Heads You Lose (6 page)

She was sure this was where the body previously known as Darryl Cleveland was rolled. She knew this trail, day or night. You forget where you left your keys, that cup of coffee you were drinking earlier, but you remember things like where you dumped a headless body in the middle of the night. Lacey scaled down the incline and stared at dirt and weeds—a human-sized matted patch confirmed that she was in the right place. She kicked the dirt around, for no good reason. But then she noticed an unnatural little shape cresting to the surface. She brushed the top layer off with her hands and found a ring. She exhumed it, blowing dirt off the silver. She’d seen it before—a woman’s wedding ring with a Celtic design, adorned with diamond chips.

It felt like every bit of air escaped her lungs. She inhaled as hard as she could, but it wasn’t enough. A sense of terror swept over her. She stuffed the ring in her pocket, scouted the terrain for signs of life, then scaled up the embankment and ran back to her car.

On the drive home, the anxiety didn’t abate. Lacey had watched enough true-crime TV shows
⁸
with Paul to know she was tampering with evidence. She was interfering with a criminal investigation that hadn’t even started. And worst of all, Lacey might know the killer. He’d left his ring at the scene of the crime, after all. Well, his mother’s ring, but he always carried it in his pocket. Lacey’s next move couldn’t be a hasty one. She had to think about her every step until this whole thing was over. Then she realized that if anyone connected the body to the second dump site, her footprints were all over it.

Lacey drove ten miles up the two-lane blacktop, five miles past Emery. A fleeting positive thought drifted through her as the woodsy landscape passed in her periphery. It could be worse. She could live in Emery and sling hash at Diner (they didn’t even bother giving it a name). While driving, Lacey unlaced her shoes and slowed the car. When the coast was clear, she tossed them out the window one at a time.

“Where have you been and what happened to your shoes?” Paul asked when Lacey returned home.

“Driving,” Lacey replied, sidestepping the second question.

Paul had always had a notoriously short attention span. In fact, no one would play basketball with him anymore—he kept forgetting which team he was on. Lacey figured a quick subject change and he’d forget all about her missing footwear. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Paul about her excursion.

“Who crashed?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” Paul replied.

“Whose plane?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“You’re just chock-full of useful information,” Lacey said. Sometimes she had to pull teeth to get a complete answer from Paul. Other times he was as long-winded as a folksinger. When it came down to it, Paul had more to say on subjects he knew nothing about.

“A plane went up into a ball of flames. Just like in the movies. Where were you? The whole town was there.”

“Not the whole town,” Lacey replied.

“If you’ve got something on your mind, spill it,” Paul said.

When Paul wasn’t stoned, he could tune in to Lacey’s moods like a transistor radio (which might explain why he smoked so much). But it had been a while since he was thinking clearly. It took her by surprise. Besides, she didn’t like being in this alone. So she told him.

“Headless non-Darryl is missing from his second resting place.”

Paul sighed. Lacey wasn’t sure if he was sighing about the missing-body part or the Lacey-knowing-about-the-missing-body part.

“You returned to the dump site?” Paul asked, disappointed. “Good job staying under the radar.”

“The whole town was occupied. I couldn’t have manufactured a better scenario.”

“Lacey, you have to let it go.”

“A man is dead. I can’t let it go.”

“A man is always dead, Lacey. Is it your plan to start investigating them all?”

“If they’re dumped on our property, yes,” Lacey replied.

Paul took a hit from the pipe he kept in his pocket. He reached for his beer, clumsily knocking it over. Paul righted the bottle and saved the few ounces that remained. Lacey jumped up to grab a rag from the kitchen. Then she stopped herself halfway to her destination and said, “You spilled it, you clean it up.”

Lacey’s brief assertion was followed by the sound of an engine barreling up the driveway. If both siblings had been hooked up to an EKG, the thing would have exploded.

“Shit,” Lacey said, not even knowing who they’d find on the other side of the door.

The engine died suddenly, so they knew it wasn’t Rafael paying another visit. Paul approached the curtains.

“Don’t peek,” Lacey said. “It looks suspicious. Just act normal.”

“Normally, I’d peek through the curtains,” Paul replied.

Lacey watched the beer drip onto the shag carpet. She shook her head, returned to the kitchen, and grabbed a sponge and dishrag. She cleaned up the mess, waiting for the doorbell. Despite expecting the unnerving buzzing sound, both siblings jumped as if they’d been stung by a bee.

Paul looked through the peephole.

Who is it?
Lacey mouthed. Paul’s complexion whitened even beyond his usual indoor tan.
Sheriff Ed
, he mouthed back. Paul hid the pipe and pulled the can of air freshener from the pantry, loading the room up with the scent of a mountain breeze, whatever the hell that was. Lacey answered the door, despite her recent stand against it.

“Sheriff, to what do we owe the pleasure,” Lacey said.

Paul rolled his eyes out of sight. Lacey had never used that phrase before, especially not to law enforcement.

The sheriff nodded at Paul and remained in the foyer. Lacey wondered whether the sheriff was smelling mountain breeze or mountain breeze masking the scent of marijuana. When Sheriff Ed’s nostrils flared and he shot Lacey a glance, her question was answered. She always had a feeling he knew what was going on in the basements and backwoods of Mercer, but he usually seemed to turn a blind eye. His reticence unnerved her, but she channeled her energy into making a show of tidying up after Paul’s beer spill.

“It’s like living in a frat house,” she mumbled.

“I wish,” Paul replied.

“You seen Terry Jakes?” the sheriff asked.

Lacey was hearing about Terry Jakes all the time, but she had to pause to remember the last time she’d actually seen him.

“He came into the café a week ago maybe.”

“How about you, Paul?”

“I talked to him on the phone Monday night.”

“How’d he sound?” the sheriff asked.

“You’ve talked to Terry before,” Paul replied. “You know what he sounds like.”

Paul’s habit of occasionally taking questions too literally was yet another trait that Lacey loathed. She shot her brother a glance loaded with both embarrassment and hostility and clarified the question in the most condescending manner.

“He means, did he sound normal? Was anything strange about your conversation?”

“You could be a detective, Lacey,” the sheriff replied.

“Don’t encourage her,” Paul replied.

“Do you recall what you and Terry talked about?”

“He was working on his
Survivor
application. He wanted to know if I’d shoot the video for him again.”

Ed and Lacey sighed in unison.

“I wish he’d give up on that,” Ed commented, looking to the ceiling as if that wish were just as hopeless as Terry’s dreams of fame.

“They always have one redneck per season. Terry doesn’t see why it can’t be him,” Paul said.

“Why are you asking about Terry?” Lacey inquired.

“He’s been missing forty-eight hours. His ex-wife called and asked if I’d locked him up for the usual and then we had a talk. I made a few phone calls. He might have taken a vacation. You know Terry. He’s unreliable on a good day. But still, let me know if you hear from him.”

With that, Sheriff Wickfield departed. Lacey double-bolted the doors and joined her brother on the couch. The silence between them was as unnerving as a jackhammer right outside your bedroom window. Paul turned on the television and ramped up the volume. He didn’t want Lacey to ask the question she was going to ask.

“Do you think—”

“No,” Paul replied with the speed of a man drawing his gun.

“They’re about the same size,” Lacey mumbled.

Paul turned up the volume even higher. Lacey shot up from the couch and manually turned off the television, although it took her a minute to find the button, not having done that in years.

“Have you heard anything about Hart lately?” she asked, sitting back down on the couch. They looked like two spies meeting on a park bench, avoiding eye contact and speaking under their breath.

“Why are you asking about Hart?”

“No reason,” Lacey replied.

“There has to be a reason,” Paul said, and you could tell he was curious about that reason since he didn’t turn the television back on.

“I haven’t heard from him in a few months. Wondered if anybody else had.”

If Lacey told Paul the truth, that she had Hart’s ring in her back pocket, they might have reverted to their childhood selves and gotten into a wrestling match right then and there. It was unfair, Lacey thought, that a man whose primary forms of exercise were fetching beer from the fridge and hopping into his truck could outfight her. But it was one of those hard facts women live with.

Paul looked at his sister askance; his brain played with just a few pieces of a puzzle.

“Did Hart steal your shoes?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Out of the blue you start asking questions about Hart. And your shoes have mysteriously disappeared and you won’t talk about it. I’m just trying to make the facts add up.”

“Listen, Sherlock, that’s probably the worst example of deductive reasoning I’ve ever heard.”

“Then enlighten me.”

“There’s trouble brewing, so it’s only natural that Hart comes to mind,” Lacey said. While it was true that trouble seemed to follow Hart around, when they were a couple, she couldn’t see it until the very end. Hart let you see only what he wanted you to see. Eventually Lacey accepted that he was a skilled con artist, but she never remembered feeling like she was being conned. He’d made her feel like she was always the only person in the world.

“What happened to your shoes?” Paul asked.

“My footprints were all over the second dump site. I got paranoid and decided to get rid of them.”

“Where?”

“I tossed them in the Diner dumpster in Emery.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Lace?”

“No.”

NOTES:

Dave,

While this is the first time I’ve indulged in a traditional whodunit, I do know that we should be sprinkling the story with clues, to move things forward. You have to admit you have a tendency to become infatuated with characters at the expense of story.

Still, I think we’re generally heading in the right direction. Good luck dealing with that plane crash. If you’re having trouble sorting it out, let me know and I’ll help.

Lisa

P.S. Can we meet Terry Jakes, please?

Lisa,

Thank you for your generous offer of help. But keep in mind that it’s still early. Try to be patient. I’m reminded of all the weak lukewarm tea you’ve served me because you couldn’t wait for the water to boil.

Don’t worry about Terry. Once you meet him you’re going to want to feature him in all your chapters.

As for the road trip, I would think after all this time you’d have a few fond memories of it. I know I do.

Dave

CHAPTER 6

Late Saturday morning Paul stood at the base of a thirty-foot wooden ladder in the forest, looking up.

“So this is your idea of irony,” he shouted up at the platform above him. “Lying low above it all.”

No response.

“Terry!” he shouted.

“Terry no here! You come back later!” came the answer from above, in a ridiculous accent alternating between Beijing and Edinburgh.

“I’m coming up,” Paul shouted. At the top of the ladder, he nudged his head up through the wooden hatch. It landed with a whack as his head popped up through Terry’s floor.

“Hey, little brother,” Terry said to the head.

“Sheriff Ed’s looking for you,” said Paul. He smelled chili, Terry, and gin, in that order.

“And I’m all the way out here. What a coincidence. What did he say?” He was slurring his words.

“Nothing, just if I’d seen you.”

“What’d you tell him?” Terry asked.

“The truth.”

“Hmm. An interesting gambit. I’ll look into that,” Terry said, offering his hand to Paul and helping him up into the shed.

The forest service fire observation tower was Terry’s retreat whenever the pressure of work, ex-wives, or the “powers that be” tripped his hairtrigger instinct for self-preservation. Not that he was selfish—when Terry had taught Paul the business, he did so with no expectation of reward. “You don’t owe me shit,” he once told Paul. “I take that back. When I’m old and pissing myself, you got to pull the plug.” Even early on, he never asked Paul about his parents. Terry knew he was no one’s idea of a father figure, and he never tried to fill that role. As a result, in a weird way, he partly did.

Paul took a seat at the tiny wooden table. The shed was just big enough for the table, a stool, a cot, and the hatch. Surrounding the shed was a rickety observation deck. The whole thing felt like a crow’s nest on a pirate ship.

“So what brought you out here? Hard time from the ex-wives club?” Paul asked.

“Just protecting the citizenry, as usual,” Terry said. His voice was shaky, and not from the gin—Terry usually got louder and more articulate when he drank. “Me and Smokey taking care of business.”

“Glad you’re okay. I—”

“You’re just in time for happy hour,” Terry interrupted. “I forget—how do you take your martinis?”

Paul thought for a second, taking a seat on the stool. “Warm, bone-dry, not shaken or stirred, served in a plastic Thermos cap. Preferably Winner’s Cup. Failing that, Bombay Sapphire.”