The Murder Artist

The layout of the fairgrounds is complex, set up in the ma

After about forty-five minutes, I’ve covered most of the fairgrounds. Some people remember seeing the boys, but when pressed, many of these recollections are from much earlier in the day and others are so vague as to be useless. Some people seem to produce memories of the boys for my benefit. My impression is that I look so distraught they want to help. (“I think I saw a pair of twins during the falconry exhibition.”)

Then comes the P.A. a

What I want is for Gary Prebble to throw a wall around the place.

“We can’t do that,” Prebble says.

“Why not?”

“Can you imagine the panic if we try to pen all these people in? I can’t do that! Besides, the fair is enclosed, except to staff. Everybody has to go in and out through the one entrance – that’s how we make sure everybody pays on the way in, you understand? In fact, why don’t you and I go on over to the exit? Maybe the boys will head for your car.”

“I already checked.”

“Still, now the fair is closing. They will have heard the a

The two of us stand on the bridge that crosses the moat, sca

“They live here?”

“Oh, some of ’em, sure. Out back, behind the mud-wrestlin’ pit. They got Wi

I focus on the approaching crowd, my heart picking up a hopeful beat every time my eyes catch on a couple of blond kids – or even one. But each time, the hope lasts only a few seconds, fading as the fair-haired children approach, their features clarified by proximity.

Not Kevin. Not Sean.

Some fairgoers stop at the costume shop before exiting, exchanging their Elizabethan finery for blue jeans and T-shirts, tank tops and shorts. Weary parents shepherd tired children with rainbows painted on their cheeks. Toddlers scream to be picked up and carried. Two giggling teenagers in Goth makeup walk past, leading a little girl with a garland of flowers in her hair.

The crowd is noticeably thi

Five minutes later, the exodus is down to just a few stragglers. Inside the fairgrounds, cleanup crews begin to collect trash and litter, lifting off the crenelated trash can covers and extracting big clear plastic bags of junk. A gangly youth in a jester’s hat drives by in a fat-wheeled John Deere Gator and tosses the bags into its small bed. People in shops near the entrance stow wares for the night – pewter mugs, hammock chairs, candles, framed woodcuts of knights. At the costume shop, a woman totes up earnings on a calculator. Behind me, at a shop selling candles, a man slides a painted plywood panel into place over his storefront.

Prebble checks in with the security crew by walkie-talkie, but no one has seen the boys. “Well,” he says, “maybe they fell asleep somewhere. The fairground is full of nooks and cra

In the vast parking lot, hundreds of engines rumble and rev, drowning out the occasional wails of tired children. Handlers in Day-Glo orange vests, wielding orange flags, direct the streams of departing traffic.

A brown-and-beige squad car, blue and red lights flashing, threads its way through the streams of exiting cars and pulls up outside the entrance gate.

Detective Shoffler is a big guy, ruddy-faced, with dirty blond hair. He’s fifty or maybe a little older and forty pounds overweight. Despite his rumpled khakis and a blue blazer that’s seen better days, he gives the immediate impression of authority. And heavy or not, he carries himself like an athlete.

Officer Christiansen is a ski

Shoffler’s hand is big, the skin rough, and he does not release my hand immediately, covering it instead with his other one. “Mr. Callahan,” he says, and fixes me with a gaze so piercing that it feels to me as if I’m being sca

Then Shoffler releases the hand, and points an accusing finger at Prebble. “Gary, you shoulda called me sooner. Damn it, you know better.” He shakes his head in a disapproving way.

Prebble shrugs. “I figured-”

“How long these boys been missing? More than two hours now?” Shoffler heaves a sigh. “All right. What you got in the way of a crew today?”

“Me plus four,” Prebble says, and then, when it seems clear Shoffler is waiting for more, lists them by name. “Apart from Jack here” – he nods toward the pale man seated at the desk – “there’s Gomez, Arrington, and, oh yeah, Abigail Dixon.”

Shoffler makes a face. “Get ’em down here.”

Prebble nods, then lifts the phone away from his ear as if he’s going to say something, but Shoffler stops him, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “I’m go

CHAPTER 4

You’d think this burst of purposeful activity would make me feel better, but instead I’m paralyzed by fear. If I wasn’t quite buying Gary Prebble’s schmoozy air of reassurance, Shoffler’s serious and industrious ma

The fear must show on my face because Shoffler reaches out and grips my upper arm with one of his big hands. “Kids hide,” he says, and now he is reassuring. “That’s the thing. They get lost, they get scared, and usually, what they do is they hide. They might even think you’re go

“Right,” I say. “I understand.”

He frowns. “You look familiar. You a lawyer or something?”