Free Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 01 - Death Is Clowning Around by Peggy Dulle Page A

some bad. He wanted me and my sister to be able to protect ourselves, so he taught us to shoot and some self defense moves.”
    “I feel better already ab out you going to clown camp. W hen you are at the camp, load the gun and keep it loaded. And if you can, keep it with you at all time.”
    I put my hands on my hips and smiled. “Where in my clown suit do you suggest that I put it?”
    He didn’t take my joke very well. He cleared his throat. “Liza, be serious. If you can find a way, keep it with you, okay?”
    “Fine.”
    Tom drove Shelby and me to my car at the Inn, parked, then he picked up my bag and put it in the car for me. I saw Sarah in the window with her mouth open. Was it seeing Tom with me or seeing Tom’s face? Either way, I’d given her something to talk about for the day. I leaned over and kissed him goodbye on the mouth.
    “Was that for me or Sarah?” he teased.
    “Both.” Now I’d given her something to gossip about for a week.
    I waved goodbye to Tom, and Shelby and I were on the road home. It was the middle of the week and day, so traffic was light. A couple of times I thought I saw a white van following us. I laughed out loud. I was never paranoid before of clowns.
    I thought about Jessica and wondered if she was alive or not. Thinking about her made me think about my best friend, Sandy. I still felt like I had never done enough to help find her. I hated to fail. A tear ran down my cheek. Damn it! The therapist my parents sent me to after Sandy was kidnapped and killed told me I needed to find closure so that I could move on. Maybe looking for Jessica would give me what I needed.
    Two hours later we pulled into my driveway. It was nice to be home. When I let Shelby in she went directly to her water and food feeders. I went straight for the refrigerator. Nothing there. I found a frozen pizza in the freezer. That would do. I popped it in the oven and opened up my laptop. I wanted to see what the ex-clown had to say about Uptown Clowns.
     

Chapter 10

    I ate my pizza and opened my email. Ignoring all the junk, I opened Justin’s. Then I downloaded what he’d attached. It was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle titled “Ex-Clown Exposes All!” The story featured a man named Jack Armstrong (not his real name according to the article). He’d been a member of the Uptown Clowns for several years. He joined after going to one of their camps. The article went on to say that the clowns were heavily involved in pornography, both film and pictures.
    There were several layers within the organization. Different colored badges were used for each level. Level 1 was for the “real’ clowns. It was nice to know that everyone involved wasn’t a sleaze ball. In order to climb up a level, one had to participate in their “clownship” program and meditation rituals. Jack called it “mind programming. It’s a lot of chanting, rhythmic music, and drugs. They get you so messed up that you’ll do anything to keep being part of that level. The higher the level, the better the drugs and the more power the individual has in the organization.”
    When the writer asked about women and children, Jack laughed. “Most of them weren’t a part of the Uptown Clowns. The women were there for the clowns to use and control. Only a few women actually held high positions within the organization. The kids were just a smoke screen to make the place respectable. ”
    When Jack tried to get out, they fabricated several crimes. All the evidence implicated Jack and he couldn’t prove otherwise. He lost his family, his home, and his job because of the criminal investigations. Now he’s in hiding from the police and the clowns. The last statement of the article was: “Don’t trust a clown, unless you’ve seen under his makeup.”
    Nice parting shot. I was going to have to be very careful. I wasn’t into drugs, chanting or rhythmic music. Besides most women weren’t allowed to scale the levels, so why would they