muzzle and the better part of his head already beginning to dry into a cracked crust. The Irish setter's tongue lolled sideways out of his mouth as he panted against the heat. The little girl wore a matching expression, although hers was the result of supreme concentration versus the enduring silliness that made it impossible to stay mad at the dog, despite the two-foot-deep hole he had exhumed from the trim behind the garden where once the now- uprooted blue fescue ornamental grasses had grown.
Vanessa turned off the water and wiped the suds from her hands. She opened the back screen door and stepped out onto the porch. The muggy heat swaddled her like a wet blanket. She closed the door silently behind her and swished through the damp lawn in her bare feet.
Buddy saw her first and bounded across the yard to greet her. He leapt up, braced his muddy front paws on her apron, and licked her chin.
'Good boy,' Vanessa said, pushing him gently back down.
Emma looked up at her and blinked the sun out of her eyes. She beamed with a grin that lit up her entire face.
'Look what I made for you, Mommy.'
She lifted what at first appeared to be a giant divot from the lawn with both hands and held it out in her cupped palms.
Vanessa crouched in front of her six year-old daughter, the center of her world, and accepted the sloppy creation with a smile.
'It's beautiful,' she said, turning it over and over in her now-filthy hands.
Emma had packed mud into a shape that reminded Vanessa of a plump gingerbread man and wrapped the long blades of the blue fescues around it to hold it together. There were small knots where the grass had been inexpertly tied. Two shiny pebbles were pressed into its face to approximate eyes and bound in place with more tangled blades. Heart-shaped leaves had been affixed to the sides of its head to form ears. It was roughly a foot tall, and while a single drop from any height would undoubtedly destroy it, Emma had done a remarkable job of constructing it.
'It's a teddy bear,' Emma said with evident pride. 'I made it just for you.'
Her smile grew even wider.
'It's amazing, honey. How did you know this was exactly what I wanted?'
'Every girl needs a teddy bear, Mommy. You can put it on your dresser just like the ones in my room.'
Vanessa smirked. Lord only knew what kind of bugs and germs were crawling around inside that thing.
'Maybe the front window where we keep the plants would be a better place. That way it'll be the first thing people see when they're coming up to our house.'
'Okay,' Emma said. She smeared her hands across the front of her dress.
It's only mud, Vanessa told herself. It'll wash right out. There was no point in getting upset about it. Besides, how could she even consider being mad at such a precious, thoughtful little angel.
'We need to hurry up and get you in the bath,' Vanessa said. 'Your daddy's going to be home soon...and he has a
'A big surprise? What is it? Tell me what it is!'
'If I told you, then it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?' Vanessa lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'But it must be pretty exciting if your daddy's taking off work early for it. I think you can probably even wear your new dress.'
'All right!'
Emma whooped and ran for the back door with Buddy at her heels.
Vanessa followed, the filthy bear held at arm's length. It was slick and slimy and smelled faintly of marsh gasses, and yet still it was now one of her most treasured possessions. At least until it started to decompose.
Marion County Sheriff's Deputy Trey Walden had drawn the short straw as usual. He had already seen the sheriff and the other two deputies wandering toward the carnival with their families, while here he was, patrolling the broad dirt parking lot like some kind of minimum-wage rent-a-cop. The uneven rows passed to either side, packed with dusty pickups, older model sedans, and even a smattering of rusted tractors. Men and women strolled hand-in-hand toward the path leading down the hill through a grove of magnolia and cypress trees toward where the traveling carnival had risen from the marsh, seemingly overnight, in the seldom-used Marion County Fairgrounds. Some towed children in strollers and wagons, while others carried wide-eyed kids on their hips and shoulders. All of them were dressed for a night on the town. Women even wore dresses and scuffed high-heel shoes, as though an evening at the fair passed for high society in this remote section of Eastern Texas, mere miles from the Louisiana border.
His own girlfriend was somewhere down there in the crowds as well, drinking foamy beer from a clear plastic cup and eating funnel cakes with her friends, while he cruised aimlessly through the rutted lot, the tires rising and falling awkwardly over clumps of ambitious weeds on the cruiser's stiff suspension, waiting for someone stupid enough to attempt to break into one of these cars with nothing of any real value locked inside.
Trey sighed and rolled down his window in hopes that the evening air would help keep him alert. Unfortunately, it was every bit as hot and stifling as that inside the sweltering Caprice.
Music and a riot of voices drifted uphill from where he could faintly make out the blinking white and red lights through the trees. He heard laughter, clanging sounds, and the rumble of a rickety roller coaster. This was going to be all everyone talked about for the next few weeks, two nights of fun and games, and all he would be able to add to the conversation was that he had ensured the safety of their vehicles so they could have the time of their lives without him.
He paused at the end of the main aisle so that his headlights washed over the wide path through the shadowed grove. A line had formed at the ticket booth under a large hand-painted sign. Crowley's. No one was about to mistake it for Ringling Bros., that was for sure.
A tapping sound on the side of his cruiser made him flinch.
'Hey, baby brother,' a familiar voice said. 'Keeping the world safe for democracy?'
'Very funny, Vanessa.'
'Uncle Trey!'
He had to crane his neck to look up to where Emma sat on her father's shoulders, her legs hanging against his chest. Warren was more than six feet tall. Piggybacking around the doctor's neck must have been like a ride in itself.
'Hiya, munchkin. Are you ready to have some serious fun?'
'They have elephant rides, you know. Have you ever ridden an elephant?'
'Can't say as I have, but I expect you to tell me all about it. And make sure you get some of that cotton candy all these people are walking around with.'
'I want one of those huge suckers instead.'
'Call me on my cell if you're able to take a break,' Vanessa said. 'We could grab a beer or something.'
'You suck.'
She smirked, gave his left arm a squeeze through the window, and headed out of the parking lot with her family. With a flippant wave over her shoulder, she merged into the crowd funneling down the path.
Trey sighed again.
Two-thousand and thirty-two people in town, and it appeared as though every single one of them was down there around the big top.
Everyone but him.
Vanessa slipped her arm around her husband's waist and leaned her head against his upper arm. Myriad colors flashed all around her from the lights strung overhead between the roofs of the claptrap attractions. The mosquitoes were out in full force, but no one complained. She smelled spilled beer, sugar, manure, and the sour scent of body odor from the masses packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow aisles. Bells clanged and alarms rang as giant stuffed animals were won in games of chance. Ticket-takers hollered over the chaos, summoning ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls to come right on up and see breathtaking and terrifying sideshow attractions and oddities. Rides grumbled. Children screamed. Every dozen feet she had to hop over a mound of animal dung.
