Death of A Clown Read online

  I look at the slight man with the watery blue eyes. He is clever in so many ways. I know that. Didn’t he come up with that tin big toe for Tin Foot, enabling him to perform and walk with only a slight limp? Doc has done other things and not just for the humans, either. Just the other day he made a sling for the mother chimpanzee to carry her newborn in when she’d hurt her arm and couldn’t hold the baby. And yet in

  some ways Doc can be almost myopic. The obvious can elude him when least expected.

  I lean into him, not wanting to be overheard. “The straw and mud on the back of his shoes and legs, for one thing,” I say, pointing to the clown’s feet. “Plus look at the

  drag marks in the mud.” He follows my hand movements with startled eyes. “They begin back that way. The rain’s going to wipe them out soon, if it keeps up like this.”

  The rustle of the crowd stops any reply on the doctor’s lips. We turn to see Boss Man, Tony Phillips, arrive. He is tall, elegant, and soft spoken, with an outer shell which belies the shrewd, power house of the inner man. James and Harry North, known as the Brothers, are heirs to the Big Top. They travel with the circus but are rarely seen. The Brothers prefer to stay in the background, leaving the day-to-day running to Tony and his assistant, Vince.

  Boss Man keeps his distance but studies the sight on the steps of Old Kirby’s wagon. “Jesus Christ. This is bad,” he says. On the heels of his words, the rain changes abruptly from light to heavy. He glances up at the sky and tugs at the brim of his Panama straw hat to shield his face.

  “Get those awnings down!” he shouts to Vince. “Can’t you see it’s raining? These animals can take the cold but they can’t take the wet, too. You know that.”

  “Yes sir, Tony,” Vince says, visibly relieved to give over authority. Turning to the roustabouts standing nearby, Vince barks out orders. “Didn’t you hear the Boss Man? Get those awnings down right now!”

  Several men hustle, lowering rolled up canvas on either long side of each wagon.

  The animals taken care of, Tony nears Old Kirby’s wagon and stands in front of Eddie. His usual tanned face wears a grim pallor and his David Niven mustache twitches on one side.

  Tony and I are friends of a sort, getting to know one another due to his involvement with my other best friend, Doris. I have respect for him, even like him, but find dealing with his bouts of self-centeredness and mood swings difficult. Doris chooses to ignore his moodiness and her southern charm tends to bring out the best in him, as it does with everybody. Besides, she loves him. That forgives a lot.

  Tony turns to me. “Are you the one who found him?”

  “To be exact, Catalena found him,” I say. “Tin and I heard her screams and came to help. There’s a wire around his neck. He’s been strangled.”

  “You didn’t touch anything, did you? Not just him. You didn’t touch anything in or around the cage, did you?”

  “Of course not,” I reply, a little sharper than I intend. “Wait a minute. The cage door was open. I closed it. Other than picking up the lock and putting it back on the door, I didn’t touch him or anything else.”

  “Good,” he answers. “No point in giving the local authorities even more to grouse about. There’s going to be hell to pay for this as it is. They always feel they have to put up with enough when a circus is in town, never mind a murder,” he adds, staring down at the body.

  My eyes well up at the thought of Eddie’s murder being no more than a nuisance to the town of Springfield. I fasten my gaze on the clown whose final mask is one of terror and death.

  Tony looks at me. “I’m sorry, Jeri. That sounded more callous than I meant.” He blows out a deep sigh, revealing the stress he’s trying not to show. “I guess we shouldn’t touch anything here.”

  “Sure we should,” answers Doc, who walks up behind us. “Won’t do to have Old Kirby get pneumonia. Get the other side, Jeri,” he orders.

  Doc and I go to opposite sides and release the cords. Both awnings drop in one fluid movement, rain tapping softly against the fabric.

  Tony turns away from the scene, yanks the collar up on his trench coat and reaches into his pocket for several coins. He motions to the red-headed boy who had fetched him, loitering two paces behind ever since.

  “Here, son. Take these nickels and drive my car to that soda fountain back near Five Points, the one with the public

  telephone. The keys are in the ignition. You know how to drive, son?”

  The boy nods.

  “How old are you?” Tony asks, staring at the boy.

  “Sixteen, sir.” The boy gulps.

  “What’s your name?” asks Tony.

  “Wally, sir.”

  “You look more like thirteen or fourteen to me but okay, Wally. Call the sheriff and tell him to get here as quick as he can. Then you turn around and drive right back.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wally says, swelling with pride at being given such an important assignment.

  “And hurry up,” Tony shouts to the boy’s disappearing back. He turns to the general manager. “Vince, you’d better go wake up one of the cat hands, make it Harold, and get him over here to keep an eye on the lion until the sheriff arrives. Then find out how old that Wally youngster really is. We don’t need to get in Dutch with social services again.” He looks at the wagon again.

  “Have one of your boys stay with the wagon ‘til someone in authority gets here. I’ve got to go and let the Brothers know about this.”

  “Right away, Boss Man,” says Vince, as he takes off in a run, forgetting to assign one of the roustabouts the task of staying put. Tony’s eyes follow him with a look of exasperation.

  “I’ll stay, Tony,” I say, coming up to his side. “Kirby and I are old friends.”

  He looks over at me and mouths a ‘thank you, Jeri.’

  “I’d better go see about Catalena,” the doctor says, unfurling his umbrella in the downpour. “There’s nothing more I can do here.”

  Tony turns to the crowd. “Everybody get inside and out of the rain. This man can’t be hurt anymore,” He adds, “and like Doc says, it won’t do for the rest of us to get

  pneumonia.” He ushers people toward the big tent as he speaks.

  At the other side of the wagon, I flip the lowered canvas awning over my head, hoping not to get any wetter than I already am. I reach a soothing hand in between the bars to the panting lion, overlooked in the tragedy, who is suffering himself from the shock of what has happened.

  Old Kirby is a long time favorite of mine and in his prime, a magnificent animal. Now over eighteen years old, silver flecks the gold of his muzzle and mane. He endures rheumatism and tooth loss but his one-time nobility is still apparent. Though Old Kirby is no longer able to perform many tricks, he’s trotted out at the end of the act by the lion tamer’s assistant, posing on a red stand emblazoned with a gold star, and roars on cue.

  Last year, when the assistant sprained her ankle, I stepped in to help for a few days and discovered this fine example of a wild, predatory animal was just an old sweetie. I have to laugh when his mere size and regal bearing brings gasps from the audience.

  He reaches over and licks my hand with his enormous tongue, maybe in gratitude.

  “It’s okay, Kirby. You relax now. It’ll be okay.” I whisper again and again, stroking his chest and the shoulder leaning against the bars.

  His labored breathing lessens, as does the rain, becoming deep and steady. Still, he never takes his eyes off the body lying on the platform on the other side of the bars. Neither do I.

  I lean against the bars, with images of a living Eddie flashing through my mind. He’d been with the circus only a short time and always rescuing things. Went from house to house in Poughkeepsie to find a home for the stray dog he found by the railroad tracks. Last month he spotted a parakeet in a tree and talked it down to his fingertips. None of us that

  share cars are allowed to have pets or anything personal other than one trunk, but Eddie had coaxed the North Brother
s into letting him keep the bird as the clown mascot, saying it didn’t take up much space. Everybody chipped in to buy it a cage with all the fixings. Eddie was the type of guy who made it his business to save things. Too bad nobody saved him.

  I look down at Eddie, a sheen covering my eyes. His left hand is balled up in a fist. I’m wondering if there might be something inside that fist, but my eye catches movement on the other side of the far awning. I can tell it’s not the wind, but a slow-moving figure, brushing against the wet cloth. Old Kirby notices, too, his ears pricking, breaths becoming shallow and disconnected again.

  As I open my mouth to ask who it is, a man’s sadistic laugh freezes the words in my throat. I clutch at Kirby’s mane. Beyond the expanse of the lowered awning, a black boot kicks viciously at the dead man’s exposed legs, not once but several times. Horrified, I let out an involuntary gasp. The sound hangs in the humid air, almost as if it’s a living thing.

  I sense hesitation on the man’s part; he isn’t sure what he’s heard. Seizing the opportunity, I hurl back the flap and run out into the cold drizzle. The man breaks into a run back in the direction from which he came.

  I try to move faster but muddy earth churns like butter, grabbing at my feet and ankles. Rounding a corner, I hit a small patch of grass and the slick mound sends my feet out from under me. My right hip crashes into the iron hitch of the wagon, which hurts like hell. By the time I right myself and hobble to the other side, the man is gone.

  Trembling in the rain, I rub my bruised hip, my breath coming in shallow, staccato waves, much the same as Old Kirby’s. Maybe the lion felt earlier what I’m feeling now. It’s like the very air we breathe is gone, commandeered by someone or something else. Evil stalks the circus. And even a gentle old lion knows it.

  Chapter Three

  8:15 a.m., Sunday

  Harold, the senior lion handler, half dressed under a flapping black mackintosh raincoat, huffs toward me brandishing a whip and looking like a youthful Ichabod Crane. At his hip is a gun, presumably loaded with blanks--the standard rule being that you want to control the cats, not kill them.

  I call to him, “Harold! Did you see anyone running away?”

  He screeches to a stop. “Did I have fun on the Great White Way?” he shouts back, mystified. “I was never on the Great White Way. I come from Nebraska. Nebraska!” he hollers again for emphasis.

  Like most men in the circus, Harold is 4-F. Other than being partially deaf, he is fairly young and healthy. He has an old-fashioned hearing aid, shaped like a horn. He uses it when his wife insists but most of the time we just scream at him. Even the big cats learned to roar a little louder.

  I grab his arm, make him look into my face and hope he’ll read my lips. “No, no, Harold. Did you see anyone running in the opposite direction just now?”

  “Oh!” he lowers his voice in comprehension. “No, there warn’t nobody I could see,” Harold answers, then raises his voice again as he sees what lies behind me. “Great Caesar’s ghost! Who is that and what have they done to Old Kirby?”

  “One of the clowns,” I shout. “Eddie Connors. He’s dead.”

  “In Old Kirby’s wagon?” he asks, appalled. He goes to the other side of the wagon. “Look at my boy!” he says,

  focusing on the lion and reaching through the bars with both arms.

  Old Kirby comes to life. He stands up, brushing his massive forehead against the man’s upper arm, like a house cat. Harold coos softly to the animal, ignoring the nearby calamity.

  I watch them and feel I’m free to go. Then it hits me, something that’s been nagging at me all along. I race over to Harold and grab the sleeve of his mack to gain his attention.

  “Harold! Where’s the guard?”

  “What?” he bellows.

  “The guard!” I yell. “Who was guarding the animals last night?”

  Now Harold stares at me. I can see his not-so-swift mind working. “Coke. It was Coke and Aspirin last night. Where is he?” He releases the lion, swivels on his heels, and looks about him.

  “Coke!” he roars into the stratosphere. “Where are you, you son of a bitch? You left my cats alone and look what happened.”

  “Harold!” I grab him again. “We need to find him. He should be here. You start at the back end of the wagons and I’ll take the front.” I can see Harold’s reluctance to leave the lion. “Old Kirby will be all right for a moment. This won’t take long.”

  Harold shakes his head, thin, wispy hair blowing in the wind. “No, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here. It serves Coke right, leaving my cats like that. He’s off on one of his snorts with his cocaine tainted bottles of Coke he thinks we don’t know about.” He turns to the lion. “Old Kirby needs me. Don’t you, boy?”

  “But something must have happened --”

  “No!” Harold interrupts. “My place is here with Kirby.” He leans his head into the bars and the large cat licks his face.

  I’m wasting precious time. “Okay. I’ll do it myself,” I say through chattering teeth. Harold turns around and looks me up and down for the first time. I’m still dressed in my black rehearsal leotard and flesh-colored tights, drenched to the skin.

  “You’d better take this, sister. You ain’t dressed for this weather,” he says. He rips off his battered mackintosh, handing it over.

  “Thanks.” I shrug gratefully into the warmth of the coat. “I’ll be as quick as I can. If anybody else comes, send them to help me.”

  Tossing a mental coin in my head, I hurry to the back of the line of wagons, checking behind bales of tarp-covered hay, large hauling tractors and other equipment. Coke is under the fifth wagon belonging to two sleeping tiger cubs. He lies half-hidden under the straw, curled up in a fetal position. If it hadn’t been for the broken coke bottle by one of the wheels, I would’ve missed him.

  I scream for help and crawl under the wagon, clawing at the soupy ground. Whitey Parks, head bull man and a guy I’m too crazy about for my own good, hears me and comes running, blond hair slicked down by the rain, cobalt blue eyes alert and anxious.

  “My God, Jeri,” he says, grabbing on to my shoulder. “Jeri, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  “It’s not me. It’s Coke.”

  He focuses on me trying to pull Coke free of the muck and mud, takes over, and plucks a limp Coke out by himself. I guess pushing a bunch of elephants around gives you the strength of ten men.

  The two of us are breathing hard and covered in mud, Coke looking half-dead between us, when Harold shows up. The cat handler must have heard my screams and something

  in the sound of them made him leave Old Kirby and come

  running. He crouches beside us, expelling fear with every breath.

  “Harold,” I yell, “Go get Doc!”

  “Tell him to get here right away with a stretcher,” Whitey adds.

  Wordless, Harold gets up and runs, sliding in the mud. Out in the rain, the blood and mud covering Coke’s head flows in rivulets down his still face. Hysteria lobs at my throat but I fight it back and find Coke’s pulse, weak though it is.

  Whitey takes off his jacket and throws it over Coke’s wet chest and torso. Whitey looks at me, eyes searching mine.

  “What the hell’s going on, Jeri?” He reaches out to touch my face but sees the mud covering his hand and pulls back. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  I nod and notice the rain streaming down both sides of his face then fall from his jaw line. Whitey Parks is one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen in my life, with a rugged face yet patrician at the same time, tanned and impressive. It’s an image that comes to me when I least expect it.

  I give him a quick rundown, while I pull Coke’s unconscious body closer to me. I try to shield him from the downpour and share some of my body warmth.

  I finish off by saying, “I think Coke got in the way, Whitey, of whoever killed Eddie.”

  “What’s keeping Doc?” Whitey looks around him. “Coke’s too still for my liking
.”

  “I know. I hope that doesn’t mean…” I break off when I see Doc Williams, Harold and two of other roustabouts carrying a stretcher running toward us.

  “Over here, Doc!” I call out.

  “Hurry up,” Whitey says.

  The doctor kneels down on the other side of Coke and feels for a pulse. “He’s still with us.” He glances at Whitey and then at me, his voice low. “Jesus, this feels like I’m on the front lines again, one casualty after another. What’s going on?” he

  says, parroting Whitey’s question. His gaze stays on me as if I might have an answer.

  “I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head.

  He gives an abrupt nod and turns to the roustabouts, “Let’s get him inside. Be careful putting him onto the stretcher. Mind his head.”

  After the men lift Coke onto the stretcher, Doc looks at Whitey and me. “You two want to come with me? You look like you could use a stiff drink. At least, get out of the rain. What about you, Harold?”

  Harold shakes his head and turns back in the direction of Old Kirby’s wagon. I glance over my shoulder. He’s fiddling with his gun as he strides, maybe exchanging the blanks for the bullets he always carries in the back of his belt. I know that’s what I’d be doing.

  “Doc, I need to check on my bulls,” Whitey says, meaning the fifty-one female elephants in his charge. They’re called bulls but there’s never a male among them, too undependable.

  “I don’t want to take any chances with them until I know what’s going on.” Whitey turns to me. “Are you going to be all right, Jeri?”

  I nod, trying to hide the involuntary shivering. “You go do what you need to do,” I say.

  With a curt nod toward Doc, he takes off in a near run for the Bull Tent, his muddy jacket forgotten in the rush. I snatch it from the ground, heave myself up, and trudge after the doctor and stretcher. The rain washes mud and straw from my body, while the wind bites at my face and hands. I shiver as much from fear as the cold and wet.

  I trail behind Doc but change my mind about going to the First Aid Tent. I don’t want a drink and I can get out of the rain just as easily in the car I share with the other girls. Besides, it’s not just the mud and debris I want to wash off, but some of the horror. And I need to think. With a quick