Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (26 page)

“Let Aunt Madge go.”

“Get over here!” 

His fierce tone told me I didn’t have a lot of wiggle room.  “How about we meet halfway?”  I spoke with more bravado than I felt.  Heck, I felt none.

“No.  You walk past me.  I’ll tell you where to walk to get to my car.”  He gestured again with the gun.

“You’ll kill us at the car,” I said, my voice unnaturally high.

“I’m going to tie you to a tree.”  When I didn’t move he placed the gun at Aunt Madge’s temple.

“Okay, okay.”  I know nothing about guns, but thought that on TV shows the guns with silencers had long nozzles, some sort of attachment.  He didn’t have that, so if he fired someone would hear him. 
That won’t matter if we’re already dead.
  I moved toward him, careful to stay more than an arm’s length from him.

“That’s good, very good.  Just keep walking.”

I passed the two of them and he pointed a bit to the left.  “That direction, that’s right.”

I had gone about twenty feet when somebody yodeled.  Marcus turned sharply in that direction and I heard the trunk pop behind us.  Then everything was quiet. 

“What the hell was that?”  Marcus seethed, almost in a hiss.

“How would I know?” I asked.

“Sounded like a wolf,” Aunt Madge said.

“There aren’t any wolves here.  Keep walking.”

“Shows what you know,” I said.

“Shut up!”

I walked slowly, still trying to stay far enough ahead of him so he couldn’t grab me.  I didn’t see how we could foil Marcus’ plan.  He had a gun, and we were already pretty sure he was a murderer.  He only needed two shots to kill Aunt Madge and me, and I suddenly remembered that no one would even look out a window.  It was late for fireworks, but plenty of kids or stupid adults could still be using them. 

I could see the end to the small woods and assumed his car was nearby. 
He’s not going to tie us to a tree.  He’s going to kill us.

Suddenly Marcus stumbled.  “What the…”

I turned quickly and Aunt Madge wrenched free and turned toward me.  Marcus regained his footing, swore loudly and turned the barrel of the gun toward us. 

“Duck!” came George’s voice from somewhere behind us.

“Who the…” Marcus started to fall backwards. 

I grabbed Aunt Madge and pulled her down.  She put her arm across my head just as the gun fired.  There was a thunk noise at the tree next to us.  At the same time I saw George flying at Marcus, tire iron flailing toward Marcus’ head. 

There was the sound of scrambling and thuds.  The flash of light from the gun had disoriented me for a few seconds.  I couldn’t see anything, but I pulled Aunt Madge’s hand off my head and stood.  I stumbled a few feet toward the writhing bodies on the ground, and then heard a sickening thud and a short crunching sound. 

It was quiet except for very heavy breathing from two men. 
Please let it be our two
.

“You okay?” George asked.

“I’m just down here taking a nap,” Scoobie said.

Aunt Madge started to sob.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PURPLE.  THAT WAS THE EXACT color of Sgt. Morehouse’s face when he got out of his car and started screaming at me.  Aunt Made and I were sitting on the picnic table bench and Scoobie was prone on top of it, resting his dumb-ass back, as he put it.  Aunt Madge was leaning on me, for a change.

George had called the police and then found the gun.  He was standing near the unconscious form I still thought of as Marcus Hardy rather than Alex Masterson.  George and I had dragged him from the woods back to the little park, taking no care about what branches or brambles we dragged him over.

I said nothing, but when Morehouse stopped to take a breath — Lt. Tortino and Dana Johnson running from another car toward us — Scoobie said, “It’s kind of loud for dawn.”

WE WERE IN AUNT MADGE’S KITCHEN because she refused — and I mean really refused, to the point that Morehouse and Tortino had backed up — to go the hospital or police station.  “For most of the night I thought I’d never see my house again.  That’s where I’m going, and that’s all there is to it.”

The kitchen was crowded.   It was almost six o’clock and I was on automatic pilot.  I made two pots of coffee, regular and decaf, and Dana and I moved two of the breakfast room tables and some chairs into the Cozy Corner’s small guest lounge.  I told Aunt Madge the guests would be okay with going out to eat, but she insisted, and said the dining area had too many police walking around in it.  Lt. Tortino bought the donuts.  While I was getting plates and silverware from her cupboard I realized having breakfast for her guests, even if she was not the one to serve it, was Aunt Madge’s way of putting order back in our lives.

Ramona showed up about six-fifteen.  “George called me,” she said as she came in.  “He said you needed help with juice.”  Her eyes were wide as she took in all of us, finally resting on Harry and Aunt Madge sitting together on the couch, holding hands.  She grinned at me and then opened the fridge and started to take out jam and juice.  “George told me some of it.  I can’t believe it.”

“We can talk more later,” I said.  I didn’t think I could string two cogent sentences together, and I was really tired of answering questions.

I carried the plates and silverware to the guest tables and leaned against the door jamb for a minute when I came back into the kitchen.  Captain Edwards was in the corner by the sliding glass door talking to the two FBI agents who had shown up with their ideas a couple hours ago, and Sgt. Morehouse was on the phone with somebody.  George was sitting in a chair near the couch, listening to everyone.

I walked back to Aunt Madge’s bedroom and looked in at Scoobie.  He looked a lot better than he had ten minutes ago when he quietly went in to lie down.  “You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.  I don’t think tackling was part of my physical therapy, but I’m good.  Just a little sore.” 

I walked into Aunt Madge’s bathroom and came back with a glass of water and a couple generic pain tablets.  “This good enough?” 

“Sure.” 

“That was pretty swift, tripping him with your cane,” I said, still looking at him.

“First time I’ve been glad to have it.”  He laughed and nodded toward the window.  Jazz was sitting in the still-open window with a dead mouse in her mouth.

I jumped up, but she was too fast.  She dove off the sill and under the bed.

I knelt to peer under the bed.  I could see her green eyes.  “I’ve been looking for you.  Nuts.  First chipmunks, now mice,” I said.

“At least this one’s dead,” Scoobie said.

George stuck his head in.  “I gotta leave to write as soon as I talk to your aunt.”  He looked at Scoobie and me.  “You sure you’re okay?”

We both nodded.

“Now you really owe me a phone, Gentil.”  He left and I stood up.

The dogs came in and looked around, and then both heads were under the bed with their butts in the air.  Jazz growled at them.

“I’m going back out.”

“Damn, one of them farted.  I’m coming with you.”  Scoobie got up slowly, avoiding the dogs.

“We’re going to go through this from the top, and then let Madge get to bed,” Captain Edwards said as we walked back into the great room.

Everyone stopped talking and Aunt Madge leaned against the back of the sofa.  “You can guess most of it, I imagine.  When we all stood after the fireworks Marcus, whoever he is, came over and stood next to me.  He showed me the gun in the pocket of his windbreaker and said he would shoot one of Harry’s grandsons unless I told Harry I was riding with Jolie and then came with him.”

Harry winced.

“I couldn’t imagine he would do that in front of everybody on the beach, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Where did he take you, Madge?”  Morehouse asked, quietly.

“That tacky Budget Inn.  He already had a key to a room, facing the outside.  I kept looking for anyone I knew, but it was mostly tourists.”  She looked at me.  “I saw your friend Daphne, and a couple people from church, but they were too far away for them to notice me.”

Sgt. Morehouse stepped away and opened his phone.  I figured he was telling someone to hightail it to the Budget Inn.

“Why do you think he waited so long to call Jolie?” Lt. Tortino asked.

“My guess is he didn’t really plan anything.  He came back determined to find the money, and he obviously brought a gun, but he clearly hadn’t figured out if or how he would use it.  And he really had no idea what to do with me after he made me go with him.”  She leaned over to get her tea mug and Harry grabbed it and handed it to her. 

“He was convinced Penny had the money somewhere nearby when he killed her, which he said was an ‘accident.’  I’m not sure how he found out Penny had stayed with us, but that’s why he came in May.  He left, but after Memorial Day he got it in his head that Jolie or I had found the money and we’d hidden it.”

“So you were at the motel the entire time?” Sgt. Morehouse asked.

“Yes, I actually sat up against the headboard and closed my eyes a bit.  A couple hours or so after we got to the motel he hit on the idea of me calling Jolie and telling her to bring the money.”  She drank some tea.  “He’s not all that bright.”

“Did he really write a book?” Scoobie asked.

She shook her head.

“So you told him you had it?” George asked.

“Does this look like a press conference?” Captain Edwards asked, glaring at him.  “And you watch what you write.”

George nodded and when the captain looked away George gave me an eye roll.  I could tell he was trying not to smirk.  He was in the room because he helped catch Marcus, not because he was a reporter.

“He started waving his gun around, so I told him to put Jolie on the phone.  I figured you could improvise,” she said dryly, looking at me.

It didn’t really register that Jazz had walked out of the bedroom, followed by the dogs.  By the time I realized she still had the mouse she was at the sofa and dropped the dead mouse at Aunt Madge’s feet.

“Presents,” Aunt Madge said, stroking her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

AUNT MADGE AND I were in her kitchen Sunday morning.  Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy would not stay more than two feet from Aunt Madge, so they were under the kitchen table, each one trying to keep their head on one of her feet.  Jazz, true to her nature, was on the bookcase ignoring us.

For once George didn’t get under my skin when he mentioned me in an article.  The headline was in over-large letters and there was a photo of Scoobie lying on the picnic table and Aunt Madge and me on the bench.  It was taken from the side and grainy, so you couldn’t tell how bedraggled Aunt Madge looked.  I assumed George took it with his cell phone.  I had been too busy hugging Aunt Madge and watching for the police to arrive to notice.

OCEAN ALLEY KIDNAPPING HAS HAPPY ENDING

The fireworks in Ocean Alley on July 4th were literal and figurative.  Local B&B owner Madge Richards was kidnapped after the fireworks display and at two-forty-five a.m. her niece, Jolie Gentil, received a phone call from a lone kidnapper demanding money for her safe return.  Richards was rescued by several local residents at the small roadside park just north of Ocean Alley, at approximately five-thirty a.m. yesterday morning.

Alex “Fun Boy” Masterson was in Ocean Alley in May calling himself Marcus Hardy and claiming to be a mystery writer who wanted quiet time to finish a book.  At that time he stayed at Richards’ Cozy Corner B&B.  He
came to believe that Richards
and Gentil had cash that belonged to him, and the kidnapping was designed to induce them to give him the money.

In fact, the small suitcase of cash and other items that he sought had been in the possession of Penny Pittsen (also know as Penny Marks and Penny O’Brien, among other names), with whom Masterson was arrested in New York more than three years ago on charges of receiving stolen property and identity theft.  Pittsen received a three-year sentence at that time, while Masterson was jailed for 30 days. 

While he held Richards against her will in Ocean Alley’s Budget Inn, Masterson told her he had accidentally killed Pittsen in May, when he was encouraging Pittsen to give him his share of the ill-gotten cash.  Pitssen’s body was found in her car at the same roadside park north of Ocean Alley. 

Although Pittsen’s activities between the time of her release from Taconic Correctional Facility in New York earlier in the year and her death in May are not fully known, it appears she and Masterson had again begun stealing and reselling collectibles and other items they stole from various homes in towns throughout eastern New Jersey.

After her body was discovered, local police removed her property from the Cozy Corner, where she had stayed, and discovered she had a sum of money and other items.  Captain Lawrence Edwards of the Ocean Alley Police Department said Pittsen’s belongings were still in police custody, which made it possible to let Masterson believe he was being given the cash he sought.  “Through a prompt investigation, police were able to locate Richards and take Masterson into custody.  Masterson is recovering from injuries sustained during Richards’ rescue.”