Slow Dollar dk-9 Read online

  Across the midway on the south side was Polly’s Plate Pitch, with the Rope Climb on the left and the Balloon Race on the right. On the north side was Windy Raines’s Bowler Roller, a shooting gallery, and the Bottle Setup. All six stores were easily visible. Skee Matusik’s Lucky Ducky was next door to the west and the ears-and-floss wagon was on the east, but the tent walls would have blocked Braz’s view of them.

  Normally she or Arnie would have been checking around every hour or so to make sure everybody was in the flow, but one of their ride jockeys had quit and one of their cooks was stoned in the bunkhouse about to get his ass fired. There had hardly been time to let anybody even go to the donniker till after the marks with young kids had started to clear out. So it wasn’t surprising that neither Polly nor Windy had noticed what was going on over here at the Dozer. But why hadn’t one of the marks?

  CHAPTER 9

  STEVIE KNOTT

  EARLY SUNDAY AFTERNOON

  “Deborah left a message for you on the answering machine,” Isabel said as her son got up from the table and headed for the dishwasher with his empty plate. “Wants you and Eric to go swimming this afternoon.”

  “Yeah, I heard it,” said Stevie. “Thing is, I’ve got some stuff to look up in the library for my history class tomorrow, and Eric said he wanted to get back to Shaw early, too.”

  “Well, give her a call so she’ll know not to expect you,” Isabel said.

  “Yes, Mama.” He spoke in exaggerated resignation and his teenage sister giggled.

  “Mom’s still not sure you know enough to wipe your own—”

  “Here now, that’ll be enough of that kind of talk,” said Haywood. When it came to proper language for a daughter, Haywood was his father’s son.

  “—nose,” Jane Ann finished. She looked at her father in all innocence. “What’s wrong with nose?”

  “Never you mind.”

  “What did you think I was going to say?” she persisted, laughter dancing in her blue eyes.

  “Bel?”

  “Jane Ann, help Stevie clear the table and stop picking at your daddy,” Isabel scolded.

  Obediently, the girl rose and lifted the meat platter. “All the same, Mom, I still think Dad has a dirty mind.”

  Haywood laughed and told Isabel he believed he could eat just another small slice of that coconut pie if she’d cut him off one.

  Out in the kitchen, Jane Ann set the remains of a pork roast on the kitchen counter. “Come for a ride?” she asked her brother. She slid soiled tableware into the dishwasher basket. “It’s been ages since you and I took the horses out together.”

  “Sorry, kid, I really did tell Eric I’d pick him up before two. Maybe next time.”

  “Sure,” she said, trying not to whine.

  A CD she’d borrowed from Annie Sue lay on the counter where she’d left it when they came home last night. Drops of water had splashed on the cover, and she carefully blotted them away with a paper towel, then set it atop the refrigerator out of harm’s way.

  “It’s just that I never get to see you alone. Now that you’re at Carolina, you’re gone most of the time. And when you do come home, you’re either hanging out with Gayle or your friends. It’s like the older you get, the less I see of you. Like you’re not part of the family anymore.”

  “You and I spent the whole morning together,” Stevie protested.

  “In church? Here with Mom and Dad? I don’t count that being together.” She went back to putting away the leftovers.

  “Well, what about yesterday? You were at the carnival with your friends all day while I was out here alone with the ironing board and washer.” Stevie held the refrigerator door open for her. “Things change.”

  He grinned and draped a dishtowel over her head. “But you’re always going to be my doofus sister, no matter how old I get.”

  Jane Ann crumpled the towel into a ball and aimed it at his head; he ducked and caught it just before it hit his tea glass on the counter.

  “Good hands,” she said. “I still wish you’d come riding, though.”

  “I wish to hell I could, too, kid.” He sounded so sincerely regretful that she was mollified.

  “Well, don’t let it wreck your life. Actually, I’ve got homework myself. Two more acts of Shakespeare to read.”

  “Miss Barnes’s class?”

  “Yeah, and she expects us to know the meaning of every single word.”

  “I know. I had her, too, remember?”

  So okay. Yes, thought Jane Ann as they shared groans over the toughest teacher at West Colleton High. He will always be my brother.

  Twenty minutes later, Stevie was helping Eric throw his duffel bag in the back of the Jeep.

  “This is crazy, you know that, don’t you?” he said when they were on the road and heading east, not north toward Shaw in Raleigh.

  “When else’ll we have this chance?” Eric said logically. “Sunday afternoon? The place should be deserted. You don’t think it’s fair Lamarr should get cheated out of what’s rightfully his, do you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Besides,” he argued, “if we get caught and you’re with us, Deb’rah and Mr. Dwight won’t let them do anything to us.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Stevie said darkly. “She let A.K. sit in jail three weekends last summer, remember?”

  Brad Needham sighed and clicked off the television. Hard to concentrate on anything under the circumstances, and while he enjoyed watching public television (or enjoyed the idea of watching it), lap quilting and cooking shows just weren’t doing it for him this afternoon.

  On the floral couch where she had been drifting in and out of sleep since lunchtime, Janice roused herself with a yawn. “I was watching that, Bradley.”

  “Sorry.” He clicked it back on.

  “You coming down with something, hon?”

  “No, why?”

  “I don’t know. Ever since we got back, you’ve been sort of blue. And like your mind’s elsewhere.” She looked up into his dark brown eyes. “You’re not worried about work or anything, are you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am,” he said, gratefully seizing on her suggestion. “In fact, I was thinking about running over to the office to work on my report for a couple of hours.”

  He took his stockinged feet off the pale blue velvet has sock that matched his pale blue velvet lounge chair and slipped on the sneakers that were neatly tucked beside the chair.

  “Oh, hon!” She sat up in protest. “Can’t you do it here? I thought you finished that thing before we left California.”

  “I did. But there are a couple of facts I want to check before I print it out—some data I need to get off the mainframe—and you know me. I won’t rest easy till I get it done.”

  Janice smiled at him indulgently as he stood and hitched up the jeans he always wore for Sunday chores. “Oh, you! Always worrying about one more detail that needs doing.”

  As he stood up, she leaned back on the couch and looked around their pretty living room with deep satisfaction. “Isn’t it wonderful to be back home, Bradley? California was great, but three months was much too long, don’t you think?”

  God, did he ever agree with that, thought Brad, but he merely nodded.

  “Sandwiches for supper okay with you?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll try not to be too long.”

  Once in the car, though, he hesitated about which way to go. The office first, he decided, brushing back the strands of dark hair that fell across his forehead. Janice didn’t exactly keep tabs on him, but it wouldn’t hurt for the guard on the desk to be able to tell her he’d been in if she should call.

  And then?

  He had been so careful over the years. Never a single slip. And then there was the extra precaution he’d taken when he married Janice, a precaution that worked so well he’d come to rely on it and eventually take it for granted. It never once occurred to him that those extra weeks in California that the company had
tacked onto his original assignment could be his undoing. He should have read the fine print, but who knew? And where did he go from here? He’d made himself face that guy Friday night and where had it gotten him? He should have stayed away.

  But maybe it was going to be all right. It was almost forty-eight hours and no one had come looking for him. No reason for Dwight Bryant or anyone else to connect him to a sordid little carnival murder.

  Reason said to just leave it alone, but fear made him remember the fingerprints, the pictures, and all the other details that could bring his world crashing down.

  “How’d Lamarr find this place anyhow?” Stevie asked Eric as they drove slowly past the deserted-looking house and its collection of outbuildings, set down in the middle of nowhere.

  “Aw, you can find anything on the Internet. He looked up Ames Amusement Corporation and found their schedule. So last week, when the carnival was over in Rocky Mount, he got tight with one of the brothers that helps set up the rides, got him talking over a couple of beers after hours. The guy’d been here to help pick up a generator. He remembered the road because it was such a dumb name, and Lamarr checked it out. Only place on the road that fit the description.”

  They came to the end of Fannie Feather Road.

  “Probably somebody’s sweet old grandmother,” said Eric.

  “Or somebody’s favorite stripper,” said Stevie as they circled around the stop sign.

  They hadn’t met a single car the whole length of the road. Things might be booming in the western part of Colleton County, but here on the eastern edge, it was still pretty much untouched farmland and third-growth wood lots.

  Lamarr Wrenn was in the white van in front of them. The plan was that they’d cruise past twice, and if they didn’t see anyone, they’d drive into the yard and honk the horn. If anyone came to the door, they’d pretend they were lost and ask for directions to a nonexistent friend’s house.

  “There he goes,” Eric whispered as the van turned into the long drive, through scraggly bushes that almost hid the place from the road.

  With heavy misgivings, Stevie followed.

  They had been speaking in such low voices that the sudden horn blast made them jump.

  “Jesus!” Stevie said.

  “Amen!” Eric agreed fervently.

  Lamarr sounded the horn again and still no one appeared in the door. No curtain twitched. There wasn’t even a dog to bark.

  With that, the van moved forward, down the rutted sandy lane that led to the sheds out back. This, too, was part of their plan: get the Jeep and the van out of sight behind the barns and then reconnoiter till they found what they had come for.

  Lamarr drove in behind the furthermost structure, through thick weeds that looked as if they hadn’t been mowed all summer, and when Stevie swung around him, pointing the Jeep out for a quick exit if needed, Lamarr gave him a thumbs-up and repositioned his own vehicle. Built like a linebacker, Lamarr got out of the van and handed them each a pair of latex gloves like the ones he was already wearing.

  Eric rolled his eyes. “You been watching too much television, man.”

  “No, he’s right,” Stevie said as he slipped them on. “No point leaving them a business card.”

  They fanned out, each checking the open or unlocked sheds that held gaudily painted signs and boards, boxes of stuffed toys, a popcorn maker with the glass missing from its sides, and bits and pieces of old carnival games and stands. At one locked door, all they had to do was tap the pin from the hinges to peek inside. The space behind was stacked with crazy mirrors from a fun house, so they carefully replaced the pins.

  Finally, nothing was left but the shed they’d parked behind, the one shed with a hefty padlock. It stood a foot off the ground on rock supports. The windows were too high to look through even standing up in the Jeep and balancing on the roll bar. Worse, the door was hinged from the inside.

  Lamarr reached into the back of his van and pulled out a tire iron.

  “I don’t know, guys,” said Stevie. “So far, all we’ve done is trespassed. This knocks it up to breaking and entering.”

  “No pain, no gain,” said Lamarr, sliding the flat end of the tire iron up under the hasp.

  Before he could put some muscle into it and lever the hasp right out of the wood, Eric said urgently, “Somebody’s coming!”

  Out on the road, a car slowed down and they heard it enter the brush-lined drive. As one, they dived back behind the barn and crouched motionless in the weeds to peer through the rocks that supported the building. The car stopped out of sight, and whoever was driving had cut the motor.

  Silence for a long moment; then they heard the car door open and close, and soon a pair of sneakered feet and jean-clad legs came into view. The legs hesitated, then came straight on toward the locked door.

  Because they had been waiting subconsciously for the jingle of keys, the next sound, a wrenching of metal from wood, was so unexpected that it took them a moment to comprehend.

  Lamarr got it first.

  “Shit! The bastard’s a fucking thief!” Tire iron still in hand, he came roaring up out of the weeds. “Hey! You! What the hell you think you’re—”

  With Stevie and Eric uncertain whether to follow or try to hold him back, he bulled his way between the van and the shed wall, started to turn the corner, stepped into a mole run, twisted his ankle, and went down so hard the ground around them shook.

  By the time the other two got around Lamarr to look, the thief, if that’s what he was, had already jumped back in his car and was halfway down the long dirt drive, kicking up clouds of dust. Between the dust and the glare of the late-afternoon sun in their eyes, the only thing they could be sure of was that the vehicle appeared to be a dark midsize sedan.

  Lamarr limped around the corner and pointed in outrage at the lock and hasp that now lay on the ground. A few feet away was a claw hammer the guy had dropped in his flight. The open door was swinging on its hinges.

  Lamarr quit cussing and beamed at Stevie like an innocent black angel. “We didn’t do the breaking. All we’re going to do is the entering.”

  CHAPTER 10

  DEBORAH KNOTT

  SUNDAY MORNING

  Even though we were almost into October, Sunday lived up to its name—a day of hot sunshine that kept the pond water warm.

  I knew that both Stevie and Eric would be going to church this lovely morning, then big dinners with their respective families would occupy them till long past one, so I didn’t expect to see them much before three o’clock.

  I probably could have used a session in church myself. Instead, I spent the first part of the morning packing away most of my summer clothes and air fluffing some of my lighter fall clothes in the dryer.

  At ten o’clock, I figured Tally would probably be awake so I called to let her know Braz could be buried at the farm.

  “I know. I talked to that Mr. Aldcroft last evening. He says your dad’s taken care of all the expenses and he won’t accept our money. That wasn’t necessary. We can take care of our own, okay?”

  “Believe me, Tally, it’s necessary for him. Let him do this. Please? And he wants you to know that anyone you want to be there, any of your friends from the carnival, will be welcome.”

  “That’s good,” she said stiffly.

  The silence grew awkward.

  “I guess you haven’t heard from Chapel Hill yet?” I asked.

  “No, but Mr. Aldcroft called them and they said either today or tomorrow, so we’re thinking, say ten o’clock Tuesday morning, okay?”

  “Tally, you do understand that the rest of the family’s going to have to be told? They’d never forgive us if we don’t. We’ll try to keep them from stampeding you, but—”

  “What about Andrew? What’d he say when you told him?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to find the words.

  “Bad as that, huh?” Cynicism tinged her voice.

  “I’m sorry, Tally. But he’ll come around. I know he wi
ll.”

  “For what? I’m a little old to be looking a daddy, Deborah. But thanks for calling. I guess I’ll see you Tuesday, okay?” she said and hung up.

  I gave Andrew a mental smacking and went back to cleaning out my closet and dresser drawers.

  At midday I diced green peppers, onions, and mushrooms and made a western omelet with fresh tomatoes on the side. Not much of a Southern Sunday dinner, but probably healthier than some that would be eaten on the farm today.

  While sorting clothes, I chatted on the phone with Portland, who told me that our mutual uncle (hers by blood, mine by marriage) had finally decided to retire and why didn’t we throw him a party? I called Aunt Zell to see if she thought Uncle Ash would want one, but only got their answering machine.

  I restrained myself from calling April to see if Andrew had talked to her about Tally yet. If he hadn’t, how would I broach it? If he had, surely she’d call me if she wanted to talk? Better to leave it for now.

  I checked my e-mail, deleted the three inspirational messages forwarded by Robert’s wife Doris without reading them, chuckled at a bawdy joke from Isabel, answered the most urgent messages, then surfed the Net for a while. Out of curiosity, I went to my favorite search engine and keyed in “carnival.” Most of the results either had to do with Mardi Gras-type carnivals or cruise ships, so I reset the parameters to exclude those. As I followed the links from one site to the next, an interesting picture of carnival life and carnival culture emerged from the electronic ether. I found myself wishing I could call Tally and ask her at least a dozen frivolous questions based on what I was finding.

  When I eventually surfaced, it was almost three o’clock. I put on my bathing suit, pulled an old T-shirt on over it and, since boys are always hungry, laid out a bag of nachos to go with a jar of salsa I’d unearthed from the back of my refrigerator. (There was just the teensiest bit of mold around the lid, which wiped right off. And don’t tell me you’ve never done that yourself.)