“Suppose his wife knows?”

“If she did, he wouldn’t have had a storage locker since they married. He probably stopped by it and took out a few things or deposited new stuff whenever he was on his way in or out of town. The rooms look like your standard Holiday Inn.”

I gathered up all the pictures and my collage and dumped them in the garbage pail.

“Hey!” said Dwight.

“Why not?” I asked. “What would be the point of letting Brad know we know? Of telling Janice? Or anybody, for that matter? There’s nobody else in these pictures. Who’s he hurt?”

I thought how terrified he must have been, but how brave, too, to come out to the carnival and strike up a conversation with Braz just to see if Braz would recognize him. I wished there were some way to let him know the pictures had been destroyed and his secret was safe, but I didn’t see how that could be managed without alerting him that someone had connected him to the pictures after all.

As if I’d spoken all this, Dwight said, “Yeah, you’re right. Dump ‘em.”

I smiled at him. “Where’s my ring?”

He fished the old-fashioned circle of gold from his pocket and slid it on my finger. The square-cut diamond flashed and sparkled in the kitchen lights.

“Want to stay over tonight?” I asked.

(Ping!)‘

CHAPTER 20

MID-OCTOBER

The carnival left town in the small hours of Sunday morning to make the jump to Kinston for four days the following week before working their way back to Florida for the winter.

I got to see Tally a couple of times more before they left. The day after Skee Matusik’s arrest, she was numb with disbelief. “He killed Irene? And Braz knew? But he loved Irene. How could he keep quiet about something like that?”

She and Val were still wary with the rest of our family when they left. Too soon to tell whether they’ll actually move to the Hatcher place and become more familiar to us. She says that’s what she wants, but I’ve heard the ambivalence in her voice. There are reasons she’s with the carnival that have nothing to do with Carol or Andrew. I’ve listened to her talk about great dates they’ve played, the crowds, the excitement, the fun of keeping someone peeling off the dollar bills like that first evening when she had Reese going.

Arn? I think he could sublimate with his lockers and eBay, but I remember my own brief years of wandering in the wilderness, free as a leaf torn from the tethering tree and blown by a capricious wind, and I have a feeling Tally will always want to load up the trailers every spring with plush and slum and hit the road for Anywhere, USA.

We’ll see.