“Did you kill Hart?”
Of course, Sook denied killing Hart. And Lacey believed him. Unless the old man had an accomplice, it was a physical impossibility, considering all the variables involved in the aftermath of Hart’s death. Still, Lacey was no longer sure what Sook was capable of. She decided to steer clear of him for a while.
She drove straight home, took a shot of whiskey, and sat down on the couch next to Paul. They watched a rerun of The Littlest Catch, about the perils of Canadian shrimp fishing. During a commercial break, Paul hit the mute.
“You know, Lace, maybe this is rock bottom,” he said. “Maybe it’s time I quit watching this stuff.”
Lacey was stunned for a moment, but quickly recovered. “Or even ever mentioning it again?” she asked.
“Deal,” said Paul.
It was the first thing they’d agreed on in days.26
The shock of the telephone ringing jarred them out of their shared moment of clarity. Lacey jumped for the phone.
“Give us ten minutes. We’ll be right there,” Lacey said into the receiver, and then hung up the phone.
“Who was that?”
“Deena. She’s at the Timberline. Smashed. Needs a ride to the hospital.”
“Why?”
“Terry took a turn for the worse.”
When the trio arrived at Terry Jakes’s hospital room, a sheet was pulled over his head.
“What happened?” Deena asked the nurse.
“Pulmonary embolism,” the nurse replied. “I’m afraid it’s very common with these types of injuries.”
“A pulmonary what? I was just talking to him this morning. He was fine,” Deena said as tears began rolling down her ruddy cheeks.
“It’s a blood clot in the lungs. Most likely it traveled from his leg. A lot of damage was done there.”
“So he’s dead?” Lacey asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Um, yes.”
“Because I thought he was dead the other day and he wasn’t. So let’s just—”
“Lacey!” Paul interrupted. “That’s enough.”
“Do you want to say good-bye?” the nurse asked.
Deena nodded her head. The nurse pulled the sheet down and there was Terry Jakes, looking bruised and battered and most definitely dead.
NOTES:
Dave,
Once again, please accept my condolences. I consulted my friend Dr. Pedram Navab and he assures me that a pulmonary embolism is a very common complication with these types of injuries. There was no foul play involved in Terry’s second demise, if that makes you feel better. And he wasn’t in pain. At least not too much, although he did have some difficulty breathing. My point being, don’t delve into any hospital conspiracy. There is none.
As a friendly reminder, let’s not forget that there’s still one primary mystery to solve here: Hart’s death.
Lisa
P.S. If you bring Terry back again, I’m putting him through a woodchipper.
Lisa,
Greetings from the high road. Guess I should be pleased with small victories, like the fact that you didn’t send Terry’s gurney down an elevator shaft, or have him whisked away by a highly concentrated tornado. Putting a medical gloss on your deus ex machina doesn’t make it any less clunky. You keep harping on keeping the mystery going; maybe you should focus on the characters’ vendettas, rather than your own.
Sorry you were bored by my last chapter. Maybe, like Terry, I’ve learned that burning too brightly can be dangerous. If the Fop experience taught me anything, it’s that Bordeaux and Twinkies don’t mix.
Dave
CHAPTER 18
On their way out of the hospital, Paul and Lacey were approached by another nurse. “Paul Hansen?” she asked. “I’m not supposed to do this, but Mr. Jakes asked me to let you know that his will is on a videotape in his bedroom closet. He said to show it to everyone at the same time.” In his mind, Paul was already on the way to Terry’s. He’d already postponed grieving for his friend—right now he had to get his plants back home just in case Sheriff Ed wanted to take this opportunity to start poking around Terry’s place.
Lacey was silent on the drive home. She’d never seemed to appreciate Terry while he was alive, but apparently seeing him die twice in two days was more than she could take.
“Get some rest, Lace,” Paul said as he dropped her off at home. “I’ll take care of the plants.”
She dropped out of the truck and somnambulated into the house.
At Terry’s, Paul loaded his plants back into his truck, covered them with a tarp he found in the garage, and then went looking for the video will. Terry had a massive collection of tapes, both Beta and VHS, and Paul doubted it included one clearly marked “Terry’s Will.” Paul dreaded the prospect of enduring untold hours of dharma talks, bargain-bin porn, and metal concerts, but it had to be done.
After sampling a dozen tapes in front of Terry’s nineteen-inch console TV, he played a hunch and inserted one marked “Intermediate Levitation.” When Terry came on screen with a solemn look on his face and announced, “This is Terrence Leotis Jakes,” Paul knew it was the one. Terry’s forehead was smudged with the remnants of tribal war paint—he must have taped the will after one of his Survivor application sessions a few years back. Paul ejected the tape, honoring Terry’s wishes. He stuffed it in his bag and drove his plants home.
Paul was up first the next morning, despite having been up late reestablishing the plants in the basement. “Happy anniversary,” he said as Lacey trudged into the kitchen.
“A year since we found the body?” Lacey deadpanned.
“Close. A week.”
“What did you get me?”
“A basement full of high-yield pot plants.”
“Aw, you shouldn’t have.”
“It was my pleasure,” said Paul, raising his coffee. “Here’s to a less eventful week two.”
“Whatever.”
Lacey poured herself a cup to go and headed out the door. She worked full eight-hour Tarpit shifts on Thursdays and Fridays, and for once she seemed content to have two days of mindless work ahead of her. Paul noticed that her inquisitiveness seemed to have waned since Terry’s death.
Paul called Deena just to check in on her. Several of Terry’s friends and relatives had converged on Mercer as soon as they’d heard about the tower collapse. It seemed like a good idea to have some kind of memorial service while they were still in town. Deena said she’d put the word out. She was glad to have something to do other than, as she put it, “sittin’ around thinkin’ about old shoulda-beens and usedta-coulds.” The coroner wasn’t ready to release the body, but why should that hold things up? She agreed to arrange things with Tate. That afternoon, Deena’s friends put signs up around town: “Timberline. Friday 6pm. JAKES’ WAKE. All friends and family of Terry Jakes welcome.”
With those details sorted out, Paul couldn’t help wondering how a tower stands firm for decades and then spontaneously collapses. Maybe it had been on the brink for years, and Terry was as suitable a last straw as any. Stranger things had happened, including several in the past week. In any case, Paul wasn’t about to go poking around the place, which was no doubt being scrutinized by Mercer’s finest.
Paul’s thoughts turned back to the list of WINO names from the cabin. If he couldn’t begin to untangle the mystery that seemed to have Mercer by the neck, maybe he could tie up a loose string from the past. Or at the least get some reassurance that the two weren’t parts of the same thread. He took out the list: Blakeys, Collaspos, Sundstroms. The Sundstroms were the only couple Paul thought he could picture, but their address was way out in Easternville. He decided to start with the closest address: Grace and Victor Collaspo, who apparently lived on the north end of town—or did when the list was made.
As he walked up to the house, he could see a small, plump woman washing dishes, her head barely visible in the window. She came out to her porch and hugged
him. “Paul Hansen. You look just like your mom.” She embraced him as though his parents’ death had happened last week. Paul didn’t recognize her. “Come in, come in,” she said.
Sitting with Paul at her dining room table, she didn’t ask how he’d found her or what he was looking for. Paul hadn’t planned what to say, so he winged it. “I was just wondering about the time, you know, with my parents’ accident. My, uh, therapist thought it would help me get some closure on it.”
“Well, that’s just great. Good for you,” said Grace. “I don’t know if I can help you, though. I hadn’t seen your folks for a while when the accident happened. Victor and I were going through a rough patch at the time.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“Don’t be. We split up a good three years ago. And I do mean a good three years. Are you married, Paul?”
“Nope.”
“That’s fantastic. What’s the rush, right?”
“So where’s Victor now?” Paul asked.
“Florida, I think. He went off with Jas Blakey. All I can say about that is they deserve each other.”
“Ah. She was part of WINO, too, right? Is her … is Walter Blakey still around?”
“Wow, I’m surprised you remember his name. Yeah, he’s in the same house up in Emery. I think he even still uses the cabin.”
Back in his truck, the reality of Terry’s death started to hit Paul. He’d visit Walter Blakey when he had time. For now, he had some deliveries to make, some soil amendments to buy, a plot of young plants to check on, and a friend to mourn.
On Friday evening the Timberline was already starting to fill up when Paul and Brandy arrived. It felt like half of Mercer was there, along with lots of Terry’s out-of-town friends and relatives. Someone had put together a decent buffet, and everyone had made at least a gesture toward funeral attire. Even Darryl was wearing black jeans. Paul said hello to Terry’s goth teenage niece, Melinda, who actually looked a little perkier than usual.
Lito showed up just after Paul, and the two shook hands and made small talk. Betty and Wanda hung around the buffet table with Rafael. There were plenty of other locals in attendance. Paul wondered how many of them had known Terry, how many were just there for the free booze, and how many straddled that line. Then again, Terry was not one to deny anyone their rightful share of free booze. The question itself was what Terry would have called a “mute point.”
Tate rang the “Last call for alcohol” bell to get everyone’s attention. “Okay folks, thank you all for coming,” he said stiffly. “We are here to celebrate and remember our friend Terry Jakes. I will now turn it over to Terry’s cousin, Martin Jakes. Martin?”
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.
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