Dead Spider Page 5

  “You take responsibility for being there but you do not—to use an old-fashioned word—tattle on anyone. If he asks who else was there, simply say you can’t answer that. You must tell your parents everything, of course. Then let your father decide what you can and cannot say legally. But right now that is all you say. Understood?”

  Beth nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

  “Have you already told anyone about the other boys being there?” asked Osborne.

  “No. Right away the deputy put me in a separate car and no one has asked me anything yet.”

  “Good. Did you see the boys pay for the marijuana?”

  “No. I had just got there and Kevin and I were waiting for his cousin and the others to arrive.”

  “I wonder how the sheriff’s department knew about the drug deal?” Osborne asked.

  Beth shrugged. “Kevin told a bunch of us about his cousin having weed to sell. Maybe someone told their parents?”

  Or someone who felt left out of Kevin’s circle of friends, thought Osborne, remembering the emotional turmoil of his own adolescence. Given the Colorado connection, Kevin probably didn’t think twice before bragging, much less to whom he was entrusting his exciting information. He might be a good kid but he is a teenager. Osborne knew from experience there is no one as stupid as a bright fifteen-year-old who thinks he or she knows it all. Logical consequences? Never enters their heads.

  Beth followed Osborne’s instructions and within twenty minutes she was released to his custody with a citation. Leaving the sheriff’s department, Osborne saw two more sets of parents, grim-faced, approaching the building: Larry’s and Colin’s.

  Opening his car door for a chastened Beth to climb in he thought, Curious how summer evenings can take a left turn. His cell phone rang. It was Erin.

  “Jeez Louise, Dad—what on earth is going on?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At seven thirty that evening Osborne pulled into his driveway hungry and tired but relieved that Beth was home with her parents after following his instructions to incriminate no one other than herself and her tennis partner. Whether she had known about the pending purchase of marijuana was not Osborne’s overriding worry. Her parents could deal with that issue.

  His concern was elsewhere. Since childhood, his father had ingrained in him the importance of not blaming others for your mistakes, and if there was any life principle he was determined to pass on to his children and grandchildren it was that: Take responsibility for your mistakes and keep your mouth shut.

  He continued to mull over Beth’s predicament as he let Mike out to chase a chipmunk, then canvassed the refrigerator in hopes of a surprise treat. A quick call to Lew as he drove home had assured him he wasn’t needed back at Tall Pines and the crime scene. But what he did need to do was get in touch with Rikki Pfeiffer for the details necessary to complete her husband’s death certificate. Deciding that had priority over hunger, he closed the refrigerator door and punched in the phone number she’d given him.

  “Yes, Dr. Osborne,” said Rikki, answering his call immediately. “I reached our lawyer and I think he’s given me everything you need. He also mentioned that Chuck had not signed his new will, which means—”

  “We can discuss that in the morning,” said Osborne, stopping her before she could get started. “Chief Ferris will want to know the details.” What he didn’t add was that Lew would want that interrogation videotaped. Faces and voices can offer more insight than words, particularly words heard on a cell phone. Or words repeated so often they lose their impact.

  “Do you know when and where I can tell the funeral home to pick . . . um . . . my husband up?” She had carefully avoided saying the word “body” and he sympathized. He knew from the hours following Mary Lee’s death how long it takes for the finality of death to become real.

  “We won’t know that for another day, maybe longer, Rikki,” said Osborne. “There has to be an autopsy, which may take place in Wausau. I’m sure Chief Ferris will be in touch with you as soon as she knows.”

  Five minutes later, having completed the death certificate, Osborne set the paperwork aside to be delivered in the morning. After wolfing down a liver sausage sandwich and some stale potato chips, he headed to the lower level of the house and the project he had set himself for the summer: turning the bedroom once used by his youngest daughter into a workshop for a certain someone whom he hoped to persuade to spend more time at his place.

  Convinced after three tries that Lew would never agree to marriage, he now hoped that if she had her own space in his home where she could relax with her favorite hobby—tying trout flies—that she might spend four nights a week at his house instead of just two. He was planning to surprise her with the finished workshop on her birthday, which was two weeks away.

  Over the last month he had been able to carve out an hour every few evenings to work on the space. So far he had been able to take up the carpeting, refinish the wood floors, and paint the walls a soft cream that would lighten the room. Tonight he planned to tackle the window trim. Once that was done he could look into ordering equipment and supplies. He was loosening the lid on a quart of paint when he heard a noise overhead.

  “Who’s there?” he called, walking over to the stairway to look up.

  “It’s me, Doc,” said Lew. “Bruce is with me. We need to talk to you.” Osborne spun around to close the door on his surprise and headed up the stairs, anxious to reach the living room before Lew could come looking for him.

  “I thought the two of you would be working most of the night,” said Osborne as he walked toward them.

  “Funny thing,” said Bruce, rocking back on his heels and thrusting his hands into his pockets with a self-satisfied grin. “The minute our good governor heard who the victim was he found what sounds like a hundred thousand dollars somewhere to beef up our investigation.

  “First he wanted to send in the FBI. Once I persuaded him that was not necessary—at least not until we know more—I was able to arrange for two forensic techs to drive over from Green Bay. They got here an hour ago and they’ll work the crime scene till dark. The three of us will be back there first thing in the morning but I need some history on the Pfeiffer family first. For context, know what I mean?”

  Osborne knew exactly what he meant. Could Chuck Pfeiffer’s killer be among his nearest and dearest?

  “Just look at that lake,” said Bruce as he walked onto the screened-in porch that ran the length of Osborne’s home and overlooked Loon Lake. The three of them paused to admire the early evening glory: the water shimmering as if copper coins had been spilled among the ripples streaming toward shore.

  “Bruce has been asking me about the Pfeiffer family and I figured you’d be as good a person to start with as anyone,” said Lew, settling onto the porch swing, “or if not, you’d know to whom we should talk. Right, Bruce?”

  “Chief’s right,” said Bruce as he pulled over a wicker armchair. “This was no random killing. Someone had it in for the guy. Someone skilled with a handgun. You rarely see a person killed with just one bullet. And the stats tell us most murder victims die at the hand of someone they know.”

  “Not sure if I can tell you everything you need but I can get you started with some background that might help,” said Osborne. “And given Chuck’s questionable actions toward some folks over the years, you may be looking at a long list. I am a good place to start, by the way, since years ago Chuck Pfeiffer was a patient of my father’s . . . until Dad fired him.”

  The two sets of eyebrows facing Osborne rose in unison.

  “Now, Dad wasn’t the only person who wanted nothing to do with the guy. Every one of the six men in Dad’s deer shack—with the exception of one and that was Chuck’s father—voted to tell Chuck he was persona non grata there, too. But this was years ago—a good forty years—take or leave a year or two.”

  The porch swing gave a soft creak while out on the lake the sun had departed, leaving behind pools of pale rose lace
d with periwinkle blue. Osborne settled back in his chair, ready to reminisce.

  “The Pfeiffer story starts with the McClellan brothers, whose ancestor, Herman, ran a trading post on land bordering the Wisconsin River and on which was founded the town of Loon Lake. Over the years the trading post became McClellan’s Sport Shop run by Bob and Joe McClellan, old Herman’s great-grandsons.

  “I know this because whenever I was home from boarding school, my dad and I would stop in there first thing and there was a plaque on the wall behind the cash register honoring Herman and his trading post.”

  “So you didn’t go to school in Loon Lake, Doc?” asked Bruce, surprised. “Guess I never think of people living in a small town like this sending kids off to boarding school. I take it your family was well-to-do?”

  “Not at all,” said Osborne. “We weren’t poor but my father wasn’t rich. What happened was my mother died when I was six and my father sent me off to Campion, a Jesuit boarding school down in Prairie du Chien. But all my summers were spent here with my dad, who was also a dentist—and a fanatic muskie fisherman.” He grinned. “In case you’ve ever wondered why I’ve fished muskie all these years.”

  “Summer mornings Dad and I would have our oatmeal and start the day talking lures and spinning rods and whatever might be new on the shelf at McClellan’s Sport Shop. Later, while my dad was busy in the dental office, I was allowed to walk to McClellan’s by myself.

  “I loved the shop: the smell of earthworms and minnows, the racks of rods and reels, and this big box of ice that was kept out front on the sidewalk to display trophy fish customers might have caught that morning. What a place it was—the aisles so crammed with hunting and fishing gear, you had to walk sideways. Paradise for a kid who fished.”

  “Paradise for a dentist who fished sounds like to me,” chuckled Bruce.

  “You bet,” said Osborne. “My dad liked to say he practiced dentistry for one reason only: so he could afford to fish.

  “I would wander up and down the aisles listening to customers chewing the fat with Joe, who was never without a Camel hanging from his lip. Joe manned the cash register and he was brilliant when it came to advising on what lures were catching the big girls or showing a kid like me how to untangle a bird’s nest in my fishing line. In those days I wasn’t the only boy in Loon Lake who thought of old Joe as my favorite uncle.”

  “And where was this sport shop located?” asked Lew. “I grew up in Tomahawk and my grandfather owned a sporting goods store, too, so we never came to Loon Lake in those days.”

  “McClellan’s used to be where the Fish Hook Tap is now—just off Main Street. So Joe was the one who kept the shop stocked to overflowing and he never married. Bob handled the books. He married Harriet and they had one child, a son named Martin who took over running the store after his uncle Joe died of lung cancer in his early fifties. Martin’s father, Bob, had already died of a heart attack at the age of forty-eight.

  “Martin had just turned twenty-two when he took over the store. He was a couple years older than me but in those days I was in dental school so I never really knew Martin. Meanwhile, Chuck Pfeiffer’s family had moved to Loon Lake a few years earlier when his father was hired to manage the paper mill.

  “Martin and Chuck became close friends in high school and they did some hunting and fishing together. Right about that time my father and his hunting buddies invited Chuck’s dad—and Chuck—to join the deer shack. Martin had been hunting with the men since before his father died.

  “By the time Martin took over McClellan’s Sport Shop he had married Ginny Nelson, whom he had begun dating in high school. The shop was thriving in those early days and I’m told the ladies in town considered Martin quite the catch. Ginny was petite, dark-haired, and—as my daughters might say—‘cute.’ She had been captain of the cheerleaders and prom queen with Martin as her prom king. ‘Star-crossed from birth those two’ was what Dolores, my dad’s housekeeper, once told me.

  “People who knew the family expected Ginny to get pregnant right after the wedding and raise lots of little McClellans. Made sense: so long as there were fish in the lake and deer in the woods what could possibly go wrong for Martin and Ginny McClellan?”

  “I can tell from the sound of your voice that didn’t happen,” said Bruce who had been leaning forward, elbows on his knees and chin cupped in one hand, listening to Osborne.

  “N-o-o-o, it did not. A year or so after his marriage to Ginny, Martin ran into financial difficulties. Word among my dad’s friends was that he lacked his uncle’s knack for stocking quality fishing and hunting gear, nor was he the raconteur that old Joe had been. People stopped hanging out and spending half their paychecks in the shop. Pretty soon the trophy fish icebox disappeared, too.

  “Martin wasn’t happy running the operation, either. He told my father that it was his mother who insisted he keep it going long after he knew he could have sold at a nice profit, but Harriet wouldn’t let that happen. She has always been one fierce cookie. It didn’t take long for the shop to be foreclosed on: Martin McClellan went bankrupt.

  “I have to qualify what I’m going to tell you next because the rest of the story is what I heard from my late wife who played bridge with Martin’s mother, Harriet.”

  “So this won’t be Ginny’s version?” asked Lew with a knowing smile.

  “No, it won’t and I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the details, either.”

  “All right, we’ll consider the source,” said Lew, giving the porch swing a push. “Go on.”

  “At the same time that Martin’s shop was tanking his buddy, Chuck Pfeiffer, was doing great business-wise. Chuck’s old man had set him up with three gas stations that had bait shops attached: a winning combo in those days.

  “Didn’t take long for Chuck to do well enough to buy himself a fancy speedboat, perfect for waterskiing on the big lakes. One afternoon Martin decided to drop by the boat unannounced for a chat with his pal only to find Ginny on board drunk and wearing a bikini that Martin told his mother later he had never seen.

  “Martin went ballistic and was reaching for her arm to yank her off the boat when Chuck gunned the outboard motor. Martin catapulted off the back of the boat into the water. His right leg got caught in the propeller and was badly mangled. When I heard the story later, I was surprised he hadn’t bled to death. But they got help from some people on shore who saw the accident and called for an ambulance. Martin survived but the marriage didn’t.

  “Shortly after the accident McClellan’s Sport Shop was put up for auction. The straw buyers turned out to have been hired by Chuck and his father, and the rest of that story is an astounding retail success. With his father’s financing behind him, Chuck was able to enlarge the existing store at the same time that he got into discount merchandising of hunting and fishing gear. In less than ten years he had opened twenty-eight other locations statewide, and I believe there are over seventy Pfeiffer’s Fishing, Golf, and Shooting Sports sporting goods stores today.

  “Oh, and he married Ginny McClellan. That’s when the men in the hunting shack had had it—they booted him out. My father was disgusted, too, and told Chuck and his father to find themselves a new dentist.”

  “What happened to Martin?” asked Bruce, throwing a quick look at Lew. “Maybe we should be looking him up?”

  “Martin remarried and took a job selling cars. His leg was so damaged he never hunted or fished again and the poor guy died in his early forties—a blood clot in his bad leg traveled to his lung or his heart. I’m not sure. Afraid you’ll find him in St. Mary’s Cemetery. His wife is buried next to him. She had breast cancer and died several years later.”

  “Sad story,” said Lew. “I take it Chuck is no longer married to Martin’s ex? The woman I saw today is way too young to be her . . . ”

  “No, but Chuck and Ginny had one son together and that is Jerry Pfeiffer. You met his wife, Charlotte.”

  “Yes, I did,” said Lew with a roll of her eyes. �
��This helps to explain why I sensed an animosity between those two women when I was interviewing them. Charlotte especially. She seemed so angry. I didn’t realize it was directed at Rikki.”

  At the sound of a rapping on his kitchen door, Osborne glanced down at his watch as he said, “Who on earth can that be at this hour?” Getting to his feet, he called out, “Who’s there?”

  “Me, Dad,” said Erin, striding through the living room toward the porch. “With Mark. He needs to know more about the Pfeiffer case—”

  “Before I get slammed with the press in the morning,” said Mark with a grimace as he walked in behind his wife. “First questions will be about my daughter—then it’ll be all about Pfeiffer. Chief Ferris, I’m hoping you and I could handle a press conference together?”

  “Very good idea,” said Lew. “Let’s plan to meet for coffee around seven?”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but is Beth doing okay?” asked Osborne.

  “As good as you could hope,” said Mark. “I explained to her that it’s important for all of us that she be cited like any teenager would be in that situation. Fair is fair even if your father is the DA. But Erin and I believe her when she says she wasn’t there to buy weed.”

  “She told me she’s worried she’ll lose that summer job . . . ”

  “I called her coach and explained what happened. He wasn’t happy but he’s shorthanded so he’s willing to let her keep helping as his assistant on the courts on the condition she goes straight home afterwards—no hanging out with friends. Her mother and I agreed especially as she’s grounded for two weeks anyway. Long enough to make her think twice before she ends up in a dicey situation again.”

  “Welcome to the world of raising a teenager,” said Lew.

  “It’s never easy, is it,” said Erin, giving Lew a sympathetic hug as she sat down on the swing beside her. Everyone on the porch, including Bruce, knew that Lew had lost her only son at the age of seventeen in a bar fight.