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

  Praise for The Country Club Murders

  Books in the Country Club Murders

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  Copyright

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  About the Author

  The Country Club Murders

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  BOARD STIFF

  PRACTICAL SINS FOR COLD CLIMATES

  MURDER IN G MAJOR

  Praise for The Country Club Murders

  CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE (#3)

  “A sparkling comedy of errors tucked inside a clever mystery. I loved it!”

  – Susan M. Boyer,

  USA Today Bestselling Author of Lowcountry Book Club

  “Readers who enjoy the novels of Susan Isaacs will love this series that blends a strong mystery with the demands of living in an exclusive society.”

  – Kings River Life Magazine

  “From the first page to the last, Julie’s mysteries grab the reader and don’t let up.”

  – Sally Berneathy,

  USA Today Bestselling Author of The Ex Who Saw a Ghost

  “This book is fun! F-U-N Fun!...A delightful pleasure to read. I didn’t want to put it down…Highly recommend.”

  – Mysteries, etc.

  GUARANTEED TO BLEED (#2)

  “Set in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1974, this cozy mystery effectively recreates the era through the details of down-to-earth Ellison’s everyday life.”

  – Booklist

  “Mulhern’s lively, witty sequel to The Deep End finds Kansas City, Mo., socialite Ellison Russell reluctantly attending a high school football game…Cozy fans will eagerly await Ellison’s further adventures.”

  – Publishers Weekly

  “There’s no way a lover of suspense could turn this book down because it’s that much fun.”

  – Suspense Magazine

  “Cleverly written with sharp wit and all the twists and turns of the best ’70s primetime drama, Mulhern nails the fierce fraught mother-daughter relationship, fearlessly tackles what hides behind the Country Club façade, and serves up justice in bombshell fashion. A truly satisfying slightly twisted cozy.”

  – Gretchen Archer,

  USA Today Bestselling Author of Double Knot

  THE DEEP END (#1)

  “Part mystery, part women’s fiction, part poetry, Mulhern’s debut, The Deep End, will draw you in with the first sentence and entrance you until the last. An engaging whodunit that kept me guessing until the end!”

  – Tracy Weber,

  Author of the Downward Dog Mysteries

  “An enjoyable, frequently amusing mystery with a mixture of off-beat characters that create twists and turns to keep Ellison—and the reader—off-guard while trying to solve the murder and keep herself out of jail. The plot is well-structured and the characters drawn with a deft hand. Setting the story in the mid-1970s is an inspired touch…A fine start to this mystery series, one that is highly recommended.”

  – Mysterious Reviews

  “What a fun read! Murder in the days before cell phones, the internet, DNA and AFIS.”

  – Books for Avid Readers

  Books in the Country Club Murders

  by Julie Mulhern

  THE DEEP END (#1)

  GUARANTEED TO BLEED (#2)

  CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE (#3)

  SEND IN THE CLOWNS (#4)

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  Copyright

  SEND IN THE CLOWNS

  The Country Club Murders

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition | October 2016

  Henery Press

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2016 by Julie Mulhern

  Cover art by Stephanie Chontos

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-081-4

  Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-082-1

  Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-083-8

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-084-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For my father, who’s always believed

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks, as always, to Madonna Bock and Sally Berneathy, who suffer through first drafts, to Dash, Gersh, and Sunshine for being who they are, to my family who’d like me to take up cooking, and to my editors, Rachel, Kendel and Erin, who make me so much better.

  One

  October, 1974

  Kansas City, Missouri

  I’ve tripped over a body. I’ve run over a body. I’ve even swum into a body. I never imagined one would fall on me.

  Then again, wandering around a place called The Gates of Hell, what did I expect?

  How I came to be at The Gates of Hell is a story in itself. The short version is that my daughter, Grace, missed her curfew. It was a school night and she’d sworn on a stack of Emily Posts that she’d be home by ten. When I called her friends’ homes, I learned that each thought she’d gotten a ride home with someone else. She’d been left behind. At a haunted house. In a neighborhood best described as sketchy. “Omigosh, Mrs. Russell I don’t know how this happened,” spoken in a breathless, apologetic voice didn’t help. Not when Kim said it. Not when Peggy said it.

  I threw on some clothes, drove to the West Bottoms, and explained to the man at the ticket counter that my daughter was missing.

  He wore an eye-patch and a wrinkled shirt. He was unsympathetic. If I wanted to look for my daughter, I needed to buy a ticket.

  I bought a ticket.

  Just inside the door the world turned dark as pitch. I paused, let my eyes adjust to the dimness, then took a tentative step.

  Ahead of me a group of girls shrieked that high-pitched squeal unique to teenagers and heroines in horror movies.

  I shuffled forward, my fingers brushing against a wall that felt as if it had been constructed with particleboard. The wall ended and I touched something—someone—warm but somehow scaly.

  Turns out almost middle-aged women can achieve that high-pitched squeal as well.

  Before I’d entered the haunted house, I’d thought of Rodin’s Gates of Hell. Tortured souls damned for all eternity. Something dark and twisted and artistic. Inspired by Dante. Rendered in bronze by the greatest sculptor of all time.

  The thing I touched never crossed Rodin’s mind. It never occurred to Dante. It was the stuff
of nightmares—or horror movies. A red-faced demon with long teeth and horns, and—oddly enough—a frock coat.

  Demons don’t scare me. I’ve faced down monsters. Heck, I was married to one. “Excuse me.” I yanked my hand away from his.

  I walked on. Vampires and werewolves and a man with a running chainsaw—surely that couldn’t be safe? Strobe lights. A maze. Squeals. Teenagers huddled together so tightly they moved at a snail’s pace. The Gates of Hell had all of this. It didn’t have Grace.

  I tapped a girl on the shoulder.

  She shrieked and whirled around, her hands clasped over her heart.

  “Have you seen a single girl? My daughter is missing.”

  Her eyes grew large as if she thought I was part of the haunted house. A worried mother looking for a daughter who’d entered the Gates of Hell and failed to return. To me that was far scarier than the zombie bearing down on us.

  The girl didn’t agree. She screamed and ran.

  Perfect.

  I moved on. Searching in each room. Discovering hidey holes for the characters who terrorized kids eager to be scared.

  I paused in a room that felt as big as a shoebox and called, “Grace.”

  Nothing.

  Well, nothing if you don’t count a man wearing an executioner’s hood and bearing an axe. “My daughter is missing,” I told him. “Have you seen a teenage girl by herself?”

  He grunted and hefted the axe onto his muscle-bound shoulder.

  Dammit.

  The next room looked like a circus gone bad. Ripped red and white striped fabric half covered the walls and drooped from the ceiling. A popcorn machine with a head inside the glass sat in a corner. A demented calliope song was just audible over the screams of the girls in the room in front of me. And there were clowns.

  Two of them.

  I hate clowns. That’s not strong enough. I abhor clowns. Clowns chill my blood. Clowns turn my normally reliable knees to the consistency of the tomato aspic the chef at the club serves at ladies’ lunches in the summertime. I. Despise. Clowns. And those are the friendly ones at the circus who wear big shoes and cram into tiny cars.

  Don’t ask why. Some fears are just visceral. Snakes. Spiders. Clowns. Pick your poison.

  These clowns weren’t of the friendly variety. They had pointed teeth. They wore wicked expressions. And, despite the cheery ruffs at their necks, they were the stuff of nightmares. One of the clowns staggered toward me. Yes, he had a red nose. Yes, he had fuzzy hair. But he also had a grin evil enough to send my knees past tomato aspic straight to tomato bisque.

  “Go away,” I squeaked.

  He raised a knife that appeared to be dripping blood.

  I backed up until my shoulders pressed against the popcorn machine. The one with the head inside.

  He advanced. “Missel ruthel.”

  “What? Go away.” I held up my hands and splayed my fingers. “I’m here to find my daughter. I don’t want to be scared.”

  “Missel ruthel.”

  A second, scarier clown stood in the doorway watching us.

  Not only was the knife dripping blood, the clown was too. His polka dot suit looked as if half the fabric had been dipped in crimson.

  “Go. Away.”

  The clown let the knife fall to the floor. “Mrs. Russell.” His voice was twisted, as if forming words required enormous effort. Then he said it again, “Mrs. Russell.”

  The world shrank to a fanged clown with frizzy blue hair saying my name. Stars danced in my eyes. The calliope music echoed in my ears.

  He stumbled forward, fell into me, and slid slowly down the front of my stiff body, tugging my new trench coat on his way to the floor. “Mrs. Russell, help me.”

  Was this some twisted trick? A Halloween prank? If so, it wasn’t funny.

  The other clown, the one in the doorway, tilted his head to the side. He too was covered in white face paint. He too wore a bulbous red nose. He too had frizzy hair. But his eyes, painted black, looked like an abyss.

  When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. Or so said Nietzsche. I wasn’t risking it. I returned my attention to the clown at my feet. The one who knew my name. The one who’d asked for my help. The one who wasn’t moving.

  I brushed off my sweater where the clown had touched me and found the Shetland wool wet. I brought my fingers to my nose and sniffed. The coppery scent of real blood filled my nostrils.

  The clown in the doorway grinned.

  A shudder ran through me and I dropped to my knees. “What happened?” I demanded.

  The first clown grabbed my hand. He squeezed for an instant then his hold loosened.

  I searched for a pulse with clumsy hands. Found nothing.

  The clown in the doorway stepped into the room. He too had a knife. He looked as if he was ready to use it. On me? My blood roared in my ears, louder than a lion in the center ring. My heart plummeted like a trapeze artist who had missed the swinging bar.

  I lunged toward the only weapon available to me—the knife the clown on the floor had dropped—my fingers stretched and strained, but the blade remained just out of my reach. The motionless clown lay in my way.

  The other clown, the one with the dead eyes, shook his head and smiled bigger—as if my attempt to secure a weapon amused him.

  My lungs refused to inflate fully. I panted for breath.

  The remaining clown stepped closer.

  A group of girls spilled into the room. They saw the clown with the knife and shrieked loud enough to cause hearing loss.

  I abandoned the clown on the floor, lurched to my feet, and positively hurled myself toward the group of girls. With an evil, knife-wielding clown in the room, they didn’t even notice me.

  Nor did they notice when I worked myself into the center of their tight little knot.

  I held my breath as we snail’s-paced our way to the next room. This one filled with hairy spiders.

  I glanced over my shoulder. The clown watched me, the shudder-inducing grin fading from his face but the full-on evil remaining in his eyes.

  I was leaving the other clown, the motionless one, alone with him.

  Here’s the thing about terror…it’s more immediate than guilt. With terror sending adrenaline coursing through my veins, I didn’t care about leaving the polka dot clown behind.

  I’d send help. Although, I suspected the man with the red nose was beyond help. I hadn’t found a pulse.

  It had been days since I found a body.

  Glorious days.

  My stomach tightened with dread. I was going to have to call Detective Anarchy Jones, the homicide detective who’d investigated my husband’s mistress’s murder…and my husband’s murder…and…I tried not to think about the number of bodies I’d found. And now I was going to add a clown to that number.

  Oh. Dear. Lord.

  Maybe it was all part of the experience. Maybe the two clowns had been trying to scare me. I was in a haunted house.

  Except…I knew the clown was dead. I’d found enough dead people to know dead.

  I’d locate security. Tell them about the clown on the floor. I’d find Grace. Then I’d take her home, ground her until she went to college, and pretend the dying clown hadn’t gasped my name. I’d pretend I hadn’t witnessed a murder. I’d settle down to a night filled with bad dreams and the lingering vision of the second clown’s blackened eye sockets.

  I spotted a man in a guard’s uniform, crossed my fingers that he wasn’t a zombie, and left the safety-in-numbers group of teenage girls.

  “Excuse me.” I tapped him on the shoulder and claimed his attention. “Someone has been murdered.”

  He didn’t react—much. He just tilted his head and leaned forward a bit, as if he meant to sniff my breath for alcohol. “Where’s the body?”

  “Several rooms back. The circus room.”

  The tilt of his head became more pronounced. “You do know the characters are trying to scare you?”

  “Yes,” I snappe
d. “I also know dead when I see it.”

  “Fine.” The tightness near his eyes suggested that my imaginary dead clown was a huge inconvenience. “Let’s go look.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police?”

  “Let’s have that look first.” His voice was soothing, his demeanor unruffled. He’d even managed to relax the skin near his eyes. If he ever left his security guard gig, he could make a mint as a shrink.

  “Also, my daughter is missing.”

  “Do you want to look for her or the body?” His voice was still calm, but I sensed a chink in his Zen armor. It was bad enough he had to spend his nights listening to screaming kids, now he had to deal with a crazy woman.

  I swallowed my worry over Grace—an enormous lump of worry that lodged in my throat. She was a smart, a capable girl, she’d be fine. “The body.” At least I knew where that was.

  The guard and I backtracked, working against a flow of young people.

  Finally, we reached the circus room.

  Empty.

  No dead clown. No clown with dead eyes.

  I pointed to the floor. “He was right there!”

  “Of course he was.” The guard used his shrink voice on me.

  I stepped farther into the room. My eyes scanned the shredded curtains for lurking clowns and found none.

  “No body, ma’am. Lots of people going through here get scared and imagine things.”

  “I didn’t imagine anything. He was right there.” Again I pointed.

  “Well, he’s not now.” The guard turned on his heel.

  “Wait! I don’t imagine things. I don’t.”