"Previously on Pushing Daisies:" "You touch murder victims, ask who killed them touch again, they go back to dead." " Then you collect the reward?" " In a nutshell." " Are you the business partner?" " Yes, ma'am." " I'm a father." " A daughter?" "Where?" " Why don't you ever...?" " Scratching an itch makes it itchier." "Hide what you know." "I'm always hiding what I know." "I'm Charlotte's mother." "I am a sawed-off shotgun full of secrets." "I'm quitting you." " This is your home." "Where will you go?" " I know a place." " Shh!" " Shh!" " What do you need to be happy?" " You." " Just moving next door." "It'll be romantic." " How is it romantic?" "You're moving out?" " Are those my books?" " Welcome home." "It's been 76 days, two 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." "Ms. Moss believed every child was a butterfly at heart  and her kindergartners knew that every caterpillar learns to fly." "On this day, Ms. 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, eggs inside or birds?" "Eggs." "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." "How many do you think?" "Seven." "How about you?" "Ninety-nine thousand." "Aren't they beautiful?" " Would you like to see our 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 woodpecker chicks back to health." "And today, today we're gonna set them free." "Unaware of the project, the boy thought  that whatever creatures traded their lives  would be small, random and hidden in the woods." "Sadly, this was not the case." "It's okay." "It's okay." "I'm so sorry." "As the boy and his dog returned from whence 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 one year, 22 weeks and four days  since he touched his childhood sweetheart and brought her back to life." "And two 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." " Sleep okay?" " I woke to the smell of toast drifting through sun-dappled curtains and thought how lucky to be alive in a world with sun-dappled anything." "I got so excited I was afraid my smile would vibrate veneer off the cabinets." " It was me cooking toast and eggs." " Oh, thank you for that." "Thank you, and thank you for bringing me back to life." "Not in that order, but..." "How'd 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?" "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." "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 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 Nikki's just another runaway, so they won't look for her." "But that's not who she is." "She's sweet and helpful." " Did you ask her friends?" " 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 the inside of his throat." "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." "She and Nikki weren 't the only missing persons that morning." "There was another." "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." "Lily doesn't ever want her sister, Vivian, to find out because Vivian was engaged to Chuck's father when she got pregnant." "And he fully admitted to 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 mid-morning 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 night." "Chuck's just filling in." " When's Employee of the Mouth 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?" "I hear those bells, I'm afraid Chuck's aunts are gonna walk in again." "Lily and Vivian, for 20 years, never left the house." "What happened was incredibly unusual." "Please take this right:" " So is being dead but not dead." " Amen." "While I might be shocked to see your aunts, people dead but not 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 back seat of a car after a day at the beach." "Would anyone like to make some money?" "Sweet Nikki Heaps disappeared three weeks ago." "Who's that next to her?" "Randi Jean, her best friend." "I already talked to her, she doesn't know anything." "Let me talk to her." "She's not gonna tell a big PI, rat out her friend." "I'm not gonna tell you anything about Nikki." "I've made up my mind." "You should know, my dad says my mind's like a refrigerator in a deserted lot." "If a secret's out there 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." " They do." "You don't think it's curious Olive left in the night?" "Because I'm curious." "I'm very curious." "Curious is tighty-whitey for angry." "You ain't angry because Olive left." "You're angry because the dead girl moved into the empty apartment." " You're wrong." "Person gets his sip of a fresh start, they wanna start drinking it from the hose." "Today, an apartment." "Tomorrow, Paris and a croissant-maker named Philippe." " That's not Chuck." " Nikki's 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 a medicated pad next time Nikki wants to go out." " Where'd she get the guts to run away?" " You think it took guts?" "Most people think it was stupid." "I just moved out on my own and it's scary." "Finding things in common so I lower my guard and tell you where Nikki is?" "The good cop thing won't work." "I know." "I hate when people do good cop to me too." "Sometimes I wanna run away, like Nikki." "That's not why she ran away." "Nikki wants to be a star." "But her mom wouldn't take her seriously." "She's over being sweet little Nikki." " Shoot." "I didn't wanna tell you that." " I didn't want you to, either." " Isn't that weird?" " We are so alike." "If we ran away, think we'd end up where Nikki is?" "I wish." "She moved in with a cute guy in a tricked-out van." " He's in entertainment." " No." "The guy who has that thing with the entertainment?" "I know him." "You know Rocky Boselli?" "Shoot." "Nikki Heaps?" "Are you in there?" "Hello?" ""Mimes do it with imagination." That's cute." "That thing should've said, "If this van's a- rocking, I'm being murdered."" "Looks like he's been dead about a week." "One minute." " You Rocky?" "He really is a mime." " Hi, sweetie." " Were you living with Nikki Heaps?" "Did she kill you?" "All right, that's enough." "Someone poisoned my makeup." "Don't know who." " Where's Nikki now?" " With some clown." " A real clown?" " Yeah." "We met the jackass and all his jackass buddies at the disco." "They're with the traveling circus." "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?" "I love that." " Hey." " Looks like we're going to the circus." "Can I get a menu, please?" " Over there in the pile of menus." "What's with the attitude?" "What was with the attitude was this:" " What do you mean, I can't come?" " Someone's gotta run The Pie Hole." "The Pie-Maker." " Emerson needs me." " Why?" "No dead body to wake." "Nice." "Anyone not hear that?" " Mad at me?" "Is this about something else?" " I'll let you come next time." " Thanks for permission." " You don't need permission." "Thank you for the permission not to need your permission." "It's a traveling circus." "Not a "wait around for you to work all your junk out" circus." " I'll be back soon." " And I'll be here forever." "That was 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 mid-afternoon prayers, Sister Olive." "Excuse me, Mother Superior." "Does something ever happen where you think everything is "blah"?" "Like blah brick walls, blah faux-Shaker furniture blah good works, and then, shizam 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." "When 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 wanna run away here?" "People decide they wanna leave and start over." "A switch flips, a fuse blows, then everything's gotta change." "You can't just have half a revolution." "And don't be looking at me with them psychobabbly eyes like this case is personal to me." "No eyes." "Just looking." "You're not allowed back here." "We don't allow stubs snooping around." " Stubs?" " 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 their pocket." " I got it." "We're investigating the disappearance of a girl and murder of her boyfriend." "Sorry, I can't help you." "Have you seen the separate police lockup for cocky young acrobats?" "I haven't." "I'm upside-down, mon ami." "I'm not foolish." "So Nikki was last seen with the clowns." "Talk to Señor Arno in the office trailer." " He's in charge of the Circus 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 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 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." " Well, thanks for your help." " Sorry I don't remember the girl." "You notice his secretary snort-giggled whenever he made a joke?" " She also snort-giggled when..." " When he said he didn't remember her." " Could have been a nervous snort-giggle." " She knew he was lying." "She's worth a second look." "I'll go." "Oh, let me." "Did I leave my keys, Miss...?" "De Jong." "No, I don't think you did." "Oh." "Um, Miss De Jong, 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 then turn back and ask me a real question, coming right up." "Possible your boss knew something about the 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." "Well, not around here she wasn't." "I say she deserves what she gets now." " What does she get?" " 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." "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." "Hello?" "Upon seeing her Aunt Vivian return to The Pie Hole  it was not just Chuck's heart that leapt." "Hello?" "I am an acquaintance of the Pie-Maker." "A triple-berry to go, if it's not that much trouble." "You must be new here." "Uh-huh." "Our friend Olive used to deliver them to our house." "Always lifted the spirit." "Has anyone heard from Olive yet?" "Uh-uh." "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 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 De Jong is right, and this is the road Jackie Johnny and Nikki took they weren't running away." "It dead-ends." "I don't like this road." "Got a "kick out the window and run because they're about to cap your ass" kind of feel to it." " You okay?" " Wanna find this girl, get this over with." "You think I made Chuck stay behind because I'm upset she moved out." "I'm not." "I know." "You're upset she's not upset she moved out." "I wanna 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?" "Every time you say something, I think it." "You say, "Monkey in a suit driving a car," I think, "Monkey in a suit driving a car."" " Don't tell me what y'all do together." " There's a mask." "Please." "I'm begging you to stop." "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 wanna bet that's Jackie Johnny's clown wig?" "Poor Nikki." "Got a male driver in a clown costume." "That's gotta be Jackie Johnny." "Got another male passenger, clown costume." "That's not Nikki, thank goodness." "But now we got a missing girl, a dead mime and two dead clowns." "Another one." "Dead mime and three dead clowns." "Bealzebeeb." "There's a whole bunch in the back." "The good news is your daughter wasn't one of the many bodies recovered." "It seems you're no closer to finding my sweet Nikki." "We're doing all we can, Mrs. Heaps." "The tragic death of the circus clowns was an unexpected development." "You need to find her, Mr. Cod." "I don't wear my feelings like a sparkly broach, but if I did, my sadness and anxiety would be mesmerizing right now." "We're making progress." "We know Nikki was seen leaving 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." " It's okay." "So which one is Jackie Johnny?" "I'm sorry I asked you to stay at The Pie Hole." "Oh, it was very pleasant, actually." "Quiet all day." "Until Olive gets back or we hire a new waitress I am closing The Pie Hole when we have a case." "You can't close." "People depend on it." "People can learn to live without The Pie Hole for a few hours." "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, you were right." "But I took care of it myself." "I can do that." "I've noticed that." "From where I live." "Across the hall." " Jackie Johnny?" " Hey." "You got a smoke?" "No." "Mr. Johnny, we're looking for Nikki Heap." "She was last seen with you, but wasn't in the car pulled out of the pond." "We left together, but I sent her back to clean up the mess." " What mess?" " We had fun with a volunteer." "Maybe too much fun." "Nikki's lowest on the totem pole, so I sent her to calm him down and hose him off." " What did you do to him?" " It involves Peppers the horse and a pound and a half of chocolate-flavored diuretic." "It's off-putting now, but hilarious in the moment." "After the show, you 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 audience sing it." "So Von Deenis is the last person 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's true." "Charlotte is my daughter." "But I never, never slept with Charles Charles." "He was my sister's fiancé." "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!" "Shh." "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." "I was gonna wait to tell her till one of us was on our deathbed, but that'll be for frigging ever." "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'd you sleep?" "I'm afraid to answer that." "Maybe this is all too fast." "There are risks being on your own." "If people found out, if your aunts are coming into The Pie Hole..." "Yeah, but why are they coming to The Pie Hole?" "Why is Aunt Lily on an overnight trip?" "That's not who they are." "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." "So they're allowed to move on, 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 looking for a girl you met at the circus." "A teenager, Nikki, a clown in training." "You were the last person seen with her." "Yeah, I remember her." "She was mad because the other clowns made her stay late to clean me up." "Witnesses say you threatened the clowns' lives." "They stripped me to my underwear, marched me to the center ring where the audience threw pies at me while they sang this oh-so-funny rhyming song about my name." "Ha-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 wanna kill them twice." " I didn't even see it coming." "They made me wear some clown mask." "You grabbed her, followed the other clowns, then ran them into the pond." "When you got out, you dropped your mask 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." "You can prove it wasn't you who 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 till after them clowns would've gone into the pond." "He didn't do it." " It's really late." " You got any tea?" "If Bryce was telling the truth, and she went after them that puts Nikki at the scene." " He said she was angry." " Nikki didn't run them off the road." " That ain't who she is." " I don't know." "You're right about people." "They want a fresh start and everything ends up changing." "I didn't come here to talk about dead girl." " Why the change of heart about Nikki?" " My glass is half full on this one." "I'd say you don't have a glass, just a wet ring on the table where the glass used to be." " Hey." "We talking about a lost little girl." "Maybe she is a little pain in the ass, but I don't think she's a murderer." "Why did you take this case?" "Nikki's mother asked 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 gotta go." "Would you still recognize her?" "She was a stubborn little thing." "I would recognize that." "At least some things never change." "Why are you smiling?" "This is all very weepy stuff." "Nikki's mother told me the thing Nikki hated the most was being alone." "Left home with a mime, went straight to the clowns." "Bet she never left the circus." " I bet she's too scared to go far." " How can you be sure?" "Wishful thinking." "I'm gonna find this girl." "All right, we'll split up." "You two take the midway, I'll go around back to the big top." "What if we can't find her?" "Then I'm wrong about her." "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 and not know the difference." "It's 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." "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 lost her niece." "She can't lose you." "Can't make you stay in this place forever." "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." "Forgive me." "Nikki?" "Nikki!" "I know you can take care of yourself." "I panicked because I thought everything was changing..." " Everything is changing." " Way to ruin a good apology." "What is so terrible about starting fresh?" "Starting fresh means something 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." " Yep." "And I'm also Chuck who went on a cruise and got a bag put over her head." " That's not fun to remember." " But it happened." "And when it was happening, I was thinking..." "I was thinking, "Why'd I have to go get ice for my ginger ale?"" "Really, I was thinking, "I finally get to live my life and it's already over."" "And then, you..." " 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." "How can you start again with someone who only knows you 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 management know they needed to replace the clowns?" "Unless someone knew they were gonna be dead." "Arno." " It was a union dispute." " Union?" "The clowns would pretend to go drinking." "But I knew they were having meetings, trying to organize." "They wanted more money." "I was gonna fire them, not kill them." "How'd you know about these meetings?" "Nikki was my spy on the inside." "The other clowns had no idea." "She left to follow them to a meeting the night they got run into the lake." "It was the last time I saw her." " Why didn't you tell us?" " I know I'd look guilty." "When she disappeared and y'all came looking, I got scared I'd get put away." "Why would Nikki wanna be your spy?" "Everyone thought she was a wallflower." "She was gonna start over and be a star." "She didn't like having to pay her dues with the other clowns, so we made a deal." " She'd spy on the union activities." " 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!" "Ta-da!" "I think the human cannonball was meant for us." "Aware that the range of a human cannonball is less than the diameter..." " There!" "...of a low-rent traveling 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?" "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." "Why would you stay here at the circus?" "I was too scared to leave." "And I couldn't go home." "My mom's gonna kill me." "Didn't you know we were looking for you?" "Well, yeah, but I figured you thought I'd run the clowns off the road, so I hid." "I don't understand." "The only other person you told about the clowns' meeting was Mr. Arno." "And, well, he didn't kill them." "How would anyone else know?" " Arno was the only one she told." "But he wasn't the only one who was listening." "Ain't that right, Nikki?" "Hey, Nik." "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 duty." "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 clown side  the snitch would need to be snatched." "Look." "The union would have put us all out of business." "Who ever heard of a circus with a fair and safe workplace, huh?" "You fools." "I only wished to scare the clowns." "What about Rocky the mime?" "Just trying to scare him too?" "I wanted it to look like clowns did it, to scare mimes from taking their jobs." "You see, I just wanted everything to stay the same." "Is that so terrible?" "Oui, one minute." "Nikki, 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." "First, for the return of..." " Hand me one of them things." " Let me." "I demand a safe passage across the border." "Secondly I want..." "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-ins." "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 five 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've yet to meet anyone new here, today is just another day in which I 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 wanna 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."