Joyland

left hand. And there was no tattoo on it.
    Erin said, “You see it, don’t you?”
    “There’s nothing to see.”
    “That’s the point, Dev. That’s exactly the point.”
    “Are you saying that it was two different guys? That one with a cross on his hand killed Claudine Sharp and another one—a guy with a bird on his hand—killed Linda Gray? That doesn’t seem very likely.”
    “I couldn’t agree more.”
    “Then what are you saying?”
    “I thought I saw something in one of the photos, but I wasn’t sure, so I took the print and the negative to a grad student named Phil Hendron. He’s a darkroom genius, practically lives in the Bard Photography Department. You know those clunky Speed Graphics we carried?”
    “Sure.”
    “They were mostly for effect—cute girls toting old-fashioned cameras—but Phil says they’re actually pretty terrific. You can do a lot with the negs. For example . . .”
    She handed me a blow-up of the Whirly Cups pic. The Hollywood Girl’s target had been a young couple with a toddler between them, but in this enlarged version they were hardly there. Now Linda Gray and her murderous date were at the center of the image.
    “Look at his hand, Dev. Look at the tattoo!”
    I did, frowning. “It’s a little hard to see,” I complained. “The hand’s blurrier than the rest.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    This time I held the photo close to my eyes. “It’s . . . Jesus, Erin. Is it the ink? Is it running? Just a little?”
    She gave me a triumphant smile. “July of 1969. A hot night in Dixie. Almost everybody was sweating buckets. If you don’t believe me, look at some of the other pictures and note the perspiration rings. Plus, he had something else to be sweaty about, didn’t he? He had murder on his mind. An audacious one, at that.”
    I said, “Oh, shit. Pirate Pete’s.”
    She pointed a forefinger at me. “Bingo.”
    Pirate Pete’s was the souvenir shop outside the Splash & Crash, proudly flying a Jolly Roger from its roof. Inside you could get the usual stuff—tee-shirts, coffee mugs, beach towels, even a pair of swim-trunks if your kid forgot his, everything imprinted with the Joyland logo. There was also a counter where you could get a wide assortment of fake tattoos. They came on decals. If you didn’t feel capable of applying it yourself, Pirate Pete (or one of his greenie minions) would do it for a small surcharge.
    Erin was nodding. “I doubt he got it there—that would have been dumb, and this guy isn’t dumb—but I’m sure it’s not a real tattoo, any more than the Coptic cross the girl saw in that Rocky Mount movie theater was a real tattoo.” She leaned forward and gripped my arm. “You know what I think? I think he does it because it draws attention. People notice the tattoo and everything else just . . .” She tapped the indistinct shapes that had been the actual subject of this photo before her friend at Bard blew it up.
    I said, “Everything else about him fades into the background.”
    “Yup. Later he just washes it off.”
    “Do the cops know?”
    “I have no idea. You could tell them—not me, I’m going back to school—but I’m not sure they’d care at this late date.”
    I shuffled through the photos again. I had no doubt that Erin had actually discovered something, although I did doubt it would, by itself, be responsible for the capture of the Funhouse Killer. But there was something else about the photos. Something. You know how sometimes a word gets stuck on the tip of your tongue and just won’t come off? It was like that.
    “Have there been any murders like these five—or these four, if we leave out Eva Longbottom—since Linda Gray? Did you check?”
    “I tried,” she said. “The short answer is I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure. I’ve read about fifty murders of young girls and women—fifty at least—and haven’t found any that fit the parameters.” She ticked them off. “Always in summer. Always as a result of a dating situation with an unknown older man. Always the cut throat. And always with some sort of carny connec—”
    “Hello, kids.”
    We looked up, startled. It was Fred Dean. Today he was wearing a golfing shirt, bright red baggies, and a long-billed cap with HEAVEN’S BAY COUNTRY CLUB stitched in gold thread above the brim. I was a lot more used to seeing him in a suit, where informality consisted of pulling down his tie and popping the top button of his Van Heusen shirt.