Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (21 page)

There were no obvious indications that he was selling anything, but I didn’t really care about that.  Alicia’s face floated into my brain and I decided I did care about kids having easy access to drugs, but I cared more about getting this guy to forget about Scoobie.

Unlike amusement areas that sit on or near the boardwalk, there were few children in wet bathing suits or parents running after them with sun screen.  There were more groups of families, some of whom looked as if they might have come from church.  I sat on a bench across from the Ferris Wheel and chatted for a few minutes with a young mother who had a two-year old on her lap and looked ready to deliver another kidlet any day. 

After about fifteen minutes Turk finally saw me.  I smiled and gave him the kind of four-finger wave Marcus had bestowed on me.  He stared for at least five seconds and then turned to slow down the Ferris Wheel so riders could get off and on.  I hoped I made him nervous. 

After a few minutes I bought lemonade from a nearby food vendor and took my seat again, this time next to a couple of teenagers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.  A couple of times Turk glanced at me, careful to pretend he was looking at something else. 

After another half-hour went by, the blonde carnival worker who had also overseen the High Striker walked over, seemingly to give Turk a break.  I stood as Turk walked out the small gated area that surrounded the Ferris Wheel.  He ambled toward me, hands in the pockets of a pair of faded blue jeans that had a streak of grease across one knee.  His expression was a combination of cocky and cautious.

“Hello, Stefan,” I said, using the name he had introduced himself with when he came to the hospital.  “I thought you’d like to know how Scoobie is.”

His expression grew less wary, but he still looked uneasy.  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about Scoobie.”

I bet you have.
  “He’s walking, doing a lot of physical therapy, and he’ll likely be able to go back to college for the summer term.”  I gave him what I hoped was a sweet smile.

“College?  Scoobie?  You’re kidding.”

“Of course not.  He’s
very
smart.  Surely you remember that from when you worked together before.”

The wary expression returned.  He seemed to realize that I had talked to Scoobie about how they knew each other.  “Yes, very smart,” he said
.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
  “It’s too bad his memory isn’t as good as usual.  He has no idea how he hurt himself a couple of weeks ago.  Can’t even remember most of that day.”

“That’s, uh, too bad,” Turk said.  I thought he looked relieved.

“I’ll let you get back to work.”  I started to turn, but he reached out and gripped my right hand with both of his.

“Tell him I think of him often,” he emphasized the last word, then let go of my hand and quickly walked away.

Though I was a bit flustered by the handshake, I gave myself a mental pat on the back and walked toward the exit.  This had gone even better than I had hoped, and I’d be home by the middle of the afternoon.

As I unlocked my car a man’s voice said, “Please turn around slowly.”

For some reason I wasn’t scared.  It was daylight and I was in a carnival parking lot, not a dark alley.  I turned to look at a man in his mid-forties who was in shorts and a knit cotton top.  “Ok, who are you?”

“I’m with the Point Pleasant Police, and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I SAT IN THE SMALL POLICE STATION, and cursed inwardly.  I was pleased that local police were keeping an eye on Turk, but collaring me was not what I had in mind when I told Morehouse I thought Turk was selling drugs to kids. 

Officer McMichaels listened to me when I said why I was there, but he still drove me to the station in his unmarked car.  He didn’t make me sit in the back seat, but he did make me show him the contents of my purse before we got in his car.  McMichaels said he would call the Ocean Alley Police to verify that they knew me and I was not likely to have talked to Turk about buying drugs.  I hoped that was what he was doing.  I wanted to get home.  I heard him laugh as he came back down the small hallway. 

He looked at me and grinned.  “Sergeant Morehouse says I’m supposed to ask you how it feels to be hoisted on your own petard?”

The exact meaning of the expression eluded me, though I thought it meant to mess up big time.  “I take it he vouched for me?” I said, standing.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but he did say you wouldn’t be buying anything illicit.”  He grew more serious.  “He also said to please call him when you get back to Ocean Alley.”

“He said please?” I asked.

“Actually, no.  He said to get your ass in gear and call him when you get back to town.” 

I WAS NEVER GOING TO hear the end of it.  Morehouse was furious with me for “yet again butting in,” and he apparently thought that the best way to get me to at least consider minding my own business was to tell Aunt Madge where I had gone.  He must have called her as soon as I left the station.

“When you were young your mother and I would just say you were hard-headed.  Your father actually thought you were adorable when you insisted on wearing what you wanted when your mother wanted you to wear a dress.”  She was mixing the dough for the next morning’s muffins, and it looked as if she would stir so hard the wooden spoon would soon poke out of the bottom of the bowl. 

“But…” I began.

“There are no buts!”  She waved the spoon at me and a splatter of dough fell to the floor.  Mr. Rogers beat Miss Piggy to it.

“It’s just…”

“I can’t even imagine how your mind works.  Do you know how dangerous it could be to talk to a man like that?  And on your own, no less?”

“I was making it less dangerous for Scoobie.”  I stared at her, determined not to be made to feel like an errant child any longer.

“You don’t know that.  You might just as easily…”

There was a knock on the door that led from the kitchen to the breakfast room and we both turned toward it.  Mr. Mystery-Writer-Marcus stuck his head in.  “It doesn’t usually sound like a war zone around here.”

Aunt Madge looked aghast.  She had probably thought all of her guests were at the beach.  “I’m so sorry, Marcus,” she said.

I didn’t mind seeing him.  “Come on in.”

He nodded at me, but his attention was for Aunt Madge.  “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” she replied.  “I’m just mad at Jolie about something.  Families get that way sometimes.  I’m sorry if we alarmed you.”

We?  I wasn’t yelling.

“I can occasionally be annoying,” I said.

“Occasionally?” Aunt Madge said, under her breath, as she returned to stirring her muffin mix.

I looked at Marcus.  “I was doing something on behalf of my friend who’s in the hospital.  Aunt Madge thinks,” she shot me a glance, “that I should perhaps leave well enough alone.”

Mystery-Writer-Marcus’s expression was sympathetic.  “I know you’ve both been very concerned about your friend.”

“In fact, I’m on my way to see him now.”  Pleased with the opportunity to escape Aunt Madge’s ire I picked up my purse and walked through the guest dining room to the side door and out to my car. 

I should have hid in my room.

George Winters was about to knock on the Cozy Corner front door, and he looked like the cat who swallowed a canary.  “I can’t believe you pissed off Sgt. Morehouse again.”

“How do you hear this stuff so fast?”

“You know how I make my living, right?”  When I just looked at him, he added, “I’m friends with a couple of the younger cops.”

Once he’d heard about the conversation with Turk it was fairly easy to ditch George.  I went to the hospital and told Scoobie what I had done. 

He wasn’t angry with me, “Since it wouldn’t matter to you anyway,” as he put it.  Scoobie accepted that I had been “acting in good faith.  But you might want to try a different religion or something.”

I was sitting in his guest chair with my feet on his bed.  He was in the patient recliner eating supper, carefully raising his fork so he could extend the bites of food across his cervical collar.  “Personally, I think it was pretty smart to go see him in broad daylight, in front of God and everybody,” I said.  “He can’t come looking for me now, everyone would know I maybe made him mad.”

“Maybe?”  He dropped mashed potatoes on his tray and tried another scoop.

“I don’t care if he’s mad at me or anybody else.  He’s the one who pushed you Scoobie.  And the nurse said your head injury was probably long after you fell down the steps, so he must have gone back in the morning.”

He regarded me stonily.  “You don’t know that.”  He considered his words.  “Not that I’m sticking up for the son-of-a-bitch.”  He laughed, wryly.  “Wait, that’s me!”

“You really are sick,” I said.

“And you think I’m in the hospital for the food?” he asked. 

I knew I had to tread carefully.  “I listened to the 9-1-1 tape.  I think it was Penny who called it in.”

That stopped him.  He sat down his fork.  “And you know her so well you recognized her voice?  Hey, Morehouse told me a couple days ago that it was a guy.”

“Sounded like her, disguising her voice.  Morehouse was going to have Lt. Tortino listen.  I guess he knows her better.”

“If she was so hell-bent on saving me, why didn’t she even stick around to see me?”  He considered this.  “Not that I wanted to see her.”

I didn’t know what he knew of his mother during the past few years, and I certainly hadn’t told him anything about where his mother lived until earlier in the year and what she’d done to land herself in prison.  And I wasn’t about to.  “I’m not saying she was a good person or anything.”

“How do you make the leap to even think it was her on the phone?”

“For one thing, it was a stolen cell phone…”

“That sounds like my mother.”

“Belonged to a guy who had it stolen at the carnival.  And the pictures George and Jennifer took of her at the Ocean Alley carnival make it look as if she wanted people to think she worked there, but she really didn’t.”  I told him about the unadorned clown jumper and helium balloons, and that the phone’s owner said someone carrying balloons had bumped into him and likely taken the phone at that time.

“Hmph.  That was one of her tricks of the trade.”  His voice grew bitter.  “She thought she made everything all right by bringing me a balloon.”

“I’m sorry, Scoobie,” I said, quietly.

“It’s not an ‘I’m sorry’ deal.  She was a lousy mother, a lousy person.  I don’t wish anybody dead.  Well, maybe Hitler.”  He paused.  “But I’m really glad I never have to see her again.”

I decided to skip telling him about the security camera tapes.  Lester surely would.  I felt guilty for avoiding the topic, but I didn’t need to be thrown out of Scoobie’s room again. 

Ramona came in and stood looking at me.  “Tell me you didn’t.”

“OK,” I said.  “I didn’t.”

She looked at Scoobie.  “I can’t really nod,” he said, “but she did.”  He looked at me.  “Don’t lie to Ramona.”

I’d had enough of being told off.  I sat up in the chair and turned to look directly at Ramona.  “He won’t bother Scoobie now.  He wouldn’t dare.”

She just stared at me. 

“How did you know, anyway?” I asked her.

“George.  I think he’s working on a story.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

I KNEW IT WAS TOO GOOD to be true.  George Winters was going to be sure I was in a story and I wouldn’t come out of it in a good light.  He asked me to meet him in Java Jolt and said he wanted me to read something.

Though
it
was Monday of Memorial Day weekend, Java Jolt was not as crowded as I’d expected.  There had been a large concert in the municipal parking lot the night before and a number of visitors were apparently sleeping in.  As I’d walked along the boardwalk it looked as if some of the sun worshippers were actually sleeping it off on the beach.

I ordered an iced coffee and selected a table that was not close to others.  George banged the door as he came in and plopped a page of text in front of me.  He stared at me until I started to read.

Acting on her belief that a carnival worker was responsible for serious injuries an Ocean Alley resident sustained two weeks ago, local real estate appraiser Jolie Gentil went to Point Pleasant on Sunday to confront the man she believes shoved the resident down a flight of concrete steps.  (The Ocean Alley Press does not identify crime victims if doing so could endanger them.)

Though the carnival worker’s behavior has not been determined, Gentil made a point of visiting him to let him know the local resident was recovring.  She believed this would annoy the crap out of the man and he would stay the hell out of town.

“I’ve been thinking about what you did.  This,” George said when he saw I had finished reading, “is what I’ll write if you do anything that stupid again.”

“You aren’t my mother.  And you misspelled ‘recovering,’” I said, smiling with what I hoped was an innocent expression.  We were talking in hushed tones, since Joe Regan seemed very interested in our conversation.