Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [15]
As soon as it registered that virtually every inhabitant of Mercer would be otherwise occupied, Lacey formulated a plan. When she locked the front door, she took in the sight of Main Street, now a ghost town. She got into her ten-year-old Honda Civic and pulled out of the parking space without even checking her rearview mirror.
Ten minutes later, as she passed the dueling assisted-living facilities on her way out of town, a queasy sensation took hold. What if she never escaped Mercer? What if her final days were spent in Mapleshade, or worse, We Care Gardens? Lacey decided to shift her priorities. Solve a murder; get out of town. She wouldn’t wait for that big crop and that big payoff that might never come. She’d do one last thing for her hometown, then she’d start a life somewhere else. How hard could that be?
An empty station wagon loitered in the parking lot of the otherwise deserted rest stop. She parked a few spots over, grabbed her backpack and water bottle from the trunk of her car, and entered the foul-smelling ladies’room to check for signs of tourist life. Nothing. She exited, scanned the area, and peeked inside the men’s room, holding her breath the entire time. Also empty. She peered inside the station wagon and saw camping gear. They must be on the trail, she thought. Maybe they’ll find the body, report it to the police. That’s how it was supposed to happen, right?
Lacey returned to her car and had just started the engine when she caught a glimpse of hikers surfacing from the trail—a family of five, weary, but with the calm glow of nature and exertion. If they had seen a body, they must be in the mortuary business.
Shouldn’t they have noticed something? The smell had been overpowering only two nights ago. It could have only gotten worse.
Lacey killed the engine and got out of her car. She smiled at the family and they exchanged friendly hellos. She watched them fill their water bottles from the fountain and return to their car. Lacey set out on the trail. In twilight, without a headless body in tow, it took no time to reach her destination. Lacey glanced at her surroundings. She felt an edginess take over, like she was being watched. Her eyes told her differently, but then she didn’t trust her eyes.
She was sure this was where the body previously known as Darryl Cleveland was rolled. She knew this trail, day or night. You forget where you left your keys, that cup of coffee you were drinking earlier, but you remember things like where you dumped a headless body in the middle of the night. Lacey scaled down the incline and stared at dirt and weeds—a human-sized matted patch confirmed that she was in the right place. She kicked the dirt around, for no good reason. But then she noticed an unnatural little shape cresting to the surface. She brushed the top layer off with her hands and found a ring. She exhumed it, blowing dirt off the silver. She’d seen it before—a woman’s wedding ring with a Celtic design, adorned with diamond chips.
It felt like every bit of air escaped her lungs. She inhaled as hard as she could, but it wasn’t enough. A sense of terror swept over her. She stuffed the ring in her pocket, scouted the terrain for signs of life, then scaled up the embankment and ran back to her car.
On the drive home, the anxiety didn’t abate. Lacey had watched enough true-crime TV shows8 with Paul to know she was tampering with evidence. She was interfering with a criminal investigation that hadn’t even started. And worst of all, Lacey might know the killer. He’d left his ring at the scene of the crime, after all. Well, his mother’s ring, but he always carried it in his pocket. Lacey’s next move couldn’t be a hasty one. She had to think about her every step until this whole thing was over. Then she realized that if anyone connected the body to the second dump site, her footprints were all over it.
Lacey drove ten miles up the two-lane blacktop, five miles past Emery. A fleeting positive