"It's been 76 days, 2 hours and 37 minutes since young Ned's father deposited him at the Longborough School for boys, and this, young Ned felt, was long enough." "Tired of the dark and joyless boarding school, young Ned and his dog, Digby, set out in search of a new beginning." "Alone in the forest, they didn't know what to expect, and least of all they expected giant butterflies." "Come on, everybody." "Look, there's a nest!" "Let's go see." "Miss Moss believed every child was a butterfly at heart, and her kindergartners knew that every caterpillar learns to fly." "On this day, miss Moss found herself just out of reach of an important lesson on the life cycle of the yellow canary." "Oh, I wish I could reach!" "What do you think?" "There's eggs inside or do you think there's birds?" "The yellow canaries, however, believed a better lesson might have been the risks of environmental toxins." "In that moment, young Ned decided that new beginnings were a wonderful thing." "How many do you think are there?" "Six." "Six?" "how many do you think are there?" "Oh!" "Aren't they beautiful?" "Would you like to see our latest class project?" "As the once-dead yellow canaries had now been alive again for over a minute, young Ned knew that, by the rules of his gift, something else nearby had to die." "We've been nursing some red-breasted woodpecker chicks back to health, and today " "Today we're gonna set them free." "Unaware of the class project, the boy had thought that whatever creatures traded their lives would be small, random, and hidden in the woods." "Sadly, this was not the case." "As the boy and his dog returned from when once they came, young Ned concluded that new beginnings only lead to painful ends." "It's 20 years later, and the boy has become a pie maker who is in love." "It's been 1 year, 22 weeks and 4 days since he touched his childhood sweetheart and brought her back to life, and 2 days, 10 hours and 28 minutes since Charlotte "Chuck" Charles moved across the hall." "Whilst Chuck had called it "apartment-sitting", the pie maker sensed a new beginning, beginning." " Morning." " Morning." "Did you sleep okay over there?" "I woke up to the smell of toast and eggs drifting through sun-dappled curtains, any thought how lucky I am to be alive in a world with sun-dappled anything." "Ahh." "I got so excited, I was afraid my smile was gonna vibrate to near off the cabinets." "It was me..." "Cooking toast and eggs." "Aww." "Well, thank you for that." "Thank you and thank you for bringing me back to life." "Not in that order, but..." "How did you sleep?" "The pie maker had grown accustomed to the feeling his heart made when it looked out his eyes and saw her sleeping in the next bed." "He had not." " Slept great." " Really?" "Because that smile wouldn't vibrate anything off anything." "The pie maker wondered if moving a little bit apart hadn't moved them a little bit apart." "A little bit to the west..." "Emerson Cod." "Please hold." "Emerson Cod." "Please hold." "Please hold." "Well known for his uncanny ability to solve murders and apprehend suspects, less so for his silent partner who can wake the dead and ask who did it," "Emerson Cod's business was booming." "You know how to knock?" "I did knock." "I came in, I said to myself," ""I hope this good man can help me -- knock wood", and then I knocked." "My name is Georgeann Heaps." "It's my nature to reward pushiness with inattention, mrs." "Heaps." "However, if you'd like to make an appointment..." "For when -- the 10th of never?" "I can see your phone blinking like a casino sign." "I'm pushy, mr." "Cod, not an idiot." "My teenage daughter would disagree with me on that point if she were here, but..." "She's not." "She's disappeared." "Missing-persons case?" "It's been three weeks since I've seen her last." "I'm desperate to find her." "I'm sorry." "I'm not very good with emotion." "What emotion?" "All of them." "Police think my Nikki's just another runaway, so they won't look for her, but that's not who she is." "She's sweet and helpful." "Well, did you ask her friends?" "Even her best friend doesn't know where she went, and Nikki hates to be alone." "I don't mean to lose control like this." "Are you a parent or guardian, Emerson Cod?" "Unprepared for the question, the answer tried to hang on to the inside of his throat." "Um... uh, I used to be." "Did you say "used to be"?" "I said I'd take the case." "The words that choked in Emerson Cod's throat were that he, too, was the parent of a missing daughter." "And she and Nikki Heaps were not the only missing persons that morning." "There was another." "Aaaah!" "After falling apart in what had come to be called a world-class tanty, aunt Lily, panicked that Olive might let slip some very big secrets, whisked Olive off to a nunnery in the country." "So, Chuck's mother isn't some woman who died in childbirth." "In fact, she's not dead at all." "Dying, maybe, because of all the drinking, but alive and pretending to be her aunt Lily." "And Lily doesn't ever want her sister Vivian to find this out because Vivian was engaged to Chuck's father when she got pregnant, and he fully admitted to having the affair, but told Vivian it was with someone else." "So Vivian ended it." "Are you even listening to me?" "Pigby enjoyed the warbling sounds that the nice-smelling thing that fed him made." "Sister Olive, it's time for middle midmorning prayers in the chapel." "Coming, mother superior." "As Olive set off to make the best of her new life, she was sorely missed in the one she left behind." "The service here is terrible." "There is no service." "Service left in the middle of the night." "Chuck's just filling in." " When does employee of the mouth come back?" " Don't know." "You pretend that you don't miss Olive, but you do." "So do I. I wish I knew where she went." "Would you please quit looking at the door?" "Every time I hear those bells," "I'm afraid Chuck's aunts are gonna walk in again." "I took care of Lily and Vivian for 20 years." "They never even left the house." "What happened was incredibly unusual." "Please take this the right way, but so is being dead but not dead." "Amen." "And while I might be shocked and amazed to see your aunts walk in again, people who are dead but not dead traditionally come up against angry mobs with pitchforks and torches." "Better?" "You didn't sleep well." "It was deep and perfect, like a nap in the backseat of a car after a day at the beach." "Would anyone like to make some money?" "Sweet Nikki Heaps disappeared three weeks ago." "Who is that next to her?" "That's Randi Jean, her best friend." "I already talked to her." "She doesn't know anything." "Well, let me talk to her." "She's not gonna tell a big P.I. the truth and rat out her friend." "I'm not gonna tell you anything about Nikki, okay?" "I've made up my mind." "And you should know my dad says my mind is like an old refrigerator in a deserted lot -- if a secret's out there playing around and it climbs in, it ain't never getting out, okay?" "So quit asking." "That girl isn't gonna tell her anything." "We need to get us some new leads and fast." " People don't run away for no reason." " Sure they do." "You don't think it's curious that Olive left in the middle of the night?" "Because I'm curious." "I'm very curious." ""Curious" is tighty-whitey for "angry", because Olive left." "You're angry because dead girl up and moved her ass into the empty apartment." "You're wrong." "Person gets this little sip of a fresh start, they want to start drinking it from the hose." "Today, an apartment across the hall, tomorrow, Paris and a croissant maker named Philippe." "That's not who Chuck is." "Nikki's living with her boyfriend in a van out on rustic road." "His name's Rocky." "How'd you do it?" "The dead girl had improvised." "Nikki's mom's really worried." "Hello." "That was kind of the point." "Maybe her mom won't be such a medicated pad next time Nikki wants to go out on a weeknight." "Where'd she get the guts to run away?" "You think it took guts?" "Most people just think it was stupid." "I just moved out on my own and it's kind of scary." "Are you trying to find things in common" " so I'll lower my guard and tell you where Nikki is?" " No." " The good-cop thing won't work." " I know." " I hate it when people do that good-cop thing to me, too." " Really?" "Sometimes I want to run away just like Nikki." "That's not why she ran away." "Nikki wants to be a big star, but her mom wouldn't take her seriously." "She's over being sweet little Nikki." "Shoot." "I didn't want to tell you that." "I didn't want you to tell me that, either." "Isn't that weird?" "We are so alike." "If we ran away together," " do you think we'd end up where Nikki is?" " I wish." "She moved in with a cute guy in a really tricked-out van." "He's in entertainment." "No way!" "Not the guy with the crazy van who has that thing with the entertainment." "I know him." "You know Rocky Baselli?" "!" "Shoot." "Nikki Heaps?" "Are you in there?" "Hello?" ""Mimes do it with imagination."" "That's cute." "That thing should have said," ""if this van's a-rockin', I'm being murdered."" "Looks like he's been dead about a week." "You Rocky?" "He really is a mime." "Hi, sweetie." "Were you living with Nikki Heaps?" "Did she kill you?" "All right, that's enough." "I think someone poisoned my makeup." "I don't know who." "Where's Nikki now?" "She's with some clown." "A real clown?" "Yeah." "We met the jackass and all his jackass buddies at the disco." "They were with the traveling circus." "This one dude was telling her all these stories about their big, glamorous life on the road." "Next day, she took off." " Took off?" " Said she wanted a fresh start." "That was the last I saw of her." "This circus got a name?" "A "Circus of Fun"." "I know." "It sucks." "They can't have gotten that far." "Hey, if you find Nikki, would you mind giving her this poem?" "Yeah, sure." "Would you mind doing the glass-box thing?" "Because I love that." "Hey." "I'm glad we're going to the circus." "Can I get a menu, please?" "Yeah, they're right over there in the pile of menus." "What's with the attitude, lady?" "What was with the "attitude lady" was this" "What do you mean I can't come?" "Someone's got to run the Pie Hole with Olive gone." "The pie maker?" " Emerson needs me." " Why?" "There's no dead body to wake up." "Nice." "Anyone not hear that?" "Are you mad at me?" "Is this about something else?" "Nothing else." "I promise I'll let you come next time." "Thank you for the permission." "You don't need my permission." "Thank you for the permission not to need your permission." "It's a traveling circus, not a "wait around for you two to work all your junk out" circus." "I'll be back soon." "And I'll be here forever." "That was, uh, curious." "As the pie maker wondered if Chuck moving out was making him passive or aggressive or both," "Olive wondered when her new beginning would feel like it had begun." "It's time for late midafternoon prayer, sister Olive." "Excuse me, mother superior, does something ever happen where you think everything's kind of blah, like blah brick walls, blah faux shaker furniture, blah good works, and then shazam!" "All the little boring stuff suddenly becomes full of meaning?" " Like an epiphany." " Bingo." "Not very often." "It takes time to fill a life with meaning." "Our days here are not easy, sister Olive." "But you will find that with hard work and personal sacrifice, you will strip away everything from your old life and start anew." "Great." "Come along soon." "Don't be late." "Oh, hey, sister, want a chapel buddy?" "Lily!" "What are you doing here?" "I thought you went home." "Why did you come back?" "I can't be seen." "Meet me in the chapel tonight." "When?" "Early mid middle night prayer." "This ain't no circus." "A circus is supposed to smell like popcorn and cotton candy, not wet sawdust and underarm." "This is a damn freak show." "Why would sweet Nikki Heaps want to run away here?" "People decide they want to leave and start over, a switch flips, a fuse blows, and then everything's got to change." "You can't just have half a revolution." "and dot be looking at me with them psycho-babbly eyes like this case is personal to me or something." "No eyes." "Just looking." "You are not allowed back here." " We don't allow any stubs snooping around." " Stubs?" "There are two kinds of people in this world -- the ones that take their risks and make you feel something besides the dull thudding of your own heart and those that pay to watch..." "With a ticket stub in the pocket." "I got it." "We're investigating the disappearance of a young girl and the murder of her boyfriend." "Sorry, I can't help you with that." "Have you seen the separate police lockup they have for cocky young acrobats?" "Because I haven't." "I'm upside down, mon ami." "I'm not foolish." "So, Nikki was last seen with the clowns." "Talk to señor Arnaud in the office trailer." "He's in charge of the Cirs of Fun." "Thank you, but remember, there are two things clowns make around here -- balloon animals and enemies." "I don't know her." "But we get a lot of people passing through." "Hard to keep track of everybody." "The girl we're looking for was hitching a ride with a mime who ended up dead." "Guess that's one box he won't get out of." "The clowns haze the newbies pretty bad." "If she didn't quit, she's probably been assigned to apprentice one of them." "Where can we find these clowns?" "Drunk in a ditch would be my guess." "They usually stumble in just before showtime, and they always travel in a pack." "Like wolves." "More like cigarettes." "Yeah, well, um, thanks for your help." "Sorry I don't remember the girl." "You notice his secretary snort-giggled whenever he made a joke?" "Yeah, but she also snort-giggled when " "When he said he didn't remember her." "Could have been a nervous snort-giggle." "Because she knew he was lying." "She's worth a second look." "I'll go." "Oh, let me." "* 98 bottles of beer on the wall * * 98 bottles of beer * * take one down, pass it around... *" "Did I leave my keys, miss...?" "Dijon." "No, I don't think you did." "Um, miss Dijon..." "One more thing." " Besides the keys?" " Yes." "Because those weren't really a thing " "More of an excuse for you to walk to the door and then turn back and ask me a real question, which is coming right up." "Is it possible your boss knew something" " he didn't want to tell us about the missing girl?" " No." "Is it possible you knew something?" "Why didn't you tell us?" "I didn't like that girl." "Nobody who met her did." "But she was sweet Nikki." "Not around here, she wasn't." "I say she deserves what she gets now." " What does she get now?" " What she deserves." "The pie maker had gotten the information he needed, but not the information he wanted." "Nikki was apprenticed to the head clown, named Jackie Johnny, who, according to her, was a real lousy, low-down..." "I've never heard you say those words." "I'm just repeating them?" "Nikki left with Jackie Johnny after the show last night." "No one's seen them since." "Well, we need to find this Jackie Johnny and fast." "In less than 16 seconds, the dead girl who was not dead would be involved in the smallest of ironic coincidences." "For just as she said to herself..." "I wish I were where the action were at." "She was where it were at." "Sorry." "We're closing early today." "Her aunt Vivian, who would have dropped dead from shock at seeing her niece alive again..." "Hello?" "...arrived again." "Upon seeing her aunt Vivian return to the Pie Hole, it was not just Chuck's heart that leapt." "Hello?" "I'm an acquaintance of the pie maker." "A triple berry to go, if it's not that much trouble." "Y-you must be new here." "Our friend Olive used to deliver them to our house." "Always lifted the spirit." "Has anyone heard from Olive yet?" "I suppose not." "Quiet here without her." "My sister left again on an overnight trip without explanation." "the emptiness at our house was like a ringing chinese gong which only pie can muffle." "For many months," "Chuck had made her aunts the pies Olive had delivered," "Secretly adding homeopathic antidepressants to aid them with their grief." "Oh." "I-I didn't see it arrive." "Should I leave the money?" "But for now," "The only mood-altering ingredients in this particular pie were the endorphins in Chuck's tears." "Thank you." "You were a very kind listener." "If miss Dijon is right and this is the road she saw Jackie Johnny and Nikki take when they left and they weren't running away, it dead-ends in a mile." "I don't like this road." "Got a... "kick out the window and run because they about to cap your ass" kind of feel to it." "You okay?" "I just want to find this girl and get this case over with." "I know you think I made Chuck stay behind because I'm upset she moved out, but I'm not." "I know." "You're upset she's not upset she moved out." "I want to be happy, too, but I miss her." "It's hard enough being in a relationship where we can't touch, but... we improvise, figured out ways around that." "I've even built contraptions." "Do you understand how a head works?" "Do you?" "See, because every time you say something, I got to think it." "You say, "monkey in a bellhop suit driving a car,"" "I think, "monkey in a bellhop suit driving a car."" "Don't tell me what y'all do together." "There's a weird mask." "Please." "Now I'm begging you to stop this." "No, there's a weird clown mask back there in the bushes." "There's skid marks over there." "Car must have gone off the road here." "Emerson." "What you want to bet that's Jackie Johnny's clown wig?" "Poor Nikki." "Got a male driver in a clown costume." "Oh, that's got to be Jackie Johnny." "Got another male passenger, clown costume." "That's not Nikki." "Thank goodness." "Yeah, but now we got a missing girl, a dead mime, and two dead clowns." "Another one!" "Dead mime and three dead clowns." "Beelze-B!" "There's a whole bunch in the back." "Well, the good news is your daughter wasn't one of the many bodies recovered from the car." "It seems you're no closer to finding my sweet Nikki." "Well, we're doing all we can, mrs." "Heaps." "The tragic death of all the circus clowns was an unexpected development." "You need to find her, mr." "Cod." "I don't wear my feelings like a shiny, Sparkly Brooch." "But if I did, my sadness and anxiety would be mesmerizing right now." "We're making progress." "We know that Nikki was seen leaving late last night with Jackie Johnny, one of the unfortunate clowns in the car." "What's your plan -- to bring him back to life and ask him where she is?" "That was a joke." "Hey, sorry." "Thanks for meeting me here." "That's okay." "So, which one's Jackie Johnny?" "I'm sorry I asked you to stay at the Pie Hole." "Oh, it was very pleasant, actually." "Quiet all day." "From now on, until Olive gets back or we hire a new waitress," "I am closing the Pie Hole whenever we have a case." "Y-you can't close the Pie Hole." "People depend on it." "People can learn to live without the Pie Hole for a few hours at a time." "No." "No, not all people." "Vivian stopped by." "She never saw me, and then she left." "I told you they'd come back." "I know and you were right." "But I took care of it myself." "I can do that, you know." "I've noticed that, from where I live, across the hall." "Jackie Johnny?" "Hey!" "You got a smoke?" "No. uh, mr." "Johnny, we're looking for Nikki Heaps." "She was last seen leaving the big top with you after the show, but she wasn't with you in the car when we pulled you out of the pond." "Yeah, we left together, but I sent her back in to clean up the mess." "What mess?" "We had a little fun with a volunteer from the audience -- maybe a little too much fun." "Nikki's lowest on the totem pole, so I sent her back in to calm him down and hose him off." "What did you do to him?" "Let's just say it involves peppers the horse and a pound and a half of chocolate-flavored diarrhetic." "It's off-putting now, but hilarious in the moment." "After the show, you and your buddies drove away -- and another car ran us off the road." "As a matter of fact, that guy from the audience did threaten to kill us." "Do you remember his name?" "Yeah." "Bryce von Deenis." "I remember because we made up a limerick about him and had the whole audience sing it to him." "So von Deenis is the last person to be seen with Nikki." "And he may be responsible for driving 15 clowns off the road to their death." "There was a young man named von Deenis..." "Who they said had a very big..." "As the private investigator laid a trap for the last person to be seen with missing girl sweet Nikki Heaps..." "Lily returned to the nunnery to make a confession." "Psst!" "Everything I told you is a lie." "Oh, get out." "You're not Charlotte's mother?" "Okay, that part is true." "Charlotte is my daughter, but I never, never slept with Charles Charles." "He was my sister's fiancé and I would never do that." "But Charlotte thinks Charles Charles is her real dad." "And so did he, because I told him he was." "See, I tricked him into raising Charlotte as his own." "But you said you never slept with him." "I didn't... because I would never do that." "But... why did he believe you when you told him that Charlotte was his daughter?" "Damn it." "Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!" "So, it's not a lie, is it?" "You just wanted to take it back." "You hide booze in your bible?" "Ever since I told you what I did, the secret's like this elephant in our parlor again." "I can't even look Vivian in the eye." "Till one of us was on our deathbed, but that'll be for-friggin'-ever." "Shh!" "As Olive considered how the secrets she and aunt Lily were keeping were holding them back, the pie maker tried to explain his fear of letting go." "How did you sleep?" "I'm afraid to answer that." "Hey, maybe this is all too fast." "There are real risks to being on your own if people found out about you." "If your aunts are coming in to the Pie Hole now, then..." "Yeah, but why are they coming to the pie hole?" "I mean, why is aunt Lily on an overnight trip?" "That's not who they are." "Well, apparently it is who they are," "So I don't know who they are." "Who they were was brokenhearted and in mourning, which may be changing." "Oh, so they're allowed to move on and start over, but you don't want me to move across the hall?" "Excuse me." "I got this coupon for a dozen free pies from the Pie Hole." " Congratulations, take a seat." " Thank you." "You win some pies, mr. von Deenis?" "How do you know my name?" "Everybody knows it." "It's just one of those places." "We're looking for a missing girl." "You met her at the circus the other night." "A teenager named Nikki, a clown in training." "you were the last person to be seen with her before she disappeared." "Yeah, I remember her." "She was mad because the other clowns made her stay late to clean me up." "There's witnesses say you threatened the clowns' lives." "They stripped me down to my underwear, marched me to the center ring, where half the audience threw chocolate pies at me while they sang this "Oh, so funny" rhyming song about my name " "Ha ha -- so I thought they were done." "But, no -- They said I needed a shower, but there was no shower, just some horse named peppers." "Oh, my God." "Somebody did that to me, I'd want to kill them twice." "And I didn't even see it coming." "They made me wear some clown mask." "So when Nikki came back, you grabbed her, followed the other clowns and then ran them into the pond." "When you got out of your car to see what happened, you dropped your mask in the bushes right where we found it." " Where's Nikki, von Deenis?" " I don't know!" "I never chased after them." "Nikki did." " Nikki?" " Yeah." "I gave her back the clown mask, then she hopped in one of the clown cars and chased after them to catch up." "And you can prove it wasn't you that went after them?" "My kids wouldn't even get into the car with me." "They made me play games in the midway until my clothes dried off." "The trail of Nikki Heaps seemed to go cold." "The pie maker returned to his apartment and pondered what the temperature of his relationship with the girl across the hall was." "Chuck?" "!" "I talked to that ring-toss guy." "He confirmed von Deenis didn't leave the circus till after them clowns would have gone into the pond, so he didn't do it." "It's really late." "You got any tea?" "If Bryce was telling the truth about Nikki and she was the one who went after them, then that puts Nikki at the scene of the murders." "And he said she was angry." "Nikki didn't run them clowns off the road." "That ain't who she is." "I don't know." "I think you're right about people." "They decide they want a fresh start, and everything about them ends up changing." "I didn't come here to talk about dead girl." "Why the change of heart about Nikki?" "I guess my glass is half full on this one." "Generally speaking, I would say you don't even have a glass." "You just have a wet ring on the coffee table where the glass used to be." "Hey." "We're talking about a lost little girl." "Now, maybe she is a little pissant pain in the ass, but I don't think she's a murderer." "Why did you take this case?" "Nikki's mother asked me if I knew what it was like to lose a daughter." "Did your daughter run away?" "Wife ran away -- took her with seven years ago." " Does anyone..." " No one knows." "I know." "Wish you didn't." "I got to go." "Would you still recognize her?" "She was a stubborn little thing." "I'd recognize that." "At least some things never change." "Why are you smiling?" "This is all very weepy stuff." "You know, Nikki's mother told me the thing Nikki hated the most was being alone." "She left home with a mime, went straight to the clowns." "I bet she never even left the circus." "I bet she's too scared to go very far." "How can you be sure?" "Wishful thinking." "I'm gonna find this girl." "All right, will split up." "You two take the midway, i'll go around back to the big top." "What if we can't find her?" "Well, that means I'm wrong about her, and we're back to square one." "As the private investigators set out once again to hunt for the missing girl," "Olive and Lily ate the morning porridge and wondered if the truffle-hunting pig might be retrained to hunt for a packet of sugar." "I'd forgotten how much I hated this morning porridge when I was here." "I could throw up in my mouth a little and not even know the difference." "This is a terrible thing to say, but I thought that when Charlotte died... my guilt over what I did to Vivian might die, too." "But it didn't." "It lived on." "It was then that Olive realized she would now have to keep an even bigger secret from Lily that Chuck was still alive." "Maybe there's some sort of cosmic reason it didn't die." "Your guilt -- Not Charlotte, of course." "I just can't seem to put it behind me." "The truth is, I haven't really put Charlotte behind me, either." "Suddenly, without warning," "Olive snook had a tiny, yet very real, epiphany." "Maybe you shouldn't put Charlotte behind you." "Maybe you should put her in front of you." "Don't completely let her go." "Cling a little." "What about a fresh start?" "It's too soon." "You need to go home." "Your sister needs you." "She's lost her niece." "She can't lose you, too." "I can't make you stay in this place forever." "Lily, I came here to keep your secret, but I'm staying to keep one of my own, one that I could never, ever, ever tell you." "Tell me." "I still love the pie maker and he loves someone else." "Damn it." "Oh, forgive me." " Nikki?" " Nikki!" "Can I just say I know you can take care of yourself?" "When you moved out, I panicked because I thought everything was changing and " "Everything is changing." "Way to ruin a good apology." "What is so terrible about starting fresh?" "Because "starting fresh" means something else is ending stale." "You're Chuck, who I destroyed play-doh cities with," "Chuck, my best friend, my first kiss." "I don't want that to change." "Yeah." "And I'm also Chuck who went on a pleasure cruise and got a plastic bag put over her head." "That's not as much fun to remember." "But it happened." "And when it was happening, I was thinking " "Well, actually I was thinking, "son of a bitch." "Why'd I have to go get ice for my ginger ale?"" "But really I was thinking," ""I finally get to li my own life, and it's already over."" "And then you " "You came and you gave me another chance." "So it's my fault." "My first time around," "I was terrified of change, and I'm not gonna make that mistake again." "I can't." "But how can you start again with someone who only knows who you were before?" "How do we make it work?" "I knew the caterpillar, but maybe it's time for you to become the butterfly." "You did not just say that." "Did not know you were there." "Truckload of mimes just pulled up, and they ain't talking." "I mean, they can talk." "They just aren't saying anything except they knew there'd be jobs opening up at the circus." "Word must have spread about the clowns needing to be replaced." "Wait a minute." "Rocky was looking for a job, too -- look." ""Mimes, jugglers are invited to fill positions available immediately."" "There's no name, but... same number." "We found Rocky three days ago." "Before the clowns disappeared." "So how did the circus management know they needed to replace the clowns before they even knew they were dead?" "Unless someone knew they were gonna be dead." "Arnaud." "It was a union dispute." "Union?" "The clowns would pretend to go drinking, but I knew they were having secret meetings, trying to organize." "They wanted healthcare, more money." "I was gonna fire them, not kill them." "How did you know about these secret meetings?" "Nikki was my spy on the inside." "The other clowns had no idea." "She left here to follow them to a meeting the night they got run into the lake." "I swear, it was the last time I saw her." "Why didn't you tell us?" "Because I know I'd look guilty." "When she disappeared and you all came looking for her," "I got scared I'd get put away." "Why would Nikki want to be your spy?" "Said everyone thought she was a wallflower, so she was gonna start over and be a star." "Yeah." "Yeah." "She didn't like having to pay her dues with the other clowns, so we made a deal." "She'd spy on the clowns' union activities..." "In return, you'd put her in the show." "She said she'd do anything not to go back to who she was." "I just didn't think she was capable of murder." "What was that?" "Oh, hell no!" "Get down!" "I think the human cannonball was meant for us." "The range of a human cannonball is less than the diameter of a low rank travelling circus." "Was that Nikki?" "Did she shoot at us?" "No." "But I think I know who did, and if Nikki is still here, we better find her before they do." "The private investigator felt he was closing in on the answers to the mystery." "Hey, listen." "Nikki?" "Wow." "Toys." "Nikki, I know you're in here." "We know you were spying on the clowns." "You saw them get run off the road." "We know that because we found the mask" "That Bryce gave back to you." "You didn't run them off the road, Nikki, but you saw who did." "And now you're scared." "Am I right, honey?" "You're right." "I was too scared to leave, and I couldn't go home." "Ugh, my mom's gonna kill me." "Didn't you know we were looking for you?" "Well, yeah, but I figured you thought I had run the clowns off the road, so I hid." "I don't understand -- the only other person you told about the clowns' secret meeting was mr." "Arnaud." "Well, he didn't kill them." "How could anyone else have known?" "Arnaud was the only one she told, but he wast the only one who was listening." "Ain't that right, Ni-- anh-anh!" "Nikki!" "The facts were these" "Nikki Heaps had come to snitch." "Reporting to management that the clowns were planning their secret meeting she was sent back out to spy." "But someone else was spying on her." "Wanting to keep the budding clown union from blooming, the acrobat leapt." "The clowns drove off to meet secretly in the woods, hoping to officially form their union and plan their stand against circus management, leaving Nikki behind on cleanup." "The acrobat followed the clowns into the darkness, unaware that the left-behind Nikki was done with her duty and was now quickly catching up." "The acrobat would make sure that the only labor movement that night was a sudden movement off the road and into cold, murky water." "And as he would catch sight of young Nikki witnessing his terrible clownicide..." "The snitch would need to be snatched." "Look!" "That union would have put us all out of business!" "Whoever heard of a circus with a fair and safe workplace, eh?" "you fools!" "I only wished to scare the clowns!" "Yeah, well, what about Rocky the mime?" "Were you just trying to scare him, too?" "No, I wanted it to look like the clowns did it to scare off the mimes from taking the jobs." "You see, I just wanted everything to stay the same." "Is that so terrible?" "!" "Pierre, est-ce que je pouvoir une minute avec Nikki, s'il vous plait?" "Oui, une minute." "Rocky wrote you a poem." "Oh, he did?" "He was always so nice." ""No matter where you go or what you do, you'll always be my sweet Nikki Heaps"." "Thank you." "That's beautiful." "My demands are simple!" "Hand me one of those things." " Let me." " I demand safe passage across the border." "Secondly..." "You won me a prize." "The circus of fun acrobat set about serving 25 to life." "Olive, realizing that a new leaf might take some time to turn over, braced herself for a longer stay at the nunnery." "Chuck and the pie maker set about serving pies once again." "Aunts Vivian and Lily returned to their old habits of eating pie and keeping secrets, respectively, but did not return to being shut in." "And a mile to the west," "Emerson Cod gave the gift of a new beginning to others while he still could not give it to himself." "I still can't believe you did this to me." "Do you know how much trouble you've caused?" "You know what?" "24 hours ago, you was all like, "Find my daughter." "Find my daughter."" "Well, I found your daughter." "I don't know who she is anymore." "She's completely changed." "Love what's there." "Love it." "Love it." "As mother and daughter finally discovered what they were looking for, the private investigator wondered if what he was looking for had changed too much to ever be found." "It's been 5 days, 10 hours and 28 minutes since the pie maker's childhood sweetheart moved out of his apartment." "And the pie maker had embraced a fresh start." "My name is Ned." "I live a simple life." "I wake pies and make the dead." "That was creepy." "I make pies and wake the dead." "I live alone." "And this empty bed next to me has never been slept in by anyone, at any time." "I'm Chuck, a single girl who recently moved into her own apartment in a big city, raised in a small town by two unmarried sisters I call my aunts." "I have unexciting, yet realistic, hopes for my life." "I'm yet to meet anyone new here, and today is just another day in which I fully expect nothing special..." " Or exciting..." " To happen." " Hi." " Hi." "You must be the new girl in 44." "I'm Ned." "I'm Charlotte, but you can call me Chuck." "Hi, Chuck." "I really want to kiss you now." "But we've only just met." "We're two strangers in a big city." "These things take time." "I work in the Pie Hole downstairs." "Really?" "I own the Pie Hole downstairs." " May we... walk together?" "Well, that would be swell, Harvey." "It's Ned, actually." "Ned, very nice name." "Having recently discovered that watching someone else make a fresh start alone can be fairly traumatic, the lovers who could not touch were happy to find that making a fresh start together was a thrill." "Can we play this game every morning?" "Absolutely definitely."