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asking quiet questions. “Did you hear anything? Smell anything?”
    “No,” she replied without looking at him. She wondered if he’d expected a different reaction from her when they met again. If they met again. Had he expected her to be frozen? To lash out at him?
    Metcalf said, “You knew Callahan, didn’t you? Maybe he got rooked at that carnival of yours and threatened to sue or something. Was that it?”
    “I had never seen Mitchell Callahan—in the flesh, so to speak. As far as I know he never visited the carnival.”
    “Really wasn’t his sort of thing,” Lindsay murmured.
    But Metcalf wasn’t willing to let go. “He was trying to buy up the fairgrounds for development, everybody knew that. If he had, it would have put your carnival out of business.”
    “Hardly. We can fit in a parking lot, Sheriff, and there are plenty of those in Golden.”
    “They’d cost you a hell of a lot more.”
    “And put us closer to the heavier traffic of town.” She shrugged, trying not to show the impatience she felt. “Probably a financial wash at the end of the day.”
    Again, Lindsay spoke up, her tone neutral. “True enough, Sheriff. We’ve got at least two former shopping centers and one strip mall with acres of parking lot going to waste, and I’m sure any of the owners would have loved to make a few bucks hosting a carnival.”
    Metcalf sent her a quick look that just missed being a glare, then returned his attention to Samantha. “Trouble follows you carnies, I know that much. Things turn up missing, property gets destroyed, people get cheated with your so-called games of chance . And how many times have you taken money from people only to tell them what you knew they wanted to hear?”
    “A few,” she replied calmly, answering the last demand. But she couldn’t resist adding, “Some people don’t want to hear the truth, Sheriff. And others wouldn’t recognize it if it bit them on the ass.”
    He drew a breath to launch a retort, but she was going on, her voice still calm, still measured.
    “Your views about carnies are a few decades out of date, but never mind that. Whatever you may believe, we run a clean show, from the games to the very well-maintained rides, and our safety record is spotless.”
    “I didn’t question that.”
    “Not openly. That’s because you checked us out the day we got here and started setting up.”
    “I was doing my job.”
    “Fine. All of us carry police I.D. cards with our fingerprints, like the one I showed you when I first came to you. Feel free to check out the prints belonging to everyone else in the show, the way you checked out mine. It may surprise you to discover that not one of us has a record, even for something as minor as an unpaid parking ticket. And we have good relationships with the police in every town along our normal seasonal route. This is our first time in Golden, so I suppose you can be forgiven a few doubts as to our honesty, but—”
    Lucas interrupted to ask, “If Golden isn’t part of your normal schedule, why are you here?”
    Her eyes flicked toward him, but Samantha didn’t turn her head when she answered him.
    “The next town on our usual schedule just hosted a circus a couple of weeks ago, and we’ve learned never to follow a big circus into a town. Golden was the best alternative in the general area, especially when we discovered we could rent the fairgrounds for the duration.”
    “Aren’t we lucky,” Metcalf muttered.
    “Your town seems to be enjoying the rides and games.”
    He glared at her. “And I’m charged with protecting my town from people who would abuse their good nature. And take advantage of their gullibility.”
    “Prove we’re doing that, and we’ll leave. Peacefully. Happily.”
    “And send my best suspect on to another innocent town? I don’t think so.”
    “You know goddamned well I didn’t kidnap or kill Mitchell Callahan.”
    “You knew about it before it happened. In my book, that says