Free Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers)) by Tom Lowe

I’ll look at Judy’s tickets.” Kim licked her thumb and leafed through a few dozen receipts. “Looks like this is it. Three platters of wings and four pitchers of beer, table fourteen. Paid half with a credit card, the other half in cash.”
    “What’s the guy’s name on the card?”
    “Randal Barnes.”
    Nick returned. He handed the phone to me. “He wants to speak to you.”
    Detective Grant said, “Sean, I’m heading back to the fair. If you hear from Ms. Burke, let me know. Three killings at three fairs, that spells serial.”
    “Can you place her at each of the carnivals?”
    “Don’t know yet. Shouldn’t be hard to find out.”
    “Dan, I have a name for one of the carnies who Nick overheard. The name on the charge receipt is Randal Barnes.”
    “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’d find that quickly? Maybe you still have cop in your DNA, or maybe you just give a damn more than most do.”
    “Good luck, Dan.” I disconnected.
    Nick said, “Detective Grant didn’t sound too promising to me. Said he’d question the dudes if he could find them.”
    “Well, now he has a name,” Dave said.
    Kim leaned her elbows on the bar, the lights from a car in the lot sweeping across her face. She said, “I just met the girl briefly when she stopped in here asking directions to your boat, but I got the feeling that Courtney isn’t what she appears.”
    “What do you mean?” Dave asked, sipping a vodka over ice.
    “I can’t put my finger on it. Working a bar, you develop a pretty good feel for people. I call it the bullshit meter. She seemed real, but somehow cloaked in … I don’t know exactly … she has a mysterious presence about her. Like she’s out of sync with people around here, and so saddened by something.”
    “Murder can have that influence on people,” Nick said.
    Dave nodded. “The carnival is at the county fairgrounds through Sunday. Maybe Grant will find one or both of them before the carnival pulls out.”
    Kim sighed. “I wonder where the girl is right now.”
    “Probably returned to the carnival,” I said.
    Nick shook his head and reached for the Corona. “Why the hell would she go back there? Back to a place where evil rides the merry-go-round.”
    I remembered the look in the girl’s eye as the police officers escorted her away. “She returned because she didn’t kill that guy, but she might know who did … she’s just not certain of that yet. Nick, when was the last time you were at a carnival?”
    “Been years, man. Why?”
    “Let’s see what Detective Dan Grant and his colleagues can find. They have Randal Barnes’ name. That’s a good start.”
    “What if they go on and arrest the girl for murder?”
    “If that happens, we can take in a night at the carnival and play a few games of chance.”
    Nick sipped his beer and said, “Oh boy. I wonder if any shrimpers are here tonight.”
    “Why?” Dave asked.
    “Because, as my man Forrest Bubba Gump said—shit’s about to happen.”
    Dave said, “I don’t recall that exact line.”
    “Close enough,” Nick said, draining the last of his beer and looking straight at me.

13
    The Bandini Brother’s Amusement office was in a million dollar, custom-made bus. It was parked less than one hundred yards from the midway, in a gravel lot, generators purring, the smell of diesel fumes acrid in the night air. Light spilled from all of the windows, venetian blinds pulled down behind the glass.
    Courtney stood at the door marked Office , took a deep breath and knocked on the burnished aluminum. She could hear someone moving inside, a monotone conversation, and then the door opened wide. A man who went by the name of Johnny Johnson, someone Courtney had only seen a few times, stood in the light. He was more than six and a half feet tall, hair in a ponytail, heavy forehead, and flat nose with a faded pink scar across the bridge, shoulders and chest like a hammered armor under a black T-shirt. He wore a gold chain around