Heads You Lose

by Lutz, Lisa; Hayward, David

  Paul flipped it over. $600,000.

  “That’s five zeroes, right?” said Rafael. Paul was still catching his breath.

  “Five zeroes,” said Marv.

  NOTES:

  Lisa,

  I’m not enough of a dreamer to ask you to read this chapter objectively, but I’m hoping you’ll suspend your stubbornness long enough to absorb it on its own terms. Sometimes giving up the fight is the best thing that can happen to you. Like on the road trip, when we found that hot spring in the snow because we didn’t stay at the safe motel like you wanted.

  Dave

  P.S. You never answered my question. Was I the first writer you asked?

  Dave,

  Somehow I don’t think almost freezing to death is the best thing that can happen to me. “I’m sure we can make the next gas station,” you said. We were stranded in the car overnight during a snowstorm and your main memory of that trip is the fucking hot spring?

  I could go on, but let me keep my criticism constructive and objective. Please don’t make up phony argot. AVD? Not a real term, if Google counts for anything.

  Lisa

  P.S. If you must know, I asked a few established authors before contacting you.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lacey stifled a chuckle. Exhaustion, stress, and nerves tore through her system and suddenly that muffled chuckle transformed into hysterical laughter. About a minute later, under Paul’s impatient scowl, she was able to speak. Barely.

  The words came out in hiccups. “Glo-glo-bal warming? Real-ly?”

  “Is it so impossible to believe?”

  Lacey responded with more laughter. She held up the piece of paper with five zeros on it as if to make a point. Paul realized then that he should have consulted his genius girlfriend before bringing the news to his sister.

  “So,” Lacey said, still choking with mirth, “you think Big Marv wants to pay us six hundred thousand dollars for a property that might be worth something in thirty years? Look at the man! He won’t be around another fifteen.”

  “He said it was his final offer,” Paul said.

  “It’s not,” Lacey replied. “You know what you should do, since the Babalato brothers clearly prefer negotiating with you over me? You should call Jay and thank him for the offer and tell him you’re thinking it over.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Paul said.

  “I didn’t,” Lacey replied. “I was merely making a suggestion.”

  As soon as Lacey departed, Paul called Jay Babalato and left a message.

  Lacey had quite a to-do list for the day and she wasted no time getting started. She drove directly to Doc Egan’s office and got straight to the point.

  “Why did you tell me you got a divorce when your wife died?”

  “I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “That’s suspicious behavior, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so. But I never thought it would come up.”

  “What happened?” Lacey asked.

  “She was hit by a bus,” Egan replied.

  “My condolences.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Were you with her at the time?”

  “Excuse me?” Egan replied.

  “Were you with your wife when it happened?”

  “No.”

  “So, it’s not like you could have pushed her in front of the bus, right?”

  “Right,” Egan replied, clearly startled by Lacey’s lack of delicacy.

  “And it’s not like you could have paid off a bus driver to do it. That would be almost impossible to arrange. Especially since they’re never on time and stuff.”

  “What are you getting at, Lacey?”

  “I’m just thinking out loud. With all the murders happening around me, I want to make sure that I can dispense with some vague suspicions and get on with the real business.”

  “I see.”

  “Shit happens, right?”

  “I guess so,” said Egan. “Do you need something?”

  “Yes,” Lacey quickly replied. “You need to make a face-to-face appointment with Doc Holland.”

  She departed without saying another word.

  On each of the three days since he’d been expelled from Mapleshade, Sook had made a habit of pickling himself at the Timberline. Lacey decided an afternoon excursion would be good for his health.

  “You’re coming with me,” she said.

  Sook was tanked enough to be agreeable. He finished his well whiskey and followed Lacey out of the bar.

  Twenty minutes later, Lacey parked just down the road from We Care Gardens. “Here’s the plan,” Lacey said. “You play drunk.”

  “I am drunk,” Sook replied.

  “Then it should be a piece of cake. I need you to keep Big Marv busy while I search his office.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know yet. He wants to buy our property. Bad. I just have to figure out why. It’s a long shot, but I need to see if there’s anything he’s keeping in his paperwork that would help me negotiate.”40

  “What should we talk about?”

  “I don’t know, Sook. Tell him what it was like during the Civil War. No, tell him your days are numbered at Mapleshade and you’re thinking about a move to We Care.”

  “Bite your tongue.”

  Lacey ignored his protest. “Keep him occupied and out of his office as long as you can. Try to get him to give you an official tour. Can you handle it?”

  “I’ve always considered myself a formidable raconteur. I accept your challenge,” Sook said, slurring his words.

  While Lacey circled the building, Sook entered through the front door and rang the bell at reception. Lacey watched Big Marv hoist himself out of his chair and lumber into the front office.

  Lacey raised the window to Marv’s office halfway and vaguely overheard the conversation in the front room.

  “Sook. You get lost or something?” Big Marv asked.

  “No, sir. I am exactly where I am supposed to be.”

  “Something I can do for you?”

  “I assume you’ve heard about my difficulties at Mapleshade,” Sook said.

  “I heard you were accused of stealing from the petty-cash box. Third time in a row.”

  “A man is innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Maybe in a court of law. Not in these parts,” Marv replied.

  Lacey quietly somersaulted through the window. She gingerly paged through the paperwork on Marv’s desk. All patient-related, mostly Medicare billing. She tried the file drawer on the bottom left side of the desk and it was locked. She checked for a key in the center drawer, but found only pens and a variety bag of mini Hershey’s chocolate bars.

  “I’ve been thinking of finding a new home,” Sook said, just on the other side of the wall.

  “Well, good luck with that. Thanks for dropping by.”

  Lacey froze, thinking their conversation might be coming to an end. She’d either have to throw herself out the window or slip into the closet, but Sook’s raconteuring gave her a short reprieve.

  “I got two options,” Sook said, “We Care Gardens, or find another town. I’m liking the first choice better.”

  “You want to become a resident of We Care?” Marv asked.

  “I’d consider it,” Sook replied.

  “No offense, Sook, but we like our residents to be a bit more … how do I put it.”

  “Comatose?” Sook suggested.

  “Cooperative,” Marv replied.

  Next to the desk was a three-drawer file cabinet labeled “active.” The top drawer was slightly ajar. Lacey opened it, hoping the noise wouldn’t disturb Marv. Inside was a collection of resident files. Lacey didn’t know what she was looking for, but it wasn’t that. She closed the top drawer and tried the second one.

  Sook continued to hold his own in the front room, but Lacey knew she was running out of time.

  “I’d be willing to provide a security retainer if you thought that was nece
ssary,” said Sook.

  “Interesting proposition,” Marv replied.

  “Now how about the official tour,” Sook said.

  “Let me check my calendar in the office and we can schedule one.”

  Lacey ducked behind the file cabinet, holding her breath.

  “Who am I kidding,” Sook said. “I know this property like the back of my hand. How about you and me take a little stroll and hammer out the details.”

  “I’m kind of busy right now, Sook.”

  “Just give me five minutes to plead my case.”

  “Five minutes.”

  Lacey opened the second drawer in the file cabinet as she heard Sook’s and Marv’s voices fade as they left the building.

  “Marv, did I ever tell you about the time I was shot in the ass during the Korean War?”

  “No, Sook, I don’t believe you have,” Big Marv wearily replied.

  “Shot in the ass. It was friendly fire, too. I always hated that phrase. Friendly fire. There’s nothing friendly about it.”

  Lacey opened the second drawer and found more patient files. She was about to close it when a name on one file caught her eye: “Moakler, Eldridge.” A glaucoma patient, among other things. The Hansens used to sell to him—Lacey remembered bringing him brownies around Christmastime—but then he had a stroke and could barely feed himself. He’d died sometime in the spring. This presumably relevant medical fact appeared nowhere in the file. And it wasn’t that the file was out of date—in fact, it contained a Medicare claim from just last week.

  Just then she heard Sook’s voice booming in the office. He was warning her that her time was up.

  “You can’t sit down. That’s the worst part,” Sook said.

  “You don’t say,” Marv replied.

  “I tell you, we take sitting for granted.”

  “Sook, we’ll be in touch,” Big Marv said.

  “Try not sitting for a whole day. I challenge you. Just give it a try and see what it does to your whole worldview.”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” Big Marv replied.

  Lacey tossed the file out the window and then somersaulted out after it. She circled the building and met Sook in the adjacent woods.

  With Sook back in her custody, Lacey drove to the Tarpit to sober him up and review the file.

  “This is big,” Lacey said when she was done. “Looks like Big Marv and company were billing Medicare and receiving Social Security benefits for dead residents.”

  “I knew something was fishy about that place. And you’re welcome, by the way,” Sook replied, drinking his cappuccino and eating a bran muffin.

  “What should I do with this?” Lacey asked.

  “Shouldn’t you wait until you’ve closed the deal with the Babalatos before you start nosing into their business?”

  “I guess,” Lacey replied.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Sook, “but you seem to be getting distracted, just like your brother. I thought you were looking into Hart’s murder. Isn’t that what you’re really after?”

  Sook had a point. If she started poking around every unpunished crime, this saga would go on forever and she’d never get out of Mercer. She had a murder to solve, plain and simple, and she was going to do it. She decided to put the Babalatos on the back burner—at least until there was reason to think their scam was related to the killings.

  Lacey turned her thoughts back to the death of Harry Lakes. She wasn’t the only sibling who was aware of the finite window. In fact, she’d thought of it on her own ages ago. But now she realized there were two finite windows that could eliminate suspects. Suddenly, solving the murder seemed as simple as conducting a survey of all their acquaintances. She started with the person sitting right in front of her.

  “Sook, where were you yesterday between one-fifteen and one forty-five p.m.?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Just answer the question, Sook.”

  “I was at Betty’s place. Don’t you remember? You dropped me off?”

  “Right,” Lacey replied. “And Betty can confirm you were with her?”

  “We were playing pinochle.”

  “So you can confirm Betty’s whereabouts. Correct?”

  “That’s usually how it works when two people are together,” Sook replied. The cappuccino was sharpening him up.

  “Congratulations,” Lacey said.

  “For what?” Sook replied.

  “I’ve just cleared you on the Harry Lakes murder. Now tell me, where were you last Sunday between two and three a.m.?”

  Lacey drove to Tulac and made a copy of the Moakler file on the ancient Xerox machine at the Slow and Easy convenience store. She’d have to figure out how to sneak the file back into Big Marv’s office, but she figured he wouldn’t notice its absence for a day or two.

  At home, Lacey drafted a list of all the persons of interest who lived in Mercer, Emery, and Tulac, which basically consisted of all of Paul and Lacey’s friends and acquaintances. Lacey scratched Sook off the list and Doc Egan, since he had no motive; she also eliminated a few obvious non-suspects, like anyone legally blind or immobile, which included a large majority of the We Care and Mapleshade residents. At the top of the list she wrote Doc Holland in quotes. As far as Lacey was concerned, he was suspect number one. Although she couldn’t figure out how he could lug a grown man (minus head) on and off their property. But maybe he had a sidekick, some brain-dead local short on cash.

  When Paul came home, he entered the kitchen and, against his better judgment, asked Lacey what she had been up to. Lacey split the piece of paper in half and handed it to Paul.

  “You want this thing to end, don’t you?”

  “What thing?”

  “Living with your sister in a nowhere town, looking over your shoulder for killers. Maybe you even want to break up with that gimpy stripper and find a genius with a good leg and less history.”

  “I love Brandy.”

  “It was worth a shot,” Lacey replied. “Still, you want this investigation to come to end, right?”

  “Most definitely,” Paul replied.

  “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m merely suggesting you help me with this investigation. We do that, we’re free to move on. This here is a list of suspects. We’ve got a finite window now. All we have to do is ask a few questions, exonerate one suspect at a time, and eventually our suspect pool will be a puddle and the killer should be obvious.”

  “I see,” Paul said, studying the list. “I’m on board. But can you do me one favor?”

  “What’s that?” Lacey replied.

  “Scratch me off the list.”

  “Sorry about that,” Lacey said, striking a pen across Paul’s name. “Clerical error.”

  The siblings sat in silence until the telephone broke it. Paul picked up on the second ring.

  “Hello,” he said. “Hmm. Interesting. Well, I’ll have to discuss it with my sister and get back to you. Good-bye.”

  “Who was that?” Lacey asked.

  “Jay Babalato.”

  “Did you call him like I told you to? I mean, like I casually suggested.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He just upped the offer to eight hundred thousand dollars.”

  NOTES:

  Dave,

  I hope you don’t mind me fleshing out the criminal activities of your Babalatos. Remember that suspicious interview with Mr. Portis? I thought our readers might like to be clued in about what was going on. I could trust that you would eventually handle the matter, but there’s still an unexplained plane crash haunting Mercer, so my trust is in the wind.

  Since you’re committed to seeing this thing through, let’s try to see it through as quickly as possible. Quick refresher on murder mysteries: By the end, we know who killed everyone.

  Lisa

  Lisa,

  Eureka. We’ve finally found our common purpose. Let’s finish this up so I can move on. Only o
ne thing: You never responded to my coin-toss suggestion for who gets the last chapter. Until I hear otherwise, I’ll interpret your silence as assent. You name the time and place; I bring the coin.

  Dave

  CHAPTER 26

  Perched on her stool in Mercer Airport’s radio booth, Wanda slid the little window back. Through the opening, Paul made the usual joke about the booth’s resemblance to a snack bar.

  “I’ll have a corndog and a small Mr. Pibb,” he said.

  “Good one,” said Wanda. “Haven’t heard it since yesterday.” She had sunken eyes.

  He handed her a big cup of Tarpit coffee. The sun was halfway up.

  “Rough night?”

  “Online poker tournament. Around three a.m. I flopped a set and went all in. Some maniac caught runner-runner for the straight.”

  “Bad beat,” said Paul, demonstrating a large percentage of his poker vocabulary.

  “You too—I heard about your plants,” said Wanda.

  “I didn’t know you played,” said Paul, re-changing the subject. “I should get back into that.”

  “Oh yeah. In fact, I host a game every other Saturday night.”

  “Every other Saturday?” Paul asked, perking up.

  “Yep. Usually we’re done by four, but sometimes we go almost till six. You should join us sometime.”

  “Save me a seat,” Paul said. “So do you remember who played last time?”

  “The night after the plane crash? Sure. Let’s see. It was mostly ladies’ night. Deena was the first to show up. Then some cute brunette from Tulac, walked with a cane. She really owned it, though. Made it sexy. Who else? Oh yeah, Betty. One brownie too many—she folded a gut flush and then crashed on the couch.”

  “My bad,” said Paul, reconsidering the optimal pot/chocolate ratio and feeling a little sad about the craft he might be leaving behind.

  “Then a little after two, Tate from the Timberline showed up,” Wanda continued.

  “Weird assortment of people,” Paul remarked.

  “Weird town.”

  “So who won?” he asked.

  “Yolanda from Mapleshade. She came with Betty. Her first time. Had quite a few bills on her for a nurse’s aide. All small denominations. If she was built a little different, I’d say she was stripping on the side. Hey, why are you so curious? Sorry I haven’t invited you, but you said you didn’t like to socialize too much with your customers … ”