Carnival of Shadows (16 page)

Michael Travis did not have anything to pack into a bag. He was given the clothes he’d arrived in, and he changed into them. He turned his denims over to the laundry and was walked back through to the reception building. He saw a woman there, seated alone in a room, seated in such a way as to take up as little room as possible, her purse on her lap, her ankles crossed, her coat pulled around her as tight as it could go. She seemed nervous. It was not something Michael saw, but rather something he sensed. She seemed afraid—not of where she was or what she was doing, but just afraid. Like it was a full-time thing.

The custodian informed him that this was Esther Faulkner, and then he turned and left Michael standing in the corridor alone.

Michael walked to the doorway of the room where Esther was seated.

She looked up as he entered. She visibly flinched.

“Miss Faulkner?” Michael asked.

“Michael?” she replied.

He nodded.

She rose to her feet slowly. She extended her hand, and they shook tentatively.

“We never met before,” Michael said. “I’m sorry, this has come as a surprise…”

Esther smiled bravely. “For me too, Michael. And I can’t even begin to imagine what you must have gone through these past few months.”

Michael looked down at his shoes. He felt something in his chest, his throat, something burning there behind his eyes like the embers of a dying fire. He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, willed himself not to cry.

He did not know what was happening. Life, like a river, was carrying him somewhere, and he didn’t know the destination, if there even
was
a destination.

He looked at Esther, and the expression in her eyes told him that she was perhaps as lost and confused as he.

They stood looking at each other for half a minute or more, and then Michael smiled.

Esther smiled too, and then she started laughing. “We must look like the most foolish of people,” she said.

“Foolish. Yes.” Michael opened his mouth to say something else, but there was silence.

“I think we just have to give this a go, Michael, and see if we can’t make the best of it. What do you say?”

“I think so, yes,” Michael replied. He looked into her eyes, looked into
her
, and saw something kind, something decent, something… something he could not define.

It seemed he had no choice but to go with this Esther Faulkner, this widow of his mother’s unknown cousin. He would go with her, despite the fact that they did not know each other at all, and he would see what happened.

Maybe this was the way life was supposed to be—a series of unconnected surprises and unrelated events, all strung together with no sense behind them.

Maybe this was a precursor for everything that was yet to come.

Maybe the only predictable thing about life was its innate and inherent unpredictability.

“Shall we go home?” Esther asked, and held out her hand to indicate the door.

Michael could see she was shaking ever so slightly.

“Yes,” he said. “That would be fine.”

Outside, a police car waited for them. The officer was polite, even opened the door for Michael, and they made their way down the long driveway and away from the building that had been his home for the better part of a year. Looking back over his shoulder, the building seemed so small, so insignificant, disappearing until it was nothing more than a speck of darkness on the horizon.

Michael hoped for one other thing then, as he felt Esther Faulkner’s hand close over his and give it a reassuring squeeze. He hoped that the dreams were gone. The headaches too. He hoped that he would no longer be visited by shadows and crows and inhuman laughter. He hoped also that he would no longer feel that sense of anger and violence rising in his blood, would no longer see his father’s strangely fearful face each time he tried to sleep, that one cold, blue eye staring back at him, and the sound of blood—
drip-drip-drip
—like some awful metronome that measured his dark and dying heart.

11

As Travis exited the car in Wichita, even now unwilling to really face what had actually happened during his time with Esther, he wondered if he hadn’t done himself a disservice by being so dismissive of the Bureau psychologist’s interest. If the questions he’d been asked had stirred up so much latent emotion, then wouldn’t it have been better to just talk, to just let it go? What was he trying to solve with silence and seriousness? Keeping his job? More than that, it was a matter of not only keeping his job but advancing his career. This was what he wanted right from that moment in a diner in Kearney, Nebraska, in February of 1950. Out of the army, almost drifting, and perhaps fate had once again taken a hand in directing his life. A man had taken a seat beside him, a few words had been shared, and everything had changed. But that was a different story, and it bore no relevance to the reason for his visit.

Travis was in Wichita to determine the significance of the tattoos. That was all. Trusting that identification of its significance would aid in the identification of the man, he did not doubt that he was pursuing the most important line. SSA Bishop and the Kansas office had the deceased’s prints. Whether they would make any headway with them was a different issue, and he could not wait to see. The important thing was to keep them updated as accurately as possible. He had not included a copy of the tattoo diagram simply because he did not want to forward a question with no answer. The prints were fine; cross-checking them against the Bureau database was a routine action, but the tattoo was different. This was his puzzle to solve, and his alone; his first case as senior special agent, that case handled rapidly, professionally, and to a good result. That would be ideal. Of course, there was a great deal to do, but if he was systematic and methodical in his approach, then he knew that something somewhere would lead him in a potentially fruitful direction.

Something is better than nothing
, his training officer had told him.
Always in such situations, something is better than nothing. A man can be faulted for getting it wrong, of course, but a man cannot be faulted for trying. And use that ability you have, Travis, that ability to reason, to challenge everything, to see logic where logic exists, to reject assumptions and apparent coincidences.

Now, faced with a real situation—an unidentified dead man, both Edgar Doyle and Valeria Mironescu claiming to know nothing of his identity, and a complete lack of eyewitnesses or forensic clues—what, or more importantly,
who
, could he pursue here?

Keep it simple
. Such axioms were drilled into them from day one.
Do what you can do. Do not try to do what you cannot do. Establish a zone of operation, lay down some guidelines, plan out a sequence of actions, and then follow them until what you find forces you to change tack.

Travis reminded himself of these basic tenets as he made his way up the steps of the Wichita City Library.

Despite assistance from two very interested and eager librarians, there was not a great deal of immediate progress. Travis understood that his official capacity engendered a sense of obligation to help, but the library and its staff did not exist for his use alone. He knew he would keep the librarians’ attention only so long and then he would simply become a distraction and an annoyance.

The younger of the two, an intense man by the name of Marcus Briley, recommended Travis speak to a Professor Ralph Saxon.

“If anyone can help you, it’ll be him,” Briley said.

“Because?”

“Well, he’s kind of a walking encyclopedia,” Briley explained. “He was a lecturer at the university. He’s retired now, but he’s been a consultant here for many years.”

“And where do I find him?” Travis asked.

“Well, he’s here only on Mondays and Fridays, so if you came back in a couple of days, you’d find him here.”

“I can’t do that,” Travis explained. “If he can assist me, then I need to see him today.”

“Maybe if you spoke to the chief librarian, she could contact him for you.”

“I’ll do that,” Travis said. “Appreciated.”

The chief librarian, though respectful and ostensibly understanding of the situation, wasn’t so eager to assist. Her name was Marion Gerrard, and she didn’t seem to grasp the urgency of the situation until Travis informed her that it was—in essence—a federal case. Not only that, but concerned the death of a man.

Marion Gerrard’s manner changed completely. She was suddenly perturbed. “Oh my,” she said. “I feel truly awful, Agent Travis. I am so sorry.”

“Please, Ms. Gerrard, don’t trouble yourself with the details. If you could simply reach Professor Saxon, I would be most grateful.”

“I’ll call him at his home this very instant,” she said, and reached for the telephone.

Shortly thereafter, following directions that Ms. Gerrard had given him, Travis was dismayed at his own forgetfulness. He had not taken just a few moments to determine whether
regulus
was in fact an actual word. He found it hard to believe that such a thing had slipped his mind. Because he’d wanted it to, perhaps? This was the question he repeatedly asked himself as he crossed town to his next appointment. Why would he
not
want to know if it possessed any meaning? Because it would serve to confirm that his own actions were out of his control? Surely not. And if someone else had typed that word, then what? Was he being directed toward something; even more likely, was he being
mis
directed?

No more than forty minutes later, Travis was standing on the sidewalk in front of a small and unobtrusive house on Cordell Street. Even as he approached the screen, he saw a curtain twitch in a ground-floor window, and the front door was opened before he had reached the top of the steps.

Saxon was an old man, perhaps in his eighties, and yet he seemed to lack no enthusiasm or energy as he greeted Travis. He showed Travis through to a study beside the small kitchen. Here they sat, and though there was no offer of refreshments or anything else, Travis sensed that Saxon was actually thrilled to be consulted in an official capacity by the FBI.

“So, how can I assist?” Saxon asked Travis.

Travis took the small diagram he had made at the morgue from his pocket and handed it over.

“A puzzle,” Saxon said. “Might I ask for some details?”

“It’s a tattoo,” Travis said. “Found on the back of a dead man’s knee. It was that pattern as best as I could approximate it, and between the man’s toes, there was a series of seven small dots, also tattooed. Not a cluster, but one between each toe.”

“Identification,” Saxon said. “Tattoos, historically speaking, have often been used to identify membership, even to tell a life story.”

“I am familiar with that, yes.”

“There is a rule of thumb, for want of a better expression. The more hidden and unobtrusive the tattoo, the more secret the wearer wishes his membership to be.”

“And this design?”

Saxon shook his head and smiled. “You need a sociologist or an anthropologist, not a professor of medieval history. I can telephone a friend of mine, if you wish.”

“Yes, absolutely. Anything at all that might help would be much appreciated.”

Saxon rose and left the room.

Travis sat and waited while Saxon made the call. He looked around the room, the walls of which were crowded with a mismatched selection of various bookshelves, upon them ranging a seemingly endless collection of texts, files, folders, bundles of documents, volumes old and new. If Travis’s observation was correct, and he assumed it was, there was no Mrs. Saxon and never had been. Here was a man who had dedicated his entire life to academia.

Saxon returned within a moment. “A wholly disreputable fellow by the name of Marvin Beck is on his way over. He is a retired professor, like me, and we have been colleagues and friends for many years. His specialty is anthropological and social studies, and he will probably be able to shed a brighter light on this than I.”

“I am really grateful for your time, Professor,” Travis said.

“Oh, think nothing of it, young man. More than happy to help. At our age, a little excitement is all too rare. Now, some tea, perhaps?”

“Please, yes. That would be good.”

Saxon made tea, was still making tea when there was a sharp rapping at the front door.

“Go let the old reprobate in, Agent Travis,” Saxon called from the kitchen. “Tell him I am under arrest or something.”

Travis smiled. He really did like the old man.

Beck, surprisingly, was much the same as Saxon. They were two of a kind, and Travis wondered if there wasn’t a network of retired academics and professors, all of them belonging to an unofficial fraternity, all of them doing their utmost to maintain the belief that the sacrifices they’d made—that of children, grandchildren, a horde of descendants—had been worth it for the pursuit of knowledge. Was Travis himself so much different? Would he be the same at their age?

“So, what trouble has he been causing now?” Beck said as he came through the front door. “Saxon, where are you?” he called out.

Saxon was laughing as he entered the room once more. “Mind your manners,” he said. “This is Agent Michael Travis of the FBI, and he will no sooner look at you than cart you off to be interrogated about your subversive Communist sympathies. Right, Agent Travis?”

“Absolutely, sir. No question about it.”

“Ha!” Beck snorted. “If anyone’s the Communist, it’s you. Now, get some tea and tell me what’s going on here.”

Over tea, and holding the small diagram in his hand, Beck’s manner changed considerably.

“You say there were tattoos between the toes?” he asked Travis.

“Yes, seven in all. Not a cluster, but one between each toe.”

“Such things indicate acts of initiation, sometimes tasks, sometimes penalties,” Beck said. “It is a shame I cannot see the body itself, for then I would be able to better determine the age of the tattoos.”

“And that would help how?” Travis asked.

“Well, tattoos of this nature are often made at puberty, sometimes even younger. Other times they are made when someone has done things that prove his right to be part of the tribe. But that is more common in the African peoples. This man is white, correct?”

“White, but olive-skinned perhaps. Actually, not so much Mediterranean, more Eastern European.”

“And the tattoos themselves, they are small, these dots?”

“Yes, very small.”

“And do they seem relatively precise, or do they appear like spots of ink on blotting paper, as if they have spread out beneath the skin?”

“Quite precise,” Travis said. “Yes, I would say they were quite defined.”

“Which indicates their having been applied in adulthood.” Beck nodded slowly, and then he looked over the upper rim of his glasses at Travis.

“I am thinking that they may be as a result of actions performed. I would say that the pattern on the back of the knee is a symbol of membership, whereas the ones between the toes, seven in all, would be more a result of doing something. I think they are earned.”

“Earned?”

“Yes,” Beck said. “If, as you say, he appears perhaps Eastern European, then I am wondering if he doesn’t belong to some kind of gang, some kind of organized-crime network, perhaps. You say he was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Might I ask how?”

“Stabbed in the back of the neck. A blade of some description was pushed upward into the base of his brain.”

Beck smiled. “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. Not exactly a heart attack or a stroke, eh?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Well, from what little I know, and from the manner of his death, I would say that you probably have a killer on your hands, Agent Travis. And now, ironically, he himself has been killed.”

“And the tattoo on the back of his knee?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Beck replied. “Europe is the wrong continent for me when it comes to anthropological or social rites and rituals.” He looked across at Saxon. “What do you think, Ralph?”

“A reversed question mark,” Saxon said. “A Cyrillic letter, perhaps Coptic, East Slavic?”

Beck shook his head. “No, none of those. I don’t recognize it at all.”

“Well, the simple fact is that it could be significant to only those who are part of the organization, if it is actually a mark of membership.”

“Perhaps a map of some kind, perhaps the location of something…”

“A constellation?” Travis suggested.

Beck nodded. “As good a guess as anything. Constellations hold great significance in the Middle East and the Africas. A great deal of store is placed in the position of stars at certain times of year. Perhaps it relates to his own birth sign.”

“I don’t recognize it from the known signs,” Saxon said. He looked up and scanned the walls. “I have a text somewhere, I’m sure. The Medieval English sages and soothsayers granted enormous importance to astrological divination.”

The text was located, and Travis had to stand on a rickety chair in order to reach it down. The book was heavy, thick with dust, and it was with some awkwardness that the three of them managed to position it in such a way as to survey the endless tables of astrological patterns that were detailed.

When they found it, Travis visibly paled. He felt decidedly nauseous, and Beck asked him if he was all right, if there was something wrong.

“You really don’t look well at all, Agent Travis,” Saxon said. “Can I get you something?”

Travis could not speak. His mind had stretched awkwardly around a concept that was actually inconceivable, but the evidence for whatever coincidence had taken place here was undeniable.

The word was there, and though he did not believe it and could not explain it, he could not avoid the reality of it.

Regulus.

The constellation that so closely matched the small design he had copied from the back of the victim’s knee was called Regulus.

As far as he could recall, he had never seen the word before, and yet here it was. He had actually woken to find it right there on a sheet of paper, and now he was being told that it was the name for this diagram.