Catch a Falling Clown: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Seven) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online

water, and chattering cooks. I didn’t need to hear the words. They were talking about death. There is a tone of it that doesn’t need words.
    “What happens to the circus when there’s an accident like this?” I said, trying to ignore the coffee I had just spilt on my shirt. Maybe I could button my top jacket button and hide it.
    Kelly shrugged, stopped eating, and tried to look through the wall in the general direction of Tanucci’s body.
    “We do the show,” he said. “Even the Flying Tanuccis. They just do less of an act. Maybe they even mention what happened. Maybe they don’t. We don’t close up shop. Can’t. A circus, especially a shoestring one like this, can’t take too many nights down.”
    He went back to his eggs, and I tried drinking my coffee carefully in a thick white porcelain cup that felt good against my palms.
    “And you have to be funny,” I said more than asked.
    Something like a chuckle came out of Kelly. “You know,” he said. “I usually am funnier when I’m down. The towners can’t tell. You know the story about Joey Grimaldi? First big circus clown about a hundred years ago. We’re still called Joeys because of him. One day his circus is playing Vienna, and Joey is so down he’s thinking of quitting. So he goes to a doctor’s office he spots on the way to his hotel and tells the doc that he’s so depressed that he’s thinking of taking his life.
    “‘Don’t worry,’ says the doctor. ‘I know just the thing to make you feel better, better enough to keep going. The circus is in town. Just go down there tonight and keep your eyes on Grimaldi the clown, and you’ll find yourself laughing.’”
    “Nice story,” I said, looking across the tent to watch the woman named Peg hurrying toward us.
    “Maybe,” said Kelly, reaching for another pancake, “but I don’t believe it, a Jackpot for clowns. There aren’t many suicides in circuses. Circus people seldom give up hope. We learn to live on hope. That’s what we talk about most of the time: next year, the next job, things getting better, homes we’re going to buy, places we’re going to visit, things we’re going to be.”
    “What are you going to be when you grow up?” I said with my crooked smile.
    “I used to think I was going to be a cartoonist. I was pretty good. The clown I do, Willie, I really drew him first for an ad agency I worked for back in Kansas City. Then I thought for a while I’d be a trapeze star, center-ring stuff. Was too for a while, did a teeth-hanging act. Damned hard on the jaws. Until a few months back I thought I might like to be in movies, but … If I ever grow up, I think I’ll just be a clown.”
    Peg was standing next to us with something in her hand. Her hair was gradually escaping from the hairpins, which tried to hold it against the wind. She was the kind of woman who left a trail of hairpins you could follow to the far reaches of Alaska.
    “Hi, Peg,” said Kelly. “Want some coffee?”
    “No … yes … I think no,” she said, patting back some hair. “Tom said I should give this to you.”
    I took the sheet of paper from her hand and looked down at the list. It had the names of everyone in the tent when the harness was removed. It included the name of Emmett Leo Kelly and was, as for each person on the list except for me and the final name, followed by a place of birth and a date. Kelly’s was Sedan, Kansas, December 9, 1898.
    Peg couldn’t make up her mind about staying or sitting. I pointed to the bench next to me, and she sat.
    “Sheriff is here,” she said.
    “And …” I prodded.
    “I think he’s convinced it’s an accident,” she said, reaching for a piece of toast on my plate, realizing what she was doing and pulling her hand back. I took the toast and placed it on the table in front of her.
    “I haven’t had a chance to eat,” she explained, picking up the toast with a guilty hand.
    “Your not eating doesn’t help the Tanuccis,” said Kelly, pouring