Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [94]
NOTES:
Lisa,
I thought it was time we had an actual revelation to balance out the bloodshed. If you can find it in yourself to just let things unfold naturally from here on, I think this book can still work. Of course, that’d be an unprecedented development for you, on or off the page.
Dave
P.S. One last question about the authors who rejected you: Why all men?
Dave,
Yeah, Paul’s convenient discovery of the photograph in the closet was totally natural. I’m starting to think you never took this project seriously. I’m also starting to think if a dead body turned up at your door, you’d step over it and go out for a burger. If we weren’t so close to the end, I’d forfeit this “game,” because that’s what it’s starting to feel like.
But in the interest of finishing what we’ve started, I have a gift for you: I’m going to let Irving live. You know why? So you have a character to jump-start your cat mystery series. It’ll be awesome—bodies piling up on the streets and no man or feline giving it a second thought.
Lisa
P.S. I wasn’t rejected, I was politely declined. I asked men because I wanted my book jacket to use colors outside of the pastel palette for once. End of discussion.
CHAPTER 29
That night, Paul returned home still reeling from his discovery that Doc Holland was Doc Egan’s father. He didn’t want Lacey to be alone after discovering a corpse, but he certainly wasn’t going to share the news with her. He still didn’t know what to make of the connection, and after everything Lacey had survived that day, he figured she didn’t need any more information to fuel her investigative urges.
“Mac ’n’ cheese from a box,” Paul explained, sliding the dish in front of her. “You should eat something.”
“Who made it?”
“Brandy.”
“No thanks.”
“It’s not poison. I had it for dinner.”
“Well, I’ll wait a few more hours to be sure.”
“Cereal?” Paul asked.
“You never got the milk.”
“Right.”
Lacey took a beer from the fridge and sat back down at the table. “What if Big Marv was the killer?” Lacey asked.
“Of who?”
“One or all of the victims.”
“Then he should go to prison for a very long time,” Paul replied, not sure what answer Lacey was hunting for.
“Well, of course. But my question is, we’ve agreed to take this man’s money. Should we take it if he’s a murderer?”
“I’m more inclined to take it if he’s a murderer,” Paul replied. “If you think about it, we’re swindling him.”
“But he thinks he’s swindling us.”
“Right,” said Paul. “When did our lives get so complicated? We used to grow plants. Now you’re hunting a serial killer and we’re engaged in shady million-dollar business deals.”
“So, we’re taking the money,” Lacey said, ignoring Paul’s comment. Her mind was crowded enough, she didn’t need to worry herself about what was crowding his. She took her beer and went to bed.
In the morning Paul was gone. Sheriff Ed called Lacey and reminded her about the letter. She searched for three hours until she gave up. Was it possible that she’d hid it from herself? With all that had transpired, the idea crossed her mind, but then she figured something more sinister was going on. Mercer used to seem like a nice place, but the town had splintered into jagged shards right in front of her.
Up in Tulac, Paul lounged around Brandy’s apartment all morning. He picked up that Wittgenstein biography, but lost interest after the introduction. He stuck a bookmark on page three and headed to the Timberline.
At 3:15 in the afternoon, Tate called Lacey’s cell and said, “Your brother’s drunk and out of cash.”45
“We have iddall figged out,” Paul slurred, when Lacey arrived and took a seat next to him and Rafael.
Apparently even just a sliver of a biography on a major philosophical thinker had gotten Paul’s mind working in overdrive. Unfortunately, none of Wittgenstein’s intellect was passed on to Paul. He was as logic-challenged as ever.
“What have you got figured out?” Lacey replied.
“The two docs were innit together.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Most def-in-ite-ly,” Paul replied, forming the word as if for the first time.