Finding Mercy (16 page)

He padlocked their trikes to the orange tree in their backyard, and they started inside.

“Janus, they’re home!” came a woman’s melodious voice over the fence they shared in common with the renters. “You can stop twirling that baton long enough to go over with me!”

Not too subtle, Alex thought. And the guy was twirling a baton now? But as a very attractive brunette, who, on closer range, he saw was heavily made-up with cosmetics, came around the end of the fence with a tray of something, Alex’s gaze was not riveted on her but on the man behind her. Not only was he twirling what looked like the collapsible baton like cops carried but his face was more painted than hers. A clown for sure, with a bulbous, red nose, exaggerated eyes, black-and-white face paint and what looked to be an orange Halloween fright wig jammed in one front pocket.

“Sorry,” he said, collapsing the baton and sticking it in the other front pocket of his jeans. He also wore a purple sweatshirt that read in big, white script, Foreman’s Fabulous Circus. “I scare kids sometimes,” he said with a little shrug, “but didn’t mean to startle you or the ladies.”

He swept Ella and
Grossmamm
an elaborate bow. Their neighbor thrust out his hand to Alex, who shook it.

“Janus McCorkle here, and this is my wife, Patricia, known as Trixie. We thought you two might be on your honeymoon until we saw your chaperone here. Pleased to meet you,” he added with another bow as Alex introduced them all by name, trying to think how to explain their relationships and why they were here. Suddenly, the country cousin bit sounded all wrong.

“
Ya,
they’ve been married quite a while—a year,”
Grossmamm
put in. Alex nearly fell over at her quick lie. “And they were nice enough to bring me along for a little while, but this really is my place here. I lost a good husband three years ago, but kept this cottage. Oh, what nice cupcakes, decorated for pretty, so good!”

Alex saw each one was frosted and sprinkled to make a clown face with two huge jelly bean eyes. While the women clustered together admiring the baked goods, Janus said to him, “I’ve been with the Foreman Circus, as you can see. Broke my leg in a fall, so had to sit this winter out, and Trix was sweet enough to stay with me, when they would have taken her—an aerialist, you know, trapeze artist,” he said with a rocking gesture of both arms over his head as if he was being caught by someone else aloft.

“Oh,
ya,
sure,” Alex said.

“But I’m literally back on my feet now, and using the Foreman winter headquarters to practice, not far from here. We just rented this place,” he said with another sweeping gesture, “for a change of scene, since we miss the life—you know, touring.”

“I saw your costumes on the clothesline,” Alex told him. He was surprised how much he instantly liked the guy. Maybe it was the clown aura. Or maybe he was just plain starved to talk to a modern, as the Amish said, even one who was a huge stretch from anyone he’d ever known. The guy not only had a variety of facial expressions but several different voices he used, some low, some high. That alone make Alex want to smile.

“Oh, yeah, the Keystone Kops outfits,” Janus said. “I like to clown for adults even more than kids, put a satirical bent on things, which is really easy to do in this day and age—politicians, financial disasters, corrupt bankers, Hollywood and government scandals.” His voice was low now, almost menacing. “You name it, I try to parade it and deflate it. Hey,” he plunged on, his voice more normal again, “I’d really appreciate it if you’d come see my new act tomorrow, Trixie’s too—give us an outside opinion. We’d be happy to drive you.”

Alex had promised himself he would not trust anyone, but these people—longtime locals and clowns? Maybe it would even distract
Grossmamm
from her worries about her daughter.

“If we wouldn’t be gone too long,” he said. “Things are tiring for my—my wife’s grandmother.”

“No sweat—except ours,” he said with a smile and clapped Alex on the shoulders as if they were long-lost buddies. “It’s a real nice facility we’re hired to be caretakers of this summer, though I’d love to be out on the road. Just Corky the Clown—my stage name—in my costume and disguise, moving on, always moving on.”

A fake name, costume, disguise, and the always-moving-on that Janus McCorkle, alias Corky the Clown, longed for, Alex thought, was exactly what he was trying so damned hard to survive.

16

“SURE ’PRECIATE YOUR coming along with me, honey,” Jack told Ray-Lynn as they drove toward the Lantz farmhouse in his civilian car late in the afternoon. “I don’t want to upset anyone or, in this case, tip them off it’s official business. But I got word that Ella and their Pennsylvania guest have disappeared and that needs checking out.”

“I can’t believe the family wouldn’t contact you if it was something unusual,” Ray-Lynn said. “Maybe they just went to visit his people in Pennsylvania. But there’s something strange about him, right? Like he’s been put here to keep an eye on someone? Keep someone safe?”

“Now, Ray-Lynn, you gotta trust me on this.”

“Right, but I thought something was fishy with him when I talked to him at the wedding reception. Jack, the guy just doesn’t sound or seem Amish, and I’ve been up close and personal with enough of them to know. Now, I’m more than happy to help by coming along to the Lantzes’,” she assured him since she could see him grinding his teeth, “but can’t you tell me more? I wish I could be more a part of your work. I mean, here you own half of the restaurant and are in and out all the time, especially since you’ve got Win Hayes to help police this place now—which I’m happy about, and you sure don’t need me for a sounding board, but—”

“Ray-Lynn,” he cut her off, reaching a hand over the console to gently grasp her wrist, “I need you for lots of things. And when a contact I have asked me if I could check into the fact he hasn’t seen Ella working her lavender or their cousin helping in the fields, I just figured if we went as a couple—no police car, no uniform and you bearing your usual gifts—it wouldn’t alarm the family. Can we please leave it at that?”

“Just one more thing, then. You aren’t still in league with that former FBI G-man Armstrong, are you? Ella told me at the wedding reception he had scolded and threatened her about getting in his way with Hannah and—”

“He did? Why in the Sam Hill didn’t you tell me that? He has no right to harass her!”

“So it
is
Linc Armstrong who noticed Ella and Andrew might be missing?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Jack, I won’t tell anyone else, so don’t get upset. The Lantzes are a lovely family, and Ella’s very capable of taking care of herself, though, compared to Sarah and Hannah—she can be a bit—well, prickly. You know, judgmental, set in her ways. But all right, I’ll just go along, not ask any more questions. Besides,” she added, twisting in her seat belt toward him as he withdrew his hand and turned up the lane to the Lantz farmhouse, “even if we’re on official business, I love being with you in your regular car, with you out of uniform—”

“I can arrange to get out of uniform for you anytime.”

“Jack Freeman! I am so
not
shocked!”

“And I’m just happy to have my chatty, sassy Southern sweetheart back,” he said as he parked near the barn. She got out quickly and took the angel food cake with fluffy white coconut icing from its carrier on the back floor of the car.

“Opening your own car doors now?” Jack asked with a grin as his eyes went over her. “Guess that means we’re not dating anymore but ready for the next step—the big time.”

“I hope you mean more than asking me to help you with future undercover work—and never mind a flirty remark about working with me under the covers.”

“Yeah, for sure, serious commitments for both of us. Soon,” he vowed as they stood by the car staring at each other.

“Hello there, Sheriff, Ray-Lynn,” came Eben Lantz’s distant voice. “This is a good surprise. But we got three folks down with the flu, so best you not come in. I pray you not got something bad to tell me.”

Eben closed the door behind himself and came down the porch steps. Ray-Lynn noticed Mrs. Lantz and her oldest daughter Barbara’s faces at the kitchen window, and they’d passed the two Lantz sons on the road, driving a wagon loaded with spring wheat, so the ones sick must be Ella, the grandmother and their so-called Pennsylvania cousin.

“There’s your answer to why some are missing,” Ray-Lynn whispered out of the side of her mouth. “But flu this time of year?”

“Yeah. Strange. Just follow my lead, okay?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Heck, no.”

“Today, just call me deputy in disguise.”

“Shh!” he muttered as Eben started down the walk toward them with a frown on his face. “The fact that he asked about bad news—I’ll bet they’re not here at all and he’s worried. But for the Amish to lie—I don’t like it. So, we brought you a cake, Eben,” Jack said in a louder voice as he shook hands with the frowning man. “No bad news, though—not on our end of things.”

* * *

After supper that evening, Ella was excited to be driven around Sarasota a bit and thrilled to see the big, high-ceilinged building where Janus and Trixie McCorkle practiced their circus act. Janus unlocked a big building, turned on the overhead lights, then the McCorkles left them to look around while they went to put their costumes on. High up, the huge room was strung with wires and a swing, which Ella soon learned were called tightropes and a trapeze. At least, she thought, a net stretched out below to catch anyone who fell.

“Even climbing in or out of that high net would take some skill and courage,” she whispered to
Grossmamm
as the two of them sat in the front row facing a large asphalt floor edged by a raised rim.

“
Ya.
I wish the regular circus folk didn’t take all the animals away with them this summer,” the old woman whispered back. “Like to see an elephant up close,
ya,
I sure would.”

Andrew was entranced, Ella saw, not by all the circus trappings but by talking to Janus, whom he seemed to like a lot. Now painted and costumed as Corky the Clown, he had appeared before Trixie. Ella was glad to see the odd friendship between the
Englischer
dressed up like an Amish man and the
Englischer
dressed up like a clown. Janus had explained his costume was based on some old-time movie policemen called Keystone Kops. Right now, that was probably the only kind of law officer Andrew wanted to trust anyway.

“I have to laugh just looking at him in that getup,” Andrew said as he came over to sit with them. “I’m tempted to kid him back sometime by getting in that second identical costume that always seems to be hanging on the line.”

Grossmamm
put in, “Too hot and humid to dry things good on the line like at home.”

Andrew went on, pointing upward, “But he sure knows his stuff about everything here—the rigging, the lighting. If I have to run away again, maybe I’ll go join the Foreman Circus. They’re in Minneapolis right now.”

“Very funny,” Ella said, hitting his shoulder lightly with her fist. “I can’t see you as a clown.”

They sat back smiling while Janus—that is, Corky the Clown—beguiled them with antics and explanations: “Okay, I don’t talk in this gig, but without the clowns who play the bad guys I’m chasing, I’ll have to narrate my shtick. Playing robbers, the other clowns steal a big wallet from the ringmaster’s pocket—so big he’d never get it in his pocket in the first place—that’s sleight of hand—and then I chase them around for a while.”

“So that’s what he was practicing in their backyard,” Andrew said as Janus tore around the ring, bouncing high off several small trampolines, contorting his body into strange poses before bouncing down again. From somewhere strange music blasted over loudspeakers that went along with the pantomime. “Old silent film chase music,” Andrew whispered.

Janus had to talk really loud to be heard over the music. Ella noted that, as well as being the clown of a thousand tricks, he was also the clown with different voices, some low, some high-pitched. That was really clever too, but he’d said he didn’t talk during this routine.

Meanwhile, Trixie was climbing a rope ladder up to a small platform where a trapeze was attached. Ella’s gaze bounced back and forth between her and Janus. They were both so wonderful to watch, she so graceful, he so crazy. Too bad the circus never came to the Home Valley. She was sure her people would think it was wonderful.

“Janus says he’s what is called an Auguste clown,” Andrew told them, though he didn’t take his eyes off the performers either. “They have colorful clothes and makeup. They specialize in a certain kind of lawlessness and disorder—sounds familiar to me.”

Ella said, “I just can’t believe that some people have a fear of clowns. What was that he called it?”

“Coulrophobia,” Andrew said. “I’m waiting for the satire part he promised, instead of his just mocking cops and robbers.”

To their amazement, Janus—oversize shoes and all—began to climb the same rope ladder Trixie had used. As he started up, he called down to them, “Now the clowns who took the money—oh, by the way, they took it from a prop labeled ‘Big Bank’—gave the money to me and I stuff it in my pockets.”

“Cops being bribed?” Ella asked, but no one answered her. As Janus climbed, they saw, across his rear end, he had somehow attached a big sign that read FANNIE, then under that, in slightly smaller letters, FANNIE MAE.”

Andrew said, “That was one of the two government mortgage agencies the feds—the national government—took over when they got in debt, a real mess.”

With Janus nearly to the platform, Trixie, in a skimpy, red outfit with sparkles all over it, loosed the trapeze from its hook and, hanging on by her hands below it, swung back and forth, pumping her legs to go faster and higher like someone on a swing. Suddenly popping out from beneath her was a bright banner that read YOUR IRA.

“Who’s Ira? What’s that mean?” Ella asked, feeling this was all above her—in more ways than one.

Andrew started to explain but he was laughing too hard, especially when Trixie, still holding her YOUR IRA sign, intentionally let go and took a big dive into the net below, which now had a notice, US GOV’T, which had magically appeared. She bounced wildly up, then down when she hit into the web of ropes.

Grossmamm,
who had been transfixed, cried out, “Should we go see if she’s all right?” But their attention was riveted on Janus, who had grabbed the trapeze as it swung back to him. Now, somehow, from the depths of his costume—or maybe from the platform—he produced a sign that had a tumbled-down wall painted on it. The drawing also had a big + and the word
STREET
on it.

Wall Street? Ella thought. What about Wall Street?

As he swung back and forth, big dollar bills began to drop from his pockets. He too took a dive into the net just as Trixie was holding on to its edge and doing a summersault to get back onto the ground.

Grossmamm
and Ella clapped hard as Janus bounced a couple of times, then walked to the edge of the net, grabbed its edge and flipped over to stand on the ground.

Ella didn’t get all the satire, but she could ask Andrew later. When she looked his way, tears were in his eyes but he was no longer laughing. His lower lip quivered. Oh,
ya,
this had gotten to him bad, because he really was crying and over some silly clown act about money and Wall Street.

* * *

The night of their visit to the Lantz farmhouse, which had gotten them nothing but the repeated insistence that Ella, Mrs. Lantz’s grandmother and their Pennsylvania visitor, Andrew Lantz, had all caught the flu, Jack took Ray-Lynn into Wooster for dinner at an Italian restaurant called Little Italy. Wine, the works. They had gone in his unmarked car again and, as far as she could tell, he had no cell phone on him at their secluded booth, no pistol in a shoulder holster under his nice navy-blue suit jacket. He was dressed so spiffily, she thought, people would probably think he was a lawyer or a funeral director.

At that, a little chill shot through her, despite the fact she felt warm from the Montepulciano d’abruzzo and from just being the object of his riveted attention. Here they were on one of their rare real dates, she had him all to herself, he did not seem to be distracted—though he was nervous—and she was starting to get jittery. Maybe she just hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was wrong about Eben Lantz’s story.

Jack clinked his wine goblet to hers, and they lifted them together. “Gotta level with you, Ray-Lynn. I wasn’t sure you—or we—were gonna make it, but I think we have. If you can just put up with how distracted I get sometimes, I—”

“And you can put up with my Southern flippancy and my
Gone with the Wind
collections all over the place, then I guess—”

“Will you just let me talk for a sec, honey? I love you, Ray-Lynn, and I’d like you to be my wife, and I want to give you this.”

A red rosebud, she thought, as he extended the single flower to her. Now where had he been hiding that? But her hopes fell. With that pretty speech and his shifting around on his side of the booth, you’d think there was a ring in sight and not a red rose, however fresh and beautiful.

And then she saw it. The tight bud was wearing a diamond ring, which glittered in the candlelight.

She sucked in a quick breath and reached for the flower to touch the ring, to put it on. You might know she managed to snag a thorn getting it off, scratching herself, but that didn’t matter.

“Does that mean a yes?” Jack asked.

“It means everything’s coming up roses for you and for me,” she cried—and, ding-dang, really started to cry as she jumped up and slid into the booth on his side of the table to hug him. Surely nothing in their entire lives could ever go wrong now!

* * *

Ella was indeed enchanted, just like Andrew sometimes teasingly called her. Janus and Trixie had brought the three of them to see the Gilded Age mansion of John Ringling, one of the founders of the so-called Greatest Show on Earth circus in Sarasota. She was awestruck at the size and grandeur of the estate.

“There are other circuses with their home bases around these parts,” Janus told them, as if he were the guide on their tour, “but no one can ever top this man! If he was alive today, no one I’d rather meet!”

Ca’ d’Zan, or House of John, built in 1924, was the most magnificent building Ella had ever seen. Every inch of imported European furniture, even in the big bathrooms, was ornately carved or gilded. Its high ceilings were painted with patterns or scenes, and its black-and-white marble-tiled floors reflected their images as they followed their guide around. Such a huge place, fifty-six rooms! How could just two people have a home like this, for only John and his wife, Mabel, had lived here where they had copied or purchased furnishings and decor from many castles and palaces they’d seen abroad. So much money spent, Ella thought, and all for prideful show—for pretty, as her people would say.