Horror-Ween (Krewe of Hunters)

by Heather Graham

  “Wow.”

  “Indeed,” Lieutenant Woodruff said.

  Jillian looked from Joe to Keri. “He was there, too. He was a magician.”

  “Yes, he’s a magician. And he was in Massachusetts?” Joe asked.

  Both Jillian and Emil Woodruff nodded.

  “Thank you,” Joe said. “Please, keep going. It’s important.”

  “This . . . this . . .” Jillian murmured, holding up one of the images.

  “Something . . . familiar,” Woodruff agreed.

  Keri leaned forward trying to see which photo they were holding.

  It was the picture they had of Rowdy Cornwall.

  “You know him?” Keri asked.

  “Hard to say,” Woodruff told them.

  Jillian stared hard, and then shook her head. “I don’t know; there’s just something, . . . but I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe I just passed him on the street one day. I don’t remember him being anyone—or any character—specifically. But you must remember, many of the people I saw that night were in costume and make-up.”

  “Of course,” Keri said. She reached across the table and took Jillian’s hand. “You’re doing great, and you may help us save lives.”

  At Jillian’s side, Woodruff smiled with pride and nodded.

  “Think I should come to the park?” Jillian asked. “I might recognize people by really seeing them rather than looking at pictures. Oh!” she said suddenly, flipping another picture.

  “What?”

  “Well, this one isn’t scary or anything. Right there, that woman, I guess she’s working in the offices or something somewhere? I do know her, though I’m surprised to see her not working out in the costume area. Her name is Brenda Templeton. She’s my friend’s older sister. She used to play a demented nun; then she became a B movie queen, and I figured she was still out in Hollywood somewhere . . . but yes, that’s Corey Templeton’s sister and I know her. Except . . . except she wasn’t at the park the night it all happened. She had played a demented nun for years, but she had moved on by that night; she was being a scream-queen for B movies.”

  “Good to know anyway,” Keri said.

  Jillian was frowning as she studied another picture. “Again, I don’t know. But I think this is Eddy—Edward—Canton. His dad was principal at our high school. He played one of the hosts on the haunted hayride in Mass. Henry Hacksaw.”

  Keri leaned over. She was pointing at the picture of the man Joe and Keri had met as Steve Jenson—once again playing a scare-actor for a haunted hayride.

  “Why would he change his name?” she murmured to Joe.

  “Many reasons, as we know, but we’ll find out,” Joe replied, studying the picture.

  “I should come to the park,” Jillian said.

  “We’ll work on that,” Joe said. “But first, I’ll talk to Jackson and we’ll make sure you have security.”

  “Oh, Special Agent McGee is wonderful!” Jillian said. “He’s with me most of the time, though he’s spelled by others from the NOLA office. But I do feel safe when he’s around. And when Lieutenant Woodruff is around.”

  “I’m grateful—but you need the living to protect you from the living,” Woodruff said.

  “We’ll get on it,” Joe promised her. “Not tonight; tomorrow night, possibly. Okay?”

  She nodded. “He won’t kill again—until Halloween,” she said with certainty.

  “You’re probably right; and tomorrow night is the thirtieth,” Joe said. “Still, we want added security for you.”

  “Got it,” Jillian said.

  Joe and Keri thanked her—and Lieutenant Woodruff.

  Then they rose; they had to drive back out to Ascension Parish, and both wanted to get in to work nice and early that day.

  And, of course, they needed to report the new information to headquarters.

  Special Agent McGee was quick to rise as he saw them do so. He came to Jillian’s side, ready to take over.

  Woodruff stepped to Jillian’s other side.

  He wasn’t leaving her.

  “All right, then,” Joe murmured.

  Jillian suddenly gave Keri a fierce hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for believing in me.”

  “And me,” Lieutenant Woodruff said softly.

  Keri hugged Jillian back; Jillian paused, then gave Joe a hug, too.

  Then, finally, they were back out in the car.

  “So, we have a suspicious magician, with easy free roam of the park, Gordon Bentley.”

  “And Rowdy Cornwall and Steve Jenson,” Keri said. “Or Eddy Canton. Why would he change his name? And how do people do that so easily?”

  “Because when part-time parks are opening, they need help, and unless something is obvious, they don’t check into documentation too deeply.” He glanced her way. “We also have two women who were at the other park,” he reminded her. “Brenda Templeton and the girl who changed her name, too—Janice Markle or Francie Dumont.”

  “I’ll call them in,” Keri said.

  She did so, setting the phone on speaker and telling Angela about their time with Jillian.

  “I have info on Brenda Templeton,” Angela told them. “She was working in Hollywood at the time of the murders in Massachusetts. Seems she worked out there for several years, then took a role as a creature in a TV series that was filming in New Orleans. The show cancelled just a few weeks before the park opened; that might explain her taking on any job. She is there under her own name, working in what is down as ‘community relations.’”

  “Curious that she didn’t take a role—especially considering the part of Devilla Dolly was open,” Keri said.

  “Talk to her,” Angela said.

  “We plan to do so,” Joe assured her.

  “I’ll get on everything else; especially the name changes,” Angela promised.

  “Also, Jillian wants to come to the park. Tomorrow night. She has an agent from the NOLA office assigned to her—”

  “Yes, of course,” Angela said.

  “But to come to the park—”

  “You want her to have more security,” Angela finished. “I’ll get back with you.”

  They ended the call. “So, my dearest Devilla,” Joe said, grimacing as he looked over at Keri, “ready for tonight’s performance?”

  “Oh, yeah, can’t wait,” she assured him.

  “Hey, think about the follow-up book you’ll be able to write.”

  She grimaced in return. “Under a pseudonym.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m going to be a full-fledge agent,” she said softly. “I will not let myself become known in any way.”

  Joe nodded. “I see.”

  He did see, she knew. He didn’t like it, of course. But he was getting accustomed to the idea, and she knew they were going to make it just fine.

  If they could just get through Halloween.

  He had managed the drive back quickly; the gates to the park and the employee parking stretched before them.

  “Hey, by the way, where are you stuffing your Glock in that skin-tight costume?” he asked her.

  “Ah, well, my love, that’s a deep dark secret,” she told him. “Maybe . . . before this is all over, I’ll let you in on just where.”

  He had parked; she stepped out of the car, closing the door and staring at the big arch that led to the park, the rise of the rides and attractions behind it.

  She could hear laughter; the area open to young children had been going for several hours. Princesses and fairies were out; the petting zoo was open. Screams of delight sounded along with the whirr of the little rollercoasters.

  It was so hard to imagine evil could dwell among the pumpkins and magic.

  And yet it did.

  Evil, in its darkest form.

  Soon enough, the shadows would fall. And among those shadows lurked that evil.

  They didn’t have much time, lest the darkness become death.

  “Nice and early,” Joe said
. “Time to chat up a few people, eh?”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s see who we can find,” she agreed, and then she smiled, taking his hand. He arched a brow to her, lifting their entwined fingers high.

  “Hey, they all know we’re a couple. Might as well go with it!” she said.

  “Yeah, might as well go with it,” he agreed.

  Hand in hand, they walked into the park and headed for the costume tent. When they reached it and Joe released her hand, she was surprised to feel the loss.

  She was going to be a full-fledged agent—her choice, her passion, her desire.

  She was always learning, of course. Joe had been a cop before he’d joined the Krewe; she . . . hadn’t. There was more to learn. Like having her Glock in arm’s reach at all times, and never trusting the lock on a hotel door. But she would get there.

  Still . . .

  But as Joe had warned her often enough, it was true that no man—or woman—was an island. And it was good to know even if he didn’t have her hand, he sure as hell had her back.

  Here. Especially here. Because even as they entered beneath the arches to the park, she felt a chill streak down her spine.

  Children laughing, shrieking, playing.

  There was nothing quite so terrifying as evil in the midst of innocence.

  Chapter 7

  They met the others that night in the costume ten.; Gordon Bentley, dressed in a cloak with a magician’s turban atop his head, was practicing one of his card tricks.

  Janice and Connie were in the girls’ dressing rooms—areas with rigging and curtains and nothing more—while Marvin and Justin were in the men’s so-called dressing “rooms.”

  Belinda was fussing over a repair on a black costume.

  “Hey, you’ll get to see us in full regalia,” Justin said, emerging.

  He was truly creepy. His costume was a prosthetic, but made to hug his flesh as flesh—and give the appearance of flesh falling off him, with the head piece crossed with lines in black and red that made it appear he had been hacked to pieces—but came back as the living dead.

  “Ugh!” Keri told him.

  “Yeah, cool, huh? I even scare football players,” Justin said proudly.

  “I guess I’ll get in there,” Joe said, sliding around Justin. “You look great, man,” he added, before closing the curtain.

  A second later, Marvin stepped out—ready to crawl into his box. His face was that of a truly demented clown.

  “I wish I had Gail’s job—she just keeps the whole thing in the Murder House and steps into it over there. Ah, and here is the lovely Janice now.”

  Janice emerged. She, too, looked great for the park.

  Why would she have changed her name from Francie Dumont to Janice Merkle?

  While she and Justin both played zombies or members of the living dead, they worked different attractions, Janice the hayride and Justin the Haunted Cemetery.

  She was creepy and still beautiful. She wasn’t wearing a mask or prosthetic, but she’d done her make-up already and was both incredibly creepy and still lovely. Her dress was white, gray, and silver, tattered and dusty, as if she had crawled from a grave. Her make-up whitened her face and accentuated the fine lines of her profile.

  She smiled, showing that her lips were red and that a trickle of blood dripped from them.

  “Personally, I’d rather have white matter dripping for brains,” she said.

  “Know when you’re in trouble?” Gordon teased, walking over while shuffling his cards in mid-air.

  “When a starving zombie looks at you—and walks right by,” he said. He sighed when his words weren’t greeted with a hearty laugh.

  “Means you have no brains, even a starving zombie walks right by?”

  “I got it, I got it,” Janice said with a moan. “Ha-ha. I guess I’ve been a zombie too long. Ah, well, a few more weeks and I’ll get to be a Christmas elf or maybe even Mrs. Claus.”

  “You are stunning,” Keri told her, smiling. She was speaking the truth. She also wanted to get to know the woman, find out where she’d been—and why she was going under an assumed name.

  “Ah, you’re a sweetie, Devilla Dolly,” Janice said. Connie emerged as Janice spoke; she was all in off white, white make up all over, a white wig, a white dress—and giant white wings.

  “Someone help me with the ties?” she asked.

  “You got it,” Janice assured her.

  “Wow! How long does it take you to do that?” Keri asked her.

  “Not all that long—now that I’ve gotten the hang of it.” Connie said. “It’s not hard. Belinda is usually around to help if I need her. I have trouble with the wings because I can’t see my back.”

  Janice had her tied and she looked at Justin. “Let’s get headed out to our posts. Laura may be a bit late. And we can cover if she is.”

  “What’s up with Laura?”

  “Baby is getting a cold; she’s just coming as late as possible,” Connie said. “Anyway, you know me, I like to be—”

  “She likes to be early,” Justin said dryly to the others. “We’ll head out. Back way to the back lot.”

  “I guess I’ll go out,” Gordon said, looking at Keri. “Want to try a trick with me before I try it out on an unwary attendee?”

  “Sure,” Keri said.

  “All right, take a card, any card.”

  She took a card.

  “Don’t tell me what it is,” he said, lowering his head and smiling dangerously.

  She looked at her card. It wasn’t a regular deck of cards; it was a tarot deck.

  And she had drawn death.

  She was aware that Joe was dead still and silent, watching.

  “And now?” she asked.

  “Slide it into my vest pocket,” he said.

  She had to come close to do so. She felt his energy and body heat as she struggled just a bit to slide the card into the narrow pocket.

  He lifted both of his hands high, showing he hadn’t touched his pocket. Then he reached into his turban and drew out a card.

  “Ah, here it is. Hm. Death. Well, not to worry that doesn’t mean death—just an ending and a new beginning.”

  He glanced at Joe as he spoke. He was tall, dark, and good-looking.

  And suspicious.

  And evidently flirting, but Joe was too good an agent to take the bait.

  “Let’s see that deck,” he told Gordon.

  Gordon showed them the rest of the deck. It was a full tarot deck.

  “Wow. Great,” Joe told him. “You should get out there and start using it on the paying customers. You do seem to be a damned good magician.”

  “Just a card trick,” he said.

  Gail walked in then, ready to join up with her fellow cast members, even if she didn’t dress until she reached the mansion.

  “Gordon, torturing the newcomers, eh?”

  “He’s good,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s good—wait until you see him as the Headless Horseman. But next up—I don’t see him as Santa Claus.” She laughed softly. “And it won’t be Lance—no padding in the world could turn him into Jolly St. Nick.”

  Marvin cleared his throat. “Well, then, that could be me.”

  Gordon shook his head and rolled his eyes and wandered out just as Lance, tall and lanky, ducked his head under the flap to enter.

  “Wow, people are early,” he said.

  “But it’s starting to get late now,” Marvin told him. “Hurry up, get your stuff—these guys have to do make-up. Then the Murder House crew is all here and we can get it in gear together tonight. Can’t wait for the night to start—and end,” he said.

  “Yeah? Why tonight?” Joe asked him.

  “Because I didn’t get to eat, and I’m starving, and want to head for Sam’s Shrimp Shack. You two are joining us again tonight, right?”

  “You bet,” Joe said. “Guess we’d better get into some make-up.”

  “Not to worry; you’re new,” Marvin
said. “Brian will help you tonight. Besides, he thinks he’s an artist, and he likes to work on Devilla Dolly.” He grinned at Keri.

  “Well, that’s good, because Devilla Dolly isn’t that great at it, I’m sure,” Keri said.

  Joe caught her hand. “Let’s get to it, eh?”

  “We’ll wait for you and Lance,” Gail called after them. “Lance is quick, and we’ll be like one real happy family.”

  Keri waved to her. As they walked toward the back, she saw Steve and Rowdy had arrived and were grabbing their costumes to head in to change.

  Steve.

  Or as he had been born, Keri thought, Eddy Canton.

  Brian Mayfield was in the back, ready at his make-up table. He beamed when they arrived, then tried to look serious. “Okay, tonight, I whip the two of you into shape once again, so watch everything that I do, okay? You first, Keri.”

  He said her name oddly almost as if it whispered, like a caress.

  Maybe he heard the way he sounded because he quickly added, “Sorry, my dear. Devilla Dolly

  is just my favorite creation. Well, I think I excelled at creating the make-up for her.”

  She smiled and sat in his chair. Joe leaned against a box and waited.

  “Ah, creepy, wonderfully beautiful,” he said. “Watch the lines, watch the lines . . . they give the look of a slightly creased face, like the porcelain dolls of old. And the color, oh so pretty. I love this look. And I heard you were wonderful. Oh, and you, too, Count Rapier.”

  “We strive to do our best,” Joe murmured.

  She was done; Joe sat down. In just a few moments, he was done.

  “I vant to drink your blood,” he told Keri.

  “Yeah? Too bad—porcelain dolls don’t have any,” she said.

  “Damn!” Joe said lightly, before studying Brian. “Thanks, Brian. Two nights . . . we should know what we’re doing now.”

  “I’m always here to help,” Brian said.

  As they headed to the front to meet up with Marvin and Lance, they saw Rowdy and Steve were in costume and in a close conversation with one another as they started toward the back. They stopped speaking as they saw Joe and Keri and were quick to greet them.

  “Looking great,” Steve said.

  “Thanks,” Joe said.

  “Oh, yeah, and you too, Joe,” Rowdy said, laughing at his own joke. Joe and Keri smiled.