Carnival of Shadows (44 page)

“I am not asking you to throw away anything, Agent Travis,” Doyle said. “I did not send you to Seneca Falls, and nor did I invite you. We did not do this to you, my friend. The people you work for did this to you—”

“Even though I do not know what has been done to me,” Travis said.

“I think you know all too well what has been done to you, and like Valeria says, it is simply a matter of making a decision.”

“I have no proof, Mr. Doyle. I have no proof that what I am thinking is even true.”

“So go find it, Agent Travis. Go find whatever proof you need, and then we can talk about it once again. That’s if you want to keep your eyes open, of course. You can always go for the safe option. That’s what most people would do. You may very well be a good person, Michael Travis, and I’m inclined to believe you are. However, the people you work for are not. Ironically, they choose to list their public enemies, even rank them by number, yet they are the worst public enemies of all. They don’t rob banks; they rob countries. They don’t kill men; they kill nations. There’s no way for me to advise you, but I will offer you my help. If you seek further evidence that these people do not have your best interests at heart, then I will do what I can to assist you.”

“Why, Mr. Doyle? Why would you want to help me?”

“Why, Agent Travis? I would have thought that was obvious.”

“Perhaps not so obvious to me.”

“Because you believe that this entire case is about one dead man. I, however, see that as merely a catalyst. I don’t know why he’s dead. However, someone does know, and I also know that you would not be here without him. I told you this before. You are the reason he died, Michael Travis. Your people needed you inside this carnival. They needed your eyes and ears within this little community. They had questions that they could not answer. They have tried before, and they have failed.”

“They have tried before? What do you mean?”

“Beatrice, Nebraska,” Doyle said. “Red Oak, Iowa. Bethany, Missouri. Dewey, Oklahoma. I could go on. At first it was simply visits, and though they were supposed to be incognito, it was very obvious. Pairs of men in dark suits driving Ford Fairlanes don’t usually attend small-town carnivals. They were just there watching what was happening, taking notes, filing their reports, ticking boxes and coloring inside those very precious lines. And then they became more subtle, or at least believed they were becoming more subtle. They came alone, they returned on alternate days, often dressed differently. Sometimes there was one, other times two. In Dewey, Missouri, there were four of them, and though they arrived in different cars, and though they never actually appeared to speak to one another, it was very obvious who they were and why they were there.”

“So how is my being here any different?”

“Because looking from the outside is no good, is it? They wanted someone up close and personal, someone who could ask as many questions as he wished, who could show his ID and walk anywhere he wanted to. Your Mr. Varga was merely a means by which you could have the authority to do these things. You have the law on your side now, and thus you can make us stay, you can make us talk, you can make us do whatever you wish. That is the clever part, you see, and the part that no one would ever think of questioning. The Carnival Diablo is now a crime scene. A murder has been committed. Someone within that carnival must have killed this man, and yet the man has no name, and now I am led to believe that even he has disappeared.”

“How do you know that?”

“It is no real secret that the body was removed from the town morgue within twenty-four hours of your arrival, Agent Travis. It was, and that’s all that matters. There is very little that goes on in a town such as this that cannot be overheard in any one of the bars or taverns or barbershops. Anything that might engage the attention of Jack Farley will soon be known by Sheriff Rourke and then by Lester McCaffrey. Anything Lester finds out will soon finds its way to his brother, Danny, and anything known by Danny is known by his beautiful sister, Laura. She works in a diner. Need I say more?”

“And if this is true, then why? What do they want of you?”

“Why would they want to determine, once and for all, whether Edgar Doyle could really invade the thoughts of men? If this motley band of freaks and sideshow monstrosities could really read the emotions that people were feeling, could really enable people to remember things they believed they had long ago forgotten?” Doyle shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that one, I’m sure. Would you have any idea why the FBI’s Unit X would want such people in its employ?”

Travis opened his mouth to speak.

“And yes, before you ask,” Doyle interjected, “I know who you work for and which department sent you here. I know a great deal more than you think, my friend.”

“It is alarming to consider the implications if what you say is true,” Travis said.

“Alarming, or unburdening, depending upon which viewpoint you take. Nothing is better than being free of the lies and untruths that this world seems to trade in so effortlessly and relentlessly. I do not believe what I read in the newspapers. I do not believe the gossip and slander and libel leveled by one man against another. I judge a man from personal experience. In fact, some of the very worst people that the society has pilloried and defamed have proven to be the most worthy, the most courageous and of the highest integrity. My experiences in the war, if nothing else, have taught me that much.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Travis said.

“The head fights the heart, always,” Valeria said. “That seems to be the way of things. Perhaps that is the real lesson of human experience, wouldn’t you say?”

“So go,” Doyle said. “Go find out who Andris Varga was; see if he didn’t do things for your government that no one but a select few were supposed to know. Maybe you will find that there are a great deal more like Andris Varga. Maybe you will discover a perfectly legitimate and rational explanation for everything that has happened here, and you will be able to close your investigation and continue your career. I wish you luck, whatever happens, and I must say that it has been an education to spend time with you, Michael Travis. That much, at least, I know to be true.”

Travis could think of nothing further to say. He was exhausted with his own voice, the endless questions, the thoughts that revolved endlessly through his mind, none of them with any kind of satisfactory direction or answer.

He set down the coffee cup beside the small sink, and then he walked to the door of the caravan. He looked back once more at Edgar Doyle and Valeria Mironescu, and though he had known them merely a handful of days, they nevertheless seemed to be the realest and most familiar people in the world.

“Godspeed, Michael Travis,” Valeria said.

Travis nodded in acknowledgment, and then he opened the door and went down those narrow steps to the grass.

As he walked to his car, he felt as if he were leaving his entire history behind in his footprints—his father, his mother, the day that he was sent to fetch Sheriff John Baxter and Deputy Harold Fenton; Warden Seymour Cordell, the custodian Max Hibbert, Anthony Scarapetto and all those he had known in juvy; Esther, the little house in Grand Island; those he had known in the army; he saw the face of Don Gerritty as he sat beside him in the diner in Kearney, Nebraska; Bishop and Erickson and Carvahlo, the Bureau psychologist who had tried so hard to take his life to pieces and analyze it. He saw everything as a series of jigsaw pieces laid out, and yet he could not even begin to grasp the image that was before him.

There was one thing he could not yet face, and yet it seemed now to scare him most of all. That he
was
indeed his father’s son, that whatever violence had driven his life was there at the edges, ready to overwhelm him at any moment. It was merely a matter of time. He knew that. He was losing his mind by inches, and there was no one there to help him. What if he lost himself altogether and became the man he was always so afraid to become? What if rationality and sanity departed him, just as it had departed his mother, and he fell prey to the raw strain of violence that was even now coursing through his veins? He could feel it multiplying in strength, taking him over, invading every pore of his being and pushing him closer to the dividing line between who he believed he was and who he wished he would never become.

He had never felt so afraid in his life.

He had never felt any emotion with such intensity.

The sound of a crow greeted him as he reached his car.

To his ears, it sounded like bitter and mocking laughter.

40

Travis did not sleep.

Even as dawn broke and the sun crept through the spaces, he knew that what he wanted now was to have failed.

He wanted all of this to have been some kind of test, some kind of complex challenge presented by Bishop and Gale and Tolson and Hoover, some kind of exam to measure his investigatory skills, his nerve, his self-assurance.

That would mean that he had not been wrong, that the Bureau was the Bureau, that the people he worked for were also working for the greater good, the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The alternative was the thing he could not face, and yet found himself facing it with greater clarity and certainty as each moment passed. There was now too much for him to explain away. There were too many things that did not make sense. He hated that he could not find the answers. He hated that everything he believed was solid and immovable was now faltering beneath him. There was a line, just as Valeria Mironescu had said. There was a clear and unmistakable line. You stepped over it, or you did not. Step over it, and everything became so simple. You saw what you were expected to see, and you interpreted it the way you were instructed to interpret it. The Bureau would always be right. The Bureau would never be questioned. If you believed something was wrong, it was simply that you had yet to appreciate the bigger picture. There would always be questions without answers, and yet you would learn to live with those questions. You would not question those questions. Your superiors would tell you that a full explanation of the facts was
above your clearance level
, and you would accept such a notion without anything resembling a challenge. You became a company man, a good man, one of the boys. You became just the kind of man to make supervisor, section chief, assistant director.

And if not that, then what?

If Andris Varga had died at the hands of the Bureau, if he had served some purpose and then been
retired from the game
, then what would become of him—Michael Travis—if he chose to no longer play that game?

Did the mind—stretched by such ideas—possess a breaking point? Would he eventually just unravel at the seams? People had mental breakdowns and psychotic episodes. People
lost
their minds, didn’t they? Was this why he had been analyzed by the Bureau psychologist before he’d been assigned to Seneca Falls? Not to determine his mental health, not to determine the degree to which he could withstand the rigors of Bureau investigatory work, but simply to determine whether he could actually cope with the truth, if the truth ever came to light?

Travis got out of bed. He went down the hall to the bathroom and took a shower. After he dressed, he stood for a while looking at himself in the mirror beside the door of the room. He did not recognize himself, just as he had not recognized his mother when she walked into the courtroom to hear her sentence.

It was close to eight when he finally went downstairs. The hotel dining room was empty, but he found Laura McCaffrey in the kitchen.

“Well, Agent Travis,” she said as he came through the door. “You look like you’ve had better days.”

Travis smiled as best he could. “Late night, early morning, have a long drive ahead of me.”

“Where you off to, then?” she asked. “Somewhere exciting?”

“I think I have had enough excitement already, Laura.”

“Oh, don’t say that. I can imagine you must have one of the most exciting jobs in the world. I’ve seen that Jimmy Cagney movie, you know?”

“I don’t want to disappoint you, Laura, but the reality of what we do and the movies are not that close.”

“Oh, you have to allow us our little illusions, Agent Travis. Otherwise, where’s the fun?” Laura leaned toward him, and in a mock conspiratorial tone, she whispered, “Makes me feel so much safer knowing you’re out there fighting crime and locking up the bad guys.”

And then she touched his sleeve, just as she had on the night of the carnival, and the carnival seemed so distant, and what he had seen there seemed so unreal, and there was no doubt in Travis’s mind that Laura McCaffrey wanted their relationship to be something significantly more than investigator and potential eyewitness. He had seen it before, but he had not
seen
it.

She winked then, unmistakably, and Travis felt awkward, off guard, then grateful when she punctuated the silence between them with, “So what can I get you? You want some breakfast before you leave?”

“I need to get on the road,” Travis said. “I wondered if I could take a sandwich or something.”

“A couple of sandwiches, a piece of pie, a flask of coffee, no problem,” she said.

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble…”

Laura McCaffrey smiled so beautifully and said, “Like I said before, you need to let people do what they do.”

“Thank you, Laura.”

She hesitated, and then she said, “Were you an orphan by any chance?”

Travis was taken aback. “Why do you ask that, Laura?”

“I don’t mean to offend,” she said. “Please ignore me. In and out of everyone’s affairs, especially when it’s none of my business.”

“No, really, I’m curious why you asked that question,” Travis said.

“Well, there’s a way about you, and I’ve noticed it with people who lost their parents early on. It’s nothing too serious. It’s just that people like you—” She caught herself then and smiled awkwardly. “I’m sorry. That sounds so rude. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“It’s okay, Laura… really.”

“Well, the thing I’ve noticed is orphans can’t accept help very easily, you know? They have to be in control of everything all the time. They find it really difficult to let people show them how to do things. And they’re always so concerned that people shouldn’t go to any trouble for them.”

“I thought I was just being polite and considerate,” Travis said, half joking, knowing in that moment that there was little else he wished to do but stay right there with Laura McCaffrey and forget everything else that was happening. Laura seemed to be the only person in Seneca Falls that made him feel like a real person. To everyone else, he felt like a ghost.

“Well, sure,” Laura replied, “but there are certain people who feel that the best thing they can do in life is help others, and if you don’t let them do that, then you’re responsible for making them unhappy.”

“So, what are you saying? That if I don’t let you make me some sandwiches, you’re going to be unhappy?”

“Right,” she said. “Well, maybe I’m saying that if you don’t let me make you happy, then I will be…” She blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was ever so forward.”

Travis hesitated. Eye contact could not be avoided. He looked at her, she at him, and then he reached out and gently took her hand.

The tiny inhalation she took was audible, as if she was both surprised and relieved.

There should have been words then, but the silence continued for just a few seconds more.

“It’s going to be okay,” Travis finally said, and his voice cracked.

“It is?” Laura asked.

Travis nodded.

She sighed, and for just a second, she closed her eyes.

Travis released her hand. “So could you make me some sandwiches for the road?” he said. “Please.”

“A pleasure,” Laura McCaffrey said, seemingly relieved that Travis had so swiftly altered the course of their exchange. She asked him what he liked—ham, cheese, corned beef, and did he want rye or white, and did he like pickles or tomatoes, and did he want his coffee with sugar, with milk, just black?—and Travis told her, and for a moment it seemed that he was in fact a regular person conducting a regular conversation. But he was not, and he knew it, and he knew that Laura McCaffrey would never be able to understand what was happening to him.

When Laura was done, she handed him a sizable paper bag and a flask.

“I want to ask you something,” Travis said as he took them from her.

“Shoot,” she said.

“It’s going to sound odd, but there’s a reason for asking.”

“Oh, Agent Travis, I work in a small-town diner. You should hear some of the conversations that go on in a place like this.”

Travis sat down, indicated she should sit too. “What do you think of the government?”

She laughed. “Okay, well, I sure wasn’t expecting that.”

“I just want your honest opinion,” Travis said.

“Well, here goes. It’s something my uncle used to say. It was basically the joke that a democratic election was always the choice between the lesser of two weevils. You get it, right?”

“I get it,” Travis said. “Is it a sentiment you agree with?”

“Sure I do,” Laura replied. “Doesn’t everyone? I mean everyone with even a shred of common sense. I mean, seriously, are we expected to believe that these fellers go into politics because they really care about what happens to the ordinary folks in the street? Surely not. They don’t actually think that we believe that, do they?”

“I don’t know, Laura.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be saying anything about the government. I wouldn’t want to get myself in trouble.”

“Really? You think that I’m going to write down what you say and tell someone?”

For just a moment Laura seemed a little distant and serious. “I don’t know why you’re here,” she said. “Not really. I mean, I know why you say you’re here. That dead man and everything. But that can’t be the real reason, can it? I mean, if it was just about that dead man, then why wouldn’t Sheriff Rourke deal with it himself? That’s his job, isn’t it?”

“Except when it gets a little more complicated than that,” Travis replied. “The Bureau deals with crimes that cross state lines, you see, and the carnival—”

“The carnival makes people happy, doesn’t it?” Laura said. “I mean, that’s the crime they have committed, wouldn’t you say? Or have I got this completely wrong?”

Travis frowned. She sounded annoyed, and her tone implied some kind of personal vexation.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Have I done something to upset you, Laura?”

She looked shocked then, as if surprised by her own words. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Listen to me, talking nonsense again. I’m really very sorry. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.”

“It’s okay,” Travis said. “I’m just a little confused as to why you’d think that I had something to do with what has happened here.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it to sound that way. It’s just that everyone’s been talking, obviously. It’s a small town, you know? Small towns are like that. Everyone’s living out of everyone else’s pockets, and if one person has something to say, it isn’t an hour before everyone else hears about it.”

“And what have people been saying?” Travis asked.

“Well, I don’t know that it’s any of my business—”

“Really, Laura. It would mean a great deal to me if you’d just tell me what folks are saying.”

“People are always going to talk, Michael. You know that. More often than not, it’s just a handful of wild rumors all blown up to look like something it’s not.”

“Tell me the wild rumors. I give you my word they won’t go any further.”

“Really, you don’t want to hear what I’ve heard.”

“I do,” Travis said. “I really do.”

“Okay, well, here goes. When they arrived—you know, the carnival people—everyone was up in arms. Who are these people and what are they doing here, and what right do they have to come into our town and pitch their tents and whatever? People don’t like strangers. Anyway, people started calling up Sheriff Rourke and telling him what he had to do and how he had to do it, but Lester told me the law can’t do anything until someone actually breaks the law or whatever, and so Sheriff Rourke just had to let them be. Anyway, the tents went up, and people got excited about the carnival and whatnot. So the carnival opens, and everyone’s having a good time and word gets out. Saturday night comes and there’s ten times the number of people there. And people see they’re just circus folk, that they’re not crazy or dangerous or anything, and they’re trying to make a living just like everyone else. The fact that they’re a bit wild and different doesn’t make them bad, does it?”

Travis didn’t speak. He didn’t want to interrupt her.

“And then there was a dead man there, and everyone was wondering who the hell he was and what had happened. Then word got out that he was a gangster or something. I mean, if he wasn’t a gangster, then why would the FBI be involved? Maybe he’d come to kill someone, you know? But who would he want to kill in Seneca Falls? Perhaps it was someone in the carnival that he was supposed to kill. Like that Mr. Doyle, or maybe the big guy, the giant, you know? And if that was the case, then who were these people? I mean, who were they really? Was this some kind of cover operation for crooks on the run from the authorities and other gangsters? Everyone was trying to find out more from Jack Farley and Chas Rourke. Jack’s wife said the dead guy had already killed a bunch of people. Said he was from somewhere in Eastern Europe. That’s all that she’d managed to get out of her husband.”

Laura paused for a moment, and then she sighed.

“It all changed after that,” she went on. “When you let them open the carnival again, you see? After that, folks figured it couldn’t be anything to do with the carnival itself. I mean, how could it? If they had really done something bad, the FBI would never have let them open again. And so everyone started wondering whether it was all a setup, you know?”

“A setup?” Travis asked, amazed at how out of control and random the rumors had been about the death of Andris Varga.

“Yes, a setup,” Laura said. “I mean, he was a killer after all, wasn’t he? And if he hadn’t been murdered by anyone at the carnival, then maybe he had been murdered by the authorities, and they needed to clean things up and make sure there were no loose ends. That’s why you were here. You had some kind of special instruction to make sure there were no witnesses and informants. People even got scared, you know? We started to wonder whether or not someone would suddenly have a heart attack, or maybe there would be another unexplained murder.”

Travis had never heard such a thing in all his life. He was stunned by the revelation. He could not believe that this was the townsfolk’s explanation for his presence in Seneca Falls. He started to smile, to laugh even.