Heads You Lose Read online

  “It’s just Rafael,” Lacey said.

  She returned to the kitchen, finished her toast, washed her plate, and topped off Paul’s coffee. Paul had never been a fan of stimulants of any kind, but Lacey had discovered that caffeine had a slight impact on Paul’s work ethic and so she pushed it like a regular old drug dealer. In fact, sometimes when she was feeling particularly hostile, she’d crush up NoDoz into his beer.

  Approximately three and a half minutes after they heard Rafael’s car in the driveway, the doorbell rang. The delay wasn’t unusual for Rafael. Once Lacey timed him at four minutes and thirty-five seconds. Rafael could never leave his truck until the song on the radio was over—an isolated OCD tic. Lacey once wondered aloud whether Rafael maintained that policy even if he didn’t like the song. Paul said he did.

  Rafael Dupree handled half of the college circuit for Paul and Lacey, selling their product along the string of small schools to the south, as well as to other clients scattered around the area. He was a student at Sequoia State who didn’t attend class much until he dropped out. Now that he was dealing, he audited lectures regularly. In fact, he’d even started supplementing his income by selling his notes.

  The doorbell rang for a second time. Paul was sitting and Lacey was standing, so Paul assumed door-answering responsibilities fell to his sister, but he always assumed that. After their parents died, Paul fell into the habit of playing the adult in the family. Despite their mere thirteenmonth age difference, Paul had always played the big brother. But now that Lacey had moved back in, protective had become bossy. Lacey had started to take a stand. Not answering the door was one way she asserted herself.

  “I have to get ready for work,” Lacey said. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

  With that, Lacey walked right past the front door and into her bedroom. She put on her shoes and grabbed her purse. When she returned to the living room, Paul and Rafael were already on the couch, smoking a joint.

  Lacey made a show of looking at her watch.

  “It’s nine-thirty in the morning,” Lacey said.

  Rafael launched into a coughing fit, then sputtered out, “It’s medicinal.”

  Lacey eyed him quizzically and Paul explained.

  “Look at his arm. Poison oak. This will help the itching.”

  It was true; Rafael’s forearm was mottled with a familiar-looking rash. However, Lacey took issue with Paul’s home remedy.

  “You should foment that with vinegar and water and then take an antihistamine.”

  “Foment. Fo-ment,” Rafael repeated like a chant. “Cool word. I’ll have to remember that.”

  “Yes,” Lacey replied. “However, in this case I’m using the less common sense of the word, which means to bathe in an ointment, not stir up trouble.”4

  “Okay,” Rafael said, looking confused.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Paul said. “You better run. Betty was hoping for her delivery this morning.”

  Lacey checked her watch.

  “You could have mentioned that sooner.”

  “I guess I could have. Sorry.”

  Paul then shifted his attention back to work, which bore no resemblance to work.

  “How much do you need this time?” Paul asked.

  “Just a half-o,” Rafael replied.

  “I’m leaving,” Lacey said as she threw on her coat.

  “Be cool,” said Paul. “Know what I mean, Lace?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lacey replied, lying.

  After everything that had transpired the night before, Lacey marveled at how quickly Paul could return to business as usual. She knew there was no other way he should be, but still it got under her skin, like so many things he did.

  Betty was a regular who didn’t smoke. She was five-foot-ten and, at her peak, had weighed a solid one hundred and eighty pounds. She’d been one of the first woman loggers in the region. It took fifteen years to ruin her back for good. Even with regular visits to the chiropractor, there wasn’t much she could do for the pain.

  It was Betty who’d inspired Lacey to expand the business into baked goods. Betty worked part-time for the local physician, Doc Holland, billing and answering his phone. During an office visit, Lacey had noticed her popping pills and shifting uncomfortably. Betty had bought from the Hansens before, but didn’t like smoking, having given up cigarettes five years ago. Lacey experimented with some recipes, and eventually found that cooking the pot in oil and using a box mix was just fine. In a pinch, even Paul could whip up a batch.

  Lacey knocked on her front door. Betty opened the door holding a cup of coffee. She was wearing a light blue terry-cloth robe, her usual morning attire. The robe covered an ankle-length night dress with a ruffle around the collar. Betty had a few other versions patterned with flowers and one with bumble bees. Lacey was always surprised by the contrast between Betty’s sleepwear and outerwear. Outside, Betty always reverted to her old logger’s uniform: denim, flannel shirt, and hiking boots. Lacey preferred sleepwear Betty. She struck a far less intimidating figure.

  “Darling, am I glad to see you,” Betty said.

  This was one part of the job Lacey didn’t mind. Some people she was helping; she believed that. There were others, though … she didn’t know what she was doing for them.

  “Can you stay for a visit?” Betty asked.

  “I’m already late for work,” Lacey said.

  “Have you heard?”

  “I don’t know,” Lacey cautiously replied.

  “I have news.”

  “What?”

  Betty leaned in close, even though there was no one around for miles. “I heard Doc Holland sold his practice to some guy from the city.”

  “What city would that be?” Lacey asked.

  “San Francisco,” Betty replied as if that were an even bigger secret.

  “Why would you move from San Francisco to Mercer? Isn’t that suspicious?”

  “He arrived yesterday,” Betty replied. “You can make an appointment and start your investigation.”

  Lacey returned to her car. She’d already lost interest in the incoming doctor. Besides, she had always wanted the town to get a dentist. Sometimes it was just the sight of tooth decay that reminded her she was living in the sticks. The new doctor was one mystery she could put on hold. The other one, however, she couldn’t let slide.

  Darryl’s house was just a quick loop outside of her route to work. She decided to drive by, just to see if anything was amiss. She slowed in front of his rambler. He had repainted recently. She noted other improvements as well. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t been seen around much. Maybe he was trying to make a break from the water business, keeping clear of his usual contacts. Lacey liked the idea—she could relate. Too bad he died. She couldn’t relate to that. Darryl’s truck was still parked out front, but there was no sign of anyone in the house. Why should there be? Darryl lived with his stepmom, but she worked full-time, and now most of him was lying alongside a hiking path twelve miles away.

  Suddenly, Lacey felt tears streaming down her face. Last night she’d seen just a body, and not even a whole one. Today she realized Darryl was gone for good. It’s not like they were close or anything; in fact, when he was around they hardly said a word to each other. But still, she had gotten used to him and now she’d have to get unused to him. Lacey wiped the tears away with her sleeve and kept driving until she reached the Tarpit. She’d never minded the name before, but today it reminded her that she was stuck and that it was time she got out of Mercer.

  “I’d like a nonfat soy-mocha latte,” Bernard, one of the regulars, said.

  “What size?” Lacey asked.

  “Medium, no, large.”

  Lacey poured a shot of espresso and mocha into the mug and steamed the soymilk, while starting another batch of espresso with her right hand. She looked at Bernard in his lumberjack shirt and work boots and wondered when it had happened—when he’d transformed from the guy who ordered black coffee and a bear claw to a man who bu
ys city drinks that cost more than a full breakfast at the Jenkee’s down the street.

  Lacey kept this job because she thought she should have one on paper and she needed time away from Paul, but some part of her wished this town had stayed as it had once been—a town where people didn’t need to use more than two words to order a cup of joe. The one benefit of the job was that the morning rush kept her mind so busy on the small tasks at hand that she didn’t have too much time to think about her life and the mess she had made of it. Some days she still thought of Hart, but every day she got better at forgetting about him.

  Lacey was loading mugs into the dishwasher and trying to solve the mystery of the headless body in her backyard when she was interrupted by an unnecessarily booming voice.

  “Coffee. Black,” said Sheriff Ed Wickfield, as if he were introducing himself.

  Lacey turned around.

  “Hi, Ed. How are you doing?”

  “Surviving,” Ed replied, with the tone of a cop whose work might involve undercover narcotics operations in Central America. In truth, Ed mostly dealt with traffic violations and run-of-the mill drunk and disorderly calls.

  “Glad to hear it,” Lacey said.

  Then they did the dance of Ed trying to pay and Lacey waving him away. The owners of the café never let the sheriff or the fire marshal pay for coffee. Ed always put two bucks in the tip jar. Lacey wished that made her like him, but it didn’t. She always had this unnerving feeling that Ed was waiting for the perfect moment to pounce and seize his glory with a massive bust.

  She could never decide if his small talk amounted to innocent questions or thinly veiled interrogations.

  “How’s that brother of yours?” Ed asked.

  “Okay, I guess,” Lacey replied. “You’d have to ask him if you want the full report.”

  “Is he keeping busy?”

  “It’s all relative.”

  “How does he fill his days?” Ed asked.

  While it did seem to be a pointed question, it was a question that a handful of locals asked. How Paul filled his days was a mystery to everyone except Paul. Since Paul didn’t want to get a cover job, they decided to tell people that he was slowly draining his inheritance and killing time the way so many young men kill time—computers, television, and video games. Sometimes when Lacey was feeling hostile, she’d add that Paul had a minor addiction to porn. Mostly, she’d add this detail when speaking to any single, relatively attractive woman in the area. When she was feeling more generous, she told people that Paul was a nature enthusiast and spent hours studying the local flora. At least that was in the vicinity of the truth. Mostly she wanted to give him an alibi for when he didn’t pick up the phone because he was in their basement tending to an entirely different type of vegetation.

  Lost in the various thoughts clouding her head, Lacey forgot the question.

  “I’m sorry. What was that, Ed?” she asked.

  “How does Paul fill his days?” the sheriff repeated. The tone remained friendly.

  “We have satellite TV,” Lacey answered.

  During her break, Lacey strolled the two-block stretch of Mercer that made up the town center. She picked up the local paper and opened the flimsy rag. Every day was a slow news day in Mercer. As far as she could remember there had never been a murder or a missing-persons report. She looked today and there was nothing to speak of. Not a single mention of Darryl Cleveland.

  And why should there be when he was walking into the hardware store right in front of her.

  Lacey followed him inside.

  “Darryl?”

  She knew it was him, but for some reason she had to say his name like it was a question. Darryl turned around and smiled. Lacey was so happy to see him alive and with a head and everything that she threw her arms around him and gave him a hug. Then she realized that she had never hugged Darryl before and stopped abruptly.

  “It’s been a while,” she said, by way of explanation.

  “I guess so,” Darryl said, uncomfortably.

  “How have you been?” Lacey asked, not sure what purpose the answer would serve.

  “Surviving,” he replied.

  Lacey looked him in the eye. Something about him was off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It could have been the unprecedented embrace, of course.

  “So what’s been happening?” Lacey asked.

  “Same old, same old,” Darryl replied.

  “Are you sure?” said Lacey, knowing otherwise.

  Darryl looked confused. “I ain’t sure about anything, Lacey.”

  “Me neither,” she replied.

  It suddenly occurred to Lacey that Darryl’s connection to the dead body might not be so innocent.

  “Well, it’s been really good running into you,” she said abruptly. Then she made a quick exit.

  “Yeah, nice seeing you too,” Darryl replied.

  But Lacey couldn’t hear him. She was already out the door.

  NOTES:

  Dave,

  In case you think I was trying to throw you a curveball with the Darryl thing. Nah, it just came to me suddenly. But I think I like it. Hope you agree.

  A quick note for your next chapter: Sometimes your vocabulary feels a little high-end for this kind of book. It would be great if I didn’t have to Google as I read.

  Let’s try to keep the momentum going with your chapter. For example, maybe a little more plot development and a little less background. Okay? I just want to keep this thing zipping along for the reader’s sake. Another idea along those lines is to try to end each chapter with a bit of a bang (without overdoing it, of course).

  Lisa

  Lisa,

  Looking good. That was a nicely handled moment with Darryl at the end.

  I’ll try to throw in a little more action to keep things rolling. Sorry about your Google problem. I can spell things out a bit more. I sometimes forget you were home-schooled. Ha ha.

  Before we get too far along, how about a road trip up north? I think it’d be helpful to get a sense of the real-life places and people. What if we spent a couple days near Shasta soaking up the local culture? Separate rooms, of course.

  Dave

  CHAPTER 4

  A little high, Paul went looking for the head, hoping not to find it. But he told himself he could handle it if he did. He was used to coming across various body parts of recently deceased creatures. Their cat, Irving, was an indiscriminate murderer of anything smaller than him: mice, squirrels, slow or overconfident birds. Lacey had once stepped out of bed onto the perfectly intact face of a vole. “Not the head, just the face,” she kept saying. She had a point. It was almost like Irving was showing off. He was an outdoor cat after that. Maybe that suited him, anyway, given his rugged past. The girl at the animal shelter said Irving had been brought there after one too many run-ins with the area’s most notorious feral cat, Bad Sue.5

  The job fell to Paul, as usual, because Lacey was at her cover job, which in his book was a waste of time. If they needed a cover, Paul thought, there was nothing wrong with claiming to be caretakers—it was the stated occupation of plenty of Mercer-area residents, many of whom did, in fact, merely take care of a property. But that would have sounded too redneck for Lacey. As Terry Jakes, not exactly upper-crust himself, used to say, “Caretakers are just carnies who got off the ride.”

  Paul suspected that Lacey’s barista (maker of coffee beverages)6 gig was more about her self-image than actual cover. She couldn’t even admit to herself that she was a pot grower, Paul thought. Facing facts had never been her strong suit. Even as a little girl, she seemed to have fun only when she was playing dress-up. But he was her big brother, and he’d help her out as long as she needed him. Maybe she’d go back to school after she saved a little money.

  With Irving at his side, Paul started where they’d found the body, then proceeded in an outward spiral until he reached the property’s perimeter. Irving trotted alongside him, more doglike than most dogs. Covering the property took
almost four hours and yielded only an old badminton (a lawn sport resembling tennis)7 set and some faded orange Hot Wheels tracks covered in pine muck.

  He was back inside watching Volcano Chasers by the time Lacey stormed in.

  “No head,” Paul said.

  “That’s nice. I have a slightly larger piece of news,” said Lacey. “I just saw Darryl Cleveland at Olmstead’s Hardware. Head firmly attached.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Let me think about it. Yes.”

  “Did you ask him anything?”

  “Like what? ‘How do explain your incredible comeback?’” Lacey said, imitating a sportscaster interviewing an athlete.

  “No. I mean like, ‘Did you lose your watch?’”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. So we’re done,” Paul said.

  “Jesus,” Lacey said after a pause. “Could you be a little bit happy it’s not Darryl?”

  “I am a little bit happy about that. I’m a lot happy that the head isn’t on our property. Now we can just sit back and watch what happens.”

  “How perfect for you,” said Lacey. “‘This week on CSI: Mercer, two pot-growing orphans stumble onto a body, changing their lives forever.’”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Paul said. “I gotta run. Senior Circuit today. You’ll be okay around here, right?” It was a rhetorical question, and Lacey had stopped answering those.

  “Oh yeah,” Paul added. “Feed Irving. It’s been like a week since he’s killed anything. Maybe he’s depressed or something.”

  First stop on the Senior Circuit was Mapleshade, a nursing home/retirement tower that housed most of Mercer’s hidden elderly population, the size of which helped to explain the success of Jenkee’s Diner and two separate pharmacies. Sook Felton’s room was on the top floor, overlooking the forest.

  “Brought you some peaches from Lacey,” Paul said in Sook’s room, producing a little bag. Sook’s biggest complaint about Mapleshade was the food.