Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town by Elaine Orr Read Free Book Online Page B

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