Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (17 page)

I repeated Morehouse’s explanation about her changing her name to make it easier to start forging checks again.  “I just googled combinations of words until I found this.  I thought you might be able to get someone to look up the other two people she was arrested with.  See if any of them are around here.”

“Morehouse must have done this.”  He said this almost to himself.

“You’d think.  But she wasn’t murdered in Ocean Alley, so how hard would he look?  Even if the state police shared stuff, they might be focused on crime scene stuff for the murder rather than her history in another state.”

“Did you show these to Scoobie?” he asked.

“Nope.  He doesn’t want to talk about her at all.”

“Can’t blame him.”

I remembered something he said earlier.  “What did you mean about Penny not being a violent criminal, damage to Scoobie aside, or something like that?”

He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment.  “It’s his business,” he said slowly, “let’s just say she is supposed to have neglected him a lot when he was too young to take care of himself, and one of his arms got broken twice.  That much is in the public record.”

I sat back on the booth bench.  “He only told me she drank a lot.  Aunt Madge said a couple people tried to get the state to take custody and his dad would show up and make a lot of promises.”

George nodded.  “You’d need to talk to Scoobie about anything else.”

I wondered how George knew about anything that wasn’t “in the public record,” but figured that a lot of gossip, true or not, made its way around the newsroom.  After an awkward few seconds I asked, “Now what?”

“You’re the snoop,” he said.  “I usually just follow you around.”

“Very funny.”  I picked up one of the articles and pointed it at him.  “There’s a lot more to this than some of the other stuff I’ve
”
…

“…butted into?”  George added.

“I’m serious.  I can’t think of anything to do with this except give it to Morehouse.”

“The only article with any real substance is the one about her sentence three years ago.  The others somebody picked up from a police blotter.”  He paused.  “There could be a good reason not to look into this more, for you, I mean.  Scoobie
really
doesn’t want to talk about this.  He probably doesn’t even know the names she’s used the last few years.”

“I hear you,” I said, as he added about four teaspoons of sugar to his coffee.

“No you don’t.  You think you’re doing something that needs to be done.  You think it may help Scoobie in some way.  All I’m saying is he may really disagree with that.”

I bristled.  “I don’t want those guys coming after him again.  They don’t know he doesn’t know…”

“They may not even know there is a Scoobie.” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice.  “You could be putting him in danger, not keeping it from him.” 

George had a funny look on his face, as if he was trying to decide whether to say something or not. 
You don’t know him.  Maybe he’s just trying to pass gas quietly.

“The thing is, Scoobie has helped you out a few times.  But it’s also true that he never had his life in danger until you came back here.  There was that stuff at Christmas, then…”

“That’s ridiculous.”  I tried to keep my tone neutral, but I could hear it sounded pretty argumentative. 

He leaned across the table and spoke more quietly.  “This is a different kind of crime.  It’s not a couple people who know each other taking pot shots or something.  Penny wasn’t killed in a hit-and-run, she was killed by somebody probably a lot meaner than she was.  You gotta think about Scoobie, not just what you want to do.”

I’d heard enough.  I was half way to the door before he could finish his sentence. 

I GUESS WHAT UPSET me the most was that George had a couple of good points.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was right.  People might tell me I’m “good for Scoobie,” but I have gotten him involved in some dangerous stuff.  I pulled into the hospital parking lot and turned off my car and let my seat go back so I was looking at the car’s dome light.  On the other hand, he’s gone back to school, and I think I helped him get the courage to do that.  Or know he could, anyway.

What difference did it make who hurt him or killed Penny, as long as they wouldn’t be back?  And you would know that how?  Since I had no answer to that question I sat up and pulled the car seat into a sitting position and sat staring at the hospital entrance.  George was probably right.  Scoobie was relatively safe when he was in the hospital.  It was only in the movies that bad guys snuck into hospitals to finish off somebody. 

But he wouldn’t be there too much longer, and when he got out he would eventually walk along the boardwalk, sit in the library, and take classes.  I knew the end of May was a break in classes, but I didn’t know when they started up again.  That would give me a neutral topic to talk to Scoobie about.

I knew Scoobie was in his room because the walker was at the bottom of his bed.  I leaned my arm in, waving a tissue.

“And people think I’m the strange one,” he said.  “Come on in, Jolie.”

“Thanks.”  I tossed another orange onto the bed near him and sat in the guest chair.  “You look beat.”

“I’m doing a lot better.  Rehab is a lot of work though.  They have stuff for me to do but I have to do it in exactly the right way so I don’t hurt myself more, especially the one in the neck.”

I nodded.  “Do they think you’ll be able to go back to school in early June?”

“Maybe, if I only take one class, and if I make it a one-day-a-week class.  All I’m doing now is taking electives so I can concentrate on the x-ray stuff when I start that program in the fall.” 

“So, what’ll you take?”

He grinned.  “How are you at college math?  I haven’t had any since high school, and I wasn’t so great then.”

I shrugged.  “I didn’t take a lot in college, but I did okay.  I can try to help if you need it.”

“I probably will.  It’s the only math class required for my associate’s degree, and I need to get it out of the way.”  He looked at me more closely.  “You look funny.”

I looked down at my tan capris and dark green top and back at him.

“I don’t mean your clothes.  I mean your expression.”

“Aunt Madge is mad at me about something.  I hate that.”

He gave me a questioning look and I realized I didn’t have a follow-up for that bit of information, and I didn’t want to tell him the truth.  Or not the whole truth. 

“What did you do now?” Scoobie asked.

“Why do people assume I did something?”

“Because they know you,” he said, with a brief smile.

“She heard me on the phone.  I asked Morehouse if he had any news on what happened to you.” 
It’s half true, I used Morehouse’s name.  Well, maybe less than half true.

He frowned, and I continued.  “It makes me nervous that you’re in here, where anyone could walk into your room.  I want them to catch whoever did it.”

“That’d be okay with me, but there’s nothing you can do about it.  Or me either.  Remember what I told you about the Serenity Prayer?”  He looked at me with suspicion.  “You aren’t doing anything to look for bad guys, are you?”

“All I did was walk around the carnival when it went to Asbury Park.”

“Jeez, Jolie, what for?”  He looked as if he would like to shake me.  Not that he ever has.

“I wanted to see if that Turk guy tried to sell drugs to kids.”

“And…”

“Looks like it,” I said.  “I told Morehouse so he has a reason to tell his police buddies to keep an eye on him.” 

“And that’s all?” he asked.

“I never want to see that guy again,” I said.  I wasn’t saying that’s all I had done, and I definitely did not want to see Turk again.  Though I wouldn’t mind having my camera back.

He didn’t say anything for a moment.  “I guess it let you talk to Morehouse without ratting out Alicia, but you really, really need to stay away from those carny guys.”

That reminded me of what I wanted to ask Scoobie.  “You said, when we were on the steps at Gracie’s grandmother’s house, that I should ask you about your carny days sometime.”  I studied his face as he took this in.

“Yeah, well, I planned to tell you the funny stuff, not the bad stuff.”

“So, tell me a funny thing,” I said.

He started to say something, probably to tell me to quit bugging him, but seemed to change his mind.  “There were some nice people.  Couple families that had worked at the Ocean City Amusement Park for years, and their parents did, too.”  He paused.  “I didn’t actually work too much at a carnival…”

“Yeah, Ramona said she thought it was the rides in Ocean City.”  He scowled and I continued.  “When you get your head bashed in people talk about you.”  I smiled at him.  “If you don’t want to, Morehouse makes you.”

“I suppose.”  He stuck his finger under the soft collar he was wearing.  “I hate this thing.”

I said nothing, just met his eyes and raised an eyebrow.

“So I worked on the carnival for a few days when it left St. Anthony’s a bunch of years ago, but then I got on with them at the amusement park.  I told you that.”

I nodded.

“So, there were some nice people, and some of them were really good with kids.”  He smiled to himself.  “You know that game, where the kids pick up a plastic duck that’s in water, and the writing on the bottom says what prize to give them?”

“Yep.  I loved that.”

“Me, too.  Anyway, this old guy ran it.  He thought the prizes were pretty cheesy, but he didn’t pick ‘em.  Skinflint owner did.”  Scoobie frowned.  “Anyway, this old guy, Sam I think, he wrote over a bunch of the writing on the bottom of the ducks so there were more ducks that let the kids have better prizes.  Then he had this box under the counter, and when the owner groused about spending too much money on the prizes he’d stick a bunch of the better ducks — that’s what he called them — in the box for a couple days and get them out again later.”

“What if the owner found them in the box?”

Scoobie shrugged, and then winced.  “Sam put a bunch of the prizes on top of them.”

“But not everybody was a Sam,” I said, softly.

“There were jerks,” he said, “but most of the people at the amusement park were long-time employees.  Carnivals have a lot more temporary workers.”

A thought occurred to me.  “Who owned that amusement park?”

“What do you care?”  His look oozed suspicion.

“Just wondering if it was the same people who ran the carnival that was here when you got hurt.”  I tried to look innocent.

“There weren’t signs about who owns it.  How do you know who ran the carnival?” Scoobie asked.

“Think George.”

“Oh, right.  I think they were called East Jersey Entertainment.
”

AUNT MADGE HAD TWO more guests by Friday evening and her calendar for the next few weeks was pretty full.  That boded well for me, less time for her to focus on being mad at me.  Mister mystery-writer-Marcus seemed to see himself as an unofficial tour guide.  I heard him offer to walk the parents of the groom, who had never been in Ocean Alley, over to Java Jolt on Saturday morning.

I sat in the rocking chair in my bedroom and reread the articles about Penny, and then went over my list again.  The only question I’d answered on my “need to know” list was why Alicia was upset about Scoobie. 

“You need two lists,” I said aloud.

Need to know about Scoobie

Who hurt him?

Why would anyone hurt him?

Who found Scoobie?

Why didn’t they wait for police?

Need to know about Penny

Why did she go to Budget Inn?

Did she know carny people there?

How was Penny killed?

Where did she get the silverware?

Why leave her luggage here?

In some ways it was easier to make guesses about Penny.  She probably stole the silverware herself.  It might be hard to resell it as tableware, but there was probably a market for it simply as silver.  I recalled silver sold for a great deal per ounce and people melted it down or something. 

It made sense that Penny left her luggage at the Cozy Corner.  If she didn’t have the money and silver with her no one could steal it from her.  There didn’t seem to be anything in her larger suitcase that she could not easily replace, especially if she had a good bit of money in her ugly purse. 
What happened to that purse?

Penny and the carnival.  Penny and the carnival.  I’d never seen her with anyone from the carnival.  If only I’d been a fly on a booth at the carnival.  George’s pictures.  He had taken a lot of them.  Suppose Penny was in some of them? 

“Damn, Jolie.  You took pictures.”  I didn’t take many on Sunday, but I took a bunch on Saturday.  Probably not too useful, as they were generally of people sitting above the dunk tank.  With a sinking feeling I realized they were on the card in my stolen camera.