Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  She looked down at her computer screen. “He’s conscious, but not entirely coherent. The doctor’s note says he is allowed two visitors, for ten minutes out of every hour, and only family.” She glanced back and forth between them.

  “We’re family,” Gypsy said, grabbing his hand.

  “Close family.”

  The nurse said, “All right, I’m noting the time. You can go in.”

  She gave them directions to the curtained cubicle—not a full room—where Frank lay on a hospital bed. Hoses went in and out of him, his inner arms were bandaged, a tube carrying fluid connected to a needle taped to his wrist. His face was pale and sunken, the cheekbones protruding, the forehead pronounced, and his thinning grey hair lying lankly on the pillow.

  This was not the same man they’d talked to yesterday afternoon. He looked like he’d been through ten rounds with a heavyweight champion. Having your heart cut open and tinkered with would do that to anyone, he imagined.

  Gypsy went to the other side of the bed and lifted his free, frail hand. Holding it gently, she bent over him and brushed his hair off his forehead, as gently as if she were touching a sleeping infant. “Grandpa?”

  His eyelids fluttered a little.

  “It’s okay, keep resting. I just wanted you to know that I’m here, and that I love you.”

  The old man mumbled something.

  Gypsy leaned closer. “What was that?”

  Another mumble. She looked up and caught Mick’s eye, shaking her head and frowning.

  Mick went to her side and squatted down, until his face was level with the rails on the side of the bed. “Hey, Frank, we’re here with you now, you don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  The lashes fluttered, the lips moved. And Mick caught one word.

  “Esmerelda.”

  He looked up at Gypsy. She’d heard that time, too. Her mouth tightened for a millisecond, but then she bent over to kiss his forehead again.

  “Esmerelda will be here soon, Grandpa, I promise. She had to fly all the way back from Spain. But she loves you so much, and she’ll be here later today.”

  He shook his head weakly, left, then right. A whisper: “No. No.”

  “It’s all right, Grandpa, please don’t upset yourself.”

  “Es…Es.…”

  Although he knew Frank was barely awake and almost certainly unaware of the name leaving his mouth, Mick’s heart still twisted for Gypsy. She was the one who was here. She was the one who took care of him, who checked in on him, the only family he had nearby. And he was, once again, calling for her sister and not even mentioning Gypsy’s name.

  She was tough, she was strong, she was loving. But she was also human, and it had to hurt.

  “We can’t stay much longer,” Gypsy said. “I just wanted you to know how much I love you, and that I’ll be back to see you soon.”

  His hand trembled, he looked as weak as a kitten, but he still managed to grab her by the wrist and hold on tight. “No….can’t go.”

  The beeps of the monitor keeping track of the old man’s heartbeat got a little faster. “Please don’t upset yourself,” she said. “Hush now. It’s fine.”

  “Esmerelda!” he cried, his voice strong, his eyes flying open. “It’s Esmerelda!”

  Gypsy and Mick had been listening. Now, at the exact same moment, they finally heard.

  “God, I’m so stupid,” Mick said.

  “No more than I am.” She put her other hand over her grandfather’s. “All right, Grandpa, I understand. You don’t mean Esme. You’re talking about the other Esmerelda. The one from long ago.”

  He nodded weakly and tried to lick his dry, cracked lips. His mouth obviously held no moisture. Seeing a glass with ice and a spoon on the portable table, Gypsy grabbed it and spooned a few tiny chips onto his lips.

  “Better?”

  He nodded. “Better.”

  “Now you go back to sleep.”

  “So ashamed. Didn’t want to tell you. So ashamed.”

  “No, Grandpa, you have nothing to be…”

  “Hurt her.”

  She stiffened. So did Mick. Hurting women was not Franklin Bell’s style, and he couldn’t conceive that it ever had been.

  “Barry. Hurt her.”

  They both sighed in relief.

  “So mad…so mad for Louisa. What she did to poor Louisa.” Tears ran from his eyes, running down the sides of his face to his temples. “Her poor broken body on the ground.”

  Mick’s hands clenched on the bars. “Are you saying…did Esmerelda tamper with Louisa’s trapeze? Did she murder her?”

  Frank coughed, a chest-rattling cough that worried them both.

  “We should go,” said Gypsy, who was obviously more concerned about her grandfather than she was about a decades old murder. “We’ll talk later, Grandpa. Please don’t worry, and don’t upset yourself anymore.”

  “Murder. Yes. Esmerelda’s earring—long, dangly with fake rubies. Found it on the catwalk where the rope was looped.”

  “An earring,” Mick murmured.

  “And a knife. Confronted her, all four of us. She admitted it.”

  “Because of Barry?” Gypsy asked. “Because she was jealous?”

  He nodded weakly. “And pregnant.”

  Gypsy’s eyes rounded. “What?”

  “Barry’s. Didn’t know. None of us knew, ‘cept him.” His voice faded and he whimpered once. “All of us…just so mad about Louisa. Crazy mad.”

  Mick suddenly wanted Gypsy to leave the room. She had to already be on an emotional tightrope. If this story was about to go the way he thought it was, he did not want her here. If her grandfather didn’t survive this, he didn’t want Gypsy’s memories of him tainted by hearing he’d helped to “punish” the wicked—and pregnant—Esmerelda for her crime.

  “Gypsy, why don’t we let him get some rest now.”

  “No!” The old man’s vehemence made them both freeze where they stood. “Got to tell you.” He gripped Gypsy’s arm, his yellowish nails digging in to her wrist. “She’s back. She killed ‘em all.”

  “No, Grandpa, please calm down. It couldn’t be her, she would be much too old, not nearly strong enough.”

  He wasn’t comforted. “Has to be. Who else? Why?”

  Mick voiced their theory. “Louisa’s son, perhaps?”

  “Willie? No, no, no. No reason. We loved her, he knew that. He’d never. Must be Esmerelda. Barry, Jersey, Shep…now me.”

  Whether she believed him or not, and he suspected she did not, Gypsy cupped his face in her hand to reassure him. “Nobody is going to hurt you, Grandpa. I promise you that. I’ll have you guarded night and day.”

  Her voice trailed off. He knew what she was thinking. Who could she trust to guard him? Maybe her female officers, but he knew the fact that she couldn’t rely on the others must be crushing her.

  “Please. More ice.”

  She spooned a few more chips into his mouth. Frank closed his eyes and sucked on them, still holding Gypsy’s hand. When he looked at them again, he seemed more clear, more focused.

  As he opened his mouth to speak, though, the privacy curtain was jerked back. “Your time is up.”

  Gypsy didn’t even look at the woman who’d barked at them. “No.”

  The nurse huffed. “Miss, you have to leave.”

  “I’m not leaving until he says what he has to say,” she insisted. “And it’s not miss, it’s Chief, in case you didn’t notice the uniform.”

  The scowling nurse glared at Gypsy’s stiff back. “Fine. Two more minutes. Then out you go, or I will call security. I don’t care if you’re the chief or the governor.”

  Not even acknowledging the woman’s departure, Gypsy went back to find out the rest of the story. “All right, Grandpa. Say what you have to say, and then we’re leaving.”

  He swallowed. Nodded. “Esmerelda…killed Louisa.”

  “Yes. She did something to the rope to make her fall.”

  “The rest of us,
the four of us, wanted to drive her out.”

  “What about the police?”

  “She stole the earring back. Hid it. No evidence. So we told her to go. She wouldn’t. Told Barry about the baby.”

  “But he didn’t tell the rest of you?” Mick asked.

  Frank shook his head. “No. Swear he didn’t.” Gypsy gave him more ice. He smiled up at her gratefully, and she smiled back at him, her expression tender, telling him her feelings for him would never change, no matter what he’d done in the past. Gypsy’s loyalty was one thing that would never change. It was one thing Mick loved about her.

  “Okay, Grandpa, finish your story so we can let you rest,” she told him.

  “We were drinking. Crying. Grieving ‘bout Louisa. She fell. Oh, watching her fall…”

  His tears still dripping, he frowned as he said, “Barry wanted to kill her. Wouldn’t do that. Never. But Shep said she ought to be tarred…feathered…like old days.”

  He didn’t imagine getting a big quantity of hot tar and goose feathers would have been easy in the sixties, so Mick’s mind didn’t immediately fill with that ugly image.

  “Decided to drive her away. Shove her aboard the next passing freight train and make her go.”

  That didn’t sound very pleasant for a pregnant woman. Actually it sounded unpleasant for anyone, and he was surprised the gentle, loving man he knew would have had anything to do with it. Barry, yes, from the way it sounded, and even Shep. Jersey and Frank, though, didn’t quite fit into the vigilante picture.

  “Barry—brute. Grabbed her, put a sack over her head. We got her things, ran down the hill to the tracks. Freight train coming. Tramps still road the rails in those days, a car was always open somewhere.”

  Mick could picture it, the men worked up on liquid courage and righteous anger. The woman screaming, the whistle of a lonely train in the night. It all played out like a movie in his mind.

  “She fought, got free, tore off the sack. Said awful things about Louisa. Barry, he…he hit…punched…”

  “We’ve got it,” Mick said gently. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “Told him to stop. Me and Jersey grabbed his arms. He was like a bear. Only way to stop him was to grab Esmerelda and toss her aboard as the train slowed down. So we did.”

  They tossed her away like garbage, and she was carried out of their lives. Maybe it had even sounded like a good idea to four drunk men.

  “She never came back?” asked Gypsy.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure she…survived?” Being handled like that, kidnapped, beaten, and thrown onto a moving train could have killed her.

  “She lived. Couple’a years later, Barry got a card. Picture of a kid. Looked…like him.” He stared up at Gypsy, lifting his hand, brushing his fingers through her hair. “Looked…like you a little.”

  Gypsy didn’t react, apparently still too worried to grasp what he was saying. Glad of that, Mick said, “Frank, what can you tell us about the baby? Was it a boy or a girl?”

  His hand fell. His eyes closed. “Boy.”

  “Do you know his name? His first name?”

  Frank swallowed and breathed deeply, looking like he was about to fall into another deep, drug-induced sleep. He shook his head, once to the left, once to the right. “No. Don’t.”

  “That’s all right, Grandpa. It’s all right, you’ve been a big help. You rest now.”

  He cleared his throat, the eyelashes fluttering. “Last name, though. Esmerelda’s last name.”

  They both waited anxiously.

  “Her real name. It was Alaina. Alaina Fluke.”

  Gypsy made a tiny sound. The tiniest of sounds.

  The name hadn’t instantly rung any bells in Mick’s mind, but it had certainly started cymbals and marching bands crashing in hers.

  She knew who the killer was, or at least who Esmerelda and Barry’s son was.

  And her brother? Jesus, could he really be her half-brother?

  After this was all over, Gypsy was going to have to learn some hard truths. It was time for the whole Bell family to scrape off the muddy secrets and get all the ugliness out into the open so it could be washed clean. Gypsy deserved that much, even though it would be very hard for her to hear. He intended to be right by her side, supporting her through it.

  They watched Franklin fall back into a deep sleep, his monitor evening out, his breathing easy and his face relaxed. He sensed Gypsy wouldn’t have left until she knew he was all right, and that the confession hadn’t injured him as much in the telling as the act had injured his soul so many years ago in the doing.

  He was about to whisper that they should go when the nurse returned, accompanied by a doctor. Without saying a word, Gypsy spun on her heel and walked out. Mick followed and they headed for the hospital exit.

  “You know?” he asked once they had stepped out into the bright morning.

  “I know.”

  “Is he one of yours?”

  “Yeah. I’m ashamed to admit it, but he is.”

  The rope hadn’t lied. He hadn’t liked being the one who’d had to confront her with that possibility. Now that it had been proved true, though, he couldn’t regret it.

  “I thought he was a good man.” She let out a hoarse, unhappy laugh. “I’m the one who hired him after I came here. I imagine he only applied for the job so he could get close to the carnival and hurt those he blamed for what happened to his mother.”

  “You feel sure it’s Esmerelda’s son, not Louisa’s?”

  “I wasn’t, until Grandpa told us Esmerelda’s real name.”

  “Alaina Fluke?”

  “Right. The man I hired, the nice cop who said he just wanted to work a couple of years in a quiet town before his retirement? His name is Alan Fluke.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “There’s more. He’s on duty right now, Mick. He’s the one assigned to patrol the Winter Carnival. He’s right there, with all those people, armed and probably furious that he’s not going to be able to get at my grandfather. Who knows what he’ll do?”

  Swinging open his door, he got behind the wheel, starting the car before Gypsy had even buckled her seatbelt. He had family at that carnival—Uncle Shane and Gil—and a lot of friends, as did she. As Gypsy had said, who knew what a monstrous, revenge-driven murderer would do if the last object of his plot was out of his reach?

  He might just go mad and try to take down everybody in range. Starting with all the rest of the D’Onofrio Brothers family.

  “They’ll be okay,” he insisted as he hit the gas. “We’ll get there, Gypsy, Everything is going to be fine, and nobody else is going to get hurt. You and I will make sure of it.”

  As he stood outside the entrance arch of the D’Onofrio Brothers Winter Carnival, the officer on patrol glanced occasionally toward the huge, yawning mouth in the front of the fun house. He stared at it, thinking, remembering. Mostly, he was wondering.

  How had the girl known about the button when she’d never entered Jersey’s house?

  And how had she known he was lurking in the funhouse when she’d never come inside?

  Both times, she had stood nearby, said something, closed her eyes, and then, almost immediately reacted. At Jersey’s, she’d screamed, and then run away. Last night, she had fallen to her knees outside the fun house, and had stayed there, giving him time to get out behind her and lie in wait.

  But how did she know?

  However she had done it, she wouldn’t be doing it anymore. He’d made sure of that.

  You’re damned to hell now.

  He forced those words away. He hadn’t liked hurting that girl, but it couldn’t be helped.

  When Gypsy had come back to the station yesterday and started asking questions about that stupid button, and the time between the scream and Potter’s arrival, he’d realized the information had to have come from the knife girl. Getting rid of her became a priority, so he’d waited for his opportunity. He had kept watch, and had spott
ed her car at the perfect time—when nobody else was on site.

  He’d drawn her to him using the recording of a woman’s scream. Some people are so gullible. It had been like having a fish on a hook, slowly drawing in the line. She’d swum right toward him, not even bothering to call 911 for help. He’d been prepared for that, having his radio at his hip so he could make sure he was the one who responded to any calls from the carnival. But it hadn’t happened.

  She was very brave. Also very stupid.

  “But what else were you?” he mused, tilting his head to the side and staring in puzzlement at the funhouse. Inside, in the hall of mirrors, was her small body. He hadn’t done anything to her—to it. She wasn’t, after all, guilty of anything other than being nosy. She’d been kinda sweet, he remembered. Innocent. So he’d just laid her down gently, looked at all her pretty reflections, and left her there.

  She might be found before he moved on to the next part of his plan: killing as many other people from the carnival family as he could. But she might not.

  The family. The carnival family.

  Bastards. They might call themselves a family, but they would turn on one of their own in a second, like a vicious mob. Like their sacred father. Frank Bell.

  He couldn’t believe the most important one—the one he held most responsible—was in the hospital. Safe in the hospital. Or that the old man might die of a heart attack before he was able to kill him.

  Frank was supposed to be the protector of all of them, like any father should.

  Not that Alan had ever known his. His father had been a brutal fiend.

  Frank, though, was the nice, hearty old guy who ran the carnival. Everyone’s sweet old papa.

  What a lie. He wore a smiling face to cover his cold heart. Because only a man with a dark heart, and a darker soul, would let a woman under his protection, in his “family,” be treated like she was. He’d watched her get brutalized, watched her being beaten, and had made the decision to toss her injured, pregnant body onto a moving train car.

  Monster. That’s what he was. He was a horrible monster to poor, sweet Esmerelda.