Not Tally Ames, though. She was getting more and more upset, yet, curiously, the vibes I was getting were not because she feared something had happened to her son, but more as if she feared he’d instigated whatever it was that required the law.
Happily, Reid soon returned with two of Dobbs’s finest close at his heels, one black officer, one white. And from the opposite direction came help for Mrs. Ames in the form of a good-looking white man in jeans and a short- sleeved white polo shirt. A little shorter than Dwight, he was slender, with a small gray moustache that was as neatly trimmed as the salt-and-pepper hair beneath his gimme ball cap. Without the least hesitation, he instantly deduced who was in charge here and held out his hand to Dwight.
“Dennis Koffer, Officer. I’m the show’s patch. They tell me there’s a problem?”
At the time, I’d never heard the term “patch,” but Dwight clearly had. He shook the man’s hand and said, “I’m afraid so. Someone’s been hurt here.”
“Dead?” Koffer asked shrewdly.
Dwight nodded.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Koffer nodded almost imperceptibly toward the door flap and lifted an inquiring eyebrow.
Dwight nodded again.
“Want me to take a look?”
“Maybe in a few minutes, after my people get here.”
By now, Portland and Avery had begun to realize that something was wrong and had come around with their fish and teddy bear to join the group. Sylvia trailed them with a happy smile on her face and both hands so full of quarters and prize tokens that she could hardly keep from dropping some. She hadn’t been bragging. She really was good at this game.
Abruptly, she realized that the fun and games were over. “Dwight?”
“Someone’s been hurt,” he said. “Looks like I’m going to be tied up for a while. Reid? You mind driving her home? I’ll call you tomorrow, Sylvia.”
Reid nodded and Sylvia said, “Sure thing, honey.”
I was surprised and, okay, yes, a little impressed that she didn’t fuss or exclaim or make a big deal of it. Of course, this couldn’t have been the first time one of their evenings was cut short. Goes with the territory when you’re seeing a sheriff’s deputy.
“We’ll head on out, too,” said Avery. “Deborah?”
I glanced at Dwight, thinking he’d want to question me about what, if anything, I’d noticed, but he’d turned back to Dennis Koffer and was conferring in low tones.
“Thanks, Avery,” I said, “but my car’s here and I’ll be okay.”
“You’re sure?” asked Por. “You know you’re welcome to crash with us tonight.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time. We each know where the other’s house key’s hidden and we run in and out as freely as sisters. Now I patted her arm and said I’d be fine. “You need a good night’s sleep and Avery needs to get that fish in your pond before it dies.”
Several squad cars arrived, followed by the county’s crime-scene van and an EMS truck. They drove straight down the midway. The crowd had been thinning, but all the people still there now surged toward the flashing blue, red, and orange lights, ready to gawk at this new attraction. I hung off to the side, hoping none of my family was still around, or, if any were, that they wouldn’t connect this with me.
Around the lot, flaps were being closed and secured on the various games, lights were turned off, and several of the concessionaires, including the man called Skee, the woman we’d met earlier at the guessing booth, two younger women from the cotton candy wagon, and presumably the Polly of Polly’s Plate Pitch, opposite the Dozer, gathered in a protective clump around Tally Ames. I’d heard that carnival people form a tight-knit community and now I was seeing it in action.
Someone pulled the plug on the upbeat country-western music that had pounded through the loud speakers all evening just as Tally’s teenage son from the Cover the Spot game came running up and the boy’s question was audible to everyone. “Mom? What’s wrong? What’s Braz done now?”
She shrugged, then said something to him in a low voice that sent him loping down the midway to eel through two concessions at the end where he disappeared from my view. A cluster of travel trailers and eighteen-wheelers were parked out there beyond the line of game booths—“stores,” in Tally’s usage.
The newly arrived officers immediately began stringing yellow tape to establish a perimeter around the tent, and Dwight told two of them to start collecting garbage bags from all the trash containers.
“I don’t know if a weapon was used, but if it’s been dumped, I want it found. Any bloody rags or paper napkins, too.”
Normally, Dwight’s so slow-talking and laid-back that most times you’d never know he spent several years in Army Intelligence. He makes it easy to forget that they don’t take just anybody and they don’t give rapid promotion just because they like your looks.
“Hey, Deborah,” said my nephew Stevie. “What’s happening?”
“Somebody at the Dozer get hurt?” asked Eric Holt.
“Looks like it,” I said noncommittally. “Did y’all play it tonight?”
A glance passed between them.
“Yeah, for a few minutes,” said Stevie. “Then we decided to do more rides.”
