“Just scoping the competition. I should go home and start practicing. You heard about Harry Lakes, right?” he asked as he stood up from the stool.
“Terry’s cousin? I hear he’s just like Terry.”
“Was,” Paul corrected.
“Aw, no way,” she said. “When?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Bullet in the head.”
“Shit, no one tells me nothin’ out here. This shift is killing me. Six in the a-goddamn-m to two in the afternoon every day.”
“Stay safe,” said Paul. He started for his truck, then stopped and turned. “Hey, about that plane—” he started.
“No idea,” said Wanda.
Back in his truck, he took a look at the suspect list Lacey had assigned him, then crumpled it. He wasn’t doing this just for Lacey. He was also doing it so he could start his new life—just him, Brandy, Irving, and either a valuable new property or a suitcase full of Babalato cash. In a pocket notebook, he made his own list of the poker players:
POKER NIGHT
Betty
Candi
Deena
Tate
Wanda*
Yolanda
The poker game gave all six a strong alibi for the night Hart’s body was moved back to their property. The star after Wanda’s name indicated an additional alibi, for Wednesday’s Harry Lakes shooting, during which she would have been at the airport. It wasn’t exactly watertight, but he reminded himself that he only had to satisfy his sister’s Scooby-Doo–caliber investigative standards, not his own.41
And by anyone’s standards, all the women on the list were extreme long shots anyway. Only Wanda would be strong enough to move a large body on her own, and none of them, with the possible exception of Candi, had a shady past or an imaginable reason to mess with him or Lacey. They also lacked a motive to kill Hart, Terry, or Harry (though that trio was hardly known for smooth relations with women). His friend and colleague Rafael also seemed beyond suspicion.
Among the poker players, that left only Tate for the Jakes–Lakes killings. Paul had arrived at the Timberline around four p.m. on Wednesday, just as Tate was getting off his shift. That meant Tate had been on the afternoon shift and would have been seen by at least a few customers. So Tate, too, was in the clear for both finite windows. The sky was still brightening, and Paul had already knocked off a half-dozen suspects. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.
Paul drove back home to pick up his remaining stash. It was Senior Circuit Friday, and he still had bills to pay.
Irving came jogging up to his truck with a sorrowful look on his face and, as usual, something in his mouth. When Paul got out of the truck, Irving dropped the grisly item at his feet. Paul picked him up.
“What’s the matter, mister?” he asked.
Irving meowed.
“Senior Circuit today. Want to come?”
No response.
“Suit yourself, but it might be the last one ever.”
Paul looked down at the stringy offering.
“What’s that boy, a clue?” he said, his standard Lassie joke.
The bloody little pile didn’t look like something Irving had brought him before. The digestive tract of a bird, maybe? Did birds even have digestive tracts? Paul put Irving down and poked it with a twig. It wasn’t animal at all. It was medical thread and blood-soaked gauze.
Two thoughts crossed Paul’s mind: 1. Lacey had lied about her stitches. She’d removed them here, not at Doctor Egan’s office. Which made her visit to his office Wednesday afternoon suspicious. 2. Irving had brought him the one item on their property that was tied to Doc Egan.
Paul didn’t believe in assigning human traits to animals, but Irving was a highly intuitive cat. And didn’t all animals have incredibly sensitive mechanisms for sensing danger? As Terry liked to point out, almost no wild animals had drowned in that massive flood in Indonesia a few years back. They’d all headed to higher ground. Maybe Irving was just trying to help Paul do the same.
“Good boy,” said Paul.42
Paul called Rafael and explained his alibi project. Rafael promptly offered up his Wednesday whereabouts.
“For lunch I had a burrito up at Taco Bout Delicious in Emery. Hang on a sec,” he said. “Yep, I still have the receipt in my wallet. Buck-fifty for extra guacamole. Time stamp says 13:12.”
“Awesome,” said Paul. “So how about late Saturday night two weeks ago, say two to three a.m.?”
A long moment passed.
“Shit,” Rafael finally said. “I hate to kiss and tell.”
“Who is she?” said Paul.
“Oh boy,” said Rafael. “This is just between you and me, okay?”
“Of course,” Paul said.
“All right, think MILF.”
It took Paul about two seconds. “Lila Wickfield.”
“Uh, a little higher up the age range.”
“Wow. Deena Jakes?”
“Higher up, in every way.”
Paul was stumped. “Come on, man. Who?”
Paul heard Rafael exhale before he gave the answer: “Marybeth Monroe.”
“Jesus,” Paul exclaimed. “Hart’s mom?”
“I went up there looking for Hart to see if he’d seen Brice. She was having some wine and I joined her. It got weird. Afterward she wanted to make me a sandwich and stuff. Not my finest hour, okay?”
“Did you at least find out anything about Hart?”
“Just that his mom—”
“Okay, okay,” Paul interrupted. “Want to help me out later?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
“A ride. Egan knows my truck.”
Back in his room at Mapleshade, Sook was grateful to get his usual package, and Paul let him defer payment. The old man had been reinstated the previous night, and he’d need every bit of juice he could get to stay out of trouble, including the special services he provided to certain staff members and residents. Paul didn’t bother giving Sook the alibi quiz since Lacey said she’d already cleared him.
Down the street at We Care, Lito was trimming some bushes on the side of the main house. Before Paul had even left his truck, Lito called out, “I don’t know anything. My dad and uncle aren’t here.”
“Take it easy. I’m here on business,” said Paul, patting his pocket. He was fine with the wait-and-see approach with the Babalato deal. At the current rate, their offer could hit seven figures before the weekend was out. He and Lito went back to a tool shed and made their customary transaction. Mr. Skittles watched them sleepily from a corner.
“I do need to ask you one favor,” Paul said afterward. “I’m trying to help my sister get through her fear and start living a normal life again. So I’m just asking everyone where they were during a couple of recent time periods.”
“She always seemed a little high-strung,” said Lito.
“So how about two weeks ago, late Saturday night—between two and three a.m.? The night before I called you from Diner.”
“I was playing Crystal Orc online. That was the final battle for the realm. We took on some punks from New Zealand. The whole thing’s on You Tube if you want to check it out.”
“‘We?’” said Paul.
“The Shattered Legion,” said Lito. “My guild.”
“Anybody else I’d know in your guild?” Paul asked with a straight face.
“Uh, not unless you’ve been hanging out with high school kids,” said Lito.
“Okay, what about this past Wednesday afternoon from around one to two?”
“Just here, working in the garden. In plain sight.”
“Good enough. Thanks, man.”
“No problem.”
After a pause, Paul asked, “How about your dad and your uncle?”
Lito’s face turned hard. “No idea,” he said.
On the way back to his truck, Paul saw Mr. Portis being wheeled out to the central patio by a nurse.
“None for me, thank you!” Mr. Portis shouted cheerfully, to no on
e in particular.
At dusk, Paul and Rafael sat in Rafael’s truck a couple doors down from Egan’s home office. It was a warm night; the windows were rolled down. They’d both read the reports online about Egan’s wife and the bus accident, but it hardly eased their suspicions. Egan seemed like the type who’d hire someone to give her a push rather than get his own hands dirty.
“Something about him is just too vanilla,” Paul said from the passenger seat. “Lacey wants me to interrogate all my friends when the rational suspect is grinning right in her face with those anchorman teeth.”
“Why do men constantly get shit for thinking with their dicks, but women never get called on it when they do the same thing?” Rafael asked. “Uh, no offense to your sister.”
“None taken. They’re supposed to have this intuition, but you know what’s better than intuition? A strong, logical mind. Like Brandy’s.”
“Your girl’s quite a catch, I gotta say,” said Rafael.
“But a little young for your tastes, right?” asked Paul.
“Hey, it was one night, okay?”
Egan came out his front door and hopped down the stairs. He was wearing a shiny tan leather jacket and smoking a cigarette.
“What the?” said Rafael. “Is that him?”
Egan got into his Audi and peeled out.
Rafael waited a few seconds, then followed.
“Smell that?” Paul asked as they passed his driveway.
Rafael inhaled. “Whoa, menthols? Who is this guy?”
They tailed him onto the northbound highway. Halfway to Tulac, he pulled into a truckstop.
“Don’t tell me it’s date night for the doctor,” said Rafael.
They pulled in behind an idling semi and they watched Egan get out and use the pay phone in front of the bathroom hut.
“A doctor who can’t afford a cell phone?” said Rafael.
“Or can’t afford to be triangulated,” said Paul.
Judging by the way Egan slammed the receiver, the conversation wasn’t a successful one. Egan walked in a huff back to his car and peeled out again, continuing north. He took the first Tulac exit and turned into a trailer park on the outskirts of town.
“Manzanita Meadows,” said Rafael, reading the sign across the park’s arched entryway. “Good stripper name. No offense.”
“Again, none taken,” said Paul.
They couldn’t follow Egan into the trailer park without being seen, but from the street they could see him approach one of the trailers carrying a paper bag, go inside, and depart five minutes later, returning to the northbound highway. A few miles later he took the exit to Spirit Rock, the Indian casino.
Egan parked in a distant corner of the big parking lot, where there were plenty of empty spaces. Rafael found a spot a few rows away, facing the doctor’s Audi. It was dark now; they could see the ember of Egan’s cigarette behind his steering wheel.
After ten minutes the parking lot’s fluorescent lights flickered on. A black Lincoln with tinted windows rolled up into the space next to Egan’s. Egan got out of his car and into the Lincoln’s driver-side rear door. After a few minutes, the opposite door opened and Egan came tumbling out.
His face was unmarked, but he was curled in fetal position, holding his sides.
“No smoking in their car, I guess,” Rafael said.
“Lost his Kool,” said Paul.
The Lincoln pulled away and left the parking lot. Still snickering, they discussed following it but decided to watch Egan’s next move instead. He’d made it up to his knees by the time a security guard came over to investigate. Rafael and Paul watched Egan talk his way out of it, flashing a self-deprecating smile, probably making up a story about a jealous boyfriend or practical joke.
The guard let him go and they tailed him all the way back home.
“No more house calls tonight,” said Paul.
They watched from across the street as he staggered up his steps.
“So much for vanilla,” said Rafael.
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “For a menthol-smoking, truckstop-loitering, drug-dealing, casino-beatdown-taking doctor, he still seems kind of … blah.”
NOTES:
Lisa,
Now that you’re getting the final chapter, I thought I should accelerate things a bit.
Sorry about your beloved Dr. Egan. That’s what happens when you create a character about as compelling as a collar stay. Note, however, that I didn’t feel the need to kill him. One more difference between you and me.
Dave
P.S. I’d love to see the supposed list of authors you approached for my role. I feel like I took a bullet for every one of them.
Dave,
When I came up with the idea, the obvious choice was to go with a crime novelist, specifically a published one. But then I thought of you and figured this might be a way to mend some fences. If it makes you feel any better, you were only number 4 on the list. David Corbett claimed to be too busy, Tim Maleeny really was too busy, and Domenic Stansberry said he’d get back to me after he read one of my books. I’m still waiting. To be honest, if I had it to do over again, you’d be number 5. I should have asked John Vorhaus. He totally owes me. Satisfied? I’m sure you haven’t heard of any of these people, since the last time you picked up a genre novel was Ellroy in the nineties, but they’re all well respected and published and understand that when you start with a dead body, you eventually reveal the killer.
I’m sorry about the coin toss, but it was fair—I even let you call it.
In the interest of productivity, I should remind you that it’s time to start sewing up loose ends. I’ll try to steer things in the right direction for you, but if you decide to take the wheel and run us off the cliff, well, there’s nothing I can do about that.
That said, I hope you don’t. I used to think that writing half a book would be easier than a whole one. I was dead wrong. Then again, if any of my top four had said yes, who knows?
Lisa
CHAPTER 27
That night, both Paul and Lacey dreamed about the land deal. In Paul’s dream, he was paid with Monopoly money; in Lacey’s, Big Marv kept passing her the check and then pulling it away at the last minute. Over coffee, neither sibling mentioned their dream. Trust had waned to the point that sharing even their subconscious seemed like a risky undertaking. When they were kids, they had the world in common. After their parents’ death, they drifted in different directions. And now, though they were living together again, they were worlds apart. Lacey wanted justice; Paul wanted to bury his head in the ground, run off with a maimed stripper, and live happily ever after.
“Have you seen Irving?” Paul asked, noticing that the cat’s food remained untouched.
“Not since yesterday,” Lacey replied.
“I’m worried,” Paul replied. “He never misses breakfast.”
“Relax,” said Lacey. “He’s a cat. They go missing all the time. Sometimes they find a new home and never come back. Sometimes they fall out of tall buildings and live. Sometimes they get hit by a car and die.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m not saying that Irving has come to an untimely end, I’m just saying he might.”
Lacey cleared the table and grabbed her car keys. “Have you called Big Marv to see if he’s going to counter Jay’s offer?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, if you have any spare time today, it might be something to consider,” Lacey said, knowing that her brother had only time to spare.
“I’ll get on it. Where are you headed?”
“I have a shift at the Tarpit,” Lacey replied, pulling the directory of suspects from her pocket. “I figure I can scratch a few names off the list while I’m at it.”
“The list just got shorter,” Paul said, taking the crumpled piece of paper from his sister and striking it several times over with a pen. “Wanda hosted a poker night. Six people can vouch for each other. Also, forget about Rafael, for both the Harry Lakes
murder and the night the body was dumped for the second time.”
Paul returned the list to Lacey.
“Thank you,” she said. “What’s Rafael’s alibi?”
“Last Wednesday during the Harry Lakes murder he was getting a burrito.”
“Did anyone see him?” Lacey asked.
“I can go one better. He gave me the receipt.”
“Huh,” Lacey replied. “That’s preposterous. Why would anyone hang on to a burrito receipt?”43
“I don’t know,” Paul replied.
Lacey’s suspicion remained intact. “What was he doing the Saturday night of the body dump?”
“You won’t believe it,” Paul replied.
“I’m sure I won’t,” Lacey deadpanned.
“He was, um, having a romantic interlude with a certain older woman.”
“Do we know her?”
“Yes.”
“Spill it.”
“I think he’d like to keep it quiet.”
“Unless I know who it is, we have to consider Raf a suspect.”
“He’s not a suspect, Lace.”
“Then tell me.”
“Marybeth Monroe.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“I warned you. Now you’re not gonna go verifying an alibi with Marybeth, are you?”
“Of course not,” Lacey replied. “Who’d make that shit up?” Lacey checked her watch. “I better go.”
“Wait, Lace. Are you planning on seeing Egan today?”
“Maybe. He’s supposed to set up a meeting with Doc Holland.”
“You should know something,” Paul said. “Egan isn’t who he says he is.”
“None of us are,” Lacey replied.
While Lacey was steaming milk and making shots of espresso, Sheriff Ed dropped in for his usual, only this time he ordered two shots of espresso in his regular old cup of coffee.
“You okay, Ed?” Lacey asked.
“Better than ever,” Ed replied, unconvincingly.
“You look tired.”
“If the Mercer crime rate holds steady, we’ll have to start a local police academy.”
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