Dead Angler Read online

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I know exactly what they see in him. Unfortunately, they don’t see past that until it is way too late.”

  “You’d think he’d grow out of it,” said Osborne.

  Lew gave him a curious look. She shook her head and glanced at Ray.

  Osborne wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but he thought she was trying hard not to laugh. He had a hunch, but he wasn’t sure. He looked at Ray, who winked at him. Big help Ray was.

  “Did you find your hat?”

  “Right where you said, Doc.”

  The bartender walked up then, and Osborne noticed that the bar had emptied. “Chief Ferris,” she said, “I need to close up.”

  “Sure,” said Lew. “We’ll wait outside. Darn that Roger, it’s getting late!”

  “I’ll change quickly in the men’s room,” said Osborne and hurried off.

  When he returned, he could tell from the look on Ray’s face that Lew had shared the news of their catch in the Prairie River.

  “Jeez, Doc,” said Ray, shaking his head, “got your limit this time, huh?”

  “Excuse me,” said Lew, “I’m going to call in and see what the story is—this is getting ridiculous. I’ll meet you out in the parking lot.”

  Ray watched Lew hurry over to the pay phone. “So, friend,” he looked at Osborne, “you didn’t tell me you were going fishing with the old chief here.”

  “You didn’t ask.” In the mirror behind the bar, Osborne caught a glimpse of the smug look on his face. As he turned towards the door, he relented, “I didn’t know I was fishing with Lew Ferris until I got there tonight. Surprised the heck out of me, I’ll tell ya.”

  “ ‘Lew,’ huh? That’s pretty cozy, Doc.” As the two of them approached the door, Ray reached to hold it open for Osborne. “You’ve got some explaining to do, bud.”

  “Ralph Kendall set us up. He didn’t tell me who, just said it was a good friend of his. I thought I was going out with some fly-fishing guide.” The night air was still heavy with moisture from the storm.

  “Ralph!” A funny look crossed Ray’s face just as Lew came through the door behind them.

  Now what’s that all about? wondered Osborne. He was reluctant to say any more in front of Lew.

  “Lucy said Roger’s on his way. Should be here any second.”

  The three of them walked out into the parking lot. Ray’s fishing truck was pulled up next to Lew’s. As they neared their cars, Roger pulled his Honda Civic into the lot.

  “Sorry, Chief,” Lew’s deputy rolled his window down. “They ran the ambulance over to Tomahawk. Head-on collision on Highway 51. I got some tarps here so we can put it in the trunk, maybe?”

  They all looked at Roger and his little car. The very thought was appalling.

  “Chief, I just cleaned up my truck for the TV crew tomorrow,” said Ray. “It’s real clean, and a little blood and guts won’t hurt it anyway. Do you want to use it?”

  “Well … I guess that’s better than trying to cram the poor soul into my Mazda, which is full of fishing gear. Okay, let’s do it. Roger, you go home. Ray and Dr. Osborne can help me finish up.”

  “So, Chief Ferris,” Ray looked out over the rushing river as they trudged back down the trail together, “did you have any luck?”

  “Gee, I almost forgot,” said Lew. “Yes, I did. I had a good night. I got four brookies. About twelve to fourteen inches each one. Released ‘em all.”

  “Are you always ‘catch and release’?” asked Ray.

  “These streams have been so overfished, I have to,” said Lew. “I feel guilty if I don’t.”

  “Too bad,” said Ray, “I love the smell of brookies in butter—y’know? With a light dusting of fresh-ground pepper. Umm.”

  Lew ignored him. Osborne appreciated the fact she wasn’t a “catch-and-release” fanatic like some of fly fishermen he knew. One of those guys would’ve done a Rumpelstilskin dance at Ray’s comment.

  “Ray, think I’ve got a chance of finding any tracks after all this rain we had tonight?” asked Lew.

  “I dunno, Lew,” said Ray. “If you mean tracks in the grass along the banks here, that’ll be real tough. You won’t tomorrow morning I can guarantee you that. Not in the grass anyway. Probably too late already.”

  “Damn,” said Lew. “I’m roping off 500 feet each direction from where we found the body. I was hoping for some signs of a fight or—”

  “You gotta problem, Chief. I’ll bet you and Doc walked this way less than an hour ago, right?”

  “We did.”

  “But there’s so much moisture in the soil tonight. Doncha know it’s rained off and on all week, so any grass you two tromped on has sucked it right up and, pop, is right back in place like only your ghost blew through,” said Ray. “I can look for broken branches, but this brush is so dense most folks enter the river at a clearing. Sorry, Chief. I’ll take a look for you, but don’t count on anything.

  “How far are we from the body?” he asked.

  “Five minutes.”

  “Okay. I’ll run on ahead and see what I can see. It’s getting late, y’know, I need to look good tomorrow.”

  That said, Ray’s lanky frame disappeared into the blackness of pine and aspen running along the river bank. He was shaking his head in disappointment when they met up with him at the clearing. “Nothing a deer didn’t do,” he said. “On the other hand, this area is pretty damn popular. I’ll bet if you didn’t have all the rain, you’d have found plenty of tracks right here.”

  “Including our own,” said Lew drily, accepting Ray’s answer. Osborne knew, despite other opinions she might hold of Ray, Lew had to agree with one voiced by a member of the McDonald’s coffee crowd in Ray’s absence: “That asshole can track a snake over a rock.”

  But if Osborne thought the clearing by the river looked startlingly different in the moonlight, to Ray it was quite familiar.

  “You found the body here?” Ray asked, raising his voice so they could hear him against the relentless roar of the Prairie.

  “Under that log,” hollered Lew, pointing. The three of them walked down to the water’s edge to look in the direction she indicated. Black water capped with pale froth rushed towards a bend in the river where it poured down between two hillocks that couldn’t be more than five feet apart.

  “A log? Did it feel real smooth with horizontal striations?” asked Ray.

  “Yeah,” said Lew, “runs right across the opening at the bend—right there.”

  “That’s no log, Chief,” said Ray. “That’s a rock with a “keeper,” a hole that’s formed in the rock where the river flows over and reverses itself.” He gestured with a swoop of his hands. “Maybe the smoothness made you think it was a log, but I know that rock real well. Too well.

  “Can you keep a secret?” Ray shouted, peering at Osborne and Lew. His eyes were twinkling in the moonlight, his left hand pulling thoughtfully at his beard. Osborne recognized all the signs that Ray was about to launch one of his long-winded tales of bad behavior in the North Woods.

  “Ray—” The exasperation in Lew’s voice made it quite clear she wasn’t in the mood for a twenty-minute discourse.

  “C’mon, Ray,” scolded Osborne. “You’re the one needs a beauty sleep.”

  “All right, all right,” Ray raised his hands in surrender. “Rock, hole, whatever. We used to call this spot ‘Bill’s Place,’ after my old buddy Bill Barstow. Remember Billy, Doc?”

  “Sure do.” Bill Barstow and Ray had been terrors in their late teens, good-hearted youngsters but a little too familiar with the marijuana dealers out of Madison. Ray had managed to stay just an inch on the right side of the Loon Lake cops, possibly due to his generosity with strings of blue gills in the dead of winter, but Billy ended up doing time. These days he ran a used furniture store that was a front for an illegal pawnshop. Osborne’s McDonald’s buddies defined Billy as a good guy with a twisted sense of business ethics. His father had been an orthodontist and a partner
in Osborne’s hunting shack.

  “Well ol’ Bill used that hole for his stash,” said Ray. “Then one day he found a six-pack of Bud in there and realized some high school kids knew about it, too.”

  “You think a lot of people know about it?” asked Lew.

  “Hard to say, but if anyone does, it’ll be a local, that’s for sure.”

  Lew turned back towards the clearing. A bright half-moon lit the final few yards and seemed to cast a halo over the woman’s body, which lay undisturbed just as they had left it.

  “Who is this?” asked Ray as he knelt with Osborne to lay the tarp alongside the victim, his voice gentle with concern.

  “Do you remember Meredith Marshall?” asked Osborne. Together they rolled the body onto the tarp, then folded the rubber sheets over and back until they had a neat sling.

  “Oh, sure—about three years ahead of me,” said Ray. “She had a sister who was quite a bit older, didn’t she?”

  “Alicia Roderick,” said Osborne.

  “Oh yeah? The dachshund’s wife,” said Ray.

  “The who what?” Lew gave Ray a quizzical look.

  “You know that really rich guy with the Range Rover who sells lighting fixtures—he looks like a dachshund. That’s Peter Roderick, Alicia’s husband,” said Ray, “Once a year I take him up to Canada for walleyes. Now there’s a guy travels a lot—every week almost.”

  “I wonder if he’s home tonight. I’m afraid I need to wake up his wife,” said Lew.

  “Alicia was a good friend of my late wife’s,” said Osborne. “Would you like me to come along?” he asked, feeling more presentable in his dry clothes.

  “I wouldn’t mind,” said Lew. Then a look crossed her face as if she was about to get bad news. “Doctor Osborne …,” she hesitated, tightening her lips, “I have a problem. In order for that dental exam to be official, which I need it to be … Well, Jack Pecore is on vacation all week,” she referred to the Loon Lake coroner whom Osborne knew and despised, “and to make this official I need to deputize you right now. In fact, I need to write it up as if you were a deputy at the time you examined the victim—” “Fine,” said Osborne.

  “Really?” Lew stopped short in surprise. “But I might have to keep you on for a week if that’s okay. With Pecore gone, I’m stretched to the limit over this Labor Day weekend. If the autopsy confirms criminal activity, I’m going to need extra help. You know the family and you have all that military experience …”

  “Whatever I can do, just let me know,” said Osborne. “My schedule is wide open.” Not to mention his life. The thought of being a professional again, of working around a woman as interesting as Lew, had a sudden, intriguing appeal.

  “The department will pay you for your time.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Osborne had an idea. “We’ll barter. You give me some more pointers on my fly-fishing, and I’ll help you out with whatever you need over the next few days.”

  “You’ve got a deal,” said Lew, extending her hand to grasp his in a firm shake.

  “Just don’t ask me,” Ray raised his hands, “I’m up to my ears with the Walleye Classic—”

  “Not a chance, Ray,” laughed Lew. “Not with your record. I don’t mind your untimely toking, fella, so much as your total lack of remorse. I’ll tell ya, Ray, you’re the kinda guy,” she shook a finger at him good-naturedly, “I never know what you’re gonna do next.”

  Ray shrugged. Some things he just couldn’t help. He wouldn’t be Ray if he could.

  Lew eased up, “But I’m impressed you’re chairing the Walleye Classic, huh? That’s a big job!”

  Ray cut his eyes in a “ya gotta be kiddin’ “ look. “Me? Heck, no,” he said. “That’s work. I’m just in charge of the boats for the pros.”

  And his image, noted Osborne with amusement. For the first time in years, Ray had been to the barber. His distinctive head of rich, reddish-auburn curly hair and chest-length, very curly auburn but greying beard had been stylishly trimmed.

  Lew noticed, too. “What’s with the class act, Ray? Something wrong? Death in the family?”

  “Jeez, Chief, didn’t Doc tell you? We’ve got ESPN coming in, we’ve got a hundred thousand dollar purse—lots of excitement.” Then he rolled his eyes in an expression of total frustration, “but now that damn George Zolonsky is late delivering our boats!”

  six

  It was two o’clock in the morning when Osborne and Lew climbed into the police cruiser to drive the short mile from the hospital and its tidy six-body morgue to the Roderick home. They had been lucky to find space for their victim. The Highway 51 accident had been bad: four dead.

  They left Meredith in a drawer, her naked body resting on cold steel. Osborne had found it mystifying that her torso and extremities were nearly free of contusions. Even at that, the few random bruises he did find on her arms and legs appeared to be days older than the massive skull fracture that may have killed her.

  “In my opinion,” Osborne had said, leaning over Meredith to study a mark just below her right knee, “these bruises on the arms and legs are perfectly normal, Lew. Like the ones we all get from everyday banging around.” He looked up to emphasize his point. Lew leaned against the wall in the brightly lit examining room, her arms crossed, her dark eyes intent on watching Osborne work.

  He wasn’t having an easy time of it. Meredith’s body was that of a young woman in her prime, a woman who had been physically active, who ate a healthy diet, a woman who kept herself prepared for life, not death. A woman like his own daughters. It must have registered on his face as he withdrew the Shepherd’s hook explorer from the victim’s mouth.

  “Are you bothered by the body?” asked Lew softly.

  “Is it that obvious?” said Osborne, peering at her over the rims of his glasses. “I can’t help thinking this could be one of my own daughters.” Osborne sighed as he lay his instruments on the nearby metal tray and started to remove his gloves. “Do you ever feel this way?”

  “Hah!” Lew pushed herself away from the wall. “More than you can imagine. I bailed that son of mine out so often, I tried so hard to tell him what he was doing to his life—when I see that same arrogant look on the faces of some of these young kids …”

  “Really?” said Osborne. He struggled to remember what he knew about her son. “Amazing they survive, isn’t it? What’s he doing today?”

  “Pushing up flowers in St. Mary’s cemetery,” said Lew with a tight little grin. “He was knifed in a bar fight, Doc. Bobby Fallon went up the river for that one. That’s the first I met your friend Ray—he dug Jamie’s grave.”

  “Oh,” Osborne gave himself an internal kick in the shins. How did he always manage to make such terrible faux pas around this woman? Why did he always forget she hadn’t lived the same Loon Lake life he did? Why did he have to sound like such a middle-class jabone? He changed the subject as fast as he could.

  “The only good news is the fillings were definitely yanked out after death. That I can tell from the angle of the scratches on the enamel and bruising on the interior of the mouth. She had to be unconscious or dead for someone to manage this. They might have used a drill, but I can’t be sure. But I will say, whoever it was took great care to get every iota of gold.”

  “Just a fomality, Doc,” said Lew, “but would you say for certain that this was not an accidental death? Strictly on the basis of the missing fillings?”

  “No. Not just that. I’m convinced this body did not travel far down the Prairie. That current is vicious. Throw in all the loose timber and branches and other debris pounding through there from the storm…,” his eyes scanned Meredith’s form one more time, “… the entire body should show serious contusions, not just the neck and the back of the head.”

  Silent and thoughtful, they had both stood staring down at the naked dead woman. Lew looked up at Osborne as if to see if he would change his mind. He would not. “Foul play, kiddo.”

  “Good,” said Lew. “The Wausau boy
s may argue but this is one autopsy I’ll log on their budget.”

  That said, she had marked the drawer holding the body, indicating it was to be sent to the forensic investigators in Wausau for an autopsy immediately following an ID from the family.

  “Let’s stop by Pecore’s desk,” she said before they left the building, “I’ll leave two notes. I don’t need that dimwit sending our Mrs. Marshall over to Johnson’s for embalming with the accident victims or have his dogs destroy any evidence. You and I both know he’s entirely capable of screwing this up. Pecore is one big reason I would love to have you on board to help me out, Doc.”

  The local coroner was not exactly respected in the town. A pathologist of questionable skill, he had irritated the townspeople when they discovered he let his two golden retreivers roam unrestricted in his lab. Truth was the dogs probably minded their own business but Loon Lake residents were appalled. Since every death in the community had to be run by Pecore, many families had taken to accompanying the bodies of loved ones through the entire process just to be sure the canines didn’t lick Grandma.

  Now the cruiser moved silently down a side street, turned right to pass the baseball park, then left onto Ojibway Drive. Osborne cracked his window for air. He stared out at the sleeping town. The storm had blown through Loon Lake around midnight, leaving a trail of broken tree limbs, some heavy with leaves, strewn across the street and yards. Loon Lake was used to violent weather. By mid-morning the evidence of howling winds would be gone.

  “Quiet out there,” he said softly, “I don’t even hear an owl hooting.”

  “Yep,” said Lew. He could tell she was thinking about something else. Probably how to break the news to the Rodericks.

  They passed the modest frame houses that lined the streets close to the hospital, their windows dark. The night was moonless, the only illumination the soft pools thrown by street lamps. As they neared the Rodericks’, the houses grew taller, the front yards deeper, wider and landscaped. This was the east side of Loon Lake, the prestigious side by Mary Lee’s standards. Here lived the doctors, the lawyers, and the paper mill executives.