Clowns and Cowboys (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

Unfazed Biata nodded across the way. “It’s been pretty quiet over there. I wasn’t sure what happened.” She lowered her leg and shifted as if she was about to leave.

“Did you see Layla with a bag or a suitcase that night?” Parker asked.

She cocked her head and gave him a half grin. “Not that I recall.”

Miranda stepped around her to block her path. “But you said you were a trapeze artist. Didn’t you and Layla work together? Didn’t you have any personal conversations backstage?”

“No,” she said with condescension. “Layla did an aerial silk act. It’s completely different. She worked alone.” Biata paused to sneer. “If she had worked in a troupe, she wouldn’t have gotten away with the things she did.”

Miranda glanced at Parker. Now they were getting somewhere. “What do you think she got away with?”

Biata peered down the path to the big top as if she didn’t have time to explain. Then she sighed in resignation. “When Layla came here to Under the Big Top, she was an unknown. She had no background. No name, no circus family. Nobody knew where she came from.”

“Doesn’t everyone start out that way?”

The trapeze artist rolled her eyes, shaking her head at Miranda’s ignorance. “No. My family, for example, has been with the circus for five generations. My great-great-grandfather started with PT Barnum in the nineteen twenties.”

“Impressive.”

Her dark eyes flashed. “It’s more than impressive. All those years of passing down the traditions and skills of the trade? All those years of hard work and risk? It’s the guarantee of an outstanding act.”

Miranda resisted the urge to tap her foot in frustration. This didn’t tell her anything about why the silk aerialist had left so suddenly. “But from what I hear, Layla’s act was pretty good.”

Biata put a hand to her forehead. “I…I don’t know how to explain it to an outsider.”

Oh, brother. Miranda folded her arms. “Try me.”

“There was just something…weird about her…‘phony’ maybe that’s the word. That act she does with the hoop? The way she suspends herself, draped over it backward?”

Miranda remembered seeing that in the picture in Tupper’s photo album last night. “Yeah, what about it?”

“It’s not the way it’s done. I mean, if you do that, you have to have some sort of anchor holding you. Usually that’s the wrap of the fabric. It’s part of the skill, the art. The way the aerialist wraps the fabric around various parts of her body to secure herself. Sure, it’s a daring act, but there’s always something keeping you up there. The hoop is a little different, but it’s more obvious.”

“Obvious?”

She let out a frustrated breath as if she didn’t know how to talk to this uninitiate. “There was this one bit she did with the silk where Layla didn’t have anything holding her. Not that you could see. She was cheating somehow.”

Miranda didn’t know what to make of that. So the girl had good balance. If you pulled something off and made it look like you were suspended in air more or less, didn’t that just make you a better performer?

This young lady was jealous of the competition.

As if she’d had enough of this annoying conversation, Biata swept around Miranda with the grace of a ballet dancer. “Like I said, I don’t really know anything about what happened to Layla or Tupper. And if you’ll excuse me, my family is waiting for me in the tent.”

She turned to go.

Miranda didn’t think they’d get anything more out of her and was ready to let her be when Sam suddenly reached out and grabbed the young woman by the arm.

“C’mon, Biata. You’re Layla’s neighbor. You had to have seen something the night she left. We think Layla knows who killed Tupper.”

Biata’s dark eyes blazed as she glared at him, both with shock and outrage. She pulled out of his grip. “I repeat. I don’t know anything. I have to go now, Sam. I’m late.”

And she turned and trotted off toward the tent.

Miranda was so furious, she couldn’t think straight. What in the hell did Sam think he was doing telling her they thought Layla knew who killed Tupper?

She spun around to him, about to read him the riot act. “Look, Sam. I know you’re trying to help, but—”

Parker’s low, ominous tone drifted over her shoulder. “A word with you, Miranda.”

She turned to him.

He looked cool and calm, but she could see under that unruffled surface he was ten times madder than an angry volcano. Without saying anything else, he gestured to a vacant area between the trailers across the path.

Leaving Sam to wonder what was going on, she followed her partner to the spot.

###

Parker shifted to face her as soon as they were out of earshot. His expression was harder, hotter under the quiet exterior, than she’d ever seen it. “I’ve had just about enough of this, Miranda.”

He meant Sam, of course. She raised her hands. “I know, but—”

“Do you really think you’re conducting this investigation properly?”

What? He was turning this on her? “What do you mean, Parker?”

“Dragging the client along on interviews?”

She didn’t drag him. He butted in. Suddenly she turned defensive. She shoved her fists on her hips. “He’s an in. He knows these people.”

“He’s feeding them answers. Leading them. Telling them details and conclusions he has no business voicing.”

“Of course, he is. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. I was just about to tell him to find something else to do.”

“You should have done that when he first arrived. It’s a little late now.”

Why was he suddenly being such a hard ass? “Are you saying I'm not capable of heading up this case? If you think that, why did you offer to take turns when we started?”

“Of course, you’re capable.” Somehow that came out as more of an insult than a compliment. “But on this one, your judgment is slipping.”

She wanted to sock him. She was hot and tired and hungry. Her temper was ready to blow.

“Look, Parker,” she said through gritted teeth. “My judgment is just fine. What’s slipping is your ego.”

He caught her drift and took a threatening step toward her. “Don’t go there Miranda.”

She raised her chin. “Or what?”

He opened his mouth but she never got to hear what he had to say next.

Shrill screams tore through the air. A woman’s screams.

“
Non! Non! Non!
” French accent. More shrieks. Heartbreaking cries for help.

Miranda spun away from Parker and hurried into the path between the trailers.

People were scurrying every which way. A crowd was gathering in front of Harvey’s place.

She ran toward it.

When she reached the edge of the group, all Miranda could see were flailing arms and bright red curls flipping this way and that.

It was the woman with the dogs. “
Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!
”

Someone was holding her from behind. Miranda recognized the scarred head of Yuri Varga, the human cannonball. “Calm down, Yvette.”

“Calm? How can I calm down? My poor leetle Bobo!
Mon petit chouchou
.”

What the heck was going on? Miranda shoved her way through the circus folk to the corner of Harvey’s trailer—and cringed at the sight. Right beside the spot where the clown had been practicing lay the shaggy white terrier.

He wasn’t moving.

“Everyone back!” Parker’s voice rang out strong and clear behind her.

She turned and watched him step past her and into the space between the trailers. She followed him as he quickly slipped on a plastic glove he’d used at Layla’s trailer and bent down beside the pooch. He put a gentle finger to its throat, looked up at Miranda and shook his head.

“
Oh, non. Non, non, non!
” cried Yvette. “I must hold him. I can bring him back. He needs me now.”

“Stay back, ma’am,” Parker said to her. “It might not be safe here.”

“What do you mean?”

But Miranda had already spotted what he meant. She put on her own gloves and gently pulled back the flowers of the one of the rosebushes. Parker stood and moved to her side.

Together they peered down at the liquid still dripping from the leaves and thorns. The poor, curious dog must have lapped some of it up.

Its source was wedged into the branches at an angle allowing some of its contents to spill over onto the plants. From where she stood Miranda could read the label clearly.

It was a bottle of Barefoot Merlot.

“What in the frick-fracking hell is going on here?” A big, gray-headed man with a booming voice stepped through the crowd like a giant striding across a mountain pass, and the people parted before him like fearful slaves.

He made his way over to the edge of Harvey’s trailer.

“It’s my poor leetle Bobo,” the French woman told him. “Someone has keeled him.”

Without entering the yard the man stared down at the poor pooch and his neck and face turned red with rage. Miranda noticed his wide nose was crooked, like it had been broken in several places. His face wore the rugged look of an old cowboy who’d been around a long time.

“Another act gone?” He let out a string of curses that would make the guys on the ring crew blush. Then he glared at Miranda and Parker. “Who the hell are you two?”

He was massively tall, almost as big as Yuri, the cannonball. He had thick curly gray brows, curly gray hair combed back at the sides and long at the neck. Over wrestler’s arms and a muscled chest, he had on a fire-engine red T-shirt with the UTB logo and a leather vest. Very worn jeans and a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots completed the look. Plus a belt buckle featuring a cowboy on a steer and the word “Rodeo.”

Sam stepped out of the crowd. “Mr. Tenbrook, these are the detectives I hired.”

Tenbrook. As she had guessed, this was the big cheese around here. The owner.

A head taller than Sam, who was no shrimp, Tenbrook turned to glower at his employee. “I didn’t tell you to hire any detectives, Keegan.”

Sam tipped his Stetson back and glared at his boss as if he was about to get into it with him. “It’s a free country.”

Miranda opened her mouth, about to spare Sam by giving the owner the latest update when another shout came from the back of the crowd.

“Stand back! Official police business.”

Again the audience moved aside and Sergeant Underwood appeared, followed by the big bald guy they’d seen at the station earlier. Somebody called the police already?

“What seems to be the problem here?” Underwood stepped into the grassy yard between the trailers and looked down at the body. Her cheeks glowed hot. “We don’t do animal deaths.”

“You’ll want to see this, Detective,” Parker told her and gestured to the rose bush.

With a this-better-be-good glare, she marched over to where he indicated. When she saw what lay wedged between the thorny branches, her shoulders sank.

“Peluso,” she said to the officer with her. “Get the CSIs over here. I think we just located our murder weapon.”

Before Peluso could move to carry out the order, the trailer door banged open and Harvey appeared still in his undershirt and baggy pants. “What’s all this ruckus?” he growled as if he didn’t notice there were police in his yard.

Underwood shaded her eyes with her hand and scrutinized him. “Are you the owner of this trailer, sir?”

Harvey shrugged. “It’s the one I’ve been assigned to. The circus owns it.”

“We’ll need to speak with you. Step out of the trailer, please.”

Harvey’s mouth twisted in a bizarre grimace. “You’ve got to be joking. I’m taking a nap. We’ve got a rehearsal tonight.”

Underwood’s shoulders went military stiff. “Please step out of the trailer, sir. It’s regarding the matter of Tupper Magnuson’s death.”

“What?”

Tired of arguing with the man, Underwood simply gestured for him to come down.

After lifting his arms to the sky with an exaggerated eye roll, as if he were in the ring, Harvey shuffled down his front steps.

Peluso took him by the arm and led him through the crowd to a police car for questioning.

So Sam was right. Tupper had been murdered.

Miranda stood in the crowd rubbing her arms, kicking at the dirt and watching the few police officers Underwood had available interview the circus employees one by one.

“Looks like we’ve been shoved out of this one,” she muttered to Parker under her breath.

“We’ll get back in,” he said, his gunmetal gray eyes fixed on the CSIs processing the rose bushes.

But now that they’d pointed the police in the right direction, he just might take the first opportunity to call the case closed and head home. She could tell his ribs were aching, though no one else would have noticed.

“Do you think Harvey did it?” she asked him.

Parker’s grim expression turned thoughtful. “He had opportunity.”

“And motive and means, too.” A jealous clown with a drinking problem and easy access to Tupper’s trailer. “I wonder how long he was napping. I didn’t see the bottle when we were here before.”

“We might have missed it,” Parker said.

She didn’t think so. “One thing we know for sure. The killer doesn’t care who he hurts. One of the kids around here could have come by and gotten into those bushes.”

“Indeed. It was bad enough the dog did.”

Miranda could see the death of an innocent animal bothered him. Parker had a soft spot for all living things. It upset her as well. She could still hear the cries of the poor owner in her head and knew they’d stay with her awhile.

“And another thing. If the killer put the bottle there after we saw Harvey, it couldn’t have been Sam. He was with us the whole time.”

“Unless he put it there right before he found us with the Vargas.”

She scowled at him. He just wasn’t going to give Sam a break.

Her heart heavy, she turned away and gazed across the yard.

Sam was trotting over to them, his hat in his hand, his face lined with worry

He shook his head as soon as he reached them. “Looks like Harvey’s in bad trouble.”

Yeah. A tippler with a cyanide-laced wine bottle hidden in his rose garden. The police were going to latch onto that like a shark on a bloody leg.