One person.
Madison Bandersand.
She stumbled with her lines. Her black wig was on crooked. She tripped over her dress, and she mumbled through one of the songs, either because she didn’t know the words or because she wasn’t confident in her voice. Either way, it was painstakingly obvious when her voice went missing from the number.
The spotlight seemed too much for her.
To her credit, Eleanor hadn’t blown her stack. I could see her perched on a stool on the right side of the stage. Her expression was stern, her arms folded across her ample bosom, but she’d kept her mouth shut and hadn’t leaped on stage to berate her daughter. When the lights went up for intermission, Eleanor hustled backstage, presumably to have a word with her daughter.
“That was pretty good,” Jake said. “The girls were good and you didn’t get kicked out. I’d say that’s—”
Then he froze.
“What?” I asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Clown,” he whispered. “There’s a clown. In the theater.”
Clowns were to Jake were like what corn mazes were to Johnny Witt. His fear was amusing. It was also real. At some point in his childhood, he’d encountered a clown and it had scarred him for life. I’d seen him cross streets to avoid clowns. I’d seen him turn the channel if one popped up on the TV. And I’d seen him freeze in fear one year at the county fair when one got within two feet of him, offering him a balloon animal. Sweat had broken out on his forehead and he couldn’t speak. I’d had to politely accept the balloon animal and step between him and the clown. It took him about five more minutes before he was able to breathe normally again.
“Why is there a clown here?” he said, his breathing rate already doubled. “There’s no clown in the play. Why is it here?”
I twisted around in my seat to get a better look at Jake’s biggest nightmare.
At the back of the theater, a short, squat clown with a giant blue and red afro and full face paint was standing in one of the sets of entrance doors. He was wearing a red and white striped body suit. The clown was looking in all directions, somewhat confused. It made its way down the aisles, his giant floppy shoes slapping against the ground. When he and I made eye contact, I realized I knew that clown.
And it wasn’t a he.
It was Olga Stunderson.
Olga had a thing for clowns. The one time I’d visited her home, I’d been taken aback by the sheer number of clown statues and figurines she owned. She’d also informed me that she occasionally worked as a clown for parties and celebrations, and other things that needed clowns.
So it looked to me like she was...on the job.
She waved at me and started jogging down the aisle toward us. Well, trying to jog – the clown shoes prevented her from making good progress.
“Is that clown coming toward us?” Jake asked, shrinking into his seat. “Do you know that clown? Daisy? My chest hurts.”
Will tucked his chin into his sweatshirt so Jake wouldn’t see him laughing.
“Relax,” I said. “I won’t let the clown get you.”
“You don’t know how they are,” he whispered. A fine sheet of sweat covered his forehead. “They’re sneaky. They’ll fool you. Oh God. Here it comes.”
“Daisy!” Olga said. “Thank goodness I found you!”
“Oh my God. It knows you!” Jake whispered, his voice trembling.
I dug my nails into his thigh, but focused on Olga. “What’s going on?”
Her painted mouth twisted back and forth, her eyes flitting back and forth across the theater. “I...well...have you seen Joanne? Claussen?”
It was an odd question, coming from Olga, dressed as a clown. I shook my head. “No, I haven’t.”
“They told me at the door that she might have run out to get some things they needed backstage,” she said, adjusting her big red nose. “Uh, do you remember what we were talking about the other day? In the drug store?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Make it leave,” Jake whispered. “Please.”
I dug my nails in harder to his thigh.
“Well...well...oh my,” Olga said, wringing her white-gloved hands. “I’m working a kid’s birthday party. Out at her home. For her daughter. I’m sort of in charge. And I couldn’t find a blow torch.”
Things you hope never to hear in the same sentence: “kids birthday party” and “blow torch.”
“What?” I asked, completely confused.
She took a deep breath and adjusted her multi-colored jester’s hat. “I couldn’t find a lighter. For the candles on the cake. So I went looking for a blowtorch.”
A blowtorch for a cake? “Um...okay.”
“They live on a farm on the east side of Moose River,” she said, her eyes still moving through the theater, searching. “I needed something to light them. So I went out to the barn.” Her eyes found me. “And do you remember what we talked about?”
“Yes, Olga,” I said again. “I do. But you really aren’t making any sense.”
The lights in the theater dimmed twice, signaling that the play was about to start again.
Olga glanced up, panicked.
“I don’t feel good,” Jake whispered.
Will’s body shook, he was laughing so hard.
Olga finally seemed to take notice that I wasn’t sitting alone, and that lots of people were looking at her.
“Is the play over?” she asked.
“No, it’s the intermission.”
She wrung her hands some more.
Then she leaned down and whispered in my ear.
I pulled back, staring at her in disbelief.
“I’m serious,” she said, recognizing the doubt on my face.
I sat there for a moment, processing what she’d whispered to me into my ear.
“Did she say she was going to kill you?” Jake whispered.
I grabbed my coat and my purse. “I have to go.”
“What? Where? With the clown?!”
I kissed his cheek and stood. “Yes. With the clown. I’m getting her out of here so you don’t stroke out.”
“Daisy, wait. Where are you going?” he asked, bewildered. “What about the rest of the play?”
The lights were dimming.
“I’ll see it tomorrow night,” I told him. “The real performance. I’ll see you at home.”
“Where are you going?” he asked again.
I pulled on my coat and sidestepped past him to get out into the aisle. “I’m going to see if maybe I’m not a terrible investigator after all.”
FORTY
“I was just shocked,” Olga said. “I wasn’t sure what to do.”
We were barreling down the highway in the hearse that belonged to the mortuary where she worked. All I could think about was how Jake would argue that it wasn’t a coincidence that a clown drove a hearse; it just made it easier for him/her to hide all of the dead bodies.
“Well, I can imagine,” I said, unsure of what to make of what she’d told me.
“I just thought the easiest thing would be to confront Joanne,” she said, gripping the steer wheel. “Maybe there was something I didn’t know. Or I was misunderstanding something. I didn’t want to involve the police. I guess I just panicked.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “And I didn’t ask before. Is someone there watching the kids? I mean, since you left?”
“Arnold,” she said.
“Arnold?”
“He’s a college student,” she said. “He’s my C.I.T.”
“C.I.T.?”
“Clown In Training,” she explained. “He’s studying business at the U, but he really wants to be a clown. He’s taking classes to appease his parents, but he works with me on the weekends. So he’s there with the kids right now. He can juggle, but really struggles with the unicycle right now. I’ll get him there.”
“Right.”
She moved the hearse over into the right lane and we took the exit off of the highway. She turned left from the off ramp and we crossed back over the highway and headed out toward the most remote, rural part of Moose River. There were acres of natural wetlands out in the area, along with a myriad of hiking trails that we’d used before in the warmer months. For the most part, it was open space that couldn’t be developed.