza. Spent a lot of time there, especially the shooting gallery.”

  They parked and walked up the short midway. Laura counted nine rides: the Ferris wheel, a carousel, a Tilt-a-Whirl, a fun house, a Zipper, and a haunted riverboat ride painted with moss-draped oaks called The Ghosts of Mississippi. There were three kiddie rides—a giant caterpillar, little boats, and a tea cup ride—and two food booths.

  Laura remembered Micaela mentioning a Tilt-a-Whirl.

  Jaime approached the ticket seller and asked if they could speak to Carl or Trudy Goodrich. They were directed to a motor home at the edge of the lot.

  Laura didn't know what to expect from a woman who ran a carnival, which was good, because Trudy Goodrich defied categorization.

  Since their grown son was their business manager, she had to be at least forty, but looked younger, except for her skin, which had seen its fair share of the weather. Laura admired the creases around the woman's dark brown eyes; it pointed to a sense of humor. Her hair fell to her shoulders in a modern version of a page-boy. She wore no makeup, but didn't need it. She had a fine facial structure, slightly wide mouth that made her even more attractive.

  Laura had expected her to be fat. After all, wasn't carnival food all Polish hotdogs and Bloomin' Onions? But this woman was slim, her body boy-like. She wore jeans, a plain green tee, sneakers, and dreamcatcher earrings that swayed with her shiny black hair.

  She opened the motor home refrigerator. “We have lots of Coca Cola, but no Pepsi—it's contractual. Or I have lemonade. I know you're on duty so I won't offer you a beer.”

  Refreshments sorted out, Laura took the lead, asking her if a man named Bill Smith ever worked for them.

  Trudy said, “I don't remember anyone named Bill Smith. Sounds like a made-up name, doesn't it? Wasn't Bill Smith the guy who knew Pocahontas?”

  “I think that was John Smith,” Laura said.

  She popped open two cans of Coke and poured them into glasses that said “G&H Kiddieland and Shows” over a drawing of a carousel horse. “What'd he look like?”

  Laura described what little she knew.

  “Holy cow,” Goodrich said, setting glasses down on coasters next to both Laura and Jaime. “Bald and fortyish. That describes about half the people we've hired over the years. So what's this about? That girl that was found in the desert in Tucson the other day? You think one of my workers had something to do with that?”

  She was fast, give her that. Laura told her about the two girls and the possible carnival link.

  She sat back on the couch, cradling a glass of iced tea, frowned. “You're talking two different carnivals.”

  “Yes, but one of the people who worked for you could have gone on to Behr Amusements.”

  I guess that's possible . . . You know—” She stopped.

  “What?”

  It doesn't have anything to do with what you're talking about.”

  “Anything you say may be helpful.”

  “You were asking about somebody who had a record. We do background checks. If somebody gives us a fake name and ID, we can't do anything about that. But there was this guy. Nothing like you described, but Carl found out later he was a registered sex offender in California. This was when we spent our summers in San Diego.”

  Laura's heart quickened. Micaela had been in San Diego for a while. It could be that this was the same man Kristy Groves talked to at the Pima County Fair. “Could you describe him?”

  "When he was with us, he was in his early twenties. Nice-looking guy. Ran our dark ride. He had the franchise on teenage and college girls—they'd go through two or three times just to get to talk to him.”

  “Dark ride?”

  “Did you go in The Ghosts of Mississippi? That's a dark ride. A dark ride always takes place in the dark—the blacker the better—and people either walk through or ride in on a track. Things jump out at you, ghosts, goblins, stuff like that.”

  “In other words,” Jaime said, “it's a scary ride.”

  “Maybe that's what it should be called, but it's known as a dark ride in the business. We had a different one back then: The Twilight Zone.”

  "The man was in his twenties?” Laura asked. “Is there anything else you can remember about him?”

  She shrugged. “He was kind of average-looking, except for his eyes. They were piercing.”

  Laura thought back to what Patsy Groves had said: All I remember were his eyes.

  “How did Carl find out about his record?”

  “He saw it in the paper—we recognized the picture. He got in a fight with some guy and put him in the hospital. The paper said he was a registered sex offender. I'm sure he ended up in prison. This was a couple of years after we let him go.”

  “You let him go?”

  “Carl found out he'd been seeing a girl whose mother worked for us. The girl was only fifteen years old. That was enough for Carl.”

  Kristy Groves was fourteen.

  Mrs. Goodrich continued, “We don't go for that kind of stuff here. This is a family business, and we see everybody who works for us as our extended family. It was statutory rape as far as I was concerned, no matter if it was consensual.”

  “Does the girl's mother work for you anymore?”

  “No, she's long gone.”

  “Do you know where they are? It would be helpful to talk to them.”

  “I'm sorry, I have no idea. They le
ft us while we were in San Diego. Not long after Carl fired Heywood.”

  “Heywood is the sex offender?”

  “He called himself Robert Heywood. Not Bob. He couldn't stand being called Bob. He got into a fight with one of the CDL drivers because the guy kept calling him Bob. He could be charming, but underneath . . . Carl always said he was like a lit fuse.”

  “When did he work for you?”

  “This isn't gospel, but I'd say from '95 to '97. 1998 was the last time we summered in San Diego. It just got too expensive, so we pulled in our oars.”

  “Was he with you in April of ‘97?” That was when Kristy went to the fair. If Heywood didn't work for G&H, he might have hired on with Behr Family Amusements. Or worked some aspect of the fair with one of the independents.

  “I could look through my records when we get back home tomorrow. I'll fax them to you if you give me your number.”

  Laura did. “You think he would be the type to kidnap a girl and kill her?”

  “Oh, I wouldn't go that far. He and Angela sure were going hot and heavy, but it was mutual. Didn't bother to hide it either. I talked to her mother a few times, but she was such a timid thing—you know those women who act cowed all the time? Wouldn't lift a finger to help out her own daughter. Finally, it was up to Carl. And then, not two weeks later, those two took off and left us high and dry without anyone to run the ringtoss.”

  Laura looked at her notebook. One more question, and it was an important one. “Was the carnival in Tucson in July 1997?”

  Trudy Goodrich squinched her eyes, as if it would help her think. “That was a long time ago. Our itinerary has been pretty much the same the last ten years, at least for the bigger events. But we're also set up for day and weekend carnivals—some of them are pretty spur-of-the-moment. Somebody wants to raise money at a church function, that kind of thing. Normally we'd be in San Diego by July. But that was the first year we stayed here year-round.”