Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers)) (7 page)

For a brief moment, I remembered the look on Courtney’s face when the two men in the pickup truck rolled their windows down. I saw chipped red polish on her fingernails, her cotton white knuckles, her eyes looking back at me as she was led away by the deputies. I said, “She may have issues, but I don’t believe she’s a serial killer.”

“Maybe not. But I’m betting the dried blood on her T-shirt will match the vic’s blood. And I know she claims she got it on her hands trying to help the vic. But then she fled the scene and did nothing to call help, no dialing 911. The carnival is at the county fairgrounds for a week. I’d wager I’ll have a confession from her before the week’s up.”

“And I’m betting there is another reason why you’re telling me this. You think she’s coming back to the marina, don’t you?”

“She came to you once. She might return. Female serial killers are rare, but not rare enough for me. If she contacts you, let me know everything she says. I’d hate for you to wind up with an ice pick through your heart.”

It was a half hour past sunset when Courtney Burke arrived back at the Bandini Brothers Amusement Carnival, the noise of the thrill rides like simulated thunder in the cool night air, the earth trembling beneath coasters and big wheels built to challenge gravity. As she weaved her way through the crowds, she was hoping the throngs of people would provide some degree of concealment walking down the midway. But the lights, screams, and roar of motors and hydraulics captured her every move in slices of bright surrealism. The air was heavy with the scent of sizzling Italian sausages, grilled onions, peppers, and funnel cakes, thick as the dust kicked up by thousands of shoes.

With suspicion following her like harsh shadows, there was no anonymity in a sea of strangers. The carnies watched her from behind the games of chance. Their eyes veiled under the sweat-stained baseball caps, eyes long ago blinded from lack of empathy and focused on near constant distrust. The hooded eyes tracked her every move as she made her way down the bright midway to the Bandini trailer.

She looked straight ahead, ignoring the stares as she thought about the events of the day—the time she spent on Sean O’Brien’s boat and the interrogation at the police station. She liked Sean. He had a calm way about him. She tried to remember the last time she trusted anyone, especially a man. Maybe she couldn’t trust him either. But something pulled at heartstrings she knew long ago had been cut and cauterized by bad people.
What is it about him?
Why did she feel she could trust him?
What was the connection? Was there even a connection?
She fought back the rise of hope in her heart, covered it with doubt and buried it beneath the frost of uncertainty.
Forget him. I’m innocent. Police will have to see that.

She knew the Detective Dan Grant didn’t believe her story. She felt that the carnies weren’t the only ones watching her. Plainclothes police could be mixing in with the crowd. She glanced over her shoulder, to her left, then to her right.
Who was the man in the open sports coat? Did he avert his eyes from mine?
Her head hurt. She looked away, folded her arms across her breasts for a few seconds, and then walked on, moving faster, the music from the rides loud, piercing, and bouncing around inside her skull like a .22 bullet.

The reverberating layers of noise grew louder. She placed the palms of both hands over her ears, the lights of the midway like a freight train barreling down the tracks of her mind. She saw Lonnie’s eyes staring up at the full moon behind her. She looked at her hands, the blood wet and sticky between her fingers. “No!” she shouted.

Two teenage boys shooting hoops, trying to win plush animals for their girlfriends, turned and stared at Courtney. One said, “Maybe her meds wore off.” He turned around and tossed the small basketball, sinking the shot. One of the teen girls shrieked and popped a bubblegum bubble.

Courtney turned and ran, ran hard down the midway, knocking a box of popcorn from an overweight woman who stepped in front of her. “Hey! What the—?” the woman said to her thin husband. Courtney darted past the swarms of people, around the Zipper, Tilt-A-Whirl, and cut between the House of Mirrors and the Lost Mine, slipping into the shadows beyond the midway. She stopped walking behind the House of Mirrors and looked up at a cracked full-length mirror propped against a metal garbage can. She stared at her reflection in the damaged glass, her face flushed and glistening in the light. She lowered her eyes to her hands, expecting to see Lonnie’s blood on them. Nothing. Nothing but broken fingernails, and a tiny ruby in a gold setting, a ring from her grandmother on Courtney’s sixteenth birthday.

There was a sound from behind her. She looked into the mirror and saw the image of a little man, a dwarf. He was dressed in a red and purple Hawaiian-print shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. His dirty blond hair was combed straight back. His tanned faced creased with laugh lines set in the cheeks, dimples the size of dimes, and he wore a gold hoop earring in one ear.

Courtney turned around and smiled. “Hi, Isaac. You’re a sight for really sore eyes, a hurting brain, and other things.”

“Glad you’re back, kiddo. The police were looking for you.”

“They found me.”

“What happened?”

“They questioned me for hours. Tried to get me to change my story, like to say stuff that isn’t true. They truly believe I killed Lonnie. No matter what I said, they’ve got their minds made up. Lonnie was dead when I got to him, after a man knifed him. To get to Lonnie, I had to jump from the Big Wheel when it swept close to the ground, but I was too late.”

“Are you okay?”

“No … no, I’m not okay. Lonnie was lying in a pool of blood fighting for his life. I tried to pull that ice pick outta his chest, but I was too late. He just looked up at me, then looked beyond my head like he was staring at the moon and he stopped breathing. I felt like I was gonna vomit. I just ran. And I didn’t stop running until I was so far away I couldn’t see the lights from the carnival. I spent the last three hours telling the same story over and over to the police. Nobody believes me.”

“I believe you. Looks like you could use a hug.” Isaac walked to her and held out his short arms, a wide smile spreading across his face. Courtney leaned down, and he hugged her. At three and a half feet, Isaac Solminski had a line-of-sight most people didn’t possess. He could read people, could see into situations, spot trouble, and avoid it if possible. After twenty years on the road, he had no illusions about anything. But he did have faith and hope.

He had befriended Courtney Burke when she started working at the carnival three months earlier. Isaac believed Courtney was a special young woman who would never fit in as a carny. She was put on this earth for something else. He could feel it in his heart. And he could see farther than most men twice his height. Tonight he didn’t like what he saw. He said, “My precious Courtney. I’m surprised you came back.”

“Where am I gonna go? I need the work. I need to feel I’m getting closer to what I came for, too. Besides, if I run again, the cops will think I’m running from all this. I’m innocent.”

“Come with me. I’ll make us some tea. There’s something I want to tell you.”

She nodded and followed the little man as he stepped over a garden hose and waddled around pitched tents, campers, and motorhomes, many covered with grime and years’ worth of travel dents and dings in the body paint. Diesels hummed. Air conditions rattled. Courtney could see the blue lights from a TV screen flickering through the dirty window of a trailer. The night air carried the odor of diesel fumes.

Isaac climbed the two wooden steps to his small camper, opened the door and turned on the lights. Courtney had been in the small camper once before. It was a morning he’d made her breakfast after a drunken carny had slapped her across the mouth because she refused to go to McDonald’s with him for breakfast.

“Have a seat at the table. I’ll heat the water. Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He sliced a wedge of carrot cake, placed it on a paper plate, and set it in front of her on the table. “With this cake, you’ll get your veggies, too.”

Courtney smiled and used a plastic fork to take a bite. “It’s so good. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Isaac placed tea bags in two steaming cups and sat across from Courtney. He pushed a cup near her plate. “Courtney, you don’t belong here. Find something else.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go. I needed the work. And I haven’t finished what I set out to do.”

“What if you don’t find him?”

“I’ll find him. If not here, some other carnival, fair, or circus.”

“You’ve been working this circuit for three months. The season’s usually six to eight months. Where are you going to go after that?”

“I guess I’ll find work at some other carnival.”

“It’s a rough life, kiddo. You get in this game and it changes you. Since I’ve come to know you, I don’t believe you’re put on this earth to work the carny circuit. Some people come here ‘cause they’re running from something. Others are running to something. It’s a human train, a vagabond life, picking up and moving on like migrant workers comin’ to a new field to pick the marks, empty their pockets after they cash their Friday paychecks. That’s not you, not who you are.”

“Why do you stay, Isaac?”

“Look at me. I’m three and a half feet tall. Where am I gonna earn a living? But you don’t have to. You have your whole life ahead of you. This guy you’re looking for, why’s it so important to find him?”

“Because he took something from a person I love very much, my grandmother.”

“What if you don’t find him?”

“I can go to my grave knowing I tried.”

“You’re a little young to talk about end-of-life scenarios. You once told me the man you’re hunting for is a hypnotist, someone who can get others to do stuff.”

“Yeah, he’s good at it, too. Scary good.”

“At any one time in the summer, there are more than two hundred carnivals touring the states. I’ve worked a bunch of ‘em. Seen some excellent hypnotists, some not so great, and a few that used magic and hypnotism for no good. Saw it more years and years ago, back when little people like me were called freaks. Back in the days of touring with the bearded lady, the three-headed cow, and a whole bunch of people and critters that looked like long-distance ancestors who were rejects from Noah’s ark.”

“You’re not a freak. You’re a sweet and caring man.”

Isaac nodded and looked at her, his olive-green eyes filled with compassion. “Courtney, what you don’t know is that Lonnie was a dealer for Tony Bandini and his older brother Carlos.”

“What?”

“He moved meth, pills, coke. Somewhere between Boston, Buffalo, and here in Florida, the accounting didn’t jibe. I’d heard that Lonnie was into the Bandini brothers for five grand. Carlos Bandini runs five carnivals. He’s here from time to time. Neither he nor Tony offer many repayment plans.”

“Did Tony Bandini or his brother kill Lonnie?”

“I doubt it. But Tony would just as soon take him out as not. Probably ordered it done. Cops won’t trace it back to him unless they can find the actual hit man. The Bandinis have a network of roustabouts. It sends a message to other dealers—the house gets paid first. Tony Bandini doesn’t care if you take the fall, he probably planned it that way.”

Courtney pushed the plate away, her eyes burning. “I gotta go.”

“Go where?”

“Bandini’s office. I need to—”

“Listen to me, Courtney. Play it cool. You walk in there and you’ll walk into a hornet’s nest. You don’t know this guy. He’s about as dangerous as they come.”

She stood. “I’ve seen a lot of dangerous people in my life. I’ll start by asking him if I still work here. I guess we’ll see where it goes from there. Can I borrow your phone for a minute?”

“Yes, but stay away from Bandini’s office tonight. Promise me?”

“I can’t make a promise that I know I won’t keep.”

He shook his head and handed her his phone. “Are you calling your grandmother?”

“Yes, and then I’m calling the man who picked me up on the side of the road at night. If he’s not there … if anything happens to me, if for some reason I vanish, I want you to ask him a question for me. His name is Sean O’Brien.”

I was getting ready to lock
Jupiter
and head back to my cabin on the river when Dave Collins leaned in through the open sliding glass doors from the cockpit to the salon. “Sean, is your phone working?”

“Last I checked.”

“Knowing you, that could have been a month ago.”

I lifted my phone off the bar in the salon. “I’d set it to vibrate. Looks like there are three missed calls, and two voice messages. One’s from Nick’s phone and one from a number I don’t recognize.”

Dave shook his head of thick silver-white hair and stepped inside. “Nick’s been trying to reach you. He’s at the Tiki Bar. Said he overheard, and I’m quoting here—two shit-faced carny types talking about the killing at the county fair. He said one guy, a fella who’d partaken in a wee bit more Miller beer than he should have, was telling the other guy that the word on the street, so to speak, is the death of the worker was a contract killing.”

“Are these two men still there?”

“I don’t know. Nick called me after trying your phone for the last half hour or so.”

I said nothing, the only sound coming from halyards clanking against a sailboat mast in the warm night breeze.

“What are you thinking about, Sean?”

“Dan Grant said he found some records indicating Courtney Burke has spent some time in a psych ward. I don’t know the details.”

“Could have been by court order. Her family could have institutionalized her. Regardless, it indicates some kind of mental instability.”

“Not always. Why was she locked in an asylum? We know the effect, but what was the cause. You were trained in understanding human breaking points, how to accelerate reaching them. Sometimes it’s physical. Sometimes it’s mental. It’s still pain, in the case of repeated sexual assaults, it’s layered pain. In my book, years of sexual abuse is physical and mental. It’s encrusted like a hot branding iron on different sections of the victim’s soul. The pain may dull, but the mark to your psyche is like a bad tattoo that blurs through time.”