By the time I left her, she had perked up enough to trot behind me to the door. She even wagged her tail when I kissed her nose good-bye. I think she did it to make me feel better.
Lights were on at Stevie’s house, and she opened the door before I rang. Her long dark hair was hanging free, and she was dressed a lot like me, shorts and a sleeveless top. She looked pale and tired but a lot more focused than she’d been when I left her last night.
She said, “I’ve already walked Reggie and fed him, but would you mind coming in for coffee?”
It was more request than invitation, so I followed her to the kitchen, where she gestured toward a table in a windowed alcove.
“There are some bran muffins if you’d like one. We have a cook twice a week, and she bakes up goodies when she’s here and freezes them.”
Bran muffins didn’t sound like goodies to me, but I sat down and took one from a basket and broke off a chunk. Stevie slid two mugs of coffee on the table and took a chair opposite me.
She said, “I lay awake all night thinking about what Conrad would want me to do. He would want me to be strong. He would want me to take charge. So that’s what I’m going to do. Because if I don’t, Denton will.”
The muffin tasted healthy but blah. I took a sip of coffee to wash it down.
I said, “Denton gave me the creeps last night. Is there something wrong with him?”
“Nothing except innate meanness. He and Marian are both despicable people.”
“Stevie, I’m sure Lieutenant Guidry asked you, but is there anybody you know who had a grudge against Conrad?”
Her lips firmed in unconscious resistance. I waited, knowing that silence is often the best way to encourage somebody to tell what they’re reluctant to say.
She said, “About a year ago, a man showed up here claiming to be Conrad’s cousin. He said his father and Angelo Ferrelli were brothers, that they grew up in the same village in Italy. He claimed his father had originated Madam Flutter-By, and that Angelo had stolen it. He wanted money.”
I blinked at her, wondering if the muffin had made me stupid. “Stevie, I understood about three words you just said: cousin, brothers, and money. The rest was Greek. Or maybe Italian.”
“Sorry, I guess I always assume everybody knows who Angelo Ferrelli was. He was Conrad’s father—Denton’s too, of course, although not spiritually, like Conrad. Angelo Ferrelli was a famous clown with the Ringling Circus. He was known as Madam Flutter-By.”
I must have still looked blank. She said, “I have a picture of him.”
She got up and left the room. While she was gone, I wadded the rest of my muffin in a paper napkin. Stevie came back and set a framed photograph facing me on the table.
I did a double take, and Conrad’s androgenous way of dressing suddenly made sense. Madam Flutter-By wore crisp white trousers and a matching cutaway coat, but the coat nipped in at the waist and its long skirt fanned out like a woman’s peplum. It also had exaggerated leg-o’-mutton sleeves with black ruching at the wrists. He wore a closefitting hat with a crown curiously rounded to give the suggestion of a prim librarian’s bun. His face was stark white, with only five marks on it: two curving high on the cheekbones like long black tears, two arched above his eyes like blackbirds in flight, and one between the painted brows in a black teardrop. The only color was a wide bright-red mouth.
I thought of the red grin slashed on Conrad’s face and felt ice running up my spine.
“Tell me again about that man’s claim.”
“His name was Brossi. He said his father was Angelo’s brother and that Angelo had stolen Madam Flutter-By from his brother when they were boys in Italy. He wanted money.”
I still didn’t get it, so she explained it slowly, the way you’d explain long division to a three-year-old.
“The name Madam Flutter-By is registered, like a patent or a trademark. The makeup, that white face with the distinctive black marks and red lips, can’t be used by any other clown. If his likeness is used in any way, his estate gets paid, the same way Disney gets paid if somebody runs a Mickey Mouse cartoon on TV or puts a Mickey Mouse face on a kid’s lunch box or watch face. There were Madam Flutter-By films, Madam Flutter-By charms, and oil paintings and coffee mugs and pillows and thousands of other things with his face or form on them. They’re collector’s items today.”
“So if that guy Brossi was telling the truth—”
“If he was telling the truth, his father should have got some of the money Angelo made.”
“But Angelo was the one who actually made the idea work. His brother must not have had Angelo’s talent, or he would have become famous himself.”
“That’s what Conrad said, among other things. Mostly, he said his father had created Madam Flutter-By, that nobody else had ever done the act, and that Brossi was a fraud. But I’m not sure if he could be positive about that. It was so long ago, and in some little place in Italy. Who knows who first came up with the act?”
“Do you know where Brossi went?”
“He didn’t go anywhere. He owns a telemarketing firm here in Sarasota.”
I said, “Did you know Madam Flutter-By?”
“No, but I knew Angelo Ferrelli. He had already retired from the circus when I met him, but he was a lovely man. Highly intelligent, cultured, witty. Conrad is a lot like him. Was. Conrad adored him. Denton was ashamed of him. Of course, Denton was ashamed of Conrad too.”
I tried to think of a way to say it tactfully and couldn’t, so I just said it. “Was Denton embarrassed by the way Conrad dressed?”
She grinned. “He hated it. Marian too.”
“Is that why Conrad did it?”
“No, Conrad just liked wearing that crazy stuff. Growing up in a circus family, I guess it seemed normal to him. Sometimes I thought he could have been a little more sensitive to Denton’s feelings about it, but it was a point of pride with him. You know, to be who he was, no matter what other people thought about it. He was that way when I met him.”
“Where was that?”
She looked startled for a moment, as if she’d opened up something she hadn’t intended. “We were both in drama at Yale.”
Since my education consisted of two years of community college and six months at the police academy, that sentence alone exposed a social chasm between us. It also meant that Stevie could be a very good actress, pretending grief for a husband she’d killed herself. But I didn’t think so.
I said, “When Brossi came—”
“Conrad practically threw him out of the house, and the man told Conrad he would be sorry. What he actually said was One day you will see me again and be sorry.”
“You didn’t tell Lieutenant Guidry about this?”
“I didn’t think about it until just now. Brossi never contacted Conrad again, or at least not so far as I know.”
“If Brossi raised the issue now that Conrad’s gone, what would happen?”
“Now he would be dealing with Denton. I don’t know what Denton would do.”
“Brossi’s the only person you know of who had reason to hate Conrad?”
“He’s the only one.”
The truth lay on the table between us, as tasteless as the bran muffins. Denton Ferrelli had hated Conrad too. Maybe he had settled old scores with his brother.
“Stevie, I saw Conrad’s car yesterday morning, with Reggie in the backseat. It went past when I was leaving the Powell house and turned onto Midnight Pass Road. I thought Conrad was driving, but he couldn’t have been because just a few minutes later I found his body.”
“But Reggie wouldn’t have got in the car with a stranger.”
“Exactly.”
She stared at me with unfocused eyes. “You think Denton killed Conrad, don’t you?”