Dead Jitterbug Read online

  “Oh—you’ve got everything ready to go, I see,” said Osborne. A quick glance into his Alumacraft showed the heavy gas tank had been carried down from his garage and hooked up. Even the boat plug was in.

  “You’ve been waiting long?” He gave her a hand into the boat before spinning the wheel to lower it from the shore station.

  “Less than ten minutes. Long enough to see you weren’t around. If you hadn’t gotten back, I would’ve gone ahead, Doc. Didn’t think you would mind. Had a call on a possible break-in about twenty minutes ago—up on Secret Lake. And you know how long it takes to drive back in there.”

  “Has to be the McDonald estate,” said Osborne, yanking the cord on his Mercury 9.9 outboard. The engine purred into action. “The old place or the new one?”

  “I didn’t know there was a new one.”

  “The owner’s daughter is one of the women on Ray’s pontoon over there,” said Osborne as they sped past Ray’s dock. He had to shout over the engine noise. “Maybe we should swing back? Ask Ray if we can borrow that pontoon—it’s faster.”

  Lew looked back to where the women were just getting off the pontoon, each with an armful of gear.

  “No, keep going, Doc. That pontoon might be too wide. I know we can get this boat up that channel. Very likely this is a false alarm, and why worry the family.”

  “You’re right.”

  When they reached the narrow channel, so well hidden behind a peninsula of tamarack that few, besides Loon Lake natives, knew it existed, he lowered the engine speed and hitched the little outboard up two notches, just deep enough to keep them moving forward. The channel was tricky—shallow in spots and studded with deadheads.

  “It’ll take us six or seven minutes to reach Secret Lake,” said Osborne. “I haven’t been up here in a few years but Kitsy, the daughter I mentioned, brought her boat down here earlier today, so I’m sure it’s navigable. You think someone may have broken into the big house? That’s gated property, Lew.”

  “All I know is the security system went off, and no one answers at the house,” said Lew. “And if there is a problem, I may have to scratch our plans for tonight. So let’s hope not.” She lifted her face to the north. “Feel that wind, Doc. The front is moving in. Doggone! Keep your fingers crossed all we’ve got is a pesky racoon.”

  He watched her as she spoke, the fading sunset infusing her tanned, open face with a warm glow. She wore no makeup, and her dark brown curls crowded haphazardly around her face. If Lew had a flaw, it was lack of pretense. She was direct, honest, and blessed with a frank, funny laugh that could burst out when you least expected it. Some men he knew found her a little too tough, a little too bright. He found her fun.

  And he loved the curves of her body, to feel her breasts against him. Not a slim woman, Lew was sturdy: muscled and fit. The opposite of his late wife who could never have carried the gas tank for the outboard, much less considered doing so. Lew had more in common with his fishing buddies: she was the first woman he had ever known to be as good a friend as she was a lover.

  His daughters had taken to looking at him with a question in their eyes. A question he couldn’t answer. Or maybe it was one he was afraid to ask. Maybe he was afraid to ask because he knew the answer. Maybe he knew that if he asked the question, the answer would be that like the wild trout she loved to catch and release, Lewellyn, too, needed to be free.

  twelve

  When you visit strange waters go alone…. Play the game out with the stream … then all you learn will be your very own.

  —R. Sinclair Carr

  “One thing worries me, Doc,” said Lew as Osborne maneuvered the boat through the twisting waterway. “We haven’t had any false alarms from this place—so there could be a problem. Erin said you know the family?”

  “Not well. Hope and Ed Kelly, her husband, were summer patients over the years,” said Osborne. “Hope was the senior McDonalds’ only child—her father inherited the land and built the big house. The family made their money in paper pulp years ago. Hope’s daughter, Kitsy, is one of the women who signed up for Ray’s fishing clinic today. She and a friend of hers from Madison—Julia Wendt.”

  “Anyone else there I might know?”

  “Carla Wolniewicz?”

  “Carla Wolniewicz,” said Lew, cocking her head as if she hadn’t heard right. “You’re kidding. There’s a strange one to show up for a fishing clinic. I thought she spent her waking hours at the casino—or in the bars.” Osborne winced at that comment.

  “To the contrary,” he said. “Sounds like she runs a successful real estate business. Although she ended the day pretty upset—got news she’s being audited by the IRS.”

  “Now that fits the Carla I know,” said Lew. “Couldn’t walk a straight line drunk or sober. I’m sure the IRS has good reason—and if I sound prejudiced, Doc, I am. She was there the night my son was killed. It was her boyfriend at the time who knifed him.”

  Lew stared off into the tamarack, now black against the night sky, her face drawn with sadness the way it always was when she remembered that night.

  Osborne knew the story: how her son, who took after his father whom Lew divorced right after the boy was born, ran with a rough crowd, ended up in a bar fight, and was killed. He was only fifteen. The kid who knifed him got off with probation, thanks to an uncle who was a hunting buddy of the county judge.

  The loss of her son galvanized Lew, prompting her to study law enforcement, complete a college degree, and join the Loon Lake Police Department as their first female patrol officer. Once on the force, she demonstrated a fierce sense of fair play, which may be why four years later she was named chief.

  “Yep, I know Carla too well. Her father—she’s Darryl Wolniewicz’s kid, y’know. He’s a sad soul. Heavy drinker. Used to get beat up by his wife before she ran off. Left Carla with him. Doesn’t he help Ray out at the cemetery?”

  “Not any longer. That Carla,” Osborne said, shaking his head as he thought back over the afternoon, “she’s one tough cookie. Ever strike you she’s a bully?”

  Lew snorted. “That was her mother. Tell you something else about Carla—so happens she was working at the mill credit union a few years back. We heard rumors of some fancy footwork with the bookkeeping over there. No charges were ever filed, and I don’t know that they ever proved anything, but she left under a cloud.”

  The channel widened as they were nearing the end. Osborne lowered the outboard back into the water. He revved the engine, letting the boat speed across the modest-sized lake toward the McDonald estate, which anchored the far end and was barely visible in the fading light.

  “Hey, Doc, check out that quaint little twenty-thousand-square-foot retreat over to the right,” said Lew. “Must be the daughter’s place.”

  Located midway between the mansion and the channel was a log home typical of the ones being built by people from the cities with too much to spend. Lights blazed from all the windows, making it easy to see the house was three stories high and windowed all around, top to bottom. Outdoor lighting illuminated a mammoth fake rock chimney—and three decks.

  On one of the decks stood a figure in white busy over an outdoor grill.

  “Hired help?” asked Lew.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Osborne.

  “Jeez Louise,” said Lew, and they exchanged a look that said it all: life in the northwoods is supposed to be about simplicity. Leave the manicured lawn, the household help, the social calendar behind. Some folks just don’t have that talent—or perhaps they can’t bear to be alone.

  “Now that is downright disappointing.” Lew waggled a finger towards the shoreline where tons of boulders had been dumped and wedged to form a wall the width of the lot: expensive décor for the lakeshore guaranteed to please the eye even as it destroyed natural habitat for fish and wildlife. The very habitat that would have seduced Great-Grandfather McDonald into buying the property in the first place.

  Less than a minute later, their boat
pulled up to the U-shaped dock fronting the old estate. The dock was unlit, shadowed by white pines bordering the property, though solar-powered lanterns sunk low to the ground illuminated a stone path leading past a wooden gazebo and up across the lawn to a wide deck. A pontoon boat, moored to one side and covered with a tarp, rocked in the wake of the Alumacraft.

  Lew jumped onto the dock while Osborne tied off the boat.

  “Might be a good idea to stay behind me in the shadows,” said Lew, hunkering down and indicating a route along the right side of the yard that was well shadowed by shrubbery. “Until we know who’s up there …” She had her Sig Sauer out of its holster. He had a flashlight—a heavy flashlight.

  Osborne followed her, hoping he wouldn’t trip on anything in the dark. A chandelier glowed low and intimate in a room opening off the left end of the deck. At the steps leading up onto the deck, Lew paused, motioning for Osborne to do the same—but there was no movement or sound from within.

  “Stay here,” she said with a whisper, then slipped up onto the deck without making a sound and crossed to the nearest window. She peered in. She knocked lightly and waited. Nothing. “Looks like a porch—no sign of anyone.”

  She waved him forward as she walked along the deck toward the French doors and tried the latch. Locked. She knocked on the doorframe. The lighted room was to their left, but still no sound or movement. Osborne came up behind her.

  “I see someone sitting at that table, but they’re not responding to my knock,” said Lew.

  “Could be they’re hard of hearing?” asked Osborne. “Hope is in her seventies.” Lew moved down the deck for a better view of the seated figure.

  “Oh …” she stepped back. “Not good, Doc.”

  Osborne stepped forward. Nope, no fishing tonight.

  The sound of a motorboat drifted up from the lake. Lew and Osborne turned towards the sound, waiting, but it stopped before reaching the dock below. From across the water, they could hear voices, happy and relaxed.

  “That’ll be Kitsy and Julia,” said Osborne. “You want me to say something?”

  “Not yet. Not until we know more.”

  After checking the perimeter of the house only to find every door locked, Lew stationed herself in the center of the lakeside lawn, tried her cell phone, then snapped it shut. “No signal. How far down the driveway to the road—any idea?”

  “Maybe a third of a mile at the most. Once we reach the road, there’s a house right across the way,” said Osborne. “A woman friend of Ray’s lives there. Want to see if someone’s home? Use her phone? Be faster than taking my boat back.”

  “Worth a try. This was dumb of me to come by boat. At least my cruiser has a radio.”

  “Take it easy, Lew, you can see enough through that window—another half hour is not going to make a difference.”

  A young girl came to the screen door of the homely little cabin, which couldn’t have held more than two bedrooms. The look on her face when she saw Lew in uniform with her badge and her gun was one Osborne hoped never to see in a child’s eyes again: utter terror.

  “Don’t worry, hon. I just need to use your phone,” said Lew. “Is your mother home?”

  After opening the screen door for them to enter, the girl backed away, speechless. “Really, don’t be afraid,” said Lew, her eyes dark with kindness. The girl was shaking. “This has nothing to do with you. Is your mom home? I’d like permission to use your telephone is all.”

  “She’s … she’s at work,” the girl managed to say, then pointed to a cordless phone resting on the kitchen counter. Lew reached for it, then stepped back outside as she punched in the number for Marlene on the switchboard.

  Osborne waited just inside the door. He was concerned for the girl who sat down in a chair at the nearby kitchen table. The room was worn but tidy. A boy, younger than the girl, walked in and stood behind her, his eyes wide with worry. Glancing around, Osborne saw two pairs of sneakers set neatly to one side of the refrigerator. They were wet.

  “Excuse me, kids,” he said, thinking his presence was frightening the two children even more. “We’ll be gone in a minute.” He stepped outside.

  Lew kept her voice low as she spoke. “Marlene, call the security office over in Rhinelander. Be sure they’ve turned off the alarm system off from their end—very likely it’s zoned. If they can’t do that, tell them I want someone out here immediately. I’ll hold while you call….” She covered the receiver while she waited.

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to wait an hour for security to show up, Doc…. Oh, okay, what is it?” Lew jotted down a number on the small notepad she had pulled from her shirt pocket. “Oh, really? That’s good news.

  “Will you please give Todd a call and apologize for me—but he’s going to have to come back on duty tonight. I need him out here ASAP—”

  “Lew,” said Osborne.

  She paused. “Hold on, Marlene—what is it, Doc?”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Osborne, “but why don’t you have Todd stop by my place on his way out and pick up my instrument bag? You’re going to need an ID tonight anyway. May as well save some time. My back door is open, and if he’ll go through the kitchen to the den, he’ll find it on the shelf to the right of the door.”

  “What about your dog?” asked Lew.

  “Mike the friendly lab? Don’t worry about him.”

  “Did you get all that, Marlene?” asked Lew. “Good. Now patch me through to Pecore, will you please?” She waited while Marlene rang the coroner at his home. Her eye caught Osborne’s: “Too much to hope for the guy to be sober, let’s hope he’s not too drunk to hold a camera.

  “The good news,” she added, “is the security firm checks the house during the winter—said there’s a key to the main entrance in the garage.

  “I have no idea, Irv,” said Lew, her voice testy. “Could be self-inflicted, could be homicide. How the hell would I know—I’m looking through a goddam window. Now listen to me—I need you and your camera out here now.”

  Listening, she screwed her face in anger. “Irv, what do you think you’re paid for? You can tape the damn game.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, please. Alert the ambulance crew we’ll need transport later, but I’ll call when we’re ready. Got that? Thank you.”

  “Oh, that man,” she said, hanging up. “Tried to tell me he had to finish watching a hockey game on ESPN. Of course, he’s been drinking. I tell you, Doc, I want to be elected sheriff if only because four deputy medical examiners come with the county—so guess who I won’t have to use.”

  “Yeah, but pity the poor guy who takes your place, Lew.”

  The position of Loon Lake coroner is an appointed one. Irv Pecore, purporting to having been schooled as a pathologist, had managed to parlay family connections to the mayor’s office into thirty-some years of salaried incompetence, years during which he demonstrated a knack for mangling the chain of custody for evidence in dozens of cases.

  Lazy and disorganized under previous heads of the Loon Lake Police Department, he balked at Lew’s efforts to clean up the coroner’s office. Her first mission had been to put a lid on his longtime habit of letting his golden retrievers wander through the autopsy room while he was working. No one else had managed to do it. True, the number of autopsies had dropped as the cost rose but, even so, bereaved relatives should not have to worry about inappropriate canine attention to their dearly departed.

  That wasn’t the worst of it, however. Just two months earlier, while searching for the evidence needed for a case going to trial, Lew had unearthed a cardboard box containing unidentified skeletal remains. That was on the heels of discovering that for years Pecore had stored his records in unlocked rooms and hallways where family, friends, and funeral directors, not to mention dogs, had wandered freely.

  From Lew’s perspective, Irv Pecore’s very presence was a hazard to a successful investigation.

  thirteen

  She was used to take delight, with her fair hand To ang
le in the Nile, where the glad fish, As if they knew who ‘twas sought to deceive them, Contended to be taken.

  —Plutarch (describing Cleopatra)

  “If that poor soul with half their head missing is who we think it is,” said Lew, as they headed back toward the long driveway, “this is going to be a long night.”

  “Say, look at the size of this mailbox,” said Osborne, stopping and running his flashlight up and down. “Sorry to interrupt, Lew—but I’ve never seen a private box so big.” Dark green and big enough to hold good-sized packages, the metal container was planted in cement across the road from the gated entrance to the estate.

  “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Hope Kelly has worked summers from here for years,” said Osborne. “During an office visit years ago, she explained how she does it. Her staff in Madison culls letters from the thousands she gets every week—and sends them up here. She picks the ones she wants to answer in her column, writes the column, and sends it on to her editor at a newspaper syndicate. Eighty million readers, they say—pretty amazing it all comes down to just one person living on a lake in the boondocks.”

  “Yeah, well—could be eighty million disappointed people tomorrow. How long would you say she’s been doing this?”

  “Thirty-some years, maybe longer. Time put her on their cover for her twenty-fifth anniversary, even mentioned that Loon Lake was her favorite place to write. The Chamber of Commerce used that quote for years. Never read the column myself—but Mary Lee was a big fan of “Ask Hope.” I think it’s a woman’s thing. Do you read her, Lew?”

  “I used to. Years ago. Used to be the letters were interesting, and her responses could be quippy—perceptive, funny, and good. As if she really cared. Then something changed, the column struck me as dreary. Or maybe I changed—have enough of people’s problems to deal with in this job without reading about more.”