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

by Julie Mulhern

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “What if she’s telling the truth and they kick her out of her husband’s funeral?”

  Mark, a contracts attorney, leaned forward and whispered something in Mrs. Might-Be-A-Harney’s ear.

  Every soul in the church leaned with him, straining to hear what he said.

  Mrs. Might-Be-A-Harney answered, her voice was too low to be heard.

  They negotiated for another moment or two then Mark extended his hand.

  The woman shook it, stood, and jerked her chin toward her brother, who had remained quiet.

  The two retreated three rows, forcing Jane Addison to shift to the left or be sat upon.

  Jane probably didn’t mind. She had an eye for detail and she’d collect as much information as humanly possible. Cracker Jack ring? Singing off-key? Lack of tears? Jane would note all. Remember all. Then she’d dine out on all she’d noticed for weeks.

  Mother returned to our pew. “Did you hear all that?”

  “What Mark said? No.” The rest I’d heard clearly. The people sitting in the last pew had heard it clearly. Angels in heaven had heard it clearly.

  She shook her head, her mouth a grim line. “He agreed to pay her fifty dollars if she’d move.”

  Money well spent.

  “One can’t give that sort of person money. They’ll simply come back for more.” She might have continued but the organist started to play the Old Hundredth, the same hymn that had played at every funeral I’d ever attended.

  The priest walked down the aisle and the Harney family followed. Robert looked remote. Then again, when didn’t Robert look remote? Genevieve clutched a lace-edged handkerchief but her eyes were dry. Robbie—Grace sat up straighter as he approached—wore a properly saddened expression. Camille looked watery, as if she’d finally stopped crying but might begin again any moment.

  Did they know about the woman who’d briefly occupied their pew? If so, they didn’t acknowledge her. They filed in and took their seats without so much as a glance her way.

  I’d been prepared for a lost sheep sermon. I wasn’t disappointed. Reverend Stander can wax poetic about young life cut short.

  Mother leaned her head toward me and whispered, “You’d think he’d get some new material.”

  You’d think.

  It didn’t much matter what the reverend said. All eyes were on the pew holding Brooks’ supposed wife. She held the congregation’s attention, not Reverend Stander. What would happen at the reception?

  When the service ended the woman with the straggly hair rose before the Harneys. She walked down the aisle before the Harneys. Chances were good she lay in wait for the Harneys. Everyone else remained in their seats—on the edge of their seats—waiting for the Harney family to pass their pew before they rose.

  The congregation rose in a rush. The church never emptied so quickly. Not a soul wanted to miss the meeting of Genevieve and Robert Harney with their purported daughter-in-law.

  The crush in the undercroft was overwhelming. The Harney family stood against the back wall. Their daughter-in-law was nowhere in sight. Perhaps Mark’s fifty had included skipping the reception.

  The line to see the Harneys snaked through the crowded room. The cookie table was mobbed. Mother had disappeared. As had Grace—hopefully to see Camille then return to school. I waved at Libba who stood in line next to Jay as they waited to pay their respects.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Russell.” Warner West extended his hand.

  “Warner, what a treat to see you.” Our palms met briefly.

  “It’s quite a crowd.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “Brooks and I were friends our whole lives.” He shook his head sadly.

  Warner wore a tailored navy suit and a Harvard tie. At some point, their lives had taken very different turns.

  He glanced at me from beneath dark brows. “I heard you found him.”

  Good news travels fast. Good gossip positively flies. “I did.”

  “He was working a couple of jobs to pay tuition this semester. Next semester things were going to be easier.”

  I bet. A large inheritance would have kept him in school for as long as he wanted to go.

  “What was he studying?” I asked.

  “Psychology. He wanted to help troubled kids.”

  Poor Brooks. He really had been turning his life around. “Did you see him often?”

  “No. We were both busy. I figured we’d have more time when Brooks didn’t have to work so hard. He was off drugs—turning his life around.”

  “Where was he working besides the haunted house?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say.”

  “Did you know about his wife?”

  Warner pushed his hair away from his forehead. “I can’t believe that. Even at his lowest, Brooks had better taste.”

  I knew nothing of Brooks’ taste in women, but I did know women like that didn’t crash funerals unless they were very sure of their positions. “Sometimes the people we think we know best surprise us.” More like shock the hell out of us.

  “That woman is just after money.”

  I didn’t disagree. If she really was Brooks’ wife, it was too bad for her that he’d died before he inherited. On the other hand, it was very lucky for the other beneficiaries.

  “There’s Ed Dorsey.” Warner waved at someone in the crowd. “Would you please excuse me?”

  “Of course.”

  He melted away and I surveyed the line to visit with the Harneys. It didn’t look any shorter.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing.” Kathleen O’Malley regarded me with her usual amused expression. One that said she found me vaguely pathetic.

  “That’s what happens when you eavesdrop.”

  Her mouth stretched in a grin. “The kitten has grown claws.”

  “Is there a safe word that will make you go away?”

  “Meow.”

  Kathleen O’Malley was in my world and not some God-awful torture chamber. It was easy to stand up to her. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

  “Brooks Harney worked for me.”

  If she was hoping to elicit shock, I disappointed her. I’ve heard and seen much more shocking things since I first met her in her dungeon warehouse. “And?”

  “I’d like to see his killer caught.”

  “What did he do for you?”

  “Brooks felt a tremendous amount of guilt over something. He knew he deserved to be punished. He liked being punished.” Her expression dared me to walk away.

  I walked.

  She caught my arm. “Wait. Brooks had a following.” Kathleen glanced around the undercroft where people nibbled on cookies and sipped coffee out of paper cups. “Some of them are here. Tell that police detective.”

  Why did she always tell me more than I cared to know? I yanked my arm free, but I didn’t walk away. “Brooks worked for you?”

  “Just tell him.”

  “He’ll want to talk to you.”

  She tossed her head as if she’d forgotten her hair was trapped in a chignon. “He’ll have to find me first.”

  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around Brooks Harney as a gigolo. “Brooks worked for you?” I asked again.

  “As a submissive.”

  Curiosity. Cat. You’d think I’d learn my lesson.

  “There are plenty of women who want to take charge.” Her hooded eyes took my measure. “You might enjoy it.”

  Ugh. I had only myself to blame. I’d asked.

  “As I said, Brooks liked the sadists. He wanted pain.”

  Covering my ears with my hands and singing la-la-la was not an option. I tried a freezing look instead.

  “It was better for him than heroin.”

  I didn’t argue. “Did you know about the wife?”

  “Stormy?” She wrinkled her nose. “They weren’t really married.”

  Stormy? Oh dear Lord. The way Stormy had forced her way into Brooks’ service suggested—at least to me
—that she was in possession of a marriage certificate.

  “How long did Brooks work for you?”

  “He started shortly after you came by the club.”

  My trip to Kathleen O’Malley’s club of kinky horrors was something I’d just as soon forget. I’d paid one very short visit in June, discovered the depths of my husband’s cheating, and made the decision to divorce him. He died before I got the chance.

  A kewpie doll smile touched her crimson lips and her eyes narrowed slightly. “I miss Henry.”

  That made one of us.

  The smile morphed into a pout. Had Mistress K really thought she could get a rise out of me over Henry? She crossed her arms. “Is that Priscilla Owens?” She jerked her chin toward the line where Priscilla stood.

  “Yes.”

  “She looks exactly as Brooks described her.”

  “Oh?”

  Kathleen’s smile turned cruel. “They were having an affair.”

  “Priscilla and Brooks?” I considered that. Was Kathleen lying? One never knew with a dominatrix. If she was telling the truth, why had Priscilla pretended she didn’t know Brooks was the clown?

  Eight

  After Brooks’ service, I took refuge in my studio. With my legs curled beneath me in a battered leather club chair, I stared into space. The walls didn’t offer much comfort, so I picked up a pad of paper and a charcoal pencil from the table next to the chair and sketched.

  The weight of the charcoal against the paper’s smooth surface calmed me. Dark lines on white. Control. Or at least the illusion of control. I emptied my mind and faces appeared.

  Brooks Harney sightless in the morgue. His handsome features frozen by death.

  Kathleen O’Malley with her hooded eyes and kewpie doll smile.

  Priscilla Owens whose delicacy hid her strength.

  Stormy, low-rent pretty with an ugly expression in her eyes.

  Grace wearing the crestfallen expression of a girl in love with a boy who doesn’t know she’s alive. She looked so vulnerable I closed my eyes. How could I protect her from breaking her heart?

  My pencil moved again. Robbie Harney with his classic good looks. Next to his face, I drew a stick with a hand wrapped around it. His face became a mask hiding Lord knew what.

  Then came the murderous clown and the dark holes where his eyes should have been.

  If I’d had the slightest inkling of what Charles Dix looked like, I would have drawn him too.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  “Come in,” I called.

  Aggie pushed open the door. She held a tray. “It’s too late for coffee and too early for drinks. I brought both.”

  The tray held a carafe of coffee, two mugs, a pitcher of martinis, a jar of olives, and two glasses.

  She put the tray down on the drafting table. “What’ll it be?”

  “A martini. But I shouldn’t drink alone.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” She put the tray down on the drafting table, added olives to the bottom of the glasses, filled them to the brim, and handed one to me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “What?”

  She pushed aside a stack of art books, plopped herself onto the edge of the chaise in a swirl of Halloween-themed (little skulls and jack-o-lanterns on a black background) kaftan and took a sip of her drink. “Whatever is bothering you.”

  The no that rose to my lips was automatic, formed by decades of keeping important things to myself. But I did want to talk about Brooks—my jaw ached with wanting to talk about Brooks. “I didn’t just find his body. I saw him die.” I took a large sip of dry martini and let the vodka work its magic. “How does a kid go that far off the rails? Was it something his parents did or didn’t do?”

  “You’re worried about Grace?” With her sproingy hair, dangling earrings, and loud kaftans, it’s easy to underestimate Aggie. A mistake. Perceptive is her middle name.

  I wasn’t alone in my concern. All parents worried about their kids. But my daughter had endured her father’s murder, the death of friends, and a brutal peek behind the curtain of perversion. My jaw ached too much to answer. I nodded.

  “That is wasted worry.” She held up her glass and tipped it toward me. “Some people crumble under pressure. Grace gets stronger.”

  “She’s still a girl and she’s dealt with more this year than most people do in a lifetime.”

  “You are borrowing trouble. Grace is fine. Talk to her about all this. You’ll see. Worry about something else.”

  “Like withholding evidence?”

  Hunter’s blood-spattered business card still sat on my vanity.

  Of course Aggie knew what I was talking about. “Would you feel better if you’d turned over the card?”

  “Hunter had nothing to do with that murder. I should have just given the card to Anarchy.”

  Aggie pursed her lips. “Of course he had nothing to do with that young man’s death. But that police detective would have used the card as an excuse to harass Mr. Tafft.”

  That police detective instead of Detective Jones.

  Like Mother, Aggie thinks I should fall into Hunter’s strong arms and let him carry me off to a happy future.

  I am not ready to let a man carry me anywhere, much less the future.

  Aggie doesn’t see it that way. Mother doesn’t either. They’ve both said things that suggest they believe Anarchy is the impediment to my blissful future with Hunter.

  How else could a woman resist Hunter’s numerous charms?

  “Who do you think killed him?” Aggie’s question brought my attention back to her.

  I looked up at the ceiling. No answers written there. “Brooks was turning his life around. I don’t think he was killed over drugs.”

  Aggie waited for me to say more.

  “Apparently he was some sort of gigolo for Kathleen O’Malley.” So much better to use her real name than the one she used in her club—Mistress K. I shifted my gaze from the ceiling to Aggie. “And he was having an affair with the owner of the haunted house, Priscilla Owens.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “How old is she?”

  “At least fifteen years older than Brooks.” I shifted my drawings to the floor and stretched my legs out on the ottoman. “If it were reversed and a forty-year-old man had an affair with a twenty-five-year-old woman we wouldn’t think a thing of it.”

  “Those aren’t the times we live in.”

  Too true. I crossed my ankles and took another sip of martini.

  “Do you think the Owens woman found out about his other activities and killed him?”

  Jealousy as a motive for murder? “Maybe.” I swirled the clear liquid in my glass until the olive rose from the bottom. “There’s also the money.”

  “I thought Brooks was broke.”

  “He was. But according to Libba, when he turned twenty-five he was to receive a distribution from his grandfather’s trust.”

  “Who gets the money now that he’s dead?” Aggie rose from the chaise, picked up the martini pitcher, and nodded at my near empty glass. “Do you want that topped off?”

  “Please.”

  She poured. First in my glass then in her own.

  Who got the money? Not the woman in the church. She couldn’t inherit what Brooks didn’t yet own.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you suspect.”

  “If old Mr. Harney set up things like my grandfather did, Brooks would have received one-third of the principal. The remaining funds would have stayed in the trust until each of the remaining children turned twenty-five. With Brooks dead, the money will be split two ways as opposed to three. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless Brooks fathered a child.”

  “Did he?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Aggie rubbed her chin.

  “How much money?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably millions.”

  “So Brooks’ siblings had a reason to want him d
ead.”

  Millions of reasons.

  Camille had cried at Brooks’ service. Robbie had not.

  Camille was in Connecticut when Brooks was murdered.

  But her brother—the young man Grace got dreamy-eyed over—was in town.

  “Brooks had a checkered past. Anarchy probably has suspects we don’t even know about.”

  “Ellison? Are you up there? I rang the bell and no one answered.” Mother’s voice carried up the stairs and through the door Aggie had left open.

  Three o’clock in the afternoon and I’d had two martinis. “No.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Coffee,” I whispered.

  Aggie jumped into action. She poured coffee, handed me a mug, took the martini glasses, returned them to the tray, and covered the incriminating evidence with a tea towel that had somehow migrated to the third floor. All before Mother hit the top of the stairs.

  We were being ridiculous. There was no reason two grown women shouldn’t have a drink in the afternoon. Mother didn’t make the rules in my house. If I wanted martinis for breakfast, I could have them. I straightened my spine. “You don’t need to hide—” I caught sight of Mother’s face and my voice died.

  Mother looked grim. She had news.

  But she made me wait. She scanned my studio, taking in the shabby, comfortable furniture, the easels, the blank canvases, the mason jars of paintbrushes, and the teetering stacks of art books. “I haven’t been up here in years.”

  There was a reason for that. My studio was mine. A place free of toxic conversations and conflict.

  She sniffed. “Do I smell alcohol?”

  “I use it to clean my brushes.”

  Her gaze landed on the covered tray of martinis. “What’s that?”

  “A still life I’ve been working on. It’s covered so nothing gets moved. What’s happened?”

  Her gaze shifted to Aggie and she smiled. Brightly.

  Aggie knew Mother well enough to look worried.

  “Mother?”

  “That woman came back to the reception.”

  That woman? “Brooks’ wife?”

  “So she says.” Mother shook her head at the sad state of the Harneys’ affairs. “From the bleariness in her eyes and the state of her breath, I’d say she went to the parking lot after the service and drank before she came in.” The tone of Mother’s voice left no doubt as to her opinion of women who drank during the day.