Send in the Clowns (The Country Club Murders Book 4)

by Julie Mulhern

  “It will take at least twelve hours to process the crime scene.”

  “So, four thirty?”

  “Fine.” He loosened his hold on my arm. “Where are your keys?”

  I dug them out of my purse and handed them over. Our fingers touched. Lingered.

  The troubling electricity that always seemed to arc between us sparked wildly.

  It raised the hair on my arms. It sent shivers down my spine. It parted my lips in anticipation.

  Anarchy’s face looked harder than the business end of a five-iron. He unlocked the car door and returned my keys to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. Drive safely.”

  Maybe he didn’t feel the electricity. “Anarchy.” I reached for his arm.

  He stepped out of my reach. A hurried step. One that said he didn’t want me touching him.

  Anarchy felt the spark. Hell, he probably smelled the burned ions in the air. I know I did. But Anarchy had decided to ignore or avoid this thing between us. I wish I could. Ignoring it would make life much easier.

  My stomach, my spleen, maybe my heart—definitely my heart—contracted, squeezed by the sting of rejection. Rejected because I was keeping my word and showing up for golf with my father? The sting lingered like the last guests at a party, the one that refuses to leave despite broad hints about early mornings and busy days.

  Dammit.

  It wasn’t as if Anarchy and I had a future.

  After being married to Henry Russell, trusting a man again was a bit like one of those free-fall exercises where you fell backward and hoped someone was there to catch you before your head conked against the floor. It took enormous courage. Even when the man waiting with his arms out and ready was Anarchy Jones. Especially when the man waiting with his arms out and ready was Anarchy Jones. And now those arms were gone. I breathed fetid air deep into my lungs and held it.

  “Ellison—”

  I held up my hand for silence and exhaled. Then I lowered myself into the car and started the ignition. “Good night.” He was right. He was. There was no sense in torturing ourselves when I’d declared I wasn’t ready. I pulled the door closed and drove away, leaving him alone in that bleak parking lot.

  I met Daddy at the club.

  He waited for me in the parking lot, unloaded my clubs and insisted on carrying them to the golf cart. Then he drove us to the first tee.

  He didn’t say much.

  I didn’t expect him to. He doesn’t usually say much until the dogleg on the fifth hole.

  We parked at the men’s tee box and Daddy pressed a tee into the turf, placed his ball, and withdrew a driver from his bag.

  He bent, stared at his golf ball, tilted his head and glanced at the fairway, adjusted his grip, and swung.

  The ball sliced into a stand of blue spruce.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

  “You never slice.”

  He picked up his broken tee and walked toward me and the cart. “You need to talk to your sister.”

  “About what?”

  “Giving away a kidney isn’t like giving away last year’s handbag.”

  My sister was donating a healthy kidney to my cousin David whose kidneys had been damaged by childhood diabetes. It was the only completely altruistic thing she’d ever done and she was positively basking in the glow of giving.

  I walked down to the ladies’ tee, set my ball, and swung.

  The ball sailed down the fairway.

  Daddy grunted his approval. “Nice ball. Your mother won’t see reason.”

  I kept my lips firmly sealed and we climbed into the cart.

  We didn’t drive far. “Do you want some help finding your ball?”

  “She absolutely ignores the dangers.” Daddy shook his head, apparently bewildered by the rare occurrence of Mother disagreeing with him outright. “It’s a major operation and your sister may need that kidney someday.”

  Marjorie doing something so out of character—so nice—had sent ripples through our family. Now that one of Mother’s daughters was giving a kidney to Aunt Sis’s son, the two were behaving like sisters should. Marjorie and I were actually getting along. Marjorie’s husband Greg doted on her endlessly. Things were better than ever—one might say they were going swimmingly (if one wanted to tempt fate)—and Daddy wanted me to churn up the smooth waters?

  We walked across the fairway in search of Daddy’s ball. “That useless husband of hers won’t tell her what to do.”

  So Daddy had already had this conversation with Greg and he’d refused to intervene? No surprise. He was so happy to have Marjorie back (my sister left him briefly for pastures that looked greener) that he was unlikely to say anything.

  I spotted the ball nestled among some pine needles and pointed. “There it is. You should talk to her.”

  “I have. She won’t listen.”

  “And you think she’ll listen to me?”

  “She might.”

  The only problem with Daddy’s plan was that I agreed with Marjorie’s decision. I was the worst person to try and talk her out of it. If David and I were a match, I’d have gladly become a donor.

  “All I ever wanted for you girls was to have happy, secure lives.” My father considered his sight lines then hit his ball onto the fairway. “Nice husbands.” He slid his club back into the bag. “Men you could depend upon.”

  “Marjorie has that.”

  “Greg isn’t looking out for her best interests.”

  I disagreed.

  Daddy was still away. He took his third shot and the ball rushed toward the green. He scowled as if he’d hooked left. “What’s wrong with a comfortable, stable life?”

  “Nothing.” My own comfortable, stable life had gone to hell when my dreams became more important to me than my husband’s. Given that Henry had been murdered, it hardly seemed appropriate to say I was happier without him. I was. “But Marjorie’s a grown woman, she can make these decisions.”

  “She’s making a mistake.”

  I pursed my lips and approached my ball. “Maybe. But it’s her choice—her life. And if it’s a mistake, it’ll be her mistake.”

  “What about her family? How is she going to take care of her family? This is major surgery.”

  “She’ll have plenty of help.”

  “Her husband and her children should be more important to her than David.”

  “David is family too.”

  Daddy snorted.

  I swung my club and sent my ball to the green.

  “Nice shot.” Daddy’s tan cheeks looked sunken, and pouches had appeared under his eyes. He wore his worry on his face.

  I slipped my club back in the bag. “She’s not a child. She made this decision. We ought to respect it.”

  He shook his head.

  “You and your sister will always be my little girls. You’ll understand someday.”

  I wouldn’t. I wanted Grace to grow up into a strong, independent woman.

  “A parent always worries,” he added. “The worry never goes away.”

  That I could agree with. We drove to the putting green in silence.

  I climbed out of the cart and rubbed a kink in my neck. Golf was supposed to be a stress reliever, not a stress inducer. “Your ball is away.”

  Daddy lined up a twenty-foot putt and sank his ball.

  “Nice.” My own shot was closer to ten feet with a slight slope to the right. Not exactly a gimme but not terribly difficult either.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” said Daddy. “You make this putt, I’ll drop the subject. You miss it and you talk to your sister.”

  I could talk to Marjorie until my face turned a deep shade of indigo and not change a thing. Her mind was made up. Daddy was behaving as if we were still fractious teenagers.

  “Tell her I’ll release her trust fund early. She can have it now.” Marjorie and I both got full access to our trust funds when we turned forty.

  “She
doesn’t need the money.”

  “No one turns down that kind of money.”

  “She gets it in six months anyway.” Our trusts were set up to distribute when we hit certain ages. The distribution from the trust might take some of the sting out of forty.

  “Well, then…tell her she can have the lake house.”

  “Daddy, she and the kids summer in Harbor Point. She doesn’t need a lake house.”

  “Ellie…” Daddy turned my name into a sigh of frustration. “Would you please just talk to her?”

  “If I miss the putt.”

  I missed.

  Three

  I drove home rehearsing possible conversations with Marjorie in my head. I wasn’t very convincing in any of them. But that was probably because giving David a kidney was the right thing to do.

  My next-door neighbor, Margaret Hamilton, stood at the corner of our street, her eyes scanning the intersection.

  Her cat, Lucifer, must have escaped again.

  I waved.

  She scowled.

  I didn’t stop. Just because she’d left her broom and peaked hat at home didn’t mean she wasn’t a witch.

  I parked in the circle drive and glanced at my watch. I had less than ten minutes to clean up if I wanted to make it to the police station on time.

  Aggie opened the front door before I inserted my key. “You’re home.”

  Aggie is my housekeeper. She is a gem. Not even gems open the door before someone knocks.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Detective Jones called.” Her brow was as puckered as one of the smocked dresses I made Grace wear when she was little.

  I stepped inside. “And?”

  “He has to reschedule.” She shook her head. Her earrings, long, dangly ones made of silver palettes and purple beads, shimmied in the late afternoon light. They were mesmerizing.

  “Did he say why?”

  Aggie pursed her lips, raised one brow, and tilted her head to the side until the bottom of her earring brushed the violet cloth of her kaftan. Her expression was a cross between annoyance that Anarchy hadn’t provided her with a reason and why-are-you-even-talking-to-Anarchy-Jones-when-you-could-be-with-Hunter-Tafft. My friends and family have fallen into two camps. Those who think I should make a commitment to Anarchy Jones and those who think Hunter Tafft and I are a perfect match. Hunter is suave. Hunter is charming. Hunter and I know all the same people. Mother and Aggie, whose late husband used to work for Hunter, are very much in the Hunter camp.

  I haven’t chosen a camp yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever choose a camp. There’s a certain allure to learning to be me without a man.

  “He wouldn’t tell me,” said Aggie.

  Of course Anarchy hadn’t told her why. Anarchy didn’t just give out information. Inquiring minds had to poke and prod and sometimes beg before he said much of anything. “What did he say?”

  “Just that he was cancelling your appointment.”

  “Nothing about a body?”

  My housekeeper shook her head. Sort of. Between the tilt of her head and the dangle of her earring, she’d snagged herself on her kaftan. She moved her head closer to her shoulder and pulled the French hook out of her ear. The earring she left dangling from her shoulder. “A dead body?”

  I put my purse down on the bombe chest in the front hall. “I’m afraid so. I found another one.” That sounded truly awful. “Actually, a body found me.”

  “A dead body?” Aggie repeated. She sounded perturbed. She looked perturbed too. Her sproingy orange hair seemed to have lost some of its bounce, her brows drew together, and the tiny lines around her mouth looked like crevices.

  If Aggie was perturbed, Mother would be apoplectic.

  “Yes. A dead body.”

  “Where were you?” She tugged at the earring.

  “The Gates of Hell.”

  “You? At a haunted house?”

  I smoothed my skirt. What was so wrong with me going to a haunted house? “It’s a long story.”

  Aggie yanked the earring free. “So you went to the Gates of Hell and found a body?”

  “It fell on me.”

  “Someone having a heart attack?” She sounded almost hopeful.

  “No. Murdered.”

  “Your mother is not going to like that.” Aggie is a master of understatement. “Who was it?”

  “A young man named Brooks Harney.”

  Aggie did not react.

  She’d become so much a part of our lives that I sometimes forgot she’d only been with us less than five months. She didn’t know the people who populated our pasts.

  “Grace and his sister Camille used to be good friends.” Aggie didn’t need to know about Grace’s schoolgirl crush on Robbie, Camille’s other brother. “They were inseparable.”

  “What happened?”

  “Camille’s parents sent her to boarding school.” Some of my disapproval must have leaked into my voice because Aggie tilted her head again. “After Brooks disappeared,” I added.

  She tsked. “He came back and now he’s dead?”

  “Yes.”

  Brngg, brngg.

  “I’ll get that.” She hurried toward the kitchen and the ringing phone.

  I glanced in the mirror. A few strands of hair had escaped my ponytail, and I smoothed them back into place. My earrings, discreet pearls, remained far from my shoulders and my sweater. I looked nothing like Aggie except for the worried wrinkles in my brow and the tight lines circling my mouth. I smoothed them with my thumb. At least I tried. The lines remained and my thumb came away covered in Chapstick.

  “Libba is on the phone for you,” Aggie called.

  “I’ll take it in the study.”

  I opened the door to Henry’s study. The room was still very much his. Dark paneling and plaid upholstery. It needed redecorating. I would have done it months ago but sometimes Grace sat in here. It reminded her of her father. I sighed, sat behind Henry’s enormous desk, and picked up the phone.

  “You’re never going to believe who asked me out.” Most people started conversations with hello or how are you? Not my best friend Libba. She jumped in feet first and expected you to follow.

  “Who?” We could play this game all day. It could be anyone from a Chiefs player to a scion. I grabbed a tissue from the tortoise-shell covered box and wiped off my thumb.

  “Jay Fitzhugh.”

  A scion.

  “Jay Fitzhugh?”

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

  “Sorry. I mean, I’m not surprised.” I was dumbfounded. Jay Fitzhugh seemed more of a walker than a player. He was a charming escort for older widows. The thought of him dating was…odd. “What did you say?”

  “Yes.”

  Really? Aside from the widows, Jay seemed a bit dull for Libba’s taste.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Dinner.”

  What could I say? Jay was gainfully employed—he ran the trust department of one of the larger banks in town. He didn’t wear gold chains, shirts open to his navel, or a bad toupée. And, as far as I knew, he didn’t secretly wear women’s clothes or drink. Compared to the men Libba usually dated, he was a rock star. That he might prefer the company of men was a possibility best kept to myself. I twisted the phone cord around my ring finger.

  “I chatted with him at your mother’s gala,” she said.

  So the invitation to dinner hadn’t come out of the blue. “Where’s he taking you?”

  “The American.” Arguably one of the best restaurants in town.

  “Do you like him?”

  Silence ensued.

  That silence spoke volumes. “Why are you going out with him?”

  “Because I’m tired of spending my evenings watching television,” she snapped.

  Jay Fitzhugh was well-to-do, reasonably handsome, very charming, and single. If Libba wanted an evening out, who was I to cast a shadow? “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out quite right. I think it’s wonderful
he asked you.”

  She sniffed. “What should I wear?”

  “What about that new Sonia Rykiel dress? The blue one with the ribbons?”

  “I suppose…”

  “It suits you.”

  “Fine. What about you? What’s new with you?”

  Telling Libba I’d found another body—Brooks Harney’s body—wasn’t high on my list of things to do. “Nothing much. I played golf with Daddy.”

  “Liar.”

  “Pardon me? I’m just back from the course.”

  “That might be true but there’s something else. I’ve known you for almost forty years. I can tell when something is bothering you. Spill.”

  “I saw Brooks Harney.” No need to embellish with the state he was in.

  “No kidding? I bet Genevieve’s head is spinning like Linda Blair’s.” Genevieve Harney was blessed with unassailable wisdom which she shared generously. Brooks was the chink in her armor. A son who didn’t turn out meant she’d failed. At least that failure had disappeared. For a time…

  “I’m not sure Genevieve knows he’s back.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “The Gates of Hell.”

  “Well, that’s apropos. What did you talk about?”

  “Not much. He was working there.”

  “Really? I imagine he’s hanging around until he turns twenty-five.”

  “Oh?”

  “Years ago, before Genevieve got quite so starchy, we had a couple of drinks. More than a couple. I think they were stingers…” Libba’s voice faded with the memory of brandy and crème de menthe. “At any rate, she told me she worried that Brooks would run through his inheritance before he turned twenty-six. He gets his money from his grandfather on his twenty-fifth birthday.”

  Brooks wouldn’t be getting any money. Brooks was dead.

  “You ought to call Genevieve and tell her you saw him.”

  My stomach lurched left, ricocheted off my spleen, faded right, then settled somewhere south of my ovaries. Tell Genevieve I’d seen her son? Tell her he was dead?

  Oh dear Lord.

  “What are you wearing to the club Halloween party?” Libba had moved on.

  I dragged my focus back to our conversation and said the first thing that popped into my head. “A clown suit.”