Free Dark Carnival Murders by Bob Moats Page A

one else was in the
building that he saw." He turned, went back in and chased everyone
out.
    "That he saw," I repeated.
"Could Dark have gotten someone in the place to hide until after
the store closed?"
    "It’s possible. We’ll have
to see if Lusk had security cameras running when he was closing up.
Hopefully he did."
    "I’m sure he did, he seems
to be the nervous type about his store," Earl offered.
    Lynn turned to Earl who
was standing behind us by the door, "Are you still with
us?"
    "Yes I am. I once saw this
in an old movie, circus comes to town and they distract the owner
of a store while the bad guys slip a little person past the owner
and he hides in a cabinet in the back room. He disables the alarm
and opens the back door. Simple." Earl grinned like he solved the
case.
    "Little person? Like a
midget?" Lynn asked.
    "Can’t call them midgets
anymore, it offends them," I said.
    "Geez, political
correctness is running rampant. Does Dark have a little person in
his troop of carnies?"
    "It’s possible," I said
pulling my cell phone. "I’ll call Buck to see."
    I went off to the side of
the alley as Buck answered. "Jimmy, this hotel room is nice. Mac is
relaxing in the whirlpool."
    "I hope he’s not naked.
Tell me, is there a little person who works for Dark?"
    "Little person, you mean a
midget? Yeah, Ben is a little person, stands about three-one,
why?"
    "Long story, I’ll tell you
later. Thanks and don’t run up too big of a room bill, Dark might
get upset."
    I hung up and went back to
Lynn, "Buck says they do have a little person in the carnival. But
it’s a stretch that he was involved."
    "Hey, it’s my theory. Let
me have the glory of having figured it out," Earl said.
    Lynn frowned, "Whatever,
we need to do something. If I haul Dark and his people in for
questioning because we knew he was going to pull this, that blows
Buck and Mac’s cover and we may never find the boys. We’ll have to
sit on this and make the kidnapping a priority. Buck needs to push
Dark into going again with the women. Jim, call him back and see
what he can do."
    "Will do, give me a little
time to set it up with him." I went back to the side and called
Buck explaining everything that happened here and that he needed to
prod Dark into going again on the kidnapping. He agreed and I hung
up.
    "He’s going to do his best
to get it going again," I said to Lynn.
    "So it’s a waiting game
again, I’m so going to change occupations," Lynn moaned.
    "Have you ever thought of
becoming a stripper?" Earl said.
    "Just who invited you to
this party anyways?"
    "Blame Jim, he brought
me."
    Lynn gave me a snarl and
went back into the building. I smacked Earl on the shoulder and
called him a putz. We followed her in and found that CSI was just
finishing up. Lynn was talking to Larry Wayne and they had nothing
much to go on. Larry said they found a few fingerprints on the
alarm system but most were just smudges and the video tapes from
the cameras were taken.
    "Great, we have no video
to watch now. They took care of everything. Warren, get on the
computer and see if you can find any similar robberies in cities
that Dark went through."
    "Williams pulled a list of
the route taken by the carnival, through registered permits, I can
go with that," he said and started to go.
    "Get on it and quickly."
She went back to Larry and asked, "What’s your expert
opinion?"
    "It’s a mystery, had to be
someone on the inside, no marks of forced entry. I’m sure Lusk
didn’t forget to turn on the alarm and lock the doors. You’ve got a
mystery."
    "We know who did it, but
we can’t touch them yet, they are connected to a more serious case
of child abduction. We have to play this carefully," Lynn
replied.
    "Well, good luck, I’ll
call if we can come up with something." He went off after calling
his people to the cars.
    Lynn turned to me, "All we
can do now is wait for Buck to pull a rabbit out of his hat. I’ll
have robbery alerted to other jewelry stores in the