Heads You Lose Read online

  By the way, did we ever find out whose plane crashed? We might want to clear that up one of these days. As for your “clue,” a Google search informed me that Ventnor and Atlantic Avenues are real estate on a Monopoly board. I have no idea where you’re going with that. Do you?

  On a positive note, I don’t believe you mentioned Irving the cat even once.

  Lisa

  P.S. I didn’t mean to imply that the road trip was all bad. Reno was awesome. Especially when we won the football bet. I just don’t know why you refused to get gas. We could have died out there.

  CHAPTER 7

  When Lacey heard a truck idling down the desolate street, she slipped between a set of bushes, scratching the exposed skin on her neck. A breathless and eternal minute passed until the truck rolled away. She circled the perimeter of Darryl’s house, searching for a better view inside. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but an investigation has to start somewhere, right? And the only two people linked to the body were Darryl Cleveland and now Hart Drexel. She started with the easy one. Darryl. At least she knew where he lived. Besides, she had spent all day batting away dark thoughts like flies. But whenever you try not to think about something, that’s when you can’t escape it. So she let herself think, just for a minute.

  Hart’s ring had been left behind at the second crime scene. From the moment she’d found it, the ugly thought had stuck with her. Hart was the killer. But then she cooled down and figured there had to be another explanation. Hart was trouble, sure, but mostly she remembered all the little things he used to do for her—checking the oil in her car so she wouldn’t burn out her transmission, bringing her coffee in the morning. Once he even tried making chicken soup when she had a cold. Lacey had to pour it out the window when he wasn’t looking, but still.

  Could she have really spent three and a half years with a murderer?

  A light shone from the living room, offering a fish-tank view. Darryl was sitting on his couch, a beer in one hand and the other hand tucked into his jeans. Lacey had seen men sit like this many times before, even when they weren’t alone. Still, she felt more like a peeping tom than a private detective. The show on TV was Cudgel.10 Lacey recognized the contestant and even noted that it was a rerun—how tragic was that? She was definitely getting out of this town.

  Fifteen minutes passed without any action except on the TV screen. Then the telephone rang, which made Lacey jump. But not Darryl. He just sat there as if he couldn’t hear it. When Cudgel broke for a commercial, Darryl got up from the couch and pressed a button on his answering machine. Lacey assumed someone had left a message and Darryl was listening to it. She couldn’t make out the voice, only that there was a voice.

  Then Darryl looked at her, or right out the window to where she was lurking. Only it was dark outside and light in the house, so she knew he couldn’t see anything. Still, from the way he was looking, he knew someone was out there.

  Darryl killed the lights and Lacey made a run for it. This time, she exited through the backyard, scaling the chain-link fence. On her way down, she sliced open her left arm. She felt the pain, but refused to utter a sound.

  Darryl peered through the living room window, then raced into the kitchen in the back of the house and saw a shadow escape through his backyard. He’d never be able to identify her. In fact, if pressed for details, he’d say a male, approximately fourteen years of age, wearing a baseball cap, a black shirt, and blue jeans, was casing his home for a burglary. But only because that’s exactly how Paul described the suspicious individual when he left a message on Darryl’s answering machine, explaining that he just happened to be driving by. Had a delivery and couldn’t stop, but he thought he’d be neighborly, even though they weren’t exactly neighbors.

  Lacey sprinted to her car, just a few blocks away. Once safely inside, she flipped the light on and got a good look at her wound. There was nothing clean around to stanch the bleeding, so she removed her sweatshirt and wrapped it around her arm. The blood kept flowing, and Lacey was starting to feel queasy and a little faint. She thought about calling Paul but knew that he would ask questions that she wasn’t about to answer. The closest emergency room was over twenty miles away. She didn’t think she could make it.

  “Are you the new Doc Holland?” Lacey asked, standing in front of the old Doc Holland’s residence/office, trying not to drip blood on the front porch.

  “I guess so,” the sleepy-eyed male replied.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I didn’t think this could wait until morning.”

  The new Doc Holland, who was wearing scrubs that most likely performed double duty as pajamas, unwrapped the sweatshirt from Lacey’s arm and studied the deep cut.

  “I’ll meet you at the office in one minute,” he said.

  Lacey walked ten paces to the adjacent building and sat down on the stoop. In that brief passage of time, the new Doc Holland threw on a lab coat, brushed his teeth, and walked through the interior door that connected his new home to his new office. He invited Lacey inside, turned on the blinding lights of the examination room, and began pulling supplies from the metal chest.

  “We haven’t been formally introduced,” the new Doc Holland said. “I’m Matthew Egan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Egan.”

  “You can call me Matthew.”

  “Nah.”

  “And you are?”

  “Sorry. Got distracted by all the blood. I’m Lacey Hansen.”

  “Nice meeting you, Ms. Hansen.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “How did this happen?”

  “Climbing a fence.”

  “Why were you doing that, this time of night?”

  “I don’t know. Just felt like it, I guess.”

  “When was your last tetanus shot?”

  “A while ago, I think. I’ll probably need one.”

  “This is going to hurt.”

  “It usually does.”

  While Dr. Egan injected lidocaine around the jagged edges of the cut, Lacey gritted her teeth and took inventory of the room and the new doctor. The room had been repainted a soothing blue, a great improvement over the sour, paint-chipped yellow that was Doc Holland’s brand. Also, the supply closet appeared to have been either scrubbed or replaced, and the entire examination room had the sterile scent that one comes to expect from a doctor’s office if, say, your doctor isn’t Doc Holland. The improvements didn’t end there. Other than the dark circles under his eyes and a nose that had clearly been broken once, maybe twice, the new Doc Holland, Dr. Egan, could easily be described as handsome. Also, unlike Doc Holland, there was no discernible odor emanating from the new doctor, except maybe the smell of fresh toothpaste. She guessed his age to be about thirty-five.

  Right about then was when Lacey got suspicious.

  While Dr. Egan waited for the lidocaine to take, he tried to make casual conversation, a skill Lacey never quite got the knack for.

  “So, Lacey, how long have you lived in Mercer?”

  “Too long.”

  “You have family?”

  “I live with my brother.”

  “That’s nice of you.”

  “Why? Oh, I see. You got it all wrong. Paul doesn’t have special needs or anything. Well, sometimes it seems like he does.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s just a convenience.”

  “Sometimes that’s a good thing.”

  “Sometimes it isn’t. What happened to Doc Holland?”

  “He wanted to retire.”

  “He never mentioned it before, and he sure skipped town quickly.”

  “Sometimes people make snap decisions.”

  “Did you make one?” Lacey asked.

  “I’m going to start stitching now. You should just feel a tug. No pain.”

  “This isn’t my first time.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Doc Egan replied. “First-timers expect the stitches to hurt, not the painkiller. You gripped the side of the
table when you saw the lidocaine needle.”

  Lacey looked directly at the wound while Egan started stitching.

  “Do you regret your decision yet?” Lacey asked.

  “Excuse me,” Doc Egan replied.

  “You know, moving here.”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Because everybody wants to get out of here. But you, you move from a perfectly nice city like San Francisco to a town like Mercer.”

  “Maybe I needed some clean air and some country living.”

  “There’s better country than this. In fact, you could probably throw a dart at a map and find it.”

  “Doesn’t seem so bad to me.”

  “You must be running away from something,” Lacey said.

  Doc Egan looked her in the eye and sighed.

  “You sure get to the point, don’t you?”

  “Not always. But I like a good story when I’m getting stitched up.”

  “No story. I got divorced,” Doc Egan explained. “It was unpleasant. The city reminded me of … everything, so I decided to get out. Now does it make more sense?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry about that.”

  An uncomfortable silence set in. Lacey felt bad for digging until she hit a nerve, so she decided to dig where the new doc probably didn’t have any nerves.

  “You’re better at this than Doc Holland,” Lacey said, commenting on the repair job.

  “Thank you.”

  “You should see the scars he’s left behind in this town. Sometimes you had to wonder if he was really a doctor. Where is he now?”

  “He asked me not to tell,” Doc Egan replied.

  Lacey got the feeling she was playing with a puzzle where half the pieces were missing. She was pretty sure Doc Holland fit into it somewhere, but she couldn’t construct a scenario that fit with the few pieces she already had.

  “Did you ever meet Doc Holland in person?”

  “Of course,” Egan replied.

  “What did he look like?”

  “You know what he looked like. Are you feeling okay, Lacey?”

  In truth, she wasn’t. She hadn’t had dinner, and the blood and the pain and the vague sense of doom were making her nauseous, but she pressed on.

  “I’m fine. What did he look like?”

  “About sixty-five, average height, slight paunch, almost completely bald except for a patch of gray hair on the top of his head, bulbous nose, crooked smile.”

  “That’s Doc Holland, all right.”

  Doc Egan finished stitching and then dressed the wound. He looked at Lacey with concern. She was staring blankly at the ceiling, trying to make sense of this mixed bag of facts that didn’t add up.

  “Now how are you going to get home?” Doc Egan asked.

  “Same way I got here,” Lacey replied, sitting up on the table. She didn’t mention that the room was spinning.

  “I don’t think you should drive. Can you call your brother?”

  “I’d rather not. Besides, he’s probably drunk by now,” Lacey said.

  “Then I’ll drive you.”

  “Totally unnecessary, Doc. I have a car and I’m perfectly fine.”

  Doc Egan reached into his pocket and held out Lacey’s keys.

  “I have your keys,” he replied. “You can pick up your car tomorrow.”

  Lacey slipped off the table, took the bloody sweatshirt from the edge of the table, and tossed it in the trash. Contemplating the bandage on her arm, Lacey tried to figure out how she could hide the accident from Paul. She was not in the mood for his questions.

  “Doc, I’m cold. Do you have a shirt I can borrow? One with sleeves?”

  Lacey waited on the front porch while Doc Egan locked up. He handed her a baseball jersey, which she pulled on over her T-shirt. It just covered the last strip of tape on her forearm.

  The drive to the Hansen home was silent, minus Lacey’s terse directions.

  “Here,” she said, as they approached the home. One light as usual was on in the living room, punctuated by the flicker of a television set.

  “Looks cozy,” the new doc said.

  “Hmm,” Lacey replied.

  “You should take the painkillers I gave you before bed. It’s going to smart in a few hours.”

  Lacey opened the car door. “Thanks for the ride, Doc.”

  As Lacey strolled up the steps to the house, Doc Egan shouted, “See you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Don’t forget to pick up your car.”

  “Right.”

  Inside, Paul stared with rapt attention at the TV screen. It was an act. They both knew it. Under normal circumstances, Paul would have asked Lacey where she had been. But neither said anything, because one was tired of delivering lies and the other was tired of hearing them.

  “Night, Paul,” was all she said.

  As predicted, Lacey woke up in the middle of the night with her arm burning. She grabbed two Vicodin from her dresser drawer and walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. As she gulped the water, she heard a car pull up in front of their house and stop. She looked at the clock: 3:12 a.m. Adrenaline pumping, she tiptoed over to the window. Just before she parted the curtains, the car screeched away.

  Lacey opened the front door and turned on the porch light. She walked a few paces toward the curb. That’s when she saw it. Lacey raced inside the house and shook her brother awake.

  “He’s back,” she said.

  Paul stood over the even riper corpse.

  “Who is doing this to us?” she asked.

  “I think we can rule out Darryl, since he’d probably think to remove his family heirloom. Is it still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s keep him out of it.”

  Both siblings held their breath as Lacey aimed the flashlight and Paul bent down to remove the wristwatch. Something familiar caught Lacey’s eye. While Paul gazed into the distance, devising another plan, Lacey knelt down and lifted up the sleeve on the corpse. Just a few inches above the wrist, she found an amateur tattoo of a four-leaf clover.

  Lacey got to her feet, took a deep breath, then choked on the stench and turned away. She silently handed Paul the flashlight and strode back into the house. Five minutes later, she returned carrying two of Paul’s marijuana plants from the basement. She put them in the back of his truck.

  “Lacey, what are you doing?”

  Lacey ignored her brother and reentered the house, exiting once again with two more plants. Paul followed her as she put them in his truck bed.

  “Lacey. Talk to me,” Paul said, as if his sister had turned into a zombie. She didn’t look right.

  “I just called the cops,” Lacey said in a monotone. “Leave now while you can. I’ll tell the sheriff you’re staying with Terry at the lookout tonight. Go,” she said, tossing him the keys to the truck.

  “Lacey, what’s gotten into you?”

  “The dead body is Hart Drexel. I’m not moving him again.”

  NOTES:

  Dave,

  Back to you. Seven chapters in and we finally know who our dead body is. I’m sure I’m stating the obvious, but now would be a great time to start figuring out who killed him and why.

  I really wanted to bring the Babalato brothers into the mix, but all I could think about was family counseling and meds and that didn’t fit in with moving the plot forward.

  Lisa

  Lisa,

  I wasn’t expecting the leisurely detour into romantic comedy territory, but I enjoyed it. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Lacey and the hunky doctor. Maybe a quirky gay neighbor?

  With regard to suspects and plot advancement, I’m not saying I have it all perfectly mapped out, but I assure you there’s plenty up my sleeve. Remember how I came up with the haberdasher gambit to get the fop out of Zurich? You never saw it coming, and it saved the whole first half of the script.

  Dave

  P.S. We didn’t die, did we?

  CHAPTER 8


  “Have you lost your mind?” Paul said in a furious whisper. “Call the cops first, then decide what to do? Did you ever think to maybe talk it over with me? I know it’s three a.m. and you’re scared. But did it occur to you that maybe we should get our stories straight?”

  Lacey looked woozy and focused at the same time. “Here’s the story,” she said. “My ex-fiancé is dead in our driveway. The end. This has to stop.”

  “You have to stop. It’s like you’ve been trying to get us deeper into this mess ever since it started.”

  “I’d love to chat. Fact is, the cops are on their way,” Lacey said wearily. “Do you want to help me load up the rest of the plants or not?”

  She had a point. Paul shook his head and returned to the basement. He put the cops’ ETA at twenty minutes. This time of night, first on the scene would likely be Deputy Doug Lund.

  Thirteen minutes later they’d hauled out all the plants, as well as a few Tupperware containers full of finished product, but there was no way they could dismantle the lights and water lines. Neither of which was illegal, but still. Terry had taught Paul to never relax about attention from the law. Even if the sheriff’s department seemed to turn a blind eye, you never knew when higher authorities would decide to assert their power. Just ask anyone who was allowed to open and operate a dispensary in L.A. just so they could be brutally raided by the Feds after building a thriving business.

  Paul had designed the room so it could be taken down completely on a day’s notice. The best they could do was sweep up, take all the tools and soil amendments, and pile everything into the truck with the plants. He ran to the barn for a tarp, realizing on the way that the only one he’d find was the one they’d wrapped the body in three days ago. That wasn’t so bad. The tarp was one more thing they didn’t want to be here when the cops started poking around. Not something Lacey would have thought of.

  He called her over to the truck and they unfolded the tarp. They both gagged as the smell jumped out from it. They stood on opposite sides of the truck bed and passed the rope back and forth until it was firmly in place. Paul looked at his watch.

  “Okay, it’s three thirty-eight,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lace. But I think it’d be awesome if the person talking to the cops didn’t have dilated pupils or a mysterious arm wound. How about you take the truck, I stay here and answer questions?”