Mother May I(40)

He knew Trey pretty well. Not just from work. Back when Betsy was alive, their families got together a few times a year. In summer especially. Trey would grill shrimp and steak and veggie skewers in the outdoor kitchen. Cara and Anna-Claire had played well together then, like same-age cousins who only met on holidays. Peyton, a year younger, tagged behind, and Trey would intervene nine times a night to make the older girls include her. Back then the yard had a swing set and a slide and a sandbox, nicer than the equipment at the park near his house. The sandbox even had a lid.

“I keep it shut unless they’re using it. Religiously. Otherwise the girls would pretty much be romping in a giant litter box,” Trey’d told him once, laughing.

When Marshall remembered those nights, it was usually in terms of Bets and Bree, drinking too much wine and talking like they hadn’t seen each other in a year. The reality was, they’d probably been on the phone for half an hour earlier that very day. Still, they were seldom face-to-face, so those nights revolved around them.

Trey and Marshall were the cooks, the child minders, and the servers. They chatted about college football and grilling, the only places where their interests intersected. It had impressed him to see a big-time Buckhead lawyer type hosting and cooking and keeping the sandbox cat-shit-free so his wife could enjoy a rare night with her best friend.

Maybe that was a sad statement about men, that this could impress him. But it did. It had. He’d come away thinking that Trey was decent, in the best sense of the word, and crazy about his family.

Marshall ran a hand over his face. He felt scratchy and dirty and guilty and angry all at once.

He turned back to the computer and searched for “Funtime Carousel and Gold Mine.” He clicked the Google Maps link first and found it northeast of the city. They could get there from Decatur in ninety minutes. It was tucked away in some hilly wilderness off an old country road leading up into the Blue Ridge Mountains.

He left that page open and went back to follow a link to a photo-heavy article called “Creepiest Dead Theme Parks in America.” BuzzFeed blamed a new highway that was built in the eighties for Funtime’s demise. It had never been enough of an attraction to be a destination. It was the kind of place families stopped by on the way to something better.

He began scrolling down through the pictures, reading, adding a few more notes as he went. Funtime had been owned by Larry and Mariah Denton. Perhaps it still was. There was a picture of them standing with their arms around each other by a cotton-candy booth.

Mariah Denton was not their perp. Wrong shape of face, wrong coloring. Still, he added Funtime and the Dentons to his notes, then sent a new email to Gabrielle, copying Bree, asking her to research them. They could be connected. People doing serious crimes often went back to their old places and friends. Crime was stressful, and familiarity was comfort. It was one way they got caught.

The next picture showed a terrifying, mossy cowboy figure standing by an equally scabby-looking blue pack mule. Both figures were coated in fine black fungus, and the skin of the cowboy’s face was peeling away. It made him look leprous, or possibly undead. The caption said his name was Funtime Jack. The mule was Baby. That sounded familiar. Maybe Marshall had been there as a kid? But no, he realized, he was thinking of Paul Bunyan and Babe, his big blue ox. Probably the Funtime owners had done it on purpose. Animal-sidekick plagiarism.

In the den Bree was talking now. Too quietly for him to make out the words, but he knew how hard it must have been to even start this conversation with Trey. Good for her.

Last was a shot of the carousel. It had still been standing when BuzzFeed’s photographer visited, though most of the animals were missing. There was a dragon and a griffin and an Aslan-type lion listing sadly on their poles. A few of those benches for parents to ride remained, too, covered in carved unicorns. Fantasy animals, not a match for the cowboy. Funtime must have picked their things up piecemeal from other failed fairs.

Bree’s voice rose in distress. He heard her say, “I’m so sorry. . . .”

A molten rage filled him, preemptive and immediate. Trey was blaming her! He was across the room at the door before he could blink. She was already clinging to a cliff side. Marshall wanted to rip the phone out of her hands and tell Trey, This is on you. What the hell did you get up to with Spencer?

But the next thing he heard was Bree saying, “Thanks, Mom, but really, this is the best way for you to help. I feel better, I swear, but I think I’m still contagious. I’ll get them tomorrow night.”

She was checking on her girls. Making plans for them to stay at the condo again. Marshall blew a long breath out his nose, like a human balloon overfilled with unnecessary rage, offloading. Well, there were other places he could aim it.

He went back to the desk and sat down to text Trey again. Any of those photos ring a bell? Sorry to press. It’s important.

In the den Bree was saying, “Please don’t worry. It’s just a bug.”

She sounded so young and sad and sweet, working to reassure her anxious mother, much like the Bree he’d known decades ago. His crush on her back then had led him to his wife, and Bree had become his friend. A close one. In fact, he’d almost kissed her once.

It was about a month after Betsy ditched him. Bree came home from Georgia State for the weekend and dropped by his house. Because they were friends, sure, but he thought (rightly) that Betsy had sent Bree to check on him.

She brought a four-pack of Bartles & Jaymes, and he fronted like everything was fine. He told her about the job he’d taken at his uncle’s auto-parts shop, saving up for the police academy. He mentioned a girl who sat ahead of him in church. Maybe there even was one. Someone sat in front of him. It might be a girl.