14 The Chocolate Clown Corpse

by JoAnna Carl

  Finally Tilda unlocked the door, and the two of us went into Clowning Around.

  Once again I was oppressed by the masses of clowns. They were on the shelves, on the floor, on the walls, and hanging from the ceiling. Big photos of groups of clowns were massed behind the cash register. I could hardly breathe for clowns. And I recalled that the back rooms—the rooms for storage and staff work—were just as bad.

  I hadn’t seen anybody working over there. I didn’t know how Lorraine, Chuck, and Emma were going to have everything ready to open the store for Clown Week. But that was their problem. Looking at the building was my concern.

  “I saw most of the main floor,” I said. “How about starting the tour upstairs?”

  Tilda led the way to the back of the building, where two closed doors were located side by side. “I can never remember which of these is the restroom and which the stairs,” she said. She produced another key and tried the left-hand door. It opened readily and revealed a narrow staircase.

  “I guess the building was originally set up so that the store operator could live above it,” she said.

  “There is a separate entrance to the upstairs off the alley, right?”

  “Yes. Of course, I don’t think Moe rented his upstairs much. He used it for storage.”

  “If his brain was as disorganized as this place, heaven knows what we’ll find up there.” I quit talking and followed Tilda upstairs. I didn’t mention that the building was also spooky. I could swear ghosts were walking behind us, making the floor creak and causing drafts of the cold winter air to follow us.

  The apartment was as big a mess as the downstairs. It was full of cardboard boxes and assorted stuff. Apparently that was simply the way Moe operated.

  The area had other problems. The walls had patches of damp and peeling paint. The sinks had horrible brown stains from dripping water, and the appliances were old and dirty. If the apartment was to be rented, it would first require a complete renovation.

  I pointed this out to Tilda. “The downstairs needs work, too,” I said. “I definitely think their price is way too high.”

  “But, Lee, if you were changing this building into a modern, beautiful chocolate plant—with a workroom similar to the one you have now—you’d want a complete renovation anyway.”

  “If we could rent the upstairs out, it would help offset the cost of the work. But this place would need more than a coat of paint.”

  Tilda looked a bit dejected as we went back down the stairs. I didn’t blame her. The place made me feel dejected. In fact, I felt more than dejected. I felt nervous. Scared. Jumpy.

  Why? It was just a building that needed to be cleared out and cleaned up. It wasn’t a haunted house or a torture chamber.

  But the building not only looked spooky, it also sounded spooky. I kept hearing creaks, something almost like a door closing, and weird groans. I tried not to shudder.

  Tilda turned on more lights in the workroom. Glaring light from bare bulbs beat down on us. It was a large open area—or would have been open if it weren’t crowded with shelving, cardboard boxes, and heaps of clown paraphernalia.

  “There is that little kitchen area,” Tilda said. She pointed across the room.

  I followed her. “Kitchen area” was a fancy name for a table with a Formica top and two metal folding chairs. An old refrigerator sat against the wall. An electric coffeepot was on the table. Water for the pot apparently came from a mop sink near the table. I will admit the sink was fairly clean, but it didn’t look as if anybody had ever mopped. A couch, covered in once-fashionable plaid, was between us and the table. It was the only thing in the whole building that looked fairly comfortable.

  As I approached the kitchen area, I heard that groaning again.

  “What is that noise?” I asked.

  “Something to do with the plumbing, I guess,” Tilda said. She walked over to the mop sink, lowered her head into it, and put an ear near the faucets. “It is eerie, I admit.”

  I heard the groaning again and shuddered. “It gives me the willies. I’d almost think it was some sort of animal. But you’re probably right about it being the plumbing.”

  I also went around the couch, but I couldn’t get near the sink because Tilda had dropped to her knees and was looking at the drain. So I looked around the area, sweeping my eyes over the table, the chairs, the coffeepot, and a heap of black fabric on the couch.

  And the fabric moved.

  “Oh, Tilda! There’s something on the couch!” I’d barely managed not to scream.

  “There’s something everywhere in this place.” Tilda stood up and turned around. And then she did scream. Because the heap of black fabric had moved again. Part of it slid onto the floor.

  And it revealed a small, white hand. Someone was lying there.

  My skin was crawling. On top of the strange sounds and strange boxes and strange mess, this was simply too creepy. But I took a deep breath, leaned over, and grabbed the black cloth. I yanked it away from the couch.

  It revealed Emma Davidson, curled up and seemingly dead to the world.

  Chapter 10

  “Oh my God!” Tilda yelped out the words.

  I dropped to my knees beside her. “Mrs. Davidson?” I shook her gently. “Wake up, Emma.”

  “I’d better call Chuck. He should know what to do.”

  “Call 9-1-1, Tilda. If Emma didn’t wake up at the noise we’ve made, she’s not asleep. She’s unconscious. We need an ambulance.”

  I had made my words an order, and Tilda obeyed. She made the call. Still holding her cell phone, Tilda ran to the front door, ready to open it for the ambulance. “I’ll call Chuck!” she said.

  I sat on the floor beside Emma Davidson. She was barely breathing, but she was breathing. I didn’t think she needed CPR, but what did I know? I’d had one first aid class.

  Warner Pier has a volunteer ambulance service, but they react fairly rapidly. Or maybe they just don’t have far to come. Anyway, they were there in less than ten minutes.

  I was not happy to see that Greg Glossop was on the crew. Greg is the pharmacist who operates the drugstore that’s part of the town’s one supermarket. His nickname is Greg Gossip. The news about Emma Davidson would be all over town as soon as Greg could get to a phone.

  I was even more unhappy when Greg examined the table, then dropped to his knees and looked under the couch and all around the area. “Aha!” he said. He pulled out a prescription container and held it above his head triumphantly. “Elavil! For depression. That can cause heart problems!”

  His satisfied attitude made me angry. I was aware that if Emma had taken an overdose, knowing what drug was involved would help doctors treat her. But his smugness was annoying.

  Tilda and I watched as the EMTs loaded Emma onto a gurney, rolled her out the front door, and lifted her into the ambulance. Before they closed the door Chuck pulled up, skidding into a parking place in front of the store. He yelled a few words of thanks to Tilda and me and assured us that Lorraine would meet him at the hospital. He climbed into the front of the ambulance, and it pulled out.

  Tilda and I watched it go, siren shrieking. Then we each took deep breaths. My knees seemed to be knocking, and Tilda looked as shaky as I felt.

  “Lock up the store,” I said, “and let’s go down to the Sidewalk Café. I’m buying. We both need a drink.”

  Joe found us there about twenty minutes later. He’d already heard about Emma.

  “What was wrong with her?” he asked. “Heart attack?”

  “She was barely breathing,” I said. “And she was unconscious. I guess it could have been her heart. Or a stroke.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about Greg Gossip and the empty prescription bottle. I left that tale to Tilda, and naturally she told it. There was no point in trying to keep it quiet. And I wasn’t even sure why I want
ed to.

  Joe ordered a beer. “I’m glad to hear they looked around for anything odd,” he said.

  “Why would you think there might be anything odd?” I asked.

  “Oh, since her husband was killed . . .” Joe’s voice trailed off. “I guess I’m just being suspicious. Well, Tilda, do you think Lee’s a jinx?”

  “In what way?”

  “The first time she looks at the Clowning Around building, Lorraine goes berserk. The second time Emma Davidson may have OD’d.”

  Tilda laughed. “I kept a sharp eye on Lee. I think she was an innocent bystander. And now I’ve got to get home. My kids will be tearing up the house. Thanks for the drink, Lee. And I’ll call you tomorrow to hear what you thought about the building—before the crisis hit.”

  “Let me know if you find out any more about the other bidder.”

  Tilda smiled, but she didn’t say she would do that. I told Joe about the unexpected bidder. Then we found a table for dinner.

  The Sidewalk Café, despite the implications of its name, isn’t primarily an outdoor place. The name is a pun, because the restaurant is decorated with children’s toys designed for sidewalk play—roller skates, marbles, jacks, jump ropes, and tricycles. Mock chalk drawings decorate the floor and walls. It’s one of three restaurants operated by Joe’s stepfather, Mike Herrera. One of the few Warner Pier restaurants that stay open all year long, it has good food of the casual sort: French dip sandwiches, beef stew, chicken strips, and hamburgers.

  Joe and I go to the Sidewalk so often that we can order without looking at the menu, so we told the waitress what we wanted before we sat down. Then Joe looked at his watch. “I’d better give Belle Montgomery another call,” he said. “I’ve spent the day calling first her and then Emma Davidson.”

  He pulled out his cell phone and punched some numbers. Immediately I heard a standard cell phone ring no more than twenty feet away. At first I thought this was a coincidence, but when I looked in the direction of the sound, I saw Belle sitting at a corner table.

  I waved, Joe turned to see who was there, and we all laughed.

  Joe went over to her table. I saw him gesturing, Belle shaking her head, then nodding and smiling. I beckoned. Joe waved to the waitress, pointing to our table. Belle picked up her wineglass, and they both came over.

  “Your nice husband invited me to join you,” Belle said.

  “Of course. There’s no point in eating dinner alone.” I reminded myself that the crisis over Emma Davidson was not a suitable topic for discussion with an emotionally distraught person such as Belle. “Are you still at the Peach Street B and B?”

  “Yes, but Sarajane can keep me only a few more days. I may go home then.” She sipped her wine, then went on. “I wanted to talk to both of you, so this is lucky. I guess I wanted to try to convince you that I’m not complete white trash.”

  “We certainly didn’t think that, Belle.”

  “Well, when someone tells you she never saw her father in her life . . .”

  “Believe me,” Joe said, “in our practice we run into families in much stranger situations than that. If I thought anything about it at all, I wondered if it had something to do with your father’s mental state.”

  Belle nodded. “Yes, it did. He was serving in the army when my parents married. He was wounded—a head injury. When he came home, according to my mother, he wasn’t the same person. She was afraid to be around him. Actually, she did take me to see him once or twice. In the military hospital. But I was too small to remember.”

  “Speaking as a defense lawyer,” Joe said, “I might find that a help. His first attorney said the prosecutor was going to offer a plea deal. If we can show that your dad isn’t competent—well, at least he might be in a different kind of confinement.”

  “A mental hospital rather than a prison?”

  “Possibly.”

  “But apparently my father lived on his own for many years before he—well, took to the road. He held jobs, lived in regular houses. I guess he was pretty much on the edge—never held a job for long, never lived anywhere for more than a few months. But he wasn’t homeless. Then about ten years ago he started this wandering way of life, with no fixed domicile.”

  Joe frowned. “I gather that your dad became one of the guys who like to camp on their own. He seems to have avoided homeless shelters.”

  “I don’t suppose . . . No, it would be too much to hope for.”

  “We can hope for anything, Belle. What is it?”

  Belle used her fork to draw a design on the butcher paper that covered the table. “All that talk about a new investigation . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Is there any chance at all that my dad could actually be innocent?”

  Joe didn’t answer immediately, but frowned and seemed to consider his reply. I kept out of it. I felt terribly sorry for Belle. She was grasping at straws. But the most surprising thing was the change in her attitude. When Joe had talked to her two days earlier I had felt sure that she thought her father had killed Moe Davidson. I had thought she was simply going through the motions when she offered to pay for his defense. Now she was allowing herself to think about his being innocent.

  Was she in for a big disappointment?

  “Belle,” Joe said, “the last thing I want you to do is get your hopes up. Yes, I’m going to take a new look at the evidence, talk to the witnesses. But I wouldn’t want you to expect a miracle.”

  Bell smiled wryly. “Miracles don’t happen very often.”

  Joe nodded. “I’m glad you understand that. And now, I’ve been calling you all day so I can ask a question. Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’m likely to be.”

  “I wanted to tell you that I’m going over to the county seat to interview your dad tomorrow,” Joe said. “If you want to go along, I’ll be happy to give you a lift.”

  The waitress arrived just at that moment with Belle’s dinner. We all sat silently until she had gone. Then Joe continued. “Of course, there’s no particular reason for you to meet your dad at this moment. And you couldn’t be present for his main interview.”

  Belle smiled. “You’re offering me emotional support, aren’t you? A chance to meet my father without doing it on my own.”

  “I don’t know that I would be much help emotionally,” Joe said. “It would also be a chance for you to talk to your dad directly about his representation.”

  “His representation?”

  “You said you were willing to pay for your dad’s representation. I don’t want to stand in the way of his making a change.”

  Belle was shaking her head. “I’ve changed my mind. No, whether I pay you or the State of Michigan does, I feel that you’re the best person to represent my dad.”

  So that settled that question. When it came to the question of representing Royal Hollis, Joe was doing it. Unless Royal Hollis himself refused to have him.

  We were all silent for a few minutes. I think we were absorbing the situation. Then I took a deep breath. “Well, as my Texas grandma would have said, let’s have some pleasant dinner table conversation. Y’all can discuss business later. Belle, tell us about yourself.”

  “Myself?”

  “Yes. Where are you from? What is your profession? Have you always lived in Michigan?”

  Belle smiled. “I was born of poor, but honest, parents—or at least my mother was poor but honest. My dad may have simply been poor. And I’ve lived in Michigan most of my life.”

  When she was small, Belle said, she and her mother had lived with her grandparents. Her mother had remarried when Belle was five. Her stepfather was apparently a nice enough person, and Belle had grown up in Bay City, not far from Lake Huron. She had gone to college in Ohio, earning a degree in business. After college she had worked for an arts association in Saginaw, which is not far from Bay City
, and had married one of the group’s board members. I deduced that he had been some years older than she had been. They had no children, and her husband had died two years ago. I also deduced that she had inherited a bundle from him, but of course Belle didn’t say so.

  “And now you know all there is to know about me,” she concluded. Including the fact that she had an emotional hang-up about her father, I thought. But it wasn’t up to me to solve Belle’s problems. She was on her own there.

  We were leaving the restaurant before Emma Davidson entered the conversation, and neither Joe nor I was responsible for bringing her up.

  Actually, our close friend Lindy Herrera dropped by our table and introduced her into the conversation.

  “What an experience you had with Emma Davidson,” she said to me.

  Belle gave a sort of gasp, and I realized that she knew exactly who Emma Davidson was.

  “It was startling,” I said. “I hope she’s better.”

  “What happened to Emma Davidson?” Belle asked.

  I explained, trying to make the whole episode sound almost casual. I left out the part about the pill bottle, but Belle caught on right away.

  “I don’t suppose it could have been some sort of overdose?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  We said good night then, and I drove off in my van, leaving Joe to follow me home. And all the way to the house I wondered about Emma. Then I wondered about Belle. They were two troubled women.

  But, I told myself firmly, they had to solve their own problems. I was not a professional counselor, and I was not even a close friend of either of them. Neither would appreciate my taking more than a casual interest in their woes. I resolved to put all their problems out of my mind. I even resolved not to think about the Clowning Around building that night.

  This lasted until Joe and I went in our back door. The message light on the answering machine was flashing. Joe punched the PLAY button.