Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (24 page)

“You never go under there,” I said.  She ran toward her food dish and stood there expectantly.  As she has trained me, I gave her a few pieces of dry food.  “You’ve eaten already, you know.”  She ignored me.

I was in my shorty pajamas and about to get in bed when I realized I hadn’t heard Aunt Madge downstairs.  I put on a robe and walked down the back stairs into her great room.  I had already let the dogs back in and slid the piece of wood into the sliding door frame, so they made no effort to get up from where they were curled next to each other on a rug by the door. 

“Aunt Madge?”  Her bedroom door was open so I peeked in.  “Hmmm.  Did she tell you guys she was going to party late?”

Mr. Rogers thumped his tail a few times, but did not respond, and Miss Piggy’s yawn told me she didn’t know either.  I turned on the electric tea kettle and picked up one of Aunt Madge’s carpentry magazines and plopped on the sofa while the water heated. 

Half an hour later I needed to potty and still no Aunt Madge.  It was almost eleven-thirty. 
Those little boys would have to be in bed by now.  Maybe Aunt Madge and Harry snuck off together.
I grinned at the idea. 

At midnight I called Harry.  His voice said he’d been asleep, but he perked up quickly.  “What do you mean she’s not home?” he asked.

“I thought maybe you guys went out to eat.”

“No, that Marcus fellow talked to us for a few seconds after the fireworks, and just before I took the kids to the car she said she was going to go home with you.”

“Okay, now I’m scared.  I never saw her after the fireworks.”

“I’m coming over,” he said, and hung up.

I ran upstairs to put on jeans and got back downstairs as Harry’s car lights entered the lot.  I met him at the side door.  “You don’t think she went for coffee or something with Marcus, do you?”

“No,” he said.  “She doesn’t especially like him.”  He looked as if he had dressed as hurriedly as I did, and his hair was mussed.

We walked into the kitchen and both dogs sat up straight and then came over, tails not wagging. 
Funny how they sense when something’s not right.

I might have waited a little while longer to call the police, but not Harry.  They put him through to Dana Johnson.  “What do you mean you don’t know where Madge is?” she asked.

“Just that,” Harry said, impatience creeping into his voice.  “This is just not like her.  She said she was going to ride home from the fireworks with Jolie and Scoobie and they never saw her.”

“Everybody knows her, and some of the guys just came in,” Dana said.  “Let me see if anyone saw her on the boardwalk or something and I’ll call you right back.”

But she didn’t call for a few minutes, and then there was a knock on the door.  Sgt. Morehouse let himself in before I got there and we met in the hallway.  I put my fingers over my lips and pointed him toward the kitchen door, where Harry was standing.

He listened to Harry and me “walk through the night,” as he put it, and didn’t say anything for a few seconds when we were done.

“No one saw her?” I asked.  Aunt Madge is better known in Ocean Alley than all the politicians combined, and a lot more popular.  Surely someone has seen her.

His phone buzzed and he answered it.  “So put more people on it.”  He looked at Harry and me.  “Dana and a couple others checked the few places that would still be open near the boardwalk, and they’re going to walk the beach.”

A NIGHT NEVER SEEMED so long.  Not the night Robby said he was going to be arrested for embezzlement or the night I told him I was leaving him.  By two o’clock we knew something was very, very wrong.  She was nowhere in town and not at the hospital.  The police comings and goings had awakened half the guests, and though I had persuaded them that they could go back to their rooms and I was sure Aunt Madge was fine, I was very unsure.

At two-fifteen a very young officer arrived carrying what looked like a tool box. He opened it and began dusting the guests’ breakfast area. 
I’ll never get that cleaned up by seven o’clock.

“But it’s only her guests and Aunt Madge and me who sit in there,” I said. 

“Does she do background checks on her guests?” the officer asked, quietly.

I exchanged a frightened look with Harry, who asked, “When Marcus stopped by, where did he sit?”

“Kitchen table,” I said, and Sgt. Morehouse nodded to the officer, who went to the kitchen next.

“Marcus?” I said.

“She says he’s engaging, but she really doesn’t like him, and you found him in the hallway near the room next to yours last time he was here,” Harry said.

Sgt. Morehouse made me go over the day Marcus came out of Penny’s room.  “But, I added, Aunt Madge said his room was in about the same location on the floor above.”

“We need to check everything anybody thinks of,” he said, and sent me to look at Aunt Madge’s B&B records to get Marcus’ phone number.

HALF AN HOUR LATER Morehouse had not found Marcus at his home number and I had called Reverend Jamison and Lance Wilson to see if they knew if someone had asked Aunt Madge for help after the fireworks.  Sgt. Morehouse told me to tell them not to call anyone else, and when Lance offered to come over I said no.  He made me promise to call him as soon as she was home.  I was trying to cajole Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy from under the large oak kitchen table when my phone chirped.  I grabbed it.

“Jolie.” Aunt Madge said.

“Thank God, where are…?” I began.

“Just listen, Jolie.” 

I felt cold all over and held the phone away from my ear so Sgt. Morehouse could hear and Harry could maybe hear.

“I am with a very angry man.” 

I pressed a finger over my lips to keep from crying.  “What should I do?”

“There are people who know that Penny had that small suitcase with money in it.  They want it.”

I looked at Sgt. Morehouse but he shook his head and pointed at my phone.  It was clear he didn’t want whoever was with Aunt Madge to know he was there.  “Okay, but you know it might take me more than a few minutes to get it.”

“I’m told you’ll have an hour to figure it out.”  In a very clipped tone, she added, “You are not to call the police.  I will call you back.”  She hung up.

Morehouse took my phone, looked at it, and said, “Damn it.”  I sat on the floor.

Harry stooped next to me.  “We will figure it out.”

I looked up at Morehouse.  “Why did you say that?”

“No name on caller ID, probably a throw-away phone.”  He glanced at it and back at me.  “Make sure to keep your battery charged.”  He tossed me my phone.

He opened his phone and began to give orders.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER the kitchen was crowded with Lt. Tortino, Captain Larry Edwards, whom I’d never met, and Dana, Harry, and me.  The captain had called the FBI, but they had not arrived.  Sgt. Morehouse had left to work out getting Penny’s bag out of evidence so it could be here when the kidnapper called back.  I had no idea if the money would be in it or if giving it to someone would get Aunt Madge home.

“But what if whoever has her figures out you’re all here?” I asked, for the third time.

“We’ll deal with that,” Captain Edwards said.

When I started to speak, Lt. Tortino interrupted me.  “It will take awhile, not too long, to work with the various mobile phone companies to try to figure the tower the kidnapper’s cell phone is using, but in all honesty it won’t be too helpful.”  Lt. Tortino said this all very quickly. 

“So what can we do?” Harry asked.

“First,” Lt. Tortino said, “when she calls back tell her you have the money and you assume whoever has it will trade Madge for the money.”  I nodded.  “As long as we are talking to Madge we know she’s okay,” he said.

I nodded again.  I was waiting for him to say there was some kind of a plan to find Aunt Madge immediately and that she would be home to serve breakfast to her guests. 

“They’ll likely remind you they don’t want any police involvement.  You tell them you called us when you thought she was missing, but you told us you have since found out Madge is fine, and we’re no longer involved.”

“We are about to leave here, except for the sergeant,” Captain Edwards said.  “He needs to sit in an area that cannot be seen from the street.  Keep the curtains closed.”

“You think they’re near here?” I asked.

“No idea.  We don’t want to give them any reasons to be angry.”  Lt. Tortino said.

I heard the side door to the parking lot open and there was a light tap on the kitchen door.  George Winters stuck his head in.  When he saw me he came in, a questioning look on his face. 

“We can’t have reporters in here, George,” Dana said, and she walked toward him.

“And we don’t want them!” I added, following Dana.  “No one can know people are here.”

“I’m leaving.  The guys at the paper heard something on the scanner and the cop outside told me what’s going on.”  He glanced at the other officers and back at me.  “Call me if I can help.”  He kept staring at me. 

My eyes filled with tears and I nodded, and started crying.  Hard.  George walked over and put his hand on my shoulder as I cried into my hands.  “They’ll find her.  She’s tough.  A lot tougher than you.”

I hiccupped and looked at him between my fingers.  “It’s not funny.”

“Of course it’s not,” he said.  “But it is true.”  He squeezed my shoulder, nodded at Dana and walked out.

I heard him talk to someone on the stoop and Morehouse walked back in.  He was carrying Penny’s suitcase.

“You have the money?”  I asked, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

“And damn lucky we still had it.”  He glanced at the other officers.  “Had to wait while the evidence clerk scanned some of the damn bills.”  He looked at his watch.  “Five minutes.  He sat the small suitcase on the table.” 

Dana pulled a tissue from her pocket and handed it to me.  “Thanks, Dana.”

“Everybody out,” the captain stood as he said this.  He nodded at Morehouse.  “You clear on everything?”

“As much as I can be,” Morehouse said.  “I don’t have a damn playbook.”

And I thought I was the only one he talked to that way.
  “Thanks,” I mumbled, as the other police left.  Lt. Tortino gave me a thumbs up sign and I tried to smile.  I couldn’t.

Harry and I looked at Morehouse. 

“We’re winging it here,” he said.  “If I told you I’d worked with a lot of kidnappers you know I’d be lying.”

“I can drive the money somewhere,” Harry began.

“We gotta hear what they say.”  Morehouse turned to me.  “You let them know you have the money, and you want to keep talking to Madge.”

My phone chirped.

“Okay, slowly,” Morehouse said.  “Remember, you didn’t get the money from me.  You had it hidden in the attic.”

“Why can’t you trace the call?” I asked.

“Get real.  Just stay calm.”

“Aunt Madge?” I asked as I pushed talk.

“Yes.”

“The bag was still under the floor in the attic.  I have it.”  It sounded as if she was talking to someone in a low tone. 
Maybe she has her hand over the phone.

“I need to tell you where to leave it,” she said.  “No police.  I’ll call back in a few minutes.”

“No!”  I nearly screamed.  “Tell me now.”

“Jolie.”  Her tone was sharp.  “Get a grip.”

“Okay, okay.  Are you…?” 

“I’ll call again.”  She hung up.

BUT AN HOUR WENT BY AND she didn’t.  I looked at the kitchen clock.  Three-forty-five in the morning.  I had had two more cups of coffee and alternated between feeling alert or exhausted.  Either way, my stomach was roiling with acid.

Sgt. Morehouse was sitting in the short hallway behind the kitchen area, by Aunt Madge’s bedroom, where he could not be seen from the street.  The small suitcase was on the hall table behind him.  Harry and I were on the sofa, except that I kept getting up to walk around.  Mister Rogers followed every step I took while Miss Piggy kept her head near Harry’s foot.  Jazz was nowhere to be found, and I’d looked.

There was a buzz and Morehouse answered his phone.  “You’re kidding me.  Yeah.  Get me all you can.” 

“What?” Harry and I asked together.

“Either your Marcus is Alex Masterson, the guy Penny was arrested with a few years ago, or that guy snuck into the kitchen and sat at Madge’s table.”

“What do you mean?  Who is that?”  Harry asked. 

In thirty seconds I summarized the photo of the stringy-haired guy who was arrested with Penny.  “But it can’t be Marcus,” I said, and looked at Sgt. Morehouse.  “He has short white hair, he wears glasses, and…”  I stopped. 

“This changes everything.”  Morehouse said.  He started to dial his phone and I sat across from Harry. 

“So,” Harry said, “if it is Marcus, perhaps his earlier visit was just an attempt to find the money.”

“Which is why he was outside Penny’s room,” I said slowly.  “Even his eyebrows were white,” I said.