Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (6 page)

Logic told me that if neither of us had seen Scoobie the last hour or so of the carnival that he’d already left.  Or he was someplace where he didn’t want to be seen.  I clenched the steering wheel so hard my fingers hurt, suddenly so angry with Scoobie I wanted to scream. 

So I did. 

And then I cried, and kept it up until I pulled into St. Anthony’s parking lot.  “This is ridiculous.  You’re going to walk in there with a red blotchy face and stuffed nose and Lance or Reverend Jamison will think Scoobie died.”  I blew my nose hard, and forced myself to think of Aunt Madge with her green hair on St. Patrick’s Day.  It worked, a little.

I wondered why I could park closer to the carnival entrance, then gave myself a head slap as I realized the gates wouldn’t open for another fifteen minutes.  “Oh well.”  I figured I could talk my way in by saying I was with the dunk tank. 
That’s not a lie, you were in it yesterday.

I needn’t have worried.  There were no carnival workers ready to keep people out of the way as there had been just before the opening hour yesterday, when there were dozens of people waiting to get in. 

The only two people at the dunk tank were Megan, my favorite food pantry volunteer, and her daughter Alicia.  “Jolie!  How is he?” Megan asked
.

“They say better than he was yesterday.  I guess we’ll know more as time goes…”  I stopped as Alicia burst into tears. 

Megan pulled her daughter in for a hug, and I fought the urge to cry again.  “She’s been so upset,” Megan said as she stroked Alicia’s hair.

“I’m not upset!”  Alicia wailed, burying her head into her mother’s shoulder.

Teenagers.  Megan and I half-smiled at each other.

“I can’t stay to help, I’m sorry.  We’re taking turns being at the hospital, sitting with Scoobie.  Ramona’s there now.”

Megan nodded.  “This morning at church Reverend Jamison told everyone to pray for Scoobie and then asked for a couple more volunteers.”  She continued patting Alicia.  “About a half-dozen people said they’d be over, and he told them to get together after church and come up with a way to stagger their schedules.”

“Right.”  I had just realized that if the First Prez service was over I needed to start scouting for the man I’d seen Scoobie looking at yesterday.  If Aunt Madge dropped by the hospital to find only Ramona she’d know I really was up to something.  I gave Alicia a pat on the shoulder and dug out my camera.

After taking a couple photos of the empty dunk tank and the “Harvest for All Food Pantry” sign above it — which was going to be my excuse for being there, if I seemed to need one — I looked around the expansive carnival area.  People had begun to arrive and I heard the Merry-Go-Round start its first cycle of the day.

“You aren’t here to take photos of the dunk tank.” 

I jumped about three inches and turned to face an unsmiling George Winters.  “And you would know that how?” I asked, and turned my back on him.

“Because, sad to say, I know you.”  He fell into step beside me.  “Who are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.”  I glanced up at him and could feel my eyes filling with tears and looked away.

George’s tone, absent the bantering quality he often uses with me, did not change.  “You’ll be back at the hospital soon.  If you tell me what you’re looking for I can look, too.”

That stopped me, and I considered his offer.  When I was trying to figure out how a skeleton had gotten in the Tillotson-Fisher attic a few months ago I had considered talking to George about it.  A reporter is used to ferreting out facts.  I had rejected the idea then and didn’t like it any better now.  But I’m leaving almost now.

I took a breath, mostly to be sure I wouldn’t cry.  “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” he asked.

“Did you see Scoobie playing the High Striker yesterday?”  I asked.

“Yeah,” he grunted with a smile.  “I saw Ramona hit the ball higher, too.”

What had seemed funny yesterday held no appeal today.  “When we were over there first a blonde guy was collecting the money.  When we went back maybe forty-five minutes later, it was a different guy.”

“Different how?” he asked, taking out his thin reporter’s notebook and pulling the stubby pencil from its spiral binding.

“Not as tall.”

George gave me a look full of sarcasm, and I flushed.

“The second guy was maybe five eight or nine, not a lot taller than Ramona.  His coloring was darker, and his hair was black.”  I paused, remembering.  “I’m not sure he was from Greece or Turkey or someplace near there, but that’s what he looked like to me.”

“So, Mediterranean features, then?” he asked.

I nodded and shrugged at the same time, and George looked away for a moment, and then took my elbow as if to guide me.

“Hey!”

“Enough already,” he said in a low voice.  “Just walk to the cotton candy lady with me.  And pretend you’re having a good time.”

“Yeah, right.”  But I followed his lead. 

George bought two cotton candy sticks and paid for them.  “Now,” he said as he handed me one, “you owe me more than a phone.”

“I guess I should apologize for pulling you in,” I said, grudgingly.

“Gotta love you, Jolie.  You aren’t sorry one bit.”  He nodded behind us and said, “Don’t turn now, but in a minute look at the game and see if that’s the guy.”

I put my tongue on the candy, since you can’t really bite it, and wished I’d had something other than sweet food today.  Maybe I would go to the hospital cafeteria and buy something healthy.

I feigned interest in the Ferris Wheel and, with George following my gaze, looked at the High Striker and then turned back toward the cotton candy stand.  Same guy.  “Yep, that’s him.”

“Okay, now walk to the dunk tank with me, and tell me what you think he did.”

“It’s not what he did as the way Scoobie reacted to him.  He and Ramona and I were walking back to the High Striker after we had hot dogs.”  I thought for a moment, trying to remember Scoobie’s exact expression.  “Scoobie was going to try again to beat Ramona, but when we got closer he stopped, kind of without warning, and I bumped into him.”

George looked up from his notebook.  “Didn’t shove him in a puddle or anything?”

“Don’t be a jerk,” I said, testily.

“You got that cornered.  Continue.”

I gave him what I hoped was a look of pure dislike and continued.  “Scoobie was almost rigid, and his face looked mad, but just for a second.  I looked to see what he saw, and the guy was looking at Scoobie with a funny expression.”

“Funny ha-ha or funny odd?”  George asked.

“Odd.  It was kind of a…smirk, I guess.  And Scoobie turned around fast and said we were going bowling.”

“That’s it?  You’re holding back.”

I tossed the cotton candy stick in the trash.  “Am not.  I could just tell Scoobie knew the guy and didn’t like him.  Didn’t think about it again until yesterday morning, when Morehouse asked us about everything.  Maybe Ramona would remember more.”

He stuck his thin reporter’s notebook in the pocket of his Hawaiian-style shirt.  “Okay, I’m going to take pictures of a bunch of booths and games.  You go back to the hospital.”

“But, I want…”

“You want a photo.  I get that.  I’ll email you a copy, and I’ll print one off for you.” 

When I started to protest, he almost growled.  “You were with him when Scoobie reacted to the guy.  You need to get the hell out of here before he gets interested in you, too.”

I left, but not because George told me to.

I BARELY BEAT AUNT MADGE back to the hospital, but she had talked to Harry at First Prez and was fit to be tied.  “Can you honestly tell me you aren’t going to go to that carnival to take a picture of that worker?”

“Yes.”

Ramona looked away.

“I described the guy to George Winters and asked him to do it.”

“After you dunked him?” Ramona and Aunt Madge asked, together.

“Yep.  He likes Scoobie, and he said he would and would email me the picture.”  I looked steadily at Aunt Madge, grateful that she had phrased her question in a way that let me answer honestly.  I was not going to the carnival, I had already been.

“How will he know what he looks like?” Ramona asked.

“I described him as well as I could.  I guess if he sees more than one guy with that build and skin tone he’ll have us look at more than one picture.”

“That’s not the point.  What do you want the picture for?” Aunt Madge demanded. 

I knew Aunt Madge was really mad.  I figured if there were not other people in the waiting area she might even be raising her voice.  I adopted an injured tone.  Really, how could she doubt me?  “If Scoobie says that’s the guy who hurt him, I want to be able to stay away from him.”

“And not let him near Scoobie,” Ramona added.

Still appearing suspicious, Aunt Madge made no comment, but took a seat and nodded at the parents of the car accident victim.  Ramona glanced at me and looked away again. 

There was still a frosty air to the room when Sgt. Morehouse came in a few minutes later.  “Thought we might compare notes,” he said, as he took a chair next to Aunt Madge.

That’s a new one.  He must have sensed my thought as he nodded in my direction and gave, for him, a brief smile. 

“Carny guy you think Scoobie was avoiding is called Turk.  You hear Scoobie mention that name at all?”

Aunt Madge said, “I never heard Adam mention that name,” while Ramona and I just shook our heads.

“Figures,” he said.  “So, we got the name of the person who owns the cell phone that called in when Scoobie got found, but it’s a dead end.”

“Why..?”  I asked, and stopped when he and Aunt Madge both evil-eyed me.

“The owner’s a lawyer from the city who grew up here.”  He glanced at Aunt Madge.  “You remember the Stewarts?”

She nodded.  “You must mean Peter.”

“Yep,” he said.  “Someone stole his cell phone while he was at the carnival.  Had it in his back pocket, and later he remembered somebody carrying a couple helium balloons banged into him.”

“And the balloons were what he noticed, not the person’s face,” Ramona said, shaking her head slightly.  “People do stuff like that on the boardwalk all summer.”

“Not bad,” I said to her, as Morehouse nodded.

“Now the next part might be disappointing to you,” he continued.  “About one-thirty Saturday morning one of our guys was in the Sandpiper Bar and Grill.  Scoobie was there.”

“What was Adam doing in a bar?” Aunt Madge asked.  “He gave that up years ago.”

“Don’t know what he was doing there, but whatever it was he wasn’t happy with the guy he was sitting with.  No fight or anything, but they were arguing.  Not loud though, so don’t know what about.” 

“
Same guy from the High Striker, you think?” I asked.

“Can’t tell.  Our officer wasn’t there to look at carnies, and he only saw the guy sitting down.”

“Well, there was the Mediterranean guy, and there was the blonde guy there before him, but I don’t think Scoobie was mad at the blonde guy,” Ramona said, as I nodded.

Morehouse made a note.  “I keep telling that damn bar owner to get security cameras inside, but he won’t do it.”

Aunt Madge almost snorted.  “He won’t.  It’s supposed to be the best place in town to buy pot.”

“And you know this how?” Morehouse asked.

She shrugged and Ramona added, “Everybody knows that.”

Morehouse gave a slight head shake.  “Great.  None of the carny workers admit talking to him other than the old guy who runs the bowling machines.  And there’s no way to figure why he was in the Sandpiper Bar and Grill.”

“Maybe he remembers it was my favorite bar,” said a woman from the doorway.

CHAPTER SIX

IT COULD HAVE BEEN THE grey color of her eyes or the kind of oval shape of her head, but even though I’d never met her I would have picked Scoobie’s mother out of a crowd.  Penny “you don’t need a last name I change it a lot” was polite to Aunt Madge, but did not look at all pleased to see Sgt. Morehouse as he stood to greet her.

“Penny,” he said, “it’s been a long time.”  He did not extend his hand.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been living in upstate New York.  What happened to my son?”

The last word was slightly slurred and I glanced at Aunt Madge, who didn’t notice me because she was staring mutely at Penny.  So was Ramona, but her rigid posture told me she was even less happy to see Scoobie’s mother. 

Morehouse gestured that Penny should sit and positioned himself across from her while he gave her the sixty-second summary of finding Scoobie and the rush to provide medical assistance.  “Beyond that, we know very little,” he concluded.

“Seems like if you can bust people for driving with a little beer in them you could spend some time figuring out who tried to kill my son.” 

Morehouse reddened and was about to speak when Aunt Madge said, “I trust you don’t do that anymore.  Where are you staying, Penny?”