Through the Looking Glass (10 page)

Lamont had joined three years ago while Wonderland had been in Texas; specifically, some miles outside Dallas.

Farley had joined four years ago when the carnival passed through Little Rock, Arkansas.

After staring at her notes for a moment, Maggie folded up the page and tucked it into her pocket. Now came the hard part. Somehow, she had to find out what currently unsolved robberies had been committed in the right areas during those two periods.

Great.

There were a number of problems.
Access to information, for one.
Uncle Cyrus could find out what she needed to know, and he was probably the only one who could—if she could get word to him, that is. Gideon was, as he'd been from the beginning, another of the problems. She couldn't hold him off much longer when it wasn't what she wanted to do, and she had the unnerving feeling that it would be pretty much impossible to hide anything from him once he was in her bed.

They were sitting on a powder keg here. There was a killer among them, everyone was unusually tense and secretive, and Jasper had come up missing.

Jasper... where did he fit in? Maggie wondered. Another victim who had accidently found something he shouldn't have? He'd been with Wonderland for more than twenty years. Did that mean anything? She had checked his wagon earlier, discovering that all his belongings were accounted for; there was no indication that he'd decided to leave on his own. And though he'd often wandered off, he'd been gone too long this time.

Far too long.

"Are you still here?" Tina came into her wagon, looking faintly surprised.
"A problem with the books?"

"No, I was just... thinking. Where's Gideon?"

"Looking for you.
Having a hard time too.
Everyone keeps asking him how we should portion out shares, and he's obviously not about to offer an opinion."

"Smart man.
Any sign of Jasper yet?"

"Nothing.
Tom and Farley combed the woods a little while ago, but they didn't find anything. It's getting late too. Malcolm has the tea party going."

"You aren't playing?"

"Not today. You'd better go rescue that man of yours. He was looking tense when I last saw him."

Taking that advice to heart, Maggie left Tina's wagon and went in search of Gideon. She found him leaning against a wagon wheel as he watched the ritual poker game from a distance of several yards, his expression far less bemused today than it had been yesterday.

"Didn't they invite you to play?" Maggie asked him.

"Yes. Maggie, where have you been?"

"Making sure we had all the paperwork your lawyers will need for the transfer of ownership."

"This place has paperwork?" he asked incredulously.

"You'd be surprised," she murmured.

"I am. I'm also trying to think of a way to get even with you for leaving me in the hands of that... that demon seed."

"Sean?" Maggie smiled up at him. "He couldn't have been all that bad."

"Ill
admit
I'm not used to children. But Sean is not a child.
A midget, maybe.
Do you realize he hears and sees everything? I mean everything. He started telling me things I really didn't want to know."

"For instance?"

"Tina colors her hair. Oswald is trying to teach his parrot to say some... impolite things. Farley wears blue shorts under his kilt—which answers that age-old question. And somebody named Merlin found a bear pond. What on earth is a bear pond, and who the hell is Merlin?"

"A bear pond?
Beats me.
And Merlin was before my time. Gideon, I should go into town so I can call my mother; I promised her I'd keep in touch. Do you want to get away for a while? Have dinner or something?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Maggie smiled.
"All right.
I'll change and meet you by your car in a few minutes."

She left word with Tina and then changed into a silky skirt and print blouse. Within half an hour she and Gideon were on their way into town. Conversation was casual, with Maggie setting the tone by asking him about his work and his usual lifestyle. He answered her questions as lightly as they were asked, feeling a definite relief to be away from the carnival.

When they reached the small town, Gideon rather dryly suggested the only restaurant that wasn't part of a fast-food chain; it had a lounge that served drinks and provided piano music, and the food was supposed to be the best in town.

"I guess that means more variety than burgers and fries?" Maggie said with a laugh.

"Probably.
Are you game?"

"Sure. Look, there's a phone out front. Why don't you go in and get us a table while I make my call?"

"All right.
But don't let some stranger steal you away."

"I'm not in the mood to be stolen."

"I hope you're in the mood to dance."

Maggie waited until they got out of the car to answer,
then
said, "I love dancing. Meet you inside."

She went to the pay phone on the corner, just down the street from the building. She glanced over her shoulder to see that Gideon had gone inside. Before she could even lift the receiver, a somewhat imposing and very familiar figure came around the corner of the building and smiled at her.

"Uncle Cyrus! What are you doing here?"

The moment he was inside the restaurant, Gideon knew that they'd have no trouble getting a table; the place was only about half full. Still he reserved a table for seven o'clock and said they'd be in the lounge until then. He returned to the door to wait for Maggie, looking out through the glass panes more to reassure himself that she was still there than out of curiosity about her call.

She wasn't alone.

The man standing before her, head bent as he listened to her talk, looked like a king-size version of a Kentucky colonel. He was a big man, dressed all in white and leaning slightly on a gold-headed cane. From where Gideon stood, the man looked very old; he had thick white hair and a full white beard. But there was something about him that spoke of a great deal of physical strength no matter how many years he had put behind him.

Gideon watched as Maggie talked earnestly, then saw her pull a folded piece of paper from her skirt pocket and hand it to the man. The paper was unfolded and studied, and then the man said something to her that brought a smile to her face.

Gideon retreated from the door, feeling curiously unsettled. What the hell was going on here?

It looked good-natured, she thought,

still
, it had very long claws

and
a great many teeth,

so
she felt it ought to be

treated
with respect.

Gideon said nothing about what he'd seen.
At first.
When Maggie came inside the restaurant, her eyes were as guileless as a child's. They went into the dimly lighted lounge where a bored-looking young man in a dinner jacket was playing the piano. There were only about a dozen people, couples mostly, and everyone was talking in hushed tones.

They found a small table tucked away in a corner, and when the waitress came, Gideon ordered brandy; he thought he might need it. Maggie ordered plain tomato juice.

"I get strange when I drink," she explained.

Gideon waited until the waitress had left, then said, "You get strange when you drink?"

"All right, then—I get even stranger. What's wrong, Gideon?"

As usual in her company, he found it all too unnervingly easy to say exactly what was on his mind. "You tell me. What's going on?"

Her candid green eyes studied him for a moment, and also as usual, she surprised him.

"Oh. You saw Uncle Cyrus with me outside."

The contrary thought popped into Gideon's head that it would have been nice if she'd prevaricated at least a little this time. He could have gotten mad and maybe vented some of his tension. Despite his earlier words to her, his vaunted patience was hanging by a thread; he wanted to understand her now, dammit, and it was driving him crazy to believe she was deliberately hiding something from him.

"I saw you with someone," he said finally.

"That was my uncle Cyrus. He's interesting looking, isn't he?"

Gideon didn't offer an opinion. "Since you haven't mentioned relatives living around here, I can't help but wonder what he was doing here."

"I asked him that. He and Aunt Julia—she's here, too, he said—moved to Oregon a while back, so I thought they'd be there. But they travel a lot."

"So what are they doing here?"

"He didn't say."

Gideon stared at her. "I thought you said you asked him?"

"Oh, I did. But he didn't answer. He's like that, I'm afraid. He's got the ears of a bat even though he's older than rocks, but he only answers the questions he wants to."

"Older than rocks?"
Gideon ventured.

"Just an expression.
But he is old. Very old, I think. I traced the family tree back as far as the turn of the century—and he wasn't on it yet."

"You're sure he's your uncle?"

"Well, no. That is, I'm sure we're related, I'm just not exactly clear how. Everybody else in the family is younger than he and Aunt Julia, I think, and we all call them aunt and uncle. However we're related, they are the heads of my family, we all agree with that."

Their drinks arrived, and Gideon took a healthy swallow of his. Fortified, he said carefully, "Is there any reason why you didn't introduce me to him?"

"You weren't out there."

"Maggie, why do I have the feeling you really would like it if I changed the subject?"

"Because you're perceptive?"

It was difficult for Gideon to get angry in the face of her hopeful air; in fact, he wanted to laugh. But various kinds of frustration could erode even the kindest of tempers—and his was hardly that. "I'm also stubborn," he told her. "It'll save time if you tell me what's going on."

"I don't think I want to do that. Have you noticed that we talk about time just the way we talk about money? We save time and spend it—save money and spend it."

"Are you making a point of some kind?"

"Not really, I guess. It was only a passing thought."

Gideon finished his drink. He wished that he'd ordered a double. "You obviously aren't willing to tell me what's going on. All right," he said. "Let's see if I can work it out on my own." He frowned at her for a moment,
then
shook his head. "Dammit, I can't. Give me a clue."

"I think the butler did it."

"Maggie."

She sipped her drink, watching him speculatively. "What makes you think something's going on?"

"Tension among the carnies that you could cut with a knife.
A missing carny—and I checked Jasper's wagon, Maggie. All his things are there, and why did he leave them if he were going away for good?
The fact that you're clearly hiding something from me.
And an itch at the back of my neck that tells me I'm being watched every moment I'm at the encampment."

Her eyes widened slightly,
then
turned thoughtful. "Being watched? You should be used to that by now, I'd think; they all watch you."

"I don't mean it that way. I mean there's someone watching me on the sly—someone who's taking a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure he doesn't get caught at it."

"Even today after we made the announcement?"

"Yes."

Maggie didn't like that. She didn't like that at all. Her innocent expression began to change. If Gideon was right—and he didn't strike her as paranoid—then her quarry considered him a threat apart from his ownership of the carnival.
But why?
She couldn't come up with a single answer to that question. But there was one answer she was sure of. If Gideon was a threat, he'd have to know about it so that he would be on guard.

"Maggie?" The chameleon had changed colors again, he realized. Her eyes were direct and clear, her features almost imperceptibly sharper. This face matched the mind he had suspected lurked underneath all the layers: quick, intelligent, serious, and quite rational.

She braced herself mentally and kept her voice quiet when she began to talk. "I wasn't going to tell you because I think I know how you'll react. But it looks as though you need to be aware of some things."

"What things?"

"A few weeks ago a member of the carnival, missing for a while, was found dead... at the bottom of an old, abandoned well. The police decided his death was accidental, that he'd fallen in, maybe in the dark. They were satisfied with their conclusion."

"But you weren't?" Gideon was watching her intently.

"I wasn't with the carnival then. But the man who was killed was a cousin of mine.
Merlin."

"Sean's Merlin?"

Something shifted in the back of Maggie's mind, gone too quickly for her to grasp it. But it would come clear sooner or later, she thought. She hoped. "Yes," she said. "My aunt Julia decided he'd been murdered."

"She's his mother?"

"No. Or at least, I don't think so. She's never said she was."

Gideon blinked.
"Another vague connection?"

"I suppose."

He drew a deep breath. "But she decided he'd been murdered. She was with the carnival?"

"No, she was in Oregon." The expression on her face and in her voice was still serious, in comparison to which the words were lunatic. Gideon sent a glance down at his empty glass, wishing again that he'd ordered a double. He took a moment to try to find a logical thread. He failed. "Why did she decide he'd been murdered? I mean, what led her to believe that his death wasn't accidental?"

A faint glint of sympathy shone in Maggie's eyes. "It sounds absurd, I know. All I can tell you is that my aunt Julia's pronouncements are rarely—and I do mean rarely—wrong. If my aunt Julia told me the sun rose in the west, I'd believe her until I found evidence to the contrary."