14 The Chocolate Clown Corpse

by JoAnna Carl

  “Sorry!” I went in and shut the door behind myself. “But I really want to tell you!”

  Joe turned back to the sink. He picked up a hand towel. “What brought this on?”

  “An ad for men’s hair color. It fell out of the Gazette.”

  “And you rushed in here to tell me there’s no need for me to get gray hair?”

  “No! When I saw the ad I recognized the man who tried to poison Emma.”

  “He was in the ad?”

  “Don’t tease!” I quickly recapped the scene in the hospital room, when a large man in scrubs came in and gave Emma a pill. “Which she only pretended to take,” I said.

  “And you thought it was some sort of poison.”

  “Well, not at that moment. I would have jumped out and yelled if I had thought that. But Emma had quit taking the medication they had her on, so she just pretended to take the pill. After the guy was gone she spit it into a paper cup. I stuck a couple of Kleenex in the top to keep it from falling out and wrapped it in a rubber glove.”

  “Have you still got it?”

  “It’s in my purse. My main concern at that moment was getting Emma out of the hospital. But I got a good look at the guy who brought it in, and he seemed familiar.”

  “When you saw him while you were hiding in the closet.”

  “Yes. He had home-dyed black hair.”

  “Home-dyed? How could you tell?”

  “Because I’ve hung around beauty shops a lot. I know what professionally colored black hair looks like and what home-did black hair looks like. If somebody does it at home, either a man or a woman, they nearly always mess it up. Hair colored in those dark shades by an amateur looks harsh. And dull. And lifeless.”

  “Dead hair?”

  “Right.”

  “But Lee, how many hundreds of men in Holland dye their hair? And most of them probably do it at home. How would that tell you who the guy was?”

  “There’s more to the story, Joe. Do you remember that I told you about seeing that man from P.M. Development? The one Tilda showed the Clowning Around shop to? He had odd coloring.”

  “He had dyed black hair?”

  “No! He had prematurely gray hair—almost white.”

  “You’ve lost me here. How does a guy with white hair equal a guy with black hair?”

  “Because they both had black eyebrows. The guy at the development company had white hair but heavy black eyebrows.”

  “Like a skunk?”

  “Not striped. But the contrast between the hair and the eyebrows was very noticeable. So if a guy with white hair and dark eyebrows wanted to look different—say for a security camera—what would he do?”

  Joe grinned. “He might bleach his eyebrows.”

  “You’re right! He might. But it would be much easier to buy some hair dye at Walmart and color the white hair black. And as soon as he was finished with his need for black hair, he could wash the dye out.”

  “It’s that easy?”

  “Yes. If you use the right product. When I was in high school I played a fortune-teller in a skit, and my friends and I decided I needed black hair. I couldn’t afford a professional job, so they helped me color it. We bought something at the drugstore. And the day after the skit I washed it out.”

  “It’s interesting to think of you as an exotic brunette.”

  “It took all the water in the hot water tank to get the black color out, and then I still had a couple of green streaks. But it can be done.”

  “That’s not much to go on, Lee.”

  “I feel sure the so-called nurse was the man from the development company. And he gave Emma the pill I think was poisonous.”

  “But we don’t know that it was.”

  “Right. Some law officer will have to get the pill analyzed. And that means I’ve got to tell somebody this whole story.”

  Joe rewrapped his bath towel around his waist. Then he began to rub his hair with the smaller towel. He was looking at me steadily.

  “Lots of luck finding the right person to tell,” he said.

  “I know,” I said. “I guess that could be a problem.”

  I watched Joe until he finished toweling his hair. He ran a comb through it.

  I sighed. “You have great hair.”

  “Thanks. I don’t plan to color it anytime soon, either professionally or at home.”

  “Good. I’ll make coffee.”

  I went into the kitchen and began to fix breakfast. Watching Joe do his hair might be a fun way to start the day—love those shoulders!—but the task I needed to accomplish was going to be a challenge.

  After the fiasco when I chased the clown through the hospital, leaving three law enforcement organizations convinced that I had made up the whole adventure as a publicity stunt, I needed to keep a low profile. But instead, what had I done? I’d kidnapped a patient from the hospital, and I believed I’d witnessed a new attempt on her life. And the potential victim now claimed to be a murderer herself. The whole thing was a confused mess.

  I could tell the world about the episode in the hospital—take an ad out in the Chicago Tribune and go on Good Morning America—and still nobody in a responsible position was likely to believe that anybody had tried to kill Emma. And they also would never believe that I had identified that person.

  I put coffee and water in the coffeepot and plugged it in. I got out the toaster. I put last night’s ice cream debris in the dishwasher. In other words, I tried to get on with life. But none of this routine helped me figure out how to handle my problem.

  My problem was telling some law enforcement officer that I was convinced that the man I’d seen at P.M. Development was the one who had come into Emma’s room. I also had to convince someone he had tried to kill her. And that he could well have been the clown who tried to suffocate her earlier. He was the right size.

  My first impulse had been to ask Joe how I should handle it. His skills would be useful in accomplishing this, while mine weren’t much help. But as I had watched him towel his hair dry I had realized I couldn’t bug him about it.

  Joe had his own problem, a different problem. He had to get legal help for Emma. That had to be his first responsibility, not only to Emma, but to his own client.

  If Emma told her story right, his client—Royal Hollis—might be completely exonerated. If she told it wrong, Joe might wind up accused of getting a witness to lie. My dad, a Texas fisherman, describes an unpredictable person as “about as stable as a bass boat in a high wind on a big lake.” That might apply to Emma.

  Whether Emma was mentally unstable was beyond me, but she could certainly be made to appear unstable. And she was certainly easy to influence. By her own account it hadn’t been hard for Chuck to convince her she should withhold her story about shoving Moe.

  If I thought law enforcement wasn’t going to believe me . . . Well, my problem was nothing compared with the one Emma had. And Emma’s problem was Joe’s problem. I needed to handle this one myself.

  But if I wanted to tell some law enforcement officer who Emma’s attacker had been, which cop should I tell?

  Hospital security? I shook my head. They wouldn’t have the authority to do anything about it. The Holland police force? I shook my head harder at the idea of talking to the two guys who had tossed me out of the hospital. I wanted to talk to a detective, not some mere patrolman. And if I wandered into the Holland Police Headquarters and asked to see a detective—well, I’d have to start from go and explain the whole situation. It would take hours. That would be a last resort.

  No, Clancy Pike was the best. Clancy scared me, but at least he knew who I was, and he knew the background of Emma, Moe, Moe’s kids, and Moe’s death. He wasn’t likely to actually bite me. And if the Holland police were needed, Clancy would surely be able to refer me to someone in Holland who could help.

&n
bsp; So when Joe sat down at the breakfast table, I took a deep breath and spoke. “I’ll try to talk to Clancy Pike as soon as he can see me.”

  Joe blinked a couple of times. “About the guy with the dyed hair? If you wait until afternoon, I might be able to go with you.”

  “No. First, I’ve just got to do it myself. Second, you need to concentrate on Emma and her story.”

  “I need to help my client, Royal Hollis. And today that means I have to help Emma make her story credible. So she needs a lawyer to look out for her interests. If nobody believes her, she won’t help Hollis at all.”

  Yes, my problem was quite different from Joe’s, even though both involved Emma. We didn’t discuss it further. What else was there to say?

  As soon as Joe had eaten a piece of toast, he got on the phone. I could hear him talking to his mentor, Mac McKay, as I loaded the dishwasher. By the time I got out of the shower, he’d left.

  I was on my own.

  I put on an outfit that made me feel authoritative—a black wool skirt and sweater with knee-high boots. No flannel-lined jeans today. I added a silver chain belt and a red scarf. I combed my hair into a businesslike bun. I put the TenHuis paychecks into a manila envelope and headed for the office. As soon as I got the checks passed out, I’d call Clancy Pike.

  And this time he wasn’t going to intimidate me. I was determined.

  After I’d handled the office details, I called and arranged an appointment with Clancy for ten thirty. Then I got out my notepad and made an outline of what I needed to tell him. This was not going to be a good time for a tangled tongue or confused thoughts.

  I was in the Warner Pier police station at ten twenty-five. Clancy Pike, naturally, didn’t show until ten forty. I suspected this was a ploy to make me nervous, so I stiffened my spine and vowed not to let that work. I said hello when Clancy walked into the station, but I remained seated in the visitor’s area until he called me into his office.

  When I closed the door behind me, Clancy raised his eyebrows nearly to the top of his forehead, or where his forehead would have ended if he hadn’t completely shaved his head.

  He gestured toward a chair. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn that Mrs. Davidson called home last night.”

  “Oh! Yes, I am happy to hear that.”

  His voice was completely lacking in irony as he continued. “She said a friend picked her up, and that she’s fine.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “Yes. Of course, we’d rather talk to her face to face.” He stared at me, his face completely blank. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  It was my turn. I started with a deep breath.

  “I realized something important this morning, and law enforcement needs to know about it. But I don’t want to be irregular—I mean, irresponsible!—I don’t want to be irresponsible about making accusations.”

  So much for not getting my tongue tangled.

  Clancy nodded.

  “First,” I said, “I have a confession to make. Not to a crime. But yesterday I did find the hospital room occupied by Emma Davidson.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “She had called our house and left her phone number for Joe, and I used that number to find her room. Emma begged for Joe to come talk to her. But he was out of town and couldn’t get there. So he asked me to visit her.”

  I continued the story, up to the point that the man with dyed hair came in and gave Emma a pill.

  “And this morning I realized who that man was. I think his name is Philip Montague. He is the man from P.M. Development, the man whose company is bidding on the Clowning Around property next door to us. I saw him over there with the Realtor.”

  Clancy looked skeptical, and I couldn’t blame him. “He didn’t just resemble that man?” he asked.

  “I believe it was the same man.”

  “And you thought he gave Mrs. Davidson something harmful?”

  “Right. And I have it here in my purse.”

  I produced the rubber glove containing the paper cup with the pill.

  That’s where we began. And half an hour later, that’s about where we ended. Of course, Clancy had only my word that the pill was the same one the fake nurse had given Emma. Cops put great importance on what they call “chain of custody,” proof that evidence was passed from one person to another. I had no chain of custody at all. Clancy knew this better than I did, and we didn’t discuss it.

  But Clancy asked lots of questions, ending with “Do you have any idea why this P.M. Development guy would try to harm Emma Davidson?”

  “No idea at all. I only saw him two other times—once walking by him and the second time driving by him in a car. I know nothing about him, and I know of no connection he has with Emma or with the Davidson family. It’s crazy! But I am convinced that’s who it was. And I am convinced he tried to harm Mrs. Davidson.”

  I shut up then. If I said any more, I’d be admitting that I helped Emma leave the hospital. I wasn’t ready to do that.

  I hadn’t expected my interview with Clancy Pike to be friendly, and it hadn’t been. But he hadn’t yelled at me, and I hadn’t yelled at him. I hadn’t broken down and cried. And he didn’t hold me for further questioning, though he was frowning as I got up to leave.

  “This is a Holland PD case,” he said, “and I’m not sure how I fit in.”

  “I know! But I thought you would know somebody up there, could tell somebody who needs to know what’s going on. Or refer me to somebody I could talk to. Maybe then the Holland police wouldn’t think I was an idiot before I even opened my mouth. I know you can’t just rush out and arrest that developer, simply because I think it’s the same man. But what if he really is the same guy? What if he kills Emma? I just can’t stand by and pretend I didn’t notice he dyed his hair.”

  Clancy asked me not to say anything to anybody about all this, and I assured him I wouldn’t. Then I left, feeling that for the moment I had done what I could about the P.M. Development man.

  * * *

  When I got back to the office, Dolly Jolly was holding down the cash register, and the rest of the place was all but empty. It was lunch hour on payday, after all, and everyone had gone to the bank. In fact, Dolly was ready to go, too.

  I shooed her out the door, then helped myself to a tiramisu truffle (“layers of white and milk chocolate filling enrobed in dark chocolate and embellished with milk chocolate stripes”).

  But Dolly was barely out the door when Kyle and Paige Walters walked in.

  It took me a moment to recognize them, because it was the first time I had seen them in ordinary clothes, not costumes. We greeted each other enthusiastically, and they bought a pound of chocolates as a gift for their mother.

  “I hope y’all have some fun entertaining the tourists in Warner Pier,” I said.

  “Oh sure,” Paige said. “We always have fun. This is a crazy way to make a living, and we sure wouldn’t do it if we didn’t enjoy it.”

  “I wish we had some money,” Kyle said. “We’d look at buying the clown store and sticking around.”

  “Actually,” I said, “it would be a good business for professional clowns. Of course, you’d have to have an efficient manager for the times you were on the road.”

  Paige smiled. “But aren’t you interested in the building?”

  “If we ever want to expand, it would be an ideal location. But if the bidding gets too high, we’re out of it. And we’re not the only people looking at it.”

  I handed their box of assorted truffles over. “I hope your mom likes these. And now how about a sample for yourselves?”

  Paige picked a dark chocolate cheesecake truffle (“white cream cheese–flavored filling covered with dark chocolate and trimmed with a dot of white chocolate”). Kyle went for ginger wasabi, one of the spiciest truffles we offer (“dark chocolate fi
lling seasoned with ginger and horseradish, enrobed in dark chocolate and embellished with crystallized ginger”).

  “Tonight’s the big night!” Kyle said as they went out the door. “See you there!”

  For a moment I felt quite blank. Tonight? Then I realized what he was talking about.

  “Oh my gosh! Tonight’s the big opening of the winter promotion. I’ve got to dress up like a clown!”

  I fought the impulse to bang my head against the display cabinet. Then I grunted, groaned, and spoke again. “I believe I’ll cut my suspenders and go straight up!”

  Chapter 22

  One of the advantages of being born into a rural Texas family is that you grow up hearing colorful expressions. And the one about cutting my suspenders was one of my grandmother’s favorites. It really summed up how I felt at that moment.

  The Clown Week opening was the final straw, the limit, the absolute end. I wanted to worry about Emma and how to keep her safe, about Royal Hollis and his possible innocence, about how Joe was going to deal with those problems. The last thing I wanted to do or even think about was that opening event for Clown Week. But it was coming in a few hours.

  Clowns were going to be wandering all over Warner Pier. The big sled ride was going to be swooping from the high school down to Dock Street. Skaters were going to be gliding over the ice. Horses were going to be pulling sleighs down our streets.

  And tourists—we hoped—were going to be going in and out of our shops spending money.

  I had helped plan the event. I had helped promote it. Now I had to finish it up and try to make it go off well. But it was the last thing I wanted to think about.

  It was a wonderful idea, but I didn’t want it to be tonight.

  I wanted to think about the P.M. Development guy trying to kill Emma and why the heck he would want to do that. I wanted to think about why Emma had confessed to killing her husband and wonder if it could be true. I wanted to think about why the stories of Chuck, Royal Hollis, and Emma were so different from one another.

  A community promotional project, normally so important to me as a Warner Pier merchant, was simply of no interest.