Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [73]
“Hi, Paul. It’s Ilsa. We met yesterday. I thought of something. It might be connected to their deaths. Or . . . murders. Give me a call when you get a chance. My number is . . .”
Lacey raced around the house for a pen. She found one just in time. She stared at the scrap of paper with Ilsa’s number on it and tried to connect all the dots that had formed in the last few days. Paul’s suspicious behavior was reaching epic proportions. Secret meetings with the Babalatos, buddying up with Sook, and now a mysterious woman named Ilsa calling him. Was Paul investigating Hart’s murder and not telling her about it? Lacey didn’t wait around to confront Paul herself. She called Ilsa right back.
“Hello?”
“Ilsa?”
“Yes.”
“This is Lacey Hansen. I’m Paul’s sister.”
“Oh, hello.”
“Paul’s gone for the day. He asked me to call you. Is there any chance we could meet in person? I really need to talk to you.”
“I guess so. Where?”
“Diner in Emery work for you?” Lacey asked.
Two hours later, Ilsa and Lacey were sitting in a back booth with a basket of fries and two chocolate shakes in front of them.
Lacey treaded carefully, since she had no idea what Paul and Ilsa had discussed.
“How did my brother find you, by the way?”
“He got in touch with someone from WINO.”
Hearing the name again sent a shiver through Lacey. It also threw her off her game. She thought she was meeting Ilsa to discuss the Hart and Terry murders. How was WINO, her parent’s timeshare, connected to that? Lacey sucked down half her shake to buy some time.
“You must be thirsty.”
“Haven’t had one of these in a while,” Lacey replied. “So, Paul was kind of busy yesterday. He got in a fight with his stripper girlfriend—don’t get me started—and didn’t fill me in on what you discussed. Do you mind giving me the brushstrokes?”
“As you know, while investigating your parents’ death, he discovered that the week they were at the cabin, my parents were supposed to be there. They swapped for some reason. He wondered if there was a connection and came to speak to me. I told him that my parents had died in a car accident two months later. Some old guy was with him. He has a funny name.”
“Sook?”
“Yeah, that was it. Sook said that maybe someone set out to kill my parents, and your parents just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I always thought the car crash was an accident, but now I’m not so sure. It’s quite a coincidence. . . . You okay?”
Lacey’s eyes were watering. She clasped her hands under the table so Ilsa couldn’t see her shaking.
“I drank that too fast. I don’t feel so good.”
“Have some fries. They’ll warm you up. Maybe a cup of coffee?”
“Sorry,” Lacey said. “It still gets to me.”
“Me, too,” Ilsa replied.
Lacey took a few deep breaths and it sank in that Paul had been looking into their parents’ death, not Hart’s or Terry’s.
“So,” Lacey said, still shaping her vague thoughts, “if our parents were both, in fact, murdered by the same person, that takes some conviction. Do you remember anything about that time? Were your folks having trouble with anyone?”
“They had just filed a lawsuit. After I saw Paul the other day, I remembered that. I couldn’t recall the details, but then I went hunting through their old files and I found it. It seems unlikely that it’s connected, but I thought I should mention it.”
Ilsa pulled an aged manila folder from her bag.
“My folks found an attorney. He drafted a complaint, but as far as I can tell it was never filed with the court. I don’t know why. When they died, no one thought to follow up on the case.”
Lacey opened the file and read the caption page: Malvina and Melton Sundstrom v. Herman Holland, M.D.
A cursory look at the complaint confirmed Lacey’s suspicion: It was a malpractice case.
“What happened?” Lacey asked.
“My mom had a spinal abscess that Holland diagnosed as a lumbar strain. He loaded her up on painkillers, but then a week later she got a really high fever and started stumbling around. My dad took her to the emergency room. She was