"You bet."

"We'll get there fast anyway."

"There you go. Dwayne, give me a hand here. Delia, you take the kids on down to Sweetwater. Caroline." Tucker looked around as she stood and walked away. "Where are you going?"

She didn't look back. "To get a hose and put out this obscenity."

Chapter Twenty-Six

Screams shimmied on the hot air. High pitched howls echoed, chased by shrieks of wild laughter. Colored lights flashed and blinked and whirled, turning the fallow Eustis Field into a fantasy of motion.

The carnival had come to Innocence.

People readily dug out their spare change to be caught by the Octopus, whirled by the Zipper, and scrambled by the Round-Up.

Kids went racing by, their shouts and squeals rising above the piping calliope music, their fingers sticky with cotton candy, their cheeks puffed out with corn dogs or stuffed with fried dough. Teenagers scrambled to impress one another by knocking down bottles, ringing bells, or-in the words of one daredevil-riding the Scrambler till they puked.

Many of the older set settled for bingo at a quarter a card. Others touched by gambling fever lost their paychecks trying to outsmart the Wheel of Fortune.

To anyone traveling over Old Longstreet Bridge, it would look like an ordinary summer carnival on the outskirts of an ordinary small, southern town. The lights and the echo of that calliope might bring a tug of nostalgia to the travelers as they passed by.

But for Caroline, the magic wasn't working.

"I don't know why I let you talk me into coming here.

Tucker swung his arm over her shoulders. "Because you can't resist my fatal southern charm."

She stopped to watch hopefuls pitching coins at glassware that could be had at any respectable yard sale for half the price. "It doesn't seem right, with everything that's happened."

"I don't see what a night at a carnival's going to change. Unless it's to make you smile a little."

"Darleen's going to be buried on Tuesday."

"She's going to be buried Tuesday whether you're here tonight or not."

"Everything that happened last night-"

"Has been taken care of," he finished. "Billy T. and his asshole friends are in jail. Doc says Toby and Winnie are doing just fine. And look here." He pointed to where Cy and Jim were squished together in a cup of the Scrambler, eyes wide, mouths open in laughing howls as they were spun in mad circles. "Those two are smart enough to grab a little fun when it's offered."

Tucker pressed a kiss to her hair and continued to walk. "You know why we call this Eustis Field?"

"No." A smile ghosted around her lips. "But I'm sure you're about to tell me."

"Well, Cousin Eustis-actually, he'd have been an uncle, but there're so many greats in there it gets confusing-he wasn't what you'd call a tolerant man. He ran Sweetwater from 1842 until 1856, and it prospered. Not just the cotton. He had six children-legitimately-and about a dozen more on the other side of the sheets. Word was he liked to try out the female slaves when they came of age. That age being about thirteen, fourteen."

"That's despicable. You named a field for him?"

"I'm not finished." He paused to light half a cigarette. "Now, Eustis, he wasn't what you'd call an admirable man. It didn't bother him at all to sell off his own children-the dark-skinned ones. His wife was a papist, a devoted one, who used to beg him to repent his sins and save his soul from a fiery hell. But Eustis just kept doing what came naturally to him."

"Naturally?"

"To him," Tucker said. Behind him, a bell clanged as some hotshot proved his strength and impressed his girl into rapturous squeals. "One day a young female slave took off. She had the baby Eustis had fathered with her. Eustis didn't tolerate runaways. No indeed. He set out the men and the dogs, and rode out himself to hunt her down. He was riding across this field when he shouted out that he'd spotted her. She wouldn't have had much of a chance with him on horseback and a whip in his hand. Then his horse reared. Nobody knows why-might've been spooked by a snake or rabbit. Or maybe it was that fiery hell reaching out to grab old Eustis. But he broke his neck." Tucker took a last drag on his cigarette, then flung it away. "Right about there, where that Ferris wheel's standing. Seems fitting somehow, don't you think? That all these people, black and white-maybe some with a dribble or two of Eustis Longstreet's blood-should be kicking up their heels on this field where he met his Maker."

She leaned her head against his shoulder. "What happened to the girl, and her baby?"

"Funny thing about that. Nobody else saw them. Not that day or any day after."

She took a deep breath of candy-scented air. "I'd like a ride on the Ferris wheel."

"Wouldn't mind it myself. Afterward, how'd you like me to win you one of those black velvet paintings of Elvis?"

Laughing, she hooked an arm around his waist. "Words fail me."

"Don't you want to play some bingo, Cousin Lulu?" Ever hopeful, Dwayne pressed a hand to his jittery stomach.

"What the hell do I want to sit around putting beans on a card for?" Lulu stomped up to the ticket booth to buy another roll. "We only been on the Round-Up once, and missed the Scrambler altogether. That Crack the Whip's worth another go or two." She stuffed the tickets in the pocket of her army surplus slacks. "You're looking a might green, boy. Indigestion?"

He swallowed gamely. "You could call it that."

"Shouldn't have eaten all that fried dough before we took a spin. Best thing to do is bring it up, empty your stomach." She grinned. "A round on the Scrambler'll take care of that."

Which was exactly what he feared. "Cousin Lulu, why don't we take a turn down the midway, win some prizes?"

"Sucker's games."

"Who's a sucker?" Josie strolled up, carrying a huge purple elephant. "I shot twelve ducks, ten rabbits, four moose, and a snarling grizzly bear to win this grand prize."

"Don't know what a grown woman's going to do with a stuffed elephant," Lulu grumbled, but she took a shine to the rhinestone collar around the purple pachyderm's neck.

"It's a souvenir," she said, and shoved it into Teddy Rubenstein's arms so she could light a cigarette. "What's the matter, Dwayne? You're looking a little sickly."

"Weak stomach," Lulu announced, and poked a finger into Dwayne's midsection. "Corn dogs and fried dough. Boy's got all that grease floating around inside." She narrowed her eyes at Teddy. "I know you. You're that Yankee doctor who makes a living cutting dead people up. Do you keep the innards in bottles?"

With a strangled sound Dwayne shambled away, one hand clamped over his mouth.

"Best thing for him," Lulu declared.

"I guess I'd better go hold his head." With a sigh Josie turned back to Teddy. "Honey, why don't you take Cousin Lulu for a ride? I'll catch up."

"It would be my pleasure." Teddy held out his arm. "What's your poison, Cousin Lulu?"

Pleased, she hooked her arm through his. "I had my mind set on the Scrambler."

"Allow me to escort you."

"What's your given name, boy?" she asked as they wound through the crowd. "I may as well call you by it, as you're sleeping with my kin."

He gave a throat-clearing cough. "It's Theodore, ma'am. My friends call me Teddy."

"All right, Teddy. We'll take us a walk on the wild side here, and you can tell me all you know about these murders." Graciously, she handed him the tickets to pay their way through the gate.

"That Miss Lulu." Slurping on a Snow-Kone, Jim nodded in respect. "She sure is something."

Cy wiped purple juice from his mouth and watched as Lulu sat regally in the jerking, spinning car of the Scrambler. "I seen her standing on her head in her room."