A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals)

by P. S. Power

  "Jason? This is Sandra. I... You mentioned Carl? Did Lynn tell you about him?"

  "Um, no. What's the story there?" He waited, but it was about what he'd suspected, if a bit creepier than the woman herself probably knew. She didn't have any reason not to think it was far more normal and bland.

  Tony Mills had been a young man that their daughter had taken up with, when she was young, only fifteen. He was nineteen, so when Lynn had gotten pregnant, her parents had planned to press charges and have him sent to prison. In the end they'd relented, at Lynn's urging, and let him take the baby, on the condition that he move away. Out of state, and never see their girl again. She'd named the boy Carl. Which made sense to Jay, given Morse's ego.

  "Oh. Thanks. I can use that. Talk to you later." He was trying to be polite, nothing more, but the woman was a lot less so.

  "Please, don't. Lynn, she was always troubled and... Not a very good person. We don't speak for a reason. A thousand things over the years. This is horrible, but it sounds like her own chickens are coming home to roost, finally. It's about time." Her voice wasn't that harsh, but the message was. She clearly didn't like her own daughter, on a personal level.

  Worse, Jay couldn't help but agree with her take on things.

  "I understand. Thanks for the help, anyway."

  "It's only what we told the FBI. I would have thought she would have told you, except, well, she's her, isn't she?" The phone clicked in his ear again, so he set the land line in Carlos's house down gently.

  It explained so much. He hadn't been the first one that Carl and Lynn had pulled that trick on then, had he? At least Lynn hadn't been able to just dump Alex off like so much trash, this time. How had Carl missed that the man he'd hired was his son?

  Then... had he? Maybe that was the point of hiring him in the first place. Carl Morse was an egotistical, self-important a-hole, but finding out that his boy had grown up to be a competent person, and chosen to do the same kind of work that he did... Yes, that might just get the killer into place. The Sheriff would even have a reason to keep it secret too, and if Mills agreed with that, he might have been more than happy enough to work with him. The idea that he hadn't known was just a thing that Jay had assumed. Lynn would have seen it, no doubt.

  The man looked a lot like her and Carl's daughter, and had gone back to his original name. A woman wouldn't forget something like that. Not even Lynn, no matter what he thought of her personally. She wasn't stupid, just deceitful and remorseless. It explained why the guy had been allowed to come and talk to Alex too. That he hadn't simply told her about the connection, well, that probably made him seem safe, to the rest of them. He was on their side. Right up until the moment that he'd grabbed them.

  The pieces were clicking into place, but a lot of that might be off, or wrong. Thinking about it, he looked around the house, noticing that it was nice, but not really rich looking. It was a sign that Wendy had offered to use their savings to help him and Alex like she had. Their retirement, he didn't doubt. Saved over the years, for when they were too old to work anymore. Not that he'd have ever taken it. He owed them too much already. They were, like they'd said, family. How that had happened, he didn't know. It had been a slow process, not a thing that simply was. It had a million parts, starting with the basic kindness of Carlos and Wendy, and then the tiny things that each day had brought.

  Leading to this. Jay may not have had the life he expected, but it wasn't as bad now as it had seemed it might be.

  Thinking that, he went to find an old phone book, and then dialed the number for the County Sheriff. It rang four times, before the dispatcher picked up. He didn't recognize the voice, but the woman sounded older, and stressed.

  "We... can't handle anything right now. Is this an emergency?" There was a hint of panic to it, as if she just didn't know what to do.

  "I need to speak to Deputy Richmond? This is Dr. Jason Hadley. Please tell him it's urgent." Not a real emergency, but the only thing he could think of. Richmond was Morse's lead toady after all, as far as Jay could tell from the outside.

  The man, it turned out, was actually in his car, doing his job, since the force was down to two people suddenly. He didn't sound pleased to be contacted at all.

  "What do you want?" The sound of the voice in his ear added several curse words that were unspoken. It was, loud and sounded angry.

  Jay smiled. He really didn't care if the man was having a bad day. In fact, it was no less than he deserved.

  "Two things. First, where is Carl's secret love shack?" If it existed, that was probably where they were being kept. It made sense to him at least. Mills had always put people in isolated positions. Maybe just for the practical reasons of sound control, but there could be more to it than that.

  It was a guess that Richmond would know about it, but the silence that came was telling. It stretched out for a long time, before the man started in on a denial. Covering for his boss, like a good cop.

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Cut it, Richmond. This isn't time for you to cover your ass. Two people's lives are on the line here, maybe more. If you know anything you better spill it now, or they might well die, making you part of it. You claiming that you didn't know where your fellow deputy was going to kill your boss isn't going to go over well in court when I tell them about this conversation, is it?"

  "Screw it. On the outskirts of town. Past the seven. The yellow doublewide trailer off to the right. It's the only thing out there. You really shouldn't threaten me, I can make your life really hard."

  "No, no you can't. Not anymore. If you try I'll rip you apart in ways you can't even imagine. You might be in charge on the roadside, trying to make up something to write a ticket over, but I have resources now. I don't have to take anything from you ever again, is that understood?" He sounded a lot more confident of that than he felt. It wasn't actually true, but he didn't feel like letting himself be bullied anymore.

  There was a snort. It sounded derisive, demeaning, and like the man couldn't see any way to even imagine that Jay could do anything to him. It was probably correct, so he didn't push it. The deputy growled a bit, his voice going low over the radio or cell phone that he was using, however that worked.

  "Is that your second thing then?"

  "Oh, no. I just wanted to make sure you knew that if you ever try to touch my daughter Alex again, I'll rain down a fiery hell on you that no badge will ever protect you from. This isn't a threat, but there are other ways to take a man like you down. Ones that you're too stupid to even know about. So hands off, got it?"

  "Fu-" The voice cut of when the phone got hung up. It might not amount to anything, but it was time for him to start being a father again.

  Playing detective was fine, but that was his real job now. It always should have been.

  Chapter twelve

  It was just about finished as far as his part of things went. Jason thought about what to do next, only having one piece of useful information. So he tried the sensible option first. Foisting the job on someone else. That meant calling Special Agent Daniels, or at least trying to. It went to voice mail, so he explained where the place should be, and what it looked like. It might not be anything at all, being the wrong place, or even in the wrong county, so it was, he figured, enough.

  Except that it really might not be anything. That would mean that the FBI would be wasting their time if they went there, while horrible things were happening to people someplace else. Thinking about it that way got him to sigh, not really caring what happened to Carl Morse or Lynn. Except that he wasn't a monster. That meant getting himself up and going to take a peek at the place himself. From a distance. If only so that he could call back Daniels and let him know not to bother looking there.

  So, ten minutes later he found himself following the spotty directions that Richmond had given him. There was no address for the place, as far as he'd been told. There had to be one, of course, so that it could get mail, but that didn't help Jay find it. What d
id was pretty simple however. There really was nothing else out there. It was a forty minute drive out of town, not near any city at all. Literally the middle of nowhere. The closest neighbors were probably in a different postal code. It was light out, so he could see the place, even back away from the road like it was, with a single car parked out front.

  Jason could see that it was a Sedan, a big American car, but when he went down the driveway, ready to turn around and run for it if he had to, it was the FBI agent's vehicle, not Mills kidnapping mobile. They had a similar style to them, at a distance, but this one was darker and more familiar, complete with government plates, which was reassuring. He parked the little burgundy thing that he'd gotten from the rental place right next to it.

  No one was visible, but there was a silver metal building off to the left that looked like a barn. It had the right kind of roof for that, and the same sort of modular construction that the house did. That wasn't too strange, really. Most of the remote places in Nevada were mobile homes. It was cheap to get land there, and for a pretty low price, people would bring you a complete building in weeks, instead of the months or even years a remote building project could take.

  It wasn't new, and looked run down. Almost neglected. Shabby in a way that it wouldn't have been if he'd lived there, or even wanted to use it occasionally. Carl Morse was a different kind of person however, wasn't he? The sort of man that wanted his cake, but thought baking was beneath him. Most of the time. A disgusting pig of a man that probably deserved whatever he was going to get.

  Not that Jason really knew the whole reason why, yet. He had bits and pieces of the picture, but it wasn't complete. There were things that he couldn't know. Like what had been so bad about Mills' life that he wanted to hunt down Carl and Lynn for it, instead of just going on to have a good time, doing whatever made him happy.

  Getting out of the car, he called out, since it was pretty evident that they were alone. The agents were probably inside or off in the barn, looking around. He went to the front door and knocked, not wanting to be shot, personally.

  "Agent Daniels? Agent McNab? Did you get my message?" There was no cell service this far out, he was willing to bet, which explained the thing going to voice mail. It also made sense that the two men had worked out where the place was on their own. After all, it was either that, or they'd practically been there when he'd called, since Jason had come over pretty directly.

  He knocked again, and called out, feeling no particular surprise when the door opened, until a clown mask stared at him through the crack, and a fist snaked through, hitting him. He didn't go out, but was stunned enough that he didn't even try to get away until the handcuffs where on him. It was too late then. He was trapped, by the killer clown.

  "Jason! So nice of you to drop in. Why are you here? Just to visit?"

  He was still feeling out of it from the drugs, and being hit didn't help, but it was more of a sluggish sense than like he was hung over. He knew that one too well to confuse the two states. He managed to talk, his neck hurting from where the man had hit him. It was near the back of his neck and hadn't been a haymaker, or anything that he recognized at all. Some kind of karate chop or open handed blow, he thought, not knowing enough to identify it. The other clown pulled him in, letting him stagger past, almost comically.

  "I came for my shoes, truth be told. That, and to see if you brought anyone..." He looked around as he stabilized, finding his feet, the new shoes having good traction.

  The scene inside was surreal, after a fashion. His mind refused to see it all, at first, just noting the scent of people having soiled themselves, and splashes of red on half of the room. Spots, and spurts, not a paintjob. Mills had gloves on, and his clown outfit was covered with splotches of blood. There were four people tied to chairs, two facing each other, two set up to watch what was being done to the others. The FBI men were duct taped to those, but the other two...

  That was the part he couldn't really make out, at first. Mainly because he didn't want to, he knew.

  It was a mess, and both people were either dead or had passed out, from what had been done to them. Lynn was barely recognizable to him, though she'd been stripped to the waist. Her hair was gone, roughly shorn off, and so were her breasts. The place where they'd been was wrapped in gauze, all the way around her upper torso. Two big red blotches had soaked through. The lumps were on a television tray next to her. It had a wooden top. They sat along with a bit of pink flesh that he couldn't make out at first. It was that he didn't want to. Carl Morse had a red spot's too, where his pants had been. Between his legs. His tray had that small bit of flesh and a similar pink thing as well. There was more gauze wrapped around him, like a diaper. Preventing him from bleeding to death.

  Seeing where he was looking, Mills pointed, helpfully.

  "Their tongues. I couldn't take the lies they were telling me anymore, so I shut them up. It took years for me to learn how to do that without letting a person choke on their own blood. Practice makes perfect. I didn't know that I'd have an audience for this part. Here I thought I was lucky to get these two. I don't have another chair. Would it be rude to offer you a place on the floor?"

  Jason thought about that, looking at Daniels and McNab. They were both alive, but bloody. Clearly having been taken like he had, if with more of a struggle. If Mills was hurt, he couldn't tell at all. He didn't sound like it. The darker agent looked over at him, his eyes wild, but Daniels didn't, as if he really didn't care about him.

  "Mind if I stand? I'm not feeling all that great. Some a-hole drugged me the other day. Rohypnol. That stuff is not healthy." He let his voice slip into character, as if that would protect him. It got a laugh, but nothing else was visible, the mask in the way. Neither of the agents made any noise, their mouths taped shut with strips of silver that went all the way around their heads many times.

  "Suit yourself. It looks like daddy here is about to wake up. You got that part, didn't you? The old one here said that you'd mentioned that to them. Better than I figured you'd do, really. You always seemed smart, and Alexis spoke highly of you. She's a good kid. I kind of wish-" He looked at the others, focusing on Lynn at the end. She wasn't coming around, not yet. Too much trauma, probably. Carl Morse was however, and he screamed when it happened so that Mills was distracted.

  It was enough that, if Jay had been a black belt and didn't have his hands cuffed behind his back, he might have taken the killer then. Instead he just watched him walk away, wondering if the man was going to kill them all in the same piecemeal fashion. He picked up something that looked like a bent ice pick and rammed it under Carl's fingernail. The index one on the right hand. The man screamed, his body fighting to get away from the horrid pain. The new one.

  "Tut-tut, Sheriff. I expect you to be stronger than that. Isn't that what you told me when I signed on to work with you? That you expected all your men to be hard, like you were? This isn't setting a very good example. You're embarrassing me in front of my friends here. Dad." Moving one finger over, he did it again.

  The reaction was about the same, pep talk or not. Watching, tied in place to heavy metal chairs, Daniels looked on with dead eyes, and McNab seemed ready to lose it, even if he couldn't move. Jay cringed away, since it was a horrible thing to watch. Even his worst enemy in the world didn't deserve to be unmanned and have his tongue cut out. Much less this freak show. It kept going on for a while, until the man passed out again. That was a relief, if only from the screaming.

  Mills turned, the brown of his eyes shining a bit when he looked at Jason. For a second he wondered if it was his turn yet. Then the man spoke, his voice nearly jovial.

  "I waited for years to do this. Do you know, before I came here, I'd almost decided to just let it go. To turn myself in and let them live. Chalk up what they'd done to me as a youthful indiscretion. They couldn't have known that my dad would die in a car wreck when I was four, leaving me with that... woman. When I could, I'd dealt with her personally. My rage had nearly run its
course, until I met them. They're really awful people, you know that Jay? Sheriff Morse here didn't just ruin my life, but he regularly frames people for things, just so he can take their property. It was how he got this place. It's practically a game at the station. Richmond is the king of that kind of thing too. Lynn Davies, my sainted mother..." He turned to her. She looked up, panicked, opening her eyes as he closed with her, screaming a little in fear. She'd only been faking being unconscious then? To save herself some pain.

  Mills patted her cheek, almost lovingly.

  "I had to do some searching to find everything out about her. She's incredibly good at hiding what she really is. What she and Carl here had done to you, making you think that Alexis was yours, using you like a slave, for years. A cuckold in a grand fashion. I would have blamed you, once, for leaving your little girl, but in this case, I really don't think you stood a chance. You were picked for the job, selected carefully and groomed, without knowing it. Carl's idea? You'd think that, wouldn't you? That the corrupt Sheriff would be behind it all? It isn't the case. She was the brains all along. It wasn't just you either. Tony, my dad. Four other men, over the years, that she used for extra cash, when she thought you weren't giving her enough. Maybe even more than that. It makes perfect sense, for a pretty, but soulless person."

  He picked up a scalpel, and held it out to Jay, his face warped by the mask he wore. Brightly colored and creepy. The red pointed hair connected to white plastic at the scalp.

  "Do you want to take a turn? No one will blame you. It's cathartic. I know that I really feel better now. For a while I didn't think it would work. That it would be like the other times. Fun, but empty. This is really different though. Like therapy. Here, give it a go." He pretended to pass the sharp little blade over. It already had blood on it, even if it had clearly been wiped off at some point.