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“BOSS.” BO STRODE INTO Monroe’s trailer where Monroe was looking over the flyers on his desk.
“We should get some more of these out into...” Monroe saw Bo’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nobody’s seen Karla or Jacinta most of the day,” Bo said. “They missed lunch and they’re not in their side show or their trailers.”
“Did you ask Xavier if he seen them?”
Bo nodded. “Also Tyrone and—”
“What about Tammy?”
Bo shook his head slowly.
“I’ll go ask,” Monroe said softly. “You go organise some men.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “Three o’clock. The gates open at five.”
Monroe took his walking stick and fumbled with his keys while Bo left. He locked the desk that had the cash box, then went outside and locked the door.
He looked for any sign that Mattie might be about. There was none. There never was when he looked.
He made his way around the big top to the side shows, then to the one he wanted. Madam Tamatea, Soothsayer. “You busy Tammy?” Monroe called from outside the tent.
“Always, Bernard. But never too busy for you. Come in.”
Monroe went inside.
Tammy was arranging incense on one of the tables. She hadn’t yet changed into her fortune-telling garb, which was a bit of a relief.
“What’s wrong?” Tammy asked.
“Karla and Jacinta are missing.”
Tammy looked at him. “You think there’s something...?”
“What’re the energies like?”
“They stink worse than this bloody cheap incense.” Tammy went to her table and picked up her cards, then shook her head and went to a trunk in the corner. “Not the stupid bloody things I use for the marks,” she muttered as she produced a yellow-stained linen pouch and took it to the table. She produced a well-worn deck of cards and sat. “You know the deal Bernard,” she said.
Bernard turned to face the entrance to the tent. “I can look at you naked, but not look at your cards.”
“There’s nothing to see here,” she said sweetly. “Not like...”
There was the sound of cards being shuffled, the sound of cards being dealt, the sound of cards being shuffled again and the sound of them being dealt again.
“Shit,” Tammy said. “You can turn around now.”
Monroe turned in time to see her place the ancient deck in their linen home. “Bad?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “But I reckon it soon will be.”
“What do you reckon about the woman in town, the one at the lunch bar?”
“There’s bad shit about her, but she’s not the one who’s—”
“I reckon she’s a Brown,” Monroe said. “I reckon she’s a Brown and I reckon Frank Jeffries is about and I reckon all this shit is happening again.”
“Frank Jeffries is dead,” Tammy said. “They hanged him more than thirty years ago.”
“Like they done to Mattie.”
Tammy sighed. “Alright. What do you want to do?”
“I want to know if the girl in the lunch bar is Bradley’s daughter or not.”
“And if she is?”
Monroe shook his head. “I’ll figure that out when I know.”
“And you want me to come with you?”
“We’ll be back in under an hour. Bo’s organising some boys to go looking in the plantation. He’ll have the Conroy boy with him who should know the paths.”
“I’ll ask Angela to keep an eye on this place while we’re gone. Mind if I tell her what I’m going with you for?”
“Why?”
“She’ll understand if it’s got to do with finding Jacinta. Jacinta’s keen on her brother, and he’s keen on her. And if I’m going with you then I’ll be back long before she needs to be ready on the trapeze. I need to be ready before the gates open.”
***
THEY WERE IN PINECONE before half past three and at the lunch bar not long after that. Cassandra and the red-haired girl from the kitchen were deep in a serious conversation at the counter when they walked in.
“Can I help you?” Cassandra asked formally.
Monroe looked at Tammy. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Cassandra shook her head.
“Two steak sandwiches to go,” Monroe said to the red-haired woman
She nodded and went to the kitchen.
Monroe took some change and gave it to Cassandra. She took it absently.
“Where’re you from?” he asked.
“Why?”
“I want to know. You said you weren’t from around here, but I think you are.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You look too much like Lesia, except you have Bradley’s green eyes. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Cassandra shook her head. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Listen, I’ve had two girls go missing today and—”
“Why would you think it’d have something to do with me?”
Tammy placed her hand on Monroe’s arm and looked at Cassandra. “He doesn’t,” she said. “At least, he doesn’t think you had anything to do with taking them. There’re things in this town that—”
“Look, my father was hanged for crimes he didn’t commit. I don’t need reminding of that. Nor do I need—”
“What happened to Lesia?” Monroe asked.
Cassandra straightened. “She hanged herself. Two years later... she couldn’t stand the...” she looked at the door. “There’re people who lost...” She closed her eyes and tears started. “It wasn’t her. It wasn’t even Daddy. I was sent out to live with other families after that. The Porterfields were the only family who cared anything for me for anything other than what chores I could do and how much the state would pay them for housing me.”
“And you came back here...” Tammy said softly, “...to the lunch bar your father built. Why?”
“Would have left some time ago if it wasn’t for Marie. Now she’s missing.”
“Marie, she’s the tan girl?” Monroe asked.
Cassandra nodded.
“The Browns and I go back a long way,” Monroe said gently. “While I’m in charge, Circus Elysium will always be ready to help, if you need something.”
“I’ve never heard of you,” Cassandra said.
“No, you’re too young, but your grandmother, she was once with the circus. So were her mother and father.”
“They were clowns with your circus?” Cassandra asked.
Monroe nodded. “Best damned clowns we ever had, so I was told.”
“That was so long ago.”
“I know,” Monroe said. “It was, but I still feel beholding.”
“Why?” Cassandra asked. “You’re not old enough to have known them.”
“Carnival folk are different,” Tammy said. “When you’re one of us, you’re family.” She looked at Monroe. “That goes down the generations for as long as one of us will remember. It’s a blessing, and a curse. It means there’s good people who’ll care about you when nobody else will. And usually, nobody else will. That’s the kind of care that changes things that can’t change any other way.”
The red-haired girl came from the kitchen with two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.
“They paid,” Cassandra said as she put the coins in the till, without counting them.