The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (ebook reader with internet browser TXT) 📗

In its heyday after the war, the town had been the home of the Zoltan’s Spicy Brown Mustard plant and before that, of the famous (or infamous, depending upon the story) circus, Le Cirque Margot. In the past year, a noticeable shift had happened here. A famous DC chef had opened up a restaurant that had earned a Michelin star. People who once worked shifts at the old mustard plant were now running bed-and-breakfasts in sprawling Victorians, complete with picket fences and porch swings.

The downtown itself was laid out like a movie set from the 1940s—awnings, sandblasted brick buildings, a state theater, big stone churches at the corners, and Victorian homes all restored with a meticulous devotion. The Orpheum Theatre still showed It’s a Wonderful Life the Saturday before Christmas to a packed house. There was a strange, unnatural perfection to Kerrigan Falls.

Ben had his own Victorian that he still owned, although he didn’t live in it. According to their divorce agreement, Marla was supposed to buy his half out, yet she’d shown little interest in selling. So he’d taken to stopping at houses with FOR SALE signs in front of them and determining whether the photos of the selling agents looked hungry enough. Any agent they hired would need to navigate between his eagerness and Marla’s reluctance to sell. He glanced down at the passenger’s seat where he’d listed a bunch of real estate agent numbers along with a little cartoon drawing of his own house, shading in the ornate trellis and crepe myrtle tree that adorned the front.

Honestly, the town was too perfect. Nothing—not a shooting or a robbery or even a petty theft—had happened here. Ben Archer was almost the laughingstock of every police gathering or convention in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Washington Post had written an article about the “Kerrigan Falls Phenomenon” last year in the Style Section. (The Style Section?) If you searched back in the archives—as Ben had many times—the last murder within city limits had been in 1935. The surrounding counties had their share of murders, murder-suicides, and pileups on the highway, but those accidents never crossed the county line, almost so as not to offend Kerrigan County. But there had been that one case.

That one case was very much on Ben Archer’s mind this morning,

Just past the bridge, his car approached the sharp turn in the road that was Wickelow Bend. Beyond the bend began the tree line leading to a strange patch of land aptly named Wickelow Forest. At night, especially in the summer, Ben knew it was hard to see the moon, so thick was the canopy of tall trees. Even now the bright-yellow and red leaves were still lush.

He pulled in behind Doyle’s patrol car. As he stepped out of the car, his foot sank deep into a chocolate-colored mud puddle. “Shit!”

Doyle Huggins pointed at the ground. “I should have told you not to park there.” His deputy was leaning against his cruiser. Six-foot-two and rangy with bulging eyes, Doyle Huggins was a man no one would have ever called handsome. He motioned to the car. “The gas company crew found it this morning.”

And there it sat. Todd Sutton’s white Mustang with the navy-blue center stripes rested cocked half on and half off the road. He’d been looking for this car until two this morning, when he’d finally given up and fallen into bed. God, he dreaded having to call Lara Barnes to tell her this news. There had been whispers that Todd had fled his wedding in this car yesterday; to find it here, abandoned, seemed to change things.

“Damned gas company nearly smashed into it. Sutton’s registration is the glove compartment.” Doyle was writing something like he was actually attempting to take notes.

“And Sutton?” Ben angled to get a look at what Doyle was scribbling, convinced it had to be a grocery list.

Doyle shook his head. “No sign of him.”

“Call the hospitals,” said Ben. “See if he’s shown up there. I’ll call his parents.”

“Someone needs to tell Lara Barnes.”

“I’ll do that,” Ben snapped.

“I figured.” Doyle spit on the ground. “It’s a nice car.” Doyle was wheezing slightly. His shoes squeaked as he walked over and stood beside him. “The gas company driver says it’s a 1977. He knows stuff like that.”

“It’s a ’76, Doyle,” said Ben. “Ford Mustang Cobra Two. Same car driven by Jill Munroe on Charlie’s Angels.”

“A fucking chick car?” Doyle inspected the body of the vehicle with a scowl.

“It’s a classic, Doyle.” It was as though his deputy was trying to get under his skin this morning. He looked out at the white forest of Wickelow Bend. It was quiet, eerie even, like the forest was holding its breath, waiting for him to leave so it could find peace again. “Have you searched those woods for a body?”

“A little,” said Doyle. “We need to do a more thorough search, though. We’ll probably need some volunteers.”

“Okay. I’ll call the state police and see if we can get some sent over, but try to assemble a team to start looking now.” Ben looked up at the span of the Shumholdt Bridge unfolding behind them.

Wickelow Bend was one of those magic places on the earth. Even standing there in the eighth-of-a-mile bend in the road, Ben could feel its tug. For this very reason, lots of people wouldn’t drive it, choosing the interstate that took them six miles out of their way to avoid this one little patch of road. During the end of World War II, Wickelow Bend had been the entrance to Le Cirque Margot’s office, but when the circus closed in the early 1970s the old road had grown over, the woods erasing all traces. From his father he knew that lots of God-fearing folks in the area had hated the circus at the time, preaching against it to their congregations.

Now, in the fall, the forest played host to drunken dares. Kids taunted each other to see if they could spend just one night