“I saw them. They didn’t see me beyond the costume and act.” She traced imaginary circles on her ink blotter. “It’s amazing how many people turn their noses up at places like Gold’s and still slip by when the sun goes down.”
“I’m not turning my nose up.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I don’t like the idea of any man leering at you.” His tone had lowered to a growl. “But I’m not judging.”
She didn’t answer. He now knew when she was silent it didn’t mean she was cold or unfeeling but worried or stressed.
“Did you turn tricks?”
“No.” The word was clear, crisp, and without hesitation. “What if I’d said yes?”
“I’d have to find my way around it. Better to know the truth than nothing at all.”
Again, she was silent.
“When did you leave the carnival?”
“When I was sixteen.”
“Why’d you leave?”
She shook her head. “I’ve given you far more than I’ve ever given anyone. Now it’s your turn to give back. Where is this going?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“Not until you tell me why. What does my past have to do with your murder investigation?”
“I could arrest you and we can talk at my office.”
She laughed. “Don’t pull that cop line on me, detective. Don’t. You would not arrest me.”
“I would. In a heartbeat.”
“And I will drag out the question-and-answer session until we all go insane. Tell me why, and I will help you.”
He could force this. And no matter how long she dragged out a Q and A, he’d win in the end. But he wanted them on the same team. “What I’m sharing with you now isn’t public knowledge. I don’t want the details getting out to the media.”
“Seems to be the day for secrets.”
“They always crawl into the light eventually.”
“So it seems.” She sounded resigned, sad even. “Why the interest in the carnival?”
“We found a carnival ticket stub in the second victim’s pocket. The stub was dated four days ago.”
Her brows knitted. “So both women were at the carnival.”
“Yes.”
“Have you talked to Grady Tate, the carnival’s owner?”
“Not yet. But I will. Right now I want to know what you know about the carnival.”
Charlotte stared at Rokov. When it came to stone cold stares, he easily matched hers. They both could be unreadable. She sat forward in her chair and pressed her fingertips to the desk. “Do you think Grady has something to do with these women’s deaths?”
“I don’t know. Could he have killed them?”
“I don’t think so but I’m discovering there is a great deal that I don’t know about Grady.”
“Start from the top. How did you two meet?”
“He married my mother. I was eight and my sister Mariah was nine. We were living in a motel. Mom was waitressing when he came into her diner. They hit it off. He asked her to marry him and she said yes.”
“Just like that?”
“My mother was quite impulsive. She was also quite moody. I think if she’d ever seen a real doctor, they’d have diagnosed her as bipolar. Grady met her when she was up and full of energy and life. She was a lovely woman and not even thirty. Before I knew it, we’d traded the motel for Grady’s trailer and were traveling around the country with his carnival.”
“He’s your stepfather.”
“He was my stepfather. My mother died when I was thirteen.”
“Is that when you left the carnival?”
“I didn’t leave for a couple more years. I stayed because I had no real place to go. I knew my mother had an older sister, but I didn’t know how to find her. So I stayed. Grady put my sister and me to work in the Madame Divine tent as the carnival psychic just as he had our mother. We wore the same costume but rotated shifts.”
His jaw tightened a fraction.
“You don’t approve?”
“A child should be in school.”
“We did have a tutor of sorts within the carnival. She was good, but I quickly was asking questions more detailed than she could answer. She was good about getting me books to read. And when I finally was placed in a real school, I was on par with most of the kids.”
“Why did you finally leave?”
She moistened her lips. “Mariah drowned. I freaked out. I was sure someone had murdered her, but Grady kept telling me it was an accident. When I refused to believe him, Grady found my aunt and told me I could go live with her if I wanted to leave the carnival. I did.”
He leaned forward. “Where did Mariah die?”
“We were in Alexandria. It was the end of the season as it is now. She went to work that night and never came back.” She swallowed.
“Did Grady call the cops?”
She closed her eyes. “He said he did, but I’m not so sure now. He’s a liar.”
He pulled out his notebook. “What was her full name?”
“Mariah Angel Wells.”
“What happened that last night?”
“I’d drifted off to sleep. Sooner was less than a week old and she was with me. I woke up to the sounds of a woman’s screams. I bolted out of bed, checked on the baby, and then ran to Grady’s trailer. He had just come back from somewhere. I told him Mariah was missing, and he organized a search party. They found her by a lake. Later he said she must have fallen into the water and hit her head.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“I believed him then but I don’t now. He’s told me too many lies.” She flexed her fingers on the mat like a starfish. “In the days after Mariah’s death, I kept hearing her screams in my sleep. Finally, I thought I’d go insane, so I demanded that he let me go live with my aunt. I also told him I was taking Sooner.”
“He refused.”
“How did you know?”
“She grew up in the carnival, not with you.”
“Grady told me he’d put her up for adoption. He said I was too young to raise a baby. And I knew she deserved a real home.”
He didn’t respond. For the first time he wondered if she did indeed come with far too many tangles and baggage. He’d just dug his way out of a mess with his ex.
“I wish now I’d taken her with me. The carnival was no place for her. I wanted to take her and raise her. And I knew Grady was a liar. I knew it. And still I let myself believe.”
“How old were you?”
&n
bsp; “Sixteen.”
“So young to be a mother.”
“I would have made it work.” She reached in her desk drawer and pulled out the photo. She held it out to him and he accepted the other side. For a moment the yellowed photo connected them. “This is how I remember Mariah.”
He took the picture. “Sooner looks a lot like her.”
“She does. She even sounds like her.”
“Could Grady have killed Mariah?”
“He really did adore her. I know he can lie and cheat better than anyone, but he loved Mariah.”
“Women are often killed by people they know.”
“I’ve read the statistics.” She shook her head. “We had a lot of people in and out of the carnival that summer.”
“Any still around?”
“A few. I saw them the other night.”
“Are you sure you didn’t wake to hear Mariah really screaming? Maybe she was killed near your trailer.”
She stiffened as if she’d never considered the option. “All these years I assumed the screams were a dream.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t awake. I know that.”
“How do you know that?”
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see his reaction. “Because the dreams and screams have returned.”
“When?”
The lack of censure had her raising her gaze. “A few weeks. I thought it was because the carnival was back in the area and old stuff was getting stirred up. But they are so vivid.”
“Who is Sooner’s father?”
“A boy in a small town in Franklin, Tennessee. When the carnival left Franklin, the relationship ended.”
“Maybe he still had an interest in Mariah?”
“No.”
He blinked. “What was Sooner’s father’s name?”
“He gave the name of Matt Davis, but that proved to be a lie when Grady tried to find him. He’d come to the carnival with sweet lies looking for fun and no intention of ever being found. And in retrospect, he was smart. Grady wanted to kill him.”
His jaw tensed.
“I can only imagine what you are thinking.”
“Not as dire as you might think.”
She nodded. “You’re going to ask around about Mariah?”
“I am.”
“Do you think her disappearance is related?”