Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [58]
“And to my dear second wife, Christina Mackey: I know we had our disagreements, but after careful consideration, I leave you with one of my most profoundly cherished possessions . . . bupkis!”
As the laughs died down, Lacey said, to no one in particular, “What’s a bupkis?”
Brandy blurted, “It’s Yiddish for ‘nothing.’ Actually, the earlier Eastern European Yiddish term was bobke—the diminutive of bob, a type of bean. So, interestingly, bupkis is related to other legume-based expressions of worthlessness, such as ‘not worth a hill of beans.’”
Brandy covered her mouth, realizing what she’d done. “I mean, like, I think that might be what it means . . . I had a Jewish . . . uncle?”
Paul put his arm around her and gave her a long, knowing look.
“How long have you known?” she asked.
“Pretty much since the Kierkegaard incident.”
“Are you mad?”
“Splenetic,” said Paul.
True to form, Terry’s will went on for a while. He left Darryl, “my brother from another mother,” his truck and his Bobcat mini-excavator.
“And to my cousin Harry,” Terry continued, “I leave my house in Mercer.”
Everyone turned to look for Cousin Harry, who apparently wasn’t in attendance.
The tape played on. “As to my property on the Mercer–Emery line, the magnificent Shady Acres, I bequeath it to its previous owners—the Hansen family, Paul and Lacey.”
Paul’s eyes welled up as he absorbed Terry’s gesture. All Lacey could think about was how it could hasten her escape from Mercer.
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” Terry said. “To my buddy Hart, I leave my extensive library of spiritual literature. Be careful, brother. Don’t take life so serious. I’ll see you around the bend.”
Lacey gasped when she heard Hart’s name. She’d never known Terry and Hart to be anything more than distant acquaintances.
Then Terry reached off screen and brought a white bass guitar into the picture. “One last thing in closing,” he said. He plugged it in, causing a loud pop, and lurched into a slow bass line. Paul had forgotten about Terry’s bass phase. He recognized the tune immediately, though he hadn’t heard it in years. It was a Terry Jakes original, “Travelin’ On.” Terry sang in a high and delicate voice:
Girl I know you think it’s over
And you know I got to fly
But I’ll come find you some cold mornin’
And we’ll start a new good-bye
By the third verse everyone was crying, even Tate. Not content to let the vocal sentiment of the song stand as his final statement, Terry proceeded to improvise a four-minute slap-bass solo. It was terrible, and great. Pure Terry.
He reached out to turn the camera off, succeeding after a couple of tries. Tate turned off the VCR and the memorial abruptly shifted gears into raucous party mode. Someone set up a karaoke machine with Terry’s favorite songs, and pot smoke seemed to rise up out of the floor. Terry should have been there.
NOTES:
Lisa,
I tried to nudge things along without turning Paul into Magnum P.I. Hope you’re okay with Lacey’s lack of activity here. Poor girl seemed like she needed a breather, what with all the redundant-death witnessing.
I realize the video-will takes a while, but I figure you won’t begrudge me my last few moments with Terry. I thought he deserved a fitting send-off. I present it in the spirit of reconciliation, not provocation. Terry would have wanted it that way.
Dave
Dave,
Now that you’ve said a proper good-bye to Terry, I do hope you can get back to murder-solving. Let me rephrase that: Maybe you can get started on some murder-solving, now that we have not one but two bodies to worry about. And if you keep that shit up with Brandy, I wouldn’t be surprised if a third person met an untimely end.
There’s no way in hell Lacey hasn’t heard the word “bupkis.”
Lisa
CHAPTER 19
Lacey awoke in the kitchen with her head resting on her murder notebook and the smell of burnt coffee wafting through the room. She turned off the coffeemaker and scrubbed out the stale brew that had congealed on the bottom.