Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [95]
“What’s their connection?” Lacey asked.
Paul leaned in close and whispered Budweiser breath into his sister’s ear. “Doc Holland was Doc Egan’s father.”
“What?” Lacey asked, grabbing her brother by the shoulders.
“The fake doc was the father of the dead doc,” Paul said.
“How do you know this?”
“I investigated. I have proof.”
“Then prove it,” Lacey replied.
Paul pulled the photo from his pocket and smacked it on the bar. Lacey picked up the photo and studied the front and back.
“Where did you find this?” Lacey asked.
“In Egan’s closet,” Paul replied.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You don’t need to know everything.”
“What does it mean?” Lacey asked.
It was more of a rhetorical question, but Paul answered anyway.
“I think that the docs were plotting something.”
“What were they plotting?” Lacey asked.
“Don’t know, don’t care. But now that Egan is dead there will be no more murder.”
“Think about it, Paul. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Let me sleep on it,” Paul replied. “Wake me in fifteen.”
Paul then rested his head on the bar and within moments his distinct snore layered another sound track over the Steve Earle album playing in the background. Lacey ordered a beer and scowled at Rafael.
“How many has he had?” she asked.
“I lost count at eight,” Rafael replied.
Musings on murder suspects now qualified as small talk in Mercer. Rafael proceeded to inform Lacey of all Paul’s theories, both standing and debunked. As Rafael spoke, Lacey’s suspicion of him grew—in part because he was spending too much time with Paul, nosing around their investigation, but also because she had not yet investigated him herself. But Paul insisted that Rafael had an airtight alibi. Or at least a receipt.
Paul’s cell phone rang, which caused him to stir and changed the tone of his snore. But he didn’t wake. Lacey pulled the cell from his pocket and answered.
“Paul’s phone,” she said.
“Lacey?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Big Marv.”
Lacey’s heart skipped a beat when she heard his name. Ever since the verbal land agreement was struck, Lacey had feared the worst.
“What can I do for you?” she said, in an atypically polite tone.
“My lawyer has just drawn up the paperwork. When can you and Paul sign?”
Lacey glanced at her comatose brother.
“Give me an hour.”
Rafael helped Lacey load Paul into the back of his pickup truck. Throughout the ride home, blasts of cold air and carefully targeted potholes jolted him awake. Paul managed to walk without too much assistance into their house, where Lacey plied him with half a pot of coffee and a quart of Gatorade, and then made him perform a round of calisthenics. An intriguing phenomenon with Paul was that when he was stoned you couldn’t get him to budge, but drunk he’d follow orders like a private in boot camp. Once, in high school, when their parents were out of town, Paul drank a six-pack of beer and Lacey dressed him in a jacket and bow tie and had him play her butler until he sobered up and lost interest. “Mr. Paul” made many cups of tea and sandwiches that afternoon.
After Paul had sweated out some of the booze, Lacey told him to take a cold shower, and by the time Paul was finished, he was still drunk but could walk on his own and sign his name. Lacey had him practice a few times to be sure.
On the drive to Marv’s office, Paul started nodding off again. Lacey had brought along a spray bottle for that very eventuality. She used it unremittingly. Paul’s anger proved to be the most sobering elixir yet.
When they entered Big Marv’s office, the siblings were introduced to a bespectacled man named Franklin Fisher. Marv referred to him as his lawyer.
“That name rings a bell,” Paul slurred. “How do I know that name?” The memory that eluded him was that he’d heard it during his night of surveillance with Terry, when Jay was asking for a fat check from his patient. Lacey, of course, hadn’t heard the name—it was just one of many pieces of evidence her brother had withheld from her.
“Have we met?” Paul asked Mr. Fisher.
“I don’t believe so,” Fisher replied.
“That name sure rings a bell.”
Lacey