Page 11 of Girl, Entangled

‘No it’s not, because it means we have a murderer in the city.’ Ripley gently touched the rope, making sure not to cause any oscillation. ‘This rope. Was it already here?’

‘No. There was a rope here, but it wasn’t real rope. It was nylon, to endure the weather. This whole thing is just a prop. But the rope around our vic’s neck is real.’

Ripley thought about that. The killer brought his own rope. ‘He replaced it. And this gallows is fully functional?’

Hibbert gestured to the lever about four feet away. ‘Simple pulley system. Pull the lever, the bolt holding the trap door in place detaches. They usually drop bags of sand through it for the punters.’

‘Another tick in the suicide column. The victim couldn’t have pulled the lever himself.’

‘Fair point.’

‘So our killer removed the prop rope, put a real rope in place, then lured a victim here and hanged him, executioner-style. That needs a lot of prep work, and a lot of luck. What’s the ETA on forensics?’

‘Within the hour.’

‘Cameras? Witnesses?’

‘Cameras are pretty hard to find this deep into the park. There are some about two miles back near the road, but that’ll catch a million people coming and going. I’ve got my guys talking to everyone who works here, and as of ten minutes ago, no one had any information, nor do they recognize the victim. The fair was supposed to go on for two more days, but that’s not going to happen.’

‘When the workers pack everything up, I want to be here to interview everyone.’

Hibbert laughed. ‘Everyone? This place has hundreds of workers. This is just the activities section, too. There are stalls, food stands, everything. This place is like a carnival.’

Ripley said nothing for a moment, because Hibbert was right. This place had tons of workers, and she imagined plenty of them worked the fair circuit, which meant they could have driven in from three states over. The second the bunting came down, they’d scatter back to wherever they’d come from. By the weekend her suspect pool could be spread across a dozen jurisdictions, and she wouldn’t even have their real names.

She needed to be smart about who she talked to and quick about it. A blanket interview of the whole faire would take a week she didn’t have and would mostly catch people who knew nothing.

And besides, Ripley didn’t know the carnival world. She didn’t know how a traveling fair was put together, who ran it and who answered to them, which trades were respectable and which were a cover, how these people moved and where they went when the season ended. Hibbert had called it a carnival, and the word had stuck in her ear.

Ripley didn’t know carnies.

But she knew someone who did.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Caller, you’re on the air. What’s your name?’

‘Ella.’

‘Ella, remember, we need the name of the artists and the songs. Are you ready to play Test Your Metal?’

‘I’m ready, Dave.’

Ella couldn’t resist calling in. DC101 ran a game where they mashed five songs together in a two-second snippet. Ella was convinced she knew all of them, unlike the previous four callers.

‘You’re our last player, so if you get it wrong, we’ll give you the answers at the end. Here’s the clip one more time.’

The two-second snippet played down the phone. Two recognizable riffs, two recognizable guitar melodies, one keyboard melody. Ella was sure she had this one in the bag.

‘If you win, it’s a thousand dollars in your bank account within the hour. Ella, what you got?’

‘Paranoid by Black Sabbath.’

‘Correct.’

‘Master of Puppets by Metallica.’

‘Two for two.’