Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [11]
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