Strolling Into Danger (A Seagrove Cozy Mystery Book 6) (2 page)

“Did she say anything?” he asked from behind his coffee cup.

“She was speaking in a language I didn’t understand. I’m not sure I’ve even heard it before. But after she collapsed on the sidewalk she kept asking me ‘When?’ And I didn’t know what that meant. When what?” Sadie took a breath.

“Did she live?” she asked.

“She died in the ambulance shortly after they removed the knife,” Zack said. He looked grave.

“Shouldn’t they have waited until she was at the hospital? Maybe she would have lived?” She hated how she could hear tears threatening in her voice. She cleared her throat.

“It is unlikely she would have survived in any case,” he said.

“The knife damaged her heart and she was bleeding internally. I’m sorry Sadie, she didn’t have a chance.”

Sadie nodded and tried regaining her composure, but the tears trickled down her face anyway. She wiped them away with a corner of her blanket and sniffed.

“Sorry, it’s just so sad. I was hoping maybe she survived.” She took another sip of coffee and tried composing herself, but it wasn’t easy.

“Do you know who she was?” she asked.

“Her name was Pabelin Kerry. She was with the circus, a fortune teller. Of course circus management doesn’t want to delay their departure, they’ll lose money, but they have to stay until we finish the investigation. We’re trying to get it done but how can I let them leave when the murderer is most likely either employed by them or one of the multitudes that follow the circus?”

“Multitudes? That seems unlikely,” Sadie said. “What do you mean by that?”

“There are nearly as many family members, significant others and people who just want to be part of the circus as there are circus performers and roustabouts. It’s a logistical nightmare,” he said.

“I thought circuses frowned on hangers-on,” Sadie said. “I thought everyone was expected to work.”

“Maybe in the old days,” Zack said.

“But I don’t think they really can control what people do anymore. Anyone can get an RV and stay in the local Walmart parking lot. And I think a lot of the hangers-on try to be useful. It’s hard to turn down free labor.”

“Humph. I wonder,” Sadie said. “My gut tells me it’s someone who knew her well. What did you say her name was? Pablum?”

“Pabelin. Pabelin Kerry. She’s Romanian. Spoke just enough English to tell the girls they would meet a handsome man, or so my officers tell me. I need to talk to them, the circus people I mean, not my officers, and wondered if you’d like to come along?”

“I was hoping we’d go to the circus together,” Sadie said. “Except I wanted to see the show.”

“If we time it right we can do both,” Zack looked at his watch. “Say about eleven? That gives me three hours to snoop around before the two o’clock show.”

“I have to check with Betty. She could have plans for lunch,” Sadie said. “But if it’s okay with her then I’m in.”

Sadie shucked her blanket and coat in the living room and walked down the stairs to the shop with Zack.  Sadie looked around.

“Betty,” she called out, “where are you?”

Betty appeared from the back room wearing a scarf in her hair and an apron over her dress. She had bright red lips and was holding a multicolored duster.

“Sixties housewife,” Sadie said. “Am I right?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Betty said pushing a black curl from her forehead back up under the scarf.

“I’m wearing my dusting outfit, but I could see how this could be interpreted as Sixties housewife.”

“Where did you get the dress and apron?” Sadie asked.

“They were my mother’s,” Betty said, running her hands across the fabric of the apron.

“So I guess they are literally Sixties housewife. Perfect.” She smiled at Sadie. "I’ll have to remember that next time I need to dress for a theme.”

Sadie returned her smile, Betty was one of those people who just made you feel better about life.

“Zack and I were thinking of going to the circus for an inquiry,” Sadie said.

“Will you be around? I didn’t want to desert you if you have plans.”

“No, I’m good. And anyway, if I did have plans, we could just put a sign on the door. You are the boss, remember?”

Sadie laughed. She’d never had a problem locking up and leaving a sign on the door before she had an assistant.

“True,” she said. “Do that if you need to go out for a break.”
 

It was an old style circus set up in a hay field on the outskirts of town. A midway full of rides and games lined the throughway to the big tent. The entrance to the big top tent was flanked on either side by ticket booths and the entire compound was surrounded by a white picket fence to keep the locals from wandering into the living areas for performers and animals. Sadie thought it was clever for them to line the path to the circus tent with midway attractions. Families with children could drop a couple of hundred bucks on food and fun before they even reached the circus.

The area was unmanned at the moment, as were the ticket booths outside the big top. It was too early in the day for anyone to be there. Zack and Sadie wandered into the tent, which was also empty. It was a huge tent, big enough to house a three-ring circus with trapeze artists and a diving pool.

Sadie never had been in an empty circus tent before. They stood in the center ring and looked up. The safety net for the high wire acts was far above their heads and the tightrope far above that. It was hard to fathom that a fabric tent could be big enough to hold all this stuff. Bleachers lined the tent and Sadie counted fifteen rows of seats. She couldn’t imagine where the people to fill this tent all would come from.

The two of them walked through the tent and out the exit on the far end. There were aisle ways out on the side of the tent as well, but Zack said those led out to the animal areas and that wasn’t where they needed to go. The fenced-in area at the far end of the tent was well organized. The tractor-trailers were parked in neat lines, one next to the other in a grid, ten trailers long and three deep on either side of the exit. The animals were housed in trailers along the side of the tent where they were close to their entrances. The travel-trailers and RVs were parked in the far corner, edged on one side by the grid of eighteen-wheelers and by the menagerie on the other. The other two sides were fenced off from the public by chain-link fencing, backed by boards for privacy.

In contrast to the deserted tent, the area behind it was a hive of activity.  Animals were being fed, washed and trained. There was a small circular corral where a young girl was standing on the back of a white horse running in the midst of a herd of horses of shades of black and white. Sadie stopped and watched, her heart clutching when the child did a back flip and landed securely on her feet, still on the back of her steed. Zack had to drag her away.

Sadie stopped again at the elephant pen where a small man was scrubbing an elephant with a push broom. The elephant was enjoying it, leaning into the bristles. Something touched Sadie’s hand and she looked down to see a baby elephant had come to the fence and was tickling her hand with its trunk. She scratched the baby on the head until Zack gave her a look and she hurried on. She would have liked to have stopped at the big cat pens, but she thought Zack’s patience might be wearing a bit thin.

They were stopped by two large guys that Sadie took for circus security. They looked unhappily at Zack’s uniform and Sadie was glad he wasn’t in plain clothes. They probably would have been dumped at the front of the midway before he could explain who he was.

“Can I help you?” the taller one asked in a tone that told them he didn’t want to help at all, but would because he didn’t want to go to jail.

“I need to speak to the person who manages circus personnel,” Zack said in a tone that said ‘Don’t mess with me if you want to stay out of jail.’

“Maestro Street,
the ringmaster?” The shorter one asked – shorter being a relative term, they both towered over Sadie, although Zack was as tall as the short one.

The taller one shook his head. “He means ‘il capo.’ Come with me.”

Mr. Big and Tall led them into the tangle of trailers and motorhomes while Shorty followed behind until they reached a portable office located near the center of the living quarters.

“Interesting place for the business office,” Zack said. “I would have put it closer to the ticket booths. It’s a long way to walk with the evening take.”

“Normally this trailer is out front near the midway,” Shorty said.

“But there have been problems lately and il capo wanted to keep his eyes on the performers. Not that it helped the fortune teller.”

Big and Tall shot him a look that clearly said he should shut his mouth, and Sadie wondered why. Surely this was something they’d find out from il capo anyway.

Big and Tall knocked on the door, opened it and stepped in, closing it behind him and leaving them outside with Shorty.

Chapter Two

Roman Gitano, the circus manager
,
was a short, stocky man with a Hercule Poirot mustache and a head of jet black hair. Sadie suspected either hair dye or a toupee. She just didn’t see that many men over thirty-five with that much unruly hair. She and Zack were sitting on one side of the dinette table and he was sitting on the other.

Mr. Big and Tall was standing behind Gitano and Shorty leaned against the door. Sadie was glad she was here with Zack, she would have been nervous if she’d been here on her own, there was too much muscle in the room. Which she suspected was the whole point of having a couple of oversized goons handing around.

“Pabelin was a rare fortune teller,” Roman was saying in a choppy European accent that Sadie couldn’t place.

“She had the sight. Her daughter will take over from her, of course. And she will do fine, but it won’t be the same. Pabelin will be missed.”

“Did she have any close friends?” Zack asked. “Someone who would know what was going on in her life?”

“Her daughter, Alena, shared her trailer. But what do you hope to find out from her that you can’t find out from me?” Roman asked.

“The details of her life that only those close to her would know,” Zack said. “Like if she was hated by anyone here.”

“No one from this circus killed Pabelin,” he said, “We are family. We may argue and fight, but we look after our own. No. Someone from your town killed her. We will leave here as soon as you release us. There is evil in this place.”

“That’s a tad melodramatic,” Zack said.

“Statistically, it is far more likely that one of her “family” killed her than anyone from my town.”

“No. I’m sure it was one of her customers. Someone who didn’t like what she saw in their shadow.” He made an expansive sweep of his hands to indicate the shadows following Zack and Sadie.

“What makes you think that?” Zack asked. “Did someone complain?”

“There was no complaint, but two days ago a man from your town was arguing with Pabelin. He was very insistent and I had to ask my men to remove him from the circus.”

“You ejected someone from the circus?” Sadie asked. “Weren’t you worried people would hear you ejected him and for him to stay away?”

“It sometimes must be done. We cannot have a sweaty, red-faced young man yelling at our fortune teller. It upset her.” Roman looked grave.

“She could not work when she was upset. She was one of our stars, like Maestro the ring master, and Gordo, the Strongman.”

“Did you get the name of the man who upset her?” Zack asked.

“No, but he was an unusual man. His suit didn’t fit him well, and his tie was very, how do you say, bright. It did not look right.”

“Loud,” Sadie said.

“Yes, Loud. He had glasses with no frame and they were crooked.” Roman squinted in concentration.

“He wore brown work boots with his suit.”

And Sadie knew exactly who he was talking about. Justin Ives, associate professor at the community college. She elbowed Zack in the ribs and raised her eyebrows at him. He nodded and refocused on Roman.

“I know now that this man has murdered Pabelin. I will kill him with my own two hands.” Roman made a ringing motion.

“Not in my town,” Zack said. “No one’s neck gets wrung without a fair trial.”

At that moment, an argument started outside the trailer. The group inside the trailer stopped to listen.

“You can’t go in, Maestro, il capo has guests.”

Sadie thought this might be a third muscle man she’d spotted coming into the trailer.

“I care nothing for that. I’m going in,” the one call Maestro replied, his voice heavy with anger.

“Get out of my way.”

“Maestro, please think. The police are here.” The muscle remained calm and firm, not escalating the situation with his own anger.

“What care I for police? I will have these rumors stopped.” There was the sound of a tussle at the door.

“Maestro, I cannot let you by,” the effort he was making to keep the man away from the door was audible in his voice.

Zack got up, gave Shorty a look that caused him to step away from the door, and pulled the door open. Two men tumbled into the room. The muscle was able to maintain his footing, but the tall skinny man with wild black hair fell to the floor. Zack pulled him to his feet.

“Would you care to explain yourself?” Zack asked him.

Maestro looked belligerent. He started to speak, but his eyes slid past Zack to where il capo shook his head in a barely noticeable signal for Maestro to shut up and he did. Sadie told herself she would have to tell Zack about that later.

“Shall I arrest the two of you for disturbing the peace?” Zack asked.

Maestro looked surprised. “But this is private property,” he said.

“Who am I disturbing?”

“Me.” Zack gave him a look that dared him to argue.

“And you are impeding a murder investigation. There’s some jail time for you.”

The guy who had been arguing with Maestro outside the door paled, but Maestro looked past Zack to Roman.

“Someone is spreading rumors,” he said. “You must make them stop.”

“What kind of rumors?” Sadie asked before she could stop herself.

“They are saying I killed Pabelin,” Maestro said, his eyes suddenly bright.

“Why would I kill a woman I love?”

“Maestro,” Roman interrupted him.

“This is not the time or place. We will deal with this later. The rumors will stop.” Maestro nodded and dashed a tear from his cheek.

“I will go now,” he said.

He nodded his head in a kind of salute to Sadie and left the trailer. The man who had attempted to bar his entry followed quickly after.

“Who was he to Pabelin?” Zack asked, scribbling notes in his tiny spiral notebook.

“That is Maestro Street our ringmaster,” Roman said.

“He is overly theatrical, but he would not make a good ringmaster if he were not. This is hearsay, for I do not know it to be true, but the rumor was he was having an affair with Pabelin. Maestro’s wife was not happy with him.”

“He’s married?” Sadie said. “And having an affair with the fortune teller? She could have predicted her own death.”

“It is different where we come from,” Roman said.

“Affairs are not considered moral failings. Wives may not like them, they will get jealous and angry, but they accept that they cannot control the actions of their husbands.”

“And what if the wife has the affair?” Sadie asked. She was somewhat appalled at this attitude.

“Do the husbands accept that they cannot control the actions of the wives?”

“Men are not quite as forgiving as women in nature, so women are more discreet in their affairs to spare their husband’s feelings. But it is still not a moral failing.”

“Why bother to get married at all then?” Sadie asked.

“There are many reasons to get married,” Roman said.

“But fidelity is not one of them.”

Sadie shook her head. Her idea of marriage was very different from this.

“I will need to question people,” Zack said. “Is there a room here I can use, or shall I ask your people to come to the police station?”

“You can use my office,” Roman said. “People will talk more comfortably here.”

“Thank you,” Zack said, “But before I get started I’d like to visit Pabelin’s trailer and fortune telling tent.”

“Certainly,” Roman said.

“You may go anywhere you would like. Come back here when you are ready and I will have one of my boys fetch people for you.”

They left the trailer and Sadie was glad to be out from under the eyes of the goons. The day was still cool, but the sun shone brightly and the air was crisp. There was something oppressive about the security hovering around inside like they were going to stomp on you if you made a wrong step. She didn’t like feeling menaced.

Zack took Sadie’s hand and they skirted the edge of the big top and out a narrow gap in the fence so they were on the edge of the midway. They found the back of the fortune telling tent and slipped inside. The rear portion of the tent was just an ordinary dressing room with a make-up table and lighted mirror. There was a small table with an electric kettle and things for making tea and a small overstuffed couch that took up the side of the tent across from the makeup mirror. The clothing rack held the voluminous garments of the fortune teller. Pabelin had several choices of combinations of garments and headdresses.

Zack rifled through the clothes, but there were no notes hidden in pockets or any other clue to her death. There wasn’t anything in her make-up case, the trash can or down the cushions of the couch. Sadie wondered if the couch was for illicit meets or just for drinking tea or napping.

Finding nothing in the dressing room, they stepped through to the part of the tent the customers saw. The walls in here were draped with rich fabric in black and red patterns. Sadie could see it was wearing thin in places and was a little moth-eaten. But she imagined that at night no one would notice those things.

There was a round table in the center of the room, set on a similarly threadbare carpet. The fortune teller’s chair was carved with minute detail and stained an almost black. The chairs for those who came to have their fortunes read where plain gunmetal gray folding chairs. The standard glass ball was sitting in the center of the table and Sadie ducked under the layers of tablecloths to see an electric cord running to the underneath of the crystal ball, through a hole in the table.

The cord was taped along the underneath of the table top and there was a switch near the edge of the table. Zack pressed it and the globe slowly lit. Then smoke swirled within, coalescing into shadowy shapes.

“Well that’s interesting,” Zack said. “I wouldn’t think a true seer would need an electric crystal ball.”

“Maybe it’s just for visual impact, or for those times when there’s nothing to see,” Sadie added. “You have to give the client a show.”

There wasn’t anything else of interest in the tent. So they exited the way they came in.

“Let’s go see her trailer,” Zack said and led Sadie back through the hole in the fence.

They had to ask for directions two separate times because while the tractor-trailers were laid out in a grid, the RVs and residential trailers were parked in a hodge-podge that seemed to make no sense. Some were so close together that Zack was too wide to slip between them and they had to backtrack around until they finally found Pabelin’s RV. It was beautiful inside, decorated like an old world gypsy caravan in lush fabrics and bright colors.

“If I ever have an RV,” Sadie said, “I’m decorating it like this one.” She slid her fingers along the velvet curtains.

“This is lovely.”

“What are you doing in my mother’s home?”

A young woman with long dark hair and boots that covered her jeans to mid-thigh stepped in through the doorway, a look of hostility on her face. Zack held out his badge for her to see.

“Do you have a search warrant?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.