Dead Jitterbug Read online

  On their way out to find a phone, they were able to open the entrance gate from the back, making sure to leave it open for their return. As they crossed the road to walk back through, Lew borrowed the flashlight. She bent to examine the lock. “Doesn’t appear forced.” She ran the beam up, across the top, and off to the right and to the left. The estate was walled in with brick and iron.

  “Now that is one expensive fence … hand-forged, I’ll bet,” said Lew, admiring the delicate design running along the top of the wrought-iron grating. “So we have an enclosed property with a locked gate. Looks pretty darn secure from this side, doesn’t it.” “You can always enter off the lake,” said Osborne.

  “True.”

  They walked along in silence. He caught a glimpse of her face in the moonlight. “What are you thinking?”

  “That a national magazine printed the fact that she lives here. That she writes a column dealing with strong emotions and the mistakes people make. That maybe she wrote one that upset a reader—or a reader’s ex-husband or wife. This is a long and lonely road, Doc. I can’t wait to see just how good the security is on this place.”

  They continued down the drive. Only the hooting of an owl high overhead broke the silence. “This is going to be so high profile, Doc, whether it’s murder or suicide—that I don’t dare have Pecore do anything except shoot the scene and sign the death certificate. The minute Todd gets here, I’ll radio the crime lab in Wausau.”

  “National news media will be all over this, Lew.”

  “You better believe it—the news media, the governor, no doubt a huge funeral or memorial service. Wouldn’t be surprised if the president comes—or sends his wife. I may need you for help with more than the ID, Doc. Ray, too, if he’s got the time.”

  “Whatever you need, kiddo,” said Osborne, laying a hand on her shoulder, his heart lifting. He had to be the only man in Loon Lake for whom death under suspect circumstances was a good thing. It meant an excuse to spend time around his favorite fishing partner. During such times, she had one bad habit that he loved: the more stressed she was, the more likely to sneak away for an hour or two in the trout stream.

  “Something about those two kids concerns me,” said Lew. “They were so scared.” “You’d think they’d never seen a police officer before,” said Osborne. “I’ll ask Ray. He dates their mother off and on.”

  “Do that. Now tell me again, Doc—the Kellys’ daughter lives in Madison but owns that big log home and happens to be here in Loon Lake. So I can reach her easily. Wonder where I’ll find the rest of the family? There is a husband, right?”

  “Yep, Ed. They had a son, but he drowned years ago. I believe Kitsy is their only child.”

  “And she’s about how old?”

  “Mid-thirties, maybe? I can check my files and tell you exactly.”

  Following the directions from the security firm, Lew was able to locate the alarm control box in the garage, right next to a metal unit housing circuit breakers for the entire property. The digital readout indicated that all the zones were disarmed.

  “Very high-tech system they got, Doc,” said Lew, picking up a clay pot resting on a shelf with gardening tools. The key was underneath.

  It took thirty minutes for Todd Doucette, the younger of Lew’s two full-time deputies, to arrive. Pecore followed five minutes later. By that time, all that was needed were photos, a signature, and help from the Wausau boys.

  Much as Lew hated to deal with the crime lab supervisor, an old-timer who did not believe women should serve in the military or in law enforcement, tonight she was relieved to find him still in the office.

  “No question who the victim is,” she said. “I have Dr. Paul Osborne here, and he used to be her dentist. He’s able to identify the body and sign off on an official dental ID.

  “But this is so high profile, Gordon, we need your staff’s expertise. You know the family will be demanding the FBI, the CIA, the NSA—you name it. You’ll want to put some thought into who should be your spokesperson on this, Gordon. I’m sure your team will be on national news.” Lew’s dark brown eyes smiled at Osborne as she spoke. She was no dummy.

  “Oh?” She paused for his response, then said, “Not a problem, Gordon. Fair is fair. If you can have a team here early tomorrow morning—that is the least I can do for you. How much time do I have? Okay, I’ll send someone around starting tomorrow. And, Gordon—thank you very much.”

  Hope had not changed her hairstyle in years. Not even a violent death could do much to dent it: strikingly blonde, pouffed, and frozen with hair spray. Osborne recognized her by the back of her head even before he knelt to examine what remained of the famous face.

  “No, sirree, this is no suicide,” said Pecore, setting up his tripod behind Osborne. “Somebody unloaded a gun in here. No doubt about that. Look at all these casings.”

  “Look and don’t touch, Irv,” said Lew, keeping an eye on every move Pecore made. “Wausau is adamant that nothing be disturbed. You take the photos—Doc and Todd will help the EMT’s move the body later. Once you finish that and the paperwork, you can leave. And, Irv, not a word to anyone. I have yet to inform the family. Agreed?”

  “Oh, sure.” Lew looked at Osborne. Pecore had a talent for dispersing incorrect info from the barstool, especially after being what he liked to call “over-served.”

  “I mean it, Irv. One word of this gets out and that’s grounds for dismissal.”

  “Okay,” said the wizened little man, holding his sleeved arm to his face. Between the flies and the odor, he wasn’t the only one anxious to leave. Her hands gloved in plastic, Lew had unlocked the French doors to relieve the fetid air while Osborne did what he needed to with the corpse.

  “I’ll have to call one of my colleagues in town who’s doing implants,” he said. “Just eyeballing this, I can see she’s had quite a bit of work done recently.” Good dental work, too, to judge by what was left.

  A brief stint in the military while he was in dental school had prepared Osborne for the gruesome effects of bullets on bone. Hope had been the target of more than one bullet, that much was certain. As certain as the rage behind those bullets. This was no suicide, no accident. Someone wanted her dead. Real dead.

  The left side of the jaw had been torn away, exposing cheek muscle, bone fragments, and scattering teeth and dental implants. It wouldn’t be until he examined the body in the autopsy room, using current dental records, that he would estimate Hope McDonald Kelly had thirty-thousand-dollars’ worth of dental implants in her upper and lower jaws—giving her the mouth of a much younger woman.

  That wasn’t all that was unnaturally young. She had also had at least four facelifts, leaving scars in front and behind the hairline, behind the ears, and near the back of the head.

  If the pathologist from Wausau was stunned, Osborne was not. Not after meeting Kitsy. Like mother, like daughter. Funny what constituted family tradition these days.

  It was well past midnight when they walked down to Osborne’s boat. Todd was to stay to be sure no trace evidence was disturbed overnight, since the Wausau crime lab refused to send anyone until the next morning. Lew agreed: if there was anything to be found outdoors, much better to search in daylight.

  After considering the gazebo, which appeared to be brand new, she decided to set up a command post in the garage. “This place is remarkably clean,” said Lew. “Even the garbage can is empty. Todd, you’ll be comfortable here, don’t you think?” The young police officer looked down at the air mattress and sleeping bag that he had made the mistake of carrying in his trunk.

  “Not a problem, Chief.”

  “Think double overtime,” said Lew. “You deserve it.”

  Lew insisted on going back with Osborne rather than taking Todd’s cruiser. He wasn’t surprised. The night sky was clear and studded with stars. The boat ride would refresh them both. And she still had to reach Kitsy McDonald Kelly with the bad news.

  “What’s this?” said Lew. She had walked
out to the end of the dock to look out over the lake and felt something with her foot. She stooped to pick up the Sucrets tin. “Doc, can you shine that flashlight over here?” He looked over her shoulder as she opened it. “Fishing lures. Someone who likes Jitterbugs for bass.” “See that one,” said Osborne, pointing. “That’s hand-painted by someone we know. That’s one of Ray’s.”

  As his boat moved slowly through the channel towards home, moonlight broke through the pines. A broken moon, a broken face, broken teeth.

  “Loved by millions, target of one—yet one counts against all the rest,” said Lew, interrupting his thought. “How does that happen, Doc?”

  Osborne said nothing. He had his own question. “I’m curious, Lew. When you were on the phone with Wausau, it sounded like you were taking on even more work. How on earth—”

  “Oh—no big deal. Someone’s been passing marked bills from a bank in Antigo that was robbed last year. They found some in Minocqua and Rhinelander—and Gordon needs someone to check with Loon Lake merchants and gas stations. He’s sending samples up with the guys in the morning. Easy stuff. I’ll have Roger do it when he’s finished emptying parking meters.”

  “I thought the Feds handled bank robberies.”

  “They did but these days they’re all working homeland security. Gordon said it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but the last bank robbed just happened to have three million in deposits from the casino in Lac du Flambeau.

  “Funny thing is the two guys doing the robberies have been working their way through small towns around here for the last couple years. The take was always so small that no one wanted the expense of going after ‘em. Not the banks, not their insurance companies, certainly not the local authorities. But this was too much. The tribe is not happy.”

  “Wow,” said Osborne.

  “Lewelleyn,” he said as he neared the final set of channel markers. He could see her face in the light of the half-moon: eyes thoughtful, damp curls tumbling across her forehead. “Probably not the right time to tell you this,” he said, “but you look like a moonlight serenade.”

  She smiled. Apparently it was the right time.

  And much later, after she had had the difficult conversations with Hope’s daughter and husband, and even though he hesitated before suggesting that she stay over, he decided to anyway: “I’ll help you get an early start in the morning.”

  Once again the timing was right, even if it was ten minutes after two when she reached up to draw him in.

  fourteen

  Trout thrive best in water with a high mineral content, while this is the very sort of water that is worst for making Tennessee whiskey. This is why one never finds a trout in a fifth of Jack Daniel’s. Or vice versa.

  —Milford Stanley Poltroon (David Bascom)

  Ed Kelly met them at the door. Wearing a light gray suit and a black shirt open at the collar, he looked as robust, handsome, and affluent as he had three years ago—the last time Osborne had seen him. The belly might be slightly more rotund, but he was one of those men blessed with appearing years younger than their age.

  If he was short on sleep due to the news of his wife’s death and catching an early flight north—Osborne couldn’t see it. No circles under those eyes. Having spent his own early morning hours in the morgue with Hope’s corpse, Osborne couldn’t help but wonder if it was her husband’s youthful appearance that had driven her to so much cosmetic surgery.

  No doubt she had loved him for his good looks and hearty ways. But while Ed Kelly might guffaw with gusto, Osborne knew him to be a man whose eyes never smiled. Never smiled and were always watching. He had a way with a sidelong glance, as if checking to see if you were laughing at him. In Loon Lake no one dared laugh—the McDonald Trust controlled too much land, paid too much in taxes, and supported too many local causes—but no one took Ed Kelly seriously either. Never had.

  A college basketball player who had lucked out when he got the daughter of a rich family pregnant, Ed had lucked out again when Hope parlayed a weekly column for a small newspaper owned by her father into becoming an icon of advice in America’s newspapers. As her popularity soared, his position as her business manager segued into president and CEO of a successful publishing enterprise. A CEO who bragged that business was so good he could golf six days a week—inspiring one of Osborne’s coffee buddies at McDonald’s to comment: “Yep, Ed’s a winner, all right. Thanks to being promoted to a level where he can do no harm, Mr. Important shoots in the low eighties.”

  Osborne and Lew followed Ed through the kitchen and into the enclosed porch that overlooked the deck and the lake. The doors leading to the dining room were shut, but the windows were open to the midday sun and a light breeze. The porch, furnished with white wicker antique furniture and a scattering of small, colorful Oriental rugs, was open and pleasant—full of summer and color and fun. Osborne knew the wicker was old and expensive because antique wicker had been one of Mary Lee’s passions.

  Lew caught Osborne’s eye. He suspected they were thinking the same thing: who would guess that death had fouled this air less than twenty-four hours earlier? A murmur of voices from the dining room was the only indication that two of the team from the Wausau crime lab were still at work.

  Ed crossed the room toward a table serving as a bar. Sunlight caught the sheen of his slicked-back hair and well-shaven cheeks. Osborne couldn’t help observing he looked as sleek as a purebred black lab.

  “So what can I get you folks? Soda? Paul, you need a beer?”

  He turned to them, genial and inquiring, as if hosting a cocktail party. Maybe he was. On a table near an armchair, Osborne spotted a half-empty glass of amber liquid with two ice cubes. Some things never change. Ed Kelly was as he had been in all the years that Osborne had known him: flushed with the good looks of the Irish and a shot or two of Bushmills.

  The man had a way of leaning forward on the balls of his feet as he spoke, giving the illusion of towering over a person even though, in Osborne’s case, they were nearly the same height.

  “Nothing for me, thank you,” said Lew, backing away.

  “Nor for me,” said Osborne.

  “Then please, sit,” said Ed, taking the large armchair next to the bar. He plunked himself down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his open knees. He reached for his drink, then checked his watch. “Kitsy is due in an hour. You have my full attention.” He made his presence sound like a privilege.

  “Oh, and by the way, Chief Ferris? I appreciate the work you and your people are doing. Any idea,” he tipped his head to indicate the rest of the house, “when my home will be mine again? Other than this room?”

  “I’m sure you understand—” said Lew, seating herself in a chair across from Ed as Osborne took a chair to her right.

  “Of course, of course, up to a point,” he cut her off with a wave. “I tried talking to your investigators, but they weren’t very forthcoming. Shouldn’t they know something by now?” The condescension in his voice and the shake of his head implied incompetence.

  Osborne opened his notebook and jotted the phrase that came to mind: “whatta commode.” He underlined the last word. Felt better.

  “We know a few things, Mr. Kelly,” said Lew, flipping to a clean page in her own notebook. She had decided months earlier, after deputizing Osborne to help her on a case, that it worked well to have him sit in when she did an interrogation. Two people see and hear things differently.

  Osborne wasn’t surprised to find that she preferred him to either of her two officers. Roger, the older of the two, was hopeless on anything more demanding than emptying parking meters or guarding hospitalized accident victims suspected of drug abuse. Todd was young and eager but too much of a bullet head. He would make up his mind and stop listening.

  Osborne, thanks to years of experience with patients terrified to enter his office, much less sit in the dental chair, had perfected a technique for dealing with people under stress. More than once, Lew had commented that his voice
and manner had a calming effect that encouraged people to open up when asked questions.

  And he was tuned, as a dentist would have to be, to infinitesimal variations on a surface: a surface that might include the face and fleeting expressions of a liar.

  “For instance,” said Lew, her eyes firmly fixed on Ed’s, “we know your wife died at the hand of another individual. Someone intent on firing nine bullets from a twenty-two pistol. Nine weren’t necessary … that tells us something.”

  Ed shifted his eyes down and away.

  “We know that the alarm system had not been triggered until the neighbor child tried the door.”

  “Yeah, that was strange. What’s that kid doing around here anyway?”

  “Your wife befriended Jennifer and encouraged her fishing off the dock. They waved or chatted almost every day. It was Jennifer who sensed something was wrong and tried to help. The point, Mr. Kelly, is that given the alarm system was armed, your wife must have let someone she knew into the house.

  “As for the rest—I’ll have an update later today. The team working trace evidence for us is from the Wausau Crime Lab—and they know their stuff….” Lew waited, but Ed said nothing. Osborne knew she was prepared for Kelly to demand that more experienced law enforcement such as the FBI be brought in. This was his opportunity to do so—but he said nothing. Osborne made a mental note, one he did not write down.

  “As far as talking to you or to your daughter—that’s not appropriate. They report results to me and to the lab supervisor only.” “Ah, so you are the gatekeeper,” said Ed, sloshing his glass of whiskey. “Well … let me rephrase my question. How long do you figure I’ll need to be up here? Got an international business to run in Madison, you know.”

  This time Osborne did jot a note: Ed looked less bereaved than eager—as if his wife’s death was a business deal that needed closing—fast.