Heads You Lose (19 page)

Martin took Tate’s place behind the bar, which would serve as the evening’s podium. Judging from the eulogy, Martin was a devout Christian and hardly knew Terry. Next up, the goth niece delivered a poem that rhymed “incendiary” with “Uncle Terry.” It wasn’t until Wanda delivered a reminiscence about Terry as a misfit high school kid that the crowd started to choke up. Terry’s old parole officer was up last. He started to say a few words but was too emotional to finish. His wife came up and hugged him around the neck. Tate announced the end of the speaker portion of the evening. It was time for the will.

Paul and Brandy stood together at the back of the bar, with Lacey teetering next to them. All three were bleary-eyed. As Tate popped the videotape into the VCR, Paul just hoped Terry didn’t use the will to send the whole town on a wild-goose chase, like in
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,
one of Terry’s favorite movies. After the static cleared and the crowd hushed, Terry’s image appeared on the TV above the bar.

“This is Terrence Leotis Jakes,” he said solemnly, and then slowly panned the room, as though examining everyone in the crowd. “The killer,” he proclaimed, “
is among you.
” The Timberline went silent. Then Terry burst out laughing.

“Naw, I’m playin’. Chances are I died doing some dumb shit. Hope you all at least got a good laugh out of it, and that somebody caught it on tape. Maybe I’m a YouTube celebrity already. Okay, down to business.” He raised his hand, Boy Scout style.

“This hereby is my final will and testament. It shall taketh precedent over all other documents. Forthwith I disclose my postmortem wishes and intentions as to the disbursement of my earthly possessions and whatnot.” He cleared his throat.

“First, a word of warning. My body may remain in a state of
samadhi
for five days after my death. Do not be alarmed. This is normal for enlightened ones of the
yeshe chölwa
. That means crazy wisdom, for those of you who don’t know.” Paul thought he could feel the crowd roll its collective eyes .
²⁷

“After such period, I wish to be cremated. Whereupon, at the earliest convenience, my remains shall be scattered upon Mount Fuji, preferably by helicopter. Until such time, my ashes shall be maintained in a container of highest quality above the bar at the Timberline. Up near the good stuff.”

Everyone started to choke up again.

“Okay, let’s get down to who gets the goodies. To Deena Jake . . . er, Dixon,” he stammered. “Girl, we almost made it. You are still my angel. I’ll always love ya.”

Terry cleared his throat and assumed a more officious tone: “Conditional upon the assumption that you are not in jail for killing my ass . . .”

“I tried!”
Deena shouted from the back of the bar. The crowd erupted in laughter.

“I leave you my life savings,” Terry continued, “as well as any and all other monetary assets. Seemed like it was all headed in your direction anyway. No hard feelings, babe. Don’t spend it all in one place.

“And to my dear second wife, Christina Mackey: I know we had our disagreements, but after careful consideration, I leave you with one of my most profoundly cherished possessions . . .
bupkis
!”

As the laughs died down, Lacey said, to no one in particular, “What’s a bupkis?”

Brandy blurted, “It’s Yiddish for ‘nothing.’ Actually, the earlier Eastern European Yiddish term was
bobke—
the diminutive of
bob,
a type of bean. So, interestingly,
bupkis
is related to other legume-based expressions of worthlessness, such as ‘not worth a hill of beans.’”

Brandy covered her mouth, realizing what she’d done. “I mean, like, I think that might be what it means . . . I had a Jewish . . . uncle?”

Paul put his arm around her and gave her a long, knowing look.

“How long have you known?” she asked.

“Pretty much since the Kierkegaard incident.”

“Are you mad?”

“Splenetic,” said Paul.

True to form, Terry’s will went on for a while. He left Darryl, “my brother from another mother,” his truck and his Bobcat mini-excavator.

“And to my cousin Harry,” Terry continued, “I leave my house in Mercer.”

Everyone turned to look for Cousin Harry, who apparently wasn’t in attendance.

The tape played on. “As to my property on the Mercer–Emery line, the magnificent Shady Acres, I bequeath it to its previous owners—the Hansen family, Paul and Lacey.”

Paul’s eyes welled up as he absorbed Terry’s gesture. All Lacey could think about was how it could hasten her escape from Mercer.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” Terry said. “To my buddy Hart, I leave my extensive library of spiritual literature. Be careful, brother. Don’t take life so serious. I’ll see you around the bend.”

Lacey gasped when she heard Hart’s name. She’d never known Terry and Hart to be anything more than distant acquaintances.

Then Terry reached off screen and brought a white bass guitar into the picture. “One last thing in closing,” he said. He plugged it in, causing a loud pop, and lurched into a slow bass line. Paul had forgotten about Terry’s bass phase. He recognized the tune immediately, though he hadn’t heard it in years. It was a Terry Jakes original, “Travelin’ On.” Terry sang in a high and delicate voice:

Girl I know you think it’s over
And you know I got to fly
But I’ll come find you some cold mornin’
And we’ll start a new good-bye

By the third verse everyone was crying, even Tate. Not content to let the vocal sentiment of the song stand as his final statement, Terry proceeded to improvise a four-minute slap-bass solo. It was terrible, and great. Pure Terry.

He reached out to turn the camera off, succeeding after a couple of tries. Tate turned off the VCR and the memorial abruptly shifted gears into raucous party mode. Someone set up a karaoke machine with Terry’s favorite songs, and pot smoke seemed to rise up out of the floor. Terry should have been there.

NOTES:

Lisa,

I tried to nudge things along without turning Paul into Magnum P.I. Hope you’re okay with Lacey’s lack of activity here. Poor girl seemed like she needed a breather, what with all the redundant-death witnessing.

I realize the video-will takes a while, but I figure you won’t begrudge me my last few moments with Terry. I thought he deserved a fitting send-off. I present it in the spirit of reconciliation, not provocation. Terry would have wanted it that way.

Dave

Dave,

Now that you’ve said a proper good-bye to Terry, I do hope you can get back to murder-solving. Let me rephrase that: Maybe you can get started on some murder-solving, now that we have not one but two bodies to worry about. And if you keep that shit up with Brandy, I wouldn’t be surprised if a third person met an untimely end.

There’s no way in hell Lacey hasn’t heard the word “bupkis.”

Lisa

CHAPTER 19

Lacey awoke in the kitchen with her head resting on her murder notebook and the smell of burnt coffee wafting through the room. She turned off the coffeemaker and scrubbed out the stale brew that had congealed on the bottom. Her head throbbed and her mouth tasted like Irish coffee, beer, and something else. Oh yes, Jägermeister. That was the salve for the group sing-along. At least that part of the evening would forever remain foggy.

Lacey chugged a pint glass of tap water and then searched the bathroom for aspirin. In the mirror she saw something on the side of her face that resembled a primitive starburst. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite recall its origin. She scrubbed her face, brushed her teeth, and swallowed three aspirin, hoping that more coffee would give her the energy she needed to get to work. Her real work, that is—solving Hart’s murder.

Paul’s bedroom door was open, which meant he’d spent the night at Brandy’s. Something about that woman never sat right with Lacey. If she was so smart, why did she waste that gift on stripping? And what kind of genius lives in Tulac? Besides, that whole “pole-dancing injury” always sounded like a chapter in a white trash fairy tale.

Over fresh coffee, Lacey revisited her notebook, where she drew lines linking Hart to every one of Mercer’s citizens who had ever had anything to do with the man. The ink starburst on her face, she realized, had transferred when she slept on her notebook. Lacey decided to start from scratch and deepen her suspect pool—Big Marv and Jay Babalato, Doc Holland, Darryl Cleveland, Sheriff Ed, Deputy Doug, Rafael, Tate, Lito, and Sook, although she had a hard time writing down that last name. She also had Terry on the list. Just because he was dead didn’t mean he couldn’t have murdered someone before he died.

Lacey decided to pay another visit to the sheriff to see if he was making any headway in his investigation. She watched Deputy Doug devour a bearclaw through the office window. He stuffed the remaining pastry in his desk drawer, brushed the crumbs off his shirt, combed his hair, and checked his teeth in the reflection of his screensaver. When she entered the office, Doug got to his feet as if she were a four-star general.

“Lacey. What a pleasant surprise.”

“I’m here to talk about murder, so I’m not sure how pleasant it will be.”

“I see. What can I do for you?”

“You? Nothing. I’m here to see Sheriff Ed.”

Doug, disappointed, sat back down at his desk and picked up the phone.

“I’ll see if he’s in.”

“He’s in,” Lacey said. “His car is parked out front.”

Lacey strode down the hall to the door marked SHERIFF ED WICKFIELD. She knocked twice and waited. Inside she could hear the sheriff say, “I told you, no interruptions this morning.”

Lacey knocked again. A moment passed and eventually Ed opened his door.

“Lacey,” he said, wearily. His uniform, usually a specimen of military discipline, was wrinkled and spotted and had the odor of at least two days’ wear. Perhaps Sheriff Ed was in fact burning the midnight oil on Hart’s murder. Lacey decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Morning, Sheriff,” Lacey said, brushing past him and taking a seat.

The sheriff returned to his desk and summoned a smile.

“What can I do for you, Lacey?”

“I just thought I’d check in and see how the investigations are going.”

“Investigations?” Sheriff Ed asked, emphasizing that final s.

“Yes. The Hart murder and the possible homicide of Terry Jakes.”

“As for Hart, I have nothing to report. Unfortunately, without a head, we can’t pin down cause of death, and without that, we’re looking for diamonds in a manure heap.
²⁸
And frankly, no one seems to know what he’s been up to these last six months, but I can assure you, Lacey, that I’m working every lead.”

“I have a theory,” Lacey said.

“I’m sure you do.”

“Terry Jakes’s murder—”

“It could just have been an accident.”

“For argument’s sake, let’s say it wasn’t.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, for one, they were friends. Two, they happened within ten days of each other. Mercer hasn’t had a murder in fifteen years. What are the odds?”

“Lacey, investigating ain’t horseracing. We’re not playing odds. We’re looking for evidence. That’s how police work is done.”

“Have you found incriminating evidence at the fire tower site?”

“An architectural consultant is coming in next week to investigate.”

“Next week?”

“That’s as soon as we could get him. Anything else I can help you with?”

“I didn’t do it,” Lacey said.

“Do what?” Sheriff Ed asked.

“I didn’t kill Hart and I didn’t kill Terry, in case you were wondering.”

“Lacey, I don’t suspect you.”

“Well you should,” Lacey said.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Objectively, I benefit from both of their deaths. There’s that life insurance policy from Hart, which I didn’t know about, but still. And then Terry bequeathed that land back to us. Plus, I was the only witness to the collapse. So, I could see how I would be a suspect, but I’d really like to save you the trouble of investigating me. Because, seriously, Ed, I didn’t do it.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Ed replied.

“How do you know?” Lacey replied.

Sheriff Ed sighed and sank back in his chair. “Because, Lacey, I’ve known you since you were in diapers. You never had a violent streak or even much of a temper against anyone besides that brother of yours. Also, in my experience, women don’t usually chop off heads.”

“That’s very sexist of you, Ed.”

“I knew you were going to say something like that.”

“Since you’ve ruled me out as a suspect,” Lacey said, “I’d look at Big Marv if I were you. He wanted Terry’s land, and Deena is a notoriously bad negotiator. I’m sure he thought Terry was going to leave everything to her.”

The sheriff’s intercom buzzed. Deputy Doug’s voiced boomed into the office.

“The missis is here.”

“Send her in,” Sheriff Ed replied.

Lacey got to her feet. “I’ll be in touch,” she said.

“Remember, Lacey. We all have our jobs to do. While I appreciate your assistance, I’ve got this investigation under control.”

“Have a nice day, Sheriff.”

Lacey passed Ed’s wife, Lila, in the hall. They had the kind of acquaintance that required only a smile and the nod of a head. Lila left a scent in the air that Lacey found strangely familiar—some specific floral fragrance she couldn’t name. As Lacey passed the front desk, Doug got to his feet again. Lacey didn’t even look at him this time as she aimed for the door.

“So . . . uh, Lacey,” Doug said, “I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”

Lacey turned around and looked at Doug. “It’s a small town. We can’t escape each other.”