The cemetery was empty except for a groundskeeper trimming grass near the entrance.
Daniel’s headstone had a small chip along one corner.
I had noticed it a hundred times without remembering when it appeared.
My mother brushed fallen leaves from the base.
She told him about Leon’s red scarf and Esther’s missing attendance count.
She spoke as if she were reporting on a complicated school project.
I stood beside her and tried to find something to say that was not about the arena.
Finally I told Daniel that I had burned dinner the previous night and blamed the stove.
My mother laughed through her tears.
On the drive home, Lucia called.
She said a former volunteer had contacted her after the meeting.
The woman remembered seeing a second maintenance cart parked beside the control room before the carnival opened.
The original reports mentioned only one cart.
Lucia wanted to know whether the detail mattered.
I said I would ask Priya.
I did not tell her that my first instinct was to rush straight to the arena.
The instinct was becoming familiar, and I was learning that it did not always lead to useful action.
Priya answered that evening.
She said the cart might explain how tools moved between the loading dock and the control room.
She also warned that the existence of a second cart did not prove deliberate sabotage.
I asked whether she thought the investigation was close to ending.
She said the physical inspection was almost complete.
The human consequences would take longer.
I knew she was right, but I wished she had given me a date.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Cart at the Loading Door
The volunteer’s name was Miriam Doyle.
She had moved to Westbridge after marrying a local teacher and had volunteered at the carnival to meet neighbors.
She remembered the maintenance cart because she had nearly collided with it while carrying a tray of paper cups.
A man in a gray jacket had pushed it through the loading door.
The cart held two folding barricades, a toolbox, and a roll of yellow tape.
She remembered the tape because its loose end dragged along the floor.
Priya met Miriam at the arena with a diagram of the loading area.
I waited outside the marked inspection zone.
Miriam pointed to the place where the cart had stood.
She said the man left it beside the control room and returned toward the parking lot.
She could not identify him.
She did not remember whether he wore a carnival badge.
Priya thanked her for describing what she knew and for refusing to guess at the rest.
