Clowns and Cowboys (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 3) (4 page)

“What do you know about this?” Miranda asked him.

“Just open it.”

She did.

Photos—in bright, bold color. First one, a clown in front of a tent holding a bunch of balloons. His head was topped with a large wig of bright blue curls. His outlandish outfit was yellow-and-green striped with big red buttons down the front. His hands were covered with big-fingered white gloves and his face was painted in the happy clown expression.

Next photo, the clown was handing out balloons to some kids. Next one, looked like he was doing a dance and making the kids burst out in giggles.

“So this is Tupper?” Miranda asked.

Sam nodded his face going tender. “That’s him. Or was.”

She turned the page.

First photo here was a beautiful young woman in a sparkly teal costume standing in a dramatic pose under a spotlight, a strand of silky white fabric in each hand. Next photo, she was in the air, both legs gracefully outstretched in a nasty split, each ankle wrapped in the white fabric. You could see the sheen of her teal-painted toenails.

Next shot, she was suspended from a hoop, hands and feet in the air.
Wow
.

Finally, she was on the ground, taking a bow. Her long blond hair, pulled back in a ponytail, draped nearly to the floor. Her dark eyes had a mysterious, sensual look and she wore a lot of stage makeup, but underneath the powder Miranda could tell she had a natural beauty.

In fact, she was gorgeous.

“Who’s this?”

“That…is Layla.” Sam said it like it was the name of a disease. “She gave Tup that book.”

“Aerial performer?”

“Aerial
silk
acrobat. One of the best I’ve seen.”

Miranda turned another page. Here were several shots of the pair out of makeup and costume, doing the typical things couples do together. A boat ride, a walk in the park, bicycling down a winding path.

She studied Magnuson’s features. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties, about Sam’s age, an average looking man with an average build. Short brown hair, brown eyes. Nice, apple-cheeked smile.

Layla was just as lovely as her performance photos. She wore her long blond hair in a braid down her back, and jeans and nice tops over a lean, well-formed body. She had to be in shape if she swung through the air with the greatest of ease regularly. She seemed young. Early twenties maybe.

Didn’t it take years to become good at a flying act? Maybe she started young.

If Miranda was reading the smiles and looks they gave each other in the photos right, the pair was very much in love. “You don’t like Layla?”

Sam chewed on his cheek awhile, as if he were putting his thoughts together. Then he strolled over to the countertop that separated the kitchen from living room.

He folded his arms and leaned against it. “Layla came to the Big Top about six months ago. Most folks in the circus know about other performers in other troupes. Nobody had heard of her or knew where she came from. She said she was from Bulgaria. She’s got an accent and all. And then, just a few weeks after she’s here, the boss makes her a headliner. Everyone was—well, stunned.”

“Professional jealousy?”

“Sure. You work your butt off to get to the top of your game and some nobody comes along and steals it out from under you.”

She studied his face a long moment. He didn’t sound like he had any resentment. But Sam probably didn’t think of an aerial artist as competition.

“Sounds like the other performers disliked her,” she said.

Sam shrugged. “Not everybody. She had a way of charming people.”

Miranda looked down at the photo book. “Like Tupper?”

Sam snorted another dry smirk. “I thought so. They hit it off right away. Tup was totally smitten. I thought she was using him. Thought maybe she’d gotten him to put in a word for her with management and that’s how she got to be the headliner, but Tup swore to me he hadn’t. We had a couple go-rounds about her. He’d never listen to me.” He gazed blankly out the window and ran a hand over his face. “Look where that got him.”

Miranda shot Parker a look of surprise. “You think Layla has something to do with Tupper Magnuson’s death?”

Sam shoved his hands into his back pockets and began to pace the small floor with agitated steps. “I don’t know. She was supposed to go with us to the pizza place last night.”

Miranda’s ears perked up. “Okay.”

“It wasn’t settled. She and Tupper had been at odds with each other the past few days.”

“Over what?”

He shrugged. “Tupper didn’t say. I didn’t think it was anything big. Just a little lover’s spat.” He avoided her gaze as he spoke.

“I see.”

“Anyway, Tup told me he’d asked her to join us, but she didn’t say yes or no. He was going to wait for her here and if she didn’t show, he’d meet us at Danny’s. When I got here, she wasn’t inside. I guessed she was still mad at him. After the police questioned me, I went over to her trailer.”

“And?” Parker asked, foreboding in his tone.

“I knocked and knocked. She didn’t answer. She wasn’t in there.”

Miranda looked at Parker. “Maybe she went out to dinner with friends.”

“Like I said, she didn’t have many friends in the show.”

“Does she have any friends or family in Dallas?” Parker wanted to know.

Sam frowned, looking confused. “Don’t rightly know that.”

If she was pissed at her boyfriend she probably treated herself to a girl’s night out. “Didn’t she show up for the show tonight?”

“We had an off day today. Good thing, since nobody’s felt like putting on a performance with Tupper…gone.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I moped around in my trailer most of the day myself. I checked her place again before I came to pick ya’ll up. She’s still not there.”

If she had the day off she might still be in town. Maybe she went home with someone. She might not even know her fiancé was dead. Or…she could be in trouble.

They could check around for her. Stop by a few nearby watering holes or hotels.

“What’s the young woman’s last name?” Parker asked, thinking along the same lines.

Sam stared at him a moment, blinked hard. “She just went by Layla. Tupper never told me what her last name was.”

###

Miranda thought they should check it out themselves.

Sam took them over to Layla’s trailer, and they waited while he knocked on the door several times. There was still no answer.

Miranda tried peering through a window, but it was too dark to see anything. Deciding they’d try again in the morning, she and Parker headed back to the old red truck.

Sam thought of a few convenience stores and bars Layla might have gone to if she’d gone into town, places the performers frequented. Most spots where Tupper used to take her were closed, he said.

After making her way past several mechanical bulls, fighting through three crowds of raucous line dancers, and shouting over the loud country music and sing-a-longs to show Layla’s picture to a slew of different bartenders, none of whom recognized her, Miranda was beat.

She told Sam to drop them off at the hotel and said good night to their new client.

When Miranda stepped inside the suite she had booked for them, she let out a long, low sigh. The rooms were quiet, smelled clean and the air was deliciously cool.

She looked around.

The living room and bedroom part was combined this time, due to the budget constraints Gen had insisted on and Miranda had agreed to. There was a large bed with a fancy embossed gold spread, a shiny mahogany desk and chair near a window. Through the glass you could see the glorious splash of colored lights—the Dallas skyline, with its sixty-story-plus bank buildings and the ball-shaped observation deck of a nearby hotel.

Two overstuffed guest chairs matching the bedspread sat against the far wall, in front of them a glass-topped coffee table matching the desk. Either there’d been a sale when they’d put the place together or the designer was really into coordinating pieces.

Over the bed were two paintings of cattle drives Miranda didn’t care for, but overall the place was nice, if a bit monotonous. Maybe she should thank Gen—or not.

As soon as the bellhop left Parker scowled. “There’s no kitchenette.”

He was in a pissy mood, Miranda thought.

“We usually order room service,” she said and with a shrug waltzed over to the fridge in the corner and opened it. Inside were soda cans and two beer bottles. “Hey, there’s free drinks. Want one?”

He shook his head and moved to the suitcase on the bench at the foot of the bed. “We need to plan our next step.” He began to unpack.

Miranda joined him and tugged at the zipper on her case. “Sure. I think we ought to stop by the police station first thing tomorrow and see what they’ve got so far.”

“That was my thought.” He crossed to the dresser, began laying his things in a drawer. “If Magnuson’s death was indeed from natural causes, there’s no need to proceed further.”

Miranda followed suit and stuffed her underwear beside his tightie whities. “Don’t you think it was strange for the police to decide it was natural causes so soon? And not to treat the clown’s trailer as a crime scene?”

“Not necessarily. But they’ll be doing an autopsy to confirm it. Let’s hope they have results by tomorrow.”

She ignored the implication that he’d like this case over and done as she tucked her sports bras next to her panties. “And what about this Layla character? She falls in love with Tupper Magnuson and leaves town the night he dies? Maybe Sam is right about her.”

“If his facts are accurate.”

Miranda closed the drawer and turned to Parker. “What do you mean by that?” She didn’t mean her words to sound as defensive as they came out.

“Simply that your ‘friend’ may have ulterior motives.”

She couldn’t believe he’d just said that. “Ulterior motives?”

“We have no confirmation as yet that anything he’s told us is true.”

She put a hand to her head. It was starting to ache.

He gave her a dark look. “Surely you’ve considered the most obvious possibilities.”

“Which possibilities?”

“First, that Keegan himself could be the killer.”

She gritted her teeth at his words, though the same thought had flickered through her mind earlier. She raised her hands and plodded to the closet near the door where the bellhops had hung their garment bags. “If Sam is the killer why would he call us out here?”

Parker moved back to his bag at the foot of the bed. “One explanation would be to cover it up.”

She pulled out her clothes and spread them on the rack. She did the same for Parker’s, since he’d exerted himself enough tonight. “Cover up what? The police don’t think it was murder.”

“So Keegan says. What if the truth is they’re about to arrest him but haven’t put their case together yet?”

She spun around and stared at him. Parker was back beside the chest of drawers. Fully dressed in his business suit, he looked as deadly serious as she’d ever seen him. She couldn’t believe this.

“And so he calls up a top investigative agency who would only confirm that?” But he hadn’t called the agency. He’d called her. Did Sam think he could sweet talk her like he used to? She shook her head. “The police have to have their reasons for deciding it was natural causes, and apparently they don’t consider Tupper’s trailer a crime scene.”

“According to Keegan.”

“Again, why would he lie to us?”

He opened the drawer, laid some T-shirts in it. “Some years back a man hired me to find his wife’s killer. It turned out it was him.”

The breath went out of her. Did Parker really think Sam was capable of murder? “Did you know that guy before he hired you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Okay then. I know Sam. That’s the difference.” Stinging at his insinuation, she turned back to the closet and rearranged her clothes.

“We have no real proof that was the victim’s trailer.” Slipping off his suit coat Parker crossed to where she stood and hung it up.

The closeness of his body had always thrilled her. Just now it set her teeth on edge. She could feel his anger brewing under the surface.

“Except for the state of that couch.”

“Which might have been moved there. Or the body moved to another spot after the fact.” He spoke as smoothly as if he were ordering a Bacardi in the bar downstairs.

She stared at him, trying to figure out if this was just his bad mood or if he was really onto something. “Either way it would take a lot of effort. Sounds pretty extreme.”

“Murder is always extreme. People go to extreme lengths to cover it up.”

Still, it was a stretch. True, they had no proof except Sam’s word. But that was good enough for her. For now anyway.

She watched Parker’s movements, doubt and irritation vying in her brain. “What are you saying? The trailer we went to tonight could belong to somebody else? Who? Some other…clown?”

“Perhaps it was Keegan’s.”

She scoffed out a laugh. “So he set us up? Placed that photo album there for us to find so we’d go after the wrong suspect?”

“He wasn’t expecting the two of us. He was expecting only you.”

And thought she’d be an easy pushover? She remembered Sam’s reaction tonight when he’d stared at the couch. It had seemed real to her. This conversation was ridiculous.

“Parker, you can’t really think—”

“Which brings us to the second possibility.”

“Which is?” Her temper was simmering and she almost wished she hadn’t asked.

“That Sam is well aware that Magnuson passed away of natural causes. That he called you simply to see you again.”

“You mean—?”

“To strike up a relationship. He’s unaware that we’re married, isn’t he?”

She glared at Parker wondering if she were having a bad dream. How could he imply something like that? Then she saw something in his handsome face she’d never seen before. The lines around his eyes betrayed fatigue and the physical pain he’d been enduring all night but there was something else.

Something more.

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re jealous.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I am not jealous.”