Dead Jitterbug Read online

  Julia studied the snapshot, eyes serious and bemused, before slipping it carefully into her back pocket and turning to Osborne for help selecting a fresh leech. To her credit, she insisted on impaling it herself.

  Before boarding the pontoon earlier that morning, Ray had had the women test each of the spinning rods, which he had rigged with identical lures of the same weight. They were instructed to cast each one several times from the shore.

  “Keep trying until you find the rod that feels like an extension of your arm, that has a flex that feels comfortable,” said Ray. “Then hold on to it—that’s your rod for the day.”

  The women pounced on the rods, each grabbing several, then dashing down to the water’s edge. “Remember what I said about those back casts,” said Ray. “You don’t want to hook each other.” Happy and excited, they tried rod after rod.

  The exercise was going well until Carla and Julia discovered they both liked the same rod. With that, all signs of camaraderie vanished: the rod in question gripped tight in Julia’s right hand while the two women stood glaring at each another.

  “This shouldn’t be a problem,” said Ray, stepping in to referee. “Don’t I have another one of those? I thought I had two of each.”

  Osborne checked the rods on the picnic table. No duplicate there.

  “I think I’ve got it,” said Barb, walking up from the shore where she had been practicing her cast. “Here, Carla, you take mine.”

  “No,” said Ray, “that’s the one you wanted—isn’t it, Barb?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Barb. “I was thinking maybe I could try one of the muskie rods?”

  “Those are for this afternoon,” said Ray. Osborne shot him a look that was the equivalent of a kick in the butt. Couldn’t he see poor Barb was doing her best to keep Carla happy? “Well … I guess that’s okay,” said Ray.

  Finally they were on the boat, each woman outfitted with her own rod and a box of tackle. Puffy white clouds drifted overhead in a Dresden-blue sky as a light breeze threw shadows across the calm surface of the lake. Ray slowed to five mph as he finessed the pontoon through the shallow channel leading into Second Lake on the Loon Lake chain. As the boat turned east, laser shards of sunlight sparked off the backs of turtles sunning on exposed boulders. A great blue heron lurked behind a petrified swirl of roots from a tree upended by some long-ago flatline wind.

  Ray put a finger to his lips. “Watch,” he said, cutting the motor to a low idle. He let the pontoon drift. The women were silent, all eyes on the elegant creature. “If we’re lucky, we might see that heron bait a fish … watch now….”

  “What are we watching for?” whispered Molly.

  “To see if he throws out a twig or an insect that he’s caught….”

  “You’re not serious,” said Molly.

  Ray shrugged.

  “Birds do not have an intellect,” said Molly, moving closer to Ray so she didn’t have to speak too loudly. “Don’t tell me you believe birds and animals think like we do—”

  “What makes you think they don’t?” said Ray. “You think fish aren’t smart?”

  Osborne smiled as they whispered. Well aware of the crafty muskies hunkered down on the lake bottom—not to mention the wily trout that eluded his trout fly, no matter how lightly he managed to drop it—this was one time he was on Ray’s side.

  The boat rocked gently, its seven passengers barely breathing. But the heron didn’t move until the pontoon had drifted too near. Then it unfolded its origami wings and flew off in a huff.

  “Oh, well, he wasn’t having much luck anyhow,” said Ray. “Probably needs fly-fishing lessons—on how to be less conspicuous. What do you think, Doc?” “I think you should answer Molly’s question. Do you believe that birds and animals have the capacity to think?”

  “Better than some humans with whom I am familiar,” said Ray. Carla rolled her flat eyes.

  “Carla, Carla, Carrrla,” said Ray with raised eyebrows and a wide smile, “I’m beginning to think,” he waved an index finger at her, “that your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.” The smile was his most charming, the one he used on clients he hoped never to see again.

  Before Carla could utter a word, Ray gunned the motor.

  The pontoon didn’t stop until they had crossed the lake and were coasting along a loggy area known to be good for walleye. Spotting an underwater landmark that only he could see, Ray dropped the anchor and gave a nod to Osborne.

  “Okeydoke, ladies,” he said, “let’s get started. I want you to try each of the lures that I’ve placed in that top shelf in your tackle boxes. If you need help, do not hesitate to ask. Give each one a good ten or fifteen minutes before you switch to another.

  “When you’ve tried all of those, Doc has some live bait—minnows and leeches and a few nightcrawlers. Try those next.”

  Barb seized the muskie rod, sorted through the lower shelf of her tackle box, and slipped on a bucktail. Osborne watched as she grasped the rod with both hands, set her feet, brought both arms back, and let the lure fly high and long. She sure as hell was no beginner. “Very nice,” said Osborne, resisting the urge to ask why she had lied. “You don’t need lessons. But I suggest you try a minnow, Barb. It’s early in the season and on a sunny, dead-calm day like today—with a cold front moving in, and the water warming—I’ve seen muskies go on a feeding spree. So try a minnow and cast in that direction.”

  He pointed to a weed bed off the left side of the pontoon.

  Barb nodded and set down her rod to remove the bucktail. As Osborne reached into the minnow bucket for a six-incher, he asked in a low voice, “Why didn’t you tell me you’ve done this before?”

  Barb threw him a worried look. She checked to be sure Carla was at the far end of the boat and busy with her own casts before leaning towards Osborne to whisper, “I don’t want her to know. Just say I’m a natural—something like that.” Her eyes pleaded.

  “Sure. But how long have you been fishing?”

  “My dad taught me years ago. But I only ever fished muskies with him. These rods for bass and walleye—and all the lures? This is all new to me—”

  “Dammit!” Molly plunked herself down on the seat beside them in exasperation. “Damn, damn, damn!” Ray was standing at the other end of the pontoon, his arms around Kitsy in attempt to smooth out her cast, so Osborne leaned over to see what Molly’s problem was.

  “Only a backlash—not the end of the world,” said Osborne, taking hold of her rod, its reel snarled with fishing line. Molly looked like she was about to burst into tears. “Here’s what we do when that happens….” His fingers moving expertly, Osborne pulled at the line until the snarl was loosened, then reeled it in good and tight.

  “There you go, Molly. All set to start over. You’ll do it right next time. We all need a snarl or two to learn.”

  “Oh, gosh, I wish I could do that with my life,” said Molly. Osborne looked down at the girl. She wasn’t kidding. The expression in her eyes was so sad, all he could do was hand over the rod and pat her on the shoulder. He guessed her to be in her early thirties, around Erin’s age, maybe younger. Too young for such a haunted look.

  eight

  One of the outstanding peculiarities of angling is its inexplicable capacity to inspire almost unanimous disagreement among its followers.

  —John Alden Knight

  Four walleye, three legal bluegill, one muskie “follow,” and seven photo ops later, a break was called. Arms and shoulders were tired, but faces were happy. Even Julia, who had picked up her rod only once since landing her human. Carla, anointed “angler of the morning” by Ray, had landed two walleye (one over four pounds) and a good-sized bluegill. She was ecstatic.

  “Man, oh man,” she cackled after landing her third fish, “is this the sport for me or what? No wonder my old man wastes half his life in that damn boat of his. I could do this all day!” Her tense, dry laugh repeated itself like the hammering of a woodpecker. Again, it was
vaguely familiar. Had she been a patient years ago? Maybe when she was in grade school? Osborne decided to check his files.

  One of the smarter things he had done in life was find a hiding place for the oak file cabinets that held the paper records from his thirty years of practicing dentistry in Loon Lake. It was one of the few times he had lied to Mary Lee. First, he assured her that any records not needed by the acquiring dentist had been scrapped, and that the oak cabinets had been given to his former receptionist.

  Then, while she was at one of her golf luncheons, he had enlisted Ray’s help in moving the big oak cabinets, fading paper files and all, into a walled-off storage area at the back of his garage. He entered through a door off the small screened-in porch that he used for cleaning fish. Mary Lee never went there.

  Over time he had added the leather-seated swivel chair from his office, a braided rug black with Mike’s dog hair, a plug-in percolator he had owned since dental school, and a set of chipped and stained coffee mugs with the Marquette University logo.

  Also, a floor lamp with a ripped shade that he had salvaged from his father’s apartment after his death. The room was cozy with memories. He had only to pull open a drawer in one of those old cabinets, and a whiff of his office would take him back in time.

  Unfold a record, and it was as if a former patient was in the dental chair beside him: their face, their smell, any dental problems they were having—and whether or not they paid their bill on time. After Mary Lee’s death, he had spent an unconscionable amount of money heating the little room. He could have moved the cabinets indoors, but he loved having a door that opened into the past.

  If he had ever seen Carla before—her dental records should not take too long to find.

  “Shore lunch, ladies,” said Ray, steering the pontoon towards an island slightly off the center of the fifth lake on the Loon chain. He docked the boat along a fallen log, which could serve as a makeshift dock. The women, ready for a bathroom break, hopped off the pontoon and scrambled up a hilly path to the picnic site.

  Osborne followed. At the top of the hill, he was surprised to find Ray’s camp stove set up in the fire pit, and a small cooler with a dozen bluegills on ice shaded by a stand of balsam. “Just in case we struck out,” said Ray, walking up from behind, his arms full of supplies. “A friend of mine with a cabin across the way was nice enough to buzz that cooler and camp stove over for me earlier this morning.”

  “Well, we sure didn’t strike out,” said Osborne. “What happens next?”

  “Gotta show these ladies how to clean their catch,” said Ray. “I need you to unload the rest of our lunch while I set up. So if you’d go down to the pontoon and get that Loon Lake Market sack that’s right by the driver’s seat and my big green cooler … Kitsy? Carla? How ‘bout you two giving Doc a hand, please?”

  “Sure thing,” said Kitsy, leading the way as the two women skipped down the path and across the log ahead of Osborne.

  “I’ll grab the sack,” said Kitsy. Carla and Osborne bent their knees to grasp the handles of the large green cooler. It was heavy.

  “Carla, can you manage okay?” asked Osborne. He glanced towards her only to find the woman staring at him, a sly, cruel smile in her eyes. And that’s when he knew how he knew her.

  The details of those drunken days after Mary Lee’s death were lost to memory. All he could recall—though he didn’t try hard—was the outline of a black, despairing year when he wasted too many nights crawling the underbelly of Loon Lake. For all its wild beauty on sunny days, under cover of darkness the northwoods can turn evil, a lair for lost souls. Somewhere, sometime, during those dark hours he must have known Carla.

  An awful feeling churned his gut as he searched for something to say. But before he could utter a word, Carla had looked away—and smack into Kitsy’s cleavage.

  “What the hell?” asked Carla, eyes riveted. Kitsy was bent over, struggling to hoist the sack, which held three six-packs of soda. As she straightened up, she yanked her blouse back into place.

  “Wait,” said Carla, setting down her side of the cooler and stepping in front of Kitsy, “what is that creepy thing?” She pushed the top of the paper sack down to get a better look at the brooch, the only thing holding Kitsy’s shirt closed at its critical juncture. “Is that a dead mouse?”

  “I assure you it’s not living,” said Kitsy with a shift of her shoulders so Carla could have a better view. Anxious for anything that would divert Carla’s attention from him, Osborne opted to look, too.

  “Don’t tell me you spent money on that?” asked Carla. The flattened body of a mouse appeared to be wearing the head of a small bird.

  “I spent a lot of money on it,” said Kitsy, raising her eyebrows to signify just how much. “I doubt you see much art in this neck of the woods but, trust me, this is quite extraordinary. It’s sculpted from antique taxidermy collectibles by a very well-known artist in New York City. I adore it.”

  She shifted her shoulders again so Carla could view the pin from all angles. “Bought it when I was there last month. The artist had a special showing down in TriBeCa—she has an exhibit opening in August out in L.A. if you’re interested, and you can see her stuff on the Internet. Isn’t it cool?”

  “It’s dead,” said Carla, eyes still glued to Kitsy’s shirt as if she expected the pin to make a move at any moment.

  “Like I said—it’s art,” said Kitsy. “A-R-T. Art.”

  “Give me one good reason you would pay money for something like that … dead thing,” said Carla.

  Kitsy closed her eyes in concentration, then opened them as she said, “Because it is so wrong—and yet so right. And, while I don’t expect you to understand, to me it speaks of the dichotomy of life.”

  Carla gave her a dim eye. “Ookay.”

  At that moment, they heard a beeping. All three looked down at their feet. The sound appeared to be coming from a red leather backpack leaning against one of the seats containing a livewell.

  “That’s mine,” said Kitsy, hurriedly setting down the paper sack as she knelt to unzip the backpack. She pulled out a cell phone cased in black Gore-Tex.

  “Hello?” She grinned at Osborne and Carla as she listened, then turned to point back behind them. On the hill above the fire pit stood a female figure silhouetted against the bright sky. “You’re kidding … quilted tissue?” said Kitsy. Covering the mouthpiece, she said, “It’s Julia.” She listened again, then clicked it off.

  “Carla, Julia found us a latrine on the other side of the island—with all the comforts of home.”

  “I can’t believe your cell phone works here,” said Carla. “Mine sure doesn’t. Just tried it a few minutes ago.”

  “This is a walkie-talkie—with a built-in GPS system,” said Kitsy, holding the unit out towards Carla.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said Osborne. “Cell phones aren’t much good when you’ve got heavy leaf cover and thick stands of pine like this. You’ve got a much better chance in the woods with a radio. Both Ray and I use walkie-talkies when we’re deer hunting. But, Kitsy, I don’t care what they told you when you bought it—don’t bet your life on the GPS. If a cell-phone satellite signal is blocked, you better believe you’ll have the same problem with that GPS signal.”

  “Still …” said Carla, turning the device over and testing its weight before handing it back to Kitsy. “Hell of a better investment than that pin of yours. Where did you get this?”

  “The sporting goods shop in Loon Lake. Ralph’s,” said Kitsy, shoving the unit back into her pack. As she did so, a small leather-tooled holster, the same red as the backpack, bounced onto the floor at Carla’s feet. The holster held a small pistol.

  “Whoa!” said Carla, taking a quick step back. “I sincerely hope that’s not loaded.”

  “'Course not,” said Kitsy. “I’m not stupid.”

  Carla looked doubtful as Kitsy shoved the holster deep into her backpack. “Whatever you say,” said Carla. “But before you spend a
lot of money on another dead mouse, why don’t you just shoot it yourself.” And she cackled.

  Osborne grasped one handle of the cooler, Carla the other. He took care all the way up to the fire pit not to look her way.

  nine

  Now, who can solve my problem, And grant my lifelong wish, Are fishermen all big liars? Or do only liars fish?

  —Theodore Sharp

  “Okay, ladies, pay attention now—” said Ray with a wave of his knife. The words were unnecessary: his students were transfixed.

  “To remove the gills on this bluegill, you start with a cut here at the throat connection, then slip your knife along both sides of the arch … and voilà! See how easy the gills pull out? Now insert the point of your knife into the vent right here … and run that tip riight up to the gills—but be careful you don’t penetrate the intestines. Like this … then push your thumb into the throat … and pull the gills and guts toward the tail. Just … like … that.”

  Ray had already demonstrated his “soup spoon” scaling method and dropped two sticks of butter into the frying pan. At the moment, the butter was just starting to froth over a low flame on the camp stove.

  “Will you do another one?” asked Carla. “Like show us how you fillet? How ‘bout that big walleye that I caught?”

  As Ray reached for the walleye, the women groaned but their eyes never left his hands. Who knew evisceration could be so fascinating?

  “First, with the walleye, we go for the gold,” said Ray. “We want the cheeks, and they are … a delllicaacy. …” Piercing two soft spots near the head, he popped out the coin-shaped nuggets and with a flick of the blade slipped off the skin. The disks glistened on the waxed paper.

  “Those, Carla,” said Ray, “are your reward. You will never forget your first walleye cheeks.” Carla appeared to melt. For the first time that day, she dropped her hard-bitten attitude to grin like a little kid.