Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (18 page)

“A lot of people took pictures,” I said aloud.  I called Ramona and Jennifer.  I was mad at George and wasn’t going to call him, but since he likely took the most pictures I called him, too.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WE CERTAINLY COULDN’T meet at the Cozy Corner with our smart phones or cameras, so Jennifer, George, and I met at the paper at noon on Saturday.  Ramona was working, and she said the only picture she took was of me on the dunk tank plank anyway, but it was a “really good one,” just as I was falling in.  I didn’t want George Winters near that one.

I’d forgotten that traffic quadrupled overnight between Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, so I got to the newspaper office about five minutes after the other two.

“You really should be on time for appointments you set,” Jennifer said, as she sm
oothed the hem on her expensive-
looking skirt. 

George grinned widely, and stopped when he saw my face.

“Sorry, I had an appraisal appointment and it went longer than I thought.”  This was not true, of course, but, I figured this would keep her from giving me any more advice. 

George turned on a computer that had a large monitor so we could see the pictures better.  He had taken more than one-hundred. Some we could rule out quickly.  Even if Penny was on the top chair on the Ferris Wheel we wouldn’t be able to tell who she was.  Turk’s back was to the camera for the only one he seemed to be in besides the ones George deliberately took of him on Sunday.

“Why didn’t you take any of the ticket booths?” I asked.  I was tired of sitting on a hard stool as George inspected every picture for what seemed like forever.

“Oh yeah, that would be a fascinating picture for the front page of the paper,” he said.

I leaned forward to pay better attention.  “Hey, go back one,” I said.

In the center of photo forty-four was someone holding several helium balloons.  The person’s face was in profile.  “There was someone with helium balloons who stole at least one cell phone.”  I put my nose close to the screen.

“We have this amazing technology, it’s called zoom,” George said, as he put the back of his hand on the front of my shoulder and pushed me away from the screen.

Jennifer giggled.

“Do you think it looks like someone we know?” I asked, looking at the now slightly blurry photo, in which the helium-balloon holder’s head was almost an inch round.

The three of us looked at the person intently.  I was pretty sure it was a white woman who had her hair pulled back from her face, but I could tell nothing more. 

George clicked the mouse and the next photo had the same person, this time looking straight ahead.  As George and I said, “Penny,” Jennifer asked, “Is that Scoobie’s mother?”

I sat back and stared at George.  “She was actually at the carnival.”

“Why does it matter if she was there?” Jennifer asked.  “The police don’t think she was killed there, do they?”

“Nope,” George said.  He looked at the date on the bottom of the picture.  “I took that Friday afternoon at four-thirty.”

“It means she likely knew the carnival people pretty well,” I said, still staring at the photo.  I didn’t know Penny from a hole in the wall at that point, but even if I had I might have walked right by her.  She had on a jumper, as a clown might wear, but it was unadorned.  Because of the balloons a carnival goer might think she was part of the show, but I thought it more likely she was dressed to simply give that impression, likely so she could walk around and pilfer.

“She wanted to be there to steal stuff,” George said, quietly.

“Go through more,” Jennifer said, and we sat quietly as George moved quickly through the rest of his photos.  When there were no more Penny si
gh
tings.  Jennifer held out her camera’s card and he took it and popped it into a slot on the computer. 

“Mine are all from Friday night,” Jennifer said.  “My batteries were dead when I turned it on Saturday.”

The lighting wasn’t quite as good in her photos.  The camera was not a professional one like George’s, and it looked to be about six o’clock or thereabouts.  There was no time stamp on her pictures. 

“Oh my God,” I said quietly.  Penny was leaning against the railing that surrounded the Ferris Wheel.  She wasn’t talking to Turk, but he was maybe five or ten feet from her, carefully helping an older woman out of the Ferris Wheel chair.

AFTER GEORGE PRINTED COPIES of the photos for each of us and uploaded Jennifer’s to his computer, she said she had an appointment to get her nails done and left.

“So,” George said.  “Penny seems to know Turk.  She might have carried those balloons so she could distract people and steal stuff.”

“And she might have stolen the cell phone used to make the 9-1-1 call for Scoobie,” I said.  “You think she…?”  I couldn’t say it out loud.

“Tried to kill Scoobie?” he asked, and thought about his own question for a few seconds.  “I doubt it.  For one thing, he said he didn’t hear someone come up behind him, and she’s as graceful as penguin on ice skates.”

“But maybe she knows who did,” I said.

“Knew, the key point is she can’t tell us,” George said. 

“I can’t believe she just ‘found’ Scoobie.  It’s too big a coincidence.”

George nodded.  “I wonder what else she took?”  He printed a couple more copies of the photo Jennifer took.  “Ocean Alley has three pawn shops.  I’ll see if she got rid of anything.”

“I can…” I began.

“No you can’t,” George said as he turned off the computer.

“You can’t be in three places at once,” I said.

“The shop owners all know me.”  He looked at me.  “They mighta heard of you, but they wouldn’t talk to you.” 

I supposed he was right, much as I hated to admit it.

SO I MADE OTHER PLANS. I took a detour to go by the police station.  I doubted Morehouse would be there, since it was a Saturday.  On the other hand, it was the first big summer weekend, so that might bring him in.

“And you think I would let you listen to that tape why?” he asked.

“Because I think you said the voice of the person who called 9-1-1 was raspy, or somebody said that.  Maybe I’ll know the voice.”

“No.”

“Come on, sergeant.  I talk to a lot of people.  Maybe I’ll know the voice.”

“Something made you think of this.  Tell me what and I might play it for you,” he said.

I wasn’t about to tell Morehouse that George and I had Penny’s picture at the carnival.  It wasn’t just that I might spoil George’s story if Morehouse deemed it evidence that couldn’t be in the newspaper.  I might even like that.  It was more that George had connections I didn’t, and I wanted to keep hearing about them.

“Penny smoked.  Her voice was kind of raspy,” I said.

“It was a man, in case you forgot.”  Morehouse tapped his pen on his desk.

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

He stared at me, impassive.

“It could be her,” I insisted.

He sighed and turned to his computer screen.  “I’ll play it once.”

“From your computer?”

He gave me a withering look.  “It’s all digital.”

The voice was slow and sounded fairly calm.  “You need to come to the boardwalk.  Near the steps by Conch Street.  A man is hurt.  Come now.”

“You ever hear Penny sound like that?” he asked.

“What if she wanted to disguise her voice?  She lowers it.  Calm would be a disguise for her, too.  So would good grammar.”

He grunted and played it again, concentrating more than he appeared to the first time he played it.  Then he played it again.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Maybe, but a really big maybe.”  He sighed.  “I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

“I think it’s her,” I said, staring at him directly.

He stood up.  “Tortino arrested her a lot, for drunk and disorderly.  I’ll get him to listen again, but I don’t know what it gets us.”

“It might mean she knew to look for him.”

His look was skeptical.  “As in she knew someone hurt him?  That’s a stretch, even for your imagination.”

“Maybe the person who hurt him didn’t like that she got him help.  Somebody didn’t want her around anymore.” I said.

“A lot of people probably didn’t,” Morehouse said.

I DON’T THINK SHE meant to cause trouble, but Jennifer nearly ended my friendship with Scoobie.  If I had just gone there before I went to see Sgt. Morehouse I might have stopped Jennifer from talking to Scoobie about the photos. 
How could she have even thought of telling Scoobie?

I walked into Scoobie’s room ready to toss him an orange and stopped in the doorway.  His face showed a combination of rage and hurt that I’d never seen before.

“So you and George want to know if my mother knew Turk,” he said. 

“I, we thought…” I began.

“No, you didn’t think.  You didn’t think about whether I would want you to dig into her life.  Or I guess I should say her death.  That’s your thing, isn’t it, Jolie?”

I swallowed, but no amount of swallowing would moisten my throat.  “It’s possible she was traveling with the carnival.”

“And what, she decided to sneak up behind me on the boardwalk and erase the mistake she thinks she made by having me in the first place?”

“No, not that.  Not that at all.”

“And you know this because you were such pals with my mother?  You never met her until she came to the hospital.” 

“She may have saved you, Scoobie.”

He stared at me for a couple seconds.  “What do you mean?”

I started to sit in the chair by his bed.

“You don’t need to sit.”

Scoobie isn’t usually petty.  If he hadn’t picked that time to be, I might have continued to stumble through the conversation, making excuses as I went.  But he ticked me off, so I found my voice.

“You want to know, I’ll tell you.  I don’t need your snotty attitude.”  I glared at him.  My guess was his face mirrored mine.  If he had been able he would have stormed out of the room.

“You know what?  I don’t want to know.  I didn’t ask you to dig around in my life.  Or hers.  You can tell George that, too.”

“Tell him yourself.”  I walked out.

THE WORST THING WAS, I couldn’t even walk on the beach or take a run on the boardwalk.  Every inch of beach was covered by well-oiled bodies sporting bikinis or Speedos.  And half of them shouldn’t have come within five yards of a swimsuit without losing forty pounds.  I sucked in my tummy and wiped tears of fury from my eyes.

Ramona was working, and she’d just say she told me to back off.  Jazz.  She was never mad at me.  I pulled into the Cozy Corner B&B and got the last parking spot in Aunt Madge’s small parking area.  I rationalized that any guest who wasn’t in the B&B would be at the beach for many more hours. 

“Rats.”  The side entrance was locked.  Aunt Madge is fastidious about locking it once the beach season is in full swing.  I hadn’t carried a key all winter, since she only locked the door at night in the off-season, and I didn’t want to knock.  However, since it was now summer rental season, the front door would probably be open.

I walked around the side of the house and onto the front porch.  Since I was in that part of the house I went up the main staircase and walked toward my room, which is closer to the back stairs. 

As I walked from the staircase landing onto the second floor, I saw Marcus Har
dy in the hallway just outside the
room
next to the one that had been Penny’s.
 
Why is he here?  His room is on the third floor.

He looked startled for a second and then gave me his wide grin. “I should never drink in the middle of the day.  I’m on the wrong floor.”  He steadied himself on the door jamb.

He didn’t look really drunk, but then again I didn’t know how drunk differed from sober for him.  “I can relate to that,” I said.  “You, uh, need directions?”

“Nope.  Ta taa.”  He gave me a four-fingered wave and walked past me and climbed the stairs toward the third floor.

“Ta taa?” I said, softly.

When I opened the door to my room Jazz darted from under the bed and tried to charge out, but I scooped her up and shut the door behind me.  While she would usually swat at me for impeding her exit, this time she put her front paws around my neck and snuggled in.

“What’s with you?”  I sat in my rocking chair stroking her, still thinking about Mr. Mystery Writer Marcus.  As an occasional sneak myself, I recognized the guilty look.  What did he want in another guest’s room?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I CARRIED JAZZ DOWN THE back staircase and walked into Aunt Madge’s living area.  She was at her oak table with a cup of hot tea and a recipe book.

“Going to try something new?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t still too mad.