Carnival

by William W. Johnstone

  Gary dropped it on him. “He’s been cooked, Martin. From all indications, cooked from the inside out.”

  The two friends stared at each other over the operating table. “Are you serious, Gary?”

  “I wish I wasn’t, believe that.”

  “Could it be, ah, is it possible that the body temperature got so high it did this?”

  “No. These organs have been exposed to very intense heat.”

  “Then? . . .”

  “I don’t know. I spoke with the ambulance driver. He neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary. The only thing he said was that the boy didn’t look strong enough to break his restraints.”

  “Audie Meadows or Kelson?”

  “You know the answer to that one right off the mark, buddy.”

  * * *

  Deputy Sheriff Audie Meadows stared at the body for a long moment, finally motioning Gary to cover the body. The deputy was young, only twenty-five, but with eight years experience as a cop. One year as dispatcher on the Holland P.D., one year on city patrol, and then off to the academy. Upon graduation, he joined the county sheriff’s department. He was the lone deputy in the area, with hundreds of square miles of territory to cover.

  “I, ah, don’t know what charges I could bring, Dr. Tressalt,” Audie finally spoke. “Or against who. I’ll say this, though: Jimmy Harold was a no-good troublemaker. He won’t be missed.”

  That rang a bell with Martin. “Is this the boy who terrorized Mrs. Stafford last year?”

  “Yes, sir. And the same punk who’s vandalized, stolen, and in general been in trouble all his life.”

  “I see,” Gary said. “Well, I didn’t have any charges in mind, Audie.” He slid the body back into the cooler and shut the door.

  It was rare for a town of Holland’s size to have a refrigerated holding area for bodies. But since the town was so isolated, it had finally become a necessity.

  Audie met the doctor’s eyes, a puzzled look on his face. “I don’t know what you mean, Doctor.”

  “Then I’ll try to explain. What do you know about the fire and the killings that happened after an alleged double rape by carnival people here in Holland back in 1954?”

  “Probably more than anybody else in town anywhere near my age. But that happened nine years before I was born.”

  Both Gary and Martin felt their ages suddenly rear up and slap them in the face. Gary said, “But there would be some records on it down at the sheriff’s office in Harrisville, wouldn’t there?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. You see, way it was told to me, the state police took over that investigation. They took over—so I’m told—because the sheriff at that time was from Holland—or this area—and his own brother was suspected of having something to do with the fire.”

  “Jim Watson’s brother,” Martin said. “Marshall Watson. Where is he now? Anybody know?”

  “He disappeared a long time ago, sir,” Audie informed them. “Several years before your daddy vanished.”

  “Then the state police would have all the records on the fire, right?”

  “No, sir. They don’t. For personal reasons, I wanted some information on that fire a couple of years back. I sent out an inquiry. Seems that most of the important files got misplaced or lost or whatever, probably when the state went to full computer some time back.” The young deputy smiled. “At least that’s the story was told to me.”

  Gary noted the deputy’s smile. “But you don’t believe that, right?”

  “That’s right. And neither does anyone else who would talk to me about it.”

  “And? ...” Martin prompted.

  The deputy shuffled his cowboy-booted feet.

  “Come on, Audie. What is going on here?”

  The deputy sighed. “You—neither of you—heard this from me, OK?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Well, the state police investigator who worked on that carnival fire never thought the fire was an accident. He never thought it was carnival people who raped those unnamed girls. And I think he got awful close to the truth back in ’70. Just before he was due to retire. You see, too much money had been spread about to cover a lot of those deaths. Big money; thousands and thousands of dollars. And it came from the Steele and Watson and Tressalt and Cameron and Clark ranches.” He looked at Gary. “Sorry I had to be the one to tell you, Doctor.”

  Gary was shocked, ashen-faced for a moment. He shook his head and regained composure. “It doesn’t come as much of a surprise, Audie. I know what my brothers are: no good. But that’s still hard for me to say. Go on.”

  “The investigator was killed up in South Dakota.”

  “What was a Nebraska cop doing up in South Dakota?” Martin asked.

  “Most who would talk about it don’t believe he was in the Dakotas when he got killed. The opinion is that he was honing in on Jim Watson and Lyle Steele, and was on the Double-W spread to arrest them. Jim and Lyle killed him and then toted his body up into South Dakota and dumped it. Right at the base of Limestone Butte.”

  “All right,” Gary said, his voice still a bit shaky. “I wouldn’t put anything past Jim or Lyle. Or my brothers, for that matter,” he added grimly. “But that doesn’t explain about the missing files.”

  “To paraphrase one of our recent presidents,” Audie said with a smile, “let me say this about that: Right after the investigator got killed, murdered, a certain member of the patrol—who was about to get canned anyway—took. early retirement and moved to Mexico. Down on the coast of Baja. He went out one morning fishing—this was about 1975—and his body was found late that afternoon.”

  “Now put all that together for us civilians,” Gary requested.

  “Well, the rogue cop who took early retirement was the one who lifted the files about the rapes and fire. Paid to do so and keep his mouth shut by certain ranchers in this area. Some people think they got tired of paying him and killed him.”

  “Was my father involved in that scheme, Audie?” Gary asked.

  “No, sir. Frank and Pete were, probably.”

  “I can believe that.”

  “Do you think the ranchers killed him, Audie?” Martin asked.

  “No, sir,” the deputy replied softly.

  Puzzled, Martin stared at him. “I don’t understand. How was this ex-cop killed?”

  “Well, sir, the ex-cop was found by some fishermen. He was sitting strapped in the fishing chair at the rear of his boat. He’d been cooked through and through. But there wasn’t a sign of a fire on that boat.”

  FIVE

  Since the deputy had leveled with Gary and Martin, the men did the same for him, telling him about the strange occurrences that had been taking place in town.

  The trio had left the chemical smell of the autopsy room in the funeral home and were standing out front, by their cars.

  “Well, I’ll admit I wondered about all those people around the fence at the fairgrounds last night.” He spat a dark stream of tobacco juice from his fresh chew. “And I’ll confess something to you men: I think my daddy had something to do with the burning down of that carnival years back.”

  “Why do you say that,” Gary asked.

  “‘Cause right before he died—started about two days before he passed—my daddy kept talking about the flames and how they were going to eat him up and he was goin’ to burn forever. I kept telling him he was a good man, and that he wasn’t goin’ to Hell. He told me he’d already seen it. Said he had a part to play in it. I didn’t know then what he meant by ’it.’ I do now. He cried and cried and begged for forgiveness. Said he’d seen the hell-fires back thirty years before. That’s what got me to digging into that so called accidental fire. Daddy died in October, ’84. I never saw a man that suffered so much. You remember it, Doctor Tressalt; you was there even though my daddy wouldn’t let anybody except Old Doc Reynolds touch him. My daddy couldn’t get enough to drink.”

  “I remember, Audie.”

  Martin wiped sweat from his forehe
ad, even though the day was not that warm. “What was the date of his death, Audie?”

  “My daddy died four years ago exactly come next Thursday.”

  * * *

  Martin stood with Gary and watched the deputy drive off. Audie had told them he would be at the fairgrounds that night, just to keep an eye on things. Gary had smiled and said, “Sure you’ll be looking at people. And that city patrol-person named Nicole’ll be one of them, won’t she?”

  Audie had grinned boyishly and allowed as to how that was right.

  Martin said they might join him. The deputy said that would be fine.

  “Assuming that everything Audie said—including that bit about his father and the hell fires—is true, what has that got to do with the odd happenings occurring around town?” Gary asked.

  “You don’t believe in Hell, Gary?”

  “I believe in a Hereafter. And I also believe in the supernatural.”

  Martin looked at him for a moment, his eyes unreadable. “Well, old friend, if you’re waiting for me to say anything like the devil has arrived in Holland, you’re going to be in for a long wait.”

  “I don’t think this has anything to do with the devil, Martin.”

  “Then? . . .”

  “Martin, without making myself appear to be a fool—and I’m not saying this has anything to do with what’s been happening in town, let me tell you something, some . . . things I’ve seen over fifteen years of practicing medicine. I’ve seen people that I pronounced dead come back to life. Nearly every doctor in the world has seen that. I’ve seen people so eaten up with disease that I would have bet money they wouldn’t last a month. But they’re alive and well and walking around today. And I’ll tell you something else—a couple of things: I’ve seen people hang on to life for just one reason: revenge! And many of them hung on long enough—against all odds—to get that revenge. And I’ve had patients who’ve died on me come back to life within two or three or four minutes and tell me about that dying—out of body experiences. And they were sent back. They actually crossed over and were sent back!”

  “And you believe that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Martin rubbed his chin. “Then . . . what are you trying to say, Gary? Or what are you telling me that’s not getting through?”

  “Martin, I’d like to find out who owns this carnival that’s in town now. And who owned the carnival that was destroyed.”

  “Oh, come on, Gary!”

  “No, Martin—no. I’m adamant about this. I think there is a connection. Call me a fool, think me a fool. Whatever. There is something going on here that we don’t understand. Over the years, I’ve asked my father dozens of times about the fire. I told you this. I get nothing out of him. Martin, my dad may have had something to do with that fire.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say, Gary. Your father is a fine man.”

  “I know he is. And I know it’s a rotten thing to say about him. But Audie believes my dad helped buy my brothers out of trouble. Martin, my dad, like so many people, can be easily led. He doesn’t have much education; and I’m not making excuses for that. Never will you hear me excuse ignorance. Dad hunted and fished and bar-hopped with the good ol’ boys all his life and in the process, turned out to be a wealthy man. But it wasn’t because of his intelligence. It was luck and some hard work. And you know that as well as I do. We’ve been friends since birth, almost. Intelligent, educated people rarely join mobs, rarely take part in mindless violence. And,” he said with a painful sigh, “I sure don’t have to tell you about my brothers, do I?”

  Martin shook his head. Coarse and crude and both of them wallowing in dumb. Pete and Frank Tressalt were ten and twelve years older than Gary. Together, they ran the Tressalt spread, the Snake-T.

  “Gary, listen to me. So what if your father did have something to do with the fire? So what? How does that affect you? You haven’t experienced any overwhelming pull to come to the fairgrounds, have you?”

  “No. No, I haven’t. But I’m ... somehow a part of all this. I just know it. Listen to me, Martin. While I was working on that boy in there,” he waved his hand toward the funeral home, “I got this mental flashback. Martin, I’ve been in Nabo’s tent before. I know now. I was in there a long time ago. When I was six years old. Think about that day, Martin.”

  Martin’s brow furrowed. He turned his head to one side and frowned. “Yeah. Wait just a damn minute. We both were on that ride when I got sick. I remember now.”

  “That’s right. I recalled it, and now you do, too. I waited because I didn’t want to say anything else in front of Audie. You said that you wanted to go somewhere and upchuck—your exact words. I said I’d wait for you by the ferris wheel. But you never came back and my dad came and got me right after an accident of some sort. He took me home. That accident must have been you.”

  Martin nodded his head. “I guess so. But what’s all this about Nabo’s tent?”

  “After you went over to the pavilion to throw up, I slipped around to the back of Nabo’s tent and crawled in under the canvas. I was trying to see what was in there. But I couldn’t see any of the so-called freaks because of the legs of the paying customers. But I’ll tell you what I did see: I saw Nabo.”

  * * *

  Linda told the others to go on; she wanted to retie her tennis shoes. She bent down on one knee, leaned a shoulder against a wood side-wall of a bally platform in front of a tent, and fell right through the wood.

  Fall was not exactly correct: the girl seemed to dissolve into the wood. She fell spinning, almost endlessly, around and around in a slow descending circle.

  She heard a voice calling out. “No, no! Not her. Not her.”

  “She’s one of them!” the words came in a scream as her fall was halted and the girl seemed to float, suspended in darkness.

  “You are wrong. She is not. Don’t fight me on this.”

  Linda, strangely calm, could feel a kinship coming at her in almost tangible waves, while the single voice argued with the many voices that seemed to spring out of the darkness from all around her.

  “It’s time!”

  “Let them know!”

  “Let them join us. Now!”

  “No!” the heavy voice commanded, and the abyss fell silent.

  Linda willed herself to move, even locked in the dark void as she was. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as her eyes took in what lay below her.

  She was gazing down into a huge, open, yawning pit, smoky from fires that seemed white hot. She knew some of the naked and horribly burned men and women that stood below her, screaming at her, shaking their clenched fists at her, shouting the most hideous of profanities at her.

  “Silence!” the single voice roared, and the pit below her fell silent. “It is not yet time. We must wait.”

  The girl caught a glimpse of Frank and Pete Tressalt, naked on the hot coals, their flesh hanging in raw, bleeding strips from their bodies. She saw Jimmy Harold and Binkie and Missy and a lot of kids she went to school with, all naked and raw from the fires. The pit—and it kept changing in size—seemed to contain nearly everyone in Holland that she knew.

  Then she saw herself. And she was . . . No. That couldn’t be right.

  She began spinning, but this time she was spinning upward. She called out, screamed out, held her hands out to . . .

  She looked up into her mother’s eyes.

  “Are you all right, honey?” Alicia asked.

  Linda cut her eyes, afraid to move any part of her body. She was on the ground, by the Home Ec booth, her mother placing cold wet cloths on her forehead.

  “You fainted, Linda,” her mother told her. “When you feel like you can stand, I’m going to take you home.”

  Linda nodded her head and closed her eyes. It must have all been a dream. A devil’s nightmare.

  * * *

  Martin went to his mayor’s offices and called his part-time secretary at her home, asking her if she knew anything about a contract betwee
n the town and the carnival. She told him where it was in the files. Martin made a copy of it—he couldn’t recall ever seeing it before—and took it over to Eddie Hudson’s office. Eddie was working on this Saturday afternoon.

  “Can it be broken, Eddie.” Martin laid the contract on the lawyer’s desk.

  Eddie looked up at him, questions in his eyes. He quickly scanned the document. “I’ll get to the why of your question in a minute, Martin. But yes, almost any contract can be broken. Sure, we can break this contract, if the town of Holland wants to pay them a lot of money. And I’m talking about thousands and thousands of dollars. These people know, within a few percentage points, what they’re going to pull in, based on the size of the town, how long it’s been since a carnival played, so forth. Only way we could get out of it free would be if some act of God were to happen: flood, tornado, hurricane—something of that nature.”

  “All right. That answers one question. Now then. Eddie, I read that contract three times. There is not one word about where the show is home-based.”

  Eddie once more scanned it. “Ummm. Well, you’re right. But . . . so?”

  “They’ve got to have a home address. They’ve got to have some sort of permanent mailing address.”

  “Well, yeah. You’re right. It would sure seem so. But Martin, I didn’t set this thing up. I’m the city attorney; but this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on this contract.”

  “What!”

  “For a fact. Let me call Marie. She works part-time for the Chamber of Commerce. Took over when Mrs. Neal retired a couple of months ago.” He spoke briefly with the woman and then hung up the phone, a very odd expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong, Eddie?”

  “The initial correspondence is over at the Chamber offices. Says she’ll meet us there. And Martin . . . she said the letter has your signature on it.”

  “My signature? Arranging to bring the carnival in here?”

  “Yes.”