Carnival of Shadows

  “So yes, Saturday night. Well, Friday night, actually, ’cause I was only up there on the Friday. Like I said, I saw some things up there that I couldn’t explain. That would have been okay, all by itself, and I am sure it would never have entered my mind again had that man not been found dead. I mean, when it comes to stuff like that, there’s always gonna be stuff that doesn’t make sense, right? What kind of magician have you got if everything he does you can see right through, eh?”

  “What did you see, Laura?”

  “I’m sidetrackin’ again, aren’t I? I’m sorry. That’s just how I am. Danny says I could work for the tire company just talkin’ enough hot air to fill all their tires. So, Friday night, yes. Well, Mr. Travis, I have to say that it wasn’t anything to do with what I saw. What I saw was just whatever it was. No, it was more to do with how I felt.”

  “How you felt?” Travis asked, and the slightly elevated sense of expectation deflated as quickly as it had risen. He’d thought that Laura McCaffrey was going to give him something, that there would be some small fact that she had failed to mention. She had seen something that had given her pause, in and of itself meaningless to anyone but Travis, but he—with his ever-questioning attitude, with his training, with what he knew of evidence, both probative and circumstantial— would see it as something else entirely. Something that would give him reason to suspect collusion and conspiracy among those in the carnival.

  “How I felt, yes,” Laura echoed. “Like I said, there are some feelings you can’t easily describe, but whatever might be going on up there, there’s definitely something strange about those people. It’s like the folks who come in here without any money, or what happened with old Monty Finch. Sometimes you just know when something’s wrong, even when you don’t know exactly what it is. And that, Mr. Travis, you can take to the bank, if you know what I mean.”

  Travis smiled, finding it hard to hide his disappointment.

  Laura McCaffrey believed she had given him something of great value, and Travis had no mind to let her think otherwise.

  “Thank you for your time,” he said. “It really has been useful, Laura.”

  “I said that to Danny, Mr. Travis. I said that I should perhaps come to see you, that I should tell you what I thought. Danny said that it was none of my business and I should stay out of it. I think he was just afraid that you’d think his sister was as mad as a box of crackers.”

  “No, not at all. Quite the contrary. Like I said, it’s been very helpful.”

  Laura McCaffrey refilled Travis’s cup once more. “Is there anything else I can get you? A slice of pie, perhaps?”

  “I’m good, Laura, but thank you.”

  “I’ll leave you alone now,” she said. “I am sure you’ve got plenty of things to be getting on with.”

  “Would you stay just a little longer?” Travis asked. “Unless you have someplace else you need to be?”

  Laura frowned, a little puzzled by the request. “I don’t have anyplace else to be,” she said. “Did you have some more questions?”

  “No, Laura. No more questions. I have to be completely honest and say that I have spent the whole day dealing with… well, with matters of business. If you don’t have to rush away, why not just sit a while longer and talk to me?”

  “If you like, Agent Travis.”

  “Michael,” Travis said. “Out of hours, I am Michael.”

  “Very well, Michael.” Laura blushed a little and nervously touched her bangs.

  “So, tell me about the McCaffreys,” Travis said.

  “What’s to tell?” Laura asked, and then she paused. “Oh, wait a minute. I could tell you about my great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was a bootlegger, and a good one at that.”

  “That’ll do for starters,” Travis said. “Tell me all about the bootlegger.”

  18

  Thursday morning, and Travis drove out to the carnival site before Danny McCaffrey had even begun the breakfast service.

  The evening before, he had stayed and talked with Laura McCaffrey far longer than he’d planned, and afterward had felt no wish to do anything but write his daily report and get some sleep. Though his body was not tired, his mind was, and the rest had served him well. He felt sharp and alert, all too eager to push this thing ever forward to resolution.

  Seated in his car, waiting for the first signs of life among the trucks and caravans, he was interrupted in his thoughts. Alone and contemplative, Travis was suddenly startled as someone struck the window beside him.

  He turned and looked up at the smiling face of Edgar Doyle.

  “Why are you sat out here in this car?” Doyle asked.

  Travis wound down the window. “Good morning, Mr. Doyle. I am here to resume my interviews. I am ready to speak to whoever else might be available.”

  “Might I ask to what end, Agent Travis? Haven’t you already established that your dead man was a stranger to us, that we have no idea where he came from, why he was here, or what happened to him?”

  “No, I have not established that, Mr. Doyle.”

  Travis wound up the window and started to open the door.

  Doyle stepped back. “Am I right in understanding that the carousel, as the location of the body, is the only area of this carnival that is an official crime scene, to use your phrase?”

  “At this stage, yes, though other areas may become relevant as I look them over.”

  “So, how about this? How about I take you on a guided tour of every vehicle, every tent, every corner of our little world, and if you give it the all clear, then we open the carnival again tomorrow evening? Everything save the carousel, that is.”

  Travis could see no immediate reason to decline such a proposal, and so he said so. “But,” he added, “if I suspect that any attempt is being made to obscure anything from me, then I reserve the right to retract my authorization for the carnival to reopen.”

  “Agreed,” Doyle said, and extended his hand.

  Travis took the man’s hand and they shook.

  “Very well,” Doyle said. “Let us begin the guided tour, then. I will introduce you to everyone and show you where they sleep, where they practice, where they stow their personal effects and equipment. You go ahead and ask me anything you like, and I will do my best to answer it. But first, we go to my caravan and I will give you the cast of this little drama.”

  Valeria was absent, and for some reason Travis was disappointed.

  “She has gone to Marion,” Doyle said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You saw that Valeria was not here, and you looked a little down.”

  Travis looked askance at Doyle. This was the second time this had happened, the very real and unsettling feeling that someone could see inside his head.

  “I am not reading your thoughts, Agent Travis,” Doyle said, as if—once again—answering a question that had not even been voiced. “I am observing what is there to see and interpreting it. I am doing what I am sure you do every day of your life. We all make assumptions, of course, and often we are wrong, but this time I was right, yes?”

  Travis nodded. “Yes.”

  “Very good!” Doyle clapped his hands together. “Then I shall continue to do this, and you will believe me to be a strange and remarkable man of mystery.”

  “I would prefer it, Mr. Doyle, if we maintained a purely professional relationship here.”

  “So no games, then?”

  “Precisely. No games.”

  “Oh, how dull your life must be, Agent Travis. To live a life without games and dreams and imagination must be so unbearably routine. I can’t even begin to imagine the effort required to keep all those walls around. It must be exhausting.”

  “I am just fine, sir. Now, to the personnel of the carnival.”

  Travis withdrew his notebook and walked to the tab
le where he had previously sat with Doyle.

  “There is yourself, Miss Mironescu, Mr. Slate, John Ryan and Akiko—”

  Travis flipped through a couple of pages and checked her surname.

  “Akiko Mimasuya.”

  “Names, yes. I would have thought you would have appreciated something of their background, perhaps?”

  “Only if it is relevant to this case, Mr. Doyle.”

  “How could it not be? These are, after all, the very people you are investigating, are they not? Investigating as potential suspects, accomplices, at the very least material witnesses to a homicide. I would have imagined that the more you knew of them, the more relevant and valuable their responses to your questions would be.” Doyle leaned forward and placed his hands flat on the table. “If, for example, I told you that Mr. Slate’s name was not Slate at all, that he was once convicted of perjury, that he has been living under an assumed name for the last twelve years, and that his father was a very well-known counterfeiter… would that change your perspective on the discussion you had with him this morning?”

  “What you are telling me is true?”

  “No, Agent Travis… well, at least not all of it. I was just making a point.”

  “Is his name Slate?”

  “No, his name is not Slate.”

  “What is his name?”

  “You did not ask him?”

  “I asked him what he knew of the events of Saturday evening.”

  “His name is Harold Lamb. He is from Minnesota, and his father was not a famous counterfeiter at all. In fact, I have absolutely no idea who his father was, though I do know that his mother was a prostitute from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.” Doyle smiled. “And now, Mr. Slate, being the bastard child of an Iowan whore, appears to be a very different man indeed, does he not, Agent Travis?”

  Travis said nothing.

  “And then we have the acrobatic troupe, the Italian brothers, all five of them. In order of descending age, they are Antonio, Giulio, Maurizio, Giancarlo and Gianluigi. Their family name is Bellanca, and yes, they all look the same. They are quintuplets, you see? You see one, you see them all. You see them all, you see just one. I have worked with them for more than five years, and still I am not certain which is which. Then there is our human skeleton, Oscar Haynes. All of seventy-five or eighty pounds, hails out of Chicago, hell of a poker player. Next, you have our resident giant and strongman, six feet eight inches tall, maybe three hundred and twenty pounds. You can’t miss him. He’s from Budapest, and his name is Gabor Benedek.”

  “Gabor Benedek is Hungarian?” Travis asked, thinking immediately of Fekete Kutya and the information Dr. Ebner had given him. Even as he wrote Benedek’s name in his book he underlined it.

  “He is indeed Hungarian,” Doyle said. “He has not been with us long. Just a year or so. He was in Hungary in October and November of 1956, during the uprising. His brother was one of the first people shot by Soviet troops outside the Radio Budapest building. His sister was killed by the State Security Police. Gabor was among the two hundred thousand refugees who fled Hungary during that time, and he found his way to America.”

  “We gave him political asylum, I presume?”

  “Why? Are you going to call the authorities, Agent Travis? Are you going to find out if he is here illegally and have him deported?”

  “Such an issue is none of my concern at this juncture,” Travis said. “If, however, Mr. Benedek is in any way involved in this case, then his nationality and political status will obviously be taken into consideration.”

  “You are a careful man, Agent Travis. You are well-practiced in saying something without saying anything at all.”

  “Please go on, Mr. Doyle.”

  “We have a dwarf. He is four feet and two inches tall, and his name is Chester Greene. He and Gabor work together often. They perform together, often travel in the same car, and sometimes when we have to walk long distances, Gabor will carry Chester in a bag on his back, and if you think I am joking, then I can assure you I am not.”

  “And Miss Mimasuya?”

  “Is Japanese, and I believe has a double-jointed capacity in every limb of her body. You may have seen her practicing.”

  “I did, yes. It was slightly disconcerting.”

  “She is made of elastic, it seems, and has performed as a contortionist for much of her life. I think, even as a child, she was working as an acrobat alongside her parents.”

  “And her parents are still alive?”

  “Her parents were killed during the war, Agent Travis. Killed by Americans.”

  “And John Ryan lost the ability to speak when his tongue became infected, if I remember correctly?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Travis leaned back in the seat. “Seems to me that there is a great deal of history here, Mr. Doyle. A great deal of loss and tragedy among such a small number of people.”

  “Well, I told you earlier that I was not reading your mind, Agent Travis. I can’t do that. I have no such ability. Valeria, however… well, she cannot read minds, but she is certainly very perceptive and attuned to the presence of some people. She tells me that you are a man who has also suffered greatly in such a short number of years.”

  “As I said, Mr. Doyle, I am just fine, thank you very much. My personal life has absolutely no bearing on what I am doing here.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ, Agent Travis. Your personal life is precisely the reason you are here. Had you not been significantly influenced by your own past experiences, then you would never have taken this job. Everyone does what they do for a reason. Everyone finds their vocation, one way or another, and this—this investigation, this enforcement of the law—appears to be yours. We either choose our jobs, Agent Travis, or our jobs choose us. I think you’ll find that holds true in the majority of cases.”

  “And you, Mr. Doyle? What brought you here? Why are you traveling across America with a carnival?”

  Doyle leaned forward until his face was merely a foot from Travis’s. “Because I am the devil, you see? I am the devil after whom this carnival is named, and I am on a mission to collect lost souls such as you and bring them to hell.”

  “Devil or not, sir, you are quite the showman. I asked you the question in all sincerity, Mr. Doyle. Why are you doing this?”

  “Does this bear any real relevance to your case, Agent Travis?”

  “I don’t suppose it does, Mr. Doyle. Not specifically.”

  “And yet you are interested?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “Very well, then I shall make you a deal. I will tell you my story, or at least as much of it as I am prepared to share with you, and in return you will tell me a little of yours.”

  “Well, I’m not so sure about that,” Travis said.

  “What harm can there be in it? We are merely talking, nothing more nor less, and just as you have no guarantee that I will tell you the truth, I have no guarantee that you will tell the truth either.”

  “Save our word,” Travis said.

  “And a man is only as good as his word, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, what’s to lose?”

  “Very well,” Travis said. “You tell me a little of yourself, and I will reciprocate.”

  “And I shall make some tea,” Doyle said, and rose from the bench.

  He talked as he busied himself with the pot and cups, as he filled a pan and set it on the stove.

  “I am from the south of Ireland,” he started. “And that’s a place that’s seen its fair share of troubles. Religious wars and political divisions for hundreds of years, and yet we have weathered it stoically, somehow managing to retain not only our thirst for a good whiskey, but also our sense of humor.” Doyle turned and looked at Travis. “It’s a nation of differences, and this last war was something that highlighted the di
fferences. You know that we are two countries, right?”

  “Yes, of course,” Travis replied, immediately aware that something in Doyle had changed. His voice was more animated, his body language also. Perhaps vanity, perhaps a natural raconteur, he seemed in his element.

  “Well, that division, in a land mass that covers about one third of the state of Kansas, has been there since the early 1920s. Unionists, nationalists, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Sinn Féin, all of them seeing the second war as a means by which their own political goals could be achieved. Those who plotted against the British knew that a rebellion would best be undertaken while the war was actually going on. They hoped to incite a popular uprising, and the greatest support for that, understandably, came from Germany…”

  Travis continued to watch Doyle as he spoke. In some strange way, it reminded him of being read to as a child, the way his mother would bring characters to life, the way she would make the voices, the way she would keep Michael hanging off every word that left her lips.

  Travis was aware then, for no apparent reason, of how much he missed her.

  Doyle brought the teacups to the table and set them down. He took his seat once more and continued talking.

  “And so it happened. Brotherhood volunteers and members of the Irish Citizens Army marched into buildings and offices right across Dublin, pronouncing as they went that this was a peoples’ uprising, and they demanded freedom from British rule. The British were fierce and uncompromising. Within a week, the rebellion was smashed, much of central Dublin was flattened, and there were more than five hundred deaths. All the key figures of the IRB were arrested, fourteen of them were executed, and though the rebellion itself had failed, it was nevertheless a moment of great significance for the Irish people and their homeland. Those who had been executed became martyrs, and there is nothing more vital for a cause than a martyr. A dead leader can be so much more powerful than a living one, you know?”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Travis said.

  “I was just twenty years old in October of 1917, but I already knew things were changing. Sinn Féin was taken over by a man called Éamon de Valera, the only surviving commander of the 1916 uprising. Britain was in trouble. What would happen throughout the empire if Britain failed to control this small island on its own doorstep? Sinn Féin wanted an independent Irish Republic. Britain was not prepared to give it up. So began a war between the Irish guerrilla forces and the British army that would last until the middle of 1921.”