“Who left her?”
“Her father. Clive!” Benard’s grunted exclamation weakened Jake’s grip.
Pippa fell backward. Her breath was stolen from her, almost as if Jake himself had leveled a fist to her gut.
Jake nearly lost his hold on Benard, but then recovered. He pushed Benard harder against the ground. “What are you saying?”
Benard flung his head to the side to free himself from Jake’s clutches. “Clive’s wife was like my own mother. When she died, he couldn’t take care of Pippa. You’ve seen him. The world doesn’t take people like us seriously! A short man with a normal-sized daughter? He took her to Ripley, and I left a toy with her. I told her then I loved her. I vowed I’d take care of her.”
Jake dragged Benard up from the ground, scrambling to his feet alongside of him. He pushed his face into Benard’s and shook him. Hard. “What about Bridgette? What about my sister?”
Benard’s smile was both coherent and unfriendly. He snorted, blood running from his nose. “He stole my idea. The hood. He stole my idea and wore it. But I didn’t kill those girls. I didn’t kill them, Jake.”
Jake’s jaw twitched with hardly concealed fury. His knuckles were white as his fingers curled into Benard’s shirt, pulling the man into him. “You killed Patty,” he gritted into Benard’s face.
Benard looked confused. “Well, yeah, Jake.” His tone was pleading, as though Jake was dumb and should understand. “She got rid of our baby girl. I couldn’t let it happen again. Not after Pippa.”
Jake gave another shake, spit out another curse, but Pippa heard no more. She was stunned. Trembling. Everything she’d thought she surmised as truth was a lie. Clive. Her father. All this time . . . Pippa’s gaze fell to the empty hood on the ground. It had hidden more than a man obsessed with what he felt belonged to him. It had hidden the secrets of her birth, and with it the stunning reality that her father had always been inches away.
CHANDLER
It looked like it might rain. Dawn was creeping over the horizon, yet all Chandler could do was sit on the front porch of her rental and stare vacantly up the quiet street. Leaves danced softly down as they dislodged from their summer homes on branches turning bare. Omens of winter, cold and solemn.
A teal chenille blanket lowered over Chandler’s shoulders. Her mom eased onto the porch swing next to her and pushed a hot thermos of tea into Chandler’s hands.
They’ll find him was often the typical, expected phrase spoken at times like this. Instead, Mom simply leaned against Chandler and whispered, “I haven’t stopped praying.”
“I don’t have any more words to pray.” Chandler’s voice was dull. Even to her own ears.
“Your father just got off the phone with the police,” Mom informed her. “Apparently, Margie has confessed. At least to killing that other woman.”
“Then they should find out where Peter is.” Chandler leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her face in her palms. “Margie. Why?” she whispered. Lifting her head, she met her mom’s direct gaze. “What if Margie doesn’t tell them where Peter is? What if—?”
“Shh.” Her mom reached out and ran her hand over Chandler’s back in a calming gesture. “We can’t go there, Chandler. Not yet.”
Lottie Dobson stepped onto the porch, the screen door slamming behind her with the exclamation point that all was not yet well.
“Margie.” Lottie eased into a porch chair with a sigh. “I never saw that one coming. But you were right, Chandler. She was trying to save herself—to save her reputation.”
Mom patted Chandler’s knee.
“Which is bull-pucky,” Lottie scoffed. “The fact is, Margie saw what Bluff River did to Denny and to Linda. They wore that brand of being offspring of a serial killer like a tattoo that passed itself down from generation to generation.” She blew a puff of air and it lifted her graying blond bangs off her forehead. “Margie is a coward. A coward. She can’t stand the idea that someone would look sideways at her for the rest of her life, just like they did to the Pike kids. Bloodline of a serial killer. No. She wouldn’t want that. Not Margie.”
Chandler didn’t really care that the women were both talking to each other over her head. She was too numb, too disembodied to respond or to move.
“So, we think this Ripley fellow who founded Bonaventure Circus was actually the Watchman?” Mom asked.
Lottie nodded but not without a shrug of question. “Cru was chatting it up with one of the detectives a few minutes ago. I guess, when they examined the evidence found in the room Chandler and Hank uncovered, they found the initials R.R. etched into each circus token. For Richard Ripley, they figure. And checking records, they confirmed that space was his office.”
“How awful,” Mom breathed.
Lottie nodded. “The worst thing? It’s really not substantial enough evidence to formally change history. Two initials? Who really can know what was the truth? The Watchman—Benard, Denny Pike’s grandfather, or Richard Ripley? We’ll probably never know for certain.”
“But they thought they knew back then, didn’t they?” Mom shifted in her chair. Chandler could sense her concerned assessment. They were keeping her busy, keeping her mind preoccupied with anything but the silence in the outcome of Peter’s fate.
Lottie gave a sad nod. “They did. Benard spent his entire life behind bars. Honestly? He did confess to killing Patty Luchent, and God knows what else he did to people. So, he was in no way innocent. Just maybe not of the Watchman’s string of killings. Which man wore the mask of the killer? Maybe both.”
Mom picked her fingernails. It was a nervous gesture, and one Chandler recognized because she’d adopted it herself.
A light rain began to fall. The fresh smell mingled with the dying leaves.
Chandler pushed off the porch swing, feeling the eyes of both women on her back. She wanted to stand in the rain. It’s what Peter would have done. She walked down the porch steps and stood on the sidewalk, raindrops dotting her face and running down her neck.
Peter would have laughed. He would have shot a toy gun. He would have done a half cartwheel and claimed it was worthy of the Olympics.
He would have . . .
She spotted Hank in the distance. The rain was coming down harder now, yet his form was undeniable as his bike rumbled near. He’d been making calls. Making calls while her world had crumbled around her! But, as she saw him coming toward her, a huge part of her wanted to collapse into his arms. To know that she could be herself and he would let her. That he of all people understood the complexity of life, of errors, of being unseen, of being swept aside.
Chandler stilled as Hank pulled closer. His broad shoulders were outlined against the gray morning. His hair hung around his shoulders in unruly curls, and his chiseled face was scarred and tough, squinting into the rain.
Hank parked the bike and, as he swung his leg over, reached behind him. Her knees gave out, and Chandler collapsed to the walk with a cry.
Mom and Lottie barreled down the porch at Chandler’s cry, her father and Cru not far behind as they exited the house.
But it was Hank Chandler’s attention was focused on. It was the little boy whose arms he disentangled from his waist when he lifted him off the bike.
“Momma!” Peter’s word tripped out of his mouth just as his feet tripped over themselves.
Hank righted the boy and urged him toward her.
When Peter’s little body slammed into her, Chandler knew it would be hours before she’d let him go. Maybe years. Maybe never. She rocked him back and forth, both of them weeping. Her mom and dad fell to their knees beside them, embracing them, and Lottie kept repeating, “I didn’t sense this. I had no idea!”
Cru shook Hank’s hand. “Where was he?”
“In a warehouse Margie rents. After I hung up with you, Chandler, I did some calling around and was able to make the connections. It started to fall into place in my mind. I checked into Margie’s background. It was easy to find any properties she
was linked to. I’m guessing the cops weren’t far behind in figuring it out. I let them know I had Peter on my way here, but I wasn’t keeping the kid from his mom any longer.”
Hank reached out and ruffled her hair as the others embraced her and Peter. Chandler tilted her chin up, and he trailed his fingers lightly down her cheek and then withdrew his hand.
“Thank you,” she mouthed.
He nodded.
It was inadequate. It was less than Hank deserved. But he had seen her. He’d recognized her limitations and never diminished her. And yet when she needed him to fight for her, he had.
“Momma?” Peter drew back, and as he did so, everyone else did too.
“Yes, buddy?” She pushed his hair back. Checking him over. He was fine. Well fed even. Clean. Just tired-looking, and still wearing only boxer-briefs. “What is it, Peter Pan?” Chandler asked, pressing her lips to his cheek.
He thumbed over his shoulder at Hank. “Can he stay?” Eyes wide. Tears brimming like pools over his chocolate-brown orbs. “Margie told me I didn’t need to be scared, but I was. Till Hank came. Momma, I don’t want Hank to go!”
Chandler tugged Peter back into her arms. She met Hank’s eyes. He gave her a slight nod.
“Yes, Peter. Hank can stay,” she answered.
Hank squatted beside them and reached out his broad hand, encompassing Peter’s shuddering shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere, kid.”
“You’re sort of like a superhero,” Peter said and took a shuddering breath.
Hank met her eyes.
“He sure is,” Chandler whispered back.
PIPPA
It was chaos that ensued. Ernie swooped out of nowhere, accompanied by Jolly the clown and two other menagerie workers. They pulled Jake off Benard. He wrestled against Ernie, desperation and anger emanating from every strained muscle.
“Back off, Jake!” Ernie pulled, and Jake’s heels dragged across the ground. Jolly held Jake by an arm. The menagerie workers made short work of containing the battered Benard, who crumpled into a mess on the ground.
Pippa backed away, the night embracing the horrors it held with all the wicked blackness that should go with it. The canvas of a tent flap whipped in the wind, snapping its echo in the night. The sounds of the animals in their houses and barns started to filter into her conscience, and with it the startling reality of Patty’s dangling form in the costume house.
With a suppressed cry, Pippa whirled from the madness in front of her and stumbled back toward the house. Motorcars had begun to line the street. Policemen, curious onlookers, and who knew who else. People were beginning to mill about, questioning the bedlam that had awoken the area to its shock and confusion.
She pushed past a policeman who was jogging toward Ernie and Jake and blowing a whistle that would have woken the dead. Pippa tripped. The dead. No. It wouldn’t wake the dead. Oh, that the whistle would somehow startle life back into Patty!
Stumbling up the porch steps, Pippa was reaching for the doorknob when a voice stopped her.
“You’re taking her necklace off her neck? You sick, sick wretch. I know what you did before this, and now you want a memento from Patty? Did you kill her too, or are you just borrowing from someone else’s depravity?”
Pippa slid to the floor of the porch, scooting up to the door to listen but slinking behind the frame so as not to be seen.
Georgiana Farnsworth? In the costume house? Surely, she wasn’t speaking to Patty’s hanging corpse!
“You revel in power and death, don’t you?” Georgiana’s footsteps were distinct on the floor. A definite click of her heels against the hardwood.
Then a man’s muffled response, followed by, “Your accusations are appalling. Just like all your others.”
Pippa huddled closer to the house as she heard the man’s steps near the door. But he didn’t speak. Only Georgiana did, her voice strident with accusation.
“Patty told me everything. She told me who you really are. And you’ll let that man outside bear your crimes?”
A low laugh, then, “What crimes?”
Georgiana’s own laugh followed. Scoffing but brilliantly assertive. “I will let them know the truth. You will never lay another hand on a woman again. You will never be allowed to abuse your power.”
The door began to open.
Pippa startled, her foot striking a potted plant at the edge of the step and sending it careening down to the sidewalk.
There was a shout.
Then Georgiana cried out.
Pippa clambered down the steps, following the trajectory of the now-broken pot. Tripping toward the assembly gathering, toward the police, toward the line of faces she could no longer make out. Her vision blurred as she stumbled forward. Strong arms grasped her and held her upright.
“Get a doctor!” A shout echoed in her ears.
“Georgiana—help . . . her.” Pippa collapsed, her body violently shivering with the effects of the night. She noticed the mustached face of the policeman holding her. She took in the swirling lights from lanterns and flashlights as more men arrived, shouting commands, a siren, and then the trumpet of an elephant from down the row.
But it was Jake who captured the last bit of her consciousness. His resigned expression. His weary frame as it marched slowly beside Ernie and followed Benard, who was flanked by two officers.
“It’s over,” he mouthed.
Maybe. Maybe it was, Pippa thought as she descended into blackness. If one could call this night any sort of resolution.
She tried to break from her thoughts and tell the policeman that Georgiana might need help. That the real Watchman—the real serial killer—might very well yet need arresting. Instead, she slipped into oblivion, the second trumpet of the elephant echoing in her ears.
Chapter forty
CHANDLER
Margie stared at her. She was a different woman. Her eyes were void of the life, of the laughter, she had brought to their house. Chandler eased into a chair opposite the woman clothed in orange, her hands cuffed to the table.
It was easy to know what to ask. And Chandler did so without hesitation. “Why?”
Margie blinked but didn’t answer. Finally, she drew in a shuddering breath—whether due to regret or shame, Chandler was sure she’d never know—and said, “I-I couldn’t, Chandler. I couldn’t let my kids be known as the bloodline of the Watchman. Of the Bluff River Killer.”
“So, you took my child instead?” Chandler brushed at a tear that both irritated her for its presence and shocked her for the fact she actually cared a tiny bit about Margie, even in this moment.
Margie’s face transformed, her own tears barely concealed. She bit her lip and blew quick breaths from her nose. Her chin mottled as it shook. “Chandler, I—my kids are coming home from their dad’s! I couldn’t have you exposing what I’d hid for so many years.”
“Linda,” Chandler stated.
Margie nodded, casting a glance at the officer in the corner and at her lawyer, who sat a few feet away. She’d agreed to talk to Chandler and agreed to be honest. She’d already signed her confession. Guilty. Now she could only hope for leniency. She tapped her thumbs together, the cuffs rattling against the table. “It wasn’t ever supposed to happen.”
“It never is,” Chandler couldn’t help but insert. She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting.
Margie cleared her throat. “Linda was so—she was so bent on clearing her grandfather’s name. She was sick of being ridiculed and assumed to be trouble due to his awful legacy. The day we went to the depot, it was just me and her. I didn’t think she’d find anything, let alone connect the Watchman to my family! It was a complete shock to us both.”
“You found the memorabilia he’d hid in the closet, didn’t you?”
Margie nodded again, her expression sheepish, her lips pale. “At first, we were both excited. It was what we’d been looking for. But then Linda noticed the initials on the tokens. She started putting together that the office in
the depot was Ripley’s. She concocted the theory that maybe he was the killer and not her grandfather.”
Margie stopped. She glanced at her lawyer, who gave a small nod. She reverted her stare to her hands. “I argued. We argued. It was an accident really. I don’t even know why I—there was an old hammer lying in the corner. I grabbed it. I hit Linda and then . . .” Margie sniffed. “Then it was over. She just lay there. And all I could think to do was to put her with the Watchman’s things. We’d only pulled off a few boards. It was easy to put them back. Easy to hide Linda.”
“The police said you even helped in the search for Linda,” Chandler said. It was odd to think of Margie as a cold-blooded killer. Odder to think of her having the stamina to cover it up for decades.
“Yes.” Margie tried to reach for Chandler, but the handcuffs attached to the table stopped the journey of her hands. Chandler drew back. “Chandler, please.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “My kids are the most important thing to me, and I won’t have them wear the title of a serial killer’s relations, even if it’s not direct in line.”
“But, to involve Peter?” Chandler shook her head in disbelief. “He’s as innocent as they are.”
“I know.” More tears wetted Margie’s face. “I know, I know! But you and Hank were getting close and you weren’t even looking that hard. It was coming so easy for you. When you found Linda, I—I panicked. I’d taken the zebra toy with me to your house that day. I was going to tell you some story about how it was Linda’s and she’d given it to me when we were kids and on and on. I was going to try to steer you in a different direction. But then you found Linda! I was too late.”
“So, you traumatized my son in order to get me to stop looking into Linda’s murder?”
It was so basic. So simply basic that Chandler wanted to laugh at the same time she wanted to throw herself across the table and throttle Margie.
“Is . . . is Peter okay?” Margie bit her lip again. Her upper lip was wet with moisture from her nose, and her cheeks were blotched red from crying.
The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus Page 34