Catch a Falling Clown: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Seven) (5 page)

The Tanuccis moved forward toward the body, supporting each other, and Kelly stepped up to help the Tanucci girl, who looked a little unsteady.

“Neck bone and spinal cord just snapped like that,” said the doctor, struggling to get up. He wore a dark plaid coat, and his wild white hair had been combed by a drunken witch. He looked more like a clown than Kelly, and his voice cut through the smells and sobs like a set of instructions for building a model airplane.

“Probably not a long fall,” he said, addressing himself to everyone assembled. “Probably dead as soon as he hit.”

“Thank God,” said Peg.

Well, that was one way of looking at it. I knew some who might be a little angry with God for allowing Himself to accept the whim of young Tanucci’s death, but maybe God was just an onlooker.

I shook my head. I mean I literally shook my head to try to clear it. Sometimes I get angry and sometimes I get serious. Not often, but sometimes. I almost never get depressed. To get depressed you have to have a long-range plan that fouls up. I don’t have any long-range plans. I go job to job, concussion to concussion, dime to dime. If people get in the way of a car or a bullet or one of the grisly weapons including bad luck, I step to the side and keep going, hoping for not much more than the chance to finish up whatever I’m working on.

But the circus got to me. First the dead elephant, and now the Tanuccis. Hell, if I was going to feel guilty, I might as well feel it all the way. I felt worse about the dead elephant than I did about Tanucci. Tanucci picked the circus. He had a chance, maybe had some enemies, maybe didn’t check the harness. Maybe …

I walked past the small crowd and glanced at the people at the entrance, straining to see in. One or two of them were Cora and Thelma, the Siamese twins. Beyond them, more people were talking, asking questions. The ones in front had heard the doctor and seen the reaction. I moved to the circus ring in the corner and to the trapeze in its center, no more than a dozen feet over the ground. The Mechanic thing Kelly had mentioned dangled down from a pole. It swung slightly in the flat air about six feet over the ground. I didn’t even have to touch it to see what I didn’t want to see. The place where the leather belt had given way was torn for about one quarter of an inch. The other three inches of the belt were cut. I couldn’t tell how thick or tough the leather was or how sharp the knife had been that cut it, but it was clear that the final break in the leather had been jagged and rough and the rest along a straight line.

I was about to touch the harness to be sure when I heard Elder’s voice behind me say to either the doctor or the Tanuccis, “We’re going to have to call the police.”

The word police may have done it. Maybe it was something else, but a small group from the tent entrance broke through, a group of four. Then someone took charge at the entrance and cut off the crowd. The last one through was a short, fat man who waddled forward slowly, far behind. In front of him were a big man wearing a dark gray suit and a dark gray look, a thin man in gray work clothes whose silent tears caught the light against his pale cheeks, and a red-haired young woman in spangled blue tights wearing a little hat with a tall feather.

“Hold it,” shouted Elder, stretching out his right hand toward the crowd. “Right there. Stop. No one else in here. No Kinders, no brass. Peters.”

I turned and moved to Elder, who whispered, “We’ve got to get Nelson back here. You want to take the home run. Now’s the time.”

“Can’t,” I said, trying to ease him away from the Tanuccis. “Cops don’t like it when people they want to nail run away from murder scenes.”

It was Elder’s turn to move me away from the others by grabbing my jacket and stepping back. His grip could have gone through my arm.

“Hold it,” I cried, trying to shake him loose with less success than Billy Conn had had against Joe Louis.

“Look,” he said evenly, looking over my shoulder at the small group gathering around the doc, the corpse, and the grieving family. “Don’t try to make a profit on this. Don’t turn the circus into a …”

“Circus?” I finished.

“For a lot of these people,” he said, his mustache bobbing up and down, “the only thing they call hometown or a religion or anything is the circus. You make them think murder, and the panic you’ll see is like nothing you’ve ever seen. These are people who put their life on the wire every day and twice on Saturdays and Sundays.”

“But it’s murder,” I repeated. “No doubt. If you let a little circulation back into my arm, I’ll show you.”

He let loose a little, and I led him toward the harness. My back had been to it, and the small group had gotten between Elder and me and the ring where the Tanuccis had been practicing. No one was watching us as we moved toward the rigging except the fat little man who stood at the edge of the huddled group.

“Who’s he?” I asked Elder, who glanced at the man.

“I don’t know,” Elder said indifferently. “Never saw him. Probably a lot louse, someone from town who hangs around, always wanted to join the circus but let it …”

“Gone,” I said, stopping when I had a clear view of the rigging.

The rope from which the harness with the severed belt had been hanging was gone. The rope was still swaying above the even cut.

“Someone cut it down,” I said, hurrying forward and grabbing the rope to make it stop and tell me something. It didn’t. An animal whimper came from the group around the body. “The belt was cut almost all the way through,” I explained. “The killer …”

“Hold it,” said Elder, putting his hand to his shiny head. The possibilities were coming too fast and hard, and he had to slow things down. I was the thing that had to be slowed. “Harness is gone, right. It is cut down, right. But I can think of some quick reasons other than a murder cover-up. Some morbid souvenir hunter could have snatched it. Or maybe one of the family or a kinker, a performer who has some crazy idea about burning the offending thing responsible. We got people from all over the damn world in this circus with all kinds of ideas. There are enough screwy things going on in a show like this without this Jackpot.”

“Jackpot,” I repeated, looking around at the people in the tent.

“Tall stories about the circus. We have so many of them that the very idea has a special name.”

“Someone in this tent right now cut down that harness,” I said. “No one else got in here between the time I found the harness and now. You were talking to me, so that lets you out.”

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “Now what do you plan, a search of everyone in the tent? A search for the harness?”

“Damn right,” I said, “before …”

But “before” came. Curiosity overcame restraint and respect. The crowd surged in. I tried to stay near the place where the harness had been. Whoever took it couldn’t have hidden it far away.

“You better come with me,” said Elder.

“But,” I protested, “we’ll lose the harness.”

“You come or I carry you,” he said. The short, red-haired woman bumped into me. She was holding her red-sequined cap on her head. Its ostrich feather threatened to tickle God. Well, maybe He could do with a good laugh.

Working against the crowd, with Elder ignoring questions put to him by people of all sizes, accents, ilks, and colors, we made it into the near sunlight. The fog was almost gone, and the sun burned gray.

“Office,” he said, guiding me.

“Wait,” came a voice from behind, Kelly’s voice.

We didn’t wait, but he had caught up by the time we reached a circus railroad car that said “Office” on it. Elder followed me into the little space with a desk in the middle and a cot in the corner and motioned me to one of the three wooden chairs. I sat, and so did Kelly. Elder didn’t. He leaned against the steel wall of the office wagon, touched his fine mustaches to be sure they were still there and not drooping, folded his arms and glared at me.

“Murder,” I repeated.

I could sense Kelly sagging next to me. Elder said nothing. I looked into his eyes and saw something I hadn’t seen before and knew what he was going to say before he said it. I felt like speaking along with him, but the thought was just enough behind to keep it from happening.

“Know how old I am, Peters?” he said. “Sixty-two. I’ve seen ’em torn up, and I’ve seen a few murders. Not with this circus, but others. I’ve even helped cover them up. The circus is its own world. It’s a moving world that only stops a few days in the world of someone else. You understand what I’m saying? Even if there was a murder, there wasn’t any murder.”

The walls of the office were covered with old posters with faded pictures of clowns and girls in tights. The word “circus” stood out in every one, gaudy, proud. Mills, Sells and Floto; Mix; Cole. I looked at the posters and heard Elder out.

“Maybe that’s something the management has to decide,” I said.

“Maybe,” he said, arms still folded and looking at Kelly, who had brought this Los Angeles outsider into the circus. “But I have no evidence of a murder, and I have no intention of …”

“I believe him,” said Kelly softly.

“Look, Emmett,” said Elder, pushing himself away from the wall and pointing a finger at Kelly.

“Tom,” said Kelly with a sad smile, “you believe it too.”

Elder’s accusing, attacking finger stopped in midair, and his hand moved to his face. Elder’s eyes closed and looked tired and wrinkled. He rubbed them.

“The elephants, Tom,” said Kelly softly.

One more drop in the decibel level, and I wouldn’t be able to hear either one of them. I had the feeling they could communicate without words anyway. I had the feeling that I didn’t belong in this world, couldn’t wisecrack my way through it like the bars, cracked streets, movie studios, and damp office buildings I was familiar with. I wanted to get up and leave.

“Someone tried to do me, Tom,” Kelly said. “I told you. Peters is just …”

Elder’s free hand came up with palm out to stop Kelly. His other hand covered weary eyes that didn’t want to see, but they had to. He put both hands at his sides and looked at me, having some difficulty focusing.

“Not saying you’re right or wrong, what do we do next?”

“You saw the Mirador police,” I said. “I’ve seen them trying to nail a killer. They nab the closest foreigner and call it a day. With the people you have here, Nelson will have the case wrapped up in an hour. Of course, he’ll have the wrong killer, probably someone who can’t speak English well enough to defend himself. Suggestion. Call Nelson back. Let him come to his own conclusion which, without our shoving the truth under his nose, will be that it was an accident. Meanwhile, we try to find the killer and turn him over to Nelson with something real to go on.”

Something warm and sweet-smelling passed the wagon and came in under the door, reminding me how much alive I was and making me suddenly and insanely hungry.

“Well?” I pushed.

“How?”

“I go through everyone in that tent,” I explained. “I find out how many have something against the circus, how many … like that. If we’re lucky, I get it down to one or two or three, and we turn them over. Go through their things, try to find some evidence. Hell, maybe we push them around or tell them lies.”

Elder sighed and looked out the window. “OK, let’s give it a day or two and hope the killer, if there is one, has had enough. But keep it quiet.”

“With everything that goes on here, that might just be possible,” I said.

Elder laughed, one of those it’s-not-funny-but-what-else-can-you-do-to-me laughs. “You don’t understand the circus, Peters. You piss behind the calliope at three
A.M.
on a moonless night, and by morning you’ll have five questions at breakfast about your kidneys. Give it a try, give it a try. What do you need?”

“Breakfast,” I said, and breakfast it was.

Five minutes later, Kelly and I were seated together in a mess tent. The death of Tanucci had circled Kelly in a cone of silence which he had trouble breaking out of. It didn’t, however, affect his appetite. We were breakfast stragglers, sitting as far away from the kitchen as we could get. Our eggs, ham, and coffee were accompanied by the music of clanging spoons, metal plates, running water, and chattering cooks. I didn’t need to hear the words. They were talking about death. There is a tone of it that doesn’t need words.

“What happens to the circus when there’s an accident like this?” I said, trying to ignore the coffee I had just spilt on my shirt. Maybe I could button my top jacket button and hide it.

Kelly shrugged, stopped eating, and tried to look through the wall in the general direction of Tanucci’s body.

“We do the show,” he said. “Even the Flying Tanuccis. They just do less of an act. Maybe they even mention what happened. Maybe they don’t. We don’t close up shop. Can’t. A circus, especially a shoestring one like this, can’t take too many nights down.”

He went back to his eggs, and I tried drinking my coffee carefully in a thick white porcelain cup that felt good against my palms.

“And you have to be funny,” I said more than asked.

Something like a chuckle came out of Kelly. “You know,” he said. “I usually am funnier when I’m down. The towners can’t tell. You know the story about Joey Grimaldi? First big circus clown about a hundred years ago. We’re still called Joeys because of him. One day his circus is playing Vienna, and Joey is so down he’s thinking of quitting. So he goes to a doctor’s office he spots on the way to his hotel and tells the doc that he’s so depressed that he’s thinking of taking his life.