The Motion of Puppets by Keith Donohue Page B

a little person, I do not mind.”
    The couple, who must have heard him, frowned as they passed.
    â€œI prefer the children, les enfants horrible, no more than two or three years old. They will look to their hearts’ content, unabashed, and point their fingers right at you as if to say, Maman , explain that to me. How can it be? A man just my size, what a glorious conundrum. But I get what you are feeling, Harper. Maybe you are a little bit paranoid, understandably.”
    â€œParanoid?”
    He drained the cold dregs from his cappuccino and scraped the last cloud of brown foam with his index finger. “Perhaps you feel you are being watched because of that incident with the police. And all those who are pointing a finger at you. Unjustly, I might add. But don’t worry. I defend you like a wolverine.”
    â€œWho is pointing a finger? What are they saying?”
    He licked the back of his spoon. “I don’t like to repeat gossip, but there are stories going around. These are actors, don’t forget, and worse, circus people. I overheard Reance tell a chorus girl that you lied to the police about the body of the drowned girl, who was in fact your wife, and you are hiding the truth because you killed her. The police have no way of identifying her. She is perfectly anonymous, no dental records, no fingerprints on file. Reance is being profoundly ridiculous. A slanderer. I’m not sure I should mention the other one, it might upset you.”
    â€œUpset me? What could possibly be worse than that?”
    Waving away the question, Egon fished in his pocket and laid a loonie coin next to his saucer. On the boardwalk in front of the Château Frontenac, a small crowd had gathered to watch a juggler in a striped shirt atop a unicycle. He was working with three bowler hats, catching each by the brim, and then sending them spinning like plates into the air. After a few moments, without a single hesitation, he flipped one atop his head, and the next, and finally the third, so that he looked like a triple-decker ice cream cone. The tourists applauded, and Theo and Egon were on their way before the empty donation hat could be passed to them.
    They walked to the overlook and stood along the cast-iron railing and watched the boats go by on the Saint Lawrence. “Kay’s mother has been in touch with the cirque. She says you haven’t been returning her calls.”
    Theo closed his eyes against the sunlight reflecting off the water. “I don’t know what to say to her anymore. She asks questions with no answers.”
    â€œShe’s distraught about her daughter.”
    â€œNaturally. I know. I just cannot face her.”
    â€œI’ve been getting this secondhand, realize. She spoke with the stage manager, who told someone who told me, so it is not from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Her mother thinks you two had a row, a blowup, and Kay has run away from you and is hiding. Afraid of you.”
    â€œHer mother barely knows me. Lost my temper? Why would Kay be hiding from me? We were happy.” Just as he said the words, he heard himself speaking of her in the past tense, and his voice caught in his throat. He pictured his mother-in-law back on her farm, fretting the days away over Kay, going about what chores she could manage in that stoic New England manner. While his first thoughts were sympathetic, he quickly grew angry about her suspicions. She had never liked him, not from the start. Perhaps the ten-year age difference with her daughter bothered her more than anything, though he could not be sure if a more fundamental distrust existed. She was unfailingly cordial to him, hospitable on the few occasions when they’d spent the night under her roof, but she focused almost all of her attentions on her daughter, as though he was not there. The last time they saw Mrs. Bird, at the wedding earlier in the year, she had seemed so fragile in her wheelchair. But there was