“When anyone's raped, especially a kid, the physical pain will fade with the passage of time. The torment of the spirit never completely heals. That will give a child an old soul before her time. It's horrible and a damned shame.”
Dave started to respond as my phone buzzed from where I’d set it on the table. It was Detective Dan Grant on the line. He said, “Sean, we cut the girl loose a couple of hours ago.”
“Good.”
“Maybe not so good.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m telling you this for two reasons: one is because we have a history together. You helped with a couple of cases. But then I remember why you helped. It was because, in one way or the other, you either knew the victim, or as a former detective, you’d crossed paths with the perps.”
“I told you why she came to see me at the marina.”
“Back away from this one, Sean. I’m still gathering information, but I have enough to push my suspicion meter way up. Courtney Burke is a nut case. I’ve got a report that tells me she’s been in two different mental institutions, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.”
I said nothing, watching the condensation roll down the Corona bottle.
Dan said, “The FBI will be checking into this one, no doubt.”
“Why?”
“The murder at the carnival’s on their radar because it’s apparently not isolated. Feds are reporting the deaths of two other people, all men in their mid-twenties. All carny workers who were killed in the last six months. Each victim worked at a different carnival. If the perp is Courtney Burke, the county has a serious problem on its hands.”
For a brief moment, I remembered the look on Courtney’s face when the two men in the pickup truck rolled their windows down. I saw chipped red polish on her fingernails, her cotton white knuckles, her eyes looking back at me as she was led away by the deputies. I said, “She may have issues, but I don’t believe she’s a serial killer.”
“Maybe not. But I’m betting the dried blood on her T-shirt will match the vic’s blood. And I know she claims she got it on her hands trying to help the vic. But then she fled the scene and did nothing to call help, no dialing 911. The carnival is at the county fairgrounds for a week. I’d wager I’ll have a confession from her before the week’s up.”
“And I’m betting there is another reason why you’re telling me this. You think she’s coming back to the marina, don’t you?”
“She came to you once. She might return. Female serial killers are rare, but not rare enough for me. If she contacts you, let me know everything she says. I’d hate for you to wind up with an ice pick through your heart.”
11
It was a half hour past sunset when Courtney Burke arrived back at the Bandini Brothers Amusement Carnival, the noise of the thrill rides like simulated thunder in the cool night air, the earth trembling beneath coasters and big wheels built to challenge gravity. As she weaved her way through the crowds, she was hoping the throngs of people would provide some degree of concealment walking down the midway. But the lights, screams, and roar of motors and hydraulics captured her every move in slices of bright surrealism. The air was heavy with the scent of sizzling Italian sausages, grilled onions, peppers, and funnel cakes, thick as the dust kicked up by thousands of shoes.
With suspicion following her like harsh shadows, there was no anonymity in a sea of strangers. The carnies watched her from behind the games of chance. Their eyes veiled under the sweat-stained baseball caps, eyes long ago blinded from lack of empathy and focused on near constant distrust. The hooded eyes tracked her every move as she made her way down the bright midway to the Bandini trailer.
She looked straight ahead, ignoring the stares as she thought about the events of the day — the time she spent on Sean O’Brien’s boat and the interrogation at the police station. She liked Sean. He had a calm way about him. She tried to remember the last time she trusted anyone, especially a man. Maybe she couldn’t trust him either. But something pulled at heartstrings she knew long ago had been cut and cauterized by bad people. What is it about him? Why did she feel she could trust him? What was the connection? Was there even a connection? She fought back the rise of hope in her heart, covered it with doubt and buried it beneath the frost of uncertainty. Forget him. I’m innocent. Police will have to see that.
She knew the Detective Dan Grant didn’t believe her story. She felt that the carnies weren’t the only ones watching her. Plainclothes police could be mixing in with the crowd. She glanced over her shoulder, to her left, then to her right. Who was the man in the open sports coat? Did he avert his eyes from mine? Her head hurt. She looked away, folded her arms across her breasts for a few seconds, and then walked on, moving faster, the music from the rides loud, piercing, and bouncing around inside her skull like a .22 bullet.
The reverberating layers of noise grew louder. She placed the palms of both hands over her ears, the lights of the midway like a freight train barreling down the tracks of her mind. She saw Lonnie’s eyes staring up at the full moon behind her. She looked at her hands, the blood wet and sticky between her fingers. “No!” she shouted.
Two teenage boys shooting hoops, trying to win plush animals for their girlfriends, turned and stared at Courtney. One said, “Maybe her meds wore off.” He turned around and tossed the small basketball, sinking the shot. One of the teen girls shrieked and popped a bubblegum bubble.
Courtney turned and ran, ran hard down the midway, knocking a box of popcorn from an overweight woman who stepped in front of her. “Hey! What the—?” the woman said to her thin husband. Courtney darted past the swarms of people, around the Zipper, Tilt-A-Whirl, and cut between the House of Mirrors and the Lost Mine, slipping into the shadows beyond the midway. She stopped walking behind the House of Mirrors and looked up at a cracked full-length mirror propped against a metal garbage can. She stared at her reflection in the damaged glass, her face flushed and glistening in the light. She lowered her eyes to her hands, expecting to see Lonnie’s blood on them. Nothing. Nothing but broken fingernails, and a tiny ruby in a gold setting, a ring from her grandmother on Courtney’s sixteenth birthday.
There was a sound from behind her. She looked into the mirror and saw the image of a little man, a dwarf. He was dressed in a red and purple Hawaiian-print shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. His dirty blond hair was combed straight back. His tanned faced creased with laugh lines set in the cheeks, dimples the size of dimes, and he wore a gold hoop earring in one ear.
Courtney turned around and smiled. “Hi, Isaac. You’re a sight for really sore eyes, a hurting brain, and other things.”
“Glad you’re back, kiddo. The police were looking for you.”
“They found me.”
“What happened?”
“They questioned me for hours. Tried to get me to change my story, like to say stuff that isn’t true. They truly believe I killed Lonnie. No matter what I said, they’ve got their minds made up. Lonnie was dead when I got to him, after a man knifed him. To get to Lonnie, I had to jump from the Big Wheel when it swept close to the ground, but I was too late.”
“Are you okay?”
“No … no, I’m not okay. Lonnie was lying in a pool of blood fighting for his life. I tried to pull that ice pick outta his chest, but I was too late. He just looked up at me, then looked beyond my head like he was staring at the moon and he stopped breathing. I felt like I was gonna vomit. I just ran. And I didn’t stop running until I was so far away I couldn’t see the lights from the carnival. I spent the last three hours telling the same story over and over to the police. Nobody believes me.”