14 The Chocolate Clown Corpse (20 page)

My brain began to function again. This clown was Philip Montague. He had left those thick black eyebrows untouched by makeup, and they were unmistakable.

Then we were outside. I stopped. “Listen, Philip,” I said. “This is not smart. There’s a warrant out for your arrest. The police are looking for you.”

He swore, but he pushed me ahead of him. “Nothing will happen if you’re with me,” he said. “You’re my ticket out of here. Just keep walking.”

I was a hostage.

Montague shoved me toward the path down the hill. We had to swing around several people waiting for sled rides.

T.J. was there. He helped a teenaged girl onto a tube, then shoved her onto the course. She gave a satisfying scream as the tube began to spin.

Then T.J. looked up and saw me. “Hey, Lee! Are you ready for a ride?”

I tried to sound natural. “Not now, Tony—T.J. But it looks as if you’re doing a great job.”

But the darn kid came closer. “Aw, c’mon, Lee! You can take a sled ride.”

“Not tonight, T.J.!”

Now he was right in front of me. And Philip Montague spoke. “Get out of the way, kid!”

T.J. stiffened all over. He looked at the big clown, and there were hurt feelings in his eyes.

I put my hand on his arm. “T.J., we have an important errand. I’ll come back if I can.”

But T.J. wasn’t giving way. He stood still. His eyes narrowed. He knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know how to react.

“T.J.,” I said. “Tony. Let us pass. Please.”

“Yes, kid.” The giant clown growled the words. Then he shoved me a step ahead.

T.J. dropped his head, as if he was giving in to our demands, and I hoped he was going to cooperate.

Then T.J. head butted the big clown. Right in the belly. Just like the professional wrestlers his dad despised.

I did scream then. Philip Montague dropped my arm and threw up the hand that held the pistol. He waved it over his head.

Somehow I got the gumption to shove him sideways. He landed in a heap on the sidewalk.

But he still had the gun.

I yelled, “Everybody get back!”

Instead of dropping back, the people standing around began to hoot with laughter. I heard all sorts of shouts and calls.

“What are the clowns doing, Mommy?” “They’re just playing, darling! Aren’t they funny?” “Beat ’em up, babe!” “Maybe a flag that says ‘bang!’ will come out the front of the gun!” “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Nobody got the real joke. If Philip Montague began to spray bullets around, they could all die.

Philip was still looking at T.J. and me. I grabbed T.J. and swiveled around, so that I was between him and the gun.

Then the giant clown was back on his feet. His lips were moving, but the crowd was so loud that I have no idea what he said. He dodged left, then right, then left again, apparently unsure of which way he should go.

Suddenly, he seemed to realize that the way to the sleds was open. He dashed across the twenty or twenty-five feet to reach them and flopped onto the one that was first in line. He shoved off and went flying down the sledding course.

He still had the gun, but at least he was away from T.J. and the crowd of people at the sled run.

But he was getting away. I heard my voice yelling, “Stop that clown!”

Before I could stop T.J., he darted forward, grabbed a snowboard, jumped onto it, and took off down the hill.

“Oh no! Tony! T.J.!” I could have killed the kid. He was chasing a man I knew had at least twice tried to kill Emma Davidson. And the man had a gun.

“Darn you!” I had to do something. I ran to the pile of sleds, grabbed one, threw it down, flopped onto it flat on my stomach, and took off down the hill.

I will never know what in the world I was thinking. After all, the only time I’d ever ridden a sled down a hill I’d crashed and been buried in a snowdrift. But I was so frightened for T.J. I couldn’t bear to stand by and do nothing. And what else could I do?

But I kept remembering that Philip Montague had a gun.

As I began to slide, I remembered that proper safe sledding position is sitting up on the sled. No way! That would make me into a target. No, I lay as flat as a tall woman in a clown suit can lie, and I kept my head down—floppy red bow and all.

There was nothing I could do about T.J. standing erect on his snowboard. But he was dipping and swooping with such verve, I doubted the world’s greatest sharpshooter could have hit him.

We were breaking some of the carefully written safety rules for the Clown Week sledding course. Two of us had no helmets. It’s also not proper to be waving pistols around as you head down the snowy hill.

Of course, what I dreaded during this wild ride was that T.J. would catch up with Philip Montague. He’d already head butted the jerk; who knew what he might decide to do the next time.
And while I might admire his courage—in reality it terrified me—T.J. was only fourteen. He couldn’t go up against a grown man with a gun.

But what could I do about it? If I caught up with T.J.—well, then I might be able to stop him. I’d gladly let Philip Montague get away. I just didn’t want T.J. to get hurt.

I also didn’t want to get hurt myself.

While all this was racing through my head, I was hurtling down that hill at what seemed like superspeed. Maybe I wasn’t going that fast, but it sure seemed like it.

Philip Montague was still ahead of me. Also ahead, closing in on Philip, was T.J.

I began to yell. “Tony! Tony! Stop! Stop! T.J., he has a gun!”

But the slope was lined with spectators. People were walking up and down the path beside the sledding area. The sleighs were also going up and down the hill, carrying visitors.

And the walkers and riders were pointing at us. They were applauding. The spectators thought we were part of Clown Week.

“Tony! Tony! Stop!” It didn’t matter how loudly I yelled. T.J. couldn’t hear me because of the music, the applause, and the shouting. Nobody could hear me.

I was still yelling when Philip Montague reached the first rise. He crested it with only a minor wobble, eased over, and went on. The darn man had been reared in Michigan. He’d probably come home from the maternity ward on a sled.

Tony was swooping onto the rise. He knew every inch of the slope, of course, and had already made at least two dozen trips down it. He took the rise and started down again without hesitation.

That left me, and I didn’t even know how to guide the dadgum sled.

It had handles of some sort at the front. I grabbed them and moved them to the left. The sled responded and went left—but not far enough to miss the huge pile of snow on the right of the track. The sled flipped over, and I went rolling into a snowdrift. My sled stopped fifteen feet farther down the slope.

I wasn’t hurt, but something was digging into my ribs.

My cell phone.

I could call someone. But who? During the three seconds it took me to dig my way out of the snow, I thought about that. And I came up with an answer.

As soon as I wasn’t buried in snow, I ripped the Velcro open down the front of my clown suit and reached into the side pocket of my ski jacket. Thank God the phone was still working. I punched the right buttons and found the right number.

“Answer! Answer!” I spoke out loud and used mental telepathy at the same time. “Emergency!”

“Hello.”

“It’s Lee! There’s a guy in a hobo outfit coming down the slope!”

Two blocks down the hill, at the skating rink, I could see Tony Herrera—Tony Senior—turn around to look up the hill.

“So?”

“Tony, he’s got a gun! He’s the guy that tried to kill Emma Davidson! And Tony Junior is right behind, chasing him!”

“Huh?”

I wailed. “I know it’s hard to believe, but when the guy jumped on a sled, Tony jumped on his snowboard right after him!” I was on my feet by then, and I waved my arms. “Can you see them?”

“I see them.” Tony Senior’s voice was grim. And immediately—
immediately
—I heard the loudspeaker down at the skating rink.
“Clear the ice! Now!” I knew Tony Senior had the portable mike, so that was his doing.

As I watched, Tony Senior sped across the ice, his skates seeming to strike sparks. He didn’t pause when he reached the edge, but kept going, running through the snow. He ran right over the flimsy picket fence that was used to keep waiting skaters in line. He was headed for the sledding slope.

I ended the call to Tony and punched 9-1-1. I kept the message simple. “Mayday! Mayday! I’m in Warner Pier. There’s a guy with a pistol on the sledding slope!”

Then I plunged through the snow to recapture my sled. I looked at the gadget and wished I had an ax to chop it up with. I was scared to death of it. But I needed the darn thing. I had done all I could do from that spot.

I sighed, aimed the sled in the right direction, and pushed off.

By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, Tony Senior had Philip Montague in a headlock. Montague’s pistol was ten feet away, and he was whining like a little girl.

Nobody could understand whatever he was trying to say. This was because Tony was talking louder than his captive. And his words were addressed to T.J.

I didn’t catch much of it, but I do remember his saying, “And you’re grounded for life!”

When T.J. made a motion toward the pistol in the snow, Tony Senior roared even louder. “Don’t touch that!”

Tony didn’t let go of Philip until Clancy Pike had him handcuffed. Then Tony got to his feet. In skates, he towered even higher than he does normally. He grabbed Tony Junior and shook him like a rag doll. Then he hugged him—though the word “hug” doesn’t quite express the strength of his embrace. And tears ran down Tony Senior’s face.

I grabbed his arm. “Tony, cut him some slack! He saved my life!”

So Tony hugged both of us. “I don’t even want to hear this story,” he said. “But I guess I have to sometime.”

By then all three of us were crying.

Over the next few days everything settled into place.

First, T.J. and Tony Senior seemed to be much better friends. And T.J. was grounded for only a weekend.

Chuck was arrested at Clowning Around just as soon as Clancy could get there. He and Philip turned on each other at the first opportunity, of course.

Chuck claimed Philip came up with the plan to defraud his dad by getting him to donate to Klowns for Kids of Michigan. Philip claimed it was all Chuck’s idea.

“Chuck said his dad stole money from his mom’s estate,” Philip said. “Money that should have gone to him and to Lorraine. He said it was only fair for him to steal it back.”

They also blamed each other for killing Moe. It seems Philip had been inside the house when Moe, Emma, and Chuck arrived. Chuck had arranged to meet his dad there, claiming he and Philip had a good explanation for the Klowns for Kids of Michigan caper. After Emma shoved Moe, and Chuck urged her to leave, Chuck and Moe got into a fight. Chuck claimed Philip appeared from inside the house and killed his dad; Philip claimed he was only a witness and that Chuck killed him.

Each of them had tried to kill Emma, who apparently has nine lives, because she escaped three times. I hope she doesn’t try for six more.

When Emma said she was going to confess to killing his dad, Chuck knew that no one was likely to believe her story; he also knew that if they did believe her, he was probably the next
suspect in line. So he laced a Bloody Mary with an overdose of her medication, then urged Lorraine to push the drink on her. He took the groggy Emma down to the Clowning Around shop and left her to die, but Tilda VanAust and I ruined his plan. Lorraine apparently passed out and didn’t know he had taken her to the shop.

Philip got involved because of his link to real estate. He set up a fake development company and pretended he wanted to buy the Clowning Around building. This was a ploy to raise the price, to convince Aunt Nettie and me that the building was worth more.

I never got a chance to tell Philip that wouldn’t have worked. I’m not a complete idiot.

Philip made two attempts to kill Emma. He first tried to smother her, wearing the only kind of clown makeup he knew how to do—the kind he’d used back in Moe’s clown club for teenagers. A picture of the club hung in the shop, though I had never noticed it. Apparently Philip was afraid I had recognized the makeup and would realize who he was. I don’t think Philip had any idea it was the hair-dye disguise, not the teardrops painted on his cheek, that gave him away when he tried to poison Emma. The teardrops only confused Emma, making her drugged mind think that Moe had returned from the dead to further torment her.

Philip tried to take me hostage just in case he needed a shield to make his escape from Warner Pier.

Philip and Chuck haven’t been sent up yet, but they will be, and for good long sentences.

Surprisingly, Lorraine and Emma have become closer friends. During Clown Week they managed to sell almost the entire stock of Clowning Around, which gave them some badly
needed ready cash. Emma offered to send Lorraine to a rehab program for her drinking problem, and Lorraine agreed to go. So far, I hear, she’s sticking to it. They sold the Warner Pier house, and Emma’s back in Indiana.

A few days after Chuck’s arrest, Aunt Nettie called from Australia. She agreed enthusiastically to the purchase of the Clowning Around building. TenHuis Chocolade has now taken possession of it, and we’re looking for an architect.

Royal Hollis was released the day after Chuck and Philip were arrested. I didn’t witness his meeting with Belle, but Joe said it was “very touching.” Belle offered to rent an apartment for her dad in Saginaw, and he agreed to live in it—at least for the rest of the winter. He’s also back in treatment for his mental problems.

I just hope he doesn’t give up the harmonica.