A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals) (26 page)

Apparently skinning alive was just what he did to people who
mildly annoyed him. It was pitiful to see, but Jay still helped the man, even
if he didn't think he was deserving of it. The Sheriff would be better off
dying, if he were going to be honest. Hating him, which he still did, no matter
how much pain the other guy was in at the moment, didn't mean that Jason could
get away with being a monster however. So he'd do everything he could to save
them both. To keep them alive until that help came. If Mills didn't just turn
around and come back. It kind of made sense to do that.

It was hard to get the two hurt people free from their
chairs. They couldn't help, and Lynn acted like he was going to kill her
himself when he came over. She struggled enough that finally he had McNab do
it.

"Messy divorce, you know how it is." It wasn't
funny, and got her to try and say something, but he ignored her. The other man
didn't talk much, just going from one person to the other, tending them as well
as he could. Talking, like Jay was. Being encouraging, not knowing what else to
do.

"It won't be long now. They'll send a life flight. I
would." There was no real certainty to his words, which finally ended with
Jay being stared at. The man gave a slow head shake, standing behind the red
towel draped form.

He wasn't going to make it. It wasn't a surprise, but they
had to try. It was what you did, even if the person dying was one you didn't
like. Especially then. He didn't want to be blamed for it, after all. It wasn't
his doing, and he had witnesses, but who knew what Lynn would say, later. Probably
that it was all him doing it, or that he at least had let Mills hurt them.
If
he wasn't in on the whole thing. It was the kind of thing that probably
made sense, to someone like her. Because it was what she would have done.

Oh, she wouldn't have killed anyone, but setting it up was
well within what she might have managed. Really... he didn't have any proof of
the whole thing, but there was a tidbit that made sense to him suddenly. It
hadn't even been bothering him, but as for a reason why... It sort of made
sense.

"Crap. Lynn, you set Mills up to kill me, didn't you?
Made up some kind of lie, and sent him to Las Vegas after me? That's why he had
to get me out of the way. He told you it was done, and you, and Carl, went to
meet him or..."

She glared again, but McNab did too. At her. She nodded
though, her face pained, rather than vicious.

"Because I ruined your
scam
? It wasn't enough
for you that I have nothing now? Or... Wait,
you
. I keep thinking that
it was always Carl, keeping me from getting a new job, having me harassed, but
Mills said that it was you. It was always you." It hit him then, hard. The
idea that she wasn't a good person had been with him for a while now, but that
she was the real driving force behind it all... That everything bad had started
with her...

McNab tilted his head at Jason and then said a single word.

"Hush." It came off as patronizing, but he
understood that the man didn't want tempers to flare, right at the moment.

Help may have been coming, but it didn't happen fast. They
were there for hours, with him trying to digest the new information. There had
been a lot of it. More than he could process, it felt like. Except that there
was nothing else to do. He was there, dressed as a clown, still in makeup, of
all things. He used the sink to wash his face, taking off the fake stubble,
scrubbing with hot water. It was in the little kitchen space, which didn't have
dishes in the sink, but did have hot water. Soap too. Dish washing liquid, but
it worked. The bottle, plastic and clear, was a little oily on the outside, but
he didn't stop to consider that, he just washed. It took a long time, but
still, no one came.

They worked together to lay Lynn on the floor, so she didn't
have to hold herself up. Carl... That was a harder call. In the end they left
him where he was, though he tried to fall over several times. It hurt him, to
be stabilized at all. So they kept it to a minimum. He became softer, over
time. Less loud. The screams had stopped, and now, when he was touched, it wasn't
even a real whimper. More like an extra gasp. A response to the pain, but
nothing that even sounded like he was a person anymore.

That, most likely, was the point. Taking the skin meant
something to Mills. What it really was, deep in his sick mind, Jay didn't know,
and probably wouldn't have gotten, if told. It might have just been that he
knew it was a thing that no one could recover from. That, or a way of removing
the fake shell that the man had built around himself. A criminal that used
other people, hiding behind the mantel of authority. Of course, that was
probably just what Jay thought of him. Who knows what the real answer was. The
skin, which was tattered and torn into tens of shreds, was on the floor, in a
loose pile. He avoided looking at it. It was disgusting, and the horror of it
all hit him.

Rubbing his face again, he felt the real stubble there, and
wondered when things would be normal again. When he could get back to work and
not part of this freak show. That, it turned out, was going to come later. Much
so. It was dark out, but there was the sound of a helicopter, and several cars
and trucks.

None of them were police, since the area was served by the
County Sheriff's Office. They were all down, for one reason or another. He
didn't know who they were, since it was dark out now, but he did open the door.
Almost as an afterthought he took the oversized fake daisy out of his lapel and
buttoned the jacket, so the rope he was using as a belt didn't show. It left
him looking poor and a bit patched in places, but not like a joke. That seemed
more important to him suddenly.

There was a time to be the funny man, and a place for it.
Neither of those was now, or here. He'd scrubbed that away already and was just
himself, standing there watching things unfold. There was no place left, in the
moment, for his day job persona.

Especially with armed people coming in, who'd been told to
look for a killer clown. That was a very real point, he decided. No one tried
to tackle him or McNab to the ground, but he had to identify himself. So did
the FBI agent. The men that spoke to them were State Police, which was
refreshing.

The one in charge looked at the scene as the para-rescue
people did their work. They were taking both the victims. That would be good,
since otherwise they would have died there. No one said a whole lot until the
helicopter took off. It was too loud, and it let them have a bit to collect
their thoughts.

Then the man in charge, who was white, about fifty and
looked to be in good shape, turned to the FBI agent left and made a hard face.

"This is messed up. Why didn't you call in earlier?
We've been standing by, ready to help on this." The words weren't polite,
or kind, seeming stressed. As if that man knew what real stress was? Jason did,
now. It was staring into the face of death, the only thing saving you being
your own mind, and a bit of cute performance. Battling with a killer clown,
with nothing more than a daisy and some witty banter.

McNab looked back at him, and then after about half a minute
of seeming ready to shoot the other guy, shook his head. Hard.

"We thought the place was abandoned. There were no
vehicles showing. Probably in the barn, or behind the place. Deputy Mills got
the drop on us. We resisted, but he's good, and managed to get us tied down.
So, that's why we didn't call it in. We didn't think it was warranted. We were
wrong."

Then the man turned to him, still looking like he thought
they were both morons. He might have been right too, if not in the way he
thought.

"And you? Why are you here?"

Jay shrugged.

"It's about the same thing, to be honest. I figured out
that Carl Morse had this place, and tried to call the agents. I got voice mail,
so I thought that I'd drive by and see if I could locate a car out here. I'd
gotten the information from Deputy Richmond, who's one of the dead outside. The
man. The other one is Pensley. I saw the government car so I pulled up and
called out. Then Mills cuffed me, after a punch to the neck."

The rest of the story he let McNab tell. It was different
from his perspective. A lot, really. Not so much as to what happened, but what
it sounded like. How Jay had seemed from the outside.

"Hadley here, he was cold the whole time, acting like a
clown. Doing his act. So there were two of them. I think that actually made a
difference. He talked the freak into playing a game. That wasn't perfect, since
it led to more damage for the victims, but probably kept them alive. He was
like ice, the whole time. Not nervous or anything. I was about to lose it, and here's
this guy making jokes and working a psycho like it was what he did every other
day. Then he worked out that one of the victims was in on part of it,
kidnapping and drugging him. It was a murder plot, but Mills didn't act on it,
for some reason."

Jay had noticed that part too.

"That's... Really, it's hard to know. Everything about
this should have had him killing me. If he had, he would have finished up here
and just left without anyone finding him. Instead he left me alive. I think...
I think that it's because of what they, Morse and Lynn, had done to me."
Then he had to explain that part, with the State Police man just looking at
him, amazed.

Probably that anyone would let themselves be used like that.
But, as he pointed out, the moment he learned of it, or close enough, he
walked. That was one thing that they all agreed on, at least, which seemed out
of place. Why were they talking about him? To see if he were secretly in on it?
Or to pass time? They had to go over it all again, several times, and finally,
near midnight, Daniels came back, looking grim, and with a bandaged arm. From
where the scalpel had sliced him, earlier.

McNab led the way over to him. They'd migrated outside
already. It was cool, but not a torture den. Or the place where his wife had
met up with Carl for their love fests. Jay decided that, given everything, he
wasn't going to be concerned with that ever again.

There was a team going over the whole house, but they didn't
find anything. Just what they'd been told would be there. That, some extra guns
and about ten thousand dollars, hidden in the back of a closet, behind a false
wall. Loaded, not that it would have done them any good, being that no one in
the place that knew where they were would have had a chance to get at them.

Carl had started out armed, and it hadn't helped him, so
those wouldn't have either.

The older agent shook his head a little.

"We lost him. More to the point, we never picked him
back up. He could be anywhere by now. With the amount of people we have out
looking for him, the only sensible move would be to run as far as he can and
then hide in the deepest hole he can find."

"Except that he won't." Jason said it firmly,
expecting the men to tell him that it wasn't his business anymore. They were
right, as long as the killer didn't come back for him. "Carl Mills hates
his mother to a level that transcends rationality. He wants to kill her, and
has
,
his entire life. The only question now is, will he wait, for you to let your
guard down, or do it fast, so that no one has time to really plan for it?"

Both of the FBI men looked at him, as if he were just
stating the obvious. Really, he was. They'd been there all evening too, taking
mental notes and working things out.

Daniels took a breath, and didn't sound like it bugged him
too much, regardless of his facial expression.

"Which is pretty obvious. We have a four man team on
her, but we have a decision to make. Do we move her to a place he can't reach,
or use her as bait?"

McNab shrugged, "when in doubt, do both? We move her in
secret and then grab him when he moves in for the kill. If he does. The sane
thing really would be running away right now. Doing anything else is asking to
be captured. Or killed. We need to get that set up. That man isn't sane."

Jay looked at the scene and realized that his rental car
didn't have a scratch on it. No bullet holes from the fight even. That would
mean he didn't have to pay for the damage. He even had the keys on him. Right
there in his right hand pocket.

"So, I need to get back to Vegas. That's, you can reach
me there?" It made sense to him, but the two men just looked at each
other, as if debating in utter silence which one was going to tell him to stop
being stupid. "Unless you need me for something else?"

Daniels shook his head.

"Most people that have to stand up to a serial killer
for hours like that, and see messed up shit like this, don't just drive
themselves home. Besides, Mills has nearly as much reason to go after you, or
one of us, as he does Morse or Davies. We need to pull back and stay as a
group, not spread out. We'll send you with your ex, so she can see a friendly
face?" He grinned then, but it was a worn and sad thing.

McNab shook his head.

"Hell no. That witch set Mills on him. That thing in
the casino was supposed to be a hit. She as much as copped to it when asked. She
messed up though, because her little boy likes his step-daddy better than he
does her. I agree, let's keep this together for the time being. We need to pick
your brain anyway, Dr. Hadley. What you said, earlier, it didn't feel like you
were pulling all of it out of your behind. Do you have any other insights?
Anything that might tell us how he'll jump now?"

The State Patrol had found the blue Sedan, which was in the
large metal barn, hidden from view. They walked the property, looking for fresh
turned or packed areas, but that wouldn't do much. Not unless Carl Morse had
used the place to dump the bodies of his enemies. That would have been stupid,
of course. It was too close to him. Anyone would look at him first when they
were found. Plus, the area was wide open. Isolated, but if anyone noticed him
burying a body...