“Tell me about Troy Pepper,” I said.
Pop Sonders uncapped the Mylanta bottle, chugged from it, and put it back, wiping at the pale green chalk on his lips. “Pepper's been with us about five months. He works hard. I haven't had a whisper of trouble with him. Till now, I guess. Some people, you take 'em on, you know day one they won't hack it. This ain't easy work. But Pepper caught on fast, and he pulls his load.”
“What did he do before he joined you?”
“Warehouse work, different things, hauled poles and cables for light and power. He was in the service a while before that.”
“I'd like to look at his personnel file.”
“I'll have to think about that. This is all a big surprise. A murder, and one of our people charged?”
“Were you there when the woman's body was found?”
“Right here. We shut things down quick and got the crowds thinned out. Even so, it wasn't the kind of thing you want folks to have to see.”
“Did Pepper say anything when he was arrested?”
He shook his head. “Not really. He had a kind of dazed, sick look.
Sort of rubbery in the knees as they took him away, like a sailor before he's got his land legs. I told him I'd hire a lawyer.”
“Have you been over to visit him?”
“Mr. Meecham said it'd probably be a good idea if I didn't. Not yet, anyways.”
“That young womanâNicole. She seemed upset when I mentioned why I was here.”
Sonders sighed. “She's most of the time cheerful as a lark, and it rubs off on everyone. I like her around for that alone. She's a sweetheart of a kid, a good scout. But she's like a barometer, picks up on emotional weather real easy. Last night really got to her.”
I nodded. It had upset Phoebe badly, too. “She works for you?”
“She looks after things for us when we're on the road, attends to the dogs, sometimes runs the ring toss or does ticket sales.” Sonders pursed his lips, as if deciding whether to trust me. “This is between us. Nicole's mom was dying a dozen years back, when the girl was eight, and my wife and meâthat's my wife there in the pictureâpromised we'd take care of the kid. Kind of a deathbed promise, I guess. My wife's gone now, too. Aneurysm.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
He nodded. “Nicole has fetal alcohol syndrome. It hasn't kept her back much, though I'm not sure what life would be like for her out there.” He gestured beyond the paneled wall. “She's never really lived it. Most of her schooling's been right here on the road. I've tutored her myself, and the first five, six years I got her a regular teacher. She gets by.”
“Is she a close friend of Pepper's?”
“No more than any of us. We're all close, come to that. Pepper's a little newer is all.”
“How are the others taking this?”
“I haven't talked to everyone yet. There wasn't hardly time. I will, though. We'll have a meeting today.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Forty-five or thereabouts. That's the gang that travels. I got a booking staff and an accountant back in Jersey, and a safety engineer on a consulting basis. Here I got a full-time ride supervisor and a crew inspects all
the rides every day before we open. I got jacks who operate the rides and run the concessions. We add local hands as needed. We do about fifty shows a year, all over the Northeast. Mostly three- or four-day visits, though places like here we'll come in and stay a week or longer. We've got sixty rides, food stands, games of chance, we generally work it with a percentage split between the folks who contract us and the show. If it's a charity benefit or a fund-raiser, we'll slice it accordingly. Everyone's on hourly, with a guarantee of hours per week, andâ” He broke off, clapped his hands on his thighs, and stood up. “I'm itchy just sittin' and thinking that we're not operating at all right now. Come on, it'll be easier if I show you around.”
Outside we set off among the row of camper trailers, away from the thrill rides and the kiddie amusements, toward the area where the food concessions and games of chance were set up. The aromas of food and defeat lingered in the air. “Are you the owner?” I asked.
“Legally, on paper; but we run it family-like. Everyone gets a say. I make the final call, though. Someone's got to. I give bonuses based on what we take.”
“That must create loyalty.”
He glanced at me but said nothing. We walked through the big mowed field where the show was laid out, Sonders pointing out things with the stem of the corncob as we went. “We're a small outfit. Independent. A lot of âem are owned by big operations anymore. They do the big state fairs. I pick up the slack. There're about a hundred and fifty shows like this that move around the country. We generally run full tilt, March through October. We got a few more dates to fill up here, and then we'll start south with the cold coming, wind up in Florida. You've got to pan that stream pretty deep to come up with much, 'cause you're always up against Mickey Mouse, but hey, come December, the weather's nice.”
He explained that his father had once owned the show but sold it. Sonders had eventually bought it back. “I made it a profit-sharing operation. No union. I never met a union yet that didn't start off as a good idea and end up feeling like a gun in your ribs.”
“Shhânot too loud in this town.”
“There may be some, I'm not saying that. But the solution to one
problem seems to create new problems. I don't like the idea of shoving a stick into a turning wheel. There's got to be something that works both ways.”
Over at Harvard Business School, students were paying plenty to study with people like him. I said, “I'd still like to see Pepper's personnel file.”
“I'm not crazy about opening up files to just anyone. It's an unwritten rule.”
I gave him a look. “Let me ask a question. Do
you
think Pepper killed that girl?”
Sonders frowned, letting it buy him a moment. “No.”
“Then who's going to object to my seeing the file? Pepper?”
“Okay, you're working with us,” he said, relenting. “I'll pull his jacket when we go back.”
“Did you run a background check when you hired him? Call references?”
“When I need someone, I need them today. Usually, I go on horse sense. Not just anyone can do this work. Remember Edward G. Robinson in
Double Indemnity
? His âlittle man'?” He poked his potbelly. “I've got my own little man, right here. Tells me what I need to know. Okay, sure, I suppose I could hire a big fancy search firm, with a bunch of names in the title and letters after the names, and they could run applicants through parlor games, right?”
I let it alone.
“Like I say, I do my own hiring, and I stand by my choices. I can't smoke for real anymore 'cause my wind is shot. Booze is out. My stomach's got more holes than a tin can in a shooting gallery, but goddammit, it tells me when I'm on the right track.”
“What's it telling you now?”
Again, he hesitated. “That I ain't wrong to trust Pepper.”
We had looped back around to his motor home. Nicole was stepping out of a small adjoining camper, no dogs with her this time. She handed Sonders the morning's edition of the
Sun.
He let his eyes drift across the front page. “You seen this?”
I had. He stuck the paper under his arm. “Nicole, will you go in and pull out Troy's file for me?”
Her small face clenched with concern, and she glanced at me, then back. “Sure thing, Pop.”
When she'd gone to get the file, Sonders said, “The bull I talked to is named Cote. Know him?”
“Roland Cote, yeah.” The carnival boss was feisty; he wasn't going to let the information exchange only run one way. “He's steady. He'll get the job done,” I said. “Is he imaginative? No, but then he doesn't have to be. In this city, the killers aren't very imaginative, either. They get caught.”
“Not this time,” Sonders said. “Not yet, anyhow. So, where do we go from here?”
“Fred Meecham is quarterbacking. You'll hear from him. Obviously, you should cooperate with the police, but anything you come up with that'll help us, too, let Fred or me know.”
Nicole brought out a manila folder, which she handed to Sonders, then went off in the direction of the midway. “You can lamp this in my digs,” he said.
“I'd like to take it along with me.”
He tugged at an earlobe. “Awright. I sized you up pretty good, I guess.”
“And your âlittle man' gives me a pass?”
He winced and poked his stomach again. “That, or it's gas.” He thrust the folder at me. “Come on, I'll introduce you around.”
“I can do that myself. I've got my own horse sense.”
The fact was I wanted to keep a small element of surprise.
He regarded me skeptically from under the snowy hedges of his eyebrows, but shrugged. “Be my guest.”
“One more thing. The police seem to have their minds made up one way,” I said. “I'm going to look at whatever information I can get. But if I don't find anything to contradict their read, I say so.”
“Hell's bells, I know that. No one's paying you to kiss ass.”
I handed him one of my cards, with the addition of my cellular phone number handwritten on it. Even with the pair of gold-frame specs he hooked on, he had to hold the card at arm's length. “Never seen this spelling of âRassmusen' before.”
“No one has. It's a printer's error. I'm halfway done with a deck of five hundred.”
He put it in his shirt pocket. “I suppose you'll want to be paid.” His laugh was the first trace of mirth he'd shown.
“I laugh at it all the time, too. Your lawyer will take care of me. Oh, and just an observation, Pop. You keep saying âhell's bells' and calling folks âgeezer,' the slickers around here are going to think you're an anachronistic old seadog.”
He squinted one eye, and I suddenly felt like Bluto. “Just let 'em try.”
As I set off, I realized I liked the guy. If he was a little clattery and overprotective, that was okay. I knew where I stood with him. After freelancing for the past few months for a monolith, where people wore faces like cold coffeeâif you got to see anyone at allâI was glad to have a real person, and not to have a sense that my sole purpose was protecting some outfit's Dun and Bradstreet rating. Sonders's rating appeared to be the good regard he held his workers in, including Troy Pepper. I felt inspired to want to prove him right.
At midmorning the carnival had a residue of depleted energy and foggy purpose. The jack with the spiked stick was spearing empty popcorn cartons, cigarette packs, and the little paper spindles on which cotton candy was spun. Someone else was stocking cheap stuffed toys onto the shelves of an arcade. In another, a shirtless man with a large spiderweb tattooed on his lean chest was partially inflating tough-skinned little balloons from a compressed-air tank, affixing them to a square of particleboard, where most of the darts that hit them would bounce off. At a booth where for a buck you tossed baseballs to knock over a stack of milk bottles, there was no one around, so I gave in to curiosity. The balls were light and squishy and hit the canvas backdrop with a listless
thwack.
The bottles were made of wood, with weighted bottoms. What did I expect?
I wandered among the tents and booths and food concessions, most of which were shuttered. Farther back, away from the traffic area, was the encampment of vans and small mobile homes where the carnival workers lived. Judging by the number of satellite dishes, they didn't want for much. I made my way in that direction. A woman in pink curlers, several clothespins protruding from her mouth like weird teeth, was hanging
ratty stockings and sequined costumes on a line strung between two trailers. I approached a man and a woman who were sitting on the steps of one of the trailers, having a cigarette. The man was making gestures with one hand. I introduced myself and told them why I was there.
“If Pop says y'all are okay, it's fine by me,” the woman said. “Me and Red were just talking about it. I'm Penny Bergfors. This here's Red Fogarty, from Bangor.” He was a big, rough-complexioned redhead with a hand that felt like lumpy rawhide when we shook. “Red works the Tilt-a-Whirl, and drives truck when we roll.”
And apparently didn't speak for himself. Penny looked around forty, with dark roots showing in her blond hair and the Deep South oozing out of her voice. “No, sir, I don't know what-all to think. I mean, you work with a guy, you like to reckon you know him some. Personally, I like him. He keeps to himself, but he's friendly enough, and he works hard. Wouldn't you say so, Red?”
The redhead made some hand gestures again, which I realized were sign language. Penny turned to me. “He says, âA-yuh.'”
We all smiled. “Was the victim familiar at all?”
“Poor thing.” Penny clicked her tongue. “No, she wasn't. Though I gather Troy knew her.”
“The police claim that he was here with her yesterday sometime. Did you see or hear anything, arguing maybe, or raised voices?”
“It's pretty noisy around here anyway. With the rides going, you get shrieks and screams all the time. I don't reckon I'd have noticed.”
“I did,” someone else said.
I turned. A lean man who didn't look much older than twenty, though weathered, drifted over. He wore a red-speckled, tie-dyed T-shirt that made him look like he'd been shotgunned and was bleeding out of many holes. He had small gold earrings. “Heard you askin' about Pepper,” he said. I gave him my name and told him what I was up to. He was Tito Alvarez. “You talkin' about the woman,” he said. “I seen the two of 'em yesterday, and on Saturday, too. She come over both days. Beats me, man, what was she doing, but I got my ideas.”
“You saw them, Tito?” Penny Bergfors asked.
“Oh yeah. They didn't hang around chewing the fat. Went on into his trailer.”
“Do you remember what time that was?”
He thought about it. “Morning. Late.”
“Did you ever see her before this week?” I was jotting as we spoke.
“Like on the road, you mean?”
“Or anywhere outside of Lowell?”
“No. I think I'd remember her. She was a
bonita muchacha.
Pepper, man, he's a little strange. Quiet. He don't mix much. In the time he's been with the show, I can count on two fingers the times he's ever drunk a brew with us. Wouldn't you say so, Red?”
Red Fogarty pinched the stub of his cigarette, dropped it into a red can, and nodded.
“And that's only when someone buys a case and we sit around here,” Tito added. “I don't think he's never gone to no bar with us.”
“Maybe he's on the wagon,” Penny said.
“No, câmon, you've seen him havin' a brew.”
“So maybe he just doesn't enjoy the company,” she teased.
“Yeah, right. No, I'm thinking some of the bars we find are pretty rough. I wonder maybe he's got a glass jaw?”
“He certainly looks like he can handle himself if he had to,” Penny said.
“No lie, I've seen rugged guys couldn't take a punch.”
“Which trailer is Pepper's?” I asked.
Penny indicated a cream-colored camper with a chrome strip along the side. “That's it yonder.” It was hooked onto the bed of a gray pickup truck with a New Jersey tag. I copied the number into my notebook.
“Do any of you think Troy Pepper killed that girl?” I asked.
Penny Bergfors's brow crinkled. “I don't think he did,” she said tentatively; then, with more certitude, “âCause we ain't like that.” The two men agreed, though with something less than firm conviction. I made sure I had their names in my notebook and thanked them for talking with me.
Pepper's camper trailer was half the size of Sonders's motor home. There was a set of metal stairs in the down position, and police tape on the door. The department techs would already have examined it but hadn't released it yet. Meecham would likely request permission for us to look it over, too, but we'd have to wait our turn. I did peer through a little
louvered window in the back door, but it was dark in there and I couldn't see anything. I wandered around the carnival site some more. As I did, I had the sensation of being watched. It was one of those feelings you sometimes get, but when I stopped and did a slow 360 I didn't see anyone. I walked toward the haunted house.
By daylight, Castle Spookula was about as macabre as a plastic jack-o' lantern. A few hundred feet beyond it, though, there had been real horror. I kept outside the yellow crime scene tape and tried to see it as I'd seen it last nightâand as I was likely to go on seeing it for some time to come. Phoebe had been so shaken by the experience that she had phoned a girlfriend and asked me to drop her there to spend the night. I hadn't suggested that she come to my place. We hadn't gotten that far yet, and anyhow, since my move, I still hadn't unpacked much beyond clothes and my day-to-day needs. My living room was stacked with cardboard cartons, and going to remain so for now.
Birds sang in the autumn-tall grass, telling me nothing. A large dead pine tree stood about fifty feet back, and far beyond that, woods. I thought of the torn-open blouse, the knotted scarf. According to the Sun, the police believed the woman had been strangled in Pepper's trailer. I judged the distance from here to there to be a hundred yards, give or take. A fair distance to carry a bodyâthough she was small, and he was strong. The area was too trampled by the activities of last night to make much of it. I'd leave evidence gathering to the police. I'd stick with looking for answersâthough at the moment I didn't have any of those, either, only the challenge of finding some.
As I headed for my car, jotting a final question in my pad, I had the perception again that I was being watched. I stopped. When I glanced about, I noticed a shimmer of reflection on one of the crazy mirrors on the side of Castle Spookula and turned to look behind me. In an alleyway between trailers, some distance away, a large bald man wearing green work clothes was looking my way. I couldn't tell his age. Seeing me notice him, he turned abruptly and went into a stubby Airstream trailer parked apart from the others. On the door, painted in a gaudy red and gold circus script, was a sign: ROGO THE KLOWN.