A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals) (23 page)

So, at noon he realized that he
didn't have anything to do. In desperation he tried to call Lynn's parents, but
after he said who it was, her father just hung up on him. Clearly the FBI had
already called, and just as clearly, the parents didn't think that much of
their own child. The man sounded angry when Jay called back again, at least.

"Bill. This is important,
and I don't have time to do this all day. I just need to know something. Who is
Carl Mills?" That got the man to stop screaming into the phone, and then
slam it down again. Still, his wife picked up on his next call, moments later,
her voice smooth and a bit thick, like she'd been crying.

"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.

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 did
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.