Dead Renegade Read online

  “Doc,” said C.J., interrupting his reverie, “my arm is tired. Do you mind if I sit for a while?”

  “Of course not. We’re here to have fun.” Osborne took the fly rod from her hands and set it nearby as C.J. sauntered across the deck to plunk herself down by Ray and Nick.

  “So, Ray,” said C.J., wrapping her arms around her knees as she spoke, “how come you do all this fishing instead of making a living like an honest man?”

  Osborne resisted a chuckle: now how many people had he heard ask that identical question of his subsistence level trailer home-living neighbor? Some asked it to his face, others behind his back.

  “Well,” said Ray, lifting his eyebrows as he looked at his questioner, “I figured out early in life that … fishing … is the most fun you can have … with your clothes on.” Nick turned his head away so C.J. couldn’t see the look on his face.

  “No, I’m serious,” said C.J., lowering her voice. She glanced towards the rear of the pontoon where her husband sat with his back to them, still anchored to his cell phone.

  “Serious? You want serious,” said Ray.

  “He doesn’t do serious,” said Nick.

  “Yeah. I do,” said C.J, ignoring Nick’s remark. She crossed her arms and waited.

  Ray dropped his head and studied his feet as if the answer was in his flip flops, then looked up, “I tried a year in college as a business major because my folks said it was the only way I’d ever find out how to make money—but nothing about helping American businesses become more efficient made me want to get up in the morning … so I quit.”

  “What does make you want to get up in the morning?”

  “Fishing. Simple as that. Not a lot of money, but plenty of fresh air.” The three of them sat in silence for a few moments pondering Ray’s answer. Then Ray said, “what about you, C.J.? What makes you want to get up in the morning?”

  The girl stared at him, her eyes widening. To his surprise, Osborne could see tears brimming as she opened her mouth.

  “Grandpa!” shouted Mason with a sudden lurch backwards, the Winston rod bent towards the water. “I think I got a fish!”

  Jumping to his feet, Ray rushed forward. “Set the hook! Set the hook!” he cried. “Mason, keep that rod tip high!”

  Osborne stayed back. He knew from experience not to interfere. A fish on the line is guaranteed to turn Ray Pradt into a kid again. “That’s it,” said Ray, voice high with excitement, “bring him alongside … careful … careful. Watch that rod tip!”

  “What is it? A muskie?” said C.J., crowding in behind Ray. “Is it a big fish?”

  “Sure is,” said Ray, reaching down to grab the fly line and pull up a wriggling seven-inch blue gill. “Where’s the camera? Doc, you got a camera?”

  “Here,” said Nick, thrusting a disposable camera into Osborne’s hand as Ray slipped the barbless hook from the bluegill.

  “Hold it gently like this,” Ray said, guiding Mason’s hands into a cradle that wouldn’t harm the fish. “We’re catch-and-release today, hon. Let Grandpa take your picture and then this guy gets to go home. Okay?”

  Mason nodded as happily as if she’d caught a six-foot tarpon—smiling for the camera, hands gentle on the bluegill. Then she got down on her knees and stretched along the deck, arms over the side of the pontoon so the little fish could swim away. She scrambled to her feet, fists clenched as she jumped up and down saying, “Oh, Grandpa, wait’ll Cody hears this!”

  “Your first fish with a fly rod—wow!!” said Ray, whacking her on the back so hard she nearly went flying off the boat after her catch.

  “What the hell is all the noise?” said Curt, marching forward from the back of the boat and covering the mouthpiece of his cell phone.

  “Mason caught a bluegill on a fly rod,” said C.J.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, keep it down, will you?” said Curt. “I can’t hear a goddamn word—” He turned back towards the rear of the boat.

  “What’s he doing that’s so important?” Ray asked. “Does he ever take a break?”

  “Moving money,” said C.J. with a tight smile, “he’s always moving money.”

  Curt must have heard her because he said something into the phone and flipped it shut. He turned back to walk over to where C. J. was standing.

  “What?” she said, looking at him just as, palm open, he slammed his right hand across her face so hard she staggered back against the railing.

  “How many times have I told you—never talk about my business.” Curt loomed over her as she fell to her knees gasping for breath through harsh sobs.

  “Hey!” said Ray, grabbing Curt by the arm. “You don’t treat women that way—not on my watch, you don’t.”

  “Then you won’t be back,” said Curt, yanking his arm away.

  Osborne pulled Mason towards him. The pontoon was nearing the cove on the small island. C.J. wiped at her face as Curt headed to the back of the boat, where he sat back down.

  “I’m okay,” said C.J., pushing Ray and Nick away as they reached to help her stand up. “No, please, this is so embarrassing.” She gave a weak grin. “Let’s have our picnic, all right?”

  “We can do that,” said Ray, patting her shoulder. He shot a glance at Osborne, and he wasn’t smiling.

  CHAPTER 15

  It was a subdued party of five that let themselves down, one by one, into knee-deep water to wade up to the sandy beach where C.J. planned to have the picnic. Taking whispered directions from their hostess, Nick and Ray carried ashore the grill and two large picnic baskets. Osborne handed a six-pack of Sprecher’s Root Beer to Mason, then grabbed four lightweight folding chairs and a quilt, which he tucked under one arm.

  “What else can I do?” he said after setting everything down on the sand near C.J.

  “We’ll take it from here, Dr. Osborne,” said C.J., straightening up and dusting off her hands. “I have an idea—why don’t you and Mason check out the other side of the island? See if there’s a better spot for our picnic.” She winked.

  Osborne squeezed her arm in appreciation and said, “Have you noticed most people around here call me ‘Doc?’ Why don’t you do the same? Drop the Doctor,;” he said, dropping his voice to the low tone he once saved for flossing instructions. “Doctor sounds way too serious for an old retired guy who spends most of his day in a fishing boat. You are a friend, C.J., not a patient.”

  “Thank you,” said C.J. She gave him a sheepish smile as if she knew he was just trying to make her feel better. She glanced back at the pontoon where Curt reclined on one of the padded benches: arms folded, feet propped up on a railing and a khaki fishing hat covering his eyes. He appeared to be sound asleep.

  “I don’t know what to do …” She pursed her lips as if holding back another flood of emotion. “And I am so embarrassed.”

  “Let it go,” said Osborne. “We’ve all been there. Right now you’ve got your hands full with those two—better keep an eye on them or you’ll be embarrassed in ways you never expected.” He pointed towards Ray and Nick who were wrestling with the portable grill. C J. grinned, “I’ll bet you’re right.”

  Turning towards the lake, Osborne shouted, “Hey, young lady,” in an alert to Mason who had waded back into the water chasing frogs, “time for you and me to take a walk. Go exploring.”

  “O-o-o-KAY!” shouted Mason as she splashed his way. Her eyes had been tinged with worry ever since the altercation on the pontoon but the invitation to walk with her grandfather appeared to spark glee and relief.

  They trudged along a sandy, pebble-strewn path for a few yards. It led up a steep hill and down the other side with enough tall grasses and tag alder shrubs to hide them from the others. A rotting tree trunk lying lengthwise beckoned, and Osborne sank down with a sigh.

  Mason plopped down alongside, hands tucked between her knees and a serious look on her face. Osborne waited, not

  sure how to open the conversation. She spoke first, “That man is mean, Grandpa. I don’t like h
im. C.J. is so nice. Why is he so mean?”

  “I don’t know, hon. But there are a lot of mean people in this world and they can be hard to understand. If it makes you feel better, I don’t like him either. For your next lesson on fly fishing, we’ll go on my bassboat and invite C.J. Only C.J. How’s that sound?”

  Mason nodded her head in quiet agreement. Osborne decided to plunge ahead. “Speaking of mean—I’ll never forget how, when I was a little older than you are today and away at boarding school, there was a boy in the fourth grade who was a big bully. Always beating up on the younger, smaller kids. The boys in his dorm were scared to death but no one would tell the grown-ups what he was doing. He said he would kill them if they told on him.”

  Osborne shook his head, “Those younger boys were terrified.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Mason’s eyes were wide.

  “No, because I was living in a different dorm. And I was older than the bully so he might not have picked on me anyway. But one of my friends was in the bully’s dorm and when he heard what was happening, he got upset. He got really upset when he found out that other boys—older boys like him—knew what was happening but they didn’t do anything to stop the bullying either.”

  Osborne patted Mason’s knee. “They were older but they were scared, too.”

  “But your friend wasn’t?”

  “Oh, I imagine he had to be kind of scared, but he was willing to take a chance if it meant protecting the younger boys.”

  “Did he tattle?”

  “Yes, he did. He decided it was better to be called a tattletale—if that might happen—than to see kids hurt. Depends on how you look at it, Mason. I call stopping bad people ‘whistle blowing’—and that is very different from tattling about something small, because when you ‘blow the whistle’ you are helping to stop something that is very wrong and hurting people.”

  Silence from the girl on the log beside him. Osborne decided to press on: “Would you like to know how he made up his mind to blow the whistle on that bully?”

  Mason nodded.

  “He did it because his grandmother had told him once that she didn’t care if he grew up to be rich and famous so much as she hoped he would be kind and brave—brave enough to help people who might not be able to help themselves. And that’s what he thought about when he heard the younger boys were getting picked on and no one was doing anything about it: was this a time to be brave?”

  “Ray is brave.” Mason sat up a little taller. “He stopped Mr. Calverson.”

  “He sure did. You know … Chief Ferris and I think you’re brave, sweetheart.”

  Mason studied his face, eyes questioning, then she glanced away as she dug at the dirt and pebbles with her sandals.

  “Brave enough to tell me what happened this morning so other kids don’t get hurt.”

  Mason shrugged and tried to change the subject: “You mean Lewellyn?”

  “Yes, my good friend Lewellyn—she likes you.”

  “You mean your girlfriend Lewellyn?”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Osborne, grinning. “You’ll have to ask her.”

  Mason continued to stare at her feet, determined not to meet his gaze. Darn, thought Osborne, he had said the wrong thing.

  “That kid at your school—the one that, um, blew the whistle. What happened to him?”

  “He’s a pediatrician, well, just retired. A doctor for little kids. Oh, wait, you mean did something bad happen to him after he told the priests what was going on?”

  Mason nodded.

  “No. When the grown-ups heard what was happening, they called the bully into the principal’s office right away and the principal called his parents. He was not allowed to spend one more night in the dorm, but was sent home that day.

  “Boy, was our school relieved to be able to put a stop to the bullying. And my friend did not get hurt, no one called him a tattletale. The younger boys are all grown up today, of course, but when we have school reunions—they still thank him.

  “It isn’t easy to be brave, Mason, but it’s one of the most important things you can ever do. By the way, since you mentioned Chief Ferris, I’ll tell you a secret—I can only call her ‘Lewellyn’ when she’s not working. This is professional law enforcement so I have to use her official title. Is that okay with you?”

  “Promise not to tell Mom?”

  “Why, sweetheart? She’s worried to death about you.”

  “Grandpa, last week she hollered at Dad that she has enough to worry about. She said one more thing and she’ll have a nervous breakdown. I don’t want to make her have a nervous breakdown.”

  Osborne had to put his head down to hide his smile. When had Erin not blown things out of proportion? She would be so mad at herself if she knew the effect that marital spat had had on her daughter.

  “Honeybunch, I promise I can help your mom avoid a nervous breakdown. But the fact is that if we don’t tell her something, she’ll continue to worry and that’s not good either. Now how about you tell me what happened, than I’ll tell Chief Ferris and together we’ll decide what to tell your mom. Does that work?”

  Mason was quiet for a long time. Finally she said in a tiny little voice, “Grandpa, I think it’s my fault because I have impure thoughts sometimes and Sister Frances said that impure thoughts can make bad things happen to you.”

  “Oh, so this might have something to do with the private parts of your body.” Osborne kept his tone level as his worry skyrocketed.

  “Yes. Kind of. Not mine—someone else’s.”

  “Whose?”

  “The big boy at the fish pond.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “No. But he really scared me.” Mason jumped to her feet as she said, “Grandpa, he was on the island with no clothes on. He kept showing me … you know?”

  “His bottom?” Osborne chose the word Mary Lee had always used with their daughters.

  Mason’s head nodded up and down.

  “But that’s not your fault. What scared you? Did he get close to you?”

  “I don’t know. I was afraid he would cross the island and come after me so I ran and then I saw someone on a bike and … and … I think it could’ve been him.”

  “So that’s why you hid?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he didn’t touch you?”

  She shook her head ‘no.’

  “Are you afraid to go back to the fish pond?”

  “Yes.” It was a whisper.

  “Okay, here’s what we do. First, I will let your mom know you’re okay. That’s as much as I’ll say—no one has touched you or hurt you. Then I’ll talk to Chief Ferris and she’ll have her officers watch the island and the fishpond so no other little kids are frightened. And next time you want to go to the fishpond? I’ll go with you. As often as you need me to. Does that make you feel better?”

  The relief on his granddaughter’s face brought Osborne close to tears. “Brave of you to tell me, sweetheart,” he said, patting her hand. “Hungry?”

  “Hot dogs!” shouted Mason as she ran back along the path. Osborne exhaled, then followed.

  Life in his world was certainly never boring: Nervous breakdowns, impure thoughts, and the logic of children. Jeez Louise. He could sure as hell use a hot dog, himself

  CHAPTER 16

  Osborne dropped Mason off shortly after six, managing with a few quick whispers to let Erin know only that she had been frightened by a “big boy” exposing himself.

  “Oh, Dad …”

  “But not touched. From a distance. The kid was standing out on that island across from the fishpond. She’s okay.”

  “Thank goodness,” said Erin, relief flooding her face. “Are you telling the cops or do you want me to?”

  “Let me talk to Lew first,” said Osborne. “There’s nothing to be done tonight anyway, and she’s out with friends in town for their high school reunion. She knows how worried we’ve been, and she told me to call tonight if I found out more. So I
’ll give her a call later.”

  “Good. If I know Lewellyn Ferris, she’ll put an end to that funny business,” said Erin, her mouth grim. “When you find out, let me know who the creep is, will you, Dad? Doesn’t hurt for other parents to know we’ve got a potential sex offender in Loon Lake.”

  “Now, Erin, the important thing is Mason is okay—she inhaled three hot dogs, a bushel of potato chips and two bottles of root beer. And I’ve promised to go along to the fishpond with her until we find whoever it was that bothered her. I really think she’s okay.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” said Erin. “I just wish I knew why she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “She doesn’t want you to have a nervous breakdown. Sound familiar?” Osborne decided not to mention Sister Mary Frances and the impure thoughts.

  “Oh, jeez, did I really say that?” Erin scrunched her face in mock pain. “Mom used to say that all the time. I can’t believe I did that.”

  She sure wouldn’t do it again, thought Osborne as he drove off Halfway home and anxious as always to hear Lew’s voice if only on her voice mail, he decided to pull over and give her a call on his cell phone. No doubt she was at dinner but at least he could leave a message and hope she might call sooner rather than later.

  To his surprise, she answered. He could hear the buzz of a restaurant in the background but Lew seemed eager to take the call. He pictured her leaving the table and walking over to a quiet place to talk to him. He liked the feeling.

  “That’s good news and bad news, Doc,” she said after hearing that Mason had been frightened but not physically harmed. “We had a similar situation on the island several years ago and the city put up new fencing specifically to keep people out. Sounds like that fence has been vandalized.

  “Roger’s on duty tonight. I’ll have the switchboard call him right now. Ask him to check on it and arrange for a maintenance crew to get there first thing in the morning. I doubt Mason is the only child who’s been frightened. You’re sure she’s okay?”