by Noreen Wald
Kate downed half the wine in one gulp. It warmed her throat and would no doubt jumpstart her acid reflux, but she didn’t care, considering it medicine. As the alcohol soothed her nerves, she looked around the music-filled courtyard, searching for Marlene. A crowded dance floor, with many more guests sitting and eating at the round tables circling it or standing three deep at the bars, chatting.
Where had Marlene gone? Should she be concerned? Well, a killer was on the premises. Dancing, eating, chatting, or God forbid, alone somewhere with Marlene. Yes, damn it, she had reason to be worried.
“Mrs. Kennedy, have you seen my mother?” Olivia Jordan had been designated as one of Marlene’s interviewees. The young woman sounded stressed and, putting worry on hold, Kate seized the moment.
“I was about to ask if you’d seen Marlene.” Kate tried not to grimace as the wine turned to acid. “Maybe they’re together.” She hoped not. Or, if Marlene and Suzanna were together, she hoped they were still in the courtyard. Kate and Marlene had promised each other they wouldn’t wander off with any of the four suspects.
“May I have a gin and tonic, please?” Olivia’s soft, refined voice, with its prep-school diction, drew a prompt response from the bartender.
“Lemon or lime, miss?”
“Neither, thanks.” Olivia pushed thick dark hair away from her forehead. A pretty face, too seldom noticed because of her heavy body and shy manner. “I don’t think they’re together, Mrs. Kennedy. My mother can’t stand your sister-in-law.”
Some interviewer. Olivia had given Kate a perfect opening, but left her speechless.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.” Olivia laughed, as if that were exactly what she’d intended to do. “The list of people mother doesn’t like is legion. Her competition in the corridor ranks among the top five.” She flushed, giving her pale skin a pretty pink glow. “Of course, the murders have reduced the number of vendors on mother’s would-prefer-to-live-without list.”
Kate gulped, but recovered her voice, and lobbed two questions. “How did you and your mother come to the corridor? Have you been selling there for a long time?”
“Over a decade. When I wasn’t away at school, I spent all of my teenage and college years hawking Miriam Haskell jewelry.” Olivia didn’t try to hide her bitterness. “All the corridor vendors are—well, were—lifers.”
“Do you know what made your mother choose the Cunningham corridor?” Kate persisted. “I think Suzanna would have had her choice of almost any location in the flea market.”
“Mrs. Kennedy, why do you think everyone would have wanted my mother? Because she was so beautiful or because she had those hot Haskell retro pins and earrings to sell?”
Smarting, Kate said, “A little of both, I guess.”
“Truth is often a mixed bag, isn’t it?” Olivia sighed. “Mother was a shoo-in for the corridor. She’d been sleeping with Sean Cunningham.”
Kate felt her jaw drop.
“Their odd-couple romance bloomed for another ten years, until two months ago when my mother—and old enough to be his mother—fell in love with Whitey.”
Thirty-Three
“Kate, I need you in the ladies’ room!” Marlene shouted from across the courtyard.
If she hadn’t sounded so frazzled Kate might have ignored her. But her sister-in-law’s words had drowned out the lyrics to “Stardust,” and Olivia, now flushed and edgy, had clammed up, so Kate excused herself.
Inching her way through the dancers, Kate wondered why Olivia had blabbed the family secrets. Did she dislike her mother so much that she wanted to incriminate Suzanna? What other reason could Olivia have? Why would she air all their dirty laundry to Kate? Did Olivia know Kate and Marlene had not only been investigating the murder, but were down to four suspects? Could she be trying to give her mother a motive to obscure her own? And what about Sean? Olivia’s spilling of the Jordan family’s secrets gave him another motive in addition to covering up the elephant abuse: jealousy.
“‘Sometimes I sit and wonder why.’” Jocko’s smooth refrain diverted Kate from murder.
The clown could sing. His rendition of Carmichael’s classic made Kate feel as if he were singing to her alone. Every woman in the courtyard probably felt the same way. Kate glanced over to the bandstand. Jocko’s droopy features reminded her of Emmett Kelly. Why did so many clowns look sad?
Thoroughly befuddled, Kate reached a disheveled Marlene and followed her toward the ladies’ room. As they passed by another bar, Marlene stopped and filled a napkin with ice cubes. When Kate gave her a puzzled look, she snapped, “Don’t ask.”
Linda, sporting a black eye and a ripped bodice, sat sobbing in a lounge chair in what Kate—if it weren’t such a mess—would rate as a four-star ladies’ room.
From a fetal position on the floor, a silent Suzanna gazed into space. The cool brunette’s mascara had melted, not a pretty sight. Her refined features were streaked with blood. So was the wall behind her. “You’re bleeding.” Kate turned to Marlene. “Give me that ice.”
“That’s not blood. Linda threw a jar of liquid blush at Suzanna; it splattered.” Marlene sounded fed up and a bit frightened. “Thank God the jar was plastic, or we’d be picking up pieces of glass.”
Linda moaned and Marlene handed her the ice-filled napkin. “Here, hold this against your eye.”
“What happened?” Kate stared at the seemingly shell-shocked Suzanna. “Why haven’t you called a doctor?”
“Neither of the ladies wanted to go public,” Marlene tittered. Kate recognized her laughter as a nervous reaction. “They had a catfight, each accusing the other of sneaking back into the bathroom and electrocuting Whitey. Seems he’d been romancing both Linda and Suzanna—not to mention Olivia.”
“So I just heard.” Kate sank into a chair, thinking how sleazy all the suspects were. How sleazy all the victims had been. “I need to go home, Marlene, my head hurts.” Marlene grabbed a paper cup from a dispenser, filled it with water from a cooler, rummaged through a silver tray on a counter, found a sample packet of aspirin, and handed the cup and the tablets to Kate. “Hang tight. We’ll leave in a few minutes. I have a few questions for Lying Linda.”
“I have nothing to say. Go home and leave us alone.” Linda adjusted her ice pack.
“Now you listen up, Barbie Doll.” Marlene loomed over Linda, sounding stern. “You either talk to me or you and Suzanna’s catfight and the Cunningham corridor’s sexual swap shop will be the front-page story in the Palmetto Beach Gazette. My sister-in-law’s a contributing editor.” Kate thought Marlene’s less-than-truthful tactic would backfire. Linda struck her as the sort who’d prize any publicity, no matter how salacious.
“What do you want to know?” The doll lady sounded resigned. Kate had read her wrong. A lot of that had gone on tonight.
“Okay, for starters, why did you lie about when and where you’d met Sean and Whitey?”
Suzanna groaned, then moved into a sitting position. Good. Kate had worried about her catatonic state.
Linda fumbled with her torn top, attempting to pull it together. “I figured if you knew the truth of my…er…my rather odd history with those blokes, you’d think I had a motive to kill Whitey.”
“I already think that. Tell me.” Marlene stood firm, staring down at Linda’s face.
“Back in my lap-dancing days, I fell in love with Whitey. I’d never met such an attractive, sexy man. Oh, neither of us had any illusions. I was determined to marry my millionaire, and Whitey was a practicing libertine. He never hid his promiscuity, but our affair lasted through my marriage and through all his women, right up to his last bubble bath.”
“You tramp.” Suzanna spoke in a hoarse, weak voice.
“What kind of blind fool are you?” Linda yelled. “Did you think you were going steady with Whitey? And you’re no ang
el either. You’d been sleeping with Sean for decades, but you cheated on him with Whitey, who wound up cheating on you with your own daughter. Now that’s a bloody good motive, isn’t it?”
“Shut up, Linda. You’re betraying our pact.” Suzanna sounded desperate.
“Every woman for herself, you skinny twit.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Marlene backed away from Linda. “Let’s go, Kate. If they kill each other, the world might be a better place.”
Kate stood. “Do either of you ladies drive an old maroon car? Maybe a Ford?”
“You’ve seen my car,” Linda said, looking at Marlene. “And, anyway, maroon isn’t my color, and I wouldn’t be caught dead driving a Ford.”
“Why do you ask?” Suzanna tried to stand but staggered.
Kate reached to help Suzanna up.
“The only one I know who drives an old car is Jocko,” Linda said. “A Toyota, I think, but it’s definitely maroon.”
Thirty-Four
“When you called the corridor vendors ‘an incestuous bunch,’ I had no idea how right you were.” As she spoke, Kate was dialing Nick on her cell phone, wanting to update him on Jocko and the maroon car. Depending on his response, she’d decide if she should fill him in on the rest of the evening’s news.
“Hot and sticky as all hell out here, but the fresh air smells good, doesn’t it?” Marlene took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m breaking my lease tomorrow, Kate. I don’t care if I lose money.”
“Do you think the corridor will reopen?” Kate didn’t. She wondered if the Cunningham Circus would survive, now that its owner—or his brother—appeared to be the prime suspect in three murders.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m outta there tomorrow.” Marlene shook her head. “I feel dirty, like I need a bath.” She laughed. “Strange, this mess started in Whitey’s tub.”
“No, Marlene, this mess started in Whitey’s bed.”
“Nick Carbone.” He shouted into her ear as if he were answering the call from China, but Kate could see him, weaving his way through the dancers, heading toward them.
“Hi, it’s Kate. I have some news for you.”
“Where are you?”
“Look over the head of the blonde twisting in front of you. I’m about four feet away from her.”
“Why haven’t you left?”
Jeez Louise! She was tempted to respond: Because I’m doing your detective work. “Listen, we need to talk. Walk down to the dock. Marlene and I will meet you there.”
Ten minutes later, after Nick had shared first, saying he’d checked on all the vendors’ cars and discovered Joseph Cunningham drove an old maroon Toyota, Kate had told him everything she knew.
Marlene had followed up with a vivid report on the carnage in the ladies’ room. Carbone had a belly laugh over that.
Now the three of them were sitting on the edge of the teak dock, staring across the dark, motionless lake.
If there were a whiff of salt in the air, or a hint of a breeze off the water, the scene might have been reminiscent of Jay Gatsby staring across the Long Island Sound at the light on Daisy’s pier. Instead, they sat in silence, being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Nick broke it. “Kate, you never got the license number, so we can’t prove the maroon car you spotted belonged to Jocko.”
Kate nodded. “Right.” Depressing. She felt as motionless as the water.
“What next?” Marlene wiped away the sweat under her bangs with a tissue.
“Go home,” Nick said. “I’m running a background check on Jocko. We know he and Carl Krieg belonged to the local bund. Let’s see what else will turn up.”
Wondering why the Palmetto Beach Homicide Department hadn’t already completed background checks on the entire circus staff, Kate bit her lip. Had Nick zeroed in too early, then focused only on Whitey’s four final visitors? Charlie had never suffered from tunnel vision. He’d run the best homicide department in New York City. Though to be fair, up to a half hour ago, she’d espoused Nick’s narrow view.
The light across the lake flickered, and Kate, energized by a spark of memory, jumped up. “We’re perfectly safe. Jocko’s still singing.” The strains of “I’ll Be Seeing You” drifted down to the dock. “We’ll go home in a few minutes, Nick. I promise.” She tapped Marlene’s shoulder. “Come on, we have to find the tigers’ trainer. Jim something. I need to ask him a question about Jocko.”
Jim Day, a good-looking man in a safari jacket, sat at a table near the bandstand. A longhaired cat, tortoiseshell in color and, Kate gathered, affectionate in nature, slept on his shoulders.
“Hi, I’m Kate Kennedy. This is my sister-in-law, Marlene Friedman. We work in the circus corridor.”
“Nice to meet you.” Day stood to shake hands. “I noticed you ladies with Donna’s little boy yesterday after I’d left the Big Top.”
The cat leaped into an empty chair.
“This is Fluffy,” Day said. “I never leave home without her.”
“Linda will be so jealous. She didn’t bring Precious.” Marlene oozed charm, responding in flirtation mode, her hormones on automatic pilot. Handsome guy in the radar.
“What breed is Fluffy?” Kate asked, anxious to question the trainer about Jocko, but not wanting to grill him without some small talk first.
He smiled. A proud father’s smile. “Fluffy’s a Siberian Persian, raised on people food and Russian TV. I needed a visa to get her out of Moscow.”
“Did you live in Russia?” Marlene gushed.
“I doubt Fluffy was exposed to Russian television in Palmetto Beach, Marlene.” Enough. Kate moved on. “Jim, I need to ask you something that could be very important.”
“Sit down, ladies.” He gestured to two empty chairs. “My wife has gone to the ladies’ room.”
As Marlene’s face fell, Kate thought about Mrs. Day walking into that war zone. Had Linda and Suzanna retreated?
Jim sat too. Seeming to sense her master was all business, Fluffy remained in her own chair, looking regal.
“It’s about Jocko.” Kate could swear she saw a flicker of distaste distort Jim’s even features.
“What?” Jim sounded guarded, yet open. Could that be a tiger tamer’s strength?
“Jocko told Marlene he’d searched all over the circus for you during the smoke-bomb scare, then helped you get the tigers into their portable cages. Is that true?”
The trainer’s fair skin flushed. “Absolutely not. I remember every detail of yesterday afternoon. How the band played the code bars that signaled trouble in the Big Top. How frightened my cats were. How I wondered why there were no flames. But I assure you, Kate Kennedy, I never laid eyes on that clown.”
“Thank you.” Kate stood, ready to face the long ride home.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.” Sean Cunningham’s lilt, back in bloom, boomed. “First, a round of applause for my brother, Jocko, the Dean Martin of Palmetto Beach.” Kate felt it akin to sacrilege. Sean had debased her idol.
The crowd gave Jocko a standing ovation.
“I have a surprise for you. Tomorrow, the Cunningham Circus and the Cunningham corridor will be, at the police’s request, closed.” Some of his audience laughed at the way Sean had rolled out “request.”
“But in honor of our dead comrades, Whitey Ford, Carl Krieg, and Freddie Ducksworth, tomorrow we won’t mourn or grieve. We’ll celebrate their lives.” Sean paused. “I’ve arranged for Marino’s Carnival, the finest in our grand country, to grace the flea market. They’re setting up in the field behind the circus as I speak.”
His captive audience clapped and cheered.
“And every one of my Cunningham Circus employees, from the roustabouts to the high-wire acts, will be receiving full pay to enjoy the greatest carnival on earth.”
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br /> “Fat lot of good that will do us vendors.” Linda’s British accent came from behind Kate.
“I’ll pay all the vendors an average day’s take,” Sean yelled back.
“Since three vendors have been murdered and I’m out of there, it won’t cost Sean much, will it?” Marlene said.
“So bring the family, ride the Ferris wheel, eat cotton candy, play games of chance, take the wife through the Tunnel of Terror.” Sean screeched to a close. “Come celebrate with the Cunninghams!”
Thirty-Five
Kate stretched, willing herself awake.